Mistress (Adagio's Big Comeback)

“Any recommendations?” You look at the signboards and the selections are as vast as they are intimidating. You've only been eating flowers and hay for a little over a day, and you're still a bit lost.

“Oh, if you'll allow me?” Twilight say and approaches the counter.

The pegasus stallion cashier drones, “welcome to The Hay Burger, home of The Hay Burger, can I take your order?” Either doesn't recognise Twilight as royalty or just doesn't care. Noble gasses have a stronger reaction than this guy.

Twilight responds, excitedly, “good morning! I'll take three number twos, a num-”

The cashier sighs. “The number twos are from lunchtime onward only, we're currently only serving the breakfast menu.”

You can feel Twilight radiate power. Mighty waves of energy course from her well curved purple pony form as her wings spread and she stands tall, and decrees, “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I demand an exception!”

He doesn't even blink, and just mumbles, “'kay, should I get the manager or something?”

“Would you? Thanks.”

In short order, Twilight pulls rank, gets the manager to take her order of day menu items, magically teleports a bag of bits to herself and pays. She then hovers you a tray with a hayburger meal, complete with a large tea and a small carton of these little horseshoe shaped fries. For herself, she gets a pile of burgers, a large fries, and a large cup of coffee. You head to a table and sit down on little wooden stools.

You eye her stack of hayburgers warily. “We expecting company, or...?”

“Huh?” Twilight says and demolishes one hayburger in three rapid bites. She then says, with her mouth full, “whaddya mean?”

You stifle a laugh. Apparently the girls in your life have impulse control issues. One used to drink like a fish. This mare?

She eats like a horse.

Naturally.

Your stomach complains about the eating. “Never mind,” you say and hover your burger up and take a bite.

It's glorious. The crunch and chew of the fried hay, the sharpness of the pickles, the tanginess of the sauces and the sweetness of the buns. It's a bafflingly well balanced flavour profile. So much so that you regret even being human, for this is the moment that defines your life.

Well, maybe casting magic, but this is a close second.

Fine, damn it, third. Adagio (and her sisters) first, magic, then hay burgers.

Enough, inner monologue. Just shut up and eat.

Twilight only starts to slow down after her seventh and sighs. “Whew. I can't put these away like I used do. You want another?” She hovers a wrapped burger to you.

You nod with a mouthful of tea, and gladly accept, swallow and say, “thanks. So... uh, don't mean to be rude, but is that an alicorn thing? Does having all that power make you have to up the calorie intake?”

Twilight freezes for a moment, blinks and slowly gulps. “... sure! That's right. Us alicorns have to keep our strength up!” She laughs. Forcefully, and a just a little too maniacally for you to not feel her nervousness. “Besides I'm allowed to treat myself, and this summit is stressful like you wouldn't believe! I'll burn all this off easily dealing with the grouchy Griffonstone ambassador alone. W- why the questions?”

“It's just good old fashioned scientific curiosity, honest. I'm guessing magic takes burns calories like doing anything does.”

Twilight nods. “Well, sure. Just like intense thought burns calories, magic is that, amplified by the biological-magical threshold unicorns and alicorns feel through action. But even earth ponies and pegasi can't maintain their respective passive powers without food. You're still drawing magic into, through and back out of your body. It's quite taxing.”

“Makes sense to me. Though... stick with the 'alicorns need more calories' angle.”

Twilight blushes and mumbles, “noted.”

You sigh as you munch down the extra burger, and a thought occurs to you. “Say, can I scan you? I've scanned all sorts of humans and it's been interesting seeing how they all have distinct signals tied to them, and that's no different here, albeit the energy's far stronger.”

Twilight looks at your emitter. “Sure, on one condition; later on today, once you've finished your work on Sonata's stone and I'm done with the summit, you show me how to use that thing. It sounds amazing after the way you described it yesterday.”

“Deal! I'd love your input anyway. There are so many aspects of magic that I'd love to run by you that I've noticed but can't quite wrap my head around.”

You take another bite of your burger, activate your emitters scanner mode and point it at Twilight.

And get an error... strange.

You place it on the table so you can focus on the buttons, twist your head so you can get another bite of your burger by mouthing it into place, then tune down the sensitivity, and try scanning again.

High peaks in earth and pegasus types. You haven't seen her fly, but you imagine that gives her a pretty good speed, and is probably pretty strong to boot with that much earth power. Almost a shame it doesn't seem to show on her body. She looks fairly average in build, if still a lot taller than you.

Despite this, her unicorn magic signal is still unreadable. You have to dial back the sensitivity to absurdly low levels before you finally see the peak on the screen. It supersedes even Adagio's siren signal, which is surprising, but you already begin to theorise it's because Adagio lost her powers so long ago that maybe it's faded in time, despite still being incredibly impressive.

“So? What does it show?” Twilight says and casually sips her coffee.

“Uh... you're the most powerful pony I've had a chance to scan.”

She giggles and winks. “I bet you say that to all the alicorn princesses.”

“I'm being serious. I'd love to see a demonstration of your power at some point, I bet-” Wait, did she just flirt with you? That sounded like she just flirted with you. “Uh, never mind.”

Twilight just continues to be amused at what you're doing as you switch off the scanner and re-holster it, then finish eating.

“I'm going to refer to Sunset in a tangentially related way, if that's alright?.”

You're enjoying your talks with Twilight too much to let something like Sunset get in the way. “I guess so.”

“Thanks. So, in regards to your scanner; Sunset's pretty strong as well,” Twilight says. “I imagine you've used it on her?”

“Sure. I was testing my theory on the differing pony types through humans in my world when she happened to run into the same cafe I was visiting. She's the strongest signal I found back home, shy of Adagio.”

“That makes sense. Sunset was Princess Celestia's student before I was, but she was prideful, and only became even more so after she witnessed something in the crystal mirror. It's supposed to show one's destiny, but whether that's true must have some interesting connotations regarding her new life in the human world.”

“Interesting, how? Sounds like you have some theories of your own,” you say.

“Nothing definitive, but there's a great deal to be gleaned based on if you believe in fate, and how seeing yourself in the mirror can affect that.” Twilight purses her lips and looks at her coffee. “Consider this; if you saw you were destined to, say, spill your coffee on a given day. Would your knowledge of this make it impossible to drop or would it happen regardless? Would you avoid buying coffee again to stop it from happening? Would someone make you hold theirs so it eventually happens anyway?”

“Logically speaking, the act of trying to stop yourself dropping it might make you prone to failure regardless. Maybe by obsessing over it, you end up tripping over something instead.”

Twilight points a hoof at you. “Exactly! I suspect Sunset saw something great in her future, but by becoming enamoured by it and taking that fateful step, entering and becoming stranded through the mirror, who's to say it hasn't come about in a different way? Maybe instead of earning greatness through her expectations here, she's instead going to achieve greatness in your world, and the mirror only showed her as a way to tempt her?”

This is the sort of logical debate you've always enjoyed, but your friendless background just never let it happen very often. Doubly so for a fast food chain table discussion, but still, that just reminds you of how you saw nothing but yourself in the mirror but yourself when you first arrived. Though you do suppose Twilight said the thing needs repairs.

That and you hate you're interested in what it does mean for Sunset... causality is something you're very familiar with after what Adagio talked to you about and her downfall.

You say, “I guess that remains to be seen. On a similar tangent, I'm surprised Sunset hasn't come back here permanently. I would. I'm hoping to make visiting Equestria a regular thing, maybe even splitting my time between here and back home.”

“I really hope you do,” Twilight says with a nod. “But Sunset... well, she was trapped in the human world until she happened across the portal back home and stole my crown. She became corrupted by its power and transformed into a demonic creature, which I subdued her with the help of the human versions of my friends in manifesting their fledgling powers here. You know, Applejack, Fluttershy and the others. Sunset then learned friendship through them as well, and... well, she likes visiting Equestria, but she feels like she belongs over there now. She even helps me out considerably by locating and retrieving or nullifying Equestrian artefacts, which are then brought to the workshop where you're repairing Sonata's stone to be catalogued, repaired or decommissioned and then stored safely.”

“Hunting for artefacts, eh?” You realise Sunburst mentioned something similar about that, but then riled you up over the 'creatures' incident. “I never realised Sunset was up to something so involved and important for you.”

Twilight rolls her eyes but keeps the smile. “Well, you would have if you just talked to her. I bet with your device and knowledge, you'd be able to find and even disable artefacts with ease, not to mention make an amazing team. You're both intelligent, a little rough around the edges and understand magic a great deal better than even most unicorns here. As it is, I hate to keep burdening her, and having Sunset keep travelling all over the place to chase down these artefacts makes it hard for her to earn a living by sticking to one job or just live a normal life. I'm depending on her too much, I know, but I have no choice; any one of these objects could cause untold damage.”

You can't help but feel conflicted. On the one hand, you'd love to help Twilight. It sounds like an interesting challenge and a great scientific study on Equestrian magic if objects can possess power. If all goes well with marketing your inventions, you'll have ample resources to assist, and yet... helping Sunset? No.

It's painfully irrational, you know, but you can't help-

… Damn it, you just remembered the thing Twilight said about holding grudges might block opportunities.

Twilight glances up at a clock. “Oh, pony-feathers,” she mutters and levitates her garbage into a nearby trash can. “The summit resumes in ten minutes. And you'd best get to the workshop! I'll be there as soon as I can, like yesterday. Good luck, Radian!”

She teleports away, so you tidy up after yourself and leave the restaurant, then make your way to the workshop.

Within, you head straight to the same section as before, and see Starlight and Sunburst chatting.

“... Pinkie really has outdone herself,” Sunburst says, chewing excitedly.

“I've never had anything quite like it!” Starlight says, also eating, but then sees you, gulps and waves to you. “Morning, Radian. Now that you're here, let's get to work! I'm excited to start energy testing the stone and seeing how it incrementally changes as we hew it down to shape.”

“Morning,” you reply. “I'm ready when you are.”

Sunburst nods and lifts a few books onto the table, opening them to an arrangement of pages. He looks at one and frowns. “I just hope you're not going too far with this, Star. I mean... dark magic? I know Twilight showed you how to use it, but this is risky. It can harm or even corrupt the user.”

Starlight gives him a steadfast stare and says, “I've had darkness in me before and I'm well aware of the risks. I can do it.”

“Dark magic?” you say with a raised eyebrow.

Sunburst turns a book around and shows it to you. “A special classification that bypasses the power that ponies can manifest through our bonds and friendship. Instead it relies on emotion and can even rival an alicorn with practice. Some of the most powerful tyrants Equestria's ever faced used it.”

The book depicts lots of purple shades and shapes. Something about a king of the Crystal Empire and a door possessing dark magic as an enchantment, which tore open the worst fears of a person trying to enter as a vision, driving them to despair and inaction.

“Remember when I said I fought Twilight to a standstill?” Starlight says. “That's how I did it. Not true dark magic that we're considering today, but I used it to fuel my conventional unicorn magic to heights beyond what are considered safe. If I let that hatred fester in me for much longer, I'm sure it would have taken its toll and begun to corrupt me. The Crystal Empire was once completely erased from the land by one of its former despotic rulers, King Sombra, and he was a prime example of the art. Princess Celestia learned how to do it from him, and she passed it onto Twilight. Now I intend to use it today, since it's the closest type of magic we know to the negative emotional energy the sirens drain.”

Sunburst sighs and shakes his head. “All the more reason we should be extremely careful when using it.”

You love this. Not the darkness and corruption side, but you hadn't even considered magic could have such unusual nuances. You say, “well, hopefully, if you can demonstrate it once, I can replicate it with my emitter.”

“No offence, Radian,” Starlight says, “but remember what I said; it's an emotional style of magic. I don't know if you can replicate that with a machine.”

“Hmm, fair point,” you admit. “Now that I think about it, I couldn't make anything that could be directly absorbed, although that was with broken siren stones. Still, it's worth a shot.”

“Agreed, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there,” Star says. “Shall we begin?”

You nod, and Starlight disables the barrier around the stone.

“Alright, let's see,” she says as her horn glows light blue, and magically lifts a gem-cutters magnifying lens, called a loupe, up to inspect Sonata's gem. “This is brilliant! I'm seeing no worrisome flaws inside the gem itself, just the imperfections of the exterior, but they'll be hewn out as we polish and grind it away. But before we do, let's try to give it some energy. Radian? Get your emitter ready, I'm going to cast dark magic.”

Sunburst sighs, “please be careful, Star.”

You do as instructed and set the emitter up for scanning, and get ready to adjust the sensitivity; if Star's as powerful as you've been led to believe, you might need to get on that in a hurry, so you rest it on the table, pointed at her, and get ready to tap the buttons with your magic.

Starlight whispers, “I'm not that pony any more... I'm not that pony any more,” a few times as she lowers her head and widens her stance, then closes her eyes.

Your emitter chirps several error tones, but you're too busy watching as a murky purple energy first surrounds Startlight's horn, then... black crystals start forming! She opens her eyes, which are tinged green as she winces and frowns, but bathes Sonata's stone in this magic, yet nothing seems to happen.

The emitter's displaying a weird, sporadic arrangement of wavelengths. Violent spikes that flow and thrash about in ways that you realise you doubt this emitter could produce; even the anti-signals are settled around a range of one frequency.

“Star, enough, it's not working,” Sunburst says.

“I'm still trying, hold on! I just need to give it more power,” Starlight snaps as the glow intensifies.

You have to agree with Sunburst; this seems fruitless. The negative energy the sirens absorbed just isn't the same without conflict.

Wait... oh, Radian, that's clever. Improvisation at its finest!

You slink around Starlight and beside Sunburst, who only briefly gives you a glance before continuing to watch Star, deeply worried.

You cry out, “Charley-horse!” and kick Sunburst in the hind leg as hard as you dare.

“Aaagh!” He tumbles to the ground. He looks up at you, somewhere between shocked and blisteringly furious. “What the hay is wrong with you!?”

A green wisp peels off from Sunburst as he rolls around in pain.

Starlight asks, “what happened?” She breaks her spell, but the green wisp swirls with the still lingering dark magic. The combined power pulls together into a single concentrated point, then bursts into a large cloud of green fog.

The mist is just like the Dazzlings absorbed when you saw them back in high school. That little bit of negative, conflictive emotion just converted the mass of Starlight's magic and amplified it!

Even without its owner, Sonata's stone is still bathed in the green mist, and begins to glow red as the energy is absorbed.

You burst out into your mad scientist cackle; it worked! The stone is repaired!! That means Aria's should be too! You only stop when your emitter's error beeps intensify in a garbled, strained way as you notice some of the green fog lingering around it. What the-

Starlight barges into you, furious. Her eyes are tinged green. “What the hay do you think you're doing!?”

You try and force the victorious grin from your face as you watch Sunburst stand, with tears in his eyes. You say, “we needed actual conflict, and I gave us actual conflict. Sometimes progress can only be made by making tough calls or thinking outside the box.”

Starlight seethes, “that is not okay! How bucking dare you!” Her eyes continue to flicker with a green light as she shoves you back with her magic. Hard.

You slam against the wall and fall down, dazed.

“How do you like it, huh!? Did that hurt!?”

Shit. This is bad!

It's even worse as her horn glow changes once more from light blue to a dark purple, and you're lifted in a purple haze, pressed against the wall and squeezed as Starlight advances, her magic building and intensifying as you struggle to breathe.

* * *