Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here

by Blank!

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random, Crossover, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Original Character
Length: 11731

Merrie Naht is a quiet pony. Obedient. Normal. Mainstream. Then Rahal guitar'd her in the head.

A young mare from a family of refugees leads a remarkably average life at Cloudsdale Flight School. Her outward image of stoicism and maturity subconsciously hides a tight pack of little frustrations and miseries that threaten to overflow at any moment. Then a pirate tiger boy, hailing from science and outer space, fitted in flying power armour, guitar'd her in the frontal cranium, literally releasing her demons to wreak havoc into the world, for fun and profit and glory and because why the heck not. A wacky, bittersweet coming-of-age story ensues. What does it take, to be an adult, in a land where adults act like children? What is "getting a proper childhood" worth? What does it mean, to take responsibility for one's actions?

Published 2012-05-23 06:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-06 10:12:51 UTC

Prologue or He Came From Outer Space

Prologue

Hello. My name is Merrie. Merrie Naht. A bit of a weird name, isn’t it? When people inevitably ask, I just say that my parents are foreign. That is only half-true, but it’s enough that I don’t feel dishonest. There’s another thing about me that surprises people: my colour--or rather, the lack thereof. Everyone here has such vivid colours, and, by contrast, it would seem like I’m only one colour, and not a very interesting one at that. But that’s not quite true. My coat is raven, as are my wings. My mane is a flowing stream of jet. My eyes are like two pieces of onyx--save for the white cornea. The overall look is rather somber, but at least it gives me awesome camouflage in the night sky. I'm still pink on the inside, just like everyone else, though. Like most Pegasi, I have a wiry, supple build, with little to no fat to smooth the edges. I am not entirely comfortable with that. I think it makes me look like I’m a big ball of intertwined sinews on the verge of snapping, even though I’d like to think I’m a pretty laid-back mare. To my great embarrassment, I am also the reluctant owner of long eyelashes. The only time I saw someone with more ridiculously long eyelashes was when that one butterfly-winged Unicorn mare dazzled us at the Young Fliers’ Competition, and I would bet those were fake, at least, and removable. I find mine frankly undignified. Ponies keep complimenting me about them--and asking me if I use some sort of product. I’ve thought of cutting them, but I feel like it might make things worse...

I could tell you the story of my life--easily too. First, because it's been quite short, and second, because it's flashing before my eyes. Right now. It looks like I'm about to die. And, well, I'm finding out that cliches really do happen in real life.

I’m a quiet mare; I mind my own business. Even as a foal, I was never fussy, never willful, never stubborn. I took what was given to me; I seldom asked for more. I did as I was told. My parents were thankful for that; my little sister was enough of a parakeet for both of us. At school, I blended in. My unusual traits had attracted some attention, but only at first. See, I never had much to say about anything. I never spoke or acted out--not even when I should have. Right now, I'm ashamed of that, but it's a little too late for anything other than regrets.

Even in the skies, I was never fond of fancy tricks and pirouettes. I flew straight lines, followed the easiest currents. I paced myself. I never tried any stunts (unless I was told to). I never overexerted myself (unless I was told to). I strived to be disciplined, precise, and clean.

Except in choir.

I wasn’t there by choice. You see, Cloudsdale's flight school had a choir. One that was famous, and had lots of tradition behind it. But nowadays, we students weren’t enthusiastic about that kind of stuff. So every year, the choir director went to every class, scouting for ‘talent’. To our dismay, he often settled for ‘capacity’ instead. I was among those that got volunteered. I didn’t want to go. However, I had never done a sloppy job before in my life, before or since. I simply refused to drop my reputation--no, my principles-- because of this choir. That’s what I had told myself, back then.

So sing I did, even through gritted teeth. That, as I discovered, would be as hard to do metaphorically as it would be physically. It wasn’t long before I loosened up. I started enjoying myself, much to my surprise. I couldn’t remember ever having had that much fun.

When you sing, if you want to sing properly, you have to open yourself to the feelings that the song wishes to convey. When you sing a requiem, you remember your dead. You cry for their peace and lament their absence. When you sing a song about spring and hope, you remember how it felt to thaw the world in Winter Wrap Up. And I’d never confess to it in public, but I’d never have enough of those silly love songs...

At first, however, I was dismayed. I would stand out. I would be teased. It wasn’t mainstream enough. Not like, say, Flash-ball, or Battle School (not that I’d stopped attending either). But, as the lessons passed, I discovered something. I liked myself when I was singing. My voice was only part of an ensemble; I had the excuse that that wasn't ''me'', that it was just the ''song''. I poured out feelings I didn't even know I had in me. It was a safe release, a welcome breather.

I wasn’t unpopular. You see, everyone made the same mistake I did. In their mind, acting grown-up was cool. Polite aloofness was maturity. Keeping one’s hoof clean of conflicts was clever, if not outright wise. Fillies confused my quietness for “mysteriousness”. Colts sought to be on good terms with me. Some tried to enroll me into their posses. That never quite happened; I stayed in the margins. Teachers constantly encouraged me to participate more: they were under the impression that I held back my “true potential”.

That was only half true. I did hold back, undoubtedly so. But that was only to hide that there wasn’t much to hold back at all.

The bullies, the sadists, the abusers--I managed to neutralize those, too. At worst, they left me alone. At best, they thought I was their friend. They would explain to me me how they planned to, say, dump the egghead with the prosthetic wings, and what a pathetic, wretched thing he was, right? And I would nod at that, and smile curtly, and they’d confuse that for approval.

Yup, that was the foal’s crime: having a birth defect. In pre-Celestian times, back in the days of the Junta, the baby would have been discarded at birth. Pegasi had grown much more merciful, since then, but there is still a deep-seated aversion to physical weakness. That’s what happens when you routinely fly for miles at a time, at breakneck speed, so high above the ground. Weaklings are a liability.

Still, I thought to my self, no reason to harass ponies about stuff they can’t help. Those thoughts I kept to myself. I smiled. I nodded. At jokes others found uproarious, I would smile slightly. When they expressed outrage and indignation, I would affect a stern gaze--just enough to be part of the group. But I’d always try not to look too distant, to show some warmth in my eyes, as if I was saying “I don’t think I’m better than you; it’s just that I’m not as intense”. I never went out of my way to help others, sometimes politely refusing even when I was asked. I seldom did refuse, but sometimes I would say “no”, out of principle. I wanted people to think that I was nice, but not a paragon (someone to hold out for) or a doormat (someone to step on). It worked.

As my father told me, in his strange, broken dialect, “Be not child-light,” a pushover, “but be not a prick, either. The people may well you more like, when you let them not on you step, but they will not you like, if you on them step. There are to this rule exceptions: of them I will you tell, once you older are.” We had emigrated when I was young. I took to the new language with infuriating ease, but he didn’t have such an easy time.

It may seem like my father’s speech is a mess, but it isn’t. Though our language and Equestrian are fairly close, my father never really managed to get over the grammar differences. Rather than speak an Equestrian with messy grammar, he preferred to just strictly adhere to his original language’s rules, and basically translating word-for-word.

Anwyay, I listened to my father. I didn’t go out of my way to help others, or hurt them.. When my schoolmates would plan to bully someone or start a fight, I'd try to excuse myself. If that wasn't possible, I'd always keep to the margins. In a melee, you'd never find me in the thick of a fray. And I'd never get caught. So maybe people thought I just knew the right crowd from the bad. Of course, they always thought they were the right crowd.

Now I’d never confess this in public, but, as far as I was concerned, the “right crowd” consisted of only one Pegasus in the whole school: Andromache. Some of my classmates call her “weird”. “She’s from another world”, they say. And they have a point. That filly is something else. It’s not just the way she sings, but that’s a big part. She sings like she’s got nothing to lose, like she wants to harmonize with the entire world. I sing to get the pain out of my chest. I sing to get the real me out, to express myself. For me, singing has become a way to shout it all out, in a place where my voice would be better concealed than by any silence.

But she sings like she’s just a medium for music. Her voice would draw tears out of your heart like water out of a deep, forgotten well. It would burst though all barriers, like they were nothing but hollow resonance chambers; they only amplified her voice. And she would do all that with a face so deadpan it was comical, like she was completely unconcerned with the torrential stream of emotions she was delivering.

Speaking of streams, you’d have to see the way she flies. She certainly wasn’t the fastest young flier I had ever seen, nor was she the most enthusiastic or artistic, but she was precise. She had a deep understanding of movement and flight and air, and flew like one would solve a mathematical equation--with humble yet undeniable elegance.

And the “weirdness” doesn’t stop there; like so many exceptional people, she’s an outlier in more ways than one. For one thing, she’s the nicest pony I’ve ever known. She helps people with their homework and with their flight practice. Taking advice from her is not a matter of pride, not even for the most arrogant Griffins or the most aloof Pegasi, because, as a matter of fact, she is almost always right. Still, few actually follow her advice, because, while sound, it is hard. Even basic stuff like keeping a meticulous diet, maintaining a fixed sleeping schedule, doing your abs every morning, not using those damned WHISPer gadgets to listen to music while training and focusing on your technique instead... People want shortcuts. They don’t want to go through all that work. And then they twitch and moan about not getting the results that require that work, as if they were entitled to have them for free.

My dad taught me otherwise; I’d never do a sloppy job if I could help it. Thus, I was the only one in our year who listened to all her advice, and I followed her example as closely as possible. If her flight looked like solving equations, mine looked like accountancy--It was boring as hell, but it got the job done.

I can’t help but think she somehow knew I was holding back--she’s always been a perceptive one. When I was around her, I felt something completely unlike what I felt around the others. A kind of muffled fear. Like she was everything I pretended to be and then some more. She wasn’t afraid of standing out, or speaking her mind. I would never pull that off. I would never be like her.

Cool, calm, mature, grown up... I wasn't any of those things. Yet that was how they thought of me. Deep inside, I was as lazy, as selfish and as horny as any of them. I just tried very hard to meet expectations, so I had better results.

But all this... working hard every day, never complaining, always keeping a “cool” facade, a low profile, faking interest, faking strength, faking maturity... it took its toll. Every weekday after school, I'd go back home, I’d have dinner, I’d tell my parents about my day at school. My father would congratulate me. Then, he and he would dispense some wisdom. On how to avoid envy and contempt, on how never to dream dreams so great they couldn’t be embraced. Practical stuff. Sound stuff. I’d help out with the chores. My mother would give me her usual sad, fond smile, and pet me a little. Then, I’d leave for my room, where I knew I'd be left alone.

Then I'd be free to give in.

I'd keel over into my bed, and, I did something that I found strange, and shameful. I broke down crying. I didn’t know why I did it, I thought there was no good reason to. Everything was fine, right? And yet, there I was, whimpering as quietly as possible. It didn't happen every evening--but it happened fairly often. The closer we were to Friday, the heavier the lump in my throat got. I felt like I was choking. On what, I didn't know. Everything was fine. Lots of folks liked me well enough, and nobody hated me outright. My teachers and my parents had what they wanted. I had what I wanted. Didn't I? So why? Why was it that every day felt like a long, soft, warm, clammy torture? Why was it that, at the best of times, I felt empty and drained and worn out, and at the worst of times, I felt like I was being buried alive, like I was choking on my own breath?.

Thankfully, every weekend, I somehow felt a little better. Choir practice was Friday evening. My parents often left for the chalet during the weekends, with my pest of a little sister. So I was left home alone with my books and my music sheets. I'd lose myself in fiction, or in music. I held on to those moments, wished I would never let them go. But no matter how far I wanted to stretch it, a weekend could only hold so much time. That was just enough. By Sunday night, I usually felt happy and content--eager, even!

By Monday morning, the break was over. Time to sneak back to reality. No matter how many times I went through this, I was always nervous. But, on the surface, I was calm, and ready. That would do. It always did--or so I thought.

Then came Rahal, and my life changed forever.

It was a routine assignment. It really was. My homework for the day was to improve my time at the endurance test by five more minutes, in regards to last week. Teachers trusted me to record my own performance faithfully. And so I did, just in case.One should always tell people freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way, as Father always says. I took the least traveled circuit, as usual. I flew at night, under a pale crescent and a starry blackness. I was practically invisible. I was perfectly alone. I could tell.

As everyone knows, Pegasi make a drone-like buzz with their wings... and they can get very noisy at high speed. Since no Pegaus (bar one) has been known to travel faster than the speed of sound, I could easily avoid unwanted company, especially since the endurance test was more about gliding than speeding. That way, my own noise didn't drown out others', and I would be able to avoid any of my speedster classmates simply by listening. Gliding was all about intelligently managing ascending currents. I did my best to be more clever this time. I had to beat that score by five minutes. I had to do as I was told. I had to meet their expectations.

The pace of the flight reminded me of one of the songs we had been practicing most recently. It was from a musical called Big Band Bronco. It was one of my favourites, for some reason... Almost reflexively, I turned on my SoundMeister and just listened for a while, losing myself in the lyrics.

* * *

When I got to the solo after the first chorus, I lowered the volume on my device. The heavens were quiet, and the lights of Cloudsdale were like fireflies on the horizon.

I flew for a while like that...

“Gotta knock a little harder,” I muttered to myself.

Gotta knock a little harder!

Weird, that was a male voice! Why did they change change singers so abruptly? I idly wondered. I wasn't expecting anypony to be around--and the skies of Equestria were notoriously safe (otherwise, I’d never have been given this kind of homework). I certainly wasn’t expecting an enormous flying contraption, with wings ten times the length of my own and thrice the width, carrying some kind of giant horned cat person, silently surging out of the cloud cover, heading straight for my side like a tiger pouncing on prey. It was too late to veer. In the nearly frictionless medium that is air, there are very strong limits on how quick or tight you can steer when you're flying that fast; I didn’t get the time do beat my wings even once. And he sang;

Gotta knock a little harder,

Into the door!

The instant before we made contact was when my whole life so stereotypically flashed before my eyes. It hadn't been that good, but it hadn't been that bad either. I didn't want it to end. I didn’t want to die. I had so much not-dying still left to do.

“Bon appêtit! Open up!” the cat-person said with a savage grin while she wound up to strike me with... a contrabass? But gliders, as the things are rather unimaginatively called, were machines that demanded ''delicate'' handling, and in her haste she somehow unbalanced herself in the movement. This didn’t stop her from ramming the device into me at full speed.

”Oh shit!” she panicked. Why?I thought. I can’t dodge. She’s got me.

She impacted full-on into my barrel right in the stomach. Knocked the air out of me. Hurt. Broke something? Hope not. Hope I wasn't crippled, either; in the air, it wasn’t the injuries that killed you--it was the fall. I didn’t fall. Cloud cover. Clouds, by default, are impermeable to Pegasi. Not always a good thing. Was sent away horizontally, at high speed, against the bumpy clouds. Spun, and rebounded, and skidded, and stumbled, and crashed to a halt. Finally, it stopped. At that speed, it was much worse than, say, falling into a tree. I lay, a crumpled, dark mess, on the moonlit clouds--and I blacked out.

Gotta knock a little harder

Break through the door

Clean, Pretty, Reliable (Revival)

A Unicorn can resist a piano or an anvil being dropped on their head from a few meters high. Pegasi are quite a bit tougher than that-- it takes quite hit to knock one unconscious, even for a while (as long as you don’t hit them on the jaw: sensitive spot there). I was hit so hard, I was knocked unconscious for a while. Then I started regaining consciousness. First, the hearing. My AirWave was still playing the final measures of that song, like nothing had happened. I thought it into silence. A male voice burst out:

"Dang it, I killed Pony!"

You bastard! Wait, who's Pony?

"Just as I had found her, I had to screw it up and kill her! Pegasi are such fragile things! Now Pony is dead, and I'll have to start looking all over again! Why oh why did I have to kill Pony? Now she's dead! Destroyed! Bereft of a future! Irremediably boring! She has flatlined! She is an ex-Pony! Oh what to do, what to do..."

My name is not Pony, you murderer, and I'm not dead. But I can't move. Or breathe.

I'm dying.

"Let's try slapping her."

I'm in pain.And I'm dying.

"Bucket of water!"

I'm wet. And I'm in pain. And I'm still dying. And where did you get that bucket?

"Okay, screw this. Time for intervention! Clean. Pretty. Reliable. It’s CPR time!”

What the…

It was then that I understood that I was truly doomed. He took a deep breath and...

“Let’s kick the beat!”

He “massaged" my heart, so vigorously he might as well have been punching me, again and again. It was quite painful, but it practically jolted me awake. And then,

"Smooooch!"

What do you mean, smooch?

There’s two word for breathing stuff unto someone: ‘to inspire’ and ‘to animate’. That strange assailant inspired me. Then I was dying, and he brought me to life-- painfully and selfishly and without a thought for how I felt or what I wanted.

That instant set the tone, the theme, and the mood for our entire relationship.

And it worked.

I took a breath. No, I claimed a breath. Deep. Hard. I wanted to live, with a desperation that I never knew I was capable of. I opened my eyes, wide, and it was like seeing the world for the first time. Not the time for contemplation, though: the first thing I saw was the panther leaping at me, face unmasked, aiming a sweeping blow of his guitar to my forehead. So he was equipped with cloudwalker charms. Just my luck.

There was no time to evade or block, no time to move a single muscle before his blow connected--but there was no need to. All the hours I spent training at Flight School kicked in. I did not even need to think. Lesson 1: Clouds are impermeable to Pegasi--unless we don't want them to.

I allowed myself to fall into the cloud. He missed my head by a fraction, his green, slit-pupil eyes wide, his expression seamlessly flowing from glee to shock to indignant frustration. He had probably lost his balance, and it would take him precious instants to recover it, in mind as well as body. I didn't wait to find out: I kept freefalling, as fast as I could.

Without making a sound, I kept building distance between me and the predator.

My black coat was a natural camouflage, in the night, against the dark ground, under the cloudy skies that blocked the lights of Luna. But I knew better than to count on it. He might have other ways of sensing me: he jumped me through the cloud cover, after all.

I had to decide what to do next. Before he could get into his glider and catch up with me. He got the drop on me while I was by myself, in the dark. For a second, I struggled to make sense of his actions.

A bandit, a hunter, or an assassin wouldn't have tried to reanimate me. Yet as soon as I was reanimated, he tried to strike me. He was no ally. What, then? The next thought was weird. A foreign operative? Was he going to torture me for information? But those were supposed to be grim, serious types. He was so... goofy? I'd have needed to know more before I could tell for sure.

But I couldn’t afford to. If he was an interrogator, there was no telling what he could do to me if he managed to catch me. I wanted to get away, where he would not follow. I don't think he would dare attack me before witnesses. This early in the night, there were still a few lights on the land. The closest was almost right under me. That looked like one, lonely cottage: unsafe. I could see a bigger cluster--some distance away. It looked a barn or hangar of some sort: not much safer. Finally, there shone a much larger cluster of lights--probably the town of Ponyville: a fair distance away.

“So,” I thought as I looked up to check the clouds once again, “the closest looks the least safe, the furthest seems safest: convenient. Which direction would he expect me to take? I don’t think I’ll have trouble out-flying his glider, but better safe tha-- “

Then I saw what came through the cloud cover, descending upon me like a flying ton of bricks. It might as well have been one; the glider was nowhere to be seen, and the tiger was instead wearing... some sort of suit... a full plate armour? In the sky? That makes no sense... Why is there a glow coming out from his claws and feet? Why were his eyes blazing like that? Why is he moving so damn fast without any wings?

And that’s when I understood how he had sung that last verse so precisely before he hit me. I knew he had hacked my AirWave, because a song that I’d never had heard before started playing:

Shoot to thrill play to kill

Too many women too many pills, yeah

Shoot to thrill play to kill

I got my gun at the ready gonna fire at will

Wha--how? Psychological warfare? What’s a “gun”? What’s a “woman”? Is this in code?!

There was no escape. Not if I didn’t fight for it. I would crash him, or he would crush me. Thinking time was over--time for reflex and rule of thumb instead. Cloud cover is low. Mountains are close. Get him there, before-

Useless. He was upon me. I could almost see the white of his eyes. As in, they shone from his helmet, all-white, no pupils, like a unicorn overcharged on magic. Just how much power did he have?

He was surely going to get me, we were almost face-to-face, his speed was overwhelming--and then he did something strange. He took out his massive guitar, the same he had tried to hit me with before, took it in his metal paws, and seemed to prepare to swing it at me. Again?

Why? Why not just ram me again?

If I had allowed myself to be perplexed by that, he’d have gotten that hit in, no problem. But the gesture unbalanced him, and, with a quick beat of my wings, I managed to dodge his blow. I tried to get strike him myself, but he was too fast, and I missed his torso, hitting his feet instead. I thought my hooves would have been burned to a crisp. They were not, to my surprise.

Even though he had a lot of momentum, the fact that his hands were full meant that he’d have trouble balancing his flight with his feet alone. I didn’t know that, then, but the comical way in which, despite his tremendous forward momentum, he started spinning out of control, made me feel reassured if not downright cocky.

Never get cocky. Especially not after you’ve been injured.

There was a pink, sparkling light (a barrier spell), that sprung at his feet, mid air. He landed on it. It accomodated him like rubber--no, more intelligently, like some platform. In an instant, his spin was nullified, his course was corrected--pointing right at me. With a shout of wild joy, he flung himself at me, spinning anew, guitar in hand. I was facing him. I waited for him to close. I beat my wings forward, pushing myself backward and down in the same movement--right in time to buck him in the side as he tried to bring his guitar down, which harmlessly grazed my mane; I used the power of the kick to proportionally push myself faster downward. I accelerated quite a bit; looked like that cat had quite the mass, armour and all!

As he spun away, I could hear him laugh.

The mouser was having fun?

Screw that, no matter. I fell. Gather speed, head for the Foggy Hills, crash the kitten. I was facing the ground, falling like a black cannonball, facing the ground. Then an orange hole opened mid-air right in front of me. There he was, standing like a bullfighter, inviting me with mock courtesy. By the time the impossibility registered, there was no time to dodge. He took a step to the side, and lightly lifted the edge of his guitar. It hit me square in the forehead, its chords making a dull sound.

That didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.

It still hurt a lot. I turned around and screamed, “What did you do that for? What do you want?”

He regarded me with a bemused expression. He raised his head, looking down on me as if I was some insect. “Usless,” he stated. He turned his back on me, and flew away.

For some reason, that made me feel terribly offended. “I’m not done here!” I screamed.

“I am,” he said. It was amazing, how much boredom he could pour into those two words. It was amazing, how his armour changed, it was like he’d become one single, wide, triangular wing. Then there was a burst of light and sound-- and by the time my eyes had readjusted to the darkness he was gone.

I hated to admit it, but the bastard was kind of a bad ass.

Well, that was anticlimactic, I thought to myself...

As the adrenaline washed away, I began to notice how hurt I was. I had no strength to fly back home. I would need to land in that cottage. Which, upon closer inspection, wasn’t very far from a black mass I recognized as the Everfree Forest. I knew where I was. Fluttershy’s cottage. I’d be safe. If I could make it there. Everything hurt. Ribs, where he rammed me. Hooves, with which I struck him. But not the head--strange. Still, breathing was hurting more and more, and all my muscles were sore from the effort, which came at the end of a long day of training.

I attempted to crash-land at her door. Instead I simply crashed, through her glass window, to my great shame and pain. There was a fracas. There was a terrified squeak. There was a silence. There was a voice. And what a voice it was.

“Uhm-oh-who’s th-” She gasped. “Poor thing! What happened to you? What’s your name?”

Somehow my malfunctioning SoundWave answered... in my head? In my stead?

I’m just a poor colt, I need no sympathy...

“Miss Fluttershy, I--” didn’t introduce myself properly, falling into blissful unconsciousness instead. That night, blissfully unaware of the fate that was in store for me, I dreamed of butteflies.

Beelzebub has a table put aside for me, for meee...

A Filly Named Andromache

Some people like to say that I'm smart. "Genius", they call me. "Andromache, you’re just gifted". A "Prodigy". Nonsense. Utter nonsense. It consoles them, in their comfortable, numbing mediocrity, to think that I'm just better than them, that there is some goddess-given gap between us that cannot be bridged. I'm not better than them. It's all hard work, or, to be precise, deliberate practice, and constant training, ceaseless self-improvement.

My grades are better than theirs because I like to study, and I've studied for much longer than them, because my father, who is an engineer at the Rainbow Factory, got involved in my education as a kid, and taught me so much about numbers and things and people. Because he encouraged me and praised me and believed in me.

I'm more athletic than them because my mother was a champion flier, and I wanted to be more like the one person in the world that I looked up to the most.

I'm better organized because, early on, I encountered a teacher who pointed me towards the cutting-edge of time-management and self-discipline research, all summed up in convenient, practical books.

And, perhaps most importantly, my parents always encouraged me to improve, to top myself, to do better, always believed in me, and always, always had my back.

I was lucky, yes, and fortunate. My parents, my upbringing, that was my gift. There's no such thing as "an ability to improve more with less effort". There is no talent, only hustling, and those too lazy to commit to it.

No, that's an unfair thing to say. And unkind. And untrue. Some people have the will to work, but do so with the wrong mindset. Some people have the will sapped out of them by discouragement, and harsh, unfair criticism, and environments that just aren't receptive to their accomplishments.

And then there's this colt. I can't figure him out. His name's Mustang. He's black. An unusual color, for an Equestrian pony. Makes him seem plain, at a distance, if not outright too formal. But if you look close, you notice the hues and the shades and the reflections. The potential. And he's one of the very few ponies that are receptive to my help and my advice. Definitely the only one who seems to actually like me...

He takes it, too. My advice. I've seen him making his to-do lists, pacing himself in races, organizing his timetable. But his results don't improve as much as statistics say they should. If he weren't always so diligent, I'd think he's holding back! Like he's somehow trying to give teachers just what they want and not an ounce more. But why would he do this? And, what's more, something seems to be eating him up inside.

Every day, he looks more strained, drained, empty... There's a reprieve in the weekends, where his dark mood seems to improve... But every Moonday he's more... tenuous... more extenuated than the last. I hate to intrude, but I'm going to have to ask. Otherwise, at this rate, there's no telling what could happen to him... And, without him, even though I'd still have my parents... If I lost him, I'm not sure I could go on like this myself...

He hasn't showed up to school today. Maybe he's caught a cold? It would be extremely unusual for a pegasus. I'm just hoping it was nothing serious. Either way, as his friend (and as class representative) I need to make sure to bring him his homework and help him with the courses he missed. Plus, it gives me an excuse to visit him at his house...

The Skippable And Optional Tale Of The Utmost or Robber's High

Author's note: This chapter is skippable and optional and tells you about the immense space opera that lurks far in the background of this story. Those who have not viewed FLCL may be saved much confusion. Those who have seen it may find some amusement in this attempt to wrap up the show's mysterious backstory. Thank you all.

Music, reality...

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

But we, as entertainers, have a responsibility, to these kids...

Psyche!

I was somewhere near the edge of Cloudsdale when the music started to take hold. I felt it in my bones, that beat, and my own heart couldn't but match it, couldn't but yearn for the Source. The unmistakable sign that an Amplifier, that rarest of treasures, was near. Right above me. And rapidly gaining distance Southwards. He clearly was flying at high speed in the opposite direction, over the cloud cover.

The time had come for me to show my skill with that glider. As I manoeuvred, swiftly and urgently, but with the care that air gliders demand, everything came back to me. Everything I'd done for the past few cycles had been building up to that moment. I had set out on a mad, fantastic journey to get my claws on the limitless well of potentiality that was the Utmost. All of the Galactic Brotherhood had, once that piece of Good News had been leaked into the Weft, where information was shared across universes at the speed of thought.

The Utmost-- the Universal Pirate, the World Eater, seemed to be within reach, right there .

I couldn't wait to eat him.

Oh, the Utmost... I still remember that one briefing session where we were told of his backstory in proper detail. It was interminable boredom to some, and endless fun to others, but we all agreed on one thing: it was long.

"He used to be a human, you know,“ the Intelligent Instructor had said. "One of those tiny fraklings from Helios-3. They themselves call that tiny rock ‘Earth’ in their local language, the same way aquatic beings tend to call their worlds "Wet“ or something to that effect. Such provincialism... don't they know how confusing it can get? Never mind, they probably don't. Tiny, backwater place. If it weren't for him, it wouldn't still exist. But we'll get back to that later.“

Intelligent Instructors, so called because they aren't, are machines programmed to communicate information in a way that would make it stick to the mind of the listeners, and, for that purpose, adapted their style of exposition to the tastes of their audience. They also projected sensorama illustrations of what they were narrating --again, stylized in the way that would entice the audience the most. We were a bit of a rowdy, whiny bunch, and so it spoke accordingly.

"...“

The person who has just explicitly (and wisely) missed an opportunity to whine about alien xenophobia was our token human on that cell, Django. He was a pretty cool guy; wasn't afraid of nothing, but he did know when fall back, and when to shut up.

His heliophile friend, Sky Dancer, however, did not. "We can't expect every planet to be aware of world plurality," she vehemently defended, "let alone universe plurality. Certainly not at the level of technological development where a name for the planet tends to be decided.“

The Instructor gave her an old-fashioned gaze, then went on. Django remained impassive.

"The entity that would later be known as Atomsk was named by its parents as Arsène Lupin, fifth of the name. Back in those modest times, he (for he was a male, very much so) was known as the Thief of the Impossible.“ Did I also mention that, as Space Pirates, we have a bit of a soft spot for epicness in tone? The Instructor knew that, and, while the sheer scale of the tale he was telling was hard to overstate, he certainly gave it a good try.

“A man who had honed himself to peak condition in every possible way a human could achieve.“

“Like Batman?“ asked Joker, winking towards Django, who just rolled his eyes. None of us knew who the hell Batman was, but Joker had this obsession with intergalactic popular culture. Weird girl. “Also, Instructor, I just love how your illustrations look like something Imaishi would draw. Keep up the good work!“ What the heck was he talking about?

“He had a heart free of conflict, doubt, or guilt--and full of irresistible passion. He was the sort of person that, once they had set their mind to achieve something, would rather die than fail. He had no brakes whatsoever. What he wanted, he grasped. A sharp, vivid, merciless intelligence, his implacable mind was equipped with the knowledge and skills to grant him his heart's desire, with the help of a body that he had patiently and rigorously built to be of exceptional health and power. For a human, that is“.

“...“ went Django. While Django, and many humans like him, had grown much stronger than that early version of Atomsk had been (thanks to their access to the Galaxy's biotic and cybernetic science, technology, and training), the fact is that Lupin V had not needed any of that to achieve a similar level of power. And that was only the beginning.

“All this personal might was an extra, built on top of what he had already inherited from his family: wealth, knowledge, skills, and a flair--an all-consuming fire in the soul--, that had peen passed down the Lupin bloodline for GENERATIONS. And did any of them expend that wealth towards the advancement of their species, or the happiness of their fellow sentients? Nope. Like his ancestors, he was absolutely and unashamedly selfish, and dedicated his existence towards doing the one thing that gave him the most happiness: theft. Theft as high art. Theft on a level that had never been seen before or since. All for the sake of the Robber's High, as he called it.“

“Does that have anything to do with sniffing burnt latex?“ Joker never missed a bad pun if he could, but he would miss almost every opportunity to shut up. Both Django and the Instructor gave him a flat stare.

The Instructor continued: “The man could steal anything he set his mind to. On his own planet, he had stolen such significant little tokens as the Eiffel Tower, the US Declaration of Independence, the International Prototype Meter Bar, or Emperor Akihito's new clothes. (The latter wouldn’t be very notable if not for the fact that he stole them while Akihito was wearing them, in the middle of giving his annual Birthday speech before the Japanese nation ---that suit had been offered to the Emperor as a gift for the occasion).“

“What's the Japanese nation? What the heck are all those things he stole?“ I asked.

“He stole stuff that humans cared a lot about because of their symbolic value, but which were nearly impossible to exchange for currency. Worthless--or priceless, depending on opinion.“ said the Instructor. “As for the Japanese nation, all you need to know is that they were a rich and powerful subset of humans, that they were relatively numerous, and that they had an Emperor, a living symbol of their unity and history, powerless figurehead though he was. And by the way, I'm glad that you asked that, Rahal. Do pay attention, it gets more interesting once he leaves his little rock. But first I need to give you all a proper sense of the scale of what he did.

“He stole the Meteor of the Cube at Mecca, a literal cornerstone for one of the most widespread religions on Earth, before millions of pilgrims. He stole the embalmed body of Lenin, a defunct leader of what used to be a massively popular and fanatically devoted political movement. The Jewels of the Crown of Great Britain, a very prestigious monarchy, he reaped before the cameras of the whole world. He stole the first milk tooth from the Dalai Lama's latest reincarnation; the Dalai Lama was a religious leader that would live forever by being born over and over, and Lupin took the tooth before anyone else even knew the child as such. He stole the Grail, he stole the Lance, and he stole the Thorns, relics that were associated to the Undyng God of another massively popular religion, and were rumoured to bless their wielder with unbelievable biotic prowess."

At that point, one pattern became quite noticeable in the Instructor's holograms: after every relic, there would be a stylized, dramatically lit illustration of a supremely pissed off bunch of humans, and, with every piece, they grew more numerous and more pissed off. It soon became comical, and the room began bursting into laughter after every theft’s narration.

“At that point of his saga, he was already more Enlightened than the most elevated men of his era,“ the Instructor continued, "and had committed enough exploits to rival even those of his notorious ancestors. In fact, he was growing bored with that. It was only on par with the impossible feats of his ancestors, you see. So he he went one step beyond. He started aiming for more abstract targets.“

Suddenly, a large red alarm message flashed around the Instructor; LECTURE ALERT, LECTURE ALERT, it read. A lecture within the lecture? Oh, that wasn't a good sign.

“To understand what it is that he did from then on, it is indispensable to clarify what theft is, in the purest, broadest sense sense. In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's ‘property' without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. 'Property' being that which is 'owned', that over which a person feels entitled to have certain powers.

Argh! Philosophy! The greatest hazard to sentient life! Entire civilizations got lost in the intricacies of its mazes, searching for understanding. As for those that did find it, they rose more powerful than ever; you could recognize them by the haunted look that Quick, I needed to tune my mind out as soon as possible! Think of the mailman. The male man. What would a female man be? A transgender being? What is the value of gender roles anyway, in this day and age of space adventures? Shouldn't one be free to live one's identity as one chooses? But then, what is the limit of free choice in the matter? What does free will even mean? Does that even matter?

Oh, glob no. My imagination had run away with me, and was dragging me straight into the trap of philosophy. I had no choice but to focus on the Instructor's lecture. As I did so, I noticed that Django had probably come to the same conclusion, he was staring at the Instructor with frightening intensity.

"The power to enjoy and use the 'property'", the Instructor continued, "Including the power to consume --to destroy in the process of using and enjoying that which is 'owned'.

"The power to 'sell' --to exchange property over one thing with property over another.

"The power to 'rent' --to allow someone to use and enjoy the property for a set amount of time, in exchange for being granted ownership of other property."

If I were reading this lecture as a paper, I might have felt tempted to skip all this part.

"The power to 'mortgage', to be temporarily granted an amount of property with the condition that, were one not to return said property (plus an extra for having held it for so long), a specific set of one’s property would be taken away."

Would that have been a good idea?

"The power to process or transform --to change a property’s characteristics, including the power to destroy --to make the property cease to exist in a way that is valuable."

I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

"And, most important of all, the power to exclude others from doing these things. Private means forbidden. Private property is property that is forbidden to others, who will only be allowed to exert any of the aforementioned powers at the discretion of the owner.

That's what makes piracy so fun. Someone tells you not to do something, threatens you not to do it "or else". Don't they know how tempting the forbidden is?

“This notion of "property" is, as a matter of fact, an entirely conventional reality, a lie that individuals have agreed to treat as truth. There are many, many societies and rule-sets where one can be deprived of one’s ‘ownership’ of a ‘property’ without one’s consent, and possibly without being granted any rights over new ‘property’ as compensation, full or partial.

“Yet people keep getting attached to their ‘properties’. They begin to believe that they have a ‘natural right’ to that ‘ownership’, they begin to see it as an extension of their ego, so much that losing those powers of ‘ownership’ over that ‘property’ does not bear thinking, so much that they might kill to keep it. It becomes an extension of their ego. ‘Mine,’ they say, ‘it is mine, and mine alone’, as if that meant anything at all.

“This delusion started with simple things. The resources needed to survive. The sources thereof, and control over them. The leftovers, when there were any. The infrastructures and tools needed to obtain and transform the resources. The tokens of exchange."

Now he's talking about economy. Someone please contact the Task Administrator...

Then it got subtle. Some of those resources were living people, and they became legal ‘property’ of someone else. Their ‘owners’ had the power to enjoy, consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transform, destroy them, and the power to exclude others from doing so. Others, such as, for instance, the slaves themselves.

I have a very strong opinion on slavery. My opinion on slavery is that it is bad--unless it's me doing the enslaving.

Even then, in retrospect, it usually wasn't the smartest or most practical solution I could have thought of...

“‘Rights’, powers that were granted to you by the rule-set under which you operated, the Law, and enacted by the societies that held themselves to that rule-set, could and would be 'owned'. Sometimes, the rule-set even allowed them to be bought and sold. Not just ownership of one’s own self, but subtler things, such as ownership of one’s own thoughts, of one’s dreams at night. One could transfer ownership of one’s future produce, and even ownership of one’s future, period.

“Things no-one could ever have any control over were claimed to be ‘one’s’, as if it was possible to ‘own’ them in any meaningful sense: ownership of one’s heart, ownership of one’s reputation, one’s glory, ownership of one’s identity."

All of a sudden, the LECTURE ALERT signs vanished. BACK TO ADVENTURE TIME flashed briefly in green, before disappearing as well.

“Lupin, the Knave of Hearts, laughed at these conceits. He took all these things, regardless of their thingness. He took them for himself, he deprived their ‘owners’ of them and the powers they had over them, regardless of how entitled they thought they were to those powers. Those who faced him found out that they ‘had’, in fact, nothing. There was nothing, no matter how intangible, not even your very own existence, that would not fall into his complete, unconditional power, if he wanted to take it. That is what Lupin did. He took away what you thought was ‘yours’, and he made it actually and utterly ‘his’. That was the monstrous existence that came to be known as Atomsk. His victims should be thankful that he only stole what was a challenge to steal, just to prove the point that no-one truly ‘had’ anything.

“He would often ‘return’ what he stole, once the point was made. I said ‘return’, not return,” said the Instructor, insisting on the air quotes, “because after he had stolen it, the sense of ownership was lost, and rang hollow. He could deprive you of your power over it at any time, and you knew it. And there came the enlightenment, that ‘power’ was merely a fleeting ‘possibility’. Something to enjoy while it lasted, not something to hold on to.

“So now that you understand the full magnitude of what it meant that he stole something, we can move on. As he did when he got bored of stealing trinkets, and then got bored of stealing symbols. To his intangible thefts. I will leave to your imagination what it means precisely to steal some of the things he stole. If it falls short, consider yourself fortunate: some of the processes by which he stole those things, and demonstrated that he had stolen them, that they were now ‘his’ and not ‘their rightful owner’s’, chill the blood and numb the mind with horror.”

“For a while, now, the room had been in utter silence. At the beginning, it was out of boredom, and we loudly and overtly yawned and lounged around. But, little by little, we were caught into the depth of what the Instructor explained. In that sentiment laid the very essence of being a Space Pirate. The disciples of the Pirate King believed they had nothing, and also believed that no-one else did, and that whatever they wanted, was theirs for the taking: there lay true joy in living. Nothing was true, and everything was permitted.

“The Instructor went on, swiftly (and rather jarringly) returning to his previous jovial tone.

“Stealing hearts was easy. “ the Instructor said. “His lips, often moist with kisses, set entire nations ablaze. Literally. As in, his dalliances had started actual wars. As he was often in disguise, however, he always took great care not to get his fake mustaches too moist --it weakened the glue, and they fell easily enough already.”

That got a laugh from everyone, and a Loud from Joker. “Like a laugh, but more so!” he once explained... Such terrible puns shouldn't be a-Loud, *cough*.

“At one point,” said the Instructor, “ he decided to steal the show from musicians, and make the Power of Rock his. He became, under many assumed identities, one (or rather, several) of the most prolific and proficient musicians of his time. He cruelly played people as he played his instruments: with flippant ease, and burning passion. They would dance to his tune, and he would make their hearts sing. Which... never quite got boring. Music became a bit of a trademark for him, but it was
always something he did on the side.”

That was another of the perks of the Pirate lifestyle. The music was literally to die for.

“Stealing futures and debts was trivial.” Gosh, this is going to get boring again.

“Stealing billionaire companies took a little more skill. As did stealing elections and thrones and nations, and using them to steal other nations.” Nevermind!

“Some would have said inhuman skill, but he was way past caring about that. He never stopped improving himself, he never stopped aiming higher, and he never looked back --and never noticed that he was leaving the world behind.”

“If he had noticed, I doubt he would have cared,” said Django. His eyes were level, as was his voice. But there was a narrowness to his pupil, a tightness to his jaw. “Sometimes I wonder why he even bothered to save us.”

“All in due time, Django,” said the Instructor. “Le Clair Volant has never been forthcoming with information regarding himself. In fact (returning to the topic), stealing information, no matter how well-guarded, had become trivial --the world's most confidential databases were at his fingertips. So he started stealing potential.

“He stole dreams, and actual futures, and destinies. He stole entire branches of future scientific research. And then, while idly musing about the knowledge he had gained for himself, knowledge that was now his and his alone, he stumbled upon an unbearable scientific and spiritual discovery. That event would mark his simultaneous rise and fall to existence as the Utmost.”

Now came the good part!

“Now comes the good part, that you, and the whole galaxy, are already familiar with. Not much later, he stole the Solar System, as Humans call Helios, of Cluster 2317, and relinquished the title of Thief of the Impossible. He had gone beyond that, you see. If you've been following the press on the Weft, the Galaxy’s thought network, you probably know the rest”, the Instructor said.

And so did I. So did most of us. There was no-one in the Verse that hadn’t heard of The Ingenious Atomsk And His Extravagant Hijinks.

“Indeed, all of you have heard some of the story,” the Instructor confirmed, “but not all of you have heard all of the story. So, I will go on and explain all of the essential points, for the sake of completeness.

“That system, Helios, was never his to steal in the first place (which was, of course, the entire point). He caused a massive stir in the Real Estate market: that System was going to be destroyed to make way for one of the key segments of the first Intergalactic Lu-Way.

“Incidentally, that's not its proper name:” he said, clearly for Django’s benefit: “the Mageboards nicknamed it Lu-Way because, while on them, you're allowed to reach Ludicrous Speed, which is the highest speed conceivable, and is quite a few notches above Light Speed. There is such a thing as Inconceivable Speed, but that's just not safe. It leads to Hyperspace, aaand...?”

“Hyperspace is a Scary Place” we all recited. The intonation was monotonous, out of sheer repetition, but it was earnest. Pirates never placed much value in security, as newbies Django and Sky Dancer would no doubt have noticed, and that Hyperspace is such a clear and present danger, that we actually bother to have drills about it, should make it clear to him that that mess is not to be messed with.

“The Earthlings were sent a message,” the Instructor went on, “long in advance, about their imminent eviction, by the Galactic Capitol, asking them whether they would need the Administration to provide transportation and prepare a new, earth-like environment for them to live on in. But it would seem that their messenger was abducted by their current international hegemon's military before they could deliver their message, and that he was... prodded... for information. The interrogation proved to be fatal to the messenger, and pointless: in the end, no information could be retrieved from their corpse. Records can't quite agree on the name he reportedly went by while there. Joshua? Jeanne? John? Keanu? Some even argue that his demise was desired if not enforced by the Capitol, as evacuating a System is always a bothersome and costly task.

“Be that as it may. In the end, Atomsk stole the Solar System for himself. The infinitely complex and delicate ballet of the galactic markets, at the sound of that one dissonant note, stumbled and tripped and fell to the ground like a broken automaton. That single note, not very loud, but utterly unexpected, made a huge mess of the Galactic Economy.

“He didn't upset anyone personally: the ownership of that piece of space kept shifting at the speed of finance, as did the ‘ownership’ of the groups that ‘held’ it as ‘real estate’, and so on. Ownership.” The Instructor broke into a cold grin. “They didn’t know what they had coming.”

We grinned in turn.

“No, he hurt no-one in particular, he just pissed off everyone in the Galaxy. Well, everyone that ‘mattered’, anyway,” the Instructor scoffed.

“And so, he was chased and tracked and hunted by the most powerful beings and organizations. It wasn't just what he'd done. In itself, the Solar System was incredibly average, so unnoticeable the markets could have gotten it misplaced or accidentally destroyed by a mere rounding error. It was the fact that no-one had heard it coming.

“No-one even knew how he had done it. No-one thought what he did was even possible. And markets are utterly dependent on predictability, on stability, on the world making sense. They do not take troublemakers well.

“A contract was placed on his head. It goes without saying that the contract itself became a very prized commodity on the market: its shareholders had dibs on his fate after capture, you see. But some exploiters and speculators did welcome the crisis as an opportunity, and sought to make use of him.

“Which amused him, immensely.” And, apparently, it also amused the Instructor, there was a definite grim joy to his voice. “The Utmost, as he called himself by then, had abandoned the limits of what it meant to be a sentient individual. Somehow, he was both more than a man, and less than a man. His mind extended so deep in both directions of Time, he often felt like he wasn't making choices so much as he was watching himself do that which he already knew he’d do.

“Heck, by that point, calling him ‘he’ was an abuse of language: he had no peer, no match, no mate, no one to compare to, and no one to pair, match, or mate with. No possible ‘she’. He, the Utmost, who was Theft Beyond the Impossible, was One. Unique and alone. Not so much a person as a force of nature. An impersonal, inexorable theft-maximizer. But he still retained the ability to be amused, and to have fun, and to make fun.”

“You shouldn't make fun, Mr. Lupin” said Joker. Somehow I know it is a Helian reference. This is how; the long-suffering look subtly creeping on Django's dark features. Sky Dancer glanced from one to the other; she was doing an amusingly poor job of hiding her confusion.

“They were riding a tiger,” continued the Instructor (Ha! If only he’d known that, in this plane of Equis, I would appear as a literal tiger...), “those who took the hand of Lupin the Defalcator, and allowed him to steal a dance. It was a fun ride while it lasted, but sooner or later they would be worn out by his relentless, frantic pace, they would fall short before the sheer range at which he sang. By then, he would have robbed them dry, and they would be left empty husks-- not quite realizing when they lost themselves, their very selves, to his deft hand.

“What many people didn’t understand about the Utmost was that he was a soloist, and everyone else was, at best, accompaniment, background, echo; at worst, they were props to be popped, and scenery to be chewed.”

“Sometimes literally so”, Sky Dancer remarked.

“Indeed, when people call him the World Eater, it is not a mere figure of speech. But is also a figure of speech; what applied to his professional life often also applied to his music” the Instructor confirmed. “He set the Milky Way ablaze with his gigs in the tourney known as the Large JAM, and set out to plunder the Multiverse. He was not unopposed. Make no mistake: as mighty as he was, there were yet entities far more powerful than he.

“Often, he was outnumbered or outmatched. The Iron Will, a fascist, pro-Singularity organization dedicated to smoothing over the worlds by ironing the wrinkles out of Sapiency's brains, and equalizing all voices by drowning them out in white noise, was an especially hateful and recurrent enemy of his.

“But they say somehow he would always make it out in one piece, stealing someone's trousers along the way. They usually add ‘Except for that time he went in that backwater ocean world, where he made it out with one piece, and a cheaply-made straw hat,’ to which you’d usually asked ‘One piece of what?”, and they'd just shrug: it was only what they'd heard."

“Eventually, though, he failed. Not because of his own, inherent flaws, or in a showdown against someone outsmarted or overpowered him.

“Nope. It was a nobody. A mere child. An apprentice hunter of ectoplasm, with obsolete and malfunctioning equipment. She caught him by accident, and trapped him into a dimension where all scream for naught. One which could entrap many, but which could only be released by a rare few. And the Smooth Criminal was not among them.

“One false note, and his song collapsed.

“Or did it?

“One of his many achievements as an interstellar pirate and con man was the creation of the Band of Brothers. A selection of beings he cherry-picked throughout his journeys as his comrades and partners in crime, who in turn took protegees under their wing, developing into an organization that spanned universes, and which were in the process of paving the way for his multiversal tour.

“And he left them a wealth of information, to be released upon his disappearance. Much of it was just insurance, blackmail material, to dissuade and pressure his enemies. But there were also contingency plans.

“He never got around to writing his requiem: true to character, it seemed his death wasn't part of his worst-case scenarios. But he had written a piece for occasions such as this one!

“Among the skills he had taught the Brothers, was one that allowed them to hear his anthem, if he wanted them to. This sense is enabled by the single chain link you all wear on a bracelet around your wrists.” So we did.

The instructor went on to reproduce The Speech, the one that had set off the great era of piracy in the galaxy. What we saw was not a man, but an immense, stark red bird of prey. The High-Fidelity recording gave us a feel of the sheer sense of power that his presence exuded. Though it may be a mere echo of the sheer charisma and threat that the Bohemian Reaper emanated, we all felt it on our bones, his Rhythm.

“Brothers,” said the Utmost. His tone was surprising, given his appearance and power, for all that were unfamiliar with him. He nearly always spoke in light, playful, mocking tones, never seeming to take anything very seriously at all. “If, by any chance I am ever entrapped in that of the few places that can hold me against my will, the Dimension Where All Scream For Naught --If, that were ever to happen, I would find myself, much to my regret, stuck for a while with an immense choir of wailing, howling souls in torment. Booo~”

There he was, joking over the most horrible things as if they were inconsequential. He continued: “Their incessant cries are such powerful disruptors of thought that, even assuming one were able to overcome it on a personal level, and keep one’s sanity, as I am determined to do, one would be unable to perform any biotic feats, open any N.O. channels, or engage in any form of communication with the outside. Terrible roommates, aren’t they?

“However!” he reassured us, “there will be, according to the legends, one, and only one musical instrument, among the many powerful artifacts sealed therein, that can be heard over that choir of whiners.

“It can also summon meteors and manipulate a certain kind of inextinguishable, holy fire. That’s not relevant to the topic at hand, but given that I will gift it to the one who manages to free me, I thought you might want to know that. Try not to burn yourselves or each other.

“If I am ever stuck in that hellhole, I will play F**kslayer and let you hear my call.

“However, because of the noise it will have to overcome, only people who are naturally attuned to my channels will be able to relay my anthem, the Leid, to find me.

“These people, these Amplifiers, are extremely rare.

“A treasure.

“They are hidden out there.

“Whoever finds one first, with the right skills, will be able to use them to access my potential. Hell, they could even enslave me, or eat me for my power, if they knew how.

“That’s right, my power is yours for the taking... but you'll have to find it first! All of my soul will resonate into that One Hymn!”

The reproduction ended. We cheered. We cried. We laughed. Even Django the somber. You couldn’t help it. Atomsk was just that awesome.

After giving us time to settle down, the Instructor finished his presentation.

“Soon after Atomsk’s unexpected capture, the fateful document was leaked to the Weft, along with instructions on what one could do with the Amplifiers, what they were, and where to look for them.

“The power vacuum the disappearance of the Utmost left, and the promise that same power held for whoever laid hands on it first, triggered an Era of Chaos throughout the multiverse. The ranks of the Space Pirate grew exponentially, as Atomsk became both a martyr and an opportunity. Some of you here are the result of this influx of new members from all over the multiverse, and I hope that I, as Instructor, have managed to satisfactorily bring you up to date on the evens that made all this possible, in the form of a coherent and entertaining narration. Thank you.” And, just like that, the programme terminated.

Many things happened since I attended that lecture. Many trials, many false Leids... and lots and lots of fun.

Now I was on a strange land in a strange plane of reality, at the very skirts of the curve of probabilities, as realities went. It was, in fact, the birthplace of my own parents (How I came to be born in Space, in a distant Galxy of a faraway Universe, is a story for another day).

That world had magic. It had a sun and moon that orbited the planet, rather than the reverse.

It had physics that would bend to accommodate comedy.

It had sapient personifications of abstract principles.

It also happened to be Sky Dancer's native world. We were shuffled around like that in order to avoid personal involvement. Joker went back to Django's world under the name of Haruhara Haruko. Django was sent to mine under the name Annamerul Muqanna'a (it translates to Tiger Masked, in English). I was sent to Equis under the name of Rahal (for some reason Django and Sky Dancer suggested Tiger Woods as a fall-back name). And Sky Dancer was sent to Joker's. Each one of us would manifest in the target world in a shape suitable to our personality and purpose.

I came out as a rather fluffy-looking bipedal tiger of some sort.

Finding an Amplifier in such an outlier reality would actually be easier; this was the sort of place where million-to-one chances cropped up nine times out of ten.

And here he was. I had finally found him.

I could follow his Leid, but couldn't quite see him, and he made little noise of his own --he was flying awfully quiet for a pegasus. But the song would be enough to roughly point in his direction. Enough to let me know that I was gaining on him.

I was about to intercept him. He was above the cloud cover. And so, up I went.

I emerged from the clammy mist of clouds to the blackness of a clean, starry night. Luna Moonraiser, one of those personifications, had once complained that the sentient ponies that populated the land slept during her nights, that her beautiful night went thus unappreciated. The fact was, however, that the absence of nightly pony activity, and the luminous pollution it would entail, meant the stars could shine unveiled, and with perfect clarity. Upon the desert of silver clouds, under the moon, was a black pegasus.

Time to... harmonize...

… Joker would have loved that one.