π

by Kwakerjak

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Nightmare Moon, Trixie, Pinkie Pie, Slice of Life, Zecora, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 13323

Trixie returns to Ponyville to challenge Twilight Sparkle. ("Magic Duel" as it occurs in the Petriculture AU.)

Life in Ponyville has been relatively quiet recently, which is somewhat surprising, given that the town's librarian tried to usurp the Equestrian throne only a few months ago. Aside from the appearance of a grumpy pegasus who set up shop as a cloudsmith, the aftermath is so unnoticeable that most ponies aren't even aware that the incident happened at all. Unfortunately, all that's about to change, thanks to the return of a certain revenge-obsessed showmare....

This is the fourth story in The Petriculture Cycle; reading the first three stories, which begin here, is highly recommended.

The artwork was provided by Page Turner, and the TV Tropes entry can be found here.

Published 2013-03-02 14:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-04-02 21:45:13 UTC

Chapter 1: Circumference

“... So, after several in-depth discussions with Zecora, I’ve formed a hypothesis that zebra magic is a sort of hybrid of unicorn and earth pony magics, at least in terms of how it actually functions. Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that zebras are descended from unicorn-earth pony hybrids, but it seems to me that the matter is worth further study.”

“Fascinating,” Penumbra responded, though she didn’t bother to shift her concentration to what Twilight was saying. Indeed, in most other contexts, the dark blue pegasus probably would have found the topic to be intellectually stimulating, but at the moment she preferred to keep her focus squarely on her work. After a few weeks of stagnation, the clientele of Cloud Nineteen had suddenly begun growing much faster than she’d anticipated. Apparently, it took the average pony some time to realize that the services of an artisan cloudsmith were worth paying for—particularly earth ponies and unicorns—but once they warmed up to the idea, they were more than happy to share this insight with their friends.

But whatever the reason, Penumbra was not about to complain about the fact that the volume of her work had forced her to move her workshop out of Sugarcube Corner to the outskirts of Ponyville. After all, now she had much more space to work with, and there were no complaints that her creations were blocking anypony’s sunlight. It had been less than a month since construction work had ended on the open air pavilion where she could conduct business in inclement weather, and it seemed that her enterprise’s reputation was growing by the day, and if her current creation was well-received, it could skyrocket.

The pegasus hovered over the pavilion’s roof, evaluating the work she’d done so far. She’d tied up her black mane in a tight ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, of course, but given the scale of her current project, taking time to back up and survey it as a whole was absolutely necessary. Apparently, there was to be some sort of reception for diplomats for Saddle Arabia in the near future, and Princess Celestia had, on her Sister’s recommendation, commissioned Penumbra to create a cloud sculpture that could serve as a centerpiece. The pegasus had therefore designed an abstract piece consisting of a quadruple helix of cirrus clouds, all surrounding a pillar of cumulus clouds which she’d tinted red—Twilight Sparkle had asked her multiple times whether this had been done using magic or a more natural method, but thus far Penumbra had refused to answer such questions on the grounds that the process was a “company secret.”

That, however, was not the reason Twilight was here today. Rather, she was here to help Penumbra determine whether to use a light breeze to get the helices to rotate around the column or to have a unicorn use magic to move them, though today, she seemed far more interested in the magical theory of zebras.

This came as no surprise, particularly since Twilight had been especially interested in hybrid magic ever since the fallout of her ill-fated attempt to seize the Equestrian crown had transformed her into an alicorn, albeit a wingless one who wasn’t particularly good at farming. A similar fate had befallen Pinkie Pie (who still looked like an earth pony), though in her case, it wasn’t any more unusual than her previous state as “Twilight’s imaginary friend come to life.” Penumbra, likewise, was also technically an alicorn and a former imaginary friend, assuming one used the loosest definition of “friend” imaginable: as the Nightmare, she’d driven her creator mad with power, and had almost managed to do the same to Twilight. The librarian had been researching the implications of being a magically-unbalanced alicorn since that incident, though without much fanfare; she’d even had Penumbra and Pinkie Pie promise not to reveal their actual status to anyone, even their closest friends, until she was certain about what was going on.

“I think zebras channel magic through their hooves the way unicorns channel it through their horns, but I can’t detect any magical aura when Zecora casts a spell. Do you suppose—”

The bookish unicorn never got the chance to finish that particular musing, as she was suddenly bowled over by a familiar blue blur with a rainbow trail. It took a few seconds before Twilight Sparkle rose to her feet again. “Ugh... Rainbow Dash, I thought you were going to be more careful when you were flying at high speeds.”

“Sorry, Twilight, but I don’t have time to be careful,” the blue pegasus replied earnestly. “You need to get to town. Like, right now.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Trixie’s back.”

Twilight immediately lost all her interest in discussing arcane hypotheses upon hearing that name. “C’mon, Penumbra, we need to get going.”

Penumbra, having never heard of this “Trixie” character before, raised an eyebrow skeptically, but before she could answer, Twilight had already started galloping towards Ponyville.

“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You coming or not?”

Penumbra sighed as she loosened her ponytail and let her mane drape over her right eye. “I suppose I might as well.” After all, Twilight Sparkle was her friend.

——————————

As soon as the red light from the spell had faded, Rarity looked down in horror at what had been done to her. Her voice was quavering as she shouted, “You... you monster! I’m hideous!”

“Actually, I don’t think the dress looks all that bad.”

The white unicorn glowered briefly at her friend, annoyed at the discourteous interruption of her melodrama. “That, my dear Applejack, is why your cutie mark has absolutely nothing to do with fashion. A red this bold should simply not be paired with pastels! Now, where was I?”

“Uh, I think ya were about ta faint.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you.” Rarity brought a hoof to her forehead before collapsing on the earth pony’s back. As Applejack left the unicorn in Spike’s able claws so she could regain her dignity, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Penumbra arrived in Ponyville’s town square.

Twilight looked around for Trixie’s cart, but couldn’t see it anywhere. She did, however, see a large crowd in front of the town hall. “What’s going on?” she asked as she pushed her way through the mass of ponies.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Twilight Sparkle,” said a voice oozing with smug superiority.

Twilight would never mistake that voice. The librarian turned and saw an azure unicorn mare wearing a black cape and a somewhat gaudy ruby necklace staring at her with a cruel sneer on her face. “Trixie,” Twilight said, her eyelids lowering into an irritated squint. “What are you doing here?”

Before Trixie could answer, however, Pinkie Pie interjected. “She’s been casting spells left and right and up and down and back and front and in and out trying to get your attention, and she wouldn’t believe us when we said you were on the outskirts of town.”

“Oh, I believed you,” Trixie replied. “I just wanted Twilight to come to me.”

“And that justifies turning Fluttershy’s mane into cake frosting?” the pink earth pony retorted. “That’s royal icing you used, and you didn’t even have the decency to use any glycerine at all! Now her mane is hard as a rock!”

“Um... it’s alright, Pinkie,” the pale yellow pegasus said softly. “I... I think I can live with it....” Apparently, she’d been cringing when she’d been hit by Trixie’s spell, as her neck and shoulders were oddly contorted.

Twilight let out a soft sigh and cast a counterspell on Fluttershy, giving her the chance to stretch her neck again. “You haven’t answered my question yet, Trixie.”

“Hmph. Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to prove once and for all that I’m the better magician. My skills have improved exponentially since we last met, and I intend to demonstrate it by challenging you to a magic duel!”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Rainbow Dash said. “I thought ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’ was allergic to pronouns.”

Trixie glared at the pegasus. “I’m not here on business. This is personal!” For emphasis, she shot a spell at Rainbow Dash’s hooves, covering them with slimy goo.

“Ack! Get it off get it off get it off get it off!” Rainbow Dash took to the air, waving her legs in a frantic attempt to fling off the gunk.

“Hmm... that went even better than expected,” Trixie mused. “She was only supposed to be rendered unable to stand on the ground. But enough diversions. I have yet to hear your reply.”

“What terms?”

The blue unicorn grinned, and it seemed for a brief moment that her purple eyes flashed red. “Oh, the traditional ones. Winner stays, loser leaves town. Forever.”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t seem to find the idea nearly as entertaining. “Exile? Seriously? This is the fourteenth century, Trixie. I’m not nearly gullible enough to fight a duel under those terms.”

“Well, then I suppose that means there’s no way you’re going to get rid of me, so I might as well keep practicing my spellcasting.”

Another spell shot into the crowd, this one hitting Granny Smith in the face. “Ack! Mah teef!” the old mare shouted as her dentures jumped out of her mouth and started bouncing around like an overactive novelty toy. “Git back heah!”

Twilight’s patience was starting to run thin. “Why are you even doing this?”

“Why? Because you humiliated me!” Trixie shouted. “After you showed me up with that Ursa Minor, I became a laughingstock. My credibility was left in tatters. Everywhere I went, I was laughed at and called a fraud! Why, to make ends meet, I even had to take a job serving overpriced coffee to snooty hipsters at Starbuck’s! Starbuck’s!”

“Well, no wonder she wants revenge,” Penumbra said to nopony in particular. She seemed oddly unconcerned by Trixie’s threatening tone.

“You ruined my life, and now, I’m finally going to make you pay for what you did to me.”

“Wait!” Pinkie shouted. “That Ursa Minor didn’t seem like it was just waiting around for you to handle it. It was being all cranky and destruction-y and scary. Are you saying Twilight should have let it destroy Ponyville?” It didn’t sound like a rhetorical question, which, naturally, put a lot of pressure on the showmare to actually respond.

Rather than acknowledge that she hadn’t actually thought her motivations through, Trixie exploded with rage, her eyes flaring red. “Shut up!” She let loose another blast of magic that seemed to cause Pinkie’s entire muzzle to disappear.

“Mmm! Mmmm mm mm mmmmm mmmm!”

“Well?” Trixie asked Twilight with a smirk. “What’ll it be?”

The librarian looked around at her friends. All of them seemed to be counting on her to set things right... except for Penumbra, who had a look of bored impatience. “For Luna’s sake, what are you still waiting for?” she asked, as if she was surprised that Twilight was even hesitating in the first place.

Trixie’s aura, meanwhile, had surrounded Spike and lifted him into the air. “Whoah! Help!”

That did it—there was no way Twilight was going to let her assistant come to harm. “Alright, Trixie. I accept your terms. Let’s duel.”

The blue unicorn obligingly set Spike down near the rest of Twilight’s friends. The dragon looked over at Penumbra, whose grin radiated nearly as much smugness as Trixie’s. “You look confident,” he noted.

The pegasus’ smile intensified as she answered, “That’s because I am. This loudmouthed upstart doesn’t stand a chance. Watching her get knocked down a few pegs should prove most gratifying.”

As the two unicorns stared each other down, Twilight contemplated her first move; she had to make the opening salvo, or else Trixie might control the flow of the entire duel. As her eyes glanced skyward, she noticed six puffy clouds hanging over the town hall. Yes, those should do...

“Draw!” Trixie shouted as a red aura surrounded her horn, but before she could reel off whatever spell she’d been preparing, Twilight had acted. The six clouds arranged themselves in a hexagon over her opponent, and, with a little jolt of magic, all of them simultaneously fired lightning bolts where she was standing, though Trixie managed to jump out of the way before she got hurt. Twilight was quite proud of this; while unicorn weather magic may not have been the most difficult, the fact that pegasi made it largely redundant meant that it was one of the least studied branches of magical theory, so there was a good chance she’d caught Trixie by surprise.

The blue unicorn sneered. “Congratulations, Sparkle. You’re qualified to be a substitute pegasus. But this is about who’s the better unicorn.” Trixie punctuated her insult by hefting a cart full of apples into the air and flinging it at the crowd of spectators.

Twilight barely had time to react, but she was able to catch it before it squished a blue earth pony underneath its bulk. The librarian was about to toss it back, when she heard a voice call out: “Twilight! What in the hay do ya think yer doin’?!”

It was only now that Twilight Sparkle put two and two together and realized that the cart she was preparing to lob belonged to the Apple family. “Sorry!” she called back as she neatly returned the would-be projectile to the ground.

Unfortunately, this delay gave Trixie an opening to begin an exchange of her own. No sooner had Twilight turned her face back towards her opponent than she found herself neck deep in garbage, which her opponent had apparently materialized over her head.

Fortunately, living in Ponyville had given Twilight plenty of practice at rapidly cleaning up spontaneous messes. Without pausing for a single dry heave, she teleported the waste to the compost pile at Sweet Apple Acres. This, however, did nothing to remove the aromatic bouquet of rotten food and bacteria-infested filth from the town square, as the strained gagging noises from the crowd demonstrated.

Thinking quickly, Twilight teleported several dozen scented candles into the town square and spread them around the crowd, and it was no trouble for her to light all the wicks at once. As the assembled ponies stopped holding their breaths, the librarian made a mental note to compensate Aloe and Lotus Blossom for clearing out their spa’s stockpile of aromatherapy candles. She didn’t much like the idea of having earthworms surreptitiously added to her next mud bath.

What next? Twilight Sparkle glanced around the town square for some inspiration. Presumably, the only reason Trixie hadn’t yet followed up her garbage attack was shock from Twilight having found a solution so quickly, but that wouldn’t last forever. Soon, she found what she was looking for: the stone fountain featuring a statue of Ringaling, a famed acrobat who was arguably Ponyville’s most well-known resident until very recently. The stone earth pony was smiling broadly as she balanced on her ball. How about one more performance?

Twilight’s horn glowed again, and the statue sprang to life, rolling off of its fountain and flipping on its ball for the extremely impressed audience—though it was difficult to tell what Trixie thought of Ringaling’s performance, as her face was contorted into a glower. Looking over at a nearby construction site, she placed her own come-to-life spell on a jackhammer. The acrobat managed to escape its destructive power by throwing her ball at it, which crushed the tool under its weight. Unfortunately, the ball was as much a part of the statue as the pony, and as it had been destroyed, too, Ringaling went rigid once again, though she now had all four hooves on the ground and a victorious smirk on her face.

The monument wasn’t the only pony grinning. “Is that all you’ve got, Trixie?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Trixie glared back at her nemesis. “Hardly.” She scanned the crowd and spotted the two colts who had tried to form a makeshift entourage the last time she’d been in Ponyville. “You there! Snaps and Snuff!”

“Um... it’s actually Snips and Snails, Your Powerfulness,” said the chubbier of the two.

“Given that you two are largely responsible for destroying my caravan, you should be grateful I’m speaking to you at all! Now, step forward.” The two young ponies nervously complied. Another blast of red light came from Trixie’s horn, surrounding Snips and Snails and lifting the fidgeting colts up into the air as the light grew brighter. When the light finally faded, Snips had reverted to an infant, while Snails had the body of an elderly stallion. “Ha! Beat that, if you can,” Trixie told Twilight.

“Hmmm,” Penumbra said as she thoughtfully held a hoof to her chin. “An aging spell. Very tricky... but still, it’s nothing Twilight can’t handle.”

Indeed, Twilight’s counterspell had lifted the two affected ponies back into the air... but for some reason, that was all it was doing. The librarian’s face looked strained, and as the intensity of her magical aura grew, beads of sweat began trickling down her face.

“What’s going on?” Penumbra asked nopony in particular. “Why isn’t she finishing the job?”

No answer was forthcoming, as the question was soon rendered irrelevant. Twilight’s aura flickered briefly before suddenly becoming noticably more intense. This was it. This was where Twilight Sparkle would unquestionably establish the superiority of her skills. As the aura’s hue began an ever-so-subtle shift from pink to violet, Penumbra grinned broadly. The duel would be over soon; she was certain of it.

As Twilight set Snips and Snails back down on the ground, Penumbra leaned forward, eager to revel in her friend’s success. However, as the light faded away, Snips was still an infant, while Snails was still wizened. Shocked, the pegasus looked towards Twilight, hoping to get some hint at the clever gambit she had to be playing... but the unicorn looked downcast. Twilight bowed solemnly to her opponent, and said something about an honorable fight, but Penumbra wasn’t paying attention. It had to be a feint—a trick—anything other than what it looked like, because it looked like Twilight Sparkle was conceding.

But no, Trixie was cackling evilly (if rather amateurishly, in Penumbra’s opinion) and boasting about her superiority. The other Elements of Harmony galloped to Twilight’s defense, but to no avail: Trixie lifted Twilight Sparkle up in the air and tossed her out of Ponyville like an overinflated dodgeball, and still the librarian did not retaliate! It made no sense! Penumbra joined her friends in chasing after the unicorn, but were stopped short when Trixie suddenly created a massive force-field shaped like an inverted fishbowl and sealed Ponyville off from the rest of Equestria.

Penumbra was still only half-listening as Twilight returned to the force-field’s edge. “Take care of each other, okay? And keep an eye on Trixie. There’s something strange about her.”

“What about you, Twilight?” Spike asked.

“I... I need to think about this. Every problem has a solution, and this one’s no different. I just need to figure out what it is.”

Penumbra’s mood suddenly darkened. “You need to figure out a solution? What about the one that’s staring you right in the face?!”

“Penumbra... what do you mean?” Twilight asked, albeit with a rather guilty look on her face.

“You know exactly what I mean!”

“Um... I... look, just sit tight, okay? I’ll be back, I promise.” Having thus sidestepped the cloudsmith’s comment with her non-answer, Twilight Sparkle turned around and galloped away.

As the librarian grew smaller in the distance, Penumbra fell back on the oldest method of persuasion she knew: the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Twilight Sparkle, get back here! Don’t you dare ignore me!” Yet this had no effect. As Twilight vanished into a grove of trees, the cloudsmith slammed a hoof against the force field, causing it to resonate like a gigantic wine glass. “Well, that rather definitively demonstrates why she isn’t the Element of Loyalty.”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little too hard on her? I mean, she’s as upset as we are—I’m sure she’ll be back once she figures out what to do next.”

“You’re right. I don’t think I’m being too hard on her.”

“Penumbra,” Rarity said as delicately as she could, “I realize that you don’t have much experience with friendship, but one of its most fundamental principles is trust.”

The moody pegasus initially responded to this with a slack-jawed stare, and when she finally got around to making a response, her tone hadn’t improved. “Trust? Trust?! Oh, that’s just rich.” Penumbra rolled her eyes and groaned loudly. “Fine! If you need me, I shall be busy ‘trusting’ her in Pinkie Pie’s head, and I’ll ‘trust’ you to let me know if and when Twilight Sparkle has decided to stop running away from reality.”

Before the other ponies could ask Penumbra to clarify this statement, she’d already dissipated into mist. Applejack turned to Pinkie Pie. “You got any idea what’s goin’ on here?”

The pink earth pony nodded. “Mmm! Mmm mmmmmm Mmmmmmmm mmm mmmmmmm mmmm. Mmmm mmmm M mmmm?”

The farmpony sighed. “Nevermind. Looks like we’re gonna be in for a tough slog, gals. I just hope Twi can figure out what ta do, or what Penny wants her ta do, or... or whatever. And soon.” On that, at least, there was unanimous agreement.

Chapter 2: Diameter

Pinkie Pie often said that she wasn’t very good at using her own imagination, but statements like those were somewhat misleading. The earth pony was hardly unimaginative; she simply used her imagination in a way that was radically different from most ponies. Where a pony like Twilight Sparkle would use her imagination to formulate ideas and test them in thought experiments, Pinkie Pie never bothered with in-depth speculation. Instead, as soon as an idea was somewhat distinct, she would unleash it onto the “real” world. This often resulted in a lot of apparent non sequiturs, but it also meant that she could be extremely insightful when her connections were valid, which happened more often than not. It also made her mind a very... interesting place.

This was a world where hazy, half-formed ideas drifted through washes of color, like a marriage between impressionism and abstract expressionism, with occasional accusations of a one-night stand with surrealism. Vaguely pony-shaped pastel blotches could be seen moving through foggy landscapes, and odd ideas seemed to float through the air, just waiting to be snatched and applied to any given situation, regardless of their appropriateness. Similarly, almost nothing had a clearly defined location—though there was one prominent exception.

This was the section of Pinkie’s mind that had been set aside to house Penumbra Noctis when she wasn’t physically present in Equestria. Penumbra had designed her home in the style of Fallingwater, the most renowned architect of the modern era. It was precise and geometric, with several long, rectangular overhangs over porches and balconies, all made of brick and concrete in various earth tones that matched the neatly trimmed lawn.

Inside, the former Nightmare sat in a large armchair, still grousing about Twilight Sparkle’s inexplicable kowtowing to her insufferable braggart of a rival. Why had she simply allowed Trixie to win that magic duel? She hadn’t even come close to using all of the resources available to her, and yet she’d given up, knowing that this meant that she’d be forced into exile—but she wasn’t really being forced to do anything. After all, magic duels no longer had any legal standing these days, and Penumbra was fairly certain that Twilight could overcome the magical force field that had been put in place to keep her out.

Surprisingly, though, Pinkie Pie had yet to pull her back into the outside world. This was most unexpected, since it had been roughly three days since Twilight’s exile, assuming that Pinkie’s internal clock was functioning normally. If the drab colors and muted sounds outside of Penumbra’s abstract stained glass windows were any indication, the situation had yet to improve. A light patter against the glass eventually got her attention; it rarely rained in Pinkie’s mind, and when it did, it usually meant that her mood had taken a turn for the melancholy. A few minutes later, this was all but confirmed as the drizzle transformed into a torrential downpour. The pegasus couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen—yet she still managed to be startled by the sudden pounding against her door.

Penumbra rose from her seat and opened the door, and, as she expected, there was Pinkie Pie, wearing a raincoat and smiling, though not as widely as she usually did. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Penumbra wasn’t surprised that Pinkie Pie’s muzzle had returned. After all, this was her mind, and she made the rules. “Would you like something to eat?” Granted, food in here didn’t exactly provide nourishment, but that was hardly any reason to be boorish.

“You have no idea!” Pinkie Pie said. “I’ll take anything you have that’s solid enough to chew, please.”

This was a rather odd request, but by now, Penumbra was used to her warden/landlady making odd requests during her visits. Five minutes later, the two of them were munching on dandelion salads in a raspberry vinaigrette, though Pinkie Pie seemed to be savoring the motion of her jawbone more than the actual flavors. Eventually, the pegasus grew impatient waiting for her guest to begin the conversation, so she decided to launch into the most obvious topic herself. “So, why haven’t you tried to get in touch with me?”

Pinkie Pie, to her credit, remembered to swallow before answering. “I’ve been kind of busy. Trixie’s taken over Ponyville, and she’s basically gone all ‘Mwa ha ha’ on everypony.”

“Please, I’ve heard that amateur’s attempt at gloating laughter. It wouldn’t intimidate a cocker spaniel.”

“It does when you back it up with magic spells. She’s... getting really bad.”

“I guessed as much from the scenery outside my window,” Penumbra replied, “but that does not exactly answer my question.”

“It’s just that she’s made things a lot more complicated, and that’s kept me from pulling you back outside. For one thing, I haven’t been able to talk in the real world since Trixie made my muzzle disappear.”

“Why would that stop you?” the pegasus asked. “You’re a shapeshifter.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Well, yeah. The problem isn’t that I can’t make my muzzle reappear, it’s that I can’t get my mouth open to say anything. I’m pretty sure that when Trixie told me to ‘shut up,’ that was part of the spell as well. I mean, I can slide a straw between my lips, so I’ve been surviving on milkshakes and fruit smoothies, but other than that, my lips are sealed. So, I figured it was best to go with the muzzle-free look most of the time, since I don’t want her to start asking questions about how an earth pony managed to overcome really powerful unicorn magic.”

“Well, that makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose. However, I doubt that you actually need to say ‘Abracapinkie’ to make me appear.”

The earth pony chuckled sheepishly. “Well, I also thought you might need some time alone, too. If I’d have brought you out against your will, I probably would have just made you angrier. Besides, I’m not sure Trixie would react very well to your cutie mark.”

Penumbra seemed a bit stunned by this assertion, and turned her head to make sure that the insignia on her hip hadn’t changed. It was still a silver circle. Confused, she turned back to Pinkie Pie. “I don’t understand... why would anypony have a problem with my cutie mark?”

The earth pony wrinkled her eyebrows. “It’s a circle,” she replied.

After a second or two of silence, Penumbra realized that her friend assumed that this was an adequate explanation. “Pinkie, could you elaborate a bit?”

“Okie dokie lokie,” Pinkie Pie replied. “You know how to calculate the circumference of a circle, right?”

“Of course. Multiply the diameter by π.”

“Right, but how do you calculate π?”

“It’s defined as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, so you just divide the former by the latter.”

“Okay, so how do you calculate the circumference of a circle?”

“You just asked me that.”

“I know, but in order to calculate the circumference of a circle, first we need to know what its circumference is so we can calculate π so we can calculate the circumference so we can calculate π so we can calculate the circumference so we can calculate π so we can calculate the circumference—”

“So use an approximation!”

“You’re missing the point.”

“There’s actually a point to this nonsense?”

Pinkie Pie nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. Trixie believes that if something exists, it should, in theory at least, be measurable, even if it requires using rulers with teeny-tiny markings. All circles have circumferences, and circumferences can’t be measured, because nopony really knows what π is. Therefore, circles don’t exist, and anything that is held to be a circle is actually a deceitful, overambitious polygon. Therefore, circles, and anything shaped like one, can’t be trusted, so she’s outlawed them in Ponyville. Let me tell you, pulling a cart without wheels isn’t easy.”

Penumbra face was distorted by a mixture of outrage and befuddlement. “I’ve heard of irrational hatred, but this is ridiculous!”

“Actually, it’s more like transcendental hatred: she’s also outlawed compound interest, but she doesn’t seem to have a problem with square roots or golden rectangles. Well, not yet anyway.”

“So, she opposes π and e on the grounds that they shouldn’t exist for... philosophical reasons?”

Pinkie nodded. “Yeah. If it ever occurs to her that shades of magenta are actually optical illusions, I might be in trouble.”

Penumbra leaned back in her chair and ran a hoof through her mane. “Alright, so Trixie is becoming rather unstable. That doesn’t quite explain why you waited until now to talk to me in here.”

“Um, well, I was kind of hoping things would get better on their own. Either Twilight would come back, or you’d return on your own, or our friends would figure out what was really happening. But we’ve pored over every book in the library, and we haven’t found anything. And... and I think my mane is starting to de-poof, and I really want to avoid that.”

“About that... you do know what’s actually going on, right?” Penumbra asked hesitantly.

“Well, sure. For whatever reason, Twilight doesn’t want to use the extra unicorn magic she got when we split you up. I think that maybe she thought that would be cheating, since Trixie only wanted to test herself against Twilight.”

“Unlikely,” Penumbra responded. “Did you notice the necklace Trixie was wearing?”

“Yeah... Rarity says it’s one of the gaudiest pieces of jewelry she’s ever seen.”

“One does not wear jewelry of that kind for beautification—especially not the Alicorn Amulet. It has the ability to increase a unicorn’s magical power by a rather sizable amount. Though it seems that the rumors that it inevitably corrupts the user might be true after all....” Penumbra’s voice trailed off in thought.

Pinkie Pie, however, perked up immediately. “Really? We need to tell Twilight.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. She knows about it already.”

Pinkie looked confused. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I spent several weeks trying to convince her to locate it for when we seized the throne. Thus, she already knew that her opponent had attempted to stack the deck in her favor.”

The kitchen went quiet once again.

Eventually, Pinkie Pie broke the silence. “You need to talk to Twilight.”

“Hmph,” Penumbra snorted. “Let her come to me.”

“If she was going to do that on her own, she would have found a way to get in touch with us. C’mon, Penny, you’re the only one who can do it. I can’t talk to her with my gag order, and I can’t use charades or writing to tell the others about the whole by-the-way-we’re-alicorns thing because I Pinkie Promised not to.”

The pegasus sighed. “You’d think she would have extended the exceptions beyond the Princesses by now. Also, don’t call me ‘Penny.’”

“Sorry. Besides, even if I could tell them what’s going on, that doesn’t mean that they could help out. The two of us are the only ones who know enough about magical theory to actually talk to her about it, and, like I said, I can’t talk at the moment. Plus, if you do it, then we don’t need a complicated escape plan.”

“How so?”

“You know how Trixie’s force field basically looked like an upside-down fishbowl?”

“Yes...”

“Well, it turns out that it basically is an upside-down fishbowl, only made of magic instead of glass. It doesn’t actually extend into the ground. Well, that, and it’s more like a fish tank now, since Trixie decided that the original shape was too spherical to be trusted.”

“But couldn’t somepony just tunnel underneath to get out?”

Pinkie nodded. “Our best guess is that Trixie’s too busy going mad with power to notice details like that. However, she’d probably wise up eventually if it took too long, which is where you come in. Since you can pass through solid objects with your inscape-outscape trick, that means you can just mist your way through the ground and out onto the other side. Then you can find Twilight and figure out what’s wrong and bring her back and everything will be fixed and everypony will be happy and I’ll throw a party once my mouth is fixed and it’ll be great and don’t you want to do it now?”

However, Penumbra still balked at the idea. “I don’t know, Pinkie Pie. You know how Twilight can get sometimes. What if she’s still intransigent?”

“Um, well, when somepony’s friend is being, you know, really stubborn, sometimes the best thing that friend can do is to be, um, forceful.”

“Pinkie Pie... are you giving me permission to use the Royal Canterlot Voice?”

“Only if it’s absolutely, positively necessary,” the earth pony replied before hastily adding, “and believe me, I’ll be able to find out if it wasn’t.”

Penumbra grinned slyly. “That sounds reasonable.”

——————————

Deep in the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle was walking on water. Well, technically, she was standing on it, but most ponies wouldn’t have made that particular distinction. Watching her from solid ground was the forest’s premier apothecary and potion-maker, though admittedly she didn’t have very much competition.

“Efficiency will win the fight, no well of power can last all night. Let her magic froth and rage, then she will soon fall into your cage.”

Twilight would have responded to Zecora’s maxim, but she was rather busy trying to move a dozen or so bubbles around in a complicated fractal pattern while maintaining enough surface tension in the pond beneath her hooves to keep from falling in. She had just begun the process of subdividing the bubble to move on to the fractal’s next iteration when she noticed that her aura was gaining a purple tint again.

Splash!

Twilight brushed her wet mane out of her eyes and saw the zebra staring at her with a thoughtful look on her face. “Um, sorry, Zecora,” the unicorn said as she climbed out of the water. “Give me a few minutes to dry out, and I’ll try again. Okay?”

Zecora, however, cast a suspicious glance on her friend. “I am rather confused, my dear Twilight. Is there no more to tell me of your plight?”

“O-Of course there isn’t. I mean, I need to beat Trixie, right? Why wouldn’t I tell you everything?”

“Because if you did, Zecora might give you the same advice I would.”

Startled, Twilight jumped into the air and landed back in the pond. When she surfaced again, she turned towards the source of the voice. “Penumbra?! How did you get out of Ponyville?”

“That answer,” the pegasus said as she stepped into the clearing, her face as grumpy as ever, “is rather complicated, but it was made possible because Trixie’s amulet appears to be corrupting her mind.”

Zecora raised an eyebrow as she noted Penumbra’s glare; it looked like the pegasus was using all of her willpower to keep from tearing into her friend. “We should, perhaps, return to my tree; it’s unwise to argue in the Everfree.”

——————————

Fifteen minutes later, Penumbra was sipping some manner of infusion from a gourd as she and Zecora waited for Twilight to finish drying off (and stalling for time). “...and that’s how I got into the cloudsmithing business. So, Twilight really hadn’t told you about the Alicorn Amulet?”

“Her agitation is plain to see, but she never shared this tidbit with me.”

Penumbra chuckled softly. “I’m not really all that surprised. What she’s been hiding is the obvious solution to her problem, which, for some unfathomable reason, she does not want to use.”

“The point you are making is not very clear. I can’t understand what I do not hear.”

“Wow... a zebra’s lecturing me about being cryptic. And I didn’t even have to force it into an arbitrary rhyme. Why do you speak like that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Apparently, Zecora didn’t mind at all, because she immediately answered, “If forced to express one’s thoughts in rhyme, one learns to compose them ahead of time. As structured minds are what we seek, our foals, in rhyme are taught to speak. And if this rhyming leaves you weary, know that it gets much more dreary; with formal speech, one must pursue more complex rhymes, and meter, too.”

“Fascinating...” Penumbra replied. “But isn’t it a bit difficult?”

“I shall admit it’s more easily done when speaking in the Zebrabwe tongue. It’s somewhat difficult to talk about oranges when I can not work in a reference to door hinges.”

“Indeed?” The pegasus had never heard any of this before. Zebrabwe hadn’t been a prominent country one thousand years earlier, and she hadn’t really had a chance to get caught up on such matters since her return.

The zebra turned the discussion back to more immediate concerns. “I offer my apologies; continue with your story, please.”

“I would, but... are you familiar with Pinkie Promises?”

Zecora nodded comprehendingly. “That is an oath most grave, it’s true. I’ll wait for Twilight to continue. However, she is taking quite a while, drying off like it will go out of style.”

A loud groan emitted from behind the shaman’s bathroom door. “Alright! I’m coming!” The door opened and Twilight Sparkle sullenly walked in and sat down.

“Have you finished your evading? For your solution, we are waiting.”

Twilight began fidgeting nervously. “Um, well, you see...” She stared at a large mask on the wall, apparently trying to come up with an explanation. Five seconds later, she had one. “The Alicorn Amulet is enchanted so that only the wearer can remove it. The obvious solution is to trick Trixie into taking it off, but I wanted to try and beat her with magic.” The unicorn did her best to avoid eye contact with Penumbra, whose face was beginning to contort with rage.

Zecora, however, couldn’t help but notice this. “One need not be a sage to see that Penumbra vehemently disagrees.”

Twilight Sparkle appeared to be sweating a little as she answered the zebra: “Er, well, I can’t think of what it might be. So, I guess all that’s left to discuss is whether I should continue training with you or think of something sneaky, right?”

Penumbra’s nostrils flared as she took several deep breaths. “Very well,” she said after calming herself down. “I shall be happy to lend my expertise. After all, who better than the Nightmare to advise you on trickery and subterfuge?”

Twilight looked shocked. “Penumbra! You... you promised—”

“The promise I made had absolutely nothing to do with my past misdeeds, Twilight. I’ve just avoided telling ponies about it to keep misunderstandings at bay.”

Zecora was stunned. “You are the being called Nightmare Moon, the one who corrupted Princess Luna?”

Penumbra sighed. “Yes, and I can’t believe you just rhymed ‘Luna’ with ‘moon, the.’”

“But this is unclear. How can you be here?”

The pegasus smiled. “I received a pardon after I Pinkie Promised to be good.”

“But that means you were not a pegasus born, so what has become of your magical horn?”

“You know, I’d love to answer that question, Zecora, but somepony would have to authorize it first.” By the end of this statement, Penumbra was scowling directly at Twilight Sparkle.

The purple unicorn winced, and bit her lip, but the scrutiny she received from her friend didn’t end. When Zecora joined in, Twilight finally relented. “Pinkie Pie and I divided her magic up so she wouldn’t be too powerful. She kept her pegasus magic, Pinkie has her earth pony magic... and I have her unicorn magic.”

Zecora’s jaw hung open for several seconds before she was able to formulate a reply. “The magic of an alicorn?! You shouldn’t need my help training your horn. There can’t be many who could match you, perhaps at the most only one or two.”

“Actually,” Penumbra interjected, “my power was equal to Princess Celestia’s. Thus, when combined with the considerable ability Twilight already had, it’s safe to say that she is easily the most powerful unicorn in recorded history, if not all time.”

“And all of this time I thought you’d grown weary,” the shaman said as her eyes widened with realization. “In truth, you were of your own power leery!”

Twilight stared at her hooves and silently nodded.

“Which brings us to the 64,000-bit question,” Penumbra declared. “Why?”

The librarian sighed. “I can feel the difference between your magic and mine. Mine’s pure unicorn magic, but because you were—and technically still are—an alicorn, your unicorn magic has traces of pegasus and earth pony in it. I’ve been trying to avoid tapping into that power, which is why I’ve been stopping whenever my aura starts changing its color.”

“Interesting,” Penumbra said. “But you haven’t answered my question.”

Twilight Sparkle refused to make eye contact with either of her friends as she answered, “I know that I’m technically an alicorn right now, but as long as I don’t use your unicorn magic, the traces of pegasus and earth pony magic won’t mix with mine. And... and that would mean there’s a chance I can go back to being a regular unicorn someday.”

This came as a surprise to Zecora. “But the use of magic is your forté. Why would you throw such a gift away? Is it, perhaps, because you fear that your friends will not stay dear?”

“No,” Twilight replied. “They’re my friends. I know they’ll support me no matter what happens. I mean, that’s what being a friend is about.”

“Then, a different concern regarding your friends: Do you not wish to tarry after their lives end?”

“Oh, please, not the depressed immortal bit,” Penumbra said derisively. “If other ponies can deal with the death of loved ones, why would it be any different for those that live a long time? And even if it does get too hard to bear, that’s not a problem. Luna’s father explained it to her quite clearly: ‘All ponies must depart from this world eventually, but alicorns do not leave until they are ready to go.’ You’ll see your friends again. It just might take a little longer than you expected, that’s all.”

Twilight looked confused. “Wait... if alicorns can’t die without their consent, why did you think you could kill Princess Celestia?”

“Killing the body and destroying the mind are two very different things,” Penumbra replied, “and you’re trying to change the subject again.”

The unicorn let out another long breath. “Actually, I’m not concerned at all about being functionally immortal. I asked Cadance about it when I was still a filly, and she explained everything to me. She even used that same quote about not leaving until you’re ready.”

It seemed that it was now the pegasus’ turn to venture a guess. “Are you worried that all this power will corrupt you? Because as your previous tempter, I can vouch that your ethical resolve is extremely difficult to circumvent. In fact, I don’t think I entirely succeeded, given that you managed to find a way to attempt a power grab in such a lawful, orderly fashion that the Princesses didn’t feel any need to pardon you.”

“Celestia certainly thinks I can handle it. After Pinkie Pie mentioned the alicorn thing in a friendship report, she told me that she thought I would be a great Princess.” Twilight looked up and saw a pair of disbelieving stares in reply. “Yeah,” she continued with a weak grin, “it turns out that she’s been grooming me to be her successor this whole time, which means that I’d have eventually gotten everything Nightmare was tempting me with if I’d ignored her.”

“Twilight, how many times must I tell you not to refer to my past identity in the third person when I’m present?” Penumbra asked with a wry grin.

The smile threw Twilight off. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine. I just find the irony of the situation to be amusing; that’s all.”

Twilight decided to brush this off and continued: “Apparently, whenever a pony, usually a unicorn, reaches a level of enlightenment necessary to create new magic, they can become an alicorn and join the line of succession to the Equestrian throne if they choose. In fact, Princess Celestia said that she had originally planned to have me complete an unfinished spell by Star Swirl the Bearded. But when Pinkie and I created a new spell to split up your power, we essentially fulfilled the criteria necessary for royal titles, in addition to discovering a previously unknown path to ascension.”

Zecora chose this moment to re-enter the conversation. “This discussion is all very interesting, but you still have not told us why you reject this thing.”

Twilight grew extremely quiet. She stared at the textures of Zecora’s dirt floor for almost half a minute before looking back up at her friends. “I don’t want to be an alicorn because I... I don’t deserve it.”

This was met with several more seconds of silence before Penumbra spoke up. “Would you mind running that by me again?”

“I don’t deserve to be an alicorn,” the unicorn repeated.

Zecora thoughtfully raised a hoof to her chin. “This reasoning does not leave my curiosity sated. Could you explain further how it was formulated?”

The purple unicorn looked particularly ashamed of herself as she answered, “Before Pinkie Pie stopped me, I... I tried to murder Penumbra.”

With the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla finally revealed, Penumbra let out a puff of breath that briefly blew her mane away from her right eye. “So that’s it? You think the fact that you beat me to a pulp and were fully prepared to kill me disqualifies you?”

Twilight nodded slowly.

“Twilight Sparkle, I understand that your personal experiences have occasionally given you a rather unique outlook on life, but that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! AND I LIVE IN PINKIE PIE’S HEAD! Leaving aside the question of whether or not I deserved to die—and despite what Pinkie said at the time, I think there’s a very strong case to be made that I did—I’m the Nightmare! Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that I’m somehow more deserving of my alicorn status than you? As you so eloquently put it, I was trying to murder your best friend and I tricked you into helping me! Yet here I am, an alicorn all the same, and unlike you, I don’t have the option of being a ‘normal pony’ because I’ve never had any ‘pure’ pegasus magic.”

“But... but I was still wrong....”

Penumbra squinted at Twilight as she considered her response. When she came up with it, she had to fight the urge to jump into the air in celebration of her own cleverness. “I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I forgive you for wanting to kill me and trying to follow through with it. Were I in your place, I would have done much worse. As far as I’m concerned, it’s as if your brief lapse in judgment never happened.”

“You don’t have to pretend—”

“I’m not pretending. I didn’t even know that you felt guilty about it until a few minutes ago. You can keep feeling haunted by your actions if you want, but I say that’s hardly a reason to keep that intellect of yours confined to a single lifetime and deprive Equestria of all the advances it could discover, to say nothing of how your administrative abilities could streamline the government bureaucracies. And besides, Pinkie and I would miss you.”

“Pinkie’s already made her decision?”

“Of course. She’s already Pinkie Promised to stick around until I’m ready to leave, to make sure that I’ll always have a friend. Now, are you going to join us, or will you keep playing Little Miss Emotional Wreck?”

“Well... when you put it that way... I guess...” Twilight finally looked Penumbra directly in the eye, and she was smiling. “I guess there’s no reason not to. After all, if it doesn’t work out, I can just get ready to leave earlier, right?”

The dark blue pegasus returned her friend’s smile. “Right.”

Suddenly, Zecora cleared her throat. “It is good that you two have resolved your issues—and fortunate, as I am out of tissues.” Indeed, it appeared that the zebra had resorted to using a pile of dish towels to daub her eyes. “Yet the issue at hoof is still unresolved, so to deal with Trixie, a plan I’ve evolved....”

Author's Note

By the way, magenta (and, by extension, pink) really is an optical illusion.

Chapter 3: Ratio

“...and while I’m on the subject of foodstuffs, something must be done about these substandard apples.”

Applejack looked like she was ready to buck Trixie right in the throat, and indeed, if her friends hadn’t been present to hold her back, she would have been sorely tempted to do so. “Substandard? What the hay do you mean ‘substandard?!’ These are the best apples in Equestria!”

“But they aren’t standardized. Each apple has a slightly different size, shape, color, taste, and texture. I therefore decree that henceforth all apples shall be a uniform shade of alizarin crimson, that their taste shall be sweet with a slight hint of tartness, that their flesh shall be firm enough so as to require precisely six chews before swallowing, and that they shall each weigh 5.43 ounces. Oh, and they should be shaped like dodecahedrons, too.”

The apple farmer stared with her mouth hanging open at the autocrat pacing around the town hall. When Penumbra had returned to Ponyville to relay Twilight’s plans to her friends, she’d mentioned something about the Alicorn Amulet having odd effects on the user’s mind, but this was just plum loco! The grumpy pegasus had also said that Twilight was due to arrive any minute now, using her magic to carve out a tunnel underneath the barrier, but Applejack’s patience was starting to wear a little thin. Then again, that might have just been pre-performance jitters; after all, she had an important role to play in the upcoming plan, and from the looks of things, it would be far more important than playing Smart Cookie in a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.

It wasn’t until Trixie’s interest shifted to a trio of local florists that Applejack cracked a smile; she had just caught a glimpse of Twilight sneaking into the building. As her friend slunk to an appropriate spot behind the showmare, the earth pony found herself wishing that she had access to a recliner and a tub of popcorn.

“Daisies shall have an odd number of petals. In this way, none of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s subjects shall be found to ‘love her not’ whenever she desires to check.”

This, presumably, was a suitably dramatic point to make an appearance, so Twilight Sparkle stepped forward, raising her voice as she proclaimed, “Trixie, if somepony actually needs flower petals to tell them if somepony loves them, chances are they don’t.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie turned and stared in utter shock at the unicorn who she’d forcibly evicted from Ponyville three days earlier. “You! What are you....? When....? How did you get back in here?!” she eventually demanded in a voice that was cracking from the surprise and anger.

Apparently, Twilight had expected a question like this, and she’d already decided that giving a direct answer would not be the wisest course of action. “How I got back in isn’t nearly as important as why I did,” the librarian replied defiantly. “I know about the Alicorn Amulet, Trixie, and standard rules of conduct for magic duels forbid the use of magic-enhancing artifacts. You cheated.”

“Hmph. Trixie never said she was abiding by any particular set of rules.”

“I figured as much. That’s why I got an amulet of my own,” Twilight said with a smirk. She raised her head higher, drawing attention to a necklace that featured a green crystal almost as gaudy as the ruby on Trixie’s amulet. “It was a gift from Zecora,” the purple unicorn continued, “originating from her native land of Zebrabwe.”

“Please,” Trixie replied as she rolled her eyes, “do you really expect the Great and Powerful Trixie to be impressed with some tchotchke simply because it’s foreign?”

“No, I expect you to be impressed because I was able to get past your magical barrier without you noticing.”

The showmare opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. If the confused wrinkle in her eyebrows was any indication, her certainty that nothing could be more powerful than the Alicorn Amulet was colliding with the patently obvious fact that her rival had somehow managed to penetrate the magical barrier it had helped erect. “Let me see that!” she finally blurted out.

“Now, Trixie,” Twilight said with a devious smile as she shook her forehoof reproachfully, “you don’t really expect me to give up my amulet so easily, do you?”

“Fine!” the blue unicorn shouted. “I’ll put my amulet up against yours. Same terms as before: loser leaves Ponyville forever. And this time, I really mean forever.”

“Agreed,” Twilight Sparkle said. Applejack smiled. As near as she could tell, the plan was working flawlessly.

——————————

Thunder rumbled in the sky above Ponyville as the two duelists stared each other down in the open area in front of the town hall. A chill breeze sent several scraps of paper flitting across the space between them. The temperature, however, was not the sole reason that the Mayor was shivering in the birdcage where Trixie had placed her as punishment for having the audacity to suggest holding a round table meeting to discuss whether octagons were trustworthy enough to serve as wheels. A small group of onlookers gathered, including most of Twilight Sparkle’s friends and other well-wishers. Trixie, on the other hoof, only had the company of Snips and Snails, whom she’d press-ganged into service as her minions.

“Why don’t we start where we last left off?” Trixie asked with a smirk. “Snicker! Snack!”

The two colts behind her looked confused. “I thought you changed our names to Snaps and Snuff,” the portlier of the two said.

“Doesn’t matter; it’s Snicker and Snack now,” Trixie said curtly as her eyes glowed red for a split-second. “Now shut up and stand in front of me!” Having been duly browbeaten into place, the two colts stood quivering in front of the azure unicorn. One puff of red smoke later, and two infant foals were wailing loudly where they’d been standing. “Your move,” Trixie added with a triumphant smirk.

“Alright,” Twilight said confidently. “Applejack? Rarity? Would you mind assisting me?” The two mares stood in front of a particularly ostentatious statue of The Great and Powerful Trixie admiring another statue of The Great and Powerful Trixie and waited with nervous looks on their faces as Twilight’s horn began to shine with her pink aura. She sent a beam of light hurtling towards them, and when the pink smoked cleared away, two fillies stood in the same spots.

Trixie seemed taken aback by this at first, but she was soon squinting skeptically at the pair. “Do that again,” she said.

“Gladly,” Twilight said with a smile. She hit her two friends with several more beams, making them fillies, adults, and even elderly in rapid succession.

“That can’t be right...” Trixie said in a low voice.

The purple unicorn chuckled. “I’m just getting started. Watch this!” She turned her horn towards Rainbow Dash and fired off another beam of light. Seconds later, there were two multicolored pegasi flying in the air. “Duplication spell,” Twilight explained proudly. “What do you say to that?”

“A duplication spell? Really?” Trixie’s tone was not one of shock and disbelief, but of exasperation. The Alicorn Amulet glowed as her red aura surrounded the statue and dragged it several feet to the side, revealing two fillies, an elderly mare, and a stallion, all in Rarity and Applejack’s color schemes. “Why, it seems that the Great and Powerful Trixie has mastered a duplication spell as well!” she proclaimed mockingly. “And what’s more, it appears that Trixie was able to combine it with an age spell, as well as a gender-changing spell that you were presumably planning on saving for your big finale!”

Twilight Sparkle looked stunned. “But... how did you figure that out?”

The azure unicorn sneered at her opponent. “Oh, please. Trixie’s a professional showmare. She was an expert at the art of making one’s magic look more impressive than it actually is before she got this amulet. Word of advice: You never repeat a trick, because each time you do, you increase the likelihood of somepony in the audience noticing its secret.

“I’m guessing that you somehow worked all of this out with your friends and their families beforehoof and had them use wigs and body paint to set up your charade. By the same token, I’d say that the second Rainbow Dash is just that craven animal lover in disguise—she seems quite adept at hiding behind other ponies.” Trixie paused to laugh at her quip as Rainbow Dash (the real one, presumably) glared murderously at her.

“And as for your alleged amulet,” she continued, using her magic to rip the necklace off of her rival, “Trixie wouldn’t be surprised if it was nothing more than a doorknob that you just polished up and set into some spare jewelry the zebra had lying around.” She examined the green bauble closely for a few seconds before easily crushing it into a fine powder with her magic.

“Actually, it was a doorstop,” Twilight mumbled to nopony in particular as she watched the remains of her phony artifact blow away.

“Does this mean you’ll be giving up again?” Trixie asked with a gleeful smirk.

For a few seconds, Twilight Sparkle considered conceding once again, but a glance over at Penumbra’s stern glare erased that notion completely. “No, Trixie.” It just means that I can’t be certain that you won’t get hurt. “I’m not going to be going anywhere this time.”

“Talk is cheap, Sparkle.”

“Well, it’s your turn, so why don’t you stop talking and start showing us what that amulet can really do?”

“Ha! Watch this,” Trixie said. The ruby in the Alicorn Amulet glowed briefly before a bright white flash obscured the unicorn from view. When the light finally dimmed, she was nowhere to be seen.

After half a minute passed without anything happening, the remaining duelist and the audience were starting to get restless. “Mmm... mmm mmm mmm mmmm mmmmm mmmm mmmmmmmm?” Pinkie Pie asked rhetorically.

Twilight Sparkle had just decided to use her magic to give Pinkie her muzzle back, when another bright flash appeared. When this light diminished, Trixie was standing in exactly the same spot with a triumphant grin on her face. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has shattered the fetters of the fourth dimension and returned unscathed!”

This was met with a round of confused silence from the crowd. Trixie rolled her eyes. “I traveled through time, you half-wits.”

A murmur of understanding ensued, punctuated by a stallion in the back exclaiming, “Great Scott!”

Of course, Twilight had suspected that this was what had happened; after all, she had personal experience using that very spell. More importantly, however, she’d spent a good deal of Trixie’s absence formulating her response: “Prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re a better showmare than me, how do I know that you didn’t just create a flash of light and teleport away for a few seconds?”

“Well,” Trixie said slyly, “when Trixie went back in time, she found one of your little checklists and erased the most important item.”

“How would you know which item was most important?” Twilight asked skeptically.

“Well, the fact that it said ‘Send friendship report to Celestia—Very important; do not forget under any circumstances!’ was a pretty good clue.”

Twilight immediately realized that Trixie had indeed done precisely what she said she’d done, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes, “everypony in town knows about that incident. You could have easily picked that up by eavesdropping on a conversation about embarrassing things I’ve done in the past. I say we stick to the here and now.”

The librarian didn’t wait for her opponent to respond; instead, she pulled a dozen banners emblazoned with Trixie’s silhouette from buildings in the area and quickly set them ablaze. She then compressed the flames into two perfect spheres, which then began to move in a wide circle around Trixie, subdividing into four, eight, sixteen, and finally thirty-two spheres, each rotating around a partner like a double star as they revolved around the increasingly agitated showmare.

Almost immediately, Trixie’s left eye began twitching violently while a huge snarl exposed her grinding teeth. It only took five more seconds of circles traveling in circles within circles until her hyperventilating had frothed the saliva in her mouth to the point where it could almost be seen leaking out of the corners of her lips. “What is this supposed to be?”

Twilight couldn’t resist the opportunity to egg Trixie on a bit: “Oh, this is just a metaphorical representation of the traditional Zebrabwean philosophy of existence: Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel—”

“Enough!” Trixie shouted, cutting Twilight off mid-stanza. “So, you are willing to cavort with infinitesimal uncertainty in a feeble attempt to resist Trixie’s Power and Greatness? Clearly, you have gone stark raving mad, and therefore extreme measures must be used to remove your delusions.”

The storm clouds overhead seemed to grow darker as the Alicorn Amulet began glowing brightly, and shortly afterward, drops of rain started falling. “So, you’ve changed your mind about weather magic, then?” Twilight asked.

Trixie responded with a guttural shout of rage as her eyes glowed an even brighter red than before; the breeze suddenly escalated into a gale, picking up debris and tossing it around the town square. Most of the ponies who had gathered to watch the duel now ran for cover, with the exceptions being those lucky enough to be within a calm area around Trixie herself—the eye of the storm, which, Twilight soon noticed, was shaped like a regular hexagon rather than a circle.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Twilight muttered as the diagonal sheets of rain started transforming muddy puddles into shallow, turbulent ponds. She glanced over at her opponent, who was starting to breathe heavily, though whether this was the result of fatigue or an attempt to keep her fury under control was impossible to tell. The storm’s eye began contracting as the wind speeds increased. Twilight’s initial instinct was to focus on staying inside this zone of relative safety, but that changed when she heard glass shattering behind her. She glanced around and saw large branches getting ripped off of trees and loose boards of wood flying through the air, smashing through the windows and doorways belonging to ponies who’d been caught by surprise—though they weren’t in half as much trouble as those who’d been caught outside and were now scurrying to find some sort of shelter.

Twilight grimaced as she turned back towards Trixie. She’d expected the mentally unstable unicorn to try something extreme, but not this quickly, nor with this much danger to others. She heard a high-pitched scream from behind her, but she didn’t bother turning around to locate the source; she’d made up her mind to set everything right. Holding back wasn’t worth risking anypony’s safety; she was going to end this insanity now.

Twilight took a deep breath and closed her eyes, igniting the pink aura around her horn. It didn’t take her long to locate the Nightmare’s unicorn magic in her metaphysical storage cellar; as she’d said, the trace magic from the other pony races made it feel distinctly different. For a moment, Twilight hesitated, wondering whether to try continuing under her own power. This, after all, was the point of no return. The sound of some unidentifiable pony screaming behind her, audible even over the noise of the wind and rain, banished that idea from her mind. Twilight Sparkle grit her teeth and allowed the alicorn magic to flood into her. When she opened her eyes, her magical aura had acquired a deep indigo tint. No turning back now, she thought to herself. Time to wrap this up.

Twilight had been practicing her shapeshifting in private ever since Penumbra’s manifestation, but she hadn’t come close to repeating her transformation into mist as she’d done during her stint as the Nightmare’s host—at least, not under the power of her own magic. Now, however, evanescence seemed to come naturally to her, though the physical sensations still felt utterly bizarre and alien. The feeling of disintegration, of air rushing into every part of her physical being, was strange enough even before considering how she was seeing without eyes or hearing without ears. Then again, the shocked look on Trixie’s face as Twilight’s cloud expanded made that weirdness much easier to tolerate.

With Trixie’s concentration broken, it was foal’s play for Twilight to bring the storm to a halt. The incorporeal mage spent a minute or so floating around the town square, undoing the damage that Trixie had caused. Once she was certain that everypony present believed that she and the mist were one and the same, Twilight decided to move on to the most impressive trick in her repertoire.

Reforming into a solid pony felt far more comfortable than disintegrating; it was almost like returning home from an unpleasant job, but in this instance, that home had undergone some rather significant renovations while its owner was away. There wasn’t anything particularly surprising about the tall, svelte body into which Twilight Sparkle had reconstituted herself—after all, she’d used that body shape in public for a week before her attempt to seize the throne. What was new was the pair of large, elegant wings made of beautiful lavender feathers that she splayed out at her sides, seemingly increasing her physical size even further as she stood on the ground in front of Trixie, staring coldly at the unicorn. Twilight did her best to ignore the sound of some of the spectators behind her dropping to their knees in the presence of an alicorn and focused her attention on her opponent, who was looking at her with her mouth agape. “Your move, o Great and Powerful One,” Twilight said with an ever-so-slightly detectable smile.

After several excruciatingly long seconds, Trixie somehow managed to squeeze out a rather forced chuckle. “Trixie has figured out what you’re doing. You aren’t really an alicorn. Clearly, you’ve just studied shapeshifting at some point. You don’t even need to be a unicorn to do that.” Technically, this was true. Because shapeshifting didn’t require any magic to be channeled out of the shifter’s body, any creature with a significant amount of magic could do it with enough practice—in theory, anyway. In practice, most ponies didn’t have a clue how to begin practicing, as it was nothing like the usual application of any of the three types of pony magic. And of course, causing one’s body to shift into a new shape was nothing compared to vaporizing it.

Trixie, however, seemed determined not to let her ignorance of the subject derail her efforts to prove her superiority. After all, she had the Alicorn Amulet, which would no doubt make replicating such parlor tricks a simple matter. “Okay,” the showpony muttered to herself, “first, the mist...” Trixie shut her eyes and began to focus her concentration. Her aura surrounded her barrel as she attempted to make wings sprout. This effort achieved little more than a contorted grimace on her face.

“You’ve never even tried shapeshifting before, have you?” Twilight asked wryly.

“Quiet, you! The Great and Powerful Trixie has modified her shape on multiple occasions.”

Though Twilight was sorely tempted to make a joke about plastic surgery, she decided that Trixie wouldn’t need much assistance in embarrassing herself. “Well, then you must be using a new technique. Perhaps we can swap notes later.”

Trixie, on the other hoof, was in no mood for pleasantries. Twenty seconds of effort had caused her to begin sweating profusely. “Come on, it shouldn’t be that different from an aging spell; it’s the same basic principle, right?” she asked rhetorically. She shut her eyes again, determined to make this bit of magic work the way she thought it ought to. One minute passed, and Trixie thought that she was finally making progress. She could smell traces of ozone in the air around her—surely a sign that she was getting hazier. She tried pouring more power into the amulet, but for some strange reason, it seemed to be resisting. Trixie dismissed that idea immediately. Surely, it was just her imagination. Trixie focused her mind on the image of herself dissipating into a blue mist, and dumped as much magic as she could into the Alicorn Amulet, forcing it to obey her whim.

Trixie felt an intense heat building up at her neck as the rays of light emanating from the Alicorn Amulet’s ruby brightened from red to white. Still, she kept pushing the amulet farther, ignoring the vibrations that she began feeling. She was going to succeed. She had to succeed. And just as it began to feel like her being was beginning to expand... she heard a tremendous crack followed by a gasp from the crowd and felt the energy she’d built up rapidly drain away. She looked down and saw the shards of the Alicorn Amulet’s ruby lying on the grass.

“No,” Trixie whimpered as she shook her head. “No! That wasn’t supposed to happen. That amulet was supposed to be unbeatable!”

Somehow, Twilight Sparkle managed to retain enough willpower to avoid smirking at her fallen adversary. “Do you concede?”

For a moment or two, Trixie did nothing but stare at the alicorn looking back at her with a neutral expression on her face—though the showpony had never known neutrality to feel so judgemental before. She opened her mouth, as if to reply, but shut it again before saying anything. Instead, she started to slowly back away from her opponent, as if any sudden movements would invite her wrath. Twilight watched this with great bemusement for a few seconds before asking, “Should I assume that’s a ‘yes,’ then?”

The blue unicorn nearly lost her balance in her agitation. Rather than answer the alicorn’s query, the Great and Powerful Trixie turned around and galloped out of Ponyville as fast as she could, leaving an eruption of cheers behind her.

——————————

Penumbra leaned back on her haunches, admiring her work. The reception for the Saddle Arabian diplomats had proven to be an unqualified success for all involved. The Princesses had their treaty, Ponyville had its reputation as a cultural hub boosted, and, most importantly as far as the pegasus was concerned, the notoriously finicky art critics from Canterlot had adored the centerpiece she’d installed outside of the town hall—indeed, she’d already made several contacts with various movers and shakers in the art world on this night alone. Now, as she admired the rotating helices of her cloud sculpture from a park bench, Penumbra couldn’t help but feel like she’d reached some sort of milestone. Granted, she didn’t have any sense of what that milestone actually was, but the overwhelming sense of accomplishment was there nonetheless. This had been a very good night, indeed.

“It is quite beautiful, isn’t it?” noted a calm voice to Penumbra’s left.

The pegasus nearly jumped into the air; she hadn’t heard anypony move beside her. Yet there was Princess Celestia, her warm smile beaming down on the cloudsmith (and making her feel distinctly awkward, at that). “Oh, um, good evening, Your Highness,” Penumbra said, not quite making eye contact. The prospect of having to talk with the pony whose consciousness she’d tried to destroy and whose identity she’d tried to assume always made her feel a bit uneasy.

Fortunately, Celestia seemed willing to avoid that particular topic for the moment. “It certainly was an eventful week in Ponyville, wasn’t it?”

“You could certainly say that, though from what I gather, eventful weeks are unusually common in this town.”

“Still, you must admit that it’s not every day that the local librarian saves the town by revealing herself to be an alicorn.” Celestia smiled a little bit wider as she continued, “Nor is it the usual practice for the local party guru and cloudsmith to follow suit.”

Penumbra chuckled. “That’s certainly true.” She could still recall Rainbow Dash’s disappointment upon learning that Twilight’s shape-shifted wings weren’t actually functional with vivid detail—the weatherpony had been overwhelmingly excited to get a new flying buddy for all of five seconds. Her attention briefly drifted over to the town hall’s porch, where the librarian was engaged in an animated conversation with one of the Saddle Arabian diplomats; Twilight’s wings were nowhere to be seen, as she’d shifted back to her normal body shape. “That said,” Penumbra continued, “what truly surprised me is that the three of us managed to make this information public without revealing my rather... um... sordid past.”

Having thus broached her least favorite subject, Penumbra was quite keen to change it. “Incidentally, have you any idea where Trixie might have run off to?”

Princess Celestia sighed and stared at the rotating cloud sculpture for a few seconds before responding. “She was last seen on the outskirts of Dodge Junction two days ago. I’m not certain why she’s on the run; I can’t think of a more straightforward example of magically-induced temporary insanity than her encounter with that artifact.”

“Maybe she isn’t aware that it’s a valid defense in court,” Penumbra offered.

“Perhaps,” Celestia replied, but the troubled look on her face suggested that she doubted this was the case. “That, however, can wait for another day. In the meantime, I’d like to briefly return to the matter of your ‘sordid past,’ if you wouldn’t mind.”

Penumbra responded with a vague, noncommittal grunt.

“Twilight Sparkle told me you forgave her for attempting to harm you,” Celestia continued. “That was quite noble of you.”

The cloudsmith sighed; she could see where this was headed. “I assure you that I have never taken your forgiveness for granted—”

“I know,” the Princess interjected. “That’s the problem.”

“Excuse me?”

“Penumbra, it seems to me that you believe that I might rescind my forgiveness at any time, and as a result, you are constantly treading on eggshells whenever I’m around—or even when you think I might be eavesdropping, given what my sister has told me about your correspondence with her.”

The dark blue pegasus slowly exhaled before she answered, “Were I in your place, I wouldn’t be so willing to forgive.”

“You were in my place, and you did forgive Twilight.”

“Twilight has never been a danger to all of Equestria.”

“Neither have you. Luna has said that bringing about eternal night was her idea, not yours, and nopony doubts that I’ve forgiven her.”

“She’s your sister.”

“And she created you in my image. There’s no reason I can’t think of you as a member of my extended family as well. Moreover,” Celestia continued, her smile once again returning to her face, “I would like to think of you as a friend as well.”

Penumbra eyed the white alicorn with moderate suspicion. “And there’s no catch?”

“As a matter of fact, there is: You will have to trust that I won’t seek retribution, because there is literally nothing I can do to demonstrate that I will not.”

“You could make a Pinkie Promise.”

Celestia mulled this over for a while before nodding in agreement. “I suppose I could, but I greatly prefer friends who trust me to do the right thing without coercion.”

Penumbra grew silent and stared at the ground for a few seconds before looking up and nodding. “Alright. I’ll... I’ll do my best to trust you.”

“And I shall do the same.” Celestia pulled the smaller pony into a hug, shrouding Penumbra with her massive white wings (and drawing the attention of a few scattered onlookers).

When she finally released the cloudsmith from her grasp, the smile on the Princess’ face had not diminished. “I am glad to have you as a friend, Penumbra... or should I call you ‘Penny?’”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Penumbra replied grumpily.

“Well, in any case, I am honored that you have accepted my friendship.” Celestia stood up and began to walk towards her chariot, motioning for the pegasus to follow her. “And now that we’ve taken care of that matter, I’d like to discuss something else with you. You see, I was hoping you might be able to help out another friend of mine. I think the two of you have a lot in common....”

Author's Note

The fifth and final story in this sequence can be found here.

I love "Alicorn Twilight" stories (though I suppose now I have to specify that I'm referring to stories about Twilight being an alicorn), and I've been wanting to write one for quite some time. I went through several ideas before I stumbled upon one I loved—and I do mean that I stumbled on it, because I never intended for The Petriculture Cycle to go in that direction. Basically, as I was finishing up Inscape one of my prereaders (DPV111) made a comment that he didn't like my plan to just split the Nightmare's power into unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony magic. As I recall, he thought such a solution seemed contrived—a little too neat and tidy. So, I decided to make it impossible to segregate alicorn magic completely. The implication, as Pinkie pointed out in her letter to Celestia (and I honestly didn't realize this until I wrote that part), was that Twilight, Pinkie, and Penumbra were all unbalanced alicorns. Suddenly, my "Alicorn Twilight" story was staring me right in the face, and all I needed to do was advance the overall plot until I could write it.

In addition to all my fan fiction, I've also got an original short story. It's called "The Empty Hand," it features cosmic horror in the Boston underworld, and it's currently available in eBook form on Amazon:

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For anyone who would rather support me for my pony-related content, I also have a Patreon.