A Far, Far, Better Place - NOT!!!
Author's Note
This story was written for the Barcast Group's "Make Spike Suffer!" contest.
A Far, Far, Better Place - NOT!!!
Spike, staggering under the weight of a book three times his size, struggled to keep up with Princess Twilight and Starlight Glimmer. With the book pretty much occupying his entire field of view Spike was travelling blind. He was deathly afraid of stumbling into furniture or colliding with a door frame. This would make Twilight terribly upset. It might damage the book.
Luckily, Spike had his intimate knowledge of the Palace of Friendship’s hallways to guide him. He was also quite good at navigating by sound, and Twilight’s excited chatter made it easy to follow her.
“Would you please cheer up, Starlight?” asked Twilight. “We have found Starswirl the Bearded’s ‘Big Book Of Worlds’! After over a milenia of Starswirl teasing us by writing about infinite worlds, we now have access to them. He includes over a thousand of their addresses in the appendix! What are you worried about?”
Starlight sighed. “Sure, Twi, I know what a momentous occasion this is. But we’ve had some experience with alternate realities, and it didn’t go very well.”
“Oh, Starlight, you shouldn’t dwell on that awful business. That only went badly because you did everything wrong.” Spike couldn’t see, but he imagined Twilight was offering Starlight her widest, most ingratiating smile. It was a look Spike had come to privately call her ‘I-Bet-You’d-Like-To-Buck-My-Teeth-Down-My-Throat’ smile. “You gerry-rigged Starswirl’s time spell all to Tartarus and gone, you played fast and loose with causality, and you kept all the risk to reality here at home - creating alternate Equestrias. Your project was doomed from the start!”
“Um… yeah, I kinda did all that…”
“But your biggest mistake was working alone. This time you’re working with me. Oh, and Moondancer too, I guess. Need I remind you that I am the Princess of Friendship, and friendship is magic?”
“Oh, no, Twilight, there’s no need for you to ever, ever, ever remind me of that again…”
Twilight went on, ignoring Starlight. “I am the lead experimenter and my experimental design is perfect, my failsafes are flawless. We are casting the spell as written with no alterations, we are are only observing and will not affect the world we observe, and we’re working with an alternate reality far removed from Equestria. What could possibly go wrong?”
Spike cringed. Why does she always say that?, he thought. You’d think she’d learn to never say that.
“It’s just that we’re working from Starswirl’s original work,” said Starlight. “You think that’s wonderful, but it worries me. That stallion never did finish a book, he always kept writing. The book is full of notes and addenda, it’s has almost as many loose sheets inserted into as bound pages. Loose sheets fall out and get lost, or they get put back in the wrong place and lose their context. Imagine a personal note, ‘Remember to cut the blue wire.’ Except it’s been stuck in the wrong chapter, it’s in a chapter about something that needs you to cut the red wire. Things could happen, Twilight.”
“Oh, Starlight, nothing is going to happen,” said Twilight. “Everything is going to be just fine!”
And there’s another one you’d think she’d stop saying, thought Spike.
“Spike has the book, and he wouldn’t dare let any pages fall out,” Twilight went on. “Now, would you, Spike?”
Even hidden behind the book, Spike imagined Twilight’s gaze burning through him. “N-n-no, Twilight, I would never dream of it!”
From Twilight’s perspective, the book she was looking down at had just begun to tremble.
Thy continued on for a bit, Starlight remaining largely silent, and Twilight trying to reassure her and to get a bit of her excitement to rub off on Starlight. They stopped when the reached the portal room.
“Spike,” said Twilight. “Get the door.”
“I… but… oh. Yes, Twilight.” It was asking too much that two such important mares might have to open a door themselves. Spike used a knee to brace the book, freeing a claw to work the doorknob. Balanced on one leg he got the door open.
One Twilight and Starlight had entered Spike moved to follow them inside. He promptly collided with the closing door. Neither mare had held it open for him.
Thunk!
Twilight turned and used her magic to push open the door. There, lying in the hallway, was Starswirl’s book. She magically lifted it, and effortlessly moved it to the bookstand on her work desk. This revealed Spike, who did not move at all.
“Stop goofing around, Spike,” said Twilight, coldly. “Inside, now.”
“Yes, Twilight,” moaned Spike. He slowly struggled to his feet, and entered the portal room.
Moondancer was waiting for them. “Twi, which version of the spell do you want to cast?” she asked. There were two, the second had an extra line of arcane code at the end. It’s purpose was unknown, and the only clue was a two word description in Starswirl’s personal code.
“We cast the most complete version, of course,” declared Twilight.
“Ok,” said Moondancer. “I’ve decoded Starswirl’s comment. He called the extra feature ‘shuffle mode.’ What does that even mean?”
“I’m sure we’ll soon find out,” said Twilight. “There is something else I want to discuss with you. Are you sure the setting on the flow governor is high enough? Starswirl wrote a stern warning, ‘Many worlds are hungry for Equestrian magic, so it is vital to check the flow through the portal.’”
“The setting is fine, Twilight.”
“Starswirl seemed pretty insistent. He used three exclamation points!”
Moondancer laughed. “Yeah, but the old guy was really bombastic. He’d use two exclamation points for a warning to brush after dinner. Three bangs means setting three is probably enough, and we’re pushing it to four to be on the safe side.”
“The original portal has a setting of ten.”
“Twi, please, any more than four and we get interference with the viewing crystal.” Moondancer indicated a polished quartzite sphere mounted on the desk. “Without the crystal we can’t observe the new worlds without actually passing through the portal. Four is high enough.”
Twilight sighed, but then she went on with the preparations for activating the portal. Spike found himself admiring Moondancer. He admired anypony who could win an argument with Twilight.
“Well, in case the flow becomes a bit too much I’ve case a paper-phobic spell on the portal mirror,” said Twilight. “We wouldn’t want any precious scrolls being sucked into the void.
Yeah, it would be a tragedy if any of your paperwork got sucked into the void, thought Spike, sourly.
“The world I’ve chosen to begin with is the one Starswirl lists as #816. He described it as ‘A lightly populated moon, the primary residents being a small female and several rabbit-like creatures.’ It seems innocuous and safe enough for a starting place. Starlight, please enter the address for world #816 into the apparatus.”
Once this was done Twilight began to cast.
Soon, the viewing crystal lit up, then displayed a scene of a lunar-like crater with brightly colored trees lining its rim.
Three seconds later the view was replaced by that of another world. And then another.
“It’s not locking on one world,” cried Starlight. “It’s cycling through them. I think at random.”
The room filled with magic eddies and swift air currents. It soon became a maelstrom.
“Moondancer, crank the flow governor!” screamed Twilight.
After a moment of effort Moondancer called back. “I… I can’t. The flow is too strong, it’s jamming it open!”
“When this is over we will have words, Moondancer!”
“Can’t you just say ‘I told you so!’ and let it go, Twi?”
“No!!!”
“Twilight, cast the emergency shut off spell!” cried Starlight.
“I don’t have that scroll,” answered Twilight. “I thought you had it.”
“I don’t have it… Oh. It must have fallen out of the book in the hallway.”
“Spike!” shrieked Twilight. “Go get it!”
“Yes, Twilight.” With a sigh, Spike began low crawling out to the hall, trying to stay below the swirling debris. He found the missing scroll swiftly enough. It was just outside the door.
Spike returned and handed the scroll to Twilight. The second she took it from his claw a stray current caught him, and swept him into the middle of the room. He began sliding across to floor towards the portal.
“Girls, little help?” called Spike. “I’m in trouble here! Help? Can any of you hear me?”
Of course they probably could have heard him, if any of them had been listening. But none of them were.
Spike scrambled to gain purchase on the floor. Then his claws sank into a grove, and he stopped sliding. His grip improved, and he felt almost comfortable.
Twilight had almost finished the shut-down spell. Spike would only have to hand on for a couple seconds.
I’m going to make it!, thought Spike, wildly. I’m going to make it, I’m going to make it, I’m…
Then Starswirl’s Big Book Of Worlds came free from it’s holder, and smacked Spike right in the face.
Spike recovered from the stunning blow quite quickly, and immediately wished he hadn’t. This was worse than either of his previous journeys through the portal, and he’d hated those. Spike was pulled and stretched to to the point that he was sure he could never eat spaghetti again. He could certainly never again make pasta. Spike promised that, if he got out of this alive, he would find a wad of pasta dough and apologize to it for everything he had ever done to its kind.
Then it was over.
Spike landed hard and rolled. Then he carefully stood and brushed himself off. He looked around and took in his surroundings. It looked like a filly’s bedroom.
“Well, this doesn’t look so bad,” he said.
Then he noticed something under the bed. In the dim light he could only make out their eyes. They were the eyes of small, frightened animals, trying to hide.
“Well, that was exciting and educational,” enthused Twilight. “We’ve learned so much! We can now make our experimental design and our failsafes even more perfect and flawless than before. I’m completely stoked about giving this a second go.”
“Sure, Twilight, sure,” grumbled Moondancer. She’d been given the task of sorting and properly filing the huge drift of papers that had formed in front of the portal mirror.
“I just have one question,” said Starlight. “Where’s Spike?”
The bedroom door opened with a slam, and the being Spike assumed was his new host stood framed in the doorway.
From his time at Canterlot High School Spike recognized her as a female human child. But there was something different about her. Was she rounder? Less detailed? It was difficult to tell exactly what it was.
She stood about a head taller than Spike, and her only hair was an explosion of tubular auburn curls. She looked at Spike and her eyes filled with wonder. She gasped, and whispered “Oh, my goodness.”
Spike held out his hands in what he hoped appeared to be a friendly manner. “Um, Hi? I come in peace. So, er, um, take me to your leader, maybe?”
He was answered with a shriek of glee that hurt his ears. The girl charged across the room and grasped Spike, lifting him off his feet. He was enveloped in a crushing embrace that Spike thought a bear would envy. He couldn’t breath.
“A baby dragon of my very own! I’m gonna hug him, and cuddle him, and play with him, and squeeze him, and love him just to death! And I will call him… um… I’ll think of something. We are just going to be the bestest of all bestest friends for ever and ever and ever!”
Great!, thought Spike. The last person who told me that was Twilight.
A line of text scrolled across the portal mirror. “Cannot Make Connection. Address Unknown.”
“And that’s it, guys,” said Moondancer. “We didn’t capture the address of the world Spike fell into. We can’t find him.”
“Well, I only caught a glimpse of the worlds we cycled through after Spike disappeared,” said Starlight. “I think they looked nice. Maybe.”
“Well, we are just going to have to scour all the arcane collections in Equestria, looking for the tracking spell we need,” declared Twilight. Then she smiled. “It’s futile, of course, we are never ever going to get Spike back. But it’ll be a huge research project - won’t that be fun? And imagine all we’ll learn while we’re looking!”
“Ok,” said Starlight. “But I think we should resolve to be more careful with your next assistant.”
Spike sat in a highchair, wearing a baby bonnet and a bib. The little girl was feeding him strained peas.
“Don’t be such a grumpy-wumpy pants, Mr. Dragon. Eat your din-din.”
So, this is my new normal, thought Spike. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but Twilight, come bring me home!
