Armed with her largest cauldron full of ancient golden coins, Twilight rapidly raised the temperature of each of the shining metal pieces until they began to melt.  She made sure the iron pot was large enough and, once the gold had all liquified, lifted Trixie's body up to dangle over the thing.  She had posed the blue unicorn's form with her eyes open and her face almost quivering in fear; an appropriate look that Twilight had wanted to preserve forever.  She made sure to protect Trixie's hair with a magical barrier so that it didn't immediately burn away and then slowly dipped her into the molten metal, not knowing that Trixie was still bound to the body enough to feel it.  Her only salvation was the fact that Twilight had unwittingly reattached her horn.  Once the molten gold had seeped into it enough to destroy the runes, Trixie once more found the sweet embrace of death.  Her body, however, as it was slowly destroyed by the intense heat of molten gold, was preserved by the shell as it hardened around her.  Twilight used her control of magical fire to render Trixie's body down into nothingness and proceeded to fill the empty space with more gold, leaving a solid metal statue of Trixie in a submissive, begging state behind.  

"There.  I think that'll accent my home perfectly."  Twilight smiled big, pleased with herself for having preserved Trixie's memory as such a pathetic little thing.

It certainly does her justice, Twilight.  Iago clearly enjoyed the dipping, or at least faked it extremely well, but Twilight had a hunch that his sadistic nature had led him to actually be entertained by such a barbaric act.

"Yes, I think so too."  Twilight finished her sentence and took a step forward, examining her 'sculpture' for flaws and then touching them up with her telekinesis.  After all was said and done, Twilight ended with a perfectly polished solid gold statue of Trixie, using up only a fraction (albeit a large one) of the coins that she had found within the dragon's hoard.

So what do you plan to do with Big Macintosh?

"Use him, of course.  I'd like for Applejack to catch him and Rarity in the act of something... unwholesome...  Not sure how I'm going to set that up quite yet, though.  To be honest I'm not even sure if they're 'that far' in their relationship, probably not."

You could always urge them along.

"I think anything aside from direct mind control is doomed to fail in that regard, Iago."  Twilight kept speaking out loud, refusing to bottle herself up in her mind anymore.  Her little experience with being trapped had left her dying to keep her freedom wherever possible.

Oh I can think of one thing that might work.  Iago's statement sounded very sinister for such a well-veiled threat.  Not the same kind of sinister as he always was, though, more of an impassioned kind of sinister like the snarl on a wolf as it kills a rabbit.

"Do tell."

I know you've experimented with teleportation quite a bit, even showed me a little of it earlier when you quickly shielded your little dragon friend's eyes, but have you ever tried shadow-walking?

"No I'm afraid I haven't...  I haven't even heard of such a thing."

Well as I'm sure you can infer, it involves stepping into shadows as if they were small doorways, proceeding to walk through a world where shadows are the primearchs and material things are the reflections, and then emerging wherever you like.

"How's that supposed to help?"  Twilight set Trixie in front of the bookcase that closed off her old pen, using her as a decoration now and then starting off to leave the basement behind.

It would allow you to enter Big Macintosh's presence entirely unnoticed, then take over for yourself.

"More mind control?"

Not exactly.  You'd essentially be doing to him... well...  What I've been doing to you when your insubordination reigns.  I can teach you to step into his mind and take control, no practice necessary.

"No practice, huh?  Seems a little too good to be true."

Well I'd certainly be helping you, and also providing an anchor.  You won't be able to place your physical body into his without surgery, but at that point you might as well just flay him and make a costume.

"You just want me to leave my body for a little bit."  Twilight's sarcastic tone started to build.  She certainly didn't trust Iago, especially not with her body being left unattended in a direct possession like that.

Oh please, Twilight, I could take over your body at any time with very little effort.  I don't need you to leave your body in order to do so.  I only refrain in that because I choose to, you know that.

"Hey I dunno, maybe it gets cramped in there and you need to stretch your legs."

Cramped?  In this big, empty space?

"Haw haw,"  Twilight gave her sarcastic guffaw aloud as she shut the door to the basement, making sure to telekinetically shut the lock before heading towards the front doorway, "You know what I mean, we're two consciousnesses in the same head.  There's gotta be a little bit of elbow-knocking every so often."

While that is true, my point stands.  I don't need simple little pleasures like that, I only need results, and frankly I think that you taking over Big Macintosh and sending him over to Rarity would be a fabulous idea.  Though I expect far more than just hearts to be broken by that.

"Oh don't worry, there will be.  You can be sure of that."  Twilight smirked to herself and kept walking, only pausing to a quivering little voice coming from down the steps.  

"W-who are you talking to?"  Spike asked wearily.  He had just sent off a very short cry-for-help style letter to Celestia and was ready to just go pass out.  Twilight hadn't known about the letter (if she did then Spike would be a very dead dragon), but she could easily tell that he was sleepy and therefore gullible.

"I'm just talking to myself is all...  You ever have those ideas that you really wanna explain to someone but there's just... nopony around to listen?  Sometimes you gotta say them out loud anyway or they just don't come together right."

"Oh...  Yeah, yeah I guess that makes sense...  Sorry for bothering you, Twilight."

"It's okay, Spike, just get back to sleep, you need to feel better."  Twilight's words were intensely hollow; she had no real emotions to show, but she even quit faking them for a brief minute.  A robot may have said the same thing and gotten the exact same output.

Spike yawned and started to turn around, rubbing his eyes and completely missing the apathy in Twilight's voice.  "That sounds like a great idea...  I'll talk to you in a few hours..."  And with that, Spike wandered back to bed, leaving that little problem (so Twilight thought) to solve itself.

With Spike out of the way, Twilight made sure to examine her body for any splattering of blood or mud or what-have-you and then promptly burn it away.  She headed for her front door, clean and soft as if she had just showered and brushed herself, and prepared for a session of quick work with Big Macintosh, then some hopefully entertaining time with her good friends thereafter.  The walk, unfortunately, was a relatively long one between Twilight's library and Sweet Apple Acres, so the purple unicorn simply had some time alone with her thoughts.

She gave herself several quick scenarios in which she could trick Big Macintosh into thinking that Twilight was acting as a messenger on Rarity's behalf, then another where she would directly order him to head on over to Rarity's boutique, or even a few where she could (although she didn't know exactly how she still entertained the idea) go into his head and literally change his deepest desires to be spending time with the white, prissy little thing.  These many different ideas, none of which had been decided on, were throwing Twilight into turmoil and starting to stir up that familiar feeling of pulsing heat radiating out from her body.

Twilight...  Iago seemed a little impatient in his call, but he definitely spoke with a very calm inflection.

Twilight didn't answer him, however, and simply kept on walking.

Twilight.  This next call held much more impact, though Twilight kept on ignoring him.  She was lost in thought and, unfortunately, didn't care to stop and think; at this rate she'd have to use whichever plan was freshest in her mind the instant she got to Sweet Apple Acres.

Twilight!  Iago finally broke his semi-patient demeanor and yelled, snapping Twilight's attention back to her inner half.

What?!  The purple unicorn yelled right back, impatiently demanding that Iago explain himself with that one simple word.  

You lit a bush on fire.  Twilight's attention was directed about fifteen feet behind her, to which a shrub was smoldering away right on the outskirts of Ponyville's park.  

I don't see how that's at all consequential...  Nopony will even notice,  Twilight barked right back at Iago before she continued to trot down the road.  

Just calm down.  You're stressing out over this and it's making you burn things that you walk past, that's not exactly low profile.

And just what do you know about low profile?

You're the one who wanted this to be a quiet job, so why don't you just shut up and listen?

Alright, fine, what do you want to say?

Go stand on the shadow of that bench right there.  Twilight felt her eyes dart over to her target, completely against her will, but she decided not to protest and simply do as she was told.  Now I'm only going to do this for you once, so pay very close attention to what you feel happen to your body.

What am I feeling for, exactly?

You'll see...  Iago said with a trailing voice, letting his presence gradually diminish until only Twilight's own thoughts were left in her mind.  Almost immediately as soon as he got quiet, however, Twilight looked down and noticed the shadow from the bench starting to envelop her hoof and climb up her foreleg.  She could feel her body starting to melt, though it wasn't painful, and before long she fell completely into the stratified shadow of the park bench.  Off in the distance, Berry Punch (a touch hungover) blinked a few times and looked around; nopony else was around to have seen Twilight disappear, so she continued her walk of shame back to her home whilst trying to convince herself that she was just still drunk.

Meanwhile, Twilight found herself with the sensation of falling, though her world had darkened and she realized that she was indeed upside down.  Everything looked as though the sun were in an eclipse, no color for as far as the eye could see.  She levitated herself a bit and oriented her body where it needed to be, setting her hooves down on the darkened ground and taking a look.  Oddly, the colors that normally should have been in the objects were projected onto the ground.  

So this is the plane of shadow, hm?  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how... desaturated it is.

Quit standing around with your mouth half open, we have work to do.  Iago's impatience cut through his usual tone of voice, though he didn't seem to be expecting any kind of back-talk coming from Twilight whatsoever by this point.

Okay...  Twilight looked around in awe, watching as shadow ponies slowly emerged from their dark homes and cast colorful images of themselves onto the ground.  What exactly is the plan?  I just step into Big Macintosh's shadow and all's well?

A neat little trick about this place, if you can manage to get big Macintosh to look down at his shadow, your consciousness can cross the barrier of shadows and enter the mind of another much easier than it can in the material world.  You simply look into his eyes, they'll be a part of his "anti-shadow" and then do the same thing you always do to invade a mind.  His will won't be in the way because he won't even feel it, so you'll have a very slick time getting in.  Afterwards I'll emerge behind you and join you on the walk around town in your body.

That's a very neat little trick...  How come you didn't tell me about this before?

Coming here isn't exactly my forte.  I don't like to do it, I can't always do it, and when I do it I generally don't get much accomplished, it just so happened that this was a good opportunity to actually make use of the place.

What do you mean you "can't always come here?"  Do you have issues traversing the planes?

No, what I mean is that sometimes the way shadows are cast bodies get... muddled.  It's a standard problem with forcing three dimensional objects with secondary qualities like color through a barrier made entirely of two dimensional, monochromatic... light-stuff.  It's difficult to explain, but there's a good chance your head could have exploded.  Or some other parts of you, and the same risk comes into play on the way back.  Don't worry though, I've done this all before and I'll be sure to be very careful.

Oh well that's comforting...

If I wanted you to be comfortable I'd have made you believe you were still in bed while I went out and did all of the important errands today.  Of course that would probably result in a crater where this... paltry little town used to be.

Hey now, it may be a paltry little town but it's still got a very long-standing importance to Celestia in it.  Just remember that before you go about destroying it completely.

That's part of why I want to destroy it completely.

Now I know you fancy yourself a powerful being, Iago, but Celestia is too, and I'm sure I'm not mistake in pointing out that it's that power which has stopped you from going on to kill her in this past two thousand years, hmm?

Iago paused, getting back to Twilight about fifteen seconds later with a very annoyed tone in his voice.  What's your point?

My point is that if you kill everything like you clearly want to then Celestia won't have any inhibitions.  She'll just do whatever it takes to stop you, and my guess is that it'll be more than enough to kill you for good.

Focus on the task at hand, Twilight.

Heh, is that a twinge of fear I detec--  Twilight's sentence was interrupted by a sharp, all encompassing pain going down her back.

I swear on all that you deem valuable that if you ever  accuse me of fear again I will make you feel agony like you've never even imagined.  Are we clear?

Twilight, though almost buckling under the intense pain of what felt to her like her spine being torn out, just laughed right through it all and threw Iago's venomous words back in his face.  But Iago, don't you remember?  You need me.

All I need is a living body...  A puppet.  I didn't say I'd kill you and I could very easily walk around in your skin for a while.  Don't test me, pony.

Twilight started to walk forward, towards the shadowy cameo of Sweet Apple Acres, remaining defiant the whole way.  What's the matter?  Afraid you'll fail?  She had to grunt and trudge on through the pain, fighting what felt like the weight of the whole world on her body and a pair of chilled fingers on her backbone.

Do you want to die here, Twilight Sparkle?  In this cold, unknown little inkblot?  I can always find another.  Perhaps I'll just take one of the other five.  Twilight felt her nose start to bleed and an intense pressure build up behind her eyes.  Her brain was under direct assault from the spectral figure.

H-How?  Huh?  You have to get their permission to get i-in.  Tha-at's what you did to m-me, right?  Twilight continued to walk, though she looked like something out of a zombie movie.  Every step she took in the realm of shadows was stiff, rigid, and jerky; she was clearly fighting something, but the denizens of the world paid absolutely no notice to her.  It was as if she didn't exist at all; just a phantom shadow on the ground.

You all have vices.  Yours was power and I gave it to you.  Rarity's are wealth and beauty and I can give her those too.  Applejack's is respect, Fluttershy's is confidence, Rainbow Dash's is fame, Pinkie Pie just wants to feel loved...  It's very easy to manipulate you little creatures you know.

Aww...  Twilight finished off her sigh of false sympathy with a spatter of blood straight out of her lungs.  And here I thought we had something... S-special.

Oh we do, Twilight Sparkle, and I've invested far too much time into you to just throw you away like a used rag, but if you continue to try my nerves you'll find out that even the most valuable thing in the world can outlive its usefulness.

I'm familiar with that co-oncept, Iago...  You've already... outlived yours.  Twilight started to wheeze and gasp for air as she plodded forward, starting to feel her body go limp either from blood loss or from her own nerve control being muscled out of the way.

Is that so?  Have you stopped to think that I'm the only thing keeping you alive?

No...  I've stopped to think that you're the one killing me in the first place.

Touché, Twilight Sparkle.  Though for the time being I am indeed allowing you to live.  Perhaps you can get on my good side if you do as you're told and I'll let you walk free when we're done here.

I'm not your slave, Iago.  I'm your student...  I demand you recognize that.

Just what is that supposed to mean?

Students have this nasty tendency of surpassing their masters.  Twilight grinned big, standing up straight and sniffling the blood dripping from her nose back up inside.  She took a deep breath and focused every ounce of power she could draw onto her own body, making it move comfortably and stably, stopping the damage that Iago had been causing her.  Iago sat speechless in her mind for a while, though eventually he chimed back in with his bemused, raspy voice once again grinding against her mind's ears.

And I have a nasty tendency of killing my students.  Keep that in mind.

You keep my point in mind!  Twilight's retort wasn't too much better than a childish snap-back, but the point she had made was definitely persuasive: Iago had a threat on his hands, and Twilight knew that she had enough leverage to make it work.

You know what?  I will.  I'll play your little game and I'll humor you just this once, but you had better watch out where your thoughts end up, because I'll not tolerate any kind of treasonous ideas.  Now go do your chores.  I'm starting to get a little impatient.  I want to see Celestia's head mounted on a pike before the end of the week.

That should be plenty of time.  But I have to ask, what do you plan to do after you take over?  Aside from the obvious... trying to kill me off and all that.

Why, to bring my people back of course.

Your people?

A race long forgotten, though our successors still live today, skulking in your shadows and populating your depths.  Believe me, Twilight Sparkle, we shall multiply again, and you ponies will be utterly crushed.

I don't suppose you're gonna give me a free pass on that, hm?

Don't worry, Twilight, one of two things will happen: either you'll have ascended along with me to a state of being so much more than ponykind that you'll be untouchable by my children, or you'll be destroyed quickly and painlessly by me.  You've done more than enough to help me that I won't allow you to suffer...  Unless you aggravate me sufficiently.  Then, oh, shall you suffer.

Well then, looks like I'll have to just paste on a smile, grit my teeth and bear with your insufferable nagging for the next few days, hmm?  Twilight made her displeasure known, highlighting her obviously bitter statement with an obnoxious mental inflection to make it sound like a sarcastic beg.  She chose not to fight Iago any more that day, though, he had loosened his grip on her body so she could finally walk and breathe again.  Twilight found out the hard way, though, that pushing him away with her own magic had been very taxing: she was physically and mentally tired for the first time in many days.  

It might help to bite down on something.  Iago, sinister as always, prodded the joke into Twilight's ribs before going back to whatever it was that he did inside her head.  Twilight just stepped on towards Sweet Apple Acres, where she saw the tall, lumbering shade of Big Macintosh's shadow propped up against a black, formless tree.  

She was gonna enjoy this.