From Outside

Revolution or Mere Rotation?
Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc., Harry Dresden is the property of Jim Butcher, Carl Kolchak is the property of ABC/Universal Television, Ranma Saotome is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Sailor Jupiter is the property of Naoko Takeuchi.

Harry was looking at the collection of injured alicorns who had been taken during the fighting. Most of them had been cowed enough by the fighting, and that their feeling of invincibility had been shattered. They were still morose and petulant, like spoiled brats who'd always gotten away with things, on their first encounter with real consequences.

"You keep expecting all this to go away," Patrick said as he laid out a set of tools that looked like a cross between a jeweler's set and computer tech's, "It will, just not in the way you want." He set particular tools at locations around the circle Harry had drawn around them to help in their containment. "First, you've got no rights. There's no Constitution or Geneva Convention here. And if there were, spies and saboteurs are specifically excluded from the convention's protections. Now, my colleague here has problems with mind magic, it leads to all kinds of mental health issues later in life. I assure you, that won't be a problem. Sending you back as sociopaths who'll explode in violence later, well, you already are, so that's out. Then there's the question of whether your bodies and minds will survive, again, not a problem. The alicorns are otherwise busy, so as long as the brain-dead creature continues to be able to follow instructions, well, when your zombie corpse begins to putrefy back home, what the alicorns don't know won't hurt them."

Patrick shrugged. "Of course I could just put irresistible hunger in your minds and let things run their course. I doubt the locals will believe it's aberrant behavior for you lot. You seem to be running on your basest drives anyway."

"You don't scare - " the boast was interrupted as the alicorn fell down writhing and silently screaming.

"Good, fear dulls the intellect, while pain sharpens it," Patrick said as he laid down the last tools and sat down behind them, "So, I'm going to sharpen your recall, then I'm going to ask you questions."

"What if they die?" Harry asked.

"I'll have plenty of time to ask again on the way to the afterlife," Patrick said, "After all, just because they don't believe it on Earth has nothing to do with whether it's real here or not."

The mouthy alicorn shook off the effects of the interruption. "Is that all you got? I've had dental hygienist who hurt worse than - " And he was off to the worm dances again.

Clever, Harry thought, They don't understand he's torturing a simulation. They don't know each other, so they aren't an organized group. The rulers would never countenance torturing a real person, but this is just showing a movie of some pony being tortured to the villains. Harry didn't really approve, and wondered how closely it skirted to the Laws of Magic, but he couldn't deny the effectiveness.

"Look!" one of the other alicorns shouted, "The elf just promised we could go to Equestria, it's just a kids' show, what's your beef?"

Patrick glanced at Harry. He'd admitted his interrogation methods broke several of the Laws of Magic, so he'd let the licensed PI ask the questions.

Ranma had been looking for the Elder Thing after the songfest had broken up and Makoto had gone off to 'talk to a man about a horse'. Ranma found the creature standing behind the fountain as night fell and the ponies retreated to their homes. A public square was not the best place to question the creature, but inside meant very low ceilings, and while Ranma could crouch or sit, the Elder Thing had more trouble.

This is the one who put us in those dreams, Ranma thought as he approached, But why, and why did he make them go that way? Why do I feel the way I do? I liked the attention from all the girls, and the guys, but settling down with them and getting that close to them was strictly out. Why now? What did he do, and can he turn it off?

Trying to pantomime the questions would have been impossible, so Ranma had paper and pencil, and a good idea how to illustrate the questions and answers. He wanted to be able to explain it to Makoto and Patrick later, and get their interpretations.

Ranma wasn't a great artist by any stretch, but illustrating books on his martial arts, in the dream, had allowed him to develop the basics. The first picture was of the four of them: Patrick, Makoto, Ranma and the Neko all separate and distinct. The Elder Thing did something, wavy lines emanating from its tentacles, and then the five of them, now including Ranko, overlapped to the point of being obscured by each other.

The Elder Thing took the drawing and stared. It extended a tentacle and a light began to form. Ranma shook his head and handed the creature a clipboard with paper and several colored pencils. Ranma wanted a record of this conversation. It made a blue line to Patrick, green to Makoto, red to Ranko, black to Ranma, and purple to the Neko.

The stick figures showed a black one surrounded by yellow figures, while red and purple stood outside the crowd with little clouds raining on them. Ranma frowned at that, but looked at the next drawing.

Okay, that's bad, he thought as he looked at the blue and green stick figures surrounded by a blue aura getting hit and holes punched in them by yellow lines from six, stick-figure ponies, and a purple arrow moving off the page. The next drawing was of smaller yellow lines coming in from everywhere punching more holes, and the figures were smaller, then smaller still, then just a field of random yellow dashes.

Ranma quickly redrew the overlapping faces, but included the Neko, and color coded them as the Elder Thing had. He gave it to the Elder Thing, who added a series of dashed lines of each 'person' color, and fields of yellow lines around it like a representation of a magnetic field. The next drawing was just the encircling field of colored lines, solid not dashed, and the yellow field surrounding them.

Ranma looked at it and blew out a breath. "I don't like it, but it makes sense."

The Elder Thing handed Ranma a picture. One image where the five stick figures of their color: Patrick, Makoto, Ranma, Ranko and the Neko armed with torches and pitchforks chased a tree. Another was of the five plus presumably Carl and Dresden standing with the Elder Thing against several alicorn stick figures.

Ranma shrugged, he tapped the figures of Patrick and Makoto and mimed showing them the pictures. The Elder Thing shrugged in return.

Ranma looked at the pictures. I can understand why he did it, he thought, I don't have to like it. And I don't think Makoto or Patrick will like it either, but I doubt it'll come to pitchforks and torches.

Luna had seen Celestia getting rest in the fortified library, and she wanted to determine what the dreams of their new allies could reveal.

She hadn't expected the relatively pastoral scene of rolling hills with a large temple in the distance. It seems very strange, she thought as she looked at the waving deep grass, As if it wasn't a dream.

She nibbled a bit of grass, and she nearly fell over. She opened her mouth to gobble more down, then stopped herself. This grass cannot really exist! she thought, It's like the distillation of the most delicious grass. Not grass, but GRASS!

She brought herself under control and began walking the fields, the smells of wild flowers intoxicating in a literal sense. Is this how the bronicorns view us, as half-real, she wondered, If this is a dream, and it is this intensely scented and flavored . . . . She looked at the sky and the grass. But the colors are muted, and yet more subtly shaded, she thought, Is this their reality? Is it any wonder they think of us as unreal.

She walked towards the temple, noting the columns and weighted hangings between the columns fluttering in the breeze yet allowing no view of the interior. She continued to walk towards it, trying to judge the few snipets of sound that made it to her ears over the sounds of the gentle wind through the grass.

"Mrrow," came from a small hillock in front of her, that had been empty a moment before. The black and red clad alien sat on the rise and did a credible impersonation of a cat, idly grooming himself and enjoying the sunshine. When Luna took a step forward, towards the temple, the 'mrrow' was repeated, but the tone was less curious and more a warning. Luna took one more step, and the cat-grooming act stopped, and the alien simply stared at her. No part of his body language giving her a clue as to his intentions.

Or his intention is simply to react, Luna realized, The question is, will taking another step provoke a reaction, or just a warning.

Sitting down seemed to settle the alien slightly, as if presence was tolerable, but forward progress was to be dissuaded.

"So do we stare at one another for a while?" Luna asked.

Calm, she told herself, understanding her nature was not to tolerate being balked, Listening is acceptable, and it was the sound that drew me.

She listened. Hearing a bit of laughter, talk, male and female. When it hit her, it struck like a thunderbolt.

The last time I heard that was walking in on, interrupting, Shining Armor and Cadence, she thought and blushed at the memory of the tangled ponies and tangled bedclothes, They were frigidly polite to me for a week. Even in ancient days, there were faux pas that a ruler could make against her subjects.

Luna stood, causing the alien to tense, until she backed up and walked away.

All right, we do know one thing, she thought, They don't dream exactly as ponies do. And they do somethings pretty much as ponies do, at least if they are young lovers.

As nightmares went, Celestia's seemed very minor. These are the real ponies, she thought as she looked over the oddly modified chessboard, If they are lost here, they are really lost. I understand the metaphor, but why?

The rest of the room was bare, not floor, walls, nor ceiling. Just the board, a chess clock, and a table they rested on.

The creature who approached had an odd beauty to her. She looked very much like the group invaders who had last been helping Ponyville recover from the massed attack of 'bronicorns' as Rarity had dubbed them. But Celestia was more skilled at looking beneath the mask.

I've seen crueler creatures, but not recently or often, she thought as the creature sat across from her and set up her own side, So, it isn't even a fair fight, Celestia noted as the set up did not exactly mirror her own, You bring what you have, not a fair fight. Twilight and the others against whatever the best of her legions are.

Her stomach churned as she began the horrible process of deciding which pieces she could sacrifice for Equestria.

This is what I've always hated about rulership, about command, deciding who lives, who dies, and what they must face, she thought, But you don't care about the pieces sacrificed to win. Then Celestia was thunderstruck. You don't even care about winning, she realized, You just enjoy making me suffer. What have I done to you?

Celestia assayed a few moves, trying to keep her slow advance covered. If a piece moved, it was covered by one or two others. It made for a slow game, but it was the only way she could stomach it. Usually it was a guard sacrificed, and she had to use a Bearer, her sister, Cadence or one of the ponies she really knew, like Shining Armor, to take the attacker. Each loss flayed her a bit more, as her opponent never cared about the loss.

The sudden appearance of half dozen pieces on the board shocked both of them. The miasma of evil curdled Celestia's heart. The draconian features of the one who'd placed them did little to soothe her.

It looks like one of our dragons, Celestia thought, If one was possessed by both Sombra and Nightmare Moon at once. But she seems even less happy about this than I am. So not an ally.

The creature simply smiled and hit the stop on the chessclock. And his pieces moved. Not that he moved them, or that only one moved. All six moved at once of their own accord.

And very aggressively, Celestia thought as the advance took three of her opponent's pieces, But you're too aggressive, her counterstroke will end that. And the six are our newcomers, wait there are only five, where's the sixth?

Celestia watched as her opponent moved a piece forward to take 'Lightning'', only to have the piece vanish on contact in burst of St. Elmo's Fire and 'Lightning' to remain on the board. The dragon withstood the glare of Celestia's opponent and dismissed it with a shrug.

A more powerful piece advanced on the Fire-Wizard, not taking it but hemming it in. Then it was Celestia's turn again, and she took the hint, pulling her forces back. That earned her a glare from her opponent and a vague smirk from the dragon.

As her opponent reached across the table, a dozen pieces clattered onto the table from her sleeve. One, the reporter from the dragon's group, stood, tipped his hat and sprinted across the table to the safety of his allies.

If I could speak, I'd accuse her of cheating, Celestia thought, But she'd likely laugh in my face. She couldn't simply stack the rules in her favor, she had to cheat as well. Only someone else decided that 'if there are no rules, there are no rules'.

Her opponent swept the table clear of pieces, clock and board with an imperious stroke of her arm and stormed off.

Blueblood does that better, Celestia longed to say. The dragon set the pieces up on the board, his, and hers, all her lost restored. He set the clock to her turn, before he vanished. She looked at the board and wondered what the rules of this new game really were. And what did victory mean?

Eschewing the guard-pawns, she advanced both of her 'knights' as one. And watched the six move through their dance.