First Experiment-Preparation
“So,” Rainbow Dash asked, “do you know what Twilight’s been working on?”
The five ponies were all walking to the library, after they had gotten a message that Twilight Sparkle had finished up something “very, very important and needed their help”. And, in her usual cryptic manner, that was all they knew.
“I just hope it isn’t something like the moth apple-ponies,” Fluttershy said in a small voice. “None of my friends were willing to get anywhere near the ponds for weeks afterwards.”
“Come on, we all know t’at Twilight Sparkle did the whole Pinkie Pie Promise thing if she was going to be doing mad science like t’at again. We aren’t having a repeat of the whole trees that buck back incident,” Applejack rejoined, giving them all a look. “And, we made Spike promise separate to give us all warning.”
“Yea, and neither of them would ever break a Pinkie Pie Promise!” Pinkie Pie chimed up. “So, it’s got to be something neat, like a perpetually filling cake pan!”
“I only hope her explanation is over quickly,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “I need to figure out this one problem of mine…”
“Oh?” Applejack asked, looking at Rarity. “What’s the problem?”
Rarity was about to say something when they came up to the door and Twilight Sparkle was there, waiting and smiling. “Come in, come in, I’m glad you all made it!”
She clearly wasn’t in the middle of one of her outbreaks of mad scientist-she had clearly groomed, looked to have eaten regularly, and...Rarity caught the faint whiff of the lavender body wash she gave Twilight Sparkle a few months after she became an alicorn. So, either she had lathered it on or she had only just bathed recently…
Applejack noticed that her hair was still a bit wet, and she looked a bit...frantic still. Please, let her not be messing with mad science again, Applejack thought, we’re still cleaning up from the last time!
Twilight Sparkle closed the door to the library and smiled at all of them. “I’m very, very glad you’re all here,” she said, a bit of a happy giggle in her throat. “I need your help with this new idea of mine, actually it’s an old one and…”
“Come on, Twilight, spit it out,” Rainbow Dash said, floating around the middle of the library. “What bit of crazy do you want to try out now?”
That seemed to shake Twilight Sparkle up a bit, but she shook her head, then looked around at her friends. “Well, a few weeks ago I was helping out with the deep stacks of the Royal Canterlotian Library, and I managed to find this very, very old spell. We’re taking pre-Era of Discord here! And, I figured out what the spell did, and I’m wanting to see if I made any serious improvements.”
“So, what does it do?” Fluttershy asked, curiously.
“I need to give you a bit of a history background,” Twilight Sparkle said, pulling out a small table with a whole bunch of prop items with her magic. “Back during the really bad era of wars, they had created a spell that let them merge two ponies into one body. It’s actually fascinating in some ways, but… Anyways! They sometimes needed to have a unicorn’s magic where only a pegasus could get to, or a pegasus ability to fly with the strength of an Earth pony, so the spell let them merge the two ponies into one pony so they could do the job.
“The problem is that what they had was two ponies in one body, and they had to really work together so that they could operate as a team. The new version of the spell, my version, is much, much better! Instead of two ponies in one body, it’s just one pony with two separate sets of memories! It’s a brilliant solution and using modern notation has let me drop the overall energy levels down even more,” Twilight Sparkle gushed.
“Oh, my…,” Rarity said. “Actually, that sounds kind of...horrible. A pony that had two sets of memories, what happened if they got mixed up?”
“They won’t. Look, the way it works is this...let’s imagine that this,” and here Twilight Sparkle held up a white string with her magic, “is my memories. This string,” and she held up a black string, “is Applejack’s memories.”
“Hey, don’t be dragging me into this!” Applejack interrupted.
“It’s an example, we’re not really doing it,” Twilight Sparkle sighed, but continued. “Two, separate, distinct lines of memories. When we use the fusion spell on the two ponies,” and it was here when she started to braid the two strings together, ending with about an equal length separate both at the top and the bottom, “the part here that is braided is the combined pony’s memories. They’re sharing them, but they’re still distinct. When they separate, they separate with their own memories. Nopony has their memories muddled or whatever.”
Applejack made a little motion with her right rear hoof and Fluttershy quietly sneaked off. It sounded like Twilight Sparkle was engaged in Mad Science again.
“And, I was really thorough about this,” Twilight Sparkle gushed, enthusiastically. “Worked it out initially, then got a full night’s sleep, checked my calculations, got a full eight hours of sleep again, send the work to Princess Celestia, and she send it back and I checked them again. And, I’ve worked out a series of safety protocols-the spell only lasts for a week. I made a charm which I gave to Spike and the Princesses that if it touches our nose or cutie marks, instantly detangles us, and…”
BONK.
Twilight Sparkle shook her head in shock after Applejack whacked her on the head with a whiffle bat. It didn’t hurt, of course-but, it did get her attention. “What...what was that for?” Twilight Sparkle asked, shocked.
“You’re thinking of mad science again,” Applejack replied, frustrated. “You remember what happened the last few times?”
“This is nothing like the ‘last few time’,” Twilight Sparkle sighed. “I worked out all the details and added some additional safety measures.”
“You said that,” Rarity sighed, shaking her head, “when we had the whole frog-orange thing.”
“That was one mis-aimed spell!”
“The trees that buck back incident,” Rainbow Dash replied. “I think I still have bruises from one of the trees getting me good.”
“We haven’t had any problems with fruit vampire bats after that.”
“The moth apple-ponies,” Applejack said, looking at Twilight Sparkle. “We nearly had a war and lost a good fifth of our orchards because of that.”
Twilight Sparkle groaned, and sat down on the floor, putting her hooves over her head. “Okay, okay, sometimes my judgement on trying out new magical things has been a bit poor,” she said. “But, that’s why I was very, very sure about all of this. And, I do really need all of you to help pull this off.”
“Why is that?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“Well, for the first run of the spell, I need to have an especially high level of inherent magical ability,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Because we’re all bearers of the Elements of Harmony, we are all more generally magical that your average pony. We’ve got more potential magic than even the Princesses. And, if the spell properly works…”
BONK.
This time, it was Rainbow Dash that hit Twilight Sparkle with the wiffle bat. “Twi, that is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard from you. And, considering we were working on the whole ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Cutie Mark Accelerator’ project, that’s saying something,” Rainbow Dash said.
Rarity looked around, and thought for second. “Twilight, it’s not a bad idea,” she said, carefully sticking her flank and tail in Applejack’s face to keep her from talking for a second, “but, I don’t really seen the potential in it.”
“Well,” Twilight Sparkle said, carefully watching for any further use of wiffle bats, “I was thinking of future problems. I mean, Discord is friendly now, but after we lost the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony, we might need more options. Or if King Sombra comes back. Or we have to deal with the Jovian Lizards…”
BONK.
“I’m...um, I’m sorry…,” Fluttershy said, hiding the wiffle bat behind her back. “It just looked like so much fun…”
“Twilight,” Applejack said, looking at her carefully. “It might be a good idea, but it’s one of those risky things t’at you promised all of us you wouldn’t try without a lot of thinking ‘bout it. Y’need to not do this right now, okay? Promise not to do it any time soon?”
“Okay, okay, I promise,” Twilight Sparkle replied. “I’ll check, again, with Princess Celestia to see if there’s any problems. But, you have to promise to think about it, and let me know by the time her letter gets back. Please?”
Applejack sighed, and nodded. “Okay, sugar cube. Ah promise to think about it some more.”
“Everypony else?” Twilight Sparkle looked around. All of her friends nodded.
“Okay, okay,” Twilight Sparkle said, and looked around for a second. “I won’t rope you into trying this out any time soon. But, I still want you to think about it. It’ll be an interesting experiment to try, and I really have thought it out this time.”
After her attempt at convincing her friends to help, Twilight Sparkle got right into doing research on the spell, which she called “Full Fusion”. She was pretty sure that the power levels were overdoing it, a brute-force effort when there might be a slightly more elegant way of handling things. It was almost sundown, Spike was starting to light the lights around the library, and Twilight Sparkle had promised everypony that she was going to get a good night’s sleep and set the work aside for at least eight hours a day, get rest, and come back at it fresh.
There was a knock at the front door of the library. Confused, as the library had been closed for about two hours, Twilight Sparkle wandered over to the door and opened it.
Standing there was Fluttershy, looking very, very guilty. “Um...may I come in?” she asked in a very small voice.
“Sure,” Twilight Sparkle said, opening the door fully and letting her in. “What’s going on?”
“I was thinking about the spell you were talking about, and…” Fluttershy started, when there was a knock at the back door.
“Let me find out what that is,” Twilight Sparkle said and Fluttershy nodded. Twilight Sparkle went to the back door, and opened it.
Standing there was Rarity and Applejack. “Hey, sugar cube, think you can let us in?”
“Okay,” Twilight Sparkle said, a bit curious, but led them in, “Fluttershy is here, and she was asking about the spell…”
“That’s great,” Rarity said with a smile. “We were about to ask you…,” when a knock sounded at the door to the patio upstairs.
“I’d better go get that,” Twilight Sparkle said, she went upstairs, where Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were knocking at the door to the patio. Pinkie Pie was her usual enthusiastic self and Rainbow Dash was dancing on her hooves like they were on fire.
“Hey, egghead, let us in!” Rainbow Dash said, and came blitzed past Twilight Sparkle after she opened the door, and ran immediately to the bathroom, the sound of a pony getting a chance to finally release her bladder resounding throughout the entire library. Rainbow Dash came out of the bathroom a few moments later, a happy expression on her face. “Sorry about that, Twi, I pretty much had to fly here with Pinkie Pie and didn’t get a chance to stop and pee.”
“Yea, she had a lot of punch!” Pinkie Pie gushed and headed downstairs, “Ooooh! So, what is everypony doing here?”
Twilight Sparkle sighed, and came downstairs.
“Okay, I suspect that it’s about the spell I proposed,” Twilight Sparkle said, looking at her friends. “So, what’s changed since this morning? Applejack, Rarity, you first-you had the most objections.”
“Well…,” Rarity began.
THREE HOURS AGO
“I understand, it’s very last minute, and I wish I could have gotten in touch with you sooner, but Jackie Belle came down with the flu and...I know, you said you don’t like Las Pegasus, but I’m nearly at the end of my rope here…,” Rarity was talking into her phone as Applejack brought in a large basket of apples. “Yes, I called her and her, you’re only last on my list because I know you don’t like Las Pegasus. If you know anypony else...oh, thank you. Good luck, and talk to you soon.”
Rarity hung up the phone with exaggerated care-she knew that her magic could have smashed the phone any time she wanted to. Deep breath, deep breath...calm. There was a solution here, she just had to figure it out.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a perfect win/win for Rarity. Tack And Stable, the largest fashion magazine for Las Pegasus, wanted to do a “up and coming” designer selection and they had as the photographer Hassle Brad, famous for more fashion photos than Rarity had bolts of fabric. One of Hassle Brad’s most famous shots-Celestia At The Pool-was one of the most reprinted images that Rolling Storm magazine ever did. He was also a notorious perfectionist, having shot something like fifty rolls of film to get just ten photos of the Princess that he liked.
Rarity knew of at least three models that would be perfect for the job-had the right style, the right look for the theme that Tack And Stable wanted, and were skilled enough to deal with Hassle Brad’s demanding work style. But, Jackie Belle, a lovely Unicorn model with some of the best legs Rarity knew of professionally, had come down with the flu. Silver Sable, a stunning Earth pony with some of the most silky-smooth and shapely legs outside of young pony’s wet dreams, had gotten a sudden booking to work Fashion Week in Equestria. The designers there were paying her more by the hour than Rarity could afford for the week she had budgeted. The last pony she had called, Moon Dream, hated Las Pegasus (due to an incident at a casino where they thought she was a “professional” mare, not just her usual style of dress and form) and was in the middle of a major shoot for Fashion Week as well.
Thinking, she never heard Applejack come in, and only knew she was there when Applejack coughed politely. “Hey, Rarity, got t’ apples you wanted,” Applejack said, getting Rarity’s attention.
“Oh, yes...thank you. Sorry, I’ve just been distracted,” Rarity said, thinking. “I’ve got a major fashion disaster going on, and I can’t think of a solution.”
“What’s t’ problem?” Applejack asked, curious.
“Well, I got a request to do a full photo spread with Tack and Stable magazine out in Las Pegasus. They want to show off my Spring line and it’s a big coup for me-it might even let me break into the Las Pegasus market in a big way. Now,” Rarity said, walking around, thinking, “I might do it myself, but I don’t have the form or legs for it. They want some pony with great legs, and, a very fit body…”
Rarity’s voice trailed off as she looked at Applejack for a second. Then, she got out her tape measure, used her magic, and swiftly took measurements of Applejack, to her surprise. “What the…,” Applejack gasped as she did so.
Rarity got to work on her notepad and did some swift calculations. “It might work, it just might work...but…”
“Oh no,” Applejack said, looking for the door. “You are not dressing me up in fancy! Or doing a makeover or whatever!”
“Yea, but.” Rarity sighed and sagged down into herself. “You’re a lovely mare, Applejack, and everypony loves you. But, Hassle Brad is highly demanding and he drives professional models to tears. An amateur like yourself...it wouldn’t work.”
“You’re saying I couldn’t do it?” Applejack spoke loudly. “Y’saying that a fancy boy would drive me nuts?”
“This isn’t bucking apples, Applejack,” Rarity said, trying to calm her friend down. “It’s a very specialized set of skills, one that I’ve spent years working on myself. A lady like me would be useless bucking apples, obviously! But, if you needed the best apple bucker around, you’re the mare we’d call.”
“Okay,” Applejack calmed down. “Still say I could do it.”
“I think so, too...but, not without a lot of practice and training and…” Rarity’s voice trailed off.
“Rarity?” Applejack asked, looking at Rarity’s slightly confused expression on her face.
“It just might work,” Rarity whispered. “I mean, if you had my skills, or I had your body…”
“Oh no…,” Applejack took a step back to the door.
“Twilight Sparkle’s spell! A day to Las Pegasus and back, three days to do the shoot, and that leaves us two days to get the dresses properly fitted,” Rarity said, her eyes full of stars. “It would work! It would really, really work!”
“Rarity! Frog-oranges! Trees t’at buck back!,” Applejack tried to stop the oncoming train of thought Rarity was having.
“It’s perfect! I mean, she did say that the Princess had checked the spell out and worked out all the details,” Rarity said. “And, it’s a paid gig, and while I don’t need the money, I do know that you were saying that the farm needed some new equipment. And, I think the money we’ll get will get you everything.”
“Rarity, moth apple-ponies,” Applejack all but yelled. “I don’t want to be a moth apple-pony again!”
“They tried to make you their queen, you know. I had this utterly lovely idea for your regalia.”
“T’at’s exactly why I don’t want to be one again!”
“Look, let’s just go and get more details from Twilight Sparkle. Worse case, it doesn’t work out and maybe I can think of another idea. If you’re still unconvinced when that’s over...I’ll think of something else. Deal?” Rarity asked.
“Okay, okay,” Applejack said, realizing that she was about to lose this argument. “But, if t’ word moth apple-pony shows up anywhere, I’m running!”
“...and, that’s why we’re here,” Rarity finished. “This is a really big break for me and I want to help out Applejack as well.”
“Yea,” Applejack said. “But, I don’t want it to be like t’ last few times we tried something of yours out, sugar cube.”
“It’s safe, I promise. Look, I’ve got all my notes here, you can take a look,” Twilight Sparkle said, shaking her head. “So, the next question is-why are you here, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie?”
“Well!!!” Pinkie Pie began to wind up for a song, and Rainbow Dash tackled her.
“Actually, it went something like this,” Rainbow Dash started, holding down Pinkie Pie and keeping her mouth shut.
TWO HOURS AGO.
“Really wish I could be more help,” Pinkie Pie said. “But, if he’s as smart a pony as you think think he is, you’ve got a challenge.”
“That, I do,” Rainbow Dash sighed.
Rainbow Dash had a particular pain in her life, and that pain’s name was Wall Cloud. Every once in a while, she needed to get some weather from the South-mostly for water balance reasons. And, every time she put an order in, Wall Cloud was the pegasus that handled it.
And Wall Cloud was a practical joker of the low kind. The sort that thought that itching powder in your jock strap was funny. Last time she put an order in for about six large mid-cumuliform clouds, she got twelve small low stratiform clouds. And, when she tried to herd them into place to get the six she needed, it set all of them off-and pretty much poured like crazy all over the southern part of Ponyville.
And completely drenched Rainbow Dash, as well.
Since the only way you could set up a stunt like that would be the pegasus to have herded the clouds in the first place, it clearly was Wall Cloud’s fault. But, he kept his flank covered-and she couldn’t figure out how he was getting the orders “right”. So, clearly, retaliation was in order here. The problem was...there was no way she could do it without having it point right at her. He lived in Cloudsale, may have never been on the ground in his whole life, and knew Rainbow Dash by sight. So, asking for help from the Princess of Parties, the Element of Funny, Pinkie Pie, was in order.
And, if Pinkie Pie couldn’t think of a good way of getting him back…
“I mean, I’d have to be there to figure it out, and that would be like tabasco sauce on a cupcake, wouldn’t it?” Pinkie Pie asked, then started to think. “Hm...what would tabasco sauce on a cupcake taste like?”
Rainbow Dash cringed mentally, but said, “Hey, I’m glad I was able to bounce some ideas off of you. I’ll think of something…”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” Pinkie Pie said, pronking over to stop Rainbow Dash from leaving. “If I need to be there to figure something out, and if he would know it was you...why not have him see a pony he’s never seen before!”
“Um, how would that work?” Rainbow Dash replied, thinking about this and realizing that she couldn’t be thinking of that…
“Twilight Sparkle’s spell! It makes two ponies into one pony! And, I would think, the pony wouldn’t look like any other pony before!” Pinkie Pie gushed, loving this idea. “We have her use the spell on us, and if we can’t figure out how to prank Wall Cloud in a week, why, I’ll eat my chef’s hat!”
“Pinkie, you made that hat out of bread,” Rainbow Dash sighed. “It’s one of the Twilight Sparkle’s crazy ideas! You were there when we tried out the whole ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Cutie Mark Accelerator’ thing-I’m still finding bits of bubblegum in my house…”
“Oh, she said she had the Princess check and you don’t think she’d let us play with something dangerous, would you?” Pinkie Pie replied, snuggling right up to Rainbow Dash.
“I guess not…” Rainbow Dash said softly.
“So! We’ll go over there right now, and ask her how it works!” Pinkie Pie said, hopping onto Rainbow Dash’s back.
“Well, okay, but I need to go to the bathroom first…”
“Right! Now!”
Twilight Sparkle was clearly going to be face-hoofing the whole night at this rate. “Pinkie Pie, what did we say about letting ponies use the bathroom?” she asked.
“‘When a pony needs to use the bathroom,’” Pinkie Pie said in a sing song voice of reciting a lecture back, “‘unless there is an actual dangerous reason why they shouldn’t go, you should let them go.’ I am sorry, really! But, it’s a great idea and I want to do it now!”
“Okay, okay, you’re convinced. Now, Fluttershy, why are you here?”
“Well,” Fluttershy said in a soft voice. “I’m having an outbreak of peeps and I’ve tried the peep-safe traps and talking to them and pleading with them and trying to negotiate and helping them out, but they keep eating my plants and I’m needing to make sure that I’m good on herbs with the upcoming season to help out some of the more crankier animals and…”
“Fluttershy, breathe!” Twilight Sparkle said loudly, and waited a second as Fluttershy took a deep, deep breath.
“So, you need me to come over and help?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“Well, yes, but now that we’re talking about playing with this fusion magic, I was thinking of something a bit less...brute-force than how you usually do things, Twilight. I mean, you’re good with magic and everything, but there have been a few incidents in the past and we’re getting close to the end of the growing season for these herbs and if we have some bears with a tummy ache I really don’t want to be short…,” and here Fluttershy was starting to have trouble breathing again.
“Fluttershy,” every other pony in the library said, “BREATHE!”
She took a huge, deep breath, and looked very embarrassed. “I’m willing to give it a try. If you want me. If you don’t mind, really…,” Fluttershy trailed off softly.
Twilight Sparkle smiled. “If you want, we can try it. Applejack, Rarity, if you have any objections?”
Applejack looked up at the notes and shrugged. “Well, sugar cube, I do have to admit that you’ve been thorough. You got multiple ways of handling any problem, and even a tracking spell to keep track of where we are.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash said, shocked, “You’ll be tracking us?”
“RD, it’s just a precaution! It only works while the fusion spell works, and it’s like the reversing stones,” Twilight Sparkle said, calmly. “If something goes wrong, the princesses and Spike can easily find us. And return us to normal.”
“Okay, Twi,” Rainbow Dash said, calming down a bit. “So, when can we get started?”
“Right now,” she said. “Everypony go to the bathroom first! And, meet me in the basement!”
Twilight Sparkle was proud of her basement. It was huge, and the well-built walls and ceiling allowed her to mount or hang anything she wanted from them.
Now, the floor had been cleaned completely off and a series of chalk lines and incantations had been drawn on it. In a place of prominence was a single large circle with six smaller circles strung along it like beads on a string. Surrounding the whole set of chalk lines was a huge blue chalk circle that was written in very advanced Unicorn magic equations. Twilight Sparkle looked around, smiled a bit, and looked at her friends. “Okay, is everypony ready?”
“So, why t’ insistance upon the bathroom run, Twilight?” Applejack asked, curious.
“There is a slight but very possible possibility that bladder and colon contents might not be combined during the fusion process. So, to minimize that possibility, everypony goes to the bathroom first,” Twilight Sparkle replied, checking the markings again, for the sixth time.
“That’s a possibility! You mean, we could have had too much in our bladders and exploded! I don’t want to explode!” Rainbow Dash was almost yelling at this point.
“A SLIGHT possibility,” Twilight Sparkle emphasized. “Which we’re not going to take a chance with. Anyways, let me sum the rules up right now-if you step past the security circle here,” and she tapped a blue chalk spell inscription that ringed the entire spell, “you’re committed once I start bringing the power levels up. Nopony can back out, because if you do, we just might explode. When I say ‘ready’, everypony stands on their back hooves. And, when I say, ‘go’, you need to touch your partner’s front hooves with yours, and use the command word. What is the command word, every pony?”
“‘Fusion, HA!’” the rest of them said.
“Okay, I’m in first,” Twilight Sparkle said, and stepped across the security circle with a small tingle of power. “Everypony else, to your places-Rarity in front of me, Fluttershy to my left, Pinkie Pie to my right, Rainbow Dash to Rarity’s left, and Applejack to Rarity’s right. And, remember, you start in the circles!”
The other ponies walked to their places, gingerly stepping to avoid the chalk marks. Oddly enough, Rarity was last in, but she settled into her circle, waiting. “Last call,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Fluttershy?”
“I’m ready,” Fluttershy said softly.
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Okie dokie!”
“Rainbow Dash?”
“This is either going to be so awesome or a complete mess, I’m ready!”
“Applejack?”
“I’m a’ready for anything.”
“And, Rarity?”
“Let’s do this, darling,” Rarity replied, and nodded to Twilight Sparkle.
“Okay...Rarity, on three...two...one...now!” Twilight Sparkle and Rarity’s horns began to glow, and the chalk lines-first the blue safety circle, then the ones inside the circle, began to glow with the power of their magic. The first flickers of free magic-of every color, of no color, of that odd sensation of seeing every color at once-separated out like a diagram and combined as if blended on an artist’s easel-began to float off the floor like fireflies. Twilight Sparkle looked around, and saw that the indicators were beginning to glow properly. It was time.
“Everypony, ready!” Twilight Sparkle said loudly over the increasing background hum of the magic. There was a faint smell in the air, of possibility, smelling of jasmine and petrichor, of the first apples of the season, of the first whiff of a new and uncut bolt of fabric, of a newly opened box of cinnamon. All six came up to their rear hooves, the front hooves held up, waiting.
“Celestia, bless us for our dreams,” Twilight Sparkle whispered softly under her breath. Then, with a deep breath, she spoke, almost yelling, “GO!”
“FUSION!” all six ponies said, front hooves reaching into the air, and reaching towards their partners.
“HA!” they said, their hooves touching.
The entire basement filled with light.
Author's Note
There are three stories of the first Fusion Dance experiment, and they're titled like this-
A-Rarijack
B-Pinkie Dash
C-Twilightshy
-and, you'll be able to vote on which story you want to read first.
Rules are as follows!
1)You have to comment on this story. Your vote, by LETTER (A, B, or C) has to be the first thing on the comment.
2)You have to actually talk about the story in your comment.
3)Voting continues until 1/15/14, where voting will be stopped and the first of the three stories will be finished and posted.
