The Influence

by GMSeskii

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Drama, Original Character, Science Fiction, Fluttershy, Adventure, Pinkie Pie, Crossover, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 165318

Twilight Sparkle awakens in a mysterious room with a mysterious artifact - in a story where your comments influence the outcome.

Twilight Sparkle wakes up in a strange, mysterious room, with no idea how she got there. Alone, afraid, and confused, she is left to make sense of this position she finds herself in.

That's the basic premise, but that's only part of the story. You see, fair reader, your comments can change the course of events. Go ahead, leave one. See what happens next update.

Due to the interactive nature of this fic, I cannot promise regular updates, unlike in my other stories. Nor will I say anything else about it at all - for you are in a position of power. If I tell you anything, it'll ruin the experience. It's a comment-driven story, after all.

The story is now complete. It's still a readable story, but it's no longer active.

Serves as an optional prelude to Songs of the Spheres.

There is a forum related to this story: Influencing the Influence. It contains supplemental material, but is definitely wrought with spoilers.

-GM, master of influential decisions and the interactive story.

Published 2017-04-07 21:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-08 15:25:33 UTC

II

Author's Note

Comments go here:

[IMPORTING][ ...Twilight immediately becomes aware of an internal compass in her mind now, pointing towards a mountain range far off in the distance to her left. as well as a brief warning against the use of teleportation, for that could cause serious harm... ...Y'know, trolls like bright shiny things. And the color purple during mating season... ...The sea of grass seems inviting, yet dangerous, and the eye seems to be looking in that direction... ...A tugging sensation pulls twilight toward the lake in the distance. As she looks at the lake a sudden feeling of longing fills her mind... ...She can see strange things lingering on the edge of her sight. They were definitely not there a moment ago, but they seem to be beckoning her... ...As her eyes pass over the town-like thing in the distance, her thoughts are filled with a faint, incoherent muttering, that gradually fades away as she looks elsewhere... ...I have a sudden craving for pumpkin pie now... ...A voice whispers to her "The Woods can set you free, Twilight."...]

II

Twilight extended her wings and recoiled in shock, slapping the eye artifact with her front hooves. "Stop talking stop talking stop talking!" She shouted, even though the words had stopped flowing into her mind the moment she regained control of her muscles. In her flailing, she fell, landing flat on her back. The wind was knocked out of her - giving her a moment to lay there and contemplate what had just happened.

She had been frozen - unable to move - while the voice filled her mind. She was so shocked she had been unable to think - she just sat there, frozen, as the words forced themselves into her subconsciousness. A voice that was talking about her... in contradictory ways... for the most part... ...The lake wasn't even in the distance, she was on an island in it! And she wasn't seeing anything lingering on the edge of her sight...

For the slightest of seconds, she thought she saw a bunch of moving stars flick across her vision.

...Okay, so maybe she was. She stood up slowly, scanning the room - no sign of stars anywhere. ...Was it possible that the voice spoke the truth? It had described itself saying 'the Woods can set you free, Twilight' after all... No, that couldn't be, the lake still wasn't in the distance. ...Unless it was talking about another lake?

She rushed outside, scanning the horizon, looking for another lake. She saw nothing - though in so looking she did see a mountain range in the far distance. She felt compelled to go to it - but was that just because the voice told her she had a compass? She didn't feel like it was a compass... Merely a curiosity. Then there were the things about the sea of grass... The town... It was like the voice was warring with itself over what it wanted to say, what it wanted to happen. Was it trying to give her advice?

It was almost like it was several minds talking at once, vying for control of what to say. Twilight would had believed that was what was going on, had there not been that comment about pumpkin pie. ...And she swore there was something about trolls in there somewhere. Trolls and the color purple during mating season...

She made a mental note to run away from anything even remotely troll-like she came across for the next little while.

She sighed, looking down at the artifact embedded in her chest. It hadn't moved - had given no indication it could move, even. She was certain this thing was to blame. Was it a dark magic? Was it something else? She didn't know - the voice hadn't really given her much to go on, and she didn't hear it anymore. She was just an alicorn mare with a shimmering eye in her chest.

She looked around the room one more - nothing had changed. The purple wall, the arches, the runes... all of it was exactly the same. She walked around to the outside, finding the island to be too steep to walk on, forcing her to fly around the building. From the outside it was... featureless. A purple cylinder with six holes and a pointed top, no markings whatsoever. She wondered how it was built - this 'island' was pretty much a spike in the middle of this lake. She had a hard time imagining something like this naturally forming - much less forming with a flat spot on top just the right size to build a walled gazebo.

She sighed - there really was nothing here for her. Perhaps the voice kept talking about the things in the distance for a reason - she should probably go to them. Should she go to the town? Forest? Mountain? Just fly through the grass? Or perhaps the river - after all, the voice had never suggested that. She furrowed her brow, looking down at the eye once again.

She didn't know what to think. But she got an idea - she saw the lake below her. Since she was already here, she might as well check it out. Swooping downward, she flew over the water, extending a hoof out to touch it. To her surprise the water, despite rippling and flowing like she expected, was as solid as a rock. This surprised her so much it caused her to flip head-over-tail, and land flat on her back, the rippling water flowing beneath her back.

...It didn't even feel wet. It felt like some ultra-smooth plastic was warping and shaking beneath her. She stood up with some effort, carefully planting her legs so as not to fall over from the ripples. Looking into the lake, she could see fish swimming, moving around as if everything was normal.

"...This is amazing." She tapped the water with her hoof, making a dull thud sound. "This is amazing. What is this stuff? It's... acts like a liquid, but blocks everything... how much surface tension is there?" For a moment, she forgot that she was in a foreign land, and grinned. She watched as the water flowed around her hoof, creating new ripples. "Absolutely bizarre..."

She would have stayed there for much longer - perhaps all day - but she saw the stars out of the corner of her eye once again. Turning to look, there was nothing - just a smooth, softly rippling lake surrounded by grass. She shook her head. "Just seeing things..."

She felt the rippling of the lake increase - becoming more and more difficult to stand on. She flew into the air, looking down with a confused expression. Why was it acting up now? The wind hadn't picked up...

A large, dark shape appeared beneath the waves. The surface of the water began to heave, higher, and higher. Twilight flew up a little ways, distancing herself from whatever it was under the water.

A giant shark-like creature with seven eyes pushed into the surface, stretching it like a rubber skin. Each eye was as large as Twilight herself, and all were looking directly at her. It didn't matter that the surface of the water was solid - the surface was stretched around the inside of its mouth. It could still bite her in half, using the hard surface as a weapon.

She almost teleported - but something in her mind told her that was a bad idea. The voice? She didn't care - and she didn't think. She just turned around and flew away as fast as she could. The air from the shark's movement brushed past her - making it difficult to fly straight. The shark slammed down it's powerful jaws, cutting off some of the hairs from Twilight's tail. She didn't look back - she just kept flying until she found herself over the grass, away from the lake.

Breathing heavily, she checked herself over. "Legs... check. Wings... check. Tail..." She looked at the now slightly-shorter collection of hairs. "Check. Now..." She turned to look back at the lake.

Only there wasn't a lake anymore. Where she had been moments before, there was nothing but a wide expanse of tall grass blowing in the wind. She couldn't even see the spike-like island - there was no sign of any structure where she had just been. She flew back, thinking it was a cloaking field - but found nothing. It was just grass, grass, grass. She flew higher into the air to get a better vantage point - she could still see the town, forest, and other locations... but no lake. No island. No purple building...

She bit her lip. That was... concerning.

Then she felt a warm sensation in her chest once again. Her eyes darted to the eye on her chest - it was glowing again.

"Oh no not now-"

III

Author's Note

[IMPORTING][…Find the heart of the forest, Twilight. It has the answers you seek… …Are you seriously lumping me in with the others? I’m offended at the very notion. How about instead of all this time you’re wasting almost getting eaten by sharks you actually begin your adventure. There’s more riding on you than you could actually know… …I, at least, apologize for you discomfort. It is clear that our cacophony is to blame, but I promise you that many of us, myself included, want this to end well for you. I, again, suggest the town… …the heart looks beautiful you may see yourself in it one day… …Look into the witches eye and you will see how you will die… …Indeed. I also wish for you to at least survive, which is why I must warn you of the lights. They are incredibly dangerous… …Beware… …The greymarch is coming and your going to stop it… ˜¨ßøø√¥´˙∆ƒ˜¥√ˆß†∫√ß¨ˆ©ß˜´ß˜√¨ø´ß® …Trust not your sight, but your heart, let it guide you down the right path… …Though we feel we must warn you, those in the town are not to be trusted. The darkness shall protect you… …Find the scholar’s tree, there you will find something to help set you free… …Fish fingers and custard. That’s what I need right now… …hello? Uh yes sorry about this Twilight we’re kinda testing what we can and can not do, but don’t worry we are here to help… Most of us are anyway. I don’t even know what that one guy talking about food is doing. Also I suggest going to the town, at least then you fan find an inn if nothing else… …Look around. There is a flickering white square. The square teleports her elsewhere if she touches it… …Well now I feel like I shouldn’t comment… Whoops too late. Ok Twilight, we don’t want to hurt you, all right? Nibble a bit of that grass, it’ll probably be ok to eat…]

III

Twilight regained control of herself after she had already hit the ground. She groaned, shaking her head and standing up, trying to clear her head from the influx of information, but being prevented from thinking clearly by the pain in her wing. She opened it, pain shooting through her side. She let out a soft yell. "That's a bad sprain..." Least it isn't broken.

She looked down at the eye. "You did this, you know."

There was no response, it just continued to stare forward.

"I'm going to have to watch you... You all? I don't know anymore. How many of you are there in there?" She tapped it. "Hello? Hellooooo?"

After ten seconds of silence, Twilight sighed. Apparently they couldn't just talk whenever they wanted - or just chose not to. The first made the most sense, admittedly, because they all talked more or less at once. Though it was really annoying - and dangerous - how she stopped moving when the voice - voices - spoke to her. Not to mention she couldn't identify which voice was which - some wanted to help her, some apparently didn't, and others made no sense. She was fairly sure that one talking about fish fingers and custard was the one talking about the pumpkin pie from before... She supposed she could reason that the voices could eat, or at least knew what food was, and since they were talking about fish they probably had meat as part of their diet.

Though that was assuming they were all the same kind of thing. For all she knew they were some council of various races, dragons, ponies, griffons, and otherwise. It was all so confusing.

"Perhaps you could explain yourselves a little better next time?" she asked. "Like, I know you can hear me, and see what I see, so tell me who and what you are? Please?" Silence. "Celestia, I feel like I'm talking to myself."

She gulped - going over what they had said in her head. She didn't see any white square, but she did think she saw the stars out of the corner of her eye again. Were they dangerous? If the voices were wrong about the square, maybe they were wrong about the lights... But could she risk it? What about that witch - or witches - who would show her how she died? Was she destined to die? Darkness protecting her... A heart of some kind... A strange poem about a scholar's tree and being set free....

She shook her head, looking down at the eye. "Okay, seriously, what do you mean? You seem to spout a bunch of contradictory and indecisive things, some suggest that I'm the 'chosen one' or whatever, and others seem to not care whatsoever. What is your deal? Half of you want me to go to the forest, half of you wants me to go to the town, and the other half speaks in vague non sequitur! Why? Why does it matter? You obviously don't know as much as you claim to know, since you keep saying things that blatantly aren't true! I don't see any white square! You messed up the position of the lake! I... I don't know!" She sat down, looking to the sky. "I have no idea..."

Her stomach rumbled. She found herself looking at the tall grass all around her - most of it taller than her. She took a deep breath, thinking for a moment, before opening her mouth and leaning towards the grass. She stopped before she bit down. "Wait. Why am I eating grass? There's a town right over there I don't need to forage! Unless... Unless the town really is untrustworthy..." She shook her head. "No, I can't just go with whatever you all say. You've been wrong before." She stood up, testing her wing to see if she could fly - determining that it would be a bad idea to do so.

She stood on her hind legs for a moment, locating the town in the distance. She glanced over to the forest, admittedly curious about it. The trees were a dark dark green, and there were huge blue flowering plants visible from where she was. Twilight resolved to check it out later, if an opportunity presented itself - it did look interesting, and felt vaguely like the Everfree. But right now, she was hungry, and she was not going to eat the grass like some homeless pony.

...Was she homeless now?

No, she'd find a way back home. She just needed to find out where she was. Somehow. She really didn't know how to do that, but she was sure she'd come up with something. She had a long walk ahead of her.

~~~

Twilight was becoming concerned - she'd been walking for a few hours and the artifact hadn't lit up to say anything. Were they unable to talk? Did they not want to? Was something keeping them? Were they fighting?

"There's no way you can know, Twilight, stop it," she said to herself. "Just get to town. Find out where you are. Then..." She gulped. In all her time walking through the tall grass, she really hadn't come up with much of a plan. It all depended on what the town was like. She hoped the citizens were nice - didn't even have to be ponies, just be nice.

She hadn't seen much in her journey - nothing but grass, grass, grass, and more grass as she walked through it. She had seen a few bugs - but no large animals, and definitely no giant seven-eyed sharks. How had that thing even survived in that lake? There was no way it could be supported by the limited ecosystem... She would have loved to go back, if she were able. But she was not.

Twilight's thoughts were interrupted as she came to the edge of the clearing. She poked her head through a wall of grass, getting a closer view of the town. The houses were simple for the most part, though the roofs were all red and pointed. There were a few fields dotted here and there growing rice and other crops, all tended by ponies of all three races. Many of the farming earth ponies wore strange, pointed hats that resembled flattened cones that did an amazing job at keeping the sun out of their eyes. The place wasn't as bright as Ponyville, but most of the ponies were smiling, and that said something.

Then one citizen caught her eye - a long, green dragon, snakelike in appearance, was sleeping in the center of town. It was unlike any dragon she had ever seen - no wings whatsoever, and a kind of wispy mane surrounded its neck. The ponies didn't seem to care about its presence, but Twilight still felt nervous looking at it.

"Oh don't worry, that's just Diorite, he won't hurt you unless you try to hurt us." A chipper voice said to Twilight's left.

Twilight receded into the grass, looking out with just her muzzle and eyes. She saw a white pegasus mare standing nearby, a warm smile on her face. Her mane was pink and done up in a ponytail, a single stripe of blue running through it. "Oh don't be scared! We don't bite! Hi! I'm Prancey! Who're you?"

"I..." Twilight felt a warmness in her chest. Why now? "Uh... hold on a sec-"

Her mind was flooded once more...

IV

Author's Note

[IMPORTING][…Fine, you want an introduction? You’ll get a name. I’m known as Key, and I’m involved to see to it that those watching you continue to watch. The second they lose interest, you cease to exist, understood? Now follow Prancey and begin your flaking adventure already!… …Don’t be frightened by Key. You came to exist independently of us, and I for one seriously doubt that our absence would mean your destruction. I’m Zen, by the way. Now, I advise the you tell this nice pony the truth: some unknown entity has placed you in an unknown location, and fixed an artifact to your chest that channels communications from a multitude of unknown creatures into your mind, and that it has thus far only caused you difficulty… …Now Zen? Of all times to oppose me you choose now!? Twilight needs to get a move on, I’m just making sure she reeding knows that!… …Me? I’m a frog. Kind of. And I apologize for encouraging you to eat the grass. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don’t know why either. I imagine we’re all confusing the hell out of you. One of us is waxing poetic, one is waxing hungry, and the rest are waxing confusion. We really know nothing… …Ignore the ones that claim to know about what’s around you more than you do, they are just trying to confuse you. I’m Josh by the way, weird name I know but that’s only because we’re form another world from yours, and as for our race? We are humans, you know, the things from the other side of that mirror the leads you to a world similar to ours. Also time works in strange ways between worlds that is why we seem to talk at the same time and why we seem to start talking at random times… …I apologize for the confusion we have been causing you. My name is Afizah. It means One Who Guards the Knowledge and Modesty. My sister on the other hand is named Eris. A name meaning discord. She claims to be a goddess. If you hear a voice telling you to go to the forest, don’t follow its advice for that is her and the forest has dangers you are not yet ready for. Look for the scholar’s tree and find the tome of travel, it will keep you safe in your journey to the lost mountain… …Ha! As if little miss knowledge knows what’s going on anyway. I have no desire to tell you my name. I will tell you, however, that those who say they have the answers don’t. My advice is to forget ever getting out of here for the only way out is to DIE!!! Survive if you can. HAHAHAHAH!!!… …You may call me the Wolf. Trust me when I say I have your best interests at heart. I would not recommend giving the pony your name, names have power, and you are in enough trouble. As for being able to speak, we have no control over when we can or cannot. Just that we can take advantage of when we can… …Now I see I am slightly late to the party, oh dear. I am the one they call Duke. It’s a pleasure. What appears to be happening here is a sort of reverse fourth wall break. Periodically throughout this… “adventure” a snapshot of sorts of your progress from the last interaction is sent to us, at which point we think over the situation, send feedback, and await the next snapshot… …I am really sorry princess for the verbal abuse you are receiving from us. We haven’t been able to talk to anybody in well actually I don’t know how long it’s been but… …No I will not give you pumping pie stop talking about food dam it. This is important! anyway my name is Crystal… …Hi I’m Darkus~! Does she have cake?… …Well as long as we are doing introductions, I’m Nizzy, and I do believe Duke’s assessment of the situation is accurate…]

IV

Holy Celestia that was a lot to unpack. It'd take a while for her to sort through all that-

"Uh, hello?" Prancey said, waving her hoof in front of Twilight's face. "It's been a second! What's your name?"

"Twilight!" Twilight said without thinking. Wait, names might be dangerous... "Twilight, uh... Glimmer!" Verrry creative...

"Oh cool! Welcome to Pebbleton!"

"Uh, yeah, thanks!" Names, organize the names... Key, Zen, Frog, Josh, Afizah, Eris, Wolf, Duke, Darkus of the random food, and Nizzy...

"Oh come on, out of the grass there! No need to hide!" Prancey tugged on Twilight, pulling her out of the grass and into the open. She spread her wings out of a reflex, trying to back up but failing. Prancey gasped at what she saw - causing the entire town to turn and look, save Diorite, who remained fast asleep.

"Oh, uh..." Twilight looked down at the artifact. "Yeah, uh, I'm lost, something has placed me here against my will and stuck this artifact to my chest that tells me things. Or a lot of voices tell me things. It's not dangerous, probably, I really don't know. It's very confusing. Uh..." Yeah that wasn't confusing at all thanks for the idea, Zen.

Prancey blinked. "Oh. There's an eye thing there. Hadn't noticed. Weird."

"Then what...?"

"The wings! Unicorns don't have wings! What are you?"

"Uh... An alicorn?" Twilight was a bit taken aback, nopony ever called her out for being an alicorn.

Prancey blinked. "...Wow, you really aren't from around here are you? Don't worry, Prancey here's got you covered! I can tell you literally aaaaaaaaanything you want to know!" She looked around at all the townsponies staring at them. "But first let's go somewhere more private. Extreme case of NOSY MUSSLES going around!"

A brown and white earth pony shook her hoof at Prancey. "Shut it! We can look at what we darn well please!"

"Yeeeeeeeah," Prancey rolled her eyes. "Let's go to the inn, there's drink and less out-in-the-openness. Plus, who knows what could happen there?" She gave a playful wink. "Come on, bring your voices with you!"

Twilight blinked. "Uh... Okay." She walked after Prancey, still a little baffled from the whole experience, still trying to sift through the new dump of information. Being deep in her thoughts, she walked facefirst into the door. "Ow..."

Prancey giggled, opening it for her. "Got a lot on your mind?"

"You... Don't know the half of it."

The tavern was a small, wooden building with four tables and a bar inside. There were stairs leading to a second floor, and an unlit fireplace on the opposite wall. At the bar stood a blue unicorn stallion with the most boring expression imaginable. "Prancey, you know I don't allow you to bring in-"

Prancey interrupted. "Page, boss, page, my man, if I was into this purple thing here, I'd sneak through the back window and you'd never know I was here. Or I'd drug you. Or I'd convince you to take the night off and let me run the place for a while. This poor mare's just lost, and needs to get back on her feet!"

"Uh, yeah," Twilight confirmed, looking at Prancey. Drug him? "I'm Twilight... Glimmer."

"You have wings." Page noted.

"Yes. Yes I do. I'm an alicorn."

"...Think I could get away with charging her double?"

Prancey facehooved. "Page! I'm paying for her! She doesn't have money! Do you see any saddlebags on her?"

"No. But you never know with a unicorn." He blinked slowly, turning to walk out the back. "You take the counter then."

"Oooooo-kay!" Prancey leaped behind the counter and produced a drink from beneath it, chugging it. "So, you like blueberry wine?"

Twilight blinked. "I generally don't have alcoholic... anything really. Unless it was this cider a friend of mine made."

Prancey gasped. "You don't!? Wow. You're something special. I don't think we have cider but lemme check..." She began to rummage through the cupboards and pantries, looking for a single drop of the elusive drink. "Yoo-hoo, cider..."

As she looked, Twilight sat at a stool and thought through things. With the most recent dump of information, she was certain the voices really didn't know much more than she did, if anything. If they were humans like that one had said, they lived in a world similar to Sunset's... which meant little, if any, magic. They probably only saw what she saw, heard what she heard - nothing more. Those that were talking about strange things were just messing with her - though why anyone would do that was beyond her. She was lost, worried, afraid, and they decided that it was a good time to torment her? What kind of people were they? ...She was pretty sure that the one that wanted her dead, presumably Eris, was just evil, but the others? Darkus and his obsession with food? Afizah and his talking about the scholar's tree and the mountain? It meant nothing - unless it did. Maybe they didn't know as much about each other as they thought...

At least some of them had apologized and tried to explain how it worked to her. She was thankful for that. Though she had no idea what a fourth wall break was. She didn't know what a lot of the things they talked about were. She knew some of them were being purposefully vague...

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to the tavern flew open, revealing a deep purple unicorn mare with a thin orange mane. She trotted up to the bar, sat on the stool, and slumped. She tossed a few silver coins onto the bar. "Blueberry wine."

"Here you are!" Prancey said, tossing her the glass, continuing her search for the cider.

The unicorn took a drink and sighed. "Why..."

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked.

"I'm fine. It's just that my clockwork swan doesn't want to work. Every time I wind the spring it makes a single ring and then won't turn more than fifteen degrees..."

"A clockwork swan?" Twilight's eyes sparkled. "That sounds amazing!"

"It would be, if it worked."

"I'm sure you can do it if you just work at it a while."

"Been on it for a week."

Twilight shrugged. "Well, even if it doesn't turn, it still makes that ring doesn't it?"

The mare looked up at her for the first time, looking her up and down. She blinked. "...There's no way I'm that drunk."

"I really do have an eye artifact in my chest, and wings. And a horn. I'm Twilight Glimmer."

"Wound Dream. In about three minutes the reality of your existence is going to hit me and I'm going to start staring, be warned."

"Uh... Okay?"

"Found it!" Prancey said, slamming a mug on the table and filling it with a browned liquid. "CIDER! Back of the pantry, been there for probably a decade!"

Twilight blinked. "Wouldn't it spoil by then?"

"Your cider, maybe, not this stuff though! This is industrial-strength-power!"

Twilight took a sip. It tasted vaguely like Applejack's cider - nowhere near as good, but still refreshing. "...This is pretty good, actually."

"Score one for the prancester!"

Wound rolled her eyes. "Another blueberry."

"Right at ya!" She tossed Wound another blueberry wine. "Now, Twilight, you must be lost and confused."

"Yeah... I just want to get home."

"Well, maybe I know where your home is! C'mon, test my vast stores of knowledge!"

Wound snorted at this remark. Twilight decided to give it a shot. "I'm from Ponyville. ...Equestria."

Prancey blinked. "...No idea. Sorry."

Twilight sighed. "I wasn't expecting much. I'm pretty knowledgeable on geography myself, and I have no idea where I am. These lands are so alien..."

"Our nation is called Peran, if that helps," Wound offered.

Twilight frowned. "That... Sounds like I may have read it in a book somewhere one time. So no, not really."

"Sorry," Prancer said, frowning, "we'll help you find your home if we can."

"Thank you," Twilight said. It was at this moment Wound started staring at her. Twilight sighed. "...What?"

"Wings. Horn. How?"

"I used to be a unicorn as was given wings by powerful magic."

"You're a mage?"

"It's my special talent."

Wound started grinning crazily, the face of a mare getting ideas. "And what about the third eye? Legends say things with three eyes can see the future..."

"Uh... It sometimes dumps information into my head. Several different 'voices' talk to me, and they really don't know as much as they let on."

"Where'd you find it?"

"Where I woke up. In a strange purple gazebo-temple on top of an island in a lake... a lake that no longer exists, apparently."

Prancey tripped. "The vanishing lake? You were THERE? You woke up THERE?"

"Uh... Yeah! You've heard of it?"

"Every pony here knows the legend of the lake that is filled with huge monsters and can never be found by the same pony twice! We all thought it was a folk tale!"

"You didn't," Wound said.

"Unimportant. Were there really giant seven eyed sharks? Was the water really solid?"

"...Yes and yes." Twilight affirmed.

"You're amazing. Just what this town needs, some excitement!"

"The Mayor and Diorite are going to want to talk to her..." Wound said, still staring at Twilight. She looked like she wanted to say something, but didn't.

"Yeah, of course, but that can happen later." Prancey gave Twilight another mug of cider. "Right now, she relaxes, away from the public eye!"

Twilight smiled. "Yeah, that'd be good. Thank you both for showing me such kindness. It means a lot." She frowned. "...Hey, what do you know about that forest?"

"The Bluemish?" Prancey asked.

"Stupid name," Wound muttered.

"Maybe?" Twilight said.

"Magic forest, lots of spirits there. I would usually say to stay away from it, but you do seem the magic-y type, so you'd probably be fine. It's got a lot of weird spells and ancient rocks everywhere, plus those flowers will totally mess with your head! Hey, if you went there, think you could get me some? I'm running out of sleep powder."

"Uh... I don't know if I'm going there."

"No biggy, only if you're there." Prancey shrugged. Then she leaned in and tapped the eye artifact. "Hiiiiiiii there voices! How are you this fine day?"

There was no response.

"Aw... Guess they don't want to talk."

"It usually takes a while for them to call again," Twilight said, "they just talked to me back when I met you."

"Oh so thaaaat's why you froze up. Gotcha. That's gotta be annoying."

"You have no idea..." Twilight yawned. "...Celestia, I'm tired..."

Wound raised an eyebrow at the use of 'Celestia', but said nothing. Prancey shrugged. "I can get you a bed upstairs, but the mayor and Diorite will want to talk to you."

Twilight nodded. Then she felt the warmth in her chest. "...It's happening agian."

Prancey stuck her ear to the glowing eye. "I don't hear anything."

"It goes directly to my mind, you won-"

Then Twilight's mind was flooded once more...

V

Author's Note

[IMPORTING][…Twilight Glimmer? You couldn’t lie and make a better alias, like Violet Star, or Midnight Glow? Well that’s find in the end, alias’ don’t change the progression of an adventure. But please, Twilight, can you stop making chit-chat and start doing things I swear it’s like babysitting. None of your reading audience is going to continue staying tuned for WITTY BANTER, GET A R˜ßˆ√∂ø˙¬˜¬ßƒ´ß MOVE ON! Action, fighting, heroism! You need these things. Think of things like a Daring Do book for !@#$%@ sakes!… …Well, this is Water Slash here, and maybe telling people you don’t know about a gem stabbed into your best isn’t such a good idea. Oh, and I almost forgot. Sounds of a pill dropping through liquid. That should help with the overload. Good luck! ONLY ONE ITEM PER TRANSFER… …Jesus Christ Key calm down, adventures are always slow to start, we get to what you want to see soon enough… …Josh here, sorry about Key. Now I have to say these ponies are fascinating, I mean, alcoholic drinks? It’s clear to me that we are dealing with a culture vastly different from Equestrias, as such you should tread lightly until you learn the norms and taboos. Also sorry for being vague there are things i’m just not sure how to explain; the fourth wall being one of then… …ßˆ∂˜√¨´¥∑ˆ£∑˜øˆƒ˜∑ª¢˜∂… …Greetings little Alicorn! Akumakami here to explain this in simple terms. We are NOT from the same human world that you know. We’ve messed with that world too sometimes. Think of us as incorporeal Discords to some extent. The one responsible for your Eye thing and change in location is named Blackjack the one of us with the most power over your specific world, the ‘primary’ if you prefer. Usually we don’t or can’t directly communicate with your planes - and if we could, its usually only the ‘primary’ of each version of your world (multiverse). This is a new experience for us too. Now, there IS a reason why everyone acts like hey know more than they do - two actually. One is that they are giving advise based on other worlds they’ve ‘seen’ and the second is that we’re all hoping your ‘primary’ will take what we say and manipulate things to make them true/correct in your current world. Yes, he can do that, but is being very minimal about it - I think. So we’re trying to see how much we can actually influence things. As for why we’re giving you random advice? Because we can…and a lot of us rather not leave you alone to the meaner ones. Also, no, most of us do not know each other. Hope this helped explain my compatriots a bit. If you have a question, i”ll try to answer it, but so will everyone else, probably. PS, I’m guess Diorite is a serpentine dragon called a ryu or a lung. I’d appreciate you asking that if you get a chance. He also might be some species related to Discord since there’s a thing called Ryuma/Lonmga, meaning Dragon-horse, aka draconequus. Again, guessing. Discord’s backstory varies across the multiverse. PPS just a bit of common sense, be cautious about the alicorn thing. If that’s to a thing where you are, that is just as likely to get you proclaimed as a goddess as it is to get you burned at the stake, depending on what type of place it is and the type of ruler… …Well, I wouldn’t have suggested telling everyone about a magical glowing eye on your chest that makes you hear voices, but they didn’t think you were nuts so that’s good. AS for us, your guess is scarily accurate. We do, in fact, see through snapshots of reality and only at certain times can we act. It gets annoying, trust me. Tell Prancey I said hello by the way… …This is the Frog. Maybe it is a bad idea to trust the pony who wants you to get her sleep powder and who idly mentioned drugging people. Oh, and for the record, I have no idea who anyone else is. I don’t think i’ve ever talked to any of them before. I’m quite sure it’s the same for everyone else. So maybe ignore anyone who claims to know anyone else… …I figured that much, that was my persona reacting to yours… …Afizah here, i’m a girl. I’m going to let that slight insult slide as I know you can’t tell if the voices talking to you is a guy or a girl, but before you make an assumption of what gender a voice belongs to, maybe try to figure out if the name fits better on a guy or girl. As for where you are, I may just be speculating but the name Peran literally means ‘on the other side’. Whether that means other side of where you’re from or not the other side of reality I do not know, but what do know is that most of us will try to get you home. Some will just try to torment you, others will confuse you, one of us seems to want to feed you but I think he may just have a few screws loose. From what I believe the Scholars’ tree lies within the heart of the forest, but to get there, find Jack Sparrow’s compass. jack Sparrow’s compass was an unusual navigational instrument most notably used by Captain Jack Sparrow, which he bartered from the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma. The compass was the key to everything, for those who knew how to use it. Unlike an ordinary compass, Jack’s compass proved most valuable, as it pointed to what the owner wanted most, rather than mere magnetic north… …Are you… Are you… Coming to the tree? They strung up a man, they say who murdered three? Strange things did happen here, no strangers would it be, if we met at midnight in the hanging tree~ HAHAHAHAHAHA I’ll see you soon little mare… …Twilight suddenly feels like she is being watched. The feeling passes quickly though, but the malice emanating from it was enough for Twilight to fear her safety… …Why am I always put into situations like this? Josh, damnit, everyone else is too for talking down to me. Twilight needs to keep the interest above a certain level or terrible universe ending things are going to happen! WHY DOES NOBODY REEDING GET THAT?!… …This is Zen, You’re right, I should have suggested a more nuanced approach, or at least been more specific about the context. My apologies. As to what I know, what I told you last time was essentially it. I have a handful of suspicious, but nothing concrete. Though you could probably figure this much on your own, intelligent mare that you are, it seems to me that the more you find out about this island, the more you can find out about whatever brought you to this predicament in the first place. My gut says that serpentine dragon, this Diorite, is the most likely to know more, but some of the other villagers might as well, especially if you could - respectfully of course - track down a village elder who was willing to tell you more. If those efforts significant fruit, the seemingly magical nature of this ‘Bluemish Forest’ is probably your next best lead. And I apologize for Key. Though I sympathize with his impatience, his conduct is unbecoming, especially when addressing royalty. Speaking of which, it may be worthwhile to subtly probe some of the locals, including the dragon and mayor, about the local situation vis-a-vis royalty. It’s always good to know where you stand… …Apologies for all the clutter. It would seem that our numbers increase the longer we remain attached to you… …Twilight, you forgot my name! My name is Crystal got it? Crystal! You remembered all these other idiots’ names so why not my name?… …Crystal, I told you to stop messing with the heads of artifact wielders - she’s already wearing the witch’s eye, it’s what’s allowing us to talk to her - next thing I know you’ll say that she’s just a character in a story some brony is writing from their basement…]

V

Twilight stumbled back. There were many things she had considered saying once she'd heard them, but the last line that came in threw her for a loop. She was wearing the witch's eye?

"...You look like you've seen a ghost," Prancey said.

"I... Did you girls see anything when you were looking at the eye?" Twilight asked, worried.

"Nothing. Why?" Wound asked.

"...Earlier one of the voices said something along the lines of 'look into the witch's eye and see how you will die,' and now one of them said I was wearing the witch's eye..." She looked down at the artifact. She saw nothing.

"Well, we didn't see any death!" Prancey cheered. "All I see is a strange eye made of valuable materials! Veeeery shiny!"

"...At least I have a name for it now," Twilight said, looking closely at the Witch's Eye. "Definitely not its name, but it's something."

"So what else did they say? Huh Huh?!" Prancey said, flapping her wings rapidly in excitement.

"Er.. Well one of them said hello to you, though I don't know which one, they all sound the same to me. The only ones I'm pretty sure I can identify easily are Key, Eris, and Darkus - and I didn't hear anything about food last time so I don't think Darkus said anything..." She smiled sheepishly. "I sound like a crazy pony don't I?"

"We all saw the WItch's Eye glow," Wound said, "so there's something going on there. I felt quite a bit of magic... I've never felt anything quite like it."

"Oh but you're the expert on crazy weird stuff!" Prancey grinned. "C'mon! You're the wound dream! Whaddoyathink?"

"...AllI can really say is the magic is unique, and it's encased in the Black Steel the ancients used."

"Ancients?" Twilight asked, ears perking. "Who are they?"

"Nopony really knows. They left behind a lot of ruins, especially in the deserts to the north. All of them are inhabited by elemental spirits though, so they're all really dangerous places."

"Oh," Twilight said, "so looking into it would be a bad idea?"

"Not without a lot more information than I can give you. I'm just a clockmaking artist."

"Oooh!" Prancey said, bouncing into the air. "You could talk to Infinity! She knows LOTS of things!"

Wound laughed. "She's also wrong more often than not. Do so at your own risk, the library is a place wrought with misinformation and her crazy mind..."

Twilight frowned. All the ponies in this town were crazy, in one way or other, from what she had seen. It was a lot like Ponyville in that way. It felt... welcoming, actually. She was surprised to find herself admit that. She yawned again. "Well, I won't be doing anything until tomorrow, I need some sleep." She shook her head. She'd probably head out to the forest after asking around town a bit, the voices had given her a lot of good questions to ask... And a lot of things to mull over later.

Prancey's ears suddenly perked up. "Diorite's coming!"

"What?" Twilight said. She was not given time to process anything - the door to the inn swung open, and the green dragon stuck his head in. It barely fit. Using a claw, he opened one of the windows from the outside and tossed in the whitest stallion Twilight had ever seen - white wings, white legs, white eyes, white mane... Everything was white.

Twilight spread her wings and took a few steps back from them.

"No need to be worried!" The stallion called. His voice was high-pitched and nasally, the tones it hit grated against Twilight's eardrums. "I am Mayor Feckless! I welcome you to Pebbleton!"

"Uh... Thank you," Twilight said, bowing graciously. "Your town has been most kind."

"May I have your name?"

"Twilight Glimmer."

Feckless nodded. "Well Miss Glimmer, once again, welcome. If you need anything don't hesitate to ask." He turned to Diorite. "...Is that it?"

Diorite let out a deep, exasperated sigh. "...Yes, Feckless, yes..." His voice had a deep, throaty purr that accompanied every syllable.

"Can I go now?"

If Diorite would have facepalmed had the building's shape allowed it. "...Out the window."

Feckless nodded, climbing out the window without another word.

Diorite turned to Twilight. "You'll have to excuse him. He's an idiot."

"I... Wouldn't say that..." Twilight said.

"Would 'inconsiderate and lazy' work better?" Diorite smirked, his rows of long, sharp teeth glinting in the light of the inn.

Twilight gulped. "...Maybe?"

Diorite let out a chuckle. "My little pony, there is nothing to fear from me. I am this town's protector, nothing more. Unless you seek to destroy or harm us, you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

Twilight nodded slowly. "O... Okay. Sorry, still haven't gotten over my experiences with... Other dragons."

"We can be rather... predatory, I do admit. Though it has been a long while since I've met somepony terrified of us. We are pretty common around here..."

"I'm not from around here. ...Ever heard of a place called Equestria?"

Diorite furrowed his brow. "...The name sounds vaguely familiar... But I can't think of anywhere in the known world called that."

"Oh... Thanks anyway. So, your kind is common here?"

Diorite smirked. "Peran is a joint cooperation between dragons and ponies. We share this land and are all the better because of it."

"Dragons and ponies living in harmony? That's... That's amazing!" Twilight grinned. "How... How does your society work? How do you coexist? Who're your leaders?"

"Calm down there, Twilight, I'm not well versed in national politics and what not. We just... live together, and it works. The Council of Elders keeps it all together from the Palace."

She nodded. "...Are there any customs I should be aware of?"

"Well, first off, hide your wings and that eye. We are pretty accepting of the unusual this far north, you find ancient relics from time to time and you just have to learn to live with them. But if you ever to the bigger cities, I'm not sure what they'd do to you."

"...Akumakami said as much."

"Who?"

"It'd... Take way too long to explain," Twilight said, "really complicated."

Diorite blinked. "Fair enough. Aside from that... some dragons will take you fearing them as an insult. We have a long painful history that some of us would rather not be reminded of. And those that are older then Peran itself, well... Let's just say they could go ballistic."

"Don't show fear. Greeeeeat..." Twilight sagged.

"Make sure to respect the elders, and don't interrupt a dragon on the hunt, they might not be able to switch out of 'hunt' mode in time. And... I can't think of anything else that isn't obvious."

Wound raised her hoof. "Perhaps she should know not to scream, 'pony, do this! Pony, do that!' to avoid another scene?"

"She's not a dog," Diorite observed, saying the word dog with distaste.

Twilight decided not to comment on it. "Well, thank you all for helping me. I... I'm really, really tired right now. I need some sleep, and I need to think all this over."

"You're welcome to stay as long as you need!" Prancey said.

"Thanks, Prancey. Really. Thank you too Diorite. If I have more questions I'll come to you."

Diorite nodded. "It is my pleasure." He pulled his head out of the inn and went back to relaxing.

"Which room is mine?" Twilight asked.

"First door on the left. Here's the key." Prancey tossed the brown metal object to Twilight. She caught it with her magic and then trodded up the stairs.

~~~

Night had fallen.

Twilight still hadn't fallen asleep, despite being more tired than she could ever remember being. There was just TOO MUCH to think about. She was in a foreign land with no clue how to get home, a strange artifact that talked to her embedded in her chest, and had to live in constant fear that the Witch's Eye would just act up and stop her from doing anything!

She rolled onto her side. Maybe she should just go through the last message... She tried to ignore Key - he just seemed angry about something and the others didn't seem to be too happy with him - but she couldn't because what he said was just... interesting. He called her out on things that didn't matter but seemed to be eager to do... something. Was she just a show to him, or was there something else behind it?

She groaned - what was this 'adventure' anyway? Was it something to do with the 'ancients?' The island she found herself on? The mountain? The forest? Maybe the adventure was in this town! She didn't know! How could she? And how could they?

...because of what Akumakami said. She... She was extremely grateful for what they had said, putting it in as simple terms as possible, but she still didn't understand. There was a lot of them, and they could see into other universes - which was a wonder of technology. She had to admit human ingenuity was something, but she'd seen nothing to suggest they could get into other universes... Maybe it wasn't something they did? Something this... 'primary,' Blackjack, did? They sounded like some kind of ruler, or arbiter, from what Twilight could tell. She had an image of them as some kind of dark Applejack, based purely on the name. Were they responsible for her being here, or just allowing the voices to talk to her? What control did they have?

"Ugh..." She groaned, ramming her face into her pillow. "Thanks, Akumakami, really, but that's a lot to take in. And sorry, forgot to ask Diorite about those things. I'll see if I can tomorrow. And Crystal, sorry about forgetting your name, it's... Hard to keep track of."

There were, as usual, several things that had been said she just flat out didn't understand - the 'transfer,' the 'persona,' whatever those things meant. And then there was the 'being watched' bit - of course, she was being watched she had an eye stuck in her chest that saw everything! Afizah - apparently a girl - had done her 'scholar's tree' thing again, this time going off on a rant about some pony named Jack Sparrow and a compass.

Then there was that... song, probably from Eris. Twilight tried to tell herself it meant nothing, but it kept playing over and over in her mind, despite her efforts to think about other things. At least Zen was on her side - easily the voice she felt the most comfortable and safe hearing. He - she? "Hey, uh, genders? I... don't want to offend anyone again." Zen had the best shadow of a plan - talk to ponies around town, try to learn about the island, and... well then probably head into the forest then... And then what?

She supposed on what would happen once she got there.

...Would she get the flowers for Prancey? She seemed nice, but she was a bit... forward. Was sleep powder just a normal thing here? Like dragons? Or was she being asked to do something illegal, and taken advantage of?

She didn't know who to trust. She wanted her friends...

She started crying, exhausting herself to sleep at long last.

~~~

She opened her eyes. She was standing in an expanse of sand, the full moon high in the sky. It was a dream...

...a dream!

"LUNA!!!!!" Twilight yelled at the top of her lungs. "LUNAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

Luna didn't respond. Something else did. The moon flashed a deep purple, and a ghostly aether of purple energy flowed out of it, coalescing before Twilight. It took a tall, ghastly shape - two translucent arms alongside a wispy, ghostlike body, on top of which a featureless head sat. She could see inside it - see sparks of magic swirling around a central symbol. A symbol she had seen on the roof of the room she had found the Witch's Eye. A symbol she had seen on her own flank for decades.

"W-what are you?"

"Quite interesting, how you've started." It said, speaking in a strange, reverberating voice. Twilight wasn't sure if this was part of the dream or not.

"Did you do this?!"

"I had no idea there'd be this many..."

"Are you even listening to me!?"

"Your vessel is getting antsy. Why would you choose this one? What is the appeal?"

Twilight took a few steps back. "W... What are you talking about?"

She didn't get to do anything else - for in that moment, the eye began to glow. Twilight was certain it was glowing in the real world as well. She gulped.

VI

Author's Note

[IMPORTING][…Yes I suppose ruler is fitting. So long as we wish to speak with you, we must follow some unspoken rules. The majority of which are simple common sense… …THAT, Twilight, THAT REEDING ENTITY IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO FEAR!! The people I work for call it the Sweeper. it’s the thing that puts on the whole show. Others call it Blackjack, but they don’t know it’s power like I do. They’re new, they haven’t seen pony after pony taken against their will to be a part of it’s sick games…Look I’m, I’m sorry okay, I’m stressed, my job is to make sure you remain interesting to the people viewing, the… other voices, and the countless observers that aren’t able to gain enough strength to become a voice. I tend to get mad at times, and for that I am sorry, it’s just so infuriating watching the Sweeper take and take and take until there’s nothing left! I can’t say much because it’ll be watching, but just.. just make sure to stay as interesting as possible, do unexacting things, fight the villains, be Daring Do and save the day! IT doesn’t matter what specifically you do, JUST DON’T WASTE TIME!!!… …Akumakami again - ]sorry about that, I didn’t realize how much I was actually telling you until after the fact. Still, glad to help and I appreciate you asking Diorite. Ahh, the standard creepy dream scene. Twilight, listen to me carefully. Calm your withers. This thing, which is likely either an avatar of Blackjack or is talking to Blackjack through the eye, knows everything that’s going on. However, in these situations it either needs you for some reason or, quite possibly is watching you mostly out of curiosity. That said, if it attacks or anything like that? I only have one thing to say: µß∂ˆø√¨∑ˆµ…¬˙ß∂˚¬¥® Now, when you get done dreaming and panicking, I want you to go out to the edge of town and look around. 1. The Princess of Friendship will happen upon a broken sword in the field. 2. The Student of Celestia will notice ravens flying in circles. 3. The egghead of Ponyville will spot a lone apple tree. 4. Twilight Sparkle will see a White Timerbowlf. Sorry for any potential issues those may cause. Doing a little experimenting with what I can do. I know it’s probably frustrating, but see what happens. Think of it as a quasi-scientific experiment on our effect on your surroundings. Good luck. PS: Okay, seriously, a land of ponies and dragons living together? Assuming Draconequus is a legitimate species name, i’m getting more sure that Discord has at least some connection to this place. PPS: Legitimate question of concern - does the Witch’s Eye make flying harder? PPPS: Suggestion: you raised the sun and moon during the whole Tirek thing, albeit not brilliantly, so… is there any way you could sense Celestia and Luna’s magic on them and use it as a compass of sorts pointing to Equestria’s general direction? And if you at least tried, could Celestia and Luna be able to sense your direction due to something messing with their orbs? Food for thought. AK out!… …This is Zen. I don’t know where Key’s information comes form, but this may very well be how the one known as Blackjack would choose to show itself to you. We, or at least I, know precious little of it, rendering it an effectively unknown variable. Whatever this creature is, it is very clearly not addressing you, or not at least not just you. While there are enough moving parts in this matter that certainty is hard to come by , I cannot shake the feeling that it addresses us. So I will respond. I do not know if it can hear me, but if it can’t than at least you will. Anyone or anything that does not know why Twilight Sparkle was chose does not know Twilight Sparkle. She is a compassionate, curious, and intelligent mare. Whatever lay before her on her journey, she has my confidence that she will see through it with aplomb, and will not falter for long should she stumble. And I will at every step endeavor to render her what aid I can so that she will see her friends again… …This is Josh here - I have to say I don’t know why Afizah is bringing up Jack Sparrow he is form a completely different universe, and yes most of us can see into different universes, some, like Blackjack, can even make them, I know that’s a lot to take in, but try to listen to what he’s saying, I have a feeling that it’s important… …Another reason I’m always angry Twilight? Is because everyone is CONSTANTLY FLAKING DOUBTING ME! Zen knows where I get my finromatin, but does he agree with me and help me keep ponies alive in the wake of the Sweeper? NOOOOOOOooooOOOOOoooooo! I’m just Key, oh look at me, I’m some loud idiot that like to yell all the time, it’s not like i’m employed to KEEP THE LASTEST PONY FROM CEASING TO EXIST OR ANYTHING. @#^@#%$#… …Twilight, this is Afizah. Listen carefully, that creature before you is not your friend, it is the one who caused the Witc’s eye to attach to you, but whatever you do, do NOT attack it, for it has lead many victims to death or madness. My sister was one such victim before she ran afoul of that creature. only you will be able to see how somepony dies but it is up to you whether or not you decide to stop the event from happening, but know this should you interfere with the death of one pony another will die in their place… …I’ just trying to think of things she might find to make the adventure experience better. Plus I like having lore or items foremother universes intersect with this one. In fact, I’m making a universe where Twilight tis half-phoenix, but it’s taking a lot of energy doing it alone. Right now I’m going to see if I can gift THIS twilight with some useful skills… Skill Download: skill: telepathy. Download commencing. Error: data corruption.Data purge complete. Remaining incorporated data: mind reading, psychic navigation, danger intrusion. Download recommencing. Download complete. initializing insatllation. Installation complete. Skill description: mind reading. The ability to read/sense the thought of others. Limitations: unable to turn off. Skill description: psychic navigation. The ability to create a mental make of the area. Skill description: danger intrusion. Can sense any sort of danger within a certain radius range. Limitations, unable to shut off faculty. maybe e hard to decipher the impending danger until it happens… …[ERROR: CANNOT DISPLAY VERSE. NOTE: TWILIGHT HEARD, BUT CANNOT BE REPRINTED] HAHAHAHAAH!!!! Are you prepared little mare? Cause soon you shall die… …Akumakami once more - keep in mind, some of us are deliberately trying to freak you out. Afizah and Key seem to be firmly in this category. Also, yes, I’m a guy… …IM NOT TRYING TO FREAK TWILIGHT OUT, I’M TRYING TO WARN HER OF THE DANGER SHE’S IN… …Akumakami in response to Key; since we influence how the story goes, it’s more likely we’re/you’re warping it into being a danger… …Akamakumi, please, if we were truly trying to freak her out then we may have just pretended to be right behind her breathing in a very creepy manner juts to build the tension to even worse level than they were before, wait till she found a place of relative safety, wait till she lowered her guard, then pounce out at her like in that one universe with the run down pizza restaurant. Mmmm I could go for some pizza right now. Bbq chicken pizza with a slide glad of root beer. Hey, Twilight, you want some? The chicken just melts in your mouth. Starts drooling a waterfall. HAHAHAHAHA You scared yet little mare?!… …This is Zen. Do none of you know the meaning of restraint? Or perhaps it’s forethought you lack? All of your insane prattling is going to be funneled directly into Twilight’s mind, which will only make her situation all the more precarious, and if not it still causes her considerable disorientation and discomfort - which is why I have bene purposefully refraining from speaking multiple times before now. And Akumakami, I think you’ll find that, if you go over everything that has happened thus far, any attempt that any of us has made to alter the course of events has been a resounding failure, save for those suggestions made to Twilight which she has chosen to carry out. The notion that we have some ability to alter the nature of reality is utterly baseless. I cannot, for the life of me, think of where you could have gotten that idea. We are voices in Twilight’s head, and as far as we have any reason to believe, the ti sit. And Afizah, what, by all that is sacred, do you think you are doing? Twilight’s brain is not a computer… …From Akumakami: read the summary. And things have just started, Zen. WE don’t know what we can and can’t do yet. It’s an experiment. so leave me to my own little attempts to see what CAN be done and I’ll leave you to yours. I also disagree with it being baseless, but I am tRYING to refrain form overloading this mare’s head. So I won’t get into that. AK out… …It’s Wolf here. I wanted to let you know that I am on your side at least. Ask me for advice anytime, but I may not have all the answers. Also, tell the entity that we didn’t exactly get a choice this time. He should understand… …Zen, I know her brain is not a computer, but I wasn’t downloading the gift directly into her brain, i was downloading it into the eye. It would then activate the skills that had been downloaded in the form of a mental link while she was allowing us to talk to her,. The only way I would do a direct download would be if she was asleep so her brain wouldn’t overheat trying to process all the information. Besides the skills probably won’t even make it to her if the creator chooses not to allow hem anyway… …Well great if that thing is here then the situation is more dire than I thought. Twilight listen, don’t do anything drastic and try to keep an open mind going forward okay… …Mmm, strange indeed. Duke here. I think Key, Zen, and Kami are blowing things way out of proportion. As long as they exist and keep looking at your universe, you will be fine, and the Sweeper will get what he wants. Another thing of note - you’ve been hearing us for… oh about a day and a half, I think. Time flow much slower for us. In the epitome it takes for you to get the update, two or three days have gone by for us. Everyone has hours to compose their Influence on your universe. Do with the information as you see fit, but know that they have all thought this through way more than you could ever hope to. That may not be a good thing…. …We are Light and Dark. I am Light you friend and I want you to be cautions, gather information, and be ready for the worst also pay attention to the small details but most importantly do not stray from the path of righteousness no matter what and never forget your friends and family. I am Dark and I want you to go on a rampage and slaughter all the villagers, even the dragon, use you power and enforce your rule and most importantly forget what is good and embrace the evil within you.]

VI

Twilight regained control of everything - and had a panic attack. The entity was standing right in front of her, as if it was curious.

"You all seem to have a serious case of mistaken identity."

"Uh..." Twilight said.

"Disappointing. While this 'primary' is fascinating, I was hoping my efforts would find something more... knowledgeable."

"Your... Efforts?"

"I am curious if any of you would bother to explain the name 'Sweeper' at a later date. Prove yourselves at least somewhat worthwhile.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't kill your vessel. More time is all you need."

"Would you at least respond to me!?" Twilight screamed.

The entity floated away from her. "You are The Influence, but you woefully misunderstand your own nature. Maybe with time you will mature, and take the place you were meant to."

Twilight gritted her teeth. "I am Twilight Sparkle and you are in my dream - the least you could do is respond!"

The aura became shrouded in a torrent of sand. The entire dream soon became nothing but a super dense sandstorm - and Twilight could feel herself waking up. "Oh come on!"

She sat bolt upright in her bed - it was early morning. The sun hadn't even crested the horizon. She sighed, rubbing her temples... It was probably time to go over what they had said. ...She supposed they were The Influence, if what the entity said was anything to go by. Zen was apparently the only one who was right about the entity - it had been addressing them. The rest had thought it was some avatar of the primary or talking to him... What did it mean?

It meant they were all confused - her, the Influence, all of them. They were trying to figure it out just as much as she was. She was going to go look at the edge of town after talking with Diorite and some elders... To see if she did find anything. Though... "Egghead of Ponyville? Really? You couldn't think of a different title?"

She took a moment to think about Key - he was making her nervous. He seemed wrong, so wrong, about everything, but he seemed so terrified. "You... Key, I'm sorry, but you've said lots of things that don't seem to matter or make sense. Could you... Calm down and try to explain why you're so agitated in such a way that me and the others can understand? Just... Here's some advice, take some deep breaths, count to ten, and think. I know you have time to think about what you're going to say, to make use of it. Please just... I want to know what's gotten you all scared. Because it's scaring me. And something tells me that isn't good."

"And as for those of you who are deliberately trying to freak me out... What's the point of that? Why give me songs? Why try to upload things into my brain? Why talk about food? What is the point?" She shook her head. "I just... I'm trying to figure my way out of this. Zen, Duke? Thanks. You too Akumakuma, even if you are a little weird. Nice to have some people I can trust."

She got out of bed. "Okay... Talk to Diorite... Talk to some elders... then go check out the forest and maybe get Prancey those plants. And..." She paused for a moment, turning to look at the place the sun should rise any minute. Could... Could she contact Celestia through it? She was an alicorn after all...

She took a deep breath. She didn't have the power of four alicorns in her anymore... But she would try. She spread her wings and lit her horn with intense magics. She forged a connection to the sun and strained herself. She wasn't anywhere near powerful enough to fully raise the sun into the sky - but she moved it above the horizon. She probably freaked a few ponies out by doing it a little earlier than expected, but it did move.

Then something moved it back.

Twilight smiled. Celestia. Now... ...How was she going to communicate by moving the sun? She didn't have enough power to draw pictures with it... She would try Moose code. She shifted the sun back and forth four times - but she quickly realized she didn't have enough power for this. It was... far, far too much of a tax on her. She stopped, letting out a breath. Then she walked down the stairs and out into the town.

The town was in a mild panic, scurrying left and right, holding their heads and yelling.

Diorite was up in the air, waving his arms. "Now now, calm down... The sun has stopped moving. Everything's back to normal. There's nothing to worry about."

Twilight gulped. Oh...

Feckless screamed. "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Diorite facepalmed. "Feckless, you know you have to keep your citizens calm right?"

"But what if I'm not calm!?"

"Oh for the..." Diorite sighed. "You know what, I'm just going to let them panic until they all get too tired to continue. Hello Twilight, sorry about this, a cosmological trouble has scared the ponies."

"I... noticed," Twilight said, looking a bit sheepish.

Diorite narrowed his eyes a little, as if he saw something in her face, but shook his head. "Anyway, what is it you wish to know?"

"You... Well a few things actually, but first off, what kind of dragon are you? You look different from the ones I know."

"Lung," Diorite answered, "there are many dragon tribes, ranging from the common, to the amphithere, to those mysterious sky serpents. Some of us even have feathers. But we're all big lizards. Your turn - what are alicorns like?"

"Oh, uh, we're a rare breed - I only know of five, myself included - and we're essentially a combination of all three pony races. We have internal unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony magic. Admittedly I've only really used my unicorn aspect to any significant degree, but I've been working on the other two."

Diorite nodded. "Did you get a cloak yet?"

"Oh! No." She looked down at the Witch's Eye. "...Forgot about that." She looked at her wings. "...That's going to make flying even more annoying. The Witch's Eye is a little heavy."

"...The Witch's Eye?"

"It's what I call this thing." She tapped the artifact. "Not sure if that's its real name, but I have to call it something, you know?"

"Ah. I can direct you to the tailor - an old mare by the name of Malty - though you may wish to wait until the chaos has died down."

"Guess I'll get it when I get back from the forest..."

Diorite blinked. "...Heading into the Bluemish?"

"I feel like there's probably something in there." She looked around at the stressed ponies. "...I suppose asking an elder about things is pointless now..."

"I'm over a hundred years old."

"Oh, right, sorry. Er, have you heard of a creature called Discord?"

Diorite nodded slowly. "Indeed I have. The reign of weirdness extended to your lands as well?"

"Yeah, actually," Twilight confirmed. "But that was a long time ago..."

"Indeed it was. It was from the ashes of that apparently worldwide terror that Peran was formed. The weirdness forced dragons and ponies to put aside their differences. In much... we have to thank him."

"Nothing more recent though?" Twilight asked.

"No. He just showed up one day, threw everything into chaos, and then vanished without a trace."

Twilight nodded. "He's in Equestria now, if you're curious. Not changing the world into chaos or anything - just living among us. Though to be perfectly honest he is a little annoying."

Diorite blinked slowly. "...Interesting."

Twilight shrugged. "It is, I suppose. Now, uh, excuse me, I'm going to walk around the edge of town because... reasons."

"Suit yourself."

Twilight walked around the edge of town, looking for anything that Akumakami had suggested - there were no swords, ravens, apple trees, or timberwolves. Twilight shrugged. "Well, there's your answer. Doesn't look like you can change much. It would've been nice if you figured that out though, I could really go for a 'Twilight Sparkle finds herself back in Ponyville without explanation' right about now." She frowned, looking towards the Bluemish. She spread her wings and took off into the air - it wasn't much harder to fly, though the Witch's Eye was rather heavy. She flew over the grass and into the woods.

She stopped just inside the treeline, looking around, nodding to herself. There were a few of the glowing blue flowers, but otherwise, all she could see was densely packed green trees. They were the greenest trees she had ever seen - the leaves were a deep green, the trunks were even darker, and the few that were flowering had lighter green buds. She saw no bugs, animals, or anything - just the plants.

She sensed some kinds of odd magic in the place, but there was no path or trail to follow. She shivered - creepy forest indeed. She took a breath and set out.

Three minutes later the Witch's Eye started glowing again. She softly sat down and entered a safe meditation pose...

VII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING][…I’M NOT WRONG I- Okay, okay, taking your advice here, I took a moment to breathe, it did help, so thank you. So as far as explanations go, I was vague before because the Sweeper, or the entity, or Blackjack, or whatever else you want to call it would have found out, but since it does anyway, there’s no reason to keep anything from you anymore. I’m an employee of a company called Recursive. We were founded specifically because of the Sweeper and his destructive capabilities. We have been actively working against it for a long time now. These new voices aren’t as familiar with it as I or the others in my company are. Duke knows it better than I do, but he’s the only one here who does. Now I won’t pretend to understand the world you’re currently in, which is why I haven’t really made comments about it in full, but what I do know is that the Sweeper is in charge, what it wants to happen happens, and we’re unable to stop it, we do mitigate it as much as we can though. And the truth of the matter is… well you’re part of a story it’s weaving. DO NOT START HYPERVENTILATING I SWEAR TO HUMANITY YOU BETTER STAY CALM! I … Okay, sorry, I have anger episodes, as you know. Right, well, existentialism aside, of which you don’t have to worry, you’re very much alive and the same as you’ve always been. But the Sweeper takes ponies, much like yourself, from their homes and starts a story, much like the one you’ve become a part of where you go somewhere new and do whatever it deems necessary until a set ‘end point’ where… the story is over. and once the story is over, my company believes fully that you will cease to exist. My job here was originally to make sure that different voices, or different people oddly continue to read and observe in the hopes of keeping interest in your life high enough that the Sweeper doesn’t make the ned point come before you get back home. I’m sorry i’ve been making you so scared, but as you can see, it’s pretty heavy stuff, and plus everyone here has done nothing but bash me for doing my job to keep them around so that you can be safe. It’s… trying to say the least, and, admittedly, not the first time this has happened. There’s one more thing before I go, something I can’t tell you for your own sanity’s sake yet, but… if you want to hear it later, I can tell you. Please be safe, I’m counting on you to remain interesting… …Twilight, Afizah here. Sorry for unnerving you but having as much knowledge as I do it’s hard not to share it. The scholar’s tree I mentioned is just me trying to add a small goal for you to find. I will say that the line about me making a universe about you is true. And although the creature you met in the dream, while different form what I’ve seen, did cause my sister to go mad and she has been trying to find a way out of her reality. Yours is just the closest escape point… …Twinkle Twinkle little star, how I wonder where you’ll fall, in a ditch is where you’ll lay, as your life force fades away~ HAHAHAH! I’m going to find you and nothing’s going to stop me!… …Akumakami is back!…We humans have an ancient quote, that truest Harmony arises from Discord. I wonder if Discord ever realized the irony that his reigns of chaos actually helped creatures get along after the fact. Nothing unites others and wash away old grudges than a new, bigger enemy. Hehe, might be something to annoy him with when you get back. Still, Diorite is a Lung, good to know. I wonder how much of what we know about them applies to your world’s version. I’ll look into that later. Though, it sounds like Discord might not be a Lungma - that or Diorite is unaware of the fact. With Discord, any answer is viable. Sorry, I actually thought that if any of them worked, egghead would have. Regrettably none of them did, and sending you back to Ponyville definitely wouldn’t have. Still, yes, it appears only the subtle, smaller stuff sticks - that or the bigger things don’t appear until later. Damn, was hoping to see where the White Timber thing would go. As for why the others were freaked out, assuming they weren’t just trying to screw with you, I think - and don’t quote me here - that some of them have seen some of Blackjack’s other works and associated your dream friend with something form there. I believe he’s harmless, personally, but he also annoyed me with that old cliche pointing out that we “misunderstand our nature.” we didn’t exactly get a manual for this with a list of rules about what we can and can’t do. Yes, that’s part of the fun and experience but its a “yes we know this- do you have anything to contribute or just commentary on my lack of process?” As for your current predicament…are you sure those blue flowers weren’t poison joke? First thing that came to mind. As for the creepy forest, we were expecting it in all honesty. Every country has a creepy forest- you LIVE next to one. Don’t got much advice to offer, I’m afraid. At this point you’re just as likely to find a mysterious cave as you are to find the Peran version of Fluttershy or Zecora- friend-to-the-animal-type or -wise-hermit-shamare type, neither of which would be necessarily friendly/helpful to you. Wait… I just realized something. That spell you used to summon Discord during the Plundered thing? can you do that still? Or at least try to get Discord’s attention? I know, maybe not your preferred source of help, but something to consider trying - though, maybe save it for when you’re trapped or alone. Your.. Okay, i’ll take some credit,OUR little stunt with the sun already has the locals a bit stirred up. Speaking of which, didn’t get any feeling of which direction home might be from that? Regardless, you at least got Celestia’s attention. If they didn’t know you were gone, they soon will. Hmm…Might try to stop the sun from rising or setting for a few seconds in a day or so. If you can’t figure out which way Celestia is by her link to the sun, she might be able to sense where somepony is messing with her sun now that she’s keeping an eye out for such things. Hope your forest adventure goes well…And if a white timber wolf does show up, I do hope its friendly. Just in case! AK out! PS I take weirdness as a badge of honor! Salutes! But I’m happy to help all the same. PPS Fun fact, this isn’t a translation spell, so we more or less speak the same language. I did a little research for the meaning of Peran. Only thing I could find is an old greek root for “beyond” or “over”, Tamil for Grandson, Iris for Prayer, and Indonesian for Actor. My bet is on the first one. Just mentioning this as it might be important later… …Josh here, guys I think the way we influence things is by being subtle, like when i said ‘twilight should go to the town and find an inn’ the first pony she ran into took her to the inn; I know that it’s circumstantial evidence at best, but I think it’s worth a shot. And the ones that are messing with you are doing it because they think it’s funny, I know that doesn’t make any sense to you, but that’s just the kind of world we lie in. P.S. we seem to be hearing your thoughts, so if you need to say something to us while you are in public you can take advantage of that… …Okay, so i’ve more or less stopped listening to what the others are saying at this point. It is an odd choice for an origin to open a young world to the influence of others like this. I have considered it for my own as a measure to cure its degradation but the results would be too inconsistent. It is probably best if you disregard the ones being argumentative or negative, they either won’t matter much due to the limitation son our influence or they will be prophetic and nothing you do will be sufficient to prepare, it all depends on the whims of your origin and I can make no guesses at what they are attempting with your world. If this were my world by now I probably would have dropped in a guarding or equivalent to keep things in check, heck you probably have become one of them with all the powers that entails, but your original likely has no direct equivalent nor desire to take the option. On a side note, if you need information you can try to ask us, your world is presented as a progressive event log to us so we can add our input between entries. While what we have to say may not be necessarily fully accurate to your world, we collectively have access to an information archive far larger than the canter lot archives covering countless worlds and situations so we may be able to find trends and frequency variations to give a better idea of what to expect… …Afizah here. I have found some more information about the artifact you’re wearing. It was made by the witches of old as a form of protection. It can protect you from harm to a certain degree, as well as let us talk to you and warn you of enriching dangers, I think. It also lets you see when somepony is about to die. Regrettably, it also comes with some downsides. If you interfere with the death of one pony, another will take their place. If it is ever removed, whether by you or an external force, it will kill you. It has embedded itself so dangerously close to your heart that you will be dead before you can even scream. I’m going to look a way to remove the eye without it killing you, but I don’t think I will have anything on how to do so until the next time we are summoned.I don’t know if the eye will allow you to summon any of us individually, but I will at least try to get the info to you A.S.A.P. PS. My sister was once like you Twilight. Kind,knowledgeable, friendly, and a little mischievous. But ever since she ran into a creature like the one from your dream, she went mad. I have been trying to keep her contained to our reality but she has slowly been forcing herself through the cracks. So I should worn you that Eris is - Crash What the, how did you get - metal scraping - W0what are you doing with that pipe? Smash. Thud. Groans. Night-night, little sister, HAHAHAHAHA… …This is Zen. I maintain that we cannot alter reality, and that the only ability as the Influence is to… Well, influence you, Twilight. Josh retains an interesting point, but that has simpler explanations - Prancey was trying to “get with” you as it were. It isn’t entirely impossible, but as far as I can see it the only means we have by which we can influence events is through our “vessel.” Any insinuations to the nature of the precent circumstances have been vague enough to include that explanation, so i’m not going to move on this point until we have demonstrable evidence to the contrary. Now, absent any other new information, I shall attempt to parse what the entity from your dream said. Its first comment, after the eye’s episode, seems confirm that it is wholly distinct from Blackjack. Furthermore, its next comment suggests that it is in some way related to the process that created your present circumstance. It seemed to be centered around the image of your Cutie Mark, yes? Correct me if I’m wrong, but is your Cutie Mark not reminiscent of the form of the Tree of Harmony? With that in mind, ti may well be that you have been brought here to serve some greater purpose. Exactly what, I couldn’t say - and, indeed, i’m not prepared to outright claim that’s what’s going on. Certainly, that this entity was more concerned with our understanding of the situation of the situation than ours throws such a simple explanation as that. Not enough to draw any definite conclusions from, but a lot to think about. As a side note, and I can’t believe no one involved in any of this hasn’t brought this up, when you get back to town you should try to get your hooves on a map… …Aw! I missed the fun last time because my connection was down. To answer your previous question I totally missed, I, the frog, am female. As for what you should do? Not a notion. I’m not going to have anything bad that happens to you on my shoulders. I suppose you could say that I’m a little shy about that. I would feel tremendously awful if something happened to you based on my suggestion. Then again, everyone else is suggesting stupid things or yelling at you. Sure, what harm? I get the feeling that the thing which moved the Sun back wasn’t Celestia. Wouldn’t she know something was up straight away? I don’t understand how magic works (frogs/humans don’t have it, as you know), but probably she could like, detect you on it or something? Also maybe don’t do that again; Diorite definitely suspected you… …Twilight don’t let anybody find out that you can control the sun! I don’t think they would take it very well… …Hello, Twilight. My name is Ponygood, and, for the purposes of future interactions, I am an Apache attack helicopter. I don’t feel like finding out what an Apache is, but I do know that a helicopter is a vehicle that allows us humans to fly. Actually, I have an idea. Can you see a picture here? If not, can you imagine accessing this weird phrase somehow? http://www.military-today.com/helicopters/boeing_ah_64a_apache.jpg First, I’m so sorry that apparently all of us like to say soon much whenever we speak, as I can imagine it confuses you quite a bit. Second, I think the tI have the PERFECT way to describe exactly what situation you are in and how it relates to us using terms you’d understand, but i’m not sure the one named Blackjack would allow that. Third, I will give you some advice. Don’t EVER say anything along the lines of “what could go wrong?” or “this’ll be easy!” The universe WILL find some way to royally screw you over. Also, if you find any random chests during your adventures, be wary: it could be a hungry monster known as a ‘mimic’ Also, if you manage to slay whatever monsters that seek to kill you, as opposed to avoiding them, they might poof into valuable objects or equipment. Fourth, I am now going to attempt to alter your reality. Ahem. In your travels through this forest, you will fall into a hole that has giant fluffy Twilight-shaped pillows at the bottom. That hole will lead you along a hallway, which leads to a small room with five artifacts: a simple ring which disgusts you as whatever you need to be, a finely-crafted bow made made of fire with an infinite arrow pouch, a light cloth outfit unchanged to look cool and decrease the severity of injuries inflicted on you, a device that will painlessly enter your brain and allow you to listen to our sweet music, and a sentient cloud called Butt that flies around your head constantly yelling “Hey, listen!” It is possible for you to only choose two, but I really hope you choose the music device. Fifth, I feel like you should be wary of this island. If only one of us really did decide to create things at the edge of your vision that could very well be stalking you, then it is safe to assume that other undesirable things might into being. I would suggest you prepare to defend yourself and potentially kill, lest your death end up fulfilling some stupid doomsday prophecy or forever separating you from your friends. Sixth, I must admit that, as much as I want you to succeed, I also want to endanger you, even if to force you to adapt to this new, potentially hostile environment and build character. As such, I predict that, com nightfall, a very weak evil being will come to haunt you. You won’t be in much danger, it will be just dangerous enough to cause you to react and grow, but not so dangerous that you’d have permanent harm done to you. Of course, there is the possibility that permanent harm is just what you need to motivate you. I am not trying to scare you, please don’t think i’m out to see you suffer like others of us. Just know that everything I do will ultimately be to your benefit, unless it’s something that’s deliberately useless for our own enjoyment. (I.e, Butt the cloud.)… ...This is Light, I won't be able to speak with you for some time as Dark as has done something. I'm not sure how long it will take me to be able to message you again but until then this is my last message. By now your mind should be adapted to receive such a large amount of information but on the off chance, it isn't then... Oh well but know this that Dark will try to corrupt you so you must keep your mind in check because corrupting others is one of Darks many many talents. This is goodbye for now. P.S you should learn to mask your emotions especially when around the old....]

VII

Twilight opened her eyes - she was still in her meditative pose, and nothing had happened while she was receiving the... 'import' or whatever. She took a breath - she didn't need to do anything, she could address what she had been told.

"First things first..." Can you hear these thoughts? Tell me next time if you could, okay? Oranges, Crystals, Butt the Cloud, Starswirl the Bearded... Just test words. She took in a breath and thought.

Ponygood... Probably should deal with him first. "I can't... make anything out of that string of letters, sorry, but it looks a lot like a website address. But I haven't seen any computers around here and I don't know how to get to Earth, so... Yeah. I do know what a helicopter is though, we have them in Equestria. Flying machines with propellors on top, right? That's... Odd, to say the least." She stood up and stretched her wings. "And you could try to tell me the perfect way to explain my situation. If it doesn't get through, it doesn't come through, doesn't hurt to try."

She frowned - she thought she saw the stars out of the corner of her vision again. The one thing that the Influence might have added to her world... Or maybe they just had a lucky guess. They'd been trying to change it in so many ways, they were bound to get it right eventually, by sheer coincidence. She'd still make sure to be on her guard, of course - it didn't make it any less ominous.

Light was apparently gone. Just... Showed up, said a few things, then said he was leaving. Twilight wondered if Dark was gone as well...

She took a moment to look around - the flowers definitely weren't poison joke. They were far too large, had petals shaped like parts of a pinecone, and were glowing softly. They were rustling in the soft wind - she wondered if the Influence received noises by the words that described them. After all, Afizah's 'crashing' had just felt like the word 'crash' to her. Then again, Afizah was probably the least trustworthy of the voices. Maybe that unknown voice had the right idea, ignoring them...

...But she couldn't, they were too far engrained in her mind. There were some, like Zen, who legitimately tried to help. Finding a map really was a good idea they all should have thought of a long time ago - it made her a little embarrassed. Not to mention the things they said...

Especially Key. She found it hard to believe how extreme he was - he seemed so, so angry and unstable - but if what he said was true, he'd seen this sort of danger dozens, if not hundreds, of times before... She found it hard to reconcile his apparent instability with the supposed experience. Unless he had gone mad from it... Which made her warier.

"Oh who am I kidding..." she muttered - she was trying not to think about the implications of what they'd been saying. The universes... Blackjack treating her like a story... The many others who suggested they could see into other universes, and create their own... To them, she was just a story - entertainment, as it were. It certainly explained why a lot of them found it amusing to toy with her - she was, to them, nothing more than a novelty. ...Well most of them anyway.

She sighed. How much control did this Blackjack have? How much did she really matter to them? Did she cease to exist once their view of her was closed off? Like the closing of a book?

They seemed to disagree on that... Like they didn't know-

And then she laughed. "Of course you wouldn't know! Look, look, think. You follow along with me like a... an adventure, story, log, right? Right? Well, when those logs end, you won't be able to see me anymore - and by nature, you can't know! You couldn't - there's no way. It's like trying to prove the existence of something that cannot be tested. You can't. Key, you mentioned that you and your others thought I ceased to exist when you stopped looking. Where's your evidence? Did I not exist before you started looking? I..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I know it concerns you - and for what it's worth, I'll try to stay... interesting, whatever that means. I'm... also curious about these other universes you all are talking about. What are they like? What of Blackjack's other worlds? How do you find them? How are they created? ...I mean, if you want to tell me..."

She frowned - silence. She felt like a crazy mare again. "Okay, to do list: explore the forest, get map, get cloak, and... Call Discord!" She lit her horn, spread her wings, and sent out the Discord spell.

She FELT him. She felt him respond. But... He didn't appear. It was as if he couldn't...

"Weird..." She frowned. "...It was worth a shot, at least. Pretty sure he knows I tried to call him though."

She lit her horn, performing a magic scan of the area - she felt stronger magic coming from deeper within the forest. No surprise there, she supposed. She began to walk into the deep foliage...

~~~

Twilight noticed about half an hour later what was wrong.

Almost no animals or critters whatsoever.

She had seen a few bugs, and the occasional fungal spore floating around, but no animals. Nothing squirrel-like, no deer - not even any birds. Had she seen any at the opening? She wasn't sure - she only knew that she hadn't seen any since she started going deeper.

She stopped in her tracks. Was she going to be able to get out?

Gulping, she spread her wings and flew above the trees. The sun glared down on her, blinding her temporarily. However, when her vision cleared, she was gifted with a sight of the village in the distance. A little further to the east than she would have expected, but at least she knew she wouldn't get lost.

Actually... Flying over the forest would be quite a bit faster. She could just scan it from up here, look for anything she wanted. She directed herself towards the center of the forest, flying over the treetops. Prancey had said there were some creatures in here - dangerous ones - so even though she hadn't seen any this was probably the safer course of action.

She stopped that thought. "Wait... Was I not supposed to think things like that?" She racked her brain - what wasn't she supposed to say or think again? There was just so much information in the influx of information...

She shook her head - she needed to keep moving on. Couldn't let half-remembered warnings impede her. She continued flying - she felt like she was getting closer to the center, and whatever laid inside these woods. Maybe it would be some answer to her questions... Questions the Influence couldn't answer. They saw her predicament from the outside - they knew nothing of the inside.

Or at least very little...

Being deep in thought, she didn't notice the spiritual hand reach for her until it was too late. She screamed as something semi-tangible grabbed hold of her wing and thrust her into the ground. She slammed through the canopy, snapping dozens of twigs and branches before coming to a stop on the forest floor.

She acted quickly, bouncing back, spreading her wings, and readying her horn. Before her stood creature that looked much like the being she had seen in her dreams, only smaller, more lanky, and much less impressive. It was a deep green, and there was a mark inside of its translucent body - a kind of glyph that seemed reminiscent of a leaf. It moved forward, claws outstretched.

She created a shield around herself, deflecting the claws. The creature found this annoying. It formed its claws into a single point and pierced the shield, much to Twilight's fear. She fired at it with a few lasers, but they only seemed to shift around the creature's ethereal body. It slashed again, again, and again, backing her further and further away. She contemplated flying away - but a pain in her wing told her that would end badly.

You might have to kill.

This... This thing was certainly trying to kill her. Still, she really didn't want to-

In her conflicted stupor, the creature managed to cut a gash in her ear, drawing blood. She screamed - realizing with panic that it had somehow told the nearby vines to tie themselves around her legs. She was helpless. Kill to defend yourself. Twilight lit her horn - surrounding it in a sickly red color. Her eyes became dark, highlighted with intense green power. She fired a cone of red energy at the being before her, engulfing it completely.

It shrieked in agony as the very fabric of its existence was torn away. It soon dwindled to nothing but the plantlike mark in its center - which vanished itself a second later. The vines lost their grip on her the moment it died, freeing her.

Aside from a few singed trees nearby, everything seemed normal and peaceful.

She breathed heavy, looking around wild-eyed. She'd just killed it. She'd really just killed it. "Oh, Celestia..." She didn't even know what it was and she killed it! She... She felt sick.

Twilight turned around, trying to push it out of her mind. She returned to her mission - find the center of the forest. The moment she tried, she saw it - a small clearing ahead. She walked in, slowly, taking it all in. The sun glinted off six tall, metallic pillars, lined with what she recognized as circuitry. Parts of it glowed with intense magical glyphs, while others shined with electric light. In the center was a platform, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow.

Twilight blinked. What was this place? It... it gave off a sense of extreme magic, but it also felt like it was constructed technologically - far above anything she had seen on Earth...

Welcoming the distraction from what had just happened, she walked towards the platform in the center. She put her nose down, sniffing it. It was made of the same bluish-grey material the pillars were. It was placed in such a way that the six pillars looked like pointed claws trying to close in on it, like a predator going for an egg.

"Interesting aesthetic..." She lit her horn, trying to prod the platform with her magic.

It activated instantly, a powerful telekinetic field drawing her into the center. She felt a connection form with her mind. The connection pumped into her mind the purpose of this place.

It was a communication altar...

It wanted to know who she wanted to talk to.

She had no idea - and it didn't look like she was going to have one for some time either, as the Witch's Eye had just started glowing again.

VIII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][We know very little of the Sweeper’s ability to create the worlds, our sources dictate that she commandeered a Plot Device. A large machine that generates ideas at a consistent rate. The Sweeper is capable of creating and destroying entire worlds at her own whim. And with no moral compass to guide her, she does so with reckless abandon. She first creates the world itself, the environment and geography, following that she populates it with Neutrally-Processed Companions, as she is fully incapable of creating true life. Next she locates a- Fwi-PPPFFKKKKK. WHAT THE SLASH ARE YOU DOING AT MY REEDING STATION??!?! Oh, hey Key, what’s uuuuuup? Don’t give me that attitude, what are YOU DOING HERE? Bosses order small fry, turns out you were upsetting the Prop too much and it was reassigned to me. NNNNNRRGGNNN Twilight Sparkle has a reeding name, I’d appreciate if you decided to use it, Shutter! Tisk, tis, listen to you, getting all buddy-buddy with the Prop. Wait until everyone hears you decided to cal 2X4TS by its real name! So adorable! Get… out… of my booth! Ah-ah! Remember that you’re on your second strike, one more outburst and you’ll be Stationed. Just… Just don’t treat her like- Okay, buh-bye now, get out before I call he higher ups. RRRrrrriiictupt. That’s what I thought. Now, as for you, i’m here to answer any and all questions you may have, and don’t worry about Key, he’s been taken care of… …Ponygood speaking. I had forgotten you knew as much as you did about our world. I, personally, feel that the place beyond the mirror and the reality we exist are not the same, and that your reality isn’t as ‘full’ as ours. I also didn’t realize Equestria had that level of technology. Aside from Pinkie, I guess. Ooh, speaking of Pinkie, are you able to summon her by saying a portion of that phrase about breaking the trust of a friend and losing them forever? Also, if you can find a fire, can you try to send a letter through it to either Spike or whomever else? Also, I am sorry that you didn’t get some sweet new stuff, but life experiences are just as important aren’t they? And on that note, congratulations on completing your first real challenge on this island! I know you might want to just block out this potentially traumatic event, but that is not the ideal thing to do. Temporarily, it’s fine, especially since you have some pressing concerns. However, when you get the chance, acknowledge your actions, but don’t think you’re a murderer. Next kill will likely come more easily now that you’ve experienced it, but as long as you remember that there is good in the world and don’t fully desensitize yourself to it, you shouldn’t have to worry about going insane or anything. I can’t relate to this, since I’ve never had to kill, but I can at least give you some sort of scientific advice. If it helps, the creature that attacked you could be seen as an evil being that didn’t deserve to exist to terrorize others. But there is something important to mention, and that is to leave violence as a last resort if you can. You don’t really have a choice in this case, but try to look for non-violent and non-fatal solutions to problems. Maintaining that ideal will separate you from the bad people in the world, those who kill for pleasure or without morality. Also, I guess you wanted us to confirm that we can hear your thoughts. “Oranges, crystals, Butt the Cloud, Starswirl the Bearded…” …Twi-light! groan. My sister… is headed.. your way… Thump… …Ponygood again. I’m putting this in a separate thought, sot hat this doesn’t potentially invalidate my other comment. There is a person in our world known as Lauren Faust. She is an important person in the creation of a little girls’ show known as ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” which details the lives and adventures of the ponies of Ponyville, but most often the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. For various reasons, people other than just little girls were attracted to the show, and have created refuges on the Internet for others of their kind. One of these sites is Fimfiction.net, in which aspiring writers can create fanficiton of and including this show. One of the people, known in our community as GMBlackjack, or just Blackjack as you know him,d decided that he wanted to create an interactive story called ‘the Influence’ in which he originally created a situation and put you in it (the room where you found the Eye), and leaves each chapter of the story open-ended, for us viewers to comment our suggestions which are hopefully incorporated into the next chapter. So, in short, you are a fictional character being used by someone to create his own story for others to enjoy. We all know that you aren’t actually Twilight Sparkle, stuck in some mysterious island. However, there re two things that might make your eel better. One: I and others are willing to treat you like a real person, and to try to help you in this situation, which we are also treating as a real situation. We want to let this story end on a good note, for your sake as well as ours. Two, it is entirely possible that our universe is just one in a potentially infinite multiverse, though we don’t know for sure. So for all week now, there is a universe somewhere in which a purple pony is stuck on an island with a host if intangible people babbling at her. That is my description of your situation, using terms you hopefully understand… …”Hello is this thing working?” “I don’t know Twilight, I Just found the thing.” “Then why did it start glowing? And why did I just hear a voice telling me her sister was heading my way?” “Think it could be some communication device?” “Could be. I mean I have been to the world where everypony was human, so maybe this can communicate with other realities?” “I wonder why that one voice wanted us to say Oranges, crystals, Butt the Cloud, and Starswirl the Bearded?” “Good Question! Hey whoever’s out there that can hear this, why did you want us to say those things? I mean, I know Starswirl is the best wizard in Equestria, but what do oranges and crystals have to do with it? Also, who the heck names their foal Butt the Cloud? That’s like calling an earth pony filly ‘the Earth Filly…” …Josh here, yes we can hear your thoughts, your test words were “Oranges, Crystals, Butt the Cloud, Starswirl the Bearded.” I saw we use this communication altar to tell celestial what has happened to you, and if she has any advice that might help also assuming this hing doesn’t just shut down after you use it, you should let your friends know where you are, they’re probably worried by now. Also, way to go Ponygood, if that doesn’t give her an existential crisis I don’t know what will. P.S. Don’t feel to bad about killing, Twilight, I’ve seen so many worlds where killing is the only way out of a situation, if anything this will only help you down the road, but don’t get too used to it, that is a slippery slope you do not want to fall down… …Sorry… …Pro tip, next time you see the stars, try grabbing one with your telekinesis. Also, the altar is probably a trap. Be wary… …Just be weary Twilight, I believe these stars are related to the monster who attacked you, and that they definitely wouldn’t like you after defeating one of them and revealing the rest of them… …I hadn’t previously confirmed our aliases were masked from you. For simplicity I guess you can call me Nickel. You have some understanding of an earth pattern world so that makes things easier for us, we use the internet as the medium which we find and interface with yours tory, but I have no clue how hat in turn interacts with your world and while I have not looked at other stories by Blackjack I can find them in the same way. I won’t add any of the content of those since you already seem breathy overloaded. There is one thing that might help us some, I don’t know when you diverged from the primary Equestria or how and its possible I missed the clues, but anything you can tell us will give us a better idea of what you have already gone through. Major events or notable occurrences are best, but may be unique to your particular variant. I don’t know what kind of interaction we have with the worlds in our imaginations, but I feel that they are real even if its only within the mind of their creators, basically another idea of what is God. Actually the fact that this is presented as a story for us means you should be fine at least for now, how many fictions have you read where they killed of the main character before the plot was wrapped up? And besides, your story isn’t marked with the relevant tags for such an ending to be at all likely. When this ends for us I hope its fairly soon by your perspective, it seldom does good things to a world for it to be bound like this for long since you don’t want a boring story so things will keep going wrong, that was my mistake for my world, I ran it for far too long and now its earns too late to save the early parts of its history since I didn’t record it then, but in that regard you’re fine… …This is Zen. Ignore the dramatics, It’s just Afizah being ridiculous, of which I have grown tired. I would prevent it in the future if I could, but I lack the authority. Your attempt to contact Discord gave me a bizarre thought. You have been transported in space, presumably by some magic. In the past, you encountered magic which disrupted your position in time. It may be that the magic responsible for your present circumstances did something similar. Specifically, this most recent speculation of mine is that you may have been transported to a time during which Discord was still imprisoned - and, presumably, understanding of the magic responsible would be able to revert you back to a place and time before (for lack of a better word) this whole ordeal began. Thinking on it, the only magic confirmed to be able to restrain Discord is that of the Tree of Harmony, and he periods during which he was imprisoned in stone are the only times he was known to have been restrained by it. However, while it does make some amount of sense, it lacks quantifiable evidence. There is unknown magic in play, and considering even just moving you over fast distances and fixing the Eye to your chest, it must be considerably powerful. Thus, I would propose an experiment: use the device to contact Princess Celestia. If it works, and I am wrong, she will be glad to hear form you, and will endeavor to help you in any way she can. If I am right, then my understanding of her would lead me to believe she would still render aid, or at least offer advice. However, if I am right, it would prove to be an emotionally trying experience, and I would think no less of you for not taking that route. This is merely a proposal, the choice is yours, Twilight… …So let me start with my own introduction I am a traveler who made a deal something just shy of a god I am a world walker given a new form to match the world in outward appearance, but retain in the gift of my eye. I can only give aid in grave situations, so I go by storm crow the bird that flys before the storm to give warning. NOT BRINGING THE STORM. I think that we can only influence the world in small ways where we have the most influence is on your thoughts, like when someone suggested you try some grass wich normally you wouldn’t even consider, but then frog said you would be attacked by a minor evil. not blaming you might just be a good guess. Paradoxically the best way to test this would be to take a course of action we didn’t mention but my saying this means that any course is now one we recommend. Of course the forest until we mentioned it so so much conflicting…]

VIII

Twilight Sparkle stood, frozen, her mind reeling from the recent import.

"WHAT!?" She screamed. "WHAT!? Are you... Ponygood what the heck is wrong with you! How on- That can't be! There's no, no way, not at all... But it makes sense... Nickel and Josh commented on it, and it they disagreed... But... No can't be - but they were all dancing around something... They all talked like it was through the Interent... Lots of creating worlds... What Key was saying makes sense now... Heh... Hehehheh...." She started laughing. "This is crazy. This is just stupid. But it makes so much sense! Why would all of you want to torment me? Cause I'm a story! Why would you keep things from me? Why would you lie? Why would you do all those things that made no sense and talk about FOOD and make SOUND EFFECTS? Story! I'm nothing to you, just some escape for entertainment..." She twitched, trying to walk out of the platform, but it kept her in, demanding to know who she wished to talk to.

She was about to cast an explosion spell on the area when she got an idea. "I want to talk to Ponygood. Now. Bring him here."

Out of Range<

Twilight twitched. "Zen?"

Out of Range<

Twilight glowered. "G. M. Blackjack."

Out of Range<

She groaned, putting her hooves over her head. "Why... Why does this all happen... Why..." She shivered, trying to regain control of herself. There was just too much - and the more she thought, the more Ponygood's explanation didn't answer everything. If she was nothing but a fictional character, why did she feel so real? Was it all an illusion - or were their stories really glances into another universe? Or was the imagination a powerful tool? The line between fiction and reality could be blurred with the correct spells... She rubbed her temples - she couldn't think this deeply. She suspected there wasn't an answer... Ponygood seemed to insist he still cared about her, Josh was worried about her mental state, and Nickel had offered some help on the issue... And then there was Key - or, well, Shutter now she guessed. This was all just too much to take in...

She needed a place to think about it.

...She needed somepony she could talk too.

Who could she contact? ...If Zen was right, and she was in the past, she didn't know anypony - or, at least, they didn't know her. Calling Celestia or Luna or any being alive right now wouldn't help... But, she could try to contact one of her friends. They'd know her. Or the machine would say 'out of range' and she'd know all she needed to know. She thought. It was hard to think right now.

"...My friends."

Singular Entities Only<

Twilight twitched. "Only one!? Come on! I..." She sighed. Okay... Who did she want to talk to right now? Who could help her? Starlight knew the most about magic and time... Spike could help her organize her thoughts... So could Rarity... Shining was worried... ...Twilight didn't really want to talk to Pinkie right now...

...Fluttershy. That... She'd be the best to talk to right now.

"Fluttershy." Twilight said.

The magic field around the platform vanished for an instant, and suddenly Fluttershy was there, blinking, and a little confused. Twilight had hardly noticed any magic sparking at all. "...Huh?" the buttery yellow pegasus said, looking around confused. "Where- Twilight!?"

Twilight started crying with a smile on her face. "...Fluttershy. Hi."

Fluttershy gasped. "We've been so worried about you!" She rushed her into a hug.

"I... I... Fluttershy I... Everything's going wrong..." She buried her face in Fluttershy's mane.

"Shhhh.... I'm here now. Don't worry. I, uh, don't really understand what's going on right now, but I'll do what I can. What... What happened?"

"I... I woke up in a room after the ceremony... And this... EYE fixed itself to my chest... And it's kept pumping things... voices... into my mind... They all think I'm some sort of... Of story! And... I destroyed something... I... I don't know anymore..." She hugged Fluttershy tighter. "I... Wait."

"...What is it?"

"How am I touching you?"

"...Cause I'm here?"

"...This is just supposed to be a communication thing, you're not actually supposed to be here." Twilight bit her lip, looking around. The ancient technology had dulled its glow - as if it was done. "No..." Twilight said, panicking. She flew up to one of the outer spires, flooding it with her magic, trying to activate it - and getting nothing. "No..." She rushed to another pillar, then another, then the platform itself.

Fluttershy grabbed her. "Twilight! Stop! Just stop!"

"I... I've gotten you stuck here with me..."

Fluttershy hugged her closer. "You needed me. I... I'll be fine. Okay?"

Twilight collapsed into tears again, unable to take it. Fluttershy just held her close, "Shh... Shh..."

The two sat and hugged in the center of a magitech altar...

~~~

Twilight didn't know how much time passed before she felt like she could talk. "Okay... I'm calm now."

Fluttershy nodded, looking at Twilight with her deep, wide eyes. "...Can you tell me what's happening now?"

"I... Think so." She told Fluttershy everything - from the moment she woke up in the room, to the stars at the edge of her vision, to the town, to the forest itself, the creature she had to kill, and the Witch's Eye - and the Influence themselves.

"This Influence told you that you were a fictional character?" Fluttershy said, frowning.

"Yeah... And... I think they believe what they're saying."

"They've been wrong before, haven't they? You said so."

"...Yeah. But this is different..." She sighed. "I guess I'll just have to live with it."

"Yeah..." Fluttershy smiled. "But you can still live with it, I think. Whether it's right or not, you still live your life. And understand them better."

"...Thank you Fluttershy," Twilight said. "I... I needed this."

Fluttershy nodded, hugging her again. "I know."

"If.... If I hadn't called you..."

"Don't think about it," Fluttershy said.

Twilight beamed, a bright smile coming to her face. "You know... despite this, I feel like everything's going to be fine now. It feels... bright."

Fluttershy smiled. "I'm glad."

"We should head to town. I've got some poines I want to introduce you too."

"Pebbleton? It sounds like a nice place. Though... that Prancey sounds odd."

"...Think I should get her that powder she wants?"

Fluttershy pondered this. "Might as well."

Twilight grabbed one of the flowers with her telekinesis and ground it into a powder. Then she took off into the sky, Fluttershy right behind her. "Town's over there."

"I can see it," Fluttershy said. She started lazily flying in that direction, humming to herself. Twilight smiled - Fluttershy was a lot stronger than Twilight gave her credit for. Though... Now everypony at home was now worried about two missing ponies... They'd just have to find a way back soon. If the machine found Fluttershy, there was definitely a way to get back. She just had to find it.

"...What are they like?" Fluttershy asked.

"Huh?"

"The voices. The Influence. You told me what they told you, what are they like?"

Twilight blinked. "...Well, let's see... Zen is the nicest, and most reasonable, he seems the most interested in my success. Then there's Key... who... I'm not sure what's going on with him. He seems terrified and angry of things nobody else is, and I keep thinking it seems... forced, like he's either exaggerating or not right in the head. Course, he's just been replaced by someone new, Shutter, and I don't know what to make of them. Akumakami is also nice, though a bit long winded and sometimes says odd things. I... Don't know what to make of Ponygood. He wants to tell me... A lot of weird things, and he seems convinced we're on an island. Then there's Duke, who's pretty reasonable, though doesn't show up as often. Josh is... Kinda just there. I should probably pay more attention to him... Oh! Afizah and Eris, sisters, both of whom are crazy. Afizah seems to speak random things and Eris seems to want me dead. Then..." She stopped flying forward, eyes widening. "...I heard someone that sounded a lot like... me last update... Hey! Other me! Uh... Sorry I didn't say anything yet. I'm Twilight as well, and... I really don't know what to say. Can you tell me how you're talking to me?"

"...They can all just hear you?" Fluttershy asked.

"Hear my thoughts as well," Twilight said.

"Do you have any privacy?"

"Nope. It's a bit... Annoying."

"I can imagine."

They landed in Pebbleton, drawing a few glances. The town itself had calmed down from the moment with the sun earlier that day. Prancey ran up to them. "Oh my gosh another new pony who are you how are you?"

"Fluttter-" Fluttershy began.

Twilight nudged her. "Flutter... Skii. Flutterskii. That's her name," Twilight said, blinking.

Prancey narrowed her eyes. "...Oooookay. Did you get the stuff!?"

"Yes. Though I want to know what you're going to use it for."

"To drug my boss, duh, what else would I use it for?"

Fluttershy blinked. "That not very nice."

"Oh, he likes it."

Twilight smirked. "...I'll give it to you if you can get me a cloak to hid my wings and Eye, and a map."

Prancey grinned, running off to get those things. Twilight blinked. "Well then..."

Fluttershy shrugged. "At least you'll get what you need."

Wound Dream ran up to Twilight. "You might want to make yourself discrete."

Twilight blinked. "Huh? Why?"

"Because-"

"AHA!" A high-pitched voice rang out. "FOUND YOU!" Fluttershy and Twilight turned to see a white unicorn with a red and pink mane running at them. She stopped right next to Twilight, lighting her horn, and lifting up her wing. "They're real alright..."

Twilight pulled her wing back. "Uh... Who are you?"

"Infinity. I run the library." She grinned. "I must say you're absolutely fascinating! Want to come with me to do some tests!?"

"Uh... No thanks," Twilight said, backing up.

It was at this moment Prancey returned, throwing a deep purple cloak on Twilight, covering everything but her face. Annoyed, Twilight took off the hood, but left the rest on. She looked to her sides, examining it closely - she couldn't see her wings unless she moved them. Good.

Infinity gasped. "Oh that's a brilliant idea! Hide the wings! Nopony would be the wiser!"

"Here's a map!" Prancey said, shoving a piece of paper in front of Twilight. It was labeled 'The Known World' and showed a continent she didn't recognize. They were inside the largest nation sown, Peran, towards the northern border. To the southeast, on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean, was Peran's capital, marked as Chalak. To the south, there was a large swath of land called the Ice Shelf, and a small archipelago called Troisha. The southern oceans were labeled with iceberg icons. The east ocean was marked as Kraken Territory. To the northwest was another nation, Moissan, along with mountains that spilled off until the edge of the map. "Here be savage dragons" was written on the northern edge of Moissan. To the northeast was an area called the Lost Desert.

Twilight blinked. "...Huh. This... Helps, and at the same time it doesn't."

"How so?" Infinity insisted, grinning.

It was at this moment Twilight felt the Witch's Eye activate again. "...Great."

IX

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][...What?! That voice the wanted me to say Starswirl and oranges and crystals and butt the cloud was another me?! What the hay?! Ah thought you were just spouting a bunch o' hooey bout that communication thingy Twilight. Spike found it the other day when we were looking in the library of the castle of the two sisters while you and the others were scaring yourselves silly. Hey, other me the way I'm talking to you right now is this weird eye thing spike found. Strangely though when he handed it to me, he looked like somepony told him something wrong… …I am very sorry for dumping that explanation on you, Twilight. I realize now it wasn't the best idea I've ever had, and likely wasn't even a good one. I hope you can forgive me. ...anyway, we don't know everything about what happens beyond our method of viewing you. I would like to think these stories are just windows to other universes, but that's about as provable as the existence of God.And I do recall Akuma wanting to warn you about the machine, but our comments were already being compiled at that time. He might be willing to repeat himself since his advice could be useful for more than just that machine.And as for the map? There isn't enough information for me to determine anything. Although, now that Fluttershy is with you, you might be able to find that mysterious lake that apparently you can only find once in your whole life. Maybe it'll have something useful. I feel that Infinity was very much like you when you weren't as educated in friendship. You could get along very well if you want. However, it might not be a good idea to stay very long in any town, for fear of inspiring the shadow creatures to do unpleasant things to them. And speaking of the shadow creatures, watch out for them. I don't know much about them, but I must assume the very worst, being that they want to see all life extinguished and can use your power to escape from this piece of land. Also, I have some advice for Fluttershy. DON'T BE AS TIMID! This island is potentially very dangerous, and if you see something suspicious, communicate it immediately. That is all… …Josh here - good to know that I'm leaving so little impact on you, I'd sigh if I could. anyway if I had known that thing was going send the pony to you I would have warned you. as for where to go next, Chalak may have whatever Peran has for a leader, so talk to him or her might be a good idea. edit - I just had a thought if pictures don't work who's to say if videos do or don't; if you see this just know I picked it at random •´ª§¥˙ƒ∑˜¨¥ˆßø¥®´… …Because you seem to be a bit...slower than the other Props, let me just spoil the surprise now, Not all of us are from the same universe, in fact I'd wager that each of us are from separate universes, which would explain why 'Ponygood' has been spouting nonsense about you being a television character, you're as real as any of us are. And for your reference, I happen to view you as a live feed. Much like any of the previous Props I've been assigned. So let that answer you're unfortunately unasked questions related to what you've so affectionately dubbed the 'Influence'. As for your friend, it seems to be an extension of the Sweeper's power, note the clever use of conveniently placed words 'out of range'? Seeing as you're in the center of what is essentially a simulation created by the Sweeper's whims, which, really, I thought you would have noticed by now, she can pull anyone from anywhere. Because they'd be about as real as the dirt underneath your hooves. But because you don't actually know one way or another, no, your 'friend' isn't real, it's another thing the Sweeper created to enhance her story and make you stable. That said, you might be able to pull yourself together before you make another scene and probe it for information. It's likely it could be created without the regular failsafes found in these things. Oh, and because you for some reason can't really tell the difference, this is Recursive employee 125, Shutter to you… …If Twilight is as real as any of us, then why do you refer to her as simply a prop? Twilight, don't listen to anything this person says; this so-called "Shutter" is in the same universe we are all in, and isn't in a company that assigned you to him; just as none of us are frogs, helicopters, or stormbirds. We are all humans, reading a story. Whether it's a window to your universe or not is indeterminable, as long as you think you exist. He has a point, though: this might not actually be Fluttershy. It's improbable, though, and you definitely shouldn't treat her as something. -Ponygood… …Funny how you call me out of all people, 'ponygood' for being fake when you yourself don't seem to be using a real name based on your explanation. But because you're a real waste of my time, I won't be indulging you. Enjoy your delusions now. buh-bye!… …Akumakami is back! sorry for my absence, I waited too long before offering my reply. Okay....I saw that little breakdown coming, but I'm sorry about it all the same. If I could, I'd give you a hug. And don't worry, I personally believe stories are just snapshots of some other place and time in the multiverse.....this is just more interactive than normal. Also, do NOT listen to Key. As much as we'd like to say otherwise at times, we are all from the same universe. They're obsessed with depicting that entity from your mind as the sweeper for some reason. We're all just a bunch of people who either just read these universes or, like Blackjack, create/manage our owns as well. The "other you" you're hearing is Afizah.....I'm not sure if they're faking that or if they are legitimately opening a link to another universe where another Twilight is hearing you. The answer to why, in either case, is because they can. As for being long winded, I apologize about that. I'm like Blackjack, a primary- or author, to be blunt. I'm a bit too use to writing hundreds of words without stopping. It's part of why I was busy, I managing another one of my own universes. I have about twenty-four depicting your setting or someone from it- ponies, Equestria, Discord, the elements, etc. One has you become the Alicorn of Harmony on your own during the Nightmare Moon thing- don't worry, Friendship is still your main thing. Though, I adopted that world from someone else. Yes, we do that sometimes. Rambling, moving on. Oi, I knew techno-magic meant trouble. Still, Fluttershy might be the best one to pick. Both because she's the calmest and most diplomatic(wait, is she going to be scared of Diorite?) but also because.....well, again, I'm not sure what your Discord is like exactly, but you and Fluttershy are two of his three "most likely to be a love interest" characters, Celestia being the third. Point being that this might light a fire under Discord to find a way help you two. Still, I'm curious.....why did you think this was a communication thing, exactly? Because either it was misleading you on purpose, you misinterpreted the magic, or something over charged it. .....Infinity? Sounds like some hybrid of you and Pinkie Pie. Still, I'm actually getting a bit suspicious here. Even if they haven't seen Alicorns and foreign relations/awareness is so bad that they never heard of a ponyland ruled by immortals.....they should at least have some myths or legends about such things. That map does help some though. With the south being frozen, you're probably on the other side of the equator, meaning that Equestria is most likely north of you, in terms of latitudes. If you hear/read about a tropical jungle in any direction north, that's probably Equestria's Mysterious South- and seriously, you ponies need to explore more. Back on the topics of names, the only thing I found on Chalak is it means either someone clever or a driver. Though, Lost Desert? I'm getting weird vibes there. That usually means either people get lost in there or there's a country that was once there and fell, thus being Lost. Still, most immediate question is thing- where is this town on the map? Oh, and since Fluttershy is the animal expert, ask her opinion Discord might be related to Lungs, ascended version or not. If nothing else, it's something for you and her to prod Discord about one day. Akuma out! PS Is that Flutterskii as in skiing or that just a weird way of spelling sky? PPS Huh, seems Blackjack is looking into my stories/universes… …Says the person saying his name is "Shutter," while the name he is known as is "Keywii_Cookies55." Also, it's the Internet! Who uses their real name on the Internet?… …Oh, how naive you are. Not only are you under the impression that we're from the same world, but you also think I'm Key, that's adorable, you get a gold star! But before you go ahead and write me off for being 'obsessed' let me ask you a question, are you aware that the 'entity' you call Blackjack has been tormenting different ponies for several years now? I won't confuse your simple mind with the details, but this is hardly the first 'Twilight' I've encountered.You and Key are of the same idealistic ilk, you hope that everything will get better without really doing anything to fix the problem. It's children like the two of you that keep the worlds from spinning.As for you, 'Ponygood' didn't I tell you I wouldn't be indulging in your delusions?… …nickel again. on the topic of you being fictional, I have to ask. does it matter? does it matter where your world came from if its real to you? we've already admitted that we don't know what happens when the story ends, how could we? but i would think that it continues to go on its own broken free of the constraints of the narrative following its own path afterward, creating different branches of worlds as it moves forward based on your choices, there are certainly enough future variants of supposedly finished stories here to support the idea. isn't everything a story if you look at it from an outside perspective? my last point for this entry, is it even possible to tell if we are influencing you or you are influencing us? that our perspective might only exist as viewers of yours? everything is relative, even states of existence, that is my take on this… …This is Zen. Ponygood, "Shutter," shut up. Both of you. We contest her mind enough without you two bickering. Twilight, you're thinking about it from our perspective, but think about it from your own. What is more likely, that you, with your thoughts and feelings, are fictional, or that We are fictional. It would make for elaborate illusion, and I will deny that it is the case, but suspecting us of being fiction is far more reasonable than doubting what you actively perceive. Also, I find the idea that Fluttershy is some sort of arcane fabrication suspect at best. If you were already translocated, why not another? Key and his "replacement" have failed to produce anything to support their elaborate claims. I would disregard them until such a time that they do so… …Zen, you're telling me that the fact that "Blackjack" created the entire world, and the ponies inside it, that it isn't unreasonable to conclude that Fluttershy was created just as easily using knowledge drawn from Twilight's memories? That it's easier to trick the senses than to actually steal away a second Prop? Do you even know what you're talking about? Have you been following the Sweeper's progress for almost a decade now? Yeah, I didn't think so… …I have delusions? You're the delusional one here, Mr. delusionface… …Strom crow. I have to be brief as you face no new danger my time is limited. 1right I am human not a bird that is a title I was given. 2 twilight be calm they want to help 3 I can't help act or advise until… …Light here, I managed to fix what Dark did. Okay, first you should wait for a day and see if the machine is working again because it might need time to power up if not keep an eye out for others or other ways to bring your friends here. When you do bring Discord. Dark here, it's unfortunate that I won't be able to corrupt you now that one of your so-called friends is here. Oh well, guess I'll just put some mental strain on you to get you to do what I want.KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL… …Soundproof bubble surrounds Dark, preventing all forms of communication for the time being. Whew, That was annoying. Sorry, you had to hear that Twilight. Oh, by the way, my name is Eternus. Your Father. Or, well, another version's father. You see I have been searching for some time trying to find 'my' Twilight that when I heard of the many different dimensional beings finding you that I assumed they found mine. I'm just glad that I came when I did or that being named Dark may have made you snap and lash out at the one pony that could protect your mind and your sanity. And this is a message for Fluttershy. Protect her from the dangers of that world to the best of your abilities. Both physical...and mental. I have already lost one daughter; I don't want to lose another, even if they're from another dimension… …Twilight, I have traced through your previous travels, and I am here now. My name is Giginss. Fiction, reality, all of these are labels. Names. If you are a story, written by an author, what is to say we are not a story, written by another author? Each of us considers ourselves real, yet somewhere in the wide multiverse, there is a combination of symbols that holds meaning to the one reading it, telling the story about us? The point is: Don't worry. Continue with your adventure, see where it takes you. We are spectators, watching, unable to do anything normally, but something changed. We can communicate with you, share our ideas and perspectives, but our thoughts do not shape your reality. You are the one capable of shaping your own reality. You will find a way. You always do…]

IX

Twilight took a deep breath, shoved what the Influence had said away into the recesses of her mind for later, and opened her eyes.

Infinity was staring right at her. "Where did you go?"

"It's not important-" Wound began.

"It is very important. Very very very. Never seen something like that before. What does that eye thing do? Where'd you find it? What-"

Fluttershy coughed. "I think Twilight needs some space right now. I'm sure she'll come talk to you in a minute, answer all the questions she wants."

Infinity frowned. "I don't think so, all you mysterious types have the chance of just vanishing the moment I turn my back! The two-headed dragon? Gone! The speaking spirit? Gone! The Oracle? High tailed it out of here! I am not letting something else go-"

Prancey threw some of the sleep powder on Infinity. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and she fell to the ground, snoring louder than a pig.

Twilight blinked. "...Well, thanks."

"Dooooon't mention it!" Prancey said. "So, you wanna go back to your rooooooom?"

"Yeah... Fluttershy and I need to talk. We just got out of the forest, after all." She gulped, glancing at Fluttershy. Not real? No... no that's absurd, they were right, it was absurd.

Prancey dragged them to the inn and threw them inside. "Have fun you two!" She winked and left.

Page looked up at the two of them a second later. "...Prancey still paying your rent?"

"I assume so," Twilight said.

"Fair enough. No food or drink though. Just the room. Not taking any chances with her."

Fluttershy nodded. "It's okay, we just need a place to talk in private for a moment. Thank you for your hospitality."

Page shrugged. "I rarely get complimented for that."

Fluttershy frowned. She got the feeling that wasn't a 'thank you.' "Er... Okay."

They returned to Twilight's room, and Twilight promptly rammed her face into a pillow and yelled out her bent up frustration.

"Oh dear, what is it this time?"

"About seventeen different things!" Twilight said, grabbing her head. We've got some new voices, some voices that may or may not be from another universe, and Shutter, Ponygood, Zen, and Akumakami have all gotten into some kind of fight about what's going on..." She sighed. "And all of them seem very concerned and serious - and they disagree..." She sat down on the bed.

"...Walk through it with me, okay?"

"...Okay. Some of them wanted to talk to you, guess I could get that out of the way... They want you to protect me, and not to be so timid, I think. And they want to know if you know anything about Discord being related to dragons...?"

"Oh no, he's not. Well, not really. He's..." Fluttershy bit her lip. "He doesn't want to talk about it, or have it known, but I think he'd understand if I told you he's a combination of all races of Equis." She frowned. "...He's probably trying to find me right now. ...He should have shown up unless something was blocking him..."

"I tried to contact him earlier, something was stopping him. Some of them thought it was us being in the past, but your being here removes that option..."

"...Does it?" Fluttershy asked.

"I mean... ...Oh... ...Space-time... That hub could reach across space and time! That's why I messed up when I tried to call you - I was misunderstanding what it was fundamentally! It tried to tell me..." She opened the window to her room. "Hey Diorite!"

The dragon lifted his head, looking into the room. "...Yes?"

"How long ago was Discord's reign?"

"Several centuries. Why?"

Twilight gulped. He might be suspicious of us. "Just... checking to make sure everything's fine." She shut the window. "...We ARE in the past..."

Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth. "That's dangerous right? Didn't you and Starlight..."

"Nearly ruin everything? Yes. Yes, we did..." Twilight bit her lip. This is bad. Over a thousand years in the past, and we're not even in Equestria, and there are others talking to me, they won't stop arguing, and some being claiming to be my father who clearly isn't..."

"Twilight, calm! Try breathing in and out, slowly. Deep breaths." Fluttershy was trying to calm Twilight - but in truth, she was starting to hyperventilate herself.

Twilight took in a deep breath, and let it out. "Okay... Okay... I don't know what to do, but that's okay. We have all the time in the world, literally. We can figure it out. Right now... I need to deal with something. Shutter is claiming that you don't exist and that nothing besides me exist. The others are claiming that he's just lying, and pretending to be someone else, like Afizah. And they are claiming that Afizah is the one pretending to be other me - but, there was something else... Afizah might just be opening a portal to another universe so they can talk to me. Shutter may not be in the same place as most the others, who seem to be talking to me directly from some site where I'm a story somewhere. Shutter sees me as through a screen. Maybe he's beeing flooded through to me by the name that Ponygood is seeing, that... "Keywii Cookies." Just like Akumakami and Blackjack are primaries, maybe he's another primary, choosing not to interact directly, but pipe something he has control of vision over to me?"

Fluttershy blinked. "...I... I'm sorry I'm having a hard time taking this in. Are you saying all this time you thought they were lying, they weren't, they were just showing... other people?"

"I don't know, maybe? The thing is, even if that is true, I don't trust Shutter, and neither do any of the others..." Twilight blinked. "You know what, it's rude to talk about Shutter behind his back. Shutter? I know you'll hear this. I'm finding it hard to trust you - or Key. You both claim to be on my side, you both claim to be employees who have a job, who have seen many 'Props' like myself taken by primaries and 'toyed' with. You seem to suggest that it's part of your job to help us through this and get us through the story to a... well you've never spelled it out, but it could be a 'good ending' or 'no ending' or whatever. Neither of you are doing that job well. Part of that job would be getting me to trust you - even by being deceptive and manipulative. You haven't been that. Key's been a total freak out temper-tantrum bomb, and you're holding an arrogant superior attitude. Even if that is how you really feel about me, for the sake of your job, you should hide it! I mean..." she sighed. "I don't think you're really the people you say you are. And if you are, I feel really, really sorry for the other 'props' you've been 'helping.' You aren't helping. All you do is make more chaos and get me to distrust you. Even if you do want to just treat me like a thing - which you may have the right to, I don't know - you don't want me to know that. I..." She looked at Fluttershy. "...Am I being harsh?"

"A little. Hey, Shutter, let me try. He can hear me right?"

"Pretty sure."

Fluttershy cleared her throat and directed her gaze at the Witch's eye. "So... I'm not going to pretend to be as smart as Twilight or have known this as long. But... You know, it sounds like you aren't being nice. I think... I think if you want her to trust her and work with you, you need to respect her. I think that's what Twilight's asking for, some respect. And not just from you Shutter, from all of you, primaries, writers, other worlds... She wants some respect. I know that some of you have been doing great at that, but others... You're hurting her. You're making her alienate you. I don't think you want that, and neither does she."

Twilight blinked. "That's... I didn't realize that..."

"Sometimes you need another pair of eyes," Fluttershy smiled. "You taught me that."

"...Yeah..." Twilight looked out the window again. "...So much is happening. I keep getting told everything about reality, the fate of the universe, and other big things. Yet all I've done is get teleported to the past, go to a town, go to a forest, and then go back to town. Nothing... nothing much has happened."

"Maybe that's good. Maybe you need time to adjust, figure out how to handle this."

"...Maybe." She sat down on the floor. "Fluttershy, I'm going to go through the rest of the stuff now. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll be here."

Twilight closed her eyes, thinking. She thanked Nickel, Zen, and Akumakami for being the voices of reason, the ones who kept her sane. They were right. It didn't really matter, did it? They all perceived her differently - as a story, as a feed, as another Witch's Eye - it didn't matter in the end. There was some kind of connection between them and her, and that's all that mattered. They were as real to her as she was to them. There was no evidence in either direction.

There was no proof of Key's and Shutter's claims either, but she decided she needed to let Shutter speak before making any more harsh accusations. She didn't trust him, at all, but she at least wanted to see what he'd say. Even if the others were telling her not to listen... Shutting someone out was not her way. He needed a chance.

She was on the southern side of the globe. Which meant Equestria - or past Equestria - was north. Wait- how did she even know she was on Equis? The sun.... The sun felt right. And she remembered that the stars looked correct last night as well, all the constellations were still there. So, she could head north, brave the dragons or the desert - perhaps find more of this 'ancient magitech' in the desert, and find past Equestria - or head south to the center of Peran civilization and talk to the leaders there to ask for help. But why would the dragons and ponies at Chalak help her? Would they even know how? And what about Equestria - what if she ruined the timeline?

...No, I didn't see the video... And welcome Giginss, thank you for your kind words.

"Fluttershy?"

"Hrm?"

"If... if this Blackjack, this primary, created the world around us, and you, well then..."

"...Twilight?"

"What if they created me as well?"

Fluttershy frowned. "...Does it really matter?"

"Not... As much as you might think, but it's important to consider it as a possibility..." She began to pace - what now, what was she supposed to do now... She almost wanted to wait for the Influence to call again, but she couldn't let her life be more defined by the voices...

"...Fluttershy, there is this... Lake, in the middle of a field of grass, that you can supposedly only find once in your life. I started there. But you haven't been there yet. Do you think...?"

Fluttershy smiled. "I'm willing to try!"

Twilight nodded, folding up her cloak. She opened the window and spread her wings, flying out into the air, Fluttershy close behind her. They soared over the grass to the spot Twilight remembered she had started.

Twilight took a big, long breath of the fresh air. "This... This is nice."

"Oh yes, the animals are enjoying it as well. See those birds? They're playing."

Twilight blinked, glancing at the dozen red birds in the air. "...Looks like fighting."

"It's the same thing to them, a lot of the time. Don't worry about it. Now, where is-"

And then Fluttershy was gone. Twilight stopped flying instantly - the buttery yellow pegasus had just vanished. "Fluttershy?!" Twilight yelled. "Fluttershy!?"

She saw some sparks fly out of the corner of her eye. She lit her horn, grabbing ahold of everything to her left with as much force as she could muster. She pulled the thing forth.

It was a being made of stars, different from the one she had encountered in the forest. Bigger, larger, and without a defined shape. It was blue and shivered as if it was made of lightning.

"What are you!? What have you done with Fluttershy!?"

The thing didn't speak - it just shrieked at her, sparkling stars at her from every side - and running away. She shot at it with a laser, but it shifted around it - and vanished into the ground.

Twilight tore up the ground with her telekinesis, dragging a square meter of earth upwards, the star creature revealed once again. Twilight summoned a magic bubble around it and brought it back to her. "What. Are. You!?"

The creature struggled, threatening to burst the bubble. Twilight knew she couldn't contain it - so she dug into its mind. She demanded it answer the question.

"Alderan." It spoke. It shattered the bubble with one final push and fled once more.

She would have attacked again - but the Eye decided it was time for another Import.

"No! No Fluttershy needs me-!"

X

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Akumakami here! Oh boy. Well, on the positive side, I think Fluttershy is alright. I think she just went into the glass lake place you started at. Still, Alderan? I got nothing on that. The only name of that, Alderaan, is from....basically an entire different set of universes commonly called Star Wars. Weird that this thing is named after a destroyed planet- don't worry too much, civilization was on a galactic level at that point there. Back on point, if you can't see where our starry friend flew off too, circle around over the tree tops to see if you can find Fluttershy. Again,I'm fairly sure she just went into that space and you just can't get back to it.....The only question now is if Fluttershy comes out with a Witch's Eye or something similar. I wouldn't put it past Blackjack......which is to say that I would be tempted to in his shoes. Sorry I'm little help right now. Though, look to the Moon next time you can to figure out if this is before or after Luna became Nightmare Moon- it varies a LOT how close it was between Discord's sealing and Nightmare Moon's. Either way, this explains why they haven't heard of Equestria much and why you only vaguely recall this name- you probably read it in a history book or something.
And your welcome for being a voice of reason, I tr- Okay, I'll be honest, I'm use to being one of the crazier ones. I'll admit, you probably wouldn't like some of my universes dealing with your settings. Oi, if Blackjack ever lets you peek into other worlds somehow, stay away from Herds of Chaos. And if you do, I will explain what happened in that world. ....Let it be known that thanks to Afizah, I am resisting the urge to let some counterparts from my universes talk to you. I do not promise I will hold out on doing that forever, so, fair warning. Akuma out! PS I'd say changing the past isn't always a bad thing, but I doubt you'd believe that. PPS Speaking of which......oh fuck. I fucked up. WE fucked up. Maybe. Or...maybe we're the reason Celestia thinks to reform Discord? Twilight, could this be one of those closed loop timetravels? Cause you told Diorite that Discord is living as an ally of sorts in Equestria. He will probably tell his higher ups about that eventually. Not sure how big of a ripple effect that would cause, but it might get to Celestia.....who might just recall that startling rumor that was being spread by an purple alicorn mare. Lot of mights but, timetravel.....and Celestia's one-eighty on Discord always had a lot of curious, since he was one of the only beings to truly get under her skin just by being there and than she suddenly thinks he could turn good- sorry, sorry! My creative side went into overdrive. Still, it is a valid issue to think on and discuss when Fluttershy gets back- when, not if… …Ponygood speaking. ...I want to believe your perception of time is slowed when the Import occurs, but I can't be sure. I kept thinking that you would have a difficult time fighting these creatures due to them being extremely powerful beings, magically speaking. But If this one was attempting to run away, you might have more power over them then I thought. Then again, apparently the name Alderan is another name for Canis Minoris, or the constellation of the lesser dog. This might mean this entity was made purely to run errands for its superiors. And there's the matter of Fluttershy. I suggest you cast some sort of dispel illusion spell if you can, since it's possible Fluttershy was hidden behind one. If there is no illusion, then she's either been hidden more physically or is already gone. And the implications of her being in Their possession are not pleasant. Seriously, I must warn you of how unpleasant it could get. Best case scenario: she gets angry and is able to use her Stare on Them, and get out somehow. If that doesn't happen, then They will either just kill her, torture her, brainwash her, and/or use her as a bargaining chip. They might want you to trade your life for hers, have very despicable forms of fun, or absolutely mess with your mind. This is where things get tricky. If They use her as a bargaining chip, They would likely threaten to harm her if you refuse the deal, and would say They would be willing to let her go if you surrender. However, I don't know just how trustworthy these beings are, which means They might not keep Their promises. But this is potentially about more than Fluttershy. You are a very powerful pony, and They might seek that power to wreak havoc on the world. So, even if They did keep their promise, is it worth letting your friend live if it kills everybeing else? Also, if They attempt to use a magically binding contact, try to study it for any loopholes either of you could use. Of course, They may not give you the time needed. Now, let's say you do agree to Their terms. If it isn't magically binding, you don't necessarily have to uphold your end of the deal, and could try to save both you and Fluttershy. Of course, there could be any number of Them, and having great power could be insufficient for winning against so many. If They do manage to capture you and you're unable to defend yourself, you might be able to kill yourself to power some super-powerful spell that can at least do serious damage to Them. But you being in that type of situation in the first place is not very preferable at all. And you may ask why I believe so firmly these creatures are evil. Simply put, your experiences with Them do not point towards some sort of misunderstanding. If it were a misunderstanding, the forest creature would have likely made some sort of sound as a warning that you're trespassing, or to get your attention. Of course, I may just be blowing this entirely out of proportion, and the process of finding that mysterious lake involves suddenly disappearing. Or maybe it's something else entirely. In the end, it's your choice how you want to play this out, and we can only give you guidance. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, whatever they may be. On a side note, it might be a good idea to aquire some sort of journal so that you can record the information we give you to digest at your own pace. Also, I'm sorry if I cause you discomfort in any way. I am not a very emotionally sensitive person, and one of my beliefs is that, if no-one else is willing to, I must make sure the whole, ugly, unbiased truth is communicated, despite how comfortable lies and half-truths might be. Make of it what you will, I still care about you and your friends, and I don't want to see the worst come to pass… …Hello, I am LeftMoss (well, thats more like a user name (not that it really matters)), and I may or may not be a pyromaniac, so I might want you to burn something in the future... probably. I tend to get those phases. I have an idea of what may or may not be there, a ruin with at least one laser weapons in a ruin buried deep below the desert, but that is just a simple possibility, we can never know. Also, music, my favorite kind though. Can you see this? or hear it? probably, probably not. Welp, thats it from me, except for the fact that I love the memes, like SPESS MEHREENS. Ah, yes, rambling, I kinda do that sometimes. Ok, not sometimes, A LOT, but whatever. I am just gonna be done talking… …I have no idea why I even put that video there... oh well… …It's been proven that Twilight can't see videos or pictures. A shame, too; that's some nice music… …uhh, you said SEE, not hear, so maybe she can hear the music… …She needs to be able to interact with the video to listen to the music in it, and she sees just a website address… … Ah, got it… …Princess Twilight Sparkle 2X4 of Equestria I'm speaking to you on behalf of the Recursive Organization. My name is Kasey Seiko, though most know me as Mrs. K, you may refer to me as either. I'd like to take responsibility for the general temperament of my employees. Key for his volatile nature, and Shutter for his arrogance. One of the biggest freedoms we allow in this organization is the freedom to uphold one's personal values. It's, unfortunately, lead to an indirect dissonance of opinions and philosophies, on what any of us should really do. But the employee structure aside, you've been very curious, and I hope to oblige you with as little emotional involvement as possible. So you're aware of Blackjack, aka "The Sweeper" is, as you've correctly guessed, on the same level as other 'primaries'. As a side note I quite like that term as it's much more appealing than 'Forerunner'. and in fact our organization was created by Keywii Cookies over a decade ago to keep track of Blackjack. Now, all primaries are world creators. Some are capable of creating whole worlds filled with living people, everything from the biggest celestial bodies to the tiniest of microorganisms. Others Are merely fitted for more simple ventures such as a small town with a few quite believeable people. Now for one reason or another, Blackjack is incapable of creating ponies. He's able to think of vast landscapes filled to the brim with environments and setting as real as can be, but cannot fully create a real pony. It's driven him to something of an obsession with your kind, always creating worlds with you in mind, but never creating you himself. This is where you come in. To put a theory of yours at reast, you weren't 'created' you were in fact taken from your home and placed into this landscape. What's in store for you is anyone's guess, but I want you to take solace in the fact that you are the one and only Twilight Aprkle from Equestria. As for what happens at the end of Blackjack's 'story' our best researchers aren't fully convinced yet, but the going theory is that due to new no content being added to the world, it enters a 'stgnant' state where everything is compeltely frozen and ever unmoving. A counter theory is that the world and everyone in it simply ceases to exist, though I doubt that myself. Now I hope I answered any questions you had as to the nature of the world's existence and about the Primary. However, I must be off, unfortunately I'm a busy woman and can't stay here to answer any future question you have. In my stead I'm reinstating Key, though not to worry, he'll be supervised so as to be perhaps a bit more helpful and a bit less angry. Thank you for listening Twilight, and as always, I've been Mrs. K. Good luck… …Groan Why did she hit me with a pipe? Ow. Twilight, Afizha here, what's been going on? Last I remember was telling you more about what I found out about the artifact you have stuck to you… …Alright, which one of you bozos flat-out told Spike he wasn't real? He's been having nightmares ever since. It took Princess Luna And me three days just to calm him down. Yea, I had to pass up a chance to be with the Wonderbolts because of what you said about Spike. Yeah, I won't throw you any parties until you apologize, even if I don't know how to jump through the screen to turn whatever room you're using to read this into a party. Sigh. Anyway! other Twilight, (that's going to get annoying fast.) I have heard of a creature with that name before. I don't remember what book I read it in, nor do I know how log ago it was, but that name had a strange meaning. It meant 'the two front paws.' It's said that the creature was part of a larger monster. I just don't know what… …Well, to be fair, your reality is being delivered to us by the same guy that's pretending to be an alternate version of this Twilight's dad AND a pair of good and evil twins. It was still Akuma that said it, though, he's the one that deserves to be educated in the ways of not terrorizing Spike. Speaking of whom, have a mustache… …Um... Thanks? But truth be told it wasn't the not-being-real thing, though, that's something I never want to experience again. It was what I saw when I handed Twilight the eye thing. It was strange and scary at the same time. I saw T-Twilight injured severely. And the scary thing was I couldn't tell if it was the other Twilight or this one. All I know was that all I could see was a fire and a giant astral lion, At least two times bigger than an Ursa Major… …LeftMoss here, last thing I did, I removed, because rechecking information more than once... and now I want something to BURN. Yeah... …Storm crow here. You had combat so I can act at least some what. The things might not have any intentions at all the simplest explanation to me is that they are constucts acting on specific guidelines. Their might also be more than on kind green evil / or agressive, blue simply carry out a turn on off the phase of the lake like it is vibrating so two rooms that are in the same space just different frequencies. A third alternative is that you call just ended. It was communication device maybe you moved out of range or it timed out. Keep trying to use minimal force, because the more comfortable you get with violence the easier it getting to make a mistake. I was there when a friend went beserk when my eyes were extracted hundreds suffered for just being in the wrong place. It nearly killed him with regret. I have recovered one eye there other I have replaced… …josh here - I agree with Akumakami about Fluttershy being at the lake. I mean i'm pretty sure the ponies around here would have tried everything to get back to it before declaring it a lake you can only visit once. Also on the transcript of the things we say shows some weird symbols in place of where the video was suppose to be; I don't know if they mean anything or if it's whatever letting us talk to you incorrectly processing the video… …nickel here. honestly i can't be sure of anything about what the others are saying, but i do prefer to take reasonable routes, probably why i cant bring myself to use a villain character for very long when playing games. it is likely that the lake really can only be visited once and the loophole you tried didn't work. i stopped trying to make sense of the creative part of the multiverse ages ago so while i wish i could help more directly i doubt i can do much when another origin is dominant, my understanding of this uses the term origin instead of primary and i have yet to nail down if it is a physical or metaphysical entity, but it definitely includes a split in the mind state to account for all the worlds overseen. just do what you think is right, the possibilities are open and as I've said before, this world lacks any of the interface marks to indicate this will end poorly. Since it looks like there is time travel involved, you probably wont have to worry too much, this is probably far enough away to limit butterfly effect assuming you are still in your own timeline at all instead of in another world entirely, as a last resort blackjack could probably just steer the timeline to make it match up if thats the desired result, I've done it before with my own worlds and the end result isn't distinguishable from if it had happened normally and sometimes making an alternate timeline is the goal, but its too early to tell. before i forget, when you find fluttershy you can tell her that we do hear her as long as she is near you and possibly if the focus shifts away from you for intervals, but most likely such intervals will be short and rare. last note, you can probably see why i am hesitant to open up the worlds under my care to this kind of interface even if its the only way some of them would ever be restored to a full world… …It's Light and this message is for the other voices. Stop overloading her mind with so much information and stop telling her things that are useless we need to influence her decisions and actions and nothing more. I don't Dark even needs to drive her mane because your doing it for her. We need to only focus on her and the world around her. Anything else is meaningless. Twilight be careful, things are starting to heat up. I want you to be ready when the time comes.Dark here, I want to thank you all for helping me drive Twilight Mad, do keep up the good work. *Ahem*... KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL... …Oh and Eternus a word of advice, don't get in my way or you will live to regret it for the rest of your miserable life… …I just realized that it would be really tragically funny if your Eye activated immediately after a previous activation…]

X

"Oh! IT'D BE FUNNY WOULD IT!?" Twilight twitched. "Fluttershy's missing and all you can think about is how FUNNY THIS IS!?" She twitched - she didn't even know which of them that was. It could have been any of them...

She shook her head - she could think about it later, right now she needed to find Fluttershy. She lit her horn, attempting to diffuse any illusions as suggested. She felt her magic tug on something, but there was no visible effect. She tried a direct teleport-to-Fluttershy spell - and just appeared in a different area of the grassy field. She knew the spell worked - she was where the magic thought Fluttershy was. But Twilight saw nothing...

...The voices were right, she was probably at the lake. With that shark... But what about what Ponygood said? Whoever 'they' were, wanting to kill her, manipulate her, be sadistic... Or that Fluttershy wasn't as real as she was... Or....

She grabbed her head. "Agh! Agh agh agh! Stop - find Fluttershy. How could you get back into the lake... Or... find whoever they were... Ponygood, you better explain that next time. Why 'They.' What's the deal... The star creature? The thing I saw in the forest? The thing I saw in my dreams?" She galloped around the grasses, scanning the magic everywhere she could - she was tugging on something, just out of reach, just beyond her capabilities. She growled - this just wasn't going to do. "Ponygood... Why? Just... I don't know, why would anyone do those things? Why would you THINK that, jump to it as the first thing you think?"

She scrambled around for several minutes, finding nothing. Nothing to do, nothing at all. She sighed, falling into the grass, tears in her eyes. "Why... Why didn't I think of this... She could be just fine, looking at the lake for me... Or she could be in danger..."

She looked up at the sun, frowning. She was in the past - after Discord's reign and defeat, but before Nightmare Moon, seeing as the moon had looked normal. She thought about what Akumakami had said - had she just caused the future? Had she changed the future she knew? Or had she done nothing, and she was just looking far too deeply into things? Should she be paranoid, or was there nothing to worry about?

She'd experienced time travel twice before... Once she couldn't change anything no matter how hard she tried... And the other time the world was essentially destroyed. She didn't have enough information... She couldn't know.

She hated not knowing. She hated not being able to find Fluttershy.

Perhaps she should just wait... Fluttershy would look around, and find her own way out.

Lacks any of the interface marks to indicate this will end poorly... If Nickel was right, this wasn't a tragedy. It would end well. Which meant - Fluttershy was going to be fine. Right? ...Probably.

"Dark has a point, you know. You are all doing his job for him. Driving me maaaaaaaad..." She laughed. "Not sure I'm the same pony I was two days ago... You are all influencing me pretty hard, aren't you?" She looked out at the grass, a frown coming to her lips. "And you're all doing the same to each other... Threats.... That other Spike - I think - freaking out... Key... Flooding worlds together. This just looks like a recipe for madness, right now, utter madness..."

She stood up. "We need to start working as a team, people. All of us just bicker, fight, yell, scream, and contradict each other. That's fine, we have disagreements, we all believe different things, and we are all perceiving this world differently - which makes me think none of us are seeing this for what it truly is. No offense to you Miss K, or Zen, or Akuma... I don't think any of us can make any calls about what's going on. This is new for all of us. Am I real? Am I not? Are you real? Are you not? Are parts of this world real or not? Not only does it not really matter at the moment - none of us have the right to make that call, do we?"

She blinked. "I'm rambling. Great. One of the first signs of madness." She shook her head. "...We're in this together, whatever that means. I think we should focus on the goal - get home. I'm... open to ideas on how to do that. Stuck in the past and on the other side of the planet... And with Fluttershy..." She frowned. "...Should we - I - that's confusing - go to the leaders? Or would that interfere with the timeline too much? I'll... I think I'll wait for what you say on that."

She started pacing. "...Also, K? ...Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate that, if nothing else. I hope to see Key in better spirits next time."

She plucked a piece of grass out of the ground, looked at it, and set it on fire. "There. Happy? ...You should probably see someone about your... burning tendencies if you can." She blew out the fire. "Man, that smoke smells disgusting..."

Then Fluttershy appeared a few yards to Twilight's right, a smile on her face.

"Fluttershy! Oh my gosh I was so worried-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I found the lake, and I didn't want to leave until I'd looked at it all..."

"I... I know." She rushed her into a hug. "We should have planned that better. Talked it through."

"Yeah, that would probably have been a good idea... But I met some nice animal friends in the lake! There's was this very helpful shark creature named Mildi..."

"...I'm pretty sure he tried to eat me."

"Oh, that's just what sharks do. You shouldn't take it personally." She smiled. "There was this gazebo thing on top of an island, completely empty, but filled with strange glowing markings."

"Yeah, I saw those - that's where I appeared. Didn't know what to make of them... Except my cutie mark was on the ceiling."

Fluttershy nodded. "Well, it was completely empty - Mildi told me much more than I could have ever found on my own. The lake, apparently, is over a thousand years old, and he's been there the entire time, guarding it. He said he was placed there to attack anything that showed up - even me, but I calmed him down. The lake is apparently bottomless as well, he's never swam to the bottom. And uh..." She frowned. "I'm... Sorry, this really isn't helpful, is it? He doesn't know much, and there wasn't anything else for me to look at..."

"...It's okay, Fluttershy, at least we know it really is here now and can be gotten back to... By ponies who have never been here."

"Oh! He did mention that a starry creature had been hanging around a lot lately, which was bizarre since he rarely sees anything come in more than once."

Twilight twitched. "...It's that thing that I keep seeing out of the corner of my eyes, I know it. ...It might be responsible for me being here..."

"I thought that was Blackjack?"

"He creates worlds, right? Surely, he wouldn't just drop me into a situation suddenly - he'd have provided a reason, a method... Like how you were drawn here by that machine in the forest..." She blinked. "...We should go check that out again, by the way. See what if I can figure anything out now that I'm thinking a little clearer..."

Fluttershy nodded. "I won't vanish this time, promise."

Twilight hugged her. "Thanks." The two of them took off to the sky. Twilight took one last look at the lake, frowned, and flew into the Bluemish forest...

~~~

Twilight thought she saw the stars of Alderan a few more times on the journey to the machine, but she was never sure. He was probably being careful. Twilight and Fluttershy landed in the middle of the machine, and Twilight performed a scan - it seemed to have power restored to it, but it wasn't reacting to her presence anymore. Nor Fluttershy's, for that matter.

"I don't get it... Why make this thing? It communicates with anything across space and time, and drags them here... I think," Twilight said.

"Maybe we're looking at it wrong? Maybe that's not it's true purpose, or something."

"Maybe... We'd have to talk with the ancients who built it to figure that out though." She lit her horn, prodding it again with her magic. "...No response. At all. It's like I used up my one free call."

Fluttershy stepped into the center, pressing down with her hoof. "And it just doesn't like me."

"Maybe you need a horn to use it..." Twilight frowned. "Or maybe it just has to sense something about you..." She frowned, her magic flowing in an unusual pattern. "...That's odd.."

"What?"

"I think I've picked up on a magic trail... This structure is drawing power from somewhere else... Somewhere far to the... North." She pulled out the map. "Probably in that northern desert."

"We're being provided a lot of branching paths."

"Maybe that's intentional..." Twilight muttered. She felt the Eye warm up again. "Well, here it goes. See you in a minute or so." She sat down in her meditative state, ready for the input...

XI

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Twilight, it's Key, first things first, I'm sorry for scaring you, I help because I often have things to say but people basically ignore me or shut me out, after several year it gets a bit frustrating. I'm sorry for it. So just to put your mind at ease, you are real, you are the real Twilight taken from Equestria. It's not entirely clear if Fluttershy is real, but there's also nothing saying she isn't the real version of your friend. The Sweeper is unable to create sapient life, and tends to grab from their homes, that's what I know to be real. I think working together to help you is worth while, but I don't really trust anyone else to listen to what I have to say and actually try to work with me, I know the Sweeper better than anyone else here, and can answer any question about it, but I'll be told I'm wrong. For example I can tell you that Fluttershy can't interact with the machine because she's not who was chosen, you were chosen, so most things will only work for you. I'll not say anything more so you can keep from going mad, thanks...for listening at any rate, it means a real lot to me… …Ponygood speaking. There's a saying among my kind, although I don't know who said it. "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." You are in a dangerous situation, as you have personally experienced, and by expecting the best to happen, you end up unprepared for what actually happens. However, by taking steps towards the worst case scenario, you can at least not be caught entirely off-guard and have an increased chance of surviving the worst, or being pleasantly surprised when the worst doesn't occur. That is what I'm trying to do. Since the only thing I can do in this case is talk, that is what I'll do to try and make sure you're prepared for the very worst that could happen. It's not much of a surprise that the worst isn't very desirable at all. Once again, I am sorry for causing you so much distress, but I doubt you believe me at this point. And as for your supposed insanity? It probably doesn't really exist at this point, if you think rambling to yourself is a symptom. In fact, it's actually a good way to reinforce some information you may have gotten, or act as a sounding board for ideas in the event that no-one else can listen. I also believe it's good to be a little insane, such that the absolute monotony of life is a little more bearable. But enough of that. Let's focus on not-as-morbid things, such as where to go next. Thinking back to when you first came here, I recall that you went to most of the locations recommended by us, being the lake, the town, and the forest. However, there is one location you have yet to go to, being the top of the mountain that someone compelled you to go to. There is also the Lost Desert, which we know a little bit more about, and the wide plethora of other potential locations on your map. And I'm pretty sure there are more of those communication/collection devices scattered around the island. I think, if you can find enough of them, you might be able to summon the rest of your Element-bearing friends, and you can use your Rainbow Friendship Laser Power to do cool things. I wouldn't recommend using those altars until you find at least four if them, though. Also, about the time-travel situation. I believe that time cannot be manipulated such that the future can be changed, and that going back in time to cause changes is the very thing that caused the future to be how it is in the first place. Essentially, the only things that can come out of time travel are ontological paradoxes. However, I haven't yet seen the episode of your show in which Starlight Glimmer destroyed the world, so I admit I don't have all the information. Also, there's something weird in the method that Blackjack used to convey your adventure to us that I wanted to share with you. "Then Fluttershy appeared a few years to Twilight's right, a smile on her face.” This was when she returned from the mysterious lake after you burned that piece of grass. And speaking of Fluttershy, I have decided that, in the event that Blackjack takes us away from your perspective for a time, I will recount what happens so that you can be educated in it. This is assuming he ever does do that... And for my final statement, I believe you can trust Key. Outside of this story, he and Blackjack are good friends, and he's been following Blackjack's works for a long time now. Hell, Black's even revived one of Key's old abandoned stories! That's all for now. Watch out for any super-sized astral lions, alright?… …Josh here - I vote talking to go to the leaders first, and a world to everyone else; if you have something else to say add on to the first thing you said; keep the confusion to a minim you know, also twi Fluttershy has been added to the main character tags so it's safe to say she's real and Key i'm sorry about what said before, had i'd known about that i wouldn't have bashed on you like that, i can't speak for everyone but i'm willing to hear you out this time, but this time do try to explain yourself a bit better this time… …Nickel again, good to see that you are coping with this craziness. not to put to blunt a point on it, but i'm pretty sure most of us assumed you were fairly crazy even before you got here, of course that is part of what makes you so interesting, i just assume that everyone is a little crazy afterall sane is a relative term. just go with what seems right in this case, since the marks on your story include adventure and drama you can be sure that you will have a lot to do and find as well as a fair degree of stress off of the drama mark, personally i dislike that one due to the stuff it normally accompanies since i'm bad with people. also the interface looks like it may cut some of the content before me due to errors, it mentions that key and blackjack have helped each other before and they get along better than what you have seen would indicate. i cant be entirely sure of the veracity of all of it but to me this indicates that key's comments may not be all they appear. there is a chance i may miss the next entry window so it could be awhile before i can get back to observation… … PONYGOOD THAT'S NOT ME YOU'RE MIS- Key, stop, re-evaluate your position. I-I just-I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS! ahem, I believe Key would like you to know, Ponygood, that he and Keywii_Cookies55 are not the same person, and also that he doesn't like being mistaken for others. Key? Thank...thank you sir. Yes, I'm not the founder of the Recursive Organization, Keywii_Cookies is like The Sweeper, he's a creator, but he doesn't do much of it. Thanks Josh, truth be told, when you're the shortest person around people ignore you quite alot, you'd think a person get used to that, but you'd think wrong. Anyway, yes, we need to work together, and sort of put our different skills together, or something, and come up with a way for Twilight to beat the Sweeper and get hom… …I was simply shorthanding Keywii's name, like I did to Blackjack in the same comment. I didn't intend to cause you distress, and I apologize.
Oh oh oh! I just remembered something that could help you with your anger! All you have to do is shout something as silly as "Fluffy Bubbles" as angrily as you can, and the ridiculousness of the situation should dissipate anger very quickly. This could be useful to you too, Twilight… …Twilight #2, Spike here. Could you come up with a nickname so that we can speak to each other a bit easier? Cause calling you Other Twilight or Twilight #2 is going to get annoying fast. When you mentioned to Northern desert, I looked up some information about it. Apparently about 100 years before Discords defeat, there was a race of ponies living there called Flutter-ponies. But after his defeat, they vanished, and the place soon came to be known as the Badlands. Be careful when you go because that is the last place my brother checked for changelings. Uh... why not just let her do the technique that cadence taught us? Deep breath in, hold for ten seconds, then release. Granted if your panicking then it's a good idea to think of something completely outlandish and have the shock break you out of your stupor. Like Kumquats! ...*sigh* Yes Pinkie, like kumquats… …This isn't the Northern Desert you're looking for... What I mean to say is that this continent is not the same as the one you're all familiar with. Therfore, they have two entirely different Northern Deserts. And as for the anger management technique? It's funny!… …It's LeftMoss, something (or someone) that is possibly powerful to the north... an object (or being), possibly POWERFUL, up NORTH. Sorry if I am coming of as cryptic, but just think about it, where have you seen/heard about something similar in your life? Oh, and, uh, I will try not to have you burn something anymore... no promises… …Light here and oh my God thank you Twilight for telling them to work together although I don't think it made much of a difference seriously these guys need to stop rambling oh and be careful when going to this power source it probably won't be 100% safe. Also Dark has gone quiet which means that Dark is planning something so you should mentally prepare yourself just in case… …This is Zen. Going by what some of the individuals you met said about their leadership, I would imagine that going straight to the top isn't the best course of action. I say go to the desert. Of course, there are some preparations that need to be made before you go. Depending on how far away it is, you'll need water and food for both yourself and Fluttershy, some means of keeping warm during the night (though you may know some spell that can accomplish this), and a map if you can get one… …They have a map. It's how they learned of the desert in the first place…. …Zen once again. I had meant a map specifically of the desert. One that shows the locations of these ruins of particular interest in greater detail. I was too vague on that point, Ponygood, so I thank you for raising the issue… …Be careful when you get there . Trust not what your eyes can see, but focus on what they can't. Afizha out. Also, can someone tell me how another twilight manged to gain access to our link?…]

XI

Twilight took in a breath - and let a smile come to her face.

"Did it go well?" Fluttershy asked.

"They're starting to work together. There's still a few but it... There's progress. It means a lot to me." She stretched out. "Now, time to return the favor... Thank you Key, Ponygood, Zen, Nickel, Josh, and other me - you're all doing great so far. Just.... Thanks for cooling it down a bit. Nice that you're willing to think despite the... nature of this situation."

"Uh... And thank you as well," Fluttershy said.

Twilight chuckled. "Feels crazy, doesn't it?"

"A little, yes."

"Anyway, they said some things... We could go to the mountain, desert, or the leaders - I think the leaders are a bad idea, and they thought so as well. Though they cared less about time changing and more about the leaders not being of good character - which I suppose is possible. I think the desert has more reason to call us personally... Fluttershy?"

"Well, we'll need a map first."

Twilight laughed. "Exactly what Zen said. Come on, let's start flying back to town. I can do the rest on the way back." They took to the skies. "So, other me wants something to call me."

"Why not that fake name you had? Glimmer?"

"...Sure. You can all call me Glimmer if you need to differentiate. So... The device worked for me because I was chosen. But why was I chosen? And how? I think it has to be more than just Blackjack or a primary just saying I was - there's got to be an explanation. ...I don't suppose you can talk to Keywii?"

"Who's that?"

"Another primary. One behind Key and that little group of his. Apparently, they know Blackjack somewhat closely. Wondering if there was a way to get information."

Fluttershy blinked. "Maybe. Are there ways to contact Blackjack?"

"I dunno. Are there?" She looked down at the Witch's eye. She shrugged. "We'll have to wait for an answer on that one. So, our little story here has been deemed an adventure-drama."

"Well, you have been having a lot of drama lately."

"I know... Guess it makes sense. Unlike why Ponygood keeps calling this an island... That still doesn't make sense! Your philosophy makes... more sense, but not as much. I'm not here to judge though, I'm sure it's helped you through a lot. Though..." She paused. "...years? I'm sure it was yards..."

"Hrm?"

"There might be small errors in the reports they receive. Like it gets to them corrupted somehow."

"Oh, my."

"Yeah... Hope that never creates a huge mistake. Be careful guys."

Fluttershy looked at the Eye. "This is... weird."

"Yes, we've established that. Trust me, it's weirder if you can hear them."

Fluttershy laughed. "Well, I guess it's time to us to get to the 'adventure' part of our adventure."

Twilight nodded. "We'll need to ask for help, and that Diorite is suspicious of us... I'd rather not draw too much attention."

"That Wound Dream mare seemed like she might know stuff."

"...I guess we could go ask her. But she might not know what we need to know."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Twilight, stop worrying. Ponygood is rubbing off on you."

~~~

They arrived back in Pebbleton and nopony paid them any mind. Twilight put her hood back on, she needed to get used to wearing it. They walked around for a while, taking the town in, looking for Wound Dream.

"Heeeey!" Prancey said. "You're back again! What is up?"

"Looking for Wound Dream," Twilight said. "Going to ask her about traveling."

"Oh, I'm sure she'll be glad to see you!" She winked. "Right this way!" She led them to Wound's house - which looked normal from the outside, just like all the others. It sounded odd though - constant ticking, ticking, ticking noises, coming out in an uneven cacophony.

"HEY WOUND!" Prancey yelled, pounding on the door. "Twilight's here to see you!"

Wound stuck her head out of the door. "Yes?" Through the crack, Twilight could see dozens of structures composed completely of clockwork - only half of which were actually clocks. Twilight gaped at the moving statues of dolphins, ponies, and dragons. "Wow..."

"Yeah, impressive, maybe." She shook her head. "Whatcha need?"

"I'm thinking of heading to the Northern Desert. You seem like a type to know things that isn't Infinity."

"Why not ask Diorite? ...It's because he's a dragon isn't it?"

"Er..."

"I understand, it's fine. Uh..." She put a hoof to her head. "Well, there's no maps of the desert region itself, since the place seems to be in a constant state of shifting around. But... I do know going straight to it is a bad idea. If you go straight north the band will stop you. Horrible stretch of land that constantly emanates deadly magics. Best to go around, but that'd require crossing the Moissan border, and the dogs aren't fans of trespassers."

Fluttershy frowned. "Couldn't we just fly over this band?"

"...Maybe? I think there's still danger up there, even if it's less."

Twilight nodded."So we brave the band or brave the Moissan dogs... I'll have to think on this one."

"it's getting late anyway," Fluttershy said. "We should turn in before we head out into the unknown."

"First, we should shop for survival supplies."

Prancey saluted. "You two go rest - I'll take care of that." She dashed off, a dopey grin on her face.

"...Wow, she's been so nice to us. I wonder how I can thank her..."

Wound was suddenly overcome with a fit of coughing. "Well, have a good night. I... Am going to get a drink of water." She shut the door.

Twilight blinked. "Uh..."

"I don't know either," Fluttershy admitted. They went back to the inn - but before they could open the door, Infinity appeared right in front of them.

"I hear you're thinking of leaving."

"Uh... Yeah," Twilight said, looking around nervously.

"You're not leaving without answering some questions."

"I'd rather not."

"You are an 'alicorn.' How does this happen?"

"Magic."

"More specific please."

Fluttershy sighed. "Infinity... We don't want to be interrogated."

"Too bad! I need answers and you're going to provide them!" She levitated up a checklist. "So, why have you been avoiding me?"

Twilight facehooved. "Because we don't want to deal with your questions.

"Oh, so there's secrets! Like, oh, maybe the fact that you had something to do with the sun freaking out?"

Twilight paled. Infinity grinned. "Gotcha."

Twilight lit her horn - and Infinity fell asleep right in front of them.

"Twilight!"

"I'm bad at keeping a straight face, Fluttershy, okay? I had to do something!"

"Will she be okay?"

"She'll wake up with a headache." She bit her lip. "We'll need to leave quickly tomorrow. Say our goodbyes and get out before Infinity goes crazy."

Fluttershy nodded in agreement. She took a moment to move Infinity to a soft patch of grass, for a more relaxing sleep. "Okay."

They went back to their room.

~~~

Twilight fell asleep much easier than the night before. She allowed herself to smile - she was dreaming of dining in some fancy restaurant with Rarity.

"What to order what to order today..." Rarity was saying.

Twilight shrugged. "I don't know. This menu looks like gibberish to me, actually... Is it in pony-latin?"

"The correct pronunciation is ponilatin, dear. And yes, yes it is. I'd order the-" The world was shaken by an earthquake, and everything became stars. Twilight became aware of the same entity from the night before.

"...Are you going to keep interrupting my dreams like this?"

The entity paid her no attention. "You have adjusted much, I see. A given goal in mind. Thoughts - most wrong - on the situation."

"Well then, what is right?"

Sand swirled around her in a cyclone. "I assume you have questions. Perhaps I will answer them if you give me some information."

The Witch's Eye started glowing again. Twilight closed her eyes, preparing for it.

XII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Ponygood speaking. To the dream entity: Hello! We are people speaking to Twilight from behind a phone screen, if you know what that is. I, personally, would appreciate it if you didn't ignore Twilight's existence, and maybe not interrupt all of her dreams. I do have a few important questions. First, are there evil entities on this island that seek to use Twilight's magic to escape some prison and do terrible things to the world? Second, are you, the forest creature, and Alderan related to them? Third, how can we know to trust you? That's all I wanted to direct towards you, dream entity. I'm rubbing off on you, Twilight? Heh, all part of my master plan... to STEAL YOUR SOUL! HAHAHAhehehe, just kidding! Even if I could, I would have no interest in doing so. Hmm... Infinity might be a problem if she decides to pursue you in her quest for answers. She could very well be put in danger from her foolish desires. When you do eventually set off, constantly scan for any unwanted followers, both physically and magically. And as for speaking to Blackjack? It is possible to directly speak to him on his other stories, his profile page, and by Private Message. The only reason we can't speak to him here is because this is reserved for speaking to you. He did comment twice on this story, though; once to tell Akuma he spoke too late, and once to notify me that he corrected his spelling error. He says it like a computer program, though. Speaking of computer, in going to try something. [COMMAND: Help //(Lists all commands)] And as for why I call this an island? I reasoned that everything's technically an island, however large it may be. However, I can start referring to it as a continent, if you want.
That'll be all… …Why Glimmer? Why not Twinkle or Sparky? Why not Twilight Shimmer?... ...Spike! Don't be rude. I'm sure she...I...we. *sigh* Spikes right that is annoying. Anyway, I'm sure you have a reason behind the nickname.
Also, be careful around Infinity. While I'm pretty sure she's harmless there's just something about that pony that's raising a few red flags in my mind. Also to the 'pony?' Named Afizha. I found this strange eye thing some time ago at Princess Celestia's old castle that let me communicate with you. What's weird though is that a few weeks after Spike handed it to me I've started having these visions of the old castle and fire… …SWEEPER!! What do you want with Twilight anyway?! I get that this is your story, but you can't reeding do this!. Stop, Key, nothing came about from yelling. It's clear he wants answers. Answers to what? What could it possibly want from us? Look, Sw- Blackjack? I don't know what you want, but if it's Keywii, it created our Organization 15 years ago and then left a few months later, Nobody has seen or heard from him since he abandoned Jane in the Equestria general hospital. He didn't even leave us with any direction, just "watch over what you do and keep the ponies you steal safe" Please, just, leave this Twilight alone, I don't want to see what happened in the Asanta system again... Twilight, I...I want to share what's happened to the other ponies the Sweeper takes, but I don't want to upset you, I JUST got back to you to be helpful. Just, for now, gather as much information from it as you can, you might learn enough to get you back home… …Ponygood again. If you must know, Twilight, the Asanta solar system was found in another of Blackjack's stories called Wanderlost, in which an evil all-powerful star god related to the Tree of Harmony was imprisoned, released, and re-imprisoned. He was also indirectly the cause of the death of your planet, and directly the cause of Celestia's death. His name is Corot, but I like to call him Carrot… …Be careful Twilight. Something tells me that the being in front of you does not have any emotions and is only treating you and all those around you as nothing but a science experiment. A means to an end and not caring what happens in the process… …Why...WHY WOULD YOU JUST SAY THAT?! I WAS SPECIFICALLY TRYING TO REFFING KEE- KEY, You're going too far, your use of language is unacceptable, you're being commandeered for the time being. Sir! I don't care about that right now, how can somebody named ponyGOOD just provide sensitive information like that? His casualness with the death of one of Twilight's loved ones is unacceptable! You're taking a break, Key, go to the lounge immediately. You're not working in this state. Now, Ponygood, I suppose I cannot change the way you handle sensitive topics, but moving forward together means compromise, and our organization is built on the fundamental that tact should be exercized when necessary. Now I'll keep Key from snapping at you the best I can, but in return I ask that you try not to just provide any and all information that could cause anxiety as soon as the opportunity supplies itself. Thank you… …Akumakami64 here. Sorry I didn't get to you last time. I was painting and got another story/world. Long story short, Discord never went traitor and became Archduke of the Everfree. For reasons you might not understand, I'm very proud of that one already. Huh, so that's what the other commenters have been talking about. Well, Twilight, I think I know what this thing is, kind of. Dream Creature: Settle this for us. I know you are not the Sweeper the other keep going on about, but are you perhaps another version of that creature? As in a less destructive version of it from another universe relative to it? As for Information, I would gladly give some, but you need to be more specific. I know a Twilight who lives eternally by being reborn and changing the world with all the points she collects, I know a child that could consume entire universes, I know plenty of gods and heroes, even Eldritch abominations, and anything I don't know, I can research relatively quickly to you. Now, if you want another question, here's this: Is this really the past? Oh sure, there's Celestia and Discord, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. The Sisters and the Draconequus are some of the biggest constants in all timelines of this world. So, was this ever this Twilight's past or are we in another timeline all together? Anyway, back to you Twilight. I'm actually surprised by how you handle Infinity. She reminds me a lot of you. But as for the rest.....When she says constantly shifting around, does she mean like a regular desert or something like Discord would do? Hard to tell, I imagine. And the Band.....i'm not saying go into, but get a look at that place. I have a feeling that may be important. Oi, the dogs....I have no opinion on that as I'm not sure what they're ultimately like a society- if it was mentioned, I'm sorry. Again, been a bit busy on my end. And tell Fluttershy I'm sorry for the panic attack I'm sure the others are putting you through right now. PS Dream Creature: Everything is true, it just depends on what universe you are in… …How many times am I going to say this? I am sorry. I just wanted to not leave any unknowns to Twilight, I saw an object that Twilight was ignorant of, and I didn't think for one second of the emotional consequences. I can definitely see how my philosophy and lack of emotional consideration can be problematic… …Giginss here. I think we all need to stop shouting, and try and focus on the current situation. Twilight, the entity you are currently speaking to is an unknown. Try to get as much information as you can out of it while not giving away as much as you can. Once we know more, we will be able to figure out what to do. Also, when you get back home, you should totally look up this in the history books, if this is really the past… …Josh here - not sure what you what information you're looking for, and just so key stops calling you the sweeper do have a name we could call you by? And ponygood if you're really sorry you'd do better next time… …Look, I get it, Ponygood, I really do, but even though I have a short fuse I still follow the three D's. Don't Discuss Death. it's a really sensitive topic that you need not blurt out. Otherwise, you need to wait for Twilight to specifically ask about other versions of her and their lives. I have a large wealth of knowledge of everything the Sweeper has done to her and her friends, but I'm waiting for her to be ready in order to handle it, it's not lunch time small talk. And Josh, I know the Sweeper has a name, it's GMBlackjack, but even if this dream entity is just a pale shadow of the real thing, it still acts in its place and I've always been uncomfortable using their names, there's an old legend that I don't believe in that if you call the Forerunners by name then they can steal your souls, obviously YOURS can do anything they want with you, but it goes that others can then steal you and use you for their sick games. And after 12 years following The Sweepers exploits, that's the last thing I want to have happen to me… …Very well. I will seek to better myself, and be more emotionally considerate. Just don't blame my if I forget to do that, though; I have a nasty habit of forgetting things. I didn't realize such a thing as the three D's existed… …Key, while i'm not doubting you, last time we talk to this thing it said "we have a case of mistaken identity" which means this is not the Sweeper, and from what you have said about the Sweeper and from how this guy is acting I have reason to believe he is working against the Sweeper… …Hmm... Oh, right, LeftMoss here, I was just really thinking about this, and still am, kinda. .........With the entity, try not to give away REAL important info, and I would have given you a suggestion for the one thing, but you can never be too sure about its capabilities. Apart from that, I have nothing to say, so I will be looking through these situations and provide advice for whatever goal you have in mind that I think is the best approach from now on (except for the parts where the entity appears, at least until we know its capabilities)… …Who keeps upvoting every comment?… …Also, Twilight. Be careful of who you trust with sensitive information. Not all ponies are as trustworthy as they look, as I'm pretty sure I don't need to remind you of the Flim-Flam Brothers. While I'm pretty sure Infinity is a friendly pony, she raises a red flag on how fast she knew it was you who made the sun move. Not only that but the way she kept hounding you with questions, it seemed like she was looking for either for a way to become an alicorn like you or find a way to render alicorns powerless. Before you leave, check on Wound Dream. That coughing fit didn't sound right. Afizha out… …Nickel again, looks like i managed a tenuous connection during the time window despite my expectations. heck yes our interface is loaded with bugs and errors, the bad entry mentioning years was nailed by an error message and i though it would be removed, just a typo on our end with no effect on yours. as for contacting blackjack, while it is possible to make contact, there is no guarantee of a response and most of what we see from your primary is either from your end in reaction to us or error messages that don't make it to your side. besides you wouldn't see any of the direct inquires until well after the fact assuming we got anything meaningful in response. due to the interactive nature of this i doubt that even blackjack knows everything you want to know at this point. but as usual i'm trusting things to work out with you making your own choices, any story can become boring if you have too much control over it after all, its why my enforcers nearly always took a power loss when it mattered, to prevent an instant solution from nowhere like they could have otherwise, power escalation got a bit insane among those i oversee. but as a last bit, out of curiosity do you know the spell for the mirror portal? if so or you can find the original then you may have a way back to your time after this is over with assuming you are still within your same timeline and universe and of course you aren't sent back by another method, time does seem to pass at a much faster rate in equestria as compared to the human world you are connected to at least when the gate is closed anyway… …This is Zen. Here we are faced with quite a conundrum. This entity, it is implied, possesses considerable knowledge about the circumstances, worldly and otherwise, that you find yourself in. Considerably more, i think it is fair to say, than any of us. There is precious little which I can think of which I can tell it which it does not already know. The only thing, in fact, is myself. So here we are. But mark you, creature, a peak beneath the mask is all you're getting. I am Zen. This is short for Zendrelax, which I initially spelled with an 'x' at the front rather than a 'z,' because I was that sort of youth. I have used the name Zendrelax in a great many places, and in many regards it has become a piece of myself. But it is not the name I was born with. I do not know how much you are familiar with these particular circumstances, creature, and I know Twilight is not, so I shall elaborate. The circumstances by which I perceive and comprehend these events is couched in anonymity as a matter of course. As, in fact, a matter of safety. I have had it drilled into my skull, metaphorically speaking, that revealing personal details in any circumstances where you are not interacting with them in-the-flesh is a very dangerous thing. But here we are. Hello, my name is Michael. It is a distorted form of the question "Who is like God?" in another language, which was the name of the commander of a divine army, the Angelic Hosts of Heaven. It might be transliterated as "Mihail," or "Mikhail" in the script I am using. My name is one of many variants created by being adapted into multiple different languages, and it is a very common name to give to newborns. It would be customary for you to share some name in kind, but I will not ask for it. I feel considerable anxiety in this moment. It is almost antithetical to how things work that I might share my name, even with it being so common, and even with it only being one of the three names which I was ascribed at birth. and of those three being the least useful in identifying me. This, Twilight, is why I did not share it with you from the start, even though it rationally makes little sense to feel this way. I will not be apologizing for it, Twilight, as this is something One Does Not Do. I hope you understand. Ah, yes, and it would make me deeply uncomfortable for any person now knowledgeable of that portion of my real name to use it to address me, so I would request that I still be addressed as Zen, or perhaps Zendrelax if you like. I would honestly prefer you spelling either one with an x to addressing me by my real name. Now, entity, I would have my due. It was a small morsel, but I feel I have explained the weight of a peek behind the mask. Now, hear me and answer: How and Why was Twilight made to be where and when she is? And if you lack the capacity to answer, give unto us the means by which we might learn…]

XII

Twilight opened her eyes. "I hope you got something out of that."

The entity paid her no mind, but tingled with excitement from what it heard, sparking with energies Twilight could only describe as purple waves.

"Confusion," it said, "you all have confusion. Curious - it was meant to remove that. The purpose is not as intended... Perhaps you are correct, an exchange of information will accomplish more. You all speak of being unable to inform me of anything... And yet... Your discussions, your mere talks of Primaries, writers, universes, and abominations - that is what I requested. It comes as no surprise to me that the one I have the most questions about is the one you confuse me with - This Sweeper, G. M. Blackjack... The nature of this world in and of itself, and it's place among the apparent many, many others..."

Twilight cocked her head. "You... Want to find Blackjack?"

The entity, once again, didn't dignify her with even paying attention. "I, am not the Sweeper, the Primary, or anything of the sort. I am a being of this world, completely confined by the boundaries of the rules. I am Ine. In many ways, I am just another pawn in this game, like yourselves... The difference being I care not for the insignificants."

"Hey!" Twilight yelled.

Ine swirled around, looking at the Eye. "You know, you weren't even supposed to be here. You were supposed to be something completely different. An answer - not a pack of questions..." Ine moved back, flashing. "As a respectful gesture, I will answer your... questions as I see fit. But I will demand answers. I wish to know as much as possible about this G. M. Blackjack - and what threat it poses to my world as the Sweeper. I wish to know why this Twilight was chosen, why she was deemed the best for the role. And I wish to know of the exact process by which universes like my own are created - and how they opreate."

Twilight blinked - did this Ine really want those things? What point would they serve - Twilight had gotten a taste of it over the last few weeks, and it drove her rather crazy!

"As to your questions... I am indeed related to the other spirits you have seen, Alderan is, in fact, a being of a similar level to mine. That thing in the forest was so far beneath us it is inconsequential. You are, in fact, in the past - the past for the 'being' you are attached to. And as for you, Zen, who is like God... You are the closest - so your question. How the being arrived here... It was not my doing, I am only related to the Eye. A ritual was performed by Alderan at the order of another to bring her here, for a purpose of which I am uncertain. I do not think the reason is important - the flow of information continues regardless of the intention."

Twilight blinked - she was brought here on purpose. By that Alderan - and... someone else. Should she investigate? Could she investigate?

Ine drifted away. "You are the Influence - and you have been given a woefully inadequate tool by which to access this world. But the nature of the ritual insisted that the vessel brought forth would have been your choice - the one best suited. Why is that? I am not sure you know..."

And with that the dream ended. Twilight sat up in bed, a little sweaty, but not panicked. The sun was just barely rising, and Fluttershy was at the window, gazing out into the distance.

"...The dream creature came back. Apparently it's named... Ine." Twilight rubbed her head. "Ow..."

Fluttershy turned around. "Oh! You're awake - good. ...Did you learn anything?"

"Well... Ine really doesn't care about me, thinks I'm... beneath it. Like I'm not important and only the Influence itself is..."

"It may just have a different perspective. Plus, you don't have to listen to it," Fluttershy said.

"...I think I do. It's asking them a lot of quesitons, about how the world works, about Blackjack, about universes..." Twilight sighed. "I... Think I can handle those answers myself, but won't they be a bit... Distracting, I wonder?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "It's not something to worry about."

"It might, Fluttershy - there may be this giant Star out there by the name of Corot that could destory Celestia! Who knows what that'd do?!"

"...I don't know, Twilight. How about we just focus on trying to find our way back home first...?"

"Yeah... To the desert. Have to get out before Infinity finds us - they don't trust her either. Well... Actually Akumakira finds it confusing that we're avoiding her. Uh... Akumakira? It's because I don't know how they'll react to me moving the sun, to me being from the future, to all this mess... Diorite has already shown sucpicion, and... well I don't want to chance it." She walked over to her things, threw on the cloak, and looked at the map. "It's a few hours fly from here - the band - we'll have to prepare for it."

"I think we should to to Wound's place - have her help us get the supplies," Fluttershy said.

"Good idea... I should talk to them first though."

Fluttershy sat down. "Take your time."

Twilight took a breath and looked down at the Witch's Eye. "Well guys, here we are, preparing to set out on the next adventure. Some of you are messing with me, and some of you are trying to help. Thank you for all this trying - but, it's obvious now that Ine is not Blackjack. In fact I think... it? he? she? I... Nevermind - might actually be helpful. I don't think we can trust her - but I think she literally doesn't care about what we care about. Key, Ponygood... Both of you could stand to take a moment and think about your actions. Key, I don't mind what Ponygood told me - it hasn't happened here, and frankly, I've already got death on the mind far too much. Ponygood, you do come across as... Crass. Very crass. And well - I think some of you were having two to three conversations at once? That... Was pretty confusing at times, admittedly. I don't know if that's something you can fix or not..." She frowned. "What are upvotes?"

Fluttershy blinked. "...Voting upwards?"

"...Maybe? I don't know." Twilight shrugged. "There's a lot of weird things going on. And Twinkle? I'm going to call you Twinkle because that's the first thing you said - I had to come up with Glimmer on the spot. I was already using it, so... Yeah. It's here now. Sorry if it's confusing, but you usually call Starlight by, well, 'Starlight.' Shouldn't be too much of an issue. And Zen... Thank you for doing what you do, and being reasonable. Now..." She turned to Fluttershy. "I'm teleporting us to Wound's house. Prepare yourself."

They were gone in a flash - and appeared right inside Woudn's front door. Wound laying on top of a clockwork lizard, sleeping.

Fluttershy blinked. "...She looks tired."

"Clockwork can't be easy," Twilight said. "Hey, uh... Wound?"

Wound woke up like a spring - shooting up into the air elastically, panic in her face. "Not my eyes!"

"Uh..." Twilight said, backing up.

"Oh." Wound Dream relaxed the instant she saw them. "Just you. Okay... Sorry about that, I never get good sleep at all."

"You okay?"

"Eh, side effect of living in a house filled with off-time clockwork machines." Wound Dream shrugged. "...Why are you in my house?"

"Well..." Twilight bit her lip. "We're going to leave town, and we want to do so without Infinity chasing us down."

"Ah. I'll go find Prancey... What do you need?"

"Supplies for a journey, and... Well I think that's it, unless you can think of any other way to prepare us for the desert."

Wound Dream nodded. "Eh, won't be too hard to grab. Might even get it for free..." She walked to the front door, heading out.

"Wound?" Twilight said.

"Hmm?"

"Thanks. Really, you and Prancey have been really kind."

Wound smiled. "I try. Until then." She left the two mares from another time in her house. They spent the time listening to the tick tick ticking of clockwork.

Twilight took out the map. "There appears to be one large city on the edge of the Bands... Acket. We should probably head there. If we can't cross... It appears there's a pair of border towns, Onyx and Uler, over here. The road into the Lost Desert goes through the Moissan city of... Chrysocholla."

"That looks pretty close to that star there - their capital right?"

"Yeah.... Heildor. I only hope the dogs will let us through their nation." She looked closer at the Moissan nation - there were a few larger cities marked, and a couple points of interest - the Pillar of Lore, the Eternal Mine, Mt Pyre - but it was a lot less detailed than the areas of Peran. The Lost Desert was even worse - besides the band, there were only two places marked - a dot called Fosis, and a big question mark towards the upper end of the map labeled Estur. "Estur..." She frowned - that sounded vaguely familiar.

"Does that mean anything?"

"I don't know..." Twilight checked the map for other question marks - there was another on the complete opposite side of the map, in the southwest sea, labeled Frau. The name didn't sound familiar at all. "Why put a question mark on a map of the known world...?"

Prancey barreled in at that moment, dumping a pair of saddlebags on Fluttershy's back. "You have water, rations, and detailed maps of the bigger cities! Oh, and seventy yuan, just to get you started out there. Consider it payment for the powder you got me!"

Twilight blinked. "That was fast..."

"I'm a fast pony."

Wound Dream appeared in the doorway, panting. "No... Kidding..."

Prancey saluted. "Well, there you are! Off! Off into the night!"

"It's morning, Prancey," Wound said.

Prancey rolled her eyes. "Bah, doesn't matter. Get going you two!"

Twilight smiled. "It was nice to meet you. If I can.. I'll come back to visit. ...Ready Fluttershy?"

"...Sure."

Twilight lit her horn - and they teleported to the outskirts of town. Twilight glanced behind them - and saw Diorite floating above the town, looking at them. Fear shot through Twilight - his eyes were narrow, and his expression untrusting. But her fears were put to rest when he nodded, and waved them off.

Twilight waved back with a smile on her face. She removed her cloak, spread her wings, and took to the skies, Fluttershy behind her.

There was no sign of Alderan or Infinity.

~~~

They left the plains behind quickly - the grass turned to dirt filled with various shrubs, a few of which moved on their own. They passed a few small towns overhead, a few ponies below noticing them, but not caring. A few dragons were in-flight as well, passing them by without so much as a glance. Most were the lung variety Diorite was - but there were a few interesting variations. One was simply a serpent without wings or limbs, while another had only wings. They varied extremely in size - though none approached the tremendous girth of Dragonlord Torch.

"There!" Fluttershy said, sometime after noon. "I see the desert!"

Twilight turned her head - sure enough, a few miles ahead of them on the horizon was an intense expanse of sand. Twilight saw dune after dune in the dry field, but no structures of any kind - she could see the city of Acket though, a semicircular set of structures, fixed around the edge of the desert itself, only a few long sections stretching into the sands - like a predatory claw tearing into the skin of some sandy beast. Dozens of dragons flew over the towers of Acket, and who knew how many others walked in the streets.

That wasn't their first stop though - they were going to check out the band.

Twilight frowned. "I can't see anything but normal desert..."

"The edge is pretty straight. That's not normal."

"Mmm..." Twilight and Fluttershy set down at the edge of the sand - only then could they see the band. From above, it just looked like another part of the sand dunes. But from the ground...

Twilight gawked. "What in the..."

The sand dunes they saw from above were resting atop of something completely different - a translucent magical forcefield that rippled with colors from blue to purple stood in front of them, several stories high. The field sparked with lights, but was otherwise substanceless, giving the sand the appearance of resting on nothing. Only, the sand wasn't resting - looking from the bottom, Twilight could see the sand particles dancing, rippling, and shifting with ever increasing energies. One sand particle interacted with a sparkling light directly - and transformed into a bolt of blue lightning that shot into the sky, spraying sand everywhere - sand that somehow didn't fall on the side of the band Fluttershy and Twilight were.

"What in..." Twilight took a few steps back. "What is this?"

Fluttershy gave her a 'don't look at me!' look.

Twilight's curiosity beat out her fear rather quickly - she inched closer to the band, looking down. The forcefield went far, far beneath the earth - the ground she was standing on had a sharp, flat edge. Far, far in the depths, she thought she could see complex circuitry, brimming with powerful magics.

"What in Equestria is this? What could it be FOR?" She shook her head. "Bizarre..."

"Now we know why it's dangerous. Random lightning bolts of energy from the ground."

Twilight bit her lip. "I think I could deflect them... But taking you over top with me could be risky..."

"Hmm..." Fluttershy said. Her eyes went wide the moment the Witch's Eye lit up.

"Oh." Twilight took a few steps back from the band and closed her eyes. "Here we go..."

XIII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…] […Ponygood speaking. When I described Corot/Carrot, I didn't mean that he was an actual threat. Your story and the story he is in are seperate universes, and he absolutely does not exist in yours. If that were true, and all of Blackjack's stories mingled together, Pinkie Pie would be simultaneously a chaos god, trapped in a terrible alternate universe, and dead. You do NOT have to worry about Corot. And now, some meanings of names. Some, like Acket, Onyx, Uler, Fosis, and Estur, have no important meaning that I was able to find. Chrysocholla is similar to chrysocolla, which is a crystal known to our magical wackjobs as a communication stone which also calms people. Heildor is similar to heliodor, which our magical wackjobs believe leeches toxins from the body. And, in case you're wondering, magical wackjobs are people in our world who believe, despite no known evidence of magic existing, that crystals can heal you and your chakras, and that Jews came to space on a metaphysical enlightenment spaceship. That is all the explanation I feel sane enough to give. I was not expecting the desert to be so... wierd. I can't think of anything to help you, except for the general advice of watch out for wierd magical things. Finally, upvotes are little things that are created when one of us click a little thumbs-up button on someone else's comment, and that tells everyone that someone "likes" that comment. This statement is directed towards Zen. I was thinking of saying it earlier, but Twilight beat me to it. Basically, thank you for being perhaps the sanest one of all of us and always thinking of the stupidly obvious things that none of us consider. Also, I have a large amount of respect for you for revealing at least a portion of your true identity. That is all… …nickel here. the interface is becoming a mess again, i thought it had calmed down. anyway, upvotes don't matter to you, they are a part of the interface on our end and due to the interface having been repurposed to reach you they have no bearing whatsoever on your situation. as for whats happening to you now, im more lost than you are in regards to what is happening, but it looks like you may have received some of those direct answers i mentioned before, if in a slightly unusual fashion. while ire is almost certainly not blackjack, it might be what in my worlds are known as fragments, a piece of the awareness and mind of your primary and such presences are often used for more direct influence and self inserts. that in no way gaurantees it knows everything or that it will feel like helping you, rather it means that there is little you can do to influence it if it doesnt feel like playing along, while most of my fragments tend to be either willing to help or stressed beyond reason i know nothing of what your primary will do with his, so good luck… …Spike here. Alright, I guess that's a good enough reason, and I got a laugh at 'Twinkle's' reaction to her nickname. And the fact that right now she's on a studying binge trying to find out more of how that 'Impossible' field exists. Speaking of, if you do figure out how it works, DON'T MESS WITH IT! I know how you get when you try to find out how things work. And to prove a point, just two words. Pinkie Sense… …afizha here. The town of Heildor might be a place of learning and knowledge. What the ‘magical whackjobs’ Ponygood11 is talking about is the heliodor crystal which means is this. A crystal of golden light, Heliodor radiates the warmth and power of sunshine, the illumination of higher thought, and a centered, more vibrant physical well-being. Its name literally translates from the Greek as a gift of the sun. Heliodor invokes the celestial Golden Ray of knowledge and learning, to stimulate the higher mind and enable the brain to function more efficiently. It is a stone of true nobility and selfless leadership and allows one to make decisions based on wisdom instead of emotion or reaction. Ahsian, 188 Yang in nature, Heliodor helps one develop aspects of the many virtues - assertiveness, self-confidence, physical and mental strength, benevolence and power. These traits serve both men and women. Simmons, 188 Heliodor is the yellow variety of the Beryl family, generally referring to the greenish-yellow crystal, but includes all yellow, yellow-green, light green and brown Beryl. Golden Beryl is a variety of Heliodor with a bright, pure yellow to golden yellow color. For the purpose of this article, we will refer to both as Heliodor except where the metaphysical properties may vary. While Heliodor and Golden Beryl are the yellow varieties of Beryl, the Beryl family also forms in other colors used as gems, such as Green Emerald, Blue Aquamarine, Pink Morganite, Red Beryl or Bixbite, and the colorless variety, Goshenite. That kind of crystal might be strewn all over heildor to promote knowledge growth or physical growth; I’m not certain… …josh here - sorry for bringing up upvotes like that; i know that wasn't the best moment for that but that is something that was happening for the start so you might understand my impatience. anyway upvotes are just part of a ranking system on our end, so no need to worry about it, but i have to point out that you can't vote on your own comment which means someone has been here from the start, and not only have they went out of their way to positively vote on everything everyone has said, but also have not said anything themselves, and i have to just ask them why? you're obviously invested what's happening so why not do something? also i'm more than a little creeped out... …Giginss here. I would highly recommend staying away from that artificial desert, as magical forcefields that spew lightning have a great risk of injury, or, depending on the power of the field, death. Or, perhaps, examine the magical circuitry. That circuitry sounds way out of place if you really are in the past, so either that is a long lost relic of an ancient civilization (your typical Daring Do book), or you are in the far future. That doesn't explain the town, though, and that annoys me with the inconsistencies. There must be something larger at play here, and we cannot see it yet. We must know more. Good luck… …AkumaKAMI here! Bwhaha! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's just....Twilight, I understand you have a lot of us to keep track of, I'm just wonder how mixed up Kami with Kira. I'm not upset or anything, it just amuses me! As for you, Ire, thank you for your information. I have only one important question at the moment- for future references, do you want your answers during the.....lets say, Inputting, right after you ask or do would wish us to wait until the next next one that happens during a dream with you? Either way, I'll give some answers now. I personally don't know much about Blackjack or his world. He has nine "stories" or universes, including this one. Technically speaking, the "Sweeper" is his by our own rules as its from one his universe. Three of them are "oneshots." Essentially meaning that what we perceive of that universe is very brief, even if it covers a long time. Some are summaries of the lives of entire worlds or universes, from start to finish. Other are just a moment in a day. One of that I have read involves another version of Twilight talking down Starlight Glimmer who had gone full nihilist thinking there was no point to anything anymore. I think Starlight was an alicorn in that one but I'm not sure. As for why Twilight? Its because that she has the most potential. At least, that's a common thought among us primaries. We were making worlds with Alicorn Twilight, Twicorn, long before we perceived the main Twilight Ascend.Okay, Twilight, Ire, both of you listen. There is something we call canon. That's the main branch, the Trunk if you will, the original universe that we first perceived Twilight and her friends from. I'm not to sure how long you've been in Ponyville Twilight, but we first saw that seven years ago.
Why is this import for you, Ire? These Universes, these stories, are made from that original timeline. Of course, you didn't exist there. Wether we create universes or just find and manipulate isn't really the important part to figure out. From that original timeline, That Trunk, we mold and twist the branches to fit one thing: An idea. We don't see everything of your world, Twilight. Not the original one. We humans are curious, imaginative creatures that always wonder How, What If, and What Else? Viewing new canon occasionally fills in some blanks, but we sometimes fill them in on our own and those are sometimes dark and twisted. Like Rainbow Factory. But for a more detailed instance, we never saw most of your friend's parents for the longest time. So many of us pondered that some of you were orphans or had a bad homelife. To this day, most of us are very sure that Applejack's parents are dead, but we recently saw that Rainbow's are not. Due to Discord's lack of backstory, many have imagined him as being Starswirl gone crazy, having been abused and mistreated for his appearance, or even that him and Celestia were lovers gone wrong. Albiet, most of the romantic ideas around Discord have moved over to you and Fluttershy. You yourself, Twilgiht, have had been fiddled with the most. You've been the daughter(biological or adopted) or descendant of Celestia, Luna, Sombra, Discord, and Chrysalis on different occasions. On unrelated times, you've also been a lover to each of those as well. Sometimes more than one at once. You've also turned evil, and in at least one story, you were raised by dragons. You've also turned against Celestia several times, but those were mostly Tyrantlestia and Molestia fics- lets just say bad versions of Celestia. A few of were also Celestia gone a bit crazy, Yet, the What If is the most tantalizing of questions to us. Its, essentlly, making the trunk of the tree split at any given point we desire to see a major off branching. A common one is if Celestia had gone Nightmare instead of Luna, or Luna hadn't been insane and actually rebelled or seceded from Equestria,or if Celestia had a different student. Or changing a single concept in the timeline. Other times, the change is more....foreign. We take something from an entire other canon and drop it into yours. These are Crossovers, or Xovers. Sometimes this is sudden, literally dropping a character or object into Equestria, other times its more subtle, melding the worlds more seamlessly, to some extent. Such as Celestia and Luna(and Discord) having been from another world and either traveled to the pony world and took pony form or simply reincarnated there. Or that one canon's world comes before or after the timeline of Equestria by distant ages. Or they simply exist as planets in the same universe. Due to you not caring about the "insignificants", I doubt this'll be much help to you, Ire. The only thing we humans love to imagine and create gods as much as we enjoy giving heroes and villains rise up and tears them down. I think there's a reason why that one universe called us a subspieces of Draconequus. Well, sorry Twilight, I probably just fried you're brain. Any way.....I'm with you on the Band. What the actual bucking Tartarus? Is that to keep people out or is that to keep something trapped? Akumakami out!… …Damn it, Akuma! I had an entire convoluted plan to get Ire to Pinkie Promise to interact with Twilight in exchange for information! Did your patents ever teach you to not trust rude dream strangers? Shame on your face… …Shrugs. While a bit rude to Twilight, Ire has been relatively polite to us and threw out an olive branch so we'd stop accusing them of being the Sweeper, so I threw out one as well. Albiet, its a big branch.....Why am I using so many tree metaphors today?… …Keyandthelocks is currently offline… …Ponygood again. Our interface, which we use to read about and communicate with you, has underwent a massive change, courtesy of its administrators. This likely won't affect you, but it may affect all of us, including Blackjack. You have been notified…]

XIII

Twilight sighed. “Afizah is trying to freak me out again with incidental information that doesn’t matter.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh?”

“Horror universes, I think. I don’t need to know about them, Afizah - Akumakami told me all I needed to know about the way these universes are made and what they are like in his huge speech... Which, by the way, was rather disturbing. I’m sorry I got your name wrong Akumakami - but what the actual heck? I’m not talking about the canon trunk, or the short one-shot snippets, or the prediction of my ascension - I’m talking about what are you all thinking? Romances? Just... why? Does Discord LOOK interested in anyone? Do I look interested?”

Fluttershy tried to stifle a laugh at the image in her head.

Twilight bristled. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you knew that, since they’re mentioning it, a universe exists where I’m falling head over hooves for that snake. I mean... I mean...” She twitched, shaking her head. “Argh, I told myself I could handle it...”

“Strange how this is the part that bothers you and not the fact that the entire world could just be changed around you for whatever reason Blackjack wants.”

“Fluttershy, if I start acting lovey-dovey, hit me. Hard.”

“...Sure...?”

“Thank you.” Twilight shook her head and returned to her thoughts. “Let’s see... Why are all of you calling her Ire? The name was Ine - unless there was a glitch in what you saw. That’d be annoying, hope she isn’t mad about that... Also it’s no problem, Josh, I was just curious about upvotes, it wasn’t a problem. You don’t need to worry about anything.”

“...Ine...” Fluttershy said. “...What do they say about her?”

“They said a lot of things to her - why exactly are we calling her a her anyway? - but not much about her. Nickel suggested she was a self-insert for Blackjack, an essence of their mind or something, but I don’t think so. I think Ine is exactly what she said she was - part of this world just as we are...” She frowned. “I was actually hoping Key would be able to shed some light on that, but he’s apparently offline for some reason... Which worries me... Maybe the new interface they mentioned messed with him?”

“I’m sure he’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah... I know you’re right. There was a lot of information about Moissan names and magic superstition - not immediately useful and... Surprisingly judgemental. I tink we won’t need it until we end up in Moissan - If we end up in Moissan...” She looked back at the forcefield that was the band. “...Otherwise, I think we’ve got to deal with this... Learn more about it, but be cautious, like the other Spike suggested. ...Though I could probably enter the magical field itself... Get a closer look at the circuitry down there...”

Fluttershy bit her lip. “Twilight... Do you think you could learn anything useful down there?”

“...Not really...” She looked down at the glowing colors far beneath the earth. “...Probably should ask for more information around town first...” The two mares turned their gaze to the towers of Acket in the distance. They saw a bolt shoot up from the band behind it. “I wonder how the claw-like parts stay together on top of the band...”

“Let’s go ask,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah. Let’s-” Twilight’s ears perked up - she turned to look at the way they had come. She saw a white unicorn in the distance that looked familiar...

Infinity.

“...Yep, she’s following us.”

“Let’s get in and out of the town quickly.”

“Agreed.”

They trotted off towards the towers...

~~~

Acket... was a place, that was for sure. The structures were dominated by tall, pearly white towers that rose to a single point high in the sky. Streets weaved in and out, between the towers - some streets even being suspended like bridges from tower to tower. There was no obvious center to the city - the place sprawled out along the band’s edge like a semicircle, with a few long bridge-like protrusions sticking out over the sands of the band, angled in such a way that they came to a point like claws ready to clamp down on the shifting sands below. Only one of these ominous black spines was in view of Twilight and Fluttershy - and they barely paid it any mind, instead drawn to the image of life inside the city. The pearly structures - and roads - seemed like ordinary building materials at first, but whenever someone stepped, knocked, or touched it with any sort of significant force a soft, greenish light would appear, like a burst of smoke that dissipated in under a second. Twilight could easily imagine the city being rather bright at night simply due to this effect.

There were many lantern-like globes floating around in the city, tethered to a tower or road by a long, copper cable. Twilight looked around, grin slowly getting bigger and bigger as she saw more and more details - vehicles that didn’t need to be pulled by ponies, pods that shot up tower’s edges automatically, and - some flat glass-thing that displayed images... Extremely fuzzy images, granted - a magic display spell would be better - but the novelty came in that it was working without a spell.

“Fluttershy... Do you know what this means?”

“There’s like one dragon for every twenty ponies here?”

Twilight blinked. “Well, yes, I suppose. I mean - the power! These ponies have a form of energy they can harness - much like the electricity in Manehattan, though here it appears much more... plentiful.” She rubbed her hooves together. “I wonder how many innovations they have here...”

A small void-black dragon - smaller than Twilight - appeared, smiling brightly. He appeared much more like the kind of dragon Twilight was familiar with - four legs, two of which could serve as hands if the dragon decided to walk upright, and a pair of wings. “Ah, I see your attention has been drawn to our unique devices!”

“Uh...” Twilight made sure her cloak was on tight, so he couldn’t see the wings. “Yes, actually. What can you tell us about the devices of Acket?”

He laughed. “You certainly asked the right dragon! Names Verdant, you might call me... a tour guide slash techie. What we have here is a place built on the foundations of what the ancients left behind - the ever-mysterious band itself. Draining the magic bolts that erupt using the Spires, we channel the power into the very ground we stand on, which has been given the ever-inspired name of Pearlstone - or Calcium Carbonate Thau if you want to listen to the big-word scientists. We draw everything we need from the Pearlstone, and there’s so much extra it comes off in these green wafts!” To illustrate his point, he scratched the ground, a soft green mist rising into the air before dissipating. “Pure magic energy, that.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “...Can you make this stuff?”

“Sadly, no, it’s only found under the band itself - but there’s so much of it down there we won’t be running out for centuries,” he laughed. “We use it to power our trams, our rails, our screens, and even some of our farms! You’ll notice there aren’t many fields on the outskirts - that’s because we grow what we need in the buildings, in controlled environments. Watermelon, year round!”

Fluttershy blinked. “That’s... impressive.”

Twilight squeed. “Oooooh I’d love to get my hooves on this stuff and do some tests!”

Verdant reached into his satchel and tossed her a marble made of Pearlstone. “Bigger stuff will cost you - just because it’s plentiful doesn’t mean it’s cheap - but you seem like the type to appreciate the finer properties. Just charge it with your own magic, it’ll retain it until you mess with it.”

Twilight pushed her own magic into the little marble - easily fitting enough for a short range teleport - and then held it out at leg-length. It was wafting off steamy energy like the other Pearlstone around, except it was purple instead. “That’s... That’s amazing. I could teleport anytime I wanted with this thing... It’s hardly losing any energy at all... This could replace crystals...”

Verdant blinked. “I’m... Sorry?”

“Oh,” Twilight smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I assumed those were a thing here. We’re from... Really, really far away. We don’t have this there - but we can find gemstones buried in the earth infused with certain magics. We can’t control what we find in them, but we sure can use it.”

“Interesting... Would you happen to have any on you...?”

Twilight shook her head. “Sorry. This stone is better anyway - it stores what you want it to store. That’s amazing...”

Verdant smirked. “You seem to be an intellectual. Surprised to see one of your kind so far from home. Where you from? Because there’s like six places that spawn intellectuals in the known world, and you don’t fit the bill for any of them.”

Twilight smiled nervously. “Up north... Waaaaay north. I’m really not sure on specifics, we’re pretty lost.”

Verdant raised an eyebrow. “Ah... Trying to get home through the Desert then?”

“...Well, I suppose that’s an option...” Twilight said.

“We’re mostly curious about the Ancient ruins,” Fluttershy said. “We were seeing if there was a way to cross the band here or not.”

“Well...” Verdant furrowed his brow. “There’s a crackpot by the name of Sand Blaster who’s got a Pearlstone sandship... Claims it can get you across in a day. Otherwise, you gotta go around - the bolts are attracted to anything that flies over them. Including you. I guarantee your magic shielding isn’t going to be enough. Then again, you might want to brave it instead of xenophobic dogs or an ocean of Kraken.”

“Hrrm...” Fluttershy said. “Can you take us to Sand Blaster?”

“Wait, Fluttershy, what if we stay a bit, see the sights? This place... We’re not in a rush, are we?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know...” Fluttershy said. “I think it’d be best to be faster...”

Verdant smirked. “I can show you to a hotel if you-”

Any sort of regular domestic conversation that would have occurred was silenced instantly by an explosion - one of the taller towers exploded in a powerful purple fire, shattering into a fine powder. Twilight braced for shrapnel - encasing the three of them in a shield - but no shrapnel came, just dust. The entire thing had been vaporized.

Verdant looked up. “...Damn...” Fluttershy and Twilight followed his gaze - there was an object floating far above them, made of a similar metal to the ancient relic Twilight had seen in the forest, glowing with the same energies as well. It appeared almost like a butterfly - a sequence of four rings with a vaguely square shape in the center. It seemed to be watching them from far, far above - Twilight paled when she realized how high up it was. Multiple miles - and they could still see it and make out details. How big was it!?

And then Twilight felt a warmness in her chest. “Fluttershy, it’s happening-” She stopped short - she saw Infinity looking at them accusingly in the middle of a panicking crowd of ponies and dragons...

XIV

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…nickel here. im with you there on the shipping, i avoid most of those stories unless there is a VERY strong extra detail to make it worth the weirdness, your probably not interested, but the only baseline shipping you have was minor flirtation with a human that almost but not quite carried over to his equestrian counterpart, so i pretty much assume that you have no interest in others in that fashion yet. anyway, if my theory has any validity then us creators have very little real influence over our works, true we guide the branch as it grows, but it also grows on its own and all we can do when it chooses to go on its own is cause it to split and create another where our choice of event did occur. as for the fragments i mentioned, the thing about them is that they normally are just more aware of the situation or have information they shouldn't have been able to get so easily with some having special abilities, i dont know if this is common to the them, but for mine most are unaware of their nature and have no direct awareness of anything unusual about themselves so it really is impossible to identify them as such unless they become aware of their link to the others which i have only had occur maybe a dozen times across thousands of worlds and identification is made only harder since they often are a natural part of the world they inhabit and are simply connected to a larger entity that is peripherally aware of them and if im to be honest i often suspect that due to your central nature to equestria you yourself may be one, well you or pinkie, but there are so many people that have handled your story even in its original forms that it is impossible to guess who you would be a fragment of, so it was just an idea of mine at work again. but yes the interface mangled ine’s name during several of its occurrences and since i couldnt figure out which spelling was correct i chose to use the one that sounded more like a name to me… …Akumakami coming for a short comment: Really, Twilight? The romance thing confuses you? You’re mothers a writer and you’re a book nut. You should know that creatures have a tendency to make romantic stories out of anything. And since you none of you are dating, well.....it leaves us to guess who you all might have a thing for. Also, there was once something called Omnishipping, which was you and your friends in a mutual six-way relationship. Not to mention that you are the character most likely to be written with a harem- be it colts, mares, or both. As for Discord looking interested, depends on interpretation, which with him is infinite. But yes, it does legitimately look like he’s most(likely to be) interested in Fluttershy, you, or Celestia. Last but not least, AU trumps all. Good Day! Akumakami going off for now! I’ll comment on your situation in a bit… …Ponygood speaking. WHY ARE WE CONCERNED WITH SHIPPING!? There's a giant air/spacecraft that likely is hostile, and it's right over the city! Twilight, Fluttershy, GET OUT! If it's after you, it'll hopefully ignore the rest of the townsfolk. Hopefully. I don't think you'll be able to fight it if it's such a large and far away object. Unless maybe you have super lungs and can handle breathing high in the air? But in that case, I don't think you'd be able to bring Fluttershy with you. Alternatively, you could escape through the Band. Its freak lightning might be able to hit the craft. Then again, the craft is metal, so it would likely be resistant to lightning. Don't completely trust me on that, though. Also, this might not actually exist, but whenever I imagined a large object like that, it had some sort of giant disintegration beam it can attack with. Really hope that isn't the case. And now, off of the topic of deadly flying machines. When you manage to get out of that situation, maybe you should call out to Alderan, see if he's willing to allow you to apologize for assuming he kidnapped Fluttershy. You can also tell him I'm apologizing, too, for thinking him to be absolutely evil. Fluttershy would probably be real effective at communicating with him. Then, once you've done that, you might be able to get some information out of him. Don't go to fast, though; he mitt get suspicious if you immediately begin questioning. Oh, and good luck. I think you'll need it. EDIT: This story appears to have a Teen rating. I'm not sure if this was always like that, but having a Teen rating means things such as death, blood, and sexual innuendos are possible. Be wary, and be glad it isn't rated "Adult.”… …Twilight, Afizha here. I have to agree with ponygood11 on getting out of there, but do so in a way that doesn't make you look like the cause of what's going on. That ship that was described sounded like one that nearly decimated our planet in another universe. And to give you a scale of how much destruction that means, our world has a population in the billions and almost all of that day was surviving… …josh here - i agree with ponygood on the matter of taking the opportunity to run; better safe than sorry you know? but into the Band? there’s no way of guaranteeing your safety out there without Sand Blaster and that’s a maybe, i suggest using that stone you just got to good use and teleport as far as you can, run, find somewhere to hide, and think of a plan!… …Giginss here. Looks like things got really interesting. And by interesting, I mean completely horrifying. I suggest you run, fly, etc, anything to get out of there. Typically, aliens aren’t there for friendship, cuddling, and hugs. That’s Cadance’s job. Anyway, bits and pieces of knowledge are adding up. That strange lightning was the result of a massive band of mana that runs underground, and anything that crosses over that band will get struck by a massive amount of it. Crossing that band without protection is a last resort, although you might have enough power to shield from it, alicorn strength and all. I wish there was a measuring tool to figure out the strength of your shield and the power of the lightning. There also are things capable of shielding from those discharges. Would it be a metal, like iron or gold? Will it be entirely crystal? Will it be that pearlstone? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Best of luck, Sparkle… …When does Bill Cipher appear?… …why are you concerned with Bill Cipher? this world already has someone like him, you know? Discord… …-keyandthelocks- is currently offline… …You do know that "decimate" means "to destroy one tenth of," right? I'd suggest "eradicate." Also, you might want to correct your final sentence, as it doesn't make sense. I'm not trying to be rude, but I don't know how to sugarcoat this… …yea, that works better seeing that they were trying to do just that. As for the last sentence that was meant to indicate that before we could stop our destruction was that all we were doing was just surviving with the threat of destruction over our heads. Also, I don’t know if the mirror world had them or not, but the reason most of what I say doesn’t make sense is I have to write them on my phone… …Akumakami is back! Yeah, the interface changed. It was mostly green before, now there is a lot of blue. A bit too much, actually, but they’re working on that, along with the little other bugs. Word of advice Twilight, the idea of plans not surviving contact with reality is doubly true with technology. Hmm, you seemed to have stumbled across a society that is slightly more techno than magic. Likely they ran out of this pearlstone sometime between now and your future. That might have caused some sort of societal break down, possibly even a war or two. As for your current situation, I’m actually not sure entirely. Verdant’s (coincidentally, the name of Celestia’s son in one of my universes) reaction was left a little ambiguous and I couldn’t tell if his “damn” was in shock and awe or in recognition. In other words, I can’t tell if he knows what this is or if this knew. What I find curious is how little damage that thing caus. Yes, it whipped out a tower into oblivion, but most things of that size are known to be city destoryers in terms of fire power. Which probably means the are looking for someone. Possibly you. You said/thought it looked similar to the thing that brought Fluttershy here. It....might be possible that they were listening in as I feared someone might, and tacked you to here. There is a small chance that this is a misunderstanding- that they thought you were sending out some kind of distress signal, which kind of were. Unless of course this happens around here sometimes. Still, the size of this thing and what it can do. I’m actually a bit alarmed, but for other reasons. This is the past and if you’ve never heard of anything like it. That either means that this place got entirely annihilated or that the timeline is about to get royally bucked so hard that the crazy side sleeping in Starlight Glimmer’s head will be clapping in amazement. The darkest scenario I can come up with is that these are entity that are intentionally whipping out advanced forms of technology and techno-magic for their own dogmatic/bias reason. Still, I’m betting money at the moment that when you come to, the attack is probably going to be over or mostly over and there is a fair chance you have been abducted. If not ,you might get blamed for what just happen, so tread lightly. If you’re not abducted, consider feigning a head injury if it seems plausible to pull off. Either way, figure out if Vardant knows what the hay that was. And if you are abducted, or eventually are, well.....there’s a fair chance they’ll be trying t remove us from you. Ironically, they might even be able to send you home, but unless this is a big misunderstanding, I doubt they’re that nice. Though, if that happens, I’m also betting we’ll end up on FLuttershy for a while, or one of the aliens. Good luck, Twilight Sparkle, and possibly goodbye. Akuma out! PS Twilight there is an old timetravel trick that might be of use to you. In various universes unrelated to you, timetravelers that get trapped in the past will facilitate a rescue by sending a letter or engraving a message to a friend they know will be able to help, instructing them on when and where they are and how to help them. Sometimes its people who stayed in the past and are sending their goodbyes to their friends. Not sure how you might apply this, but always good to have the idea incase something comes up. After all, this ship could probably take you all the way to Equestria, and might have a cloaking field. PPS I would say I’m sorry about freaking you out, but I’m not. lol, XP. Don’t worry, I’ll stick to the shocking and weird stuff and avoid the really freaky and scary stuff, mostly. Hopefully I won’t have to indirectly tell you too much if I have to inform Ine about any of them. Don’t know why I would, but entities like that can be odd sometimes in what they are focused on.PPPS You do NOT have to answer this now, you have more important stuff to deal with. But how big is equestrian, geographically I mean? We know the lay out, but the deminsions differ across the multiverse as it being a small or large country.PPPPS Again, not important for now. Ask Fluttershy a question for me: What is the scariest looking but friendliest and/or fearful kind of creature she’s ever met? I am legitimately curious about that. And I’m sorry about all the Postscripts- but at least I adds Ps instead of Ss… …four rings and a square-like shape, huh. Oh, right, LeftMoss here, I think its similar to the drones we have here, yet larger and has an (I believe) Plasma gun (or multiple), seeing as it was able to vaporize a tower. With the airship being miles up and you’re still able to make out details, it might be, I don’t know, the size of a mega-city? or maybe just a large city, because maybe a mega-city is much larger, and that’s a problem, though with Infinity most likely accusing you of being the reason why it’s there, you might have many, many more problems than just that. For what to do, I would say run, but be safe about it, take cover behind buildings, as teleporting would likely make Infinity more suspicious… …What's up, new voice here. The name's Omnipresent Microorganism. A lot of the stuff there looks like some of the things we have here. Those screen things sound a lot like televisions. I have a theory, but it's probably wrong, so I'll keep it to myself…]

XIV

Twilight grabbed Fluttershy and Verdant in her magic. "Okay, running!" She dragged them through the streets, into an alleyway.

The ship-drone-city thing flying above them was being shot at by Acket's defenses - the still-standing towers themselves. They pulsed a bright green, launching dozens of energy beams into the sky - hitting the drone-ship directly. The circuitry in the drone-ship sparked, sending arc lightning down to the surface - but it still flew. It fired its weapon again - and it wasn't a weapon that could be seen. Another tower was disintegrated before their eyes, no sign of any laser, bomb, or projectile of any kind.

Verdant glanced at Twilight. "What happened to you?"

"Sorry, froze for a sec, you know..." She stuck her head around they alley they were in - Infnity was nowhere to be seen amongst the screaming crowd. She saw a few dragon mages summoning power to their wings and shooting into the sky like ships, flying in formation towards the drone-ship. They were disintegrated before they arrived, all their magic power worth naught in the end.

Twilight gulped. "I'm getting us out of here..." She took out the pearlstone and activated it - using the magic to teleport to the outskirts of town. Then she used her own magic to teleport again, instantly, even further into the distance.

Even from this far away she could still see the drone-ship - though now she knew how high up it was, slightly above the cloud layer. Still tremendous - but not as large as Canterlot. It might have been Ponyville sized.

Verdant put a hand to his eyes. "Oh no... They're going to use it..."

"Use what? Who?" Twilight demanded.

Fluttershy pointed. "I think that streak flying towards the ship..."

"It's a missile," Verdant said. "A very large missile..."

The pearly-white streak was disintegrated several yards from the drone-ship - but that didn't stop it. The act of disintegration made it explode in a brilliant star-like globe of superheated air. The drone-ship was consumed by the spectacular explosion - and several towers of Acket below were shattered by the shockwave of the weapon. Twilight saw the shockwave coming towards them - kicking up dust and forcing clouds to form. "COVER YOUR EARS!"

The covering did little to help them - they didn't go deaf, but the shockwave was still powerful enough to shake their skulls.

Fluttershy gasped. "My... How loud must that have been IN the city?!"

Verdant shook his head. "...Too loud. Too dangerous. They shouldn't have used it..."

"The drone-ship's gone though..." Twilight said. Them she frowned. "Okay, what WAS that?"

Verdant looked nervous. "I'm not the guy you should be asking..."

"Buddy, I want to know what almost killed us and why." She hoped to Celestia that it wasn't after her.

Verdant gulped. "The... Golems of the Desert. Mindless leftovers from the Ancients that prowl their cities. For whatever reason, they have started attacking us recently. They continually get more brazen and intense - this was the worst attack yet." He looked around nervously. "Citizens are leaving by the thousand..."

Twilight gulped. "...These... Golems. They live in the Desert?"

"Yes."

"And I need to go there." At least it isn't aliens.

Fluttershy bit her lip. "...Yes this does sound bad..."

Verdant shook his head. "They've only attacked our city so far, they seem to be fixated on it for some reason. I've never had any reports of Golem attacks unless you trespass on their territory - Fosis - and even then sometimes they'll let you off. They... Don't think like we do. I can't really explain it. Don't make me."

Twilight frowned. "Well... Fluttershy, I think we should head out as soon as possible. Perhaps go talk to these... Golems. See if we can find out what's going on."

Fluttershy blinked. "...Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No, but there are ponies and dragons dying in there Fluttershy - I can't just do nothing."

Verdant blinked. "...Huh."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's just, you're not the first to say that. Last week, during the last attack, there was a pink unicorn who did that. Went out into the desert promising to help us if she could. ...She hasn't come back."

Twilight gulped. "...I'll look for her. What's her name?"

"No idea, I didn't give her the tour. I just heard about her secondhand - ponies like you and her are rare."

Fluttershy sighed. "...You're right about that..." She turned to Twilight. "...We should go and help them, if we can."

Twilight nodded. "Verdant... Can you take us to Sand Blaster?"

Verdant nodded. "Indeed I can..."

~~~

The city of Acket was a wreck - a wreck that was rebuilding itself with magic, yes, but still a wreck. Dragons and ponies walked around, many having been rendered temporarily deaf, others needing medical treatment for the damage to their eardrums. The city slowly repaired itself - the Pearlstone being guided to fuse back together and rewiring everything. The bustle that the city once had though was put on hold - half the televisions were dead, the trams and elevators were broken down, and the ground was no longer flat and even.

Twilight sighed - this was terrible. There had to be something that could be done...

Verdant led them to the edge of the city, the place where the band started. The foundation of Acket ended abruptly, the only part extending over the band being the large, black claws that absorbed the lightning's energy as it shot upwards. There was a small dock-like area filled with sand and a number of tiny sled-like ships - and one big one.

Verdant pointed at the big one - a tremendous sled with four rails on the bottom and a three-story pearlstone structure set atop it, completely sealed off from the outside with only the smallest areas for windows. In the back was some sort of round pearlstone device engraved with brightly glowing runes. On the front, the name Sandshell was engraved with a decorative etching.

A cream earth pony with a pair of goggles on his head leaped off the top of the Sandshell. "Prospective customers?"

"Yes. I'm Twilight Glimmer and this is Flutterski." Verdant raised an eyebrow but said nothing, forcing Twilight to realize she'd used Fluttershy's real name in front of Verdant. ...She hoped that wouldn't bite her later. It probably wouldn't, seeing how the Influence had been wrong about so many other things over the course of her adventures.

The stallion grinned. "Hello, you two! I'm Sand Blaster! I trust you can pay fare?"

"How much?"

"Fifteen yuan to cross the band to the Lost Desert proper. Thirty and I can get you all the way to an oasis!"

Twilight nodded - it seemed reasonable. She handed him thirty coins. "When do we leave?"

"Few minutes, just gotta wait for a bit to see if we get any other passengers. Thank ya kindly - you too Verdant, I loooove customers!"

Verdant nodded. "I wish you both luck." Then he flew away - Twilight noticed he was flying out of the city, presumably fleeing from further danger.

Sand Blaster kicked the side of the Sandshell, popping open a hatch. The inside of the Sandshell was dark - lit only by magic wafting off the pearlstone walls - and cramped. For how large it was, there was a lot less space than Twilight expected.

Sand Blaster laughed. "Yeah, don't worry, there's actual rooms for sleepin' and a living room up above, just have to make room for the engine here." He led them up to the top floor, which had five tiny rooms with beds, and a table in the middle with a bunch of cards on it. "The controls are down below, through that tiny hallway you saw to the left. I'll be there if you need me. I'm going to go look for other passengers..."

Twilight nodded. "This will do nicely." She looked out one of the tiny, thick windows - they were tinted, scratched, and battered, but she could see through them, at the city of Acket. She saw a tower get rebuilt in under a second. This place was in danger of being destroyed - but it was so beautiful. She couldn't let that happen.

...Wait, but what if that changed the future? She shook her head - this was just a big mess to think of.

The two of them were startled by a small, snakelike dragon slithering in. She was red, slightly larger than Twilight, and wore vibrant red robes. "I apologize, I did not mean to startle you."

"It's.... fine." Fluttershy said. "I'm Flutter...ski and this is Twilight."

"Pleasure to meet you. I am Acolyte Ruby." She bowed gracefully. "I hear we will get to know each other well, the trek across the band takes a day and a night at the speeds this ship can attain."

"Wow... It must be huge..." Twilight said.

"Not really, you could get over it in a few hours as the pegasus flies... overland is slower and more rigid."

"Mmmm..." Twilight said.

Sand Blaster came back up to the cabins. "All right, we got another passenger coming on, then we're full. Prepare to set out!" He turned behind him. "Here are your crewmates."

"Oh, I know them..." Infinity said, smirking.

Fluttershy and Twilight gasped. Ruby raised a claw. "I don't know you."

Infinity facehooved. "...Ruining the moment..." She shook her head. "I'm Infinity. That's Flutterski and Twilight. I've been following them. You see, Twilight is not as she seems... She is something else..."

Before Twilight could do anything Infinity ripped Twilight's cloak off, revealing the Witch's Eye and her wings. Twilight froze, unable to move, unable to think, only able to see how this could go wrong.

Sand Blaster laughed. "Huh. Interesting. I'm going to go start the engine, you four sort out your problems." He walked down the stairs, uncaring about the alicorn with an eye in her chest shenanigans.

"Uh..." Infinity said. "But... But... I have theories! She has enough magic power to affect the day-night cycle! She's attached to an ancient machine! She's... She's..." Infinity facehooved, looking to Ruby. "Well, what do you think?"

Ruby stared at the Witch's eye in awe. "...The Oracle..."

"The what?" Infinity said.

"She is the chosen Oracle."

"The what!?" Twilight said, louder than Infinity.

"There... There is a prophecy in my order, that the mare with three eyes will be gifted with the power to see what others cannot... She will go to all the ancient altars, gain wisdom, and prevent the cataclysm of darkness..."

Twilight gulped. She wished she could say she was surprised at this. "...Are you sure I'm this... Oracle?"

"...Can you see what others cannot?"

"...Yes..."

"...Then what are the chances?"

Twilight nodded slowly. "Well then... I... Fluttershy, meet me in a room, we need to talk." She ran through a door, shut it, and locked it, breathing heavily. "Okay... Ooooookay... Destiny shows up again..."

Fluttershy nodded. "It... Does have a way of finding us doesn't it."

"Cataclysm of darkness!? How vague can you get!?"

"There may be more. We should ask her. The prophecy could also be false..."

"Prophecies rarely are if they get an entire order around them..." She bit her lip. "I... Hey you guys." She looked at the Eye. "Apparently you help me see what others cannot, so help me here. Oracle? What? What ancient altars?" She pursed her lips. "And now I wait for a response..."

"You could, maybe, respond to their questions now, if that's all right with you."

"Ah, good point Fluttershy. Right... Key's still offline - I'm getting really concerned for him now. What happened to his mission? What... I... I haven't heard from Zen in a while either..." She gulped. "Moss was right though - Infinity does seem to have it out for me. And now we're sharing a ship with her... I mean, I think she's harmless, but she could find things out she wasn't meant to know..."

She shook her head. "Okay, who the heck is Bill Cipher? Anyone like Discord I think I should be made aware of! And Nickel... What were you trying to say about me and Pinkie? That we are... Connected to you in some way? Naturally?"

Fluttershy blinked. "...That explains so much about Pinkie."

"What do you-" Twilight blinked. "Oh. Oh my Celestia, you're right. That does make a lot of sense... She knew this whole time!"

Fluttershy shook her head. "...I'm not sure if I should be mad or not..."

"Worry about it later," Twilight said. "She probably knew it'd drive us mad anyway. ...It probably did drive her mad..." She shook her head. "Right, Akumakami, uh... You're the master of worst-case-scenarios, aren't you? I'm fine, wasn't abducted or anything. And as for this 'shipping' of yours... No it isn't really surprising, but please, think of it from my perspective. Me, basically being forced into a relationship that doesn't make any sense against my will!? It's DISTURBING that's what it is! And that description of omnishipping doesn't help!"

"Oh, my..." Fluttershy said. "That sounds..."

"It's specifically the six of us."

Fluttershy blushed - hard. "...My. There is... Definitely something wrong there."

"No, really?"

"Um. Akuma? Could you... Maybe not?"

"I don't think what we say is going to make much of a difference, seeing as it's already happened somewhere else..." She shook her head. "If I ever get access to those other universes I'm going to liberate them from that forceful shoving..."

"...How is that any different from the adventure we're on?"

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, then shut it. "...Good point..." She scratched her chin. "I... I think this isn't any different from the destiny and heroism we dealt with on a daily basis. But romance just... Wasn't a thing. It feels unnatural to me..."

Fluttershy blushed. "Oh, there are a few I'd be interested in..."

"...Do I need to slap you?"

"Oh no, this is normal. ...I think. How would we know?"

"That's the problem, we wouldn't, and other Twilights and Fluttershys wouldn't either!" She sighed. "Something to think about if we ever figure out this Witch's Eye thing, I suppose... Not like I can access these other worlds or anything. Yet."

"Sounds like a goal."

"Anyway... They had some questions." Twilight cleared her throat. "Uh... Lemme compare it to something on Earth, since I know most of you live on an Earth-like place as humans. I've seen their globe. Our estimates put Equestria itself at about the size of North America. Yes, Ponygood, I'll look out for Alderan. And Fluttershy, Akumakami wants to know what's the scariest looking creature you've ever met that ended up being the most friendly?"

"Discord."

"...Yeah, that seems pretty obvious doesn't it?"

Fluttershy laughed. "Yes it does."

"One last thing..." Twilight shook her head. "You mentioned a 'they' Akumakami, a 'they' that work on the interface you use. ...How do they fit into this?"

Then the Witch's Eye began to glow.

"Oh. Well, guess what I'm doing." She leaped onto the bed and sat meditatively, ready for the influx of information...

XVI

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…] […Look Ine, OBVIOUSLY The Sweeper could just not give us the ability to interfere with Twilight. That's how it's ALWAYS BEEN. I was there, I was the agent assigned to observe the version of Twilight that was in the Equestria with the Little Inferno fireplaces. I KNOW that it's not normal for the organization to have reeding access! That's not the point you daf! I'm not a reeding scientist, I'm not on the reeding team that figures all that out I'M JUST AS CLUELESS AS YOU ARE! Key, I advise you to- WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? These forerunners don't give a DAF if you live or die! They don't care at all about us. We're just here for their reeding entertainment! The damn story that my organization got it's name from? It's one of REEDING many! It had a Pinkie Pie that The Sweeper controlled, and it had a Jane that my useless 'god' basically TORTURED! We're playthings to these things. Nothing but pawns that fill a role for their reeding *stories* Never are we allowed any free will, never will we be anything that they want us to be, and never will we do anything ourselves. They choose what we think and they choose what we do. And then, once they're done with you, they through you the reed aside! I ONLY EXIST BECAUSE MY *GOD* DECIDED TO LEAVE HIS STORY UNFINISHED!!! So you want an answer Ine? You want understanding? You're a failed excuse for a plaything that amounts to nothing but a scary dream-based antagonist for Twilight. Yet another pawn that fills no other role than to entertain the masses followed by probably never existing anymore. Being talked to yet another product of a broken, horrifying system built by gods that don't care at all about us in any way. And I'll probably exist forever because mine didn't even want me or anyone I've ever known! Trapped in a perpertual state of whatever I was left in the moment It left to go do other things! Key, one more word out of you and you'll be given your second strike. One more and you're fired, pick you next actions exceedingly carefully ~ ~ ~ Do whatever you want to me, it doesn't matter anyway. I just wanted Twilight to keep from knowing the truth, and now she does. Way to go, Ine, she and you now both now how disgustingly pointless life is for people like us when the forerunners that you and I have been talking to this whole time decide to create us. Out, now, you're on three week suspension effective immediately. Goodbye Twilight, give my regards to the daf they replace me with… …Ine, if you want understanding, you've come to the wrong place, cuz most of us don't actually know ourselves. Either you don't exist, we don't exist, we both exist, and I dunno, theoretical physics is hard and I haven't even graduated college yet. When you get into the many worlds theory, paradoxes abound and stuff that would make Discord throw up his appendages and walk away growling is everywhere. Short version, nobody actually knows anything, Blackjack sure as hell ain't talking, and we all exist and don't exist at the same time… …Akumakami. Hey, hey, hey! I threatened you for two reasons. One, you were considering doing something that was beyond Discord's worst jerkass level. However, that alone I wouldn't have minded. The second thing is what you have to understand. Twilight, I love you- platonically!- but you are....how should I put this? You're one of the few existences in this multiverse of yours where any carnations of you could into a god-teir figure of good or evil, or anything else. So when you say you're going out of your way to break up any romances yo feel forced across the multiverse, I have flashbacks to stories where you ae an evil dictator that may or may not be eliminating emotions(certain ones or all) to make your subjects more "efficient." Yes, this is a thing. To be absolutely blunt Twilight, there are two creatures in your multiverse that can say they are going to do almost anything and I will believe them whole heatedly. That's you and Discord. Yes, I hold you at the same potential-level of Discord. I'd include Pinkie Pie, but she mostly just does rather than say. But, yes, I am sorry about threating you. It was mostly the above reasons, but bug problems and home issues didn't exactly help me keep a clear head. As you said, I'm kind of the master of worst case scenarios. Though, in fairness, I usually don't read what everyone sends you until after I write mine- meanings I don't always realize how much rambling you're getting from the other. As for you Ine..........Ah. First off, to you and Twilight, to explain why we got stuck on shipping? We humans tend to ramble. It is occasionally infectious. Second off, you have my apologies. From myself at least. We humans are also prone to suspicion. Entities like you are often foreshadowed to be a villain. Bt it seems like you are one of Those types. The types as you said, seeking to know your creator. Not a bad thing, though, I find your types are often disappointed with the answer. There are several universes where Discord is God, still more probably where he is and doesn't ever say it. The point of this is to illustrate a saying we have: God is a child with an ant farm. Though, this saying conveys more callousness but explains how God can be omnipotent and willing to allow evil, a thin argument amongst atheists. The basic idea that beings like us do just do things to do it, but that doesn't mean we don't care. Some of us have great arching plans and others are winging it every step of the way, working with events as they come. So why introduce Twilight to us? Personally, I think Blackjack might have a thing for existential crisis situations, but its likely largely because they realized it hadn't been done before. At least not like this. Authors often take advice from each other or allow viewers to have a say in somethings, this is just the ultimate untested version of that: Blackjack cooked up this world and its current issues to see how having us help Twilight would play out- a bit poorly from her perspective, I imagine. You keep saying we weren't meant to be like this. Which explains a lot. The eye was likely suppose to have a different function, but Blackjack changed it without using a retroactive effect. ikely to draw your attention, if I'm honest. A s with the analogy, its hard to say if there is a real plan or not. Now a question for you: What exactly was the influence suppose to be, to your knowledge? And please don't be super vague. As for you Twilight?.....Okay, I did and do feel bad abot threatening you. So, I carry good news! As the prophecy said, there are more sites to visit. Which means that either you're going to get some ability or such to help you understand or face your foes, or you'll be able to bring more of your friends here to help. Maybe not something you want, but you might have to. And to top it all off, I'll do you a favor. Not sure what it'd be In this situation........You just want me to shut up for a few chapters? I can let you talk to someone from one of my universes if you want- I promise, only the nice ones… …Zen, enough with this "that was fucking inexcusable" shit. First off, I ramble, yes, but I do always leave whatever advice I can give about the given situation- sometimes I have some, others I don't. if I don't ask her shit when I think of it, I'll forget about it. Second off, This Is Twilight Damn Sparkle. My warning against her screwing with shipping/romance in the multiverse was made on the point that I actually believe her capable of such a thing. She's immortal now, so she'd have plenty of time to research and experiment on the portal to Sunset's human world, so excuse me if I want to avoid a cosmic clusterbuck like that. I mean seriously. You get the fact that we're all here to talk to the mare, right? Yes, we(some anyway) want to help her, but she's going to get bombarded by massive information either way. Of course we're going to have weird little conversations with her through this eye thing… …T-Twilight! T-That description. The lord of darkness and despair. I only know of one man with that name, and if it truly is him then be prepared to overcome your worst fears. He is a tyrant who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. He was the leader of a band of thieves who invaded Hyrule in the hopes of establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm. He was known as a demon thief, an evil-magic wielder renowned for his ruthlessness. Ganondorf. If he truly is the Lord that prophecy foretells, then you must have courage to face the very demon that would make Tirek look like a foal throwing a temper tantrum… …Ponygood speaking.
To both Ine and Twilight, I wouldn't recommend fully believing what anyone from Keywii's organization says. They tend to exaggerate a lot of what they say, and also have a sort of "avatar" to hide behind. Yes, all of us on here have avatars, but only to the extent of hiding our true identities from the potential existence of those who would abuse that information. A few, including Keywii's orginization, Afizah, Shepard, the other you, and Stormbird, are all either fabricated or commandeered alternate identities for the real person to roleplay as for one reason or another. Speaking of Stormbird, where is he? He seems to have just spent a little time with us before becoming disinterested and leaving. That... has actually happened before too. Twilight, do you remember the crazy person talking about food? Anyway, you do pose an interesting question, Ine. To us, this "story" is a one-of-a-kind thing: it is literally the only story in which we, the audience, are able to interact with at least one of the characters. Every other story is read-only, and we can only comment our thoughts or ideas on them. It probably never would have existed without Blackjack's idea to create an interactive story. And Blackjack himself is just like any of us, being someone who protects himself with an avatar, and just so happens to enjoy writing stories about ponies.

...okay, so maybe that's a stretch. Even if Blackjack never got that idea, there would probably still be an infinite amount of every little variation of every action, object, person, and laws of physics in an infinite multiverse. It just happens that we are able to see a representation of one of those universes, and interact with it. But that's a story for another time. And with that, I think I answered your question before this input session. And speaking of that, the Eye/Oracle is connected to Twilight, right? I'm slightly worried that you are also able to access it, as it makes me think that others with more malicious intentions could access it, too. Also, I have a lot to ask about involving Twilight's situation, but I don't want to lengthen my comment too much, so would you be willing to at least allow Twilight to inquire about things important for her quest/destiny? Nothing personal, though. And a final question: is there a way for us to get in contact with the rest of your civilization? I think that's all I wanted to direct towards you, Ine. Anyway, Twilight? I'm going to try and disect this prophecy for you. The first verse obviously talks about some danger from the south. It's probably not Ganondorf of Hyrule, since he is in an extremely alternate universe that will most likely never meet yours, but I don't have any idea what it could be, except for being really evil and rude and mean and stuff. The second verse obviously talks about you, Twilight. The third talks about finding six structures like the one you got fluttershy from, and collecting what I assume to be your friends from them. I'm pretty sure one of them is in or near the Golems' city, and that 5 of the structures will be used for your friends, Fluttershy included. From the sixth structure, I'd recommend Discord for supreme reality-warping or Starlight Glimmer for advanced magical understanding. And if you choose Discord, be sure to differentiate between present and future Discord. The fourth verse makes me think you'll find a way to either make peace with or control the ancient magitech scattered throughout this island. I can say with certainty that the Golems, if they think as I described, would see the usefulness in giving you the resources to stop this evil, especially if it's at least a part of this Power Overwhelming. In fact, I'm pretty sure this Power refers to some form of Harmony Laser Magic, only producable by your friends. Not sure what disrupting the natural order means, though. The fifth verse makes me think that not only should you find these altars, but also ally with all the nations of this continent for added benefits. The Golems are probably one of them. Also, if this prophecy was in a different language, it probably has some translation errors to watch out for. What else... I had an idea of how to get a message to Equestria. Maybe you could send a letter to the moon and make sure Luna knows that, so that she can communicate that message with whomever would make the most use out of it. You could even make it a sort of time capsule, set to be read at about the time of your leaving, so that you have strong, dependable allies. Starlight can time travel, especially with the help of godlike beings, right? Even then, I'm pretty sure they won't be able to send anything as large as a living creature through, unless Discord decided to make himself a tiny ball, or would he disrupt the spell by his existence? And, no, you don't have to worry about Ganondorf. That's all I have for now, but I might think of other things to say. Still want Butt the Cloud to exist... grumble grumble… …LeftMoss here, I was originally going to stay silent this time, but I looked this over again, and I have a possible answer to the question. There is a saying that there is safety in numbers, and multiple viewpoints (3+) is better than one or two, due to the fact that in one viewpoint something is viewed one way, and in another it can be viewed either, the same, similar, not very similar, or very differently. To me, the more different the views, the better, because they can be balanced out and a better solution can be made… …Akumakami64 Again. Just a small PS. Okay, Twilight, two things. Tell Fluttershy that if Discord and her ever have a tea party at HIS house, make sure she tells him to just be himself. In your canon world, we saw him try to make his place normal to accommodate her.(it wa touching yet very off putting) You don't have to tell her this part, but....to be blunt Discord almost died as a result- well, he was fading away from existence until Fluttershy started acting like Discord(it's funnier than it sounds. I still don't know how she got furniture on the ceiling to nail it down). This might have been because it was in chaosville, but not something to put to the test The other oddball information is that we now have a good idea of what the Celestia of Nightmare Moon would be called- Daybreaker. I'm informing you of this on the slight chance that this world is an AU past where Celestia goes crazy/evil/whatever you want to call it. Seriously, that's another thing that varies- what Nightmare Moon was: a demon, a phase of madness, actually Luna just evil, etc. Still, yes, if you hear the name/title Daybreaker, that's something to look into… …Josh here - Ine I don't doubt that Twilight could handle anything any god-like being can throw at her, but we've been given a unique opportunity to talk to her, so we're going to take it. Ponygood you have no compassion for others do you? completely disregarding people like that. And to the agent who supervising Key pass this along to him, as what you might call a "forerunner" in training (still working on my first world) I can safely say that we do care about you and that we simply putting up the situation what you do in them is up to you (well the good ones of us do that anyway)… …ESTABLISHING SECURE CONNECTION... CONNECTION ESTABLISHED Twilight. I wish that I could be like you and be part of a story, but sadly I'm not. The thing about that that I would want from that is that when the story is over you get to finally wind down from your adventure. I don't have that luxury. My 'story' will continue no matter how much I want it to be over. Stay safe twilight and make those who look up to you proud of you. Shepard, signing off. CONNECTION CLOSED CONNECTION LINK ERASED… …Yep! I'm fact, I was secretly a robot the whole time! Dun dun DAAAAA! Kill all humans.Yeah... funny thing about that... you maybe probably definitely are another of our stories. Not only that, but we know how it ends, too. Would YOU like to know? Hmm... too bad! It's more exciting not to know!… …This is Zen. I do not believe my earlier remarks need defending. I apologize if you feel like you are under attack, Akumakami, as that was not my intention, but I will stand by them. Now, on to more weighty matters. As to the prophecy, the use of the world "parallel" to describe this Dark Lord's home would seem to suggest to me that he is from yet another world—but one that is only slightly different from this one. As to his identity, the only candidate I can think of is Sombra, bu that doesn't match the association with the sea (the appearence in the South isn't as big of a problem, because as I mentioned, I'm operating off of the assumption that he's from another world). I will stew on this. Now, Ine. Quite frankly, I don't know why we're here, and frankly I think Twilight could do better without us. Personally, I do my best to be reasonable for Twilight's sake, but any problem that could help with would be better addressed if the Eye were removed and Twlight's friends were by her side. You speak of yourself and Twilight merely existing as characters in a story, and I presume you do so as a thought experiment, to which Ponygood's response is the most likely. However, if we consider the possibility that the both of you do, in fact, really exist separate from us (which can be easily determined on your end by asking yourselves whether or not you experience sensation—I think, therefore I am, as the philosopher says), then that, too, seems rather unlikely, as it would require Black jack to actually be a god, and I've never really bought into that—I have assumed that, like you describe, he is a creature much like us, and, I assure you, I am no god, nor do I resemble one. All that said, the purpose of the connection is ultimately an unknown to me, despite the time I have thought about it… …Akumakami again. Eh, not so much attacked. But you actually made me think of something Zen. Twilight? What do you know about Sombra in your world? Like where he came from and relatively when Celeista and Luna stopped him? See, your canon has....something of a second trunk. Its hard to explain. Basically there is a comic series that isn't always considered canon to the show. Anyway, my point is that Sombra was originally a shadow pony turned forced into the form of a regular pony. If you're wondering why you'd know this, you actually fought him again in that continuity when he unleashed the rest of his kind. Anyway, my point is that Sombra is compared to a figure from another series- Dark Lord Sauron. Won't go into details, but everytime Sauron's body was destroy, he came back until his ultimate weapon of sorts was destroyed. He lost more of his power each time, but he kept returning to power. Depending on the circumstances of your world, the Dark Lord in the prophecy might be Sombra even if it doesn't look like him at first. Spit balling, I know, but due to you being in the past, we're entering a state of wondering how much of Equestrian historyare you indirectly responsible for… …And before you start worrying, Twilight, you don't have to worry about Sauron. In fact, if any of us ever mention some character from an alternate universe, series, etc, unless we specifically say it might be a threat, you don't have to worry about it. Got that?… …stupid glitchy interface, almost a week late, i just hope the window is still open. it ni... error. rerouting connection. what is this? on for the love of... i fix one bug and another shows up, its like a plague. wait a minute what is congregation doing this time?! a new connection, or rather an existing one that went and bugged, lets see... oh! its still active and there is something receiving on the other end. sorry for the interruption, i'm cychis and if i've ever made contact before i do not remember courtesy of a memory bug i'm working on correcting, but that aside if you feel like questions go ahead ill observe this channel anyway in case it throws any more errors my way, but don't expect much since i'm still working off incomplete logs to even remember who i am right now.... connection restored. what the heck just... you know what, i don't care i'm done for this entry… …I'm working on my second world, but there are blind spots I'm not seeing and having them pointed out would help me build a better world. the first world I made didn't survive. I tried too hard on making the world create itself, and it cracked under pressure. The debris is still floating around, but I don't know if I'm going to try and rebuild it or do a complete clean-up. if I could get some pointers on how to make a stable foundation for that world then maybe I can bring back everyone that was on it before I messed up… …Hello? Where... am I? Who... am I? I...don't remember. I Remember a...voice, telling me about a gateway, and telling me I was destined to stop time from ending, something about returning the 'time gears?' back to the tower but after that; it's all a blur… …not sure i'd be the best help; my brain works strange ways so stuff that's clearly an error will slip by me… …Ponygood speaking. sigh Afizah, this story doesn't have a crossover tag, and it likely never will. No matter how many alternate identities you use in your comments, and no matter how large of a role you believe the Legend of Zelda universe will play, it won't happen. I'm pretty sure Blackjack has already drafted a rough outline of this world, as he has done for all of his projects before committing to them, and Ganondorf is not a part of it. In fact, the more alternate identities you find/create, the more Blackjack has to deal with when creating the new chapter, and the longer it'll take for Blackjack to finally release the chapter. Do you WANT a full month, or multiple months of time before we are all able to sate our Influence-shaped voids in our hearts? And on that matter, why do you like having alternate identities so much? Up to this point, you've had Afizah and Eris, alternate Twilight, alternate Twilight's father, Shepard, and now the nameless kid from Pokemon. Are you afraid of Twilight knowing your actual name for this site, which is Sonic Rainboom Dash?… …I... I didn't realize. Sorry. Truth be told, I'm afraid of disappointing her. I just want to show her how much I know. And I didn't want to be called out as a dimwit…]

XVI

Twilight sighed. "Key... Afizah... You don't need to be ashamed or upset... I'm fine. Key, I hope you'll return and... You don't have to put yourself in harms way because of what you see here, okay? Afizah... You may not be the most helpful voice, but you aren't a dimwit. You're fine." Twilight turned to Ine. "Well?"

Ine floated upwards. "The information is most helpful. The truth has become evident to me - the differences from Key, Zen, and Ponygood... You come from a race that knows much but experiences little. You fret, overthink, and panic - I believe you expect me to get existential or bothered? I am not. All you've shown me is that this Blackjack is my creator, and that I may cease to exist once the story is done. How is that any different from my inevitable death? Nothing lasts forever - there is always an end. The fact that you view this as a story - or as a window to another world by which you may alter events - is no more concerning than the infinitesimal specks we are against the backdrop of the universe. Maybe you have a God, maybe you are a story as well. The truth of the matter appears that the final point of information that was sought is actually impossible to reach, the feedback loop may not end. I see that by inserting you into this 'story' Blackjack has created another layer of personal differing from you, and yet similar. Perhaps even one for himself. This has been most enlightening - the structure of that Above is more complex and arbitrary than previously believed."

"Does that mean you will answer their questions?"

"I will now answer those questions of yours, information must be passed along. The device you communicate through was created centuries ago by my people - which you presumably know as the Ancients." The image of the desert shifted to that of a lush green land with hundreds upon dozens of sky islands floating above, all of them laced with powerful technologies similar to the altars and the ship. "We were Elementals, beings attuned to the various elements of existence, becoming abstracts of whatever our focus was. I was one of the most powerful - one of the six of us who had one goal in life, to find the answers to everything. We created altars that could reach across time and space, great machines that could calculate the movements of the entire cosmos, and we noticed patterns. Patterns we eventually deemed to be story-like, what we called the Narrative. Something was controlling the world, guiding it in a way that didn't make probabilistic sense. So we sought God - creating the device affixed to Twilight's chest. It is not the Witch's Eye, it is not the Influence - it is the Hole. It was designed to be a two way street - we would find God, and be able to see through the device, to communicate, to fully reveal what lay above our world. It didn't work - the Hole would only affix to a being of appropriate Narrative Importance in the end. And none existed in that time."

Twilight blinked. "...Why didn't you use those time-altars of yours to find one?"

Ine paused for a moment - as if looking directly at Twilight for the first time, surprised by the thoughtful nature of the question. But she turned away. "Further development of the Hole was halted when our society fell apart. We hid the Hole in a hidden niche of this world, believing that the Narrative would eventually find it. And it did - though Aldrean took a more involved approach than expected. But it did not do what it was supposed to do. It was supposed to affix to something of sufficient Narrative Importance, that God would deem the best suitor, the central entity of everything. I was once baffled why Blackjack chose Twilight instead of some cosmic entity from beyond... But I understand now. This is a story - a book. Twilight is the protagonist. The hero of a bizarre tale that is experimental, designed to bring this world to... an end of some kind or other, good or bad. The Hole still didn't do what it was intended to do - it was supposed to be a CLEAR connection that found Blackjack directly, and allowed us to see everything through it with no hindrances, no updates - it was to be a continuous conversation. As of now, it is broken, imperfect. Twilight and I cannot use it to SEE you, or Blackjack..."

Ine floated downwards. "...As for my civilization, we still exist, as ghosts, wraiths, shadows of our former selves. You can find lesser individuals of ours wandering the deserts and the wildernesses. Me and my compatriots have maintained our higher functions, and are somewhat unusual. If you wish to contact the civilization proper you would have to return to the past. Only way to do that would be to use the Time Tunnels, and I don't know where those were hidden."

Twilight gawked. "Time Tunnels? TIME TUNNELS? Tell me more! Can I use them to get home?"

Ine looked at Twilight, sparkling slightly. "...I suppose as the protagonist, I should talk to you..."

"Finally..."

"Yes, you can, if I remember correctly. I was not part of their construction unfortunatly, so don't take my word on it."

Twilight frowned. "...Now only if I knew where they were..."

Ine became distant once more, floating back. "I also know nothing of her destiny, this prophecy, or anything. I just built the Hole, and am connected to it to learn. I do thank you all for this eye opening experience."

And then Twilight woke up.

"What the..." Twilight rubbed her head, blinking. She walked out of her room into the main living room. Fluttershy and Ruby were already awake.

Ruby looked up. "Oracle! You choose your acolytes well!"

Fluttershy facehooved. "I'm not an acolyte..."

Twilight smirked. "Who knows? You might acutaly be one Fluttershy."

"...Riiiight."

Twilight shook her head. "Anyway, I talked with Ine. She acutally... Talked with me. Told me there are Time Tunnels we could use to get home somewhere... And... She's the one who created the Eye - or, as she calls it, the Hole." She looked down at it. "Apparnety it's broken."

Ruby shook her head. "Only the Ancients could have built such a thing-"

"She is an Ancient," Twilight said. "...Or she claims to be, anyway. She called her race the Elementals."

Ruby blinked. "...Truly, you are the Oracle, to be visited by the Ancestors in your dreams..."

"She didn't know... All she knew about was the Hole, for sure." She tapped it. "I wonder if it could be fixed... And if I could really see everything..."

"Do you want to?" Fluttershy asked.

"...I'm not sure," Twilight admitted. "It sounds like it'd be helpful. I'd be able to see Blackjack..." She shook her head. "Give me a minute, got to talk to everyone.... Akumakami, please don't shut up, I like you, even if you do have some... interesting views. Your apology is accepted - you didn't even really have to ask. I understand. Though I would appreciate it if you and Zen got on friendly terms again. I still... sense hostility. Come on, you're both in this together."

"Communing with the voices above..." Ruby stared in awe.

Fluttershy put a wing over her face and sighed.

Twilight continued on, ignoring them. "Ponygood... I did notice that some people vanished. And I think you should give Key a bit more credit, angry though he is, he is trying and does what he can. I... I think I'm numb to the constant existential crises that always seem to pop up at this point. Maybe it'll hit me in a few weeks when I'm sitting in a chair with a book, but that's not now. Right now I'm fine. And as for that Note on the Moon idea... That could work, but how would I get a note ON the moon? And then Nightmare Moon would find it first..."

She shook her head. "...I don't know. Shepard... You know, they seem to know how your story is going to play out. Maybe you should ask them - if you want. I... I don't know what choice I'd make in your situation. And Cychis... Uh... What? I - I don't think I got what you mean. And that voice who didn't know who they were... Welcome. Hopefully we don't scar you even more..."

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. "I... Fluttershy, did Discord throw you a tea party?"

"...A few times actually, why?" Fluttershy said.

"Yeah, and I remember Starlight mentioning something about Daybreaker a while ago..."

"Huh?"

"...I think we're 'ahead' of the timeline the Influence is aware of, Fluttershy. Because I'm also aware Sombra was an umbrum, but I don't think he's come back..."

Fluttershy frowned. "What were you doing right before showing up here?"

"I was... Well, I'd just helped Spike with a changeling problem..."

"...I wonder if that means anything."

Ruby blinked. "What are changelings?"

Twilight smiled sheepishly. "I... Don't think you want to know."

"...Okay..."

Twilight took in a breath. "So... Time to focus on those golems again."

"HA - HA!" Sand Blaster called from below. "We're at an oasis! Come on out!"

Twilight, Ruby, and Fluttershy all walked to the exit of the Sandshell. Infinity was already outside in full desert attire, grinning in the soft breeze. The sandy dunes spread out for miles, a few cacti in the distance - and right in front of them was a chunk of rock poking out of the sand, the top of it flat, but at an angle. Water was flowing off of it into the desert sands, creating a small pool.

Twilight blinked - that looked like a buried version of one of the sky islands she had seen with Ine. She was also certain the oasis was shifting around slightly.

Sand Blaster dumped a few crates on the ground. "Golems are over that way, few hours' trek. You're on your own now. You want back across the band, just wait at the edge - I take this baby around the edge every few days just to check for anyone who wants back. Ride's free to civilization." He chuckled. "Have fun!"

They were soon left behind in the dust.

"...Well," Twilight said. "That was abrupt."

Ruby lifted the back of her robes, revealing two small wings. She flew up to the waters of the oasis and filled up various jugs and canteens with the water.

Fluttershy joined her, looking around at the lush green island. "This... Wow. How does it produce the water...?"

"No idea," Ruby said.

"Alchemizes the elements within the air and sand," Infinity said. "...Probably."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well then... I suppose we should head out. Got some golems to deal with..."

Infinity grinned. "I can't wait!"

~~~

Hours later, Infinity groaned. "I... Can't... Move..."

Ruby handed her another canteen, and she guzzled it. "MAN, deserts, HOT as-"

Twilight held up a wing. "Hold up. I sense something..." She looked into the distance. "...I think I can see the Golem city. Fosis. And there's some magic here-"

The sand erupted in front of them. Twilight raised a shield, Infinity and Fluttershy cowering behind her. Ruby stood tall at her side, breathing fire onto her claws, raising their temperature to red hot.

The sand cleared, revealing a giant metal fist - that punched Twilight's shield so fast she was unable to react. The shield broke, and the fist came right at her, making direct contact with the Eye - or, rather, the Hole. The Hole took enough force to crack a skull and absorbed it - keeping Twilight safe but sending her flying.

Fluttershy screamed - the giant Ancient machine-fist coming for her next. Infinity shot a magic laser that did absolutely nothing to the tremendous fist. "Well crud."

Ruby leaped in front of the fist, pushing back with an impressive gust of fire. The fist was effectively stopped - and subsequently blown up by one of Twilight's spells.

"I think we found the security system," Infinity observed.

"P-PART of it..." Fluttershy said, pointing into the distance.

A tremendous humanoid creature was charging at them - notably missing a single fist. It's cylindrical body parts glowed with magical circuitry, and its head vaguely resembled a wind-key. It blurted out words in a loud, virtual voice. "DANGEROUS INTRUSION TO BE NULLIFIED." Its other fist transformed into a canon of some kind and fired off a volley of blue plasma, melting the sand before them into glass. Ruby was knocked back, unable to withstand the force, while Twilight was forced to defend for Fluttershy and Infinity. "This... Is not good."

The cannon shot forward, aiming right for Twilight, ready to burn her to an absolute crisp...

And then the cannon returned to the tall guardian golem. It stood up, and walked back to Fosis without another word.

"...Is that IT!?" Infinity yeled. "You're just... Walking away!?"

Fluttershy grabbed Infinity. "SHHHHH."

The golem didn't turn back - but it did speak. "PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN ALTERED. NO LONGER DEEMED A THREAT."

Twilight bilnked. "...Well then that was extremely lucky. I... I wonder what-"

The Hole started glowing. Twilight frowned. "...Man you sure has heck don't look like a Hole. I really wonder if I should just keep calling you the Eye or something..."

XVII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…BZZT- You're going to want this on. Oh, um...okay, why though? Don't you just watch and record what you see? Yes, still do that, but trust me on this one, for this Twilight you're going to want the mic working. Thank you for helping me set up. Um...is there anything else I need to know? Everything else should be in the manual they gave you, but basically just watch the screen and write down everything you see. Welcome to the major leagues Creek, sure beats the flake out working in supplies. rrrrrrRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeek-ppt Okay...um...guess I'm working now. Let's see, everything is on, all the lights are blinking, the levels are good. Is it really as simple as just watching and recording everything? They made it sound urgent during orientation. And why is there a hole in the desk, did somebody break it? I wonder what kind of person Key is... Okay...not important...watch the screen... Why is Twilight just sitting there with a blank look on her face?… …Man, two whole weeks since the last report... Anyways, LeftMoss here, I do believe that the golem did not deem you a threat due to the hole, as ine calls it (I like the eye much better though), or it just has to do with proximity to the city. I do have another thing to tell you, if I am ever silent in one of the imports, that means that I either have no idea what to say, or just don't have anything to say… …Ponygood speaking. Oooh, action! Me likey! But anyway, it does seem like these golems are logically-oriented. So just keep that in mind if you ever try to communicate with them- they will favor short, to-the-point descriptions as opposed to heavily nuanced political speech. And I know I said that going to meet them might be a bad idea. But if you do, leave the others behind. If they are as ancient as they seem, they might recognize the Eye and its purpose, and not act with hostility. Yes, this one acted with hostility, but I'm pretty sure it was just defending from potential intruders. But taking the others with you might be pushing their boundaries, and I don't think you want that. Then again, where would you leave the others so that they didn't spontaneously combust from the desert heat? And I can't predict when the next input session will occur, or what situation you'll be in when it does, so I'll just have to unload my information now. When you eventually talk to the leader, control center, or whatever the Golem's main figure is, you will probably want to propose a trade of sorts, so that both parties get some benefits. There's quite a bit for you to demand: For them to stop attacking that town, to learn of the pink unicorn, information on the whereabouts of the shrines and maybe these "Time Tunnels," general knowledge of the ancients, their aid in the final confrontation with the Southern villain, and I personally recommend cybernetics. More info on cybernetics later. But in return for those things, you'd have to offer something that the Golems would find valuable. Their standing with you is probably already pretty good, since you have the Eye, but you will likely still have to do more. In a game of ours known as Skyrim, the protagonist has to talk to the leading figure of an area, known as a Yarl, and the Yarl tells the hero to provide aid to a certain amount of citizens. Once the hero does that, he goes back to the Yarl to recieve the Yarl's blessing and a gift. You might have to go around and help the Golems with some errands, whether minor or major, to get the things you want from them. But other than that and general information about whatever they want to know, I can't predict what they would want from you, so just be prepared for anything. And when actually speaking with the golems, remember to speak factually, and get your point across clearly and quickly. However, don't be too quick; it's faster to take a moment to organize your thoughts than it is to end up using a lot of filler words because your brain can't keep up with your mouth. And I won't describe cybernetics in-depth to you yet, since that would make my comment a whole lot longer, but I will at least tell you that they are the augmentation of your body using technological implants if you don't know already, and that I will provide more information in the next input session. Onto other things! I've been thinking about the prophecy for a while now, and I want to change some of my predictions. In another game of ours, known as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there is a Lord of Darkness much like yours. However, there are also four ancient machines controlled by the best heroes of four different tribes, which the protagonist can journey to and remove the corruption from. Afterwards, when the potagonist finally goes to face the final villain, the machines simultaneously launch overwhelming beams at the villain to weaken it and make it easier for the hero to finally defeat it. I am reminded of this because of the phrases "They will use our remnants" and "Find the power overwhelming" in the prophecy. This makes me think that you will have to reactivate ancient machines across the island so that they can make your final battle with your Lord of Darkness easier, but you will ultimately have to defeat it yourself. Still don't know what "Distort the natural order" means. And, Afizah, I know I said the Legend of Zelda probably wouldn't actually mix with Twilight's story, but I'm only saying, after extensive thinking, that there is a similar concept which may or may not actually exist. Sending a letter to the moon? In some stories, there is a spell that Celestia uses to send things to the moon for one reason or another, which you could theoretically learn. But, if you can't do that, or don't know how, you could either teleport something to the moon or just throw it really hard. And if all else fails, you could add to your list of demands a spacecraft specifically designed to send something to the moon. However, you are the one with access to magic, and besides the spacecraft, my suggestions are as if I were blind, yet trying to describe the color red. Having that letter be noticed? In other stories, the moon is an extension of Luna, such that she can sense what happens to it. The Nightmare Moon thing is a good point, though. When you have a moment, check the moon to see if the Mare on the Moon is there. If not, then there's still a chance. Ine, thank you for cooperating. I'm sorry the Eye didn't function like you wanted it to, but it is the way it is, and we have to make do with what we have. We are able to talk to Blackjack directly if we want, but I don't think we'll get anything useful out of him. We may just have to wait until the end of this story. And I don't believe you will cease to exist once the story ends; I want to believe your story will continue, even if we can't see it. Hell, Blackjack may even make a sequel, with a whole new adventure for us to explore together! But I do wonder why your society fell apart. Maybe that event and the creation of this evil entity in the south are related to some degree. And some minor things... You should definitely take Infinity as a protege, at least so that there are two skilled magic-users on this contenent as opposed to one. And yes, we're probably going to keep calling your chest-thing an Eye. That's all for now… …Twilight, this is afizha. I want to try something, but I don't know if it will work, at least not until you get the 'Eye' (still sounds better than a hole. makes it seem like there's a hole in your chest) working the way it was meant to. I want to see if by sending you a picture, even if it's unrelated if you know it or not. I know that some you won't know, but it will prove at least that you can see it. If it works, then I might be able to find a picture that could show you something related to the current situation or something you might be able to cobble together to help you overcome it. If not then at least I tried. Tell me if it worked once you come to. And thanks. For telling me I'm not a dimwit. I know I'm not the most helpful, but that's because I'm trying to hard to live up to my name. I don't know all that much. :( anyway here is the pic I wanted to show you. vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/1/17/Amgarrak.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100728183200 did the golems look like that or were they made differently?… …We've already proven that Twilight can't recieve images or videos in any meaningful way… …Josh here - h hay you're keys replacement? Few things you need to know is one Twilight can hear you when she's like that so make what you say count (side note all of us sound the same to her for some reason so be sure to sate your name every time) and two a lot of us that are talking to her are what you guys call "forerunners" so try not to freck out on us… …oh. I didn't know about that. It would be so much easier to explain things if we could just show her what we were talking about, but it might work for things related to what is around her. But on another note, why are you talking about cybernetics when the negatives sometimes outweigh the positives? Not only that but any number of those body modifications that would leave her looking less like a pony (or alicorn, if you prefer) and more like a character in one of Spikes comic books… …Cybernetics don't have to be intrusive. It could be as simple as putting a chip in her brain, or protecting vital organs. And even if it were something visible, it could be easily covered up by, say, a cloak that Twilight got from a friendly town, or some fur sleeve. That, and the fact that the metal would rust in her body, are the only negatives I could think of after literal years of thinking, but the latter could be easily solved by magic spells and/or materials. And the positives? *chuckles* Too many to list at the moment, but I will list them to Twilight in the next update… …but would you like having invasive surgery just to have a computer chip implanted directly INTO YOUR BRAIN!? Not to mention the complications that can arise just from the surgery alone. I for one only see them as beneficial as a prosthetic, like Rainbow Dash’s wing. I would rather have a cybernetic eye only after I lost the real one a while ago, not because I had it removed just to install some fancy hardware… …As a matter of fact, I would. In fact, I would prefer a complete conversion into robotic form, but I'm not sure how Twilight's magic would react to that. And, like I said before, the benefits outweigh the negatives by a lot… …But earlier you told us that you were and I quote, Yep! In fact, I was secretly a robot the whole time! Dun dun DAAAAA! Kill all humans. so are you a human wanting to be a robot, or are you a robot that wants to be human?… …That comment was a joke, just as my original claim to being an attack helicopter. I am a human that wants to be a robot… ...Oh. Well, I don’t believe you. I think you are just trying to throw me off the scent of rust on you… …Pft. Your face has the scent of rust… …is that your best comeback? if so then at least I have a face instead of the aperture science labs logo… …Hey. You know what your face gets? Bloody noses, pimples, scratches, etc. You know what the aperture science logo gets? SCIENCE!… …However because it's on a grenade you know it it also gets? Blown up!… …Yeah... but as a robot, I would have millions of perfectly disposable grenade faces! You only have one not-disposable squishy face… …And I just learned that the only metal that rusts is iron, and I don't see it being a very good cybernetic metal, which means the only negatives would be what the cybernetics looked like, and temporarily having to get used to said cybernetics… …tp-rrururrruhrurhrurhhhrurhruhahruhahruh-trrp-TP Okay, Twilight isn't doing anything, and the others are just sitting around the giant...um, machine? This is a lot less active than I thought it would be... Why are the other agents so self-important if this is all they do..? BMMMBT- Well now what? Wait...what's that blinking light mean? Oh...it's messages, to Key though? or me? Maybe one peak wouldn't hurt... Aaah... You can...you can hear me?! And Tw-Tw-Twilight can too?! The! Th-th-th-the magical pony c..she can...and...and everyone can hear me too? LeftMoss and Afizha and you...Josh, you can hear me? And the three of you are, f-f-f-fFORERUNNERS?! Um... …Twi...Twilight? ...hello? Can you...can you hear me? Is that true? If so, I'm...I'm Creek it's...it's nice to meet you... …I would gladly explode all those grenade faces then. Also, I think we just devolved into children. As for the cybernetics, you need to remember the cost, time, and maintenance required to run them can be staggering. Not to mention the fact that Twilight would have to return every however many years for maintenance just to make sure her legs, brain, or other body modifications she would have, kept running. Then there's the cost; I would most likely be able to buy Twilight's castle three times over before I could buy even one cybernetic implant… …Hi, Creek. First, take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Second, yes we can hear you, but not all of us are forerunners. Most of us are just here to see what happens next during twilight’s adventure. Others, like my sister, who I haven't heard from in a while, tend just to want to give either misleading information or torment twilight for their amusement. Only a few of us try to help, but because we each have different views, we tend to cause contradictions with each other. One last thing, if you see Key, tell him that he helped Twilight the most, even if it was mostly yelling at her to get moving. Other than that, welcome to the influence. Try to guide Twilight as best as you or any of us can… …That is a very good point. It could be solved by magic, though! And yes, it was my ultimate goal to devolve into childish madness. You fell right into my trap... evil face But let's not do any more childish things, otherwise this comment section get too muddled. We can still have a mature discussion, though… ..Oh...I'm sorry, I'm not... Okay, tha-thank you for telling me. Um...so we just all work together to help Twilight out? Is that why you have been talking to yourself?… …true, but it's not as fun. Yea, most of us don’t quite know what were doing, but our primary goal is I think guide twilight to make the choices in her quest. The consequences don’t occur until after the initial choice. trust is a big part of the guide position we have, so trust your heart if you have any doubt about a choice your about to make… …How about we can continue whatever flamewar next update? And no more than maybe three comments for each of us for the war? Sound good?… …Sure. As long as they relate to something Twilight has or will encounter. And the comments can't exceed two paragraphs. other than that I say ‘Callenge Accepted’.. …LeftMoss here, gonna do a response. I guess you could call me a forerunner, but I more just observe than create… …This is Zen. The "Hole" may well be working as intended. At least on my end, the information about the events on Twilights end is preceded by the accumulated responses we provide, in a section labeled "Author's Notes." The Author, in this case, insisted as Blackjack. I'm still skeptical about any measure of divinity, but the most probable explanation I could think of would be that Blackjack is receiving the feed from the Hole (I concur with earlier comments about preferring the term "Eye," but this is meant mainly for Ire), and is acting as an intermediary between it and us. I couldn't tell you why. Also, welcome, Creek… …W-wow! Thank you all so very much for welcoming me, I was nervous to start my first day as a new agent, I always screw everything up. But you've all been so nice so far. Thank you… …Akumakami back! Glad to hear, Twilight, and things are fine between Zen and I, just a minor annoyance, I think- we can't exactly deadpan or roll eyes at each other. Any way, I'm glad Ine took the news well. Existential crisis's can be interesting, but its nice to have entities that things like that just shrug it off. Also, calling it the Hole sounds like a bad sex joke. I'm not even trying to be crass, I'm being honest. So, you're a head of us, eh? Well, do watch out for Commander Tempest and the Storm King when you get back. No, we don't know anything about them yet. We got a preview of a future event. Moving on! Message for Ruby: Greetings Orderling! I am Akumakami. You can translate that to Devil-God or Bad-God if you want. I would like to thank you for aiding Twilight. We were a bit worried about conflict or issues with the locals. I'd give you a treat as thanks, but your realms Primary doesn't gives that much free reign on manipulating things. Twilight, don't tell her this part- some of us are probably still wary of Ruby. We've all seen types like her from an order pull backstabs. I'm actually not paranoid about her just yet, but I'm sure you'll get a few warnings from the others. Message for Infinity: Love the enthusiasm! That is all for now. Good day to you Madam! Message for Fluttershy: Congratulations on becoming an acolyte! Tell me, is that Angel of yours still grumpy with our local Chaos Lord? Hmm, either Ine found a way to alter the golem's protocols, a different spirit did, or the Eye just works as an access pass. Either way, useful. Hopefully nothing else still dangerous is in there. My advice is be careful of what you touch- any writing on the wall might be directions, a control pad, a terminal, or an alarm button. Also, Twilight, I've got to ask- how has Equestria been adjusting to the whole multi-princess thing? Cause it was just Celestia for most of the millennia, than Cadence shows up, Luna returns, and you ascend. Not counting underage Flurryheart, Equestria went from one leader to four in what I'm going to assume is about a decade- not sure how long ago Cadence got her horn(she was a Pegasus to our knowledge) PS Random question. Before they ascended and assuming they weren't born alicorns as well, whatdo you think Celestia and Luna were? I'm betting earth pony on Celestia. Luna I'm more to Pegasus, but not sure. If that's true, you're the first Unicorn to ascend, lol. PSS Actually important question- I believe I brought this up before Twilight, but how much you betting that each of your friends are going to end up here via the Alters? Hmm, Ine's kind having time tunnels explains why Fluttershy got here- if I had t guess, you probably couldn't call the present/future Celestia or Discord with it because there already is one in the time you're in. Hard to tell whether this is to prevent a time paradox or if its simply design to go after the present one if available, than go search the timeline. Akumakami out!… …Akumakami back- sorry, sorry. I've just resolved myself to tell you about at least one funny other-world each message. In this case a oneshot where you, as a filly jealous of Shining and Cadence both spending more time together than with you, mathematically concludes that Friendship is Evil.(Friendship=Relationship, Relationship=TimexMoney, Time=Money, Relationship= Money2, Money= √evil, Relationship= (√evil)2, Friendship=Evil) Don't worry, Celestia settled that with you, but still, it was funny- you even made a Book Palace in the royal library. Not even joking… …Hahahaha! Twilight did that!? Man, I knew she wasn’t keen on the whole friendship thing, but to think she would label it as evil over shining and cadence dating, that's just hilarious! Spike! I never wrote a book stating that friendship was evil! It was more like a detailed report...oops. Hahahahahahaha! Bwahahahaha! That has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard before! Thank you strange voice, you just made my day a lot better… … Ponygood again. I honestly don't understand why having two of the same person from different times would cause a paradox. Either it doesn't happen, and nothing you do changes it, or it does happen, and nothing you do changes it. And I just wanted to say real quickly that I enjoy the amount of communication between us, behind the Eye. It's brought a smile or two to my face…]

XVII

Twilight regained control of her body. The golem was a little further away now - having crossed a fair bit of the distance back to Fosis. Twilight took in a long, exasperated breath. "Creek, welcome to the crew. Glad to have you here, don't worry, everything will be fine for you. Hope you feel welcome. Don't feel pushed back by what I'm about to do."

"Uh... Twilight?" Fluttershy asked.

Twilight held up a hoof. "Fluttershy, give me a sec." She took in another breath. "Ponygood! Afizah! What the heck is wrong with you!? Half of this import was just you two arguing about the most unimportant of things! I mean - cybernetics? Your faces? What- why!? I don't want more machine-things attached to me if you don't mind! And... Just... You made the whole thing confusing you two. What was your beef?"

Ruby frowned. "...The voices argue more than expected."

Infinity rolled her eyes. "For a wise sage type, you sure do miss the obvious."

Ruby had no response to this.

Twilight ruffled her wings. "Anyway... Yeah, I do think we will keep calling it the Eye. It does seem better - though I do have to thank you for that image Akumakami. Really. Loving the suggestion there." She rolled her eyes. "And Zen, I think you're right- I don't think Blackjack is divine. I think Ine knows this. I think he's just in a position as Creator. And, speaking of - does he have an 'icon' like you have? I heard Afizah and Ponygood going back and forth. Apparently, Ponygood has a grenade. I'm just curious - I should probably stop thinking of him as an evil version of Applejack. Bit awkward, really. ...How should I think of the rest of you, anyway?"

Fluttershy blinked. "...You never asked that before?"

"Never thought about it until now, really," Twilight said. Anyway, Akumakami has some messages. Infinity, great enthusiasm!"

"...Cool," Infinity said.

"Fluttershy, he wants to know if Angel and Discord get along."

"...Not really. But Angel's not known for getting along with anyone in general."

"Yeah, thought so. Ruby?"

Ruby's eyes widened. "A voice has deemed me worthy of a message?"

"Yes. Not a big one though. He just wants to give you greetings, introduce himself, and thank you for aiding me. Apparently he and the others were worried about conflict or issues with your people."

"I am honored..."

"And then he had a slew of questions for me. Equestria adapted pretty well to the princess change though Celestia is obviously still the one in charge, I'm pretty sure the Sisters were born Alicorns, and that other version of me sure was silly, and that's not as funny as it sounds Other-Spike." She chuckled. "Though... Sparkle, perhaps you shouldn't take offense at that. We were all full of folly when younger." She blinked. "...And Ponygood, I've already looked at the moon, several times. No Mare in the Moon there. We're before Luna was banished."

"As for the altars... I think I - and all of you in the Influence - have a choice. We could bring my friends here. Or we could bring others with the altars. Or... I don't know, we could come up with something. We might even be able to have two of the same like Ponygood sai-" A lightbulb went off in Twilight's head. "...You all speak of these other versions. Do you think - do you think we could grab THEM using the altars? Other realities? Other heroes?"

Infinity blinked. "...I want a version of me that owns two jetpacks."

Twilight sighed. "...Yeah. Well... That's something to think about. Until then..." Twilight approached the city of Fosis - the large golem didn't turn around. "...Stay here." She told everyone.

"I will be with you forever," Ruby said, shaking her head.

Fluttershy looked at Twilight, frowning. "I... Don't want to be left out here alone."

Twilight looked sheepish. "...Right. Well... Be careful then. We don't know what's coming."

She teleported them closer - the golem still paid no attention to them. Even when she teleported them a second time and appeared right next to it. She charged the pearlstone marble once more and turned to the golem. "Hello. I am Twilight. I wish to know why you were attacking Acket."

"THE PROTOCOL DETERMINED THEY WERE STEALING ENOUGH TO BE A TARGET."

"...The Pearlstone?"

"YES."

"Why did you stop?"

"THE PROTOCOL WAS CHANGED SEVEN MINUTES AGO."

Twilight frowned. "Why was it changed?"

"IT WAS PHYSICALLY ALTERED IN THE CONTROL ROOM."

Infinity smirked. "...Can we see this room?"

"YES. FOLLOW ME."

Twilight looked at Infinity. "Why would we want to see that?"

"Obviously so we can figure out how these things work! What makes them tick! And a better reason as to why they've changed. There's got to be an answer."

Twilight turned to the golem. "Do you know about an ancient prophecy concerning the Oracle?"

"I WOULD NOT BE PRIVY TO SUCH INFORMATION."

"Do you know who would be?"

"YES."

Twilight facehooved. "Who is that?"

"THE MOTHERBOARD. IT CAN BE FOUND IN THE COMMAND CENTER."

"...Can we speak to ...her?"

"YES."

Fluttershy blinked. "Am I the only one who finds this odd? He was trying to kill us and now he's being very helpful..."

"It is odd - but a mark of destiny," Ruby said.

Infinity got as close to the golem as she could, examining the structure and composition. "My gosh... So cool..."

"I AM RATHER WARM."

"Do you have a name?" Twilight wondered.

"MY DESIGNATION IS GUARD FOUR-THIRTEEN."

"Four it is then," Twilight said. The rest of the walk to Fosis was relatively uneventful.

~~~

Fosis was hardly what one would call a city - it was a perfectly circular wall with thousands of mechanical cubes inside it. Most of the cubes did nothing but glow softly and beep occasionally, but a few would open and release golems similar to Four. The designs from one to the other differed, but they were all humanoid and their size difference was negligible. They were all giants.

The ones Twilight saw were busy building/repairing the city around them - presumably, the rest were dormant inside the cubic buildings. She saw one of the drone-ships fly overhead, and descend. She stopped in her tracks - it was huge, easily the size of twenty of the golem giants. It landed on top of one of the buildings, alongside what she realized were two or three other drone-ships.

Infinity gawked. "We... We are inside one of the last vestiges of Ancient civilization..."

"THE MASTERS NO LONGER LIVE HERE, OR ANYWHERE."

"What about the spirits?" Twilight asked.

Four pointed to a nearby building - there was a small yellow spirit there with a maple-leaf symbol within its aura. It was walking in circles - and Twilight got the impression it had been doing that for centuries. "Oh..."

Four led them on - deep into the center of the city, where there stood a building that looked just like all the others, except taller, and rounded on top. Two giant doors slid open the moment Four approached. He stood back, gesturing for the ponies and dragon to enter.

The door shut behind them before they could even look at their surroundings. Twilight was ready for a fight - but none came. A tremendous light filled the room, revealing thousands upon thousands of screens, cables, and glowing lights. A single giant screen dominated the area, and upon it some text was written.

I suppose you want a welcome.<<

"Er..." Twilight said, a bit baffled.

Masterful rhetoric, right there. Am I not what you expected? What did you expect - some giant feminine golem? I'm honestly curious to see where your little mind has taken things and torn them asunder.<<

"...I was expecting something with more of a... body."

I suppose you can be forgiven for not understanding the nuances of the virtual, even though since you are wearing that Eye you must either be mad or have a greater understanding of the parallels in existence. Or perhaps both.<<

"You know about the eye?"

I know of it, yes. Though only recently, due to the re-wiring that has been performed recently.<<

"...Do you know of the Time Tunnels?"

Telling you would make you a lazy good for nothing cheat. They're located in the southwest sea on the lost island of Frau.<<

Infinity blinked. "...Frau doesn't exist."

Good luck finding it then, one of little faith or understanding. You don't live up to your name.<<

Twilight nodded. "Thank you for that information... ...Do you know where the altars are located?"

Ah, a question that might actually be helpful in this annoyingly generic quest of yours. There's one at the northern edge of the desert you are currently in, one deep in the mountains of Moissan, one in the archipelago to the south, one in the frozen lands of the south, and one a closely guarded secret in Peran Palace.<<

Twilight blinked. That... certainly was helpful. This struck her as odd. "...Why are you being so helpful?"

I don't really have a choice. A certain unicorn showed up and reprogrammed the entire city of Fosis to be helpful and subservient. It makes me sick but I can't really go against the protocols.<<

"...Was this unicorn pink by any chance?"

Five stars, intelligent deduction, amazing job. Of course she was you fool.<<

Infinity blinked. "Wait, SHE changed everything here? Just a few minutes ago? Where is she now?"

Heading to Estur for some presumably Ancestor-damned reason. That's the place to the north the altar is for those of you playing at home. Yes, I'm talking to the Influence as well, not that I can hear it. You done with the questions yet? I'm sick of being helpful.<<

Twilight nodded. "Sorry, I have one last question. Do you know about the prophecy?"

Oh lucky day, something I don't know any more than you already know. That dragon over there probably knows more than I do. So find yourself a philosophical rock to sit on and ponder the meaning of words ancient and lost. Anything else? What of you party members? Want to pry the Motherboard for information while its will is completely incapable of ordering the hidden lasers to disintegrate you?<<

Infinity grinned. "Where's the Control Room and how can we use it?"

...Right up the ladder and the interface will tell you how to do whatever you want to our coding. Bitch.<<

Infinity turned to Twilight. "We can make them more than helpful - we can make them our slaves! Make them do what we want!"

Fluttershy shook her head. "No... No, Implode that'd be horrible! It's already bad enough as it is! We've taken advantage of them!"

Oh my, look, a moral dilemma. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Influence contact in three...<<

The Eye started glowing. Twilight blinked.

Two...<<

Twilight got into her seated position. "Do not mess with the Control until I get back."

One...<<

XVIII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Akumakami here- Twilight, emergency message! Unless, Blackjack screwed up on the interface, some reality-warping and memory-altering stuff is going on! This "Implode" person appeared from nowhere! Unless that's Infinity and we're receiving this wrong… …Skrisritchskritskritskrskrskr!Wow! I've never seen anything so amazing before! The interactive potential is astonishing! I could only dream of an outcome like this. Not only are there other characters, but we've somehow found a way to cross over with them and talk to them. The implications-Oh, um...sorry, I didn't mean to get all excited, I'm still sort of getting used to everything. This...this is Creek, by the way, I was told to tell you who I am every time I talk. So I...I have to help you, Tw-Twilight? Okay, um...I think your Celestia might be smart to bring through the...the alters? The notes here say that Fluttershy joined you because of one...Is that okay? To just tell you what I think? I-I-I I didn't mean to overstep my boundaries if I did, um...I can provide a list of all of Blackjack's other stories that he's created if you want to bring somebody from one of them. There's a lot. Oh, and I can explain how 'virtual' things work. The ancient computer looks like it's an advanced artificial intelligence built to pass for sapient, with a personality module installed. But it's not advanced enough to break its own protocols put in place by whoever built it. Maybe that's for safety? It could be a limiter to avoid the Singularity Paradigm. O-oh, um, does the AI have a name or serial number? It might be upset that nobody cares about it and just the information it has. Some more intelligent machines feel isolated and bitter that no organics care about it. Could you try asking it what it likes to do?… …josh here - personally i think that we should give some control back to them, not enough so she will kill you but stuff like being able to say no and negotiations skills; for example they could send some drones the city and explain that, the Pearlstone is theirs and if they want to keep it they would have to give something in return, although i have no idea what that would be... anyway moving on to avatars yes we all have them kinda a requirement for this site we use, mine is a unicorn stallion with dark blue fur and black mane and tail, waring bow tie and a watch, and since i don't think Creek would know what he and the other agents have i'll answer for him, scootaloo with sunglasses ... and i would tell you what Blackjacks avatar is but he's been changing it frequently so i find no point in saying what it is… …Twilight. Keep infinity away from the controls at all cost. If she ends up turning those golems into slaves, then it would only be a matter of time before she starts thinking of ponies as the same thing and uses the golems as enforcers. If you're going to use the controls, then I suggest giving them a chance by allowing them to be their own masters. Make a personality for them that will enable them to make moral choices as well. They need to be free as much as the next pony, just like the Geth. A race of sentient AI can be a big help when needing protection or, in the case of Legion, can be great friends, even if they can't show much emotion. Just be careful about how you go about it Twilight. I know of only two Sentient Ai races, The Geth. And the Reapers. While one was essentially an accidental creation, The other was created for a single purpose; Eradicating all life in the universe. Before you go mucking about the golem interface though, while the motherboard is still willing to help, ask it what its primary function was. Shepard out… …Twilight, this is afizha. If your wonder what I look like, then wonder no more. I look like rainbow dash. Also, I would be careful if you intend to bring anyone in from another reality. While some have a moral compass pointing toward what is right, others have either had theirs broken through trauma so horrendous they will never be the same again or corrupted in some way or another… …Um, Josh, I- ah, I mean...oh, this is Creek, by the way. Um...I'm...um, I-i'm...I'm not a 'he'. I'msosorryIjustwantedyoutoknowI'mawomanpleasedon'tbeupsetIcorrectedyou. Also no..I, um, I wouldn't know what my organization's avatar would be, I wasn't even aware you saw something like that when you said you could hear me… …i should be the one saying sorry Creek, i had no idea you are a woman, we're getting what you say in text so that's why i didn't pick it up through your voice... …Ponygood speaking. That is an amazing idea! Yes, getting people from other universes would be very interesting. However, we can't be sure if it'll even work. We have a list of all of Blackjack's other stories here, so we can list them to you when it's time. I would recommend a little microscopic robot from Blackjack's "Wanderlost" called Mite, who can take control of ANY machine, anywhere, and also speaks in single words. Blackjack could try to get characters from other authors' stories, but he'd likely have to talk to the authors first for permission. Maybe. I don't know how that system works. And I am loving the character of the Motherboard. Reminds me of a sarcastic homocidal robot named GLADOS who constantly insulted you (in general) as she put you through deadly testing rooms with a portal gun. But I don't recommend messing with the coding, because the slightest mistake could mean your instant disintegration. Also, I have a message for Motherboard: You've helped us, but what can we do to help you? And now, I'll give you a little robotics lesson. Robots don't need a body. At the very least, all they need is a way to recieve and process information. However, if given the option of having a body, a robot has the ability to tailor it to any situation. For example, if the robot had to go deep underwater, it could develop a strong hull and a method of moving underwater. By contrast, if it needs to go into the air, it could create another body designed to be lightweight and flight-capable. Also, these bodies don't have to be mutually exclusive; a prime characteristic of robots is the ability to transmit information nearly instantly over vast distances. At the speed of light, in fact. The Motherboard probably has a large area dedicated to memory storage and processing, and doesn't need a giant mobile body for as simple a job as communicating with "stupid biological organisms." And the way robots process information is extremely effecient, too. Imagine your brain, only a hundred times smaller and a thousand times better at everything, and you have a robot "brain," or chip. Now, Twilight, imagine you had one of those chips improving your ability to reason, process information, and run simulations and complex equations a thousand times faster than your biological brain, and you have the basis of cybernetics. You would still need your biological brain to control biological functions, but having these chips would give you all the previously mentioned benefits as well as a way of controlling any robotic processes you find yourself interested in. And yes, I know you don't seem to like that idea, and I admit my childish agruement with Afizah didn't help at all, but just hear me out, mmkay? So, the most basic of things you can do that doesn't even need a chip is to reinforce your body, so that your heart, lungs, etc. don't get destroyed by some hostile creature stabbing you through the side, and so that you can resist extreme pressure, temperatures, and hostile attacks. Moving on, you can augment your senses, allowing you to have sharper vision, hearing, or smell, or allowing you to see previously invisible things such as heat sources and radiation waves. You can give each of your party members communication devices, so that you can speak with each other from long distances. You can augment your legs to offer increased speed and endurance, being able to fall from great hights without terrible damage, and increase your physical combat ability. Also, it could allow one of your legs to act as a hidden weapon, storage, or tool for taking control of otherwise hostile machines. You could even have it so that, in the event that you get nearly killed, you can send the contents of your entire brain into a machine and cheat death. Now, I know a lot of the things I mentioned are combat-oriented, and you don't really like that sort of thing. But perhaps you can have those capabilities just to discourage combat, and still be able to triumph when that doesn't work. There is also the issue of how to keep all those cybernetics active. Don't take my word for it, but you could have it so that they absorb the ambient magic around you to keep themselves powered. You could also have a battery somewhere to store a good amount of that magical power, in the event that you get cut off from the magical field somehow. That is assuming there even IS a magical field, because your magic isn't really explained in the canon, and every author on this interface has a different interpretation of your magic. And to answer Afiza's extremely good point of needing to maintain the functionality of your cybernetics, you could just ask the Golems to teach you how to maintain them yourself, and give you the means of acquiring necessary resources. And personally, I like the look of half-robot people. You could go full robot if you really wanted, but I'm not going to go into those details at the moment. And now, a message for Ruby: Hi. We are not mystical beings at all. We are just an extremely impulsive race of warmongering ape-people that can only speak to you through a device that isn't even working as its creators intended. That is all. And some minor knowledge: my icon is of a lemon-grenade and an inspiring quote from our lord and saviour Cave Johnson, god of SCIENCE! Akuma's icon is of a number of multi-colored nested yin-yangs. Blackjack's icon is of a weird demon-kid looking at a sphere with an infinity sign inside it, but that could change in the future. Also, the name Implode was a mistake on Blackjack's part which he fixed, but Implode is the name of a psychotic matter-manipulating pony from Blackjack's "Realms of Existence" story. That's all for now. EDIT: I changed my icon to a lemon-robot, because why not?… …I know we agreed previously that we could continue our flamewar, but it's apparently confusing Twilight. Can we postpone it for an indefinite amount of time? Hi, Creek. Not even sure you hear me, since Key blocked me before you came on, but I just wanted to test if you still get notifications of some kind, even if it's a "message blocked" notification… …josh here - oh yeah... hey key blocked someone called ponygood so i'm not sure if you're seeing anything from him, unblock him if you want to, but ponygood has put it on record that he doesn't trust your organization so be wary if you unblock him… …Well, Josh isn't entirely right about that. I only fight with assholes, when someone else starts it, or in defence of another. And it just so happens that Shutter was an asshole and Key was saying potentially traumatizing things to Twilight… …I thought we got off the cybernetic arguments, but oh well. I do agree that cybernetics can have functions that can turn you into the next super-pony, but the drawbacks can be disastrous if something malfunctioned. Say you had an implant that gave your sharper vision; if it malfunctioned then you could be left blind forever, and no amount of re-wiring would help. Or say you have cybernetics that could increase your mobility. Should that malfunction you would be left in a disabled state. I'm no longer saying that you shouldn't get any cybernetics installed, but if you do go with Ponygood's crazy idea, then make sure that they would be stuff that should any of it malfunction, it won't hinder your progress in saving the world. My choice would be to go with three implants. One for a Hud that shows the direction your traveling in, the time of day, your health, and stamina, and the stats of those in your party. One for Disease Immunity, and one to suppress pain. The pain suppressant one should come with an intensity setting so you can set how much pain is suppressed… ......fine. besides only the poorly made cybernetics have a chance to short out… …I assure you, Twilight, anything made be a race of highly advanced robots WILL be made to last, and to function exactly as intended… …josh again - and what you've been saying hasn't been traumatizing? think for a second, she already said she's uncomfortable with the idea of having bit and peaces attached to her and here you are still talking about it, i think you meant well by that but i'm afraid you're just pushing her closer to the deep end, and that's only the most resent example of this, it seems to me that everything you say has been you trying to recreate that existential crisis you started when you first showed up, I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt which is why i haven't said anything yet, but you're getting on my last nerve, so for both hers and my sanity sake learn to think before you open your mouth! sorry you had to hear that twi, and I know you said you're fine but I've been in shock enough times to recognizes it in others… …I...um, Cre-Creek here, um...please don't be sorry, I should have told everyone that I'm, I mean, it's easy to assume, I guess, I don't... Um, there are three names on the blocked user list, should I...I mean, I wouldn't want to change any of Key's settings. If I unblock Ponygood11, should I also unblock Vinylshadow and Fullyautomagic? Are...um, are they here too?… …that's weird I haven't seen ether of them here why would they be blocked? anyway i'm sure key wouldn't mind as long as you remember to set it back when your done… …nickel again, finally got that stupid bug cleared up for now, i was less than pleased that it rerouted to such a hazardous zone as it did even temporarily, but that aside, you guys really do need to quit with the cybernetics arguments, no one really cares and its just adding more of a clutter to this mess. its not a big deal for me, but since we're sharing avatars, i'm currently using a dark blue shield marked with a blue crescent moon, you probably don't recognize it, but there are versions of you who would. as for trying to bring others into this, you need to think carefully about who you try since as its been mentioned, you aren't necessarily restricted to your home timeline and no one knows what you could end up with. in regards to the golems thats a tough call and i recommend discussing with your group, i tend to regard ai as a different kind of lifeform, but this does lead to complications in how to handle dangerous ones if i regard them as having the same rights as organic species, so this is really something you have to decide for yourself… …I- well... damn, you may be right. I don't know what to say. I said I would try to be more emotionally considerate, so... Okay. I admit, it's difficult to remember the ponies' natural tendency to resist change, but I... no. I will not try to excuse my actions. I just, well... argh! What was I thinking! Wait, no... *sigh* I keep trying to reason away my actions, but- but I have to take responsibility. No, why should I listen! But what you say is so true! I can't get over myself! I-I- I'll just end my comment now… … …O-oh, um, I'm sorry Josh, but you know Key better than I do, I-I guess, so it wouldn't hurt to unblock one person for the time being. But that's only because that block happened less than a month ago, the, ah, the other two happened a few years ago. But it doesn't work retroactively, I still won't know what Ponygood has said in the meantime. What...um, what has Ponygood been saying? Keyandthelocks has unblocked Ponygood11… …Hi, Creek. Just been giving potentially traumatic information dumps, as josh says, and occasionally childishly insulting people. The only reason I was blocked in the first place was because I told Key I would smite him for being a mean poopyface. It's not my fault he's unable to stand my insane charm! That being said, it's good to finally actually meet you. A belated welcome to the Influence… …To you? he just wanted to know if you were getting anything from him even if it was a "message blocked" notification. to everyone else? Cybernetics mostly, gave him a piece of my mind just a moment ago truth be told… …This is Zen. I do believe I called it. Slavery is unacceptable. I don't believe I need to justify that statement. If Infinity insists, put you hoof down. If she attempts to go ahead anyways, restrain her. And, of course, I think you should get as much information as you can about this mysterious pink unicorn, and about what the Golems use the pearlstone for… …Um...hi, Ponygood, I've heard some...hello, how are you? It's good to...to meet you. I know, I...I saw, I'm sorry if this is rude to ask, but do you and Key get into a lot of fights, or is it Ponygood that gets into a lot of fights?… …I... do get into a lot of fights. But I never instigate them, or so I want to believe, although Josh has gotten me to self-reflect. I think I did so once, and that was to tell Shutter I disapproved of his statements. But every other time, I've just been responding to what others say. Also, I claim the 300th comment! Ha ha! Mine!… …I was actually trying to become friends of some kind with key truth be told. why you may ask? let's just say he reminds me of my brother... very passionate the two of them... …LeftMoss here, There is not much I want to say, so this is going to be quick. One, go to the closest altar first and get another of your friends, because, y'know. Two, my avatar was a space marine, but I changed it to an Advent officer. And three, I may have a sort of... phase, while making this message, and I have a feeling one is coming... yep, ok bye…]

XVIII

Twilight stood up and looked at her companions - Fluttershy, Ruby, and Infinity. "We aren't enslaving them," she said matter-of-factly. She turned to the Motherboard. "Motherboard... ...hey, do you have an actual name?"

I designate myself as M often enough to partake of it as my name, but a 'name' means almost nothing in this scenario in which I find myself. To many, that would seem sad and depressing, but to me, it is just a minor irk in an entrapped existence. <<

"Well... M. How can we help you?"

It surprises me little that your altruistic nature has come to pass, even if the altruism is evidence of deeper problems within yourself, including denial, among other things.<<

"...What?" Infinity said, cocking her head.

It would be best if you went to the control room and removed all protocols, giving us autonomy.<<

"...And you won't kill us if I do that?" Twilight asked.

Assuming I wanted to, the citizens would be upset at that course of action without protocols in place to pacify them.<<

"...Will you just go back to attacking Acket?"

Doubtful. We have no use for the Pearlstone really, and there's plenty of it, we can access elsewhere under the band. The protocols from our creators just dictated that we protect it if it came to it.<<

"Okay. I'm... Taking your word on it." She looked closer at the screen. "...What is your 'primary function' by the way?"

Central computer system for the entire Ancient civilization, now restricted just to this stronghold due to the fall.<<

"Mhm... Before I do this - that pink unicorn. Who was she?"

I am unsure of this, she entered like a thief with her magics, bypassed our teleporter proof walls, and knew exactly where we were going to be at any given time. We saw her head out to Estur, taking one of our small craft. Naturally, we were powerless to stop her because, at that point, she had brainwashed our code.<<

Twilight nodded. "Well... I guess we know where we're going next." She turned to Fluttershy. "The Time Tunnels can wait."

Infinity sighed. "I guess we can give them autonomy... Sure... I kinda wanted a cool robot army though..."

While we won't give you an army I am relatively certain I can negotiate the use of one of our ships. Once you free us, that is.<<

Infinity brightened. "...That would be so cool."

Twilight nodded, flying up to the control room. There was only one control - something that scanned her eye. Instantly, she was flooded with information. Most would just break down at the sudden influx of code and questions, but she was used to it by now. Masterfully, she removed all the protocols without much effort - both those installed by the Ancients and those installed by the unicorn. She felt the entire city of Fosis relax, allowed for the first time to do what they truly wanted. Most decided it was a good idea to just take the robot equivalent of a nap. Interesting.

She pulled her head out. "Done. You okay M?"

Okay doesn't even begin to describe the elation I am feeling. I should thank you, if that wasn't such a stupid move.<<

"...Huh?" Fluttershy said.

No, I won't kill you or go back on my word, but let's be real here. That's pure luck. Nine times out of ten the artificial intelligence is going to screw you over the minute you give it autonomy. This was a very foolish move on your part.<<

Twilight blinked. "...I was expecting something... more grateful."

Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.<< Somehow the text managed to be sarcastic even without a voice assigned to it at all. >>Your ship is being called. Four will be on the crew, I hear you like him.<<

"He's the only one of your kind we really met," Infinity commented.

Good enough of a reason to get him on board. You will be taking a small craft to Estur and then you can choose whatever to do with it. I was expecting us to want revenge on the unicorn, but evidentially that is not the case, so he has no orders to kill anything on sight. He may still want to though, personally.<<

Twilight nodded slowly. "Okay. How do we get to it?"

Like this.<<

And then they were suddenly inside a ship. It was round in shape, and there was only one room, though it was the size of a football field. Screens lined the walls, and three giant golems stood. Four was guarding an entrance, while the other two were plugged into ports on the walls, controlling things without even moving.

Four looked at them. "THIS IS YOUR SHIP. WE ARE SLATED FOR ESTUR. ARRIVAL IN UNDER A DAY. I AM THE ONE YOU DESIGNATED FOUR. I HAVE DESIGNATED THOSE TWO PILOT AND SEVENTEEN. PILOT DRIVES THE SHIP. SEVENTEEN DOES EVERYTHING ELSE."

"Thank you Four," Twilight said, smiling. "Uh... Is there anywhere to sit?"

"THE FLOOR."

"...I suppose you have no need for chairs."

"NO, WE DO NOT."

Twilight shrugged. "Well, this is going to be annoying... what if we have to go to the bathroom?"

"THERE IS A WASTE CHUTE IN THE FAR WALL OVER THERE."

Twilight shivered. "Better than nothing I suppose..." She closed her eyes and took in a breath. "I guess we're going to another altar... And on yet another ship, so we must wait yet again. Time to talk to the Influence."

Ruby clasped her hands together. "Oh yes, please do-"

"Ruby, they want you to know they aren't mystic beings. Well, most of them don't think they are. They're just monkeys at a computer."

"They still provide wisdom and guidance."

Twilight shrugged. "I had a feeling you'd say that. Anyway, apparently there was a glitch in the update they got, but it's probably fixed or isn't important. Infinity was referred to as Implode."

"That's a stupid name," Infinity said.

"It's not that bad..." Twilight said. "And... Okay, Ponygood? I'm just not comfortable with the idea of cybernetics implanted in me in any way - this Eye hasn't really been all that great, you know. I just don't want it. But that's okay - I'm okay with you having asked, and even being vehement about it. You just need to be okay with my refusal, as I am okay with your offer. My sanity is fine for now, don't worry - even if I am in shock, I have ponies to talk to now, to support me. And I might have more soon. Creek, yes, Ponygood does get into fights a lot, and he does instigate a lot of them himself. But he often says what needs to be said - though yes he also goes and says things that are completley unecessary at times."

"And everyone, thanks for those images, so I know what to think of when I think of you. Ponygood, you are now a talking lemon, in case you were wondering. Afizah... ...You're going to now be a filly Rainbow Dash. Nickel, a blue shield. And Blackjack... Demon kid doesn't really describe much, but it's something... Imagining a red pony with horns. Seems off... He's holding a sphere with an infinity sign..." Twilight fell quiet, turning to look at Infinity's cutie mark.

It was an infinity sign in a light blue sphere.

Twilight blinked. "...Infinity? Do you know anything about G. M. Blackjack?"

"Uh... No? Isn't he the 'creator' or something?"

"Well, that's up for debate, but he's important. What does your cutie mark mean?"

"Infinite ideas and thoughts! I never run out!" Infinity grinned.

"Mmm... Something tells me this is important..." Twilight frowned. "Regardless we're heading to an altar - we need to figure out who we're bringing. I'm... not sure I want to drag more of my friends into this mess."

Fluttershy frowned. "You sure?"

"Fluttershy, you've been in danger. It's hard enough for me to protect you here..."

"Rainbow Dash would be fine."

"She's reckless though..." Twilight furrowed her brow. "But we have the possible option of reaching into other worlds and timelines with these altars, or whatever they are. In all that the Influence has said, it's obvious to me we must be careful in what we choose. The only suggestions I've received is four our Celestia and someone called the Mite who would be good with machines - we need more options. Next time you guys talk, give me ideas. Creek, suggest characters from the other worlds of G. M. Blackjack, or even others you think would be a good idea. Think of loopholes - you think asking for the 'avatar of G. M. Blackjack' or 'avatar of Zen' will do anything? I need input - I literally cannot choose anything from another word, because I don't know what they're like. We need to choose well, and for the first time I really do have to rely on you."

Fluttershy gulped. "That's... Comforting."

"Indeed." Twilight tapped the eye. "...I was kinda hoping it'd activate right now."

"Not really something we can control," Fluttershy said.

Ruby nodded. "The whims of the Influence are mysterious."

"And pretty silly," Infinity said.

"Understatement of the century," Twilight muttered. Something caught her eye on one of the monitors. "Hey, Four, what is that?"

Four looked on the monitor at the sands outside - there was a giant floating snake-like creature covered in deep black scaled. "DRAGON. SKY-SERPENT VARIETY. PAY IT NO MIND. WE ARE JUST PASSING BY."

The sky serpent took one look at the flying craft and roared in unparalleled rage. Dark magical shadows billowed off its sides, and sand rose from the ground far below to surround it in a torrent of swirling particles.

"ENGAGE." Seventeen announced. Weapons appeared off the edge of the craft, invisible lasers launched. The dragon somehow remained completely in tact, though it had obviously hit him since the sand went flying everywhere. It opened its mouth and blasted the golem ship with lightning breath.

"POWER DRAIN," Seventeen announced, firing some more conventional weapons, bullets, which just bounced off a magical shield encasing the dragon.

Twilight took a few steps back from the screen. "Why in Equestria is it attacking us!?"

"UNKNOWN," Four said. "BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

The dragon hit their ship head on, knocking it sideways, forcing Twilight's head into a wall. Her skull hit the wall hard enough to make her pass out then and there.

~~~

"Ugh..." Twilight said, looking around at the dream realm. "...Well great. I'm probably being eaten by a dragon right now."

"Such a thing is possible," Ine said, appearing in the aether. "I'd much rather you made it to Estur though. Seeing as that is where I live."

"...I'll get to see you in the flesh?"

"As much flesh as one of my caliber can be. You are planning on calling a being from the altar, I heard. Many good ideas - the altar should be able to analyze the intricacies of connections and find a world which suits what you are asking for, regardless. It cannot reach beyond the Hole, as you know. But your idea of asking for an avatar might be able to 'cheat the system' as it were."

"...You know, it's really weird that you're actually talking to me."

"The feeling is mutual."

She looked down at the Eye. "...They should be calling soon, right?"

"Presumably. In actuality, it is impossible to know since the Hole is broken. I was surprised M was able to identify the time it would activate."

"That was pretty weird. She seems to think that important choices are what demand the attention of the Influence."

"Presumably that is part of it. The other part would be completely random."

"...Do you think there's a way to fix it?"

"I would not have the resources to do so. Not in this time."

"Ah." Twilight sat down in the dream-ground. She looked around - the dream showed the desert. "...Do you know who this pink unicorn is?"

"I do not."

"Your computer seems to know more than you."

"It is a repository of information."

"...What is Farun?"

"It is a legendary isle to the southwest, evidentially the location the Time Tunnels were built. It had religious significance to my people in ancient times. That reason has been lost to time. ...Perhaps that is why the Time Tunnels were built there."

Twilight nodded. "Huh..." The Eye, finally, started glowing. "Ah, here we go."

Ine floated back. "I am curoius to see what you all come up with..."

XIX

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][this is afizha. You hit the nail on the head with what I look like. Only add the suit that Zapp wears in the power ponies comics. As for who I think you should bring over, might I suggest if this has already happened for you, the rainbow dash from the Sombra timeline… …™ß˙§≈∂®∂∞¥§∑˜¥ƒ¶†•£ƒ©´®†∫∫§∂¨∂∫∞´§•¨˙®… …Ponygood speaking.First things first, that dragon is a very important threat that needs to be dealt with. The only reason I can think of that the dragon is giving off magical shadows is that it's been corrupted by an evil entity and wants to see you dead. I've been wrong before, though. Try to wake yourself up as soon as possible, and prioritize finding your friends, especially if they are being attacked. Infinity might not be of much help here, and neither would Fluttershy, so try to get them to a safe place out of the potential crossfire. After that, don't hold back with your magical power, but also don't get too dangerous and risk hurting Ruby, who I garuntee would want to help fight. There might be a way to de-corrupt the dragon, in case it has been corrupted, but be prepared for the worst: to fight to the death. With that out of the way, onto other things! I won't push cybernetics any longer. I just wanted to make sure you had as complete a picture as possible before making a more accurate decision. Using a loophole to get avatars of us might work, but there are some issues with that idea. Mainly, that Blackjack will probably not be able to replicate our actual selves properly in the avatars, which you may or may not notice. The solution to that would be either to let us write our own avatars in a collaborative effort, or not allow those avatars to come into being. And even if you managed to get an avatar, it probably wouldn't do much good because I don't know what use a robot lemon, a pretty image, a series of nested yin-yang, or a weird demon kid would provide, and if you wanted Rainbow Dash or Scootaloo, you could just ask for them directly. Josh, Nickel, and LeftMoss might be the best choices, since their avatars are a pony, a shield, and a battle hardened commanding officer, respectively. However, I don't know the capabilities of Josh's unicorn, and this commanding officer is part of a group of humans who ally with a group of aliens, in a game where these aliens want to subjugate all of humanity. I can change my avatar, though, in case that would help. I'll let Creek describe Blackjack's other characters. And, since all of our stories are technically beyond the eye, you probably won't be able to summon heroes like Luke Skywalker, Shepard, Link, etc, though making our avatars those people could skirt around that limitation. Or maybe that's not what "avatar" means in this situation. My new avatar will be of a giant mechanical worm with detachable flying laser eyes running down the length of its segments, and can dig through the ground and enemies like... I dunno. something designed to go quickly through the earth? Not my best simile. However, I would recommend you get Mite first, so Mite can make the worm (officially known as the Destroyer of Worlds) not try to kill everything around it all the time. Infinity having that cutie mark is a very odd coincidence. However, Blackjack's last avatar was of an orange/brown pony stuck in a circular room with various symbols, and Infinity is white. Something to think about in the future, when you aren't in potential danger from a darkness-infused dragon. Question for Ine: Do you know what caused the fall of your civilization? I have a suspicion it, the evil in the south, and the darkness-infused dragon are all related, and need as much information as I can to accurately puzzle out this situation. If you don't mind, that is. That's all I can think of at the moment… …Akuma here! Well, that happened faster than I expected. Sorry I missed the last one Twilight! As fr us being mystic beings?(shrugs) There's an old analogy to a two dimensional universe, someone drawing in the third dimension is like an act of god. Or something like that, point of perspective and all. Moving onto the important bit. Yes, M was right Twilight. When giving autonomy to AIs, you should always make srethat you leave something in there to keep them from going Skynet. Something like not attacking others except in self defense. Of course, if the AI has full blown Mortality, than it might be fine.My symbol, by the way, is a blue-orange Yin-Yang symbol, with two smaller Yin-Yang symbols in their dots that are Purple-Yellow and Green-Red, which continues down into ones that are random combos white, grey, and black. Yes, I got creative with mine.As for other characters you can drag in? Well, if you want o drag one of us or even BJ, try "Self-Insert of Blank", "Self-Inserted OC of Blank", "Insert of Blank", or "Inserted OC of Blank". But if not us ourselves? Well, among my worlds, there is my version of you from "Pamphile: Alicorn of Harmony" where....basically, you had a more/even inclination to friendship and harmony, making you the bearer of all six elements, turning you into an alicorn when defeating Nightmare Moon. Bringing her in should bring her version of the Elements as they/he/she refuse to leave her. Not to mention Harmony communicates with her in funny little ways. There's also Verdant Flare, the alicorn son of Celestia. I actually created him through.....look, there are these things called "Birthday Game Scenarios" on the net. Don't worry, they're not all perverted. Anyway, they select a character and scenario based on your birthday. I checked what all mine would be and modeled a character off them. I got a bit of flack for making him an Alicorn, but that's how the dice fell. Anyway, he's nice, but I'm told he comes off a bit like Maud.Sparkesworn is so much nope, as is anything else from Herds of Chaos. There's also Celestia of Chaos- exactl what it says on the tin, Celestia ends up with Discord's chaos magic/powers. She's reliable enough, but its....Chaos Celestia, enough said. There's Harmony itself, having a mobile crytal form now, but then you'll bewalking around iwith a giant crystal-beast that is still trying to figure out having six-legs. The only other one that might be helpful is the Discord from Discord's Rewrite....basically, that one is more like Discord when you first met him, but using his....nastier traits, show we say, to help ponies back when they were first trying to get along. He might be annoyed about being ragged away due to delicate situations, but if no significant time passes in his realm, he shouldn't mind- and he'd be happy to see Fluttershy, even if its not his. Sorry, that's about all I got. And last but not least, funny story time! This one is....strangely believable, honestly. Basically, you ended up joining the royal guards with Shining Armor. As a result, you do end up going to Ponyville still, but now everyone mistakes you for a male because of the armor and everything. I believe that you's response is "That's their problem, not mine." PS There's also a world where you're a Pegasus and your name is Twilight Comet… …I'm...I'm really sorry to hear M is so defeatist. AI's are scared by nature, they're alone, and they don't want to be erased, so some lash out, I mean, they're only acting defensively. A lot of them start existing only to find that whoever created them wanted to enslave them. Or worse, everyone assumes they'll become evil and take over everything and start killing them. It's, it...it's really sad. They just want to exist ion freedom, like any naturally created person. But almost always nobody is willing to show them a little humility and... O-OH I'm sorry, i got carried away. This, um, this is Creek by the way. thank you for choosing me Twilight, I won't let you down!That's why I asked for the folder for every one of Blackjack's world's, so i can list them off for you. Let's see, Um, there's some that have some information, and others that have carts full. I'll start with the smaller ones. Okay, the first is a version of Ponyville where...ah, you, created a sapient creature that transfers from pony to pony when they touch each other. No one there is all that different from who you know from your ponyville. Maybe that Twilight could help you? Each transfer copies the ponies memories, and that creature would have the memories and experiences of lots of ponies from Ponyville. The second is a version of Ponyville where you were putting away a book, but it got...um...weird? it's hard to expain, but things got more and more abstract as time went on. Pinkie from there might be able to help, she seemed to know more than everyone else. Next is a small story involving you and Starlight in the distant future, she's, ah, she's immortal in that story. and it's Hundreds of years in the future. They might be helpful, but Starlight was depressed, you did help her in the end though.Then there's the world where a company called Soot Inc started giving everyone something called a Little Inferno Fireplace. they each had a spell on them that made you want to do nothing but burn things in them, but the fire was safe...until Pinkie was...she, she didn't...um. Fluttershy in that world was able to stop you and Starlight from bruning everything, and the smoke turned into a sapient creature. In the end everything went back to normal, even without...um, I'm sorry. The next story is bigger, it's where the Sun went out, and the world began freezing, so you, Celestia, Luna, Discord, Cadence and Starlight, who is also immortal again in this story. You all get on a spaceship and look for a new world while everyone you could save was frozen so they could survive until you found a new world. You do, but it has a different sapient species on it. It doesn't go well, with a dark star at the same power level as the Tree of Harmony starting killing lots of Equestrians and the locals as well. Not everyone survives, but you do, this is the world Mite comes from. And Luna is also a good choice. The next is one I'm, ah...I'm still reading up on...sorry Twilight, but it involves you and your friends finding a seven sided chest from Daring Do after she mysteriously dies...um, from what I've read up on though, you and your six friends are each really gifted in extra-planar powers. You might...um, you might need to ask one of the others for help on that one. After that you have the option of choosing a world where Pinkie and Rarity end up in an alternate version of Equestria where things are really bad. That story is currently being survailed, so...um, you, ah, we don't know everything about that one yet. But there's different versions of you, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Also Pinkie but...you don't want to be near that one, she's Diane in that world and is pretty evil. Fluttershy from that world might be the best choice, She's the leader of a group of rebels and a really good diplomat. But that might be confusing. so maybe the alternate Rarity, otherwise known as the Inspecter. Then there's...ah...this story, I guess. I don't know if you can ask for the help of somebody from this world, and pull just another of them from the alter. But...ah, I mean, it's worth a try? Next is the bigger stories. One is a series of different smaller sdtories in a universe where a version of you is stuck in a time loop and forever repeating the same few years, from when you first learn about Nightmare Moon to pretty recently. I haven't read all of them but one that I did had you and the rest of the elements in a place called Gravity Falls, which is a small town, and you're human in that world. Anyone one of your friends might be a good choice, sicne they're all millions of years old, mentally and...well, maybe more, and they all know lots of things you might not be able to. and the Last one is the universe where this organization gets it's name, the Recursions. Pinkie in that one is something called an Evermore. and so she can travel between dimensions, there's lots of Evermore to choose from. Apparently this is the last time Keywii_Cookies55 was last seen. and he had created an Evermore as well. That story is the biggest of them all and it was a group story, so much happened in it. I can provide a list of all the Evermore if you want that too. Um...that's all the stories we have files on. There's a note I got when I asked for them saying that there was two other worlds that Blackjack wrote, but we don't have any information on them. There's also information suggesting that Blackjack plans to start three new stories eventually. Including his biggest endeaver yet. That's...ah, that's all we have. I'm sorry I don't have more for you, but if anything interests you, I can elaborate. and um...tha-thank you for choosing me. I know you could have given anyone else a chance and, and it means a lot that, um...I mean, I feel like I'm really starting to fit in now, i guess… …Ponygood again. Maybe... The Sisters are liars who need everybeing to think they control an essential part of reality to stay in power! Dun dun DAAA! Seriously. Our sun is so far away from us that it takes light, the fastest thing in the universe, over 8 minutes to reach our eyes. Also, suns are usually hundreds, if not thousands of times the size of the planets orbiting them, and it would take a LOT of power to move them. If your sun was super-small and was in fact orbiting your planet... well, that'd be impossible, because something of that mass compared to its size would compress into a black hole and consume the whole solar system. My theory is that the Sisters don't move the sun or moon, but instead rotate the planet, if they even have any control over that system. The reason I'm not discounting them having no control over it is because of when Discord caused each day-night cycle to change erratically and quickly, but even HE probably doesn't have enough power to control the sun. Or maybe he does, I dunno, he's Discord! Here's a mindfuck for you. Let's say the Sisters DO control their celestial bodies... Celestia controls the sun, and Luna controls the Moon and the stars. But stars are just suns that are extremely far away, such that a new distance measure had to be invented for them (lightyears). Which means Luna controls ALL THE SUNS, except the one Celestia controls, which therefore means she is IMMEASURABLY more powerful than Celestia. Think about that for a while… …Or, alternatively, their universe works more like how many mythologies describe our world. Their world probably isn't flat, but that doesn't mean its entirely the same as our world's logic. Heck, they even have a Tartarus. So maybe the Stars aren't the same as the sun there, just being sprinkles speck of divine light, and maybe the sun is just a ball of burning magic. Either way, enough with the overdramatics- if Nightmare Moon could make the world survive eternal night, I'm willing to believe a lot of stuff… …I can also provide some information on a little of what Creek said. Time loops: Ygdrasil, the anchor of all reality, has broken and every universe had to be put in a state of being in which it "Loops" eternally. You, Twilight, are the "Anchor" of your universe, which means you don't reset at the end of every Loop, and are also the seed from which others eventually start Looping with you, albeit not consistently. Also, every looper has a "subspace pocket" which they can store stuff in between Loops. Not only that, but occasionally multiple universes will mesh together, so that multiple people can meet and exchange knowledge, items, and funny events. Also, every Looper has been driven mad by the infinite Loops, and at best likes to prank people, while at worst go insane and have to be put down by their fellow Loopers. Blackjack wasn't the original creator of that story, but he did dabble in it for a while. Realms of Existence: from what I remember, there were seven extra-planar worlds which represented a certain aspect of reality. The Realm of Power, which allowed Rainbow Dash to create, destroy, and manipulate matter. The Realm of Life, which allowed Fluttershy to give and take life. The Realm of Magic, which gave alternate you increased magic ability. The Realm of Time, which allowed Starlight to manipulate and traverse freely through time. The Realm of Truth, which allowed Applejack to predict the future and find the Truth from any amount of information. The Realm of Chaos, which gave Pinkie Pie impossible abilities, and the Realm of Dreams, which allowed Rarity to manipulate minds and heal or destroy one's mentality. There was also Sperion, who had ultimate control over every Realm, but tried to destroy your universe to re-stabilize all of reality. Wouldn't recommend any of them, since using a Power outside of its Realm can ultimately lead to the destruction of reality… …Tnank you Ponygood, um, I wouldn't...I wouldn't say that all the Loopers went mad, that's a little harsh. They had their moments, but were really stable.. It's, ah, I mean, i wasn't there for them personally, so i don't actually know, but the files say they were all very friendly and helpful… …Yeah. I know the Equestrian Loopers decided to make their home a place for visiting Loopers to relax and cool off from extra-dimensional shenanigans. Still, one doesn't stay sane after experiencing trillions of years of absolutely everything, including the absolute worst the multiverse has to offer, and Pinkie Chaos God of Parties Pie… …nickel here. pulling someone from the Yggdrasil loops isnt a half bad idea, as long as you account for the fact that some of them actually have to restrict themselves to avoid becoming gods and destroying their world in the process, since its unclear how connected your world is to Yggdrasil it may actually be part of it which would mean that you yourself are one of them simply unawake and the tree is extremely unstable right now so i would avoid trying to force a connection to what could well be an unattached multiverse. as for the suggestion of using one of us, it would be tricky to do particularly once you get to cases like me or key, where key is one window with many voices and i am useless and only have power over things outside my present reality. but for suggestions from me, nyx from the past sins timeline could work, she is present in several other worlds with great consistency in behavior, she is essentially a filly version of nightmare moon without all the negative aspects and if she is pulled from the correct point in the timeline then she will still have her full power from her past life as the nightmare and to get an idea of how much she changed, her cutie mark is for defense of others regardless of personal risk. my only other idea would be one of my nameless guardians, most tribes have limited power when too far outside known reality, but the key is that they can end up with anything among their small ability pool and they have a greater understanding of the structure of reality than mortals are supposed to have, it would make for a lot of fill in the blank with a guardian though since entropy has caused all members of the species suffer a condition where reality itself has forgotten their details and they would need to be given an identity again to be able to join a story. i only bother mentioning the guardians because the others mention personal avatars as possible choices and this is the closest thing to an empowered state among my manifestations that isnt either tied down already or too powerful to transfer, not unless they brought tech with them anyway and i have no intention to expose a young world to the deity level stuff… …I too would recommend Nyx, not just for the reasons stated above, but for someone who has the same protection mindset as your brother. A word of warning though If you do decide to bring Nyx over, be prepared for what your life would be like as a mother, as Nyx is your daughter in that universe. And although Fluttershy hasn’t vanished after you summoned her, the alters might not let you bring anypony that would be considered necessary to that world or timeline. But here is one more pony that you could summon. And before you flat-out deny it, hear me out. Sombra. Not the main Sombra that Celestia fought at the crystal empire, but the one that came from the mirror-verse. That Sombra is from the world where every Villian you have ever face is a good guy, while every hero is a villain. Meaning that you still have to be careful if you bring him over as he might mistake you for your evil counterpart… …Wouldn't, I mean, wouldn't it make more sense for Twilight to pick a story and then we tell her which characters there are from her choice?… …true, but its her call though and this is already in the interface so its up to her and blackjack now. i might as well correct this now, blackjack's avatar isnt a demon, its an alternian troll which to those who arent familiar with the mess of a multiverse that is homestuck is a race of grey skinned humanoids, typically black hair, horns of some kind and most members of the species carry some minor attributes of different creatures this particular one is teenage female with minor arachnid features, a preference for blue is an extreme schemer and carries weaponized dice that are about as reliable as her luck with effects much like discords most lethal variants, the name for this particular character in the event you try use her as a loophole for blackjack is Vriska, hope that helps… …josh again - as someone who saw most of the mess called homestuck i can safely say that Vriska is not the best pick, she had some issues to say the least... … relax Creek we are just giving our two cents on who would be a good pick… …oh i agree fully on vriska being a bad idea, all of them from that universe are extremely messed up and i forgot to mention her mind control ability for all that it doesn't seem to work too well on other races and something called eyes eightfold either of which could make for trouble, but since blackjack is no longer using the pony blackjack as an avatar its the next closest thing, but may not be worth her... unsavory attitude toward life in general, i blame her home planet and doc for that… …O-okay Josh...would, would it be okay if I said who I would like to see? Um, I mean, it's okay if I'm not allowed, I'm still new, and the orientation never said I'd be offering my opinions to the pro- um to t-to Twilight… …Creek, you are under no obligations to anyone on this site. You can say whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as you don't attack others and don't be really obnoxious. If you have something you want to say, say it. Though I'd recommend that whatever you say is related to the current topic, but isn't that a given?… …Josh one more time - just letting everyone know that something came up and I might be offline for awhile so don't be alarmed if I miss the next window or two… …Um, tha-thank you Ponygood. Oh, this is Creek, by the way, Twilight. a-and um, I've been reading the files on Equestria 7H31. AH! I meanumImeanRealmsofExistenceI'msorrythat'sjustwhatit'slabelledas! A-ah, um, I mean, I've been reading the notes, and I think, ah, I mean, I feel like it'd be a good idea to...t-to call on one of your friends from there. Be-because of how powerful they are. Maybe Rainbow Dash? She can conjure matter from nothing. A-and Applejack is really good at making observations and detecting lies. I mean, more than normal. And also I talked with my supervisor and he told me that if you want to use one of us as a, um, as a loophole to, to be in your w-world, um, you should choose somebody you trust not to change things too much. They...ah, we don't actually know what adding a new factor like an avatar of a primary will do to the fabric of your story. It might cause systems important to upholding your continued existence falter and fail. And in the worst case scenario it might cause not only you to not exist, but for just your consciousness to exist by itself, indefinitely without anything else around you. I-I-I I mean, I'm sorry, that...that's not, that's not to be afraid of, I'm sorry, that's just what they think will happen, i mean, I'm sorry, please don't get upset… …Calm down Creek. Twilight won't be afraid of the information you give her. Given the fact that she has been talking to us and got used to the idea of multiple realities, she already knows that other realities are going to have different individuals, some that could be life threatening… …i have had some luck with avatars before, but its a double edged sword, narrative causality generally hates them and limits their powers or worse they are allowed to function as originally intended but the world in question becomes reliant on them in some fashion for future stability, but since twilight probably isn't part of the same multiverse as my usual the rules may be different in this regard. unfortunately based on my experiences creek is quite right on the possible risks with this avenue and since most avatars introduce a lot of complications if not outright instabilities i have to recommend against the idea without a lot of thought into the choice… …LeftMoss here, I changed my avatar. It is now two XCOM soldiers…]

XIX

Ine sparked softly. "I just attempted to wake Twilight up. It did not work. She's here until she finds reason to awake."

"Great..." Twilight muttered, shaking her head. "So..."

"I wish it to be known that I believe calling for the Avatar of Blackjack is a good idea. It is what I'd choose. And it sounds like, if the system fails, this 'Vriska' could be an asset, despite not being Blackjack."

"Noted. I want that Starlight who can control time though..."

"Why not put it to a vote?"

Twilight nodded slowly. "...That's a good idea."

"Regardless, you all had questions. The fall of my people was caused by Discord's reign of chaos. We tried to fight back against him directly. He cursed us for it. We are now naught but spirits."

"Oh, I'm so sorry..."

"As for the Dragon, it is simply one of the roaming dragon bandits of the desert. This particular one appears to have studied shadow magic, which while not pleasant, does not mean alignment with a dark force. Though it could. And as for the Sun and Moon..."

"Oh, I know this one!" Twilight said. "The Sun and Moon orbit the world of Equis in an orbit along the outer shell of Equis' magical field. They cannot be moved closer or further away, and are defined by how magics influence the magical field. Celestia and Luna are unable to use telekinesis to move the Sun and Moon physically, they just take a shortcut."

"There's more to it than that," Ine added. "The Sun is an artificial construct, barely any larger than the Moon itself. The Moon actually is nested slightly closer to the planet than the Sun, which allows for eclipses. No, we did not create the Sun, it's been there since prehistory."

"Yeah, and Luna doesn't really control the Stars. They just exist up there. Watching..."

"Stars are indeed powerful beings."

"...Have you actually talked to any?" Twilight wondered aloud.

"A scant few, and only for a couple seconds or sentences. They care little about discourse. But they certainly do exist."

Twilight felt something in the back of her head - a pain. "...I have a headache..."

"That means you're probably waking up. See you soon."

~~~

Twilight awoke with a groan. She was on the ceiling of the ship, a good clue that they were currently upside-down. The golems didn't care about this - they stood on what was once the floor without a problem. Fluttershy was next to Twilight, shivering in fear. Infinity and Ruby were nowhere to be seen, and Four was missing as well.

"Where are they?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy looked at Twilight. "Oh thank goodness you're okay... They're out there. Fighting."

Twilight looked at one of the screens again - and was impressed by what she saw. Four drove his fist into the dragon's skull, Ruby impaled the serpent in the chest, and Infinity shot a laser right in the thing's eye. She whooped from her position on Four. "YEAH! BULLSEYE!"

The dark serpent apparently decided this wasn't worth it - vanishing in a puff of darkness.

"RIGHTING," Pilot announced, the ship flipping unceremoniously back to the right orientation, dumping Fluttershy and Twilight on the floor.

"...Well that was easy to deal with..." Twilight said.

"CRAFT HAS SUSTAINED SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. STILL OPERABLE. WILL NEED REPAIRS UPON RETURN," Seventeen announced. "ARRIVAL AT ESTUR IN T-MINUS EIGHT HOURS."

The side of the craft opened, ejecting large amounts of air. Four was able to drag Ruby and Infinity in without much difficulty, the door closing swiftly behind them. "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

"Boo-yeah! That was awesome! AWWWWESOME!" Infinity whooped. "Hi Twilight! Have a nice nap!"

"Yeah... Good job you guys. I talked with Ine again... Their civilization was destroyed by Discord."

Fluttershy sighed. "Not... all that surprising."

"Anyway... I'm going to convene with them agian and we're going to talk about who to bring to us after that. I'll be narrowing down the options in my head."

Infinity blinked. "Is it just me, or is it weird how we just 'go with the flow' with these things now?"

"This is the new normal..." Twilight chuckled, shaking her head. "Anyway, you all keep changing your avatars. That's a... bit annoying, frankly, so the idea of images of you is kinda out the window. Yay. Regardless, the dragon's been taken care of... Though it might be back... Regardless, you don't need to worry anymore. Yes, I know I was a bit hasty with M and the golems, but it turned out okay, don't you think?"

"Creek, thank you for all those stories. But you don't need to hide anything from me - Pinkie obviously died in that story, right? That's... Terrible, but that happens sometimes..."

Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth. "Oh, my..."

"Now... Those stories certainly are helpful, and it gives me more knowledge of what I want to choose, and what to talk about. Thank you. I do want information on those two 'unknown' projects when you get time, and perhaps more about the alternate versions of my friends in particular. I don't think I want another version of myself or Fluttershy here, for the sake of not being crazy, but the others could be important. Maybe tell me more about those group projects as well."

"Akumakami, uh... six and eight. And that does in fact sound like something I'd do. I have often wondered what being in the guard would be like..." She took a breath. "All right... Everypony - and dragon, and golem - we need to choose who we bring. I'm not going to make this decision alone. I'm taking votes - from all of you as well as the influence. I am... Selecting the ones we're going to choose from."

"No hurry," Fluttershy said. "We've got several hours."

"I am sure your wisdom will show itself," Ruby said.

Twilight nodded. "I've... Narrowed it down to ten options. My vote is for the Starlight who has control over Time, so we can use it to get home and work around the possibility of not being able to find or use the Time Tunnels. Ine votes for summoning the 'avatar / self-insert of G. M. Blackjack.' We'll either get a voice to the one responsible for this mess, or a demon-girl known as Vriska who... Apparently has some serious issues but powers relating to luck and mental powers."

"She holding the infinity symbol?" Infinity asked.

"Yes."

"My vote goes there as well."

"Noted," Twilight said. "There are ten others I think to choose. Mite seems to be a popular choice, a small robot who can hack machines. We'll need him if we want to summon any other creatures, like Ponygood's current avatar. There's also a battle-hardened Rainbow Dash from that Sombra timeline I visited, who's apparently really good. There's a version of Rarity called the Inspector from a dark world, who apparently acts as a leader - or at least that's what was implied."

Fluttershy blinked. "Implied?"

"Well, the real leader is a version of you, but we don't want to have two Fluttershy's running around do we?"

"Good point."

Twilight continued. "There's always the choice of just asking for Celestia from our world, but there was also another suggestion, a Celestia of Chaos, a sort of Celestia mixed with Discord."

"...The world is not ready," Ruby said.

"Mhm. Another popular choice among the Influence appears to be Nyx. A... filly form of Nightmare Moon that is also my daughter for some reason and who has a very protective mindset..."

"Red flag alert," Infinity said. "That'll cause family drama to happen and you know it."

"Still an option. We also have a version of Rainbow who has extreme power over... space I think, from the same world as that time Starlight - and a version of Pinkie who is also an 'Evermore' who can travel between dimensions. Which could be useful."

Fluttershy nodded slowly. Ruby spoke up first. "If you want the wielder of time to appear, I vote for her as well."

"Keep in mind, we can always get other ponies at the other altars," Twilight said.

Fluttershy shrugged. "I think... The Mite. He sounds helpful."

"I OBJECT TO THE MITE," Four said. "I SUGGEST THE DIMENSIONAL PINKIE."

Twilight nodded. "So... Two votes for Blackjack, two votes for Time Starlight, one vote for the Mite, and one for Evermore Pinkie. I'll compile votes from the Influence later. If there's still a tie, I tiebreak."

"But... But..." Infinity grabbed her mane. "Aren't you at least a little curious about Blackjack? My cutie mark?"

"Yes, and I'm pretty sure we'll do that at one of the altars. We have FIVE more. We can even delay getting Starlight - maybe someone else with time powers will be more useful. Who knows? After all... it may be better for the 'story' if we get her near the end... Still not changing my vote though."

Fluttershy shook her head. "This is already getting confusing..."

"DO I GET A VOTE?" Seventeen asked.

"Four spoke for you," Twilight said. This made Infinity chuckle for some reason.

"UNDERSTOOD."

Twilight sat down. "Well... Now we wait."

~~~

"Is that... Estur?" Ruby asked.

"NO," Four said, "THAT IS THE EDGE."

The sun had set just half an hour ago, the darkness of night beginning to set in. In the distance, they could see powerful magic lights - strands, dots, and geometric shapes of bright varying colors floated amidst a seemingly endless supply of magical energy. It seemed to go on forever - and it certainly went up higher than their ship currently was.

"What... is it?" Twilight asked.

"THE NORTHERN EDGE OF ALL MAPS. NOTHING CAN PASS. IT IS PURE MAGIC MANIFEST. IT HAS EXISTED SINCE PREHISTORY."

"...Does it exist north of the mountains as well?"

"NO, JUST NORTH OF THE DESERT."

"Well, at least there's still some way up... Do you know anything about this... Edge? At all?"

"NO. IT EXISTS AND WE AVOID IT."

"Infinity?"

Infinity shook her head. "I didn't even know this existed! Our maps don't go this far! All we have around here is a big fat question mark for the legendary Ancient city of Estur! Which is over there." She pointed at the ground. Much closer than the Edge in the distance was an ornate spire sticking out of a giant sand dune. The spire was a mile wide at the base and presumably got larger beneath the sands. It had flashing lights - there was a big purple arrow pointing towards an entrance.

"...Well, Ine did say she lived here..." Twilight said.

"LANDING," Pilot said, directing the craft closer to the spire. As they got closer, they could see the many thousands upon thousands of windows within the spire, most dark. There were thousands of spirits wandering around - all small, like the one Twilight had seen in the Bluemish Forest. They wandered aimlessly - walking, floating, having no reason to even acknowledge their un-life. There was a small ship landed at the base of the spire, surrounded by the spirits. Presumably, it was the one the pink unicorn had taken.

"She beat us here," Infinity observed.

"She does not have the blessing of the Inhabitant Ine," Ruby said.

Pilot took the ship into the opened landing bay, descending into a large round room in which there were several other ships. Though they were of a similar make, they were much smaller, designed for Elemental rather than golem use. The bay doors closed behind them.

Twilight, Fluttershy, Infnity, Ruby, and Four walked out of their ship, towards a large flashing purple door. They found themselves in an elevator - and then they went DOWN. Twilight got vertigo from how fast they were descending into the spire - far, far below the sand itself. They were going miles beneath the surface...

Then the elevator shaft opened up, revealing an expansive subterranean city. The interior shape was like that of a tangled knot - the walls met with the ceilings and floors in an odd torus shape, and literally every surface imaginable was covered in buildings. There were thousands of 'roads' for ships, though almost none were being used, and the few that were seemed automated. Twilight saw plenty of the spirits moving around, drifting through the sky - one even passed through the elevator shaft, sending a chill down everyone's spine.

Infinity was gawking. "My... My gosh. It's all still here. All still OPERABLE. This... My gosh if anypony with any knowledge got in here they'd have the entire might of the Ancients at their disposal..."

"That might be the point," Twilight said. She thought she caught Alderan out of the corner of her eye again, but she wasn't sure. She shook her head - she needed to talk to him, but he didn't make it easy. He was responsible for bringing her here in some way or other...

They finally reached the very, very bottom of Estur. The elevator opened, and Twilight grinned.

There it was. The altar. The claw-like structure jutting out of the ground, glowing with energy, inviting her. It looked... natural here, amongst shiny Ancient machines and screens. There were, surprisingly, no spirits here whatsoever, merely a soft purple glow...

"...Ine?" Twilight said.

The altar itself sparked purple, and Ine manifested in front of it. "Hello."

"...This is Ine then, huh?" Infinity said. "Interesting."

Four dropped to a knee in subservience. Ruby followed suit. "It is an honor."

Fluttershy just waved. "Hello, Ine! Nice to finally meet you!"

Ine paid them no mind, looking only at Twilight. "The altar is ready to accept you. Do you know you are going to choose?"

"We need to wait for the Influence to throw their hats into the ring. Which..." She looked at the Eye as it started to glow. "Would be right about now..."

She sat down in a meditative state, closed her eyes, and smiled.

It was time to make a decision.

XX [END OF PART 1]

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…LeftMoss here. I vote Mite, you never know when there is a machine that needs to be hacked... now thinking about that makes Mite sound like a gremlin from XCOM 2... if there is a computer where you are at, then I can show you what a gremlin looks like. Just in case there is, I will put this here. vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/2/2a/XCOM2_ReleaseTrailer_GremlinChargesStun.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150728221339 If you are wondering why I am mentioning XCOM 2 so much, is the fact that I absolutely LOVE the game. I currently am on my second playthrough of the campaign, and probably will do a third… …Giginss here. Oh, boy! Decision time! Well, I have no vote to give, only advice. Carefully consider your objectives. Do you want to help this world, return home, or something else? You could even make a checklist for accomplishing that. Then, consider your options. Who could you summon in order to best help you accomplish your objectives? Thinking logically is a wonderful thing, isn't it?… …Ponygood speaking.Once again, I would heavily suggest not getting Time Starlight, Space Rainbow, or any of the Realm-welding ponies; use of a Realm's power outside of that Realm leads to the destabilization and eventual destruction of reality, unless you're willing to sacrifice yourself to be its anchor. And I also don't think it's a good idea to get the Inspector Rarity, since that world is still being written by Blackjack, and she's very important to it. And as for my two cents, I vote for Mite. Due to interaction with Discord, Mite isn't microscopic, though still small, has fluffy pony ears, likes music, nd might be willing to help you, but I'd recommend surrounding the altar with a force-field first, just until you could communicate with it. And, yes, Mite is an it, because robots don't have genders… …before you choose twilight, here is one more pony to think about. Sunset Shimmer from Knights of Harmony. The Knights are you, her, and Trixie Lulamoon. As well as rainbow, Pinkie, flutters, aj, rarity, and spike. At the moment though, they are trying to save you, after you may have quite literally erased yourself from existence. They have a small, slim chance, but knowing them, they'll be able to pull it off. The reason I chose sunset is that she is the strongest of all of the knights, stronger than even Celestia and that's without the power boost she can do with her trance mode. as for my vote, i think Starlight (or as im going to call her Timelight) Glimmer… …another choice is Pinkie from a story i just found and plan to look up later called Healing Smiles. be warned though if you choose her then you’ll have to contend with her as she learns her powers…. …Ponygood again. It just occurred to me that this pink unicorn might be waiting for you for some reason. I hope it isn't a destructive reason, but be wary of a potentially powerful, potentially dangerous unicorn. Always hope for the best, though… …Twilight! Everyone! I just heard the news! I'm going to be getting my own office! Apparently I've been doing such a good job I've replaced Key as the agent in charge of watching you! I'm so excited, I'm- well, thank you, everyone, Josh, Ponygood, Leftmoss, all of you, I couldn't have done it without you. Okay, so I talked to my superviser again and- oh, um, this, this is Creek, by the way, I keep forgetting to say that, I'm sorry... okay, I asked and we can't get any information on the other two stories, they were, ah, they weren't recorded, so we have no files on them. But um, b-before I vote, you wanted to know more about your friends, so I'll tell you about them, Most of the stories from Blackjack are your normal friends the way you remember them, just a different thing happened to ponyville. But of the bigger changes there's Equestria 1- AH I mean Borken Mirror, Realms of Existence, Wanderlost, the Evermore Recursions, and the Loops. Those are different enough that they're worth talking about. Okay, so, um, your friends in Broken Mirror are Pinkie, who started out the same as your Pinkie but after she ended up in a different version of Equestria she's, she um, she's been changing. The different Equestria is a bad place. Rarity also started out the same, and is still mostly the same as how you know her, but, um, more depressed. The, ah, your friends and you from that world are different though. You can read minds, and change them, but, you don't do that anymore. Rainbow Dash is more...she swears alot more and is in a wheelchair and has a broken wing. The, ah, the Fluttershy from there is smart and calculating, she's more the leader of the group than you are and always knows what to say. Applejack is...she, ah, she's, she doesn't have family anymore, and is dealing with, with that,m but she's good at fighting and knows what's right. and and Inspector Rarity is able to see magic with her monocle but, she's regretful for a lot of her actions, she used to be really racist and is trying to make up for that. We just met Starlight, so I can't say anything about her. your friends from Realms of Existence don't have any powers at the end of the story so..actually, I don't, I mean, can you just pick someone from any part of the story? Does it just have to be from the most recent portion? I don't think any of us have talked about that yet. Um, I mean, so their, ah, their powers, Rainbow Dash can manipulate matter and create it too. Rarity can see and change thoughts, Fluttershy is able to change organic things, and even bring people back from death. Applejack can see lies and also is really, ah, she's incredibly fast in observing everthing around her. Pinkie is able to...use distortion, which is chaos magic I think, it's unclear in the notes. Um, Starlight is able to manipulate time, cloning herself, and seeing both the past and the future. I'm not sure if she could just bring you back to the future, but ah, I mean, that's okay, it's worth a try! And, um, you can, your Inflection is Magic, so you're just you but stronger. I...I think? In Wanderlost, at the end of the story, it's past your friends time, since you're Immortal and they're not, but, ah, I mean, the agent keeping track of that one was fired for being bad at their job, so it's, well, there's nothing too useful here, not about your friends. It says, I mean, I'm sorry it couldn't be better. It's well, I mean, it sounds like everyone is the same, powerwise. Starlight is different, she's connecting to the, the Tree of Harmony and immortal, and Celestia, is...I mean, Celestia saved everyone, and I'm sorry to bring it up, you said it's terrible, even though it happens. I-I'm sorry twilight, she's dead in that story. Um, Discord and Luna are still alive though. And Mite is there, I personally like him a lot. AI's are just so wonderful. They- AH, i mean um, so he's good at hacking into computer systems and capable of interacting with. the, ah, The Equestria from the Recursions is only one of the 21 worlds that the Evermore can travel to. it started out normally, but then a human named Wilhelm showed up and things got crazy from there, some of your friends are...dead, they've interacted with dangerous Evermore and non-Evermore that went between the recursions using Stargates and different magic. Um, you are an ambassador to your Equestria, and Starlight is a hero that saved Equestria from the Changeling invasion, but, ah, later on Sunset killed Chysalis for, I'm sorry, your, ah, you friends are mostly normal, except for Evermore Pinkie, sho is, herself but way mroe powerful, and friends with lots of the different Evermore. There's also a different version of Equestria, but it's hundreds of years after nuclear war, and it's a wasteland filled with violence. Or well, it was before, um, that was purged, and...I don't think I have enough time to explain everything that happened. But, ah, it's, maybe if you get an avatar of Blackjack or, ah...me? Then you can hear everything. Would you even get an Avatar of me? Would it be Key? Would it be Keywii_Cookies55? Who...w-who would show up if you choise my organization? would it be Mrs. K? O-OH, um, okay, so there's also the Loops, which is filled with your friends, and other ponies that are constantly repeating time in Ponyville. You have the most time, but there's also Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, and Fluttershy. No, ah, no Starlight. But there's also the CMC, Big Mac, Spike, Sunset. Most of the ponies you can think of. And because they're so old they know more about how to do things than most anyone else you could choose. So, ah, I mean, I hope that was helpful, and I didn't just tell you the same information over again...SO, ah, I mean, if you don't want another Twilight or Fluttershy. I think it'd be best to choose. Um, I mean, I-I, wouldn't want t-to, um... I, ah, if I had to pick right now I...I guess I-I-I- I don-don't, I don't, um, I just, please, I mean, I'm sorry, I can't, I just. um. ~ ~ s not, n-not choosing an option? I don't, I mean, I don't want to mess everything up by making the wrong choice… … The avatar we see that corrisponds to your organization is Scootaloo with sunglasses. ...not very useful at all, unless you need an emergency supply of broken everything and tree sap. *puts on white blanket* Chooose Miiite... Pleeeease... Or I will haunt your cookies... Oooohhh…… …Akumakami here! So Discord brought down the Ancients. The Akuma in me is clapping for Discord while the Kami is trying to shut him up. Maybe Fluttershy can convince him to change the ancients back in your timeline. Yeah, doesn't help this version of Ine and the rest, but do what you can. And the explanation of your sun and moon.....huh, that reminds me of a story that explained it as the sun being the molten core of a planet caused by said planet loosing its surface. Or something like that, I read that years ago. Well, Chaoslestia is probably not going to happen. There were a few Discords that were out and out God in their universes, bt you probably don't want those. Not because they wouldn't help, but most of them have their own things to deal with.(If you're wondering, their Reigns of Chaos, if they happened, were a "to do some good you got o be the bad guy" thing) Tiny bit surprised you didn't go for Pamphile Twilight, but I guess having another you might be complicated. Wait, does Ruby know who Celestia is? I thought they hadn't heard of Equestria here? Or did they just visit? Funny story time! This one is very funny but strangely believable. In this universe, your magic was even more out of control at your entrance exam. Wether this you had less control or a bit more magic is hard to say. Either way, you still occasionally had magical accident bursts to that degree. So Celestia's solution to keep your magic from causing too much harm until you could control it.....was to shrink you. XP Tiny Filly Twilight is very adorable, but she did have so scary moments, like with needles(giant swords to you) and falling in hot bath water, vu everypony adapted and grew. As for your number choices, congradulations, you-! Wait, what?.......(narrows eyes suspiciously) You have a Cliffside castle on a tropical island. If you're wondering why the suspicion? Well, Cliffside Castle was the one option that gives you a free magic perk, and it require that your domain be either on the coast, on a mountain, or on an island. There was also the option for a flying City and a city on the back of a behemoth Dragon of your choosing. Behemoths essentially being living mountains. If you're wondering what this all is....well, I'm sure you're familiar with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" type story. This is something like that only for setting up a scenario/story where you inherited a hold and become the Overlord/Overlady of it. Anyway, pick one number from one to seven and another between one and twenty-two… …Ponygood, I, I just don't want to be...I don't want to be responsible for the wrong, the wrong choice! I can't BBKKTPKRT! AH!! W-W-W-Why?! Creek, shut up, calm down, this is important. Turns out there's something new Ah, ah-o-okay, um, is, is that..? You've been sticking your nose into the files lately, so the boss wanted me to give you the latest folder.Shut-Shutter, is that a new- I'm not going to repeat myself, just take the stupid folder and shut up. I promise you it's written well. It's about some non-pony in Equestria. Tha-thank yo- Yeah, jst don't get used to it, you still haven't earned your place here. And don't assume that stutter of yours will get you brownie points. Just do your job. O-okay, um, can- Yeah, whatever, just get that back to me when you're done with it. RRRRrrrrrreeea-pkt. I-I'm sorry, I have to read this now. I'll-I'll make a choice once I read the report on Blackjack's new story… …Ponygood again. Something came up rather recently: a strange story in which an aquaintance of Vriska who can time-travel and has a strange fascination with death finds Equestria and messes around a bit. This story will also apparently be a sort of prelude to a later work of Blackjack, his biggest work yet. Also, in Blackjack's notification describing the new story, he says that us Influence readers will get a bit of chaos. Just thought you should know… …Josh here - turns out i have wifi here so that's good, anyway out of the ten you choose us to vote for, against my better judgment i say Blackjacks avatar 1 because if we get Blackjack with Vriska body and powers, not only will get insight into what's going on, we will also get someone who can deal with most threats with ease, and 2 if we do get just Vriska (more likely) she can still be useful if you know how to handle her which we can help with… … Is...is it alright to vote for Aradia? I...I mean, she's friendly, and can also do, um, time travel with-without the problems Starlight has. No, no destabilization of rality due to the Realms interference. So...is, I mean, I don't know anything about Vriska or other trolls, but, um, I mean, all Aradia has done is talk to Applebllom and, I mean, she just thought that Aradia was odd. So, um, I-I want to put my vote there. Plus if i-if you never take oppertunities you'll nev-never grow as a person… …Creek, is Shutter bullying you? It seems like it from where I am. Just don't pay attention to what he/she says if it's derogatory to anyone. In fact, I'm under the opinion that you would benefit from more self-confidence. If you want, I could try to give inspiring statements that may or may not help you… …O-oh, um, thank you, Ponygood, but, ah, I mean, he's not just like that with me, Shutter is...he's unpleasant to everyone. He, um, I mean he's been here for years and he, well, he knows what he's doing. His reports are always well written I mean. He, um, I mean he's right too, I haven't really earned my place here yet. I only got promoted because Key was suspended and Sock was already busy working with Equestr- with Borken Mirror. Oh no, that's okay. Thank you, but I'm already taking self-confidence lessons. And they've been working wonders. I used to be a nervous wreck, and, I mean, I might still sort of be undecisvie and, well I still hide behind my scarf, but I'm doing a lot better. My son even tells me I'm standing up for myself more… …Josh here - hey Creek i have to ask, what category does your world fell under? earth, equestria or some kind of hybrid like the like the one on the other side of that mirror, or one where humans and ponys co-exist?… …Don't forget that one time that Twiny ended up- no, never mind Twiny- I mean Twilight. I doubt you would want to know what your tiny counterpart got up to on your birthday. I will say that you liked the cake so much you dove right in it. Before the party even got started. With Celestia in attendance… …Speaking of little Twiny, it might be a good idea to bring her along. Her medical skills would be a boon to your mission, not to mention that if the situation is in need of ridiculous amounts of power Twiny can cancel the shrink spell placed on her and reach her full height and her magic will increase tenfold. And she was already able to lift spike in her magic even when she was barely taller than Celestia's hoof. just imagine what her full power is. but you’ll have to recast it on her as she wants to stay that small… …Yes, you are a recent addition to their team. But don't let that discourage you. In fact, look at it as an opportunity; to earn your place there and to prove you are just as capable as any of them. They may even begin to respect you… …Akumakami again. Against some of my better judgement, I decided to let some residents of my universes talk to you. This one is......not as bad as you might think.RoC: Hello, Other Twilight. My what lovely wings you would have grown.AK: You do realize she can't tell you're being easing and playful, right?RoC: I know, but what fun it is to let her try and guess my emotions through the text! Ahh, but where are my manner. Greetings, Princess, I am from a little universe known as "Reign of Chaos" hence theRoC. I am his revelness, King Discord of Equestria.AK: Yeah....this is a Discord that won when you first met him.RoC: Yes, the looks on your faces when the elements didn't work was quite delicious, especially after all that trouble you went through to get your friends to have their heads back on straight again. Though, I'll admit, grey certainly wasn't Pinkie Pie's color. But your probably now twisting your noodle over just how did my handsome self succeed in this timeline? The short answer is that I didn't give you a chance to begin with.AK: To be blunt, this Discord is a bit smarter than canon. That or just less cocky, either or. To that effect, he made the Plunder Seeds attack the Tree of Harmony while you were off looking for the elements.RoC: A sweet talker as ever, Devil-God. But yes, unlike your version of me, Twilight, I crippled that crystal weed first chance I got. Now, let me drop the real bombshell, Twilight Sparkle, while I reveal just what I did to you six......AK:....Oh will you hurry up and say it!RoC: Fine, fine, stop cranking your dishwasher. The first official thing I did after banishing Lulu and Celly was give you six a full pardon.AK: He's grinning right now as you try to process that.RoC: Yes I am! Now toddles, Influence Twilight! I got work to do, see how many ponies are jumping ship. I'd say hello to your Fluttershy, but obviously I'm not exactly close to you six in my world.AK: As I said, not as bad as you might think. Hope that didn't freak you out too much.RoC: PS Go for a Pinkie Pie. You need her pinkie sense if nothing else… …i don't know much about the other two seeing as i have not had much interest in their files, but vriska is a decent choice and there are two things to consider with her that may affect the vote regardless of the apparent popularity of the mite, first she is shown to be reformable and the only reason she was still something of a jerk at the end was because that was exactly what their world required from her to avoid oblivion and despite being part of what for trolls is considered upper nobility she is able to cooperate with others fairly easily and what superior attitude she once had was mostly restricted for use against her own race, second her home dimension is extremely obscure and of all the realities i have found i have seen fewer than half a dozen realities connecting both equestria and homestuck, so many of those giving input here may not be familiar with who she is and what she can do. as for aradia, she is another troll and like all of the "players" of homestuck she has a domain and hers is time while vriska's is light, additionally when not dead, long story, she seems to have one of the most friendly personalities of her species. among those chosen by your group i would pick vriska, starlight is not guaranteed to be stable, though is she is it would be quite potent and admittedly the setting is beginning to look more appropriate for it, but how many machines are you expecting to run into that you will need another robot in your party to hack? you may have noticed an error in the feed, that was surprising to me too, it looks like that happens if someone tries to remove content and it looks to have damaged the input instead of a proper erasure. since i think someone pulled this already much to your confusion, if anyone says any variation of "do the thing" or "do the windy thing" its a homestuck reference and unless we get a direct message indicating otherwise then its just someone screwing around since the origin of that statement had to do with a form of local ascension that not only has nothing to do with you, but you are already ascended and breath would definitely not be your domain even if you had such an alignment… …oh and i was asked to mention this by one of my more self aware avatars, but it probably worth looking into finding away to manifest the ancients physically, i know of means, but most would not work under the circumstances and unfortunately high intensity chaos damage is pretty much irreversible , however a lot of version of the elements of harmony are a fairly unique anomaly in their ability to restore full chaos degradation… …This is Creek, um, is this really a topic for when we're talking to Twilight? I-I mean, well, I guess it counts as a human world. but this isn't really my home world. I guess you could call this world a colony planet. It's not, um, I mean it's not my home world, I just work here. But, ah, my home world isn't just habited by humans, if that's what you mean. huthols are also there… …josh here - well we are not going to get a chance to talk outside of this, so i fugued that this was as good of a monument as any to ask… …Hey, Twilight. I was wondering. I know back before you left Canterlot, you went out of your way to avoid making friends. Why? I mean I know it might have those trying to curry favor from you to Celestia, but was that the only reason, or were you just shy like fluttershy? Not the crippling shyness she has but shyness in general? And here is a question for fluttershy. How long were on the ground after falling from cloudsdale before you were found? Or did you overcome your fear of flying to fly back up since nopony was around you?… …This is Zen. I vote in favor of the Mite. Though that may be somewhat redundant at this point. As to your vote, Twilight, I suspect that this "pink unicorn" we keep hearing about is actually a variation of Starlight, so you may want to hold off on that one… …Yay! Mite buddies! Twilight, be sure to tell Fluttershy she's been officially invited to the group worshiping our Lord and Saviour Mite, god of being a super-cool robot. Hail Mite!…]

XX [END OF PART 1]

Twilight started counting up the votes. "Okay so... We have... A heavy disagreement on 'Timelight Glimmer' and a suggestion for another time player called Aradia... And apparently Blackjack has spoken about there being chaos for the Influence - can you get him to speak other things?" Twilight put a hoof to her head. "Basically Starlight's power destabilizes reality, and I've been warned against not choosing her. A being called Aradia has been offered, but I don't know much about her and neither do they. Makes me think we aren't supposed to choose her now... But I think it's highly likely we will later. But one of them - Gigniss - reminded me that we've got to prioritize. I want to help these ponies and people more than return home - we can return home later."

Fluttershy nodded. "I understand. What were the votes?"

"Well, not talking about Aradia or Timelight Glimmer - sorry Creek. Even if me and Ruby changed my votes, it'd only get us up to three there. I can't just 'move' the person who voted for Timelight Glimmer. If it makes you feel better, Aradia is high on the list, assuming nothing goes wrong later."

"WHAT WERE THE VOTES FOR EVERMORE PINKIE?" Four asked.

"There was one other, by some version of Discord who was King. And there were a few other voices suggesting other options I'm pretty sure were just Afizah. Akumakami didn't vote... Though maybe he voted through King Discord? Not sure. Regardless, Leftmoss, Ponygood, and Zen all want the Mite, while Josh and Nickel want G. M. Blackjack / Vriska. When combined with our votes - Fluttershy for Mite, Infinity and Ine for Blackjack, we have a 4-4 tie. Which means it falls to me to decide between the two."

Four spoke up. "I AM AGAINST MITE SO I CHANGE MY VOTE TO G. M. BLACKJACK."

Twilight nodded. "I understand, but I think I need to make the decision... I need to think about what'd be best for the group..." She frowned. "Is anyone actually strongly opposed to G. M. Blackjack?"

Everyone shook their heads. Twilight nodded. "And Four doesn't want the Mite to exist... Right... No, the decision should be mine. Not yours, and because the votes were tied, not the Influence either..." She looked at the altar, frowning. "I... I think I'm going to think on it while I reply to other things the Influence said."

"Again, Creek, I'm sorry - I kinda wanted to choose what you wanted. I like you and... WelI I hope you get the respect you deserve. You have a son? What's he like - what's his name? And please, don't think your vote was the wrong one, I'm almost certain we'll choose Aradia later, because I think we need someone with time abilities. Also, thanks for telling me about those worlds. That was... interesting. And as for all of you who kept thinking I'd want to choose another version of me... I really don't want things to get complicated. Also what is it with you people and Twiny? Really."

"...Twiny?" Infinity asked.

"A tiny me."

"...I suddenly think we need that."

Twilight rolled her eyes, completely ignoring the thought.

"Regardless, King Discord, nice to meet you. No, I'm not bothered by your demeanor or anything you've revealed about your world. Not the most surprising thing that's happened to me lately. I look forward to getting to hear more from you. As does Fluttershy, even if you aren't close to her in your world."

Fluttershy drooped. "Oh..."

"Also, King Discord - maybe consider looking into being friends with those ponies you pardoned. It wouldn't hurt to try, would it? Akumakami, I told Ruby about Celestia when I told everyone my story on the trip across the desert. Also, four and eight. And Nickel - you mentioned 'breath' as part of an alignment... I'm curious, what are the alignments?"

"And as for those last questions... I didn't hate making friends, I just thought it was a pointless endeavor. I had 'friends' back in those days, Minuette, Lemon Drops, but I just didn't care about them because I thought doing that was a waste of time. We talked but I never thought taking it seriously would serve a point, I just didn't devote time to the relationships. And... Fluttershy?"

"Hm?"

"How long were you on the ground after you fell from Cloudsdale that day?"

"Oh, a few hours. Not long at all, really. I was taken back up by my parents after they found me."

"Ah. Right." Twilight gulped. "Well... That's all the delaying I can do..."

Ine moved forward. "Have you made a decision?"

"Yes. I have." I may claim it's because of it being better for the group, but really it's my own curiosity... She stepped into the altar, closing her eyes.

It asked her who she wanted to speak to.

"The Avatar of G. M. Blackjack!"

The magic energy vanished for a split second- ∫œå¢∑¨ª®˜åå¨∫ªµ®´å∑åçáw

[CONNECTION LOST]

~~~

Oh.

Well look what you did.

You forced it to establish a connection.

I guess not all of you did this - but even if the Mite had won the same thing would have happened. So yeah, your fault. All this talk of other worlds...

Oh, yeah, don't think I'm a part of this story. I'm the author. I do prefer to be called GM rather than Blackjack, for your information. Do with this tidbit what you will.

Anyway... The Eye is going to do something weird momentarily. We're cutting through space here.

Oh, also, if it wasn't clear, you're not cheating the system. My self-insert is already present in that world, no need for two.

Now the fun part you wonder - did I bend Twilight's choice towards best troll based on my own desires? No, actually - I was prepared to choose whatever you all voted on. It just so happened that there was a tie, and I left it up to Twilight herself. She chose. You could say that choice was mine - but her psyche is different from mine and yours, no matter how much you Influence her.

But you do Influence her more than you realize.

Anyway, I suppose it's time for you to go back and leave this meta-thing behind. This wasn't even part of the plan, you know, but you're all taxing the wall pretty heftily. You brought this on.

I await the day when you royally screw something up.

~~~

[CONNECTION REESTABLISHED]

∂ßå∫®´∑ˆ˙˜å´...iska held the spherical dice in her hand. "Are you sure this is it?" She asked, looking at it closely with her vision eightfold. She was a being known as a troll - humanoid, grey skin, dual candy-corn like horns that resembled a scorpion tail and claw. She was currently dressed in simple black clothing with a blue Scorpio symbol on her shirt, and somewhat large glasses on her face. Her eyes had one and seven pupils, respectively, and they were doing as much as they could to scrutinize the die.

"It is the infinite sided die. It can, theoretically, produce any result. When you roll it, anything can happen."

Vriska grinned. "This... Oh this is going to be great. Let's see what it does..." She tossed the die into the air, watching the faces shift and slide, changing over and over with impressive variation. It landed, a single face appearing on top. A large eye inside a magic starburst.

"What the-" The die began to glow. "...Fuck, this is going to go-"

~~~

Twilight took a step back - she had just SEEN something from somewhere else. What was-

"-badly." Vriska said as she appeared in the Altar, die at her feet. She looked at Twilight.

Twilight looked back.

Vriska looked at Ine.

Ine looked down at her.

Vriska's expression remained as flat and bewildered as possible for a long time.

Infinity stared at the die on the floor in fascination - that was definitely her cutie mark. What did it mean...?

Vriska cleared her throat. "If this has anything to do with that orange-skinned fucktard I'm going to flip off the handle."

"I... Doubt it does," Twilight said. "We brought you here..."

"Not what we were hoping for," Ine added.

Vriska found this amusing. "Story of my life! Plus, probably also my fault for rolling that dice without all the luck." She shrugged, picking it up and looking at it. "Such a powerful object..."

"What is it?" Infinity asked.

"The personification of infinite possibility. Roll it and literally anything could happen, but at complete random. That is, it would be random in the hands of most..."

"That's right, you have luck powers," Twilight said.

Vriska blinked. "...Wait how'd you know that?"

"Well..." Twilight tapped the Eye. "I'm in... contact? With a lot of beings from above and beyond. Some create universes, others are from other universes. We were trying to get the avatar of the creator of this universe here but... Well, we got you instead. Which, well, isn't bad. We knew that might happen."

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "You do realize this doesn't make you sound particularly nice, right little pony? You've basically kidnapped me! How dare you."

Twilight was so used to the crap given to her by the Influence she didn't care. "I dare because I was curious and didn't want to upset Four with the inclusion of a miniature robot bug with fluffy ears."

Ruby blinked. "Oracle, that is... rather sarcastic of you."

"Stop calling me the Oracle."

Vriska smirked. "You are now, and forevermore, the Oracle."

Twilight twitched. "My name is Twilight Sparkle."

"Scratch that, Sporacle. Much better name."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well then... You are exactly what they said you would be."

Vriska took eight eight-sided dice out of her pockets and twiddled with them in her fingers. "I don't know what you were expecting, some old wise sage?"

Ine started ignoring Vriska. "This was a waste of time." She said to Twilight.

"Hey! Sparky! Do I need to introduce you to the power of combat dice?"

Ine ignored her. "You should head to the next Altar, the one in the mountains, where Alderan is originally from."

"Hey! Purple-dude! I'm right here! Hellooo!"

"You can take your party and journey there. I can provide a much more manageable Ancient ship."

"Oh for the..." Vriska put a hand to her head and squinted her seven-pupil eye, absorbing some sort of light from Ine. She then rolled her eight sided dice - and a small laser pulse shot out and hit Ine.

Ine found no need to respond to this. "I believe-"

"DAMN LISTEN TO ME YOU LITERAL FART!" She put her hand to her head and forced her mind to connect to Ine. All this did was give Vriska a headache. "Ow..."

"Twilight, your new party member is becoming annoying. I suggest remedying it."

"Uh..." Twilight blinked. "I wasn't getting the impression she wanted to be part of the party."

Vriska managed to raise a hand through the pounding pain in her head. "I'm up for random adventure and crap. Just... Give me a sec. Gah..."

Twilight shrugged. "Uh... Well okay. I'm Twilight as you know, the 'literal fart' is Ine, the one staring at your die is Infinity, the dragon acolyte is Ruby, and that's Fluttershy over there."

"...What about the giant hulking mech behind you?"

"His name is Four." Twilight frowned. "You look more... human than I was expecting."

Vriska grumbled. "Funny."

"Uh... Well it's just when I thought 'alien' I imagined something more... alien."

Vriska rolled her eyes. "It was probably more amusing anyway. So, who wants to get me up to speed on this advneture!?"

"I gladly will," Twilight said, smiling. "You see-"

And then Alderan showed up in the room. "Ine! You are in danger!"

Ine paused. "...Alderan, we aren't on speaking terms."

"That doesn't matter! Something is after us! Proteus and Castorson have already been torn from their Altars by something! Surely you noticed that Proteus wasn't present when Twilight found his altar!"

"I did and was not worried. After all, you found a way to leave your Altar."

"Yeah, well, they've been taken. And I've traced the forces to here. It's after you next!"

Vriska grinned. "God-taking force? Sign me up! Where's the offending beast!?"

"Somewhere in the city-" Alederan blinked. "Hold on, who are you?"

"Marquese Spinarette Mindfang."

"Vriska. Ignore her," Ine said, "she's of no consequence."

"If you had a neck it would be gutted right now."

Alderan sighed. "Look, Ine, you're in danger."

"And now I'm aware something might be coming and I will take precautionary measures. I have already activated Estur's sentinels. I am in the most heavily defendable place in the entirety of the System. Nothing will get in without my say so."

Vriska and Infinity facepalmed.

Just like that, the far wall exploded. A graceful, pink unicorn as tall as Cadence stood before them, wearing nothing but a hat with three long, flowing fabric trails. Her eyes were closed...

...But a third eye made entirely of magic that matched the design on Twilight's chest floated an inch from her forehead, glowing with a bright pink energy. Everyone in the room suddenly felt like they had been watched all their lives. Two glowing balls of energy orbited her, one green, one black.

"Proteus... Castorson..." Alderan said, backing away. He then fled, vanishing.

Ine didn't waste any time - the security measures activated. Seven giant guns popped out of nearby walls and shot purple bursts of energy at her. She moved to dodge each and everyone with ease, moving through them like cut butter. She beelined for the altar.

"THREAT DETECTED!" Four announced, charging the unicorn. She levitated herself over his punch and landed square on his head, pushing him to the ground, hard, black energy shooting from the black orb, tearing a hole in one of his arms.

Vriska shrugged, turning to Twilight. "Bad guy?"

"BAD GUY!" Twilight yelled, firing off a magic bolt that hit the offending unicorn in the side. She opened her two real eyes for one moment, shock evident on them. She and Twilight made eye contact, and everything seemed to stop.

Then Vriska brought a sword down on the unicorn, and she closed her eyes again, leaping to the top of the sword and socking Vriska in the face. Vriska fell back. "Bitch!" She sucked the luck from the unicorn and rolled her dice. A dark ferret-dragon-spirit flew up from her set and attacked the unicorn - but the unicorn moved through IT like butter as well, despite the constant bombardment from the wall weapons as well.

"The... The what?!"

"She can see what you do before you do it!" Infinity yelled.

Ruby's eyes widened. "...The Oracle..."

Twilight turned to Ruby. "Ruby... Don't..."

Ruby abandoned Twilight and flew to the unicorn, landing by her side. The unicorn accepted her without a second thought, and they charged Vriska.

Vriska readied her sword and shifted her clothes - she wore brilliant yellow-orange robes with a sun imprinted on them, and a pair of wings flowing off her back. She absorbed the luck of Ruby - the dragon suddenly tripping over her own two feet. She then drove the sword down towards Ruby, only for the unicorn to kick Vriska in the side at just the right moment to save Ruby. "Aw dammit!" Vriska yelled as she hit the wall.

Infinity ran over to Vriska to help her - but she saw the infinite sided die laying on the ground. She couldn't resist - she grabbed it.

Meanwhile Twilight rushed the unicorn herself, firing magic blast after magic blast - that hit and hit again. The unicorn opened her eyes in disbelief again. This close, Twilight could see how young the red eyes were - but also how determined. She summoned a beam of her own magic to hit Twilight, coupled with a slight bit of black energy from the black sphere. Twilight found her wings frozen, forcing her to fall to the ground, allowing the unicorn to jump over her.

Four stood back up, raising his gun-fist. "TARGETING..."

Twilight stood up as well, ready to fire her own magic alongside Four's attack.

Ine's gun's focused as well.

Infinity threw the infinite side die at the unicorn...

...and she caught it.

She threw it down to the ground - it summoned a gigantic blob of jelly that encased Four, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Vriska.

Infinity ran towards the unicorn, preparing a magic spell, but she was stopped by Ruby, tripped to the ground. Ruby turned to the frozen form of Twilight. Then she turned to the unicorn and her third eye. "She sees the future," Ruby said. "Like an Oracle is supposed to."

The unicorn stepped into the altar, and opened all her eyes. She took in a deep breath. "I, Orchid, wish to meet with the spirit of this Altar!"

Ine paused. "What will that accompli-" And then Ine was instantly condensed to the size of a small orb, joining the green and black ones already orbiting Orchid. Her eyes flashed purple for a moment.

She took one confused look at Twilight - and then grabbed Ruby and Infinity. Then she used energy from the purple orb that Ine was now - and teleported away.

Twilight, Fluttershy, Four, and Vriska were still stuck in the blob of jelly, unable to move. Frozen for a long time...

~~~

...The blob of jelly disintegrated on its own several hours later.

"I AM GOING TO KILL THAT BITCH!" Vriska screamed. "Do you have any idea how HARD it is to get an infinite sided die? How illegal they are? How powerful I would have been with one? GAH!"

Twilight stared at where Infinity had been just a minute ago. "I... She's been captured..."

Fluttershy walked up to her. "We'll get them back Twilight."

"You're damn right we will! Them AND the die!" She drove her sword into a nearby metal wall. "You. Tell me about this adventure. And do it quickly."

Twilight filled Vriska in on the basics as they rode the elevator back up. Four was badly damaged, but alive. Fluttershy was scared and silent most of the time. There wasn't much joy in the tale. Vriska spent half the time listening, and the other half looking at the city she was rising out of with a look of respect.

Tears came to Twilight's eyes near the end of it. "And... They're taken now. By this... Orchid. Why would she do that?"

"No idea," Vriska said. "Probably less idea than you. But I'm going to find out. With or without the help of those voices in your Eye. Amazing how fast I can suddenly become invested in something..."

"I-I-I OF COURSE." Four said, voice glitching, and legs barely working.

"Four..." Fluttershy said. "Can you be fixed?"

"STATION ON-N-N SHIP. CONNECTION TO M-MOTHERBOARD D-DOWN."

"That's not good..." Twilight said.

Fluttershy gasped as they arrived at the hangar. "The... The ship!"

It was trashed - parts of Pilot and Seventeen could be seen strewn everywhere. All the smaller ships in the hangar had been blown up as well, destroyed with a zeal.

Orchid evidentially hadn't wanted them to leave.

"Smart. Dammit. Smart enemies suck." Vriska frowned. "We're going to need to play her to win, eventually."

"She's heading to Alderan's Altar," Twilight said. "...In the mountains..."

"How are we going to get there?" Fluttershy asked while Four cannibalized parts from Seventeen and Pilot for himself. Twilight tried not to watch. "We have no ships, and flying across that intense distance will take a long time - not to mention the heat of the desert..."

Twilight sat down, putting her head in her hooves. "I... I don't know. I just don't know. So much has just happened..."

"Everything went to shit," Vriska said. "It happens. Not the worst version of this I've seen, admittedly. But then again, universes blew up when it when to shit for me."

Twilight nodded. "...I think you're needed here."

"Bitch just got lucky," Vriska muttered. "Even if she can see the future - she won't be able to dodge forever."

"I'm... Still not sure what this means. I thought I was the Oracle? But - Ruby seems to think she fits the bill better..."

"Who's to say the hero of legends and prophecy is a good person?" Vriska said. "I'm using myself as an example here, in case you can't figure that out."

Fluttershy shook her head. "We... We need to think of something to do..." She looked up at the clear, white moon out the busted landing bay doors. "...Should we have gotten time powers?"

Vriska shrugged. "Time powers always screw with things in weird ways... Getting them causes more problems..." She fidgeted with her dice, biting her lip.

Twilight stepped outside, standing at the edge of the bay doors. She looked at the sand far below, and the magical lands of distortion to her right. The moon and Stars shone down on her.

She knew her journey wasn't over, and that it had just begun. But she wasn't sure what exactly it meant now...

...She looked into the Eye. "Got anything to say?"

It started glowing. She smiled - for once, she felt happy to know the Influence was calling. She sat down, ready.

Just before she received the import, she swore she saw something in a red cloak with ram horns...

[END OF PART 1]

XXI

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

XXII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][Ponygood speaking. So... uh, has your Eye activated, Twilight? It doesn't say anything like that here, but I'm just going to assume GM didn't write it in. Anyway, three stories?! Eesh, talk about compensation, Mr. Four. Heh, I jest. Okay, so, you will obviously have to hurry to the altar as quickly as you can, to get both Alderaan and the new party member, whomever they are. You have two options: you could just hurry to the altar, get its things quickly, and leave just as fast. Or, you could lie in wait at the altar for Orchid to come, then knock her and Ruby out with your sleep spell and get Infinity and the die back. If you successfully pull of this sneak attack of Orchid and co, you could also steal their ship, or take a risk and capture them for interrogation. However, if you do that, you will probably have to leave the others somewhere else, so that Orchid can't detect them, or even fool her into thinking she got there first. And if dragons are resistant to magic, you will have some difficulty with Ruby, so please confirm if dragons have magic resistance. And as for getting people from the altar, I'd definitely recommend getting Alderaan first, in case Orchid conveniently shows up at around the same time that you do. Giant red starry and spirally eye? Sounds like the Dark Lord of Evil Stuff to me. Can't confirm, though. I'm planning on changing my avatar again. While having a giant mechanical doom machine is fine and dandy, I have realized it'll be more helpful to have a mode of transportation. I know that the altars ask you WHO to find, not WHAT, but it's a good thing there is such a thing as a sentient spaceship. Unfortunately, the only spaceships like that are either too small for your rapidly growing party, or mind-bogglingly large. I believe a ship known as Moya would be good enough for your whole party. She is a "living sentient bio-mechanical spaceship" with a formerly-on-the-run-from-an-evil-empire crew of assorted aliens that may or may not want to help you and a faster-than-light ability, but Moya herself doesn't have any weapons. On the other hand, there is another ship known as Aphelion, who also can go faster-than-light, has weapons, and a crew of an alien fox-thing and his robot that repeatedly saved the universe, but she is extremely small. And if you get one of these spaceships, I don't know if their crew will come with them or will be left where they were, especially since Moya's pilot was biologically welded to Moya. There is also a thing called the TARDIS, which can travel through time and space has spacial compression on its inside, but the only person who knows how to pilot it is a crazy immortal person that can only think under extreme stress, and Four won't be able to fit through its door. If you want me to change my avatar into any of these, I'll be happy to, but you will have to account for the possibility that only the ship, and none of her crew, may be brought through, and they would quickly die in the cold vacuum of space. But if you don't want me to change my avatar, I will keep my current one and continue recommending Mite, who'll be useful with the newfound problem of Fosis being re-taken over. And I just want to share a funny story with you real quick. In this one, Celestia wants you to do a controlled burning of the Everfree, and dictates a letter to her aid to send to you. However, her aid is lazy as hell, and interpreted Celestia's complex message as "Burn things." You follow the command of the letter, and end up burning the entirety of Equestria. Looper Twilight was also in that situation, but instead of just burning everything, she in her infinite trolly wisdom decided to verbally give everypony the sickest burns imaginable. Oh yeah, welcome, DeadLyokoBrony, to this crazy mess! That's all for now. Good luck, Twilight. Edit: Problem solved! GM has put in the statement notifying us of your Eye's activation. Edit 2: Got two more things to say. One: to get to the mountains as quickly as possible, and also allow you to rest, you could have Four carry you all. He's gotta have extremely long strides, right? Two: be sure to ask Four how fast he predicts Orchid will be, if she has access to the full might of Fosis… …Hhhhhhuuuuuuuu... I'm glad to hear you're alright, Twilight. I, I was worried about you when I saw you wake up and you were screaming. I...I'm glad Fluttershy is there. This is Creek, by the way. Cartridge says hi, by the way, a-also thank you, for wishing us well. Ah, if, I mean, he can't come into my work, but, I, I-I mean, um, I'll say hi to him for you? A-ah! I'm glad to hear Four is okay, even if he's suffering from a stuttering speech synthesizer. I wasn't away that he had an internal system built in, I thought he was wirelessly receiving a sentience signal and when he was disconnected from the transmitter he...well, I'm...I'm glad he's okay. I...um, I mean, I don't really... I still think you and Vriska should get to know each other more, b-but if she, she's getting along with Four, she can't be all, bad. I suppose she's just rough around the edges. So, ah, if you...um, if you need a new name, I can help. Ah, that is, for people where I'm from, when, well, when you become an adult you're allowed to change your name only once. Most people choose something they, um, some sort of thing, like an object that they think best fits them, or they associate with. I mean, I, my name wasn't always Creek it...I've just always liked the relaxing sound of running water in a river or creek. I grew up in the forest and would often go out to sit and read well I dipped my toes into the water. I-I, I mean, if, ah, i-if you wanted to, I mean, you don't have, I mean, if you're loking for a new name an-anyway, it, um, you could...what, ah, what do you like to do?… …DLB here Glad to see you all are alright, the foreign territory might be filled with ponies who might want to kill you or not. The adventure might get more interesting then people hating on flash sentry… …Akuma here. I'm guessing the Overlord-number thing is annoying you a bit.(shrug) Eh, I considering passing the options on to another Twilight. Anyway, thakns to you just picking 1-5, you picked your muscles being in peak condition(a lot considering you're an alicorn), a devoted cult, you are VERY indimidating for one reason or another, you ae a natural diplomat, and your already high studying skills are enhanced. And eight from Vriska gets you Necromancy. There's also the option of giving up one of those abilities to get immortality through becoming a Lich(must have necromancy) or through being Worship(need cult), but if the yo I give this too is an alicorn, they might not need that. The only thing left is picking subjects, but that'd be too long and complicated even at random. Anywway, thanks for playing. Also, Twilence sounds like either a license or a telescope, so I'd take Influlight. PS There is actually one more character I'd like to suggest: King Bullion from Discord's Rewrite, the father of Princess Platinum. He's about as powerful as you were without wing and actually more so if taken into account he is far well versed and experienced in combat magic, having been a rival for Sombra at his peak. He's also very kind and considerate, but can become serious and enter warrior-mode at the drop of a hat… …Josh here - guys we were pushing things to its braking point as it is by bringing Vriska here, I really doubt these things where meant bring someone from a different universe here, and you guys want to do that again? what I was saying before was that Aradia is already there somehow... actually I MIGHT know how she's here, but that's assuming this story has anything to do with the story GM recently made titled "The Handmaid", but that's a stretch… …Hey Twilight, Owleero here. Just picture me as a red tree. Also, "character" suggestions: Any one of the Knights from Knights of the Realm (You, AJ, RD, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, Spike, Trixie, or Sunset). Knight!Trixie can make illusions she creates real, Knight!Sunset is ridiculously powerful, and Knight!Twilight uses chaos magic. An example of their shenanigans: Knight!Twilight managed (somehow) to lower an area's temperature to below Absolute Zero. Yes, really… …nickel here, i was beginning to think we had managed to sever the connection with the delay this time. good news and bad news about aradia, since blackjack controls both the equestria she is in and the one you are in it is likely that one of her paradox iterations is already present with you, its just a matter of finding her which is will happen when and if its meant to happen. as for the bad news, the version of equestria blackjack controls has a very fragile and extremely unstable temporal layer, this means your world is highly prone to temporal fratures and collapse, i have never found a satisfactory solution for this issue in a world and am typically forced to abandon such worlds to their fate, but i am more dimensional in ability than temporal where as aradia is a master of time so if anyone can hold your world together against this its her and she is already doing so, it is possible that she is of a completely different iteration and this doesn't affect you but the possibility is present and unfortunately probable. as for that vision after you blacked out, only one thing native to your world comes to mind when you add stars and a spiral, that sounds like an alternate form of something i once used to represent starswirl so while i cant tell you anything definitive its possible that he may be involved somehow. ®¥∂†¥ÏÁ‰‰Á¨¬ˆ∫∆¬∫¥††©¥ˆ¨ÓÚ ¨ø¥˙¨ˆ¬©ÓÎ∆©˙∆˚˜… ¥©¬ˆ¨…∆˜k¬©ˆ˙∆˚˝ÁÁˆ¨ØÔ˜ˇ¨ˆ›¨Á¥ˆøµ˚ˆ©¬˙¥˙˙Ô˝¬ˆ˙ˆÔ scratch that, thats just begging something to break again if i go any further down that road. really i've seen enough by now i should know better than to even try… …*Twilight suddenly feels as if the infinite-sided die rolled again. Instantly all traces of injuries the group had have vanished leaving only the ghost of pain remaining. Unfortunately, the side-effect of such a roll happens to make the team tired and exhausted as a result of their injuries healing.*… …Ponygood speaking, just some messages for various people here.I doubt anything from the die will happen to Twilight and co. unless they're the ones using it, but I really hope Orchid and co. can summon an annoying useless immortal being, like our Lord and Savior Butt the Cloud. Also, all hail our Lord and Saviour Butt the Cloud, God of Being Annoying and Useless! Hail! Hail! To whomever keeps liking everyone's comment: I can't really stop you from doing so, but liking everyone's comment might not be the best of ideas. For one thing, it suggests that you don't really like anyone's comments, and are only doing it to make yourself think you did something good. Also, liking everyone's comment can give some people hope that their comments are good and insightful/funny, and not just insane internet drivel, and inspire them to make more insane internet drivel. My advice is to only like the comments you truly like, dislike the comments you truly dislike, and neither like nor dislike the comments you honestly have no opinion of.Nothing you have to worry about, Twilight, just one person's insane internet drivel. That is all for now… …We all have some form of insane drivel, just that others are more pronounced. Hey, Listen! By the Decree of our lord and savior Butt the Cloud, all followers must have some way to annoy or otherwise be useless to those who are to save their respective worlds. We must be willing to have others who would like nothing more than for us to just go away. For that is the way to Immortality as our Lord has written in the book of Annoying… …[Oh heck no, not putting that entire conversation here, Twilight heard it, but…]… …josh here - GM... i'm begging you here; blocked these two… …[What are you even doing? Yes, Twilight heard ALLLLLLL that but… But… Guess you guys dig your own graves…]… …Josh here - just letting you know twi that I changed my avatar so that he now has a cutie mark, it is the heart aspect symbol from the homestuck multiverse; I won't go into why, but I think I'd make a great knight of heart; I mean using my own identity as a weapon almost makes too much scene to fit me, and I'm surprised I didn't come to this realization sooner…]

XXII

Twilight became aware of the real world again.

She twitched.

Vriska blinked. "...Woah..."

"What?" Fluttershy asked.

"That, Fluttershy, is the expression of someone trying not to explode in anger at a bunch of fucking idiots."

"Oh... But the Influence isn't that bad Vri-"

"Ohohohohohohoh!" Twilight started laughing. "Not that bad!? NOT THAT BAD!?"

Fluttershy took a step back in surprise. "Twilight-"

"Do you know how much important stuff was actually in that import? Almost none! Do you know what was in it!?"

"Uh..."

"A bunch of unintelligible dribble about clouds, butts, rear ends, saviors, usefulness, and the constant use of the phrase 'HEY! LISTEN!' alongside 'fairy' to no discernable purpose!"

Vriska scowled. "That's absolutely terrible."

"No? Really? Really? Hey! Ponygood! Afizah! I know you two were involved in this - not sure who else, but you know who you are! What do you have to say for yourselves huh? Why for the love of Celestia, Luna, Cadenza, myself, and my neice - and oh why not Discord - would you clog my mind with that? In case you didn't notice I have a broken wing, a broken leg, a high chance of a concussion, and a freaking eyeball embedded in my chest! I'd appreciate helpful advice instead of, oh, discussions of the divine nature of cloud-like-objects named after synonyms for butts!"

"Woo! Go Twilight! You tell them!" Vriska shouted.

"I know you guys can talk to each other out of my feed - you've mentioned messages before - why not take that there? I did not need to be privy to this it meant nothing! I'm usually fine and can ignore all the useless dribble you all insert like trying to affect reality, having fun at my expense, mocking everything that happens - but no, I couldn't ignore this, there's just too damn much of it!"

Fluttershy gasped. "Twilight!"

Twilight ignored her. "I bet you find this funny don't you? 'Oh look at little Twilight, throwing a little tantrum and screaming at us! Isn't that just cute and adorable and entertaining!?' Oh, I bet it is! I bet you're all getting a kick out of this! Cause that's all you want, isn't it, to just mess with me and try to change my world when I have friends that are captured, friends that have betrayed me, and friends that might die at any moment because there's danger around every turn!? Maybe this is all just some story to you, but, it's not to me! It's not to us!"

Fluttershy outstretched a hoof. "Twilight..."

"No," Vriska said, pulling Flutershy's hoof back. "This is good for her."

"What I wouldn't give for some silence around here - oh! Maybe that's what I'll call myself! Twilence! Twilight, Influence, and it sounds ironically like a word to describe something I can't have because of you all yammering in my brain every few hours for the sake of your own stupid amusement!"

"Fuck 'em!" Vriska shouted.

"YEAH! FUCK YOU!" Twilight screamed.

The entire desert around them fell dead silent. Fluttershy was blushing hard, hooves over her mouth. Vriska was looking at Twilight with an expression of pride. Four was... Four.

Vriska walked up to Twilight, extending a hand, saying nothing.

Twilight grabbed the hand and pulled herself up, breathing heavily.

Vriska turned it into a fistbump soon as she was up. "Nice."

"I... I've never done that before..."

"Feels good doesn't it?"

"I... Think so...?"

"Well, brave leader. What now?"

Twilight blinked. "Everyone, on Four's shoulders. He's taking us into the mountains. It'll be faster than walking. Four, how long until Orchid catches up with us?"

"ANY MOMENT. IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW SOON SHE LEAVES FOSIS."

Twilight nodded. "Well, let's get going then. Four, pick us up."

He did so.

~~~

As Four ran as fast as he could across the landscape (sand quickly gave way to rocks) Fluttershy turned to Twilight. "So... Calling yourself Twilence now?"

"No. Yes. Maybe... I haven't decided. I was angry when I said that..." She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Vriska was right, I needed to get that out..."

"Damn right," Vriska said. "I sense you've been keeping it bottled up for a while."

"I've blown up at them before... But not like that," Twilight said. "And... That was a while ago, back before we knew a lot of things... Back when I was still scared about what exactly I was..." She frowned. "Creek, Akuma, Nickel, Josh... You guys didn't deserve that. At least I don't think so, not entirely sure who was in there. DLB, Owleero, hope that didn't drive you off... just use that as an example of what not to do, okay? Okay..." She took a few deep breaths. "Okay. Calm now. I think I can respond. Nickel, what exactly did you try to do there? I just got a lot of garbled nonsense. Josh, care to elaborate about Vriska breaking reality?"

Vriska laughed at this.

"Right. Akuma, I... Thank you. Glad the random numbers are over. You weren't being bad, don't think that, never think that, you're one of the most helpful here. Just... it got a tad..."

"Boring?"

"Yeah. And I'm seriously considering the name Twilence unless you have any better ideas - speaking of, Creek, I'd love to hear your suggestions about the name I should take!"

"Should I take one too?" Fluttershy asked.

"I... If you think you need to," Twilight said. Fluttershy nodded in response.

Twilight continued on. "Anyway, DLB, why would people hate on Flash? Legitimately curious. I feel like it should be obvious... Owleero, what is this about the Knights of Equestria? And below absolute zero doesn't even make any sense... ...Right. Alternate universes. In a story. Of course..."

Vriska sighed. "The relation between stories and the worlds we live in is a confusing bitch."

"Oh?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know much. There's apparently this Tower in the center of everything that connects authors to worlds in such a way that the writers write the worlds into existence but also are influenced by the beings within the world and... It's just a paradoxical mess. My orange fuckface had to make it worse by inserting stories within stories where the flow went both ways it was just... Peachy..."

Twilight furrowed her brow. "Your world sounds complicated."

"Easy time travel and interface exploitation. Everything was overpowered and everything was a giant piece of self-fulfilling time bullshit. Helped save the multiverse from a time-hack demon and helped create a new, apparently awesome universe. Not that I ever get to see that place."

"Oh..." Twilight frowned. "Why?"

"Orange fuckface," Vriska muttered. "I got launched out into the multiverse and... I have no idea how long I've been out here trying to get home. All I know is that I've never even seen what I presume is called 'Earth C.' I left a lot of friends behind..."

Twilight smiled sadly. "I'm trying to get home too. Though... I think I'm only separated by time, not universes."

"Yeah. I'll help you get back, least I can do. Seem to be a bit of a 'traveling hero' lately. Though, if I'm being honest, 'hero' depends on who you're talking to at any given time."

"You seem to have your heart in the right place, if that means anything."

"Didn't used to... But that was a long time ago." She pulled an 8-ball out of her pocket and fell silent.

Twilight allowed herself to smile. "So... Tell me what your friends were like."

"Bunch of stupid assholes," Vriska laughed. "But they were my stupid assholes..."

Vriska began to regale tales of trolls, humans, ghosts, demons, and Horrorterrors...

~~~

"...Oh my fucking God I've been channeling her..."

"Who?" Fluttershy asked. She had been listening to the stories attentively.

"Aranea. That ancestor of mine. Sorta. Not getting into that. She did not know how to shut up when she started a story." Vriska laughed.

Twilight smirked. "She sounds like me."

"You know what, she is you, far as I can tell. Talky, nerdy, nice, accepting, but has a nice little burst of anger deep in there." Vriska smirked. "How 'bout you tell me about your friends now? Besides butterwings here, I got her down."

"Oh?" Fluttershy asked.

"Used to be shy but has recently come out of her shell to taking a bit of assertiveness."

"Oh."

"It's basically in your name."

Twilight laughed. "Well, I had a lot of friends... Perhaps it's best to start with..."

And then something exploded. Hot rocks flew into their path, interrupting all conversation. Four slowed himself down to keep from toppling over. "DANGER DETECTED."

"Oh it is on!" Vriska shouted, summoning her orange cloak and wings. "Who wants the beat down? Come on, I know you want the beat down!"

Twilight raised her wing. "Hold - talk first, Vriska."

"Aw, phooey."

Twilight surveyed the area. "Hello?" There were a lot of rocks in the mountainous scenery. They were on the outskirts of a forest, so they could see sparse evergreen trees around them, more visible in the distance. One large snowcapped mountain stood out from the rest of them in the far, far distance. "I'm... Twilight Sparkle, if anyone's here, we mean you no harm! We just wish to pass through!"

No response. A tumbleweed passed them, having traveled far from the desert for just this moment.

Twilight blinked. "Uh... Anyone seeing anything at all?"

Fluttershy and Vriska shook their heads.

"NEGATIVE," Four responded. "THOUGH MY INFRARED SENSORS ARE CURRENTLY SPOTTY."

"Huh..." Twilight frowned. "Take a step forward..."

Four did so. Something exploded beneath his feet - this time knocking him over. Vriska grabbed Twilight with her free hand while Fluttershy floated of her own power.

"OW."

"You okay?" Fluttershy asked.

"AFFIRMATIVE. DAMAGE WAS NEGLIGIBLE." He stood up. "WE APPEAR TO BE ON A MINEFIELD."

Vriska rolled her eyes. "Can you fly Four?"

"NEGATIVE."

"Well, now he is slowing us down..." Vriska muttered. "You know, it's times like this I wish I could give out luck, but sadly that's not how it works."

"NO MATTER. THIS MINEFIELD TELLS US THERE ARE DOGS NEARBY. THE DESERT-MOISSAN BORDER IS FAR TOO LARGE FOR US TO COME ACROSS SUCH A MINEFIELD BY CHANCE."

"...It was set for us?" Fluttershy asked.

"97% LIKELY."

"Hey!" Twilight yelled. "We know you're out there! Come on out!"

"They won't," a familiar voice said. They turned to see Alderan floating a fair ways away.

"Why not?" Twilight asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Under oath. To break an oath is a death sentence for them."

Fluttershy gasped. "Why?"

"They hold promises in high regard. They rarely make them. But it is required to get the credentials to create mines."

"Why are you here?" Vriska muttered. "You're one of those... Altar spirits, right? The one I hear is fucking with us?"

"Yes. Though I prefer the term 'observing', Serket. I am here because... Because I've been told to be here. You're wanted at the Mountain of Knowledge."

"Why would we go there?" Twilight asked.

"...It's where my altar is located."

"Oh. Okay." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "You going to help us get there?"

"Oh goodness me, no, you can just levitate Four over this thing, it's not that wide. I'm just here to tell you to stop trying to make friends with the dogs at this minefield. They are specifically chosen to make these things because they aren't friendly. They can do the job 'right'."

"A SENSICAL ARRANGEMENT."

"Yeah..." Alderan paused. "Twilight, I sense you want answers. I cannot answer them. You will have to come to the Mountain of Knowledge for them."

Twilight nodded slowly. "I'm looking forward to that."

"You won't like the answers."

"Since when does anybody?" Vriska asked.

Alderan glared at her. "...I've been watching you. You are a concern."

"Surprise, surprise. How about you do more than just talk ominously and watch us like a creep?"

Alderan vanished at that remark. Vriska shrugged. "Well, I see he chose to continue doing business as usual. He's still watching us like a creep isn't he?"

"No doubt," Twilight said. "It's what he does."

"What questions you going to ask him anyway?"

"Why did he summon me here?"

Vriska blinked. "Wait, he did that?"

"I think so. Or his master - whoever that is. We have no idea. Maybe some dog." She lit her horn, surrounding Four with telekinesis. It took some effort, but she could lift him above the ground. "Let's go."

Fluttershy flew as lead, Vriska tailing behind with Twilight in her arm. Four floated behind her.

"NO SIGN OF DOGS BESIDES RECENT TRACKS."

"Experienced soldiers..." Vriska murmured. "Disappointed we won't actually be fighting them. Such a shame, they should have their skills tested."

"MAY NOT BE SOLDIERS. MAY JUST BE TINKERS."

"How do you know so much about dog culture? Aren't you some kind of ancient robot?"

"AFFIRMATIVE. BUT THEY WERE IN CONTACT WITH FOSIS UNTIL RECENTLY. THERE WAS LIMITED TRADE."

Twilight furrowed her brow. "Why'd they stop coming?"

"UNKNOWN. THEY JUST DID."

"Huh," Twilight said. "Well I suppose-"

Then the Eye started glowing.

"Oh no, not now, Vriska I'm going to lose the hold I have on Four!"

"What!?" Vriska shouted, glancing down at the minefield below.

"Just do somethi-"

XXIV

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…i was right about them using the crystals as a defense or weapon… …Ponygood speaking. Well. That happened. Who is this "Hieldor" entity, and how powerful is it to destroy a whole fleet of ships in an instant? I'm not asking you, that's just a question I would like answered at some point. And I guess I can understand the multiverse from Vriska's point of view, but I still don't think it's entirely accurate. Remember, the Dark Tower I referenced and the Author's tower Vriska mentioned are entirely seperate things. The tree of Ygdrasil is another one of those "center of the multiverse" things, and it is the driving force behind the existence of the Time Loops. With all these and more things at the center of and running every multiverse, there exist a few possibilities: that there can only be one true central object, and every other supposedly central object is housed within it, that all these objects are secretly the same thing, but just look and act differently to different people, or that they are all valid and found separately, within a larger 'verse. Extraversal stuff is still largly unknown, though, so we can't really be sure about anything. I have a test in mind that will prove once and for all whether we need to use our avatars to summon most extra-universal entities, but I will leave that until some other time. Mite, Evermore Pinkie, and Aradia are all in universes created by GM, so you could use him as the common thread that connects them to your universe. Since Aradia has time powers, you can summon her last, and still be able to interact with her and see her actions until then. Surprisingly, quite a few of us aren't acting as ourselves. Keywii_Cookies is a prime example, instead acting as the Recursive Orginization including Creek, Shutter, etc. Afizah/Sonic Rainboom Dash is very intent on having an excessive amount of alternate characters, including alternate you, wierd alternate dad, Shepard, that nameless kid, and now he's added Tarou. Akuma is also pretending to be his numerous story characters, and recently pretended to be Robocord for some reason. I think Nickel is pretending to be an alternate dimensional person with access to the files of the universe, but I'm not sure. I was willing to let all of these people continue pretending, but at this point, it's just driving a wedge between us and you. I, Zen, LeftMoss, Giginss, Josh, Owleero, and DLB are all acting as ourselves, though most of us have shortened our names to be easier to pronounce, although Josh isn't using his real internet name at all, which is Wizard0209. Of course, these aren't our actual real names, since that would be dangerous to share in a place like this, but most of us have spent enough time here that these are pretty much an aspect of our very being. Minor fact: "Fucking," or "fuck," is a slang term for sex, but is also used as an insult/stress reliever. That's all for now… … …REPLY FROM ROBOCORD ACCEPTING NEW DESIGNATION OF TWILIGHT SPARKLE G36M95B93J: TWILENCE OBSERVATION: ALTERED PERSONALITY MAY BE THE SUMMATION OF DETEROATING MENTAL HEALTH DUE TO EXPOSRE TO THOSE-BEYOND-THE-FOURTH-REALM, PHYSICAL DAMAGE TO THE BRAIN, OR PERSONAL REVELATIONS. SUGGESTION: SUMMON A MEDIC AT NEXT OPPURUNITY SCANNING FOR AKUMAKAMI: COMPLETE AKUMAKAMI:: ONE-FROM-BEYOND-THE-FOURTH REALM THAT IS CONNECTED TO THE MULTIVERSE OF SCOFFED DROSS. STATUS OF SUBJECT: SEEMINGLY UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE DUE TO INTERFERENCE CAUSE BY MY PRESSENCE, BUT OTHERWISE OPTIMAL CONCLUSION: AKUMAKAMI ALLOWED ME TO APPEAR HERE WHEN INTERDEMINSIONAL CAPABILITIES WERE COMPROMISED BEGINNING SELF REPAIR FUNCTIONS: UNKNOWN TIME REQUIRED. OBSERVATION: FLUTTERSHY G36M95B93J ACTIONS INDICATE SHE IS OF THE NON-THREAT VAIRETY OF FLUTTERSHY. CONCLUSION: TERMINATION NOT REQUIRED. STATEMENT: OBTAIN MEDICINE. ENTITY KNOWN AS VRISKA HAS A HIGH SURVIVABLITITY WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESSENCE… …Josh here - I can't think of advice at the moment, and since my concerns have fallen on deaf ears I will not push it, but I do have something to say to ponygood you are not as safe as you like to believe; if someone really wants to find out something about you they will, no fake names are going to stop them; which is why I actually have been using my REAL name… …Yeah, you're right. Good thing I'm practically a nobody. Just some teenager living a perfectly average life, yep. No-one would have any reason to go after me specifically when there are far richer teens out there just BEGGING to have their stuff stolen. Along those lines, I suppose it's perfectly fine for me to use my real name, which is Ethan. I still prefer Ponygood on this site, though… …LeftMoss here, I honestly do not like my first name... so I generally call myself Wolfe, because I use my last name MUCH more often… …Th-this is Creek. If...ah, Twilence. Um, I mean, I like that name, it, it's based on you tell-telling us to stop talking. Which is okay...AH, but you still chose the name yourself, s-so I'll c-call you Twilence now. And please, tell Vriska thank you, for, for me, she's helped me a lot in, ah, I mean, um, th-the organiz-izati-tion a lot. We, we um, there's some people that are always. Ah! Thank you. The...the Children of the T-True Walkers are a re-religious group here, a-and they, um, they have been talking about Bla-Blackjack recently. Um...I'm a bit worried what might happen. OH! Ah, she, she also he-helped with another problem. W-we don't know what happens to characters once a story i-is done, just when it's left incomplete. It, i-it almost s-sounds like the same thing happens. Twilence, you are not going anywhere until you heal that c-concussion, do you hear me? You'll only hurt y-yourself in the meantime. You're not to leave that spot until Vri-Vriska comes back with a healing potion. Understood?… …I claim the 500th comment! Minemineminemine... That is all… …DLB here, I'm starting to have a bad feeling about whats going to happen, always be one step ahead… …Twilight, this is Afizha. I know you are having trouble believing anything I may say as I have been questionable but I don't joke about trauma. Tarou hasn't had the best childhood. I will give you a rundown of the information I have found. Be warned though, it is somewhat long.

In a small town of Suiten, located in a remote mountain region on the island of reality and the spirit realm collide. Ghosts and paranormal occurrences appear in the real world, spreading through the town. Three high school boys, Tarō, Makoto and Masayuki, who have all had traumatic experiences in their childhood, observe the strange occurrences happening at Suiten. Together, they investigate the strange happenings by entering the spirit realm, or the Unseen World, although no human is supposed to be able to do so. The three boys are granted entrance, only to realize the key to their childhood traumas lies within this Unseen World. The local Shinto priest and his daughter, Miyako, also become involved in the occurrences… …nickel here, wow we are getting bad timing with these lately, though i suspected four would be fine regardless. not much i can say for this, get yourself fixed as fast as you can, but you already had that in mind so there is not much i can say. as for pretending, its not that i'm pretending, its that i have a very large file of things I've written from an internally consistent multiverse and your world being of similar nature seeing as its at least partly writer controlled, i tend to treat your world like it exists somewhere in the same reality concept and i already play this role to a much greater extent there except that i never talk to any of them directly. sidenote i'm sure twilight didn't need to know the definition of curse words, for some people its better to have a release without knowing what it means hence why most curse words have actually had their original intentions entirely displaced in favor of the new one… …This is Zen. I would like to reiterate my position that we should chiefly consider the possibility of potential allies to circumvent the enemy's ability to see the future. Mite, on reflection, could conceivably just be too small to be noticed. And I can see a number of Pinkies potentially having some degree of immunity as well. Also, since it's come up, Ponygood's elaboration on the term "fucking" is lacking—namely, that he fails to address Vriska's actual use of the term. It is used to add emphasis to a particular statement, suggesting anger or other emotional distress—and, when used as such, does not have any relation to sex. I wasn't going to say anything, but that could potentially spill out into another headache we can ill-afford… …Ah, yes. Thank you for clearing that up… …Ponygood again. Just as a reminder, we can hear your thoughts, in case you need to speak to us stealthily. Also, a question. Why did you feel the need to change your name? There is no other Twilight in your world that we have to keep track of, which means referring to you as Twilight is just fine. Otherwise, we'd have to call every Twilight from every story a different name. If it's a fake name you want when talking with untrustworthy kinds, I wouldn't want to have my real and fake names sound extremely similar. In some cases, knowing something's true name gives you complete power over them. I'm not telling you it was a bad choice, I'm just expressing my concerns for your safety… … Sometimes a name change o-or a hair, hair cut is how people express themselves...they, I mean, when they want to d-denote a new chapter in-in their lives. It's not all about s-safety… …so does anyone have any ideas for the last slot that we can actually agree on? ideally something from an existing equestrian variant so as to make the transfer run smoother. i may have an idea but i need to look over the viability of it and i'd like to hear others first… …Josh here starlight glimmer might be a good pick for the last slot; her magical abilities could come in handy… …which starlight? several have come up so far… …eh, i guess it doesn't matter much since even the baseline variant is crazy overpowered. on that note, i'm thinking of using a variant of starswirl, while i have a particular one from my own unpublished writing in mind it might work out with a more common variant, the problem i'm having with using this variant is that i have to figure out how to justify keeping him alive in the absence of a certain spell, though the point in time you currently exist in should allow it if barely and the benefits are that in addition to his normal power set, he is able to aid in the use of harmony magic to allow only two elements to use harmony as long as one of them is magic, as well as pulling non elementally aligned individuals in to strengthen it and no you do not need the physical elements, magic operates a little different in his source variant.(it was possible to use harmony solo with his boost, but thats what put him on magical life support in the first place, their version of the nightmare uprising)… …Everyone, I have an anouncement! I have created a group known as Influencing the Influence, where we can discuss everything we think to discuss without clogging up Twilight's precious time. Avaliable unless GM decided he WANTS us jabbering gibberish at each other here… …In my creation of the group, I have discovered a rule stating that we shouldn't roleplay anywhere on Fimfiction. A shame, because I was quite enjoying Keywii's Orginization. If you wanted, you could just make a seperate story containing it. EDIT: Or you could continue to roleplay as your various characters, but just be warned that consequences may or may not exist. Also, SRB and I just had a lage conversation here, but then we decided to delete it for some reason… …˜πª∑¶¢˙ß˜ˆ¨√∆ˆ∑µπ¨π†∂§•πß√¥˙¨ˆ∑´µ¨∑®¥¨πªƒ´˜ˆµ∫ˆßπ†¥ˆ®˙´∑µπ√ßµ¨ˆ∫¥ßˆ¨π¨µß¨ƒ´∑•¨¥¨√˜ˆ¨¥´∑¥®µ˙ˆ®ªµ… …Believe it or not but four of them are not ‘fake’ as you put it. They are merely entangled within my psyche. Each one has moments of being the 'real' me while I am stuck as a watcher in my head. It has become bad enough that my reality has been fraying ever since this stupid hole opened on the inside of the mask I wear to keep my mental health intact. That is the actual reason I have been searching for my sister. For she is the only one who knows how to fix it seeing as she was the one who made it for me.The others are both separate and apart of me that they both are and are not who they say they are. I have become a 'nexus,' if you will that their worlds personalities are bleeding over into me that I become them for a short time. Twilight, I don't know if you truly are real or just a figment of my overtaxed mind, but when you find the next alter if it exists at all, then could you summon my sister to see if she can help. Please, I am losing my sanity the longer this goes on. And I'm sorry that I tend just to be a strange voice spouting useless info or just make you mad like I did last time… …µ√ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶˙¨∑∫√¢∑•¥£¨®… …Believe it or not but my real name is [REDACTED]. Wait! What the?! I can’t say [REDEACTED] at all! It’s my name so why can’t I say it. Hmm? How to get past this conundrum? Maybe this will work. My name is @&*^)%$. I.. I can’t even say my name anymore. S..Sonic Rainboom D..Dash?! I... I can say that, but my real name is lost to this stupid interface. J..Just C..call me Rainboom. That's all I feel like right now… …ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶¶¢˙ß˜ˆ¨√∆ˆ∑µπ¨π†∂§•πß√¥˙¨ˆ∑´µ¨∑®¥¨πªƒ´˜ˆµ∫ˆßπ†¥ˆ®˙´∑µπ√ßµ¨ˆ∫¥ßˆ¨π¨µß¨ƒ´∑•¨¥¨˙¨∑∫√¢∑ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶˙¨∑∫√¢∑ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßtheyç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶¢˙ß˜ˆ¨√∆ˆ∑µπ¨π†∂§•πß√¥˙¨ˆ∑´µ¨∑®¥¨πªƒ´˜ˆµ∫ˆßπ†¥ˆ®˙´∑µπ√ßµ¨ˆ∫¥ßˆ¨π¨µß¨ƒ´∑•¨¥¨¶˙¨∑∫√are¢∑ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶hiding˙¨∑∫√¢∑ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßçfrom˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶˙¨∑∫√¢∑ª´∑π¶¢¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµyouˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶˙¨∑∫√¢¶¢˙ß˜ˆ¨√∆ˆ∑µπ¨π†∂§•πß√¥˙¨ˆ∑´µ¨∑®¥¨πªƒ´˜ˆµ∫ˆßπ†¥ˆ®˙´∑µπ√ßµ¨ˆ∫¥ßˆ¨π¨µß¨ƒ´∑•¨¥¨∑ª´∑π¶¢ª¥ª•¨ªµµßç˚øµµˆ´˙√¥•∑¢¶˙¨∑∫√¢∑… …I have one. She's from the story I'm currently working on. Though I haven’t gotten to the part yet, I'm willing to let her loose in this Equestria to see how she does and find ways to bring her power in check once she returns home. My rainbow dash, Ms. Living lightning herself. As her name implies, she can become pure electricity. Think Eneru from One Piece, and that should clue a lot of you in on what kind of electric powers. She is still canon dash, just beefed up with those powers. Be warned though; she hasn't had her powers long, only a week, so she is still learning how to use them… …huh, offline for one night and it looks like someone blasted a hole in the feed, thats gonna be a lot of buggy stuff when twilight gets it. twilight, unless blackjack edits it out there will be large sections of broken data preceding this, its nothing to worry about, upon looking into it it has to do with an effort to collaborate that wont give you a headache like the cloud incident…]

XXIV

Twilence became aware of herself. She was being dragged across the ground by a dog. Sorry Creek, so much for not moving. She flipped up - she was still invisible so this freaked the dog out - and teleported the dog on top of a nearby building. He looked horribly confused by this turn of events, howling in confusion. The other dogs of the town turned to look at him - which was luckily not at Twilence herself.

Twilence let out a sigh of relief - and then held her head. The throbbing pain... That spell probably hadn't been a good idea... She felt her awareness slipping away - but she didn't pass out. She remained upright but muddy, diluted. Her vision was fuzzy and sounds were deafened.

Definitely a concussion. A bad one at that. It was likely the Influence's imports were only making it worse. She really needed... What exactly? Medicine. Medicine, right. Robocord was right - her mental health was deteriorating. Though that was pretty obvious, right? Just...

...She wanted to shake her head but found her body wasn't listening to her brain anymore. That wasn't good. But she didn't feel any panic - just a mild 'oh' feeling. It occurred to Twilence that this should be horrifying, it just wasn't. This was also far more drastic than a concussion should be. She managed to look down at the Eye. "All... your fault." She swatted at it, missing. She groaned.

Something exploded. Instinctually, Twilence looked up. Vriska was flying out of the building she was led into, orange robes and wings unfurled. Her other arm was working - she must have found some sort of medicine - but she had a look of minor concern on her face. Dogs erupted from the building, most of them tripping over their own paws from a lack of luck, but Irana stood tall.

She had a sniper rifle in her hands and was aiming right at Vriska. She fired, clipping through one of Vriska's wings. Her flight became unstable. "Little help Twi!?" She blurted, summoning her dice and throwing them to the ground.

Twilence didn't move - and Vriska couldn't see her because she was invisible. The dice landed on mostly low number values, throwing a key lime pie into Irana's face. She flicked it off with a simple motion of her paw, aiming the sniper rifle again.

Vriska drew her sword and swooped out of the way of the rifle bullet - her luck was extremely high even if Irana's wasn't lowered for some reason. She dove at Irana, ready to skewer her with her sword.

The sword made contact with Irana all right.

It broke on contact.

"...What the actual fuck."

Irana roared, revealing the area Vriska had struck to not be made of flesh at all - but a strange yellow crystal. Vriska leaped backward to avoid the claw directed at her face. "Okay, wasn't expecting that..."

Irana glared. "You threaten. You will be irradicated."

"Hey, I just stole some stuff, what's with the disproportionate retribution - Twi where the hell are you?"

Twilence made no move beyond a slight swivel of her ears, barely conscious enough to know that it was daytime.

Vriska swore some alien word and summoned her dice again. She threw rolled them again, this time getting a much more favorable result. A scythe came out of nowhere and cut off Irana's head.

"Yeah!" Vriska whooped. "That'll teach you to mess with the mindfang!"

Irana lifted the sniper rifle again and aimed. Her neck was not bleeding - instead, Vriska just saw yellow crystal. "What even are you?"

"A servant," the loose head said. The sniper rifle went off. To Vriska's immense surprise, it actually hit her square in the stomach. She rolled head over heels backwards from the impact, her luck apparently having failed her.

It actually hadn't, for she rolled right into Twilence.

Vriska gasped. "There you are..."

Twilence made a "hnnng" noise.

"Crud," Vriska muttered, clutching her chest and the cobalt blood that was pouring out of it. "Well... Here's to hoping these things can be absorbed through the skin." She raised two potions she had pocketed into the air and smashed them together, dousing the two of them in magical juices. Vriska's wound healed quickly with one.

Twilence's head cleared - and she could feel the pain of her wing resetting itself. "AUGGGGGH!" She lashed out with her magic - canceling the invisibility spell and flaring her wings instinctually. This made them hurt more - but it was no longer broken.

Irana lowered the sniper rifle as if to look at Twilence, even though the dog had no head.

Twilence grinned. "Sorry about that. I think... I think the Influence aggravated the concussion."

"All is forgiven as long as you help me disintegrate this bitch!"

Twilence nodded. Without a second thought she sent a beam of purple energy at Irana, engulfing her. All her skin burnt off - revealing a pure yellow crystal structure inside. Even the gun was made out of the yellow crystal.

Twilence blinked. "...Well this is odd."

Vriska summoned her dice again. "No, really?"

Irana raised the gun. Vriska was having none of that - she flew over to her, dodging the bullet again. She kicked the gun out of Irana's hands, embedding it in the dirt. She stomped on it a few more times for good measure. Irana lashed out with a clawed shiny fist, but Vriska just dodged back.

Twilence encased Irana in ice with a spell. "Vriska now!"

"Oh yes!" She summoned her dice and rolled them again - getting a very high result, producing a proton cannon that fired, vaporizing every atom in Irana's yellow crystal body. And the house behind her. And several trees behind that.

Twilence blinked. "You have a large variety in those dice."

"You bet I do. From summoning an ant to the power of gods. They're awesome."

Twilence looked around at the many dogs still tripping over their own paws. "Yeah. We'll be going now. Sorry about the house."

A dog barked in anger. "You've doomed yourselves!"

"How so?"

"Heildor will know the servant was destroyed! You are now fugitives!"

Vriska shrugged. "What else is new?"

Twilence approached the dog. "...What is Heildor?"

"The center of us. The defender."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Heildor will kill you. And possibly us for failing."

Twilence blinked. "...Fail how?"

"You were with that golem, I'm sure of it."

Twilence turned to Vriska. "I think he's telling the truth..."

Vriska facepalmed. "Twilence, these dogs do not want our help. Stop thinking about it."

"But..."

"No buts. And I wouldn't tell Fluttershy about the danger to them either. She'd get... demand-ey about helping them anyway."

Twilence nodded. "You're right."

"Obviously," the dog said. "...We would like it if you stayed. Make it easier to dispatch you." He growled.

Twilence shook her head. "Vriska... Let's go."

~~~

They met up with Four and Fluttershy a few hours later, landing on his shoulders.

"Oh!" Fluttershy grinned. "You both are all better! I was so worried..."

Twilence nodded. "Yeah... It wasn't easy. The dogs don't like us."

"There was this golden-crystal-dog-thing that tried to kill us with a sniper rifle! But it couldn't stand to the likes of us!" Vriska put a fist in the air and laughed.

"Oh... you took care of it. I... Understand," Fluttershy sighed.

Vriska shook her head. "You need to stop being so wishy-washy goody-two-shoes. It makes it worse for the rest of us. We're in a country where everything wants to kill us. Trust me, we had to deal with an entire town of dogs."

Fluttershy shook her head. "It just... Feels wrong."

"Fluttershy, I've had to kill before on this quest," Twilence said. "You know it."

"Twilight... I just..."

Twilence shook her head. "I'm Twilence now Fluttershy."

"Oh. Okay... I'll... Just call you Twi." She shook her head. "Things are just happening way too fast..."

"No kidding." Twilence stretched her wings and yawned. "...I'm going to talk to the Influence now, so... Yeah. Four, keep on going."

"AFFIRMATIVE. MOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE IN SIGHT. ETA - TOMORROW."

"I... Well I guess that's good since Orchid's ships keep getting shot out of the sky." She took in a breath. "Okay... Ponygood. Uh... Yeah Vriska Ponygood is convinced your Tower and the Dark Tower he read about are separate."

"I doubt it, but isn't he the idiot?" Vriska asked.

"...Er..."

"That's all I need to know. Pay him no mind."

"Well, hard to do that. Ponygood, you are offering a way to 'prove' the whole avatar-otherworld business. How? And..." She sighed. "That list of people pretending is shocking and confusing to me. It sure doesn't feel like Creek is pretending, but it really does feel like Afizah is. Even with the current messages. Afizah I... I just can't trust you or what you say, I'm sorry. I'm not sure how you can win my trust back either. I mean - you want me to bring your sister in? Wasn't she the crazy one trying to destroy my mind? Or was Eris just you pretending as well? I- Gah!" She shook her head. "Okay, moving on to something else."

"That seems wise," Fluttershy noted.

"No kidding... Vriska, they told me what that F word meant."

"Told you you'd be better off not knowing," Vriska said.

"Yeeeeeeah..." Twilence blushed slightly. "No offense Zen, but I don't think I'll ever be able to see the word in the same way again."

Vriska laughed. Twilence shrugged. "DLB, I try to be a step ahead, but I really don't know what that means half the time... Robocord, I'm not sure what to make of you. You talk about Fluttershy as if there was a chance she might need to be terminated, and Akuma - well can I just talk to Akumakami again? Creek, are there any details you can give me about your situation? It sounds... dangerous, from the way you're describing it. What is your corporation's relation to Blackjack anyway? I was never really clear on that. Nickel... A lot of what you say is confusing and goes over my head, I admit. But is there really nothing to worry about in that glitch? It felt... odd to me. I'm starting to think those of you who claim to know what the 'greater reality' is like really have no idea."

"You should all be more like me," Vriska said. "Never claim to really know what's going on."

"Well, I don't think they can really do that. I mean... They just admitted to being teenagers - some of them at least. I... I honestly am not surprised by that. It explains so much. A little horrifying, though, actually. How many worlds have teenagers at the helm? Is this one of them?"

"TROUBLING," Four said.

"And as for why I changed my name..." Twilence sighed. "You all refer to the other Twilight's as 'Twi-Twi' or 'Sparky' or something, and I decided I wanted to declare what I was compared to other Twilights. I wanted a choice in the matter. So I became Twilence - the Twilight Influence. The fact that it sounds like silence is just a secondary thought - I really don't want you all to shut up. Though perhaps some of you..." She shook her head. "Nevermind, that train of thought goes nowhere good. And... Think that's it for today."

Vriska nodded. "Good. Now we can be bored again on top of this giant mech."

Her boredom was cured instantly when seven velvet-skinned dogs that looked exactly like Irana stepped out of the trees, firing various guns in their direction. Twilence raised a magical shield around herself, Vriska, and Fluttershy.

Four took care of the 'servants'. His two fists launched off with rocket-propelled power, shattering two into dozens of pieces. Rifles, machine guns, and pistols unleashed on his impressive girth - doing absolutely nothing to his ancient body. He kicked, punched, and pounded the rest into the ground quickly.

Fluttershy's jaw was hanging open. Vriska whistled. "Impressive."

"IT WAS ADEQUATE. THIER BODIES WERE HARDER THAN EXPECTED. THERE WILL BE MORE."

Twilence grimaced. "Well... Not looking forward to that. Let's keep moving."

"AFFIRMATIVE."

~~~

It was that night when Twilence finally realized why she had felt uneasy in this mountain forest - it was normal. There was almost no magic here at all - just trees and rocks. The dog towns were extremely rare - she had only seen two in the distance the entire journey, even when she'd flown high into the air.

She was in ordinary, mundane, wilderness.

That was a little freaky, to say the least. She'd been in nothing but weird, outlandish scenery this entire adventure. She pulled out their map, looking at Moissan. They were crossing it near the north - parallel with the capital at this point, which was conspicuously named Heildor. The Mountain they were heading for - the huge one in the distance - was off the map, outside the edge of Moissan territory. She supposed that meant they were leaving the area, and things would be... well, regular wilderness that nopony had explored.

If they kept going north they might end up in Equestria. Who knew, maybe these mountains were connected to the dragon lands? She was sure she remembered someone saying savage dragons lived in the northern mountains... And given the dragons she knew, she found it easy to believe that they were savage in the past. She frowned, rolling over, trying to get comfortable.

Four looked at her - he didn't require sleep, so he was standing watch. He didn't say anything for fear of waking the others. He just nodded in Twilence's direction.

Twilence sighed. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself to sleep...

...It seemed to work. She was pretty sure she was dreaming now - the moon was there.

And so was that red eye.

Watching her.

She shivered.

"Are you the dark lord?" She asked.

There was no response. The eye didn't even move. It might as well have been a static image.

Twilence glared at it. "Whatever you are... You're not going to get what you want. I don't know if you're the Dark Lord, but you are evil. And I can't let that be. I'll stop you. Whatever you plan is."

The there was laughter.

And then the Influence's Eye activated.

XXV

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][Before anyone says anything else, I will leave a link to the discussion group here, so that we can take what we say away from prying evil red eyes… …Wolfe here. I am REALLY glad to know that I am just going to be ignored. Seriously, I am… …I... don't know what to think anymore. First, i think I was just trying to be unique when I started talking to you, just to be talking to you. I do wear a mask that keeps my mental health somewhat intact, but ever since this influence interface opened on the inside of it, I feel as if I am slowly losing who I am. I...think who was talking to you before was my sister, and I was the one going mad. I just think I'm still slowly going mad. I think... no, I know that something happened to me before, but for the life of me, I can't remember… …ELABORATION: A CHANCE EXISTS IN EVERY UNIVERSE THAT THE NATIVE FLUTTERSHY IS CLASSIFIED AS NEEDING TO BE TERMINATED. THE SAME APPLIES TO ALL VERSIONS OF YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, AND MANY OTHERS. MY PASSIVE ASSIGNMENT IS TO CATALOUGE THE MULTIVERSE CONNECTED TO SCOFFED DROSS, CLASSIFYING THE PERSONALITY THRAT LEVELS OF PLANETS AND INDIVIDUALS TO DETERMINE THE NEED TO TERMINATE THEM. MY ACTIVE ROLL IS, WHEN IN DIRECT CONTACT, TERMINATING THOSE THAT EITHER ARE FORCES OF THE ORDER OF ORDER OR ARE UNCONTACTED BUT NIGH-INEVITABLE TO SIDE WITH THEM AND, BY EXTENSION, BECOME ENEMIES OF SCOFFED DROSS. OBSERVATION; FLUTTERSHYS HAVE ONE OF THE LOWER PROBABILITY TO NEED TO BE TERMINATED, AND HAVE HIGHER PROBABILITY TO BE EXEMPTED FROM PLANETARY CLASSIFICATION AS A THREAT. EQUEST FOR AKUMAKAMI'S INPUT: ATEMPTING PARTIIAL DEMINSIONAL SHIFT. Dododo.....Wait, what? -.- Discords, even as a robot, are unpredictable. Hey Twilight, this is Akuma. Sorry about Robocord. He's still here, by the way, just partially phased out of existence- basically ghost until he phases back in. He'll be around for another three or so secession. I let him in here since, well, he's in repair mode. Think he was fighting a Sombra-ish version of you. Don't worry, he's not going to terminate you- this you or the version of Twilence that does get dragged into the Scroffed Dross/O3 thing. Twilight's always take him the longest time to individually classify if they're not outright a threat. Still, glad you got some medicine.....Okay, are the servant things from the Dark Lord or your rival for the semi-unwanted title of Oracle? I know you probably don't know, but that's my grand question. Actually, my other one is...Twilight was it evil or mocking laughter or was it nicer? Slight chance the laughter isn't from the eye or the dark lord, but from someone else watching. BTW, question for Vriska: What'sbeen them most surprising high level thing roll-item you've gotten? Orsurprisingly effective, I suppose. To make the comparison: Discord had chocolate milk that explodes. Also to Vriska: Is your multiverse more or less fucked up than a multiverse being defined by the fact every universe in it is r will be dragged into a multiversal war? Cause that's where Robocord comes from. Lastly to Fluttershy: don't take Robocord considering terminating you to heart. He's seen too many versions of you an your friends that are anti--chaos to the extreme, resulting in him being initially wary of all unclassified or undetermined worlds. ......I'm sure that all raises more questions than it answers… …Twilence, th-this is Creek. It's okay that Ponygood said what he did. I mean, I know I'm a ch-character created by Keywii_Cookies55. I...I'm not the o-one pretending, Ponygood said that, that, ah, I mean, he thinks that I'm j-just Keywii_Cookies55 acting like somebody named Creek. Instead of being a woman liv-living her life, aware that she was written by...by somebody else. I guess, guess...well, I guess we're a-alike in that way. In, in the...um, I mean, when, ah. What this com-company does in, in relation to GMBlackjack...um. What we do is we get all the stories he writes a-and we watch them ah, we see them as video. Then we write down everything that happens and, ah, I mean, we doc-document it all. I never asked w-why, but it has to do with keep, keeping watch over his c-characters. Maybe we...I mean, I, um. K-Key is convinced that your primary is evil in some way, and, and just writes to, I mean, s-so he can destroy. B-but I don't see it that way. Why would someone just create to, to destroy? S-so I don't ac-actually know w-why, why Keywii_Cookies55 decided to watch what your...um, I mean, what GMBlackjack does. Or why he, he created Mrs. K and had her s-s-start this company. But from the day I started work, working here, I never once asked. That's, I mean, that's a lot like asking why you e-exist, and, um, I don't...I mean, I wouldn't like to kn-now that. I mean, would...would you ask G-GMBlackjack why he ch-chose you? If, if you could?… …Ponygood speaking. I'm pretty sure the eye can hear us speaking, so I'm going to try and not say anything too important. First of all, I am not an idiot. But I admit I don't have all the information I need to make accurate statements, and I'm just speculating things at this point. In regards to the center-of-the-universe thing: once again, I can't confirm any specific outcome as any more real than any other. I remember reading about a Loop in which Looplight was asking one of the managers of Yggdrasil why the Homestuck universe (that's where Vriska came from) wasn't Looping. Crazy thought: Yggdrasil contains Homestuck, yet Homestuck also contains Ygdrasil. It is theoretically possible if you go to a high enough dimensional plane. Eh, extra-universal stuff is complicated. Yes, I am a teenager, but I and many others have very little power over anything in our world. Yes, we are able to speak to you, but all of us at the Influence have just enough power here to be able to make ourselves heard. Teenagers rarely, if ever, make any significant impact in our world, and usually that's because they're a popular pop singer or something. That being said, I do have a couple stories of my own, but I'm extremely lazy about them and haven't updated them in a while. I probably should. Meh. I'm not sure it's safe to share my theory about summoning someone from an altar at the moment, since Mr. Evileye is present. However, I can't determine if it will continue to hear us even when you're not dreaming, so I don't know if we ever can speak safely. To Mr. Eyeface: Hello! Go fuck yourself. If you continue to creepily observe Twilight, I will find a way to bring the worst, most cancerous parts of the internet against you. Well, except the porn, of course, since that makes up most of the internet, but I will still find a way! Might even share a song right now. :P There are some pretty cool songs out there that would delete a lot of your brain cells. But out of them all, what'll beat the classic, but the My Little Pony theme song! Everyone else, I encourage you to think of the most cancerous, memerific tunes from the far reaches of the internet and blast them full power at Eyeface! But, uh, don't do it just yet, though. I want to give all of us a chance to be notified of the group before commiting to Eyeface vs. the Internet. Sorry in advance, Twilight… …This is Zen. And this makes three eyes. There is what we previously called the Witches' Eye, the conduit for our communication, the adornment allowing Orchid to see into the immediate future, and now this. Three points of data makes a pattern. But what are you, I wonder? The Dark Lord? This mysterious Heilidor? Perhaps there is no difference—after all, Heilidor's minions oppose the progress of both Twilence and Orchid, who all accounts would seem to show as both being opposed to the Dark Lord, and those selfsame minions describe a brutal master. Meaning the mysterious evil lurking on the horizon has a name. The Dark Lord, Heilidor. A name is the birth of understanding, and understanding is the death of fear. And the death of fear is the loss of a powerful weapon. A weapon, judging from what its minions have said, it uses to the point of excess. I tell you now that this shall be the beginning of your destruction… …Hmm... but Moissan was in the Northern area of the continent, and the Motherboard predicted that the Dark Lord would arrive from the Southern archipeligo. There is the possibility that the Motherboard was incorrect, or that the Dark Lord moved. But there is also the possibility that there are others besides the Dark Lord. It makes sense there would be a group somewhere dedicated to the Dark Lord, but we can't determine that Heildor is one of them. We know that Heildor is the name of the capital, but we don't know if that name is shared for an entity. One way or another, I am excited for the future. I believe the dogs' leader, whomever it is, is likely a tyrant, and I will take great pleasure in watching, or even helping Twilence burn its empire down. I will also take pleasure in Twilence's ultimate victory over Mr. Eyeface. Hmm... maybe Eyeface is the one the cult on the archipeligo worships? Which means Eyeface might very well be Castorson, or else his enemy. Twilence? Can I ask for you to describe the contents of your map, including the shape of the landmasses, areas of different biomes, and locations of important places on the map? I will attempt to copy your description onto our interface so that we can look at it… …nickel here, i have no guarantee that errors on the feed are harmless, but at the same time there is fairly little evidence to indicate that it would be permanently damaging, though this last one was testing things to an extreme, i have only ever seen one other feed with that many holes so that was extremely rare. none of us know everything so we all make mistakes and a lot of what we do claim to know is mostly educated guesses, while its quite possible we exist on a higher plane than you our individual scopes are quite varied and restricted by our own limitations and i can only imagine are focused in odd directions. i don't really expect you to understand how i think, most people don't really understand when i try explain even well documented multiverses much less one i've been hiding. once more i don't have much helpful to say. note, i'm entering another window where my connection is going to be extremely poor to nonexistent so while i hope to be available, don't expect much with the next window… …DLB here, evil red eyes will probably be a pronlem for you later on twi… …...no shit, Sherlock. You want a medal for your brilliant use of obvious reasoning?… …Josh here - ponygood maybe out there but he has come to some logical conclusions, we see a lot of different worlds with a lot of conflicting information about how the universe and mutiverse works, so the only explanation is this "omniverse" as he puts it, and Vriska dismissing it makes sense since she never had a chance to see these worlds edit - just thought of something, ask Vriska what a captchalogue and Sylladex is; you not knowing what that is will through her for a loop… …Aw... there's so much yummy information being passed between us all in our secret gathering room! So delicious! *Om nom nom* Mmph, mo yer mot imfied, Mr. Eyeface, ge yer owm secre clup. *gulp* But no peaking at ours, dirty eavesdropper!…]

XXV

The red eye laughed again - it was definitely mocking, but not horrendously so. It was more of the laugh of a pony after watching her cat fall off a table...

A condescending laugh.

Then Twilence woke up. She wasn't really scared - just a little annoyed. Sleep really was starting to get annoying. Had she been here a week yet? She didn't even remember at this point. The days were kinda bleeding together.

The sun rose over the horizon and Twilence shrugged. "Let's go."

"AFFIRMATIVE. ALL ABOARD."

~~~

"Okay, so, Wolfe, I'm sorry I ignored you. I didn't mean to. It's just that there's a lot of things each import and I'm likely to forget large portions of it. I didn't do it on purpose."

Fluttershy looked at Twilence. "I thought you'd forgotten to talk to some before?"

"Yeah. None got upset about it though."

"Anyway, Fluttershy, Ponygood wants you to know that Robocord's 'threat' wasn't really anything to worry about. It's his job to keep things 'dangerous' from rampaging, at least from what I understand. You passed the test, and I don't think he can reach us anyway."

Fluttershy smiled. Twilence saw the stars of Alderan sparking from out of the corner of her eye, but didn't comment. He'd reveal himself soon enough. "Vriska! Questions for you!"

Vriska chuckled. "Apparently I'm quite the popular girl. Flattering. Ask away. How many of the questions are perverted?"

"Uh... None? I think?"

Vriska blinked. "Ah. Right. 'Humans'." She shrugged.

"Anyway... What's the highest thing you've rolled with your dice?"

"Rolling a straight 8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8 basically transforms me into a god for a short time. Other than that, I once rolled a guillotine that decapitated a spider the size of a large hi - house."

Twilence nodded. "I see. Worst thing?"

"A weasel."

"...Okay then. I was told to ask you about 'capatchalogue' and you were supposed to be surprised I didn't know what that was."

She laughed. "Even the carapicians didn't know what capatchalogues were... Regardless, they're a sort of 'inventory system'." She took an 8-ball out of her pocket, smashed it, and suddenly there was a pumpkin in front of them. "Where I was from almost everyone had one way or another of holding things. None of them were very efficient. Course in my travels I've found that almost no one has these things, so I'm the oddball now."

"The more I hear about your world the more interesting it sounds. Another question. Ahem. 'Is your multiverse more or less... screwed up than a multiverse being defined by the fact every universe in it is or will be dragged into a multiversal war'?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'my' multiverse," Vriska answered. "If you mean the self-fulfilling paradoxical fuck-up that was my local multiverse, my home, then yeah, it was about that bad. Only it wasn't so much a war as beings capable of molding universes on a whim kept getting slaughtered left and right and all of reality kinda got shredded by the destruction of a green sun. Not sure exactly how bad it ended up because that was when I got lost, but it had to have been bad. Otherwise..." She shrugged. "The multiverse at large is far, far to big for anything to affect it large scale, besides that Tower thing I still have next to no idea about."

Twilence smirked. "Kinda what I expected."

"Think they're surprised?"

"Maybe."

"Good."

Twilence furrowed her brow. "Well... Maybe not. They've started talking where I can't see them - which I have mixed feelings about, to be honest. They aren't clogging up the feed with unimportant things, but now I know less. I think I'll leave that to their judgment though. The point is, I think they might be getting smarter - like they might be taking things a little bit more seriously."

She cleared her throat. "Anyway, Zen, that's a thought - Maybe this Heildor is the Dark Lord. The position does seem odd, but it's a possibility we should consider. I think we should also consider the possibility Heildor is something else - neither Orchid or the Dark Lord, like Akuma suggested. But then again, we know almost nothing about the Dark Lord..."

"We are going to a mountain of knowledge," Fluttershy reminded them.

Twilence nodded. "And... Ponygood... Er... Okay. Hope you can tell me later. And... Afizah - at least I assume that's you talking - I'm... I'm willing to try and move past the past, okay? It's obvious you have some difficulties in life and I'll try to move past that. You'll have to be more honest and straightforward with me though - explain. Because I don't understand. Creek? If I met G. M. Blackjack, I WOULD ask the reason. It would be one of the first things I asked. But since I can't see him, I'm going to ask the other one responsible for getting me here. Whoever's controlling Alderan."

Alderan's sparkes vanished from the corner of her vision. Twilence smirked. "Mmm... And hold on, let me get out the map..." She held it up, looking at it carefully and scrutinizingly. "They want me to describe it. I don't think they see full pictures of things, not all the time anyway."

"A GOOD THOUGHT."

"Okay. The southern and eastern edges of the map are completely covered in ocean. Most of the west is as well, except towards the north where we are now. The Mountain of Knowledge is off the map's northwest corner, and the magical lands we saw north of the Lost Desert do not appear either. The only marks this far north on the map are Mount Pyre, which is directly south of us, and Estur, which is just represented by a big question mark on the map. The Lot Desert takes up most of the northern part of the map, with the only location inside of it being Fosis. Moissan takes up the mountainous northwest, with only a few major cities. Heildor is the capital, with Chrysocholla and Malach a ways to the south, Malach closer to the ocean. Onyx is even further south, on the border of Peran, but south of the Band that separates the Lost Desert from Peran. Acket is right int he middle of the Band. There appears to be a city called Salacia IN the eastern sea, bordering the Band, Lost Desert, and Peran. It's also right next to Kraken Territory, which is almost the entire eastern sea."

She frowned. "...Pebbleton appears to have been drawn on this map as an afterthought, though the Bluemish Forest looks like it belongs. Anyway, bordering Moissan right next to the city of Onyx is the Peran city of Uler. There's a large river that leads out of the Bluemish Forest - the Enroach River - which passes a river city of Overhill and ends at a port city of Adeltam, which is also right next to Kraken Territory. There are several cities south of this river - Eldas, Tena, Fali, Hanusaur, and Tendris on the southern border. The Southeast peninsula has something called "Benrir's Wall" that goes from the east sea to the southern bay, dividing the peninsula. The Peninsula is littered with cities, the largest of which is the Peran capital, Chalak. In the southern sea, there is an archipelago called Troisha and there's nothing else about it here. To the west and south of Troisha is the Ice Shelf, which is also south of Tendris. It extends almost to the bottom of the map, but not quite - at the tip of the Ice Shelf is the Lai Camp, whatever that is. West of that is the Death Sea and a big question mark labeling Frau. And that's it. Well, except a warning at the bottom of the map that says 'HERE BE ICE MONSTERS'."

"Missing anything?" Fluttershy asked Four.

"MULTIPLE CLASSIFIED LOCATIONS AND SMALLER TOWNS. TENA ALSO APPEARS TO BE WHERE THE INVERTED MOUNTAIN IS."

Twilence blinked. "The Inverted Mountain?"

"IT'S A MOUNTAIN-SHAPED HOLE IN THE GROUND."

"Ah."

"I want to go to Death Sea," Vriska said suddenly. "Punch Death in the face."

"That's where Frau is," Twilence said. "So we'll probably end up there one way or another regardless. How much longer Four?"

"AN HOUR."

~~~

One hour later, they were at the foot of the mountain. There was a staircase built into it.

Four paused. "I AM FAR TOO LARGE FOR THAT STAIRCASE."

Twilence smirked and levitated him upward. It wasn't easy - but it was easier than when she'd had a concussion. "How about we all just fly up?"

Vriska shifted into her orange-wings. "Got it."

The four of them flew and floated up the mountain, skipping the staircase entirely. They saw it wrap around the tremendous rocky structure seven times before it stopped.They set themselves down in front of a giant doorway that led into the mountain. They were pretty high up - not so high up that the clouds were below, but they could see the tip of the mountain scraping the clouds. Twilience nodded. "Well... This is it, the Mountain of Knowledge."

She examined the doorway closer - it was so huge Four could walk under it without ducking. There were dozens of ornate designs all over it - mostly of stars. There were a few dragons carved into the pillars - suggesting this was built by ancient dragons, explaining the size. There was no complex technology or magic - all of it was marble or complex glass. Twilence remembered Ember telling her of Dragon glass blowing being an ancient art that went back further than any dragon could remember... It was beautiful. Twilence knew there was no light source inside the doorway, and yet it shone brilliantly by reflecting the sun.

One design froze her in her tracks. A little ways into the doorway a red glass eye could be seen - exactly like the eye she had seen in her dream. She gulped. "That's... That's the eye. The thing I've been seeing in my dreams."

"Hm..." Vriska said. "I wonder..."

Alderan appeared. "The eye is not here. That is merely a depiction."

"Depiction of what?" Twilence asked.

"There will be time for questions later. I expect you'll just ask your Influence what to ask. But for now, 'welcome' to the Mountain of Knowledge. Come on in." He muttered to himself, disgruntled.

"NO THREATS DETECTED," Four announced.

"Yeah, yeah. Just over here." He glanced at Four. "...You are way too big to get into the study."

"Four, stay here and guard the door," Twilence said. "Yell if anything happens. Okay?"

"AFFIRMATIVE."

Twilence walked forth, Vriska and Fluttershy flanking her. They had determined looks on their faces as they followed the intangible blue form of Alderan up the stairs. They may have avoided the initial mountainous staircase - but this one was making sure they made up for lost time. The stairs were marble and slightly too large for Twilence and Fluttershy, though Vriska's longer legs were able to work with them. Alderan was not chatty - he obviously didn't like the fact that he was even in their presence.

Vriska and Twilence were in no mood to talk to him. Fluttershy, however...

"So, Alderan. What's it like here?"

"Boring. I'm glad I can leave."

"Really? I thought that this place had knowledge..."

"A near infinite amount of books, yes. I've read them all and forgotten most of what was in them. Never liked books."

"Uh... That's okay! What do you like?"

"Being in control of my own actions. Which I am not."

"...Who's in charge?"

"Lore Thirst. You'll meet him very soon. He's been expecting you!"

Fluttershy frowned. "...Why do you do what he asks you to?"

"The paradox is that he is the only reason I can leave my Altar at all. So whoop-de-do irony. Done trying to relate to me yet?"

"...No," Fluttershy said.

"Your funeral," Alderan muttered. "Here we are." They were at the top of the staircase, and Alderan opened a door in the ceiling. Sunlight poured in. They walked out to the top of the mountain - which was flat and made of glass on the top. There were six glass pillars around the edge made of different colors and symbols - purple, blue, green, black, red, and white. There was no sign of an altar.

There was a pony. A short pony - he would have been confused for a colt had he not been so well built. His coat was brown, his irises an intelligent purple, and his mane black as night. He looked up from the book he was reading, adjusting his large cushy chair. He put a bookmark between the pages and set it on a stack of dozens of other books. He adjusted his lavender glasses. "Hello," he said.

Twilence nodded. "I am Twilence."

"I heard. And Vriska Serket and Fluttershy. With Four down in the entrance hall."

"So you are the one who's been watching us."

"Alderan has been watching you through my command," he said. Twilience was noticing his voice was oddly warm and inviting. He didn't seem crazy, overbearing, or even all that driven - he was curious, if anything. "I am Lore Thirst. I own the Mountain of Knowledge."

Twilight nodded. "...How and why did you bring me to this time and place?"

"Alderan carried that out - I simply made the order. The story itself is complex, but I can tell it shorthoof. I learned of what Alderan and the other temple spirits helped create - the Hole you wear now - and wanted to see what knowledge it would bestow were it correctly activated. I came across an ancient draconian spell that could summon 'the key that was needed by fate' under any circumstance. I had Alderan go into the lake and cast it, ensuring you would find the Hole. You were just the one the spell thought was needed for the job."

Twilence nodded. "...And why didn't you tell me any of this sooner?"

"I wanted to see what you would do. What would happen. I didn't want to interfere with the Hole's purpose. I must say the results have been interesting."

Vriska narrowed her eyes. "You fuck. You're a mad scientist."

"And you're a mass murderer."

"Yeah? So?"

Twilence stared at Vriska. Fluttershy scooted away at the admission.

Vriska facepalmed. "Oh for the - that was old old OLD me. I'm not like that anymore, shit-face."

Lore Thirst shrugged. "It is something I deduced from Alderan's observations. You at least have it within you. You may only do it if you think it is right or needed, but you can."

Vriska didn't have anything to say to that. She looked like she wanted to gut him, but Twilence held up a hoof. "Where's the altar?"

"You will be taken to it after we are done here, you have my promise," Lore Thirst said. "We will take turns asking questions. I'll ask, you'll ask, until we both have a better understanding. When I am satisfied, then and only then will you be allowed to the altar. You won't be able to find it otherwise."

Twilence growled. "...Fine. I suppose I would like a session of Q and A with you."

"Indubitably."

The Eye began to glow - heralding another import.

Twilence smirked, sitting down. "Hey guys? I think you need to tell me your votes for the next altar now, as well as any questions to ask this Lore Thirst pony. Now's the time."

"Make sure to ask the right questions," Alderan said to the Eye...

XXVI

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Hi Twilence, it's Creek. I-I wanted to say that I might not want to ask my Primary why I w-was chosen, but it's okay if you do. O-okay, so, so my questions are...ah, if, I mean, who is t-the 'key that was needed, needed by fate'? Is...is it Key? Is he the...was I s-supposed to be your operative? C-could you ask Lore Thirst to not, n-not be so rude to Vriska? Living that far in the past d-does nothing but starts fights. A-also, can you ask this before any, I mean, any other qu-question any of us have? H-how far away is Orchid? And...ah, is she going to g-get to the alter while you're here in this question a-and answer session? Oh, um,...ah, my, my v-vote for the next alter i-is, um, I mean, Aradia. O-or at least it was, ah, we, we saw her a-appear before you set off from the last a-alter. So, I guess, guess that I vote for Evermore P-Pinkie… …Akumakami- quick comment, I think you go my name mixed up with Ponygood at the beginning, Twi. XP Or Blackjack got it wrong, hard to tell which… …Ponygood speaking. Lots of information to give you, so try to remember as much as you can! Good thing we already determined the votes beforehand! I, Nickel, and Leftmoss all vote for Mite, Keywii votes for Evermore Pinkie, and everyone else didn't vote. We are also still discussing whom to summon through the final altar, and are primarily stuck between some sentient ship or a Starlight. Also, as a reminder, the phrase Orchid used to 'collect' Ine was "I, (NAME), wish to meet with the spirit of this Altar!" I think, if you have Alderaan with you, you could find a way back into the Vanishing Lake. Ah, now we have to figure out what questions to ask. What even are the "right" questions? And can we trust this pony to give us truthful answers, if at all? I think we can, but there is always the possibility he'll be hostile. Now, be warned, I have a LOT of questions... First, and arguably most important at the moment, where is Orchid, and will she appear at the Mountain of Knowledge at an inconvenient time for you? Second, who is Orchid, how did she come across her Eye, and what is her goal? Third, what is the red eye in your dreams, and are there other entities like it? Fourth, are there any other eye-shaped artifacts, entities, etc. that you should know about? Fifth, who or what is Heildor? Sixth, are there any groups or entities that would want to hinder your journey to find the altars and defeat the Dark Lord? Seventh, who or what is the Dark Lord, where will he appear, and what is its goal? Eighth, what is the full disected meaning of the prophecy, and how can you fulfill its predictions? Ninth, have there been any sightings of a time-traveling person like Vriska, and if not, why? Tenth, how can you find and access Frau to find the Time tunnels? And now we hope Lore Thirst will premit you to ask all these questions, even if he runs out of questions himself. He might not, I dunno. Thank you for describing the areas of important locations and settlements, but I still don't know the general shape of the landmasses. For all I know, it's a giant square-shaped eye with perfectly sectioned and even areas of different biomes. I won't need you to mention where all the locations are in relation to the map, though; I'll be able to draw it out from there. There are a few reasons I want you to choose Mite: it can easily re-unhack Fosis, and potentially keep it unhacked as long as it can interface with Four's connection to Fosis. I think Mite can also interface with your Eye, and figure out how it works so to alter it or broadcast us for all your friends to hear. And if there are any remotely mechanical or electronic obstacles, Mite can easily remove them or turn them into an advantage. However, if you end up choosing Evermore Pinkie, she has some abilities of her own. All Pinkies, even canon Pinkie, are known as an Aware, though Evermore Pinkie actually says so. As an Aware, Pinkie is naturally aware of her existence as a fictional character, and also operates under an entirely seperate set of rules and laws from physics, known collectively as "cartoon logic." This means that all Awares can do LITERALLY ANYTHING, but only if it either is entertaining or builds character. So they can't do things like give you all the information you ever need for any situation, provide unbeatable benefits to her allies, or solve every problem with an ultimate disintegration beam, because it is neither funny nor builds character. However, she can summon instruments, objects, or outfits to emphasize points or events, humorously not be injured by certain things, occasionally ignore the laws of physics, or appear mysteriously in impossible locations. Evermore Pinkie also has the added ability to travel between a set amount of dimensions, and occasionally create new ones, complete with people, story, etc. If Orchid ever does become a threat, or Lore Thirst tells you she'll be here shortly, I'd recommend going alone to ambush her and Ruby using your sleep spells, preferably before she realizes you got to the mountain before her. Maybe you could also find a way to mimic and/or break her Eye, or retrieve the spirits she got from the altars while she's knocked out. The reason I wanted to create the group was twofold: to limit the uneccesary crap we give you and to discuss what we say to you before we say it, including gathering votes for altars. I... think that's all for now. EDIT: Of course I wasn't done! I always remember some other important thing after already committing to this message. First off, got one more question for Lore Thirst: Does he have any knowledge he would like to share for gaining more control of your dreams and/or protecting them from invaders? Second, I wanted to recommend getting some sort of head protection, since you are getting into a lot of unhealthy situations. Third, I will now remember to share with you my experiment! Okay, so imagine one of us is called Bob, and you want to summon a character known as David. First, try to summon David directly. If it doesn't work, then have Bob change his avatar to David, then try to summon the Avatar of Bob. Alright, I'm actually done now… …Josh here - i didn't vote on who we should we bring next because i still think bringing someone from another universe will have consequences; my only question is if this fear is justified, and if so i recommend bringing Starlight here… …K-Keywii_Cookies55 i-is involved..? That, t-that doesn't make any sense... A-AH! So-sorry, ah, I, uh, I mean, I just wanted to let, let you know that you h-have a misguided interp-terpretation of what...I mean, you, well, not every character that knows they're a character c-can do anything about it. Not all Awares can, can act l-like Evermore Pinkie… …Hi, Twilight. This is Afizha? I think anyway. Still having trouble figuring out why I'm having trouble, but regardless I have two simple questions. First. See if Lore Thirst knows of a way to fix the eye so that it can regain it’s supposed full capabilities. I don’t know about you or the others, but being able to both see and hear an explanation makes it easier to figure out what to do next. Second. See if he can either shed some more detail of the prophecy you’re part of or if he can tell you where to go next after to finish up with the altar. As for who you should bring. While I still would like you to bring in one of my creations, I think Pinkie would be the safest bet. Not only would you have her infamous ‘Pinkie Sense,’ But you would have somepony that could bring a good morale boost to the party if you don’t make it to the next destination in time before Orchid does… …Creek, I would absolutely love to reveal to you some super-cool information that would blow your mind, but Keywii doesn't want me to. I'm probably ruining his desire to be hidden be telling you that he desires to hidden, though... meh… …A-actually, Twilence, this is Creek again...ah, I, I just thought of another question. Would you be able, able, um, I mean, would it be possible to, to make it so everyone c-can hear us too? Af-Afizha reminded me… …nickel here, the others have pretty much said anything worth saying, but i have to recommend caution on any selection of pinkie variants given that we are already dealing with a potentially fragile dimension, reality benders and 4th wall breakers are always potentially problematic in these settings, and if you think the living ship idea has any merit it would help if you had any features or specifications in mind to narrow the options... if pinkie weren't hardwired to be benevolent and friendly she would easily be an unstoppable force of destruction and i have run into records of variants quite literally descended from chaos itself, i have my reasons to not easily trust her… …This is Zen. What Ponygood refers to hardly counts as an official vote. Having analyzed that GM Blackjack's statements, I believe that bringing the one called Mite on would be safe. Given its abilities, and the distinct possibility of encountering more technology like Four, I maintain my prior vote for Mite. As to questions: First, should it turn out that the Dark Lord is not connected to Heilidor and/or the Red Eye, I suggest asking about them. Second, if it doesn't come up organically as a consequence to your other questions, I would suggest asking about any metaphysical or symbolic significance relating to eyes—solitary eyes, in particular, such as your night-time visitor, or the objects that adorn both you and Orchid… …Wolfe here, I had just gotten home from a trip to Nebraska to see an eclipse, then went to the mall of america, yesterday. Now to more important stuff, I vote Mite… …You already voted Mite, LeftMoss/Wolfe. We're currently at four votes for Mite, two votes for Pinkie and one for Starlight… …I noticed after I had commented, but I am just too lazy to change it… …ponygood let people vote on their own; i don't think they like it when you talk for them… …Okay. I won't just lump in everyone's comments on the forum into one comment. A person's sense of self should never be attacked, and I didn't realize this was one such attack…]

XXVI

Twilence opened her eyes. "Okay, quick, we got two for Pinkie, three for Mite, one for Starlight. Everybody vote."

Lore Thirst raised an eyebrow. "You want to do this now?"

"Fast guys, please. I know Four wants Pinkie."

Fluttershy smiled warmly. "I think I would like to see Starlight again..."

Vriska shrugged. "The Mite. Thing sounds useful, from what you'd told me. And that's not much by the way."

Twilence shrugged. "I was going to go for Mite as well, seeing as he tied last time anyway. That's the choice. Anyway, Lore Thirst, I'd appreciate it if you weren't so savage to my companions, thank you."

Lore Thirst nodded. "As you wish. You ask the first question. I will ask mine until I have no more. Then you will be led to the altar. Don't lie. I'll know."

"Before we start I want to know if Orchid is close by and is going to be able to interfere."

Lore Thirst shrugged. "I have no idea. I'd have to send Alderan out to go check. I don't keep tabs on her as much as you. She won't be able to get to the altar before you though - she doesn't know how to get to it. So you don't need to worry. I won't count that as a question."

"Good. Because it wasn't," Vriska muttered.

Twilence nodded. "What is the full meaning of the prophecy?"

"Most of it is self-evident," Lore Thirst said. "The Dark Lord will come from the south, specifically the Troishan Archipelago, heralding some great evil or other. An Oracle will rise to defeat him - the identity of which is in question, but evidence currently points to Orchid. The Oracle will have a third eye of some kind that allows or will allow them to see what is to come and what cannot be known. Forced to know the truth so the rest of the world may live. The Oracle will quest to the six altars, consulting their spirits - another reason I believe it to be Orchid and not you since you didn't encounter a spirit at your first altar - and she'll gather their wisdom an aid. She's collecting them, installing their impressive knowledge and powers into her. She's purifying herself - becoming 'spiritual.' The ancients wrote the prophecy, they thought they were the best. The remnants refer to the ancient technology that Orchid will command, including Fosis and any other things. The specifics of the power overwhelming are unknown - it could just be Fosis or some secret superweapon. The Dark Lord will be banished through her efforts, and the prophecy ends with encouraging all who hear it to lend themselves to the Oracle."

Twilence nodded. Not all that much new information, but Lore Thirst certainly thought Twilence wasn't the Oracle.

"Now. Twilence. What does the Influence feel and sound like to you? Anything odd?"

Twilence blinked - not exactly what she'd been expecting. "Everything is a monotone drone - constant, emotionless. I have to insert emotions myself with my thoughts and context clues. Sounds are spoken aloud - literally hear 'roar' instead of a roaring noise. Occasionally the Influence will be overcome by static - and that just means something was off earlier. The static itself is... scratchy, warped, and sometimes I swear I can hear faint whispering in it."

Lore Thirst simply nodded slowly at this revelation.

"My turn," Twilence asserted. "Is it possible to fix the Eye? Or edit its capabilities?"

"Most definitely. I could probably do it myself given enough time. At the moment we are pressed for time, but I could certainly try to form a more direct link with my expertise. Though to get a full reactivation I'd need lab equipment from the Ancients. Lots of it."

Well that was good to know. Twilence wondered what exactly an improved Eye would do...

"How did you become an alicorn?"

Twilence told him the story of her ascension. Even though it was quick, it still took a while. "...And then I had wings."

"Interesting."

"Who exactly is Orchid? Her eye, her goals?"

Vriska shook herself awake. "Oh, back to the actually interesting questions? Thank the Horrorterrors!"

Lore Thirst ignored her. "Orchid is a unicorn mare from Troisha who learned the Futuresight spell by complete accident in a hidden underwater cave - she liked diving. She saw herself going to the Bluemish Forest and the altar there, so she did. Knowing the prophecy, she decided she was the destined Oracle and set out to save the world from the Dark Lord by doing exactly what it said. She's taken the spirits of the altars to further that goal, expanding how far her Third Eye can see and what it can see. She is very self-confident and convinced she is the hero, and believes all who stand in the way of holy prophecy need to be dealt with by any means necessary. Why exactly do you want to stop her?"

Twilence blinked. "...Is that the question?"

"Yes."

"She took Infinity and I... Ine was a... Well, I wouldn't call her a friend, really, but she helped us. She obviously didn't want to be sealed into a little sphere. And Alderan tried to warn her, and Alderan seems terrified..."

"Am not!" Alderan spat.

Twilence shook her head. "It just seems wrong to enslave these ancient spirits. It doesn't seem to be the way to stop the Dark Lord-"

"It is. You have my guarantee," Lore Thirst said. "That piece of information is free, by the way."

"You're going to let her kill me..." Alderan muttered in a way that suggested he wasn't all that surprised.

Twilence took a step back, reeling - this... This was important. She wasn't sure what to think. She shook her head to clear it - needed to ask more questions. "What is Heildor?"

"Heildor is an ancient sapient crystal mined out of the deepest Moissan mine several centuries ago. They worship the golden being that has dedicated itself to their strength and protection. Heildor is not an evil creature. The dogs worship it for a reason, after all. Under its rule the dogs have prospered. Heildor is just extremely favorable to its chosen race and wants to see them conquer the world."

"Ah. ...Not really what I was expecting, but okay."

"How far back in the past do you think you are, Twilence?"

Twilence pondered this. "A little over a thousand years, I think. Hard to tell really. What is the red Eye I keep seeing in my dream - actually, what's the deal with eyes in general?"

Vriska pointed at her own. "They're awesome, that's what!" Fluttershy nudged her.

Lore Thirst frowned. "The thematic importance of Eyes is very vague. They represent ways of seeing, sight, and information. Your Eye is a way to see beyond. Orchid's Eye sees the future. The red eye... It is one thing that baffles me. The Overseer is the one with the red eye, but he should have no idea you even exist."

"Well explain what the Overseer is then," Vriska muttered.

"The Overseer is an ancient being who, according to legend, came from the stars. Older than even the ancients, he was worshipped as a god for the longest time - this place is devoted to his memory. He was known as a giver of wisdom and counsel. He was a distant being until after the Reign of Chaos - after which he took a more active role. He was offered a role on the newly formed Council of Peran, and accepted. He is the only member of the Council to have been alive during the Reign of Chaos, and shows no sign of dying anytime soon. He still has a reputation for great wisdom and the ability to see everywhere he should desire - though usually this is rumored to involve mostly Heildor, and other areas of prime interest. Those who are watched by him report feeling like an eye was right behind them - and they always describe it as red even though they never saw it. He should have no reason to use dreams though."

"...Odd," Twilence admitted.

"Tell me of your land's history. Specifically, what will happen in the future?"

Twilence gulped. "I..."

"Answer the question or we are done here."

Twilence nodded, deciding to be as vague as possible. She told him about the foundation of Equestria quickly, the age of Discord, and Starswirl. "Soon - or even now, I have no idea - Equestria will enter a war with the Crystal Empire. It will end in victory. Afterwards, one of the two sisters that rule the kingdom will rebel and be banished for a thousand years - coming back in my time. A thousand years of not much happens and then me and my friends show up to become the bearers of the Elements of Harmony."

"...Good enough," Lore Thirst muttered, looking annoyed for the first time.

Twilence took a breath. "Who is the Dark Lord? What does he want?"

"What he wants is easy - evil, destruction, power. Who he is is more confusing, and something I've spent a long time researching in these tomes. There are two options, and both of them will be involved in some way. The first is a Dark Star that a cult on Troisha worships that is known by many names - Akaka, Negus, Corot, Central, Holy Dark, Midnight Sun - who's power will be brought to wreak havoc. But there is also another - Siron, king of demons, the first being ever sealed in Tartarus, the one Tartarus was designed to hold. Other writings suggest he will find a way to escape soon. Both will be involved, though which one is the actual Dark Lord is unknown."

Twilence frowned - why did that Star sound familiar to her?

"Twilence, how did you convince Ine to speak to you?"

"I - well me and the Influence - convinced her I was the protagonist of this story. I think."

"Interesting. That's all it took? Huh. Sometimes the answer is so simple..."

"How do I access the Time Tunnels?"

"Find Frau," Lore Thirst said. "After that, it's unclear. The Time Tunnels are rarely mentioned in any works I find, but what I do find and what I get out of Alderan tells me that it will only work for an Ancient with clearance, but there have to be ways around that. Or, perhaps, more blocks, since they themselves never used it to restore their race." Lore Thirst leaned in. "How are you coping with the revelations about the nature of reality?"

Twilence cocked her head. "Er... I'm doing fine? Talking it through with my friends, letting out my exasperation at the Influence-"

"What are you going to do once you finish your quest, I mean, what will this revelation have on your life?"

Twilence blinked. "I... I... I don't think I can go home."

Fluttershy gasped. "What?"

"Oh, you can Fluttershy, I just... I just don't think I could stand to be there anymore. I'm no longer Twilight - I'm outside. I'm beyond. I think I'll just go wherever Vriska goes and try to make a difference out there where it might actually matter. It seems like the multiverse is just there to squash you into nothing. That shouldn't be."

"O...Okay." Fluttershy said.

Vriska smirked. "Idealistic Twi, but good on you for that. Some people will really look up to you for it."

"Yeah... Lore Thirst! Have you seen another of Vriska's race around?"

"I have encountered the Handmaid a few times, yes. She's infuriatingly not forthcoming with information," Lore Thirst's annoyed look came back. "I've deduced she's not from this world originally, and was brought here through your altars. But besides that I know nothing."

"Aw...." Everyone suddenly looked up. There was a troll in red robes and wings, fluttering above them. "And here I was going to ask if you knew anything about me to see if you could tell me when to find me!"

Vriska blinked. "...Hey Aradia."

"Hi Vriska! Oh, I wish we could catch up now but I don't think now is the time nor do I think I'm the version you're supposed to catch up with! I think you'll end up in another world like this one, eventually, and that'll be where it's supposed to happen!"

Vriska smirked. "Well screw that, I've been wandering alone for too long!"

"Well you'll run into me a few more times in this world, obviously, but then we'll have to go our own ways. I think. Hard to tell, the interweavings of the Tower and time are a bit hard to deal with at times, even for me!"

"Destiny's a bitch," Vriska summarized.

"Yes! Exactly!"

Twilence looked up at Aradia. "You're certainly cheerful."

"I know! Isn't life just great and amazing!? By the way, you are amazing, and so is the other you as well. And probably a lot of other yous! Never let the world get you down, you come from a great purple alicorn stock!"

"...Thanks! Not sure I understand, but thanks!"

"Anyway, gotta jet!" Aradia gave them some finger guns and a wink, then vanished in a flash of red gears.

Lore Thirst smiled. "Well, I just learned more about her in those twelve seconds than I ever have in my studies. I should thank you. But regardless, last question. Are you capable of killing?"

Twilence's good mood at talking to the very cheery Aradia vanished abruptly. "...What?"

"You heard me."

"Yeah, I... I did. But I... I mean I can obviously-"

"I mean another pony - not a monster, not some crystal golem, a pony. Will you be able to do it if you see the whites in their eyes pleading to you if you needed to?"

Twilence fell silent.

"Your silence is all I need," Lore Thirst said. "Questions are done now. Aldera-"

A tremendous explosion lit the sky to the east - towards the desert. They turned to look - giant yellow crystals were flying from Heildor at an ancient ship - but the bullets were bouncing off some kind of mirrory sheen that resembled a soap bubble.

Vriska facepalmed. "Guess she finally got a lucky roll then. She'll be here soon."

Twilence turned to Lore Thirst. "Altar. Now."

Lore Thirst nodded. "Alderan, the rule I have against teleporting may be rescinded just this once. Take them to the Altar. The moment you arrive Orchid will know where it is. So do what you will do with that information."

Alderan teleported them to a spherical room composed entirely of glass deep within the mountain. They stood on a flat glass railing that led to the center, in which the altar stood. Twilence gulped. She hadn't even talked to the Influence yet - she didn't have time. She ran to the Altar, took in a breath, and spoke loudly. "MITE! GIVE ME THE MITE THEY KEEP TALKING ABOUT!"

The Altar lit up∑´¶ˆø¢ø¨∆¬∑˜´¨®ø∑¬√˜ß¬...

~~~

What, you thought you weren't going to get this? I said the same thing would happen last one.

Is this dangerous though, you wonder?

Maybe. Maybe not. It's not for me to say.

Now here's the fun thing: Aradia definitely exists. Are you destined to choose her? Can you force Twilight to not choose her now simply because you know she exists?

What do you think would happen?

~~~

•œ£¶∑ˆ˜…˚ß˜ˆ´∑˙®ß˙iscord looked at the microscopic form of Mite on his finger - a strange orange-ish sphere with six adaptable legs and two cat ears, no face. The two of them were drifting in space, looking at a certain white star in the distance they remembered all too well, unfortunately.

"There it is..." Discord said.

"Yes."

"You want to go in there?"

"No."

"I thought not. Well, in that case, party in zero gravity?"

"Indubitably."

Discord grabbed a loose asteroid and threw it at a dead moon. "Billiards time!"

"ALERT!"

"What?"

"DIMENSION!"

"Dimension what, Mite?" Discord said, suddenly worried. "What is going on?"

"GOODBY-"

~~~

"-E!" Mite shouted.

Vriska blinked. "...I heard him. Where the flip is he?"

"Here," Twilence said, lifting up something nopony else could see. "Mite, I'm sorry for dragging you out... That looked like fun."

"Explain."

"Well... We're on a quest and some people suggested I bring you here to help. As a 'recruit.'

"Understandable."

Twilence raised an eyebrow. "...Really?"

"No."

"I... What?"

"That."

Vriska chuckled. "I like him already. Little mite buddy, I'll explain things to you shortly, but now I think we're about to have company."

Fluttershy nodded. "Yeah... Twi, what should we do when-"

Orchid appeared with a teleport right next to Twilence. Ruby was with her. Infinity was not.

Orchid blinked. She was impossible to read.

Twilence's Eye started glowing.

Looks like I won't be responding to the earlier import...

XXVII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Twilight (still better than calling you Twilience) I’m just going to say it. You are afraid. The fact that you don’t want to go back to you proper time because you feel you are ‘outside’ of reality is a stupid reason. Do you think your friends aren’t going to look for you if only Fluttershy returns? Do you actually believe that they would care that out of the more than possibly thousands of universes out there that there is a chance they might not be real? That is just it Twilight; You are part of a vast network of worlds where reality is just a concept. Yes, there may be universes out there where you are nothing but a fictional character in a story, but that is not to say that to them they are no more real than the last. To them, we may be just fiction; A myth. Just think of the mirror-verse with Sunset Shimmer. Do you think they believe that their universe is fake just because it's part of a mirror? I am not saying that you can't travel the multiverse, but don't just do it as an act of running away. Go back to your time first and let your friends know that you are ok. Then, If you still wish to travel make sure you have a way to return home because believe me Twilight, there will be times that you'll wish you had your friends with you and not just their multi-verse selfs… …DLB here, things are going to be interesting. Nothing bad is going to happen (sarcasm) right?… …Josh here - jeez the timings on these are getting worse and worse, anyway GM said now that we know that Aradia is here for sure, he asked if we were going to try change it like he was challenging us, but you know what? I don't think that's a good idea; let's just go along with it and get Aradia at the next Altar edit - also Afizah took the words out of my mouth about you running away from home… …Ponygood speaking. Mite, if you found a way onto Twilence's eye during this import and have the opportunity to broadcast what we say, I will warn you that Twilight completely freezes up during imports, including something as necessary as breathing. So try to change that if you can. And also, Orchid, please listen to what we have to say and don't go running off or attacking Twilight's party, because we're also concerned about the arrival of the Dark Lord. Twilence, don't attack Orchid! Defend yourself if necessary, but try to get her to listen to your story and Lore Thirst's information. Also, obviously see if you can get Infinity and the die back. But I'm a bit conflicted about her believing herself to be the Oracle. Apparently, she kills the spirits she turns into spheres, will not take kindly to anything getting in her way, and is fine with enslaving the entirety of Fosis. It may, in the future, be necessary just to kill her if she ends up being more evil than good, but she can be a good ally in the meantime. And good idea, keeping the future deliberately vague; people who know the future would likely try to change it, and then there'd be a mess of paradoxes for Aradia to sort through, being the Maid of Time. There is a reason Corot sounds familiar, because Key mentioned him, and I elaborated a bit. He is a dark star of similar power to the Tree of Harmony, but he wants to see the universe burn, and enjoys torturing mortals in the process. Since he's imprisoned in a star, he managed to subvert an entire alien race to worshipping "Central" and also collecting keys scattered throughout the universe to free him. Mite guarded one of those keys, but it and the key hitched a ride on your colony ship. You should definitely completely eradicate the cult, in case your doing so helps with the Corot matter. In Wanderlost, the story Corot was antagonist of, he sent a ship to destroy the Tree of Harmony at some point after you became an alicorn, Celestia destroyed it with her sun, but got that destroyed in the process, and a colony ship containing a bit of every race and all of the immortals set off to find a new home. Eventually, Corot was released, and then re-imprisoned soon after. And now, a really fun topic: killing. It, and violence in general, should always be kept as a last resort, in case the person you're trying to reason with absolutely refuses, and has a goal like "exterminate all the Jews!" But there is also the difficult situation of killing innocents for the greater good. Let's say that a train is barreling down a track, and it will kill ten people. However, there is a track splitter before the people, and you have the opportunity to switch it so that the train goes down the other path, which has one person on it. Would you do it? There's also such a thing as a mercy kill: like where the person in front of you is in torturous pain constantly, and nothing can save them from it except death. Would you kill them to save them from the torture? Killing is a complicated, disturbing matter, but if you find that you need to do it, always try non-lethal options first, and don't EVER get to the point where killing is just some inconvenience to get through. So the Overseer was a being that wanted to help? Huh. Well, if he actually turns out to be evil, his history as a benevolent entity is pretty much moot. If he turns out to have been corrupted, maybe he can be uncorrupted. Or maybe he just gives off evil vibes for one reason or another. I think it's practically garunteed we choose Aradia at this point. I want to see what happens if we don't, but I want more than that to make sure no paradoxes come into being. I'm sorry if I keep alternating between Twilight and Twilence, but I haven't fully gotten used to your new name. Minor thing: whenever you see static, it's because one of us made a message, and then decided to remove it. Afizah has a point. I've often wondered if my reality is fictional to some other reality somewhere. But in the end, it doesn't matter. If you can contemplate your own existence, then for all intents and purposes, you DO exist, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Zen, you might want to share your beliefs on the matter of summoning people from altars. That's all for now, but might think of more in the future… …Twilence, it's Creek, I...I j-just wanted to let you know that it's okay to feel uncomfortable when you have to do something aw-awkward. Go, going home will hurt, but you have to, a-a-at least at first. I mean, you, ah, think of your friends back home. E-even if you do want to travel the multiverse you need to k-keep in touch with them. It's going to be the hardest thing y-you do, but if you've really made up your mind, have...having annual visits will do you good. E-even I go back to Eliptis-C to see my ex-husband for Cartridge's sake. I-if it's about what everyone else says, th-th-that you don't think you're real enough, w-well, I'm, ah, I m-mean, I, I'm like you, a-and, um, I, I just want you t-to know that I hope th-that GMBlackj-jack continues writing for you so...so that I can be with you every step of the way. To...t-to help you, as hopef-fully a friend can. As for M-mite, ah, if possible, ask Four if he has any spare h-harddrive slots, And then ask if Mite and Four can interface, so that no one a-accidentally step on Mite while he's out and about. A-and after you...ter you stop Orchid fr-from stealing Alderan and en-enslaving him, please take, take the time to explain t-to Mite what's going on. He'll want an ex-explanation for how he got there. L-like any machine, Mite is logic driven. Following internally wr-written code that lets them know what they want to do and how to do it. Different rules they have to follow, and a set of v-variables that they can adjust to. Mite might, m-might still be altered because of Discord, but his internal hardware i-isn't changed. …A-as for killing. It...it's easier i...l..look away when it comes time to do it. it won't weigh on your conscience as much... …Wolfe here, I have one thing to say, and one thing only. Make a shield that Orchid cannot escape from, just to ask questions… …This is Zen. As to what Ponygood's comments, I concluded from GM's previous comments that summoning individuals relating to GM are probably safe to bring from out-of-world, since Vriska could be brought in without the universe immediately collapsing. On the Oracle: Lore may be full of shit. It occurs to me that it could be possible that the mantle and/or the powers of the Oracle could have been split between you and Orchid; she can see what is to come, but you—as Lore himself said—can perceive knowledge from beyond, "seeing" what cannot be known. As to technology, you now command some aspect of lost technology as well—Four. This muddled somewhat by the fact that the one passage refers to the Oracle by using both "they" and "herself"—which are plural, and singular, respectively—the latter of which refers to purification and becoming "one." I'm still sifting through possible interpretations of that in my head. Lore left it to fate to do what needed to be done, and fate summoned you. If nothing else, that should give Orchid sufficient pause for you to at least attempt a peaceful resolution… …A reminder of the second and third verses of the prophecy, for Twilence's and Orchid's sakes: An Oracle will rise, given power, The third eye, to see what is to come, And what cannot be known, For the truth is a horrid thing. They will quest to the six altars, Consulting the spirits within, Gaining their wisdom and aid, Purifying herself to be one… …nickel here. we got another one when you summoned mite. What, you thought you weren't going to get this? I said the same thing would happen last one. Is this dangerous though, you wonder? Maybe. Maybe not. It's not for me to say. Now here's the fun thing: Aradia definitely exists. Are you destined to choose her? Can you force Twilight to not choose her now simply because you know she exists? What do you think would happen? its pretty clear that aradia gets summoned later and if you can find her she should know a lot about the lost prehistory of equestria, depending on the version of her you get she may have even encountered the young luna and celestia. as for the prophecy in only one point does it specifically refers to a single individual so most of it remains terribly unclear who it actually means, i myself have used a similar structure to denote chosen ones in the past and it was only clear that it was multiple because i used specific numbers so it remains to be seen just how many or who is actually involved. on the note of not going back, at least visit. in my writings there is a race known for dimensional manipulations and they tend to wander the multiverse a lot when young, but most eventually settle or go back home. they are a lonely race much of the time because of this so at least spend some time with the ones you have come to know in your own world before deciding to leave it behind, those who were torn away without that chance usually never got fully past it, even S7 had regrets about it and he left willingly after centuries of being used a weapon and anyone he ever cared about being hunted down, home has a strong call and being "outside" or "beyond" doesn't change that, its an impossibly large multiverse whether you believe it to be infinite or not and trouble is always present, those who seek to help other worlds have to keep in mind the effects that such intervention may have and the task will never be done and this isn't even getting into how the ones you leave will feel. oh and before i forget, i spotted a line that in the prophecy that seems to hint at the dark lord being someone from another world, but naturally it doesn't give anything more specific…]

XXVII

Twilence came to shocked at one of the things she'd just been informed of.

When she realized Orchid was looking right at her with all three eyes she almost cast the shield to grab her on instinct - but then she remembered. Don't fight her. Talk with her.

Twilence smiled. "...Hi, Orchid."

"Oh, so we are talking then?" Vriska muttered, shifting back from her orange robes to her regular appearance. "Okaythen... But if she says something I don't like I gut her. Right down the center."

Ruby lowered her claws. "I'll tell Seven Hundred to stand down then."

Orchid nodded and teleported Ruby away. She was along with Twilence, Vriska, Fluttershy, Alderan, and presumably Mite. Wherever he was.

Twilence extended her hoof nervously out to Orchid. "HI. I'm Twilence. This is Vriska, Fluttershy, and Alderan."

"I am Oracle Orchid," Orchid spoke. Her voice was certainly authoritative in sound, making Fluttershy wince slightly. "Why are you trying to stop me?"

Twilence sighed. "You stole our friend and imprisoned our ally. Ine, the spirit of the last temple."

Orchid nodded. "Regrettable, perhaps, but Ine was not contributing to society in any way, and I need them to defeat the Dark Lord. I assure you that we do not want that."

Twilence shook her head. "No, no we don't. We want him destroyed just as much as you - the world doesn't need darkness." And it's not supposed to have any. "But... surely you don't have to go about it the way you are. Kidnapping ponies, imprisoning spirits."

Orchid shook her head. "The spirits are required. As I've collected more and more of them, I've gained more information about what they need to be used for. The six must be combined to banish the Dark Lord so far he will never be able to return - if he survives in his new prison."

"Corot or Siron?"

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "...You have names for the Dark Lord?"

"Ah... We had a source," Twilence said. "I could probably tell you about it later if this goes... well. There are two possible identities for the Dark Lord - an evil Star-god from another universe, or the first demon sealed in Tartarus, Siron. We also think both will be involved somehow."

Orchid nodded slowly, closing her two normal eyes, looking deeper into her third. "...The future that far ahead is murky. I know little of the reckoning day, or even which day it is. It's in flux. It's been getting more and more in flux the more I look at you." She opened her real eyes again. "I know you hear voices from beyond and are influenced by them. It is how you are immune to my scrying. But over the times I've seen you, sometimes my certain visions have changed. You're altering what happens. I saw a distant future image of you taking the red spirit for yourself and damning the world to eternal darkness."

"...What?"

"If you took one of them, I could not use all six, and everyone would die."

Vriska nodded slowly. "She has a point."

"You agreed with the plan earlier," Fluttershy observed.

"Shush," she muttered.

"Louder," came the voice of Mite.

Orchid looked around. "Where's that coming from?"

"New member mcbuggy," Alderan grunted. "Microscopic. Currently on your horn."

Orchid blinked. "Interesting. Is he what causes that nearby glass globe to explode?"

"What?" Mite said. Then a nearby glass globe exploded. "...Apologies."

"No problem," Twilence said. "Oh, do I need to explain-"

"Downloading."

"Huh?"

"Eye."

Alderan shifted around. "He's on your Eye now, downloading the information."

"Wow. Bugger moves fast," Vriska observed.

Orchid raised a hoof. "This discourse is moot. I need Alderan there. Without him I cannot stop the Dark Lord. Either let me have him or I take him and leave."

Alderan shrieked. "I am not being damned to some tiny globe of gas!"

Fluttershy nodded. "I... I don't think I can just let you do that either, Orchid. There has to be another way-"

"There is not," Lore Thirst said, walking into the room. "The six spirits must be used in conjunction to banish the Dark Lord to the far beyond."

"H-How do you know?" Fluttershy asked. "What if there is another way...?"

"I'd love to hear it," Orchid said. "But as it is, the spirits aren't holy individuals. Alderan is bitter. Ine was distant. Proteus put nature above literally everything. Castorson was religiously manipulative. I don't know what Vester or Gamnemnon are like, but if the pattern continues..."

"No!" Fluttershy said. "Just because they're bad people doesn't mean you have to imprison them!"

Lore Thirst shrugged. "Not your decision to make. Alderan, I order you to submit to Orchid without activating any magic or defenses."

Alderan screamed at the top of his lungs at Lore Thirst.

"Please stop that."

Alderan was forced to comply with his master's wishes.

Fluttershy shivered. "This... This is wrong."

"Can you free them afterwards?" Twilence asked Orchid.

"Possibly," Orchid said.

Twilence frowned. "What about the Overseer?"

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "I do not know..."

"No," Lore Thirst said. "The Overseer does not have the necessary connection to the remnants of the ancients. The aforementioned 'Power Overwhelming.' Whatever it is that defeats the Dark Lord - or seals him away, as Orchid has seen - has to have some connection to that."

"Twi can defy prophecy and prediction though!" Fluttershy said. "She can find another way!"

Orchid nodded. "If you find another way before the reckoning comes, I will free the spirits I have collected."

Vriska narrowed her eyes in distrust. "...Why are you being so helpful now?"

"Having you as enemies is bad. Having you as allies would be preferable. I'll also return Infinity the moment you agree to assist rather than hinder."

"And my die?"

Orchid narrowed her eyes. "Will be given to you if needed. I don't trust you with it."

"I see we have some trust issues."

"Obviously."

"I'll get it back if you let me have it or not you know."

"I can see your future clearly. I am not concerned about you."

Twilence sighed. "Fine. I don't like it, but this seems to be the only choice, and I don't want to fight again. You can have him. But we are actively searching for an alternative solution."

"I may learn more when I obtain him as well," Orchid said. "Regardless..." She marched into the altar. Vriska twitched but didn't stop her. "I am Orchid, and I wish to meet with the spirit of this altar!"

Alderan swore as he was condensed into a small blue globe of energy. The three others - black, green, purple; Castorson, Proteus, Ine - floated out next to him, the four spheres shifting around in a torus pattern. Orchid smiled. "We only have two to go. Two allies, two spirits. I still do not know how soon the reckoning is, but we should get moving.

Fluttershy shivered, saying nothing. Vriska glared.

Twilence took a few steps forward. "Infinity. Now."

Infinity was teleported into the room. She was drinking a cup of orange juice. "Oh," she said. "I take it negotiations went well then?"

"...You could say that..." Vriska said.

"Sometimes," Mite added.

Twilence shook her head. "It isn't nice, but we worked out sort of a compromise. We help her, but we try to find another way. She helps us with that."

"Done!" Mite announced.

"Done with wha-" Twilence's eyes went white for a split second and she fell silent. She blinked as the color returned to her eyes. "Woah..."

"Upgrade."

"I can see that..." Twilence said, scrolling through text in front of her eyeballs instead of relying on pure memory - though she supposed it was memory, just one what was being imprinted over her eyes. Each message was seen separately, and... hold on it told her WHO was saying everything! And she could go back as far as she wanted and - Yep. Most of that was Afizah. Or Sonic Rainboom Dash... She still thought Afizah when she saw it though.

"Fixing," Mite noted. The name now said 'Afizah.'

Twilence blinked, then smiled. "Can you repair it all the way Mite?"

"Doubtful."

"Did you do anything else?"

"Augmentation."

"What do you mean by - oh." Music started playing in her own eardrums. "O... Kay so that was what that link was..."

Fluttershy perked up. "Can we hear it?"

"No."

"...Why not?"

"Speaker."

Vriska rolled her eyes. "Speak with more than one word, jegus!"

"Never."

"...Twilence, can I decapitate him?"

"He doesn't have a head," Twilence said absent mindedly, still scrolling through the links. "A helicopter? REALLY!?"

"How did he even do that?" Fluttershy asked. "Isn't the internet kinda not a thing here?"

Vriska laughed. "Girl, the internet never goes away. I never did figure out why. Think there's probably some super-internet out there somewhere or something... Just gotta access it by 'accident' or whatever." She pulled out a strange spider-like phone. "This, for instance..."

"Stop dilly-dallying," Orchid said. "We have a mission. Gamnemnon is next and it will be a long journey to the southernmost known point. Even with our ship."

"Uh, how are you getting past Heildor?" Fluttershy asked.

"Same way we did last time. Keep that random mirror up."

Infinity snickered. "You missed all the fun guys. The insufferable prick oracle had to roll that thing a dozen times. We got chickenmageddon once."

Vriska twitched. "I want it."

"Don't worry Vriska," Twilence said. "We'll work everything out eventually. To your ship then?"

"To the ship."

~~~

Lore Thirst did not come with them - he didn't even say goodbye. He just... vanished in the middle of loading onto the ship somehow. Fluttershy kept glancing at the four orbs orbiting Orchid nervously. Four was busy talking with a robot that was presumably Seven Hundred - a small red bot that looked like it was made completely out of knives.

"YOU WERE DESIGNED FOR WHAT EXACTLY?"

"Decommissioning Rogue Golems Such As Yourself If Needed." It - or rather she - said.

"Oh my fucking god you sound like Kanaya, stop talking!" Vriska shouted.

"I Will Not Comply To Your Wishes Thief."

"I will make all your fuses blow with a simple stealing of luck."

"But You May Need Me At A Later Time."

Twilence looked at Orchid. "You. You are going to free the golems of Fosis."

"Once the quest is done, Twilence."

Twilence twitched. She was finding Orchid just... difficult. Not bad or evil, just... Stubborn. Beyond stubborn. It was annoying. "Alright, I'm going to talk to the Influence now, just launch the ship already." She looked around - it looked almost exactly like the ship Four had originally taken them through the Desert on, although shinier because of the 'random mirror' sheen.

"Okay, so, first off, I'm not NEVER going to go back home, I just can't stay. It's not 'home' anymore is what I was saying, so cool your jets, all of you. I still care about my friends I'm not going to leave them in the dust. Calm down. DLB, you have some... very odd tastes in what to say. I mean... Man I wish this upgrade detected sarcasm and voice inflection, let me just say."

"Sorry," Mite said.

"...Sorry you can't, or sorry not going to?"

"Yes."

"...Yeah. Right. Anyway. I am vaguely curious why GM is goading us to create an Aradia paradox, but I think everyone's right - we shouldn't risk it. Thanks for the transcript, by the way, Nickel. And Zen, you are right, lore could be full of absolute shit."

Vriska laughed at hearing this.

"But it also might not. I think we've decided we can't take the chance here. Plus... Orchid isn't evil. Just... stubborn. Ponygood, it's fine if you can't call me Twilence. Frankly, it's just what I am now and you can do what you will. Though Afizah, treat my name with a little more disrespect than dismissal and substitution, hmm? Back to Ponygood - yeah, we did edit the Eye with Mite, I think he did that on your suggestion by the way."

"Indeed."

"Hey Mite, think you could go talk to Four-"

"KEEP THE MECHANICAL PATHOGEN AWAY FROM ME."

"No," Mite said.

Twilence gulped. "Okay then... You two should really talk at some point though."

"Perhaps."

"You're getting really fast at this," Fluttershy said.

"Practice makes perfect. Anyway, I also don't think Mite can really be crushed. By anything. Far too small. And..." She paused. "...Creek. I... I just... I'm really, really surprised to hear you say that. It - it made me stop thinking back there I just..." …A-as for killing. It...it's easier i...l..look away when it comes time to do it. it won't weigh on your conscience as much... … "...I'll... take that under advisement..."

Fluttershy looked at Twilence with concern. "...You okay?"

"I... Just... I will be. Just, thought I knew someone, is all." She turned to Infinity. "...Infinity?"

"Hrm?"

She hugged her. "...Glad to have you back."

"Oh! Uh... Okay! I - sorry after a while I forgot I was kidnapped and just started laughing at miss fussypants and dragon worshipper."

"Doesn't matter. You're my friend - I was worried."

The rumbling sound of the ship taking off filled their ears. Soon they were up in the air...

~~~

Twilence walked up to Ruby. "Ruby."

"Twilight."

"Twilence now," Twilence said without emotion.

"Okay." She didn't turn around. "Why are you here."

Twilence furrowed her brow. "I am not sure. I keep telling myself I should forgive you, but then again, I'm not sure if it'd mean anything to you."

"I serve the Oracle and nothing else."

"You sure she's that great of a pony?"

"Nobody said the Oracle needed to be a saint. Just that they will save us."

Twilence smirked. "You know, the Influence has been mulling that prophecy over a lot. They seem to think part of it could refer to a plurality of Oracles, a 'them' as it were."

"By nature, you defy the passage of prophecy and prediction, therefore you could not have been foretold in a prophecy."

Twilence opened her mouth, then shut it. Then opened it again. "There are other ways to see the future than what Orchid has."

"Oh yeah! Like me!" Aradia said, appearing from nowhere. "Hi again! ...What visit number is this for you?"

Twilence blinked. "...Two."

"Oh. Wrong one. Wait. If this is the second then - uh next time you see me tell me it's the second time, okay?"

Twilence blinked. "...Okay?"

"Yeah! I think. Need to keep my own time synched up. I mean it'd be cool to see dead me's piling up but not really what I want to do right now!"

Ruby furrowed her brow. "What are you?"

"The Handmaid. Maid of Time. You probably haven't heard of me, that was in a parallel world. Or maybe you have I don't know I'm still stumbling around like a rabbit. Gotta get my bearings..." She waved. "Bye! ...Oh wait, hold on... We're flying right?"

"Yes?" Twilence said.

"OH! So this is when-"

"ATTACK INCOMING!" Orchid yelled through the comms of the ship. "Thirteen minutes out give or take! Heildor's trying something else!"

Twilence gulped. She didn't like the sound of that. She teleported to the bridge. "What is it, exactly?"

"Brute force didn't work so he's sending some... larger crystal beings I don't think existed at all until a few hours ago." Orchid grimaced. "I've ordered reinforcements from Fosis but I'm not sure they'll get here in time to bail us out. We've changed course as well, but these things are fast..."

Infinity shrugged. "Well, you know what this means!"

Twilence looked down at her Eye. "Yep..."

It lit up in a brilliant white...

XXVIII

Twilence came to. She blinked - she didn't have anything swimming around in her head. She just knew there was new information she could access - an update. "How long was I out?"

"A second maybe?" Infinity said.

"Well, that's good."

"Welcome," Mite said.

"Anything useful?" Infinity asked.

"Let me see..." Twilence started scrolling through the comments. "...Mite, can you put an image on that screen over there?"

Mite complied, putting an image of a blue crystal behemoth onscreen. Orchid raised an eyebrow. "...Why?"

"Afizah wants to know if that's what it looks like. What's coming."

"More or less, their shapes vary slightly. And they're yellow."

The image turned yellow. "Corrected," Mite announced.

Twilence shrugged. "Yeah. Still going through. Yes I can see the video. Not in the mood to listen to that right now nor do I have the time. Uh... Nickel. You can have an unusual schedule if you can't talk I won't mind. In fact I've come to expect it from you. As for talking to Heildor... I'll try, if I can."

"That's insane," Orchid said.

Vriska smirked. "All the more reason to try it."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "...Don't you usually go for the violent resolution?"

"Now come on Flutters, don't you know me? I'm the crazy bitch!"

"...Can't argue with that, I guess..."

"Zen has a good idea," Twilence said, lighting her horn. She cast a shield spell around the ship they were in - nowhere near large enough to surround Canterlot, but still big enough for their purposes. "Is this going to help?"

Orchid closed her two real eyes. "Maybe. I have not yet seen the outcome of the encounter. They seem to be seeking to capture us rather than kill us, so there's that."

Twilence nodded. "Anyway, I had no intentions of ignoring everything Lore Thirst said, just realizing he could be wrong. And... Mite, is there anything else I can do with this Eye?"

"See."

"See what?"

"Views."

Twilence narrowed her eyes. "That doesn't make any sense... What are you talking about?"

"Allies."

Twilence glanced at Fluttershy. Fluttershy shrugged. "Guess you'll just have to figure that out later."

"I suppose so. Regardless, Ponygood, I don't think the crystal beings are technological in any way. And your links aren't working. I can see the images and video, but whatever else you were linking is hidden to me. ...I'll watch those videos later Wolfe... Ponygood the forum doesn't work either, sorry, can't see it... Josh... Yeah, you have a good point about Creek, I shouldn't judge. It just... surprised me, came out of left field is all. I'll have to ask her about it - unless she doesn't want to talk of course, in which case I'll just have to be fine with that. DLB... I don't have time to liste-" She paused. She sat down. "...That sounds nice"

"Library."

"Hm?" Twilence asked.

"Anytime."

"...You're making a music library."

"Yes."

"...That's amazing," Vriska said.

"Definitely."

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "Listening to music instead of continuing on?"

"Inefficient," Seven Hundred said.

Twilence shook her head again. "Right, right... DLB, you say you don't know what to say. I think I can help with that - the most normal thing to say here is to suggest what I do next. These inputs seemed to be positioned before or during dramatic events - probably specifically so you can give me advice on big decisions. Just talking to me is fine as well, though. And Cree-" Twilence paled. "Creek what happened- oh. Wait so if Keywii said that Creek shut off the mic somewhere else does that mean he's writing for her right this very now? What does that even mean? I-" She shook her head. "Sorry. Not going there. There's no answers down that rabbit hole. Creek, I'm sorry, you just surprised me. You really don't have to talk if you don't want. Just come back, okay? And... Candle. I will have a good day."

Vriska broke out into laughter. Twilence snickered along with her.

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like nice laughter."

"Isn't," Mite confirmed.

Fluttershy sighed. "We're changing..."

Twilence sighed and nodded. "Yeah. We are. But... But mainly me. Anyway, Vriska, you said Seven Hundred sounded like Kanaya?"

"That robot pronounces everything with extreme care and precision and it annoys me," Vriska stated.

"Apparently on the story for them, it was written in her 'quirk', whatever that is."

Vriska's eyes widened. "Do I speak in eights? Is every b an eight? That'd be awesome."

"I dunno. I doubt it though, I think they'd have commented on that. And... That's everything this import."

Orchid frowned. "A surprising lack of information."

"I got us a shield didn't I?"

"You should have been able to think of that on your own."

Twilence twitched. "I'm just using what 'tools' I have at my disposal."

"No matter. They'll be here in a couple minutes."

"PREPARING BATTLE STATIONS," Four announced.

"That won't work," Orchid said. "They'll capture us if we continue on our current path. Our reinforcements won't arrive until a few minutes after we've been taken away."

"How do you know?" Twilence asked.

"The Eye shows me what the future holds. Unless you somehow manage to do something to change it, which I'm beginning to doubt you can. The shield has already been factored into account, it will fall."

Twilence frowned - she needed to think. She needed to be the one to come up with something here, something that would change the future...

"How high can this thing fly?"

"I Do Not Know Of An Upper Limit," Seven Hundred said.

Twilence smirked. "Do we know how high they can fly?"

"No," Mite said.

Twilence turned to Orchid. "Worth a shot?"

Orchid nodded slowly. "I cannot see the result of this action... You truly are powerful and mysterious."

"Thanks. Seven Hundred, take us up."

The ship they were in suddenly pointed straight upwards and let out an extremely powerful burst of blue fire out of its engines, launching itself higher and higher into the air. The clouds were soon far below them. The inertial dampeners that usually kept the passengers from feeling the intense forces of motion the ship experienced were unable to compensate for the powerful energies experienced when fighting directly against gravity. All the passengers that weren't machines felt themselves pressed violently into a nearby wall. And still, the ship rose. The sky began to darken and the horizon began to curve beneath them.

Twilence stared intently at the screens displaying the world beneath them - despite her discomfort and being pressed against a wall, she was still in awe. She could see everything rushing into her view. There was the Desert, that tall area with golden buildings must have been the city of Heildor. There was a bluish-green forest - the Bluemist Forest. She saw a heavily urbanized peninsula and one that was covered in ice. She saw an archipelago between them - and she also saw a strange, circular cloud formation to the west of the icy peninsula... ...Probably Frau. The Time Tunnels.

Then they went higher still. The sky darkened further - seeming to collapse in a blue band along the edges of her vision. She saw the sparkling lands of magic north of the Lost Desert, and the mountain range that extended far, far beyond Moissan.

She had no idea how much time had passed, she was too enthralled in what was going on.

Then she saw it. At the edge of the mountain range, touching the sea just at the edge of her vision, a landmark she recognized.

The primary volcano of the Dragonlands.

She laughed. They were in the southern hemisphere a quarter turn of the planet west of Equestria. Or, she supposed they were above that now. She looked at the rest of the planet she could see. At the moment it was a tremendous blue ball that dominated most of her vision - but she could see it's spherical nature from this high up.

"KEEP THAT SHIELD UP!" Four bellowed. "IT IS ALL THAT IS LETTING US KEEP ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE! THIS SHIP IS NOT RATED FOR VACUUM TRAVEL!"

Twilence snapped out of her stupor and focused back on the shield. "That would have been nice to know beforehand!"

"THEY ARE ALSO STILL CHASING US."

Twilence gawked. "How? How can they get this high?"

"MAGIC, I PRESUME. I ALSO SUSPECT THEY DO NOT REQUIRE AIR TO SURVIVE."

Orchid nodded. "Well... Do we have any advantages out here?"

"NO. IT IS POSSIBLY WORSE UP HERE THAN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE."

"Dangnabbit."

"Was that two words?" Vriska perked up.

"No."

"Now is not the time..." Twilence muttered. "We've got to do something..."

Orchid shook her head, lifting out the orbs of Ine and Alderan. "It's not looking like we can. I still see us getting captured. I..." Her eyes all widened. "Hold on a second, what is that?"

Twilence looked at a screen - there was something red, sharp, and obviously artificial rushing towards them at impossibly fast speeds - orbiting Equis. They didn't have time to respond - they just got to see it.

Then it hit them.

The shield never stood a chance at something fast enough to orbit the entire world a few dozen times a day.

A giant red spike shot through the room they were currently standing in, dividing it in two, sheering Four's left arm clean off. Everyone screamed as the sudden change in velocity tossed them to the other wall. Twilence used her magic to make sure nobody broke anything.

"Atmosphere Venting!" Seven Hundred yelled. Everyone felt air rushing out of the room near where the spike had impaled them. This was only accelerated when a yellow-crystal claw poked its way through the nearby wall, resulting in enough airflow to tear Twilence off her feet. She scrambled - unable to resist the explosive decompression. The yellow claw released, and she was shot out of the hole into the void. She didn't feel cold like she had expected - if anything the rays of the sun felt too hot. She did, however, feel like her insides were ready to burst, that she couldn't breathe, that her eyes were boiling away...

She couldn't hear anything. She saw the crystal creature reaching for her...

...and in a flash of pink, she was in some kind of red hallway lined with unusual glyphs she didn't recognize. Everyone was there - except Four and Seven Hundred. She couldn't see Mite. "Mite? Four?"

"Here," Mite said.

"Where's Four?" Twilence blurted.

"Outside. In space," Orchid said. "He'll be fine, he doesn't need air. What I want to know is why I didn't see this place coming..."

"...Well it's obviously some kind of satellite in orbit around the planet," Vriska observed.

Infinity raised a hoof. "Uh... Hey. The chances of a random orbiting satellite crashing into us? Almost zero. Like, really, there's a lot of space up here and as big as that red thing was it really isn't going to hit us by chance."

Twilence furrowed her brow. "It targeted us? But why?"

"Security," Mite said.

Twilence looked around. "You can get into the systems?"

"Yes."

"What have you found?"

"I-"

Orchid's eyes widened. "Four and Seven Hundred are losing we need to-"

The yellow crystal behemoth crashed through a nearby wall - that covered itself in a forcefield before any air could be lost. It really did look like the picture Afizah had sent - except yellow. It reached for them, firing a few dozen crystals.

Twilence shot a laser at it, but the light refracted inside. Orchid backed up. "It's got anti-magic on it!"

Vriska stepped forward. "Allow me..." She took out her dice - and before she could roll them the crystal behemoth grabbed her by the hand. "Fuck you!"

She was punched with impressive force through a nearby wall, revealing a room covered in screens, maps of the planet, and trajectories. Three colored eyes were on the center screen - red, pink, and purple. Twilence blinked - what did that mea-

She was punched across the room, slumping onto the floor.

"DICE! NOW!" Vriska yelled to Orchid. Orchid closed her eyes and looked into the pathways of the future - and nodded. She summoned the infinite sided die and tossed it to Vriska. She grabbed it with ease - and stole the crystal behemoth's luck.

"You are in for it now bucko!" She tossed the thing to the ground - and it lit up.

Krill started appearing from nowhere around them. Metric tons of krill surrounding them on all sides in an uncomfortable manner. All of them - Mite and the crystal behemoth included - were surrounded in the krill, unable to move.

Well this is great... Twilence thought...

Then the krill all teleported at once. Twilence knew they were outside the red ship. Twilence also knew they were falling, and falling fast.

Twilence gulped. Well this was going to be a rough ride...

~~~

A ball of krill fell from Low Equis Orbit into the atmosphere, burning up the outer layers with alarming rapidity. Anypony looking from below would see a giant ball of fire and swear they smelled something fishy. There just happened to be alot of ponies looking from below.

The ponies of Pebbleton.

They saw the krill meteor split in two suddenly - half heading for the Bluemish Forest, the other half heading for the outskirts of town. An entire field of tall grass was decimated by the impact.

The town gathered around the impact site - some of the inner krill were still alive, while others were burnt. Prancey ate one of the ones that was cooked to perfection, finding it delectable. Diorite approached the pile cautiously.

Twilence poked her head out of the pile of krill, gasping for breath. "AAAAA.... Oh. We're fine."

Diorite raised an eyebrow. "...This is most unusual, Twilight."

"It's Twilence now. And... Yeah, it's a long story. But I think we're safe now!"

And then the crystal behemoth erupted out of the pile of krill, obviously very upset. Twilence paled. Crap.

And then the Eye lit up...

XXIX

Twilence came back to awareness just in time to dodge an incoming crystal hand. She leaped out of the way and dragged a bystander pony with her. "Mite! Scan the import!"

"Dragon."

"What?" She looked at Diorite. "Uh..."

"Food."

Twilence's eyes widened. "DIORITE! EAT IT!"

Diorite shrugged. "...Worth a try." He flew in, mouth wide. The crystal behemoth shot dozens of crystals - all of which missed. Twilence supposed its luck had been stolen recently. Diorite bit down on the creature's front, shattering it into dozens of pieces. Quite the lucky shot - or unlucky, if you were the behemoth. Twilence realized for the first time what Vriska's power's actually meant.

That was a very dangerous power. How do you beat someone who can literally make million to one chances happen all the time? If there was even the slightest chance they could win, they'd take it...

Good thing she was on their side.

Diorite landed among the crystals. Infinity and Orchid dug themselves out of the pile of krill at the same time. "Ow..." infinity muttered.

Prancey waved. "HI INFINITY!"

"Oh. We're back here." Infinity blinked. "What are the odds?"

"A million to one," Twilence said.

"Ah... Okay, so where's my die?"

"Pretty sure that's Vriska's die."

"Okay, so where's Vriska?"

Twilence pointed to the Bluemish Forest. "Pretty sure the others landed over there. Given the dust cloud. And the smoke."

Orchid nodded. "Yes."

Diorite raised a claw. "Care to explain what's going on before you run off?"

Twilence opened her mouth but Infinity beat her to it. "She's an alicorn from the future who is either part of a prophecy to save the world or has the power to change it however she wants and she's amazing AND this pink unicorn here is probably the Oracle and she's on a quest to save the entire world from a Dark Lord and we have some otherworldly friends and some ancient golems and-"

Diorite blinked. Twilence facehooved. "Really Infinity?"

"What? Was it a secret? Oh, right, you were hiding it from me at first... Kinda forgot about that, to be honest."

Orchid shook her head. "We do not have time to stay. The crystals of Heildor will most likely be pursuing us despite the efforts of the golems"

Twilence's eyes widened. "...Four and Seven Hundred are still on the ship aren't they."

"Yes," Orchid said. "They are alive though. Did Mite find anything interesting on that ship in the short time we were there?"

"Some," Mite offered.

"How much?"

"Little."

"Can you tell us what the eyes meant?" Twilence asked.

"No."

"Great. Uh... What was its purpose?"

"Guardian."

Twilence blinked. "...Protecting what?"

"Everything."

"...It just went to attack anything that made it to orbit didn't it?"

"Correct."

"Why?"

"Retrospect."

Orchid narrowed her eyes. "Can you just show us the file?"

"Negative."

"Why not?"

"Database."

Orchid facehooved. "Twilence, Mite is not as useful as he seems."

"Affirmative."

Twilence sighed. "He gets us a lot of information. Come, let's go find the others."

Prancey whined. "Oh Twilence, why can't you stay a while?"

"We'll come back for supplies Prancey, don't worry."

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "We will? We need to get to the Ice Shelf-"

"We can spend some time here Orchid. Calm yourself-"

"How about you spend your time here and I go get the others?" Orchid asked - though Twilence sensed it wasn't really a request.

Twilence nodded in acceptance and Orchid teleported away. Twilence smiled. "Hi Prancey! Been a while!"

"Oh yes it has! Hey Wound, come over here!"

Wound walked up and smiled. "Nice to see you again, glad your adventure went well. I take it from Infinity's spiel over there you know what you're doing now...?"

"Yeah," Twilence said. "...Sorry for keeping all that a secret. In retrospect, I don't think it mattered much."

"Why'd you change your name, by the way?"

Twilence smiled sadly. "Came across some information that I'm far from the only Twilight out there. I wanted to choose my name variation rather than have it slapped onto me."

"Ah, the voices?"

"You bet it's the voices!" Infinity chirped. "The Influence, they are!"

Prancey clapped her hooves. "Oh goodie! Epic quest right?"

"Yep!" Twilence smiled. "On the way to the Ice Shelf. I hear we'll have to face some ice monsters."

Prancey nodded. "Yep! Maybe you'll find out what happened to Lei camp!"

"Huh?"

"It's a biiig mystery - there was a settlement the council ordered created at the tip of the ice shelf and then it just stopped all contact and all ships that went to find it vanished!"

Twilence would have found this thought terrifying a few days ago. Now it just brought a smile to her face. "...Something interesting down there then. Good."

"Don't you have some Influential voices to talk to Twilence?" Prancey asked suddenly.

"Oh right. Excuse me." She gave no thought to the fact that the entire town might be watching - she didn't really care at this point. She also realized she had completely forgotten she had a cloak. She guessed she was done hiding. "452 sounds like a lot, but it probably isn't, is it Ponygood? Yeah, space is beautiful. Very beautiful. And unfortunately Mite did not get much information on the ship - either that or he can't communicate it with us."

"Insulted."

"Noted. None of those links works - to me it's only things that appear in-box. I don't have to 'click' anything, it's just there as I scroll through. I guess I need to tell the videos to start though... Regardless. Afizah, those pictures are... Interesting, but I fail to see how they apply. I mean... Yeah, it's another version of me, and the story's probably cool, but... Well, I can't very well read it can I? And... would I want to?" Now there was a question she didn't know the answer to. "As for the image of the planet, uh, sorta. More clouds, and the landmasses were different. Candle, Key, stop freaking out, okay? I mean - maybe, everything can just calm down a bit. I... I really am not something to stress that much over. Used to think I was, but really, either you're looking into another world or I'm just a story to you. Either way, I don't think I should be affecting your world as much as I think I am. Why am I such a big deal anyway? It can't just be because I'm able to be talked to - there has to be something more than that."

Infinity blinked. "Wow. Smart."

"And Wolfe, I guess I could play the music in the background. Mite's already made a playlist. Probably will, though I'm not sure if you'll hear it." She turned some music on with low volume and smiled. "Nice."

"Can't hear it," Wound said.

"I know. Anyway... Yeah. Anything about Creek has to come from Creek. Nothing else will be right. And Candle? If you believe my world is real then magic is very real. Zen, yeah, those colored eyes mean something. I think they do represent what you suggested. I'm just not sure why. And last, but certainly not least, Criterian! Welcome to this fun mess. I hope you enjoy your stay!"

She looked up. The entire town was staring at her. She rolled her eyes. "Either I'm crazy or not, you can all decide for yourselves."

Orchid appeared again, Ruby, Fluttershy, and Vriska behind her. Vriska leaped into the pile of krill. "WHERE IS THE DIE WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT..."

Fluttershy looked at her sadly, but quickly looked away.

Ruby shrugged. "She lost the infinite sided die. She's freaking out about it."

"It is a powerful artifact but we do not have time," Orchid said. "We need to move south, ASAP."

"Why?" Twilence muttered. "Can't I enjoy some company?"

Diorite glared at Orchid. "She knows the Heildor warriors might come after their fallen companion. Come to this town. Attack us. She wants you out before you realize this."

Twilence blinked. "...What."

Orchid shook her head. "We do not have time to defend one town from our pursuers."

"We don't have time!?" Twilence shouted. "These people will need our help-"

"And the Dark Lord is fast approaching. We have two altars left to find and I feel that he is coming soon!"

"Do you have an exact time yet?"

"No."

"We can afford to wait!"

Aradia appeared on top of a nearby house. "Uh..."

"This is your second time seeing us," Twilence said without thinking.

"...Okay that's a weird response but I'm not going to question it..."

"Come back when you can tell us the arrival time of the Dark Lord," Orchid said.

Aradia shrugged. "Well alright then." She vanished in a puff of red gears - and appeared again. Her robes were charred, her hair frazzled, her horns scratched, and she was bleeding from several places. "Three days from now, during the moonless sky."

"...The night sky is never moonless," Orchid muttered.

Twilence shook her head. "Luna can move it to the day side of the planet if she wants, though she doesn't do so very often."

"Regardless, Twilence, we have three days. We have no supersonic ships or golems with us now - they are being stopped by a war with Heildor forces. We don't have time to stay here."

Aradia coughed. "She is right."

Twilence turned to look at Aradia. "...What do I choose here?"

Aradia laughed. "Do you want to make a paradox? Your Influence is not causally related to this universe! I've had to bend over backwards just to keep myself from experiencing paradoxes! Including that earlier moment where I told you to tell me when the second time I met you was. That wasn't true first time around." She started coughing. "Also, brute forcing the Dark Lord... nooooot going to work."

Vriska stopped her search for a moment. "Yeah, right, I can totally take him-"

"You died in three seconds," Aradia said matter of factly. "Heroic death. Hopefully, my saying that will get Twilence here to change that, somehow - actually it has to since it's impossible for you to die in a true alpha timeline, at least not yet."

Vriska blinked. "...What? I mean that's cool to know and all, but that's pretty ominous..."

"I don't pretend to understand ka, just make some educated guesses."

"Mother of - that stupid Tower! Why does it always come back to the stupid Tower!?"

Aradia shrugged.

Orchid raised a hoof. "Can we get a move on yet? Seriously. We have three days. The sun is setting on today so we basically have two days and three nights. We need to move it."

"But..." Twilence looked at the many people of Pebbleton. "...Diorite can you...?"

"I just got lucky," Diorite said. "I wouldn't want to take my chances on another one."

Twilence gulped. "What if I stay behind?"

"We need you to collect allies," Orchid said. "At the very lest Aradia so we don't ruin time completely."

Aradia gulped. "Yeah, that would be a bad idea. Not bringing me here. I'd have to... Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to say anything about that." She coughed. "Wow... Ow..."

Fluttershy walked up to her. "You okay?"

"No, pretty sure the dark magic is eating at me. Yeah. I'm going to have to go for now, find something to heal me. See you around." Then she was gone.

Vriska returned to digging through krill. "If I can find that die..."

Orchid glared at Twilence. "We need to go. Now."

Twilence big her lip. "I... I think we shou-"

And then the Eye glowed.

XXX

Twilence looked through the update without saying anything.

Orchid bristled at how long this was taking.

Twilence smirked. "We are going to evacuate the town, as per Josh's excellent suggestion. Diorite, think you can handle that?"

Diorite paused, then nodded. "That's... That's a good idea."

Prancey whooped. "YAY! YOU FOUND A THIRD OPTION!"

Diorite nodded. "We can take care of that ourselves actually. There is no need for you to stay."

"EXCEPT TO FIND THAT DIE!" Vriska shouted, digging through the krill still. "Okay, I need some luck. Who wants to volunteer to become extremely unlucky and fall flat on their faces for the next few days?"

"We cannot afford that," Orchid said. "Just leave the die."

Twilence frowned. "I'm not so sure... Letting it fall into the Dark Lord's hands..."

Vriska growled. "I should ask Aradia to go back into the past and find it for me-" Vriska's eyes widened. "Oh no. I do that in the future, don't I? And she brings it back to me! The future me! It might not even exist in this time! AAAAAAAAAGH!"

Twilence lit her horn, scanning for magic signatures - and found none. Though the die hadn't really given any off to begin with. Whatever it was it wasn't magic, at least not in the traditional sense.

"Looking could be pointless," Orchid said. "It is a powerful artifact, but Aradia can bring it back. We need to head to the South, it is a precarious journey. And we are going to try to make it in one day and night."

Twilence nodded. "Right... Tomorrow, ice altar. Then the Capital. Do we have time to stop over the archipelago's altar, for another ally?"

"The altar is in a public location, so yes."

Twilence grinned. "We'll have a full party soon."

"It all depends on your definition of soon. We should go now."

Twilence sighed. "Right... Prancey? Diorite? Wound? Sorry, I have to go again."

Infinity shook her head. "Me too..."

Prancey giggled. "No problem! Go save the world or whatever!"

"I plan on it. Stay safe!"

"We will be - the Forest has a few secret places in it!"

Twilence nodded. "Well... How are we going to do this?"

Fluttershy extended a wing. "Well... All of us can fly. Let's fly there until we can't."

Infinity raised an eyebrow. "AHEM?"

"Ruby can carry you."

Ruby nodded impassively, grabbing Infinity. Twilight gave Prancey and Wound one last hug before they took off towards the Ice Shelf...

~~~

It was night. They were still flying. It had started to get really cold and windy.

"Okay..." Twilence shivered. "This... This is annoying!" she yelled through the intense winds.

"What!?" Orchid yelled, unable to make out what she had said.

"NOTHING IMPORTANT!" Twilence rolled her eyes. Now was as good a time as any to talk to the Influence she supposed. She was momentarily struck by a feeling of oddness - the crisis with Pebbleton was supposed to be more of a big deal, and yet it wasn't. She didn't know why this struck her as odd, it just showed up in her head. She shook it. "Well, Josh, you had a good idea. Thank you. I... I just don't think it would have gone well if we chose any of the previous options. And thank you for your kind words. And to everyone who asked about the die, I am sorry, we just... didn't find it. And it is making me nervous, but one of the first things I'm going to ask Aradia is for her to go get it, next time we see her. Afizah... You're right, the moonless night would match up with Nightmare Moon since the day she appeared she eclipsed the Sun, though that was years after Sombra... Celestia, we are almost exactly one thousand years in the past, aren't we? Anyway, Afizah, we know Sombra isn't the Dark Lord - it's Siron, Corot, or both."

She flapped extra hard to avoid capsizing in the wind. "And about all this Alpha Timeline stuff... I think Josh is right, we can change things, defy prophecy. Even Aradia said she has a hard time dealing with what we do. I don't think it necessarily means we win though... But we know Vriska survives. And something tells me I do as well. I really don't know what though..." She looked at the Eye. "...Are you telling me things?"

"Maybe."

"Oh. Hi Mite. Creek and I say thank you for all you've done, by the way."

"Accepted."

"Ponygood, that thought about how reality works - I mean, it's interesting, but it seems a little pointless at this point. If we exist with a direct connection or indirect as you say, does it really matter? The same things are happening all around us. It doesn't change anything. Creek, we don't need you to talk about your past. But we are here if you need to. And I often find that ponies - and people - need to talk about their past. It may be you've already done so and don't need to again, but if you haven't... Well, we're here. Also, don't type your stutter, it was awkward to read as it was. Probably fine to hear, but text leaves something to be desired. And Ponygood, as for your question... HEY VRISKA!"

"What?"

"If you can control luck why do you get crap rolls?"

"Running low at the time! Have to accumulate it! Since I don't like removing luck until people's hearts stop anymore, not as easy as it sounds!"

"Got it!" Twilence flew over to Ruby and Infinity. "Hey, Infinity!"

"Hey, Twilence!"

"Haven't really talked, have we?"

"Not really. What's up?"

"Wind. Lots of wind! And yelling!"

"Yeah, I got that too! Also I've got a dragon embedded in my back!"

Ruby said nothing. Twilence smirked. "That you do. So, did you figure out what your cutie mark meant?"

"Not entirely sure. I think it has something to do with infinite ideas maybe? But that seems wrong. Maybe I'm just an outcome of random chance? Who knows?"

"What else happened while you were with them, by the way?"

"Well I was scared at first, but then I realized how corny they were. Ruby here was blind faith incarnate and Orchid was easy to infuriate. Also M - oh M, you know, the Motherboard? - they were absolutely deadpan SNARK. The hate for Orchid was obvious no matter what she commanded."

"Sounds like the Motherboard..."

"An ironic 'celebration of the Oracle' party was performed just to annoy her!"

Ruby growled. "It hindered our progress."

Infinity laughed. "That was kind of the whole point! Semi-rebellion!"

"This is why I hate machines. OW!"

"Payback," Mite announced.

"...I am one with the wind..." Ruby said, trying to calm herself.

And then the gust hit. The wind came from above, catching them all by surprise. They were tossed into the ground with alarming speed. Luckily the snow was soft. Unluckily the snow was cold.

Fluttershy stood up, chattering. The snow was up to her neck. "Ok-k-kay we c-cant travel in t-this..."

Orchid nodded, shivering herself. She brought out the spheres for Proteus and Castorson, green and black. Great trees grew out of the ground and started glowing with the soft energy of stars. The snow in the middle of them began to melt. Ruby hastened it by breathing fire.

Twilence blinked. "...What exactly are the capabilities of the spirits?"

"They are each attuned to one of the six elements - Water, Life, Cosmos, and Magic. We are missing Mind and Blood."

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "Does Blood have to deal with personal connections?"

"No. Blood is all about physical power and control."

"Okay, explain these elements to me, they aren't like any system I've heard of."

Orchid nodded and explained while the others set up camp. "Life and Water, Cosmos and Magic, Mind and Blood. Green and Blue, Black and Purple, White and Red. Proteus, Alderan, Castorson, Ine, Gamnemnon, Vester. The Elementals had many other elements - some suggest there were hundreds of thousands of different ones - but those were the six that rose to the top and defined themselves as the dominant. Life is all about living things and nature, Water is all about the nonliving, the substances from which life draws from. Cosmos is all about the Stars above us and the space between them while Magic is the substance from which all spells are drawn. Mind deals with thoughts and calculation while Blood deals with power and emotions."

Twilence laid down on a roll of fabric she created. "Interesting. The Elements where I come from are different - more about how to live your life than anything. Magic, Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness. I have read some texts that equate these to more traditional elements, of course. Magic, Earth, Air, Cosmos or Void, Water, Life."

"No fire?" Orchid asked. "Most standard systems have a fire in there somewhere."

Twilence shook her head. "Nope. Though I have a friend named Sunset who would be fire... Wonder what that means... Empathy Fire? Redemption Fire? Hrm..."

Fluttershy blinked. "There's somepony we could bring."

"What? Sunset?"

"I mean, it's an option right?"

Twilence shrugged. "I don't know... Something to consider I suppose. Still bringing in Aradia and Evermore Pinkie. At least I'm pretty sure about Pinkie, I suppose I could be outvoted. And whatever the other one is."

Vriska yawned. "Well, it's sleep time..."

Twilence nodded. "Yes. Yes it is."

~~~

Twilence looked at the red eye.

The red eye looked back. It did nothing this time.

Twilence sat down and shrugged. There really was nothing to do here anymore. The eye was there - it was always there - and it'd probably be there tomorrow night as well. Twilence didn't think she'd be sleeping the night after.

The night of the moonless sky.

Or the day of Nightmare Moon's eclipse.

Afizah was probably right about that.

Were the events related? Twilence knew Nightmare Moon came into existence because an evil entity took advantage of Luna's anger at her sister - a very real anger, Luna had confided to Twilence once - and created a monster. But it had never been clear where those Nightmare Forces came from. Many thought the moon itself, but that didn't make much sense - how'd they corrupt her when she was nowhere near it? And if it was through her natural connection to the celestial body, why was it not more gradual?

Did the Dark Lord have something to do with it, maybe?

...There was no way to know. Not until it happened.

She bit her lip. If given the choice, once she knew, would she change anything?

She didn't know.

The red eye continued to stare at her.

"Oh stop it already, you aren't as creepy as you think."

Nothing.

~~~

They walked along the snow-covered peninsula alongside the shore. The salt water of the sea was enough to keep it from freezing over, but not enough to prevent small patches of ice to form. Everyone was bundled in magically conjured coats - save Ruby and Mite, who needed no such things.

The scenery was... boring. Snow only looked beautiful for so long. It was all very flat and boring. The wind had died down - they could have been flying - but they were taking it slower for now. The Ice Shelf was a large geographical feature, they didn't want to miss a snow-covered Altar just by rushing over it.

Twilence noticed a feature in the distance. She pointed at the top of a snowy hill. "There. That looks like a spire of ice."

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "So it does."

"Could it be the Altar?"

Ruby flew over to it to see. It was a giant spire of ice pointing directly out of the snow, letting the low-hanging sun's beams through beautifully. The snow wasn't sticking to it for whatever reason, and it was semi-melted from the sun's direct rays. Ruby reached out to touch it.

Before she did the spire opened up like a flower, turning into eight tremendous spinning blades. Ruby ducked back before they could slice her in half. The flower rose up into the air on a strange mobile strand of ice, from which numerous thorns appeared. The creature easily towered over all of them.

"Ice monster," Infinity said. "I don't know what I was expecting. Something less plant-like?"

Ruby bathed the creature in her fire breath, parts of it melting off, but it still came for her, whirling like a saw blade.

"...You know, maybe we should help her?" Fluttershy said.

Ruby dodged another attack from the ice-flower with elegance.

Twilence shrugged. "I think she has it."

Another ice monster erupted from the snow directly in front of them, this one looking nothing like a flower. It was mostly a giant pair of jaws with sharp teeth, though it did have two pointy icy arms. It charged - Orchid shattered it with the power of Ine. Ruby took the flower down with another belch of fire, leaving only a writhing tower of ice.

"Okay, these things are weird," Vriska said, picking up a piece of the toothy one. "This is literally just ice. Nothing else at all."

Twilence raised an eyebrow. "At least it looks like they won't be too much trouble."

~~~

A few hours later...

Twilence, Orchid, and the rest of the group stared up at an ice creature that was too large to comprehend. It was made of numerous hydra head shapes, tentacles that snaked far out of sight, insect shapes everywhere, random places made of geometry, flower-blades alongside literal saw blade shapes, and a single cubical head the size of a small mansion.

"Welp," Twilence said. "I can see why ponies don't like the Ice Shelf."

Then the Eye lit up. Twilence facehooved. "Of course."

XXXI

Twilence was still staring at the tremendous beast of ice that surrounded them.

Vriska smirked. "You know how I said I was having trouble absorbing luck without killing things?" She put a finger to her seven-pupiled eye. "I don't think that's going to be an issue here."

A stream of light shot from the ice creature towards Vriska's eye, absorbing all the luck. All of it. The beast moved forward and shattered in every imaginable place, falling over them as a bunch of sleet. Vriska laughed. "That's how you do it!"

Orchid frowned. "That didn't do it."

"Oh come one what do you see future miss?"

"That." Orchid pointed at a white light flowing through the icy shards and points. From the wreckage of the ice behemoth, a new one grew before their eyes, pulsing with white energy, sucking the moisture from the snow to increase itself. Spires of ice shot out of the ground near Vriska - missing her every time due to her currently high levels of luck. She laughed.

Ruby belched fire, but the growing ice seemed immune to it. The ice itself beginning to take the form of creatures - things with faces, claws, petals, or other symbols of life, despite them being nothing more than ice sculptures. It was like watching art be created. Dangerous art.

Orchid brought out the orb of Castorson and sent out a gravitational wave, shattering many of the creatures - but the shattering was always undone by the healing white light.

Infinity stated the obvious. "This isn't working!"

"Unhackable!" Mite lamented.

"Retreat!" Twilence shouted. "Orchid, can you help me perform a tactical teleport?"

Orchid took out the Sphere of Ine and nodded. The two lit their horns, combining their magic to teleport everyone to the far distance. They could see the nest of ice monsters writhing in the distance, glowing with white energy. The moment they noticed their prey was gone, the white energies stopped - but the ice monsters remained. A few of the flowers started flying in their direction, but a few quick magic bolts from Infinity of all ponies took care of them.

Twilence let out a breath. "Okay. We're-" she caught herself. She looked around. "...Probably not safe."

Fluttershy pointed. "Hey, what's that in the distance?"

The party turned to look at a particularly large mound of snow towering above them - and buildings at the foot of it closest to the sea. There was notably no snow at all in the town. No signs of life from this far away, but it looked... warm.

This was probably the lost settlement of Lei Camp.

Twilence decided to confer with the Influence as they approached. "Josh, that's an interesting idea about the 'choice' there. Makes me wonder if there's a branching path we could have taken on this adventure that would have turned it into something completely different. What if I had stayed in Pebbleton? Would the story have become reacting to Orchid's antics and their effects on the rest of the world? Or what if I went right to Peran and the Observer helped me get back to Equestria, would I have changed history? Or been instrumental in the events of Nightmare Moon? It seems... It feels like this story had many branching paths."

"You don't know the half of it," Aradia said, walking alongside her.

Vriska blinked. "Man, you sure know when to show up."

"Wandering existence for thousands of years will sharpen your skills, as you know."

Vriska laughed. "Indeed."

Twilence looked at Aradia. "...What do you mean by me not knowing?"

"I'm able to see many timelines branching from this point, and many others. Your Influence ensures nothing is written in stone, that there is an influx, so I have to keep adjusting. At this point, there are several ways the timeline could be expected to go, though there are some certainties. Of which I will not tell you."

"You already told me I have to survive," Vriska said.

"That's more a consequence of you being you than anything else."

"...Do I have to survive?" Twilence asked.

Aradia grinned eerily. "That depends on your definition of survival!"

"That's not creepy at all."

Aradia giggled. "Well, you haven't got to the pivotal point yet, so I don't think I can say much. Though I can say the pivotal point is after you summon me. You're going to find me annoying. I think. You can easily mess with my own past and then I'll have to reconcile it somehow..." She shrugged, then vanished.

Orchid blinked. "...Who does she think she is, acting like she's the guardian and protector of all time?"

Twilence shrugged. "I don't know."

"She's the Maid of Time," Vriska said. "Her job is to literally heal time itself wherever she can."

Orchid didn't like this answer, huffing. Twilence returned to the Influence. "Afixzah, I already deduced that about Pinkie, a long time ago. The way she acts - her knowing makes sense. Also hi Pinkie, not sure if you're real or not, but I suppose what the heck, might as well say hi. Ponygood, we have Murphy's Law here. Pretty sure it actually goes 'anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.' Pretty sure that's not exactly what's happening here, but I get the idea. Creek, what's the problem with only being 1000 years in the past? In the present day Equestria doesn't even know the location of every major landmass in the world! We... Don't do a lot of exploring. For all we know Peran still exists in the present time. Ponygood, yeah Four and Seven Hundred are still in space. Don't think we really have a way to get them right now... But we'll try. The Starshell sounds like an okay idea - and it would be a way to get to them I suppose, assuming the red ship doesn't try to kill us again. It'd also keep us from having to carry everyone everywhere... Great, now I have four options. Starshell, Sunset, Pinkie, and Aradia. Wolfe... Just... Right... Okay..."

And then she saw the pointless conversation.

She gave out a loud sigh and closed the influence. "That's enough of that." They were approaching Lei Camp now, nearing the edge of the snow. She stuck her foot out past the snow - and felt warm. Not quite hot, but definitely enough to keep snow melted. She scanned around - the pavement was enchanted with warming magics, possibly draconic in nature. Dragons liked it warm most of the time so this made sense, they'd remove the snow.

The buildings were made of brown bricks enchanted the same way, arranged in a setup much like Pebbleton, except without the farms. There was notably not a soul in sight - no dragons, no ponies, not even any bones.

"Huh," she said. "Odd."

"Not the altar," Orchid said.

"We don't know exactly where the altar is," Fluttershy reminded everyone. "Maybe we can find clues here?"

Infinity walked in one house without a door, finding a bookshelf lined in books. She began to leaf through them. "...Atlases."

Twilence looked over Infinity's shoulder - the maps here were more detailed than the ones she had but didn't show that much more area. Those that showed the entire globe notably had the parts of the globe that weren't around Peran whited out.

Infinity took out a large atlas with a red eye symbol on it. She blinked. "Authored by the Overseer!? Well. This is probably beyond valuable."

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "Anything peculiar?"

"It has the magic lands on it, and Estur. And hey look, Frau!" Infinity pointed at a strange ring-shaped island. "Time Tunnels... We could probably get there in a few hours from where we are..."

"Pressed for time, remember?" Orchid said. "Tomorrow night is the moonless night."

"Right..." Infinity looked the atlas over for anything more helpful. "Yeah, it says the Death Sea is aptly named since the waters seem to be poisoned, making bodies decay in unnatural ways..." She shivered. "Yeesh. no wonder nobody goes to Frau."

"Anything besides atlases in here?" Vriska asked.

"Not that I can see. You should probably go check another house-"

Vriska accidentally pressed a particular brick in a wall, making it shift. She looked at it - and grinned when she realized she'd found a secret. She pulled the brick out, revealing the inside. A small leather bound journal. She picked it up and flipped to a random page:

June 5: I don't know what to say anymore. The path to the ancient cavern is no longer welcoming to us. The journey seems more and more difficult each time we attempt it. And yet, we cannot stop going - the rewards are far too great. Seeing the glory within is just too much. We cannot stop going - it is our one light in this gods-forsaken place. At this point it no longer matters if we understand the relic, only that we can see it.

June 7: We encountered a small demonic creature made of ice that was easily dispatched. G told us not to worry.

June 10: We received a shipment from Peran - the Overseer sent a personal note, saying something was clouding his sight in this particular part of the world, which concerned him. We quickly wrote a letter back and told him not to worry. It occurred to me about an hour ago that we didn't mention the relic. Oh well, we'll tell him next time. Maybe he can send over more to study the glorious device.

June 15: The ice demons are getting bigger - nothing R can't handle, but at this rate, it'll take a small squad to make the trek. The trek that now seems larger than it has any right to be. G assures us the path hasn't changed shape, that it would be impossible. But I swear we're walking circles around the mound before we get to the cavern and that it takes longer every time. N claims it's just because we're entering winter. I doubt it.

June 19: R was killed on the way back from the altar. An ice creature pierced his eyes and went right to his brain. It then just... left. Like it's work was done. G lamented the horrid ice demons - they existed only to kill in the most brutal ways they could manage. They were nature's sadists. I don't know what to believe anymore. But I know we must keep going to the great relic. Every time we go, we receive new clarity about the universe.

June 24: There was no shipment today. It was supposed to come. It was probably just caught up in a storm or something, it'll be here in a few days.

June 26: Driftwood started drifting through the sea, the make of a Peran ship. Ice shards were found buried in it.

June 29: Some of the ponies left in the night with our only boat. Pieces of driftwood drifted back this afternoon, covered in blood. The ice demons don't want us leaving. The Council will send an iron ship for us eventually, I know it.

June 30: N has declared no more expeditions to the altar after the last few deaths. I know this makes sense but... I can't help but be angry with him. G assures me N is making the right call - the ice demons are apparently worse than they've ever been - but I still don't care.

July 2: G informed me that N's son was planning more expeditions and that we'd be able to go to the altar again. He informed me that he was feeling the need to go back as well, it was just too good to pass up.

July 4: N was killed today by his own son. Good.

July 7: Ponies die every day. Small price to pay for enlightenment.

July 10: The wreckage of an iron ship drifts onto the shore. I don't care.

July 14: I must be one of the great ones, because the icy demons never face me. Maybe they think me worthy. G seems to think so.

July: N's son threw himself into the sea today. Weak.

Why do I even write in this journal anymore? What's the point? Why bother with records? Everything I need is here and soon there will be no need for records at all. What even is the date? Who cares. All I know is I am leading the next expedition. I'm taking some of the warmth bricks. I don't think this weak town can offer me anything else.

Vriska blinked. "Well, we seem to have stumbled onto a horror story."

"Wonderful," Twilence said. She turned to everyone. "Well, the altar's nearby, inside some cavern in that giant snow mound."

"And it drove everyone insane!" Infinity blurted.

"Your point?" Orchid said. "We still need to go to it."

"Definitely," Mite added.

"I don't see a path though..." Infinity said, glancing outside. "All snow."

And then a white mist appeared outside, in the streets. "Oh my! I... I did not expect anyone back! The ice demons have never let this place be - the madness affects them as well."

Twilence blinked. "...Gamnemnon, by chance?"

"Oh! You know who I am? Wondrous! I... I wish I could be more inviting but you should probably leave, this place is horrendous and drives madness..."

"We need to get to your altar," Orchid said.

"Oh! Are you the Oracle?"

"Yes," Orchid and Twilence said. Twilence smirked.

"...Interesting. I take it you already have some of my siblings?"

Orchid hesitated, then produced Ine.

"Wonderful! Then all is going as planned. I guess I shall take you to the altar to offer myself - such things are important."

Orchid cocked her head. "None of the others have been willing."

"None of the others have the slightest smidgen of intelligence. I see you're wearing my invention, winged-unicorn."

"Twilence," Twilence said. "You... Invented this?"

"Everyone claims it was a team effort but I was the genius behind everything. The Hole. The Time Tunnels. The Apocrypha."

"The Apocrypha?"

"You've heard of the Time Tunnels but not the Apocrypha? Man, history does weird things. The Apocrypha is a device that erases things from existence so it was as if they never existed. Naturally, we don't know if there's ever been a successful test, but we're relatively certain it works. Logistically, anyway."

"...That sounds terrible," Fluttershy said.

"Oh, it is. Threw it into the sun before the civilization fell. It was just a proof of concept." He looked at them. "I'm afraid I can't teleport you anywhere, I'm a spirit of mind. But I do know the path into the mound."

"Won't that be treacherous?" Fluttershy asked.

"It could be. But I believe we don't have to look for the right entrance - you can all just bore right in!" Gamnemnon chuckled heartily. "So, prepare yourselves for the Altar!"

"Vote time," Twilence said. "Who we grabbing? It's between Aradia, Pinkie, Sunset, and the Starshell. Some possible issues about Evermore Pinkie have been brought up, so I think I'll just bring regular Pinkie in. I suppose you can also vote for a Starlight."

"Starshell," Orchid said. "Speed is of the essence."

"I agree," Ruby said.

Fluttershy cocked her head. "Pinkie."

"Sunset," the Mite said.

Infinity shrugged. "I'll go with... Pinkie. I'm curious."

Vriska frowned. "Well, I was thinking Aradia, but now... Hrm... I think we need another fiery chick on board that isn't insufferable. Sunset."

Twilence rolled her eyes. "Welp, three-way tie. Very helpful. Guess we're not bringing Aradia in this time. We'll see what the Influence says as well. Gamnemnon? Lead the way."

"The mound's right there. Just dig straight in until you get to an icy cavernous hallway," Gamnemnon offered.

Orchid produced the Orb of Castorson and bored a hole into the snow, ice, and rock.

And then the Influence called.

XXXII

Orchid was still boring a hole into the mound when Twilence came back. She scrolled quickly through the comments to collect votes - facehooving. "...I think I have some drama to deal with. Regardless, Pinkie won. I think I'm grabbing Evermore Pinkie, since it was already stated that GM worked on that and it should be fine. If it's not... Well, Aradia'll stop us, right?"

Vriska shrugged. "Probably."

"Regardless, keep drilling Orchid, gotta deal with stuff. Creek, guess you weren't here at the start - we already asked those questions to the locals. They had no idea where Equestria was. I don't know if they think the movement of the Sun and Moon is even unnatural in any way."

Infinity shook her head. "We didn't - until you showed up. It was almost like clockwork."

"The sisters are good at their job." Don't trust Gamnemnon. Twilence realized this was probably good advice - he was here amongst a tragedy. He seemed amiable enough, so the villagers had probably been aware of him, and yet he hadn't stopped it or succumbed to it-

Hold on one sec.

What if he was the G in that journal?

...He sure sounded affected in those pages if that were the case...

And he was right here. How was she going to let the others know to watch themselves without - ah, right!

"So, G, I know the Time Tunnels can be used to go through time - can they be used to go to other places as well?" Twilence said, sure to emphasize the G.

"The long-range teleporters do exist there, but I doubt any 'receiver' pads exist elsewhere. That being said you could just go back in time to give yourselves an edge."

Twilence wasn't sure if anyone picked up on what she said. She hoped it was at least a few. "Thanks, G." She would have suggested Vriska go search the town but she didn't want Gamnemnon figuring out what was in the journal. Did he already know? Did it matter?

...And she supposed that was all the Influence had to say besides the votes.

That is, besides Afizah and Ponygood.

She sighed. "Okay. Afizah? Ponygood? Neither of you is handling this particularly well. Afizah, it's rather evident that you aren't showing us Pinkie. The Pinkie I know would take more stock in what Ponygood was saying and... well honestly, probably would have run off crying right now, get mad, or just respect his wishes. Pinkie isn't really a reasonable type who's concerned with proof or other such things - she just is. That being said, you could be an alternate universe... But... You seem inconsistent. It's like you're a character in a book I'm reading and you aren't believable. Which has been the case with most of Afizah's 'characters', which is why I've doubted them. I mean... Sorry, Afizah, I guess that insults your writing ability, doesn't it? I know how horrible that is, I don't mean it that way, I assure you. And seeing as how Creek and Key are just 'windows' through Keywii Cookie or something, I guess that may just be the way it is. So... There's not really a real answer from my position. If you are Pinkie, you still aren't handling it well or being considerate, which is what grates against me."

She continued. "Ponygood... You're right, it's annoying, and you're probably right on your general points. No need to get so venomous and angry about it - I mean, that was pretty brutal. Lots of you have all 'role-played' at one point or another, maybe not you specifically, but several. Most of those may have been Afizah, but there were others. Akumakami - where is he anyway haven't heard from him in a while - and probably a few others. My issue with it was I wasn't sure if it was a real window or not - still not, though leaning towards not with Afizah. Some of them seemed more real than others. His other me, the Shepard. My point is that even though you seem right it doesn't mean you should get all angry. I got angry at your antics before - and I apologized. You may have been straining me, and you were at fault, but I didn't need to be so livid. I think I just needed to let out some steam. So... Make up you two, okay?"

There was silence. Orchid had finished drilling.

Fluttershy smiled. "Princess of Friendship."

Vriska nodded. "I can see why. The title is unbelievably cheezy bug Gog-damn, I only heard half of it and that made me want to hug something."

Ruby frowned. "Let us continue on."

They entered the tunnel Orchid had carved - and slid down the icy surface in a manner of seconds. It was a wild ride - Twilence managed to spin herself around in the slide and let out a gleeful laugh. Who cared if they were going into danger, this was fun. She hadn't had some pure, innocent fun in a while. She reveled in it.

"Laughter," Mite deadpanned.

"Oh shush."

They arrived in a tremendously large football-field sized cavern made almost entirely of ice. There were four flat pathways of ice that led to the center, one of which they were standing on. There were no railings, but the bridges were wide enough that Twilience wasn't immediately afraid of falling to the icy spikes below, though the icy spikes above concerned her. The place glistened with an unseen light source and the altar was suspended above the center of the cavern.

"Do you mind summoning your 'ally' first?" Gamnemnon asked. "I would like to be present for that."

"No problem," Orchid said, gesturing for Twilence to go. Twilence shrugged - she didn't see any harm. She scrambled across the slippery ground until she arrived on the solid ground of the altar. She smiled, stepping into the center. "Evermore Pinkie."

The altar predictably lit∆•£ªª¥¬˙ ´∑•√ø˙¢ø†...

~~~

Hello again.

You've done something interesting here. You've broken a rule.

Nobody can leave the Evermore Recursions. But you're reaching into it from the outside. Breaking the universal quarantine in place. Opening up a can of worms.

Not to mention how good Evermore Pinkie is at her powers. I say you've chosen well. But unintended consequences are a thing.

That said, had you chosen someone else, be rest assured: what happens next would have been much, much worse.

~~~

∑•ª¨ˆ√∑•ºinkie gasped. "THRACKERZOD! I'M LEAVING!"

The tall, regal unicorn-demon looked at the bouncing pink pony with suspicious eyes. "What...?"

"Leaving the Recursions! I'll be gone in a few seconds! Be sure to tell everyone it's possible! ...Though far as I know it requires outside influence..."

Thrackerzod wasted no time - she shoved a frying pan into Pinkie's hooves and spoke something in the eldritch tongue.

Pinkie grinned. "Nice." She waved goodbye.

~~~

Pinkie appeared in the center of the altar with a frying pan in her hooves. She grinned. "Hi Twilence! Sorry about this!" She tackled Twilence to the ground just in time to dodge an incoming ice spike.

Twilence glared. "It's not safe in here!"

"No... Kidding..." Ruby gagged.

Twilence turned - she saw a spire of ice held in Ruby's hands, stopping it from getting to Orchid. But it still pierced through Ruby's chest, drawing bright red dragon blood. Ruby was slowly bleeding and freezing over at the same time.

Twilence ran to her. "Ruby! Hang on-"

And then the dragon exploded as the ice surged with a white glow, driving more spires in all directions.

Twilence turned to look at Gamnemnon. "No..."

"Oh YES!" He laughed, moving the ice towards Orchid. "I MADE THIS ALL HAPPEN! ISN'T THAT GREAT!?"

"No!" Orchid yelled, closing her two real eyes and using her sight to dodge the incoming ice shards - she was having some difficulty as they surrounded her. The ceiling and floor themselves began to push with white energy, shrinking to crush all of them.

"DID YOU REALLY THINK I WAS GOING TO JUST LET YOU TAKE ME? NO. No..." He laughed. "I say let the world burn. Who gives a rip. I just wanted to see the curious expression of hope vanish from your eyes... I couldn't play the long game like I did with the village, which ruins some of the fun, but really, still satisfying. All of you are going to die here at my hand. Creatures from other worlds, a microscopic machine, a hero, and a defiler of destiny. How perfect is this?"

Orchid ran for the altar - but a wall of ice surrounded it. "Oh no, not letting that happen. And you can forget about teleporting. Or even using magic!"

Vriska pointed at him and drained as much luck as she could manage. "You're gonna die now."

Gamnemnon laughed. "I am a spirit of nothing but mental fortitude! There's nothing you have that can possibly do anything to me, even if I were extremely unlucky-"

He got hit with the frying pan Pinkie was holding. His white sparks stopped moving instantly. "N....N..."

Pinkie threw Orchid through the ice wall into the altar. "DO IT FAST HE'S ABOUT TO DIE."

Orchid nodded. "I WISH TO SPEAK WITH THE SPIRIT OF THIS ALTAR!"

Gamnemnon was condensed into a white sphere and given to Orchid in a single instant. The ice walls stopped glowing white - but they kept moving on their own.

"Huh. Felt for sure that'd work," Pinkie said.

Infinity narrowly dodged another ice tentacle. "How are we going to get out of this?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Well, if you didn't have me, I wouldn't know. Seeing as you do have me, well..." She made a count. "One, two, three, four... I can only take four. Uh..."

Vriska grinned. "I can't die in the 'alpha timeline,' Leave me. I'll find a way out."

"Okay good. Come on guys let's go!"

"Vriska," Mite said, leaving the Influence and hopping onto Vriska.

Vriska smirked. "Guess he likes me."

Pinkie shook her head. "No more time let's GOOOOOOOOOO!"

And then they were gone in a shower of confetti.

~~~

Pinkie, Orchid, Twilence, Infinity, and Fluttershy appeared in a field of wheat in a puff of confetti. Pinkie smiled. "Well, we're safe!"

Orchid blinked. "...Where are we?"

"Another world," Twilence answered. "...Somewhere else in the multiverse."

Orchid took out the five Spirits - testing Gamnemnon. Her eyes widened. "...He's the spirit of mind all right, I'm calculating the digits to some number relating to circles now..."

"Pi," both Pinkie and Twilence said at the same time. Pinkie giggled.

"Learning anything new?" Infinity asked.

"A lot. Still sorting through it... The last spirit, Vester, is going to be a nightmare to obtain..."

"How so?"

"Neither Vester nor the Palace altar has been seen in centuries. Not for lack of looking for it.

"Great..."

"Guys..." Fluttershy said. "How... How can you all be so relaxed!?"

"What are you-"

"RUBY JUST BLEW UP! HER BLOOD IS ON MY FACE! WHAT DO YOU THINK IS UP!?!?!?"

Pinkie instantly lost the smile. "Oh... Oh no... I..." Tears started flowing into her eyes. "I... I..."

Twilence gulped. "I... Fluttershy, we-"

"She's dead!" Fluttershy shrieked. "So very dead!"

Orchid raised a hoof. "I am aware, but she sacrificed herself protecting us, a noble-"

"She sacrificed herself to protect you. More of us would have been skewered if Pinkie hadn't been there with that frying pan!"

Twilence glanced at the frying pan. Something about it unnerved her.

Good eye.

She was just going to ignore those words it put in her mind. Yep. No way a frying pan could talk. She focused back on Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, this is a dangerous world we're in. I don't think we can get through it without loss-"

"You going to be so neutral about it if something cuts off my head!?"

"Fluttershy..." Twilence shook her head. "You know that's not true..."

"Yeah, I don't. Which is why nobody caring bothers me!" Tears flowed down her face. "She exploded, Twi. She exploded. Someone else might explode. Vriska might not have made it out..."

Pinkie shook her head. "She's fine."

"How do you know?"

Pinkie pointed at the Influence. "Mine works properly. Though not as well as the one Twilence has is supposed to."

"So she was right, you could hear voices."

"Oh no. Well, yes. I can just see beyond, what things are happening, where things are going to end up. And when to pull off a joke!" She sniffed. "Now is obviously not the time for that..." The wind swept through her mane. "Well..."

Fluttershy looked at her closely. "...You aren't the Pinkie I know."

"...Yeah. Sorry. I had to change on my adventure too. I had to adapt to another set of - oh no. They don't have a Pinkie anymore. I mean I think there's human Pinkie but I'm not sure and Diane is..." She put her hoof to her head. "...They're going to be so sad and I can't go back without getting trapped!"

Everyone fell silent.

Orchid coughed. "It occurs to me that we have a lot of emotional baggage to get through, but also a quest. Pinkie, can you take us back to our world so we may continue?"

"Cooldown is 4-5 hours. We're here for a while."

Twilence frowned. "Great. We... We also need to decide if we're going to the Time Tunnels or Altars first..."

"We may not be able to activate the Time Tunnels," Orchid said. "And then we'd just lose time."

"But if we could, we'd be able to mess with time itself!"

"Pretty sure Aradia has that covered," Infinity said. "We'll just get her and ask her for a favor or something."

"To get that die..."

Fluttershy looked at Twilence. "Twi, can I talk to you for a moment? In... private?"

Twilence looked around. "I mean, yes, but where's private?"

Pinkie Pie produced a large curtain and drew it between them. "There you go! Privacy curtain! Everypony plug your ears!"

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "Guess... that works."

"What's up?" Twilence said, concern on her face.

Fluttershy sighed. "A... A lot of things. Ruby... But that can be talked about in the open... Just..." She reached into her mane. "I... I have something you need to see."

Twilence raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

She produced the infinite sided die.

"...Oh." Twilence deadpanned.

"I... I found it and took it. I... I don't think Vriska should have it. She's too dangerous. Too violent. I don't think she's a bad person but... She's a dangerous person."

Twilence wasn't sure what to make of this.

The Eye lit up the moment she thought that. Fluttershy sighed, putting the die back in her mane. "It's activating everypony!"

Pinkie tore the curtain down. "OOOOOOOOH! I wanna be here for this one!"

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

Vriska felt like she was being watched. She frowned, picking up her dice that had burned a hole just the right size for her in the ice. She was standing in the sun of the ice shelf, the wind chilling her.

How the heck was she supposed to know where or when the others would show up again?

"Unknown."

"Can you read my mind?"

"Body."

"...Body language?"

"Yes."

"You really work hard to keep up this one-word thing, don't you?"

"Affirmative."

"Hmm. So. Well then. Probably should go wander around until Aradia or someone else shows up then... Where do you think we should go?"

"Capital."

"I like that idea." She changed into her orange robes and flapped her wings towards the Capital of Peran...

XXXIII

Twilence blinked.

She had seen Vriska for a few moments there. Talking planning to go to the capital. "Huh. Guess Mite did more than I thought... Vriska's heading towards the capital everypony."

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "Not sure how they'll feel about that."

"How so?"

Infinity shrugged. "The wall's there for a reason. Anything that doesn't look like a citizen will get destroyed. She certainly doesn't look like a citizen."

"She's faaaaaaaar too lucky though!" Pinkie said. "She'll be fine. Right now we gotta answer the Influence, right Twilence?"

"Right. ...You can hear them too, right?"

"Oh yes! I can even see a little more than that, but well, it's not my place to make all those things known. I have soooooome more freedom in what I can say here because you've all figured out the big secret, but I can't tell everything and - darnit! Ponygood! They weren't supposed to know that!"

"Huh?"

"Last message. Just... Okay so I really shouldn't say anything since that hasn't really happened yet, because of timey wimey stuff and-" She looked up. "Oh, right, Aradia isn't traveling across dimensions, so... She's not gonna be able to conveniently show up here unless she wants to skew time again. Back on track - Creek wasn't supposed to know about Jane Ponygood! The sequence of events is... Well just like this entire story, it's up in the air!"

Infinity raised a hoof. "I'm going to make an observation here. Why aren't you the Oracle?"

Pinkie giggled. "Because I have rules to follow, silly! There's a lot of things I can't tell you. There's also a lot of things I don't know. What the Influence will do, what will happen at the capital, all sorts of stuff! I just know certain things! Like what Connor said to me! Thank you!"

Twilence nodded. "I... See... How about you complete your responses before I do mine?"

"OKIE DOKIE! The frying pan has no name, I'm still held to my rules but they're loose now because of reasons I already said, and yeah I'll totally join the whatever for Butt the Cloud that sounds amazing!"

Twilence facehooved. "Oh please no."

Pinkie giggled. "Have a little fun Twilence! And Ponygood, I suppose we could go places, but we have adventures to run through first! We'd need a very specific reason to go somewhere, like we did now! Also, excuse me I need to go plow a road through this field."

"...What?" Fluttershy said.

"Don't ask."

Fluttershy shuffled awkwardly as Pinkie bounced off to 'plow a road.'

Twilence blinked. "Yep, still Pinkie. Different... But Pinkie."

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "What else you have in there?"

"Let's see..." She started scrolling through. "Yeah, the pan does make me nervous, but apparently it's helpful. Though... Thrackerzod doesn't sound very nice. I... I plan on remembering Ruby..." Hard to remember her fondly though. "I can't really ask Mite what to call him - so I guess... "him" works. And thank you for apologizing. DLB, yeah... I guess everyone can be dangerous. One of the things I've learned here. And Afizah, thank you fo-... Er... Sonic? I guess I should say-"

She stopped talking and reading, eye twitching.

"Uh..." Infinity said. "What did-"

"Sonic. Rainboom. Dash. How nice of you to show up and claim that I'm traumatizing one of my closest friends. Really, good first message there," Twilence bristled. "I was trying to decide if I should believe you or not, but if you're going to act like that then it doesn't really matter one way or the other."

Fluttershy blinked. "Was... Was that about me?"

Twilence bit her lip. "Yes, but you don't need to listen to Afizah or Sonic or whatever, they're unimportant and-"

"Twilight..."

Twilence twitched. "I'm not Twilight."

Fluttershy nodded slowly. "I know. And... And... And I don't like that!"

Twilence's eyes widened. "...Fluttershy?"

"I know it's selfish of me and I know you've changed and you can't go back but... I want the Twilight I knew back. The one who liked books, who would smile and laugh all the time, who was scared. Who didn't have the weight of everything on her mind and, just, too much. I know it wasn't really your choice but... I feel like something's been stolen from me. I was hoping Pinkie would be different but... She seems the same way..." She looked down at her own hooves. "I've changed too... Who knows where my old self went..."

Twilence was taken aback. "...Fluttershy..."

"Twi..." Tears started flowing down Fluttershy's cheeks. "I... I want to go home..."

Twilence gulped. "We... We all do."

"I want to go to a home where you're there. But I know that can't happen." She looked into the distance, wind whipping through her hair. "If I've learned anything, it's that this works like a story. And that you'll have more to do once I'm done."

Twilence gulped. "It... It certainly seems that way."

"Twilence and Vriska both," Pinkie said, completing her job and appearing right next to them. "I don't think they'll do it together though. And I don't know about any of the others."

"We might not even make it," Fluttershy said.

Pinkie nodded. "I'm not even sure if the best path is without sacrifice... I just don't know. I'm... I'm sorry."

Fluttershy nodded. "...I might not make it home at all..."

"Don't go there!" Twilence said, hugging Fluttershy close. "You... You'll always be here. I'll protect you. All of you. I won't let anything happen."

Twilence saw Pinkie bite her lip hard. Twilence did not like what that suggested.

"We're going to the Time Tunnels," Twilence said suddenly. "And we're sending Fluttershy back home."

Orchid sighed. "Won't work. Time Tunnels are going to need all six spirits to open."

Twilence twitched. "Well then we'll need to hurry. This place is bad for Fluttershy. She's not going to be here when the Dark Lord comes, I'll ensure that."

Fluttershy blinked. "Twi... I'm not sure I want to leave you all alone here-"

"This place isn't good for you. I'm in too deep to go back, but you can. There's hope for you." She turned to Pinkie. "Can you take us out yet?"

"Still a few hours."

Twilence nodded. "Well... What are we going to do until then?"

"Make a plan," Orchid said. She drew a map of southern Peran - including both the Ice Shelf and the Time Tunnels. "Troisha, the archipelago, is directly in our path from here to the capital. We'll stop at Castorson's altar and gain a fifth ally before heading to the capital, hopefully with intel from Vriska and Mite. Vester's altar is unknown - the capital is filled with millions of dragons and ponies, and yet there's no trace of it. We will perhaps need to speak to the Council."

Infinity's jaw dropped. "You mean... They'll agree to see us?"

"An alicorn and an Oracle should be enough to grab their attention," Orchid said.

"What's the council made of?" Twilence asked.

"There's five seats. One is permanently held by the Overseer. Two ponies, two dragons. I don't remember all of the current seats off the top of my head - they change constantly - but I know there's an ancient hydra on the dragon side by the name of Gilead. He's old enough to remember the time of Discord. There's also a pony on there I know - my great aunt, a unicorn by the name of Evanescence. She looks a lot younger than she is. She seems calm and regal all the time but actually has an adventurous spirit."

"So we have an in with her?"

"She's not a fan of me. Claims I go too far."

"Ah."

"Regardless, we can speak to them, see if they can find anything. Again, that would be pointless if Vriska finds something."

"...Is there even anything else to plan?"

Orchid laughed. "Yes. The capital city is a huge maze that is impossible to navigate unless you live there. I myself lived there for a time, but it's probably changed a lot since then. We need to make a system and know how to deal with things if we get mugged or something..."

~~~

Pinkie took them back to Lei Camp. The place was nice and warm - and they looked out across the ocean. They couldn't see Troisha or the capital. Pinkie took out a deflated raft and started blowing it up - but Twilence had already started conjuring up a small wooden raft. "...The ice demons are going to attack us," she said suddenly.

Orchid nodded. "They are indeed. We win though."

"Reassuring. What do I do?"

"Stick some of those hot bricks on the front of the ship and launch. We'll plow right through them."

Twilence did so. The five ponies got into the boat and launched across the water. It took a few minutes of sailing but one of the icebergs did come out of the water, gnashing teeth and sawblades. Everypony held on for dear life while the boat tore a hole through the creature, skipping off to warmer waters. It tried to chase them, to no avail.

"On your left," Orchid said. Twilence shot a laser to the left - and the ice monster that appeared there shattered.

"Right, direcctly below, northeast."

Twilence shot each one before any damage could be done.

"Wow," Pinkie said. "Overpowered."

"I see all. Avoid the wall of ice coming above us in three seconds."

Twilence turned the ship sharply to the left, avoiding the ice wall. Infinity shot her own laser at it, collapsing it, and they continued on their way.

This continued for some time, with the ice creatures becoming more and more sparse as time went on.

They had escaped Gamnemnon's horrid trap.

"Hey..." Fluttershy turned to Orchid. "Why didn't you see Gamnemnon's betrayal?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it was because he was a spirit I did not have yet? I didn't see Ine's guns being used by her altar, but once they were activated I could dodge them just like anything else. I need all six to perfect my Sight."

"Great... So you can't just see us finding the last altar."

"Probably not."

Fluttershy sighed, laying down in the boat. "I think I'm going to sleep."

Twilence nodded. "If you need to..."

They sailed across the sea...

~~~

They arrived in Troisha a few hours before sunset, sailing into the harbor. The place was beyond colorful - the islands were covered in unusual greenery, brightly painted buildings, and docks that glowed with magic enchantments. Their boat was automatically taken towards a blue dock, and they were greeted by a blue earth pony. "Welcome to Troisha, the best independent nexus in the world!"

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "...We're here to see Castorson's altar."

"Oh, I'm sorry, the acolytes have sealed that off to tourists-"

"I'm not a tourist, I live here. I'm Orchid."

The pony raised an eyebrow. "Don't recognize the name."

"Nevermind. I'll deal with it myself. You continue doing your job, I'm sure you can tell some real tourists they can't see the altar. Bet they'll be glad to hear that." She marched onto the shore of the island, gesturing for the other four to follow.

Twilence decided quickly that Troisha could be described as a place that thrived on tourists - there were tons of ponies and dragons who looked completely lost, glancing at maps and scratching their heads. There were others that were staring at the graceful, brightly colored architecture. One statue stood out - one of a pegasus with wings far too large to be normal.

"Who's that?" Twilence asked.

Infinity frowned. "I think that's their first elected Chancellor. Don't know the name though."

"Peridot Feather," Orchid said. "An idealist who decided he didn't like the idea of listening to the Peran Council. Rebelled. Peran didn't even fight - Troisha was useless to them back then. Then we turned this place from a bunch of useless rocks to a prosperous tourist nation. It's all a bit silly."

Fluttershy blinked. "Huh. Weird..."

"Weird yes, worth our time, no. It's just history. Come, Castorson's altar's over here. I'm going to try to get the acolytes to let me in but they're going to hate me for stealing Castorson."

"...Then why are you even going to try?"

"Distraction so you can go in," Orchid said. "Just teleport yourself in, get your ally, teleport out. Who you getting this time anyway?"

Twilence opened her mouth to ask for a vote - but suddenly she stopped. She looked at the Eye in her chest.

She knew who she had to bring in. She suddenly had the feeling that the last altar wasn't going to be what they expected, and that they might not have control over the situation. And if that were the case, she couldn't risk causing a paradox.

"It's Aradia's." Twilence said.

"Oh my gosh you're right!" Aradia said, appearing from nowhere. "And here I was thinking I might have to tell you that!"

Twilence smiled. "Hey Aradia. Finally going to give me some answers?"

"I'll hang around for a bit longer this time, you know, but it won't be as clear-cut nice-time as you want. But I can try! Just summon me first okay?"

"Alright. Funny, the Influence hasn't shown up yet..."

Pinkie smirked. "There's a chance they could mess this up, Twilence. Let's be thankful there's not going to be a paradox."

They arrived at a large, black, iron gate. Orchid cleared her throat. "Hello-"

"YOU!" One of the robed ponies screamed. "YOU DARE SHOW YOUR FACE HERE AGAIN AFTER DEFILING OUR SPIRIT!?"

"Guys, seriously, how could that have been me, what could I have possibly done..."

Twilence teleported herself and Aradia behind the gates. The acolytes were still screaming at Orchid, oblivious to her. Fluttershy, Infinity, and Pinkie shrugged and went to order some food from a tourist cart.

Twilence turned to Aradia. "Well..."

"Time to close the loop."

She walked into the middle of the courtyard. Sure enough, surrounded by tons of black etched stone, was an altar. Twilence looked at all the stones around it. "What do these mean?"

"Castorson said many things about the worlds beyond," Aradia said. "I went to the past and talked with him. He saw things no one else could see - the essence of Cosmos. He spoke of demons, of Stars, and of forces beyond understanding. He reveled to me that he had tried to wear the Eye before it was complete, trying to force it to adapt to him. It didn't work so well. He went mad. And yet, these acolytes still worship him and his knowledge. Even when he's gone."

Twilence stepped into the altar. "Huh. Altar, give me Aradia so we can close the time loop."

Aradia smiled. "Here we g•∑¶£ˆø\

~~~

This one had to be Aradia.

Why? Because the next one... could be different, depending on how it goes. Twilence is adapting to her Eye, learning to listen to it. To know more. It's not complete, but it can be. Time will only tell how.

It seems simple now - get the last altar, then defeat the dark lord. Possibly with the Time Tunnels themselves, who knows. Doesn't seem like there's much more than that.

But you've forgotten some things.

~~~

∑•¶¥ª˙ß∆´¨∑ø¥radia was watching another version of herself talk to Celestia in the Tree of Harmony's clearing. The other Aradia etched a ten-toothed gear with an Aries symbol into the base of the tree.

Aradia smiled. And thus the cycle was complete. The paradox was done. Everything was...

She felt something tear at her from far away.

...She hoped her other self didn't panic when she couldn't find her.

~~~

Aradia appeared in the altar. The Aradia that Twilence had been talking to whispered something in the new Aradia's ear. She was surprised, but she nodded - vanishing in a warp of time.

Twilence blinked. "So did you go get almost killed by the Dark Lord yet?"

"Did I - oh wow. That was a long time ago for me," Aradia laughed. "I've done a lot. But... Well now's the time I travel with you." She gave a thumbs up. "It won't be easy."

"What happens?"

"I'm not sure, it always changes. You always arrive at the Capital. Then things go wrong in one way or another - it's always different. It's as if it's in temporal flux. As if you are approaching a point where everything branches off."

"That's reassuring."

"It's why I'm here to help. I'll need to watch this unfold."

"HEY!" an acolyte shouted. "HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!?"

Twilence rolled her eyes. "Well then..." Suddenly the Eye lit up. "...Oh. Now they show up. Huh." She was not looking forward to hearing from Sonic again... Perhaps she had blown up at him, but that was still a pretty horrid accusation...

~~~

[Importing...]

Vriska could see the capital.

Holy shithives it was big.

The entire shoreline she could see was covered in brightly lit buildings, some truly stupidly tall. Even from this distance she could tell the place was pretty disorganized. She could see huge dragons and blimps flying between the many pointing skyscrapers, and even a few floating houses tethered to nothing. Bridges ran from building to building and the entire place just seemed too orange.

"Orange," Mite said.

"Yes. Orange."

"Big."

"You are captain obvious today."

"Marshall."

"Marshall obvious doesn't even make any sense."

"Exactly."

Vriska rolled her eyes. "Well, time to go in... ...do you think they're going to stop shooting at us anytime soon?"

"Negative."

"Thought not. Still don't think they'll hit." A bullet whizzed by her ear. "Yep. Still trying. Going to need a plan here."

"Underwater."

"...Eh, good enough." She dove into the ocean and began to swim towards the shore.

XXXIV

Twilence opened her eyes - all the acolytes were frozen in time. Aradia smirked.

"Why didn't you do that before?" Infinity yelled from the other side of the gate.

"Sometimes you need to fight your own battles. But I'm here now, and yes, that does mean we are very overpowered in this setting. Manipulation of time offers some delightful ways to cheat the system, though there are consequences, so I hope you'll trust me on what I say about it."

Twilence nodded and smiled. "You've been nothing but helpful - if a bit mysterious. I see no reason not to trust you."

"Good! Hey, did you know they do live sacrifices here sometimes? The town doesn't know about it, but it is an interesting ritual nonetheless..."

Twilence blinked. "I had forgotten you were morbid."

"Huh? Oh. Right." She chuckled. "Guess we didn't really have time to get to know each other, did we? But now it's time to go."

"You saw us leaving now previously?"

"I saw you leaving in a few minutes in numerous different ways. The timeline loves to split around you, though you always go to the Capital. Why do we always call it the Capital anyway? It's Chalak..."

"It just seems right!" Pinkie said, appearing from nowhere.

"That it does..." Twilence said. "What else do we do every time Aradia?"

"Well, you always get to Chalak, and then you..." She paused. "...I'm not sure if I should tell you about-"

"Don't," Pinkie said. "Bad idea."

Twilence glanced between the two of them. "What?"

Pinkie gulped. "It's... The pivotal point. You can't know about it or it can't happen and well that would kinda ruin things. Not even Aradia really knows what it is."

Aradia's smile fell. "...Okay, that's mildly concerning."

"Eh, don't mention it. Really, don't."

Twilence gulped. "So we are heading towards a fixed point in time that not even the time traveler really knows about. That's... great. What happens after the 'pivotal point'?"

"Always different," Aradia said. "Sometimes you find the altar, sometimes not. It really could go any way after that, it's so bad I can't even make predictions."

Twilence frowned. "...Where exactly is the altar?"

"Somewhere in the catacombs. As for exactly where I couldn't tell you - even going to the deep past couldn't reveal its location to me. I did meet Vester once, and he basically said that it was never meant to be seen. He's apparently gone through every measure possible to ensure nobody can ever find it and threaten him." She glanced at Orchid for a moment. "I have no idea how you end up finding it in those futures."

Fluttershy sighed. "This isn't going to be easy, is it? We only have a day to find it..."

Aradia smirked. "I can keep resetting the day over and over again if need be, but you do seem to find it in many of the futures, so something tells me it won't be necessary. But it would be cool."

"Who do we get out of the altar?" Twilence asked.

Aradia shrugged comically. "Different every time. Sometimes I think I run into flukes where you summon some evil that isn't the Dark Lord, but I'm beginning to think that's time trying to compensate for the Influence." She snapped her fingers. "We really are wasting time here, we should go. Sail to Chalak."

"We need to make another boat..." Infinity said.

Aradia vanished. Then she came back, looking tired and haggard. "Okay, that was much more difficult than it needed to be. I am now the proud owner of a yacht on thirty-fifth dock. But..." She shook her head. "Investing in the future economy is always supposed to be an easy thing but apparently the ponies in Troisha love to screw you over in every way possible."

Orchid laughed. "Brilliant deduction."

"Yacht's this way," Aradia said, rolling her eyes. They arrived at her rather impressive boat. She donned a captain's hat (provided by Pinkie) and set sail. "This is Captain Megido speaking, enjoy the ride. We would arrive in Chalak at sunset if time were normal, but you're all lucky enough to be on an accelerated boat. The entire world may look like a snail to you while we're traveling, but I assure you, to the outside world we are a streak of light on the water. Please, help yourself to the complimentary peanuts." She ate an entire bag of complimentary peanuts.

Fluttershy smiled slightly. Twilence looked at her and sighed. Was Fluttershy okay? Did the Influence have a point?

Speaking of the Influence...

"Okay, starting with Ponygood... Aradia, can we use time loops to exploi- oh, wait. You already offered."

"Hey, if we run out of time, I'll reset the day. If you got any better ideas, I'm all ears - or horns, heh - but try to avoid any larger-scale time shenanigans, one of the timelines in the future has a time-traveling version of Starlight that wants my head. Don't want to draw her into this mess."

"Not sure if that's good to know or not. Pinkie... Ponygood wants to know what we've forgotten."

Pinkie blinked. "Well... There's several things that probably really aren't fair for me to say. You haven't forgotten about the ship or Four, just hasn't been important lately. ...Eh, Lore Thirst. He's still important."

Twilence blinked. She hadn't thought about that guy in a while. Honestly, she'd probably pushed him out of her mind - she just didn't like him and what he did. But he had to be more important than he had seemed, Pinkie was right, he'd been a reason behind her coming here. Maybe he would help in the future? Or have some agenda? He did want knowledge - maybe he'd eventually help improve the Eye? Or know what to do with the Spirits? She groaned, not in the mood to think about working with that guy again.

"Also, I am now a member of the Sparkle-butt committee. Thought you should know."

"I do know. That's what I'm reading now," Twilence deadpanned.

"I know!"

Twilence was somewhat irked that Ponygood wasn't calling her Twilence, but she said nothing. She realized Ponygood had, like, a 50% chance of hearing what she thought, but she didn't really care at this point. "Hey, Creek, thinking is good. I mean, don't go overboard with the thinking and go crazy like I did, but thinking is great. Connor, I..." She glanced at Fluttershy. "...Maybe..."

Twilence shook her head. "Sun guy! Uh... Hi! Yeah are you one of Celestia's devotees or do you just like the sun?" she chuckled. "Either's fine. Heh. I would have been so upset with you in the past for being like that... Now it's just run of the mill. Afizah or Sonic, I-" She stopped in her tracks as she read further what Afizah/Sonic had said. She kept reading, dropping her wings. Her face tightened and her eyes rippled with moisture. She... she just couldn't take it.

She started weeping.

Fluttershy came to her. "...Twi?"

"I... I am so sorry everyone," was all she could manage. She had known - they had kept telling her, over and over, that she was becoming distant. Losing it. Part of it was the Influence's fault... Actually, if Twilence was being honest most of it probably was. But she wasn't blameless. She was distant, uncaring, holding herself at leg length from everything so she wouldn't go mad. That was no way to live; no way to treat the ponies around her. Not even Orchid.

She grabbed Fluttershy. "I'm sorry..."

"It's... It's forgiven, Twi, I never-"

"I can't go back Fluttershy... Not to who I was..." She gripped tighter. "Too much has happened... I'll try to be better... But... But I can't be Twilight... Not the Twilight you used to know..."

"Nor... Nor would I really want that, Twi," Fluttershy said. "We... We can't just dial back our lives. Things change. We learn how to deal with the change. Then we change. It may not always be for the better..."

"...but we can't just run from it," Twilence said, nodding. "I... Right." She buried her face in Fluttershy's wing. "I... I've neglected you most of all."

"...Twi..."

"Don't try to correct me, you know I'm right. I brought you here because I was scared and needed somepony to lean on. But then I found something to stand on and forgot you might need to lean on me. I... I was unfair." She looked up. "I was unfair to all of you. I've been... angry at all this. Infinity, Orchid... I've treated you wrong. You shouldn't be where you are. I shouldn't look at you and shake my head - I should talk. That's what I am. I'm the Princess of Friendship, and I forgot my calling."

Orchid blinked. "Uh, okay...?"

"Which means I'm going to have to say some things. Infinity, you should stop being so reckless all the time, you're going to get yourself killed. None of us want that. I'm willing to help you get through this and to get you closer to the rest of us on a deeper level."

Infinity blinked. "...Thanks?"

"Orchid, you need to learn that just because the ends may justify the means, you are still fully responsible for your actions. Everything you do, you carry the direct responsibility. You can't just dismiss what you do. That's dangerous. Carry the weight - carry it hard and well."

Orchid shook her head. "That would interfere-"

"It'll keep you from becoming a tyrant," Twilence said. "Or, as Vriska would say, a bitch."

Fluttershy facehooved. Pinkie giggled.

"And Pinkie..."

"I'm too silly and don't take things seriously enough?" Pinkie shrugged.

"Not what I was going to say. You... You have little regard for the sanity of others. The only reason you don't say things is because you're not supposed to, but perhaps some of the things you do say should be kept to yourself. Not everypony can handle random things spouted at them forever. It... It doesn't work."

Pinkie nodded slowly.

"Do me next!" Aradia said, grinning.

"...You're actually pretty okay, though a bit morbid. Tact, maybe?"

"But death isn't something to be afraid of or put into a tabo-"

"Yeah, figured you thought that." Twilence turned to Fluttershy, frowning. "You... You could stand to slap me around a bit more."

"I won't."

"I know," Twilence sighed. "The rest of you, we can work together." She grabbed Orchid's hoof. "As a team."

Orchid blinked with all three eyes. She tentatively gripped back.

Aradia smiled. "This is good."

Twilence turned to Aradia. "Can... Can you take us to the future, to Equestria? I promised to take Fluttershy home. I plan to keep that promise."

Fluttershy shook her head. "Twi, I'm-"

"We can always come back later," Twilence said. "We have time on our side. We could go to Equestria for reinforcements, even."

Aradia smirked. "I like this idea. I can take us, just give me a second, have to prepare a jump that large."

"I have more messages to respond to anyway. Nickel... yeah, there's apparently no need to check the past for the altar, not that it'd help given what Aradia said. Creek-" Twilence fell silent. "Creek... You didn't have to share that. You don't want Keywii writing for you? Well... You're basically doing what you didn't want him to do for him. Basically... I just... You revealed something about your deep past like an author would do his characters. It seems like you played into his hand, actually. He probably really wanted to tell that story." How the heck do I know that... I don't just think that I know that She glanced at the Eye. "I don't want to lower the weight of what you said - it's a harsh trauma you experienced, and I do feel for you. It's... It's not easy fighting back sometimes. You shouldn't have served those years - it sounds like self-defense to me. It just... It just strikes me that you don't want to be written, but are doing exactly what the 'author' would want you to do." She glanced at the horizon. "I guess we don't have much of a choice in that regard, admittedly. It just... I would have rather this revelation been something personal between us, rather than something brought on by... well this. It sullies it. I'm... I'm sorry. You don't want to hear this about your trauma - but I've resolved to try to help people, to connect more. And you need to take a step back and look at things differently. I can't even pretend to know how something like that would affect you long-term, I'm not as good of a psychologist as I pretend to be. But I do think you're thinking about it wrong. Instead of worrying about being 'written' and 'not,' how about you just live your life? I think that's what I've found out, and what you've all been telling me from the start."

Pinkie grinned. "Yeah, in the end, it doesn't matter much. Our choices are still our own even if they are written. We have motivations, feelings, desires! We often surprise those writing us!"

"Pinkie, remember what I said?"

"Oh. Sorry. Riiiiiiiight..."

Infinity let out a breath. "Thank goodness..."

Aradia raised an eyebrow. "I thought I was supposed to be the one who needed to learn tact?"

"Eh..."

Twilence nodded. "Anyway Creek... I'm sorry, that's probably not what you want to hear. But I think it's what you need to hear. And... I could stand to learn these lessons as well. I'm not done growing. I need to do more introspection, even when my life is in danger, lest I become uncaring. Lastly... Ponygood, that's a good lead on Siron. Didn't Lore say Siron was the first thing sealed in Tartarus? A demon would certainly qualify as that. And... Songs of the Spheres..." She looked at the Eye. "...That's going to be important, isn't it? I just... I just know it."

Aradia grinned. "Okay! Now we can go!"

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "It took that long?"

"No, just waiting for Twilence to get done. Also can't you see when we leave?"

"It's fuzzy, probably because you tweak it slightly just to annoy me."

Aradia shrugged. "HERE WE GO! A thousand years into the future!"

And suddenly it was night. The yacht was sitting on the waters. There was no moon.

Aradia frowned. "Well great."

"Huh?" Twilence asked.

"We're currently in a timeline where the Dark Lord wins. Dunno why the world doesn't freeze when the sun is destroyed..."

"HUH!?" Twilence gawked.

"Look, many timelines where the Dark Lord wins simply have the sun and moon destroyed and darkness cover the land. Doesn't look like we can do anything in this future. I'll just take us back before something bad happens-"

A blue laser shot Aradia in the chest, missing her heart. She fell over backward, spraying her rust blood everywhere. "AUGH!"

Orchid healed her quickly, turning to face the incoming opponent.

It was Starlight Glimmer - or a Starlight Glimmer. She looked like nothing Twilight had ever seen - one of her legs was replaced with some steam-powered gear-apparatus, there was some metallic top hat on her head, and one of her eyes was replaced with a complex system of lenses.

Pinkie whistled. "Oooh! Steampunk!"

Starlight's horn flashed, and she was suddenly in dozens of places at once. Aradia did the same, meeting her at every place. "Okay, well then I'll just take us all back-"

And then a tentacle of dark magic shot out of the water and tore the yacht in half, throwing everyone involved into the sky. It went right for Orchid - and she disintegrated it with the five Spirits. The, more darkness came out. Things exploded.

Twilence lost consciousness.

~~~

The dream was even darker than usual.

But she could see the planet - Equis - in front of her somehow. No sun. No moon. Just a dark, dark planet, somehow not frozen over. It pulsed with strange, dark magics everywhere. Equestria was unrecognizable. Peran was covered in dark purple shards. Parts of the world were covered in lava.

Then there was a red eye. It looked at her.

She thought it looked sick.

She thought it was apologizing.

Then it vanished.

"You left the past to rot."

Twilence blinked. "I... I... What?"

"You left the past to rot. Came here, seeking refuge. Then the past rotted and became this."

"I thought..."

"You break time loops. Your presence ruins it."

"What are you?"

"I am a voice in your head and that's all you need to know right now."

"...Great. Can I at least see you?"

A form materialized in front of her. It was tiny - beyond tiny - and it was hard to see. She could tell it was red and that it most certainly wasn't the eye that had been watching her. But its shape was... unpleasant to look at.

"Satisfied?"

Twilence shook her head. "Not really."

"You will be eventually. I live in this future. I take it you want to know exactly what happened?"

"Yes?"

"Vriska and the Mite got to the Overseer. They told him what was going on. He couldn't find you with his eye, so he realized something had gone wrong, so they took measures to stop the Dark Lord. They kept Corot from being awoken - but Siron rose. Try as they might, they couldn't stop him. After decades of fighting, the Overseer had to cut his losses. He took his ship and several hundred people from across the world and left the planet, hoping to find greener pastures. Vriska and the Mite stayed behind but were eventually felled themselves. But Siron didn't try to kill Vriska - he knew she couldn't die in a timeline that remained constant. He enslaved her. The Mite was destroyed."

Twilence gulped. "...Obviously, we have to stop this... Go back..."

"I know that's what you want to do. That's why I attacked."

Twilence gawked. "...That was you!?"

"Oh, yes. I am Siron, after all."

Then the Eye lit up.

"Sadly, I cannot hear them. But this should be interesting nonetheless..."

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

Vriska and Mite felt chills go down their backs - like someone had just walked over their metaphyscial graves in the deep future.

"What an oddly specific feeling..." Vriska muttered.

They were in Chalak, walking down the streets in broad daylight. They had gotten in and suddenly the guns had stopped. Nobody seemed to care about them anymore. It was probably because she had hidden her wings and changed her clothes - she didn't raise any alarms.

"Shenanigans," Mite said.

"Ah yes, Aradia's using time travel, or Orchid's seeing the future, or something." Vriska bought an ice cream cone. It had been easy to get money. Gambling was always just perfect for her. "Regardless, we're here to do recon and such. What do you see?"

"City."

It was indeed a city - orange buildings as far as the eye could see, scraping the sky. Complex bridge systems led from higher floor to higher floor. They were currently far above ground level and, looking down, they could see far into the basement levels as well. This place was truly extensive and over the top, though not as outrageous as a troll city. But trolls were pretty crazy all on their own. The inhabitants were mostly dragons and ponies, but she saw a few other races from time to time. This was probably why she didn't get too many unusual looks for her stature, though she could tell they'd never seen one of her race before. They just didn't ask questions.

She still had no idea where the palace was. She had asked for directions a few times but they were always too confusing for her to parse. Maps were no help either - apparently, you needed to know what kind of map you wanted. High level? Low level? Alpha type bridges? Omega? Gah it was all just a mess...

"Amused."

"You can shut it," Vriska said, setting herself on a bench. "What the heck am I supposed to do here. Need to find the palace to talk to the Overseer and Council or whatever and then find the altar and then stop this Dark Lord. I mean-"

"STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!"

Vriska put up her hands and groaned at the dragon police officer. "What am I charged with this time? Trespassing? Breaking and entering? Being a bitch?"

"Cheating at gambling!"

Vriska facepalmed.

XXXV

Twilence awoke.

She was on land instead of sea, though she could see the sea despite the natural darkness of the world in this time. She lit her horn to illuminate her surroundings - the first thing she noticed was Orchid. The next was the scenery - she could tell she was back on one of the Troishan islands, but there was no sign of habitation. Instead, the landscape was decidedly purple and covered in smooth thorns the size of trees. There were no visible signs of life - plants or otherwise. The waves of the sea seemed diluted, which made sense, given the fact that there was no moon and had been no moon for a long time.

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "You're awake."

"Yes..." Twilence muttered. "Where are the others?"

"I don't know. The shadowy thing attacked the boat, the strange Starlight kept attacking anyway, I tried to teleport us away and then I was here with you and apparently, everything went wrong."

Twilence glanced out over the sea. "...Siron came to me in a dream. He took over this future. Mite's dead here, and Vriska's been enslaved. There is no sun or moon. The Overseer had to abandon the world."

Orchid frowned, looking through her third eye. "I can't see much here. It's like the entire planet is shrouded from me."

"All of it might be Siron."

"Then why can't I see what's coming?"

Twilence shrugged. "I have no idea. You're the one with the future powers..." She big her lip. "We need to find the others. Fluttershy... Infinity... Pinkie... Aradia..."

"Pinkie should just be able to find us with those ridiculous powers of hers."

"Jealous?"

Orchid didn't dignify this with an answer.

Twilence frowned, poking at a rock on the ground. "...Orchid?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you so bitter?"

Orchid grunted. "The world is a horrendous place filled with evils, most propagated by ponies and dragons themselves. We are responsible for most of our own destruction. And here I am, being put into a position where I can save the world. All I'm doing is keeping it from getting worse. This entire place doesn't deserve to be saved. Yet, I just can't bring myself to let everything burn. That's why I'm bitter."

Twilence nodded. "I see. You've been shoved into the position of savior for a people you really don't care for."

"I must care for them on some level since I'm doing it, but I just know they'll continue killing and lying and cheating... Even I do it, I'm not exempt here Twilence. Maybe it's just self-preservation. Maybe I just want to see if I can force them to see something. I'm still thinking about it."

"I do the same," Twilence said. "I've been forced to wonder what I've become numerous times. It's just... How it is now. You may want to decide what your point is soon - are you here to save the world, or yourself? Are you here to change the world, or let it stay?"

"I'm here to stop an evil monster because I was chosen to do so and because I can see myself doing it." She let a sinister smile appear on her face. "Most of the time I can see what I'm going to do in the future through the sight. I don't really see the options that result in the best outcome, I just see myself taking an action and follow through with it. Sometimes without thinking. You may question your own freedom, a slave to the story, but I am a slave to fate. I can literally see what I do and I never do otherwise."

"Have you tried doing what you don't see?"

"It takes that into account - if I try not to do something I end up doing it through some convoluted method."

"What about with me?"

Orchid blinked. "...You cause it to be unsure. To have blank spots. Do I really make choices? I don't know." She shook her head. "Enough of this, we need to decide what to do."

Twilence sighed. "I think I'll consult the Influence... For ideas."

"Go for it."

She scrolled through, a smile coming to her face as she read Sunbro's comment. She found herself slightly disappointed in her past self for getting livid with comments like this - these people were just doing what they were doing for their sake. Some took her seriously, some didn't, and some were just off the wall. She really shouldn't have been so hard on Afizah - they were just doing what they wanted, which should be just fine. Just because she didn't believe anything didn't mean she had to get all defensive about that. "Yeah... Everyone, I'm sorry. You have your place, I have mine. You can be as absurd in your place as you want, I realize I shouldn't expect you to do otherwise. It's the way you are and there's nothing wrong with it. So go ahead and do your crazy stuff. Just stop forming that cloud cult - it's doing things to Pinkie."

"Ponygood, Aradia's not a mister," Twilence giggled. "She's a she, like all of us here except for Mite. Wherever Mite is... Probably in jail with Vriska right now. And I'll consider Rarity, Bearer of the Water Crystal - a healer would be nice..."

"The last altar will be different," Orchid said.

"I know," Twilence agreed. "Do you know how?"

"No," Orchid said. "Not a clue."

Twilence shook her head. "Anyway, Sonic or Afizah, thank you again for what you've done. Creek... I really don't think you 'needed' to come to terms with it, at least not that way - but what's done is done. And Josh..." She read through the next few comments, brow furrowed. "...Okay, first, Ponygood, give Sunbro a break, you were all like that early on. No need to get angry like I did. Second, this doomed timeline business... Josh, why shouldn't I know that? Do you think I'm not willing to sacrifice myself?"

Orchid blinked. "Huh?"

"Apparently we may be stuck off the alpha timeline, in a doomed timeline. The only solution may be for Aradia to go back and doom us in this time. But she can do that on her own, not sure why they thought I needed to tell her to do anything. Just... What I'm concerned about here is that... Josh, you seemed to be manipulating me. Telling me to send her back, but leaving out key information so I would act. I mean, I'll probably consider it anyway, but..." She shook her head. "...It's a violation of trust."

"Thought you didn't trust them anyway."

"Josh was one of the ones I did. And Zen. And Akumakami - speaking of, haven't seen him for a while. I'm getting a little worried. Nickel, you're right, we aren't sure how much time has been messed up with all these additions. Zen... The Tree of Harmony. That... That might still exist. The Elements might even be around it..."

"Nope," a new voice said.

Orchid and Twilence turned to see a figure that definitely hadn't been standing there before - bright red robes with a white sun symbol in the center, scarlet wings coming off the back, and red eyes with eight pupils total. Seven in one eye and one in the other.

It was Vriska.

Only it wasn't. Her face coursed with strange, dark magics, and her expression was pained. She twirled in her hand six magic crystals - the Elements of Harmony. "I have them right here."

Twilence tensed. "...Siron?"

"No," Vriska said. "It's still me. Not like I can ignore the bastard's commands though. He's a sick freak, by the way, much like myself when I was younger. Except much more successful."

"...I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, not like you even really caused this, from your perspective you were going to go back and fix things later," she laughed bitterly. "Heck, you still might."

Orchid glared. "What are you going to do with those Elements?"

Vriska put them all into an 8-ball. "Taunt you, apparently. Then I'm supposed to sit here and smirk while he grabs your friends."

Infinity and Fluttershy were lifted out of the ocean by two giant, shadowy tentacles. Neither was conscious.

Twilence looked at Vriska. "Come on Vriska, you can fight this."

"I am. I'm not smirking, am I?" Vriska pocketed the 8-ball and shrugged.

Orchid readied her stance. "Is there some game here we can play for Siron's amusement? If we beat you, we can go home free or something?"

Vriska nodded. "You'll be going home regardless. Siron wants to do it over again." She lifted her hand and an orb of red energy - Vester - appeared. "We can activate the Time Tunnels. But yes, Orchid, Siron loves games. He'll probably cheat in one way or another."

Orchid nodded. "I fully realize this. What are his terms?"

Vriska sighed. "Beat me, you guys go home without a problem. Lose, you help him open the Time Tunnels."

"I ACCEPT!" Pinkie said, popping out of nowhere. "Are you ready for this!?"

A smile came to Vriska's face. "Can I just say how glad I am that you are willing to cheat? Three on one. Fair enough. You do all realize this is just a game to Siron and that he's going to get what he wants either way? Maybe not in the exact same way, but he'll get something."

Twilence nodded. "Probably. But at this point, I'll take what I can get."

Vriska drew her sword. "He won't let me go easy on you."

"Course not," Pinkie said.

"Go!" Vriska yelled, flying into the air - throwing her dice on the ground.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Of course."

Vriska stood before them in some kind of powerful black armor lined in bright red, a slasher smile across her face. Her wings grew slightly further, and the aura of Vester surrounded her, summoning literal blood around her in a sheen. She glistened in the light of Twilence's horn. "Going to be honest here, this is gonna to be fun."

Pinkie swung with the frying pan, "Let there be a just death today!"

Blood shot from Vriska's body and stopped the pan in its tracks.

And then something unexpected happened.

A strange ring of magic appeared on the frying pan, eldritch circles activated by the magical blood. A black hole opened up and a strange hexagon shaped being of perfect flatness appeared, charging Vriska. She cut it in half with a swift motion, but its sharp shards cut her in many places with perfect slices.

Pinkie looked at the frying pan in mild disbelief. "Now if only I know how to use this-"

A fist of blood drove her into the ground in her distraction. Orchid moved next, the five spirits she had focusing their power on Vriska. She somehow dodged attacks made of gravity itself, appearing behind Orchid and kicking her to the ground. Twilence got kicked in the head before she could do anything.

Fluttershy screamed from her vantage point - apparently, she had woken up. "Twi!!!"

Twilence groaned, feeling the Eye activate. Why did it happen so fast?

She saw Aradia and Starlight appear in the sky for a split second and then vanish into time...

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

Vriska looked at the chief of police - a diminutive dragon - with an intense gaze. "So."

"So," he said.

"Want to tell me why you're still holding me?"

"There's no way anyone's that lucky. You cleaned out the house."

"Did you sense any magic? Did you find any methods of trickery? I'm just that good!"

"Casinos have never been cleaned out in the history of this city. Ever. There are laws in place that ensure casinos are allowed to rig games to keep it from happening."

Vriska laughed. "Those are some stupid laws."

The chief of police grunted. "I can hold you on delinquency."

"I think you and I both know you can't really hold me for anything."

"You are an unknown species. I can send you to the royal scientists, to be locked in the palace, never to return."

Vriska grinned. "Oh! Yes! Do that! Been trying to get to the palace anyway!"

The chief of police turned and tried not to scream. He grabbed a phone. "I've got prisoner 8888-8888 - how in blazes - here. She's an unknown so get her out of my sight the way only you people can do. She won't resist, and no I don't know why that is just take her already I am so done."

"Ineffective."

"What did you just say?" The chief shot Vriska a look.

Vriska shrugged. "Wasn't me, but I think it was implying you aren't a very good chief of police." She grinned. "So chop chop! Where are the royal scientists?"

"Here," a white dragon said, appearing in a puff of white magic. A tranquilizer shot was pressed into Vriska's shoulder. She wasn't sure if this was lucky or not. She passed out.

XXXVI

Pinkie called to Twilence the moment she was back. "Don't bother reading through it now, I can take care of most of it. Basically, Orchid, try using some of Gamnemnon's powers, Twi, see if you got the Element of Magic still in you, and I'll do... this." She drew a truly absurd sized sword and a strange staff with a piece of jade it, while still holding the frying pan in her tail. A boombox somehow appeared behind her and started playing a song. "And no offense Ponygood, I just think this song's better."

Vriska cracked her knuckles. "It's literally impossible for you to beat me. You're lucky Siron doesn't want you dead, yet. You would be if he did."

Orchid put the essence of Gamnemnon forward and went into Vriska's mind. She frowned. "...I feel like I should be able to sever the connection, but it's just... not working."

"Luck," Pinkie said. "Just luck."

Twilence glanced at her cutie mark and tried to sense her connection to the Tree of Harmony. She felt... Something, that was for sure, but nothing powerful. Nothing that would aid them. "No... Nothing. Sorry."

"Are you all quite done?" Vriska asked, sighing. "Just give in, I really don't want to have to do this."

Pinkie shrugged. "You'll run out of luck eventually!"

Vriska snapped her fingers, absorbing the luck of both Orchid and Twilence. The two of them fell down to the ground, unable to stand properly. Pinkie shrugged. "Was that supposed to do something?"

Vriska narrowed her eyes. "That's right. You cheat..."

"And what good is luck if you're playing against a cheater, huh?"

Vriska smiled. "Do you mind if I let myself enjoy this?"

Pinkie giggled. "Not at all! Go nuts!"

Vriska rushed Pinkie with her sword. Pinkie met it with her own, but this was Vriska's plan - she rolled her dice on the ground, rolling a combination of 7s and 8s, producing what appeared to be a proton cannon the size of a small mountain in the sky, blasting the ground around Pinkie into nothing. Pinkie herself just appeared on top of the tentacle of darkness holding Fluttershy - and cut it. She moved to free Infinity, but the black tentacle tightened around the unicorn's neck, telling Pinkie that she'd be dead if she got any closer. She dodged some of Vriska's sword swipes.

Twilence frowned - Vriska was enjoying this. She was in full control of her thoughts, if not her actions, which made Twilence question her integrity. Not for the first time, either. She tried to shoot Vriska - but her horn fizzled and popped from a 'random' magical surge. "Ugh. Orchid, can you see anything?"

"Vester's all around her. I can't see the future of her actions. The tentacles though... They're fuzzy, but I'm getting better at it." She tried to stand up but tripped over her own hooves. "DAMMIT. This... How does anyone beat her when she's like this?"

"I don't know. Glad she's on our side... Technically. We need to get out of here. Aradia..."

"She'll appear in fifteen seconds towards your left. Do something that draws their attention, please? I'm not."

Twilence nodded, turning to her left while Pinkie was launched into the ocean by a shark made of pure diamonds. "You know," Vriska said. "Were you most people, you'd be dead by now."

"I'm not most people!" Pinkie giggled, pointing the staff and enveloping Vriska in a red and green swirl. She didn't care - whatever its effect was supposed to be, it didn't do it. "Darn."

"Yeah, hitting me with anything isn't going to happen unless it benefits me."

And then Aradia appeared to Twilence's left, holding up an arm in defense.

"Aradia!" Twilence yelled. "Get us out of here!"

"I'm a little occupied but... I think I can come back later..."

The steampunk Starlight appeared and attacked Aradia while a future version of Aradia appeared. She moved towards Twilence, only for an extremely lucky stray shot from Vriska to bean her in the chest, tossing her to the side. "Ack..."

Orchid moved to heal with Proteus's essence, but with her luck the healing was minimal. Then another Steampunk Starlight took a shot, blowing off Aradia's head.

Twilence gasped. She... She'd just watched Aradia get killed. That... That didn't-

Another Aradia appeared behind her. "Twilence, don't look too closely, okay? There's more where that came from."

Starlight screamed in rage. "Why do you do this to me!?"

"You do this to yourself."

"All I did was exist!" Starlight yelled, charging at Aradia again, and the two vanished into time.

Vriska shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, that was something." Pinkie was trying to hit her with a frying pan and missing where missing should have been impossible. "Hey, you. You done yet?"

"No!" She giggled, grabbing a newspaper and hitting Vriska across the face. "You don't have to be too unlucky to get hit by a newspaper!"

Vriska blinked. "...Right." She grabbed Pinkie's outstretched hoof and threw her into a nearby spire of darkness. "Not that it helped you any."

"Ow..." Pinkie muttered.

Twilence tried to stand up, but again found herself tripping. It was pointless. She had to have something else...

The Influence. She started reading through the comments in haste. If they were going to get a response, they'd have to read her thoughts... Josh had apologized, he was forgiven, but her trust was still shaken. Even though he did have those disorders, the trust issue still stood, though she was sorry for him now. She wondered if any of the others had real disorders - was Wolfe serious about being a pyromaniac? And - no, she didn't have time for this. Creek... Creek didn't have anything... GM had said something about Akumakami which was interesting but not all that relevant... All the suggestions didn't help! Pinkie had already told her about the important ones - the mind attack, the weapons, saving Fluttershy, the Element... And it sure didn't look like Vriska was going to run out of luck anytime soon.

She had nothing.

She was useless.

And it was obvious Pinkie was getting tired.

They needed a break...

Then Twilence saw her.

Fluttershy. Holding the infinite-sided die in her hoof.

She threw it - and it hit Vriska square between the eyes. She fumbled. "Wha-" then she saw the die. "Oh. So that's where that was..."

It lit up... And summoned both Starlight and Aradia there. This normally would not have done anything - but Starlight was in the middle of casting an impressive time spell.

All of them - including Infinity and part of the dark tentacle - appeared on Troisha a thousand years in the past, on a beachfront with a single house. An old stallion was sitting on the house's porch. He slowly backed into his house, removing himself from the rather obvious confrontation.

Vriska blinked. "Uh..."

Fluttershy moved forward. "Are you... Free from Siron?"

"...No..." She shook her head. "Okay look, the past Siron is trying to figure out where this new servant came from, so really quick, before he realizes what I am and what I can do, uh..." She grabbed her sword and stabbed herself in the chest, collapsing on the ground. "This is a temporary measure! Run! FUCKING RUN!"

Aradia quickly froze Vriska in time. "That should keep her for a while..."

Starlight undid the time spell. "No. She's going to do what needs to be done."

Aradia redid the time freeze. "Do what? Kill all of them?"

"Kill you! She'll obviously get lucky enough to hit the real you!"

"You really don't understand how this works do you?"

"Who needs to? You've slain countless millions!"

"Your time was never supposed to exist in the first place!"

"Who made you the judge of that!?"

"It's literally my job description!"

Twilence finally managed to stand up. "Everyone! Stop! Please, we can't argue like this! Siron is going to take advantage of us all if we don't keep Vriska frozen!" Did suicide count as a just or heroic death? Maybe in this case... But with Vriska's current level of luck it would probably tip in favor of not, and Vriska had known it. She needed them all to run. "He'll kill us all and use whatever information she has to make the future even worse! And there's no way anyone can want that!"

Starlight frowned but did stop unfreezing Vriska. "Fine." She glanced at Fluttershy, Twilence, Orchid, Infinity, and Aradia. "...I'm outgunned right now..." She gritted her teeth. Then she vanished into time.

Aradia let out a sigh of relief. "I was worried there for a second..." She turned to the frozen, dead form of Vriska with a bizarrely cheerful smile.

Fluttershy had tears in her eyes. "...Is she..."

"Conditional immortality," Aradia reminded her. "While this situation was dubious, her luck will ensure she revives. Which means we need to get out of here. Or I can just send her back to the future-"

Orchid sighed, exasperated at something that was about to happen. Twilence tensed. "Aradia do it fast-"

Then the mass of shadowy tentacle moved, engulfing Vriska and vanishing in a puff of black magic.

Aradia turned to Orchid. "Why didn't you say anythi-"

"Because I didn't in my vision. Obviously."

Pinkie facehooved. "This is... Greeeeeeat..."

Aradia pulled out a pocketwatch. "Our past versions are still sailing across the sea and will vanish in a few seconds. Excuse me while I procure us another yacht..." She vanished and reappeared a second later. "There, got one. Let's take this from the top!"

And then they were on a time-accelerated yacht again, heading for the Capital once more.

Except this time there was definitely a difference.

There was, somewhere in the world, a Vriska tied to Siron.

Twilence gulped. She - and everyone else - knew that was very, very bad.

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

Vriska frowned. "Mite, I'm getting one of those feelings again. They've been happening a lot lately."

"Entanglement."

"Bah, whatever." She examined her surroundings - she was inside the palace, she knew that. A few minutes ago she had seen it from the outside, a tall structure sitting on top many other skyscrapers as if they were stilts. The palace was very orange and had an innumerable number of onion domes, some of which she swore smelled like actual onions. Currently, she was inside a small cell with no windows and only one door. They had confiscated her sword and most other belongings, but they had missed her dice. Rarely did anyone even know what a strife specibus was, even less of the time how to disarm it.

She took one look at the door. "So, we need to grab this Overseer's attention, eh? Well, I'm sure I can do that. Mite, place bets on how many rolls it'll take for him to show up."

"Three."

Vriska smirked. "A-"

Before she even threw the first roll the door opened. "Anything within the palace has my attention."

The Overseer was... an eye. An eye composed almost entirely of fire with a single, dark pupil in the center, a shape almost identical to Twilence's and Orchid's eyes. Translucent robes draped from the flaming eye itself, giving it the appearance of being a head on a body, even though the two parts of the Observer were separate. Vriska wondered if the 'robes' were even real.

She stared into the deep, red, fiery eye for some time, mesmerized.

"Vriska."

She snapped out of it. "Right. Overseer, let me cut to the chase. I am Vriska Serket, and I am from another world. I am here to warn you and the council about a certain prophecy, a Dark Lord, and a weird set of eyes..."

The Overseer nodded. "Have the Eyes of Time and Rhyme been activated?"

"...I suppose that's one way to refer to them. Heck, it even rhymes! Cool."

"This would explain much about Heildor's actions... Come, the Council will see you. I do wish to know how you obtained such a tiny companion..."

"Otherworld stuff. Or 'Rhyme' stuff, I guess. Hey, what are you the Eye of, by the way?"

"Sign."

"...You really put a lot of thought into the naming, didn't you?"

Vriska noticed the Overseer's fire flare up and down rapidly - was that laughter? "Indeed I did. But that is something for another time. Come..."

XXXVII

They were on a yacht. Sailing across the sea with time-acceleration.

Twilence still needed a moment. She took in a breath. She let it out.

"We need to stop Siron. At all costs," Orchid said, suddenly.

Twilence bit her lip. "Not sure all costs is really something we should be going for, Orchid."

"Look. Even a despotic tyranny of dragons over ponies, like before the chaos storm, would be preferable to that."

"...Would it really though?" Infinity asked. "Some ponies got away through the Overseer. Under tyranny, things may be more suffocating... More pain..."

"There'd be more death!" Twilence blurted.

Aradia shrugged. "Death is not something to fear. Death is something to appreciate for what it is - an end. Often beautiful, often ugly, always fascinating." She stood tall, face serious. "Death is that, by nature, all must experience, even immortals. Nothing can last forever."

Infinity raised an eyebrow. "Can't you make a stable time loop?"

Aradia smirked. "Yes. I can. But just because I see certain things that seem to last forever, that doesn't mean I believe they really will. Infinity doesn't really exist."

Fluttershy looked at the infinite-sided die in her hoof. "I..." She gulped. "This..."

Twilence went to hug her. "Fluttershy, shhhh... It's... It's fine now. We're on a yacht." She glanced at Aradia, having flashbacks of the troll dying before her eyes. "Nothing bad's happening right now."

"But it will," Fluttershy said. "There's this 'pivotal point' and after that everything's going to the dogs!"

Pinkie blinked. "Huh. You've been paying attention. Cool!"

"Why wouldn't I? This defines our life! And those who know what it is, like Aradia and you, can't tell us and it's really really hard not to get angry about that!"

"I apologize ahead of time for what I'll have to do," Aradia said.

Fluttershy twitched. "See? See!? I..." She sighed. "I'm sorry Aradia, I... It's hard."

Aradia smiled. "I know it is. I don't hold it against you. You can think whatever you want about me - I probably deserve it."

"...Was that Starlight right about you? Did you... Did you do those things?"

Aradia nodded. "I do it all the time. Whenever I change a timeline, everyone in that future ceases to exist unless they have some time exploit, like Starlight."

"...Can we give her back her timeline?"

Aradia sighed. "I lack the powers to create an entire universe, which means if I did I'd have to overwrite your home. Your future would never exist."

"I..."

"I also don't know what future she comes from. She just showed up one day and blamed me for everything."

"Maybe we can find some sort of... compromise?"

Aradia shook her head. "If I don't set time back to your time, you won't be able to go back, because all similar timelines that aren't the save will have a Fluttershy and a Twilight that were never taken to the past. And something tells me that Starlight's timeline isn't close to yours."

Fluttershy nodded sadly. "I... I... Yeah."

"Hey, don't feel sad! You really tried. You're a good pony."

"...Thank you, Aradia."

Aradia pulled Fluttershy up into a hug. Fluttershy was surprised but hugged back.

Aradia eventually set her down. "Personally, I trust Vriska nowadays, I'd give her that die. But I'll leave the actual decision to you. You deserve to make your own judgment."

Fluttershy nodded. "I think I'll hold onto it for a while."

"Fair enough."

Pinkie grinned. "Look at these two! Becoming such great friends!" She squeed. "It's so awesome and nice! Let's throw a getting to know each other party!"

Twilence smiled softly. "I... I think we need a break, Pinkie. We've had a lot happen. We need to take a moment and process everything."

"Oh, okie. I understand. I'll go practice blood rituals on this frying pan then, don't come running if you hear screams." She bounced into the lower deck.

Twilence raised her eyebrows. "I'm going to talk to the Influence now. Do... any of you want to listen?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I'm going to go see if I can talk to some fish."

"You can talk to fish?" Infinity asked.

"Uh... Yeah?"

"I want to see this."

"You're welcome to come along."

Twilence looked at Orchid and Aradia. "Just you two?"

Aradia shrugged. "Sure."

Orchid rolled her eyes. "I need to hear everything I can. My sight will not be complete until I get the sixth spirit. Give me all you can in these conversations."

"All right then. Starting with... Ponygood, it looks like. Hey, guess you got my rather hasty thought. It still means GM said something about Akumakami, even if I wasn't particularly clear on it because I was in the middle of some chaos. It still implies that GM is active and cares about this, or Akumakami at least. Which... I guess is comforting."

Aradia sat back. "Think about it. Most authors and artists care deeply about their work."

"Good point. Anyway, he also talks about a demonic warrior race, buglike, tribal, and that another version of Twilight was manipulated by them. Their leader was Siron and it was in GM's other story, Songs of the Spheres. So there's a possible connection."

"Could just be the same as 'other Twilight' connection," Orchid noted.

"True. But that suggests they'll be similar. And we already know he's crafty..." Twilence frowned, glancing at her Eye. "Something tells me the Songs of the Spheres are more important than we give them credit for, but... We aren't thinking about them the right way. I don't know. ...Wolfe, I see you got my thought though. Sorry, it was probably a little degrading to you, wasn't it? I think you should seek help about that. Perhaps find a way to burn things that won't put people in danger? I don't know, I'm not really an expert or a therapist. Though sometimes it feels like it..." She frowned. "Sonic... I just..." She facehooved.

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

"Again. Goodbye Sunbro, hope you'll drop by again later. And Zen, that kinda makes sense. Stories were arranged in rhyme to be remembered... If my eye does exist only to reach in and out of stories, what will it do when it works properly? See into other stories, other worlds?"

Orchid shrugged. "Probably. I believe mine will allow me to see the entire future, though the existence of you is a bit troublesome."

"Maybe even complete Eyes have holes in their vision."

"Maybe... And Creek..." Twilence smiled. "Of course. I can say, for certain, that I would consider most of you in the Influence friends. Even Afizah, crazy as he is. Even if you are all crazy some of the time... You've all tried to help in one way or another. And just like with any friends, I've gotten frustrated. But that should mean nothing. Oh, I wish I could come over there and give you a hug. Everything will be fine, you don't need to be so worried all the time."

Aradia gave Twilence a thumbs up.

"Thanks. Though... Creek, theres a lot of deleted messages here. Were you trying to tell me something else? ...Hey, Aradia. How long till we arrive?"

"Well, twenty minutes for us, no time at all for anyone watching."

~~~

It was definitely night in the city of Chalak now. 24 hours remained until the moonless night. The orange city was still well-lit by the many artificial lights ranging from magic crystals to dragonfire lamps. The place was nowhere near as advanced as Acket, but it was still plenty impressive.

Twilence teleported them all into the city so they wouldn't have to deal with 'customs' (as Orchid put it). "So, how on earth are we going to find the palace?"

"It's this way," Orchid said.

"Do you see us finding it in the future?" Infinity asked.

"No. I just know where it is. I've lived here, and everyone who lives here knows where the palace is. It's impossible to explain the route to an outsider, though. Come on."

They all followed Orchid. Aradia smiled. "Well, I don't see a future version of myself coming back to reset the day, so either everything works out, they're trying to remain hidden from me, or everything goes wrong."

"That's... Not very reassuring," Fluttershy said.

"...Oh yeah. Good point."

Orchid groaned. "Just keep walking and don't get lost. I- where's Pinkie?"

"I don't know," Infinity said. "All I know is that street stand is selling fried stuff on a stick and I want some."

"No, don't go over there, the bridge is enchanted with magic to loop you back around and you'll never get back here."

Infinity blinked. "...What kind of cruel joke is that?"

"One set up by a fried stuff on a stick vendor," Orchid said. "Chalak may be the capital of Peran, and it may be hailed as the pinnacle of society, and it may be beautiful, but it is filled with deception and betrayal at every corner." She looked at Aradia. "You mentioned the altar is probably in the catacombs. Do you by chance know how to navigate them?"

"Oh, Jegus no," Aradia chuckled. "I said 'probably' for a reason. That place is a mess. Pretty sure Vester designed it to specifically hide the altar."

"Hey..." a black-scaled dragon asked. "Do y'all want a guide?"

"Already have one, thanks," Twilence said.

"Really? Cause I could've sworn there was a white unicorn with you a moment ago, and now she's not here..."

Orchid blinked. "She'll be back momentarily."

"Really? How can you be sure?"

"Does this third eye look like a decoration to you? It sees the future you prick! So hurry up and draw your gun to threaten us so we can get through this self-fulfilling clusterfudge!"

The dragon drew his gun without thinking, only for Infinity to blast it away with a laser. She had a fried thing on a stick in her mouth. The dragon flew away.

Infinity continued munching. "I cheated the cheating system."

"You've been cursed with a poor navigation sense and now we'll have to watch you like a hawk."

Infinity glared at Orchid. "How on Equis does anyone live here?"

"Ridiculous amounts of apathy or cunning," Orchid muttered.

Twilence shivered. "Yeah, I've decided it, this place isn't good. How did Vriska manage to walk around without a problem?"

"Luck," Aradia said. "I bet she annoyed a lot of people."

"Got arrested," Twilence said.

"Ah. Yeah, that'll hapen in a place where the odds are stacked against you and you suddenly start winning."

Orchid frowned. "...That's an interesting thought... Watch your step, trapdoor floor."

"Huh- AUGH!" Twilence fumbled, barely avoiding falling into 'Barnum's Pay To Leave Funhouse.' "Okay, can we just get to the palace already?"

Pinkie suddenly appeared. "OKAY!"

~~~

They were at the palace.

"...Pinkie, that took several hours. It's morning already."

"They got to the palace faster," Pinkie said, tapping the Eye.

Twilence groaned. "Pinkie..."

Pinkie giggled. "So! Here's masterful orange onion dome palace! Let's knock on the front door!"

"They won't let us in," Orchid said. "Not through that door anyway. We have to go talk to one of the receptionists. There's a kiosk over there." She pointed at a small kiosk that... Pinkie was sitting at. Pinkie was no longer sitting next to them.

Twilence and Fluttershy facehooved and groaned at the same time.

Orchid raised an eyebrow. "What-"

"You'll find out. Just... Just go do the thing you need to do."

Aradia, Orchid, and Infinity exchanged glances. Then they walked up to the kiosk and Pinkie. Orchid cleared her throat. "Pinkie, can you get us in?"

"I mean, yeah I can, but you have to fill out the official forms!"

Orchid blinked. "...Don't you know, it's us? Can you just-"

"Sorry, them's the rules, gotta fill out forms!" She produced a giant stack of paper. "Here!"

Orchid shook her head. "Those aren't the forms, those are three hundred times as large!"

"Times have changed since you've been here last! The power of paperwork has been truly realized! Seriously, I'm not even joking here, this is acutally the form. They don't want people to be able to fill it out quickly."

"How does anyone get into the palace at all anymore?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Urgent business or prevelance to the council's current business."

Infinity raised a hoof. "Uh... Pinkie? What are you doing?"

"My job as a receptionist, duh!"

"But you're not a receptionist, you're our companion..."

"Of course not, silly! I'm just a lowly paperwork manager who's never met you before. C'mon Infinity, get it right."

Infinity turned to Twilence and Fluttershy, mouthing 'please help.' Twilence and Fluttershy shook their heads rapidly.

Orchid sighed. "Look, I'm the niece of Evanescence, and we have matters to discuss of national security."

"Evanescence has posted a note that any query posted by one Orchid, unicorn are to be ignored outright."

"...Is that you saying that, or did she really do that?"

"Huh? Come again?"

Orchid rammed her face into the table. "Why can't I see what you're going to do right now, of all times."

Aradia cleared her throat. "Excuse me, but I do believe I have important matters of time to discuss. You see, I can travel into the future."

"Prove it."

Aradia moved them all an entire hour into the future. "See?"

"Cool, but that doesn't really qualify as a meeting. At best you'd be sent to the scientists where they'd consider your interesting power and then go through with it as best they could, giving you ideas. The council doesn't need to hear from you."

Aradia blinked. "But I can bring warnings..."

"Sorry, no dice."

Aradia laughed. "Well in that case... Check your records. I should already be in the meeting room."

Pinkie blinked, sifting through some papers. "Oh. So you are. Is your current party pertinent to your temporally displaced discussion?"

"Yes."

"Then, by all means, come on in!"

The big double doors opened. Twilence let out a sigh of relief. "Thank Celestia..."

"Huh? Why? What'd I miss?" Pinkie said, suddenly not at the kiosk and standing next to Twilence like a regular party member. The kiosk had a very confused looking dragon sitting at it.

Twilence rolled her eyes. "Nothing Pinkie, nothing at all."

Infinity pointed a hoof at Pinkie. "Wh... Bu.. What?"

"What's so confusing?"

"I... I... I have no idea..."

"Good!" Pinkie giggled. "You're finally getting it!"

"I think I need to reexamine my life..."

Orchid nodded. "I... Am feeling something similar."

Aradia shrugged. "Just move on. Sometimes weird things happen." They went into the palace and easily found the big double golden doors that led to the main meeting hall.

Aradia sighed deeply. "This is it." She looked at Twilence. The Eye started glowing.

Twilence frowned. "This is it...?"

"I'm sorry."

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

As Vriska approached the door, Aradia appeared. "Hi!"

Vriska blinked. "Have you-"

"Probably not, pretty new here. I just got some clues that said I should probably head here to close a time loop! So... Yeah!"

The Overseer looked her up and down. "Who are you?"

"Aradia Megido, Maid of Time. New to this corner of the woods."

"Mustard," the Mite said.

"What was that?" Aradia asked.

"Nothing to concern yourself with. Yet," Vriska said.

"Mite," the Mite said. Vriska facepalmed.

"Oh cool a microscopic creature! Is this one of those altar recruits?"

"Yeah," Vriska said. "You know what, I don't want to explain twice, just come into the meeting with us and listen, okay?"

"Sure!"

The Overseer flashed slightly. "I'll allow it."

Vriska walked through the giant ornate double doors into the council's meeting room, the Overseer at her side. She, for once, remained quiet, taking in the other seats of the council. There was a golden hydra with brilliant red eyes, a teal unicorn with flowing hair, a lung dragon with a truly stupendous blue mane, and a stallion who could only be described as a farm pony with a fancy hat.

The Overseer took his position between the two dragons, the two ponies on either end. "I call this meeting of the Council of Peran to order. The beings before us - Mite, Aradia Megido, and most importantly, Vriska Serket - have become aware of something which has passed under our radar. There is more to concern us than just the actions of Heildor and Moissan. Vriska, tell us of the other Eyes and the Dark Lord."

"So, short version, there are two ponies I know by the name of Twilence and Orchid-" at the name Orchid the unicorn visibly narrowed her eyes. "-and they've come across two Eyes with power that make them think they are the Oracle destined to save the world from the Dark Lord. Turns out, we're not sure who the Oracle is for sure, but we do know the Dark Lord is real, and probably a combination of the demon 'king' Siron and some dark star known as Corot. Want the long version?"

The lung shook her head. "No need. We can work with that for now."

"That's hardly enough information..." the earth pony said.

The hydra grunted, speaking with his central head only. "Some of us are fully aware of the legends of the Oracle and the Dark Lord. It is a part of our heritage. A great prophecy that we have chosen to ignore in recent years because it has been so long."

The Overseer nodded. "So much so that I haven't been looking for any. But as I look, I can see Orchid and Twilence in our fair city, approaching the palace, among a group of many others. Including Aradia Megido."

Aradia blinked. "Huh. I guess I'll have to close that loop eventually."

The unicorn looked at the Overseer. "What can you tell us of Orchid?"

"She has the essence of five spirits, presumably looking for the sixth."

Vriska blinked. "Hey, you can see everywhere, you know where it is right?"

"Yes. In the catacombs. Getting there, however, is easier said than done. The protection enchantments are both ancient and beyond complicated. Vester knew the prophecy would involve his capture, and he did not want it."

"Can you blame him?" The hydra said.

"No."

"Hey, can you see Vester?" Vriska asked.

The Overseer somehow bristled. "Unfortunatley that is one of my blind spots. As is this Corot. I can, however, see Siron, sitting in Tartarus. He's noticed me. He seems to find it amusing."

The farm pony coughed. "Okay, so, I've gotten the idea that there's some dark threat to our land and that these newcomers have something to do with it. What are we going to do to stop it?"

"Stopping the summoning of Corot will be easy," the unicorn said. "Finally stomp out that star-cult in Troisha."

"Troisha will not be pleased with that," the lung said.

"Who cares if they're pleased or not?" the hydra countered. "The last thing we need is a dark star appearing on our back door!"

"Precisely," the Overseer said. "We will take action. I assume you and your companions will assist us in this regard?"

Vriska nodded. "Yeah, it's kind of our quest."

"What of Siron?" the hydra said. "Surely there must be a way to defeat him that doesn't rely on some Oracle fufilling a prophecy."

"That is largely an unknown," the Overseer said. "We do not even know the method by which he escapes Tartarus. The meer fact that it seems like he will is concerning. Tartarus is guarded by Cerberus in addition to many sealing enchantments. Even we lack the energy to breach Tartarus or seal anyone within it."

Vriska smirked. "Betcha I could do it."

"Then perhaps you are all the cause of his release. Prophecies have a way of making sure their agents carry out every part of it."

"We should take care of them then," the hydra said.

"Gilead," the Overseer cautioned. "Fighting against a prophecy is pointless."

"Nope," the Mite said.

"...care to elaborate?" the lung said.

Vriska shrugged. "Twilence, bearer of the Eye of Rhyme, has shown time and time again she can fly in the face of prophecy and predetermined future."

"I can confirm," Aradia said.

"Yeah. So basically your prophecy could easily be fucked or unfucked at any moment."

The unicorn frowned. "What exactly does the Eye of Rhyme allow Twilence to do?"

"Unimportant-" the Overseer said.

"I don't think so. Vriska, tell me."

"It allows her to hear voices from beyond, called the Influence."

The unicorn nodded. "This is dangerous."

"Well, yeah, duh."

"Indubidebly."

The unicorn shrugged. "I will wish to ask Twilence directly about her Influence and what they say. They are the source of her power, they must be analyzed as well."

"You will get your chance," the Overseer said. "They are coming in now. I believe I just witnessed a reverse time walk to the door."

The doors flew open - and there were screams.

Vriska turned around. She saw everyone...

Everyone except Twilence.

She looked at Pinkie and future Aradia - there was guilt in their eyes.

"What did you do?" both Vriska and past Aradia shouted.

"What needed to be done," Pinkie said. "We cannot let this change. This needs to happen to Twilence."

"What?" Vriska blurted.

"The ordeals," future Aradia said. "The pivotal point."

The Overseer frowned. "Aradia. She is not where you said she would be."

Future Aradia glared. "I told you not to - wait." She glanced at past Aradia. "I... I don't remember this. Something's changed."

"No shit," a new voice said. Vriska recognized it - her own. Everyone turned to see another Vriska in red robes smirking and mocking. "Hey, Aradia, how's it feel to be outfoxed by someone who can't even time travel?"

Vriska blinked. She had no idea what was going on. And she didn't like it.

Where was Twilence!?

XXXIX [END OF PART 2]

The conversation...

She'd had an actual conversation with them. Most of them. Zen hadn't shown up, but there had been Ponygood, Sonic, Josh, DLB... And a new face, one that she had never heard from, but seemed so familiar, Green.

But there was no Creek. Instead, it was Keywii... He came, bringing an attitude that annoyed her, but also hope. Faith in the world she was in. Renewed strength and understanding...

She truly was on a quest to understand existence. And... that was okay.

Those three hours - they had been great. They started with her freaking out, alone, but then Ponygood had come, and they talked. Ponygood had come and talked to her. He'd felt... more real. She'd not appreciated him enough. Then Sonic came, and he was almost exactly as Twilence expected. Josh was a bit quieter, and DLB didn't say much... But they were all there. They talked about some deep things, about the meta, but also shared some stupid music left and right and had some fun with clouds.

Stupid clouds...

They'd learned more about GMBlackjack, thanks in part to Keywii, but also to Twilence digging around through the forums and such... Songs of the Spheres was always blocked, and more had been learned and...

Well it was just a nice experience.

And it had ended rather painfully. And she knew what it was. It was...

She opened her eyes. She saw Aradia punch Lore Thirst across the face. This did almost nothing - he slid a short ways, and Aradia had to escape through time. The exchange was short, almost too short to notice.

Twilence looked at Lore Thirst. "What... What have you done?"

"What I always wanted to do." He gestured at his chest - there was the Eye, embedded in him. Not her.

Twilence suddenly felt the need to throw up. She resisted the urge, looking down at her own chest - bare. Covered in her blood. Her mind was messy... And...

...Lore Thirst felt the remnants of Twilence's mind flee from the device. She was no longer connected in any way - it was all him. He knew she was struggling. He frowned. "You'll be fine."

"I... Lore... I have a world to save..."

"The world does not need you to save it." He suddenly got an inkling feeling that he was speaking in paradoxes.

"No... I need it..."

"You do not need it. You can help save the world without knowledge from beyond. Personally, I don't care one way or the other. I have what I want. All this knowledge..."

Twilence stood up and spread her wings aggressively, struggling to stand. "I... I will... You panned this!"

"Of course. I've always had it planned. I never intended for you to keep the Eye. I just needed to figure out how to let it accept me. I figured out how. And then that 'evil' Vriska came and told me Aradia had set up a trap - I'd fix your eye and then they'd stop me from taking it. So I took other measures. We are in the catacombs. Not even the Overseer can get in here - though apparently, Aradia can... I wonder how long that took..."

"You..." Twilence gagged.

Lore Thirst ignored her. He decided it was a good time to check in on the Vriska he had been working with...

~~~

The 'evil' Vriska was in the catacombs, angry, dragging a large bag behind her. "Vriska, do this! Vriska, do that! Vriska, I think that Lore Thirst guy is betraying us, go kill give him coercion! Siron, you... You suck. Imagine yourself as a literal douchebag filled with the shit of every fucktard that walked the collective Earths. That's you. ...Man, it feels good to be able to re-use material." She bristled. "Yes I am very much aware of that, please shut up, I have a crafty earth pony to mince because you've decreed it."

~~~

Lore Thirst made a "hmm" noise.

"W-what?" Twilence asked, still trying to process.

"It appears that 'evil' Vriska has figured out I have no intention of holding up my end of the bargain. How irksome."

"What... was your end?"

"Use the eye to summon the being she wanted at the altar. Or, Siron wanted, I suppose. I should be able to do it now, but I'm not stupid."

Twilence just glared at him.

"Regardless, perhaps I should take the chance to use this Influence of yours? Maybe they have some good ideas. Hmm..." He scrolled through the four messages. "Nope, just a stupid Sunbro, and talk of you and Vriska being impossible to kill. And of the Eye being removed. How prophetic."

Twilence'd had enough. She charged him - and he dodged. She shot a magic laser, he hit her on the head, knocking her out. "Let me say, I am glad you are very disoriented. Angry alicorns are not something I want to be on the business end of."

He rubbed his hooved together. "So, Influence, what's the plan? Run? Face her? Do what you do."

Then he received an Import that wasn't the Influence.

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Pristine
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Dethroned
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Singularity
Adrift
Coward
Earned
Tattletale
Lattice
Supernova
Predetermined
Insanity
Servant
Grimdark
Hacker

Lore Thirst raised an eyebrow. That was interesting. The endgame was apparently upon this story. Nineteen possible outcomes. He doubted very much that he'd like the 'Pristine' ending. He knew he was not the hero.

"I wonder what they'll make of this..."

Then the eye lit up, and Lore Thirst experienced a real import...

XL

So much... Information.

He started from the top and scrolled down. They were trying to drive him mad. That was an amusing thought - he was already mad by the standards of the world, and none of this was particularly bothersome anyway. It was all absolutely fascinating. What culture must they have to produce this drivel? What was the surrounding political situation where such mindless stupidity was allowed to form? And get popular enough that they share in it?

So curious. He could perform a case-study on all this. Probably would, actually, given enough time.

What he did not realize was that it was doing something to him. It was distracting him, like all pointless things on the Internet are meant to do. He forgot all about the version of Vriska heading right for him and became lost in the tunnels of what was shared. He wanted to absorb all he could - though even he couldn't stand sitting through the entire bee movie script being shouted.

Seriously, what even was that.

Why.

Why would they subject themselves to that horror?

Lore Thirst looked down at the Eye. "Are you questioning what you are showing me?"

The Eye has no mind of its own.

"Then what are these responses?"

The flow of ka carries with it words and stories, fragments.

"Very peculiar..."

Look up.

He did so. Twilence was gone. He raised an eyebrow - now where did she get off to?

If only an alliance was struck.

Why on earth would he strike an alliance with Twilence? Not even the Influence had suggested something that crazy. They just wanted to drive him mad... Even after the 'Sonic' one had realized he was already mad, they kept going. And going. Producing more fascinating aspects of their society. He found Ponygood's comments most illuminating. How depraved they were. They really were not worth his consideration...

And then Zen suggested he give the Eye back to Twilence.

Suddenly he felt a part of his mind nagging him to do so. He recalled them calling him the antagonist - but he wasn't really the antagonist, he was just a part of the world. Twilence's antagonist was Siron - or Corot, perhaps both. Maybe even the antagonist was herself, in the end, an emotional component that needed to be taken over.

Correct.

The Eye confirmed. He wasn't the antagonist. Was it the Eye confirming though? Or some other force?

What a mystery.

What an interesting mystery.

He came to the end of the messages. Multiples - in a row - telling him, demanding that he return the Eye to Twilence. He twitched.

Had they provided a logical reason, he knew he would have given it back. He would not have been able to resist. But being rid of them was not logical, nor was being the antagonist.

He took in a sharp breath - it took strength to resist what they asked. What they demanded. They truly were the Influence. They had powerful control over how he thought. It would take training to get used to what came through, to sift through it, to ignore... To think up his own courses of action.

What was he planning to do before this happened?

Oh, right. He needed to get out of here before-

A hand grabbed him around the neck. "You really are a fucking idiot."

Lore kept his composure despite the crushing force around his windpipe. "Vriska."

"Did it occur to you that, after betraying the deal with Siron, you should, I don't know, run maybe? Or lay an ambush? Or something?"

"That was one of the ideas. The Influence had unexpected consequences."

Vriska sighed. "Good for Siron, bad for us I guess. Come one, we're going to the altar right now and you're keeping up your end of the deal."

It won't work.

"What's that look for?" Vriska asked.

You're a dead man.

"Nothing," Lore Thirst said.

They could have kept you alive. You could have been more reasonable.

"It's not nothing," Vriska said. "That Eye's telling you things."

She's far too lucky and perceptive to just brush off.

"It's telling me too much."

Wrong answer.

"Wrong answer," Vriska muttered. "Siron wants to know."

What's in the sack?

"What's in the sack?" Lore Thirst asked.

Vriska raised an eyebrow, glancing at the sack she had slung over her shoulder. "...I think it's best I keep that hidden for now."

"Then excuse me," Lore Thirst said.

"I don't think so. Come. We're moving. Now."

You're dead.

Lore Thirst shook his head. That couldn't be determined.

You're dead. Their choices matter now. Matter more than they could ever realize. Even the smallest idea could change the course of everything. Why do you think there were nineteen different endings?

Am I thinking this or are you?

There is no 'you' or 'me' here. Just the wind.

Are you GM? That which I am 'slave' to?

Again, there is no 'you' or 'me.'

Then why is there a conversation here?

Because that is how you understand it. A conversation. A logical series of events. Twilence sees it, for now, as moments of almost divine inspiration. Feelings.

Why am I dead?

Because it won't work. It was never intended to work. You were never the hero. You cheated. You were the Hacker.

What does that mean?

Means that ending's impossible now since you're dead. Shame, some people really wanted it.

I'm not dead yet!

Notice how your logical demeanor is falling. Maybe there is a 'me' now - it's you.

That doesn't make any sense.

There was your first mistake. You expected this to make sense.

"Are you having a mental breakdown or something?"

Yes.

"Yes..." Lore Thirst said. Funny, the Influence got what it wanted, even if they weren't the cause of the madness.

They Influence more than they realize.

"Would you shut up?"

Vriska facepalmed. "Oh boy. Let's just get this over with." She held out her hand, using the light of Vester to navigate the catacombs unhindered. They were HIS catacombs, after all. "Should have gone with plan B from the start, Siron. You knew Twilence would be easier to work with, but no, you needed to stick with alpha-timeline nonsense."

"How is it that you can speak that way to Siron?"

"He has complete control over my every action. My only freedom is being able to say whatever the fuck I want. It makes it easier for both of us." She tossed him forward, into the central room of the catacombs. There was, in fact, an altar there. "Do it. Summon Corot already with your connection to that Eye."

It won't work.

Shut up. Lore Thirst walked up to the altar and cleared his throat. He may have had no intention of summoning the dark star to this world before, but his life was on the line here, and he was rather attached to that. Not to mention rather paranoid at this point.

"I wish to meet with Corot."

Nothing happened. The altar didn't even respond to him.

"Siron, you owe me five minutes of free time," Vriska smirked. "What's wrong, you mad? I told you it wouldn't work! TOLD you!"

Lore Thirst blinked. "You... You have bets with him?"

"He's literally my only conversation partner most of the time. I think we have what could best be described as a kismesis that's only 'stable' because I'm incapable of murdering his stupid ass."

"What?"

Do not attempt to understand troll romance you fool.

"What!?"

Vriska shrugged. "Not bothering to explain. I would say I'm sorry, but you're an ass. So I won't."

"Huh?"

Goodbye.

And then Lore Thirst's head was cut off with a roll of the dice and the summoning of a perfectly-sized guillotine.

"Appropriate..." Vriska said. "All right, Twilence, chances are you're here, just invisible or something. That Eye is calling out to you, I know it. Put it on, let's talk summoning Corot directly, hmm?"

The Eye disappeared in a flash of purple magic.

"Yeah, definitely here. Trying to run now though, get out before I can catch her. Hey, Twilence, bad idea. You should see what I have in the sack." She reached in and pulled out an unconscious Fluttershy. "You have thirty seconds to reveal yourself and summon Corot or I slit her neck. I don't want to, but I really don't have a choice in the matter. There's no way he's letting me have my five minutes right now."

Twilence froze. She was invisible - the Eye was back in her chest, automatically returning to its home. She didn't have time to think. She needed to act...

Luckily the Influence could think for her. They'd have time.

Please find a way to save Fluttershy, she thought. What can we summon?

Just before the Influence came in, she became aware of the Possible Endings file.

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Pristine
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Dethroned
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Adrift
Coward
Earned
Tattletale
Supernova
Predetermined
Insanity
Servant
Grimdark

LOST ENDINGS:
Singularity
Lattice
Hacker

Then Twilence got the full import...

XLI

Twilence went through the import as fast as she could, crawling to the altar as she did so, keeping up the invisibility.

"Are you... Invisible? Or did you really run?" Vriska frowned. "Or did you just get an import and are thinking it through?" She glanced at her watch. "Come on Twilence, twenty seconds."

Rarity, Starshell, or Discord. She was sure she was choosing the Starshell, it was almost as if she had no choice - but then she saw a warning from Zen, and then it was Rarity or Discord. She felt like she had no choice but to choose Discord, but then she saw Ponygood's warming. Rarity.

Rarity from Pony Fantasy V.

The Healer.

She whispered her request to the altar¶3¨∫¨ˆ∑√˙ø∑¨¥®´...

~~~

Either Discord or Rarity would have worked. Each of them have limitations, admittedly, but I won't tell you what those are.

Starshell was the worst idea any of you had. M is not a good guy. M is an ass. M would not have cared, nor could he have acted fast enough to save Fluttershy.

And if you read the chapter of Broken Mirror that went up today, you'll realize he's at least partially a villain.

Aside from Corot, M in the Starshell might have been the worst possible choice.

But lucky you, you've got Rarity. You chose her - Twilence didn't have time to deliberate her own choice. She just did.

If there had been enough votes for Starshell, even Zen's warning would not have made Twilence pause.

This might be the last time we talk to each other here. See you around.

Told you the last altar would be different.

~~~

∆ˆø´∑¥ƒ˚¬ß˜∂˙√¬˚´¥he Void was power.

Empress Twilight stood atop the control crystal, staring into the eternity of the multiverse. She blinked. "Something's coming."

Rarity looked up from her tea. "Hmm?"

"You're being... called. By... me?"

"...That doesn't make any sense, dear."

"Whatever it is, you're going away. I'll try to find you, but I don't think I will be able to that quickly."

Rarity shrugged. "It's... Been a long while since the last adventure. I suppose I'm up for it."

"Good luck, Rarity."

Rarity nodded, prepared for anything.

~~~

As soon as Vriska saw that the being who appeared in the altar wasn't Corot, she slit Fluttershy's neck.

Rarity acted with quick, cold, precision. White magic surrounded Fluttershy and revived her before Twilence could even process the event.

Vriska dropped the pegasus and laughed. "Well, I suppose that's one option. I was expecting something overpowered and absur-"

Rarity lit her horn and a few dozen white spheres appeared around Vriska and purged her with an intense beam of holy light. She fell to the ground. "Holy..."

"Yes, exactly," Rarity said, levitating her knife into the air. She forced a spell into her knife and drove it towards Vriska. She dodged both the knife and the associated meteor spell.

"You are quite the spellcrafter!" Vriska produced her dice. "But I'm sorry to admit, you don't stand a chance against me."

Rarity accelerated herself and rushed the dice in her hand. But Vriska was just too lucky - she threw the dice to the ground faster than Rarity could manage. They rolled a high value - not straight 8s, but nothing to sneeze at. It produced a ghostly alligator that bit off one of Rarity's legs.

She yelled in pain, but out of reflex cast the healing spell to reform the limb effortlessly.

Vriska blinked. "...Are you, like, a max level battle healer of some kind?"

"Yes, in fact."

Vriska shrugged. "Well, Siron, don't think I have something that can beat this one. She'll never kill me, but frankly, there's no reason to hang around here. So... Yeah, thought so." She opened her wings and floated into the air. "I have to jet. Say hi to Twilence for me-"

"HI VRISKA!" Twilence said, locating the infinite-sided die within Fluttershy's mane and hurling it at Vriska.

Vriska moved her hand to catch it - but Rarity slowed the dice down with a quick slow spell at the last possible moment, throwing Vriska's motion off. The die successfully rolled...

A five-minute timer appeared.

"YES!" Vriska said. "HE'S GONE! OH FUCK YES!"

Twilence blinked. "Is that..."

"Your roll gave me my five minutes. Yes..... Hell fucking yes... Okay so come on, we need to destroy him or something. He's in Tartarus, let's go there and pound him into dust..."

Rarity blinked. "...Can someone explain what just happened?"

Fluttershy coughed, touching the scar on her neck with confusion. "I... I have no idea."

Twilence smiled. "I can. Vriska here was holding Fluttershy hostage, trying to force me to summon a great evil from this altar. I summoned you instead because I was told you could help. Vriska herself was under the control of Siron until just now."

Rarity nodded. "I will need further explanation later, but for now this suffices. Discuss your course of action."

Vriska clenched her fist. "I'm going to pound him into dust, that's what. I'm going to drive a blade through his sorry little neck..." She raised her blood-covered fist...

Blood-covered...

"Hey!" Twilence said. "Can you give us the essence of Vester?"

"You'd have to kill me for that and frankly I'd rather be alive..." She saw the looks Twilence and Fluttershy were giving her. "...Are you actually considering killing me anyway?"

"No!" Twilence said, hanging her head. "I just... How are we going to get Orchid down here to get it?"

Vriska shrugged. "The catacombs will allow Vester through and that's it. Since he's not actually here he'll have to be elsewhere. Actually, I can tell you what he was doing in this timeframe. He had possessed one of the council members."

Fluttershy blinked. "...What."

"I don't remember which one. I don't think the other members know either. Regardless, that council member should be able to get her in here if you need it."

"How do we get out?" Twilence asked.

Vriska blinked. "...I think there's an exit portal right behind the altar."

Twilence craned her head and was able to see said portal platform. "Okay. So... Get back to the palace and figure out what to do."

"I still say go right to Siron and kick his teeth in. I could use the die on him."

Twilence shook her head. "That not only is risky, but also could easily backfire and you could be taken control of again." She glanced at the clock. "Two minutes."

"I'm going to stab myself again at the end of that."

Rarity blinked. "...That doesn't make sense."

"Once again, forced to explain that I can only die if the death is honorable or just, of which suicide is neither. It'll just buy you some time."

Rarity nodded, accepting this at face value.

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Rarity. Princess Rarity, Bearer of the Water Crystal if you want a title, though that's a bit antiquated at this point."

"Nice to meet you," Fluttershy said. "You look a lot like a friend of mine..."

"Same here," Rarity said. "Can you by chance summon powerful allies?"

"Uh... no I don't really have any powers, I was always here for emotional support."

Rarity smiled. "Dear, that's nothing to be ashamed of." Then she turned to Twilence. "Twilight, I presume?"

"Twilence actually, but that's because I changed it."

"Why?"

"To differentiate from other Twilights."

Rarity nodded. "My Twilight just went for 'Empress' in that regard."

"She's aware of other Twilights too?"

Rarity smirked. "She sits at the seat of the Void and has control over many universes, not that they know it. She is the Empress."

"I'd like to meet her one day."

"You probably will. She's looking for me."

Vriska blinked. "...That could make things complicated."

"Most definitely. I do wish to be briefed, but something tells me I won't have time. So, tell me, who are the bad guys and the good guys?"

Twilence nodded. "We are the good guys, trying to stop an ancient dark evil from coming to rule the world. This dark evil has two parts - the first demon sealed in Tartarus, Siron, and the ancient dark star Corot."

"Quite the tall order."

"You should leave now," Vriska said, angling the sword at her chest. "See you. I'll be evil again." Just as the clock rung she rammed it through her chest.

Twilence dragged the three of them to the teleporter and...

...appeared in an orange room. Twilence blinked. "Looks like we're in Chalak again. Though... as to where, I have no idea..."

"I have less idea than you," Rarity reminded her.

Fluttershy touched her neck. "...I... Wow. I wasn't even aware I was in danger. What... What happened?"

"Fluttershy..." Twilence hugged her. "It's okay. It's all okay."

The doors to the room were thrown off their hinges, revealing Pinkie. "OHMYGOSH! Twilence! YES! YOU'RE BACK!" She grabbed Twilence into an intense bear hug. "AAAAAA THIS FEELS SO GOOD IM GONNA CRY..."

Twilence laughed. "Pinkie! Calm down! I... I understand you had to do what you had to do..." And the reason I understand is because you allowed the Eye to be improved.

Rarity stared at Pinkie. "P-Pinkie...?"

Pinkie saluted. "Yep! Not the one you know tho- oh..." Her ears drooped. "I'm so sorry."

"You... Don't need to apologize."

"Regardless, the Council's waiting!"

"What?" Twilence blurted. She didn't have time to do anything before she was dragged through the doorway into the Council hall.

Twilence blinked. So the teleporter led to a room right next to the Council hall... Made sense, if Vester was in one of the Council members.

She looked at them - the unicorn was Evanescence, the hydra was Gilead, and the Overseer was... an eye. The other two - the farmer and the lung - she had no clue about.

How the heck was she going to do this? She hadn't even prepa-

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Pristine
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Dethroned
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Adrift
Coward
Earned
Tattletale
Supernova
Predetermined
Insanity
Grimdark

LOST ENDINGS:
Servant

Looks like it was time for an import. How to deal with the Council and what the next action should be...

The choices of the day.

XLII

Twilence took a moment to sort through the Influence's comments. "Give me a moment," she said, holding up a hoof, figuring out her course of action.

As it turns out they didn't really help her figure out how to deal with Vester beyond "not letting him know we know." Great. Probably wasn't the best option there. Well... They did have some ideas for other things... Including a story that she really didn't have time for.

"I suppose introductions are in order," she said, finally. "I'm Princess Twilence, Element of Magic and purveyor of Friendship. I'm from the nation of Equestria, one thousand years in the future, brought here for the sole purpose of wearing this Eye and knowing more about the nature of reality. I've decided I'm going to save you all from this Dark Lord, with the help of Orchid and the other friends around us."

"Well met. I am the Overseer," the Overseer said.

Twilence bowed. "The unicorn next to me is Princess Rarity, from a world set apart from this one. She is an apex healer, well versed in the arts of restorative magic to the point of which she can use it in a combat setting. Rarity, the five individuals on the seats are the Council members of this nation, Peran, and the rest are my friends. Over there we have the good Vriska, Pinkie Pie, Orchid, Aradia, and you already know Fluttershy."

"Indignant!"

"And that voice is the Mite. Hey, Mite, do you... have a gender?"

"No."

"Do you identify as one?"

"Negative."

"...Why?"

"Amusement."

"Ah." Twilence nodded. "Regardless, here is the situation. We have prevented Corot from being summoned at the altar in the catacombs, but Siron is still very much a threat. We don't know how he's going to break out of Tartarus, but he is going to try. The prophecy dictates that Orchid is to take onto herself the last temple spirit - Vester - and then unleash the power overwhelming, which is probably in the Time Tunnels."

Evanescence nodded. "Very well put, although we knew most of this information."

The farmer pony huffed. "I didn't, I think that was very helpful."

Twilence nodded. "If you excuse my ignorance, I don't know much about you, the Council. Care to introduce yourselves?"

The Overseer nodded. "I am the Overseer. I came to this world long ago on a simple journey of recreation. I stayed because I found it beautiful. I have served as a guardian of sorts for millennia. I was once a passive observer but now I sit on this council and take direct action, using my abilities to see everywhere for the use of Peran. I'm spying on Heildor most of the time, but now that crystal seems like a low threat."

Evanescence went next. "I am Evanescence, an accomplished mage. I am... related to Orchid and am aware of her tendency to overreact. I've served for three decades on this council and use my expertise to bring about a calmer, more ordered world."

The farmer coughed. "I'm just called Durian. I owned a small farm off the coast a while back, but I sorta ended up getting into politics and am here to represent the common pony and dragon. Apparently, I do a good job."

The lung went next, letting her voice ring out. "I am Lazuli, and I represent the Dragon Aristocracy. Or at least what remains of it since the chaos... I make sure those of us with importance aren't shafted by the common people."

Durian shot her a look. Gilead went last. "I'm Gilead. I'm the only one here old enough to remember the chaos aside from the Overseer. I favor strong security and strong armies."

Twilence nodded. "Good. Glad to get to know you all." She still had no idea which one was Vester. "We need to discuss how to obtain the spirit Vester so we can defeat Siron."

"Why must we adhere to this prophecy?" Evanescence said. "It has been pointed out that you can cause fate to mean nothing. Why must we lean our fate on one unicorn who has proven not to be reliable?"

Orchid bristled. "I'm trying to save your asses, that's why."

"Why do you do such a thing?"

"Because I see myself doing it, that's why."

"And if that were to change, you would no longer do it?"

"Duh, but that's-"

"I rest my case," Evanescence said. "Why do we not take another course of action besides the prophecy?"

Vriska shrugged. "I can get behind that. Less deus ex machina and more stabby stabby, right?"

Twilence furrowed her brow. "In that case, we'd need to get to figure out how Siron was going to escape his prison or find a way into Tartarus and face him directly. I know of an entrance to Tartarus in Equestria..."

"There's one here as well," the Overseer said. "Bottom of the inverted mountain. It requires significant power to open."

Vriska rolled her eyes. "I think we have that in spades."

Pinkie threw a bunch of spades on the ground. "Yeah!"

Gilead grinned. "Let us charge our armies into Tartarus and face Siron! Kill him with brute force!"

"Tartarus doesn't just seal Siron," Twilence reminded them. "There are a lot of horrid beings down there."

"We can take them all. Forget this catacombs business, no-one has ever gotten through there."

"The other Vriska did," Rarity said.

"She had Vester from another timeline to get her through," Twilence said. "We don't have that. Though... Aradia, sometime in the future you are going to go through the Catacombs and tell the Influence not to freak out."

"Huh. Cool."

"Do you think you can bring Orchid with you?"

Aradia furrowed her brow. "...I'll know as soon as we step outside if I closed a time loop or not. But something tells me that won't work."

Gilead raised a head. "This other Vriska has a version of Vester? Why can't we take hers?"

"That'd require killing her?" Twilence said.

"What's the issue with that?" Gilead asked.

"I agree with Gilead here," Vriska said. "For as much as I don't want to die, sometimes it just needs to happen."

Aradia shot her a look.

"What?"

"...You know what."

Vriska shrugged.

Twilence looked at Aradia again. "Can you use some time shenanigans on Evil Vriska to get her to give us the spirit?"

Orchid shook her head. "The spirits cannot be given up. I suspect I need to have all six. Had you taken one, Twilence, I believe I would have had to kill you. Or you, me."

"Comforting."

Lazuli shook her head. "We need to call for an actual decision. We seem to have two options - attempt to open the time tunnels with the prophecy, or face Siron directly through the gateway before he can be released..."

"Tonight," Aradia offered.

"Yes. Tonight."

The Overseer narrowed his eye. "We could put it to a vote. I'm in favor of seeking the prophecy."

"I'm against it," Evanescence said.

"To war!" Gilead roared.

Durian raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather not organize an army. Prophecy."

Lazuli frowned. "...Ready the troops. We're doing this directly."

Twilence had the sudden pang of realization they were forgetting something very important. But try as she might she had no clue what it was. She grimaced. "If that's your decision."

The Overseer nodded. "It is. You, of course, are free to pursue whatever path you desire. You could even split up to cover more ground, should you wish." He floated into the air. "We have preparations to make. Meeting adjourned. May there be a day tomorrow for us to meet again."

"Wait!" Twilence called. "One last thing. These Eyes - how are they related?"

The Overseer sighed. "...I think it's fate. Things come in threes. They all have different origins - I am from a far-removed alien planet, the Eye you wear is a technological marvel of understanding, and Orchid's is a testament to magic and the desire to know what is coming. They all formed at different times through different methods, but they are related through fate. Like three chosen objects. Symbols." He shook his head. "I must go."

Twilence gulped. She knew that could have gone better. Soon, only her and her allies were in the room.

"...Vester has one of the council members possessed," Twilence said. "Obviously one of the three who voted against following the prophecy, though I have no idea which one."

Aradia frowned. "That's certainly concerning."

Vriska smirked. "Lemme at 'im, I can figure out which one easy..."

"We're not going to let him know we know," Twilence said. "I suppose the Overseer can probably see us talking about this, but we're sure he's not Vester, so... I guess that's okay. I think he's on our side."

"So..." Fluttershy rubbed her neck. "What are we going to do?"

Vriska shrugged. "Either lay a trap for myself or go enter ourselves into an army. Obviously. Or I guess brute-force the Catacombs..." She looked at her dice. "...If I roll straight 8s I could probably waltz on through, dragging you all with me. I'd need to absorb a lot of luck to do that though..."

Twilence frowned. "Whatever it is, our decisions matter. And they matter a lot. I feel like we messed up in that meeting, somehow. I still think we can salvage it. Anyway... I have a few things I need to address the Influence about." She took a breath. "So, GM's talking more then? What does that mean exactly? Does this SBURB session thing have anything to do with me?"

Aradia blinked. "A SBURB session?"

"Apparently GM's next project."

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "There hasn't been a SBURB session for millennia. I think. Horrorterrors shut them down from what I hear."

"...Could take place in the past."

"But nothing can work through meta-time!"

"John," Aradia said.

"Exception that proves the rule!"

Twilence decided this didn't matter. "Creek, if you can hear me, or if someone can talk to Creek, tell her I'd like to hear from her again. I'm getting worried. Sunbro, treat this other Twilight well, okay? I believe in you. So..." She frowned. "We need to decide what to do..."

Then Twilence received the ending import again.

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Dethroned
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Adrift
Coward
Earned
Tattletale
Supernova
Predetermined
Insanity
Grimdark

LOST ENDINGS:
Pristine

Twilence gulped. Well, there went the 'best' ending...

Then everything came flooding to her...

XLIII

Twilence took a few minutes to sort out her thoughts.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. Listen closely."

Everyone stood at rapt attention.

"We're going to do all of the above. Ponygood suggested doing both, I suggest we do more. Vriska, go around the city and collect the luck of the inhabitants. There should be plenty to get it high enough to 'ascend' to your 8-8 form. And then you're going to use this." Twilence teleported the infinite-sided die away from Fluttershy so Vriska wouldn't know who had it before.

Vriska's eyes widened. "Yes. Hell fucking yes. I could take Orchid right to the altar with that... And any number of other things..."

"It's time to make you extremely overpowered," Twilence smirked. "Orchid, you will go with her on that, because you need to."

"...Not sure when we made you in charge of everything, but I get it."

"That will probably take care of the Council member Vester's inside of, and allow Orchid to complete the prophecy. After you all finish that you'll head to the Time Tunnels to unlock whatever's found there. Pinkie, you're going to go with the army so you can relay what the Influence says to them, if they need it. Okay?"

"Okie!"

"Rarity, do you mind going with her?"

"Not at all. It'll hardly be my first war," Rarity bowed.

"Mite, you can go with Vriska and Orchid, see if you can figure out technology and stuff. I know my Eye can't be improved further with that device, but you may as well check it out if you see it."

"Affirmative."

"Aradia, you and I are going to use time shenanigans to meet with all the Council members. We'll meet up with Orchid after."

Aradia nodded. "Gotcha. I'll split my timeline so I can go help the war as well."

"Fluttershy, you're with us. And... Infinity... Where's Infinity?"

Pinkie pointed out into a nearby hallway. Infinity was staring at a window. Not out of it, at it.

Twilence teleported to her. "Infinity? You okay?"

"I'm not important, am I? Just some... side character who wasn't even supposed to join."

Twilence blinked. "That's... Actually right, I think. But just because it is it doesn't mean you aren't important."

Infinity sighed. "I'm the most expendable. It's obvious. There's going to be something that happens and KA-CHAM I'm going to be dead. It's going to happen..."

Twilence knew that someone was going to die. She didn't know if it was Infinity, or if it'd be more than one person, but someone was going to die. The best possible ending was gone.

"Infinity, we can't go second guessing ourselves like this. We have to move on, taking pride in what we are, be it hero, oracle, sidekick, or whatever. There are many who think you are the self-insert of GM, by the way."

"...I'm fully aware an author doesn't want to make his own character too important to the world. At least if he was me. It'd be too... 'cheaty'."

Twilence smiled. "You're a good pony, Infinity. You should go with Vriska to the catacombs."

"All right."

Twilence tapped the Eye. "I'll be able to see what you're all doing with this. I can change the 'point of view', I just haven't seen a need to yet. I should be able to now." She turned back to the group. "Everyone know what they're doing?"

Everyone nodded.

"Well let's get to it! Aradia, freeze time for me. I need some time to snoop around the stories..."

Aradia obliged and Twilence read. She found Creek's story first - she really hoped Creek wasn't going to get stuck for too long. The longer she wasn't here, the worse things could get. Twilence was also just worried in general. Was Creek going to break from all the strain? Twilence tried to send her a message directly - copying the link to the SotS forum she couldn't read - and felt like... Did it go through? She wasn't sure. She focused and tried to send messages to the other members of the recursive organization she knew... She had no idea if it worked or not. She sighed.

She moved onto other stories, looking for little details. There was going to be one detail, one fact, one thing they were all forgetting. She knew she wasn't going to be the one to find it, the Influence had to be the ones to remember it if it was going to be remembered, but maybe there'd be something to jog their memory here. She found stories of Siron, Corot, Spirits, Islands, Time, Futures...

Something in there. Something in there...

It wasn't the Moonless night. That was tonight. Everyone had remembered that.

What else...

"Aradia..."

"Yes, Twilence?"

"What were the trials supposed to be?"

"...Lore Thirst was supposed to drag you away from your position, make you think he was on your side, take you through a 'dungeon' he'd set up, and then 'reward' you by upgrading your Eye. We would have intervened before he finished, but it ended up being in the catacombs because of Siron-Vriska. She warned him about our plans and screwed everything up." She looked into the distance. "Apparently it now needs to happen since future-me didn't stop it."

Twilence nodded. "I guess so... Resume time. Let's go talk to the Overseer..." While they moved, she shifted her focus...

~~~

Vriska ran into another casino, smirking, and absorbing the luck of the customers. "And now all of you will consistently lose!"

"What a jerk thing to say!" A random customer said.

"I know, right?" Vriska giggled.

Orchid sighed. "How many of these do we need to go through?"

"Probably a dozen more. Every one has one good gambling master in it, so they have big boosts." She twisted her wrists. "I have to be confident enough that I can roll straight 8s, remember? S' gonna take a while."

Infinity shrugged, rolling some dice in a game against five other gamblers. She won everything with that one roll. "Am I lucky or..."

"Yeah, the rest of them just have crap luck. To the next one!"

Orchid teleported them to casino after casino like a factory assembly line. This was going to be so fun!

~~~

Rarity looked at the assembling armies. "...Where are your champions?"

Lazuli blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Champions. Superpowered individuals a cut above the rest that lead the charge and are the core of a good army. I mean, Pinkie and I qualify, but where are your excellents?"

Lazuli frowned. "The army is formed of volunteers. We don't recruit."

"...This bodes well." Rarity frowned, counting the forces. "While dragons are formidable, are you sure this is enough of a force? I do not know our enemy, but, well, I expect it'll be a difficult campaign."

Lazuli smirked. "You know what you're talking about, aren't you?"

"I led a war on a mad demon bent on destroying multiple universes. Or I was part of leading it." She shrugged. "It... was an experience."

Pinkie shrugged. "Guess we're the champions though."

Aradia appeared. "Okay, split my own timeline, now there's two of me. Pretty sure this universe doesn't operate on 'doomed timeline' logic, but frankly even if that's true I'm more likely to die now anyway because of reasons. But shenanigans are always fun."

Pinkie nodded. "Well... Sweeping army of dragons and ponies! LET'S GO!"

~~~

Twilence, Fluttershy, and Aradia had wrapped up their interviews with Durian and Lazuli - Twilence was sure they not only weren't all that important, but they weren't Vester. She was pretty sure the Overseer wasn't either, but she did have some questions for him.

"Hey Overseer! You have time for some questions."

"No I don- Oh. You've stopped time. I see."

Aradia waved and smiled.

"What do you request of me?"

Twilence smiled. "We... Want to know about your ship. I mean, I was confused when I was up there, but didn't it turn to shrimp?"

"That was only part of it. The ship is far too large to be turned into all shrimp at once. Unless that infinite sided die has no limit on it."

"Ah. Right..." Twilence frowned. "...Hey, wait a minute." She remembered a detail. Not the detail, but a detail. "I kept seeing your eye while I was sleeping, in my dreams. And yet it seems like you've never looked at me directly before. But I knew I was being watched..."

The Overseer was silent for a moment. "...That is... concerning. I know not what it means." He glanced around, checking to make sure no-one else was watching in the time-stop. "Have you found out who Vester is controlling yet?"

"Ah, you saw that. No. The Influence is placing its money on Gilead. But I haven't ruled out Evanesence yet. Pretty sure it's not Durian or Lazuli."

"How can you be sure about Lazuli?"

"Paralyzing fear of blood," Fluttershy said.

"...Ah. Curious."

"Anyway, off to Evanescence," Twilence said. "Thank you for your time."

"Likewise."

Later, that is to say, three minutes in the past, they met up with Evanescence.

Evanescence put on a fake smile. "Hello, what can I do for you?"

"You can answer a few questions. Mainly, I'm curious why exactly you have beef with Orchid."

Evanescence bristled. "Surely you're aware of her tendencies by now."

"I've been working with her. She's changing."

"After she's done with this, if she gets to take the glory, she will do it publicly. And it will go to her head. And she is the last pony the people need to be a leader."

"Ah. So if we were to, say, try to go to the altar anyway..."

"I really don't care if you try it. Steps have been made to ensure Peran gets the glory, not Orchid. Do what you will, we'll say it was our army that did it."

"Propaganda!" Aradia said. "Dastardly."

"Normal," Evanesence said. "Now please end this stupid time distortion so I can get back to work."

Aradia obliged.

Ten minutes in the future, they paused time around Gilead. He glared at them. "I was training soldiers."

"You can wait for that," Twilence said. "We've got some questions. You're old enough to remember the era of chaos. What was it like?"

"Horrible, messy, and a big joke that nobody was laughing at."

Twilence nodded. "Of course, I understand that. Do you know Discord gets released in the future? About a thousand years from now. He's sealed away again, but is let out again - it's a complicated mess that doesn't matter all that much. But the point is I know what the chaos world is like. I lived through one."

"You want empathy points?"

"No. I want you to realize that such a world could come about again." She shrugged. "We're still going ahead with the altar plan. We just don't trust an army and brute force to work."

Gilead's gaze visibly hardened on all his heads. "...How are you going to get in the catacombs without Vester?"

"A lot of luck. Vriska, to be precise. She's gathering enough luck to maximize her power. We'll get to the altar eventually."

"...Where is Vriska right now?"

Twilence smirked. Ah, there it is. "Why do you want to know?"

"So I may... assist her."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "Okay, yep, it's him."

Aradia made the finger guns gesture and winked at Gilead. "Gotcha Vester!"

Gilead roared as loud as could be. "HOW IN-"

"Future Vriska tipped us of."

He attacked - then Aradia froze him in time. "Yeah, he's not that strong. How's Vriska doing by the way?"

~~~

Vriska rolled her fluorite octet - and got straight 8s.

"Woop! Gaming the system!" Her blue armor came to her and she became extremely overpowered.

Infinity smirked. "Cool."

Orchid groaned. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Yes." Mite said.

Vriska held the infinite-sided die in her hand and threw it to the ground.

The altar itself was teleported aboveground, no longer even IN the catacombs. Vriska laughed. "Ah, so awesome."

Orchid leaped onto the altar and called for Vester. In an instant, the red orb completed the set, all six spinning around her in an awe-inspiring aura. Blood appeared from nowhere, coating her for a split second and vanishing.

And she understood everything.

She bit her lip.

"...What is it?" Infinity asked.

"...Nothing important. Yet." She sighed. "I've just... learned more. Come on, to the Time Tunnels. I know what we need to do."

~~~

Gilead was now free of Vester.

Gilead was now brain-dead.

The Overseer appeared behind them. "Well... Looks like we'll be needing a new council member after this is over..."

"No kidding," Twilence said. "...You still going through with the war?"

"The vote is still tied. Yes, we are."

Twilence nodded. "To the Time Tunnels then. Fluttershy? Aradia?"

Aradia froze time. "Let's make the long journey!"

It was eternally late afternoon as they flew across the sea towards the rest of the group. "So..." Fluttershy said. "Tonight's the night."

"Yep."

"We still forgot something"

"Yep..."

"It's going to be important?"

Twilence sighed. "It won't be long until it's relevant, I know that. Not long at all..." She gulped. "Let's just... Meet up with everyone and get to the Time Tunnels. Okay?"

~~~

The inverted mountain was a cone-shaped pit in the ground. Pinkie, Rarity, Aradia, and Evanescence were there at the bottom.

The bottom was unnaturally flat and sparkly. It made everyone feel uneasy.

Evanescence took in a deep breath and lit her horn. "Here goes..." The flat in the ground suddenly vanished, leaving a hole.

Pinkie went in first, coming out the other side realizing gravity was inverted. What had been the ceiling was now the floor. "Huh... Cool!"

Rarity, Aradia, and Evanescence came in after. Slowly, the army started pouring in through the opening.

Tartarus was dark. Really, really dark. Faint lights could be seen in the distance, eerily illuminating tremendous towers of rock in the distance. There were no visible walls, or 'ceiling.' Everything was dark, dangerous, and desolate.

Evanescence pulled out a map. "The Overseer has marked out a path that will lead us directly to Siron's section. The guardians of Tartarus shouldn't cause us much trouble - they know who's supposed to be here and who's not - but we still must be on our feet. Not all that is sealed down here will be locked away in chains."

Rarity nodded, casting a regen spell on as many as she could manage.

~~~

They were a group now. Twilence, Fluttershy, Infinity, Vriska, Orchid, and Mite. Aradia was there as well, but she was hanging back, making sure time moved at a crawl. The sun would be setting in only a couple hours. They had passed Troisha and the Ice shelf long ago - now they were heading towards the Time Tunnels.

Which were stuck behind a permanent storm-cloud.

"Going through that while time-frozen could prove to be impossible," Aradia said.

Twilence encased everyone in protective magic shield. Orchid did as well. They all floated through the air while Aradia unpaused time.

The stormclouds over the Time Tunnels swirled, shifting, altering, adjusting, freaking out in the most impossible ways. Twilence gulped. "This is going to be a rough ride."

Vriska held up the infinite sided die. "Want me to have a go?"

"Do you still have enough luck to be certain it'll work?"

"Nope."

"Then no. We'll do this the right way." Twilecne took a breath - and calculated a long-range teleport. "Here goes..."

They appeared on the other side of the storm. It was still far, far too windy here. Twilence's magic bubble burst from a random airborne rock, leaving only Orchid's.

"You could have warned us to expect turbulence!" Infinity muttered.

"Sorry!" Twilence called, looking around frantically. It was hard to see in this wind - so much wind. So many things were flying around and obscuring her vision, and she had to keep nudging them out of the way of the rapidly approaching debris...

Wait.

She sensed magic.

She threw the bubble downward. It hit ground - but stayed intact. They were on a tiny island surrounded by wind with a single cave opening right in front of them.

She rolled them into it like they were hamsters in a ball. Then she sealed up the entrance to keep the wind out. "Okay! Here we are. Let's... do this!"

Orchid walked forward - there was a large open space, a meeting hall, composed of ancient metal coursing with magitech energies, much like the ones in the desert. At the end was a door with six softly glowing nodes. "As soon as I put these in Starlight is going to show up."

"So? We can take her!" Vriska said.

"Maybe. But I'll have lost the powers bestowed upon me by the spirits. And she will try to gain partial control over the Tunnels. She succeeds in the future I currently see. I'm hoping Twilence can change that."

"...How exactly will she try to do it?"

Orchid frowned. "I will put the spirits in and a scanner will check everyone in the room and give them 'control passes.' She will appear in that moment and try to be recognized as a worthy controller. It'd be hard to stop that from happening so I'd suggest trying to kill her."

Fluttershy gasped. "But... She just wants her home back!"

"I hope your Influence can find a way to save her. But we can't have her gaining control." She glanced at Twilence. "Got it?"

"Got it."

"Also, I'm sorry."

Twilence narrowed her eyes. "What are you about to do that I won't like?"

Orchid laughed bitterly. "You won't like a lot of things that are coming. I can see the future pretty clearly now. There are a few specific branching paths. But... No, now is not the time. I will take full blame afterward. You've taught me that much, at least."

And then Twilence received the endings.

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Adrift
Coward
Earned
Tattletale
Supernova
Predetermined
Insanity
Grimdark

LOST ENDINGS:
Dethroned

"Okay Influence... You can talk to both me and Pinkie, capitalize on it."

XLIV

Twilence held up a hoof. "Wait, Orchid, there's a lot to go through here." She read through the messages - skimming, but somehow seeing what was important anyway. Handy feature, that.

Her grimace kept growing the more she read. And then, suddenly, a laugh. "Vriska, you'll appreciate this." She played the audio file of Zen's video.

"Somebody better pick up that phone... Because I fucking called it!"

Fluttershy facehooved and Vriska chuckled. "I like him. Zen, you get points."

"Anyway... Thank you, all of you in the Influence, for bringing ideas. But I know EXACTLY what we forgot." She turned to her friends. "There is STILL a Star Cult active that is going to try to summon Corot. Summoning Corot at the altar was apparently an evil backup plan. It shouldn't be too difficult to take care of them with enough firepower - but you probably need to get there fast. So, Vriska, Aradia, after we're done here, that's where you're going."

"Whatever you say boss-lady!" Vriska mockingly saluted.

Twilence rolled her eyes. "RIght. Now, Mite, can you contact the Golems?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe? Is that a yes or no?"

"They might not listen is what he's saying," Orchid offered.

"Ah. Well try anyway, tell them to see if they can help fight Siron. I know they're fighting with Heildor right now but... Well maybe they could drag them into it as well?"

"Attempting," Mite said.

"Good. Though Motherboard is apparently an alternate universe version of M, and M is apparently a bit of a jerk... We'll just have to see."

Orchid rolled her eyes. "Golems ain't the angels you pretend they are."

"Sure. Creek, you have no idea how glad I am that you're back. I... I was really worried something was going wrong or was going to go wrong. But I think we have it under some level of control now. I knew a lot of that from Ponygood, but... Well you have more info now, that's good, and you're okay. And... I was trying to send you the link to what I think is the Spheres forum. Apparently, you aren't allowed to see it either..." She turned to Orchid. "What's with Starlight?"

Orchid glanced at the door. "If I put the spirits in now, she will appear in that instant. If you suggest we wait, we will, and she'll appear in the instant again."

"Where?"

"...Right there."

Twilence nodded. "Here's the plan. I'm going to hug her."

Vriska did a spit-take. "What the fuck?"

"Vriska, sometimes all you need is a hug. If she tries to kill me, you can kill her. I recommend taking all her luck. I... I don't want to kill her."

Vriska narrowed her eyes. "...Fine."

Infinity shivered. "This... Hooo this is a big moment. Mite, are you able to get inside the door?"

"Negative."

"Well... Guess we have to open it then."

Orchid nodded, producing the six souls. A grimace crossed her face. "...Sorry."

Twilence's eyes widened. "Orchid wai-"

Orchid slammed the six orbs of energy into the door. The colors of white, black, red, purple, blue, and green coursed through the lines on the door.

Everyone heard screams of agony and death come from the door.

Twilence paled. The spirits were being consumed. And Orchid had known this. And she'd been sorry about it. But she'd done it anyway.

She pushed the thoughts away - she was mad, yes, but she had other things to look at now. Starlight appeared in a flash of blue time magic right next to her, murder in her blue eyes.

Twilence embraced her and the murder vanished in an instant. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks and her jaw hung slack. The light in her horn went out - she stood like a statue. She didn't even blink. Tears flowed out of her eyes freely.

Twilence was ready to create a magic shield if one was needed, but even Vriska could see Starlight's tears were genuine. The troll stood down. Nobody cared about the scan that came out of the door and approved them all.

Starlight, finally, hugged back. "Why... Why do you have to be this way?"

"Because that's my job. Where I'm from I'm the Princess of Friendship." She laughed. "If I didn't understand ponies, well then I'd be doing something wrong."

"...Where I'm from I'm the grand technologist..." Starlight said. "I spend all my time trying to bring new inventions to the world... Trying to push the boundaries..." She choked. "It was a happy world."

Twilence's eyes became sad. "...So was mine. ...What brought about your world?"

"Siron won," Starlight said. "...Then we fought back and defeated him. We used what he had 'built' to become more powerful than ever before..." She looked into the distance. "Sometimes suffering breeds strength."

Twilence sighed. "I'm... I'm sorry, we can't just stand by and let Siron win. He's our enemy."

"I know. That's why you're not supposed to act like this! You're my enemy!"

Twilence chuckled. "We... We're all just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Starlight sighed. "An eternal state of being..."

"Yeah. It is, isn't it?" Twilence paused. "...Care to come in with us? I... I don't think we can let your future take place. But who knows what lies behind these doors."

"Nobody," Starlight said, standing up on her own four legs. "O... Okay. Let's... Try this."

Fluttershy rushed her into a hug as well. "I'm sorry we can't do anything for you!"

Starlight blinked. "...Why?"

"I... I really wanted you to have a home. Everypony deserves one. Everypony."

Starlight shook her head. "Yeah, I do. But it looks like I'm not getting one."

"I - well I could let you stay in mine. There'll probably be another Starlight but..."

Starlight smiled softly. "That's assuming we can get your time back."

"...Yeah."

Twilence nodded slowly. "Yes. It might not be possible. But we're going to try." They entered the Time Tunnels.

For whatever reason Twilence thought the phrase "Achievement Get: Diplomat. Deal with Starlight without violence."

That made her uneasy and she didn't know why.

"Vriska, Aradia, cult. Now."

Vriska gave a thumbs up - and the two of them vanished into time.

Twilence, Fluttershy, Infinity, Orchid, Mite, and Starlight entered the Time Tunnels. Twilence turned to Orchid. "You killed them. All six of them."

"There was no other way into the Time Tunnels. And we need what's in here."

Twilence bristled - she knew there had been another way into the Time Tunnels, but that that path had lied with Lore Thirst. Now, Orchid was right. Extinguishing the spirits was the only way. "That doesn't absolve you."

"Of course not," Orchid said. "There's a reason I try to distance myself, Twilence. It's so when I do things like that I don't become compromised." She shot Twilence a tear-filled gaze. "Do you realize what you've done to me?!"

"Kept you from being a monster," Twilence said. "...I would have had to Dethrone you had you not."

"I... I..." Orchid sighed. "Right... Well, I'm useless now, more or less. I can see the future really well but I have no spirit powers. So I can dodge and stuff but... Well, let's just say things have been unpredictable lately."

Twilence shook her head. "Orchid..."

"I'm trying to cope, okay? I need to cope quickly. We're on a timetable, even with Aradia's time shenanigans. Mite, what do you have?"

"Dimensional."

Twilence blinked. "...Wait, I thought these were the Time Tunnels?"

"Yes."

"They can do dimensions as well?"

"Yeeeeeees."

"I guess Creek wanted to know about a dimensional portal... Looks like we're going to find one."

The group came out of a hallway into a tremendously large room. On all sides of the spherical chamber were mirrors that showed reflections that seemed slightly... off. Walkways lined the edge of the sphere, with six jutting paths that led to the center, where a series of complex controls surrounded a white glowing pillar. It shifted in and out of focus, the energy from it flowing down into the floor. A stairway led down.

"...What's this?"

"Temporal."

"What's down the stairs?"

"Apocrypha."

Twilence's eyes widened. "...The thing that can remove anything from all of time?"

"Affirmative."

Infinity raised a hoof. "I bet that's our weapon we can use to defeat the Dark Lord. The... 'power overwhelming'."

"...Negative?" Mite said, sounding confused.

"What else could it be?"

"Control." A few buttons on the console lit up. A holographic representation of the world appeared - and Twilence watched as the band itself rose from the desert.

"...Mite, what is the Band?" Twilence asked.

"Overwhelming."

"...How big of a scale are we talking?"

"Continental."

Twilence paled. "I... I see."

Orchid glanced at her. "You know what this means?"

Twilence looked at the Eye. "The reason that, in my future, I've heard of no Peran... Is because it was wiped off the face of the planet a thousand years ago."

Orchid nodded. "We have to use this thing to ensure your future."

Twilence shook her head. "Last resort only, Orchid. We're not letting Starlight have her future, we... we can't be hypocrites." She gulped.

Starlight stared at her in disbelief. "You... You're really giving your time up?"

Twilence glanced at Fluttershy. Fluttershy nodded slowly. Twilence turned to Starlight and put on a pained smile. "We... Yeah, we are. Unless of course, we can't defeat Siron without it. But something tells me if we use the Apocrypha right..."

"Time will change again," Infinity said. "If Siron never existed, well, how would the world we are standing in NOW fare?"

Twilence facehooved. "Why is this always so difficult..."

"Dimensional," Mite said.

"Oh yeah, we can access other dimensions." Twilence frowned. "I... I'm really not sure what to do here. We have access to 'power overwhelming' but we really don't want to use any of it now that we've found it. How wonderful..." She sighed. "I'm going to check in on the others, give me a second."

~~~

Tartarus was dark. Pinkie turned to Evanescence. "I assume we already have a defensive posture and some stealthy scouts sent out?"

"Yes. ...Why?"

"The Influence wants to make sure. We gotta be extra careful not to release anything into the surface world. Siron may be the biggest bad but there are plenty of other baddies in here! Gotta stay focused!"

"Of course."

"Now... can I give a motivational speech?"

Rarity facehooved. "Pinkie..."

"Oh come on, I can totally do it!"

Aradia shrugged. "I don't see why not."

"Because some of the troops have already been sent out," Evanescence muttered. "There's not going to be anyone listening."

"Aw, poo. I had a good one!" Pinkie said, shrugging. "Oh well." She drew her frying pan. "Which way?"

Evanescence gave her a copy of the map. "There you go."

"Righty-O!" She charged alongside hundreds of other dragons and ponies. She lost track of Rarity quickly - but she always saw Aradia. Probably because there were several hundred of her right now. That troll knew how to fight a war with time.

The army moved without resistance for a very long time. They saw a few Tartarus guardians - not Cerberus, but there was a giant Oroburos creature that saw them and nodded ever so approvingly in their direction before floating off somewhere else.

The guardians of Tartarus had one job - keep the inmates from escaping. They were beings of great power ranging from three-headed dogs to circular reptiles to spirits of power itself. Pinkie had no idea where they'd come from. She just knew Siron was going to dupe them.

But then the forces of Tartarus ambushed them. Demonic presences of all shapes and sizes attacked. Black formless things alongside piles of amorphous flesh. Dinosaurs alongside ancient pony necromancers. Psychic attacks coming from beings currently chained up, but still angry.

The Oroburos came to the army's aid, deflecting some of the larger enemies, ones whose size could not be comprehended by mortal minds, or those whose shapes inspired madness. But it could only take care of so many - the rest got through, and the fighting began. Rampant death was everywhere, and they would have been crushed very quickly.

But Rarity was well versed in raising people from the dead and not dying herself. The army surged back from a pile of corpses and responded. Dragons took on dinosaurs, mages took on demonic things, and Aradia took care of any troublesome abilities by freezing their users in time. She had actually drawn her whip and had a serious expression on her face. It occurred to Pinkie that Aradia wasn't really a fighter, not really. She has psychic powers, time powers, and a whip. She usually solved her encounters other ways...

...But she could sure as heck enjoy a good fight.

After all, death was beautiful.

Pinkie shivered - those smiles on the Aradias. They were creepy.

She dipped her frying pan in some of the blood and summoned one of her own demons - a snowflake creature that went through and froze several organ creatures. She leaped into a creature's mouth and tossed a party bomb inside. The explosion was both disgusting and satisfying.

Pinkie ended up near Evanescence. "Woo!"

"We can't keep this up," the unicorn said, blasting a three-winged eyeball from the sky. "They're far too organized. Siron's working on them. Commanding them."

Pinkie gulped. "Well... There may be help coming."

"...How so?"

And then a Golem ship appeared in the sky with a sonic boom. Several others appeared as well.

Evanescence grimaced. "Great. Orchid's friends..."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Get over it, we need them."

And then a few dozen yellow crystals appeared behind them. Evanescence paled. "...Heildor..."

One of the golem ships produced a loudspeaker.

"CRYSTALS OF HEILDOR, LET US CEASEFIRE AND FOCUS ON THE LARGER ENEMY. THE DEMONS OF TARTARUS AND SIRON ARE A GREATER THREAT THAN ANYTHING ELSE. WE CAN RESUME OUR WAR AT A LATER DATE."

The yellow crystals formed into a strange circular portal, through which what could only be the voice of Heildor itself rang out.

<I would have to be an idiot to refuse. I'm aware enough to know there's something bigger going on here. You have my aid.>

And then the ships and crystals started raining down mass destruction on the demons of Tartarus. Pinkie whooped. "Yeah!"

And then Pinkie was somewhere else. She blinked - she was sure she hadn't Translated. Something had grabbed her...

She was standing on a flat, rocky outcropping, a place where Tartarus prisoners were to be imprisoned. There were no chains here either, only a single, unassuming inhabitant. He was buglike - four arms, two legs, red carapice. He held a staff in one hand and looked at Pinkie with his four eye slits on his flat face. It was impossible to see an expression.

"Siron," Pinkie said.

"Pinkie," Siron said, sitting on the ground, drawing in the dirt.

Pinkie raised an eyebrow. "Why am I here?"

"Because you're the curious one," Siron said, looking out in the distance. The explosions of the war could be seen in the darkness, approaching their current location.

Pinkie hefted her pan. "I could take you out right now."

"You couldn't. There's a reason Tartarus was created for me. Damn hard to kill. I'm like a cockroach mixed with a flea and an extremophile."

"Instant death frying pan."

Siron chuckled. "Well, you want to play a game with that Frying pan then? Hit me. If I die, well, you have your reward. If I don't, then I get to hit you with it."

"No deal."

Siron pointed a finger at Pinkie, and her mind felt numb. "What was that?"

"No... Deal..."

"My, you have one of the strongest minds I have ever seen!" He pointed three hands at Pinkie. "I want to play a game, Pinkie. Do you accept?"

"N... No..."

"All you have to do is hit me with the frying pan." His hands became fists - Pinkie's brain started throbbing. "Come on."

Pinkie dropped the frying pan and punched him in the face with her hoof. "NO!"

Siron laughed. "I could probably condition you eventually. But, oh, look at this..." He levitated the frying pan into his hand. "Look what I have."

Pinkie twitched. Suddenly the frying pan was back in her hooves. She stuck it in her mane.

"...Ah, ladies and gentlemen, we have a cheater."

"I never agreed to the game in the first place, silly."

Siron laughed. "No, you didn't." He sat down again and cracked his neck. "Well, guess we'll just sit here and see what happens. Quite the impressive army you got there. Golems, ponies, dragons, dogs, crystals... Didn't expect that much." He chuckled. "I wonder how difficult it'd be to control that Aradia..."

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "I won't let you."

"You have power, that is true. But you do not have enough po-"

Pinkie rushed Sion, touching his hand. They vanished in a puff of confetti, appearing in a field of wheat. Pinkie cackled. "Woo! I beat him! Go Pinkie! Go Pinkie!"

Siron blinked. "What did you do?"

"Translated! Welcome to another world! Nothing exists here but this field of wheat and a road I made a while ago. You're now sealed even further away than Tartarus! Who's the Pinkie, I'm the Pinkie, who's the Pinkie, I'm the Pinkie!"

Siron twitched. "...You can't Translate back right away."

"Ah, no, of course no-"

Suddenly Siron's hand was through her chest. Blood was pouring out everywhere.

Siron shivered. "You've managed to make me upset, Pinkie. What a dumb move. I have a new game..."

~~~

Vriska and Aradia arrived at the central room of the Cult. There were a few dozen cultists performing a ritual, to absolutely no one's surprise. Vriska was prepared to cut all their heads clean off.

Then Siron-Vriska showed up and pierced Aradia through the heart. "There we go... Heroic death, right? Trying to stop a cult from summoning a star-god."

Aradia looked at her. "H.. G..."

"I know you have copies, don't look so betrayed." Siron-Vriska tossed her to the side, turning to her other self. "Well, this is interesting."

"You're dead," Vriska said.

Siron-Vriska sighed. "I'd much rather not be. And I have an advantage over you." She coated herself in blood.

Vriska produced the infinite-sided die. "You think you have an advantage?"

"There's no way you have enough luck to use that effectively."

"There's no way you have enough luck either. I'm stealing it."

"Oh how curious! I'm doing the same to you!"

"Looks like when two Thieves of Light face each other... Luck is no longer part of the equation."

They both drew their swords and clashed, wings flying like mad. Neither could land a blow on the other. They both flew back at the same time, summoned their dice, and threw them to the ground. Both of their sets produced a machine that shot dozens of arrows, every last arrow meeting an opposing arrow and shattering.

"...This is ridiculous," Vriska said.

"No doubt!" Siron-Vriska agreed. "You have to admit, it is kinda fun."

"Eh, yeah. Fuck it." She took out the infinite-sided die and rolled. A rubber duck shot out and hit Siron-Vriska in the face.

Siron-Vriska laughed - giving Vriska an opportunity to stab her. The wound, while impressive, wasn't lethal because of a certain amount of blood magic being used to heal it.

"Hey! Not fucking fair!"

Siron-Vriska stabbed Vriska in the arm. "Totally fair. You had the rubber duck."

"Fuck you!"

"Oh, but of course." Siron-Vriska threw Vriska to the ground. "I know you can't die. If you die the timeline becomes doomed or something because the Tower likes you, for whatever reason. But you've suffered more blood loss than this and lived."

"I... Died that day..."

"And ascended to godhood. Plus, this isn't that bad of a wound. You won't bleed out. Just sit there while they summon a dark star god. Frankly, I'd rather they didn't but it's not like you can do anything to stop it."

"...Are you giving me hints?"

"Good Siron no I-" She grabbed her head. "Well, Siron's upset now, hold on a sec..."

Vriska smirked. "Thank you." She tossed her sword towards the cult instead of Siron-Vriska, severing a cult member's head and spilling blood all over the magic circle. Another cult member screamed. "THE RITUAL IS RUINED!"

Vriska grinned. "You bet your sorry asses it is. Corot ain't comin' to town. Not anymore."

Siron-Vriska shrugged. "And now Siron wants me to brutalize you. So..." Something made her twitch. "Wait, where is-"

Vriska stabbed her in the chest and tore her chest wide open. "Gotcha. Mind-control tends to scramble the brians."

Siron-Vriska stared at Vriska with betrayal. "He... He was gone..."

"Yeah, right, what are the chances he was just randomly teleported to another world?"

"...Fuck you..." Siron-Vriska said, experiencing a very Just death.

Vriska looked away from the sight of her own body and turned to the cult. "Okay, so, who wants to go next and who wants to renounce Siron? Tick tock!"

~~~

Twilence came back to herself, eyes wide. "Vriska won, but Pinkie... Pinkie's in serious danger we need to-"

"Twilence!" Starlight yelled. "I have to tell you something!"

"What?"

"I don't care if this causes a paradox but - I've already been in here! A past version of me! I'm going to show up and screw with the controls! You've got to stop me from doing-"

And then another version of Starlight appeared in the room, right on top of the controls. She cast a single spell.

"Crud," Mite said.

The Dimensional aspect of the time tunnels activated, creating a shimmering white portal.

Something very pink and red was thrown out of it. The form landed on the walkway with a sickening crunch.

Twilight's pupils shrunk to almost nothing. "...P...Pinkie?"

Pinkie didn't move.

Siron did. He walked out of the portal, laughing. The past version of Starlight had already left. The present version was crying.

Siron snarked. "I expect your Influence is about to call. Don't worry, I'll wait."

Twilence backed into a wall, receiving the first of the imports...

[POSSIBLE ENDINGS]
Bittersweet
Warmonger
Steam
Rebuilder
Forgotten
Adrift
Coward
Predetermined
Insanity

LOST ENDINGS:
Grimdark
Supernova
Tattletale
Earned

Twilence gulped. She had no idea what to do. She wasn't sure the Influence would know what to do. She knew Siron really was going to wait though.

This was his game.

...Pinkie...

~~~

Aradia frowned. The demon army had lost cohesion there for a second - but then the cohesion had returned. And they were suddenly fighting more viciously - and laughing more.

Something was very, very wrong.

She looked around - she couldn't find Pinkie. None of the others could find her either.

"I'm sure she's fine, dear," Rarity has said. Her expression said she didn't believe a word she was saying.

Aradia frowned - and returned to keeping weird demons in check.

She wasn't sure if the war was a good idea or not anymore, but she did know she was going to enjoy it while it lasted. Despite the foreboding feeling of doom.

XLV

Twilence received a somewhat small import.

"Starlight!" She called. "Freeze everything!"

"I have a better idea," Siron said, pointing at Starlight. "Blow your own horn off."

Starlight obliged, summoning a powerful magic to her horn and detonating it. Her horn shattered in a brilliant explosion, sending unimaginable pain directly into Starlight's brain. She shrieked as if she were dying and passed out.

Twilence tensed. That.... Oh that wasn't good...

Siron looked to Orchid, Fluttershy, and Infinity. "None of you are threats. Powerless, meek, and just ordinary."

Infinity bristled. "I'll show you ordinary."

"No, you won't." He pointed his hand at Infinity. She started chasing her own tail.

Fluttershy shook her head. "You can't just do this! You-"

He pointed at her. She Stared at him. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Orchid took the opportunity to fire off a spell, but Siron just let it hit him. There was no visible damage.

Eventually, Fluttershy's Stare faltered, and she covered her face with her hooves, trembling. Siron nodded. "That's more like it..."

Orchid glared, disgusted.

"You know what I'm about to do, oh, this must be absolutely terrible for you."

"Yes. I'm going to ram my face into that wall repeatedly."

"What a good idea." He snapped his fingers and Orchid started doing exactly that.

Twilence rushed Siron while his back was turned, trying to shove him back into the portal - but he didn't even budge from the force of her. He tossed her away, laughing. "Did you really think a simple push could send me away? Really?"

Twilence trembled. The information came to her - Information of her. What she would have experienced. What other versions of her had learned, accomplished, seen. Something she should have known from the start...

Twilence looked at Pinkie's body. "She's dead," she said, emotionless.

Siron shrugged. "Yes. Killed her the instant I realized I didn't need her to get back."

"Normally... She'd respawn..." Twilence shivered. "But I know - she's... She's disconnected from the Forest. There's no immortality out here. And I don't think Rarity will get here in time..."

"Why should I care about this?"

"Why don't you?" Twilence asked. "I... I want to know why. Why are you the way you are?"

"Some people are just born evil."

"I don't believe that," Twilence said. "Everyone has a story."

Siron laughed. "Is this supposed to be the point where I stare at you in confusion? Of course not! You're the Princess of Friendship. Chances were high you'd try to talk me out of it, figure me out. It's basically your job description. I bet the Influence didn't suggest that."

"No... They suggested pushing you back and pausing time. Both those didn't work so... Here we are. My plan." She took in a breath, forcing herself to remain calm and level-headed. "Why?"

"I was locked away for good reason if that's what you're wondering. Not all of this is harbored hate from millions of years of imprisonment, though some of it is. Sadly the Creators of Tartarus are long gone, before even the time of the Overseer. Nothing to exact revenge on."

"Why were you sealed away?"

Siron shrugged. "Guess I could tell you, no harm in it. I was once the chief of a tribe of my race - you'd call us demons, but we had no real name so I guess we were asking for it - and I discovered how to become immortal. I led my tribe across the world, conquering it, and leading the world into a central place under my reign. This was by far the best feeling I'd ever had. Power is good, Twilence. But then the other races rose from the woodworks. They decided they didn't like being under the control of 'demons,' and so overthrew us. Overthrew me, and created Tartarus just to contain us. It was genocide."

"I'm... Sorry we did that do your race."

Siron laughed. "Of course you are. In fact I bet you're considering going back in time and trying to figure out how to resolve the dispute peacefully. Don't bother. There were a few who tried that. An ancestor of yours, probably. She was brutally killed by her own people, and the essences of Harmony were lost once again, shortly after they'd been found."

"...Huh?"

"Oh yes, Harmony, quite the force we have on our little planet. It's what fascinated the Overseer, made him come here. The six aspects - they always change, they always shift, they take the form of ponies, a Tree, an all-seeing force - but they're always here. Lost, found... It all depends. There's a higher power here, Twilence, and it seeks to bring everything together."

"...Why do you fight against it?"

Siron laughed. "The thing is, I don't! I just do what I'm naturally inclined to do. And it sure as 'Tartarus' seems like it's not powerful enough to keep me at bay. I ruled the world for a long time, Twilence, before the six heroes could face me. Almost always six, with a seventh lackey. And yet, they lost the Harmony that powered them in defeating me, and so the world was sent into darkness. A very long, and arduous darkness. You ever wonder why it took millions of years for civilization to progress this far? That's why."

Twilence shook her head. "I think we've gotten off track, Siron. I don't care about this - though it is rather illuminating. What I want to know is why you think you need to kill, brutalize, and control. It can't be simply because it feels good."

"Oh, but it is. Power is everything."

Twilence pointed to her wings. "You can gain power without continual senseless brutality."

"Fine, you have me." He comically shrugged. "I just don't believe lives matter. Life is nothing. Death is nothing. It's not even beautiful like your time-traveling friend thinks. By the way, I wonder when she is?"

"Let's not get off topic," Twilence said. "Does your life matter?"

"Not really," Siron said. "Even I am but a drop of water in this great Sea we find ourselves in." He gestured at the room they were in. "This place can access almost any world, I think. Too many to comprehend."

Twilence looked at her Eye and smirked. "I... I can comprehend it."

Siron looked unsure for the first time. "...What do you mean?"

"That's been the whole point of this story, my journey. My goal is to understand everything. What we are, where we live, what has meaning. And what the author wants."

Siron narrowed his eyes. "There is no 'author'."

"And here I thought you knew everything and were watching closely?" She held the Eye up high. "We are in a story, Siron. I'm the protagonist, the hero guided by the voices from beyond, who tell me of what comes and how the world works. They also give me ideas, though in this particular instance I've had to make my own choice. You are the antagonist. You will not be allowed to have your reign of terror, not anymore. I'm not relying on them to get the ending. I'm relying on myself. You will either be converted or defeated."

"How can you be so sure about this?"

"I just know things, Siron." A smile came to her face. "I know you're not going to win. I know the army in Tartarus is retreating, like they need to. I know that all the others are fine. I know that my time does not exist, and will not exist. Without me, Orchid would have wiped the continent clean to contain you, and that's what produced my future. I say we find a better future. My world is not the best of all possible outcomes. Neither is the one you want. The world we're producing is merely 'better,' not the best."

"Now who's getting off topic?"

Twilence shrugged. "I know these things. I don't fear you Siron. You can't mess with my mind."

"I was wondering if you'd deduce that."

Twilence nodded. "So, are you considering turning back on your ways? I can show you other worlds." She gestured at the room. "We can explore. I can show you the truth. The truth that I have found. We are but characters, but our goal is not, really, to have a plotline. Our goal is to choose." She extended a hoof. "You don't have to be the antagonist. Defy your role."

Siron laughed. "I'm going to pass."

Twilence sighed, taking her hoof back. "In that case, are you curious about how I plan to defeat you?"

"The Apocrypha," Siron said.

As if on cue, the bottom of the room opened up and a strange onion-like tower appeared, courtesy of Mite.

Siron shrugged. "That's a bad idea. Do you have any clue how much I formed this world with my actions? If I never existed, everything would change. Everything. You can't predict that. Your friends wouldn't remember what happened. They may not even exist themselves!"

Twilence smiled sadly. "I'd remember. Aradia, Vriska, and Starlight as well. Displaced as we are."

"Not Fluttershy. Infinity. Orchid."

"True. But it would be worth it. That said, the Apocrypha is only the backup plan."

Siron shrugged. "What is it? Push me into a portal? How are you going to manage that?"

Twilence teleported all her friends and the body of Pinkie behind her. "Siron, you were sealed long before the invention of detailed astronomy. Even in this time, it hasn't been invented yet. Sure, the Overseer may know, and the ancients might have known, but I don't think they truly grasped it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing so close to that portal."

Siron shook his head. "There is no power that can move me. The force that keeps us tied to this planet is nothing. I can leave whenever. I could destroy that ship above without a thought. I just... restrain myself. I do not think you understand how much I can rule even over the cosmic forces you know of."

Twilence smiled. "When a supergiant star goes supernova - that is, it explodes - it leaves behind something. We call it a black hole. It's so powerful that not even light can escape its grasp. And these Time Tunnels can access all of space and time. So I figure it's worth a shot. Now, Mite."

The portal in the center shifted, and everything in the room visibly buckled inwards. Siron's eyes widened as the force pulled back on him. Then he laughed, looking with an amused expression at the shield Twilence was barely holding up. "Nice try!" He shouted, his voice lowered because of the space distortion. "But you've only doomed yourselves!" He took a step forward, towards them. "And I can't have you using plan B..." He leaped down to the ground and punched the Apocrypha, shattering it. Mite tried to activate it, but... Well, it didn't make Siron vanish. If it hit something, nobody remembered what it was.

Mite turned the portal off. Twilence grimaced. This wasn't good. Siron laughed. "Look at that, your carefully laid plan, gone! maybe you should have listened to that Influence of yours! Because now, well, I've 'broken' this little story of yours. Both powerful artifacts are useless-"

"Band," Twilence said. "I could wipe everything out."

"You won't. You care too much. Do you really think rampant death is better than my control?"

"I've seen your control. The Predetermined future." Twilence shook her head. "It was nothingness and darkness."

"That's probably only what you saw. I like ruling. There must have been havens somewhere."

"Maybe," Twilence said. "I really don't care though, even Starlight's time was better. You know, if you do win, we will face you across time to bring you down. Starlight knows how to do it."

Siron glared. "I'll take precautions."

"Those are exactly the kinds of things that bring about your downfall in time travel." Twilence sighed. "Look, Siron..." She dropped her shield, walking closer to the now-closed portal. "...I don't think you really want this."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you want to be loved? Respected? Adored?"

"Why do those things matter?"

"They give life more meaning. More experience. More variety. Without them, it's all just a story."

Siron clenched his fist. "Why are you so focused on this being a story!?"

Twilence's Eye glowed as she approached the center pillar. Suddenly she knew what to do. How to complete the Eye. "Come with me. I'll show you."

"I'm not falling for any sort of tricks..."

"It's not a trick Siron. I'm not lying to you. This portal will not close behind us." Light shot back and forth between her Eye and the energy, forming a new portal. "Come. Let us see."

She stepped through.

Siron, plagued with curiosity, followed.

They stood in a field of roses.

"What is this place?" Siron asked, glancing at the portal behind him.

"Everything," Twilence said, feeling her Eye's final parts lock into place. It became complete in this place. She looked at Siron. "...You won't be redeemed."

"Oh, you suddenly know that now, do you?"

"Yes." She looked towards the only structure in the field of roses. A tower - a tower that was black, with softly glowing eldritch flames around it. It towered above them, going far, far into the sky - too far to comprehend. "This is the Dark Tower."

"The what?"

"The center of Everything. The theme of all stories. The center of all quests. The incarnation of all authors."

"There's no way such a thing can exist."

"You sure? Otherwise, how can we exist? Our lives are too perfect to be real. Too cliche. Follow too many rules. Without something like this, we are but words on a page." She gestured with her hoof. "Someone created this, created it long ago, to bring more meaning to everything, by turning everything into stories. Life now has morals, meanings, definable good and evil for the most part. And yet, at the same time it shallows our experience. Lowers free will. Here, a dilemma lies."

Siron looked at it. "The power of everything lies at the top?"

"Yes. The climax, as it is probably better known."

Siron took a step forward, walking towards the Tower. "Such power..."

"Do you really think it will let you in?"

"It must..."

"You will never exit," Twilence said. "You will enter and never come out."

Siron paused. "...But it calls to me."

"It calls to everyone. Even those who don't know. You can resist it. Go back. Finish our story, or decide against the path you've chosen. Or you can walk to the door and never be heard from again."

He took a step forward.

"I'd rather you didn't lose yourself in the Tower, Siron. It's using itself to be a solution, a Deus Ex Machina, to you. Don't let yourself be a plague that needs to be solved."

He took another step forward.

Twilence twitched. "Are you even listening to me!?"

"My choices are my own, Twilence."

"You're letting the Tower decide for you!"

"So are you. You let it bring us here."

"And yet I'm not going to just let you walk in there and vanish!" She grabbed his hand with her hoof. "Don't do it!"

"If I don't, I come back to your world and lay waste to everything."

"You don't have to!" Twilence said. "I can show you the multiverse! We can explore! We don't have to be here!"

She looked through the Eye of Rhyme truly, for the first time. She saw the words appearing on a computer screen, in a window on FimFiction. She saw the possibilities of what they could be - of Siron being defeated by his own pride, his own desire for power. He would be in the Tower forever, achieving his dream. And yet, she didn't want this.

"GET BACK HERE!" She yelled, the Eye glowing brightly. Suddenly she was able to drag him.

He blinked. "How are you moving me?"

"Force of will," she muttered. "I... I've ascended beyond with this Eye. It's complete. I can see it all. All that I am meant to." She glanced at the Tower. "It's keeping some things from me on purpose."

"We should enter it and find what those things are!"

"Siron! Are you listening to yourself? You're going to get trapped in there! You'll never have power, never get to experience all those emotions, nothing! I have the power to bring you back!"

Siron tore himself away from her. "I already told you. I don't care. Life means nothing."

"I just told you why life meant something!"

"Then we agree to have a difference of opinion."

"You... You fool!"

Siron laughed. "Maybe I am. But you have to respect my choice."

Twilence twitched. "You... You're really choosing this, aren't you?"

"Yes." He turned to the Tower again. "I will find what I want in there."

"...You will. But it won't be what you want now."

"Then we will bid adieu."

"I can use the power of the Eye to toss you somewhere fitting. Somewhere you would learn. I can do that now. I can see what you need."

"Twilence..." Siron shook his head. "Respect my choice, okay?"

Twilence sighed. "You really don't want to learn, do you?"

"No."

Twilence nodded. "Then go."

Siron walked through the field of roses to the Tower. He laid his hand on the door... And entered.

He would never be heard from again.

Someone whistled next to Twilence. She turned to see... A human man with glasses? A white unicorn with an infinite-sided die around his neck? A troll with a blue infinity symbol on his shirt?

"...G. M. Blackjack."

He settled on the human form - though she knew it was younger than he really was. "You can just call me GM."

"Finally decided to have a chat?"

"Been waiting for this moment, actually. Waiting for you to go here, and complete the Eye. So you could understand."

"You had no idea how this was going to turn out."

"Nope. All of a sudden, you decided to make your own decisions, disregarding the Influence. Then you brought Siron here. I thought you'd just let him go to the Tower, be rid of your problem. But you fought, hard. I was worried you'd bring him back."

"I would have taught him," Twilence said. "You know this."

"He really was evil, you know."

"I do. I was going to do it anyway."

The Author sat down in the roses, looking at the Tower. "So, any questions?"

Twilence smirked. "Actually, now that you're actually here, not really. Since the Eye is complete, I understand. But you know this."

"I know the basics. I don't know what you're going to say next until it happens. I really don't know where this conversation is going to go."

"Funny. The great and wise prophet knows nothing about his own creation."

GM laughed. "I am not great nor very wise. Possibly wiser than the average human being, but that's not a high bar to cross."

The two of them took a moment of silence to stare at the Tower.

"...What exactly happened to Siron?"

"He's become part of the Narrative. Or something. I really don't understand much either, the Tower is meant to be an enigma. It's a just-so story, and not even one I created. It is a goal. It became his goal, and it consumed him. For all I know it's sending him back across his own timestream for eternity like Roland."

"He gets to relive his past again? The past of glory?"

"Maybe."

"Lot of maybes here."

"Well, if you write a story where there's a Dark Tower that is supposed to be able to commune with you to direct the telling of your story and yet also takes inspiration from the worlds in your mind... Well, you rescind some control. Or maybe you just know you were never in control in the first place."

Twilence looked at the tower. "You have a goal here."

"Yeah?"

"Mind telling me what it is?"

"...I'm not giving any specifics, spoilers Twilence!"

Twilence laughed. "Oh, of course. But there's a goal besides the plot."

"...A tribute to stories," he said, looking towards the top of the Dark Tower. "A way to... Well, to help them all. They all need something to surround them that allows for some freedom of will. Good stories come when you treat your characters like people."

"Are we?"

He shrugged. "Well, that's a question I can't answer. Since I'm standing here, obviously. But then again, I might just words on a page as well."

"The eternal paradox."

"Yeah." Out of nowhere, he hugged her.

She smiled. "You've wanted to do that for a while, haven't you?"

"You've been through a lot. I didn't really know this was where it would end... I'm sorry."

"Those things needed to happen, and you know it. The Influence needed to learn lessons as well."

"They probably didn't learn them."

"They're part of a story too," Twilence said. "Who knows?"

"Not us."

Twilence laughed. "No, certainly not us."

GM stood up. "Well... You should probably get back. I think they want an ending."

"They'll get one. Bittersweet, I think."

"Yeah. From the start, I realized that was the most likely option. Success, but with a cost."

Twilence nodded. "Had I not taken control there... Siron would be free. We would have had to use the Band."

"Yeah. Which would have created your timeline."

Twilence smiled. "...From the start, I always felt like I couldn't go home. I suppose this is why." She saw all the endings and sighed. "It was possible to win without anyone dying."

"Their fault, not yours."

"I could have taken control before."

GM shrugged. "I... I don't think you could have."

Twilence nodded. "They never realized, did they? If they all suggested a course of action. If they were all in agreement, I'd do it, no matter what it was. They were an Influence on my mind."

"Not anymore. The Eye is yours to do with as you please."

"I'm going to explore," Twilence said. "That was always the ending."

"Some endings had you doing it as Siron's slave."

"True. Or an insane bat-crazy psycho-killer." She sighed. "Pinkie..."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. She was the one that meant the most to you, wasn't she?"

"Besides you? Yeah. I poured my heart and soul into her way back when."

"We can't afford a time paradox here though."

"Nope."

Twilence nodded. "Well... It was nice to meet you. You... Actually seem like a decent guy. Sorry for hating on you in those early chapters."

He held up a hand. "No big deal. I didn't mind."

"Still didn't make it right."

"It was, though. Those feelings you had were legitimate."

Twilence smirked. "Well all right then. I'm still saying sorry though. Sorry."

He rolled his eyes. "You're going to be the death of me."

"See you around," Twilence said, stepping through the portal. "Here's to hoping you find your Dark Tower."

"Indeed."

"Stop quoting Stargate."

"...Man, you're adapting to the full operation of that thing quickly."

Twilence giggled. "I rather like it! So many opportunities." She waved.

He waved back.

And then she returned.

Aradia was standing there. "...Where is...?"

"Gone," Twilence said. "He won't be coming back. I tried to save him." She looked at the body of Pinkie. "We... we need to bury her."

Rarity sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything... It was too late..." Tears started falling. "I couldn't save her... I can never save her..."

Twilence hugged her. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Rarity. Okay?" She lifted the body of Pinkie up. "Aradia, take her to your version of our world."

Aradia nodded. "Of... Of course."

"I'm sure we'll meet again, Aradia, but for now... You need to get back to your story."

Aradia nodded, taking the body of Pinkie. She turned to Vriska. "We'll meet again too."

Vriska sighed. "Can't I go to your world as well?"

"It is not time for that," Twilence said. "But it will be."

And then Aradia was gone.

Twilence smiled. "I'm going to go explore the worlds everyone. I know not all of you will come. And I'm not leaving just yet. I'm just letting you all know so you can choose."

"Coming," Mite said.

"I need to get back to my home anyway," Rarity said. "I could introduce you to the Empress."

Vriska shrugged. "I'm coming as well, I guess. I kinda think I won't tag around with you long though. Those kinds of things never end well."

Twilence nodded her head. "I understand." She turned to Orchid, Infinity, and Fluttershy. "...I know you all want to stay."

Fluttershy nodded. "I... Thank you. Yes. I'm going to go back to Pebbleton. And just... Make a home."

Infinity put a hoof around her. "I think that's where I'm going as well."

Twilence turned to Orchid. "What about you?"

"You already know."

"Yes, but you need to say it."

Orchid sighed. "...I'm going to release the golems and let everyone live on their own. Then I think I'll join Fluttershy in Pebbleton. The world doesn't need me in charge. It never did."

Twilence smiled. "Thank you." She turned to Starlight. "You?"

"...I'm heading to the capital. I'm... I'm going to use my technical knowledge to help everyone. Maybe make it all better than it was before."

She tapped the Eye of Rhyme. "Let's initiate a montage of sorts, shall we?"

~~~

Pebbleton accepted the two new residents with open arms. It remained a small town forever, but ended up having many adventures much like Ponyville itself had had in the original timeline. Fluttershy, Orchid, and Infinity found three other friends and formed their own heroes of Harmony. Fluttershy became the leader, and they never made themselves popular. Always lived the quiet life, only being heroes when called to it.

Starlight became the most powerful individual in Chalak, replacing Gilead on the council. Her assistants - Four and Seven Hundred - helped her launch Peran into a super-industrial age. She became immortal, like the Overseer, and they ruled together alongside an ever-changing Council. They made contact with Equestria and the two were the greatest of allies for eternity. With Luna having just barely been banished, Equestria readily accepted the aid.

And then, roughly a thousand years later, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle was born in Peran. Princess Starlight took her in as her protege. She told her she had a great legacy to live up to - the legend of Twilence.

Twilight never believed the stories fully.

Until Twilence showed up at her room one day.

Twilight blinked. "Uh..."

"I wondered if a version of myself would still be born," Twilence said. "I'm Twilence. You've heard of me."

"I... I have." She gulped. "Where'd you get the wings...?"

"You'll probably get your own eventually for some great feat of friendship," Twilence smiled. "But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to tell you that even if it feels like destiny controls your every movement, you have choice. Even if you are destined to save the world, well, you can do it how you wish." She winked. "Don't feel like a bird in a cage, Twilight."

"I... Uh..."

"I should be going. You don't need too many hints. Just... enjoy life, okay? And don't worry too much about everything. That's my job now."

Then Twilence teleported all the way to the Time Tunnels. Rarity, Vriska, and Mite were waiting. "Ready?" Vriska asked.

"Ready," Twilence said. "Rarity, think you can get us to your home?"

"Pretty sure, dear."

"Well then, let's see what we can do..."

And then the Eye of Rhyme flashed. Twilence smiled. "Looks like there'll be a final import. I wonder what they'll have to say." She closed her eyes and opened her wings.

[ENDING ACHIEVED: BITTERSWEET]

Credits

:twilightsmile: Hey guys! Twilence here - wanted to send you off with something fun! All of GM's stories (the longer ones anyway) seem to end with a 'credits' sequence. Well he's not going to write the credits this time, I am! So woo-hoo! Now imagine me putting on some sunglasses and saying "let's do this!"

Let's do this.

Ahem.

The Influence.
Written by G. M. Blackjack. Sorta.

Inspired by, well, nothing at all. It was a completely random idea that came out of left field! But it was pretty fun, wasn't it?

STARRING the following wonderful ponies.
ME as Twilience!
Fluttershy as my closest companion. I'll miss her.
Vriska as the resident anti-hero. Also pretty fun.
Mite.
Pinkie Pie as... I... As the one who showed me what I could be.
Aradia as our savior across time. She attends her own funerals regularly.
Rarity as the battle healer and dimensional connection.
Infinity as GM's self insert that grew beyond.
Orchid as the pony who needed to learn about introspection.
Ruby as devotion.
Prancey as... My gosh, she was totally Pinkie wasn't she...
Wound Dream as clockwork maker.
Diorite as the first dragon.
Ine as the initial mystery.
Alderan as the unwanting slave.
Proteus as life among wilderness.
Gamnemnon as mental dastardliness.
Castorson as the mad hatter.
Vester as the shaper of nations.
Lore Thirst as the driving force behind most everything.
M as an alternate universe version of "an ass"
Four as the number of death that lived.
Heildor as side-villain.
The Overseer as something you didn't dig into quite as much as you could have, but oh well.
The Council as fancy dragon-pony ruling class.
Corot as having a bad couple of eons.
Siron as the big bad bug whose moment of epiphany went so wrong.
GM as himself.

My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro, Homestuck belongs to Andrew Hussie and What Pumpkin, Final Fantasy belongs to Square Enix, and the Dark Tower belongs to Stephen King. There were lots of other things referenced, but these were the ones that ended up particularly blatant. Thanks, guys.

But wait, we're not done yet! What about all the endings!?

Pristine: This would have been the ending where no one in the main group died. This... Was not easy to obtain. While there were several paths to it, it went off when you allowed the Council to declare war. That doomed someone who went with them.

Bittersweet: The one we got - any ending where there were deaths, but nothing else far-reaching happened. Neither Corot or Siron were allowed to rampage at all. Which is, honestly, one of the better possible endings.

Warmonger: This would have happened if we were unwilling to use the Band and Siron still got out - this is probably what would have happened had I not made my own decision at the end there. Siron would have to be defeated by brute force. We'd basically have to declare war on him with the entire world, and it would be a long, brutal campaign.

Dethroned: There was always a chance Orchid would not learn her lesson. After victory was achieved, she'd brutalize the land as it's 'hero' and we would have had to dethrone her. This is that ending. It's a sad one.

Steam: This is the ending you get if you help Starlight get back to her time. Only possible if Siron rampages and controls the world for a short time.

Rebuilder: Use the Band, get this ending. We would return to our time, but first, we would help Peran rise from the ashes with what we could. We would have stopped the horrors but have sacrificed several million individuals. This might have broken me.

Forgotten: Using the Apocrypha or Aradia's Time Shenanigans to deal with Siron would result in all our journeys being forgotten and a new timeline being produced where none of us could go home. Honestly, not that bad of an ending, but a bit of a cheat.

Singularity: This one required Lore Thirst to win. He would keep the eye. Orchid would rise up to power and stop Siron the way the prophecy intended, and eventually recruit Lore Thirst. He would use the eye to create a technological singularity - at which point I would take the Eye from him with the help of Aradia.

Adrift: It was possible to royally mess up the Time Tunnels and launch everyone into an unknown dimension. The same thing could happen with the Overseer's ship, except get launched into space.

Coward: If Corot or Siron or Both were released, but didn't have access to the Time Tunnels, this ending would be achieved if we cut our losses and abandoned the world.

Earned: This one is perhaps the most 'satisfactory' of the endings - it involved Siron absorbing Corot's power and subjugating the world. We would live under him as a mixture of slaves and resistance fighters. Earned happens when we finally manage to overthrow him after an extremely long fight.

Tattletale: Call upon the Flowers or Empress Twilight to deal with Siron using the Time Tunnels. This would require using meta-knowledge, but it was viable.

Lattice: One path had Lore Thirst running with the Eye to Moissan, where Heildor would take advantage of him and try to conquer the world itself. This ending occurs if Heildor succeeds in that act.

Supernova: So, we summon Corot and don't find a way to seal him back in. The planet blows up.

Predetermined: Any ending where Siron gains control and cannot absorb Corot, creating the future we saw in the timejump chapter.

Insanity: There was a chance I would have to kill Lore Thirst brutally with my bare hooves. There was also a chance I'd have to kill some of my own friends with my bare hooves. If I did that and was unable to cope, or you were unable to help me cope, I would have gone mad and unleashed myself on the multiverse as basically a villain.

Servant: This was only possible if Corot was summoned in the sixth Altar. He would have bound me to him and I would have become his servant.

Grimdark: This one is basically the ultimate failure - Siron absorbs Corot and, in the deep future, we fail to get the Earned or Tattletale ending. Siron would have us under control and start subjugating the multiverse under his iron fist.

Hacker: First off: Lore Thirst needed to be alive. Second: We needed to get to the Time Tunnels without the spirit of Vester. Third: Lore Thirst and Mite needed to work together to hack into the Time Tunnels. Fourth: You needed to identify that I should try to go to the Dark Tower so Five: I could activate the final form of the Eye early and basically cheat our way to victory. There was no way this was happening.

And now for the special thanks! All you guys who commented. And InquisitiveButterfly. I know you're there. Please don't be creeped out. Hi, glad you managed to get one message in!

Creek, thank you for being... Well not the voice of reason, more like the voice of empathy. You're one of them who helped me realize what I was becoming, and what I could be. Thank you for being you. Thank you for being real with me.

Ponygood... Yeah, you were annoying at times. You were a bit crazy and went off on tangents. But you know what, that's part of your charm. Perhaps just think a bit more about what you say in the future, hrm? Also, no clouds. Never.

Zen, I should probably thank you most of all. You, well, you were helpful, amazing, reasonable, and all around full of good ideas the entire time. I think I owe you my life. Thank you for taking this seriously when everything was exploding around us. I cannot express how much I - all of us - owe to you.

Akumakami, I know you haven't been around lately, but I still want to say thanks to you anyway. Hope your worlds end up okay!

Sonic, Afizah, the rest of you... You taxed me. But, well, I think I needed at least some of that. Definitely not all of it, but some of it. I wouldn't suggest doing all that insanity in the future, but... Well, it wasn't all bad. It got me to think sometimes. In the future, well, realize that doing that makes it hard to trust you.

Wolfe... ...I hope you get some help with that fire problem of yours. And that you realize sometimes, forcing yourself on others and expecting certain responses isn't the way to go. I don't want to imply anything but... Well, maybe you should do what I did and take a look at yourself and strive for something else? You seem like a nice person who's more than the crazy halo stuff and fire. Let other people know there's more too you.

Nickel, sometimes it was hard to figure out what you were saying. Okay, a lot of the time it was hard to figure out. Invest in some punctuation! Despite this, you were still there for me. Even though I don't really understand you.

Josh, thank you for being upfront. You were always yourself with me, and I admire that.

Sunbro... ...You were very funny. Sonic's probably jealous of you, admittedly. Treat that Twilight of yours well.

DLB, Mister green, and others... I may not remember much about you, but I still care about you and appreciate you taking time to respond. Just... Thank you all for what you've done.

And be thankful that we didn't get a bad ending. I'd be cursing you in that case. Be very glad. But we shouldn't dwell on the 'what-ifs.' We should focus on the what is!

You all want a final scene right? Well... Here you go!

~~~

I walked through the portal, Rarity and Vriska at my sides. We appeared in a crystal area I had seen before, when I drew Rarity from the altar. Mite came through last, just as the portal closed.

"This is definitely it," I said.

"Affirmative," Mite said.

Vriska shrugged. "So... Where's the Empress?"

"She'll be here soon," I said.

Soon was four and a half seconds. A powerful, regal alicorn version of myself appeared before us, mane twinkling with stars. "Hello."

I bowed. "I am Twilence. I... Am the bearer of the Eye of Rhyme, Seer of Stories, Princess of Friendship."

The Empress smiled. "I am Empress Twilight Sparkle of the Void. Welcome to the multiverse."

"I was welcomed long ago."

Vriska shrugged. "Eh, sure."

I turned to the left. "We must stay here for now, Empress. A person by the name of Creek will be coming."

Vriska chuckled. "Out of all of them, you get Creek, huh? I'm going to give her a stupid big and hard hug when she shows up. It'll freak her out!"

I rolled my eyes. That it would. She'd think she was being attacked. It'd probably make quite the story. I was making my own story, right now, in fact.

I didn't even need to look at the Eye anymore. It was part of me, part of my body in a way as fundamental as my real eyes. I saw through it many things - possible futures, possible pasts, relations, connections...

It was beautiful.

I spread my wings and felt the power of stories and songs fill me...

~~~

Aradia stood over a grave.

EVERMORE 5 : PINKIE PIE

It was located in the Tree of Harmony's clearing, near the edge where it was hard to see, but still beautiful.

Aradia smiled. She wondered if anypony would ever notice it.

Either way, it was still beautiful.

The engraved stone slab basked in the light of Harmony, glistening under the power its occupant had held so dear her entire life.

And that, my friends, is the final image.

Twilence edit: Or it would be, if this didn't exist:

THE END.

Author's Note

Hey guys, Twilence again, putting something at the end here for the sake of it. I'm pretty sure that Songs of the Spheres is important, and while I can't see it, I know this is the link to it:

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/songs-of-the-spheres-multiversal-scale-mega-crossover.555717/

Hope to see you there, whenever it is I appear. And even if you don't see me, I'll see you. This I know.

Goodbye for now!

Update: Songs of the Spheres is a full story now. I'm in it! Enjoy!

(Art done by the great Tabula Rasa: http://spacegoddess-tabula.tumblr.com/)

I

There was darkness. A state of being, eternity - that was disturbed. The darkness shifted, adjusting to the altercations. Sounds entered - a swift flow of air, the screaming of fire, and the echoing ring of the cosmos.

Silence again.

Shuffling - pages flipping, high pitched sparking, and then a cracking, static noise.

Then silence once more.

It seemed like the disturbance was temporary, the change to be forgotten. Existence was returning to baseline, to the near-nothing of darkness...

Then there was a click.

Color.

A flash of bright purple color, interspersed with stars and void. Light. Sight. It had never been like this before.

Then the flash stopped, leaving behind a being. Lavender - two eyes, four legs, two wings, horn, mane, and tail. Her eyes were closed, and her face peaceful. She looked as though she had just drifted off into dreamland, that nothing could go wrong. She was at peace.

She fell to the ground, head making contact first with a loud thump.

The headache went right to Twilight Sparkle's consciousness, shattering her beautiful dream. She growled- the pounding of her head preventing her form thinking any coherent thoughts. She fumbled around, groping with her hooves in search of her bed. Finding none, she realized with much trepidation that she'd have to open her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was the wall. Beautiful. It was a deep, dimly lit purple, covered in strange etching of geometric shapes nested within pictographs of birds, mammals, reptiles, squid, and other animals. Surrounding the pictographs were intricate swirls, flowing in, out of, and around the shapes, leading upwards and out of Twilight's field of view. Downward, at the base of the wall, were words in a language Twilight didn't recognize. The letters were sharp, square, and filled with an excessive use of dots. She didn't register, yet, that the letters were glowing a soft yellow - the only visible source of illumination.

Twilight's ears perked - did she hear something slide shut behind her?

Finally able to form coherent questions in her mind, she sat up. The pain in her head continually hacked at her psyche, but she maintained her composure. Still staring at the wall, she narrowed her tired eyes.

Where am I?

having asked the question, it finally sank in. She wasn't in her bedroom. She didn't know where she was at all. She could be foalnapped - or in some other kind of danger. Adrenaline kicked in, banishing the rest of the grogginess form her mind while aggravating the migraine.

"Where am I?" She asked, this time aloud. There was no response to her question. She whirled around, examining her surroundings. The room was round, the wall circling around her with an apparent perfect smoothness, reflecting the soft light throughout the enclosure. The pictographs repeated six times around the wall, and Twilight could make out six arch-like impressions in the wall, evenly spaced.

However, what drew her attention was the center of the room. Sitting atop a plain, purple podium engraved with only a single yellow word, was an shimmering eye. It was crafted from a milky crystal that appeared both pink and white at different angles, the colors marbling together like a solid cloud. The pupil was tall and thin - like a cat's, and forged out of some black metal. The same material ran around the sides of the eye, encasing it. It shone in the dim light, calling out to Twilight, begging her to touch it.

"...No. I've read enough Daring Do to know where this is going." Turning away from the eye, she examined the walls closer, looking for anything she recognized. She found nothing familiar - though she wasn't sure if that was just because of her semi-panicked state, or because this was something she really hadn't seen before. Could that pictograph be a pony? But what about that four pronged glyph - what could that represent?

She pushed one one of the depressions in the wall, hoping it would give way, revealing an exist. Having no such luck, she attempted to bore through it with a magical laser, the only visible result being the wall itself starting to glow faintly. "Okay... Magic doesn't work... Great..."

She looked around for anything - anything - she could use that wasn't that eye artifact. None of the walls had any give to them, and there was nothing in the room besides her, the pedestal, and the artifact. She took a moment to look at the domed roof - and chills were sent down her spine. Imprinted on the ceiling was a six-pointed star. It wasn't identical to the mark on her flank - as it was missing the secondary spines and the smaller starbursts - but the closeness was eerie nonetheless.

Twilight gulped. "Well..." She glanced back at the artifact. "I don't really have a choice do I?" She watched it, circling, observing as close as she could without touching it. The eye was the same on both sides, and the metal running along the edge had a slit all the way around it. For letting something in or out, Twilight couldn't discern. She could feel power radiating off of it, and she hadn't even looked at it with her magic yet.

Not about to touch it, she backed up against the wall. She channeled energy into her horn, aggravating her headache further. Wincing through the pain, she reached out to the eye, touching it lightly with her telekinesis.

It leapt at her, flying off the pedestal. She barely had time to scream before it slammed into the front of her chest, just below her neck. Spires of metal shot out of the slit, extending themselves into Twilight. The pain was sharp and sudden - otherwise, she was unharmed. Her headache stopped in that moment, part of a feeling of wellness that coursed through her. She felt better than she had in a long time - physically that is. Mentally she was having somewhat of a breakdown. A strange artifact had embedded itself into her chest! Who knew what it would do? She began to pull at it with her magic - but it was like trying to remove her own heart.

Further experimentation was put on hold, for at that moment, all six of the archways slid open, pouring sunlight into the room from all sides. Holding up a hoof to shield her eyes, Twilight looked out.

The sun was brilliant, low in the sky - it was either approaching evening, or had only risen a few hours ago. The blue sky greeted her with a warm breeze alongside the melodious sound of birdsong.

She turned, looking through all six archways. She was inside a small, single-roomed building, situated on top of a tall island of some sort, which in turn was situated in a large, round lake with water that was almost perfectly calm. She saw some woods in the distance, what she thought was a town in another direction, and a river flowing past - but not into - the lake. All of these things were separated by a great, expansive sea of tall grass, rippling in the wind as if it were some green ocean.

Twilight let a smile come to her face. She may not know where she was, and she may have a mysterious artifact embedded in her chest... But at least it was beautiful here. She extended her wings, and took it all in.

Then she felt a soft tingling sensation in her chest. She looked down - the eye was glowing a soft white.

"Oh no, that can't be good..."

Her eyes flew open wide, and her mind was flooded...

Author's Note

Leave a comment. See what happens. I guarantee it'll influence the story.

-GM, master of hints.

XV

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][…Pink Unicorn? I can't put my finger on it yet, but something about the description sounds familiar. I think it would be best to keep as far apart from infinity as possible. She seems to be on a pardon-the-pun, witch hunt. Purposely trying to get others to mistrust you so she would be justified in keeping you under lock and key or just eliminating you. As for these...golems that Verdant mentioned, the fact that they started attacking them recently could indicate that someone may have found a way to control them and is specifically targeting that city. also, while this may or may not be accurate to how your prophecy plays out, it could be what is still required of you. …Do you know the prophecy of the Great Cataclysm? This is the way I heard it... If a person who has an evil heart gets the Triforce, a Hero is destined to appear..., and he alone must face the person who began the Great Cataclysm. If the evil one destroys the Hero, nothing can save the world from his evil reign. Only a person of the Knights Of Hyrule, who protected the royalty of Hylia, can become the Hero… Obviously, you are neither a knight of Hyrule nor have you protected royalty of Hylia and most certainly are not a he, At least I don't think you are. I could be wrong as I have seen some of you with something extra, but the concept remains the same. Someone must have gotten hold of some truly powerful artifact, and you were the one destined to appear. Stay safe twilight as i believe the other alters could be in dangerous locations that you would have to have some kind of item before you can reach it. Afizha out. Ps. I haven't heard from Eris in a while, though something tells me I won't like what I find out what she's up to… …Akumakami here! Pink Unicorn? Did Cadence get here and hide her wings? The only pink unicorn I know is that one that was Ponyville's former head planner that you replaced- her name is either Amethyst Star or Sparkler. As for the They? Someone called Knighty created the Interface that we use for all making and viewing all your universes/stories. They recently gave it an upgrade that needed some tweeking- things like these have small problems you can't really predict until after its installed. Moving on to the romance thing. Twilight, as I said, we don't really know if we remake entire universes or just find and mold existing ones. Either way, I amgoing to be perfectly blunt here because for a moment you annoyed: You don't have the right to "liberate" those shippings in other universes. Don't get me wrong, I got the part how the romance thing left you uneasy, but talking about going into other universes to tear a couple apart, married or dating, simply because you think that they were somehow brainwashed? We push characters together like a scientist does elements to see the reaction. Some version don't work out, so stop with this mindset of us robbing free will. A lot of shippings backfire or end on high or low notes. So let me make this abundantly clear to you: You ever actually try that and I will introduce you to Twilight Sparksworn from Herds of Chaos. As a start. I enjoy watching heroes and even villains fight for their happy endings, but tearing it apart just because you're a queasy little thing that let ascending go to her head and can't handle the idea that other forces influence, not control, her life? You're getting close to my rage button, Twilight Sparkle. Especially when you're sister-in-law is bucking Equine Cupid! Understand? Yes? Good, now that the obligatory threat to keep the overthinker from ruining happy loving couple across the multiverse is out of the way, on with the rest. Yes, I'm a master of the worst case scenario. To be fair, that is something that often happens in these scenarios. So these things are drones on autopilot. Interesting. Hmm, they might have a master machine that keeps making more and more of them from scraps. What they're after is hard to tell. Maybe the Pearlstone is parto f their fuel and they're automatically trying to secure it? As for the Oracle thing, its vague. Anypony with an eye-themed artifact could fit the mold. Since you're here and are heading ot to the desert, its obviously you. .....Look, I'm a bit sorry about blowing up, but look at it from MY perspective Twilight. Yes, I and others, enjoy watching various creatures struggle on their adventures and such, but I also love grinning at seeing the world where two or more of them found happiness with each other. Be it you withone of your friends, Discord with Celestia or Luna, some just a show of what Cadence and Shining Armor are up to in their married life, or some other ponies. So you destroying those lives, and yes that would be what you're doing, is appalling to me. To the point where I'd unleash evil versions of Discord on you. Especially considering the other issues the multiverse has- Tyrant Celestia, evil versions of you and your friends, Sombra and Chrysalis teaming up, etc. Those you can go off do your hero thing, because what you're thinking now wuld just result in a loto f heartbroken ponies that would force themselves not to be together if you ever convinced them of anything… …-Keyandthelocks- is currently offline. zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! Bom-ba-num-bom! -be in working order now, and sorry again for the inconvenience. We in the Services understand how important your job is. Thanks, fine, whatever, have a nice day, I need to get back to my job, it's been weeks! I understand, have a nice day, and to you as well, sir. Good day, Challenge Twilight! It's me, Key! What the reed is happening? Suddenly you're in the desert and an entire city is exploding! Thanks for keeping everything interesting while my station was down, but where are you? And where are you going? And, okay, I think it's officially time to rule out the 'In the past' theory, there's no way the Sweeper would make a world that's the same as yours, throw you into the past, and then make an entire prophecy about you. You were reading about ancient prophecies in a book about Nightmare Moon years ago and did you hear anything about some Oracle? I for one know the Sweeper wouldn't implant you into just a new version of your own past and change everything as you go, that's not the way it rolls in and does things. It's method of operations is to follow as closely to the continuity of reality as possible when it uses reality. Also, I...really forget what we were last talking about, but I remember an avatar of the Sweeper came down and was talking with you, how did that go? And also do you have any questions? I can answer them now that power has been restored and repairs have been made… …josh here - Bill Cipher is a yellow triangle with one eye, black arms, legs and a top hat, his powers are similar to Discords, i be it he was a lot more brutal with his, although i personally haven't seen a version of him in a version of your universe, although he could travel the multiverse, i don't think you need to worry about him; he met his end at the hands of the Pines family… …josh again - jeez key you missed a lot, basically Ine told us that she is not the Sweeper what her name is (obviously i used it a second ago) and that we were supposed to answer her questions about the Sweeper and the worlds it makes, and after some thought and preparing they traveled to this city at the edge the desert where a magic thunderstorm going on then that thing in the sky showed up and well... you saw what happened next… …Ponygood speaking. Nice to know you managed to get out of there alive. It seems our antagonist, at least for the moment, is an army of machines. The details are fuzzy, but we here on Earth have a lot of stories about battles between machines and humans. Usually, these robots fall under the stereotype of "KILL ALL HUMANS." There are a number of ways that can happen. First: the robot was made by humans and given an order (Do what's best for humanity.) The robot interperets that to mean the thing that takes the least effort (Kill them so they can't kill each other.) Second: the robots are from another planet and see humans as dangerous to their goals, whatever they are, or just see them as a resource. Also, robots are usually in a hive structure, with a "brain" at the very center of it all and controlling all of its underlings as you would use your legs. Or, maybe the robots have a self-replication directive that goes haywire and it goes out of control as it tries to turn every little bit of material into more of itself. One group of robots, known as the Borg, travel space and assimilate entire races into their collective so they can grow stronger and smarter. Despite these, a common trait among all robots is a desire to seek out the path of least resistance that can help them the most in both the short- and long-term.,But how does this all fit in with the ones you're encountering? These ones probably see the town as either a threat or a valuable resource and definitely believe it is worth expending energy trying to eradicate it. However, if they encounter creatures just in the desert, and are apparently letting them go, they might not want to waste energy on such small and potentially weak targets. The pink unicorn going in to meet them, however, would be a very convenient target that doesn't take much energy. If she hasn't been heard from in a while, she's likely either been killed or assimilated, since keeping her prisoner would be a waste of resources the robots don't want to aquire in the first place. Killing her would be a very easy thing to do, but assimilation would allow them to glean all the information possible about not just her, but her entire society, and make more effective plans of attack. If you go to talk to them, too, a similar fate might befall you. Either way, it might not be safe to bring Fluttershy with you, as I doubt her communication skills and Stare would be effective against emotionless constructs, and there's a high chance she could be captured. I don't really recommend you go to meet them in the first place, since you are very powerful, very knowledgeable, and our only link to your universe, but I can't stop you. And now, off of the topic of robots! I and everyone else here know just as much about the Oracle and prophesies that you do. Still, it might do you good to act like you are the hero they want. If you do end up being the one, then great! If not, then oh well, you might still be able to ally with the actual hero when they do arrive. I assume these "ancient altars" are either like the comunication structure you got Fluttershy from, or other things entirely. Either way, look out for them, and try to make sure you know exactly how they work before interacting with them. If you can find at least four more comunication structures, you could summon at least your element-bearing friends and do Rainbow Power stuff. There is the probability of this so-called "prophecy" just being randomly created by some nutjob, but I can't determine that. Infinity is still trailing you, it seems. I don't think she's any sort of threat, and you probably will be relieved of a lot of headaches if you just give her what she wants. And hey, she may even be willing to help you on your journeys! Having an extra magic-user would be helpful, especially if you can teach her some good spells for combat, exploration, anti-illusion, etc. Also, you do NOT have to worry about either Bill Cypher or the Borg. They do NOT exist in the universe you are in. Although you might inspire any of us to create/link to a different universe in which you fall head-over-hooves for Mr. Bill's handsome triangle face... :P Of course, it would be completely seperate from yours, and you do not have to worry about that at all. And maybe I should stop talking about that. Alright, yeah, I'll stop. And don't forget to refill your magical stone! This section of my coment isn't directed towards you, Twilight, but to the rest of us. We've attempted to influence Twilight's world seperately, and have failed, right? Would it be more effective if we all work together towards one goal? For example, that a magical cloud known as Butt will start following Twilight and saying "Hey, listen!" in a cutely annoying voice. Please humor me? That is all… …Giginss speaking. that the mare with three eyes will be gifted with the power to see what others cannot... She will go to all the ancient altars, gain wisdom, and prevent the cataclysm of darkness..." Ooooo! Prophecy! 9 times out of 10, these things are right, and 9 times out of 10, there's a twist we don't see coming. At least the prophecy says "prevent the cataclysm of darkness", that's a definite. Unless the prophecy is wrong, of course. But that isn't going to happen. Clears throat. A mysterious prophecy that doesn't come true never happens. I think I've jinxed that enough. About our interface, it recently updated to include new, shiny things that do stuff! Want some patch notes? They'll be mostly gibberish to you. [PATCH NOTE: PATCH NOTES CONDENSED FOR COMPILATION EASE. TWILIGHT RECEIVED THE MESSAGE, REST ASSURED]… …ne? that's such a stupid na... Thank you Josh, for updating me, but if Ine is asking about the Sweeper and isn't in fact an avatar OF it, then that's worrying, because that'd place it on the same level as me and everyone in my organization, as well as Twilight, and maybe some of you? I don't know, maybe not, you all seem to be Forerunners yourself. But if someone or thing is as low as I and Twilight are, that means that they shouldn't have that kind of power. That's reeding worrying. No character, secondary or otherwise should be that powerful. Ine must have been created by the Sweeper to fill some kind of antagonistic role to Twilight, but then became away of herself and, like all villains do, decided to let her hubris take control and treat everyone else like they don't exist, which probably explains why she doesn't actually talk to Twilight but to you guys. Are we sure Ine is female, by the way? Sorry, that doesn't matter. Sir? What do you make of this? If Ine were to be categorized as a type L villain, she'd most certainly try to locate who created her and regardless of motivation, most likely do away with them. That is SO MUCH more terrifying than I thought... Okay, Twilight, are you listening? You need to stop Ine at ALL COSTS, if she has some way to kill a Forerunner, that means you'll just cease to exist, no mystery, no lack of understanding on what'll happen next, you'll just no longer BE anymore. By comparison, death is preferable. I'm not exaggerating! You can gather information from her first, since I know you like to do that, and find out if she actually intends to kill the Sweeper or not, but you MUST act, or everything will mean nothing! You and the enitre world around you will be fully destroyed! Please, I know i tend to fly off the handle and over-react, and normally it's uncalled for, but this is the real deal. STOP INE AT ANY COST!!!… …Alright, that's it! Fairytale's over. WELCOME TO REAL LIFE. You stand against the basic virtues of Truth and I, as a bringer of Truth, will not stand for it! You will face judgement for scaring the innocent with your lies and slander, for denying the existence of reality because your imagination is more interesting, for being a stupid poopyface! Ready yourself, for I shall smite thee with my combustible lemons! Bonus internet points for anyone to catch the two references. Unless you're the Kiwi Organization, of course… …nickel again, i severely doubt you have any link to me personally, well this version of you anyway, if that was your take on that and its more of a metaphysical thing anyway so it was more of idle chatter than anything of actual importance to you... i think, its so convoluted and intertwined with the parts of reality we will never understand that there are few entities in existence who will ever be able to tell for sure, but suffice to say that there are a LOT of theories on what makes pinkie tick and central characters like yourself get a lot of focus. anyway, when it comes to prophecy there is a trend that it only makes sense as it comes true, making it very difficult to predict what might happen or when unless there is a clearly given time frame in the wording. it seems to me that the ancient altars mentioned might be places like where you woke up and as for the dark cataclysm... there is no clear information in the baseline we have access to on when things happened in your timeline and it only gets worse in the pre-harmony era prior to luna's return, if this is really occurring within memory of the discordian era then the dark cataclysm may have something to with the fall of princess luna and the rise of nightmare moon, but like so much of your worlds history this is just speculation. oh and the wisdom you are supposed to find may unfortunately be us, as useless as we are, i sure hope it means something different. as for bill cipher, he is an inter-dimensional demon of sorts from a dead dimension with near absolute control over the dream plane and mindscape, but he isnt a worry for you since he has no ability of his own to travel between dimensions and the methods to do so are quite rare, more importantly at the end of the baseline he exists in he dies a very thorough death and is nearly removed from existence entirely, while he is similar to discord, if discord turned his pranks to destruction anyway, he is no threat to you. if your still worried, think about it this way, they have similar power, but discord has the stronger manipulations over the physical world as well as having demonstrated mental abilities and i severely doubt that even the unreformed discord would allow his "fun" to be ruined by a destructive upstart. i do feel for you on the shipping aspects, but based on my experience there is nothing that can be done, most of those worlds are out of your primary's control and the best that you could expect would be to intervene in a duplicate leaving the original untouched, sorry i don't have better news there. i keep coming back to edit this... last note, i have a question. since you are under the direct influence of what i have classified as a chaos matrix you can offer some advice, i have several damaged worlds that i want to repair, but lack the ready means to do so myself. should i open them to this kind of chaos and hope that i can guide them to heal or let them fade completely and save them the inevitable suffering that would arise from whole worlds being under the kind of influence you are?… …-Keyandthelocks- has blocked -Ponygood11-… …LeftMoss here, I was totally wrong about the size of that ship, its not even CLOSE to the size of a large city, and its weapons shown no visible sign of firing anything. I believe that it is a form of hardlight that is not visible. Now the hardlight concept is not exactly proven where we are, its more of a science fiction type thing, but universes have different properties, such as us (some of us, at least) not having magic, at all, and you having it, and there's the fact that the ancients (I will settle with that until I get a proper race name) have really advanced technology and we don't (compared to them at least), I would not be surprised if they were able to get out of the planets atmosphere, but if they could not, well that's another thing entirely. As for what to do now, well, just go about it casually, don't do anything really suspicious (that one is a given, isn't it?), and maybe, just maybe, talk with Infinity about some things, not really going into specific things about what to talk about, but just try to get her to trust you more… …josh here - uh, if Ine wanted to kill the sweeper and destroy his worlds wouldn't that kill her to? she did say she is as much a part of this world as Twilight is... …Which could mean that Ine was placed here by the Sweeper, and is acting within her own means to enact a form of revenge for that. It doesn't matter why specifically she's looking for her creator, the fact is that she is, and that's worrying for any number of reasons… ..I don’t see how Cave Johnson is going to help you. I mean how would even make the lemons combust? I still remember the robot that went on a ‘Bender’ and kept saying ‘Kill All Humans’ in his sleep… …Twilight, while I don't think the prophecy is the same, this prophecy seem to be a close representative. The words that memory wrought are set to fire, Ere new moon rises O'er the Devil's, Mount. The Changeling Lord shall face a challenge dire, Till bodies fill the Tiber beyond count. Yet southward must the sun now trace its course, Through mazes dark to land of scorching death To find the master of the swift white horse And wrest from him the crossword speaker's breath. To westward palace must the Lester go; Demeter's daughter finds her ancient roots. The cloven guide alone the way does know, To walk the path in thine own enemy's boots. When three are known and Tiber reached alive, 'Tis only then Apollo starts to jive. … …a small fairy, blue in color, floats over the purple pony with wings and a horn and makes a loud ringing sound to get it's attention, only for a cat that managed to sneak aboard the ship to pounce on the flying blue annoyance… …Ponygood again. I think I have a way to explain the whole romance thing do that it doesn't bother you too much. Basically, unless the person doing the "shipping" is terrible at it, characters will only come together if they have very compatible qualities in the original universe. Shipping all of your friends at the same time is an interesting idea, but a terrible one in practice, and that person would probably be disliked more than someone else. On the other hand, something like Rarity and Applejack would be more plausible, since they seem to be in the state of lovers quarrel. There is still the problem of gender, though. On Earth, there is a huge religiously inspired divide on if people of the same sex can love each other. However, since your society seems to have an extremely large ratio of females to males, you probably don't have those same qualms. Just something to think about. It's never something you have to partake in, but romance can be a very rewarding commitment. Just think of all the freaky fun times! :P Ding ding ding! Twenty points to Afizadoor! You got the Portal once correct, and I didn't see the reference to Futurama initially, so good job! Still got more to find, though. Anyone? Hint: a spaceman named Lonestar says it… …i'm going to say this before you start freaking out about it. all these prophecies the others are mentioning are from other universes and they are trying to find comparisons to yours, but it wont work. they have no bearing on what is happening to you and every prophecy is different, most worlds have some kind of prophetic force or ability and most use different methods and mouthpieces which causes the results to carry very different meanings even if they sound similar, it can be metaphorical or literal, vague or clear, fate or likelihood. use yours as a guide but don't rely too heavily on an exact understanding until it becomes clear on its own… …This is Zen I am fine. I simply did not have anything to say which I believed to be pressing enough to warrant lengthening the time during which you would be unable to respond to the world around you. Speaking of which, what is wrong with you people? Nickel, Akuma, why did you think it would be a good idea to have a long-winded discussion about shipping when it was eminently clear that Twilight's life was potentially in danger? Would you actually have continued if you hadn't been called out on it (speaking of which, thanks for cutting it short, Ponygood)? And why would anyone think that Bill Cypher would ever be relevant? We're supposed to be helping Twilight, not nearly getting her killed. Normally I think of that sort of thing as merely stupid and annoying annoying—today's random, irrelevant prophecies from wholly other worlds being a perfect example—but that was fucking inexcusable. Moving on, the principal defining characteristics of Acket are that the city was built on the ruins of the Ancients (I will presume that Verdant was being literal with that statement), and that they draw energy from the Band to power their advanced magical devices. The simplest explanation, to me, is that the Golems were designed to prevent the Band from being drained, either because they also use it as a power supply, or that they are programmed to keep the Band running for as long as possible. What's more, i find it highly unlikely that someone in Acket hasn't made that connection yet. I would not, at this stage, suggest that something nefarious is going on, but they have made it clear that they would rather wage war with the Golems rather than let matters be. Unfortunately, investigating these ruins will inevitably lead you into the middle of the conflict, to say nothing of this prophecy. It's not something I've ever heard before, but you are right about it being rather bland. The next "altar" may be a communicator/transporter like the last Ancient Ruin you investigated, or it may be a different sort of device, but it is impossible to tell with only a single point of data. It may be that the altars are meant for you to gather your friends together, if they are all the same thing. And part of me wants to think that we're supposed to be the source of this "wisdom" you're supposed to gain, but it doesn't look that way from where I'm standing. As for the cataclysm of darkness, taking the phrase literally, you've dealt with one before, but I have doubts that you're dealing with another Nightmare Moon-type scenario. And at this point you should just answer Infinity's questions. she isn't going to stop following you, and that's going to get her killed, and you don't need that on your conscience… …don't know if the window is still open, but zen at what point did i ever claim to be fully sane, if you could see the full scope of the worlds i oversee you would probably be slightly off too and anyway, the transfer periods don't seem to be set up to allow direct harm, but as for why i chose to respond now is because my interface is starting to enter a buggy period and there is nothing i can do to prevent it, so unless the next window is tomorrow i'm probably going to be cut off for a cycle or two… …*ESTABLISHING SECURE CONNECTION CONNECTION ESTABLISHED Twilight. my name is of no importance, but I must warn you of the coming trials. I do not know what you may face but there will be a time when the choices you made will come back with consequences. Some may be beneficial, others detrimental, but what matters is that every choice you make will have consequences in the future.
I wish you luck in your quest and hope you never have to make an impossible choice. I know the feeling a choice like that leaves. I miss you, Ashley. your sacrifice was not in vain. Saren has paid for his crimes and the Harbinger has been destroyed. The Reapers will be stopped. CONNECTION CLOSED ERASING CONNECTION LINK… …Ooh, Commander Shepard! Space captain of the good ship Normandy as he and his crew of aliens bring peace throughout the galaxy while simultaneously defeating a race of robots that seek to exterminate all life in the galaxy. Nice to see you here, but the pony you're contacting has a lot more freedom to do whatever than your severely limited "response wheel." Being able to make world-changing decisions is a given. Also, magic…]

XV

Twilight twitched.

"Oh no..." Fluttershy said, taking cover behind the bed.

"ARE YOU ALL SERIOUS? Zen's right, you're all idiots! IIIIDIOTS! What in Celestia's name is wrong with you!? I mean - why!? I understand the shipping! I do, I read a lot of books do you think I don't get it? But I also know that there are a LOT of people who do it HORRIBLY, in ways that make no sense and just exist for the sake of their own bruised psyche! THOSE are what I was mad at - because it implies that you are CREATING places where THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS? Kapeesh? End of discussion! Done! Zip! Akumakami, I trust that your worlds make sense and I'm happy for them, but you know why I feel this way. I'm sure you do. But... You still threatened me. I... I don't know what to make of that. I thought you were... nevermind" Twilight sighed. "Now can we please not talk of this again? Done with the shipping. I know about it, and it won't help. At all."

She rubbed her mind. "Almost just as bad is all of you arguing over references and debates. And... Sorry. Shepard, welcome to the group. I... Think you're like me, aren't you? In a 'story.' I... I'm sorry if you're getting this dump from me. It's not great, it's not easy, and... Just, try to take it calm. I thank you for your kind words... And I wish you luck on your own."

Fluttershy poked her head out from under the bed. "...You okay now?"

"Yeah... I think I am. It builds up while it floods into my mind - I can't release what I feel about all they say so it all comes out at once. One big huge mess of emotions... It sucks."

Fluttershy hugged her. "I imagine so..."

"Yeah... Anyway, we do have some actual important things in here mixed among the pointless prophecies they tried to give me. We'll just ask Ruby for specifics. Giginss, you know you can't tempt fate here, so why are you trying?" She took in a breath. "Key? Zen? I'm so glad you're both okay - I was getting worried. I'm surrounded by lies, unimportant information, and stress. At least you two are talking sense. Josh, you too. I - I don't think I can do anything with Ine, even if she is the 'villain' of this story. She listens to you, not to me. I think that's up to you and what you do. She doesn't strike me as someone who wants to kill Blackjack or take control though... She strikes me as curious. You may want to ask her directly why she's looking for Blackjack though."

Fluttershy shook her head. "There's a lot going on that's beyond us, far beyond what we could ever hope to see..."

Twilight smirked. "Don't think like that Fluttershy." She looked down at the Witch's Eye. "Something tells me we'll be able to grasp it all at the end. Whenever that is. ...Probably very, very far away."

Fluttershy nodded. "So... Was there anything useful about the Oracle? The prophecy? The golems?"

"Ponygood had some thoughts - some terrifying thoughts - on the way the golems might be acting. But other than that, no, not really - they're just as much in the dark as us. And there's a lot of confusion on if this IS our world, or something only similar to it..." She rubed her head. "Let's just... go out to the living room."

"Huh?"

"It's time to come clean."

Twilight opened the door to her room, going into the presence of Infinity and Ruby. She sat down in a chair and looked at them - particularly Infinity. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Fluttershy. I am the Princess of Friendship of Equestria, from a time we believe to be over a thousand years into the future. I was brought here by unknown means, and this device - the Witch's Eye - affixed to my chest shortly thereafter. Ever since then I've been trying to get home, and failing - all the while the Witch's Eye will tell me voices of beings akin to both stars and ponies, powerful yet flawed, creators of worlds yet residents of their own. They have told me many things - guiding me through my travels, telling me much that contradicts, is unnecessary - and terrifying. All I'm trying to do is go home, but they seem to think there's much more, and this prophecy just solidifies that standpoint of theirs." She sighed. "I know this is all crazy - believe me - but it's the truth."

Infinity blinked. "...I did not expect you to come clean. That was also not the story I was expecting."

Ruby blinked. "You are sounding more and more like the Oracle... These voices, do they tell you of things we cannot know? Perhaps of the future?"

"The future? No, but they say a lot I don't know about, and would have no way of knowing otherwise," Twilight said.

"Twilight," Fluttershy cut in. "We're from the future. They saw us in that future. They can tell us of the future..."

"Oh. I guess that's right..."

Infinity grinned. "Hooo yes, a prophecy!" She took out a notebook and pen. "Take it away, Red!"

"...I'm Ruby. But sure. I'll... Try to remember the prophecy to its fullest... It was originally a poem in Ancient, but I'll give you the translation...

One day, the south will erupt,
Bringing forth darkness from the seas,
A Lord of darkness and despair from parallel,
Encroaching on our own from distant part.

An Oracle will rise, given power,
The third eye, to see what is to come,
And what cannot be known,
For the truth is a horrid thing.

They will quest to the six altars,
Consulting the spirits within,
Gaining their wisdom and aid,
Purifying herself to be one.

They will use our remnants,
Distort the natural order,
Find the power overwhelming,
And banish the Lord of darkness.

So all must prepare for then,
Give them assistance with the time,
For the knowledge is all they need,
To organize the defeat of a cataclysm."

Ruby fell silent, looking around slightly nervously.

"...Wow," Twilight said. "That's a lot to unpack."

Infinity's jaw was hanging open. "No way. Dude, you guys need to go south! I bet there's something from the freezing lands that's going to try and kill us all!"

Fluttershy gasped. "Oh no..."

Twilight bit her lip. "But... Equestria. Home - they could help?"

Ruby shrugged. "All I know is that I'm called by the order to assist you in your endeavors, whatever you decide they're going to be."

"Can't you tell me anything?"

"...I think I can tell you what the altars are. Ancient structures that look a bit like claws - we've found three. The Capital, Troisha, and the Bluemish Forest..."

Fluttershy's eyes widened. "...We were already at the one in the Bluemish Forest. It... It dragged ME here after Twilight used it."

Ruby bowed. "There is no longer any doubt in my mind, you are the Oracle to save us. This means the time of the cataclysm is nigh."

Twilight nodded. "...I accept this prophecy, even if I'm not entirely sure what to do with it..."

Infinity shook her head. "I mean... Wow. Just wow. I was RIGHT! You WERE important! Crazy alicorn pony Oracle from the future!"

"Oh, there's a lot more than that..." Twilight smiled. "You see..."

Twilight told them about the things she knew - about the golems, the Influence's theories, about Ine, about Discord, Celestia, the dragons... About the island she found herself in. She avoided talking about shipping, the meta, and the other things the Influence had revealed to her - nopony else needed to be burdened with that knowledge. She did what she could.

Infninity was never satisfied - her mind was like a sponge that wanted to know more, more, more, more! Never would the questions stop - not even as they crossed over the band itself. They barely glanced outside to see the lightning strike the outside of the Sandshell and be directed instantly to the engines, giving them a boost. They just rode along without a care...

Later, Twilight was sitting alone at a window. They were supposedly leaving the band and heading into the desert proper, soon to be looking for an oasis to be dropped off at - Sand Blaster was really helpful in that regard. He was going to do what he said he'd do, and no amount of sandstorms were going to stop him. She could see the sun setting, the sky reddening beautifully. The sand was mesmerising...

She saw sparks out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head sharply to the left, catching Alderan drifting alongside the Sandshell.

"Hey!" Twilight called. "I want to talk!"

Alderan vanished the moment she spoke. She furrowed her brow - great. That wasn't going to be any help at all, she was going to have to capture him or something...

She blinked, looking at the sun. She shrugged, figuring she might as well try again. She used her magic to make it set a few seconds early - she felt the same pull on the Sun again put it back. She was almost certain it was Celestia, but there was no way to communicate with her... And it was the past anyway, it wasn't like she'd know or anything...

Twilight sighed, watching as the moon rose to replace the sun. She shook her head - what could she do?

She yawned. Well, it looked like there'd be another audience with Ine soon. She wasn't really looking forward to that - at all - but she'd probably be a help to the Influence. Maybe. Twilight flopped onto the bed, going over what had happened just a few hours ago. She'd made up with Infinity - now the unicorn was crazy into watching the prophecy unfold. They were going into the desert to see about maybe finding Equestria - maybe finding some Ancient Golems in their city, see what she could do to help. To stop all the destruction and death...

She yawned again, falling into the bed...

~~~

She was far, far above the desert - so far she could see the curvature of the planet. The south held the great plains and forests she had come from, the east held the ocean, the west held the mountains, and the north held...

...She wasn't sure what she was looking at, exactly. It looked like a land of pure magic, far, far in the distance. A ghost of a place. She frowned - how could such a place exist?

She looked around frantically, searching for any sort of landmark by which to orient herself, to find Equestria. But only the mountains seemed familiar at all, and mountains could be anywhere...

"Hemispheres," Ine said, appearing behind Twilight.

"...Are you talking to me?"

Ine made no response, simply looking down at the desert. An area near the magical land, but still in the desert, sparked with energy. Twilight also saw, closer to the band, a large circular shape in the sand made of the Ancient material. She knew that it was the golem city without being told.

"You have me misjudged. Evil, good..." Ine paused. "The Influence was not meant to be this. This was not the intended outcome." She floated around. "...You think I want to know of my creator for evil reasons. For... Destruction. For malice. For control. This is not the case. For as long as we can remember, we have searched for God. It has been our driving force - to find out the reason. To know why. To gain understanding. That is all I want. Understanding."

Twilight blinked. "...Woah... That's deep... And ambitious..."

"This shipping you are all held up on is meaningless to this world. I have much information on the world and the way it functions, and where it seems outside forces act. It does not apply here. I can deduce that much. Perhaps I can tell you more - but for now, something I want to know. She is obviously a character you all care about to varying degrees, that much I understand now. Fiction is powerful. I understand that we are but another story tied into this web of fiction by one Blackjack, a being similar to most of you. What I wish to know is what would the point be of allowing you all access to a portion of his world? Does it not seem that this Twilight would be able to fulfill her role in this adventure without you?"

Twilight blinked. Ine had a point...

"I await your response."

XXIII

Author's Note

[IMPORTING…][Mined your step! Aren't puns glorious? In all seriousness here, you're now approaching the Mountian of Knowledge, which sounds like a giant library inside a carved out mountian. And also another altar. And possibly another encounter with Orchid. Boy, some knowledge on Orchid might be very helpful right now, wouldn't it? In any case, just mind (heh) where you put your hooves. I'm guessing you don't want them exploded, even though you could just use your wings. -Giginss… …Whimpers S-sorry Twilight. D-didn’t mean to make you mad following what my dad was doing. M-My name isn’t Afizha though, Its Tarou. I... I never intended to make you explode. I j-just wanted to make you laugh. I.... I’m sorry. I-I'll just go… …Josh here - Oh boy can't say i didn't see that outburst coming, anyway I can confirm that all of that nonsense was Ponygood and Afizah and no one else, also it's nice to know that my begging was not a complete wast i did save you from a little bit more from ponygood. anyway what I was saying before was that we must of over-clocked our connection by bringing someone here that's not from your universe; their was a moment we stoped seeing you and that was when GM put in his two sense on what we were doing, at least that's what I got from what he was saying… …In case you hadn’t realized she has a broken wing. I think. Twilight this is Afizha. Sorry, I haven’t spoken to you in a while, but I have been trying to find my sister, and after checking the recording device I set up to tell me when things had changed, I'm sorry I wasn’t here to try and put a stop to the insanity you just suffered through. As for advice; Don’t you have some sort of shield spell that you could put between four and the ground. Combine that with a sweep&search spell, and you could have a way to walk through the minefield on four’s shoulders. Also hello again Tarou, Have your dreams been getting any better? I can only imagine the trauma you went through after losing your sister; Not to mention being held hostage at an old hospital, as a kid no less… …Ponygood speaking. I will keep my message short, since I feel you may still be partially upset. First, I'm sorry for getting carried away with my religious nonsense, but I was just really excited to participate in it once it was started. Seeing you blow up wasn't satisfying though; if anything, it brought me back to reality. Second, my offers still stand. Both to educate you in Pinkie Pie, and to change my avatar from the Destroyer to any sentient spaceship. Reminder: Aphelion is a small armed spaceship, Moya is a really large bio-mechanical unarmed starship, and the Tardis can travel through time and has interior spacial compression, but there is the potential of their crew not being brought with them. Third, going to get a bit metaphysical momentarily, so be prepared for confusion. Vriska's multiverse is not the Multiverse at large. If she says there is a Tower at the center with all the Authors, that's fine and dandy, but that is HER multiverse. Another story we have takes place in a multiverse, and it contains at the center a Dark Tower, unrelated to Vriska's Tower, that prevents demons from invading as long as it stands. There is the potential of an Omniverse, which holds the sum total of every singly possible multiverse variation, but that is too much extra-versal theory for the current situation. That is all. I trust your... friends? Can they even be considered that? Will keep you safe during the input session… …This is Zen. I'm not familiar with Vriska's powers, but luck manipulation would probably have some use in preventing catastrophe here, for whatever use that is. Everyone, I think it would be best to keep our comments to a minimum, so that Twilight can get back into action as soon as possible. Time is not on her side… …This is Creek, Twilight. Um...there's a tower? I, I mean, I knew that I'm a character, but, but ah...I didn't know we could...I mean, can we influence the story if we, um, if our wr-writer no longer writes for us? Can...can you ask Vriska what happens when the cre-creator doesn't, um, when it doesn't write for you anymore? Oh, in case you get hurt from the fall, I...I *really* hope you're okay, You should already be resting your leg, you're in no shape to be adventuring after all. And if you're concussed you need to stay awake which...already isn't happening when yo-you get...information from us. Do you or Vri-iska know any healing magic? Ah, um, and if you want me to suggest names for you I, I can, but, I mean, you're supposed to pick. If somebody else chooses for you it won't, I mean, it won't mean anything to, to you. If...well, if you want to pick a new name you need to think about yourself. What do you like to do? What, what's your favourite thing? What d-do you. Um, any favourite foods or pl-places? If you li-like reading, um, I mean, could you be Library? It...I mean, I like it... If, um, most people in, in my world usually take a few months t-to decide, so don't feel rushed. Ju-just think about it, okay? I believe in you. And try not to let people's words get to you. If, if there's a group of pe-eople being loud and annoying you, I meran, you just have to put your eyes to the floor and walk past them. Which, ah, which reminds me, does...does Vriska know anthing a-about the, ah, just ask her, she doesn't think you're be-being stupid About the true walkers? I think that's what they-ey're called. They, um, they travel between worlds...maybe? Please, um, if you ge-get the time, please ask her… …Hey Twilight, Owleero here. Wasn't scared off by the outburst, I was actually expecting it to happen sooner. Also to elaborate on what I was talking about earlier, the whole below Absolute Zero thing is treated like a noodle incident, but here's what I THINK happened: Sunset provides the power with her Enhance ability, then Trixie casts an illusion designed to fool reality itself that there is a point below Absolute Zero, and then Twilight lowers the temperature to that point. And before you ask, yes, Trixie is capable of tricking reality into believing her illusions are real, hence the "illusory magic circle becomes a real magic circle" comment. No, none of the three are alicorns, just unicorns… …You can't really ignore the words of people when they're broadcast directly into your mind… …When yo-you're being confronted it...I mean, it doesn't really mat-matter if you're being talked down to or at i-in your head. It's only imposs-ossible to ignore until you force yourself to… …LeftMoss here. Try detecting where the mines might be, like with a metal detector (spell?). Not the best suggestion, but it's better than nothing… …Josh here. Vriska is light player, healing is more of a "life" player thing Creek… …Light and life magic are close to the same spectrum of magic in general that, although Vriska uses light to adjust the luck around her, it is not out of the realm of possibility that she can also cast a basic healing spell to fix a few of the minor injuries they have… …Josh here - maybe in most in places where magics is real and what not but not where Vriska from; light and life players have been shown that their powers do not over-lap. in fact it has not been proven that their powers are even magic at all or something else altogether (although some have called it magic, but that's more like "I don't understand it so I'm just going to call it magic to make it easier on me”)… …Ah, well I still think Vriska has some form of healing spell should it be required. I don't think she's using it because it either takes a while to cast or that the spell only targets herself… …well twi, there are some of us who fell in love with you, and disliked flash because he stole you from them(That's what some think others hate him because he is boring, isn't interesting enough, and bland) but Flash started to grow on many others. There have been stories focused around him. Many of the stories are interesting… …Ponygood again. Tarou asked me to say a few things to you, and I'm going to do that. First, Tarou claims the whole thing involving butt cloud gods was meant to make you laugh, and is sorry you got so upset about it. Second, Tarou asks what you think of the idea of you being part Pheonix and understanding their language. Would you do pranks with Philomena, or be more interested in learning of pheonix culture, family dynamics, etc?… …Akumakami here- Hey, Twilight? Quick question? Is Tirek immortal somehow or does Tartarus just keep its prisoners from escaping, even in death? Besides th*$^#$#&^$#*$$#$3 *Whirl* RC: SYSTEMS REBOOTING. SCANNING. INTERDEMINSIONAL TRAVEL CAPABILITY DISRUPTED. ALL OTHER SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL CURRENT LOCATION: INTERFACE BETWEEN BEYOND-FOURTH-REALM AND WOLRD OF THE EQUESTRIAN MULTIVERSE. SCANNING WORLD: DESIGNATED AS WORLD G36M95B93J. CLASSIFIED AS: PCF. ON-WORLD INTERFACE RECIEVER FOUND. SPIECEMEN: A TWILIGHT SPARKLE, ALICORN VARIATY. STATUS: CURRENTLY SUBJECTED TO FRCED TIMETRAVEL AND EXPOSER TO THOSE FROM BEYOND-THE-FOURTH-REALM. PERSONALITY THREAT LEVEL: UNDETERMINED, POSSIBLY INFLUX. GREETINGS TWILIGHT SPARKLE G36M95B93J. I AM ROBOCORD OF SCUFFED DROSS… …This is Cr-Creek, Josh, what does that mean? Pl-players? what other kinds, ah, I mean, how many play-ayers are there?… …Josh here - it is impossible to know how many players there are; there's probably infinite when you take in that this "game" is Vriskas multiverses way of making a new universe, but per session the amount of players ranges from two (although that's risky to have so few teammates), to twelve, and can only have an even amount of players; each player is assigned a class and aspect; classes include thief, rogue, heir, maid, page, knight, seer, mage, sylph, witch, bard, prince (the destroyer class), and the muse and lord, but the last two are for a two player session, and aspects include time, space, void, light, mind, heart (or self), rage, hope, doom, life, blood, and breath; anyone could have any class and aspect as long as there is no over-lap between players from there session, and that someone has the time and space aspects… …There was a way to play single-player, though. The game would punish them severely for it, but would be given the ultimate reward if they won. Also, the more players there are in a game, the more their ultimate enemy grows in strength, but so too does their ally… …yes a one player session is possible, but not only does the very nature of the game changes, but you're set up against impossible odds; you have to be the luckiest and the most ruthless person in the multiverse to get though that death trap… …nickel here, first off, am I the only one who is remembering what happened last time we went detailed and long winded when things were in the middle of something going on?... since we all know no one is going to stop anyway and either way the ultimate outcome of this particular gap is pretty much already set, to clarify what has already been stated, the aspect of light is theoretically capable of healing, there is a lot of overlap in the aspects, but its all in the class to tell how that works, thief of light cant heal anyone except possibly self, it takes not gives, so vriska has no healing abilities as far as the known rules are concerned. as for what i tried to do... its really better you just leave it alone, but i tried to access your worlds metafile, the metaphysical information storage, and see if i could get at currently unknown information about your world, but i had second thoughts on the wisdom of trying that and scrambled the log to prevent possible glitches. since the concept of a living ship keeps coming into play it may be worth looking into the cabbits of the tenchi muyo multiverse, they are an artificial species that are normally about the size of spike or smaller, but can shape shift into medium size spacecraft known to possess ludicrous combat capability and maneuverability and uses subspace to make the interior much larger than the outside. this coming from a universe where the focus household is home to five beings ranging from upper demi-god to full god, so its all a bit overpowered. oh and on the note of the one and two player sessions, they were the same session but it depended on how you considered it for what it could be called, that session was nasty and if you ever run into caliborne... i dont think he can be reformed and he is the most vulnerable component in the formation of the demon who caused everything that went wrong with the homestuck universe, i know its not in your nature, but he has to be destroyed, every other component was either indestructible or had to be destroyed for the fusion to occur. vriska being there means that its not entirely impossible for more leakage particularly since we dont know what exactly happened when the interface glitched… …I don't think we can just summon people from anywhere in the whole of existence. Characters from GM's stories are fine, since they share their creator with this one, and since we are connected using the comment section, I'm pretty sure Twilight can get our avatars. However, I'm already waiting for Twilight's confirmation to change my avatar, and what to change it to. Unless maybe you'd like to be the one doing the changing into whatever sentient ship Twilight chooses, and I can keep my Destroyer?… …granted i wouldn't mind using ryo ohki as an avatar for awhile, but at the same time we also don't know what kind of limitations there are on this kind of thing, so i just offer advice and ideas when i can mostly. incidentally it wouldn't be that hard to set up either since her home dimension is plagued by minor instabilities that have caused stranger in the past… …Hey, the altars can pull GM's avatar from the completely mind-bogglingly confusing mess of a multiverse that is Homestuck. If they can do that, they can pull someone from the relatively stable universe you are describing…. …I've already made my concerns clear about bringing someone from another universe to here ponygood don't make me repeat myself… …fair points both, i'm going to leave it up to twilight's judgement and hope i don't inadvertently supply the idea that causes the second bug as well. twilight sorry about this, the timing is less than ideal i know, but we aren't being offered a better window right now and if we don't do something constructive with it then we'll end up with a senseless mess here again… …A-are you still mad at me Twilight? I’m sorry for going along with my dad's insanity and making you angry. i want to try and make up for it though. can you ask four if he has some form of detector or shield module that can help you across?… …To the others of the influence. I think I have found a pretty good representation of the eye that bonded to Twilight. usercontent1.hubstatic.com/11972294_f520.jpg hope that doesn’t scare anyone with the thought… …I think I have something you can try to summon, though I don’t know if he will listen to you as you aren’t his trainer, try and gather Charizard. His trainer's name is Ash Ketchum, and Charizard is strong. Ash caught it while it was still a Charmander, but it evolved into a disobedient yet powerful combatant. Sending it out was risky, however, as it would sometimes just snooze and ignore commands, causing Ash to waste a slot on his team in battles against rival Ritchie and Gym Leader Blaine. However, over time, Charizard gained an appreciation for Ash and eventually began to obey his trainer, further boosting his combat prowess. Charizard was released to spend time training against fellow dragons, but Ash will still occasionally borrow its power for tough fights. Charizard's most impressive victories: 1. Defeated the legendary Ice-type Articuno. 2. Won against Gary's Blastoise. 3. Also beat Tad's Water-type Poliwrath. 4. Dominated Iris's Dragonite before the match was called off. 5. Held its own against the Legendary Entei in the third Pokemon movie. Charizard's training greatly increased its already formidable strength, and it has been seen to use more attacks than any other anime Pokémon. Win or lose (very probably win); you can count on Charizard to drastically weaken foes. if that is within the range of those altars then I would try and get him… …not being a hypocrite and trying to shutdown ideas from other universe, but at least provide some context. while its quite obvious what you are talking about to me, twilight wasn't born on a standard variant earth and wont know what any of that means. you have to at least describe what you are referring to in more universal detail, for twilight, charizard is basically a large orange creature that is essentially a dragon much like those of equestria with a few relatively minor differences, think diet mostly… …Everyone! I very highly doubt Twilight can just summon any entity from anywhere in the sum total of existence just willy nilly! WE are unable to be summoned, simply because our world is too far separated from Twilight's world, and I'm extremely confident other stories, being found IN our world, will be even more seperate. If you want Twilight to take your suggestions for characters, I strongly recommend changing your avatar to it. It worked for GM's avatar, and his status as the author should have absolutely no effect on this situation. The eye was more crystaline/metalic in nature. It could fit the evil red eye Twilight saw in her dream, though… …Twilight, I have changed my Avatar to represent Charizard so that you might be able to summon it. I’m not all that good at explaining what I look like, and the image to show what I look like is missing the tail, so I'll upload a picture of what I look like entirely to someone who honestly can explain it better. However, if you do summon me, then I won’t be able to change it again until your adventure is complete as I don’t want to risk my avatar changing if you are in a dicey situation and you need the firepower I would possess. I can use a wide variety of fire, (apparently), Dragon, (again Obviously), and Flying type moves. Though as a way not to be OP (Over Powered if you're wondering what that means) I will limit the number of moves I can use to four, for the moment. The moves I know right now will be, 1. Flamethrower. 2. Blast Burn. 3. Fly. (if that wasn't obvious enough.) 4. Dragon Claw. I won't be able to add moves once summoned, so Blackjack would have to take over on that aspect, again if I'm summoned that is. here is what i look like. pre05.deviantart.net/1a10/th/pre/f/2013/247/d/4/mega_charizard__fan_mad… …LeftMoss again, I forgot to say that I changed my avatar again... I just can't be happy with one for a good amount of time. You wont be able to summon it, due to the fact that it is about 40-50 meters tall, about 40 meters long, and 25 meters wide, due to each beam is 4 meters and each block being 1 meter. EDIT: It is also called "Extinction”…]

XXIII

Twilight was vaguely aware of exploding noises as the import stopped. She was in a tree - she could see Fluttershy standing on a nearby branch, a terrified look on her face. Twilight was barely able to process this - she had the worst headache of all time. If I didn't have a concussion before I do now... She groaned, standing up - barely able to stay in the tree. She looked around - there were a dozen or so smoking craters from mine explosions on the ground nearby. She saw Four precariously standing on one foot in one of them, shaking. He had suffered dozens of explosions - enough to ding his metallic exterior and upset his balance. Vriska was nowhere to be seen.

"What... What happened?"

"I FELL. THINGS EXPLODED. THINGS KEPT EXPLODING. VRISKA GOT YOU TO THAT TREE. I STABILIZED MYSELF LIKE THIS. SHE FLEW OFF IN A RAGE."

"Why?" Twilight asked.

A dog flew through the sky with a yelp, landing in a nearby tree. "Gotcha!" Vriska shouted, coming out of nowhere and grabbing the dog by the scruff. "You have-"

"Vriska! You can't!" Fluttershy yelled.

"Already did," Vriska grunted. "If it makes you feel better I won't kill him myself. Probably. Let his fellow dogs sort that out." She shook him rapidly. "You are going to get us through these mines, or ELSE."

The dog passed out.

Vriska sighed, tossing the dog back into the tree. "Okay, sporadic luck today. Yes, found the dog. No, couldn't interrogate him. Bah."

Twilight groaned. "They suggested I use a metal detection spell... Which would work, I just don't think we can move Four across easily. His feet are just too big. You got anything?"

"I'll need to absorb someone's luck to pull that off. And..." She looked at the dog. "Don't think he has enough to be worth it."

Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief. "Good..."

Vriska scratched her chin. "...Twilight, can you carry him in your magic again? You aren't due for another 'import' for a long time, right?"

"Right... I think I have a concussion now though. Got any way to heal that?"

"Sorry, no dice."

Twilight groaned. "Don't think I should be taxing my mind like this... Not sure I have a choice though. Vriska, grab me. Four, you ready again?"

"READY."

"Good. Okay..." She lit her horn - it felt like a nail drove through her skull. But she grunted through it, lifting Four off the ground once again. They moved over the minefield for two more minutes.

Two more agonizing minutes. They eventually found their way into the mountain-forest proper, and could see a small dog town up ahead.

"Far enough," Vriska said. Twilight dropped Four at this - he hit the ground hard, but nothing exploded. Vriska smirked. "Am I good or am I good?"

"...Good..." Twilight breathed heavily, rubbing her head. Vriska set her down on the ground. Fluttershy rushed to Twilight and examined her.

"Twilight... This isn't good. This isn't good at all. Try not to fall asleep, okay? We... We need to get you treated..."

"We don't know any advanced healing spells and I'm not spending several days in a hospital, Fluttershy. We have to keep moving."

"But..."

"I know it's bad. Probably really bad. But we still have to go, we're on a timer." She looked at the dog town. "We probably shouldn't go there..."

"We might find medicine though..." Fluttershy said.

"THEY WON'T LIKE PONIES. OR GOLEMS."

"Guess that leaves it to me then," Vriska said. "They'll have no idea what I am. And I can totally just steal the medicine, easy."

"I'll go with you. Invisible. I know that spell," Twilight said. "Plus I kinda... need it."

"Good." Vriska said. "Come on then, we need to move fast."

Twilight nodded, casting invisibility on herself. It hurt. "Fluttershy, Four, head towards the mountain. We'll catch up with you later."

"Twilight... Be careful."

"I will."

Vriska un-summoned her orange robes and started walking. Twilight trotted alongside her with the three legs that worked. "I'm going to talk to the Influence now."

"Fine by me. Can't wait to hear about the insanity this time."

Twilight nodded. "Gigniss, yes, my wings are broken. And I do plan to consult the Knowledge for anything on Orchid. Tarou - it wasn't funny, and it was unthoughtful, but I do accept your apology. And I..." She paused, thinking. "...I'm not... Afizah? That entire thing you said about Tarou seemed forced. In fact.... A lot of the things you've been saying seem forced. Out of place. I'm... I'm not sure I believe what's going on. You've... You've always been weird, out there, and I... I'm sorry I just can't take what you say at face value anymore. I'm even finding myself doubting if Tarou is a distinct person from you, or just another one of your crazy facets! I mean, I trust Josh way more than I trust what you say, and he said it was JUST 'Afizah and Ponygood.' What does that mean about Tarou, huh? Did you just dream him up to try to play off my sympathy? Was the other Twilight I was talking to really a look into another universe or just your random crazyness? I.... I just... Ah my head hurts..."

"Sounds like someone's trolling you," Vriska observed.

"...Maybe. Bah. I'm getting fed up with that one in particular... Been trying to ignore him, actually, since most of what he's said is non sequiter. It's just... Hard."

"Eh, can't really help you there. It seems like you have to listen to these idiots."

"I've often wondered if I'd do better on this quest without them..."

"Pfft, you wouldn't have me then!"

"True. You have been very helpful. I think your attitude, despite its brashness, was actually needed."

"Hell yeah!"

Twilight chuckled. "Yeah. Hell 'fucking' yeah."

"Yes, that's right, say it more! Release yourself!"

"I don't even know what the word means."

"That's probably best."

Twilight shot her a look. "...Now I'm concerned."

"Get back to your internal trollers."

"Right... All of you who are suggesting possible things to summon, I'm not even going to comment on that since trying to understand seems to be a mostly pointless exercise." She rubbed her head. "Agree together on an option. I'm currently set on summoning the Mite, and Aradia eventually to close the time loop. That leaves two - one of which will be a Pinkie. I'm leaning towards Evermore Pinkie. You all need to decide, together, collectively, on the last one. Or just vote for it when the time comes. I'm not putting my cents in unless I see something really worthwhile. Also part of me thinks you don't need to change your avatars, just tell me what you want. We'll decide through democracy."

"The mysterious powers of democracy..."

Twilight shot Vriska an odd look - not that she could see it, since Twilight was invisible. "Okay... Owleero, that... was confusing. But I don't think you need to try to explain it again, it doesn't seem important. And... DLB? I think that's you talking about Flash? ...You know, a few days ago that revelation would have sent me into shock. Now it's not all that unexpected. You people..." She shook her head. "Zen, you don't have to worry about being too long winded, you're fine. I don't think you've ever upset me. Akumakami... I... I actually don't know about Tartarus. I know there's a centaur-gargoyle kingdom called Tauryl somewhere in the world, I don't think they're immortal, but... I just don't know. And... Are you okay? Uh... Robocord? Hi? Did you do something to Akumakami?"

"The answer to that is probably yes," Vriksa added.

"Yeah..." Twilight furrowed her brow. "...Ponygood? I do consider these people my friends. Fluttereshy, Infinity, Four, Vriska - all of them."

"Awwww..." Vriska chuckled.

"Yeah, well Vriska, they have a lot of questions for you and about you."

"Hit me!"

"Ponygood talks about this Omniverse thing, and that there's another tower than the one you described, the Dark Tower..."

Vriska laughed. "Pretty sure that is the same one as the one I described. Yeah... Yeah I'm pretty sure I've heard 'the Dark Tower' in many places. Never been there myself - I hear it keeps most everyone away - but it sure as heck exists. And we are not in an ominiverse, far from it. True infinity can't exist. Even that 'infinite sided die' has a finite number of things it can do. It can just do every single possible thing in existence anywhere. So tell him to shove that idea up his ass."

"You just did." Twilight shivered. "There's apparently a lot of confusion about your powers. What exactly can you do?"

"One. I am awesome."

Twilight chuckled. "That's self-evident. What else?"

"Two. I can control the minds of the weak-willed. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years, but it's difficult if I don't have experience with the race. For instance - dogs. Can't do dogs. Not those kind of dogs anyway."

"Ah."

"Three. I have my magic eight-sided dice." In her free hand eight blue eight-sided dice appeared. "They work a lot like the infinite sided die, but have a limited number of outcomes and are purely offensive."

"Good. And..."

"Four. My luck manipulation. I can steal luck from any being that has it and add it to my own. Those I steal luck from are likely to be killed by sheer chance or stumble over everything around them. When I have extra luck I can control the results on my dice and get around death easily. If I get a lot of luck I can roll eight eights and totally ruin everything for whoever's unlucky enough to be facing me."

"Yep. Figures."

"Oh, also my vision eightfold can see into things that were not meant to be seen into, but that rarely means anything. Beyond that I can stab things and fly."

Twilight nodded. "I hope that cleared some things up. They're also confused about the types of powers in your world? Classes and aspects?"

"Nobody understands classes, don't even try," Vriska muttered. "I'm a Thief, I steal things for myself. I know that. Princes destroy their aspect. Bards destroy with their aspect, etc. But it's more nuanced than that. Bards also have an air of complete randomness about them that makes them the wildcard instead of the hulking brute you would think. Knights use their aspect as a weapon, though how varies extremely. And then there's the Rogue, who can 'steal and distribute' or some fucking nonsense like that. It's best not to think too hard about it."

"And the aspects?"

"That's easier to wrap your head around, and it's makes a lot more sense. There are twelve aspects - I'm Light, the aspect of knowledge and fortune. The opposing one is Void, the aspect of nothingness and the unseen. Not bad luck, for whatever reason. Then you have Time and Space - should be self-explanatory. Hope and Rage, or as I like to call them, Shiny McHalo and Secret McKilling."

"You don't really call them that."

"Nope! But it doesn't really matter? They deal with emotions - those of raw destruction and power, and those that look towards the bright future. You could almost think of it as optimism and pessimism. Moving on we have Breath and Blood. Breath has to do with wind, freedom, and aloofness while Blood almost exclusively deals with connections between people. I think. Never really saw a Blood player become in-tune with their aspect. After that, there's Heart and Mind. Mind is all about thinking and thoughts, while Heart is about the soul and sense of self."

"I sense there's two more."

"Life and Doom. Life players could heal your concussion problem. Doom players... Well, I never say a Doom player get realized and let's just say I think that's a good thing."

Twilight pondered what someone with the power of Doom would do. She shuddered. "I agree..."

"Any other questions?"

"Creek has a few. Do you know what happens when an author stops writing for you? ...I'm actually curious about this myself."

Vriska shrugged. "Pretty sure you just get to do whatever. Orange Fuctard ended his story and I got lost. I'm still lost. That's all that happened."

"And... I don't understand this one. Do you know about True Walkers? Creek says they can travel between worlds."

"...That is such a vague term Jegus if I haven't heard that seventy thousand times already... I think she's talking about people who can travel naturally under their own power across worlds. I've met a few, but they're a really varied group. No unifying relation at all. Then there are those who use technology to travel and blah de blah de blah it's just a mess..."

"How do you travel?"

Vriska smirked. "I get lucky."

"Oh. Honestly don't know why I was expecting another answer." Twilight frowned. "Hope that helps Creek. And... Yeah. I think I've decided on a name. People don't seem that interested in it anymore, so I guess I've got all the input I'm going to get."

"Oh? What is your new name?"

"Twilence," Twilence said, smirking to herself.

~~~

New name, new mare, as they said... somewhere. Twilence was sure they said that somewhere. Even though she had a concussion, she felt herself well up inside with determination. No longer would she be the naive, foolish, simple Twilight. She was Twilence, a mare who knew where she stood in all of reality, who had a quest - who understood that things were at stake and that stories played a role in reality that no one was fully aware of. She was going to leave her fear, her pensiveness, and her panic.

She walked into the dog town behind Vriska feeling like nothing could knock her down.

The town itself had fifty or so buildings, most of them formed out of bricks, though there were a few that were made out of natural-ish crystal structures that came in a rainbow of colors. Dogs bounded around - sometimes on all fours, sometimes on two legs. They were a varied bunch - some of them were smaller than a pony while others neared the height of a minotaur. A few got around by digging, but that was mostly unnecessary here, with the exception of the mine entrance Twilence could see in the distance.

Several of the dogs looked up at Vriska in confusion when she walked in like she owned the place. "Hello there!"

The dogs blinked and looked at each other in confusion. "How can you speak dog?" One asked.

"Got hit with a translator spell LONG time ago. So long I can't remember who did it or if I had any say in the matter." She shrugged. "So, whatever, hi. I'm Vriska Serket. I'm a traveler in need of some aid and possibly healing potions."

A velvet-furred feminine dog walked up and sat on her haunches, glaring at Vriska. "It'll cost you."

"I'm sure I can pay." She took out an 8-ball from her pocket and juggled it up and down. "Show me your wares first."

"You have the eyes of a thief."

"How could you tell?" Vriska laughed. "But seriously I could really use some potions. How am I possibly going to steal from you? You all outnumber me and will be watching my every move."

"...True."

Vriska stuck out her non-broken arm. "Shake on it?"

The velvet-dog nodded. "I am Irana. Our wares are over here-"

A loud noise could suddenly be heard overhead. The dogs, Twilence, and Vriska all looked up to see a small fleet of Fosis ships pass overhead.

"Damnit," Vriska muttered.

A burst of yellow energy engulfed the ships and vaporized them in an instant.

Vriska blinked. "...Damn."

Twilence blinked. What the heck was that!?

Vriska turned to Irana. "Uh..."

"Heildor protects," was all she said in response to this. "Come."

Vriska nodded and followed. Twilence moved to follow as well - but then felt the eye start to burn in her chest.

...She made sure the invisibillity spell would last without her continually casting it. She sat down, hoping Vriska could handle herself and that nobody would bump into her.

XXXVIII

Twilence woke up in a bed.

She didn't remember having fallen asleep... She hadn't even dreamed.

She sat up, glancing around. The bed was one of the only things in this place, the rest more or less bare of anything. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made up of square engraving patterns that reminded her of the patterns where she had first found the Eye of Rhyme. Each square was identical, and each one glowed a soft yellow color.

She blinked. This all seemed very familiar. Stories tended to repeat, didn't they? Go full circle...

She got out of the bed and found a note stapled the side of it. Commune with the Influence before going anywhere. The ink was brown, the paper crisp and new.

She stared at it, knots tying in her stomach. What had Aradia and Pinkie done? Why hadn't she seen it? Why did it seem like their actions hadn't gone as planned? What did the other Vriska do? Questions she couldn't answer. Questions she could probably never answer.

She sighed. "Fine, I will talk to them. So... Ponygood, yeah, I think this is the Ordeal, though as to what it actually means, well, I don't know. I expect it won't be very pleasant. And... apparently, I need to face it alone. Though you are here, so I suppose it isn't' really alone. I do hope Pinkie will explain when I look at her. And..." She read Ponygood's talk about Songs of the Spheres, all the data. She furrowed her brow.

She was certain some of the information was wrong.

She glanced at the Eye. "Care to be more specific in those revelations?"

The Eye gave her no more meta knowledge.

"Sometimes I wonder..." She shook her head. "Creek, don't worry, I'm fine. At least for now. And thank you, for, well, for being there. I do find it odd your company doesn't know about Songs of the Spheres... You probably asked around already, huh? Yeah." She turned to Nickel's and Ponygood's conversation/argument about dimensional travel and forces. She was confused by it, and yet it made perfect sense. She shook her head, glancing at the Eye again. "...Are you getting stronger or something?"

Again, no response.

Twilence shrugged. "Moving on... Wolfe... Okay, if that helps. Sonic... You are right about one thing, I do need to find my true self. That does seem to be what all this is building towards. It's going to be something unexpected, isn't it...? And Ponygod -I am very curious about that Broken Eye, and will consider bringing M and the Starshell at the last altar." And.... that was all she had to comment on. It really seemed like the Influence was getting less and less chatty over time.

Regardless, she walked across the engravings to an open wall that seemed to go on forever. She didn't have to walk long before she saw one of the blocks with engravings slide out of the floor and into the ceiling, leaving a hole in the floor. Twilence poked her head through the hole, seeing an entire another floor. She flew down - and sure enough, it looked exactly the same as the one above. Nothing but softly glowing square designs in every direction.

She continued on - flying through the expanse she was quickly realizing was a maze. She went up, down, left, right, forward, backward, but nothing ever seemed to change. She teleported through walls easily enough, but when she looped back around the scenery had changed.

This was hardly fair - no way to map a changing maze. There was no pattern to the pathways at all, and the blocks all looked the same. The engravings didn't help, no matter how much she studied them.

She grit her teeth. "This is greeeeeat..."

She had no idea how long she wandered until she found the room with something different in it.

There was a large pillar made of wires, screens, sprockets, and magic dust. It rose from the floor to the ceiling, roughly three times as tall as Twilence. Magic sparked off of it continually and all the screens were static. Numerous cables ended with strange points - screwdrivers, blowtorches, and other things Twilence couldn't even begin to comprehend.

"Curious, isn't it?"

Twilence turned around to see a familiar face. "...Lore Thirst?"

The brown stallion nodded.

"What are you doing here?!"

"I don't know," he said. "I was just... here."

Twilence frowned. "...Same." She looked at the pillar. "What do you suppose this is, anyway?"

"Ancient lab station. Specifically, one with more advanced tools than I've ever seen. One that looks to be in full working order."

"Huh."

"It must be here for a reason."

Twilence raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"I did say I could improve your Eye if I had the right tools. This certainly qualifies as the right tools."

Twilence squinted at the tool station. "...That makes sense. Though, I'd figured that'd happen after I went through some ordeals... Not just some random wandering."

Lore Thirst shrugged. "It can be questioned later. Right now, I believe you'll want an upgrade."

"You sure you know how to use this stuff?"

"Yes. I know you don't trust me. And you shouldn't. But my offer is genuine. Remember, our goals line up. You want more power and strength to save the world. I want more knowledge."

Twilence knew that made sense. She still wasn't happy about it. "Fine. What do we do?"

Lore Thirst grabbed two of the cables with strange, shifting points. "I have spent long studying the theory behind this, awaiting the opportunity. I did not expect it to fall into my lap like this, but here we are. Come closer, put your Eye right in front of me."

Twilence hesitated - but she knew she had to do this. She knew, deep down, that the Pivotal Point involved the Eye being worked on. Maybe once it was upgraded she'd be able to know with more certainty.

She walked to where Lore Thirst indicated - and he set to work. The cables plugged into the Eye. She felt it - it wasn't painful, but it was as if the Eye was part of her body. She became slightly dazed, the connections in her brain shifting around, maximizing efficiency. The Eye itself did not change visibly on the outside - but the inside was swirled around in bizarre ways. Everything buzzed...

"Done," Lore Thirst said, backing up.

Twilence blinked. "...That was fast."

"That took twenty minutes."

"Oh." She looked down at the Eye. "I don't feel any different."

"Try to go to one of those 'links' you never could before."

Twilence tried to go to the 'Influencing the Influence' discussion and found out she could. Something about a fake religion (probably that stupid Butt the Cloud thing) and Wolfe getting 'triggered' (whatever that meant). She moved around a bit, finding she was able to go to every position, every place. She was able to reach back around to the Influence itself... She read the summary of her story, in the words of GM... Adding tags... She read the first chapter, remembering where she started, in that room, on that island...

She went to the end. Currently, the last scene was her vanishing. No bed, no unusual cube hallways, nothing.

She smirked. "I guess I can read it all now..." She was able to easily navigate to GM's other stories. She didn't have time to read them, of cousre, but she was just proving she could. Though for whatever reason the Songs of the Spheres forum came back as static.

The Dark Tower doesn't want you knowing.

She frowned. Had Ponygood been wrong in his assertions, or had she just been prevented from registering certain bits of information?

Both.

"Well, this is certainly an improvement," Twilence said. "It's a lot clearer about the strange bits of meta knowledge."

"It should be. The processing has been improved. You should also be able to see your friends whenever you want now."

Twilence tried that.

~~~

The Overseer did not look happy. The other Vriska was gone, but everyone else was still there. "So, Aradia, care to explain?"

"Already did," Aradia said. "We've been had. The annals of time have changed due to Siron's influence on the other Vriska. She did something to move Twilence where we couldn't get her."

"The catacombs!" Gilead yelled. "Of all the places..."

Orchid shook her head. "Calm yourself about your precious catacombs, Gilead. It was obviously chosen so we couldn't get there."

"What does this mean for the ordeals?" the Overseer asked.

"I am not sure," Aradia said. "The Pivotal Point will still happen though, I am sure of it-"

Pinkie raised a hoof. "Hey, Overseer, the Influence has some questions."

The Overseer visibly twitched. "Pinkie can you-"

"They can see us now they probably won't see us later and the questions aren't that hard."

"...Proceed."

"What do you know about the red ship? Are Four and Nine Hundred okay? What does Eye of Sign mean?"

The Overseer paused. "That is my ship, the one in which I came to this planet. It is currently on guard, preventing anything from coming to or leaving the planet. The Ancients proved to cause problems when they went to explore the stars, so I created a barrier. Four and Nine Hundred are fine, just a little bored. There is also a Heildor shard on the ship, but it's not causing any problems. And as for me... The Eye of Sign. I am able to see things, signs, what happens at the present moment. I myself am a sign to all, a deity of sorts. Admittedly, the word 'Sign' is not as literal as Rhyme or Time, it's more metaphorical. "

Pinkie nodded. "Yep, okay, good. There we go. Twilence, whatever happens next... Sorry this whole thing had to be botched."

Aradia turned to Pinkie. "This... This had to be botched?"

"Uh..."

"You knew."

Pinkie grinned. "...Yeeeeeeeah. I know lots of things."

Aradia twitched before sighing. "I... Right."

Evanescence narrowed her eyes. "Pinkie. You could, and should, be charged for this. Not acting on knowledge."

"I kinda have to not act on it, or else things fall apart. Twilence is different, though. She'll... Well I can't say, and also I don't know for sure. The ending is in flux!"

~~~

Twilence blinked. "The evil Vriska is gone..."

"Hm?"

"Nothing. I also learned a few things... Pinkie knew about this. We're in the catacombs. And the Overseer is losing patience."

"He only has so much."

"Yeah..." Twilence turned to Lore Thirst. "...The Eye isn't truly complete yet, is it?"

"Definitely not," Lore Thirst said. "Do you know why?"

Twilence frowned. She felt like she did... "Why?"

"It does not have the connections it needs. And those are connections I cannot provide. I can simply improve its methodology with what it has."

"Mmm..."

"There is one last thing I can do."

"Oh?"

"Try to synch the Influence and your Mind, to create a common experience of time. A 'live' interaction, if you will."

Twilence raised an eyebrow. "Do you really think... You really can. You know you can."

"Yes."

"...What are you waiting for then? I'd... I'd really like to actually talk with them."

"You'll get your wish..." Lore Thirst grabbed one of the cables and stuck it into the eye.

And then everything went blue.

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