The entry room was an immense stairway that lead to different parts of the castle. Atop the stairs was miss Princess Celestia wearing a dress for once, greeting ponies as they walked in a file in her direction. I would have expected Luna or Miss Twilight to be here too, but a quick glance around the room indicated that they were nowhere to be seen. Next to us was a pony in a fancy costume waiting patiently as the guests came up to him and gave him their tickets to the Gala. He then produced a trumpet, and used it to announce the guests. I walked up to him.

"Hello, mister!" I said to him, excited, as I gave him our ticket.

"Good evening," he answered on an even tone, not even looking our way as he snatched our ticket from our hand. He read over it quickly and played his trumpet. "Ahem! Announcing Recto and Verso, the human!" he called.

I nodded and looked around, smiling, and quickly stopped. Everyone was staring at us, surprised. I blushed heavily. You know these movies where then music ends with a scratch when someone enters the room? It felt a bit like that, but the music was thankfully still going on. I awkwardly waved at them and walked up to miss Princess Celestia, still blushing like a tomato. Strangely enough, every pony in the line moved away from us as we approached the Princess, some of them talking to their neighbour under their breath, not letting us out of their sight for an instant. It was really, really uncomfortable. Not what I was expecting at all.

Nevertheless, I soon reached miss Princess Celestia. She smiled warmly at me, and I felt my discomfort melting away.

"Good evening, you two," she said. "Welcome to the Grand Galloping Gala."

I remembered a few bits of our lessons with mister Prince Blueblood and bowed slightly. "Thank you, miss Your Highness Princess Celestia," I replied. I was nailing it. She smiled and maybe snorted, but I wasn't sure and mister Prince Blueblood had told us that it would be impolite to point it out. "Why isn't Luna with you?"

"Oh, she is probably somewhere," she answered. "It's tradition that I would be the one to welcome the guests on the night of the Gala."

Sounded weird to me. "Doesn't that undermine her presence to the nobility?" Verso asked. "Oh, and good evening."

Miss Princess Celestia shook her head. "Back before her banishment, my sister and I divided this sort of duties. She had a similar party to preside during the winter, back then."

"Oh... That makes sense..."

"What have you brought with you?" she inquired, pointing at the papers I was carrying under our arm.

"These are Verso's notes for our encounter with the science ponies later," I answered.

"Ah, yes. Well, I hope your meeting goes well."

With that she slightly nodded and I walked away, letting the others reach her. I roamed around the party, searching for someone I would recognize. I spotted quite a few guards, but none of them looked like they were up to chat with us. And everyone except for them was looking at us when they thought we couldn't see them. It was really awkward, but I guessed that they were simply curious. Or maybe they were admiring the suit that miss Rarity had made us. That would have been understandable. One of the waiters went by us, carrying strange glasses with some bubbly liquid inside, and I picked it up.

"This is... more boring than I thought..." I whispered to ourselves, taking a sip of the bubbly thing, and wincing. "That thing tastes so bad! What is this?"

Champagne, I'd say. And it's a formal party. What were you expecting?

"Something more... exciting," I answered as I levitated the glass to a nearby table. "Like Pinkie Pie's parties in Ponyville, but, you know, bigger."

Pinkie's parties are more fit for kids' birthdays than to entertain prissy old ponies.

"Yeah, and they're actually fun! There's nothing to do here, except maybe listening to the music. And everyone is staring at us and that's weird!" I said a bit louder, making a couple ponies look away with a falsely innocent air on their face.

You're just bored because you have nothing to do. Keep searching for Twilight and the others.

I grumbled a bit and did just that. I eventually noticed a big door to the gardens and decided to head outside. The sun was already setting, which was weird because it was way to early for that, and I thought that I may find something interesting to do. Maybe the animals would come out and play or something. Maybe I would see the squirrel again! That was an exciting thought. But instead, I found Luna in a dress of her own, levitating a glass of that horrid bubbly thing while she listened to a disturbingly overweight and unhealthy looking old unicorn mare. She caught a glimpse of us, and I saw her glance at the pony that was talking at her before she waved happily in our direction. I went up to her just as the honestly fat pony looked to see just who Luna was waving at. She didn't look so happy to see us.

"Ah, Recto, Verso, how nice of you to come by, and with such a perfect timing too," she said when we were close enough. "Duchess Wideboro here-"

"Actually, it's 'Mareboro', your Highness," the mare corrected, still looking warily at us.

"... Right, Duchess Mareboro was telling me about a business of hers and I thought that your view as an outsider would be helpful." I heard Verso mentally snorting. "What were you just telling me, again?"

The old pony looked unsure, but complied. "I was just telling you how the latest studies have mostly disproved the theories saying that the products my company ungufacture are dangerous for ponies' health, so there wasn't any reason to keep up these silly laws that restrict their distribution!"

"Lady Mareboro here is one of the leader in the production of a mostly plant-based product that apparently helps ponies focus and go on about their day," Luna explained, and Verso plainly chuckled. "What was it called again?"

"Cigarettes, your Majesty."

Now, you may think that I wouldn't know what that word really meant, since these things had disappeared decades before we were even born, but you would be wrong. Remember, Verso and I spent most of our free time reading, and cigarettes were mentioned in a lot of books. And not under a good light in most of them. So I nearly reacted immediately, but, strangely enough, I was reined in by Verso.

Do you mind if I do that one myself?

Well, no, but why would-

You'll see. It should be quite amusing.

I nodded. Okay then, she's yours!

"'Cigarettes', huh?" Verso asked. "What are those things?"

What? I thought you-

Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.

"Oh, it's quite simple, really," the old mare said, smiling slightly. "It was inspired by a buffalo ritual, in fact. They used to burn dried tobacco leaves and breath the smoke produced to calm their nerves. We eventually changed the process to make it easier to use."

"Interesting. You wouldn't happen to have one of those thing one you, by any chance?"

What are you doing?! I nearly shouted.

Come on, trust me. I noticed that Luna was looking at us, quite shocked. Verso discretely winked at her. I'm not going to do anything stupid.

"I do!" the mare said, levitating a small pack out of her purse, and eventually giving us a cigarette.

Verso inspected it quickly, and I must admit I was a bit curious too. They looked just like books would describe them, up to what I assumed was the filter. I really wasn't expecting to find such a thing on Equestria.

"I assume that you're supposed to light up that tip and breath in through the other one?" Verso asked.

"Yes. Do you need-"

"No thanks, I can set stuff on fire easily." He demonstrated by creating a small flame on our fingertips, before putting it off, looking thoughtful. "I wonder... What's inside those, again?"

"Oh, tobacco, mostly, and some stuff to make it taste a bit better."

"Is that so? What sort of 'stuff' are we talking about? Us humans have a lot allergies, I fear, and I'd prefer to know if it could be dangerous to me."

The mare's smile faltered a bit. "Oh, I don't really remember on the tip of my tongue..."

"Oh, don't worry, I happen to have a spell that let's me know what's inside of things."

Verso quickly created a small, concentrated sense field around the cigarette, and took a falsely surprised expression to hide his grin.

"Oh, my. Is that arsenic I feel inside this thing? You use that in rat poison, right? And cyanide too? That's highly poisonous!"

The mare was sweating heavily. "It is, but the quantities are so small that-"

"Oh, and that tobacco plant contains nicotine! I don't know about you ponies, but that's highly addictive to us humans. Would make me smoke these until there's no tomorrow!"

"It's not..."

"And I haven't even lit it up yet! Considering how it is crafted, I assume it must produce quite a bit of nasty things when it burns too!" Verso lit up the cigarette and kept his sensing field in place. "Turns out I was right! It's making carbon monoxyde! Do you ponies know that this stuff gets on your blood cells and prevents you from getting oxygen? And that's discounting a lots of other nasty stuff! You guys know what cancer is?"

"We do not," Luna said, hardly hiding a grin behind a surprised expression. "Please enlighten us, Verso."

"It's complicated, but it's basically a dangerous disease that's provoked when some of your cells mutate and turn into overdrive, and that mutation is triggered by all kind of stuff, like about seventy of the chemicals I'm sensing inside that 'cigarette' right now. And seeing how addictive that thing is, were I to try it, I'd probably 'smoke' it for years to come, long enough to be sure that I'd get that thing. It's bad, really bad."

"W-Well, I..."

"Did you know about all that?" Verso asked, falsely shocked. "You just said that the latest research said it was harmless! Who paid those researchers? They should be fired!"

"I di- I should be going, now..." the mare said. She lightly bowed to Luna and quickly ran away.

Verso and Luna shared a glance, and the three of us couldn't hold it any longer and laughed. Well, some more than the others. Verso and Luna shared a chuckle, really.

"I must thank you, Verso," Luna said as Verso snuffed out the cigarette and threw it in a nearby bin. "She had been trying to persuade me to change laws in her favor for quite some time by now."

"No problem, her face was quite amusing to watch."

"I must ask, though, was all those things you said true? It sounded gruesome."

Verso shrugged. "It was, mostly. Cancer and addiction are a bit more complicated than I portrayed. But seriously, regulate the shit out of this trash."

Luna nodded. "My sister made these laws concerning them for a reason. But enough of this, are you enjoying yourselves?"

"Nah, it's boring," I said, taking back the front place.

"Oh, I doubt it will last. My sister usually sets up events to distract herself from the innate boredom of these parties. I wonder what she did this year..."

"Well, she invited us," I pointed out. "And everyone has been staring at us weirdly since we arrived. Are we supposed to be the distraction? Because if that's the case, I'll go and find the closest chocolate fountain and put up a real distraction!"

"Please, say something to stop him from doing that."

"You won't stop me, Verso! It's my destiny!"

Luna chuckled. "Would it not stain your suit, though?"

I blinked, and look at ourself. "Damn, you're right."

Language.

I rolled our eyes, and smirked. "I'll just have to get them off before I dive into the chocolate thingy."

Verso growled and mindpalmed, while Luna was visibly trying to decide whether or not I was serious. She --wisely-- decided to drop the subject and pointed at Verso's notes. "You have brought something with you," she noted.

"Yeah, Verso said he could use some support for his 'meeting' later. So I have to carry them around until he no longer needs them."

She nodded. "Speaking of that, have you already seen professor Neighton?"

"Nah," Verso answered. "I should have organized that better. I have actually no idea when or where we are supposed to meet up during the Gala."

"Same thing with miss Twilight and the others," I remarked. "I'd have thought she would be around miss Princess Celestia, but she isn't. Did you see her?" I asked the lunar princess. "She wanted to come to Verso's boring thing."

"I have not," she answered. "And seeing as I have nothing better to do, let us search for her together!" she exclaimed happily, raising a hoof in the air.

Verso felt perplex. "Shouldn't you... I don't know, 'mingle with the upper crust' or something like that?"

Luna nodded. "I probably should, indeed," she confirmed, sipping on her drink. "But that is far more boring than forming a miniature search party. Let the hunt begin!"

She walked back into the party proper, leaving us a bit behind. Luna seemed in an incredibly good mood, for some reason. I wonder why? I quickly caught up to her and started to look around for the Purple Pony Princess. Ponies were still looking at us and whispering between each other, but I didn't really care about that anymore.

"How many of these did you even drink?" Verso asked, glancing at Luna's weirdly shaped glass.

"That is not a question that I will answer," she replied, smiling. "By the way, do you mind if I intrude into your little encounter? It does sound as if some interesting discussions are about to be made."

Verso raised an eyes brow. "You didn't understand a few pages of my books. No offense, but I don't think you have the knowledge required to follow."

Luna scoffed. "I am certain that you would be able to explain most of these theories in an understandable manner. Besides," she added, muttering, "it would still be more appreciable than listening to another one of these stuck-up jerks that dare to call themselves 'nobles'."

That sounded a bit mean, but neither of us said anything. We walked around the rooms for a few minutes, Luna and I discussing while Verso stayed mostly silent, until I heard someone trying to catch our attention from behind us. When I turned around, I discovered an aging beige pony that was trotting in our direction, wearing what even I could see was an outdated tuxedo. He was also carrying a couple piles of paper sheets on his back, somehow not dropping them. He seemed rather annoyed.

That's professor Neighton, Verso indicated in my mind.

He looks about as boring as I thought.

Verso grinned, amused, and we waited for the older pony to meet up with us. When he got near enough, I also noticed bags under his eyes, as well as some hints that he was rather tired. Nonetheless, a spark of interest and passion gleamed in his eyes when he met ours.

"Mister Verso!" he exclaimed. "I'm happy to have found you so quickly. A few more minutes around these bigots and I would have probably started to lose my mind."

Did he call you 'mister'?

"It is nice to see you tonight, professor," Luna said cheerfully.

Mister professor Neighton blinked at her, as if he hadn't even realized that Luna had been here before, and slightly nodded. "Your Highness." He turned his attention back to us. "I have finished reading through your work, sir, and it is even beyond what I expected when we met last night!" he said, an excited smile forming on his face. "I have so many questions!"

Verso raised our handn calming the pony down. "It's a pleasure too, professor Neighton, but I'd prefer if you held them for later. Did you contact your acquaintances?"

The old pony looked a bit saddened, but nodded. "Yes. Sadly, only three of them could come here in such a short notice."

"Thank you. I am currently looking for Princess Twilight Sparkle, who wanted to join us."

He looked a bit confused. "Princess Tw... Oh, yes. I'm still not used to having so many princesses. So Princess Twilight is coming too? I've heard of her. She has a solid head on her shoulders."

I looked at Luna. "You're coming too, right?"

She nodded. "Of course. It's much too promising for me to miss."

When I looked back at mister professor Neighton, he looked a bit confused, again. "Did your voice..."

"Oh, silly me, I forgot that you didn't know much about me yet," Verso said. "You see, I am not exactly 'alone' in my head. This body actually hosts two persons: myself, of course, and my brother, Recto."

"Hi! I'm Recto, nice to meet you!"

Mister professor Neighton looked even more confused, but mostly interested. "You have some form a multiple personality disorder?"

I felt Verso getting annoyed when the professor asked that, but he said nothing of it. "It's more complicated than this, in that we aren't different parts of a same person, but two completely different souls. It's... complicated, really."

The older pony nodded slowly, seemingly a bit dubious. He then suddenly got an excited look on his face. "Does this Recto knows as much as-"

"Not even close," I said. "Verso is the only one to know about all this sciency stuff. It always was much too boring for me to listen to those classes."

"Oh..." he said, disappointed.

"Anyway, we were searching for the last princess. Would you come along?" Verso asked as we resumed our search for Equestria's most purple princess.

We looked around the main ballroom and continued our hunt towards the entrance, hoping that we could catch her as soon as she would enter the Gala. Meanwhile, Verso and the professor were discussing some mathematical nonsense about imaginary numbers, as if the normal ones weren't boring enough already. Thankfully, I spotted our target before it really got out of hand: Twilight and the others were walking in our direction, chatting quietly. They were wearing what I assume were considered dresses for ponies, and nice-looking ones at that. Except for Spike, of course, who was wearing a classy little tuxedo. I was just wondering why miss Twilight was also wearing saddlebags.

"Hey! Miss Twilight!" I called, waving at her.

She turned her head in our direction when I called her, smiled excitedly, said something to her friends, and left them to walk gleefully in our direction. And she somehow managed to smile even wider when she spotted mister professor Neighton next to us. It was on the level on Pinkie's smiles, to be exact.

"Good evening, Recto, Verso," she said, badly containing her own glee. "And it's nice to see you again, Princess Luna," she added with a small nod.

"The pleasure is mutual, Princess Twilight," Luna said, returning the gesture. "I do not believe you have met Professor Neighton yet?" she continued, gesturing toward the old pony with a wing.

He bowed slightly, like he had done for Luna. "Your Highness."

Twilight blushed fiercely. "Professor, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've read all of your work!"

The old pony raised an eyebrow. "All of it? It's quite the long read."

She giggled awkwardly. "Well, I do spend a lot of my time reading."

I looked at her, confused. "A lot? You spend nearly all your time with your nose buried in a book when you don't have to do something else! I'm pretty sure you forgot to sleep two days in a raw last week because you were reading some nonsense about an old enchanter or something!"

She stared at me in a way that made me wonder if I had just insulted her or something. "That was an extremely rare edition of one of Starswirl the Bearded treaties regarding the amniomorphic spell, not some 'nonsense about an old enchanter'!"

"That's not important," Verso declared, turning to face professor Neighton. "Did you arrange a meeting place with the others, or are we to find them the same way we found the princess?"

He shook his head. "I had one of my assistants make sure that we would have an appropriate room somewhere in the Palace. This... Gala is no place to have a serious discussion."

"Out of the Gala?" Verso asked, raising an eyebrow. He then looked at Luna. "Will that be alright with you, Princess? We were supposed to spent the night here, after all."

Luna looked uneasy, and didn't look at us in the eyes when she replied. "After yesterday, my sister and I decided that we could be a bit more lenient about this part of your punishment."

"Good." Verso turned his attention back to mister Neighton. "Show the way."

"'After what happened yesterday'?" I heard miss Twilight quietly repeat for herself. "Do you mean-" Verso shot a glare at her, and she silenced herself.

"What is this 'punishment' Princess Luna mentioned?" mister Professor Neighton asked as he started to walk toward a nearby door.

"Verso and I went on a trek to some old spooky ruins in the Everfree Forest without telling anyone, and that scared miss Princess Celestia and miss Twilight, so we were punished and told not to do it again."

"And your punishment consists of being forced to go to Equestria's most renown party?" he asked, dubious. I nodded in confirmation and he glanced at Princess Luna. "You and your sister are more cruel than I thought. Maybe I should show more respect in my usual demeanor?"

Luna smirked. "That would surely be a victory for the ages, professor."

"So, what do you want to talk about tonight, Verso?" miss Twilight asked, a certain eagerness in her tone.

Verso glanced at her, grinning. "Same thing I talk about every night, Twilight. How to take over the world."She looked at us as if Verso was crazy.

I understood that reference!

Verso sighed. Thank you, Recto. "That was a joke, of course. I'll mostly talk about the content of my books, and about exactly how far off the laws of physics are in this place compared to Earth."

"Your people called your homeland 'Earth'? That's a bit unimaginative," professor Neighton denoted.

"I currently reside in a town named 'Ponyville'. Who are the uninspired ones, again?" Verso replied with a smirk. "Besides, it's mostly due to old beliefs."

"What do you mean?" miss Twilight asked, as she levitated a pencil and a notebook out of her saddlebags.

"To put it simply, a long time before my birth, humans worshipped various gods," Verso began explaining, looking at Twilight as she wrote down his every word. "In most cases, they thought that our planet was one of such deities, and gave it a name. Then, we would simply use that name when talking about the ground in general. Are you going to write down everything I say?"

"Mostly, yes," miss Twilight answered. "It'll be the most I'll have ever heard out of you. I'm not wasting this opportunity."

Verso shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"I had previously understood that your people were really science-focused," Luna remarked. "Why would they use such an abstract concept as a 'god'?"

"Simple: we like answers, and when we don't have them, we make them. At first, ancient religions used these myths to explain concepts we didn't understood, like where we humans come from, why there is a big fireball in the sky that hurts to look at, how come that grass grows, why in the seven hells is winter coming... Basic stuff, really, but we didn't know yet, and we wanted an answer. Some lingered after science could disprove most of their myths, because we quite like to think that we were created to be perfect rather than the fact that we are cousins with stupid chimps."

"That's not entirely true," I protested. "Most of those that lingered were mostly teaching people to be kind with each other, weren't they?"

"Yes," Verso replied with a bit of venom in his tone, "and others were used to take control over the masses and persecute those that didn't deserve it, like scared children that were slightly different from everyone else. That was sooo kind on their part."

Silence fell around us. Miss Twilight wasn't writing down anymore, just looking at us, Luna looked like she would have preferred not asking, and professor Neighton was still walking forward, the only sign that he was listening being his ears slightly turned in our direction. Then, after a few, heavy seconds of silence, Luna talked.

"I am sorry if I have brought up a topic that you would have rather avoided, Verso."

He sighed. "Don't be. I went off-track myself."

I'm sorry too.

It's no problem, I said.

Maybe, but you're not thinking it.

Verso didn't reply to that, instead focusing on professor Neighton. "Are we far from our destination yet?"

"Not that much, really. It's supposedly just around the corner," he said just as we turned. A few steps from us, we could see a younger pony wearing glasses waving at us through an open door. "There we are."

"Were you really being-" miss Twilight started to whisper behind us.

"Now is not the time for-" Verso answered, interrupting himself when he spotted a nightguard batpony following us, and staring creepily at us. Verso blinked. "Since when were you..."

Verso blasted a big sense field, large enough for us to feel some ponies dancing in the ballroom, more than fifty meters away. He squinted our eyes at the batpony, as confused as he was distressed. He glanced at Luna, who looked more annoyed than anything else.

"He wasn't there a moment ago," he stated, as if it explained everything.

"Sunshine is particularly apt in the art of not being not seen, Verso," Luna said. "And he is my most trusted ponyguard. Don't mind him."

"I don't like being surprised like that. At all."

"I will keep that in mind, and make sure you two meet often, in that case."

"What was that spell just now?" professor Neighton asked, intrigued. "I don't think I have ever seen something quite like that."

"Just a trick I came up with," Verso answered, still glaring at mister Sunshine. "It allows me to sense everything in a defined perimeter. I tend to use it by reflex when I'm startled."

"Interesting," professor Neighton said as he entered the room.

Verso followed him and we entered into what I could only picture as a hundred-plus year old classroom: it was rather big, with about two dozen sits facing a blackboard that was furnished with white sticks and a wooden rectangle with hairs on one side. While I was amazed, Verso was more surprised and confused, wondering why there even were a classroom in the middle of a Palace. Silly Verso. As if colourful magical ponies needed a reason for having classrooms anywhere.

Miss Twilight came in too, soon followed by Luna, who instructed mister Sunshine to guard the door. Looking around the room, we noticed that there weren't anyone else yet, only our little group and professor Neighton's assistant, who kept looking at the older pony and us. He finally settled on us with a big smile, as Verso walked up to the desk and put down his notes.

"Are-Are you sir Verso?" the blue pegasus asked. Heh, 'Sir Verso'. "I... I'm Flickering Light, professor's Neighton assistant!" he said, hesitantly extanding a hoof for us to shake. "It's an honor, sir!"

Verso looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Shake his hoof! I ushered. Come on!

What, and give him a nerdgasm? Heavens above, the guy looks like he's about to have a heart-attack!

I grunted and took the front seat, smiling as I shook the poor pony's leg. "Nice to meet you, mister Flickering! I'm Recto."

His smile extended to Pinkie Pie's levels of happiness, and then, he blinked. "Rec-... Oh, Celestia! Did I mess up your name? I messed up your name! I'm sorry!"

Verso and I both blinked, taken aback. Well, that's a first.

I tried to give him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, it's not like-"

"You must be so upset with me! This is exactly like my first day Cloudsdale Cumulus University! I'll be laughed at for years to come! Again!"

Hum, Verso, this is getting out of hand. You think you can...

I dunno, this is kinda entertaining.

Verso!

Okay, okay..."Listen, pal, it's really-"

"I should have listen to my mom and eaten those tomatoes all those years ago! 'They're good for your brain, son', she said! But I can't help it, I hate tomatoes! They taste like rubbish!"

I wonder how far he'll get if we let him continue...

Verso!

Thankfully, professor Neighton came to save the day and promptly punched the poor panicking pegasus properly behind the head, forcing him silent. Verso slightly whined in disappointment.

"Pardon him, he tends to freak out quite easily." I think Luna chuckled, glancing at miss Twilight. "He has quite the good head on his shoulder, though, and I'm sure he'd like to assist to your presentation, if you'll allow him, sir Verso."

Again with the 'sir' thing... That's weird.

"No problem with me. The more, the merrier," Verso said. "Do you know when the others will arrive?"

"They shouldn't take too long. It'll give you some time to prepare yourself, though."

Verso shrugged. "Well, take a sit, then. I don't intend to repeat myself, so I'll start when they arrive."

Miss Twilight and Flickering Light didn't lose any time and nearly ran off to take front row sits, while Verso simply glanced at the desk chair to confirm that, indeed, it was a lot too small for us to sit in. He instead sat down on the desk as professor Neighton deposited the two piles of paper onto it, before he also headed to a front sit. Meanwhile, Luna was staring at the chairs, as if they somehow contained the answers to the biggest mysteries of life and existence itself, or better, the recipe for chocolate powder. Verso smirked.

"What's the matter, Princess? Can't find a chair large enough?"

Miss Twilight and Flicker --it's shorter, I'll call him that-- looked at us in horror, Luna looked at us shocked, and professor Neighton remained more or less expressionless. I heard someone chuckling outside, and it may or may not have been mister Sunshine, I'm not quite sure.

"Did you... Did you just call me fat?" Luna asked, as if she didn't believe her ears.

"No." Yes. Yes he did. "I was inquiring if a pony as unusually tall as you are could find a fitting chair in this room. I'm having the same problem, after all."

She GLARED at us with just as much animosity --woohoo, big words!-- as she had when she insulted Verso in the gardens on our first day in Equestria, but Verso remained calm and smirking. Her horn lit up and, even though he tensed up just a little bit, Verso didn't budge. A nice-looking pillow appeared out of nowhere and fell on the ground, near miss Twilight. Then Luna sat on it, still glaring holes through our skull. I could literally feel her scorching stare on our head. It was not a nice feeling. At all.

"Sooo... What did you tell the others about me, professor Neighton?" Verso inquired, trying to diffuse the downright explosive tension in the room.

"Not much, really. I just said that you were a visitor from a far away land and that you could potentially revolutionize most of our fields."

"Oh. So not many expectations to meet, then. Great."

Are you... stressed? Is that what you being stressed feels like?

Of course I'm a bit nervous. This is our best shot at getting a enough bits to live on our own, and I don't want to mess up.

Oh yeah, you did say that it was important.

I noticed that miss Twilight was staring quite intensively at Verso's piles of paper, and pointed it out to the man in charge. "Do you want something, miss Sparkle?"

She blushed lightly, probably taken aback by Verso's way of addressing her. "Well, you told me earlier about these books of yours, and I am awfully curious..." Verso levitated the bigger one onto miss Twilight's table, and I'm pretty sure I could stars in her eyes. "Thank you!"

"No problem. While we're on the subject, professor Neighton, and Flickering, I suppose, did you face any trouble when reading them?"

"Well," the older pony started, "as I said yesterday, they are rather high-level. Challenging, even. You sometimes brush over concepts that I think should be explained more, only to concentrate on other, even more complicated ones. The purely mathematical part should be longer, overall."

"Noted," Verso said smirking again as he saw miss Twilight visibly struggling while reading. "I suppose I'll try to start at a simpler level. And what about the physics and chemistry parts?"

"Well, I obviously didn't have the time to recreate any of the experiments you talk about to prove your hypotheses, but some of them have mind-blowing consequences. Do you really think that matter is composed of tiny particules? That seems improbable."

"What are you talking about?" Luna asked. "Matter is composed of just that, matter, right?"

"Oh, I could see why you would have some difficulties with the concept. Let's put it like that," he said, floating one of the white sticks to us. "Let's take this chalk, would you? Now, what can you tell me about it?"

"It's made out of special porous rocks?" Flickering said.

"Well, yes, but that's not my point. It's one chunk of rock, we agree with that?" The ponies nodded. "So, what does it mean when this happens?" he asked, breaking the chalk in half.

"You broke it," Luna said.

"Thank you, princess Obvious," he said, making Luna puff her cheeks and glare at us some more. "Anyone else?"

"You now have two smaller 'chunks' of chalk when you used to have one?" Twilight answered.

"A point for Princess Booksmart. It also means that our previous, bigger piece of chalk, that was one whole thing, was in fact composed of multiple, smaller, pieces. But now, our chunks are whole again, right?" As he said that, he broke one of the pieces of chalk in half again. "And I've now showed that the small pieces were in fact composed of even smaller bits. Now, I could continue with this for a long time, but we don't seem to have electronic microscopes at our disposal, so you'll have to trust me that, at some point, I won't be able to break these bits anymore, because there simply isn't anything smaller to be produced. The result is what we humans have called 'atoms', the smallest bit of matter one can have. And these atoms interact with each other via a number of means, which let them form slightly bigger bits of matter, that are called molecules. That's the basic gist of it."

"So you are saying that every rock are made out of these 'atoms'?" Luna asked, clearly interested.

"Not only rocks, your Highness, but pretty much everything. Air, water, grass, ponies, animals and metals, everything is basically just a big bunch of atoms and molecules grouped together."

"That sounds hard to believe," the professor said.

"What are you talking about, my friend?" asked a pony just as he entered the room.

It was a greyish green unicorn, about as old as professor Neighton, and with an equally unusually long and whitish mane. He was wearing what I could only assume was some sort of elaborated pajamas or robes that looked somewhat classy. I don't really know how he could pull that off. He glanced in our direction and stared for several seconds, looking a bit intimidated.

"Is that the 'human' you were talking about, Neighton? He looks a lot bigger than you said."

"Oh, don't be scared, Halehay. He probably won't eat you."

Oh, sweet skies above, are they all going to be like that? Verso internally groaned.

What do you mean, scared?

No, I mean doppelgangers from our world!

Huh?

Don't bother, it's not that important...

"Well, sir Verso, I am Edmond Halehay, mathematician and oceanographer. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, raising a hoof that Verso promptly shook.

"Oh, it's a pleasure too."

"My friend Neighton, here, told me that you had some 'revolutionizing ideas' to share with us tonight?"

"Well, I do, but we're still waiting for some other ponies to show up."

"Well then, better to take a sit before they are all occupied, in that case." He turned to the rest of the classroom and came muzzle to muzzle with Luna. He froze for an instant and immediately bowed. "You're Highness! I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you were here!"

"Do not fret over it, professor. I am here to listen to our guest, just like you."

"It must really be something, in that case. I, for one, am impatient!"

"We were just talking about one of his ideas from his land," professor Neighton said, focusing back onto us. "He was saying that matter, air, and ponies were made out of little blocks that stick together to create, well, everything."

"An interesting proposal indeed," Halehay said, nodding and looking at us. "What makes you think that, mister Verso?"

"Two things, mostly: the fact that it has been proven right where I come from, and the fact that I'm still able to breath. If the basics laws of physics had changed when I arrived in Equestria because of some magical mumbo-jumbo, I would have likely died within instants of my arrival."

Didn't mister Discord said that we nearly did, though? You know, on our first day.

He also explained why and it had nothing to do with the basic laws of physics. If anything, magic seems to be an 'add-on' to our normal, Earth-like physics.

"Excuse me, monsieur?" a voice said outside. "Ah seem to be, 'ow you say... lost? Oui, lost. Ah am looking for a group off ponies. Monsieur Neighton said zat it should be someplace around 'ere, but no specifics, voyez-vous?"

"Is that French?" Verso wondered aloud. "There are french ponies around here?"

"I don't know what your are talking about, but that pony with a fancy accent must be Lavoisine," Neighton, walking outside. "Poor fellow is terrible with maps."

Oh, for the love of... Verso groaned again.

"Ah! Professor Neighton! Ah found you, after all. Merci beaucoup, monsieur," the pony said with his strange accent before entering the room with mister Neighton.

It was a significantly younger unicorn than the other two, and he wore an old-fashioned jacket and a little scarf. His coat was a light shade of blue and his darker mane was cut short. On his flank, I noticed a picture of a vial over a bunch of flames. He looked around when he got in and spotted Luna first, in front of whom he properly knelt down.

"Your Majestée, it's an 'onor to be een your présence."

"Rise, my little pony. I am here as a mere student as well tonight."

"Ah, oui, zeh 'hooman'," the blue pony said as he turned around and looked at us.

His accent hurts.

I must admit, it's kinda terrible. "Nice to meet you, sir Lavoisine. I am Verso, the human, indeed."

"It is a plaisir to meet somepony, huh, 'ow you say... so well spoken of? Oui, somepony so well spoken of by monsieur Neighton. And, as he had wrote, you are naught somefing zat Ah have evar sin before," he said inspecting us quickly.

Is he going to speak like that the whole time?

I fear so, yes.

Well, then, have fun with that, I'm going to sleep to escape this hell. Wake me up when he's away from us, please. 'Night!

Sleep well.

***

I blinked a couple times when Recto went to sleep, mainly to hide his eye color being replaced by mine, and therefore preventing the pony imitation of the father of chemistry from asking any question with his horrendous accent. Sadly, he had other topics in mind, so that didn't stop him.

"Monsieur Neighton sedd dat you had a remarkable mind for somepony as young as you arr. 'Iz letter sedd dat you come from away, oui?"

Good heavens, is that even english at this point? "I would say that this is flattery. I am simply writing down what I have learned from my people before I arrived in Equestria a few weeks ago."

"Which is already quite amazing, might I say," Neighton intervened.

"Were doo you come from, monsieur Verso?" the blue unicorn asked as he sat down.

"If whatever Discord told me is reliable, I'd say that the notion of far doesn't really apply at this point."

"You keep evading the question," Halehay noted.

I nodded. "Indeed, I do."

A somewhat awkward silence fell on the room for a couple seconds. "Would you mind telling us why?" the same pony asked.

I shrugged. "It amuses me, first, and I am stalling for time so that I don't have to explain it multiple time. We are still waiting, for someone, after all."

"Fair point." He stayed silent for a few instants, during which Twilight was silently gawking at the assembly. "So, what was that about these little blocks of matter, again?"

I sighed. "Look, I really don't want to seem rude or anything, but could we wait until the others are here before I start explaining the true nature of the universe, please? I really don't want to explain something like that over and over." He thankfully nodded, probably understanding. "Meanwhile, why don't you have a look at that?" I asked, levitating the chemistry book to Lavoisine and the physics part of my bigger book to Halehay (getting myself a dangerous glare from Twilight in doing so). "I'm sure you could find something interesting in there."

"It looks... quit interesting, in effect," Lavoisine said, making me --and most ponies, I noticed-- cringe. "Chemistry and alchemy just happen too bee me favoreet subjects."

"You don't say..." I muttered under my breath, before looking at Neighton. "Who are we waiting for, again?"

"An all-around innovator and inventor named Bright Ideas," he answered, and I sighed in relief when I realized that it wasn't another earth clone. "I'm sure you would like him, he is also passionate about physics. He invented what he calls 'lightbulbs' just a decade ago, and they are starting to be used all around Equestria."

The name sounded familiar, though, and it took me only a few seconds to remember that the Princesses had referenced him just when Recto and I realized that we weren't buried deeply underground anymore. It got me a bit excited to meet him, even though he wasn't really related to that event. It brought a question to my mind, though, and I looked around us, searching for one of these lightbulbs, but they were not to be seen. The room was still lit, with no apparent light source. That disturbed me. A lot.

"Out of curiosity, do you know how these lightbulbs work?" I asked.

Lavoisine, sadly, decided to explain. "Ah beelieve dat zey use a chemical dat absorb light and, ow you say... glows it back when magically activate."

I blinked. "That sounds nothing like how we crafted our lightbulbs. At all." Maybe it's a translation problem, though? That wouldn't be too far-fetched.

"Oh, your people had created lightbulbs too? But, how did they activated them without magic?" Halehay asked.

"They didn't work on magic, but on electricity and thermo-radiation, for the simplest of them."

"Thermo-what now?" Twilight asked, tilting her head.

Luna took a confused expression. "I thought you said that radiation were dangerous."

I nodded. "And that's why you should never ask someone to explain a complex phenomenon quickly, because it gets confusing. Put simply, 'radiation' is simply light. Thermo-radiation is the fact that basically everything emits light when it's hot enough, like how steel glows white in a forge."

"Ah am confuse," Lavoisine said. "Youmans -" I cringed. Hard. "- light up rooms with forges?"

"Nah. We place a small filament in a small glass bulb that is pumped empty of air, and run an electric current through the filament, heating it up until it glows enough to light up the room."

Most ponies blinked. Luna talked first. "I know what most of these words means separated, but when you put them together like that, they somehow make no sense at all to me. Is that normal?"

I looked around. "You guys know what electricity is, right?"

"Of course we know," Neighton said. "It's the energy that's crated by storm clouds and various unicorn spells. Your people use storms to generate light?"

"Oh boy. It might be a bit more complicated than I had thought to explain it to you. How to put it simply..." I wondered aloud, before my sense field picked up something strange going on outside.

A changeling and a couple of ponies were walking our way. While I could feel that the ponies were carrying an impressive amount of notepads and writing furniture, the changeling was silently walking in front of them, empty handed if not for his clothes. Just like it did with Lyr- Thingy and the other changelings, its magical disguise made it actually rather hard to feel what the changeling was looking like.

I'll admit that I was a bit curious to know what a lone changeling was doing on around here in such a particular arrangement, and I focused my mind on the creature. It didn't look like it was particularly syphoning energy from the ponies following it, or anywhere else for that matter, and I couldn't feel any other changeling around, meaning that it probably wasn't a swarm either. Probably a single changeling that lived in Canterlot for years, I thought to myself. I then noticed that the small group in front of me was trying to get my attention.

"Huh, Verso?" Luna asked. "Is there a problem?" She turned around to look at the wall I just then realized I was staring through with my field. "Is there something wrong with the wall?"

"No, I just got a bit side-tracked," I said, shaking my head. "Anyway, back on business. As I was saying..."

I stopped myself when I realized that the changeling and what definitely looked like its assistants had stopped in front of Luna's guard. "Excuse me, good guard," the changeling said, smiling, "I have been invited by sir Giggle Neighton here. Is he already inside?" Sunshine the badly named nodded. "Thank you." The changeling looked behind it at its assistants. "Well, then, you two, get back to the lab, and keep working on what we've talked."

"Yes, sir!" the ponies answered in unison, saluting as if they were part of the military before they scrambled off.

Meanwhile, the changeling passed a hoof in its false hair, corrected his bow-tie, and pushed the door open. "Hello? Sir Neighton?"

The changeling stopped when it saw me and we just stared at each other, it being understandingly surprised, and myself being increasingly annoyed. It had taken the appearance of a somewhat older pony, probably in its fifties from a human perspective, and was wearing a remarkable tuxedo. Its disguise was of a male unicorn with a reddish coat and a greying brown mane. What really marked me, though, was how vivid its lime-green eyes were. He blinked a couple time.

"Oh. Hello there. What exactly are you?" he said.

"I'm Verso, a human," I answered. "And you are..?"

"I am Bright Idea, the greatest inventor of this century!"

Author's Note

Hello again! I'm back! And with a chapter! Woohoo!

By the way, you have no idea how hard and weird it is to write someone speaking english with an accent in your native tongue. Verso may be cringing when he hears Lavoisine, but I was tearing my hairs off while I imagined his lines.

I had somewhat of a hard time making these puns for the Scientific Pony Trio (Bright Ideas doesn't count). The pun on Lavoisine is in french, by the way. Let me know if you found better ones in the comments!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and until next time, see ya!