Wind rustled the treetops as Twilight lay still on the forest floor. She listened absentmindedly at first, too relieved that her latest bout of hunger for magic had been warded off for the time being. But after a while, the peaceful notes of insect mating calls soured, and the rustling of leaves and creaking of twigs and boughs grew ominous, as if promising revenge for an atrocity somepony had committed.
Twilight winced.
It’s me. I’m the one they’re after. Everything is not going to be all right.
She rubbed her temples and groaned.
“Great. Just great. You did it again,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this!”
She could just imagine the looks on her friends’ faces if they ever discovered her dirty little secret. She could easily guess what they’d say about that, too.
“Twilight, what the hay are you doing? That’s dark magic you’re messing with!” “Sugarcube, that don’t look healthy to me.” “She’s right, dear. Believe me; it cannot be good for you.” “Oh my, are you sure you didn’t hurt any animals when you did that?” “Silly Twilight, you’re not a bad guy, that thing’s only for a meanie-no-pants like Tirek!”
She stretched out her right foreleg and took in a deep breath, bringing her hoof close to her chest as she did so, and then stretched it out once more as she exhaled. She repeated the process a couple more times before she felt sufficiently prepared for the task ahead, and then leaped back onto all fours, acutely aware of the sound of leaves and twigs being crushed underhoof. Many of them had fallen before their time, thanks to her, and if she didn’t do something about it, the damage could worsen.
“Okay, Twilight, you’ve had your fix,” she murmured. “Time to give it back.”
Her mouth settled into a grim line as she focused her magic. Conceptually, it wasn’t very difficult to reverse the siphoning spell. A few tweaks here and there to the arcane matrices, and she’d reverse the flow of energy with very little wastage in the process. Its execution, however, was another matter entirely.
She gritted her teeth when, after a full minute of intense spell-weaving, she only managed to produce a purple trickle from her horn that quickly dispersed into her surroundings. Nothing else seemed forthcoming, so she had to abort the sequence and start over. She met with similar results on her second and third attempt, and she felt herself growing hot and twitchy-eyed.
Ugh!
She had to take a break for a minute when it her growing desire to snap something in half began interfering with the precision and nature of her magic. Every subsequent attempt ran the risk of producing an explosion instead of a siphon, and each failure only fouled her mood even further.
Get a hold of yourself!
Her failure wasn’t due to ineptitude. She was the Element of Magic, for crying out loud. But for some reason, she couldn’t get past the final step in returning the magic she’d stolen: letting go. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go.
“Come on, you’ve gotten over this before. It’s not yours. Give it back…”
Twilight kept going, but by the time she had to abort her fourteenth spell, she felt thoroughly exhausted and any thought of trying again made her feel like curling up in a corner and crying. And it wasn’t due to arcane fatigue. Every time she tried to release the power she’d stolen, some treacherous part of her would clamp down and hold it tight. She would remember the feeling of emptiness and listlessness that would surely recur if she let it go. It came back. It always came back. Why give it up and repeat the cycle over and over again? Maybe she should just keep the magic so that she wouldn’t have to come back and take it again in a few days. A permanent solution was better than swinging back and forth. In fact, come to think of it, the best plan should involve taking in a little more magic to properly sate her hunger so she wouldn’t have to—
No!
Twilight slapped herself before that train of thought could go any further. She snorted and paced back and forth, stomping over the detritus on the forest floor.
As a princess, she was supposed to be above such base urges. She’d faced down villains like Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis, opposed their lust for power. She’d helped her friends and so many others deal with their problems. She remembered talking to Spike about how to deal with his urges when it came to building a hoard of his own, and he’d actually listened to her and acted on it. Almost daily, ponies came to her seeking help, and the thought of helping them in the day and secretly indulging in dark magic at night – and learning how to enjoy it from mimicking Tirek, no less – made her cringe. Each night brought her inexorably closer to another lapse in self-control. She’d steal magic without any rational thought, and her stupid conscience wouldn’t say a word until it was too late to do anything about it!
Something trickled down her temple, and she licked it when it got close to her mouth. Salty. She was sweating in spite of the night’s chill. In fact, she felt very much the opposite of her environment. The worst parts were her face and the tips of her ears.
She felt like a hypocrite. The fact that she couldn’t consistently view stealing magic with the revulsion it deserved made her feel like a traitor to everything she stood for. She’d crossed the line onto a slippery road, and a part of her didn’t want to go back. But she also knew that the only way forward led to… well... She didn’t truly know, but she could clearly see the pattern in Sombra’s and Tirek’s histories. She should never have taken that risk; her hunger could not be undone. She’d managed to turn away several times already, but she’d always come back…
What would Princess Celestia think of her? What would her friends think of her? A few times she’d come close to telling them, but then somepony would harp on about how she served as an example for all ponies in all matters concerning friendship or learning, and then she’d balk and keep her mouth shut for fear of destroying that pedestal they’d put her on. It was a long fall, and she couldn’t know for sure whom it would hurt more, her or everypony who saw her as their leader.
And that was just the beginning. How long before she started picking actual targets? Sometimes, even the mere thought of draining magic would quicken her pulse and ignite that greedy spark in the back of her mind. She knew where Zecora had hidden the Alicorn Amulet. More than once since her condition had manifested, she’d thought of retrieving it. Not to wear, but to take apart. To consume the power and potential that resided within. She’d even thought of using her new skills as a form of punishment. Need a villain kept under control? No problem, just send him to the purple princess. She’d take care of that right away!
Twilight licked her lips and swallowed more saliva than usual. Then, she realised the direction her thoughts had taken, and she began to tremble, grinding her teeth as her vision gained a reddish tint.
That’s enough. This ends now.
She had always managed to give back the stolen magic. But it looked like the day she’d feared had finally come; she’d slipped past the point of being able to muster the willpower to give it back. Well, if she could not bring herself to do it directly, there were other ways…
The Circle of Negation was a ward designed to serve as a booby trap for arcane vaults. Once primed, it would immediately strip anyone or anything that entered it of all non-native magic and enchantments. It had gained popularity since the changeling invasion, and she’d picked it up in short order. Its effectiveness against consumed magic was debatable – otherwise Princess Celestia surely would have used it against Tirek – but she wanted to try anyway. Perhaps it would work on her because she had yet to become that powerful. ‘Yet’ being the operative term.
After preparing the ward, she simply needed to let it finish priming. So she sat right in the middle and waited; it would only take a few minutes. But barely thirty seconds later, she began to have second thoughts. She’d not tested it properly. She hadn’t gone over the checklist for safety measures.
Twilight leaped into the air, and gasped at how badly she’d lost control again. A low growl escaped from between her teeth as she folded her wings and dropped like a rock. Once on the ground, she grabbed some nearby vines with her magic, twisted them together to form a crude length of rope, and proceeded to bind her wings and legs.
Not long after she’d made sure that she couldn’t so easily flee on impulse, the ward finally armed. It began with a tingling sensation around her fetlocks that slowly inched upwards, but felt unimpressive for the most part. But just before she could re-examine the ward to see if she’d made a mistake in setting it up, that little tingle grew into an angry jolt of lightning that shot up her legs. She shrieked as it coursed through her body, ripping through her nerves and up her spine, towards her horn. She barely had enough time to gasp before the magic that she’d stolen began squirming and writhing once more, and her body could not muster the strength to quell it. Her vision whited out as she felt something force its way out of her mouth and eyes, and she realised that she had essentially given herself the magical equivalent of a kick to the belly; she vomited the energy she’d stolen, and it sickened her as much as its biological counterpart would have.
Thankfully, the agonising process only lasted a few seconds, and the next thing Twilight knew, stars danced before her eyes as she lay prone on the forest floor surrounded by charred debris. Apparently, purging her had burned out the Circle of Negation. She seemed to have snapped her bonds as well.
It was done. She’d given back what she’d stolen.
Twilight heaved a sigh of relief and lay still. A nap seemed like an awfully good idea. She just needed to find a more comfortable spot to rest – if only her legs would stop trembling like that. But then she also noticed the feeling of emptiness creeping back into her chest. The euphoria of feeding had diminished to a fleeting memory that utterly failed to stave off the hunger for magic gnawing at her innards once again. Her natural magic felt so insignificant, so… inadequate. She wanted more. She needed more.
Twilight’s jaw dropped.
Too soon. It’s not fair. How could it be back already? It’s never been this fast. It’s not fair!
She began hyperventilating. She didn’t know what to do. But one little fact stood out clearly amidst the turmoil: she didn’t want to continue feeling hollow and feeble. The forest could spare some magic. Ponies would understand if she took a little of it permanently. They had to. Nopony deserved to feel this way…
“Stop… Why can’t I stop?” Twilight whispered as she prepared to siphon more magic from the forest.
But as the forest’s magic pooled in the air around her once more, some remnant of her discipline flared back to life in outrage at her attempt at a second helping of stolen magic.
Instead of drawing the energy in, she unleashed it before she could change her mind again. It pulsed when she loosened her magical grip on it, morphing into thermal and kinetic energy at an alarming rate. She gasped when she realised that she had inadvertently tainted it with her roiling emotions and tried to bring it back under her control, but it simply exploded out of her magical grip in the form of a shockwave that radiated from her position, sending trees and dirt flying in every direction. In the aftermath, Twilight found herself standing in the middle of a smoking crater. She gaped at the tree stumps smouldering and crackling in the heat as cinders drifted in the air like snow.
She sighed and hung her head. More damage. Wonderful. She pounded her hoof on the ground, mentally screaming at herself. It sank about an inch before striking what felt like a large rock, and for some reason, its refusal to give way set her temper ablaze once more.
Twilight pounded her hoof on the rock again, but to no avail. Grinding her teeth, she struck harder, but the thing stubbornly remained solid and immovable. And that was it. She snarled and pounded on it repeatedly with her hoof, throwing more and more of her alicorn strength against it with every successive hit. Before long, the treetops beyond the ring of destruction were rustling from the force of each impact. And yet the rock remained intact, sinking deeper into the ground instead of shattering. She could practically hear it mocking her in Discord’s voice. Her strength meant nothing to it.
Stupid rock!
With an inarticulate cry, she ripped it out of the ground with her magic, ignoring the queasiness that her magical expenditure had caused. Looking around, she spotted another rock nearby that the explosion had uncovered, and immediately began slamming her melon-sized one against it, picturing it as the head of Discord in statue form. He was the reason she’d gotten herself in this mess; if he’d just done his job and captured Tirek as Celestia had asked, she wouldn’t have had to go through all of this!
Flakes and chips flew in every direction, and soon chunks followed suit as she poured more energy into destroying them. But her rock seemed to be composed of stronger minerals – probably granite – and remained more or less whole when the she’d already pulverised the other. Twilight glared at the ovoid thing and tried to crush it with her magic, but once again, it resisted all of her efforts.
Oh, no you don’t. You’re just a stupid rock. I don’t need the power of four alicorns to end you. You hear me? I don’t need it!
She channelled every ounce of magic she had against it, clenching her teeth so hard that for a moment she thought they might crack. Her horn grew hot with the amount of power coursing through it. The granite resisted at first, but it eventually rewarded her with a grinding sound as its slowly lost structural integrity. Little by little, she shifted the application of force to concentrate on weakened areas, and the rock gradually lost its smooth, ovoid shape. A minute later, it resembled a broken ornament that somepony had hastily glued back together. But it took a lot of power to push it past that threshold, and she could already feel pain sinking its fangs into her horn.
But she kept at it, unwilling to give up. She wasn’t weak. Her magic would suffice. She didn’t need anypony else’s magic. She—
The rock exploded.
Twilight didn’t even have time to gasp before shards of granite grazed one side of her face and larger chunks battered her chest. Dust caked up her eyes, and she stumbled as she tried to wipe them out with a hoof. Then, the nausea hit her. She lurched forward, lost her balance and blindly threw up on the ground.
Eager to get away from the mess, she tried to get back onto all fours, but she only managed to stumble a few strides to one side before she collapsed. Then there, surrounded by the scent of scorched earth and the acrid stench of bile, with the realisation of her failure and hypocrisy and hunger for magic sapping her resolve to carry on, Twilight began to sob.
It’s just not fair…
Uh oh. This isn't good.
Twilight, you silly filly. You need to talk to Celestia or Zecora before you find yourself in Mexicolt, doing lines of mana off of Sweetie Bell's ass.
Or just toss Sweetie into the Pool of Infinite Pinkies and chow down.
Either works.
This all going to end in tears.
4476070
we don't know if the clones would have mana (at least of this worlds type) and besides sweetie would have to say the chant.
4476153
They're probably made of it? And convincing her would be easy. "Hey, wanna try for your drug dealer cutie mark?" "Cutie Mark Crusader Drug Dealers YAY!"
I like where this is going
She's seriously addicted. Going cold turkey might be the only solution.
4476164
as I see it they were mana that got turned into matter. and to get rid of them you reverse the process.
You have taken your first steps, Twilight. On a dangerous path of ultimate darkness. You must turn back before it's too late.
4476330
So, Twilight would need a giant blender for all the Sweetie clones? Works for me!
Twilight is an addict at this point, I feel really sorry for her. Is there magic rehab? There should be
Twilight
waht r u doin'
Twilight
stahp
I just want to give Twilight a hug.
You have my attention. This is well written, can't wait to see where it goes. Also, Discord can sense magical disruptions. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew what was going on.
This is why you don't take drugs.
Wow, this is getting better than I expected. I like it
Poor Twilight. It would be easier if she just let the urges take control of her. It would be less painful, at least for her.
Im a just gonna leave this here and let you all decide how appropriate this song is.
4476516 Or drink alcohol.
Staph Twilight! I need a soda now, all this amazingly weird stuff is making me thirsty!
Time for an intervention, Twilight...
Please, Twilight needs to at least attempt to talk to her fellow alicorns! I don't want to see her so sad. It makes me sad...
4476916
Or absorb the magic of three powerful alicorns
Another good chapter. I can't wait for more! And I'm actually kind of surprised how many people have commented about just using the Mirror Pool to clone ponies and just suck the mana out of the clones
This is getting painful...
4476872
Took the words right out of my mouth.
4476070
I... I think I've read that clopfic...
4476405
QFT!!! This is sickening... How will she get out of this??!
Update: No Tragedy or Sad tags, just a Dark. This is good... maybe.
4477298
I'm hoping we get some fun from her trying to 'manage' her condition.
"Twilight, why are you cultivating patches of Poison Joke?"
"Shut up, Fax Machine." *scratches arm, twitches*
This is freaking intense.
Sir, you are giving me ideas like you don't even know...
4476090 Well honestly, this has 'preventable death spiral' written all over it. And it ignores the Rainbow Power thing which magically fixed every single other magical thing. Which it can't because that's how Tirek was stopped.
Plot... meet Hole.
4476916 Alcohol, when done sensibly, dose not leave you with a dyer craving for more that will make you do steal, lie, commit illegal dealings and kill for. Drugs can. Not hard to see why one is illegal when the other one isn't.
I want someone important to stumble upon twilight in her personal wasteland of a crater and bolder shards.
4478678 I know.
Awesome! Post more!
I saw this and thought to myself:
"Oh no..."
I was honestly dreading that someone would do this, because I feel like it would be sad. Let's hope I'm not wrong
As soon as I saw the summary for this, I just had to read it. This story presents so many interesting directions and opportunities on where it could go, and right now I'm really loving how your going about it.
Definitely keeping tabs on this
DJRD
I kinda wanted that rock to be something important, considering the shape and extreme durability.
Hehehehe, it's good to see that Twilight is at least a tenth on the right path to keep herself from doing the wrong thing. It's good that she finds the act abhorrent and wrong, but the fact that she is berating and beating herself over the fact that she is doing it? That's wrong, hunger of any type is a very powerful thing, it's a very deep ingrained part of all nature, alongside with the desperation to not die. It's understandable.
I commend Twilight for trying to deal with it on her own, but she needs someone to help her. The only time I will be disappointed with Twilight is that when she DOES get help, but still relapses back into the addiction.
And now we see the reason for the treason.
Good chapter, a good representation of a struggling addict in my opinion.
I can only hope she asks someone for help soon
Looking forward to more!
4478972 You and me both. It would be so scary, but I think that anypony who found out would be suporive and nice about it.
Also, I think Celestia should know. In my opinion, she's not allowed to be angry about it. This is her fault.
The power of her, Luna, Candace, and Twilight was an even match with Tirek AFTER he had gone on a power snatching spree AND drained Discords magic.
When the guy was still weak and able to be taken away by a pair of handcuffs, the princesses should have jumped him all together, he wouldn't have even come close to winning. But no, Celestia had to go and super power Twi on the slim chance that she would choose her friends over power and get a key from Discord. WTF?
Oh well, I see the flaws, but I'm not crying over it, we got an epic fight scene from it. Great finale overall.
Just the look of it is epic. I can't wait to read it.
Magical addiction in fiction is something that I've come to love as a plotline over the years. As I read this fanfic, I can't help but be reminded of a character I'm working on for a novel named Alarice. In her society, the "magic gene" has been cracked, and girls like her are kidnapped to experiment on. From a young age, the leader of the company that does this targeted her as an assassin and tasked her to stop rebellions within the company by any means possible. Eventually, he taught her how to remove magic from others, and that was how she started being able to kill people (as magic, in this verse, is something that, if it goes away, the person instantly dies). Due to disputes between the two of them, Alarice ends up being expelled from the company, but the damage has already been done, and even though she is no longer under his jurisdiction, she is now so obsessed with her "upgrades" and becoming more powerful that she still does it--even more than when she was captured, in fact. It's her way of asserting her freedom now.
The more I read this fanfic, the more I think of Alarice being a sort of tragic counterpart to this Twilight. While I'm getting the feeling that Twilight will eventually overcome her struggle with the help of her friends (though it's not going to be easy), Alarice never had that sort of companionship. As such, she never even thinks of quitting her habits, and by the time the protagonists of my story come across her, she's turned into someone who starts her own rebel group and spouts opinions that she doesn't actually believe in order to lure those like her into a trap. After they outlive their usefulness or sometimes even before, she takes magic from them and injects her enemies with a weakening substance so that she can do the same to them. At this point, she's far beyond saving, as she sees her kind only as fuel. Friendship is a concept foreign to her, and I have no doubt that she would remove anyone more powerful than she in order to continue with her delusion.
I hope Twilight turns out better. Good luck.
4487611 all true. Celestia played the role of elusive master that knows things that lead the protagonist to the biggest possible conflict yet is unable to assist for whatever reason. All regular story writing decisions that little girls are not expected to catch the loopholes in. With that in mind I chose to ignore the silly decisions because the result was awesome!!
I do want this to be resolved fast and easy, but that doesn't make for a good story/climax, therefore this issue will spiral out of control until it becomes incredibly dangerous for everyone involved. In hindsight, this is identical to the finale in terms of characters letting things spin out of control and dealing with them then rather than follow the obvious solution in the beginning.
Irritating, yet good story telling.
4490006
You just have to think of it that Celestia wanted the big confrontation for some mysterious reason knownst only to her. Like 'It was necessary to open the box' which was necessary b/c something darker is on the horizon yadda yadda. Who knows!
amazing twi-withdrawal art
4490006 Well this should be fun.
*Sigh* If I may, the most painful part about that kind of story telling is having ample moments where the characters are not in too deep at all and are able to fix things in a jiff and then just not doing so.
Is it bad that I'm hoping for things to spiral quickly so Twi IS too deep? That way we're not left staring at a growing plot hole for too long.
Oh well, it should be an epic ride either way!
This story is AWESOME!!!
4490323 true, but the most likely answer to the question 'who knows?' is she doesn't! Thinking of it like that is an option but I'd still ignore it and enjoy the results
4491177 The best stories are the ones where dealing with the issue immediately is not an option from any point of view, but we make do.
4471109
Sorry but I'm going to need you to spell this out for me.
<Disclaimer> : Do note I don't intend to start a war or something and totally diss your opinion or whatever, and just want some clarification on this point.
What I gather is you are against this idea because Twilight had some "personal development" by giving up her power to save her friends, and that due to her personality, she shouldn't have problems with this magic withdrawal. How would her personality relate to Twilight struggling with withdrawal symptoms? Perhaps you mean due to strong will and self-control she wouldn't. I fail to see how giving up magic to save her friends develops this characteristic.
On your note that Twilight gave up all her power to save her friends, you have to note she was experiencing all that magic in her at the time. She wouldn't have withdrawal or known about it 'till later.
On your note on the Rainbow Power, that I have to (unfortunately) disagree. The Rainbow Power thing "fixed" things by doing the Tirek-banished-princess-released-&-restored-magic-to-everypony thing, but Twilight just lost the feeling of 3 more alicorn's magic in her. The Rainbow Power doesn't give her extra magic...at least in my, and seemingly Raugos' version it doesn't. Your Rainbow Power may have its own unique elements...But filling up that void isn't exactly sensible to me. Apologies.
4491731
I think of it that way because the alternative is 'Celestia is a monumental idiot'.
Well, that or just going 'massive plot holes' which is acceptable too.
This is interesting. Her 'hunger' is affecting her personality this much. I wonder what will happen if she goes without for a few days?
Wordy without being pretentious. Darkness is skillfully handled and fully justified. Premise is one I have yet to see. And its so very realistic, the way she knows what she's doing is wrong but she's slipping into it anyway, losing control and blaming others (Discord) for her condition.