Chapter 1: Metaphysics 101
[Author’s note: While this is a FIM fanfic first and foremost, it does demand that the reader is fairly up to date on books, movies and fiction in general, as the mixing of all these fantasy worlds into one single universe is central to the plot. However, while you might miss a few references here and there, I have mainly brought in characters and inspiration from the TV show “How I Met Your Mother” and the game trilogy “Mass Effect”. If you know of these two then that should be enough to find the story enjoyable.
As for timelines for this story… the FIM universe is currently where it’s at after the season 2 finale, How I Met Your Mother is somewhere in season 7 or 8, where for the sake of the story I have assumed that Barney and Karma are no longer together (she is an obvious Red Herring, and I need Barney to be in a “relapse state” back to his old self), and lastly, the Mass Effect trilogy has come to an end, as this story will deal a lot with the fan reaction to the series and the confusion that followed in the aftermath of ME3.
Furthermore, I cannot promise a steady pace of updated chapters, but I will do what I can. I write this story just as much for my own enjoyment though, so there really is no point to it anymore if I try to force things without feeling inspired. With that said I welcome and appreciate all feedback, positive as well as negative, and I am walking into this with the attitude that I might learn something new from the criticism. So, happy reading everyone, and don’t hesitate to let me know what you think!]
Rage. So much rage. The hurled Xbox controller crashed forcefully into the big plasma screen. A surge of violent sparks and puffs of black smoke emanated from the point of impact, while flying shards of plastic and electronics scattered all over Ted’s apartment.
“Barney! What the hell was that?!”
Ted glared angrily at his friend, who seemed to be far from done. Barney ran his fingers through his short, blonde hair and huffed – both in the sense that he made the sound and that he had started breathing in the fumes now spreading throughout the room, carrying with them a stink that said ‘double-check that canary or fucking run’.
He got out of the sofa and straightened out his dark-brown suit before stepping over to the Xbox console itself, hurriedly ejecting the disk it contained. Empowered by that which is known in layman terms as Nerd Rage he bent the disk over the middle and let out a mighty bellow of frustration and soul-crushing pain, but mixed also with just a tiny hint of triumph as he felt the disk shatter in his hands.
“DUDE!”
One of the sharp edges of the disk cut right into Barney’s hand and caused a trail of crimson blood to seep slowly out of the wound, but at this point he was practically high on adrenaline and fumes and as such was above such pesky things as feeling pain. His rampage still came to a halt, however, as when he was about to march out of the apartment his exit was blocked.
Ted stared him down best he could, and it seemed he was finally getting through.
“Ok, first of all, you are paying for that. And secondly, are you REALLY gonna keep doing this every time we play something you don’t like?”
Barney held up his right index and middle fingers, pointing them to Ted’s eyes, then to his own, and then back to Ted’s again, each time repeating his friend’s name.
“Ted… Ted. Ted! Focus, I know you’re hurting, but those Bosch’tets ruined the entire universe, and you can suppress it all you want, but that will not make it go away. The sooner you let go of the shock, the faster we can do something about this!”
Ted had kept calm so far, but a hint of a twitch was becoming visible under his left eye, and his scowl deepened. Then suddenly the world froze, no movement, talking, or even blinking. Ted and Barney both hated it when this happened. It was time for ‘The Voice’ again.
“Now kids, you probably wonder what had your Uncle Barney so upset… You see, back in 2012 this game called ‘Mass Effect 3’ had been released. It had been a very popular game trilogy, but in the final game that was to be the crowning achievement of the entire franchise, the developers somehow managed to drop the ball in the final moments of storytelling…”
There was a sudden flashback to the Bioware headquarters, with a group of developers sitting around a burning trashcan. They were… ‘eating sandwiches’ and laughing hysterically. One of the developers suddenly jumped up on a desk and pointed to his green shirt, proclaiming:
“I am Casey Hudson, and this is my favorite color on the Citadel!” Everyone around him cackled in unison, raising their ‘sandwiches’ in a salute to his words.
“We totally need to get that into the game, maaaannnn!” one of the other developers replied. “Like… this wave of… of pure green light, just… bringing peace and harmony to the universe…”
“Oooooooo….” This was far too deep for the rest of the developers to keep up with, and apparently for this ‘Casey Hudson’ fellow as well, because he was just sitting down against the wall now, inspecting his own anatomy.
“Look at my hand… how weird is my hand!”
The reel finally went back to frozen Ted and Barney and The Voice continued.
“Uhh, anyway, what your Uncle Barney didn’t know was that this would be the start of the amazing story of how-“
The reel once again cut away, now to a boy and a girl sitting in a couch, the girl interrupting The Voice.
“…of how you met mom?” she asked, hopefully.
“No. For this is the story of how Uncle Barney went to Equestria and saved an entire multiverse!”
The boy was throwing his arms up in the air in resignation. “Ugh, Dad! You’re kidding, right?”
The Voice ignored this, and instead the reel went back to the original scene for a second time.
“So anyway, Barney was really upset about the ending. Aaaaaand we’re back in!”
The world unfroze. Ted and Barney had both learned to space out when these kinds of things happened, and they hadn’t really kept up. There had been something about weed though… Good on those frat students or whatever they were supposed to be.
“…and what do you think we’d be able to do? We’re two people!” Ted asked, continuing the conversation with every ounce of patience he could muster.
Barney smiled, nodding sagely at his friend. He walked forward and put an arm over Ted’s shoulder.
“Oh Teddy-boy… Listen up, ‘cause I’m about to drop some knowledge.”
“Yeah… umm, you’re getting blood on my sh-”
“TED! Have you ever heard of the ‘Luthor Law’?”
“The Luthor Law?”
Barney frowned and glared back at Ted for a few seconds before he continued.
“The Luthor Law. Based off of Lex Luthor. Lex being Latin for ‘law’. Try to keep up.”
“Yeah… You know our friend Marshal? He’s a lawyer; we have both heard him use that word before. I was asking what the Luthor Law actually IS!”
“Oh, right.” Barney tilted his head and nodded again, this time less shrewdly. Ted began to suspect that Barney had just come up with the name and thought it sounded cool, but without really having an explanation for it. However, Barney finally looked up with a wide grin on his face and continued.
“So! The Luthor Law… It means that in every story where the main character is more or less a superhero, there needs to be an at least equally powerful super-villain from which he can save the world. Without Lex Luthor, Superman would just be a douchebag in a really weird pajamas. He would probably, like… use his x-ray vision to stare at hot chicks. And then get drunk a lot. But he wouldn’t be a superhero because he would still get less tail than me. What up!”
Ted ignored the attempted high five. “Umm… Mass Effect HAD a big enemy like that. They’re called Harbinger and the Reapers.”
“Yes, but the Luthor Law also states that to reach a fulfilling ending to a story, our hero needs to have a final showdown with his enemy and beat him!”
“Wasn’t that what the Illusive Man was there for?”
“What? No, that scene was just meant to make you sad, and more pumped to kill the actual baddies! The Illusive Man was AWESOME! …he was wearing a suit!” Barney’s grin grew a little wider.
Ted could only sigh in response. “Right, well excluding the fact that you seem to have this creepy love for antagonists… I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it. I thought the ending was alright.”
Barney’s grin was gone in less than a split second, replaced with a look of utter horror, as if Ted had just told him that he rather enjoyed drowning kittens in the blood of their own mothers.
“Y-yu… you li-… l-la-lah-ahhhaha-aaaaiked… you…” Barney wheezed as he attempted to start up his breathing again without hyperventilating, his whole body trembling as he leaned against the doorway for support.
Steeling himself, he slowly stood back up, keeping his trembling under control but still with horrified eyes staring in disbelief at Ted. Barney carefully ushered him out of the way and opened the apartment door. He walked out, never even bothering to close it behind him.
When he reached the staircase, Barney’s brisk pace turned into running. He flew down the stairs in blind panic, crashing into the mailman on the way but stumbling on without even caring that he knocked the middle-aged man to the ground. He had barely felt it; just heard a sudden yelp and a thud behind him, and he hardly even registered that. Only one thing was on his mind.
‘Poor Ted. Quickest caving to Stockholm Syndrome ever!’
He got outside and hailed a cab to take him back to his own apartment.
‘I… I will fight this battle for you, Bro.’
A yellow cab drove up next to Barney and stopped, so he got into the back seat. Before he had time to give the driver his address, the somewhat pudgy Bengali man turned around with a cheerful exclamation.
“Hellooooo!”
“Ranjit!” Barney wasn’t sure if he should consider this a surprise or something to be expected at this point; the endearing cabdriver kept showing up both here and there, and had become almost an unofficial member of the posse by now.
“Still looking sharp in that suit, Ranjit. Oooo it looks a bit like Armani- gh’NO! Sorry, I need to get home, fast. Step on it!”
“Stepping on it!” Ranjit confirmed, and the cab joined up once more with the flowing stream of the New York traffic.
It took a while for Barney to notice, but eventually…
“Hey uh, Ranjit? We’re headed in the wrong direction…”
Ranjit said nothing back. Instead he replied with a high-pitched, rapid chuckling and cut in on a street that surprisingly enough was completely empty.
‘There are no empty streets in New York!’
Before Barney had time to think further, the cab drove down into a tunnel. It was pitch black, no roof- or sidelights to illuminate the path; a path that felt so smooth against the cab tires that Barney wasn’t even sure if they were moving anymore. The light from the opening behind them did, however, grow fainter, and shortly even the lights on and inside the cab died out.
“Ok Ranjit you are REALLY freaking me out here!”
“Goodbyeeeee!”
Barney heard nothing more after that. It wasn’t just the light that had died out, but now the sound as well. And his senses started to feel dulled. He could no longer feel himself sit down. Barney tried to move, but wasn’t sure if he did or not. He tried to speak, but no sound was heard.
It was a bizarre and terrifying sensation. He started to feel as if the very fabric of the world itself was letting go of him. Willing him out of existence. It felt like getting stung with needles all over his body, but he was too weak to physically respond to it.
There was a sudden, great flash of light. And then there was nothing.
…but yet there was something.
Barney’s mind was slowly making some sense of the world around him, and eventually he felt overcome with a strong chill.
‘So, I can feel my body again…’
The goosebumps on his skin tingled when they rubbed against the textile of his shirt, and the chill seemed only to increase. It wasn’t just like being outside on a cold winter night. It was cold in the way that one might imagine it to feel in the vacuum of space, and Barney did indeed feel like he was engulfed by a void of nothingness. And it only got worse.
He was unable to see, but it was not because there was no light. He didn’t even have the blackness of closed eyes. He really could not see; there was just… nothing, except for the ability to sense his own body.
So instead he tried to move it, but his limbs were not responding.
Yet he felt himself existing. So what was this, and where was he?
“You are in the gap between worlds.”
The voice had come from nowhere, and it had made no sound. Instead the statement had simply imprinted itself on Barney’s mind. Clearly whatever caused this had heard him think and then responded. So Barney decided to just go with it.
“Then… who are you? Are we both stuck here?” he simply queried.
“We are the Collective Unconscious. We manifest from every being in every multiverse, and this is not a prison. This is a home. OUR home, and the heart of the world. This is where Creation once began, and from where souls still spring into being. Infinite numbers, not only going but returning, to wait for their rebirth into new vessels.”
So many questions came up at once in Barney’s mind, but one of them felt bigger than all the other:
“Wait, ‘every’ multiverse? Don’t you mean ‘universe’? Every single one of them forms together into THE multiverse.”
…so he was a bit of a science nerd, so what? You’d be surprised at what you learn when you’re trying to get into the panties of a hot astrophysicist.
And yes, they totally exist.
The Collective Unconscious gave off a strange imprint at first; something Barney suspected to be a scoff. It then continued.
“At one time in your life, surely you did not comprehend that there were planets beyond your own. Yet there are billions in your universe alone. Also at one time you surely thought that your sun was one of its kind, but all the stars on the night sky are just like it. These stars form galaxies, and neither these are unique. Your universe holds galaxies almost as countless as the planets and stars, and you already seem aware that beyond your own universe there are others like it. These form a multiverse, but now ask yourself; why should there be only one multiverse? Then why not just one universe? Or galaxy? Or star? Or planet?”
It took some time to really take in the magnitude of what he had just been told. When Barney did not respond, he felt yet another imprint wash over him.
“Beyond the multiverses, there is simply infinity. That is where we all currently reside.”
“Your idea of ‘simply’ is strange, bro.”
“But simplicity is what it is, at least when compared to physical matter, universes and dimensions. Complexity never exists from the start, and we are the primal origin of everything. Your mind is isolated, and as such will never fully comprehend, but if you wish you may simply refer to us as ‘God’.”
“Normally I only hear that word shouted in bed, but uhh… fine. Just don’t start talking about the ‘Sword of Akasha’ or anything like that.”
Clearly God had understood the reference, for it sent an imprint unmistakable for amused chuckling.
“It is rather fitting that you should reference the imagination of the human mind, for that is exactly why you have been called here.”
“Oh cool, for a moment there I almost thought I’d died!” Barney was thinking of God’s mention that souls went here to be reincarnated. It was simply something he had assumed to be the case with himself, just as soon as it was brought up.
Seemingly snapped taxi driver aside; there were a lot of ways in which it could have happened. A heart attack for example, would, after all, be a pretty likely way to go for a Redbull-chugging, highly stressed businessman that never gets any exercise beyond going to the store for more energy drinks.
Well and playing Laser Tag, but Barney didn’t consider that exercise. After all, he was awesome at it and could shoot well from cover.
But then there still remained the fact that he spent a lot of time in bars, smoked cigarettes, and had a lot of additional stress factors to constantly deal with, such as a severe gambling problem.
Oh and then there’s the hundreds of different women that he would constantly have one-night stands with, only to abandon in the morning when they walked into the shower. Statistically, some of them had got to be pretty crazy.
Perhaps even a bit vindictive.
To the point where they may want to track wrongdoers down and take justice into their own hands.
Yep. A sudden, swift death for whatever reason had always seemed pretty likely.
Hypothetically speaking.
“No. You were called here to lend aid, for you will have a vested interest in correcting a problem that has occurred in your own multiverse, one of the more unstable ones in existence. THAT is where the accident lies, and we must send you to the universe in which this accident was caused, before it spreads further.”
“Oh, ok. Yeah, that makes sense.”
Barney had actually been sincere when he said it, but he could feel how God was suddenly hesitating.
“You… do not wonder why you were specifically chosen?”
“What? Of course not. It’s because I’m AWESOME!”
Barney lacked the ability to physically grin, but it wasn’t really necessary. God sensed his overblown ego clearly enough.
“Your confidence in facing this unknown is one of its kind, surely. But the reason we chose you is that your presence is the one that will generate the most preferable outcome. We are infinite, and can see both past, present and future, but the paths before us are limited in number. Out of those paths it is your presence that, regardless of whether you live or die in your new life, will shape the outcome into that which we desire.”
“Whoa! If I DIE? But what if my death means that I fail? Didn’t you say you could see the future?”
“We can see all the possible paths, but you have the free will to accomplish them. All we know is that you will NOT fail in your overall purpose. Your presence will be enough to right the wrong, one way or the other, and you also have the chance to learn much about yourself and become whole again.”
Become whole again? Was this going to be one of those self-exploratory adventures where the seemingly shallow protagonist turns out to have a hidden depth to him? Barney immediately felt less enthusiastic about this whole affair.
It was true that he had a lot of unresolved issues though, even if he rarely admitted this to others. There was another layer beneath his Casanova exterior that he tried to keep suppressed, though there were a few instances where these other sides of his had surfaced momentarily.
One time, Barney had celebrated the New Year with his friends, and something as simple as losing his favorite Mix CD during the course of the evening had almost been enough to crush him completely. He knew he could not run from his issues forever, and seemingly without the option to refuse he finally decided to make the best of this increasingly bad situation.
“Alright. Then tell me about this place, to where you’re sending me?”
“Indeed, it is time. But be patient, for we must explain it slowly and in detail so that you may understand.”
“Guess I don’t have anything better to do anyway… Go ahead.”
“Very good. You now know that there are several multiverses, each with it’s own universes. All these universes have different laws of physics and different kinds of life. While some of them are still very similar, yet others are extremely different. Since there is an infinite number of universes, then all possible variations are accounted for. Whatever your mind may conjure as a hypothetical scenario, this is the actual existence in another universe. A mistake you lived to regret was perhaps never even committed by your other self in a parallel universe.”
“Or perhaps it was, but the difference is that my parallel self has another hair color. Or perhaps I am living the exact same life as I do now, but by acting it out in a TV show or a movie.”
That hot astrophysicist had been rather chatty…
“Exactly. As we said, all possibilities are accounted for. But this is where it gets so much more complicated… While some things you can imagine are simple facts in other universes, there exist multiverses that are actually DEPENDENT on your imagination – the imaginations of people in one specific universe, even. Your own multiverse is in fact thusly connected to another world, and it is connected in such a way that whenever a thought gets a wider spread amongst the humans there, it manifests itself in your own multiverse by creating a new universe based on this collective thought or fantasy world. Do you understand?”
There was a sudden lull in the exchange of imprints and thoughts, as Barney went through that labyrinth of words one more time.
“…yes, I understand. I think. Suddenly I am very happy that my old universe didn’t have a zombie apocalypse, or any other fictional monsters.”
“Actually…”
“I already know about the Cockamouse.”
“Oh. Well we must still further explain the nature of your multiverse, and what has gone wrong.”
“Then fire away.”
“The problem is that your multiverse is highly unstable as it is so prone to expand, and the fabric holding its universes separated from one another is growing weaker. In fact, creatures from the different worlds are already pouring into universes other than their own, sowing chaos and destruction."
“Because all the evil villains like Darth Vader and stuff are there to fuck shit up?”
God simply continued without even reacting to the crassness in Barney’s reply.
“You are both right and wrong at the same time. Most fantasies that the humans responsible for your multiverse come up with are resolved in such a way that these evil people are no longer a threat; usually through death or redemption. However, there are some that live on, yes, and it is one of these that have caused the disturbance, and caused a wave of corruption through all the universes.”
“And who would this be, exactly?”
“It is better that you find out for yourself. We have already stated that you will have a vested interest in the matter – beyond that of saving your own universe. That will be enough for you to understand once you encounter it. This is all you need to know.”
Barney was going to object, but suddenly he was no longer able to send out replies of his own. Instead, God continued.
“And so this is where we part ways. We will send you to the universe that has become the main stage for this… mounting danger… and there you will find your own way.”
God had put some emphasis behind the word “mounting” in his imprint, which seemed a bit strange to Barney. Still unable to protest, he felt how the world around him changed once more. It was hard to say how, since he lacked any sensory devices except his own self-awareness and that chill that still hadn’t gone away.
“Just remember… that which you perceive as personal weaknesses may also be your greatest strengths. You come to a world where the very laws of physics are different, and your multiverse was also created by humans… As such you are shaped in the image of your creators. This will prove to be more significant than you would think.”
The imprint grew weaker and weaker. If there was anything else being said to him, Barney didn’t receive it. Moments later he did feel something else though. Or rather several things.
First was an intense, burning light. Then there was a stinging pain all over his body – not unlike that which he had felt when God had first called him to the realm of Creation. Finally, there was the surge of emotions as his rematerialized body tried to respond to all the new stimulus from the world around him. The sights, the smells, the colors, the sudden warmth…
It was too much, and Barney lost control of his own limbs as his brain became too occupied to send out signals to maintain his balance. The ground suddenly came towards him with alarming speed, and everything turned black again.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but as soon as Barney came to his senses he panicked. He had passed out on a dirt road, and his poor suit had taken the worst of it.
Feverishly dusting himself off, he made sure that not even the tiniest spot of dirt remained. Then, and only then did Barney begin to consider that perhaps he should start looking around and find out where he was.
A man’s gotta have his priorities.
No matter. New goal, new purpose. Where was he? Did this place have a reliable tailor? Perhaps even a bar, or at least some hot chicks? But Ted wouldn’t be here, so in that case Barney needed a new wingman. Would it bump him up the broerachy of this place if he told the dudes that he used to date a stripper?
Because that had been kinda awesome.
So many questions, and only one way to find the answers. Barney scanned the vicinity. He found that the dirt road he stood on was cutting through a green meadow leading directly to a small town.
‘Well, that’s convenient.’
He shrugged, and decided he might as well get moving. The town and its surrounding farmland seemed quiet – probably because he had been out for a good part of the day and nightfall was approaching. But if it was going to get dark soon, it would be a good idea to reach the town while people were still awake and willing to help him out.
Barney couldn’t see a single person outside, but as he walked by a small farm surrounded with apple trees he did at least spot two farm animals. A dog and a… pony.
His brain instantly suggested that a place with ponies would also have owners, and these owners were likely to be chicks.
Horse chicks were a volatile sort. There were three types of women that owned horses, as far as Barney knew. First, the naïve animal-lover. Pretend to be an aspiring veterinarian down on his luck and she would instantly be down on her knees…
“What up!” Barney suddenly remembered that he didn’t have anyone to high five, so he slowly lowered his arm again and continued his line of thought, happy that no one had been there to observe that awkward moment.
The second type of women that owned horses were the ‘Cowgirls’. The male libido would instinctively make these women out to be feminine and appealing, but Barney knew better. They were the worst tomboys out there, and more trouble than they were worth.
Lastly, there were the crazy ones; girls who thought of their horses as people and attributed them human traits or intelligence. Oftentimes, they would even claim to have actual conversations with their horses.
They were the horse chick version of a crazy cat lady, and Barney had learned that they were very obsessive and prone to violence or deceit if they did not get their way.
So odds were stacked against him, and he shuddered when he noticed that someone had forced the farm pony into wearing a hat. Not a good sign.
By now the pony had spotted him, and was just standing there frozen in place, staring at him.
For some reason the stare made Barney feel uneasy.
‘Uhh… I should probably try my luck with the townsfolk instead…’
Barney continued on, not noticing that the orange pony he left behind had started following him. But he simply had so many other things on his mind right now. Sure enough, the town looked as if it was built by humans. But this was an alien world and could house just about any beings.
There were ponies though, and dogs. So, Earth-animals. Likely the townsfolk would reflect that as well.
Maybe they were three-boobed amazons?
Hope springs eternal, after all.
But once again Barney remembered that Ted wasn’t there.
Damn it, he missed Ted. Picking up one of these horse chicks all on his own would be a challenge. But hey, he didn’t really know yet why God had sent him here, so why not have some fun in the meantime and see how things developed?
Without a wingman this task would be hard, but not impossible.
Standing by the outskirts of the town, Barney dramatically adjusted his tie while staring at his destination.
“Challenge ACCEPTED!”
