Runic

by Triscy

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Original Character, Spike, Comedy
Length: 2111

An Alternate-Equestria story about a scientist named Runic.

Runic is a rather odd pony, but nobody doubts his scientific knowledge as he is, after all, the lead scientist at the one and only Winnieapolis Hex Power Plant. His world is filled with numbers and discovery, but little does he know that he is soon to learn a lot more about things far beyond his control.

What happens when Runic finds himself in the far-less-modern Equestria we all know and love, and how can he possibly get back?

Published 2012-12-07 15:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-12-07 15:30:01 UTC

Prologue

“RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

The alarms of the Winnieapolis hex power plant blared nonstop, screaming for everypony to leave as quickly as possible. After all, nopony wanted to stick around for the imminent disaster. The doors slowly creaked shut, threatening to trap anypony who was unable to escape.

Amongst the crowd of fleeing ponies was a certain scientist, Doctor Runic Silverhooves, the same scientist currently panicking at the back of the crowd. The ponies around him continued to slam against him in their rabid trample towards the sealing gates. The constant prods and threats of tripping didn't really help him move any faster.

Sadly, this was the least of Runic's worries as a large, broken pipe plummeted down, catching his coat sleeve and pinning it to the ground. At this point, panic didn’t even begin to describe Runic’s rapid scratches with his hooves at the pipe, trying in vain to dislodge his lab coat. All the panic had caused Runic’s common sense to ignore the simple concept of disrobing to escape, and this in turn sealed his fate alongside the large, solid-steel gates that finally came down.

“Hey! Don't leave me here!” cried Runic as the last of the other ponies slid through the closing gates. "Hey! Get back here, you dimwitted lunch boy!"

Runic waved his hooves rapidly in the air, trying to hail anypony's attention, but found it far too late to even hope for rescue. Sitting down, Runic huffed to himself, defeat painted on his face, simply stating "I really hate Mondays."

Looking about, Runic laid his eyes on the cause of the whole ordeal. Slowly filling the room, a large cloud of dust loomed over the poor soul, seeming to flaunt itself in front of Runic. Gritting his teeth beneath his cloth face mask in panic, Runic felt as if he was staring death in the face.

"Hex! Get back, you unstable menace!" Runic shouted, pulling feverishly at his pinned coat. " I should have never worked at this power plant in the first place; it’s always been planning to get rid of me! Ever since that floorboard tried to decapitate me last Wednesday I knew, but NO! I didn’t listen to instinct, and look where it’s put me!”

Tired from pulling, Runic turned to look at his lab coat. "Wow, they really make these things out of tough material. You’d’ve though it would tear by now.” he said, paying little attention to his surroundings for a brief period. It didn't take long, however, for reality to charge back into his head.

"Oh right. Hex dust"

Outside the facility two older stallions organized roll call, gathering the frightened employees together. The two stallions were Marely and Hoofinson, the facility's founders, who felt obligated to deal with their lot before they could get sued for not caring.

"Did everyone get out of the facility?" Marely asked.

"I don't know" Hoofinson replied, starting up counting the employees again.

"Runic's still inside." a mare called out.

Hoofinson stopped in mid count, distraught covering his face. "He's our best scientist! Somepony get him..."

Boom.

Hoofinson stood unmoving as he watched the facility seem to implode upon itself, letting off the largest mushroom cloud that any of them had ever seen.

"...out."

Chapter 1

The local Ponyville library, host to the one and only Twilight Sparkle, found itself one morning to be covered in a somewhat humorous layer of silence, broken only upon the mare's chuckles as she lay reading on her bed. Before her was a copy of the Hoofhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an oldie but a goodie. Twilight had been invested in the book for a while, and was now somewhere in the middle.

"What are you reading, Twilight?" Twilight felt the walls of concentration crumble around her as she turned her attention to her faithful assistant Spike.

“It's called Hoofhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.” she replied, placing a bookmark inbetween the pages to offer Spike her full attention, despite how much she wanted to read on.

"Why were you laughing so much?"

"It's Gryphonic humor, from across the way. It's about a pony who finds himself the last surviving Equestrian being when the world is blown up by Aliens to make an intergalactic highway." Twilight explained.

"Why is that funny? It sounds terrible to me." Spike questioned, not all too thrilled about the idea as he pictured it.

“It’s a satire; it’s making fun of pony nature and how we don’t really know anything at all.” Twilight said, attempting to calm Spike down.

“What’s Satire?”

“It’s a type of humor where the author engages in fallous behavior based upon a culturally agreed upon set of social norms, but with a predetermined yet erroneous outcome to continued stimuli. Irony, if you will.”

With this, Spike stood still and the silence covered the room again for a short time. After all but a few seconds that felt like an awkward hour, Spike turned on his feet and walked out.

“My brain hurts now. I'm gonna go make a sandwich."

Twilight watched as Spike left, just realizing now how little of her explanation Spike probably understood. Blushing to herself, Twilight turned onto her back and lifted the book above her face with her magic to continue reading.

"I wonder if aliens do exist. What would they be like?"

With this thought in her head, Twilight's continued enjoyment of the material was doomed as she brought herself to her feet to pace about her room. She stared blankly into space, wandering in circles as she contemplated the thought.

"They're probably far more advanced than us, if they do exist."

"I still don't forgive you, you know."

Runic and his rather impolite host were having a heated conversation as the two floated through a pure black void, lighted only by the meager glow of the hex dust. Runic crossed his hooves as he floated upside down. Or rightside up. Or leaning to the left. It was rather impossible to tell how you were oriented in pitch black nothing.

“Out of all things, you decided to just drag me into a void! This is not even funny! It’s just pathetic!” Runic yelled, flailing his hooves to emphasize his point. “Why not an alien society? Or Equestria in the past? Or the future?”

Immediately after stating this, Runic reconsidered. “Actually, scratch the future. It’d probably be the apocalypse, and that’s been done to death.” He said, having read too many books on the subject. The thought of dealing with oddly-organized vault systems, super mutants, or an utter lack of electricity and light sent shivers down his spine.

“Wait, why are you glowing?”

The hex dust didn’t seem to fond of leaving Runic to his thoughts as it distracted him with its’ bright, glowing light. The void didn’t seem so depressing anymore, now that it was covered in the shining of Runic’s rather unstable companion, and that’s exactly what he didn’t want.

“Oh bugger…”

Twilight, after thinking to herself for a good deal of time, felt it was time to return to her reading. Leaning halfway off her bed, the Hoofhiker’s Guide settled itself before her face, offering her a seemingly endless supply of satire as she giggled periodically to herself.

After a while, however, she noticed an annoying light blinking into her face. Her best efforts to ignore it were met with defeat as she set the book aside and turned her head. To her surprise, Twilight didn’t see Spike holding any lantern nor any source that could be even remotely explained, yet right before her eyes was a steadily growing light.

“What in the world…?” She muttered to herself, turning over in the bed to sit upright. The shine before her seemed to link itself to nothing she could explain, and as usual this confused Twilight to no end. She wanted nothing more than to deduce the source, but just as she was about to get up the light grew blinding.

“What’s happening?” Twilight yelled as she off her the bed. Now on the floor, Twilight scurried beneath her bed to protect herself from whatever was causing the glow. Through the covers of her bed that reached down in front of her face, Twilight noticed a distinct change from the bright white light to a darker purple hue. Just as she was about to look out to investigate, Twilight covered her head again as sounds of destruction and rumbling flew through the room. Books hitting the ground and everything on her walls seemed to be coming apart from what she could hear.

“Is it safe?” she asked after about three minutes, after which the room had come to an eerie quiet and the regular level of lighting returned. Twilight pulled herself out from beneath the bed, getting to her feet as quickly as possible. Before her lay what she could only describe as the scene of a tornado aftermath. Her beloved books were scattered about and all her decorations were across the room from where they should have been, most broken or torn.

“Holy Celestia!” Twilight shouted, taking in the scene before her. “What caused this mess?”

Noticing no immediate threats, Twilight moved about the room, using her levitation magic to reposition the books in their appropriate spots on the shelves and pick up whatever she could of her room decorations.

“Uhhhhggh…”

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks, unsure of what she just heard. Where did it come from? Twilight looked about frantically, asking “Who’s there?” to what seemed to be nobody, until her eyes rested upon a large pile of books in the center of her room, out of which seemed to be peeking a tail.

“Oh dear! Are you okay?” she cried as she ran over to the pile.

“I think…” started a voice from underneath the pile, “…a dictionary fell on my spine. Mind picking it up and looking up the definition for ‘Pain’?”

Twilight blinked a little, tilting her head to the side as she looked oddly at the tail before her.

“Why?” she asked.

“I feel I might need a reminder of what it should feel like, since I seem to lack any sensations in my spine.”

“I’ll get the books off immediately!” Twilight replied, scrambling with her spells to pull the pile of literature off of the imprisoned pony. The pile took no time at all to dwindle down until Twilight was left only with the company of a gray unicorn whom she had never met before.

“Very good. Thank you, miss.” He said, brushing off a bit of dust on his shoulder with his hoof.

“No problem at all.” Responded Twilight, “Are you alright?”

“Alright? Am I alright?” The gray unicorn seemed to question himself when she asked this, contemplating the thought with the deepest sincerity. “Let’s see… my back aches, I don’t know where I am; I was recently assaulted by a rather violent shelf of books; I lost track of the hex dust that I was hanging out with for a short while; I think it was starting to like me; I got my lab coat torn ever so slightly back at the facility, and I had to spend time floating in a dark void.”

Twilight looked at him with confusion as he ended his list. He perked up at this point and, with a sense of confidence, said “Overall it’s been a fabulous Monday.”

“But it’s Tuesday.” Was all Twilight could respond with, making note of the calendar still somehow hanging from the wall in the background.

“What?! TUESDAY! Why have you betrayed me!?” he screamed, thrusting his hooves into the air with a sense of despair. Realizing his outburst near immediately, he attempted his best to compose himself and, clearing his throat, turned to her. “My name is Runic. And yours?”

“Twilight.”

“May I ask where I am?” Runic asked, finally getting to look around the room a bit.

“You’re in my bedroom.”

“Right, right. I can understand that much, but your bedroom WHERE?”

“We’re in the Ponyville library.”

With this statement Runic simply looked at Twilight with an expression of disbelief. “Brilliant joke. Now where are we actually?”

“I just said, the Ponyville library. What's so hard to believe about that?" Twilight replied.

“I know for a fact that Ponyville does not have any libraries. It's a mining town! Where are we?"

"What kind of Equestria do you live in? We don't mine anything around here."

Runic sat down. Placing a hoof to his face, he didn’t like the idea that was present in his mind.

“Oh that little bugger cloud... did it really send me back in time?"