The Interview

Twilight could once more feel the light’s heat against her skin before her eyes could take in anything. It was some time for the familiar setting of her night terrors to come into focus. The cheap wooden desk and the indistinguishable figures of the audience displayed in front of her beneath the spotlight. To her right sat the Host sporting a bemused smile that seemed to speak of some unknown knowledge only he possessed. But this time, Twilight knew better. The veil before her eyes was no longer present; she could see he was no mere construction of her anxiety. She could see the real him.

Baku.

Only now, with the surge of Luna’s guiding spell, could she see the threads of his creation. The light of her mind had finally illuminated the darkness that permeated the illusion, spun around like a web of Twilight’s very self. She could perceive the cracks, inconsistencies, and seams of his handiwork. The crowd were no more than painted dolls, the polish of their ‘skin’ as clear to her as the lights that stood above her head; they moved and clacked, and the noise of the wooden joints twisting and turning, a thin threaded line of black sludge could be seen beneath their seats like wires flowing in great strands to their source, Baku. These were not mere puppets; everything within the hall was nothing but a twisted aspect of himself.

He had imprisoned her in a cell within her own mind, a violation of her safety. The spark of rage threatened to bubble up, but she suppressed it. His voice cut through her emotions, his words mocking her.

“Earth to Princess Twilight? Anypony home?” The audience laughed, and she forced a politician's smile. She tilted her head, a gesture Rarity had taught her when dealing with particularly difficult customers.

“Sorry.” She shot the crowd her best politician smile, a facade of calm hiding her inner turmoil. She tilted her head as Rarity taught her how to act around audiences. “I got lost in my thoughts. I do that from time to time.”

“Care to share?” the Host asked.

“I would not,” Twilight shot back but did not let her smile falter as she stared her interviewer in the eyes. She hoped that being a creature of dreams meant he was not the most socially conscious being, for if he could read her expression, he would almost see her say through her eyes alone, ‘I see you.’

“Oh, um, alright,” the Host said, clearly taken aback but quickly shifted back to his usual carefree self. “Now we are here to talk about this whole Legion of Doom. I mean to think that one of your friends released that lot. A friend you insisted had mended his ways. How can you live–”

Twilight cut him off. “You mean Discord? I live perfectly well with it.” His face twisted up into an incredulous scowl. He reflexively shuffled the papers in front of him.

“Really? Not even the slightest bit of questioning why you trusted a former tyrant as a friend? The same tyrant, through his arrogance, nearly doomed Equestria, not once but twice! It doesn’t scream reformed to me at all.”

“Discord, for all his faults, has tried to do good, and he has failed, time and time again.” She inhaled deeply. “But my friends and I forgave him nonetheless. Because ultimately, I believe he means well, and so does Fluttershy. More than anything, I trust her judgement about him above all others.” Now, it was her turn to lean over the desk in his direction.Twilight’s tone grew sharper as she continued, her eyes never leaving the Host’s. “But then again, what I think doesn’t matter. Does it?”

“Are you saying I don’t care?”

Twilight could not help but laugh. “I know you don’t care. Anypony so in love with the sound of their voice can’t even pretend to sound like they care.” She chuckled some more as his audience looked on bemusement. After all, this was not part of the script; how could a carefully crafted theatre menagerie deal with unforeseen events?

His eyes narrowed, the quickening tightness in his jaw, the bulge pulsating in his neck. Twilight had him, even if his evident anger did not reach that ever-upbeat voice. “Heh, bit of spice this one has.” He shot the audience a smile that spelt, ‘What can a stallion do?’ She did not relent.

“You don’t need to talk to them, you know.” His head spun around rapidly, his mouth agape in confusion at her words.

“Excuse me?”

Twilight shrugged. “It’s all a load of bull—the cameras, the lights.” Twilight inhaled before a growl escaped her lips. “You.”

“That’s very unprincess-like language,” Baku said, no longer giving the pretence of pleasantness in his tone to be replaced by a harsh rasp. The grey flicker of his eyes flashed a pitch black. “You trying to cause a scene?” Twilight leaned back in her chair. It did not feel so uncomfortable now. The lights, though, their glare still burned and blinded.

“Yes,” she started slowly. “I think I am.” Twilight’s horn brimmed with magic, and in an instant, before the shocked Host could say anymore, she let loose a piercing bolt. The audience cried out in terror and fled as they dodged from its path. Her spell slammed into the lights above, sending a wave of sparks as they exploded. They fell from their perched height onto the currently partially empty rafters and clashed with the cameras and other audio equipment, which let forth a harsh metallic shriek. “I really hated those lights.”

Baku threw himself from his seat. “Have you lost your mind?” He stared at the mess but stopped. Fear soon gripped him, and the magnitude of what Twilight had done became apparent. “You used magic.” As he spoke the words, the construct of the prison to which he entrapped bulged and creaked at the tremendous pressure applied to its extremities.

“You want to know what happened to the Legion of Doom?” Twilight declared. “I defeated them, just as I’ll defeat you.” Twilight called upon another spell; her horn cased in a brilliant purple hue that shimmered as bright as a star, dimming all other colours of the hall. Baku hissed and pressed his hoof against his eyes.

From behind it, his black visage watched powerlessly as the entire edifice of his creation collapsed around him. “I think we can cut this little interview short,” Twilight announced as she gathered the vortex of power around her and, with a mighty roar, let it flow outwards to the ceiling. Then, it crept vine-like into every seam of the room as it extinguished the black roots that held it together.

The space compressed inward and then shattered like a pane of glass. The feelings associated with her prison faded away as the entire front of it crumpled and shrivelled up and fell away. Each construct burned up in a steamy cloud of black smoke, and the inky strands of whatever web he conjured shrivelled and died. When the last remnants of his work had disappeared from her vision, she stood in an endless sky of lights dancing in a black ether.

He shrieked and threw his head back. A dark flame consumed his entire body, which melted his disguise away. His former equine skin pooled like melted rubber beneath his true form, now as clear to her as on the pages of Luna’s book.

He was a bipedal jackal-like creature with a shabby coat of grey and long ape-like limbs. Baku wasted no time in seeking to flee; only briefly did he look behind him to see if she was following, and the black coals of his eyes, even from a distance, burned with resentment for her. He roughly seized a stray orb near him; with a scowl, he dug his claws into it and, with a pulse of light, disappeared.

Twilight stood stunned for a moment, but as she grew used to her surroundings, she could sense that this was not a mere construct of her mind but her mind itself. Baku was moving through this expanse, trying to find a place to hide. A voice echoed a phantom disembodied thing calling out to her, something she could scarcely discern from her own or some external force. Yet the meaning of the words was clear to her.

Do not let him get away.