Boundary of Friendship and Magic

Several days after the invasion of the ice fairy from Equestria, Celestia and Luna had called forth a meeting of Canterlot and Ponyville’s most brilliant minds, as well as the Canterlot guard. The sun princess used the palace’s old, dust-filled war room. Its last use was in the era before Nightmare Moon, when Discord’s chaotic forces marched across the land. An argument had risen forth in relation to how to handle Cirno and Gensokyo as a whole.

“I believe this ‘Gensokyo’ could become a greater threat if we do not strike it down immediately,” declared the voice of a gruff earth pony stallion with a grey coat, black mane and tail and a pair of crossed swords emitting sparks on his flank. The guard around the table seemed to acknowledge his plan with great fervor before Princess Luna interrupted their praise.

“Still thy tongue, Sterling Sword,” said the night princess. “We do not want to act so harshly if but one of this world’s residents hath caused us strife. Dost thou wish to start a dimensional war?”

“But Princess Luna-”

“My sister is right, Sterling,” Celestia interrupted. All eyes moved to the sun princess as she began to speak. “Cirno is the only one from Gensokyo to come to Equestria and attack us. We should at least try to discover how she managed to get here before we act on anything. Twilight Sparkle, have you and the research team discovered any dimensional gaps in Ponyville or Canterlot?”

“Possibly, princess,” Twilight, who sat next to her mentor, replied diligently. “Night Augur informed us just a few hours ago that he found some form of disturbance in Ponyville, behind the library.”

“Is this anything like the previous disturbances?” Celestia inquired.

“Not at all,” replied the lavender mare. “The last ones were just a few sparks. Night Augur claims to be seeing a flow of energy rising up from the ground.”

“Is that so?” asked the sun princess. “If that is the case, then I would like for you to meet with Night Augur at the disturbance site. The library, and Ponyville, is your home, after all.”

Twilight nodded happily. “Of course, princess!”

“As for you, Sterling,” Celestia continued, turning to the silver stallion. “I would like for you and your guards to keep an eye on both Ponyville and Canterlot. If this disturbance turns out to be a way point from Gensokyo to here and vice-versa, you will need to be at the ready in case something more dangerous than Cirno presents itself.”

Sterling gave a proud salute and his troops followed suit. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Meeting adjourned,” Celestia proclaimed blankly, rising up first from her seat and exiting out the door behind the chair. As Twilight and the guards exited out the other doors, Luna followed after her sister, recognizing her tone of voice as one of worry.

“Sister, what did thou not tell the guards and Twilight Sparkle?” she asked.

The sun princess remained silent, but Luna was persistent. “We know thou hast something on thy mind, sister. Thou art never this silent unless thou hath conflicted thoughts.”

Celestia sighed. “You read me like a book, sister. I am admittedly a bit worried about this entire situation.”

“Thou hast put Twilight Sparkle and Night Augur in charge of the investigation. Dost thou doubt two of Equestria’s brightest minds?”

“Not at all,” replied Celestia, who immediately went silent again, delving into her thoughts once again.
“Sister…”
Celestia remained absolutely silent, which slowly drove her night-blue sister to the brink of rage.
“Sister, speak!” Luna shouted, breaking her sister from her trance.

“I...apologize, Luna...It isn’t that I doubt Twilight Sparkle and Night Augur...it’s simply that...I am still thinking about Cirno’s storm. It blocked our access to the sun and moon, and it weakened our magic.”

“So thou noticed it as well. Whoever conjured the storm for that pest must not have told her that it weakened our magic. She was most likely told that it blocked the celestial bodies above from sight, and therefore she believed that she was simply stronger than us.”

“It only makes sense,” Celestia murmured. “But if that is true, how powerful was the one who magician who created the storm to begin with?”

“We shall find out sister,” Luna reassured her. “Have faith in thy student and her friends. They have never let thee down.”

Celestia smiled and gave her sister a small nod. “Thank you, Luna. You’re absolutely right.”

“Of course I am,” Luna said, returning a smile. “After all, what are sisters for? Now, let us retire to our room for now whilst we await a report from Twilight Sparkle.”

“Miss Sparkle, come take a look at this.”

Twilight trotted over to the light-blue unicorn stallion and examined the area around which he stood. “What is it, Augur?”

“Do you feel anything…different?” the arch-mage unicorn asked.

“I do feel a bit strange standing in this particular spot…but I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that bothers me about it.”

“Try to explain,” Night Augur said. “Do your best to describe the feeling.”

Twilight thought about it for a moment, taking in the essence of the area around her. Her hooves tingled in the grass in a way they normally wouldn’t. She came to a basic conclusion regarding the situation. “It’s sorta…overwhelming,” the young scholar began. “Like…something is pulling at me and pushing me away at the same time, and it’s definitely some kind of magic.”

“I think it’s a planar field.”

Twilight looked to Night Augur and tilted her head in confusion. “A…planar what now?” she asked.

“I didn’t think Celestia would have taught you about that just yet,” he replied. “To put it simply, it is a field of powerful magic, usually generated by somepony such as the princesses, used to travel between different worlds.”

“Wait a minute…you mean it’s possible? Interdimensional travel is…well, I guess it’s a bit redundant to seem confused by that at this point, considering Cirno, but the idea that we might be able to-“

“Don’t even think about it,” Augur interrupted, putting a hoof over Twilight’s mouth. “We need to report this to the princesses immediately. Only they have enough magic to close the breach.”

Twilight nodded instinctively. Of course Celestia and Luna would be powerful enough, but why bother them? She knew that even she had just as much power as the princesses. After all, she was the Element of Magic. What could the princesses do that she couldn’t? Taking a deep breath after realizing the risks of taking action without consulting her mentor first, she stepped forward and began to channel her magic to her horn.

“Twilight Sparkle, what do you think you’re doing?” Night Augur asked, stumbling back in surprise as the sparks shot up from the lilac unicorn’s horn.

“Celestia chose me as her student!” Twilight exclaimed. “If the princesses could do this with no problem, then all I need to do is throw in a little bit more effort than usual!”

“Miss Sparkle, you’ve never even dabbled in extraplanar arcana! You could rip the hole right open and let more of those freaks into Equestria!”

“If it’s something that needs sealing,” Twilight said, struggling to bring a little extra magic to the tip of her horn, “then all I need to do is amplify my fail-safe spell with everything I’ve got!”

Twilight’s purple magic began to form a circle around her hooves, and as she grinned confidently for the last time that day, she felt something go horribly wrong. The arcane power that she had focused to her horn backlashed, filling her entire body with unstable energy. Her eyes shone the same color as her spell and her magic began to spark wildly around the entire area, singeing grass, disintegrating the leaves off of trees and even lighting her own library ablaze at the base. Night Augur stared as he realized the gravity of this calamity.

“By the Sun, she’s Overcasting! I’ve got to contact the princesses immediately!”

Celestia looked out to the sky from her room to see it being filled with violet lightning. The alicorn princess bit her upper lip as a pair of unicorn guards came barreling into the room. “Your highness, a field report from Night Augur has just come in! It is incredibly urgent and he insisted that you-“

The sun princess snapped up the report with her golden spell and unrolled it immediately. She eyed it as quickly as possible and dropped it to the ground, immediately taking off out the window towards Ponyville. At that very same moment, Luna burst through the doors with a silver platter of sweets. “Dearest sister, I have brought the sugary snacks thou hast requested and-“Luna looked out the window at the lightning-filled sky, then to the note and then to the two guards. “What has happened here? Where is Celestia?”

The guards levitated the report before Luna, who set the tray of treats down and took hold of the note. ‘Night Augur reporting in: Element of Magic Twilight Sparkle has attempted to seal a dimensional breach located directly behind the Golden Oaks Library where she normally resided, and in doing so, she drastically overcast her custom Fail-Safe spell, sending her into a Level Three Arcane Nova. If it is allowed to continue, her magic may very well open the breach before we even have a chance to examine it further. Your presence is necessary, Your Highness.’

Luna tossed the note aside and spread her wings. “I must not let Celestia go alone. This does not bode well for Equestria…” The lunar princess flew out the window, headed toward Ponyville as well. The two guards looked at one another and then proceeded to devour the tray of pastries the moon princess had left behind.

The clouds above slowly started to dissolve into vapor as Twilight’s magic spell began to grow even more out of control. “H-help me, please!” she cried, trying desperately to reign her own power back under control, to unfortunately no avail.

Royal guards approached from all sides, raising a glowing ward to try and contain the unstable spell. Shining Armor, former captain of the guard and Twilight’s older brother, led the troops onward with a powerful shield spell of his own. “Hang on, Twily! I’m coming to get you! Now, boys! Push with everything you’ve got!”

The unicorn soldiers unleashed the blunt force of their magic, sending the ward down from a large dome to a containment field around Twilight Sparkle, whose magic continue to fluctuate out of control. The violet lightning struggled against the shield, making it crack in multiple locations and forcing it to grow once more. The soldiers stumbled back, still attached to the magic making the shield up. Shining Armor gasped and grunted, his own spell rivaling his sister’s unstable force. “Twily, you need to try and fight against it! It’ll only get worse if you let it take over!”

“I…I’m trying!” Twilight screamed back, her body shaking violently as she fought to take it back from the magic nova’s control.

“You need to try harder! Think about what you’re doing! Think about what will happen if you don’t reel this in!”

Her brother’s words banged against the drum of her subconscious where Twilight’s mind raged to break free. The spell kept a tight lock on her, but the encouraging shouts from Shining Armor was all the extra strength she needed. Regaining enough control to perform a quick flick of her horn, the Element of Magic launched the spell across the ground in a shockwave, merely knocking down ponies across all of Ponyville instead of burning the town to a crisp. By the time the wave had subsided, Twilight was a half-unconscious heap on a patch of incinerated grass and dirt. Shining Armor rushed over to check on his sister.

“Twily, are you all right? Is there any of that unstable magic left?”

“I…don’t think so,” Twilight replied, managing to rise to her hooves with her brother’s help. “That was really stupid of me…I’m sorry, Shiny.”

Shining Armor pulled his sister into a hug with one foreleg. “It’s not the first time you’ve gotten in over your head like that.”

“And I’m certain it won’t be the last,” announced the regal voice of Princess Celestia as she hovered into the general vicinity. Moments after her, Princess Luna landed beside her sister. Twilight immediately broke the hug with her brother and bowed as low to the ground as she could. Celestia looked to Shining Armor first. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Shining. I know how important it is for you to be by Cadence’s side, especially after recent events.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” he replied, “as soon as I heard Twily was in trouble; I had no choice but to help.”

Celestia nodded. “But of course.” She then turned her attention to her faithful student, now practically groveling in the dirt. “Twilight Sparkle…I am slightly disappointed in you. You knew how important it was for us to find and properly close any extraplanar breaches, but you went ahead and attempted to fix the problem on your own, once again.”

Twilight began to tremble, as her voice did in turn. “I-I’m s-so s-s-sorry, P-Princess Celestia…I just thought…t-that I could do it on my own and prove myself to you.”

Celestia stepped forward and, as opposed to Twilight’s thoughts of punishment, draped a wing over her student. “Why would you think you needed to prove yourself to me? You’re already my student.”

“But,” Twilight started, sniffling and on the verge of tears, “I got beaten so easily by Cirno, so I thought that you thought I was slipping up, so I wanted to try and do something I’d never done before, and before I knew it, everything was completely out of control, and I was hurting ponies and-“

Celestia silenced her student with a soft, tender ‘shh’ and slowly began to stroke her mane. “Nopony saw that travesty coming…not even myself or Luna. You have no right to blame yourself, Twilight. You need to calm down so we can address this problem properly.”

Twilight wiped her eyes and looked up to Celestia with a hopeful smile. “You’re right…Thank you, Princess. You always know just what to say.”

“Not always,” Celestia admitted. “But thank you for the vote of confidence, my faithful student. Now, let us deal with the problem at hand.”

“What you consider a problem, I see as a newly-presented opportunity,” a new, mocking voice echoed out.

Everypony glanced around, searching for the source of the voice. Their futile efforts were met with a childish giggle. “Ah, you ponies are interesting creatures indeed, I must admit. I’ve never seen anything like any of you…even the ones without spells have such interesting magic.”

“Show yourself, whoever you are!” demanded Celestia.

“Oh, hold your horses,” replied the voice, laughing once more. “Oh, that was a good one. I’ll have to remember that one. Anyway…here I come!”

A black rift appeared out of thin air. It seemed to be held together with red ribbons and was filled with purple mist and a cluster of prying eyes. Even Celestia stared at this strange gateway in confusion. Suddenly, a figure appeared out of the dimensional gap, sporting a white and purple dress accompanied by a white and red bonnet. She had blond hair, blue eyes, and a butterfly-pattern fan in hand and was most certainly from the same universe as Cirno, as she was nothing close to a pony in any way, shape or form. The woman rose up out of the gap completely and sat on it as if it were a hammock.

“Identify yourself, creature!” Luna shouted at the strange figure, assuming the Royal Canterlot Tone. “You are invading Equestrian soil!”

“Oh, but your sister’s little student was the one to open the breach first,” the odd woman stated. “So technically, you invaded Gensokyo first. This is simply retaliation.”

“Give your name, spirit!” Celestia yelled.

The woman sighed. “Fine, if you won’t shut up until I do. I am Yukari Yakumo, yokai of the borders of Gensokyo. Normally, I couldn't be bothered to even come here, but considering the fact that you have one of our own held prisoner…”

“How could you possibly know about that?” asked Celestia, staring down Yukari.

“Oh, I've got eyes everywhere…I manipulate borders and boundaries to see everything and everyone in every single world: Every…Last…One.”

“You planned this, yokai!” Luna proclaimed. “You sent your puny field agent as bait so you could invade with a bare sliver of an alibi!”

Yukari gasped and held her fan to her chest, barely covering her breasts. “Now how could little old me do something such as that? I mean, an all-powerful dimension-altering yokai like me wouldn't dare dream of creating such an incident!”

“Arrogant as you are foolish,” Celestia stated. “You can’t defeat the two of us at the same time, Yukari. You've led yourself to your own demise.”

With an exchange of silent nods, the two alicorns unleashed a storm of magic toward the border yokai, creating a prismatic cloud of dust in its wake. As the smoke cleared, it seemed as if Yukari had been absolutely vaporized. No trace of her remained, not even her border. However, just as things seemed to be calming down, the gap witch’s laugh filled the air once more. Another rift appeared several feet above them and Yukari dropped to the ground before them, giggling chaotically. "Didn’t you hear me the first time? I am the yokai of borders and boundaries, which means I can be anywhere I want in the blink of an eye, and I can hide within my gap until your futile spells have passed.”

Luna stepped forth and prepared charging a spell. “You…insolent little-“

“Ah-ah-ah, there will be none of that,” Yukari interrupted, tossing a paper card at the princess’ horn. “Spell Card: Magic Null Border.”

The card sparked to life and a bright flash of light engulfed the area. Everypony looked away to avoid being blinded, but as the glow faded, they looked back and all gasped in shock. Luna herself opened her eyes and glanced upward to see that her horn was now nonexistent. “W-what be this trickery?! What hast thou done to our horn?!”

Yukari chuckled, holding her fan before her face. “My spell card simply eliminated the focal point of all your magic. You won’t be able to cast a single spell as long as I reside in this dimension. Now, off I go: more chaos to spread and more residents of Gensokyo to locate.”

With a wave of her fan, Yukari created another gap and swiftly flew through it. Celestia and her student, Shining Armor and the rest of the royal guards were left standing baffled as Luna ranted, raved and bucked wildly in what could only be described as a royal tantrum.

“HOW DAREST THAT FOOLISH SPIRIT ROB US OF OUR MAGIC! WE SHALL DESTROY THE VILE WENCH WITH EVERY OUNCE OF OUR…of our…ma…magic…she…stole my magic…Celestia, I can’t raise the moon. I can’t even raise a simple glass of cider anymore. I can’t do…anything…”

Luna stood completely still. She stared at the ground for several seconds before breaking out into silent sobs. Celestia walked over to her sister and pulled her into a hug with both a wing and a foreleg. “We’ll get through this, Lulu. I promise.”

Twilight watched Celestia console her sister, then looked up to her own brother. “What now?”

Shining Armor observed the scene and came to the most inconclusive conclusion. “I don’t know, Twily…I really don’t know.”