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Hooves of Clay

by iisaw

Chapter 1: Crossing the Line

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Hooves of Clay
by iisaw

Chapter One
Crossing the Line

Twilight Sparkle walked slowly toward Ponyville's town square. It was too hot a day to hurry even though the weather pegasi had thoughtfully scattered large cumulus clouds over the town to provide clumps of shade as relief from the midsummer sun. It wasn't just the heat that sapped Twilight's energy. She had been feeling less energetic for a while, even though she had been sleeping more than usual lately. She thought it might just be a normal sort of letdown after the big, joyous event of her brother's wedding, but she was getting tired of being tired.

Twilight hadn't decided if a smoothie or ice cream would be a better remedy for her lethargy, but she was determined to drag Pinkie Pie out of Sugarcube Corner to join her for a cold, sugary treat. Working in a bakery in this weather had to be exhausting. She turned the corner into the square and saw Pinkie and Applejack unloading bushel baskets of apples from a cart. Pinkie was chattering away about a quadruple order of special apple tarts and a sweating Applejack nodded along to the pink pony's monologue. Pinkie didn't look exhausted at all.

"Where do you get all that energy, Pinkie?" the unicorn called out to her.

Pinkie giggled. "Silly Twilight! I make it myself!"

"Well, maybe you can make an extra batch and lend me some of it, because..." Twilight's joke died in her mouth as she caught sight of two ponies coming out of Sugarcube Corner. Bon Bon gave Lyra an affectionate nuzzle as they passed the apple cart. Twilight stared at them, her eyes widening in shock.

Applejack frowned. "Twi? Is somethin' wrong?"

Twilight Sparkle screamed in rage and attacked. Her powerful magic was her most effective weapon and truly something to be feared, but she went for Lyra with hooves and teeth. Lyra reared in panic to avoid Twilight's vicious snap at her nose and caught two stiff forelegs in her throat. She tumbled over backwards and Twilight reared over her, bringing down hard hooves again and again with murderous force. Everypony nearby froze in shock and disbelief. Even Applejack delayed for seconds before leaping at Twilight and slamming her to the ground with a powerful head-butt to the ribs.

For several moments all was confusion and chaos. Bon Bon let out a long scream of horror, ponies gathered and gawked, Twilight struggled to get her breath back and to get her hooves under her, Mr. and Mrs. Cake rushed out of the bakery to see what was going on, and Lyra just lay there motionless in the dust.

Twilight actually growled as she tried to stand. Applejack put a hoof to her shoulder and shoved her hard. "Twilight Sparkle, if you don't stay down, I swear by Celestia I will buck you into next week! What in tarnation has got into... whoah!"

Applejack abruptly lifted off the ground, surrounded by a nimbus of lavender magic, and floated over to the unmoving body of Lyra. She tilted forward so that she was head down over the unicorn's body. But it wasn't a unicorn. It wasn't even a pony. The dark, chitinous form was one that Applejack easily recognized: A changeling.

Twilight got to her hooves, wincing at the pain in her ribs, and went to the still sobbing Bon Bon. "It's all right Bon Bon. That isn't Lyra."

"W-what?" Bon Bon looked up from the body and her face twisted in anger. "What happened? What did you do to her? You monster! You..."

Twilight sighed and winced again. There was a soft pop and a flash of magic just barely visible in the bright sunlight. Bon Bon's eyes went out of focus and she lay down in the street and went to sleep.

"Uh, Twi?" Applejack asked from her awkward position in the air, "Could you put me down now?"

Twilight set the farm pony down gently beside Pinkie Pie, whose pupils were only just then starting to expand from the pinpoints of classic shock.

"Oh, Twilight! That was so scary! You got all mean-looking and hit poor Lyra, only it wasn't really Lyra, but I didn't know that, so I thought you'd gone all crazy again, but crazy mean instead of just your normal crazy, and that's not fun at all, but you really were..."

There was a brighter flash of magic and a whoomph as the air rushed in to fill the space where Twilight had been.

"...just saving Bon Bon from..." Pinkie trailed off and exchanged glances with Applejack. "I think something's bothering Twilight."

Applejack grimaced. "Somethin' ain't right with that gal, that's for sure. Look, can you take care of Bon Bon? I'm gonna head over to the library an' see if I can't locate the burr under Twilight's saddle."

"But she wasn't wearing a... ooooh, that's one of those folksy saying of yours, right?"

Applejack rolled her eyes and trotted off.

===

Twilight Sparkle appeared in a flash of magic in the middle of the side room on the main floor of the library, startling Lyra who was busy copying music from a book of old ballads.

"Hey Twilight!" Lyra lifted her quill from where she had dropped it onto the book and frowned at the blotch it had left on the page. "You surprised me."

Twilight didn't look at her when she said, "You need to go over to Sugarcube corner right now. Bon Bon is there and she needs you."

"Uh... is she alright? What..."

Twilight clenched her teeth together and hissed, "Just go. Now."

Lyra went.

"SPIKE!" Twilight went through to the main room and unlocked the door to the basement. "SPIKE!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Jeeze, Twilight, gimme a chance to..." The little dragon froze in dismay when he saw the grim look on his guardian's face. "What's wrong?"

"Get the book with the red cover out of the iron chest in the basement and bring it up here," she said, ignoring his question.

A rarely used sense of self-preservation kicked in and Spike raced down the stairs to fetch the book without another word. Twilight had warned Spike not to touch the iron chest or its contents when she had brought it to the library a week previously, and Spike had had no trouble obeying her. It was old and rusted and didn't look like it would contain anything valuable or tasty. Gems were usually kept in nice, clean velvet boxes.

"'Don't touch it', 'go get it'," Spike grumbled to himself, "She should make up her mind!" The lid of the chest opened with a screech of rusty hinges and he lifted out the book Twilight had asked for. He flipped it open in curiosity and saw that the text was a very old form of runic Equestrian that he couldn't read. An odd, red seal had been stamped over the letters of the first page. It was a symbol that Spike thought he had seen somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where. The book smelled of mildew and the pages were brittle and flaking at the edges. Spike knew that the older and more fragile the book was the more Twilight usually valued it, so he gently closed the cover and carefully carried it upstairs.

Twilight barely glanced at him. She nodded toward one of the book rests on the central table indicating where Spike should set the volume down. She was concentrating on using her magic to scrape something off of one of her fore hooves. She held up the gob of green goo and examined it critically.

"Uh... what's that, Twilight?"

"Something I need to complete a spell I've been working on."

"Oh? What kind of spell? Can I help?"

"No!" Twilight caught herself and lowered her voice. "I'm sorry, Spike. This is one spell I should do by myself. Could you leave me alone, please?" She hesitated when she saw her assistant's expression sag and added, "Maybe you could go out for ice cream. Take some bits from the jar and go treat yourself."

Spike smiled at that but it was a forced smile. He could tell something was wrong. "Are you sure? I don't mind helping out."

Twilight Sparkle forced a smile of her own and replied, "I'm sure, Spike. I really should be alone when I do this spell."

At that moment Applejack and Rainbow Dash burst in through the front door.

"AJ says you've gone all nutso again, Twi! Did you really kick some changeling flank? I wouldn't mind a bit of that action myself! D'you think there's any more of them around?"

"Hello, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, while simultaneously letting out a prolonged sigh. It was a skill she had picked up since moving to Ponyville and had often found need of. "Yes, I beat up one of those evil things. No, I haven't gone 'nutso', unless by 'nutso' you mean 'able to spot a changeling that had everypony else fooled.' Now if you don't mind..."

Applejack stared at the unicorn through narrowed eyes. "Twi, you didn't just beat that bug. You out-an'-out stomped it to pieces."

"Whoa! No kidding? Awesome!" Rainbow Dash held out a hoof for a bump. When Twilight just stared at her, she slowly lowered it. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"I don't reckon it is," Applejack said quietly.

Twilight angrily snapped her teeth shut and turned her head away from her friends. "Rainbow, you asked if there were any more of them around? Well, since the collective noun for changelings is 'swarm', I'm guessing yes. Probably a lot more. And I'm right in the middle of trying to do something about it, so I'd appreciate it if you girls would kindly leave me alone to get on with it!"

There was a long silence.

"Sugarcube, I hate those durned things just as much as you do, but you are riled up like I've never seen before. I can't rightly say what's eatin' at you, but it sure as sugar is somethin' more than just those critters showin' up again. No, don't you dare feed me a load of horse apples! You're hurtin' an' I want to help you. We're friends, ain't we?"

Twilight hung her head. "Alright, alright. I guess I am a little 'riled up', but I really need to try and get rid of the changelings as soon as possible. Who knows how many of them are walking around Ponyville right now? Let me just do this, and then we can all sit down and talk things over afterward."

"Fair enough, Twi, but we ain't leaving. We're your friends an' we're gonna be here to support you ifin all we do is sit an' watch the pretty lights."

"Yeah! What she said!"

"It might be dangerous."

Rainbow Dash snorted derisively and Applejack actually chuckled. "Any more dangerous than facin' down Nightmare Moon or Discord? I reckon we'll risk it."

"Me, too!" put in Spike a little less certainly.

Twilight gave them all a wan little smile. "Thanks, girls. You really are great friends. And Spike?" Her smile widened a bit. "Best. Assistant. Ever." She tuned to the book on the stand and opened it gently. The green blob she had scraped off her hoof floated over a blank spot on the page.

"What's that?"

"Hush, RD! Can't you see she's conjurin'?"

"It's changeling blood," Twilight answered mechanically, without looking up from the book. "The Law of Contagion comes into play with a spell like this. The magic needs something to work through to make a connection to the bio-matrix of the changelings."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Clear as mud," she muttered under her breath. Applejack hissed at her and stuck an elbow in her ribs.

"Brace yourselves," Twilight said, and her horn began to glow. The light quickly built up to a brilliant intensity and blended with the glob of changeling blood to form a sickly green sphere that spun and pulsed above the unicorn's head.

"Wow, that's pretty awesome! What's it supposed to..."

The sphere exploded outward, in a burst of energy, passing through the ponies and the wooden trunk of the library with a blast of white noise. There followed a moment of awe-struck silence within the room, and then the screaming started outside. The voices of hysterical ponies were clearly audible, even through the thick walls.

"Oh, Sweet Celestia! What is that thing?"

"What the hay just happened?"

"Ew! Ew! Bugs! I hate bugs!"

"The horror! The horror!"

Inside the library, Rainbow Dash and Applejack exchanged wide-eyed looks.

"I reckon it worked."

"Ya think?"

"Way to go, Twilight!"

"So what exactly did that there spell of yours do, sugarcube?"

Twilight hesitated, and when she finally spoke it was in a subdued voice. "It sent out a shockwave of death magic tuned to the changelings. It will keep expanding and killing them until it runs out of energy." She looked up at her friends, tried to smile, and failed. "It should clear out all of Ponyville... probably a little farther."

Applejack stared at her in horror. "Death magic?" she gasped.

"Whoa," Rainbow Dash said. She struggled for something else to add, and then very quietly finished, "That's... harsh."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then Spike pointed out that a red glow was coming from between the pages of the spell book.

Twilight roughly flipped the pages over to the front of the book, sending a spatter of parchment flakes across the bookstand. The seal on the first page was glowing brightly and emitting a thin, keening sound. "Oh, no," she gasped, "no, no, no! Everyone, get out of here!"

Applejack's expression hardened. "We ain't leavin' you, Twi!"

"You've got to! It's an alarm spell! You've got to get away from here! You can't be here when she..."

A brilliant flash of golden magic interrupted her. Suddenly Princess Celestia and four unicorn guards stood crowded into the room between Twilight Sparkle and the central table. The Princess's normally gently flowing mane and tail rippled furiously upward like multicolored flames and her eyes blazed with anger. The full force of the Canterlot royal voice assaulted them all as the princess bellowed, "TWILIGHT SPARKLE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

===

Next Chapter: Defiance Estimated time remaining: 30 Minutes
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