Room for Improvement, Methinks

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: everyone
Tags: Discord, Thunderlane, Anthology, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Drama, Original Character, Comedy, Royal Guard, Fluttershy
Length: 3072

A Creator God's Final Exam, an alchemy experiment gone chaotically right, dreams of a non-existent time, and Thunderlane's curse of the second place. Yes! These are Blue Chameleon VI's Writeoff Contestants for the Prompt: "It Could Have Gone Better"

A Creator God's Final Exam, an alchemy experiment gone chaotically right, dreams of a non-existent time, and Thunderlane's curse of the second place. Yes! These are Blue Chameleon VI's Writeoff Contestants for the Prompt: "It Could Have Gone Better"

Uncreatable
Original Character
Comedy, Sci-Fi

An Alchemist and his Boy
Original Character, Discord
Comedy, Historical, Horror

Nostalgic Utopia
Original Character, Royal Guard
Drama, Sad

Quiet Thunder
Thunderlane, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy
Drama, Slice of Life
Warning: Contains Poetry

Published 2018-07-15 11:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-07-15 11:20:01 UTC

An Alchemist and his Boy

The two surviving mages hunkered down behind the upturned table. The eldest wondered whose bright idea it was to add essence of pony.

For this creature could think.

They cocked ears. Beyond, the alchemical labs were eerily silent. No bubbling acids. No grounding of the pestles. Not even the usual explosion of exciting chemistry. Those had been reliable sounds for years—perhaps decades—and now they were silent.

Both mages were unicorns. Of course they were. Earth ponies were too dumb for anything other than basic slave commands, and a pegasus was about as welcome here as typhoid.

The eldest—Ophthalmalion, whose name alone would have secured his position as Chief Alchemist—peeked over the table.

“Look on the bright side, Master,” said the other one—Hypohippo, whose mother had been cruel once—“It’s exactly what you wanted.”

Ophthalmalion weighed this statement against recent experience. “Tell me in what way, and I’ll revoke my right to call you ‘Idiot Boy’ ever again.”

“Well… the pegasi won’t stand a chance against this one.”

That was an understatement.

But it had been so obviously right at the time. The unicorns fought the pegasi, and the pegasi fought the unicorns, and both had been locked in a millennium-long stalemate over control of the earth pony tribe, and thus the food. Yet the King of the Unicorns and the Commander of the Pegasi were always one step ahead of each other in the Thousand-Year War. Both sides were getting reckless and desperate.

Until now, Ophthalmalion hadn't cared. Business was business. Alchemy was his passion, and war just a distraction.

Now he looked at the latest result.

“It’s raining mead,” he whispered.

“The floor’s still marshland, Master.”

“And… there are chess pieces dancing across the roof.”

“That’s an improvement, Master! A minute ago, they were tap-dancing mice.”

Ophthalmalion swallowed. “We’ve created a sick mind.”

Quickly, he ducked down and tried to remember all the ingredients they’d used. Essence of dragon, essence of pony… and bat? Snake? Eagle? A big cat of some description?

Too many magical creatures. That was all he remembered, because he’d complained to the King about it. But the King had wanted a supremely magical creature. Something that pegasus weather powers could never overcome.

“What went wrong?” he muttered. “I had the manticore wrapped around my hoof from day one. The chimera at least could be whipped into obedience. The cockatrice just needed reflective glasses and a stern voice—”

A door opened.

Both of them, without thinking, huddled together, determined not to let an inch show beyond the table.

A puff of smoke. A flash.

One hoofstep hit the remaining tiles on the floor. There was also the click of claws.

Ophthalmalion swallowed and tried not to think about that terrible, stretched face leering down at him at any second. Make a monster, the King had said. Make it cruel. Make it impossible to reason with. That’ll give those pegasi nightmares unto their dying days, he’d said.

For the first time in his life, Ophthalmalion felt sorry for the pegasi. He could feel their bloody terror pulsing through him, his heart beating as though determined to get all its beats out before the end—

In the lab, someone whistled a cheery little tune.

He hadn’t really wanted to hurt anyone. He didn’t dare think about much beyond his lab. “Pegasus”, “war”, “eternal enemies”: just so many words to a stallion used to dealing with quicksilver and camphor and gunpowder for cannons. Mixing essence of animal just meant getting a bigger cage and sending for a pooper scooper earth pony slave.

Now, for a terrible moment, his whole mind choked on the image of a serpentine body towering over some helpless pegasus, of the suddenly short future stolen from them, of the last-minute soul-searching while he panicked over what reward—if any—he’d get after making such a waste of his life that seemed far too monotonously foolish—

A snap of talons.

The table turned into a pile of eggs, which smashed on the floor.

Hypohippo screamed.

Determined to get one good mark on the résumé of his life, Ophthalmalion fell onto his knees. “Spare the boy! I’ve perverted Nature, I see that now, but his crimes are ultimately mine! Please spare—”

The world’s first draconequus laughed. “Now what fun would that be, us only playing a game for two?”

It snapped its talons. Ophthalmalion had just enough time to wonder if it would’ve been better to never have been born. Then he screamed.

The next few hours proved him right. They proved to him that there were things ponydom was not meant to know.

They involved gratuitious amounts of terrible, unbearably torturous, mind-sappingly demented...

...standup comedy.

Nostalgic Utopia

Sunrise on Speaker’s Corner—Central Park, Manehattan—and ex-Captain Throwback eagerly placed his crate and hopped on top. He only winced at the arthritis needling his knees.

“There is an Equestria where no villains survive. A pony wouldn’t wake up to find their neighbours replaced by changelings. Alleys could be safely walked down without having one’s magic sucked out of one’s face. You should attend weddings full of pure laughter and free from terrified screams.”

As Throwback spoke, he saw the crowds around him, fifty years ago. Many nodding, many saying “hear hear”, many drinking in his words with their wide eyes.

“Oh, there’d be conflict. Daily life's too full of challenges and misunderstandings for no conflict. We'd struggle to raise our shops, make birthdays that didn’t involve smashing the cake, and balance the tastes of the elite with the pleasures of farmhoofs. Oh, rest assured this isn’t pie-in-the-sky.

“But these villains are contaminants. To a mare looking after animals or breaking airspeed records, the apocalypse outranks even the most soul-shattering of knocks. The villains can’t be allowed to live.

“Imagine our world: the villains wouldn’t merely have been foiled at the finish. They would never have raced. They would never even see the starting line, thousands of years ago, when the world was a wild garden and needed the secateurs rather than the spade.”

As he spoke, he looked around hopefully. Ponies walked by—and more donkeys and minotaurs and griffons than he’d ever remembered—laughing at each other or chatting eagerly. One or two old-timers walked their dogs and waved at him. Disappointed, he waved back.

“Think on it, my fellow ponies, think on it! Why did Discord survive in stone? Why was Nightmare Moon merely banished, and a thousand years left to prove she had no future? Whence Tirek lasted unto the present, and changelings allowed to fester in the wilds? Security delayed is security destroyed.

“Let me tell you:

“The horn that cast the friendship magic and the hoof that held an Element of Harmony—it’s no different than the horn that casts shield spells instead of an annihilator hex, the hoof that wields a baton and not a blade. The magic is only as good as its master.”

As he spoke, the sun peaked. Vendors, trays, and carts set up along the path and on the grass. He had to fight against the smells and sizzles. Never on his fruitless vigil had he succumbed to so much as a carrot-in-a-bun.

“What I have to say may shock and offend many, but I speak only from pragmatism, not malice:

“Princess Celestia is soft.

“She only incapacitates, as meagrely as possible. The result: chaos ruled, love sucked dry, our magic turned against us by a demon. Over and over, we almost perish. Over and over, we’re pushed towards the cliff and expected to thank our stars we don’t go over. What would it take for us to see the stupidity behind this so-called good luck?”

As he spoke, his knees and the sunlight weakened. The two or so ponies who actually stood and listened to him were now shaking their heads. They were younguns, he noticed disapprovingly. One of them heckled him, shouting, but Throwback's speech was an old steam train with no brakes.

“Here is my regiment’s solution. All magical artefacts—the Elements, the Rainbow Power, the alicorns if necessary—must be registered to an independent authority. Preferably a military one, well-versed in security measures and qualified to handle such power. Who have proven their loyalty over and over. Ideally, the right to wield such power should be as rigorously screened as the right to perform surgery on a patient. It is, after all, the peacekeepers who remove cancers and diseases from a healthy society.

“We urge you to consider this proposal in the spirit it is given: as an aid to safeguard our fair realm. And not to dismiss it as the ravings of deviants. History needs to deviate when the status quo is no longer keeping the demons away from our hearts and minds… and bodies… and… souls…”

Finally, he stopped speaking. Night lights burned the city peacefully. His corner of the park became a black pit.

Ex-Captain Throwback wanted to die protecting his country. Not once had he ever thought—laughing with buddies who’d all passed away before him—that he’d die failing it.

He was alone.

Sighing, he took his crate and shuffled off to find the soup kitchen. He wasn't even sure he believed his own speech anymore.

Quiet Thunder

At Flight Camp, Thunderlane’s disgrace:
The little colt had lost the race
To Rainbow Dash, who’d made a dare.
“I bet I’m fastest in the air!”
Poor Thunderlane, whose mind had swallowed
The Wonderbolts: he’d promptly followed
His Dad’s advice to buck the norm
And take the pegasi by storm.
“Your grades,” said Dash, “might pass the test,
But everyone knows I’m the best.”
“Yeah right,” said Thunderlane. “But I
Don’t smash things up each time I fly.”
Yet Rainbow’s words soon had consumed
The Thunder’s thoughts, for he’d assumed
That pegasi were fighters first.
A loser? That was just the worst.
The second place held special terror.
To lose to gold: that was an error
No Wonderbolt could ever make.
And Thunderlane had made mistakes.
From that day forth, he made a vow
To make ‘em shriek and make ‘em wow.
First Flight Camp, then the weather team:
All service for poor Thunder’s dream.
He was a master of the shocks;
Could conjure lightning from his locks.
A thundercloud was just a squeak
Compared to Thunder at his peak.
For hurricanes, he was a champ,
His rain the terror of the camp.
But when it came to racing? No!
True, he made everyone look slow.
Except, of course, for someone flash,
A certain someone: Rainbow Dash!
To get kicked out of Camp so young
Meant nothing when she was one rung
Above the ladder Thunder gripped
Between his hooves. One day, he… flipped.
“‘But Rainbow did a Rainboom once!’
‘She’s inspiration for the runts!’
‘She saves the town of Ponyville!’
‘A sec with her’s an awesome thrill!’
‘Poor Thunderlane, he almost won,
Just when he’d thought the race was run.’”
And never mind that Thunder too
Was prone to sneaking off to do
Less awesome things like eat and sleep.
His pride was thin, his torment deep.
A silver medal on his chest,
Forever number two, not blessed
With greater things: old Thunder left
The clouds behind, his hope bereft.
Meandering, he soon came down
To Ponyville, a nearby town.
So full of ponies of the earth
He’d normally give a wider berth.
Instead, he landed by the stream
That caught his eye with summer’s gleam.
The weight of cottages behind,
He sank in gloom, dreams undermined.
“Hello there,” said a squeaky tone.
Though Thunderlane still felt alone,
He recognized small Fluttershy
Whose presence usually passed him by.
Surprisingly, old Thunder said,
“Quite nice down here.” (He thought it dead
Of interest). “Just not exciting.”
“But ponies here are more inviting.”
“How’s that?” he said, and she replied,
“Some ponies like to stay inside
And some of us care more for living,
Since life’s a gift that’s keeps on giving.”
“But where’s the rush of awesome speed?
And sometimes don’t you feel a need
To prove your skills and make the most
Of flying, soaring, things to boast
About?” He shrugged. So Fluttershy
Showed him a flying butterfly
And said, “Yes, animals compete
But other things make life complete.
A moment’s beauty flowing by,
The cadence of a lullaby,
The fruiting of a farmer’s patience,
The meditations of the ancients…”
“This sounds like all New Agey-stuff.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “It isn’t guff.
I think you should give this a chance…
If that’s okay?” She looked askance.
Well at the time, old Thunder shrugged,
And flew away, but those words bugged
His mind throughout the airborne trip.
Could he afford to let this slip?
So over time, he came to see
What made the earthen ponies free
Of worries that imprisoned him,
But evidence was rather slim.
At least until he watched the swarm
Of butterflies, and strangely warm
Inside his chest, the joy leaked out
And gave small Flutter’s words some clout.
He listened to the Ponytones,
Famed singers, from the baritone
Of McIntosh, and Rarity,
Whose cadence rang with verity.
He watched the Apples brave the muck
And with some water, time, and luck,
Produce a rain of ripe red fruit.
In awe, the insight left him mute.
For all the time there’d been no rush,
No madness; just a careful hush,
A sense that something greater loomed
And fed, and loved, and grew, and bloomed.
So Thunderlane, while never first,
No longer thought himself the worst.
Although he made the Wonder team,
He was no hostage to his dream.
Thus in-between his thunderous storms,
He took a slightly quieter form
And watched the earth, paid his respects,
And took the time to just… reflect.

Uncreatable

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was “AAARGHNONONOnoNOOOOOahCRAPcrapcrapcrapCRAP!”

For the universe was created. Unfortunately, the Pony God had done it wrong, and so Her universe, because of a slight miscalculation of gravitational attraction, ended up… well, ending… in a Big Crunch within a matter of seconds.

So the universe was created again. Due to a mix-up in the nuclear forces, though, it remained an undifferentiated soup of subatomic particles, so nothing interesting happened unless one were seriously starved of entertainment.

The Pony looked at the Examiner, who raised an Eyebrow and wrote Something on His Clipboard.

After They’d waited six million years for the universe’s heat death, time not being an issue for Beings existing outside of it, the Pony started again. And thus the universe was created, again again, in a magnificent Big Bang. This time, the Pony cheated a little and resorted to inflation when the Examiner wasn’t looking.

As She watched, matter formed into complex atomic particles, fused together into powerful stars, created the higher elements and molecules, and after a mere few billion years was ready for the first stirrings of life. Self-replicating molecules gave way to organic machinery measured in nanometres, which gave way to superlatively designed bacteria, which led to an offshoot involving hypercomplex living things until, finally, they ended up with very spiritual, very loving, very conscious ponies.

The embarrassing thing was that this had all been done materially. Minds had come from mere matter. Without help.

The Pony blushed. News of that sort of accident should not get around, and anyway the Human God had claimed to have already done it. She’d lose marks for creativity.

So after this universe had quietly met its end, She started up another one and infused it with a high magical potential. It was generally considered more sensible to get spirituality and the other stuff from magic than from matter, which after all was supposed to be the groundwork, not the main performance.

Alas, due to a failure to appreciate that magic sufficiently indulged in is indistinguishable from randomness, She ended up creating six rubber duckies, a pretzel 6,000 miles long, a rather bewildered and short-lived accountant, and a bad sitcom that refused to die even after the laugh track finally broke down.

The Examiner wrote Something on His Clipboard. He’d pursed His Lips in the universal sign of bad news.

Swallowing, the Pony went for the fifth attempt with gusto. This time, She threw the magic in and policed the universe for any signs of randomness. At least She got ponies faster. Sadly, they were a little too spiritual: prone to staring at nothing, giggling uncontrollably, going around with creepy smiles, and even treating the countless evil invasion forces as cheerful pastime, not mortal peril. Eventually, they deteriorated so much that they found enlightenment in one small fairy cake.

The Examiner tutted.

The Pony rubbed Her Forehead miserably. Five attempts. Five. Even the Spiny Lobster God had managed His spiny lobster universe in three, and He’d had a head cold. At least, She assumed it was a head cold; His Clicking of the Pincers had been a little hard to interpret.

She sighed. Maybe She wasn’t cut out for Creatorship after all. But She’d so wanted the Deism certificate. Deists were good enough to just make a universe and then sit back and let it get on with things. If She got the Theism certificate, She’d have to constantly monitor and intervene in Her universe, and only geeky shut-ins thought that was a good time.

Sniffling, She wiped her eyes and was astonished to see the Great White Handkerchief.

The Examiner was offering Her one. True, He did it while apparently inspecting the Ceiling, but He had extended the white fabric and waited patiently for Her to blow Her Nose damply on it.

He twisted His Divine Lips into something of a small if pitying smile. He leaned forwards. He whispered in Her Ear.

Delight rushed through Her, for She saw that it was good.

So She made her sixth and final universe. All matter, to begin with. But this time, She added just a pinch of magic.

She watched the result.

She stared at the result.

She let there be light, because She wasn’t sure She believed what She was seeing.

Bonding. Friendship. Of course! How had She not seen it before? And ponies that managed their own world. And good genuinely struggling—yet triumphing—over evil. Magnificent! She'd get credit for sure!

She left the Examiner’s Hall with a pass grade. She finally had her Creator’s License. But She was allowed to keep Her world, and even recorded it at nights so She could watch her favourite bits again.