"Flowing up to down." Twilight gestured with a slowly lowering hoof. "The notes form songs, I realized. If our horns were actually instruments, we'd sound lovely when we performed magic."

Fancy inclined his head. "But they are not."

Autumn thrust a hoof in the air. "Bet we could find a spell to make them into flutes or something, temporarily."

Several sets of eyes went to Sunburst. He squeaked in alarm. "That sounds potentially dangerous. We already have a complicated project on our plates."

Twilight nodded. "Entirely correct, but understanding how this works helps." She tapped a floating pointer against the whiteboard. "This also explains how the cascade could happen. There is a pattern and a rhythm for one to follow along with, even without understanding what exactly they were following along with."

Sunburst inclined his head. "And why incorrect spells feel... wrong. It's like a sour note in a song."

"Precisely!" Twilight brought her hooves together in a merry clop. "Celestia?"

"Thank you. I had wanted to ask, Sunburst, how has your progress been? I understand you are under quite a deal of pressure." She leaned forward a bit, her head coming down to be even with his. "We are here for you."

Autumn thrust out a hoof in front of her Sunburst. "He has a mare who takes care of that."

Sunburst was lit up brightly. "It's not like that! Um, I mean, thank you. It's good to have support, uh..." He rubbed behind his head awkwardly. "It's going good I think. I just have to finish, uh... deciphering? Figuring out, yeah." He nodded to himself, working through the idea. "I have to get the song of humanity, in relation to what we already talked about today. The song that means 'human'. Slot that in there in the shapechanging spell and, pop, you're making humans."

Fancy Pants stroked at his chin. "I say, that is quite the task you've set for yourself, old bean. To think, all that it is to be a human, condensed into a musical number."

"One without words," added Starlight as she trotted in. "That sounds hard."

"I'm chipping away at it," assured Sunburst. "But it will take time."

"Meanwhile," Twilight's voice was much louder, surer. "The rest of us need to keep practicing, and learning. The more we understand magic, and can use it, the better the position we'll be." She slapped the pointer on the board. "Even this will help Sunburst figure it out faster. So, remember, what you learn, is also helping him."

Susan let out a loud sigh, easy to do when she was one of the two largest people in the room. "Twilight." Twilight looked up at her. "Please rate this." Her horn began to glow in that specific way that kirins had, the bands lighting up instead of the entire thing glowing with the same intensity. She played a song of magic with her ornate arcane flute.

The entire room full of magic users and designers were focused on her. Some hooves tapped, following the flow of the magic without it rising fully to consciousness. It wasn't a long or powerful spell, not enough to prompt a cascade.

An apple appeared, hovering a moment before it hit the ground with a soft thud, bright, red, the ideal of an apple. "Ta da..."

Twilight inclined her head at the dropped fruit. "Huh... That was... actually fairly impressive." With her approval given, hooves began to clop the ground or each other, an applause given pony style. "I admit, I thought you had lost interest in large part."

Susan huffed at that. "Look... I can't go back to my old life, it's dead." She thrust a hoof at Twilight. "But if I can help even one person not go through what I did? That's what I want to do. Nobody, not a single person, should have what they are ripped away like that." Fire began to wave over her form, anger building. "It's not fair, but I'm stuck with it. I'm... not going to let that happen to anyone else."

Autumn leaned against her larger friend, able to weather the fire without complaint. Susan leaned back, and the fire began to ebb, drawing some measure of comfort.

Twilight nodded softly. "I would prefer ponies not work on new spells alone, however. We're in unknown territory, and somepony could get hurt, and none of us want that. Have a partner." She pointed at Susan and Autumn. "You two are obviously friends, so partner up!"

Conversation picked up as everpony tried to get a partner to be with. "Madame, it would be a pleasure to work alongside you." Fancy dipped his head at Celestia.

"Fancy, you always were such a polite thing." She accepted him with a smile.

Starlight prodded Twilight. "That includes you, miss headmare. I'll make sure you don't explode yourself."

Twilight looked confused a moment. Why did that feel... right? "Thank you."

I didn't have a partner. I had witnessed the meeting. Starlight had tipped me off that they were doing an update on the progress of things, and I wanted to know how that was going. It was going well, turned out!

Still, I didn't have a partner. How could I? Not a creature in the world could even witness what I did, let alone intercede with it in any way, for better or worse. Magically, I was entirely alone. I mean, I had a family, a maybe too big family, depending on how you looked at it...

But magically...

On the other hand, was the world ready for any more than one of me? There was absolutely no assurance that another person who became a noodle would be nearly as nice about it, or even try to be responsible with it. I imagined for a moment, going up against another noodle that was bent on taking over the world, or even their corner of it. There was no way that'd end well for anyone involved in it.

"I'm a nice boring element of chaos," I half-sang. "Just the way the world needs it to be." Any other variety would have made a big mess of everything. Speaking of that! I whipped out a remote control I hadn't been holding a moment before and flicked on the television to see the news. Hey, they had vaccines going everywhere. Covid's days of ruining everyone's lunch was numbered. Great.

Of course, that meant not a dang thing to Ponid. Ponid had stopped being about Covid a long time back. What it could do went way beyond it. I imagine they had to... think of another angle to get testers. Not as many people would be lining up to test possible Covid vaccines with three of them already out and about.

A soft chime told me I had gotten email flagged as important. A staffer had called in sick. I turned off the TV and gave it a quick read and set my hands on the desk. I wasn't a doctor, but those symptoms... Wait...

If they already had those, that meant they had been spreading it...

I let out a suffering sigh. I already had to deal with one pandemic. I didn't need another muscling in! I grabbed a comically large phone receiver. "I need all staff to swing by my office as soon as possible. Security, do it in waves. Thanks." My voice had been echoed all through the facility from speakers that were there just long enough for me to do it. "Let's nip this right in the bud."

I reached up to adjust the goggles I hadn't been wearing before, changing the frequences I was seeing. Temperature, sound, ponid... there we are, covid! Of course it was just one click away. I looked down at a thrust out arm, nope, I was dead of any covid presence. Good. Lousy germ had no business with me, well, not any business it would be happy with.

I heard a knock on the door and swiveled my chair to face it. "Come in!" The doctor was in, and would not be permitting that little bug to get a foothold in my lab.

So I saw the people as they came in. Thankfully, most of them were a nice cold dark blue in color. I thanked them for coming, told them to keep up the good work, and sent them on their way.

But some... It was a little speckle, as if their lungs and throat had freckles in my vision. No good. "This will tickle a moment." Sure, it was... awkward... to have me take a bathroom plunger to their face, but it got all the creepy crawlies out of them in a flash. "All better, sorry about that."

Most of them were... confused, really, but they mostly accepted it. I was their boss, their boss' boss in a lot of cases.

But then a doctor came in with it, and I couldn't just... do that... "Didn't you get the vaccine?"

"Hm? Do you mean against Covid? Moderna's," he provided with a nod. "Both shots a while ago, why?"

And yet... "I'm going to share something with you, and I need your medical opinion, even though you're very involved and a non-biased opinion is kinda impossible."

"That isn't ominous at all," he laughed out. "Alright, what is it?"

"I can see covid right now." I tapped my goggles. "And you have some inside you. Should I be concerned?"

"I should. I'll self isolate."

"Wait!" I darted in front of him. He'd been ready to just walk out. "Does it pose any danger to you, at all?"

"Not really. The vaccines prevent death 100% of the time, so far we've been able to see. It doesn't stop you from potentially getting it, but your body is ready to fight it off," he explained. "And I might shed some. I don't want to get anyone else sick, so I'll head home for now, with your permission?"

"Of course!" I slipped out of the way. "It's just... Look, I don't want you getting hurt."

"Thank you." He pulled the door open. "It's good to have a facility manager that cares about that as a priority, but the most I really need is some warm chicken soup and to relax. Those are doctor's orders."

"Well, we can't argue with those," I jested with a little smile. "See you back in a bit." And so he left.

I remembered when I had some nice soup when I was feeling bad. It didn't cure ponid, but I did feel better... And that was a blessing at the time. Speaking of that. "Hey you!"

Shining looked up from where he had been reading something on a tablet. "Yeah? Lunch time?"

"No, still doing a full covid sweep." I waved at the room behind me. "But, after that, I want to get away."

"There aren't a lot of places we can 'get away' to. You know, ponid?"

Sure, but... "Where we're going to go, there is not a single person to infect, trust me."

So we spent our lunch under a clear sky. But it wasn't really a sky. A great explosion made the ground shudder, an asteroid impacting the lunar soil some distance away. We weren't breathing, because I said we didn't have to. We had lunch under the stars, and it was, well, breathtaking feels corny, and yet, still appropriate.

"We're all clear."

Shining nodded at that. "Do I have any?" I shook my head quickly. "Good. We're still pretty sure we can't get that, right?"

"If we can get it, it means ponid won't do what was promised." I brought together my mismatched hands. "Stopping all genetic damage means stopping viruses... virii? Whatever, those things from doing what they do."

"One thing." He raised a lone finger. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't, you know, evolution, require some amount of 'damage' to work?"

I raised a finger back at him, only for the end to crook. Crap...

Author's Note

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, they say. A chapter done for the $5 backers who voted for it to get a bonus update!

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