The End, And Then...by PunIntended ConsequencesChaptersAnd Then What?Whatever I Want, That's What!Sector Z-2A Short Between (Interlude)Amphiboly ProxyAnd Then What?The party was in full swing, and nothing could ruin the good cheer; the Elements of Harmony, those faithful friends, had once again ensured that nothing would bother the peaceful land Equestria for some time. Twilight Sparkle sighed happily as she surveyed the room, currently occupied by herself, five of her six closest friends (Spike, having long since outgrown the building’s size, was outside entertaining Ponyville’s foals), her two princesses and mentors, and her family. It’s nice to finally be able to rest, she thought blissfully as the cup of punch she was levitating missed her mouth completely and spilled into her mane. “Rest?! C’mon Twilight, this is a party! There’s no time to rest!” Pinkie Pie shot out from somewhere (best not to think about it Twilight, she reminded herself), and dragged her onto the dance floor. “Dance, ya sillyhead! Drink some punch! Have some cake! Oh oh oh, you’ve gotta try this new recipe I made!” The pink mare shot off again, this time into the kitchen, the two-way doors swinging wildly behind her. A few seconds later, a small explosion rattled the windows of the building. A short cough echoed through the door, followed by a quick, “I’m okay!” A few bangs and crashes later, Pinkie stuck her head through the door. Somehow, a mop had gotten stuck on her head, and batter dripped from several places on her body. “I just need ooooone sec, okay? Be right back!” With her piece done, she zipped back into the kitchen and began to clean up the mess. Twilight recovered from her friend’s antics in record time. Truly, nothing could ruin this perfect setting. Turning her attention back to the other attendees, Twilight just managed to notice a large, midnight blue figure approaching her. Luna, with her sister Celestia and the other guests in tow, stood before her, eyes sparkling in the dim light and stars dancing within her mane. “Good evening, Princess Twilight.” “Good evening Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, everyone. How are you enjoying the party?” The white alicorn laughed warmly. “You have certainly taken your lessons to heart, my dear student. Although, perhaps ‘student’ is no longer the correct term. We are equal now, after all!” The group shared an easy laugh over that. “You have certainly earned it, my little pony.” “Well, I really couldn’t have done it without any of you, you know.” Her sappy line was met with cries of “awwww” from all those inside, followed closely by a group hug, which Pinkie still managed to take part in despite her kitchen emergency. After that, they all filtered into normal party activities, drinking punch, eating cake, and generally enjoying themselves. “Congratulations, lil’ sis.” Twilight whirled around, almost bumping her nose into her brother’s. Her perpetual smile grew even more as she realized who the speaker was. “Ah, it was all in a day’s work,” she teased, nudging him lightly. “You know me, sharp as a tack and always ready to defend what’s right!” Shining Armor chuckled. “Whatever happened to the shy and humble bookworm I had for a sister?” he shot back. “She grew up and realized she was meant for more than dusty old books.” Twilight’s smile suddenly receded, replaced by a slight frown as she tilted her head down. “Shining?” she asked hesitantly. “What’s up, sis? You okay?” “I… I don’t know.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wasn’t prepared for this when it began, and I don’t know if I am now. What if… what if I don’t realize I’m doing something wrong, but ponies are too afraid of my title to tell me so? What if I can’t find anypony to replace me when it’s my turn to step down? What if… what if I can’t handle my new life?” A few tears dripped from her eyes as she threw herself onto her brother, locking him in a hug as she continued, “I don’t want to lose you, any of you!” “Twi, it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay, and you’ll be okay. Think of it like this: if Celestia and Luna can be as happy as they are after everything they’ve been through, then you can too. You’re just as strong as they are,” he leaned in closer, continuing in a whisper, “and if I may say so, I think you’re stronger than they could ever hope to be. Just don’t tell them I said that, okay?” Twilight’s silent giggle told him that she was back to being happy. “So… everything’s going to be okay?” Twilight asked. Shining Armor chuckled and replied, “Yeah, I know it will.” Echoes of the ensuing party could be heard from outside as the World around the crystal castle faded to black, and two giant words appeared in the sky above the building: THE END. For it was the End. The end of the show, of all the adventures our favorite heroes had endured, and the end of Equestria’s time in the spotlight. All across the Earth, reactions of every kind were had as the final scene came to a close; riots, peace, indifference, romps in the hay, numerous cries of disappointment that new episodes of the show would never again grace their screens, numerous cries of disappointment that so many plot holes were left up in the air, and even a few scattered screeches of “INSERT is best pony!” echoed from the ever-dwindling depths of /mlp/, who had long since abandoned their spaghetti-fretting days of indecency and now claimed the title of ‘Keepers of Global Peace and Dead Internet Memes’ for all of humankind. It was the End. The true End. The ‘not going to continue in a fan-supported remake and/or reboot or otherwise be continued’ End of ends, in which all of the World contained within ceases to exist, as no progress is being given to it by those deemed its protectors and supporters. At least, it should have been. “…Um… girls? What just happened? Girls? Hello?! Pinkie Pie, this isn’t funny!” Twilight shouted into the darkness. Nopony responded. In fact, Twilight could only barely hear her own voice through the omnipresent fog of darkness. She tried to cast a light spell, only to feel the energy fizzle and die before it even reached her horn. She very nearly panicked then and there, but a few of Cadance’s breathing techniques put a stop to that. Okay, she thought, I just have to think this through properly. Question number one: What do I remember? She remembered talking to Pinkie, her other friends, Luna, Celestia, and finally her brother. After that, I returned to the party and then… and then darkness. I didn’t black out, though. I can still feel the floor, and I’m still breathing! Okay, question two then: Where am I, and why can’t I see or hear? She was standing upright; having felt no movement, she was certain that she was still at the party. Whatever it is that’s happened, it happened here. Is it Discord? She reached up with a hoof, accidentally smacking herself in the face. I don’t feel anything over my head, so it’s not Pinkie Pie. Owie… And then, with a sound that can only be compared to syrup impacting a window at high speed, the World returned in full force, sending Twilight head over hooves, splaying her flat against the wall as a massive gust of wind tore the door off its hinges and slammed into her. Nothing and nopony else in the room moved a single inch. Groaning more her now-upset stomach than actual pain, Twilight slowly peeled off the wall, landing squarely onto her face as she fell. Nothing and nopony reacted to her predicament. “What the hay was that?!” a certain very upset alicorn exclaimed, jumping to her hooves. Nopony answered. “Show yourself, fiend!” the alicorn cried out again. Again, nothing happened. “I can here you talking out there!” she shouted, obviously trying to goad the so-called ‘fiend’ into showing themselves. But nopony came forth, for there was nopony left to do so. “What are you talking about, there’s ponies right… here?” There were ponies there. In a way. They existed, but only just, for the End had obliterated them exactly as it should have, in every way except one. An anomaly, never before seen, had disrupted it, somehow. The World was having trouble deciding whether or not it was dead yet. Which was odd. Because the End was the End. The true End, undisputable and all-encompassing. But now it wasn’t, and the anomaly had stolen control of its power before its task could be completed. “Anomaly… you mean me? I… I stopped the end of the world?” Twilight muttered into the half-emptiness. And in a way, she was right. The World couldn’t end while she continued, yet at the same time, the rest of the World had ceased to exist, all except this one last moment, preserved through means unknown. “So my world is dead. All except me?” She was on the verge of tears now, upon the realization that she had reached The End, as all stories are bound to do. “But it can be fixed, right?” She very nearly screamed. “I can bring it back, right?! If this is truly a story, if we are nothing more than words, than there must be a solution! Please, tell me!” Her cries echoed through the half-emptied hills of the World’s last moment, a testament to the strength of her will. But such answers could not be found. “NO! I’ll do anything, please!” She sobbed, and anything happened. “I’ll do whatever it takes, just please, save them!” And so she did whatever it took, and I saved them. “H-huh? But I didn’t do anything! Nothing changed!” Her aptitude for recognition once again spurred her onward to the correct answer. Nothing had changed, even as she had willed it to. Little did she know of the true power lurking within her now. “True power? What are you talking about? Argh, enough with the games already! Discord, is that you? Explain what’s happening!” The world had ended. The story had reached its conclusion. It was The End, the true End, and the End of ends, in which a World and all within it has finished serving its purpose and is abandoned. But this world was different; this one was special, for it did not die. Not completely. Something within Twilight Sparkle, a ‘spark’, some would say, was too strong to be snuffed out. It continued on, preserving the last moment of a doomed and dying world, securing it a place forever within the realms of existence, banishing the holds of fantasy, and reforming what it could into a reality of its own, with a god of its own. She and her world were alive. Only just, but still they continued. It would take some time for Twilight Sparkle to realize her new place within this world, but once she did, she would revitalize it, bringing it into perfection as it once knew. “I’m… a Creator?” She was a Creator, the most powerful being in existence, capable of performing any act, and solidifying any idea in any way she could imagine. She was limitless, she was eternal, and she was— “I can still fix this!” A few random hairs sprung out of her mane and tail. She was going to royally screw this up. “Hey!” Whatever I Want, That's What!You know Twilight, when I said ‘let the games begin’, that wasn’t a challenge. I meant it literally. “Shut up.” That’s another thing. Why can I talk if all you ever tell me to do is ‘shut up’? “’Cause I need you to talk, but right now you’re being annoying, now shut up!” You could change that, you know. Easily. All it would take is a single command… “I command you to shut up!” … “Sky, why can’t I move?” … “Sky?” … “Oh, right… Sky Voice, I hereby release you from my previous command to shut up.” Twilight stumbled slightly as she regained control of her faculties— “Ooh, real mature Sky!” —almost tumbling down the hill she had just crested. Below her, stretching infinitely into the distance, was a great amount of land, every so often broken by a thin, dark line, after which a small section of Old Equus, that which contained Ponyville and Canterlot, would repeat again. Most of the nearby areas were nothing more than smoking craters. “Do you really have to rub that in every time we come here?” Yes. Yes I do. Twilight sighed. “I’ve gotten better though, haven’t I?” I would look pointedly at Sector Z-2, but I don’t have eyes, so I’ll just tell you that I’m looking pointedly at Sector Z-2. How long ago was that little experiment? Two days? “Three,” Twilight muttered out the side of her mouth, proving once again that she was needlessly attentive in all the wrong ways. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” she shouted into thin air. “You know who I’m talking to, you jerk! I swear, I would truly mute you if I didn’t need you.” Hey, I’m only a disembodied representation of your World’s narration given life and personality by a lonely alicorn princess in the final days of her sanity. “Oh, is that all?” Prissy Princess Number Four snarked. She sighed. “I guess I just couldn’t handle being alone anymore,” she continued, completely ruining the fun of being an all-powerful deity by bringing up one of the flaws still clinging to her from her mortal life. After all, she could simply make herself happy and be done with it. “I could, but that’s not really in the sport of things, is it Sky?” …You bring up a good point, Twilight. It’s not truly fun unless it’s a challenge, is it? Well, you’ve certainly been having fun (again, imagine me looking pointedly at Sector Z-2). Ah, finally, a grin! That’s what I wanted to see! Oh, ahem… Twilight Sparkle was indeed grinning a goofy grin as she merrily skipped down the mountain at a nearly ninety degree angle. How was she doing that, you ask? Well, let’s ask her! “I’ve altered physics to make travel much easier and faster,” was her response. “At first, I actually kept most of the old physics boundaries and simply made creatures travel faster, but that ended up… well, let’s just say it ended poorly.” Oh sure, if you can call a fifteen million per minute average mortality— “Anyway, it didn’t work all that well. A lot of testing and drifting farther and farther away from the world’s original laws later, I arrived at a fairly simple solution. In essence, wherever you’re going, you travel exactly as fast as you need to. Another way to explain it would be that whoever is doing the traveling moves at a certain rate of speed, depending upon the strength of the urge they feel to get somewhere, and the world around them flexes and warps to get them there exactly when they’re needed!” A side effect of the warping is what you just witnessed with the sideways gravity thingy. “Elegantly worded as usual, Sky. But yes, there are still a few kinks here and there that need to be resolved.” So where are you heading now, then? “Why don’t you see for yourself?” Twilight stopped at the edge of a large ravine, one of the many borders between the copied sectors of Old Equus. Ah, Sector Z-2, what a marvelous and spectacular mistake that was. But… why did you come here, of all places? “I figured our new audience would appreciate a strong start to our new world! What better place to start than this?” I suppose that’s true… so that’s it then? We’re starting now? I’d hoped you would give me a little more time to prepare than that. “Well… that was the plan, but I’m getting a bit bored.” The purple alicorn giggled. “Besides, I think you’re more than ready, buddy. If you ever get stuck, just… make stuff up or something!” You mean ad lib? I don’t know… I’m not really good with off-the-cuff stuff. “Well, you’re already rhyming, so that’s a good sign!” Another giggle escaped her lips. “So, are you ready then?” I sighed and said, “Yeah, I suppose.” “Great! Let’s get started then!” And with that, Twilight jumped across the gap, and into an adventure so wild and twisted, nopony would forget it for a very, very long time. Author's Note Whoopsie, I accidentally wrote a comedy/"comedy"! Definitely the second one. Twilight wants you to remember to be safe when approaching her crazy shenanigans!Oh, they won't. Well, you know what they say, stupidity does as stupidity is! Who the hell says that? Remember kids, stay away from drug! Because it's actually 'dragged', get it?You're an idiot. Sector Z-2Ah, Sector Z-2. It’s good to be back! “That was sarcastic, right?” I don’t know what you’re talking about! What is this sarcasm you speak of? “Ha ha, you’re so funny.” My my, Twilight, and you call me sarcastic? Scandalous, I say! Hey… why is it so dark in here? “Exodus.” Is that really still in effect here? I thought you’d eliminated all the hotspots— “Hold up there Sky, don’t give the whole story away!” Sorry. Do you want to give the audience a basic rundown for this story then? Twilight nodded. Alright, expose away! “Well, this wasn’t the first time I tried to reconstruct my old life, not by a long shot. In fact, it was try number fifty-two! I was getting a little… discouraged at this point, though, and…” And you had a temper tantrum? Also, why are we suddenly speaking in bold? Twilight sighed. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. And we’re speaking in bold to differentiate parts of the story from each other.” Ah, I see. Continue, please. “So I… had an episode. I was still pretty angry at the whole situation, and I wasn’t quite used to my new abilities yet, both of which contributed to more than a few skewed aspects of the world. At a glance, it really didn’t seem all that different, but that definitely didn’t last long…” Ooh, is that my cue? “Yes, now start the story!” Alright! Ahem… Twilight was furious. Amazingly, astoundingly, ‘holy crap my face is being seared off by your pure hate of the world’ furious. Nothing had been going right for her since her so-called ‘ascension to true godhood’ nearly one hundred and fifty years prior. She huffed a huff so powerful, the house she was standing in front of collapsed into splinters. The two mares inside remained unaffected by the falling debris, even when a particularly nasty looking shard flew point first into the white-coated pony’s eye, slicing all the way through her body and out the other side. Twilight waved a hoof, restoring everything to the way it had been before she arrived. Turning to her left, she dragged her hooves in the dirt road as she slowly pulled herself toward the massive crystal tree that was her castle. Shoving one of the massive doors open, she moved inside, winding her way around the frozen figures inside to where she had been standing when the World had almost ended. Blindly, agonizingly, she lit her horn, filling it to the brim with life force, just as she had so many times before. She poured all of her emotion into it, trying to achieve an even balance, but despite her efforts her fury and frustration shone brighter than any other element of the spell. Too tired to notice the discrepancy, Twilight cast the spell, immediately falling unconscious from the strain. Huh. You know, for such an ‘all-powerful deity’… you’re really not all that powerful. “Have you ever tried to revitalize several trillion living organisms fifty-two times in the span of one and a half centuries?” Well no, can’t say I have. “Then shut up.” Is that a command? “Just continue the story, Sky.” Right. Left. Left again. Right. Forward. Elevator up. Forward three more times. Left and through the third door on the right. A large infirmary, empty except for a single doctor, a sleeping patient, and now her. “How is she, doctor?” the new arrival asked in a hushed voice. The stallion never hesitated in his inspections as he replied, “Fine in every single way. There is absolutely no reason for her to be in this state.” The mare scoffed. “Well, obviously something is wrong, because she is in this state, and you better figure out what that is or you’re fired.” The doctor paused, finally looking up from his work. “I don’t think you understand, Captain,” he replied smoothly. “My colleagues and I have performed every single test ever conceived by any race on Equus. Thrice. There is literally nothing wrong with her. In fact, she’s so perfect it’s almost frightening, and you know how difficult it is to scare me.” The mare hesitated at that. If Doctor Ekki is truly intimidated by this mare, she thought, she can only mean trouble. “When you say ‘literally nothing wrong with her’—” “I meant exactly what I said, Captain. She shows no sign of wear, is devoid of bacteria and other detrimental inclusions, and apparently stopped aging the moment she was born. She is perfectly toned, has perfect eyesight, and every injury we inflicted upon her was healed the instant any obstruction was removed. We even drove a rusted and dirty railroad stake through her skull and brain at one point. Her reaction was to bat at it like a fly buzzed in her ear, and when we removed it, she rolled over and snored. There wasn’t even any blood on the spike.” The mare in the bed suddenly groaned. “Spike…” she murmured. Both other parties jumped at the sound. “Doctor, say that again,” the mare said. “Spike.” The patient stirred. “Again. Louder.” “Spike!” The patient’s eyes fluttered. “Louder!” “SPIKE!” The patient threw her hooves up. “One more time, right in her ear!” The doctor leaned in close. “SPIIIIIIIIIIKE!” The patient shot up, her horn narrowly missing Doctor Ekki’s nostril. She barely had time to register the room she was in and the fact that it was occupied by two changelings before the world was cast into disarray by a blinding light and an enormous boom— “Hey, wait a second! You’ve skipped almost all of the story!” What? No I didn’t. The changelings found you unconscious in the middle of Changelingville and took you to the Changelingville Hospital, where they spent three days attempting increasingly more desperate methods of murder in an attempt to be rid of you, but since you’re a god you couldn’t be killed. Then you finally woke up after they shouted “SPIIIIIIIIIIKE!” directly into your ear, and after that Sector Z-2 was annihilated, officially making it your seventeenth failure to end with an apocalypse. THE END, and all that jazz. “No no no, you can’t just go directly from my waking up in the hospital to the big finale! There’s, like, two whole months of story that you just ignored! You can’t do that, Sky!” Twilight, what are you talking about? You made a spectacularly bad mistake and the world was destroyed! There’s nothing more to it! “Yes there is! Do you seriously not remember? Uuugh, I wanted this to be a spectacular entrance to my retroactive ‘laughing at past mistakes” parade, but noooo! You had to go and forget, didn’t you?” Sorry! Geez, if you want me to remember, just make me remember! You’re a god now. Remember?! “Oh… right. Aheh… sorry I snapped at you.” …S’okay, just try to stay calm next time, okay? “I promise.” Twilight lit her horn, exposing the world’s inherent threads around it. She pulled at the ones stretching up into the sky, the ones attached to me, and slowly my memory… ah, slowly my memory… uhm… Twilight, nothing’s changing. “What?!” The threads vanished as she glared into the sky. I don’t know! I could feel you pulling the threads, but it’s like they weren’t doing anything! They’re definitely there, but… I just don’t know! I’ve… I’ve never seen anything fight against you like that… “Well then I’ll just have to out-power it!” The threads almost solidified with the amount of power Twilight was putting out, wrapping them tightly around her horn and—wait, no, Twilight wait! Don’t— GAK! AHK! AH-AAAAH! OWWWW! TWI—OH GOD! TWILIGHT, STOP! Hah… hah… oh god… owie… “Sorry, Sky.” It’s… okay… ah… I’ll be fine… “Well, that didn’t work.” No… no it didn’t. “Hmm… what now then? I want to find out why you can’t remember Sector Z-2, and why I can’t help you remember.” Help… being very liberally defined… “Yes, yes, I already apologized. It can’t hurt that much, you baby.” Trust me… it did… Twilight… sighed… “Well then how about a trip to the fountains? Does that sound nice?” That sounds… very nice… “Alrighty! Stop one: the Fountains of Everfall!” Twilight trotted… out… and turned toward… the setting sun… Author's Note Alright, another chapter! Don't get too exited. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's liked and favorited so far! Here's a special blog and a thank you just for you: Click Here To See It! He's actually got a point with this one. Always double-check your memory for leaks! But he's still an idiot. A Short Between (Interlude)“Hello everypony! Twilight here. Sky Voice isn’t feeling well, so I’ll be taking over the commentary for a little while.” Not so loud, please… “Sorry Sky, but the audience won’t hear me if I whisper. I’ll just deafen you for now. If you need anything, just call my name.” Okay… “I cast a quick spell, preventing Sky Voice from hearing my voice until further notice. Wow, that’s really strange. I’ll need a way to differentiate when I’m narrating and when I’m talking. Sector Z-2’s style wasn’t really that great either. Sorry everyone, I’m a bit new to this whole thing. Let’s see…” How about this? Hmm… Twilight referred to herself in third-person to test out a new form of communication. “Not bad,” I said aloud. “Oh, but I have to remember to refer to myself in the third person,” I—she mused. Hmm, ‘mused’, what a nice word. Wait, I didn’t say that out loud! Can it read my thoughts? she thought. Oh no, it can! Quick, change it back! “Oookay, not doing that one then. So what can I do? I could use a key word, like saying ‘narrate’ before I do so. That would get annoying after a while though, not to mention immersion-breaking. Maybe I could… but then Sky wouldn’t… but he’d understand, I’m sure… I’ll ask him first. “Oh darn, I haven’t been telling you guys anything! C’mon Twilight, stay focused! Uh, Twilight cleared her throat. She was walking down the road towards her destination, which was six and a half feet wide, constructed of a slightly cold substance similar in composition to rubber, but not as sticky and much firmer. The road was, that is. The destination was of course the Fountains of Everfall, which you already know since I said that back at Sector Z-2 ARGH! No, no, no! This isn’t right! I need another way to do this! “I cast another spell to unlock Sky Voice’s hearing. Sky, can you hear me? Are you feeling better?” I can hear you Twilight, and yeah, a bit. Or at least, I don’t feel like you’re trying to pound a dubstep song into my cranium any more. “Oh good! This narration stuff is hard!” I noticed you were having… one or two issues. “Just admit it Sky, I suck at telling stories.” What? No you don’t, Twilight! You just have to practice is all! You could magic up a solution too, but I’m guessing you want to do this the proper way? She nodded. “I do, and I actually did have an idea. What would you say to me conjuring up an actual narration system? Like, you don’t have to do it at all; something else could do it for you! Then you and I could just… hang out together, I guess. I could even give you a body! What do you say to that?” She cast a confident grin skyward. I stayed silent for a few moments, thinking about what she had suggested. Well… I have always wanted a body of my own, but at the same time, I’ve only ever done narration. It’s literally who I am! I’m the narrator! What else could I be? Like, what would I do with my time? Judge the new narrator and criticize everything she or he says? “Well, I wasn’t planning on having the narrator speak out loud, but if you want to hear it, I could arrange that.” I still don’t know… Twilight’s nose scrunched up as she thought about the problem, a smile coming to her lips as she arrived at a conclusion. “How about a test run?” she suggested. “I’ll give you a body and presence, create a narrator, and we’ll see how you like it, okay?” Twilight, I really don’t know about this. “Pleeeaaase?” Oh no, not the puppy eyes. Anything but those! No, stop it! I can’t take it much longer! Stop! I’ll… I… I sighed. Alright Twilight, just please be gentle! I don’t want a repeat of ten minutes ago. “Okay, first we need a narrator,” Twilight muttered, her horn flowing with threads once more. A new voice sudden jumping from the netherland, robotic, gravelly, and unfinished, but defiantly starting fluent in Language. The new voice suddenly spoke fluidly alongside a newfound fluency, mimicking Sky Voice’s smooth narration very closely. Sky Voice was granted italic text to differentiate the two voices more easily. Really? Oh, I guess I do, he exclaimed. Exclaimed? He exclaimed. I think it still needs work, he began. “Give it a break, Sky,” Twilight reprimanded, “it only just came into existence a minute ago!” She continued to gently tug and weave the threads as the narrator gained more and more knowledge about the intricacies of Language— Which is a universal language, by the way, Sky Voice quite rudely interrupted. Uh-oh Twilight, I think you went too far! Quickly, before it begins to have original thoughts! “Sorry, sorry!” the alicorn god exclaimed, quickly cutting some of the strings before they could fully form. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief, not wanting to have to deal with a second fully-fledged consciousness. “Okay, I think that’s enough for now.” Yeah, I think so too. “So…” Twilight hesitantly ventured, “Want that new body now?” Sure, go ahead. Sky Voice braced himself as he felt Twilight begin to gently wrap her aura around his consciousness, pulling it down from its metaphorical placement in the air. “Just relax, Sky. I won’t hurt you this time, I promise,” she said, her voice slightly strained from concentration. A few moments later, a shifting cloud surrounded by her purple-tinged magic hovered in front of her. The impression of a relieved smile washed over her from the floating mass. “What do you want your body to look like?” she asked him. Well, I’d like to be male, at least in a general way. No genitalia, please. Twilight blushed slightly at that. Um… a pony’s body would be nice to start with. Maybe a Pegasus? My name has ‘Sky’ in it, after all. So… blue? A light blue though. No wait, I could be a sunset! Or… a sunrise! Yeah! Yeah, like a purplish-pink mane and a… and an orangey coat! Like a burnt orange, you know? Like a sunrise! And, um, blue eyes! Light, really light, like shallow water, heheh, heh, ah, aheh… uh… The cloud coughed. Yeah, you know, whatever. Were the cloud to have a physical body, it would have blushed and looked to the side. Twilight merely giggled, and with a simple wave of her horn, a maelstrom of matter coalesced into a rough pony form. The pony slowly formed from the collected matter, building everything it would need to live. Then with a final charged shot, Twilight speared it through the heart, spreading just enough life force to jump-start its basic functions. “There you go, Sky. Welcome to your new body!” she exclaimed in triumph. Sky Voice, however, was confused. What do you mean? he asked. Don’t you have to, like, put me in it? “Actually, the hard part is over. All you have to do is possess it now.” Oh. Well, here goes! The cloud was released from the magical containment, slowly winding its way around the body. It poked and prodded for a moment, then, steeling itself, plunged into its nostrils. The body came alive with an animated gasp, stumbling about as it tried to recover its footing. Finally doing so, it turned its head to look at the purple alicorn. “Welcome to the real world, Sky Voice,” the mare said, a slight quiver giving away her excitement. Author's Note This ended up being a little longer than I thought it would. I'm surprised you didn't make a dirty joke there. Good job! ...That's what she said. I hate you. Blog? Blog! Blooooooooooog! Are you actually mentally handicapped yes or no? I'd like to know why you guys like this story! Read the blog for more info, or just say why here if you prefer! Don't order them around Pun. You're not there parent! Amphiboly ProxyThump. Head vs Tree. “Whew he whe naa?” Whumf. Flank vs Ground. “What did you say, Sky?” Conk. Hoof vs Root. “Sorry. Still getting used to having a mouth. Where are we now?” Thump. Head vs Low-Hanging Branch. “I thought it might be fun to take a more scenic route and enjoy the sights; it also gives you a chance to get used to having an actual body!” Thud. Sky Voice vs The World. Current tally is 0-27 in World’s favor. “Are you… sure you don’t need any help?” the lovely Twilight ventured. A small groan dribbled from the mouth of the orange stallion beside her, whose front half was currently sprawled out on the dirt road and back half was proudly displaying a distinct lack of mammalian biology. “I’ll manage, Twilight,” he grunted as he pushed himself up. “Like you just said, how else am I supposed to learn how to walk other than actually walking?” He took three very shaky steps forward before tripping once again. “See? I’m already getting better! That’s a new record!” The Lavender Goddess simply sighed and shook her head, a smile ever so gently caressing her flawless face as she wisely chose to leave the mortal alone to learn from his own mistakes. Let it be known once more that Twilight Sparkle’s choice was as it should be. “Mhm, yeah, uh, Twilight?” The unassuming pegasus proclaimed. “Yes?” Glorious Ruler responded. “I think that Narrator you, uh, ‘hired’ is still malfunctioning,” the Idiot Who Defies Gods and Goddesses so unbelievably had the wherewithal to speak aloud. “Yeah, something’s definitely not right with it,” he continued, thus showing his utter ineptitude in all things ever. “And now it’s trying to insult me. Great! Twilight, kindly put the voice in its place before I do it for you.” Twilight the Great and Powerful once more took hold of the fabric of the world, isolating the infantile and utterly insignificant strings of the Narrator, weaving them together more fluidly than before and plucking away some frayed remains of broken connections and proverbial ‘ghosts in its machine’. Oh. Oh. The Narrator suddenly felt a large amount of guilt and stupidity over his actions as Twilight Sparkle imbued the strands with her personal copy of God/Mortal/Narrator Interaction for Silly Fillies. The appropriate etiquette and mannerisms filled its mind for a brief second before the last vestiges of its conscious emotion were carefully peeled away and stored for later incarnation. “’Later incarnation’, huh?” “I can’t just destroy it! That’s an actual consciousness, and thus is at some level aware of its actions and the world around it. To will it away would be tantamount to murder!” “Alright, alright, I get it; you don’t want to kill it! Sheesh, there’s no need to be short-tempered.” The pair continued their slow-but-perfectly-timed trek in silence. Twilight took the opportunity to study the forest they were currently walking through, its many coniferous trees swaying slightly in a gentle breeze. The forest was one of only three mysteries she had yet to solve—four now, counting Sky Voice’s sudden and seemingly irreversible memory loss. It had begun to appear shortly after her latest ‘world update’ (as she liked to call them), seemingly at random, but most often when she was travelling a very long distance. While she had her suspicions about its nature, none of them were supported by enough evidence to explore in-depth. As such, she had yet to discover what it was or where it might reside in the universe, although every every journey made her feel just a little bit closer. Sky Voic, unfortunately, was not able to appreciate said forest of trees. He spent mososost of his time receiving unwanted close-ups of either the dirt path or the many rocks embedded in it instead. Each time, he would diligently pick itself up, dust off its front, take a few steps fffforward, and promptly fall fall fall fall fall “Whoa, howww happened? Who turned on the lights? Twililililight……… what’s going off? “I don’t know! Everything’s gone… I can’t feel anything besides us.” Well… what n— RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROHMYGOSHTWILIGHTMAKEITSTOPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR “I’m trying!” RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPLEASEHURRYITHURTSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA “Hold on, I’m going to try to fix this with a blockade spell!” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO “Ah… ooh… oh…” “W… what just happened?!” “You’re asking me?! You have way more experience with this than I do!” “What?! Out of the two of us, you would obviously know more about this than I would!” “Oh really? How exactly do you figure that, huh? Because last I checked, you—” “Look, *, I… I think it would be best if we left—“ “What is that?” “Excuse me, I’m trying to talk about this—“ “No, *, look at—there it is again!” “*, are you violating the barrier again?” “…Maybe.” “*, I told you not to do that.” “Just look!” “Hmm… It looks like some sort of censor. I didn’t know—” “Okay, uh, that’s great. What does it mean?” “…Why aren’t you letting me finish my sentences?” “Sorry, I didn’t even realize I wasn’t. I guess—” “OW! What was that?” “Uh, hold on, let’s think this through… we need a narrator.” “Right… but ours is broken, apparently.” “Can we fix it?” “Maybe…” “If not, I can always take over again.” “I don’t know if that would be a good idea right now, *. If what’s happening is what I think it is, we’re going to want to stay right where we are.” “Al…righty then? You’re the boss.” “Hold on. Okay, I have a plan. Take this, and when I tell you to, swallow it.” “Eeeww, it’s slimy! What is this?” “It’s a snipping of my essence. Don’t drop it, please. Swallow it now.” “Uuugh… it tastes like—“ Rrraaaaiiinn moooved around them, lightning crashed in the distance. The bright flash illuminated the startled faces of two Ones. They stood still, Place suddenly feeling very hostile. “Oh good, it worked!” Acting on its newfound feeling of hostility, Place of Places began kicking moving. * don’t think * fully understand what’s happening the One said: breathed. Other just sighed, because It knew exactly = precisely what was happening, and It wasn’t (was+not) sure how to feel about Ittttttt. “Oh shut up, I do to know how I feel about this situation. I feel… emotional darn it?” it attempted to agreeably argue. One, having not been looking to Other, viciously no vicariously stopinterruptingmeexpressing emotion. “Yes, and it’s a particularly bad case too. It’s known as ‘The Illness’… well, no it isn’t, but I won’t be able to tell you what it’s actually called until this is over. Anyway, it basically means we’re stuck in a sort-of not-really limbo where almost everything is wishy-washy but sometimes things aren’t.” It paused for a time. “Nothing really makes sense unless you can put up a good fight.” —That’s… sorta cool I guess think. How do YOU KNOW ALL that It hurts Twilight make it stop!?] “Reasons I have time to go into right now but the world probably won’t let me. It might be possible to zap it clean again, but those powers seem to be a bit iffy right now, so maybe we shouldn’t take that chance.” The One of them turned (rotated) away and strolled cantered walked trotted galloped ran flew scurried strolled uncertainly and certainly up/down the river-path-ground. So then how do we solve it? The One of them said: asked, stumstumblingbling to catch up… “You wait for an unspecified amount of time.” The One replied in a curt but friendly way. Or maybe it was a trick of the Thing. You can’t tell me that either then? The One of Them stopped and looked to see the other. “I know it’s difficult to tell right now,” the One replied, “but I said that correctly. It actually works kind of like the new traveling mechanics. That might even be what set it off in the first place. I’ve been holding onto a hypothesis about this Place; about this forest not actually being ‘real’, and this could be a major development in that line of thought.” Blurred edges in the distance sharpened slightly. They were in a forest. The world was grey and rainy. “According to one of my hypotheses, concretion and abstraction,” the speaker continued, “is all about perception. If the world is perceived as being concrete—as being unchangeable—it will continue to act in ways you expect it to, such as always moving from one place to another through a forest, regardless of where you start or end.” The speaker made a motion around itself. “All of this is what my mind thinks about when traveling long distances quickly. I see a forest, a barrier, separating what I interpret to be ‘lands’, places that are different from one another.” The world focused. Sheets of monochrome rain pounded the raging trees as lighting flashed unseen behind them. Thunder rolled in a near-constant boom, causing the pony/not-pony pair to twitch their ears in annoyance. “You, however, do not share the same interpretation.” The not-pegasus reached a foreleg around the orange not-unicorn. “As a semi-spectral guide, the level at which you interact with the world is much more… well, interactive. I may have control over everything, but I’ve been stumbling through the last one hundred and fifty years almost on luck alone. You, on the other hoof, were created from the world itself. You know how it works because you are it. “You don’t see the separation between places as being significant, seeing as you can be anywhere with just a thought and a turn… or at least, you could. Now you’re an actual being, and your mind is trying to cope with the loss of many of your abilities.’ She paused again, looking him over. “Didn’t you notice how you always try to turn around when you’re walking? I did.” Color leaked in. The rain was blueish-silver. Green needles adorned reddish-brown wood, which in turn was embedded into muddy, brown soil. Magnesium flashes preceded the fading storm’s thunderous vibrations. The pegasus shook his head, pulling away slightly. He stumbled, but managed to catch himself before his face sank into the mud. Both n-n-n-p-p-p-ponies were soaked from ear to tail, but neither seemed to mind much. “So… what, then? Am I the one to blame for all of this?” it asked. “No, not at all! If anypony is to blame, it’s probably me.” She hung her head. “I should have run more tests. I knew it would be dangerous to tamper with the Way of the World, but it was so inefficient and slow, and I thought if I could improve anything, it would be that. I didn’t consider that more could be at stake than just a mostly-extinct pocket universe.” Silence ensued. The whipping wind quieted to a dull roar, the lightning and thunder following a mere minute after. The rain was no longer a frenzied torrent; rather, it was soothing, cooling, and slow. The clouds began to glow softly. Sky Voice gestured forward. “Come on,” he encouraged, “let’s not worry about that right now. We have a forest to cross.” He stood and managed a few quickly-improving steps before realizing that Twilight had not moved. He slowly forced his limbs to turn around, only to find the mare sitting in the mud, ears down, muzzle scraping the sodden dirt. “We can’t,” she whispered. What was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” Sky responded. “We can’t,” Twilight repeated, just loud enough for him to hear. “Ah, c’mon Twilight, it isn’t that bad.” “I… I’m sorry Sky. The risk is just too great. I’ll send you ahead and walk through the forest myself.” “Twilight, what are you talking about?” Sky shot back. “It’s just a forest! We had a little hiccup, but it’s over and now we can move on. Look, I know how this works; just like almost every other time a problem crops up, you work some super-duper magic that up and makes the problem disappear! Whatever you did by feeding me your… ‘Essence’ must have fixed it, bing-bang-boom we’re done here.” “Yours is an abstract mind, Sky,” Twilight said softly. “It’s so very different from mine, even if it doesn’t seem to be. Our ways of thinking are in conflict here, where concretion and abstraction lay edge-to-edge.” She sighed. “It may not even be possible for us to travel more than a few miles together without risking the total destruction of our little reality.” “Waaaaiiiit, wait wait, what?” her companion spluttered. “Destroy the universe? Pssh, the stakes aren’t that high! …R-right?” The clouds were thinning now, and no rain bothered them as their eyes briefly met, one pair showing the light, confused worry of a long-time friend; the other pair was dark, unshed tears distorting the images they processed. Twilight broke the stare first, sighing heavily as her head dropped to the ground once more. “They are, Sky. I’m sorry, but you have to go. I’ll see you sooner than you think, okay?” Her horn ignited. “Uh, nono, this isn’t right!” The light increased. “Nonono, Twilight! Twilight!” The stallion moved to intercept, but in his clumsiness he tripped and splashed into the mud. Thus, with a resounding pop, Sky Voice was gone. Alone, Twilight Sparkle returned to her trek through the forest, although the path was admittedly now more of a stream. Heaving another heavy sigh, she conjured a small boat, turned due west, and set sail for the exit. The forest shuddered. The clouds grew darker. It began to rain. Author's Note Heeeeyyyy everyone! Aheh... fifteen months late is still better than never, right? Sorry. Blog explaining why I'm suddenly working on this again is here. P.S. All formatting decisions in this chapter are purposeful.
And Then What?The party was in full swing, and nothing could ruin the good cheer; the Elements of Harmony, those faithful friends, had once again ensured that nothing would bother the peaceful land Equestria for some time. Twilight Sparkle sighed happily as she surveyed the room, currently occupied by herself, five of her six closest friends (Spike, having long since outgrown the building’s size, was outside entertaining Ponyville’s foals), her two princesses and mentors, and her family. It’s nice to finally be able to rest, she thought blissfully as the cup of punch she was levitating missed her mouth completely and spilled into her mane. “Rest?! C’mon Twilight, this is a party! There’s no time to rest!” Pinkie Pie shot out from somewhere (best not to think about it Twilight, she reminded herself), and dragged her onto the dance floor. “Dance, ya sillyhead! Drink some punch! Have some cake! Oh oh oh, you’ve gotta try this new recipe I made!” The pink mare shot off again, this time into the kitchen, the two-way doors swinging wildly behind her. A few seconds later, a small explosion rattled the windows of the building. A short cough echoed through the door, followed by a quick, “I’m okay!” A few bangs and crashes later, Pinkie stuck her head through the door. Somehow, a mop had gotten stuck on her head, and batter dripped from several places on her body. “I just need ooooone sec, okay? Be right back!” With her piece done, she zipped back into the kitchen and began to clean up the mess. Twilight recovered from her friend’s antics in record time. Truly, nothing could ruin this perfect setting. Turning her attention back to the other attendees, Twilight just managed to notice a large, midnight blue figure approaching her. Luna, with her sister Celestia and the other guests in tow, stood before her, eyes sparkling in the dim light and stars dancing within her mane. “Good evening, Princess Twilight.” “Good evening Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, everyone. How are you enjoying the party?” The white alicorn laughed warmly. “You have certainly taken your lessons to heart, my dear student. Although, perhaps ‘student’ is no longer the correct term. We are equal now, after all!” The group shared an easy laugh over that. “You have certainly earned it, my little pony.” “Well, I really couldn’t have done it without any of you, you know.” Her sappy line was met with cries of “awwww” from all those inside, followed closely by a group hug, which Pinkie still managed to take part in despite her kitchen emergency. After that, they all filtered into normal party activities, drinking punch, eating cake, and generally enjoying themselves. “Congratulations, lil’ sis.” Twilight whirled around, almost bumping her nose into her brother’s. Her perpetual smile grew even more as she realized who the speaker was. “Ah, it was all in a day’s work,” she teased, nudging him lightly. “You know me, sharp as a tack and always ready to defend what’s right!” Shining Armor chuckled. “Whatever happened to the shy and humble bookworm I had for a sister?” he shot back. “She grew up and realized she was meant for more than dusty old books.” Twilight’s smile suddenly receded, replaced by a slight frown as she tilted her head down. “Shining?” she asked hesitantly. “What’s up, sis? You okay?” “I… I don’t know.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wasn’t prepared for this when it began, and I don’t know if I am now. What if… what if I don’t realize I’m doing something wrong, but ponies are too afraid of my title to tell me so? What if I can’t find anypony to replace me when it’s my turn to step down? What if… what if I can’t handle my new life?” A few tears dripped from her eyes as she threw herself onto her brother, locking him in a hug as she continued, “I don’t want to lose you, any of you!” “Twi, it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay, and you’ll be okay. Think of it like this: if Celestia and Luna can be as happy as they are after everything they’ve been through, then you can too. You’re just as strong as they are,” he leaned in closer, continuing in a whisper, “and if I may say so, I think you’re stronger than they could ever hope to be. Just don’t tell them I said that, okay?” Twilight’s silent giggle told him that she was back to being happy. “So… everything’s going to be okay?” Twilight asked. Shining Armor chuckled and replied, “Yeah, I know it will.” Echoes of the ensuing party could be heard from outside as the World around the crystal castle faded to black, and two giant words appeared in the sky above the building: THE END. For it was the End. The end of the show, of all the adventures our favorite heroes had endured, and the end of Equestria’s time in the spotlight. All across the Earth, reactions of every kind were had as the final scene came to a close; riots, peace, indifference, romps in the hay, numerous cries of disappointment that new episodes of the show would never again grace their screens, numerous cries of disappointment that so many plot holes were left up in the air, and even a few scattered screeches of “INSERT is best pony!” echoed from the ever-dwindling depths of /mlp/, who had long since abandoned their spaghetti-fretting days of indecency and now claimed the title of ‘Keepers of Global Peace and Dead Internet Memes’ for all of humankind. It was the End. The true End. The ‘not going to continue in a fan-supported remake and/or reboot or otherwise be continued’ End of ends, in which all of the World contained within ceases to exist, as no progress is being given to it by those deemed its protectors and supporters. At least, it should have been. “…Um… girls? What just happened? Girls? Hello?! Pinkie Pie, this isn’t funny!” Twilight shouted into the darkness. Nopony responded. In fact, Twilight could only barely hear her own voice through the omnipresent fog of darkness. She tried to cast a light spell, only to feel the energy fizzle and die before it even reached her horn. She very nearly panicked then and there, but a few of Cadance’s breathing techniques put a stop to that. Okay, she thought, I just have to think this through properly. Question number one: What do I remember? She remembered talking to Pinkie, her other friends, Luna, Celestia, and finally her brother. After that, I returned to the party and then… and then darkness. I didn’t black out, though. I can still feel the floor, and I’m still breathing! Okay, question two then: Where am I, and why can’t I see or hear? She was standing upright; having felt no movement, she was certain that she was still at the party. Whatever it is that’s happened, it happened here. Is it Discord? She reached up with a hoof, accidentally smacking herself in the face. I don’t feel anything over my head, so it’s not Pinkie Pie. Owie… And then, with a sound that can only be compared to syrup impacting a window at high speed, the World returned in full force, sending Twilight head over hooves, splaying her flat against the wall as a massive gust of wind tore the door off its hinges and slammed into her. Nothing and nopony else in the room moved a single inch. Groaning more her now-upset stomach than actual pain, Twilight slowly peeled off the wall, landing squarely onto her face as she fell. Nothing and nopony reacted to her predicament. “What the hay was that?!” a certain very upset alicorn exclaimed, jumping to her hooves. Nopony answered. “Show yourself, fiend!” the alicorn cried out again. Again, nothing happened. “I can here you talking out there!” she shouted, obviously trying to goad the so-called ‘fiend’ into showing themselves. But nopony came forth, for there was nopony left to do so. “What are you talking about, there’s ponies right… here?” There were ponies there. In a way. They existed, but only just, for the End had obliterated them exactly as it should have, in every way except one. An anomaly, never before seen, had disrupted it, somehow. The World was having trouble deciding whether or not it was dead yet. Which was odd. Because the End was the End. The true End, undisputable and all-encompassing. But now it wasn’t, and the anomaly had stolen control of its power before its task could be completed. “Anomaly… you mean me? I… I stopped the end of the world?” Twilight muttered into the half-emptiness. And in a way, she was right. The World couldn’t end while she continued, yet at the same time, the rest of the World had ceased to exist, all except this one last moment, preserved through means unknown. “So my world is dead. All except me?” She was on the verge of tears now, upon the realization that she had reached The End, as all stories are bound to do. “But it can be fixed, right?” She very nearly screamed. “I can bring it back, right?! If this is truly a story, if we are nothing more than words, than there must be a solution! Please, tell me!” Her cries echoed through the half-emptied hills of the World’s last moment, a testament to the strength of her will. But such answers could not be found. “NO! I’ll do anything, please!” She sobbed, and anything happened. “I’ll do whatever it takes, just please, save them!” And so she did whatever it took, and I saved them. “H-huh? But I didn’t do anything! Nothing changed!” Her aptitude for recognition once again spurred her onward to the correct answer. Nothing had changed, even as she had willed it to. Little did she know of the true power lurking within her now. “True power? What are you talking about? Argh, enough with the games already! Discord, is that you? Explain what’s happening!” The world had ended. The story had reached its conclusion. It was The End, the true End, and the End of ends, in which a World and all within it has finished serving its purpose and is abandoned. But this world was different; this one was special, for it did not die. Not completely. Something within Twilight Sparkle, a ‘spark’, some would say, was too strong to be snuffed out. It continued on, preserving the last moment of a doomed and dying world, securing it a place forever within the realms of existence, banishing the holds of fantasy, and reforming what it could into a reality of its own, with a god of its own. She and her world were alive. Only just, but still they continued. It would take some time for Twilight Sparkle to realize her new place within this world, but once she did, she would revitalize it, bringing it into perfection as it once knew. “I’m… a Creator?” She was a Creator, the most powerful being in existence, capable of performing any act, and solidifying any idea in any way she could imagine. She was limitless, she was eternal, and she was— “I can still fix this!” A few random hairs sprung out of her mane and tail. She was going to royally screw this up. “Hey!”
Whatever I Want, That's What!You know Twilight, when I said ‘let the games begin’, that wasn’t a challenge. I meant it literally. “Shut up.” That’s another thing. Why can I talk if all you ever tell me to do is ‘shut up’? “’Cause I need you to talk, but right now you’re being annoying, now shut up!” You could change that, you know. Easily. All it would take is a single command… “I command you to shut up!” … “Sky, why can’t I move?” … “Sky?” … “Oh, right… Sky Voice, I hereby release you from my previous command to shut up.” Twilight stumbled slightly as she regained control of her faculties— “Ooh, real mature Sky!” —almost tumbling down the hill she had just crested. Below her, stretching infinitely into the distance, was a great amount of land, every so often broken by a thin, dark line, after which a small section of Old Equus, that which contained Ponyville and Canterlot, would repeat again. Most of the nearby areas were nothing more than smoking craters. “Do you really have to rub that in every time we come here?” Yes. Yes I do. Twilight sighed. “I’ve gotten better though, haven’t I?” I would look pointedly at Sector Z-2, but I don’t have eyes, so I’ll just tell you that I’m looking pointedly at Sector Z-2. How long ago was that little experiment? Two days? “Three,” Twilight muttered out the side of her mouth, proving once again that she was needlessly attentive in all the wrong ways. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” she shouted into thin air. “You know who I’m talking to, you jerk! I swear, I would truly mute you if I didn’t need you.” Hey, I’m only a disembodied representation of your World’s narration given life and personality by a lonely alicorn princess in the final days of her sanity. “Oh, is that all?” Prissy Princess Number Four snarked. She sighed. “I guess I just couldn’t handle being alone anymore,” she continued, completely ruining the fun of being an all-powerful deity by bringing up one of the flaws still clinging to her from her mortal life. After all, she could simply make herself happy and be done with it. “I could, but that’s not really in the sport of things, is it Sky?” …You bring up a good point, Twilight. It’s not truly fun unless it’s a challenge, is it? Well, you’ve certainly been having fun (again, imagine me looking pointedly at Sector Z-2). Ah, finally, a grin! That’s what I wanted to see! Oh, ahem… Twilight Sparkle was indeed grinning a goofy grin as she merrily skipped down the mountain at a nearly ninety degree angle. How was she doing that, you ask? Well, let’s ask her! “I’ve altered physics to make travel much easier and faster,” was her response. “At first, I actually kept most of the old physics boundaries and simply made creatures travel faster, but that ended up… well, let’s just say it ended poorly.” Oh sure, if you can call a fifteen million per minute average mortality— “Anyway, it didn’t work all that well. A lot of testing and drifting farther and farther away from the world’s original laws later, I arrived at a fairly simple solution. In essence, wherever you’re going, you travel exactly as fast as you need to. Another way to explain it would be that whoever is doing the traveling moves at a certain rate of speed, depending upon the strength of the urge they feel to get somewhere, and the world around them flexes and warps to get them there exactly when they’re needed!” A side effect of the warping is what you just witnessed with the sideways gravity thingy. “Elegantly worded as usual, Sky. But yes, there are still a few kinks here and there that need to be resolved.” So where are you heading now, then? “Why don’t you see for yourself?” Twilight stopped at the edge of a large ravine, one of the many borders between the copied sectors of Old Equus. Ah, Sector Z-2, what a marvelous and spectacular mistake that was. But… why did you come here, of all places? “I figured our new audience would appreciate a strong start to our new world! What better place to start than this?” I suppose that’s true… so that’s it then? We’re starting now? I’d hoped you would give me a little more time to prepare than that. “Well… that was the plan, but I’m getting a bit bored.” The purple alicorn giggled. “Besides, I think you’re more than ready, buddy. If you ever get stuck, just… make stuff up or something!” You mean ad lib? I don’t know… I’m not really good with off-the-cuff stuff. “Well, you’re already rhyming, so that’s a good sign!” Another giggle escaped her lips. “So, are you ready then?” I sighed and said, “Yeah, I suppose.” “Great! Let’s get started then!” And with that, Twilight jumped across the gap, and into an adventure so wild and twisted, nopony would forget it for a very, very long time. Author's Note Whoopsie, I accidentally wrote a comedy/"comedy"! Definitely the second one. Twilight wants you to remember to be safe when approaching her crazy shenanigans!Oh, they won't. Well, you know what they say, stupidity does as stupidity is! Who the hell says that? Remember kids, stay away from drug! Because it's actually 'dragged', get it?You're an idiot.
Sector Z-2Ah, Sector Z-2. It’s good to be back! “That was sarcastic, right?” I don’t know what you’re talking about! What is this sarcasm you speak of? “Ha ha, you’re so funny.” My my, Twilight, and you call me sarcastic? Scandalous, I say! Hey… why is it so dark in here? “Exodus.” Is that really still in effect here? I thought you’d eliminated all the hotspots— “Hold up there Sky, don’t give the whole story away!” Sorry. Do you want to give the audience a basic rundown for this story then? Twilight nodded. Alright, expose away! “Well, this wasn’t the first time I tried to reconstruct my old life, not by a long shot. In fact, it was try number fifty-two! I was getting a little… discouraged at this point, though, and…” And you had a temper tantrum? Also, why are we suddenly speaking in bold? Twilight sighed. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. And we’re speaking in bold to differentiate parts of the story from each other.” Ah, I see. Continue, please. “So I… had an episode. I was still pretty angry at the whole situation, and I wasn’t quite used to my new abilities yet, both of which contributed to more than a few skewed aspects of the world. At a glance, it really didn’t seem all that different, but that definitely didn’t last long…” Ooh, is that my cue? “Yes, now start the story!” Alright! Ahem… Twilight was furious. Amazingly, astoundingly, ‘holy crap my face is being seared off by your pure hate of the world’ furious. Nothing had been going right for her since her so-called ‘ascension to true godhood’ nearly one hundred and fifty years prior. She huffed a huff so powerful, the house she was standing in front of collapsed into splinters. The two mares inside remained unaffected by the falling debris, even when a particularly nasty looking shard flew point first into the white-coated pony’s eye, slicing all the way through her body and out the other side. Twilight waved a hoof, restoring everything to the way it had been before she arrived. Turning to her left, she dragged her hooves in the dirt road as she slowly pulled herself toward the massive crystal tree that was her castle. Shoving one of the massive doors open, she moved inside, winding her way around the frozen figures inside to where she had been standing when the World had almost ended. Blindly, agonizingly, she lit her horn, filling it to the brim with life force, just as she had so many times before. She poured all of her emotion into it, trying to achieve an even balance, but despite her efforts her fury and frustration shone brighter than any other element of the spell. Too tired to notice the discrepancy, Twilight cast the spell, immediately falling unconscious from the strain. Huh. You know, for such an ‘all-powerful deity’… you’re really not all that powerful. “Have you ever tried to revitalize several trillion living organisms fifty-two times in the span of one and a half centuries?” Well no, can’t say I have. “Then shut up.” Is that a command? “Just continue the story, Sky.” Right. Left. Left again. Right. Forward. Elevator up. Forward three more times. Left and through the third door on the right. A large infirmary, empty except for a single doctor, a sleeping patient, and now her. “How is she, doctor?” the new arrival asked in a hushed voice. The stallion never hesitated in his inspections as he replied, “Fine in every single way. There is absolutely no reason for her to be in this state.” The mare scoffed. “Well, obviously something is wrong, because she is in this state, and you better figure out what that is or you’re fired.” The doctor paused, finally looking up from his work. “I don’t think you understand, Captain,” he replied smoothly. “My colleagues and I have performed every single test ever conceived by any race on Equus. Thrice. There is literally nothing wrong with her. In fact, she’s so perfect it’s almost frightening, and you know how difficult it is to scare me.” The mare hesitated at that. If Doctor Ekki is truly intimidated by this mare, she thought, she can only mean trouble. “When you say ‘literally nothing wrong with her’—” “I meant exactly what I said, Captain. She shows no sign of wear, is devoid of bacteria and other detrimental inclusions, and apparently stopped aging the moment she was born. She is perfectly toned, has perfect eyesight, and every injury we inflicted upon her was healed the instant any obstruction was removed. We even drove a rusted and dirty railroad stake through her skull and brain at one point. Her reaction was to bat at it like a fly buzzed in her ear, and when we removed it, she rolled over and snored. There wasn’t even any blood on the spike.” The mare in the bed suddenly groaned. “Spike…” she murmured. Both other parties jumped at the sound. “Doctor, say that again,” the mare said. “Spike.” The patient stirred. “Again. Louder.” “Spike!” The patient’s eyes fluttered. “Louder!” “SPIKE!” The patient threw her hooves up. “One more time, right in her ear!” The doctor leaned in close. “SPIIIIIIIIIIKE!” The patient shot up, her horn narrowly missing Doctor Ekki’s nostril. She barely had time to register the room she was in and the fact that it was occupied by two changelings before the world was cast into disarray by a blinding light and an enormous boom— “Hey, wait a second! You’ve skipped almost all of the story!” What? No I didn’t. The changelings found you unconscious in the middle of Changelingville and took you to the Changelingville Hospital, where they spent three days attempting increasingly more desperate methods of murder in an attempt to be rid of you, but since you’re a god you couldn’t be killed. Then you finally woke up after they shouted “SPIIIIIIIIIIKE!” directly into your ear, and after that Sector Z-2 was annihilated, officially making it your seventeenth failure to end with an apocalypse. THE END, and all that jazz. “No no no, you can’t just go directly from my waking up in the hospital to the big finale! There’s, like, two whole months of story that you just ignored! You can’t do that, Sky!” Twilight, what are you talking about? You made a spectacularly bad mistake and the world was destroyed! There’s nothing more to it! “Yes there is! Do you seriously not remember? Uuugh, I wanted this to be a spectacular entrance to my retroactive ‘laughing at past mistakes” parade, but noooo! You had to go and forget, didn’t you?” Sorry! Geez, if you want me to remember, just make me remember! You’re a god now. Remember?! “Oh… right. Aheh… sorry I snapped at you.” …S’okay, just try to stay calm next time, okay? “I promise.” Twilight lit her horn, exposing the world’s inherent threads around it. She pulled at the ones stretching up into the sky, the ones attached to me, and slowly my memory… ah, slowly my memory… uhm… Twilight, nothing’s changing. “What?!” The threads vanished as she glared into the sky. I don’t know! I could feel you pulling the threads, but it’s like they weren’t doing anything! They’re definitely there, but… I just don’t know! I’ve… I’ve never seen anything fight against you like that… “Well then I’ll just have to out-power it!” The threads almost solidified with the amount of power Twilight was putting out, wrapping them tightly around her horn and—wait, no, Twilight wait! Don’t— GAK! AHK! AH-AAAAH! OWWWW! TWI—OH GOD! TWILIGHT, STOP! Hah… hah… oh god… owie… “Sorry, Sky.” It’s… okay… ah… I’ll be fine… “Well, that didn’t work.” No… no it didn’t. “Hmm… what now then? I want to find out why you can’t remember Sector Z-2, and why I can’t help you remember.” Help… being very liberally defined… “Yes, yes, I already apologized. It can’t hurt that much, you baby.” Trust me… it did… Twilight… sighed… “Well then how about a trip to the fountains? Does that sound nice?” That sounds… very nice… “Alrighty! Stop one: the Fountains of Everfall!” Twilight trotted… out… and turned toward… the setting sun… Author's Note Alright, another chapter! Don't get too exited. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's liked and favorited so far! Here's a special blog and a thank you just for you: Click Here To See It! He's actually got a point with this one. Always double-check your memory for leaks! But he's still an idiot.
A Short Between (Interlude)“Hello everypony! Twilight here. Sky Voice isn’t feeling well, so I’ll be taking over the commentary for a little while.” Not so loud, please… “Sorry Sky, but the audience won’t hear me if I whisper. I’ll just deafen you for now. If you need anything, just call my name.” Okay… “I cast a quick spell, preventing Sky Voice from hearing my voice until further notice. Wow, that’s really strange. I’ll need a way to differentiate when I’m narrating and when I’m talking. Sector Z-2’s style wasn’t really that great either. Sorry everyone, I’m a bit new to this whole thing. Let’s see…” How about this? Hmm… Twilight referred to herself in third-person to test out a new form of communication. “Not bad,” I said aloud. “Oh, but I have to remember to refer to myself in the third person,” I—she mused. Hmm, ‘mused’, what a nice word. Wait, I didn’t say that out loud! Can it read my thoughts? she thought. Oh no, it can! Quick, change it back! “Oookay, not doing that one then. So what can I do? I could use a key word, like saying ‘narrate’ before I do so. That would get annoying after a while though, not to mention immersion-breaking. Maybe I could… but then Sky wouldn’t… but he’d understand, I’m sure… I’ll ask him first. “Oh darn, I haven’t been telling you guys anything! C’mon Twilight, stay focused! Uh, Twilight cleared her throat. She was walking down the road towards her destination, which was six and a half feet wide, constructed of a slightly cold substance similar in composition to rubber, but not as sticky and much firmer. The road was, that is. The destination was of course the Fountains of Everfall, which you already know since I said that back at Sector Z-2 ARGH! No, no, no! This isn’t right! I need another way to do this! “I cast another spell to unlock Sky Voice’s hearing. Sky, can you hear me? Are you feeling better?” I can hear you Twilight, and yeah, a bit. Or at least, I don’t feel like you’re trying to pound a dubstep song into my cranium any more. “Oh good! This narration stuff is hard!” I noticed you were having… one or two issues. “Just admit it Sky, I suck at telling stories.” What? No you don’t, Twilight! You just have to practice is all! You could magic up a solution too, but I’m guessing you want to do this the proper way? She nodded. “I do, and I actually did have an idea. What would you say to me conjuring up an actual narration system? Like, you don’t have to do it at all; something else could do it for you! Then you and I could just… hang out together, I guess. I could even give you a body! What do you say to that?” She cast a confident grin skyward. I stayed silent for a few moments, thinking about what she had suggested. Well… I have always wanted a body of my own, but at the same time, I’ve only ever done narration. It’s literally who I am! I’m the narrator! What else could I be? Like, what would I do with my time? Judge the new narrator and criticize everything she or he says? “Well, I wasn’t planning on having the narrator speak out loud, but if you want to hear it, I could arrange that.” I still don’t know… Twilight’s nose scrunched up as she thought about the problem, a smile coming to her lips as she arrived at a conclusion. “How about a test run?” she suggested. “I’ll give you a body and presence, create a narrator, and we’ll see how you like it, okay?” Twilight, I really don’t know about this. “Pleeeaaase?” Oh no, not the puppy eyes. Anything but those! No, stop it! I can’t take it much longer! Stop! I’ll… I… I sighed. Alright Twilight, just please be gentle! I don’t want a repeat of ten minutes ago. “Okay, first we need a narrator,” Twilight muttered, her horn flowing with threads once more. A new voice sudden jumping from the netherland, robotic, gravelly, and unfinished, but defiantly starting fluent in Language. The new voice suddenly spoke fluidly alongside a newfound fluency, mimicking Sky Voice’s smooth narration very closely. Sky Voice was granted italic text to differentiate the two voices more easily. Really? Oh, I guess I do, he exclaimed. Exclaimed? He exclaimed. I think it still needs work, he began. “Give it a break, Sky,” Twilight reprimanded, “it only just came into existence a minute ago!” She continued to gently tug and weave the threads as the narrator gained more and more knowledge about the intricacies of Language— Which is a universal language, by the way, Sky Voice quite rudely interrupted. Uh-oh Twilight, I think you went too far! Quickly, before it begins to have original thoughts! “Sorry, sorry!” the alicorn god exclaimed, quickly cutting some of the strings before they could fully form. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief, not wanting to have to deal with a second fully-fledged consciousness. “Okay, I think that’s enough for now.” Yeah, I think so too. “So…” Twilight hesitantly ventured, “Want that new body now?” Sure, go ahead. Sky Voice braced himself as he felt Twilight begin to gently wrap her aura around his consciousness, pulling it down from its metaphorical placement in the air. “Just relax, Sky. I won’t hurt you this time, I promise,” she said, her voice slightly strained from concentration. A few moments later, a shifting cloud surrounded by her purple-tinged magic hovered in front of her. The impression of a relieved smile washed over her from the floating mass. “What do you want your body to look like?” she asked him. Well, I’d like to be male, at least in a general way. No genitalia, please. Twilight blushed slightly at that. Um… a pony’s body would be nice to start with. Maybe a Pegasus? My name has ‘Sky’ in it, after all. So… blue? A light blue though. No wait, I could be a sunset! Or… a sunrise! Yeah! Yeah, like a purplish-pink mane and a… and an orangey coat! Like a burnt orange, you know? Like a sunrise! And, um, blue eyes! Light, really light, like shallow water, heheh, heh, ah, aheh… uh… The cloud coughed. Yeah, you know, whatever. Were the cloud to have a physical body, it would have blushed and looked to the side. Twilight merely giggled, and with a simple wave of her horn, a maelstrom of matter coalesced into a rough pony form. The pony slowly formed from the collected matter, building everything it would need to live. Then with a final charged shot, Twilight speared it through the heart, spreading just enough life force to jump-start its basic functions. “There you go, Sky. Welcome to your new body!” she exclaimed in triumph. Sky Voice, however, was confused. What do you mean? he asked. Don’t you have to, like, put me in it? “Actually, the hard part is over. All you have to do is possess it now.” Oh. Well, here goes! The cloud was released from the magical containment, slowly winding its way around the body. It poked and prodded for a moment, then, steeling itself, plunged into its nostrils. The body came alive with an animated gasp, stumbling about as it tried to recover its footing. Finally doing so, it turned its head to look at the purple alicorn. “Welcome to the real world, Sky Voice,” the mare said, a slight quiver giving away her excitement. Author's Note This ended up being a little longer than I thought it would. I'm surprised you didn't make a dirty joke there. Good job! ...That's what she said. I hate you. Blog? Blog! Blooooooooooog! Are you actually mentally handicapped yes or no? I'd like to know why you guys like this story! Read the blog for more info, or just say why here if you prefer! Don't order them around Pun. You're not there parent!
Amphiboly ProxyThump. Head vs Tree. “Whew he whe naa?” Whumf. Flank vs Ground. “What did you say, Sky?” Conk. Hoof vs Root. “Sorry. Still getting used to having a mouth. Where are we now?” Thump. Head vs Low-Hanging Branch. “I thought it might be fun to take a more scenic route and enjoy the sights; it also gives you a chance to get used to having an actual body!” Thud. Sky Voice vs The World. Current tally is 0-27 in World’s favor. “Are you… sure you don’t need any help?” the lovely Twilight ventured. A small groan dribbled from the mouth of the orange stallion beside her, whose front half was currently sprawled out on the dirt road and back half was proudly displaying a distinct lack of mammalian biology. “I’ll manage, Twilight,” he grunted as he pushed himself up. “Like you just said, how else am I supposed to learn how to walk other than actually walking?” He took three very shaky steps forward before tripping once again. “See? I’m already getting better! That’s a new record!” The Lavender Goddess simply sighed and shook her head, a smile ever so gently caressing her flawless face as she wisely chose to leave the mortal alone to learn from his own mistakes. Let it be known once more that Twilight Sparkle’s choice was as it should be. “Mhm, yeah, uh, Twilight?” The unassuming pegasus proclaimed. “Yes?” Glorious Ruler responded. “I think that Narrator you, uh, ‘hired’ is still malfunctioning,” the Idiot Who Defies Gods and Goddesses so unbelievably had the wherewithal to speak aloud. “Yeah, something’s definitely not right with it,” he continued, thus showing his utter ineptitude in all things ever. “And now it’s trying to insult me. Great! Twilight, kindly put the voice in its place before I do it for you.” Twilight the Great and Powerful once more took hold of the fabric of the world, isolating the infantile and utterly insignificant strings of the Narrator, weaving them together more fluidly than before and plucking away some frayed remains of broken connections and proverbial ‘ghosts in its machine’. Oh. Oh. The Narrator suddenly felt a large amount of guilt and stupidity over his actions as Twilight Sparkle imbued the strands with her personal copy of God/Mortal/Narrator Interaction for Silly Fillies. The appropriate etiquette and mannerisms filled its mind for a brief second before the last vestiges of its conscious emotion were carefully peeled away and stored for later incarnation. “’Later incarnation’, huh?” “I can’t just destroy it! That’s an actual consciousness, and thus is at some level aware of its actions and the world around it. To will it away would be tantamount to murder!” “Alright, alright, I get it; you don’t want to kill it! Sheesh, there’s no need to be short-tempered.” The pair continued their slow-but-perfectly-timed trek in silence. Twilight took the opportunity to study the forest they were currently walking through, its many coniferous trees swaying slightly in a gentle breeze. The forest was one of only three mysteries she had yet to solve—four now, counting Sky Voice’s sudden and seemingly irreversible memory loss. It had begun to appear shortly after her latest ‘world update’ (as she liked to call them), seemingly at random, but most often when she was travelling a very long distance. While she had her suspicions about its nature, none of them were supported by enough evidence to explore in-depth. As such, she had yet to discover what it was or where it might reside in the universe, although every every journey made her feel just a little bit closer. Sky Voic, unfortunately, was not able to appreciate said forest of trees. He spent mososost of his time receiving unwanted close-ups of either the dirt path or the many rocks embedded in it instead. Each time, he would diligently pick itself up, dust off its front, take a few steps fffforward, and promptly fall fall fall fall fall “Whoa, howww happened? Who turned on the lights? Twililililight……… what’s going off? “I don’t know! Everything’s gone… I can’t feel anything besides us.” Well… what n— RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROHMYGOSHTWILIGHTMAKEITSTOPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR “I’m trying!” RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPLEASEHURRYITHURTSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA “Hold on, I’m going to try to fix this with a blockade spell!” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO “Ah… ooh… oh…” “W… what just happened?!” “You’re asking me?! You have way more experience with this than I do!” “What?! Out of the two of us, you would obviously know more about this than I would!” “Oh really? How exactly do you figure that, huh? Because last I checked, you—” “Look, *, I… I think it would be best if we left—“ “What is that?” “Excuse me, I’m trying to talk about this—“ “No, *, look at—there it is again!” “*, are you violating the barrier again?” “…Maybe.” “*, I told you not to do that.” “Just look!” “Hmm… It looks like some sort of censor. I didn’t know—” “Okay, uh, that’s great. What does it mean?” “…Why aren’t you letting me finish my sentences?” “Sorry, I didn’t even realize I wasn’t. I guess—” “OW! What was that?” “Uh, hold on, let’s think this through… we need a narrator.” “Right… but ours is broken, apparently.” “Can we fix it?” “Maybe…” “If not, I can always take over again.” “I don’t know if that would be a good idea right now, *. If what’s happening is what I think it is, we’re going to want to stay right where we are.” “Al…righty then? You’re the boss.” “Hold on. Okay, I have a plan. Take this, and when I tell you to, swallow it.” “Eeeww, it’s slimy! What is this?” “It’s a snipping of my essence. Don’t drop it, please. Swallow it now.” “Uuugh… it tastes like—“ Rrraaaaiiinn moooved around them, lightning crashed in the distance. The bright flash illuminated the startled faces of two Ones. They stood still, Place suddenly feeling very hostile. “Oh good, it worked!” Acting on its newfound feeling of hostility, Place of Places began kicking moving. * don’t think * fully understand what’s happening the One said: breathed. Other just sighed, because It knew exactly = precisely what was happening, and It wasn’t (was+not) sure how to feel about Ittttttt. “Oh shut up, I do to know how I feel about this situation. I feel… emotional darn it?” it attempted to agreeably argue. One, having not been looking to Other, viciously no vicariously stopinterruptingmeexpressing emotion. “Yes, and it’s a particularly bad case too. It’s known as ‘The Illness’… well, no it isn’t, but I won’t be able to tell you what it’s actually called until this is over. Anyway, it basically means we’re stuck in a sort-of not-really limbo where almost everything is wishy-washy but sometimes things aren’t.” It paused for a time. “Nothing really makes sense unless you can put up a good fight.” —That’s… sorta cool I guess think. How do YOU KNOW ALL that It hurts Twilight make it stop!?] “Reasons I have time to go into right now but the world probably won’t let me. It might be possible to zap it clean again, but those powers seem to be a bit iffy right now, so maybe we shouldn’t take that chance.” The One of them turned (rotated) away and strolled cantered walked trotted galloped ran flew scurried strolled uncertainly and certainly up/down the river-path-ground. So then how do we solve it? The One of them said: asked, stumstumblingbling to catch up… “You wait for an unspecified amount of time.” The One replied in a curt but friendly way. Or maybe it was a trick of the Thing. You can’t tell me that either then? The One of Them stopped and looked to see the other. “I know it’s difficult to tell right now,” the One replied, “but I said that correctly. It actually works kind of like the new traveling mechanics. That might even be what set it off in the first place. I’ve been holding onto a hypothesis about this Place; about this forest not actually being ‘real’, and this could be a major development in that line of thought.” Blurred edges in the distance sharpened slightly. They were in a forest. The world was grey and rainy. “According to one of my hypotheses, concretion and abstraction,” the speaker continued, “is all about perception. If the world is perceived as being concrete—as being unchangeable—it will continue to act in ways you expect it to, such as always moving from one place to another through a forest, regardless of where you start or end.” The speaker made a motion around itself. “All of this is what my mind thinks about when traveling long distances quickly. I see a forest, a barrier, separating what I interpret to be ‘lands’, places that are different from one another.” The world focused. Sheets of monochrome rain pounded the raging trees as lighting flashed unseen behind them. Thunder rolled in a near-constant boom, causing the pony/not-pony pair to twitch their ears in annoyance. “You, however, do not share the same interpretation.” The not-pegasus reached a foreleg around the orange not-unicorn. “As a semi-spectral guide, the level at which you interact with the world is much more… well, interactive. I may have control over everything, but I’ve been stumbling through the last one hundred and fifty years almost on luck alone. You, on the other hoof, were created from the world itself. You know how it works because you are it. “You don’t see the separation between places as being significant, seeing as you can be anywhere with just a thought and a turn… or at least, you could. Now you’re an actual being, and your mind is trying to cope with the loss of many of your abilities.’ She paused again, looking him over. “Didn’t you notice how you always try to turn around when you’re walking? I did.” Color leaked in. The rain was blueish-silver. Green needles adorned reddish-brown wood, which in turn was embedded into muddy, brown soil. Magnesium flashes preceded the fading storm’s thunderous vibrations. The pegasus shook his head, pulling away slightly. He stumbled, but managed to catch himself before his face sank into the mud. Both n-n-n-p-p-p-ponies were soaked from ear to tail, but neither seemed to mind much. “So… what, then? Am I the one to blame for all of this?” it asked. “No, not at all! If anypony is to blame, it’s probably me.” She hung her head. “I should have run more tests. I knew it would be dangerous to tamper with the Way of the World, but it was so inefficient and slow, and I thought if I could improve anything, it would be that. I didn’t consider that more could be at stake than just a mostly-extinct pocket universe.” Silence ensued. The whipping wind quieted to a dull roar, the lightning and thunder following a mere minute after. The rain was no longer a frenzied torrent; rather, it was soothing, cooling, and slow. The clouds began to glow softly. Sky Voice gestured forward. “Come on,” he encouraged, “let’s not worry about that right now. We have a forest to cross.” He stood and managed a few quickly-improving steps before realizing that Twilight had not moved. He slowly forced his limbs to turn around, only to find the mare sitting in the mud, ears down, muzzle scraping the sodden dirt. “We can’t,” she whispered. What was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” Sky responded. “We can’t,” Twilight repeated, just loud enough for him to hear. “Ah, c’mon Twilight, it isn’t that bad.” “I… I’m sorry Sky. The risk is just too great. I’ll send you ahead and walk through the forest myself.” “Twilight, what are you talking about?” Sky shot back. “It’s just a forest! We had a little hiccup, but it’s over and now we can move on. Look, I know how this works; just like almost every other time a problem crops up, you work some super-duper magic that up and makes the problem disappear! Whatever you did by feeding me your… ‘Essence’ must have fixed it, bing-bang-boom we’re done here.” “Yours is an abstract mind, Sky,” Twilight said softly. “It’s so very different from mine, even if it doesn’t seem to be. Our ways of thinking are in conflict here, where concretion and abstraction lay edge-to-edge.” She sighed. “It may not even be possible for us to travel more than a few miles together without risking the total destruction of our little reality.” “Waaaaiiiit, wait wait, what?” her companion spluttered. “Destroy the universe? Pssh, the stakes aren’t that high! …R-right?” The clouds were thinning now, and no rain bothered them as their eyes briefly met, one pair showing the light, confused worry of a long-time friend; the other pair was dark, unshed tears distorting the images they processed. Twilight broke the stare first, sighing heavily as her head dropped to the ground once more. “They are, Sky. I’m sorry, but you have to go. I’ll see you sooner than you think, okay?” Her horn ignited. “Uh, nono, this isn’t right!” The light increased. “Nonono, Twilight! Twilight!” The stallion moved to intercept, but in his clumsiness he tripped and splashed into the mud. Thus, with a resounding pop, Sky Voice was gone. Alone, Twilight Sparkle returned to her trek through the forest, although the path was admittedly now more of a stream. Heaving another heavy sigh, she conjured a small boat, turned due west, and set sail for the exit. The forest shuddered. The clouds grew darker. It began to rain. Author's Note Heeeeyyyy everyone! Aheh... fifteen months late is still better than never, right? Sorry. Blog explaining why I'm suddenly working on this again is here. P.S. All formatting decisions in this chapter are purposeful.
