Dregs of Humanity, Crystal Logs: Twilight Sparkle

 

The crystal shimmered and an image formed.

 

The monochrome blue-purple image of a unicorn mare with a stripe down her mane began to move.

 

The unicorn sighed tiredly.

 

“It’s over. There’s nothing more we can do.”

 

The mare looked down, shuffling some papers below the view.

 

“There’s nopony left that can stop this.”

 

“Starlight Glimmer cast a banishment spell on Discord. He’s blocked from our reality, entirely. Starlight has disappeared, too. Without her, I can’t undo the banishment. She’s somewhere on this plane, and even somewhere on this planet, but under some kind of powerful and extensive No-See-Um enchantment. If I had the time and resources, I could find a counterspell to either of them, but we don’t have anywhere safe enough, or the materials to spare.”

 

“Sunset Shimmer is safe, on the other side of the Mirror, but I haven’t been able to reach her since a Human smashed it.”, she rubbed her temples with her hooves, “He was insane! After smashing the Mirror, all he would do was scream about hooves and space aliens. Or something, the interrogators couldn’t get much of anything coherent out of him.”

 

“We can’t even get help from the Human world. Somepony - well, he was a Human – tried to drive a truck through the Earth side of the Tunnel.”, she lowered her hooves with a thunk onto wood, staring at the crystal incredulously, “The thing was made with over a ton of iron! I have no idea how anypony could get their hooves on a ton of the most powerful magic sink known, much less shape it into a vehicle, without the whole mess exploding, or turning into a cloud of butterflies, or something.”, she shrugged, “I guess it’s something different about the Human world. But I’ll never be able to study it, now. Every oz of thaumic energy in the portal was sucked into the truck when it crashed through the Earth-side facility at a hundred miles an hour. The portal collapsed instantly and completely. The void left will take thousands of moons to refill naturally. Until then, our two worlds are isolated.”

 

“We have no idea what happened to the truck, or the poor soul driving it. We don’t even have theoretical models for what must have happened when magic ends up that concentrated.”

 

She closed her eyes.

 

“Celestia and Luna are under an impenetrable mass of magic-absorbing crystal. Powerful Alicorn magic is the only thing, other than Discord’s Chaos, that might be able to get through the barrier, and Celestia and Luna are the only ones left with Alicorn magic.”

 

“Cadence gave up her power to the Princesses.” she smiled, “No force of this world could have stopped her, since it was so that somepony could start a family.”, and giggled, “And when it wasn’t enough, she convinced me to give them my power as well, to see if that would be enough to complete their ‘breeding experiment’.”, her smile faded, her giggle fled, “I couldn’t say no to Celestia.”

 

She flapped her wings, bringing the previously-hidden appendages into view, “It made these things into decoration. It looks like an Alicorn needs the Pegasus part of her magic to actually fly.”, she settled her wings back and continued.

 

“When that wasn’t enough, we tried isolating the Princesses and their Humans. Crystals from the Empire, along with intricate mechanisms to bind and automatically adjust them, made a perfect isolation chamber. The only problem was, it proved impervious, magically and physically, and we couldn’t get them out when the fighting started.”

 

“The Man-Yaks are still attacking the Crystal Empire. Shiny and Cady evacuated most of the civilians. Flurry is in the south, with Thorax. They’re doing what they can for Cloudsdale, after somepony caused it to crash, somehow.”

 

“And before you get too excited, she’s still too young to have the power needed to break through the crystal barrier.”

 

“Queen Novo is fighting some kind of civil war, and so is Dragonlord Ember.”, she tapped a hoof to her chin, “Though it can be argued that Dragons don’t have enough of an organized social structure for it to be really called a civil war, more like the usual succession of Dragonlords, but anyway.”

 

“Gryphonstone has isolated itself. They tore up the tracks leading to the Gryphon lands and they’re sinking or downing any ships or airships that try to reach them.”

 

“Your highness?”, a stallion spoke and the mare looked away from the crystal.

 

“Blue, you don’t need to use my title.”, she added quietly, with downcast eyes, “I don’t really deserve it any more.”

 

“Okay,”, he hesitated, “Twilight,”, stumbling over the informality, “But we must go. The enemy’s airships are closing in. My racing yacht is the fastest in the skies, but it is no vessel of war.”

 

The unicorn was wide-eyed, “Right!”, she shuffled the pages again. From the motion of her hooves she was piling them under the crystal, “I can only hope this gets to you, wherever you are, Spike. If you can, meet me in Ponyville. Everypony is going there. I think I have a way to keep us safe from all this.”, she smiled sadly, “Heading back to Ponyville. Remember the first time we came to Sweet Apple Acres? Applejack said we would always be welcome.” she sniffled, “I hope she doesn’t mind us imposing on her hospitality.”

 

The stallion interrupted her reverie, “Anne says the enemy will be withing firing range in 5 minutes, at most, Prin- Twilight, we have to go now.”

 

“Just let me destroy these notes, I don’t want them finding these. The dragonfire spell will burn up the paper and send this crystal where it needs to go.”

 

The unicorn’s horn flashed, then the crystal’s image became a mass of bright noise, and froze.