What If?by King of the MadChaptersPlus One is...TwoPlus Two is...ThreeOnePlus One is...Several months later. As usual she woke up at the same time she always did, but now it was easier to get out of bed for she had set aside one of her biggest burdens and given unto another The joy she got when she set aside the burden came not from the weight being lifted from her shoulders, but by the one lifting it of her shoulders. Her sister had come back with the help of one of the many who she had tutored over the ages and had taken up her old burden. Now together they shared their minor burdens and worries. Despite that, the voice inside her head continued to ask that question. What if? She had begun to contemplate the question since her sister had returned. And had come to the conclusion she need to bring it up with some one else. Yesterday she had brought it up with her sister and asked her about her opinion of it. Her sister had thought about it for a while, before telling her to come to her tomorrow and she would have a solution. So after getting out of bed and going about her morning routine Princess Celestia open her door and set of for Luna's room. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• "But Lunnnnaaaaa!" Celestia complained, "It just seems so silly" "Nope." "But—" "Nope" "Awwwww" "Just try it once and then reconsider, please. For me." Celestia sighed briefly before replying, "Okay." "Yes!" Luna exclaimed before jumping around in joy. "Now do it, we only have so much time, before we have to go tend to the court." Celestia sighed again before levitating a strange looking helmet over to her, the helmet looked just like a broad brimmed hat that had weird corks of different metals dangling from invisible threads strung along the edge. As she placed it upon her head she heard Luna fiddling with something behind her. "Ready?" Luna called. "Yes and no need to shout, I am just here" "Oops, okay. Here we go!" Shortly Celestia began to feel tingles in her her horn. Then, suddenly everything went black as she heard Luna quietly saying, "Now, think about a simple what if question to start with." The device she had just plugged herself into was a contraption that Luna had spent all night building. When she had voiced concerns about safety, Luna had crushed all argument with an extremely long winded speech about how the device worked and how easy it was to build due to her experiences with dreams. Plus she had promised Celestia her dessert for the next week just so she could at least try it out. In the end she had agreed and now they were in the process of testing it. After some quick thought she decided on a weird little question. "What if I got out of bed and did a backflip?" Well I guess we're about to find out as she concentrated on the question. As suddenly has the darkness had come it was gone and replacing was a view of herself waking up. As she sat back and watched herself get up and out of bed. Upon getting out of bed her 'image' started to do a backflip. Part way through, while her 'image' was upside down she lost the momentum in her jump and fell sharply onto her bed breaking it as her image fell down. She watched in horror as her image having broken a bed she had owned for 3 centuries discovered to both the real Celestia and the her image's horror that her image had broken one of her massive wings as she fell on it. As suddenly as it appeared the view disappeared leaving Celestia sitting there stunned in the dark. "Okay the WIM 3008 says that the possibility has ended. So I'm gonna wake you up nice and gently" Suddenly the darkness disappeared jolting Celestia with the sharp light going straight into her eyes. "Aaargh," she said as she blinked in suprise" "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!" Luna howled, "You should see your face!" Growling in displeasure Celestia turned around yanking off the helmet. "Nice and gentle my marvellously toned flank!" She yelled before suddenly a sadistic grin appeared on her face. Seeing this Luna started to panic, before leaping out the nearest window only to be caught halfway through by Celestia's telekinesis. "Oh no you don't." "You get to sit in court while go get myself some food," she said before putting Luna firmly on the ground. "Worth it." Luna called over her shoulder as she trotted out of the room. Celestia sighed while contemplating on whether what she saw could really be what would happen if she did a backflip after getting out of bed. "So did it work?" Luna said sticking her head throughout the doorway startling Celestia. "Eep!" Celestia squealed, before calming down, "Yeah, though is that what really would happen? And what is the WIM 3008?" Luna after a little giggle at Celestia's display replied, "Well what you just saw was one small possibility among many chosen by your subconscious as the most likely. Also the WIM 3008 is short for the What If Machine 3008. Anyway what did you see?" "Well the answers a lot. And what I saw was a response to 'What if I got out of bed and did a backflip?' And what I saw was myself getting out of bed failing a backflip and managing to break both my bed and one of my wings." "See even your subconscious agrees that you need to exercise." "Are you calling me fat?" "Um... Gotta go lots of people to see and court to be managed," she blurted out as she quickly ran away from a possible volcano. "I'm not really fat. Am I?" She asked herself before pushing it out of her mind and heading to the kitchens for a small amount of tea and cake. Author's Note Well. I'm off to eat chill con carne TwoI walked into Luna's room expecting her to be asleep, but the moment I was through the door my ears were blasted by Luna yelling "Yes! You're finally here." "What?" I asked slightly deafened from Luna's yelling. "I spent the entire day working on the WIM 3008 based on what you said at breakfast. I had asked her if there was a way to change the perspective and then told about the experience in detail telling her to improve the machine in anyway she thought it needed. I had decided to continue to use the machine in my spare time with Luna. "So what did you do?" "Well I changed the perspective like you asked and I also tweaked a couple of things. Also I added some features that you'll find out about once I turn this little wonder on." "Okay... Nothing dangerous?" "Oh no no no," she spurted out, looking a bit worried. "It's perfectly safe... Yeah. Safe." "Okay, if you say so," I said before slipping the weird helmet thing on. "And darkness and no chance of death in three, two! Actually who cares? Ten!" Luna yelled, before flipping a switch. Again there were tingles in her horn, before reality gave way to darkness. "Okay so now you're in there I can tell you that I may have put in something that allows me to put you in questions of my own." "What!?" Celestia yelled. 'Okay this will be interesting' Luna thought too herself 'Though I wonder if it was a good idea to make her take the place of the possibility Celestia and have her body, thoughts and memories... Nah! She'll be fine.' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• "Black! That's it. We need more black." Celestia yelled. "Well I am not about to disagree for one." Said Luna, ruler of the night. Things had been good today up till now. The general populace had finally gotten used to the new look and she had gotten some more 18th century novels from the library. Then she had walked in to the throne room and realised something was wrong. Every single thing in the whole place was in a bright pastel colour. "Oh and spikes! Yes! And chains. Yes. Maybe hanging down the walls instead of this silly tapestries. "Oh my. Are sure everything is okay?" Asked Luna. "No. Everything is not alright. I'm hoarse from telling everybody what to do and the throne room hasn't been painted in ten seconds flat. So no! Everything is not alright." "Okay... I'll be in my room working of my telescope if you need me." 'Ooh I know!" Celestia thought to herself, before pulling a bug zapper out from behind a curtain and hiding it behind her back. 'Perfect. Now for a target' "Princess Celestia the painters are on their way." Said a maid 'Hmm who is that? Oh yes. Feather Duster.' "Thank you Feather Duster." While she was saying this she sneakily levitated the bug zapper behind the maid. Then as the maid was about to leave she zapped her. "Wow. You must be... Shocked!" Celestia giggled, before teleporting to her room. Having escaped the shocked maid. Celestia slipped out of her room. As she was walking around admiring the new decorations she bumbled into a guard. "Why hello. What's your name?" "Silver Shield, princess." Keeping his eyes ahead the entire time. "Hmm and how are you?" "Horrible, with all due respect princess, I'm new to the guard and I have blisters on my hooves from standing still." "Oh. Well that's bad. And personally, blisters are just my body's way of agreeing with my opinion on exercise and other things. Anyway got to go. Cya and I hope those blisters go away soon" "Thanks, princess." Later that day Celestia lowered the sun, before putting herself to bed. As she drifted off she thought about her day. It had been good apart from that one hiccup, but the day had been polished off into a wonderful day, because for once not a single person had commented on her black eyeliner and lipstick along with her black spiky tiara. So all in all it had been a great day. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 'Oh popsicles! Ii forgot to let Celestia out of the WIM 3008... Oh well. I'll let her out in the morning before I go to bed.' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 11 days later "Ah there you go now you're out of their nice and gentle." "Well that was interesting though I disapprove of you picking the question. Also that one felt like 11 days, but the other one was a minute or two?" "Ummm... Well... I won't pick the question for you again.,as for the time. Well the WIM 3008 allows you to see a possibility you could really only imagine. So with the first you could only imagine doing a backflip and breaking the bed, but after that there was no major differences between that possibility and ours so it ended. That one was a question that changed your personality not an action so therefore it was pretty much infinite. To deal with that I put in a switch to pull you out whenever. Problem is I forgot so it's now Thursday..." "I was in there for 4 days!" "Um... No try 11." ... ... ... ... ... "You are soooooo dead." Celestia stated in a bone chilling tone. "Um... Gotta go right now!" Luna spurted out, before teleporting far, far away. Luna carefully checked around the corner using a hand mirror, before slipping down the plush carpeted hall. It had been 2 days since she had woken up Celestia and Luna had been hiding from her since. She hadn't slept for 53 hours and was ready to collapse. So she had moved out of her hiding place and was now carefully moving towards her room via a roundabout route. This was it. She was now at the door. She checked for any traps or anything of the like.Nothing. So she slipped open the door and slid inside. After closing the door behind her as gentle as a light wind, she dashed over to her bed and moments after her head touching the pillow she was out. Little did she know that Celestia had been following her ever since she had left her hiding place. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• As she levitated the weird helmet onto the slumbering Luna she thought to herself 'Revenge is a dish best served right back at them' After those final thoughts she powered up the device with the question 'What if Luna was a witty goth who did whatever Celestia wanted?' Author's Note Wanna see or not? Plus Two is...When I finally woke Luna up from the WIM 3008's influence, she was shivering. So I got the feeling she had learnt her lesson. Because Luna had been using the WIM 3008 I hadn't been able to use it. So after I let her out and made sure she would wake me up, I entered the machine. Now I finally had the chance to ask the question that had been plaguing me for ages. 'What if I left on a vacation without telling anyone anything?' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I woke up at the usual time, but today was different. I had decided last night that I was going to go on a vacation. The thing is last time I went on vacation I was constantly plagued by servants and nobles all asking questions on what to do. So to fix that little problem I decided to not tell anyone. After raising the sun, I set about gathering some food and some camping gear. After a few close calls in the kitchen where I was nearly seen, I grabbed everything and teleported to the pre determined destination. As soon as I arrived I dropped everything and had a good look around. I had teleported to a beach on the south east coast of Equestria. No one but me knew about the location, as I found it shortly after Luna's banishment. The small waves gently lapped up against the golden sand heated to a lovely temperature by the radiant sun. The entire beach was secluded due to the lush rainforest in all directions bar one and that was east onto the ocean. In the rainforest surrounding the beach the were many trees containing fruits of a variety not seen anywhere else. There were bananas, coconuts, citrus fruits, pineapples, passion fruit and many more that didn't even have names. 'This is just perfect.' I thought as I set up my tent. After setting up my tent I decided to go for a swim in the the clear, sparkling water filled with exotic lifeforms. I rushed down golden beach eager to get the water. The moment I touched the water, I gasped in shock. It was cold and definitely nice. I swam around in the water for a bit. Occasionally diving down to get a better look at the weird corals littering the seabed and the exotic fish the swum through the passages like they were going about their lives in an exotic underwater city. After a bit of this I noticed that It was starting to get dark, so I headed back to shore. When I got out I started to shiver, so I quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it snugly around my body. I was still feeling cold so I levitated a small amount of twigs, leaves and logs out of the rainforest and piled them together in front of my tent. After doing so, I summoned some sparks with my horn and carefully lit the fire. Shortly I had a nice, little fire going. Once it took hold and I didn't have to be constantly watching it, I dashed away from it's warm embracing heat and grabbed the marshmallows from my tent that I had nicked from the kitchen and brought them over to the fire. Soon I was chilling next to a slowly dying fire while occasionally roasting a marshmallow or two. My internal body clock then reminded me of something I had nearly forgotten. So I quickly lowered the sun making a nice sunset behind the rainforest. After finishing off the rest of the marshmallows I got rid of the rubbish with a decay spell and headed of to bed leaving behind the fire to die down overnight. As I drifted off to sleep I wondered to myself 'Why have I never done this before? The quiet and peace is so relaxing.' After those thoughts I was quickly asleep. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Meanwhile back in Canterlot... "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat!" Luna roared along with the song while guzzling down shot after shot. Since Celestia had disappeared Luna had taken the opportunity to do some things that she would normally not be able to do with her older sister watching her. Since both the Royal Sisters had disappeared, the castle had been left in uproar with everybody running around like headless chickens. "What do we do now? Are they dead? Have they left us? Have they been abducted by aliens?" Screamed one helpless noble. "Maybe Discord is back!?" Screamed another. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Meanwhile in Ponyville... Absolutely was out of the ordinary, because they knew nothing of these recent occurrences. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The next day I woke up at my usual time and crawled out of my warm sleeping bag. As I unzipped my tent I gently lifted the sun above the horizon. As I did so, I noticed that the moon wasn't being lowered. I quickly lowered it and wondered to myself what could have caused Luna to forget. Anyway putting that out of mind I thought about what I was going to do for my last day of vacation. I decided breakfast was a good start. After contemplating it for a short while I decided to make something with the fruit from the rainforest enclosing the beach. A short time later I was stretched out on my side looking out across the ocean watching the sunrise while sipping from a coconut filled with pineapple juice with a bendy straw. Sadly I didn't have a paper umbrella or any rum. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• After spending the day relaxing in the sun with a short swim before lunch, I decided to pack up an hour before sunset. As I packed everything back up I thought to myself 'I should this again sometime. It was a lot of fun.' After everything was packed I grabbed it all and teleported back to my room. Once I dropped my stuff off I headed down to the throne room to see how Luna had taken my unexpected disappearance for 2 days. When I got there my jaw dropped in shock. This is not what I was expecting. There was a crowd of panicking nobles and servants rushing around doing things. And Luna was nowhere to be seen. "Ahem." I caught their attention by clearing my throat. "What is happening?" I asked. They all rushed into a huddle whispering things. Shortly an unlucky servant was shoved in my direction. "Well, Princess. The thing is you disappeared so we went to Luna and asked her what to do. She told us to leave her alone for a bit and when we came back she was gone. We weren't exactly sure what had happened to either of you so we may have panicked a little bit. Also this morning we found Luna passed out in a club down in the city. She was a bit hungover so we put her to bed." "Oh Luna..." Still shocked by the state of affairs the castle was in compared to when I left I set about cleaning up the mess. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• It was at this point that Luna woke me up from that... Interesting possibility. Going on a marvellous vacation and coming home to a crazy house and a sister who went out and raved and drank till she passed out instead of taking responsibility. "So what happened?" Luna asked once she brought me out of the possibility. "It's a long story." Author's Note Feedback and advice is always appreciated. Thanks for reading. Now where was that ice-cream? Three"Wait so I got to get drunk and go raving!? Why can't you disappear on vacations in the real world?" "Because, you miss aren't allowed to do either of those things for at least one hundred years." "What!?" "No buts. No maybes. That's what's happening. And anyway shouldn't you go to bed?" "Fine. Good day." "Good day." Once I had come out of the WIM 3008 I had told Luna what had transpired upon her asking and she had been really taken by the idea of drinking and raving all night. I decided to head down to the kitchen for a nice morning snack. After finishing of the marvellous food the chef prepared for me I went to the throne room to hold court for a while and monitor the state of affairs. Once I finished holding court, I gobbled down a delicious salad for dinner, before trotting off to my bedroom for a nice nights sleep. Before lying down, I paused briefly to lower the sun. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• After a lovely nights worth of sleep, I woke up and gave the sun a boost above the horizon, before getting ready for my day. As I finished off breakfast I decided to finish off the last question that had been bothering me. So as soon as I finished shoving food down my throat at a ridiculous rate like a lady, I left to Luna's room. When I arrived at Luna's room, I opened the door cautiously, I had learnt the hard way that opening her door quickly sometimes ended with an explosion in your face. When nothing happened, I walked in. To my surprise Luna wasn't there neither was any of her experiments or the WIM 3008. After looking around for any clues to her whereabouts, I found a note and next to it were two small buttons, one red and the other blue. The note said "To who ever is reading this please stop reading if you are not Celestia. If you are Celestia, then if you want to come visit my secret laboratory you will have to do something. Next to this nite are two buttons. The red one makes something happen and the other stops it. So if you want to visit me destroy this note and press the red one." 'Okay... This is a little weird, but it's Luna so whatever.' After reading this, I teleported the note to the sun. I then pushed the red button. Nothing happened... A bit frustrated at Luna I tried the button a couple more times, before heading to leave. I opened the door to leave, but instead of a castle corridor, I found myself looking into a laboratory that looked like what a child would expect to see in a mad scientist's hidden laboratory. There were smoking beakers spotted here and there some of them containing different coloured liquids and others containing electricity somehow. "Do you like it?" I suddenly heard from next to me, "I got it all cheap from this guy in the dungeons. Though it was hard to get some of the blood stains off." Luna said excitedly. "Oh Luna..." "What?" "Nothing, just why do you need this?" "Well I needed somewhere to put all my experiments that was out of the way so I asked around and this dude was practically giving this place away. So after I cleaned it up, I set up some buttons to change my door between a portal to here and being a normal door. Then I moved all my stuff here." She said as if this was a normal everyday occurrence. Though considering it was her, this truly could be one. I just sighed, before asking her "Hey mind if I use the WIM 3008 for a bit?" "Yeah, it was made for you. And if you are going to use it now, when do you want to be woken up?" "Tomorrow if you don't mind?" "Okay. Tomorrow it is. And it's just over there in the corner." She said, before pointing of into a corner. I wandered over in that direction, weaving through the tables and piles of stuff littered everywhere. Once I reached the pointed out corner, I quickly found the machine I was looking for. Having pulled it from a mound of stuff I set it up from memory, hoping that I would get it right. After a while and a bit of experimentation, I got it up and running. Once it was all good, I slipped the weird helmet atop my brow and pressed the button. As the darkness settled in as swiftly as always, I started concentrating on my question. 'What if I didn't stop Luna when she became Nightmare Moon?' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The cruel, bone chilling wind howled past my body as I looked across the desolate plain, where there was once a forest. The empty feeling of the area was enhanced by the pale light shining across the dead land, beamed down from the full moon hovering in the sky. As I looked around, I thought to myself 'Why? Why did I have to hesitate and let her take away my only chance at saving my little ponies?' This had been a reoccurring thought ever since, when on the brink of victory I lost the Elements to my sister, because I hesitated when using them and she had taken off me. This had doomed every single pony or other creature on the planet not capable of withstanding the dreadful winds and the permanent low temperatures. And even if something could do that, there was no food or crop that could survive these conditions. As for me, well after my defeat at my sister's hand I was left to trudge across what was left of a once magnificent land. For all my powers even I couldn't stop this now. There was nothing left alive on this region of the planet. The only place left that could sustain life, was a band travelling around the planet where the sun's heat could be felt, but not so much that it cooked and burnt the land and it's inhabitants as it had on the other side of the planet. The problem was that the entire band was unpopulated at the time of Nightmare Moon's rise. So there was nothing living there, but non sentient animals and plants. I felt like I was going to go insane soon, from the lack of company and the constant silence. I had many eons left to live, so my chances of staying sane in this cruel, harsh, unforgiving and unfriendly hell were very slim. After my defeat Nightmare Moon stripped me of my powers leaving enough to let me live in this world. The only food I had was a collection of tinned food that I had scavenged from empty houses. There was really nothing left to do, but contemplate the world and slowly trudge towards the band of life. After many more hours of trudging, I finally decided it was time to sleep. So after laying down my head and curling up, I went to sleep and dreamt many horrible nightmares. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• When I was freed from the dreadful world I had just experienced, I rushed over to Luna and gave a big hug. "Umm. I appreciated hugs as much as the next mare, but why the hug?" "Well the place I just went to wasn't very nice and I needed to cheer myself up." "What was the question and why wasn't the possibility very nice?" "I'll tell you once I've had some nice hot chocolate with some biscuits." "Sounds good to me." OneWhat if? That was the question she asked herself every morning. What if I didn't get up? What if I jumped out of bed and did a backflip? The problem was that there were so many possibilities that one could only guess at what a particular event could set in motion. So every day she woke up, got out of bed, and mentally lifted her burden for the countless time. Sometimes she wondered about what it would be like to be free. Free to do whatever she want. But. And it was a big but. There were some many things resting upon her weighted brow that she couldn't let herself break the routine. Whenever her rebellious subconscious brought up the intriguing thoughts of breaking the mold and choosing free for her self and not selflessly sacrificing her old, worn body for those with much vigour and potential in them she had to think hard and remember the old days when she had been free. And what good had being free been then. None that's what. Her unknowing selfishness had cost others, so many others their freedom. And at that point she had made a vow to herself to end her selfishness and to never knowingly allow others to experience the cramped, crushing feeling of a mold one had been melted into and forced to become a shadow of their true self, bowing to a puppet master hidden in plain sight. Now she was the only one left in the world who truly knew what it was like to have those chains of oppression bearing heavily down upon one's shoulders binding the inner truth of creations purpose. She was not always alone in this depressing burden, but now with no one else to help hold up the weight of the world it pressed down even harder. And that was what caused these rebellious thoughts of shattering the mold she had forged and tempered. These thoughts that she couldn't even contemplate for she had sworn to herself to never let the freedom of others be removed. This loneliness led to the thoughts of 'what if?' just for the freedom to know what might happen. Maybe someday when the is nothing left to hold onto and that she treasures and holds close to her heart have left she might do instead of think, but not today. Today she will think and imagine, yes imagine what could happen and endeavour to find the knowledge of the potential behind that simple yet demanding question. What if? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• That evening as she shifted her biggest burdens in life and was about to let herself fall into that gentle bliss of unknowing that is the small amount of sleep she allowed herself, she pondered on the never ending question of what if and the many other questions it brought up. After thinking hard for a small amount of rare and sacred sleep time she allowed herself the slide into the depths of sleep contemplating past choices as she thought about the one thing she missed more than her freedom... Her sister. Author's Note Wanna guess?
Plus One is...Several months later. As usual she woke up at the same time she always did, but now it was easier to get out of bed for she had set aside one of her biggest burdens and given unto another The joy she got when she set aside the burden came not from the weight being lifted from her shoulders, but by the one lifting it of her shoulders. Her sister had come back with the help of one of the many who she had tutored over the ages and had taken up her old burden. Now together they shared their minor burdens and worries. Despite that, the voice inside her head continued to ask that question. What if? She had begun to contemplate the question since her sister had returned. And had come to the conclusion she need to bring it up with some one else. Yesterday she had brought it up with her sister and asked her about her opinion of it. Her sister had thought about it for a while, before telling her to come to her tomorrow and she would have a solution. So after getting out of bed and going about her morning routine Princess Celestia open her door and set of for Luna's room. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• "But Lunnnnaaaaa!" Celestia complained, "It just seems so silly" "Nope." "But—" "Nope" "Awwwww" "Just try it once and then reconsider, please. For me." Celestia sighed briefly before replying, "Okay." "Yes!" Luna exclaimed before jumping around in joy. "Now do it, we only have so much time, before we have to go tend to the court." Celestia sighed again before levitating a strange looking helmet over to her, the helmet looked just like a broad brimmed hat that had weird corks of different metals dangling from invisible threads strung along the edge. As she placed it upon her head she heard Luna fiddling with something behind her. "Ready?" Luna called. "Yes and no need to shout, I am just here" "Oops, okay. Here we go!" Shortly Celestia began to feel tingles in her her horn. Then, suddenly everything went black as she heard Luna quietly saying, "Now, think about a simple what if question to start with." The device she had just plugged herself into was a contraption that Luna had spent all night building. When she had voiced concerns about safety, Luna had crushed all argument with an extremely long winded speech about how the device worked and how easy it was to build due to her experiences with dreams. Plus she had promised Celestia her dessert for the next week just so she could at least try it out. In the end she had agreed and now they were in the process of testing it. After some quick thought she decided on a weird little question. "What if I got out of bed and did a backflip?" Well I guess we're about to find out as she concentrated on the question. As suddenly has the darkness had come it was gone and replacing was a view of herself waking up. As she sat back and watched herself get up and out of bed. Upon getting out of bed her 'image' started to do a backflip. Part way through, while her 'image' was upside down she lost the momentum in her jump and fell sharply onto her bed breaking it as her image fell down. She watched in horror as her image having broken a bed she had owned for 3 centuries discovered to both the real Celestia and the her image's horror that her image had broken one of her massive wings as she fell on it. As suddenly as it appeared the view disappeared leaving Celestia sitting there stunned in the dark. "Okay the WIM 3008 says that the possibility has ended. So I'm gonna wake you up nice and gently" Suddenly the darkness disappeared jolting Celestia with the sharp light going straight into her eyes. "Aaargh," she said as she blinked in suprise" "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!" Luna howled, "You should see your face!" Growling in displeasure Celestia turned around yanking off the helmet. "Nice and gentle my marvellously toned flank!" She yelled before suddenly a sadistic grin appeared on her face. Seeing this Luna started to panic, before leaping out the nearest window only to be caught halfway through by Celestia's telekinesis. "Oh no you don't." "You get to sit in court while go get myself some food," she said before putting Luna firmly on the ground. "Worth it." Luna called over her shoulder as she trotted out of the room. Celestia sighed while contemplating on whether what she saw could really be what would happen if she did a backflip after getting out of bed. "So did it work?" Luna said sticking her head throughout the doorway startling Celestia. "Eep!" Celestia squealed, before calming down, "Yeah, though is that what really would happen? And what is the WIM 3008?" Luna after a little giggle at Celestia's display replied, "Well what you just saw was one small possibility among many chosen by your subconscious as the most likely. Also the WIM 3008 is short for the What If Machine 3008. Anyway what did you see?" "Well the answers a lot. And what I saw was a response to 'What if I got out of bed and did a backflip?' And what I saw was myself getting out of bed failing a backflip and managing to break both my bed and one of my wings." "See even your subconscious agrees that you need to exercise." "Are you calling me fat?" "Um... Gotta go lots of people to see and court to be managed," she blurted out as she quickly ran away from a possible volcano. "I'm not really fat. Am I?" She asked herself before pushing it out of her mind and heading to the kitchens for a small amount of tea and cake. Author's Note Well. I'm off to eat chill con carne
TwoI walked into Luna's room expecting her to be asleep, but the moment I was through the door my ears were blasted by Luna yelling "Yes! You're finally here." "What?" I asked slightly deafened from Luna's yelling. "I spent the entire day working on the WIM 3008 based on what you said at breakfast. I had asked her if there was a way to change the perspective and then told about the experience in detail telling her to improve the machine in anyway she thought it needed. I had decided to continue to use the machine in my spare time with Luna. "So what did you do?" "Well I changed the perspective like you asked and I also tweaked a couple of things. Also I added some features that you'll find out about once I turn this little wonder on." "Okay... Nothing dangerous?" "Oh no no no," she spurted out, looking a bit worried. "It's perfectly safe... Yeah. Safe." "Okay, if you say so," I said before slipping the weird helmet thing on. "And darkness and no chance of death in three, two! Actually who cares? Ten!" Luna yelled, before flipping a switch. Again there were tingles in her horn, before reality gave way to darkness. "Okay so now you're in there I can tell you that I may have put in something that allows me to put you in questions of my own." "What!?" Celestia yelled. 'Okay this will be interesting' Luna thought too herself 'Though I wonder if it was a good idea to make her take the place of the possibility Celestia and have her body, thoughts and memories... Nah! She'll be fine.' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• "Black! That's it. We need more black." Celestia yelled. "Well I am not about to disagree for one." Said Luna, ruler of the night. Things had been good today up till now. The general populace had finally gotten used to the new look and she had gotten some more 18th century novels from the library. Then she had walked in to the throne room and realised something was wrong. Every single thing in the whole place was in a bright pastel colour. "Oh and spikes! Yes! And chains. Yes. Maybe hanging down the walls instead of this silly tapestries. "Oh my. Are sure everything is okay?" Asked Luna. "No. Everything is not alright. I'm hoarse from telling everybody what to do and the throne room hasn't been painted in ten seconds flat. So no! Everything is not alright." "Okay... I'll be in my room working of my telescope if you need me." 'Ooh I know!" Celestia thought to herself, before pulling a bug zapper out from behind a curtain and hiding it behind her back. 'Perfect. Now for a target' "Princess Celestia the painters are on their way." Said a maid 'Hmm who is that? Oh yes. Feather Duster.' "Thank you Feather Duster." While she was saying this she sneakily levitated the bug zapper behind the maid. Then as the maid was about to leave she zapped her. "Wow. You must be... Shocked!" Celestia giggled, before teleporting to her room. Having escaped the shocked maid. Celestia slipped out of her room. As she was walking around admiring the new decorations she bumbled into a guard. "Why hello. What's your name?" "Silver Shield, princess." Keeping his eyes ahead the entire time. "Hmm and how are you?" "Horrible, with all due respect princess, I'm new to the guard and I have blisters on my hooves from standing still." "Oh. Well that's bad. And personally, blisters are just my body's way of agreeing with my opinion on exercise and other things. Anyway got to go. Cya and I hope those blisters go away soon" "Thanks, princess." Later that day Celestia lowered the sun, before putting herself to bed. As she drifted off she thought about her day. It had been good apart from that one hiccup, but the day had been polished off into a wonderful day, because for once not a single person had commented on her black eyeliner and lipstick along with her black spiky tiara. So all in all it had been a great day. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 'Oh popsicles! Ii forgot to let Celestia out of the WIM 3008... Oh well. I'll let her out in the morning before I go to bed.' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 11 days later "Ah there you go now you're out of their nice and gentle." "Well that was interesting though I disapprove of you picking the question. Also that one felt like 11 days, but the other one was a minute or two?" "Ummm... Well... I won't pick the question for you again.,as for the time. Well the WIM 3008 allows you to see a possibility you could really only imagine. So with the first you could only imagine doing a backflip and breaking the bed, but after that there was no major differences between that possibility and ours so it ended. That one was a question that changed your personality not an action so therefore it was pretty much infinite. To deal with that I put in a switch to pull you out whenever. Problem is I forgot so it's now Thursday..." "I was in there for 4 days!" "Um... No try 11." ... ... ... ... ... "You are soooooo dead." Celestia stated in a bone chilling tone. "Um... Gotta go right now!" Luna spurted out, before teleporting far, far away. Luna carefully checked around the corner using a hand mirror, before slipping down the plush carpeted hall. It had been 2 days since she had woken up Celestia and Luna had been hiding from her since. She hadn't slept for 53 hours and was ready to collapse. So she had moved out of her hiding place and was now carefully moving towards her room via a roundabout route. This was it. She was now at the door. She checked for any traps or anything of the like.Nothing. So she slipped open the door and slid inside. After closing the door behind her as gentle as a light wind, she dashed over to her bed and moments after her head touching the pillow she was out. Little did she know that Celestia had been following her ever since she had left her hiding place. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• As she levitated the weird helmet onto the slumbering Luna she thought to herself 'Revenge is a dish best served right back at them' After those final thoughts she powered up the device with the question 'What if Luna was a witty goth who did whatever Celestia wanted?' Author's Note Wanna see or not?
Plus Two is...When I finally woke Luna up from the WIM 3008's influence, she was shivering. So I got the feeling she had learnt her lesson. Because Luna had been using the WIM 3008 I hadn't been able to use it. So after I let her out and made sure she would wake me up, I entered the machine. Now I finally had the chance to ask the question that had been plaguing me for ages. 'What if I left on a vacation without telling anyone anything?' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I woke up at the usual time, but today was different. I had decided last night that I was going to go on a vacation. The thing is last time I went on vacation I was constantly plagued by servants and nobles all asking questions on what to do. So to fix that little problem I decided to not tell anyone. After raising the sun, I set about gathering some food and some camping gear. After a few close calls in the kitchen where I was nearly seen, I grabbed everything and teleported to the pre determined destination. As soon as I arrived I dropped everything and had a good look around. I had teleported to a beach on the south east coast of Equestria. No one but me knew about the location, as I found it shortly after Luna's banishment. The small waves gently lapped up against the golden sand heated to a lovely temperature by the radiant sun. The entire beach was secluded due to the lush rainforest in all directions bar one and that was east onto the ocean. In the rainforest surrounding the beach the were many trees containing fruits of a variety not seen anywhere else. There were bananas, coconuts, citrus fruits, pineapples, passion fruit and many more that didn't even have names. 'This is just perfect.' I thought as I set up my tent. After setting up my tent I decided to go for a swim in the the clear, sparkling water filled with exotic lifeforms. I rushed down golden beach eager to get the water. The moment I touched the water, I gasped in shock. It was cold and definitely nice. I swam around in the water for a bit. Occasionally diving down to get a better look at the weird corals littering the seabed and the exotic fish the swum through the passages like they were going about their lives in an exotic underwater city. After a bit of this I noticed that It was starting to get dark, so I headed back to shore. When I got out I started to shiver, so I quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it snugly around my body. I was still feeling cold so I levitated a small amount of twigs, leaves and logs out of the rainforest and piled them together in front of my tent. After doing so, I summoned some sparks with my horn and carefully lit the fire. Shortly I had a nice, little fire going. Once it took hold and I didn't have to be constantly watching it, I dashed away from it's warm embracing heat and grabbed the marshmallows from my tent that I had nicked from the kitchen and brought them over to the fire. Soon I was chilling next to a slowly dying fire while occasionally roasting a marshmallow or two. My internal body clock then reminded me of something I had nearly forgotten. So I quickly lowered the sun making a nice sunset behind the rainforest. After finishing off the rest of the marshmallows I got rid of the rubbish with a decay spell and headed of to bed leaving behind the fire to die down overnight. As I drifted off to sleep I wondered to myself 'Why have I never done this before? The quiet and peace is so relaxing.' After those thoughts I was quickly asleep. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Meanwhile back in Canterlot... "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat!" Luna roared along with the song while guzzling down shot after shot. Since Celestia had disappeared Luna had taken the opportunity to do some things that she would normally not be able to do with her older sister watching her. Since both the Royal Sisters had disappeared, the castle had been left in uproar with everybody running around like headless chickens. "What do we do now? Are they dead? Have they left us? Have they been abducted by aliens?" Screamed one helpless noble. "Maybe Discord is back!?" Screamed another. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Meanwhile in Ponyville... Absolutely was out of the ordinary, because they knew nothing of these recent occurrences. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The next day I woke up at my usual time and crawled out of my warm sleeping bag. As I unzipped my tent I gently lifted the sun above the horizon. As I did so, I noticed that the moon wasn't being lowered. I quickly lowered it and wondered to myself what could have caused Luna to forget. Anyway putting that out of mind I thought about what I was going to do for my last day of vacation. I decided breakfast was a good start. After contemplating it for a short while I decided to make something with the fruit from the rainforest enclosing the beach. A short time later I was stretched out on my side looking out across the ocean watching the sunrise while sipping from a coconut filled with pineapple juice with a bendy straw. Sadly I didn't have a paper umbrella or any rum. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• After spending the day relaxing in the sun with a short swim before lunch, I decided to pack up an hour before sunset. As I packed everything back up I thought to myself 'I should this again sometime. It was a lot of fun.' After everything was packed I grabbed it all and teleported back to my room. Once I dropped my stuff off I headed down to the throne room to see how Luna had taken my unexpected disappearance for 2 days. When I got there my jaw dropped in shock. This is not what I was expecting. There was a crowd of panicking nobles and servants rushing around doing things. And Luna was nowhere to be seen. "Ahem." I caught their attention by clearing my throat. "What is happening?" I asked. They all rushed into a huddle whispering things. Shortly an unlucky servant was shoved in my direction. "Well, Princess. The thing is you disappeared so we went to Luna and asked her what to do. She told us to leave her alone for a bit and when we came back she was gone. We weren't exactly sure what had happened to either of you so we may have panicked a little bit. Also this morning we found Luna passed out in a club down in the city. She was a bit hungover so we put her to bed." "Oh Luna..." Still shocked by the state of affairs the castle was in compared to when I left I set about cleaning up the mess. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• It was at this point that Luna woke me up from that... Interesting possibility. Going on a marvellous vacation and coming home to a crazy house and a sister who went out and raved and drank till she passed out instead of taking responsibility. "So what happened?" Luna asked once she brought me out of the possibility. "It's a long story." Author's Note Feedback and advice is always appreciated. Thanks for reading. Now where was that ice-cream?
Three"Wait so I got to get drunk and go raving!? Why can't you disappear on vacations in the real world?" "Because, you miss aren't allowed to do either of those things for at least one hundred years." "What!?" "No buts. No maybes. That's what's happening. And anyway shouldn't you go to bed?" "Fine. Good day." "Good day." Once I had come out of the WIM 3008 I had told Luna what had transpired upon her asking and she had been really taken by the idea of drinking and raving all night. I decided to head down to the kitchen for a nice morning snack. After finishing of the marvellous food the chef prepared for me I went to the throne room to hold court for a while and monitor the state of affairs. Once I finished holding court, I gobbled down a delicious salad for dinner, before trotting off to my bedroom for a nice nights sleep. Before lying down, I paused briefly to lower the sun. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• After a lovely nights worth of sleep, I woke up and gave the sun a boost above the horizon, before getting ready for my day. As I finished off breakfast I decided to finish off the last question that had been bothering me. So as soon as I finished shoving food down my throat at a ridiculous rate like a lady, I left to Luna's room. When I arrived at Luna's room, I opened the door cautiously, I had learnt the hard way that opening her door quickly sometimes ended with an explosion in your face. When nothing happened, I walked in. To my surprise Luna wasn't there neither was any of her experiments or the WIM 3008. After looking around for any clues to her whereabouts, I found a note and next to it were two small buttons, one red and the other blue. The note said "To who ever is reading this please stop reading if you are not Celestia. If you are Celestia, then if you want to come visit my secret laboratory you will have to do something. Next to this nite are two buttons. The red one makes something happen and the other stops it. So if you want to visit me destroy this note and press the red one." 'Okay... This is a little weird, but it's Luna so whatever.' After reading this, I teleported the note to the sun. I then pushed the red button. Nothing happened... A bit frustrated at Luna I tried the button a couple more times, before heading to leave. I opened the door to leave, but instead of a castle corridor, I found myself looking into a laboratory that looked like what a child would expect to see in a mad scientist's hidden laboratory. There were smoking beakers spotted here and there some of them containing different coloured liquids and others containing electricity somehow. "Do you like it?" I suddenly heard from next to me, "I got it all cheap from this guy in the dungeons. Though it was hard to get some of the blood stains off." Luna said excitedly. "Oh Luna..." "What?" "Nothing, just why do you need this?" "Well I needed somewhere to put all my experiments that was out of the way so I asked around and this dude was practically giving this place away. So after I cleaned it up, I set up some buttons to change my door between a portal to here and being a normal door. Then I moved all my stuff here." She said as if this was a normal everyday occurrence. Though considering it was her, this truly could be one. I just sighed, before asking her "Hey mind if I use the WIM 3008 for a bit?" "Yeah, it was made for you. And if you are going to use it now, when do you want to be woken up?" "Tomorrow if you don't mind?" "Okay. Tomorrow it is. And it's just over there in the corner." She said, before pointing of into a corner. I wandered over in that direction, weaving through the tables and piles of stuff littered everywhere. Once I reached the pointed out corner, I quickly found the machine I was looking for. Having pulled it from a mound of stuff I set it up from memory, hoping that I would get it right. After a while and a bit of experimentation, I got it up and running. Once it was all good, I slipped the weird helmet atop my brow and pressed the button. As the darkness settled in as swiftly as always, I started concentrating on my question. 'What if I didn't stop Luna when she became Nightmare Moon?' •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The cruel, bone chilling wind howled past my body as I looked across the desolate plain, where there was once a forest. The empty feeling of the area was enhanced by the pale light shining across the dead land, beamed down from the full moon hovering in the sky. As I looked around, I thought to myself 'Why? Why did I have to hesitate and let her take away my only chance at saving my little ponies?' This had been a reoccurring thought ever since, when on the brink of victory I lost the Elements to my sister, because I hesitated when using them and she had taken off me. This had doomed every single pony or other creature on the planet not capable of withstanding the dreadful winds and the permanent low temperatures. And even if something could do that, there was no food or crop that could survive these conditions. As for me, well after my defeat at my sister's hand I was left to trudge across what was left of a once magnificent land. For all my powers even I couldn't stop this now. There was nothing left alive on this region of the planet. The only place left that could sustain life, was a band travelling around the planet where the sun's heat could be felt, but not so much that it cooked and burnt the land and it's inhabitants as it had on the other side of the planet. The problem was that the entire band was unpopulated at the time of Nightmare Moon's rise. So there was nothing living there, but non sentient animals and plants. I felt like I was going to go insane soon, from the lack of company and the constant silence. I had many eons left to live, so my chances of staying sane in this cruel, harsh, unforgiving and unfriendly hell were very slim. After my defeat Nightmare Moon stripped me of my powers leaving enough to let me live in this world. The only food I had was a collection of tinned food that I had scavenged from empty houses. There was really nothing left to do, but contemplate the world and slowly trudge towards the band of life. After many more hours of trudging, I finally decided it was time to sleep. So after laying down my head and curling up, I went to sleep and dreamt many horrible nightmares. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• When I was freed from the dreadful world I had just experienced, I rushed over to Luna and gave a big hug. "Umm. I appreciated hugs as much as the next mare, but why the hug?" "Well the place I just went to wasn't very nice and I needed to cheer myself up." "What was the question and why wasn't the possibility very nice?" "I'll tell you once I've had some nice hot chocolate with some biscuits." "Sounds good to me."
OneWhat if? That was the question she asked herself every morning. What if I didn't get up? What if I jumped out of bed and did a backflip? The problem was that there were so many possibilities that one could only guess at what a particular event could set in motion. So every day she woke up, got out of bed, and mentally lifted her burden for the countless time. Sometimes she wondered about what it would be like to be free. Free to do whatever she want. But. And it was a big but. There were some many things resting upon her weighted brow that she couldn't let herself break the routine. Whenever her rebellious subconscious brought up the intriguing thoughts of breaking the mold and choosing free for her self and not selflessly sacrificing her old, worn body for those with much vigour and potential in them she had to think hard and remember the old days when she had been free. And what good had being free been then. None that's what. Her unknowing selfishness had cost others, so many others their freedom. And at that point she had made a vow to herself to end her selfishness and to never knowingly allow others to experience the cramped, crushing feeling of a mold one had been melted into and forced to become a shadow of their true self, bowing to a puppet master hidden in plain sight. Now she was the only one left in the world who truly knew what it was like to have those chains of oppression bearing heavily down upon one's shoulders binding the inner truth of creations purpose. She was not always alone in this depressing burden, but now with no one else to help hold up the weight of the world it pressed down even harder. And that was what caused these rebellious thoughts of shattering the mold she had forged and tempered. These thoughts that she couldn't even contemplate for she had sworn to herself to never let the freedom of others be removed. This loneliness led to the thoughts of 'what if?' just for the freedom to know what might happen. Maybe someday when the is nothing left to hold onto and that she treasures and holds close to her heart have left she might do instead of think, but not today. Today she will think and imagine, yes imagine what could happen and endeavour to find the knowledge of the potential behind that simple yet demanding question. What if? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• That evening as she shifted her biggest burdens in life and was about to let herself fall into that gentle bliss of unknowing that is the small amount of sleep she allowed herself, she pondered on the never ending question of what if and the many other questions it brought up. After thinking hard for a small amount of rare and sacred sleep time she allowed herself the slide into the depths of sleep contemplating past choices as she thought about the one thing she missed more than her freedom... Her sister. Author's Note Wanna guess?
