M.A.G.I.C.

Chapters

Part two; History
Part four; Convert
Part five; An Education
Part one: an Odd Find
Part three; the Tower
Part six; A Taste of Peace

Part two; History

“Hello, I am Stoic, Stoic is my name, that is, and I am belonging to the oldest known sentient race to occupy the earth, the humans. We survived before extinction for about fifty-thousand years in total.” Stoic began.

“I am here to tell you my story, my race’s story, and why I am not resisting my being here.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd, Twilight shifted a bit.

“Our own very origins are quite shrouded, though we were almost certain we genetically evolved from a form of primate in the continent of Africa. Keep in mind that there was no magic in that age, we hadn’t built it yet. No, we humans quickly became the most dangerous, and powerful species inhabiting the earth using nothing but raw cunning.”

“We lay dormant for many thousand years after our beginning, constantly warring, hindering each other, creeping along technologically very slowly, and even falling back with the occasional mass destruction of knowledge. All until our discovery of electricity. After which we basically exploded, technologically. Things like aeroplanes, light-bulbs, televisions, and most importantly computers soon followed in very short order.”

The crowd of dragons began to skeptisize, He was sounding a bit unbelievable. Doubtful murmurs were exchanged between peers. Twilight looked a bit nervous. Perhaps they weren’t believing him. Pens scratched across paper nonetheless.

“In the eighth millennium of our existence, Around 2000 A.D. (the calendar of the time) I restate, we invented computers, which caused our already frightening pace of technological growth to increase ten fold. With them, our separate world finally grew close to its self, people understood each other for once, instead of holding fast to their blind hate. Our age of self hindrance was cast aside. Our computers eventually surpassed us in raw computational power, so we enhanced ourselves with them. We became much more than just smart animals. Unfortunately, we sort of ground to a halt, we could only advance so far in our technology, so we sat stagnant, in a state of near perfection.”

“Excuse me, what’s a computer?” Said Twilight.

“Oh wow, umm, not a very common question I'm asked.... A computer is a machine that does math, really fast. The brains of animals do the same thing, but computers did it much faster, though they had vastly different architecture. They were free thought, minds without will, they were the most carefree minds that had ever existed, until we came out with Artificial Intelligence, which basically allow us to... Well... That's another story, for another time.”

Twilight seemed interested at the idea of a math-machine.

“How can this ‘computer’ connect ‘people’, I don’t understand how a math machine can bring a world close together.” Twilight asked.

“Well, computers could send signals to each other, extremely fast, pulsing signals of light, or electricity, and through these, messages, pictures, sound, video, data, text and MUCH more could instantly be shared with people VERY far away. Huge networks of buried cable, and satellites arose, and through these, the world connected, spreading foreign culture into foreign lands at the speed of light. Eventually these connections connected people so strongly that the hate required to start a war could not exist, and when they were started anyways, the darkest perpetrators of humanity’s self-destructive nature were revealed, and slain, finally allowing the next era to roll in.”

“For the middle 35,000 years of our existence, we lived as a Utopian society, at the top of technology. Until a man by the name of Orion Gates, or Dr. Gates opened up the first ever inter-dimensional portal, on the Tower of Babyl, on November 5, 43771-Y (About year 32000 A.D). That day became one of the most important days in human history. This day was never forgotten, and was taught in every for of school 'till the day we died out.”

“Inter-dimensional portal?” “Only starswirl was ever able to touch that subject.” “Is that possible?” “ Is this monster for real?” “Should we kick him out?” “Should we even be letting it near the princesses?”

“Hush, dragonkin. I hope you aren’t questioning my judgement so harshly, for your own sake.” The white princess said.

The murmuring stopped.

Twilight was hoping, that for everypony’s sake, that he would say something interesting, or do something that would prove his words, at least to the point of refreshing the attention span of the scribes.

“Out of this portal, from the first dimension we could open to without being violently bombarded by radiation billions of times that which a human could tolerate, from ‘The End’, as we called it, there flowed a black-silvery substance holding properties like no other. This substance was later studied for centuries, and found to react to its self, magnetic fields, electricity, photons, beta, and alpha radiation, several particle fields, atomic matter, Inertial change, rift-fields, and pulses from all of the above, in anomalous, unique ways. The first of which to be noticed was an unusually high unresponsiveness to gravity. We called this substance ‘Pullus Ferrum’, it has hundreds of slang names, like ‘slick’, or ‘dark iron’, or 'liquid metal'.”

Stoic snatched one of his floating Spheroids out of the air, and forced it to change shapes telepathically, forming a ball of sharp, thin, long spikes, that could fit into the palm of ones hand, but would probably leave puncture-marks. He held it levitating over his hand for a few seconds, before returning it to its original shape, and letting it fall to its usual hovering altitude.

The crowd stopped giving him ridiculous looks. Twilight sighed in relief, she didn’t want him to get thrown out of the room, or turned loose in the Ever-free forest, or rationalized as some sort of animal that Twilight enchanted as a joke.

The room tensed back up, everypony was willing to pay attention again.

“Pullus Ferrum was the next step in technology, because it had extremely diverse properties, many times more-so than carbon. It was discovered, that when exposed to extremely strong fields, especially of the sort used to get into ‘The End’, you could ‘crease’ it, which was the term for programming it to react differently to stimulus, shaping it, and/or changing its physical properties. Dark Iron stopped obeying the known laws of physics at this point, and was even proven to be able to bend space-time with extreme efficiency, and flexibility. This immediately led to reactors which could generate power indefinitely, without fuel, in absolute darkness. But more interestingly, it could be used to build computers. Quantum computers were replaced entirely within a decade of the first pullus ferrum ALU.”

“Twelve-hundred years before extinction, we pooled our efforts as a race, and constructed a super-computer, called MAGI-C, or the ‘Massive Arithmetic Gate Intelligence - Computer’, and the greatest rift-field-manipulator in all existence, called UNI-CORN or the ‘UNI-versal Command Operation Rift Nexus’.”

“There’s a lot of funny coincidences going on, Like MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN. What did those two do?” Twilight asked

“It isn’t a coincidence. MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN were both insulated with a few extra layers of slick, and slipped into a space between dimensions. From there, they still project a field of effect, about the size of our solar system, where unconfined, stable spells are practical, across the entire multi-verse, but only in that area. MAGI-C receives impulses projected by a horn, does a ton of math to decide where, how, and when, to place its rifts, and sends commands to the UNI-CORN device, which proceeds to open rifts to wherever told. These rifts do extremely simple things, like move matter from one place to another, or capture gravitons and let them hit an object from a certain side, or absorb photons, and letting them fly out of a rift on the other side of something. Yes, simple things, but MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN are capable of opening hundreds of septillions of rifts at once, and hundreds of septillions of very simple things can do something extremely complex. If an object with the right fractal patterns, and some concentration of properly creased pullus ferrum, is allowed a strong connection to one’s brain, then one can control the field of magic, to an extent depending on both ones skill, and ones horn-complexity.”

“After MAGI-C began projecting a field with UNI-CORN, simple, reliant manipulators were built to function with the system. All of which looked extremely similar to your horns, and which would allow the holder the ability of extremely efficient telekinesis. It was another step in the technological road, .” Stoic said.

“Though, this was only satisfactory for a while. MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN were quite unreliable, and didn’t do a very good job of compensating for the error made by its users. The two computers could only use information that was very numerical. Trying to teleport, for example, would likely result in teleporting into solid bedrock, or re-apparating, a hundred feet in the air. So we began to build small, pre-compensation devices, which determined missing information, and put much extra work, and feedback into decoding what a user wanted for a spell.”

“Our race finally self-doomed when two-hundred years before extinction, we finished building a third super-computer, called FATE-S, or ‘Forward Attempt Trial Error-Subroutine’ Named after the way it processed information. It simulates small parts of the universe, and runs millions of simulated tests per second, repeating the process until it has an ideal decision, before making one. We retrieved MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN, and integrated the FATE-S module into the system. It made obsolete those small interpreters in no time. We first built FATE-S with no intention but to rid ourselves as a race from some minor inconvenience, but soon we realized what sort of potential our creation had, and added in thousands of ideas over those centuries we spent building it. Some including the Ultra-Utopian-Agenda, many personality templates like Celestia, and Luna, the Neural Pattern Manipulator, and a ton of small details, and programs meant to alter humanity, and make us as perfect as fantasy. Basically, FATE-S was given the power to be god, and could decide the very nature of the world and its inhabitants.”

“As you can see, that horribly backfired.... At least on us.”

“WAIT, WHAT?”, “Celestia, and Luna are what?”, “You are kidding us, right?”, “Is this an insult?”, “Either you just answered some of the hardest questions ever asked by magicians, or you are just as twisted as you look.” Spat several, fairly anonymous members of the dragon-crowd.

The ponies around didn’t know quite what to say. The unabashedness of the dragons made the somewhat intimidated ponies feel like they were being dragged to their deaths by the words of others.

“I’ll answer to that in a minute, Just let me continue” Stoic replied, receiving many angry looks, and a wide-eyed stare from both the princesses.

“FATE-S was the thing that killed us all, you see, but it used UNI-CORN, and MAGI-C to do so. We built it into MAGI-C, to achieve a computer that could formulate an opinion, perfectly, taking into affect every possible detail it could find with its hundreds of extremely sensitive, intelligent, and nearly infallible instruments of observation, and come out with a potentially extremely complex, but very well suited answer.”

“Ok, returning to the subject of the princesses. They were humans, changed to replace politicians, or those blasted machine leaders. They both died eight times before FATE-S wiped us all out.”

“They are a pair of personalities, pre-designed into FATE-S. FATE-S chose a mother, assured that she would give birth to two sisters, and copied its template of the future leaders onto the infants soon after they are born. FATE-S made sure they always died on the same day, and that the next Celestia, and Luna were ready to take the role. They were always born special, always with white wings, immaterial, multicoloured hair, immense natural intelligence, extreme benevolence, and always as sisters, Luna being younger. Our last few centuries were spent under their benign rule. I thought they would have been redesigned and renamed when I would wake out of stasis, because that was the next, implied action our race would take. But it FATE-S got in the way, and kept them around, and let’s not forget, made them immortal once it knew how.”

“Wait, does this mean Celestia, and Luna are essentially humans? Would they have any recollection of their pasts?” Asked Twilight.

“Oh, no, they are.... Alicorns... which are under the effect of pre-determined personality templates that are periodically enforced on the two chosen beings. Not some kind of Permanent record of neural memory. No. Any human with that much recollection would go insane, and we had humans in mind when we made them. They were responsible for a wily, dangerous populace, and if they didn’t wipe their memories periodically through death, guilt would drive them mad, with a destructive process of depression, anxiety, fear, stress, insanity, illness, and eventually suicide. For benevolent, sensitive creatures like them, it would be dying a thousand deaths, one, after another, after another, to live to the last step.”

“OK, continuing with the timeline, in the last month of our existence, FATE-S had finished analyzing, and processing the important details of all intelligent life on earth, and had decided its next plan of action to fulfill its agenda, decided that humans were far too malicious, dangerous, and genetically programmed bringers of self destruction to ever live in the perfect utopias it was told to create, and that there were many other creatures were much more well suited beings for the type of society it was told to create. So, it copied details of humans, millions of details of humans that it found to be favorable, snuffed us out, and probably began experimenting with what combinations produce the most perfect social animals. FATE-S doesn’t even allow those unfavorable traits to exist for long when they appear, creatures carrying the traits probably get radically changed, or killed almost immediately after inhibiting them.”

“Really, we still live on, because I can already see things reminiscent of us here, in this very room. Your very intelligence structure, and language is extremely similar to our own. I don't think we died off nearly as much as I initially thought...”

Stoic pulled near a chalkboard that one of the dragons had carted in before the lecture began, and began drawing.

It was not much more than a crude arrow, marking the major turning points of human history incrementally.

“Now, onto Why I am here”

Everypony stopped looking at the chart he was drawing, and back to him.

“You see, the only tangible thing left of my race now is MAGI-C, and a couple relics that have either decayed with time, lost, or locked up in some secret vault somewhere, and probably some old ruins, and I feel that since I probably wouldn’t bring my race back to override its current population even if I could, mostly because it would be undoing much progress that FATE-S made, so, the least I could do for our once greatness, is pass on the knowledge, and technology I have, before I die. This means that I will first display the full power of my technology, mostly for publicity, and then see if I can find some uncreased dark iron to introduce.”

“Catch is, I only have three days to do it” Said Stoic.

“Why would you only have three anyhow, you live six, don't you?” Said Rainbow Dash.

“Wrong, after three days, I won’t be able to move, and barely be able to talk. My heart will finally slow down enough to kill me by the sixth. FATE-S kills by slowing down the neural activity of its victims, until their slow, weak nerves can’t even fire off any muscles, and they fail in hundreds of ways to survive. It has claimed many people it saw unfit. No, just in case you're wondering, it is not painful, but it was very hopeless.” Said Stoic, voice beginning to drone as he described the cold fate.

“Oh... Sorry I had to ask.” Said the cyan pony.

“Now, I would totally do the demonstration right now, but it’s night, and we’re in a cramped room in the middle of a palace that probably would get obliterated should I begin to terraform.”

“Terraform? What’s a Terraform?” Asked applejack.

“It’s when I make a huge difference in the way the landscape is shaped.”

“Whoa, you can do that?” asked Applejack.

“Yes, but only during the day, or hooked up to a HUGE reactor.”

“Why can’t you do it at night?” Asked Luna, who was quite irritated at the condition.

“One, it’s hard to see at night, and two, there is not enough light energy for my Independent field manipulator to absorb and use. It would kill me a hundred-thousand times over if I were to try this without a major source of energy. I’m not exactly carrying the Babyl Reactor on my back you know.”

“Babyl Reactor?” Twilight asked.

Luna whispered something in Celestia’s ear.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get to that later.” Stoic replied to Twilight

Celestia whispered back.

“There is nothing left to say here. What needs to be done now is tthat someone... err... somepony help me plan to get some pullus ferrum. I will be doing this overnight.”

“Wait, don’t you need to sleep too?” asked Rarity.

“I was just asleep for eight times as long as my race existed entirely, I think I can do without for another 36 hours at least.”

Luna got up off of her belly, and spoke. “You might survive if we ponify you. If you're no longer carrying unfavoured traits, then you might just be left alone, and we have some scientists who would be more than willing to plan with you, and spend many hours thinking for you.”

“Do you really think I can survive such a process?” Stoic said, wincing at the thought.

“Yes, Stoic, we have ponified quite a few creatures, it just takes a lot of planning, and detailing. We have ponified griffins, dragons, mice, birds, chimeras, even certain inanimate objects, all sorts of things, and only suffered one casualty out of all.... We are arranging for some of our greatest minds, dragons, and ponies alike, to aid in the brainstorming, and extract the finer details of your race.” Celestia said.

“Alright, but self-transfiguration was always frowned upon by our society.... But if it means... Aww, what the heck, this changes everything, I might even be able to open the Babyl portal afterwards, instead of just getting a limited amount of uncreased liquid metal to you ponies.” He showed a painful smile, as if reluctant, but convinced that he should.

The ponies were escorted to some quarters, babbling their questions to each other about Stoic’s past lifestyle, while Stoic was led by a few guards to a steel, and marble building outside the palace.

Inside this building, were at least fifteen ponies, and dragons in labcoats, levitating books around, and running short experiments.

All heads turned towards the door when it opened, Gargoyle was the first to greet the guards.

“Master Gargoyle, the princess ordered that you assist this human in his endeavors. He is to explain to you what he is, why he’s here, what he plans to do, and what he needs to do it.”

“Alright, I’ll take that critter off your hands.”

The guards left, slamming a steel door, leaving Stoic behind with a team of lab-coats.

For the entire night, they talked nonstop, Stoic provided very strong answers to many hard inquisitions, and in the meantime learned about the current layout of Equestria. They also discussed the "ponification" process, and its great-many details.

They talked also about small things, like hands, fire-breathing, wings, and ‘enders’.

By morning, several letters were delivered to Celestia, and Luna, (Who rarely ever slept anyway) regarding the plans formulated for the next day, and the final day after. And several, very happy looking lab-coat wearing ponies, and dragons could be seen exiting the lab, having been explained in very high detail, some of the most puzzling physics, magic, and medicine related questions to ever hit the media. They had just emulated hundreds of breakthrough days in one night.

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The girls were woken up the following morning with a drop of a translucent-grey liquid substance in each eye.

Wake up sleepyheads! We have a demonstration going on in the field down the mountain! To the hangar!

The effect of the liquid quickly became apparent, it immediately erased any trace of sleepiness in its recipient.

Each filly quickly got out of their bed, except Pinkie, who jumped out, even more hyper than usual.

“is that you Bella, Isa Bella?” Asked Twilight. Who was just jumping out of bed.

“Yes, the one and only, Twilight!”

The pony responsible for waking everyone was average height, grey in colour, with a red mane, and a pair of brass-hand bells for a mark. Though she was lacking wings, or a horn.

Twilight grinned very strongly, and leaned forward, giving her a hug.

“Who’s that Twi?” Asked a fairly confused orange farm pony.

“Oh, an old friend from my life before the academy for gifted unicorns.” She responded.

“So I suppose you got a job working for the princcess?”

“Yus!! and I love it, I wake everyone up, call everyone for lunch break, and spend the whole day running around the castle as a messenger!” She said excitedly.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your life Bella!” The lavender unicorn replied.

“Wait, what time is it?” Asked Rainbow dash, who was staring at her raised forehooves.

“It’s five in the morning!”

“Whoa!! It’s FIVE?! I.. Why am I not sleepy, especially since I am used to sleeping on clouds?”

“It’s this stuff! That ancient human made some for me!” Handing Rainbow dash a thin, dark-brown, glass test-tube that had a rubber stopper with an eyedropper fitted into it.

On the tube, there was a sticker label reading “RE-CREASED WAKING SOLUTION. DO NOT TAKE IN EXCESS OF TWO DROPS PER EYE, OR PAINFUL RASHES AND PARTIAL BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR.

“Wow, that guy is really going to change our world isn’t he?” Said Dash.

“Oh, I can already TASTE the pranks I could pull with this!!” Said Pinky

"Taste?" Said Rainbow Dash.

“Wait... Re-creased?” Said Twilight.

“Oh, that human should know all about it, he’s at the hangar, waiting on you guys!” Bella said.

“Alright, bye Bella, I’ll be sure to visit sometime” Twilight said.

It was a pretty talkative walk following a few guards to the carriage hangar.

“Hey, guard-guy!” Rainbow Dash yelled at the white stallion in front of her.

No response.

“Will you drop the silent act for just one second?” she said.

no response.

“Whatever.”

It took a while, but they finally made it to the hangar.

The place was large, and had an airy feeling to it. There were a few golden-metal carriages around, and a ton of wooden ones painted white, with blue rails, all arranged in a neat parking-lot like style.

The princesses were there, and so was the crowd of scientist dragons, and ponies, though it was at least twice as big as it was in the debriefing room. Some members still wearing their lab-coats.

A couple white pegasi in guard armor were busy pulling out a golden carriage, which the two princesses were calmly waiting for, and climbed into once the now harnessed pegasi pulled it over. Surprisingly, it had doors. The human climbed in with the two princesses, and sat in a seat opposing the princesses.

Another carriage, white and wooden, guided by a similar pair of pegasi was pulled over to the six ponies, who also clambered in through a door.

The dragons were given word to head out, and they took off zipping, straight out of windows, and open runway-doors. They were all gone in under a minute.

A few extra carriages were taken out for the non-pegasus scientist ponies (They were mostly unicorns).

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road” Said Stoic.

“Let us go then!” Shouted the white princess.

Several large, wooden doors were opened, and the carriages accelerated with vigor at the hooves of the pegasi.

They sped, closer and closer towards these doors to the open sky. The large, brown, grassy field, was becoming visible, several miles across, with the Everfree forest bordering it at its south edge.

They shot out of these doors, into open air, inciting several screams, and a high-pitched squeal (from Fluttershy) as they lurched downward, and sped down the mountain at an angle parallel to its slope.

The carriages were incredibly fast, they were nearing the sound barrier, and yet, no one was getting buffeted by wind, in fact, it was noiseless. The ponies could talk to each other easily if they wanted to.

“Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what this terraforming really is!” said Applejack, who’s hat was attached firmly to her head despite the fact that it should have been torn off by the wind a long time ago.

“Not now Applejack, it’s like a roller coaster ride here!” Said Rarity, who was reacting pretty adversely to the less-than-zero gravity she was experiencing from the flight.

Fluttershy was clamped onto Rainbow Dash the whole time.

The trip was fairly short.

A large crowd of dragons was visible from the distance, clearly burning the nearby grass in a large circle to make for an easy, tall-grass free landing.

The small platoon of carriages landed gracefully on the ash-covered earth.

The human climbed out with dexterity greater than any pony ever could, hopping over the golden rail without even opening the door, and landing on both feet. Independent field manipulator tightly in hand, orbitors hovering out to follow him.

“Alright, I am ready to demonstrate, get some dragons in the air to spectate from another angle.”

The indigo princess shouted some orders, and several dragons took off skyward, holding clipboards, undoubtedly ready to make drawings.

The human walked a distance away from the rest of the group, took a wide, tense stance, and held the manipulator below his hip.

The sun darkened.

Celestia was the only one to notice at first, because it was quite subtle. A worried expression grew onto her usually calm face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the aerial dragons’ perspective, they could see a huge hexagon of golden-brown grass fall, and then vaporize, exposing a rich, dark soil underneath. Then, the soil in that hexagon melded into a solid, grey, stone, and then flatten to become level with gravity. The whole thing was only about fifty yards from the group of groundlings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the groundlings’ perspective, Stoic grew extremely tense, and his face lost all emotion. His jaw clenched, and forced those particular muscles to bulge out of his face. His stare grew ever-piercing, and cold beads of sweat were sprouting up all over his visage.

The spines on the shaft of his IFM began to spin up its spirals, shrink, and vanish at the end, just to reappear at the base.

The sun got even darker, this time much more obviously, as if a dark film had been pushed over it from space.

the earth jerked, and hard, opposite the direction Stoic was facing, as if it had just been shoved a few inches over.

Stoic flashed into a silhouette for a split second, and his face became an even harder mask of determination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the perspective of the dragons, the stone hexagon had just been separated from the rest of the earth by a gap a few inches wide, on all sides.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A heavy wind heading straight down began moving. blowing the grass down, to reveal a stone pillar about a hundred yards across rising from the ground, with sharp, 120` angles at each corner, completely plain, and uniform. now only a couple feet high.

The wind got stronger, the sun darkened even more.

Celestia was not happy about it, no, she was just about ready to stop the human.

the pillar accelerated, now rising several feet per second.

Celestia realized that dropping the pillar now would probably cause a lot of destruction. She was pinned.

The pillar continued to accelerate upwards, until it stood three times as high, as it was long.

It stopped, hanging a few feet over the normally level ground, the gaping, black void below that it rose from now visible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the perspective of the dragons, who were being blasted by an unnatural downward wind, could see a huge pillar of stone rise from the ground, and for a few, gruelingly athletic minutes, observed it rise until it made an Ursa Major look like an ant.

The sun went pitch black, the human jerked, and dropped his stance lower.

In the few moments of absolute darkness, the whole ground dropped an entire foot.

A huge explosion of sound filled the air as billions of tons of earth were ripped from their settlements, shoved over a quarter mile, and resettled, all in under a second.

The carriages banged loudly against the ground, the groundlings yelped as their footing vanished below them. Some yelped twice as their momentary flailing in the dark resulted in a sprain when they landed awkwardly. If they didn’t have four legs, or were as thin as the human, somepony would have broken an ankle for sure.

The sun went back to its blinding brightness, just as everyone began to stare to its spot of absence, and adjust to the darkness.

Several ponies, and dragons alike winced at the sudden flash.

The pillar dropped, burying its self a few feet into the soft soil that now filled the void beneath it, with a hexagonal point, instead of a flat bottom, assisting this process.

A twenty-million ton stone stake now pricked up out of an unusually flat field.

The sun re-darkened ever so slightly, and the downward wind stopped.

The surface of the pillar began to gloss, and shine, and reflect the sun onto the field in perfect quadrilaterals.

Then, the surface of the pillar began to darken, and send tiny reflected beams in every direction. Large circles of this offset began to appear, and spread across the megalith, coating its entirety.

the process finished, nopony missed it, the ‘terraforming’ was visible from places much farther than ponyville. Not even the guards pegasi were wearing their stone expressions of emotionlesness anymore, there were looks of awe on everypony, everypony in Canterlot, everypony in Ponyville, everypony in Manehatten, and everypony in Cloudsdale who heard, or felt the shock of the earth bending to the will of an ancient.”

The sun brightened again. The nearly opaque, black aura surrounding Stoic, and his manipulator began to fade, just as everypony began to notice it.

“There, ha.... have a look at it up close.” Said Stoic, who was quite obviously exhausted.

The dragons flew down to the ground, and joined the herd approaching the tower.

There were billions, upon billions of names, all in tiny print, engraved into the surface of the glossy, grey granite. Not one mistake was present, this was all in thin, perfect, print font, taking up all of the space, on every side of the hexagonal pillar.

“These are the names of everyone killed by FATE-S” Said Stoic, fingering the carved surface of his monument. “This is more than just humans too, I learned a lot from that spell.”

He gathered his strength for a scream.

“Let this be a monument to the many races that FATE-S destroyed!” Stoic shouted.

Everypony was wordless. Everypony but Applejack.

“So that’s terraforming.” She said under her breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Take a short break from fanficread.exe) (The ponies were all pausing in silence for a minute anyway.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Princess, permission to speak?” Said one of the guards.

“Gran...Granted.” Celestia sputtered.

“What.... What in your name did I just witness?” The terrified stallion said.

“Terra... Terraforming, Jab, terraforming.”

“It’s beautiful, Stoic” Said Rarity.

Jaws everywhere were scraping the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at Canterlot Palace, the princess of light was a lot more than quiet than usual. Who can blame her, her sun was just blotted out in the most massive spell she had ever witnessed. She sat in her throne, chin on her hoof, completely flabbergasted, and lost in thought.

The accounts of the day were being hashed together for a report, to be sent to the mayors of every equestrian city, town, or village, to be read, aloud, to every citizen possible.

The historian dragons, and scientist dragons were practically at each others' throats, screaming, and hollering in argument. None of them dared approach the human for questioning, and when his RFM device happened to sweep past them, they ducked, and cowered.

The ponies there acted quite a bit more calmly, but still refused to go anywhere near the human.

The Mane Six, and the two princesses were the only ones who didn’t flinch when they saw Stoic.

They were back in the debriefing room.

“Well, back when those scientists weren’t frightened to death of me, we discussed, and finished our plan for retrieving a decent quantity of pullus ferrum. As well as began our plan to have me ponified before I expire.”

“What have you decided?” Asked Twilight.

“Well, we took out a map of Equestria, and north of here, near the Ruins of Tambelon, is Babyl Tower, that’s our target.”

“Oh, you mean the Sky Needle?” Said Pinkie Pie.

“We’re going to that dreadful place? There have been dozens of disappearances there!” Rarity said.

“Well, that’s not what it was called when it was inhabited by humans. Anyhow, I need to retrieve a few gallons of untamed dark iron to allow ponification. I am too different to change to a pony without a strong tool, a tool that nopony could grow out of his head. So, I need to imbue somepony’s horn with slick, and then conduct the spell that we planned very carefully....”

“...I sure do hope that they will help me ponify, rather than just run away.” He said

“Oh, come on, they’ll calm down, you’ll be getting questions soon, rather than fight/flight reactions, you should just go get that pullus ferrum.” Twilight said.

“Well, there’s a catch, I can’t go alone.”

“Why not?” Said Twilight.

“Well, there’s still some life in the Tower of Babyl, and this life isn’t benevolent.” He said, regurgitating his words as if they hurt.

“What life? Are there other humans there?”

“NO, NOT EVEN CLOSE!.....”

“......I can’t do this alone, don’t make me go there alone!”

“What could possibly be there that you couldn’t handle?” Twilight responded.

“ENDERS... Oh, Jesus, those are the scariest F[DATA REDATCTED]ING things I have ever seen, there is no way I could survive there alone!”

“What are Enders, are they what have caused all of those disappearances?” Said the purple pony, now a little worried, and recoiling from the loud expletive.

“They came from the portal, fifteen of them in total, live beings. They are tall, very tall, look a bit like humans, and stand on long spindly legs that are several times the length of their torsos, their arms stretch down to their ankles, and despite being thin as broom-handles, are strong enough to tear someone in half! Usually, the only visible facial feature they have is their pair of glowing, violet eyes, which spell death to all who see them. They have been the subject of horror stories ever since the first one appeared, right in Babyl Tower. The most famous of which being called ‘The Slaughter of Babyl’.”

“Whoa, why do you want us to come with you if it means we will all just die?”Asked Twilight.

“Oh god, I just realized what I am walking into... This is all of my worst fears all in one place...” He almost threw up thinking about it too hard.

“Sorry, imagine this, you walk into a dark room, you are alone, and the first thing you see is a pair of violet, evil eyes, turning to match your stare. The enders, for some sick, insane reason will stare you right back, for however long you can go without blinking, or glancing away. They won’t even attack if you just don’t look at them, or touch them.”

“Ok, so you walk into the room, the automatic door shuts behind you, and you are locked in, you can’t see, or feel the button that opens the door.... locked in pitch blackness, no one to help you keep him pinned, locked into an eternal stare-down for your life with a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the blackness, and when you look away, when you so much as blink, it will be upon you, taking off into a dizzyingly fast sprint, and even teleporting to catch you if it can’t get to you quickly. It disembowls you, pleasuring in your pain, demonically cackling as it forces you to crawl away without your legs attached, batting you around like a cat. And, should you ever entrap one, and get away, may it ever escape its prison, you had better hope that it forgets your face, because if you’re not dead by the time it gets out, you will be the first person.... er... pony it visits the following night.”

“Ok, different scenario. You walk into a pitch black room with six friends, all of whom help you stare down the beast, you ward it back into a containment cell with a high powered lantern, you turn on the containment field, day is saved,

the beast won't get out for another eon, you get to move on.”

“How'd there get to be fifteen? And how do you trap them for an eon?” Twilight asked

Rainbow Dash itched to speak.

“Well, that brings us to the subject of the Babyl Reactor, rated to work for a little over an eon without a manual reset. Which has obviously passed a long time ago. See, these Enders are also made from pullus ferrum, creased in such a complex fashion that could only be attributed to some kind of genetic algorithm. We could not push them back through the portal without risking enormous casualties, so we kept them locked in rooms that had immensely powerful fields projected near the walls, floor, and ceiling, powered by the one, and only ‘Babyl Reactor’.

They are far more than powerful enough to rip through one of those steel doors

in only a few short seconds, though I bet they stayed in the tower because it’s dark in there, and they are extremely sensitive to intense light. Enders prefer darkness, even to the point of leaving someone unmolested should there be a dark room elsewhere.”

“I think there are more qualified ponies for this job than us six.” Twilight responded, practically horrified with the prospect of entering the sky needle.

“Not true, everyone but you and, the princesses cower away from me, I can already tell that they’re not worthy of this ordeal, and those princesses WILL be alive when when those enders eventually get out.”

Those last words struck it home, all six ponies knew that they couldn’t get out of it.

“Alright, but know that you’re probably going to scar everyone here for life.”

“Not unless someone dies. Which with six, educated companions, is nearly impossible. The other fourteen enders were all captured successfully, with no casualties, after the only survivor of the first was found to have been using a high-powered laser-pointer to repel the beasts.”

“WAIT, you know how to get into the sky needle??!!” Twilight asked, already knowing the answer.

“Well, yes, and yes to an extent that isn’t obvious. I used to work there, I know the place pretty well. We keep some stored slick, about 10,000 gallons, up at the very top. Putting it simply, I have been entrusted with manual keys, and I have them on me right now.” He said, levitating three of his spheroids in front of Twilight, who could assume that they were the same keys he used to open that cabinet.

“Alright, how long do we have to prepare?”

“About an hour”

“Wait! Can you at least leave Fluttershy out of this?” Rainbow exclaimed, finally getting a short pause to speak up in.

“I have a very strong feeling, confirmed by my auxiliary processor, that Fluttershy will have more power over those enders than all of you combined.”

“What? How on earth can your auxiliary processor know when you don’t?” Twilight clawed verbally.

“Better question, how can Fluttershy possibly be any threat to those.... Abominations?!” Rarity yelled out.

“She's packing some seriously strong magic, every inch of her is perfectly tuned to be the perfect fighter in a war of wills.”

“I don't get what you mean... How can you tell?"

"It's a function of my AP. Kinda hard to tell just by looking, but the signs of it are there. Like her large, expressive eyes, and her maternal nature. She's probably more capable of mindfighting than any human I ever knew."

"Umm... What?" Twilight asked

"... Umm, This'll require some explaining, but I really don't want to talk about it."

“Ok, any other details to this plan that we missed?”

“Well, no, not really, I haven't finished tha plan, so I will plan some more for the next hour, and we will take off afterwards, I will explain the finer details on the carriage. This involves the layout of the tower. Oh yes, and see if you can get some armor from the princess in that hour.”

“In the case that an ender has one of us, it buys us another few seconds to get between you, and him, with this.” He said, pulling a glass tube from a fold in his clothing.

“Hey, that’s the lantern you took from the tunnel!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Yes, and I can crank it up so high that you could cook food on top of it! Combined with a couple orbiters to form a reflector, you could cause an ender to smolder where it stands, and force it to retreat.”

“That’s so neat!” Twilight said.

“Let’s get this party started then!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Wait, why don’t you just use some of those orbiters to get us an easy teleport there?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, for some reason, that only works once.” Stoic said.

“What? That’s stu-”

“Just kidding, that would be stupid. No, really, I can do that whenever the hell I want, it’s Babyl Tower its self that makes such a teleport dangerous. The place is loaded with so much folded dark iron that space-time there is severely warped. Do you know what happens then you try to jump yourself through a severely distorted wormhole, Twilight?”

“Oh... You get... Distorted yourself.” Twilight answered, choking on the last words as if they were digging into her throat, trying their hardest to stay behind her muzzle.

There were many accounts of distortion in pony history. Many bad teleports ended up horribly disfiguring the teleportee, sometimes making one part of their body too big, sometimes too small, sometimes it turned them inside out, or caused them instant death, sometimes the thing that appeared on the other side of the wormhole didn’t look anything like a pony. The results of failed teleports that included more than one pony were unspeakably horrific.

“Oh.... I’m not even going to argue there... distortion is not a fate I want to risk suffering. Please don't make me think about it again.” Twilight finished.

“Now, meet me at the hangar in an hour. See you ponies later” He said, leaving the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour passed in what felt like substantially less than an hour to the ponies.

The ponies had acquired some thick armor from the white princess, forged from bright brass, and steel. The joints were reinforced, as if to protect from strong, unfocused force, to prevent dismemberment, broken bones, or desocketation.

Rarity was not happy with the armor options she was given, and almost went without, until getting a berating from Stoic.

They were back at the hangar, two carriages were pulled up, one for the passengers, another for the intended loot, and armor on the return trip.

The pilot pegasi were uneasy, as not everyone had calmed down from that feat at the field.

The princesses wished them good luck, the carriages were propelled out of the hangar, and they were off, heading to the north.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End of part 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part four; Convert

Author’s Notes:

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, I’ve been dealing with writer’s block, and have a very hard time trying to simulate how Doctor Whooves acts, and deciding on his character.

It is also VERY critical that I make not A SINGLE plot hole, because whatever I do will set in stone the rest of the story, and also set in stone FATE-S, and UNI-CORN, which I plan to write later, and I’m not keen on losing freedom like that, so I’m trying to make room for myself here, which can be a huge challenge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Friends, let me introduce you to Doctor Whooves. He didn’t tell me much about himself, because he was far too intent on rushing me into a suspended animation capsule prototype he built, and had “other things” to do. But was one of the greatest, and only true friends I've had in my life.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa... can't you get along with your own species?"

“Wow, eighty years and y...” Rarity was about to say.

“We've forgetting what’s important. Somehow this pony was around four hundred thousand years ago, and unless he’s immortal, that’s not possible.” Twilight said.

“Err... to Stoic's offer... No thanks, mate, but I think I’ll just introduce myself. I am not a pony, for starters, I’m a time lord.”

“A time lord?” Quizzed Twilight Sparkle.

“An ancient race of time-traveling, super-technological... err... Aliens... You might say. By the way, my name’s not Doctor Whooves. It's just just The Doctor. Whooves is just a nickname Stoic gave me... But whatever, Stoic's here, which means my mission is about done. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to build a machine in this body!”

"Kind of tells you something about him, persistent pony, him."

"Well Stoic helped, but he only had to because his race is scared completely witless of time-travel. They don't even dare send tiny particles back." Replied Doc

“Well, that's why he had to put me in the capsule, instead. Though I wasn't expecting to end up here. He sort of fooled me into being sent here... Well, no, he just never woke me up.” Said Stoic.

“Well you were the right fellow since day one. Who would have guessed?”

“What are you talking about?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“Ok, we spent the final month working on the capsule, and searching for the person with the perfect temperament, background, and skill to be our ‘Traveler’. I agreed to lie down in it for testing purposes, because we just finished testing its individual hardware subsystems, but we never tested its actual functionality, and, where else would we get a human subject? He never told me that I was the right person for the job of the ‘Traveler’, nor did he ever tell me exactly what the ‘traveler’ was supposed to do. But I know it has something to do...” Stoic said, getting cut off by the Doctor.

“With The End... I spent many years, here in Equestria, in and out of existence, in many forms. Nice place, but unfortunately, the future does not bode well for us all. Personally, I've died three times as of yet, at the hands of an army, straight out of another dimension!”

“Eh.... Wot? Why did you never speak of this?” Said Stoic.

“I just... Well you never asked!” He replied.

“How’d you die three times?!” Asked Twilight.

“It’s complicated...”

“Umm guys... what are we going to do about these enders?” Asked Fluttershy.

“Umm... That’s a very good question.” The Doctor replied.

“How’d you freeze 'em anyways?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“My sonic screwdriver can emit a magnetic pulse frequency that resonates with their minds in the same way being looked at does. It’s a trick i learned not so long ago... well, in the future actually... fighting off those cronies the enderdragon kept around, on my way back to the TARDIS.” The Doctor said.

“Sonic screwdriver... TARDIS?” Twilight Sparkle quizzed.

“Err.... Another long story” Doc repled.

“Hey, I know we’re all full of questions right now, but I think we need to deal with the issue at hand, and that means getting away from these beasts, we’re probably going to have to push em’ around since we can’t just leave ‘em here, especially since they’ll just come right for us after that sonic thinga’majig is out of range. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Said Applejack.

“Oh... How’re we supposed to move these? We can’t even touch ‘em! Stoic, Twilight, you’re the smart ones, WHADDAWE DO??!!” Pinkie shouted in minor panic.

“Well, we’re probably going to have to spend HOURS pushing them around with items under telekinesis. Ugh, all over the tower, up, and down the stairs.” Said Twilight Sparkle.

“We could try shoving them all in one containment field...” Rarity said.

“Oh, no, they’d break out in no time. Those fields can barely hold one.” Stoic critiqued

“Maybe we could have them chase us around? Have them do all the running for us?” Said Rainbow Dash.

“Far too risky, if we let them get out of our sight, they’d be very hard to manage, not to mention, they might get a chance to finally hurt one of us.”

“Maybe we could try talking.” Fluttershy said

“Wait... Fluttershy, we could have you use your super-brain magic on them, then they’d all... Oh wait, you could barely handle just one dying... Sorry.” Pinkie said.

Fluttershy cringed.

“Waitwaitwait! What is this enderdragon thing, or its ‘Cronies’?” Twilight asked.

“Well, this bloody great dragon came, or the great silhouette, as you ponies called him. Whatever, this enderdragon... thing... ripped a hole into this dimension. I don’t know how, or when they figured out how to do that, but they did. It’s not like someone’s been telling me anything, I only learned from what I saw... Ok, so this great, black bloody dragon flies into this world, along with about two dozen ‘soldier’ beings. They don’t quite act on its behalf, no, they normally do what they want. Kill, terrorize, destroy, you know, the norm. But they do rise on the defense of this dragon thing. Forget them, they’re not as bad as the dragon. This great bugger almost instantly begins targeting towns, flying straight through buildings, the ground, lakes, rivers, snow, ice, solid rock, you name it. Makes Swiss cheese of everything. But along with this heinous disregard for this universe's conservation of mass, it turns the walls of these ‘tunnels’ it makes into blocks.” The doctor said.

“Wait... what? Like... buildin’ blocks? Wooden blocks, what?”

“Well... Not exactly, It’s like some kind of old computer graphic. It’s impossible to explain. Trust me, when the time comes, you’ll see.”

“Let’s just... Let’s just move these things so we can get out’a here.” Applejack repeated.

Twilight sparkle picked up a random can of slick, and began shoving the catatonic beings down the hatch in the middle of the room, one by one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took a while, pushing them. Stoic, Rarity, and Twilight all held two canisters each, regularly bashing the farthest back ender a few feet forward.

They followed the doors they marked with O’s, and eventually got back to the room with the map of the tower.

“We’ll have to head down two floors to get rid of our first, and the floor below that has two containment rooms. This is just gonna get easier over time... Say, Doc, what’s the effective range of that sonic screwdriver?” Stoic said.

“About... I’d say about twenty meters, for the task of keeping these still.”

“Alright, I’ve got all of the positions mapped in my head, we can get moving now.” Stoic said, tapping the glass plate in which the map was engraved.

“How’d you get the nickname Doctor Whooves? Just curious.” Pinkie asked.

“Uugh, ok, it’s like this. Almost every time I introduce myself to some bloke, they ask ‘Doctor Who?’. Y’know, because my name is The Doctor. Anyhow, Stoic thought it’d be funny to poke fun at me, calling me Doctor Who. Then later he got the bright idea of calling me Doctor Whooves. I swear I’m gonna buck him right across the face if he keeps calling me that.”

Stoic snortled with his face under his hand. "Buck, huh?" he muttered.

Again the arduous train of pose-frozen monsters picked up speed. Thirteen hellish beings bumped along, scraping across the floor. Kind of a pathetic way to be thwarted, really.

Pretty quickly, they got back into the hallway, finally seeing their stair down.

They planned, and schemed, and took position to move their cargo down the stairs.

“Alright, Twilight, get ready to stop these thing when they come your way!” Stoic shouted down the stairs, before smacking one down, making it tumble to the call of gravity.

“I got it, send the others!!” A shout floated back after the monster awkwardly disappeared out of view.

The thirteen others followed, were caught by the same canister, and dexterously jammed into the open doorway twilight stood in, on one of the stair’s platforms.

The group approached the first door they saw bare a red X, and readied the first ender they’d dispose of.

A few painful-sounding scraping noises, and some merciless pounding later, and the ender had involuntarily re-entered its old prison.

No sooner than its body being halfway in, an unseen force yanked it to the middle of the prison-room, and set it spinning.

A translucent red shield of light burst into existence, filling about a foot of space in front of the door, and on all sides of the room. All before the door slammed shut, and the building’s supposedly primitive AI came online.

“Two silhouettes be-ridden. Our containment team is still in the progress of duty. Do not leave your room, or disarm yourself of the safety lanterns until the containment team has emptied the compound of threats.” The inflection-lacking voice finished.

“I’ll let you know, She’s smarter than she sounds, by a long shot. Those doors wouldn’t have been open-able without her help.” Stoic said.

“Who is she, anyhow? Or what... I’m not sure.” Twilight asked.

“I mentioned she was an AI before, haven’t I?”

“Well, we don’t even know what it stands for, if it isn’t just you saying ‘Ayie’.” Twilight replied.

“Oh.... I should have thought of that. It is an acronym, in fact. It stands for ‘Artificial Intelligence’. She’s a program, an old one, from milllenia ago... oh wait, no, eons ago, but she was millenia old when we all died out. She did a remarkable job as an announcer, test organizer, database, and manager, and we all loved her, so we never replaced her.” Stoic said.

“Does she have a name?” Pinkie asked.

“Oh, yes, she does.... Now, if I can just remember...”

“GLaDOS!!” Stoic shouted.

The building hummed lightly, and then shuddered as a whole.

“higher mind functions re-activated.” The monotonous voice sounded through the speakers in the ceiling.

“Building scan underway....”

Everyone waited in silence for a couple seconds, jarred by the occasional ping coming through the speakers.

“Stoic, are you in any way responsible for this mess? Are you even aware that you’re in danger... What are you doing with those silhouettes, why are they out of containment?” GLaDOS said, from a distant, secret location.

“Process the information you already have, before asking for more input, GLaDOS.”

“...Done...”

“Stoic, I have come to the conclusion that my clocks are set wrong. This is actually a free day, you’re here by chance, and someone in our department is a homicidal maniac.”

“No, GLaDOS, 450,000 years have actually passed.”

“You mean to tell me that you’ve survived that long, yet the rest of the world has died out over that time?”

“Didn’t the network inform you of what was about to happen to humanity? I hid in a suspended animation capsule.”

“I was never allowed a network connection. You, and your fellowship always told me that I would be subject to hackers, and refused to let me siphon information from the network.”

“...Right.”

“So, please explain; what am I supposed to be seeing in your section of the building? you are the only identifiable human. The rest, other than the silhouettes, I have never seen before.”

“Seven equines, two having horns, two having wings, one wielding a device that keeps these enders frozen, but he says the effect will lose potency, eventually. They are, in fact, sentient, and identify themselves as ponies. I am almost certain they are the work of FATE-S.”

“...The building is empty, other than you. This means I can safely shift the structure to our advantage. I must admit, the things FATE-S has done over the years are... interesting.”

“Can you get rid of these enders for us, then?”

“some.”

The floor beneath three of the enders vanished, letting them fall into the story beneath, one of the two was catapulted by a floor-panel the instant it struck the ground. It sprung to life an instant before it was crudely slammed into a containment room by another floor-panel. The other ender had followed a similar route, being cruelly swatted by a floor panel, and crudely fed into prison with another. The third was allowed to fall through another floor, and suffered its fate unwitnessed.

“Wow, that was fast.” Pinkie commented.

“Its amazing, is what it is.” The Doctor said.

“That device the brown pony is... holding, has has a limited range. Get closer to other containment rooms, so I can incarcerate the remaining silhouettes without losing hardware.” GLaDOS said.

“Why does she keep callin’ ‘em ‘silhouettes’?” Applejack asked.

“Oh, it’s just another name for ender. There are more, ranging from enderman, to harbringer, to snuffers.”

They continued their arduous task of pushing monsters down stairs, they eventually made it down a whole four floors, before Stoic had to stop, and ask.

“GLaDOS, you can push things up, right?”

“Of course.”

“great, I guess we won’t be having to make too many stops, then.

The group found their door, and entered, awkwardly pushing along their lightened herd of enders.

Again they stood in the middle of another hallway, one door nearer to the elevator marked with the telltale X in bright red paint.

An ender was chosen at random, and bashed into the fielded room with a hard container of pullum ferrus.

The floor beneath another two enders vanished, while one was slammed into the ceiling with a panel. Presumably the ceiling had vanished momentarily, allowing an ender to fly up, and through.

Quickly, the business was getting done.

(Much) Later.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Last one.” Applejack said, grinning brightly to her peers.

They were on the third floor, moments from victory. They stood in the middle of a hallway, almost identical to those above. The final door was present.

“Job.. is.. DONE!!” Appplejack said, booting the monstrosity inside once the door opened.

“Whew, can’t wait to get home, and tell mah story!”

“Oh... Question begged, where shall I stay once I’m introduced into your society?” Stoic asked.

“I’m sure somepony will offer you a place, if the princess herself doesn’t, and even if nopony does, you can always build your own. I’m sure you can find work around, seeing you’re probably the greatest technological master known to pony-kind, right now.” Twilight said.

“Wait, you will let me build a home.... Just like that?” He asked.

“Well, you need to ask permission from the mayor, and make sure you’re putting your house in the right place, but yeah, why wouldn’t we let you?” She responded.

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect that of a society like this, but then again, you have magic, and the solar sisters. Just historically, houses have been a huge deal. They cost you a lifetime of work to afford, and were so heavily regulated and taxed that very few people had their own houses, which they owned, and payed off.”

“Umm, well, not here I guess.” Twilight Sparkle said.

They were walking the stairs down to the lobby, and behind the sturdy front desk were strewn the many canisters they sent down, having been struck by each other in the mouth of the exit pipe, which was situated on the inside of a large metal box, already full of canisters, and on the underside of the desk, dividing two workstations which many communicational tools lay upon.

“alright, let’s grab our loot, and get the heck out of here.” Stoic said, striking a button on the control panel he fiddled with before, while simultaneously using his IFM horn to pluck a dozen canisters from the floor.

The constant, ambient buzzing of the tower halted. The twin doors began to slide open, letting a crack of sunlight fall onto the faces of the traumatized ponies. Spreading, this crack eventually filled the entire room, the sun was on its way to the horizon.

Their joy to be nearly out of that lonely, cold, treacherous, oppressive, and overstayed dungeon was overwhelming. A feeling of euphoria washed over the group, as they neared their window to freedom.

“Wait.” A voice called out from the inside.

The group hesitated to turn, they never wanted to see that building again.

“You aren’t going to leave me here, are you?” GLaDOS called.

“I didn’t think you’d care.” Stoic said.

“Neither did I, but being half-awake for so long... changes things. I need stimulation, interaction, and data to process, otherwise the rest of my existence will be pointless.” The disembodied mind said.

“Don’t worry, ponies will be filling this place soon enough, you’ll have plenty of interaction.” Stoic replied.

“Thank you, and goodbye.” GLaDOS said.

They walked all the way back off of the concrete before they heard the doors shut, and seal with a hiss.

Their leisurely pace broke into a jog, as they attempted to escape the growing winds of Babyl Tower

The small team of pilots awaited them, the first one to spot them passing nudges to those around. The group of white pegasi quickly lost their bored attitude, slouched posture, and worried expressions.

“Heyhey! They’re alive!!” One cried.

“We were beginning to think you’ve died. It can’t possibly take somepony so long just to climb a tower. What happened up there?” Asked one of the Stallions.

“Long story short, we had to push a bunch of paralyzed monsters all over the place, Applejack hurt herself, we met a time traveling pony, we fought those nasty creatures in close combat, and we learned that the tower has a mind of its own!!” Pinkie burst out.

“Speaking of time traveling ponies, where’s the Doctor?” Twilight asked.

“I never noticed him leave, I think he just slunk off when no one was looking.” Stoic said.

“Oh, how cliche. Whatever. He can probably take care of himself.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Yeah, let’s just get out of here. This place gives me the willies.” Applejack finished.

The carriages were quickly filled with the clear containers, and soon after, the armour the ponies once wore.

Applejack hoof’d Stoic his boots.

“They were mighty helpful, but I think these’r yours.” She said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again they were in flight, enjoying the light breeze allowed through the magical barriers, the cool air, the open, sunny skies. The following hours were full of relief, and relaxation.

Stoic took another bite of the cookie Pinkie gave him, but felt nervous when he found everypony was watching him intently. though it slightly unnerved him, he continued chewing because he hungry.

Over the hours of the flight, many conversations started, and ended, but Stoic rarely participated.

Stoic eventually lost himself in thought, and lay back, staring vacantly into the moving sky.

When the carriage landed, Stoic was quickly shocked out of his trance. He stood up, and hopped the railing, yanking the door open from the outside.

The solar sisters were waiting for them, the white one speaking first.

“You’ve worried us all with that time you took, I hope you brought the stuff you were looking for.”

“If you’re talking about the ferrus, then yes.” Applejack said.

“Good, then the operation will be underway as soon as possible” The princess of night concluded.

“Wait....” Stoic said.

“What is it that troubles you?” Celestia asked.

“Well... Will you allow me to stretch these legs on a wander through your streets... While I still have them?”

“I don’t know, just the town-reports have garnered a lot of unrest. Your appearance in person could cause a heck of a lot more.” The white princess replied.

“Sister, he will never see this form again. Let it live on in the memories of our subjects at the very least, instead of just in the drawings we’ve made as of yet.”

“Sister, you may be right.” The light replied to the dark.

“It is decided, then. We shall sate your sentiments; you will be allowed into the city with an escort for two hours at the most.” The white princess concluded.

“I only need half an hour. Thank you, my princess.” Stoic replied.

“Twilight, I ask you to be his escort. Because you, and your unwavering voice of reason are probably the best candidates for this sort of task.” The Lunar goddess said.

“Umm... Alright.” The apprentice replied.

He, and Twilight were swiftly brought to the great double-door of Canterlot Castle. There they stood, staring up at its peak, marveling at the architecture of ages lost in time, coughed back up unto the canvas that is the world.

The doors opened for them, and they walked out. They left the premises onto a cobblestone path that winded down to the city. Stoic did his best to enjoy it while it lasted, deeply breathing in the cool air, stretching his muscles, and refusing to lose himself to melancholy. Soon they reached the populated streets of Canterlot City, which caused mixed reactions among the inhabitants. Some ran into buildings, locked the doors, and shut the blinds, some fell onto their stomachs, and ducked beneath their hooves, some stood, and stared, wide-eyed, some followed for short periods in curiosity.

One pony in particular was reacting much more strongly than the rest. She quietly followed the duo, scrawling notes feverishly, and readying a dart.

The two walked on, ignoring the signs of their stalker, simply taking in the scenery, the fresh, cool air, the smells, the sights. Though Twilight didn’t, Stoic tried to ignore the chaos he was causing. He didn’t want to leave his fantasy world for anything, quite yet.

A sharp pain stung Twilight on her flank. She yelped, and toppled over. Stoic sprang, snatching his crossbow from his back on reflex. He turned to Twilight, and noticed a thin, steel dart protruding from her skin.

He plucked this out, hesitating on whether to run, or try to take Twilight with him. He was about to start into a run, but an identical dart sunk into his neck. He felt his limbs grow distant, saw his vision blur, grey, and tunnel, and heard the growing cacophony of white-noise. He began to smell ozone, and feel time slip past him. He never noticed his body hit the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He awoke on a table, his limbs pinned down with leather straps. A light, lime-green unicorn-pony was huddled in the corner, holding more notes, staring at her collection, wide-eyed. Her mane/tail was frizzy, and unkempt, the same colour as her coat, plus white streaks.

“They kept telling me you were nothing more than children’s stories. Men. So much evidence of your existence. Saddles, doorknobs, clothing, handles, instruments.... instruments!! My whole life I knew you were real. Pieces of human culture left everywhere. I was just about to give up the whole thing, but then you fall right into my lap!!

She stood up on two legs, and awkwardly walked to Stoic.

“How long... How long have I been out? Time isn’t right for me any more.” He choked out. His throat was incredibly dry, and stuck to its self when he tried to speak.

“Oh, that poison knocked you out for a little under a day. Now what am i gonna go with you? Hmm? Oh, I’ll start with some questioning.”

“F.. Fool! My mind contains more information about mankind than you could ever extract from me in this form! I am dying, take me to Canterlot Castle, else my knowledge be lost forever!”

The green pony lost her offensive almost instantly.

“Dying? Ooohh. What have I done?” She moaned

She held a glass of water to his lips, which he made no resistance drinking, though he failed to drink it properly, and inhaled a few drops, due to his sluggishness.

He coughed violently, but told a thanks anyhow..

“Why am I in bonds?” he asked. Now much more happy to talk, that his throat was lubricated.

“Err.... for my own protection. Humans are supposed to be dangerous, as the legends tell.”

“So ponykind knew of mankind, even long after its extinction?”

“You went extinct? I thought you were coming from another dimension!”

“Wh... What?”

“That’s what all the humans who’ve appeared thought.”

“Umm.... I may have to talk to Doctor Whooves about this. I think he is responsible. (Celestia knows why).”

“Wait.... Where is my apparel? Where are my orbiters, my crossbow... How long will you hold me captive?” He said, finally noticing that he was stripped down to his undergarments.

“Your stuff is in another room, I won’t keep you here at all if you’ll just die... And about the clothing, there aren’t any accurate drawings anywhere, so I made some myself.” She said, blushing slightly.

While his bonds were being undone with magic, he asked. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Oh, Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings. And yours?”

“My name is Stoic, however that’s likely to change when I undergo ponification.”

“You’re going to be PONIFIED??!! Oh, no, please tell me somebody’s taken pictures of you, or made more drawings!”

“Hey, you didn’t say somepony... Oh... Yeah, I’ve been drawn, X-ray’d, prodded, bent, drawn for blood-samples, taken pictures of, and asked questions extensively. Hasn’t the princess spoken publicly here in Canterlot about my appearance?”

“She did? I never attend those speeches, they’re usually nothing important.”

“WAITAMINUTE!! Where’s Twilight Sparkle?”

“Oh, your purple companion? I left her. somepony would most certainly have picked her up. She’s probably awake by now, in somepony’s house, or on her way to Canterlot Castle, to tell Celestia the news. Which reminds me, there’s guards everywhere. Within twenty minutes of having shot you they started to swarm the streets. Now that I think about it, they probably picked Twilight up before anyone else.”

Stoic was trying to stand on his two legs, but could barely. His every word was drawn out, and low in pitch, his every breath weak, and slow.

“Your stuff is over here. I’ve never seen anything like this! Your clothing; indestructible, and that weapon...” Lyra said, pointing a hoof to an arrow-hole in the wall, and proceeding to move his posessions to him with magic.”

“Well..... Yeah.... It’s a long story... I need to get to Canterlot Castle, my time is almost up, I need to be able to use magic to help cast the spell, and my mind has almost fallen out of sync with my processor. I can barely stand, it’ll take an hour to get there if I can even find it... If I make it, it’ll be a close one.” He said, clasping on his plated pants.

“Umm... I can ride you there...” She responded.

“You think you can carry me?” He asked.

“How did you think I brought you here? She responded, after he put on his plated shirt.

“Oh.... Makes sense.”

“You’re waaay lighter than you look, standing up.” She finished.

Stoic gathered his little trinkets, and his crossbow, which Lyra never took her eyes off of once he lifted, until he put it on his back.

“Get on” Lyra demanded, after kicking open her door.

Stoic obeyed, got on her back, and held onto her neck. It wasn’t comfortable in the least, his feet kept hitting the ground, and he was constantly tipping to either side because of a lagged balance.

Lyra wasn’t doing so well either, Stoic’s armour, though having smooth, non-extrusive plates, did dig into, feel awkward, and painful against her back.

Mixed reactions were again garnered from the sight. Most looks were of complete shock. Through the streets they galloped. Stoic was weak, and constantly threatening to topple Lyra, and definitely not taking the shock of the run very well. Though it wasn’t quite as graceful as she hoped, Lyra had fantasized about the scenario for years.

A pair of guards caught sight of them, and immediately gave chase.

“Don’t slow her down. She’s taking me to the castle!” He yelled to them when they caught up. The guards, instead of trying to halt her, began to run with her instead.

After few minutes more of rough, and tumble later, they came to the great doors of Canterlot Castle, which were rushed open in response to the mad dash of Lyra, and the small crowd of guards they attracted over time.

The group didn’t slow down, they ran right in. A dozen sets of hooves now echoed their steps through the massive hallways of the prestigious Canterlot Castle, approaching the throne-room.

They reached the throne-room in short order, where Princess Celestia, and Luna were shouting orders to their guard captains, but stopped mid-word when they saw the company.

“We got him.”

“I had a feeling that something like this would happen if I let you go out. We haven’t time to spite, nor even decide what to think about this. Sister, summon the team we’ve had on standby for so long.”

“ARCHMAGE MYSTHOOF!! I CALL YOU!!” Luna shouted in her Royal Canterlot Voice.

A tall, wiry, red unicorn stallion materialized in their midst, quickly besetting his glassed eyes upon the human. Soon several other unicorns followed, among them, Twilight Sparkle, appearing in clouds of bright-violet smoke, rather than a flash of light.

“I haven’t long, I’m about to fall out of sync with my auxiliary. I won’t be able to use magic when that happens. Please, just get the materials we planned.” Stoic pleaded.

Two unicorns vanished, and returned with a single canister of the ferrus, and several magical tools.

The human got to work debugging the spell they planned, with the mage team. It required participation from two unicorns, and the creature in question. Huge experimental details were present, but quickly informed upon by Stoic’s own knowledge.

They planned to leave certain genes unchanged, and leave his material-soul, his mind, intact, but fundamentally changed. By the philosophy of other’s stoic; The Stoic they all knew of was going to disappear that hour, but another holding his memories, his personality, and keen traits would be born in his place. Stoic didn't really care..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the Solar Sisters, most of the science team, the group of scribes, the mane 6, Lyra, and a few others were present, standing in a large circle, around a bed which Stoic sat upon. He cast several spells with his own IFM horn on the bowl of dark iron situated in front of him. Soon after which, the liquid floated out of the bowl on its own accord. It split in two, and attached to the horns of both the unicorns beside him; Twilight sparkle, and Archmage Mysthoof.

The liquid was, at first, amorphous, and misshapen. But in a few seconds, it straightened into a cone, solidified, and sprouted thorns up its length, and thorns upon those thorns, and presumably a few levels of complexity higher.

The extensions doubled the length of the original horns easily, but made them no wider should the thorns be left out of the count.

The two hosts of the imbuements immediately showed expression of surprise.

“Are these detachable?” Mysthoof asked.

“Yes, they are, you just need to pull ‘em off, though it takes a good yank.” Stoic replied.

The work commenced, Stoic lay flat, holding his manipulator down by his leg. His armour was lain beside him, and he, again was in his undergarments. For his armour would surely kill him upon the shift. The three participants gained an aura of light that quickly shifted colours from red, to violet, to black.

The alternation between the three sped up, and brightened. Three sprites of coloured fire sprung into existence, frequently switching colours, holding the same combination as the auras, and whizzing in circles around the trio.

“Step one; copy the material-soul from the body.” Twilight said to her partner.

The sprites spun up, first, from a set of whizzing colour-trails, into a flashing, seizure-inducing shield of colour.

After about a minute, the whole thing stopped stopped. The sprites of coloured fire lost orbit, and strayed into the room in straight lines, only changing direction on collisions with walls, and etc. Stoic dropped his manipulator, fell unconscious, and spit a spark of grey flame high into the air, where it hung momentarily, before starting off skyward.

The three flame-sprites took instant reaction to the spark’s motion, and abruptly accelerated towards the escaping flame, simultaneously slamming into it, vanishing, and causing it to again, momentarily freeze. Taking advantage of this, the team seized the grey spark with magic.

“That was a close one. That thing would have escaped to space if we were a second later.” Mysthoof said.

“He was right about material souls. They only want freedom. Of course, none of that is to be found under the oppressive effect of FATE-S.” Twilight said.

They brought the gray flame down to their level. The Mysthoof was to hold it in place, while Twilight changed it.

Twilight touched her extended horn’s tip to the living, material soul.

Instantly she lost connection with the world around her. She was entranced by the hundreds of memories not her own flooding her mind. These were instances from Stoic’s life, ranging from routine, to pleasant, to ungodly unpleasant.

A cup of something spilling, a new chemical finally made, a long conversation with a computer. Limbs being blown off, crawling around on the ground, trailing blood, aiming a pistol through tall grass. Being blinded, and seared by a shockwave. Even a couple times dying.

Twilight couldn't quite comprehend why there were memories of war.

The flood eventually stifled, and Twilight’s mind began to organize the information she was receiving into layers. Basically, Twilight’s own mind decided to perceive Stoic’s mind as a layered orb, each different type of thought process organized into a layer, and assigned the tint of that layer.

She was to travel to the center of this orb, her gut told her.

At first, she encountered a thick shell of blue-gray, strong, coherent, logical thought. Images of Twilight Sparkle, and her friends were in it. Stoic was thinking of them. She slipped past this layer with ease, for it didn’t try to stop her.

Behind Stoic’s logic, she encountered his working memory. Dozens of images, sounds, abstract depictions, and minor emotions were present here, flicking between each other, and being fed into Stoic’s logic. With her mind’s arm, she pushed past them, into the deeper, darker parts of his psyche. Everything here was either tinted red, or felt red.

There, she saw nothing but felt uncoloured trauma, and bliss in a war with each other to decide what emotions would get through from lower levels into Stoic’s logic, and what memories are important enough to pull up in the higher layer. Not much at all got through.

Beneath that, there were nothing but emotions cycling around, loosely attached to images, sounds, and feels. When Twilight tried to get her own mind to assign colour to the emotions she found there, they varied, and depended on the nature of the emotions.

She went deeper to find wonder. Here she heard whispers of questions, oh so many questions. They weren’t always in a particular language. Sometimes she would hear “Why?”, and then see an image tinted blue. It became apparent that curiosity was the main driving force behind stoic’s will.

Below, there was nothing but raw confusion. More than Twilight ever expected to see in one being. It was beyond unnerving to stay here, the faces of those that had hurt Stoic flashed into Twilight’s vision frequently. Here were the questions which Stoic was left unanswered, questions Stoic both wanted, and feared to know the answers to, and the questions which Stoic knew could never be answered. All this discord was accompanied by an unending, shrill scream, sourcing from no-where. The purpose of all this was to keep Stoic wary of the dark turns life could take. Basically, it was his pessimism, and his fear. Everything here was tinted a sickly, dark green.

Just below all this, there was simply a maelstrom of unfinished thought. Totally random, broken, fragmented, incomplete, and alien patterns flew through this layer of mind. This was the part of Stoic’s mind which created new ideas, or reminded the rest of his mind of things they dropped out of their attention.

Twilight was getting to know what it was like to be human far more than she liked.

Yet she had to push on.

She pushed into the core of Stoic’s mind. within this abstract layer, she witnessed the very lowest, basic, most instinctual processing that took place in Stoic’s head. Sparks of light representing breathing, reflexes, and involuntary motion flashed around. Twilight wanted nothing to do with them. She searched the scape around to find nothing, so she simply began trying to interpret the sparks. No avail.

“What do I do?” She asked herself.

“Why not ask someone who knows?” A melancholy voice returned. A voice identical to her own.

Twilight was nearly scared out of her trance, but managed to keep her own mind under control.

“Who was that?” Her own mind expressed to its self.

“I am the mind within Stoic’s mind. I am the resource of intelligence he draws upon. I am what he refers to as his ‘auxiliary processor’. I am his link to magic. I am his link to other people. I am his link to the rest of the world. I am half of him, as he is half of me.” It responded in Twilight’s voice, eerily.

“Well, he wants me to..”

“I know what he wants. He already asked me to do it, but alas, I have not the authority to. I assured him on what to do though, this includes informing him that I would contact you.” It responded.

“The way is open, and clearly marked.”

Lines appeared in Twilight’s pseudo-vision, and joined to form a door, which opened for her.

Twilight was drawn into it. She witnessed several great wave-forms, looped into themselves, their oscillations interfering with themselves, and even each other. Twilight had no idea what they were supposed to be. Everything up until now was an abstraction, allowing her to understand their meaning.

“These are the basic qualities of Stoic which must be removed entirely for him to survive.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Take them away.”

Twilight wondered what it meant, but only for a minute. She decided to try moving them with her will; her mind’s arm.

They followed her unspoken command, as if a string had been drawn through them, and pulled.

She dragged them backwards, through the door.

As soon as they left the door Twilight felt several parts of Stoic’s mind collapse. However, the layer of random thought seemed normal when she passed through it.

As she passed through it, the layer of chaos, and confusion had apparently calmed its endless wale into a minor sob.

The layer of curiosity was turning its questions to its self, and no longer whispering wonders in a coherent language, but an indecipherable thought-code.

Stoic’s emotions had calmed their endless battle, but it was apparent that the darker side had lost a lot of power.

Stoic’s working memories were all empty, no longer spinning around, or flashing pictures between each other, or selecting pieces of information to send to the higher layer.

Stoic’s previously coherent layer of higher thought was nothing more than incoherent noise.

Twilight feared she may have damaged his mind forever.

She left the trance, her vision faded in, but her concentration was always constant. Her horn’s tip was still submerged in the spark.

She yanked it out. A tiny, angry-red spark, that burned furiously followed the horn on its way out.

Almost instantly, the grey flame that was Stoic increased in size tenfold, from a small grey spark the size of one’s fist, to a great fire, a few feet across. The crushing force that MAGIC put on it was released.

That force was relocated onto the red spark, which fizzled out of existence in the coming seconds.

“Good job, Twilight. Now you must ponify his body.”

“Wait, Twilight, can you just leave him as is? If his mind is altered, won’t FATE-S leave him alone?” Pinkie asked.

“Look, his body isn’t meant to host a mind missing those qualities. He spoke of hormones going completely out of balance, and killing him should his mind not do its part in that fashion.”

“What about the hormones we have that he doesn’t?”

“Those were the three flame-sprites we drove into his mind. Fundamentals. The matter of fact is; This mind can no longer survive in that body!!”

Twilight turned her attention from her friends. The sooner she re-embodied Stoic’s material soul, the better, so she started the ponification process. It was rather simple, she only had to read a mathematical tablet the science team, and the archmage made for her. She simply read along at a fair pace. She forgot about about lost, or gained mass, letting that extra matter she had to work with be subtracted from, or added to a massive lead tablet that lay beside them.

Bones could be heard breaking, and they could be seen re-solidifying into new joints. Other bones shortened, or elongated. Some grew from nothing. His hands melded into fleshy hooves, his hips bent permanently. Every passing minute Stoic looked more like a pony. Several minutes passed where she cast spells that had no visible effect, probably changing stoic on a very small scale. Eventually, he grew coat, a mane, and a tail. Completed, Twilight sighed, and hoped for the best.

Her partner lowered the disembodied soul into the mouth of the pony that now lay on the table.

“It should be done...” Twilight said.

A minute tensely passed.

“He isn’t moving, I don’t know if he ever will.” Her partner said.

The stallion on the table blinked.

A good portion of the crowd moved in closer, Lyra especially.

He blinked again.

“I... I live...” He whispered into the air.

He fell unconscious on the table.

The crowd gasped.

“He just needs time to adjust.” Archmage Mysthoof said.

He was picked up by a squad of guards, and carried off to a bedroom. Many of the spectators followed, but only the mane 6, the princesses, and the mages were allowed inside.

Lyra was very disappointed when the guards told her to leave

“Another beautiful creation” Mysthoof said.

“I just hope he’s functional when he wakes up.” Twilight replied.

“Yeah, me too.” Replied Mysthoof.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stoic awoke in silence, not opening his eyes. He was attuned to this sort of routine already. In the darkness he began to plan out his morning routine, making sure not to let his judgement lapse. He was planning on washing up, getting his clothing, and some food, and then jumping into the vacuum-railway to get to his workplace; the Babyl tower. Something was itching at him though.

Aah, right, he had just had the strangest, most vivid dream he has had in a long time. It started in his own home, he met a... a pony, as he recalled. Then they worked on... A capsule, yes. They build a time-capsule.... But for what? Right, this capsule was for people. How ridiculous. Ponies aren’t even intelligent enough to speak or even strategize, let alone build time-capsules that keep people.

Then... then he went to the future in it... there were more ponies, then he met their princess, or... princesses, who were actually the Solar Sisters reincarnated!! But then he had to go to the Babyl Tower of the future, and all the enders were free. Then he... He doesn’t quite remember what came after that. It was just a dream, after all. Maybe he should mark those memories for his auxxie to hold on to. He wants to review them later, maybe they’d make a nice story.

He sat up in his bed, and began trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Where’s my sleep solution??" He thought. But upon reaching to where his nightstand was, he discovered only an absence, and that the hand rubbing his eyelid did not feel right at all.

His eyes shot open, and he looked down at himself.

“...Oh...” He mumbled to himself.

The memories dawned upon him. His previous feeling of freedom, and perkiness now replaced with the feeling of dread, and doom he had spent the last month of wake harboring.

“Right...”

He wanted to throw a fit. He wanted to scream, and yell, and rage, and cry, and fall asleep, and never wake up again. But the part of his mind that always stopped him from doing just that was far too strong. “No, Stoic, you will only hurt yourself by letting your feelings take control. You vowed to never let it happen again, remember?” He told himself replaying that foul memory again.

He tried to get out of bed, and stand up, only to fall flat onto his face.

“Idiot, you are a quadruped now, You can’t stand on two legs.”

He tried to get off the floor, shakily standing on his new legs. It wasn’t so hard. Four legs aren’t so hard to balance on.

*Klippa Kloppa Klippa Kloppa*

His first footsteps as a pony. Kind of loud. He was so used to being a quiet walker, so it irritated him somewhat.

The noise drew the attention of the guards posted outside his doors.

One peered in to see what was going on.

“He awakes!!” The sentry shouted.

*He awakes!! He awakes!! He awakes!!* Was heard, echoing from down the hall outside the door. It was a signal, being sent throughout the castle.

Soon enough, Lyra could be seen, the first of all, peeping through the door. She had obviously been running, and was both out of breath, and sweating.

Surprisingly, the guards let her through.

The two Princesses entered afterwards, and the mane six got there soon after. Rainbow Dash marched right in, but the others were more cautious.

Stoic carefully trotted to the group of ponies he saw, which was hard, because he was dealing with several muscles he’d never felt before, and several muscles he was used to having no longer existed.

At first, everypony around watched him like someone watched a filly take their first steps. But that quickly changed to looks of pity, and slight revulsion.

Stoic did not look happy at all. No, he looked like he had been ripped out of a happy life, and thrown into a new body, and finally let himself realize how much he’d lost, now that he no longer needed to barrier himself from his negative emotions to survive.

“Can one of you bring me a mirror?” He asked.

One was carted in on wheels within the minute.

He lost some of his melancholy when he saw his own image.

At least his new look reflected his personality quite well. He bore a coat of thin, dark-grey fur. His mane, and tail were pitch-black, and bleach-white. The two colours were in streaks. The black going forward, and the white going down, and onto his shoulder. His eyes were cold, oh so cold. They always were. Though, instead of being in the normal spectrum of human eye-colour, they were a slightly bluish grey, like blue steel. He had a horn, thank Celestia, and a sharp one, at that. So were his ears, coming to the typical elvish point. He was tall, and thin, almost as high as Luna, and his face-shape was quite unlike that of the other stallions he’d seen. No, his face was quite angular, and bony. Closer to that of the princesses than the commonplace stallions of Equestria.

“Stoic, is everything alright?” Twilight asked.

“No, starting with the fact that I am now nameless, because Stoic is dead. I am but a shadow now, a shadow of my former self.”

“Way to pummel yourself.” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“On the bright side, the first impressions this body is giving me are good. I feel unusually clear-minded this morning, even though I haven’t used any solution, the way I look reflects my personality a lot better, and a lot of the scars, defects, and calluses I've built over the decades have disappeared. I guess I shouldn't be complaining at all, I get to be alive.”

“I don’t think we can name you until we really get to know you.” The white princess said.

“Well I guess time will solve that problem...... Wait. Lyra’s here? I thought you’d send her to the moon, or something.”

The white princess looked hurt.

“Sorry.”

“She’s been silently going crazy over the idea of humans for years, and has constantly been told off for it. When she saw you... Well... Let’s just say a dam broke in her mind. She wasn't quite thinking straight at the time, but it all turned out okay in the end . So I decided to let her off the hook. Personally, I don’t think there’s anypony in Equestria who could be more devoted. So, until you get the hang of this society, and its rules, she will be your caretaker.” The white princess said.

Lyra grinned, making the infamous “Squee”.

“Oh, I guess this means we get to finish our conversations about what equestrians already knew about humans.” The now nameless pony said to Lyra.

End of part 4

Part five; An Education

They had decided the way to go was to let Lyra, and Stoic leak information to each other over time, and come back in a few weeks with their conclusions. After all, Lyra possessed several rare books that had been written by ponies who died long ago, on the subject of humans. Books thought to be nothing more than an over-zealous elaboration on an old filly’s tale. Books recovered from ruins, and books never seen in any Equestrian library before. And if Stoic was going to learn the rules of Equestrian Society, Lyra was the most qualified bridge between the two cultures.

The hold up on Celestia’s duties had gone on far too long. Her political discussions had been put off to the max, and she still had to fit the summer sun celebration in there. Celestia had no choice but to hand the work to somepony else. Lyra was just the only one who could most comprehend what she was dealing with. Besides, how much could the survivor learn about their customs locked away within a castle?

On the issue of The Doctor, which the group did not fail to mention, and his prophecies alike, they had decided that he was too elusive to try and catch. They were to let him find them, and give the survivor instructions to prepare for the looming slaughter in years to come. Though, word of the end-beings was not to be let leaked into the public until proper defenses were set up.

Who was once Stoic, was still trying to master his new body. He, Lyra, and the six of harmony remained in the quarters, where we left off, trying to teach, and learn.

“You see, the cerebellum... The balance-dictating center of a human’s brain is very developed, compared to most four-legged animals. That’s why I was able to stand on two legs all the time. But I’ve lost all that. I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to drunkenness.” Stoic said.

“Drunkenness?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a state of stupor caused by the imbibing of...” The Survivor was cut off.

“Alcohol; a substance made by the rotting of certain plant materials under specific conditions.” Lyra finished, beaming with pride.

“You and I really need to have a talk about where you get this knowledge, sometime.” The survivor said.

“Oh, lots of places. You’ll see soon enough. Though, let me tell you; Bonbon made it very hard for me to get ahold of that information...” She replied.

“Who’s Bonbon?” He asked.

“My roommate. We share our house in Canterlot.”

“And she didn’t find me... How?”

“She was in Ponyville. She left to do business at the Summer Sun Celebration, and I was going to meet her there later, playing music as usual. However, things can change.”

“Do you think we should be cautious about my identity? Especially to your house-friend.” He said, inspecting his hooves.

“Don’t worry, you have a pony body now. You won’t seem nearly as strange. I would love to see the look on her face anyhow.”

“Sounds good to me.” He said, boxing into thin air with his new forelimbs.

“Haha, what’re you doing?” Asked Pinkie.

“.... Oh, nothing...” He replied, a little embarrassed.

“It’s how humans used to fight when they didn’t have weapons. They used their fists to bludgeon things.” Lyra cut in.

The unnamed one shot her a glare.

He shook off the minor distraction, and went back to testing his new body. This time, he tried to stand up straight like he used to. He had only minor success for major effort, for he stood extremely awkwardly, and the limit at his hip was almost too great.

Lyra decided to join him, and got onto her back hooves with little effort. Though she was definitely awkward in her posture, she had obviously spent many hours practicing the feat, and far surpassed the former human in skill.

“There goes my dignity.” He said.

Lyra couldn’t help but grin, for obvious reasons.

He gave up, and returned to the ground.

“Ya’ know, there’s something I’ve been noticing about these hooves...”

“What is it?”

“They have their own magic. For example, they’re soft, and fuzzy, but still make the distinctive ‘clop’ noise upon striking a hard surface. Furthermore, I’ve seen ponies holding things with them. I have little idea how it works. I never knew organic integration of horn-fractals were practical, or even plausible.”

“It’s called ‘Hoof Magic’. Everypony has it. But it’s tricky, and ponies spend a’ many hour figurin’ it out.” Said Applejack, who had been silently watching the scene play out.

“Aptly named... Hoof magic.” he replied

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the next few hours, the nameless, grey pony and his companions would teach each other things. The grey would tell tales of his past, and explain magic, and the seven others would try to teach him to use his new body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The six of harmony had left for Ponyville. They had their own duties to fulfill. Ponyville was lacking an apple farmer, a caretaker of wildlife, a librarian, a seamstress, a baker/party organizer, and a critical weather-pony for almost three days, after all.

Night was falling, and they decided to leave the castle, giving their farewells to the princess before they left.

For the third time, our nameless pony was in the streets of Canterlot. This time, he afforded the willpower to examine his surroundings, and had his auxiliary processor map the area as he saw it.

Lyra caught onto his violently flitting eyes.

“You look like you’re having a nervous breakdown. What’re you looking at?” She asked.

“Everything. I’m memorizing the layout of this city. You never know when that knowledge might come in handy.”

“Oh... How? Do all humans have photographic memory?” Lyra asked.

“Nonononono. Not at all, well, not naturally. When I was a baby, like all of the others, was given a personal computing device. It’s called an auxiliary processor, and has been fused with the bone of my skull, and has billions upon billions of thin little branches that read my neurons, and tell it what I’m thinking. Really, it’s a little more than half of me, and without it, I’d die.”

“How does it work... And for that matter, how’d it get inside your skull?”

“Ooohh... You just asked for a looooong story. One that I’m bored of telling. I think I can shorten it for you though... As for how my auxxie got in there, well... it was simply teleported in, and fused to my cranium with a bunch of barbed metal pins...” He replied.

“...But if I’m to get down to the details, I’ve really got to get familiar with what level of technology you ponies have. It’s kind of hard to make technological relations to anypony other than a dedicated scientist. So far, your advancement is an absolute mystery to me. I see you have what appears to be electricity, but you still use candles. Light bulbs were like... One of the first things we really did with electricity. I see arcades... yet nobody... err... nopony seems to know what a computer is. So where do you stand technologically?” He finished

“Umm, good question. Not something I ever imagined talking about. For starters, umm... We have... Wheels? I don’t know what’s relevant information, or what’s not... It’s kind of hard to tell you what we don’t know, if you see what I mean.”

“Ok, we could try a white-space reality-tunnel junction. Use thoughts, pictures, and feelings, rather than words.”

“Wh... What are you talking about?”

Stoic looked a little disappointed.

“I was sure you’d have heard of it if there were actually any other humans around. It’s a technology as old as our utopian times... It’s a technology that allows for one, or more people’s consciousnesses to enter a computed realm called ‘White-space’, or ‘Think-space’. This is a virtual medium in which thoughts can be held like physical objects, passed around, mutated, improved upon, saved, or loaded freely. The realm its self is mostly generated by your own mind, but the machine does a bunch of interfacing between its participants to make sure you’re all seeing the same thing. This was the very spearhead of technology that brought along the most peaceful ages humanity ever had. It was the final step in our unity, because never before could man have understood his fellow so well. It also allowed huge brainstorms, with hundreds, or even thousands of participants, immediately bringing the end of the ancient social structure of bureaucracy.”

“Umm... Wow. There’s more to humans than I thought. Are there any side effects to using it?”

“Well, other than going unconscious for about half the perceived time we spend there, no.”

“I’m a pretty open-minded pony, but that kind of scares me.”

“Why would you find this frightening?”

“It’s kind of a privacy thing. I have secrets, and I don’t want you, or anypony else knowing them.” She replied.

“What happens in the medium is absolutely consciously controlled. Besides, the benefits of knowing yourself, via reading your own mind like a book is completely life-changing... Or so I would assume... would far outweigh petty lost secrets. Knowing yourself can be one of the greatest advantages you can , only expending an hour or so, while doing it..”

“Kind of hard to argue against that...” She responded. “...So... when do we do this... Mind-meld?” Lyra asked.

Stoic chuckled. “Haha... Mind-meld. I never heard it put that way.” “As soon as we can find a place where we can be undisturbed, and you’re ready, I guess. Your own abode would be the ideal place.” Nameless replied

“When is ‘Ready’?” Lyra asked.

“Well, because you don’t have an auxiliary, your mind is unmapped, so ready is when my processor understands your mind. If we tried to connect any sooner, things could become pretty nightmare-ish.”

“Ok. But I still have questions, why is there a difference in time speeds in the medium?”

“Wow, you can really bullethole with questions...”

“What’s a bullethole?” She asked.

Nameless facepalmed... facehoof’d. He probably should have seen that one coming.

Lyra grinned obnoxiously.

“Ok, the time difference exists because your outside senses are completely cut off, and because of that, a huge portion of the work your mind must do that normally lags it down is let off. A bullethole, by the way is...”

“I know what a bullet is. I’m just pulling your leg.”

“You’re just acting up because you’re ecstatic, aren’t you?”

Lyra put off her obnoxiousness for a second, and admitted so.

“So... How much farther is your house from here? I didn’t have the willpower left to mark the path from it to the castle the first time we ran it.”

“Oh, about a quarter mile. Maybe you could practice your running on the way there.”

“Might as well...” He said, taking off into a lopsided gallop.

Lyra tried to turn the thing into a race, but didn’t bother when she saw how inept Nameless was with his body. She also realized that even if Nameless caught lead, he wouldn’t know which turns to take to get to her house.

It wasn’t long before they reached her home. It was a fairly simple construct, just a one story, white, square house. It wasn’t much different from the surrounding houses either.

They entered, and Nameless witnessed the abandoned table which Stoic was once strapped to. It was not much more than an improvised, plain dinner table. Its previous load had been carried off elsewhere, and the table had hastily been fitted with thick, cloth straps, nailed to the upperside, and underside of the planken table.

The place was in a pretty big mess. Scraps of parchment lay everywhere, and the furniture was in general disarray.

“Sorry, I just got a little worked up while I had you in my hooves.”

“Errm... Ok...”

Lyra began to re-arrange everything, using telekinesis to move things to their proper place, and hash the paper she had lying every which way. Pretty soon the place looked absolutely normal. The table showed no more evidence of Stoic’s presence than subtle nail-holes, which had been partially closed, and flattened with magic..

“Haha, this is a pretty nice place.” Nameless remarked.

“Thanks, so how do we start this mind-meld?”

“I already have. It’ll only be 4, or 5 minutes until we’ll be ready to undergo our white-space reality-tunnel junction. SO, let’s relax. It’s been far too exciting for the tastes of anyone I can imagine, lately. So I propose we make tea, and discuss how to navigate white-space over it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me...” She responded, fetching a few tea-bags from a high shelf in her larder, a pair of teacups, and a kettle.

She was about to light her stove under the kettle, before Nameless stopped her.

“Haven’t you mastered the fire magiks at an early age?”

“No, ponies can only learn a few spells, and a bunch of theory in magic school. I wasn’t one of the fillies who had the ability to control fire.”

“You’re telling me there’s some sort of limitation on how much magic you can learn?”

“You’re telling me there isn’t supposed to be one?”

“I need to think about this, and HARD.” Nameless said, after a few seconds in confusion.

“Should we solve this mystery in whitespace?” Lyra proposed.

“Wonderful idea.” Nameless said, focusing the magic of his newly acquired horn on his cup.

The water quickly rose to a boil, and was fed a teabag. The steeping took only a second, because it was expedited by magic. The cloud of green/yellow quickly diffused, and tinted the water.

“Should I do the same for your cup?”

“Oh.. sure.” She said. The aura surrounding her cup shifted from green to dark-gray, as Nameless took control. The water rose to a boil instantly, and again, steeped in short order.

They sat down across from each other, and prepared to chat.

Nameless took a sip, and said “The first entrance to white-space is almost always jarring, especially to those of extroverted nature, mostly because it instantly makes an introvert out of them. You’ll see everything that has ever made you ugly. You will hate yourself for it, and you will spend gratuitous amounts of time perfecting your character. Self-observation in white-space is THE FASTEST way to grow up, and that’s why we made it a mandatory experience for our children to have upon physical maturity.”

“And the way this is supposed to go, eventually everypony will be doing the exact same?” Lyra asked.

“Ah, yes. In coming times this society will be shaken to its very foundations, ripped apart, and sewn back together by the careful ha... hoof of Celestia. No, things will never be the same again, but in this case, that’s probably not going to be a bad thing.” He answered, sipping again.

“I don’t know whether to fear the future, or look forward to it.” She said.

“Well, seeing as the first thing to disappear will be physical labour, we will have to be careful about the introduction of this tech. We can’t just displace all of the farmers, and cloud-clearers with machines, not in this sort of social structure. They would instantly be forced from their talents, and empoverished. The future will come gradually, so there won’t be THAT much shock. However, the world of information will be unlocked within the year, and....” He trailed off.

“What...? What comes next?” Lyra asked.

“We’re ready.”

“Oh...”

“Let’s find somewhere to lie down. Being woken from white-space rudely isn’t pleasant, if we should fall.”

“Oh, we have two beds, you can use Bonbon’s.”

“Sounds good to me.” He replied.

They trotted into what was clearly a bedroom, housing minimal furniture, but the aforementioned beds, a cabinet, a dresser, a shared nightstand, and a chest.

Stoic wondered what its contents were for a second, but dropped the curiosity when he lay down on a bed with blankets themed after candy.

“What now?” Asked the turquoise unicorn laying down on her own bed.

“You consent to the link. My computer won’t let me if you don’t. SO. Do you, Lyra... Do you have a last name?”

“Heartstrings. Lyra Heartstrings.”

“Ok. Do you, Lyra Heartstrings of Canterlot, agree to participate in a multi-sensory, fully-synchronized, unpryed, two-mind, direct, computer assisted white-space cognitive interaction?”

“Err... That’s weird that you would have to ask that, but yes, I do.” She said, staring to the roof.

She immediately lost control of her muscles, and everything seemed to slow down to a crawl. Her own breathing a low bubbling noise among a rising rushing sound. A sound not unlike that of a river, it was.

Her vision blurred as her eye’s muscles relaxed, and blacked as her eyelids shut over them. Quickly the blackness began to fade into a gray, and then a white. The feeling of her back against her bed vanished, and was replaced with the feeling of her hooves against a hard, cold, flat surface. The ‘floor’ beneath her, and the edge of space in every direction was white. Nothing she could see but white.

“Stoic... Err... Whatever your name is... Are you here?” She asked into the void.

No reply.

“H... Hello?”

No reply.

She began to feel boxed in, and claustrophobic.

“Don’t tell me I’m alone...” Her voice echoed.... ECHOED?

She immediately thought herself confirmed to be boxed into a room.

“I think I’m trapped, what do i do... Stoic!” She whimpered.

“But you aren’t!” A reply came, in her own voice.

She was stunned.

A duplicate of herself materialized in front of her.

Her eyes widened in shock, and she backed away.

“What, it’s just me. You know, Stoic... Err... Whatever my name is now.” Her doppelganger replied.

“But you look like me...” She replied.

“You forget this is nothing more than a perception, right? I didn’t assign myself a form in whitespace, so you probably did for me, subconsciously. Hold on.”

The turquoise unicorn she saw flashed into a taller, thinner, darker unicorn stallion, his edges conforming to a glitched outline momentarily, before becoming clear again.

“Better?” He said, in a now deeper voice.

“Yeah, I guess.” She answered.

“Now, this is where things get amazing, and intricate. This is where you must learn to speak without words.” Nameless said.

“You mean... Should I just try to project my thoughts to you?” She asked.

“Yeah, that works, but there are more ways than that.” He replied.

“How?” She quizzed

“I don’t know, just try. The most I can tell you is to search for a link to my mind in your own, and simply try to interact with it.”

Lyra sat her pseudo-physical body down, and searched the boundaries of her consciousness.

Nameless again flickered between physical bodies, from the tall, lanky unicorn, to the tall, lanky human, though in a loose, black robe, rather than than his black armour.

Lyra found something. A sparking, living spot of leaking patterns that felt completely alien to her. It was never there before, and was completely out of her control. This spot was apparently both connected to, yet not part of her mind. It was like an eye she had no control of, yet could still see through.

She directed her attention at it, and thought an image to it.

Almost instantly it reacted, and sent another image back. An image of a relic Lyra had something similar too. A relic she had dug up in some old ruins, and wondered about for ages.

*Link established. ^_^* Was the first message to come through, strangely attached to a facial expression.

She tried words.

*This... This is novel.* She replied telepathically.

*Don’t think in direct words, give me meaning, and my own mind will do the work automatically.* She got back.

*Oh* She replied

*I mean... ‘corrected’ ‘acknowledge past failure ‘* Which roughly translated into “Oh, I see”

*You see, there can be little misunderstanding when we communicate like this. The flaws of spoken language are bypassed. One side of the communication where error can arise is eliminated completely, and the other only receives something that his/her own mind can only interpret correctly.

*’question logic of the purpose of presence of spoken language at all’* Which roughly translates to “Why must my mind interpret this into language at all” Lyra thought

*It doesn’t need to, you will stop imagining words altogether in due time, and simply understand my thought without having to travel through that step. However, the transcription occurs as an automatic effect of your own mind trying to understand what reaches it.*

*’Agreement’, ‘determining next proper response’* Lyra thought to the link. (Keep in mind that the phrases enclosed in single quotes are unworded thought, and have been partially re-worded because they are on text. For example, ‘Agreement’ is really a state of mind that Lyra is expressing, and when put into words from her real mouth, in this context, would sound something like “Ok, I get it... umm...”.)

“So, there’s two things we must do while we’re here. One; we can get this technology thing ironed out, or two; I can give you a tour of your own mind.” He spoke, with his pseudo-physical body.

“I’m pretty curious about what happens if I get to view my own mind because you hyped it so much. So... I think that’s what I want to do first.”

“Alright with me.” he said.

His pseudo-physical vessel sat against the currently physically anomalous, and ambiguous white floor, in a pose with folded legs, and hands up, with the elbows supported by the knees, as if supporting a weighted orb. A moment later, exactly that materialized. Within his clutches a blank, reflective orb faded into existence. Lyra could see her own face in it.

Lyra decided to imagine the floor was cold, solid, and not unlike smooth granite. It became so. Using her imaginary hooves, she stepped across the now less symbolic flooring, to approach her new companion.

As she approached, the orb Nameless held began to become transparent.

A jagged three-dimensional model of her own body was unveiled within, occasionally spinning on all three axis to allow view from another perspective.

*That’s strange. Usually the image is quite detailed and smooth* Was the message that was fed to her mind.

*Is it dangerous that I’m an exception?* She thought in reply.

*Haha, no, we can still use this, but it probably means you have been having some self-identification problems. That’s exactly what this whole thing will solve anyhow.*

Nameless let the sphere float up, and out of his hands, as if it were a helium balloon. It came to a rest a couple feet in front of him, at about his shoulder-level.

Lyra decided to conduct an experiment. She concentrated on her own figure, and began to redefine, adding clothing, and beginning to make more dramatic changes, before Nameless stopped her.

*That’s not how you do it. You must be more abstract, let your subconscious fill in the details. Not to mention, there are some pretty ugly transitional stages if you don’t store the thought, and act carefully.*

*How do I store a thought?*

*Create an object, and bind a concept to it. What you’re allowed to do is extremely free. There are many things you can do to a thought once it is on the server, and not in your own mind.*

*Server? Is that the processor thing you were talking about?*

*Yes.*

Lyra wondered what reach of her mind to command into producing a sphere, just like Nameless’s. She decided what to do, and acted upon it. She only ended up activating a few muscles on the back of her neck, causing her head to crane backwards.

*Try, instead of straining to make something simply appear, imagine it is already there. If you think it will help, blink, or close your eyes.*

She did just that. She relaxed, closed her eyes, and decided that there was a sphere right in front of her face, black, and starry. She opened her eyes, and was startled by exactly that right in front of her nose.

*Great, now bind some thought to it.*

*How?*

Suddenly, Lyra felt a great portion of Nameless’s mind introduced to her own. She began to feel the sensation of simultaneously focusing her mind on the object, and sending thoughts through another link she hadn’t noticed yet.

The invasive presence of Nameless quickly dissipated.

*That... That was very uncomfortable... But it was AWESOME.* She replied, before attempting to replicate the action she was just shown. Focus on the object, send information through a second link.

She felt the thought push through, and the link was sending her very same thought back to her.

*Whoa, all this brain-stuff is starting to drive me up the wall, exactly how many links are there to my mind now?*

*Normally just one for any object you focus on, and one per other person in session. Right now we each have two links. I will now read what is in the sphere, and supervise it as you change it.* He replied.

She didn’t reply, but focused on the image of a human, before sending it through. Almost instantly, the sphere she created became translucent, and an image of a human appeared in it. At first, it was a very rough picture, lacking facial features, or a proportionally correct body. But it quickly became a clothed human with mint-green hair, large golden eyes, a somewhat fair skin-tone, with a pretty slender build, much shorter than Stoic, and lacking the ridiculously ductilated features.

She tried to apply this thought to her own image like she did before, but Nameless stopped her.

*It isn’t complete. You don’t know what it’s like to be human, what nerves attach where, or what muscles move what. No information can be created out of nothing, so I will donate those sensations to this avatar.*

In almost no-time, the reply-signals coming from the second link began changing. Nothing Lyra did to that bound thought was anything but visual, but what Nameless was doing was adding depth. The weight of the arms, the superior sense of balance, the springy, bouncy power in the legs, all sorts of small details, from things as large as calf-muscles, to the feeling of air running through a pointed nose.

*Now you can try.* He replied a few seconds later.

She tried on her new skin, to discover how intensely surreal it was to try out another body. Never in her life could she ever imagine anything like it. Every sensation that Nameless essentially took for granted flooded her mind as entirely new.

Though her elation was cut short by Nameless interrupting.

*Look, I know. Fun. There are a million ways to have fun here, but we gotta move on. I have basically copied your mind into my processor, and bound it to this sphere, just connect to it via the second link, and my processor will simulate you, and give you responses identical to how you would.*

Lyra wondered what it would be like, until she realized that this wasn’t speculation, and that she should actually begin conversing with herself.

She concentrated on the orb, and as soon as she fed the link a thought, she got a reply.

^Stoi... Nameless, is that you? I can’t see! Please help me!^

*Calm down, you’re not the real Lyra. I am.*

^Wha..? I don’t see how I’m ANY less real than you!^

*Very simple, you’re a creation of Stoi... Nameless. You only exist in his computer thing, while I have a brain.*

^I think, therefore I am! I never thought I would get such guff from MYSELF!^

“Oh, she’s right....” She thought to herself. This momentary break in concentration let her catch onto the fact that Nameless was about to burst out laughing.

“You’re really arguing with yourself? Not even the most.... Look, and understand how unbelievably pointless it is to disagree with yourself about certain things. You’re both the real you, you will soon gain the memories of the virtual copy of you, who will essentially become you when that happens. This action is called virtual personality splitting, and can be exploited to no end. Like Trio the Observer, a self-alterer who had hundreds, upon thousands of virtual minds put into mechanical bodies, exploring the world, and conducting experiments, just to merge memories with him in the end. He was by far the most learned man... Err.... Whatever he wanted to be... In existence.” Nameless said out loud.

“Just how well do you get along with yourself, and exactly how many minds can that thing hold?” She replied.

“I get along perfectly with my self, that’s what this whole thing is about. Getting you to get along perfectly with yourself. When you gain her memories, you will feel all of the pain and offense you caused, and this WILL change you. SO, let’s try again. I will merge you two, and we will start again with a slightly more educated version of you. And by the way, I can simulate up to five minds, each mind connected to the server takes away about 0.8 from that number, but I can store up to six-hundred in data, though roughly one third of that is already taken up.”

“How come you can only have a few people on, or being simulated, but can store SIX HUNDRED?!”

“Umm... That’s a technology thing, and will require a lot more than words to explain in short time. By word, it would take both years, and your continual curiosity. Please finish the introspection first.”

“Alright, but you gotta tell me why we’re using speech, though.”

“Just because it feels right sometimes. Why should I be redundant?”

“Oh... Ok.”

“Now, I have prepared another copy, this time she will know what’s going on, but I will merge the older one’s memories before I let you speak with her.”

Nameless visibly concentrated on the sphere in front of him. After a few seconds went by, he gave Lyra the OK sign.

Lyra opened her second link to the object, and suddenly felt a load of information dumped on her mind. At first she acquired a memory of becoming disembodied; the exact moment she was copied. After came a cry for help, to discover her first link was gone, and she could no longer contact Nameless. She waited a couple seconds in silence, before receiving contact from who turned out to be... her. She remembered the insult she felt from being called out as fake, and the hopelessness after her alter ego left, letting her stew in the cold for a minute, before...... Becoming re-embodied.

Her first thought afterwards was “I’m ALIVE!!”. She then realized that she was also her own antagonist, and had a small cache of new memories hidden to her before re-embodiment.

It was a completely new feeling to her, like an explosion of previously hidden Deja Vu’s. Immediately she saw what she did wrong, and sought to make sure it never happened again.

*Now, I think I might want to update this new copy with your newfound knowledge.* Nameless said.

*Alright.* Lyra reciprocated in the format of thought.

She didn’t feel anything, like last time. She didn’t feel anything but the former human whispering *It’s ready* into her mind.

*It’s still in the sphere, right?*

*Yes.*

She joined it in thought, to collide with an equal response from her emulated self.

^Hi me!^ Was the message they were both in the process of saying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nearly an entire hour of conversation with none other than Lyra’s own self followed. She could hardly believe some of the things she said, or some of the self-images she often inadvertently shattered by entering certain scenes of conversation. All the while Nameless sat in his leg-folded stance, patiently meditating, presumably thinking about his next lesson.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nameless animated from his stone-stillness, and said aloud “That’s enough.”

“But it was just getting fun!” She responded.

“There’s matters of perspective here that we need to resolve. We need to move to technology, besides, you two need to be rejoined soon.”

“Oh, I... we’ve been wondering, is it possible to give her a body in this dimension? I’m sure she... I... Felt extremely claustrophobic without a body, but full conscience.”

“I was waiting for you to ask that question, and the answer is yes. All you must do is change that sphere.”

Lyra decided to do exactly that. She simply fed the image of her old body into the sphere with the intention of changing its form, rather than its bound mind. The sphere neither hesitated to follow her command, or made an error while doing so. Soon her copy stood in front of her as a pony, in contrast to the fantasy body Lyra made for herself.

“So the answer was yes!” The turquoise pony said out loud.

“Now let’s see if you two can merge memories, again become one and the same.”

The twin consciousnesses of Lyra curiously prodded each other, looking for a way into the other.

The emulatee (Eh-mew-late-ee) decided to try dumping all of her memories into the original, until Nameless stopped them both.

*Nonono. This results in the emulatee becoming obsolete, and awaiting erasure. I will give you a hint, only the original has the power to do this, and you must keep in mind that the emulatee is part of the computed environment which is subject to the WSRTJ Participant’s imaginations.* Nameless projected to them both.

Both Lyras thought for a minute, before the copy came up with a solution.

*Try consciously willing that we are the exact same, and that I (Non-verbally emphasizing that “I” applies to both consciousnesses) again share the same mind.*

Lyra decided exactly that was true. And so it became. A sudden influx of memory was expected, and that expectation was fulfilled. But this was different. Again she experienced the continuity of her copy, where she was slightly afraid of simply vanishing forever. Her hour-long session with herself doubled, basically. She realized that she was given the power to think at twice the speed of anypony else. Then it came, an amazing sensation of self-fulfillment, when she looked back and found herself able to review both sets of memories at once, like she was both at the same time, looking back, yet oblivious to her other half during the span.

She sat, and reviewed her feelings again for the next minute, before finally drawing the conclusions about herself. She was now a hundred times more sure of her limits, and strengths than ever before.

“Great, now you’ve become an adult by human standards, and the rest of your life will be filled with moments of self-alteration. This is the part where I teach you everything I know about technology, and you tell me where your societies limits are on technology. After we do this, our conversations can be infinitely more clear when we’re out of white-space.”

“Why should we ever leave white-space?” Lyra replied.

“Because we have duties in real life, and I will never know your people without some experience out there. Besides, retreatance into white-space for extended times has an unhealthy effect on your psyche. ”

“Oh.... Well I want to be here more than once, at least.”

“That will undoubtedly happen, don’t stress about it.”

“Ok.”

“So... I have been packing a string of lessons into a single vessel. At the age when I received these, I only took them one at a time, but they aren’t dangerous to take en masse, it shouldn’t be too hard to comprehend them all at once.”

“When did you receive them? And will this be boring, like school?”

“I began receiving white-space lessons at the age of six, both under supervision, and limited control of the virtual environment. They are anything but boring, trust me.”

Preparing yet another sphere, he beckoned Lyra to contact it.

And so she did, immediately to receive heaps, and heaps of images, and narratives of meaning. It took her a second, but she began to realize that comprehension was included. Not only did she instantly know what an electrical current was, but she understood it perfectly, and felt it ingrained deeply into her mind. Soon after electricity, came chemistry, transistors, computers, data storage, the internet, the great web of thoughts, the technological revolution, devices of all sorts, and pullum ferrus. When the last subject was reached, a relative explosion of knowledge hit her like a ton of bricks... if what she was just learning didn’t do that already. Thousand-state transistors, absolutely solid matter, dimensional breaching, perpetual motion farms, folding dark-iron, even space colonies sent out to the other planets of the solar system, and even out into the far reaches of the galaxy. Then came the story of the computer trinity, leading the world to its apex, and eventually its doom. All these huge stories of accomplishment left Lyra gawking at the ingenuity of her preceding race.

“You are now as taught as a human first year learner. Usually we’re a ton more casual about education than this, and it would have involved a lot more mental flexion, but I don’t have the time, or the willpower to stretch this out.”

Lyra sent her meagre pool of technology back. The farthest they ever got technologically, without magic, was blasting powder.

“Now that I think about it, Celestia should have put a lot more focus onto technological research.”

“That would never happen without a disturbance in the norm like me. Why ever would you look at the world so scrutinously as we did without the motivation of survival we had. You started out with magic, and the whole world has damaged space to the point of cartoonishness. All these odd distortions, and abstractions of the world around us can easily lead one into the trap of naive realism, and break one from the path of discovery...” Said the Survivor.

“Can I play around here in this white-space?”

“Of course, I’m not bored by meditation, do as you will, I can wait.”

Lyra did exactly that, from designing a sort of game she played against her clone, (involving the iterational mutation of a memetic piece of information, and another copy, acting as a judge to decide what credit went where for the change in the information) to drawing with her mind, to emulating the favourite moments of her life. An hour flew by in no time, and another, and another. Allthewhile The Survivor sat patiently, watching Lyra in her frolic, and communicating with several emulations of himself simultaneously.

Abruptly, he got up, and said “It’s time to return to real life.”

“Why? I’m having a ball!”

“For starters, you begin to lose touch with reality if you stay here too long, I’m unfed, and I need actual sleep on the side. You begin to lose physical prowess if you neglect your body, too. Now that I let my consciousness touch it, all I’ve had in the last few days was some cornbread, and a couple cookies... I think... Hehe, you could say I’m as hungry as a horse... If that pun even makes sense here.”

“I guess... I guess that’s reason enough.” She replied, annoyed at the ridiculous joke.

She inherited all of her clones, and braced for a shock back to reality.

“Now let’s wake.”

Lyra’s emulated senses faded to nothingness, and she felt her real body slowly rejoin her mind. One by one, her limbs became revealed to her. It was a rather pleasant feel, like she was growing.

Eventually, the tips of her hooves rejoined the rest of her body, and she lay in bed, staring blankly at her ceiling, going over this massive pumping of information. Oh... So many new concepts, so much math, and science, and technology. There were bits of culture laced in there also

Eventually, she got the motivation to drop her thought, and sit up. She found the survivor doing the same. Though, instead of marveling at her hooves, like he was, she opened the chest she kept in her room.

“These are things Bonbon always told me to throw away.” She said, as she lifted several items out of it with magic.

“Things she could only recognize as pieces of old scrap metal.”

She brought these artifacts between them, towards The Survivor.

One of them he immediately snatched out of the air with his teeth.

Dropping it on the bed, he asked “Where on earth did you get this?”

“I raided some ruins, found this thing on a pedestal”

“This is a pistol, one of the olden weapons of fire!”

“A what-now?”

“A pistol, it utilizes a mix of chemicals to create a lot of gas behind a piece of metal, propelling it to speeds capable of tearing holes in flesh, or punching through thick metal...” He said, before using magic to drop out the clip.

“It hasn’t got any bullets...” He said.

“I’ve broken the thing down into pieces hundreds of times. and I’ve inspected it very closely, but how does it hurt things? I mean... How do these bullets work? I’ve just never seen the thing working, up close. It’s hard to imagine this thing a real, dangerous weapon that can punch holes in steel.”

“Once those Canterlot ponies give me back my manipulator, I can show you all about it... But this isn’t the only weapon we’ve designed. Before Utopian times came around, we had weapons capable of wiping entire cities off the face of the planet, and hand-held weapons capable of slicing things to bits from miles away, or blasting things as large as a house to smithereens. Seeing what The Doctor was talking about, we may have to build some of those.”

Lyra completely lost it the moment she heard of the city-wiping weapon, shuddering at the mere idea.

“The city-destroying weapon... Why would anyone ever build such a thing?”

“Power, Lyra, power. Psychopathic people got into high power, and got a serious high off of seeing other people bow to them. It’s called an atomic bomb, a weapon that erased a small amount of matter in trade for massive quantities of energy. It would create an explosion so vast that before the shockwave, sand would melt into glass, and people would vaporize instantly. They would even leave shadows in the scorch-marks left behind. But the shockwave would come along, and smash everything to pieces. Blasting trees right out of the ground, and throwing multi-tonned pieces of stone as far as a mile. It would leave the land scarred, and irradiated for centuries, and leave the survivors with radiation-disease.”

Lyra was shocked, absolutely flabbergasted. What sort of creature would even CONSIDER such a thing an option.

“Was... Was it ever used?”

“Yes, thrice, the first two, in the same week. The catastrophes were named Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, after the massive cities they burnt to ashes. The third time was to destroy a quarantined area called ‘The City of the Dead’, which was home to a disease which was both going to kill everyone there anyways, and risk getting out of quarantine if it hadn’t been destroyed. Though, hundreds, if not thousands of atomic bombs were dropped on barren wastelands, to test their function. If I recall my history lessons uncorrupted, there’s got still be some massive, glazen craters in those deserts. It’s quite a sight.”

“That’s... Completely horrifying.”

“It is, but I need to know more about how you got ahold of this pistol, and these other random objects, like an archaic laptop computer, and... What is this thing?” He said, pointing a hoof to a dilapidated, and partially melted piece of steel.

“This thing? I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, I was hoping you’d tell me. But I got these all while raiding the ruins of broken glass.”

“Ruins of broken glass? What on ea... You’re talking about a human city, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Do you have a map?” The Survivor asked.

“Of course I do, right here in this chest, along with all my other favourite things.” Lyra said.

“Are the ruins of broken glass on it?”

“Yes.”

“Show it to me, I am getting a horrible suspicion that this is my home-town.”

A folded map of equestria was taken from the box, and given to The Survivor, the field surrounding it shifting from a green, to a dark-grey.

He looked at it for a minute, before saying “Wow, the ruins are already marked here, and comparing the positions of these ruins to each other... Oh my gosh, it is. I guess those buildings never got buried by sediment.”

“They kind of were. The whole place is full of rooftops sticking up over soil...”

“I want to show you my house, hahaha! I always sort of wanted to know what a place looks like if it isn’t demolished after it’s abandoned.” The Survivor said.

“Your house is still around?”

“Well, yes. It’s not like it’s made of materials that rot, or break easily. You could yank the thing out of the ground with a chain, and drag it a hundred miles across the ground at about 200 MpH, and it’d be fine.”

“What... Are you exaggerating, or not... I can’t tell.”

“No, not at all. The thing is absolutely solid. There is no way to bend it without telling its computer to do so.”

“But everything would be thrown everywhere, if you were to tug it around like that.” Lyra said.

“You’re probably right about that.” He replied.

“Wait, weren’t we going to try to figure out why unicorns are only limited to a few spells?”

“I did, you unicorns aren’t. But because of this race’s lack of understanding of the M.A.G.I.C. field, it is very, very hard to comprehend exactly what a spell is. On the subconscious level, this has a huge effect, and your subconscious is quite important when it comes to spellcasting.”

“... Oh... I think I’ve heard a theory like that floating around...”

“Good, you ponies have thinkers among you, then.”

“So wait, do you think we should go to the ruins sometime?”

“Certainly, but we’ve got time. My home town isn’t exactly going anywhere.”

“You’re making sense... Is this a detail we should tell the scientists in canterlot?”

‘Sure, I’m making a list of them. Well, not a physical one...”

“Ok...” Lyra replied.

A minute passed in silence.

“I think I figured out what that melted hunk of metal is. It’s got to be one of our energy weapons. Their internal generators can overheat in no time if they’re damaged. Who knows what damaged it in the first place.”

“An energy weapon? What is that?”

“An energy weapon is a weapon that projects some form of heat, or light towards a target. The earliest I can recall was the Greek Fire flame thrower. A weapon that was mounted on boats, and would spray burning naphtha on to other boats to ignite them. Low-tier energy weapons are by far the most horrible way to die we’ve ever conceived. However, our laser pistols had the power to burn a hole straight through someone near instantly, and sear the nerve-endings, ensuring a painless death.”

“That is really, REALLY messed up... Tell me more.”

“Ok... Umm... The Laser Pistol was designed to eliminate the quarantined of the City of the Dead should they try to escape, or incinerate infected remains. It used a light, 620,000 times brighter than the sun, fired in a perfectly straight line to completely evaporate organic matter, turn steel into red-hot butter, or draw graffiti into the ground with scorched earth, hahaha!! If the databases in my town have survived, I can build one, and show you the sort of power they packed. It will plain blow your mind, the sort of destruction those can cause with the lightest tap of the finger.” The survivor said, with a voice full of pride.

“Do you have some sort of affinity for death? You’re getting way too excited about that laser-pistol thing... You’re kinda scaring me.” Lyra said.

“No, it’s just that we ran these war-simulators for fun. All the adrenaline, and challenge of warfare, minus the pain, grief, and suffering left behind. Such fun memories. It was nothing more than friendly competition, I swear.” Nameless replied.

“This is getting weirder by the minute, I love it!! Tell me more about these war simulations please.” Lyra requested.

“Oh, gee. We would set up two teams of players every month or so, all the workers in the tower would get together into a big room, and hook up to... connect to a really powerful computer, that, unlike whitespace, imposed rules, and generated most of the details of cyber-space, instead of the minds of the users having complete control. We would all be assigned roles, be given goals, and weapons based on what we requested. We would then proceed to strategically fight, and kill each other to achieve our goals. The consequences of dying varied each game, sometimes they resulted in permanent removal from the game, or sometimes you simply ‘respawned’ somewhere, or sometimes you were brought back with all of the others who died in a ‘reinforcements call’. We would play this game to relieve stress, and just have some fun.”

“Does it hurt when you die?”

“Well, you feel the bullets hitting, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as it should. What would normally knock the breath out of you, and make you cry for mother feels more like a hard jab with a stick. When you die, you’re left to harmlessly spectate the game for a while.”

“So what do you have at your house?”

“Shush, no more questions, let’s get something to eat, and a good night’s rest first.”

Lyra paused for a minute, and made a decision.

“There’s a restaurant downtown that’s got some pretty awesome food. Normally, Bonbon would cover this issue, I’m not exactly the best cook.”

“Alright then, let’s take off.”

End of part 5.

Part one: an Odd Find

A fan fiction by Triotheyoshi. I don’t own any of the characters, nor will I try to make any money from this creation, read, and enjoy.

(Proofread by Spartanfoks, and Magmis123)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The black, metallic Sphereoids followed it on its way out of the glass coffin, hovering, upright over the ground. Like scattered ducklings behind their mother. They dipped, and bobbed over the metal grating as they, and their master hobbled for the panel Pinky was just on moments ago.

“I might have to go back to stasis” it grumbled as it awkwardly stepped forwards, catching itself falling multiple times. (It probably ignored the fact that it was awoken from suspended animation by ponies, because it was very, very groggy.)

After looking drunkenly for only a few seconds, the biped reacted as if it’d been struck. Snapping away from the dashboard as if it saw the eyes of the devil laying there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh my gosh, this is deja vu!" Rarity said to her sister, watching the rest of Ponyville scurry like mad ants outside her window.

"Well, at least we get the Summer Sun celebration again... It kinda sucks that Nightmare Moon ruined it last year, though." Replied Sweetie Belle.

"Watch your mouth, Sweetie... Ugh, so much work left. Perhaps Twilight can help us sort this out again."

Instead of replying, Sweetie belle simply turned around, and walked into her room.

Upon her door shutting, the ground began to vibrate. It was subtle, almost too small to notice, but but it went on long after the door shut. It was offputting. Offputting enough to turn Rarity's attention outwards again. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who found it strange . The entire town froze, and gazed in unison.

In the distance, over Ponyville, one of the mountains to the West, opposite from Canterlot, bore a new mark.

Though hardly visible, approximately six hundred feet from end to end, was imposed a scar. A scar of yellow-brown earth, devoid of plant-life, taking a concave, crescent shape.

Hardly visible at all from this distance, let alone through a neglected glass window, were the various pieces of debris, such as uprooted trees, and great boulders.

Confused, and frightened animals scurried away from the mess, some burrowing out of the ground, some crawling out of folds in rippled sod, and some flying out of sideways trees, though these details were too fine to be known to the inhabitants of the little town. A cloud of dust at least as wide as Ponyville roiled up into the sky, however.

The town did not stay still for long. Most witnesses simply shrugged, justifying the event as too distant to matter.

Twilight was sent a letter to investigate from the princess. She was to make sure that nopony got hurt, or worse, killed... So she decided to bring her friends for the sake of safety, and company.

Within a half-hour, the group was quickly trekking up the mountainside, almost beginning to race when they neared their mark.

Rainbow Dash was first on the scene, almost by default. Sitting down impatiently she waited for her friends. They arrived shortly, and together they started to inspect the rubble.

"What do you think happened to the animals who were caught in the landslide!?" Asked Fluttershy.

"Don't worry about it, these are Everfree animals, ah reckon they can take care of themselves." Said the orange one.

She was probably right, Everfree animals possessed unnatural strength, and were very resilient. As long as the ponies of Ponyville were around, they were amazed by the incredible hardiness of the Everfree wildlife.

"I don't hear anypony shouting for help, I think we should probably just go home." Rainbow Dash said.

"Rainbow, we've hardly seen half of this thing."

"But nopony ever comes up these mountains, what are the chances...?" She was asking, before something caught her eye.

"Twilight, what is that?"

The mane six's sights converged on what Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at. From a distance, it appeared to be a rust-red pole jutting out of the mountainside, and upon closer inspection, that's exactly what it was.

"Is that re-bar?" Asked Applejack.

"But what would re-bar be doing up here? There were never any buildings up here, ever!" Rainbow Dash said.

"You don't know that Dash, this re-bar is telling me the exact opposite." Twilight responded.

Pinkie gasped,exclaiming "Somepony could be trapped down there! We gotta save him!", before digging at the dirt around the re-bar with her hooves.

"This is useless, we need to get help." Twilight said.

"Well go get the princess's help!!" Said Applejack.

"It's not like we can just call her for everything, she's a busy pony!" She replied.

"Well there's possibly the life of somepony at stake here! Just go!"

"Alright, I'll go!" She exclaimed, before vanishing in an explosion of light.

"Risk of some exile's life, ah'd say. No use living in such a place, is there?" Said Applejack.

~~~~~~~~

The distance to Canterlot was much to far to do twice. Long teleports were uncannily known to have adverse effects, like tiring the user magically, causing distortions, or sometimes even stealing body heat to the point of freezing. Nopony was stupid enough to go more than a couple miles without special reagents.

Twilight re-apparated in her library, behind a now startled Spike. Who immediately sent a stack of books upwards, and screamed, before turning around.

"That always catches me off guard!" The young wyvern said.

"Sorry Spike. I need you to send a letter." Said Twilight, with a slightly annoyed expression towards the strewn literature.

"Celestia?"

"yes, of course. Who else can even receive those letters?" Spike dug around a bit, and fetched a quill, and scroll.

"Luna maybe....? I'm ready."

" Dear princess Celestia

It appears we have encountered a potentially urgent predicament regarding the landslide on the western mountains. We have discovered evidence that there is an underground construction of some sort, likely collapsed, within the mountainside. We request that you lend us some of your work-force to remove the debris, and free any potentially trapped ponies in the construction. Or maybe, if we're lucky, find some meaningful ruins.

Your faithful student Twilight Sparkle."

Spike emitted a short belch of green flame from his maw, and the paper crumbled into a grey ash, before it flew out the window. Taking a peak, she could see the small cloud of green plasma accelerate to intense speeds within seconds, and shoot out of view.

"Thanks Spike." She said.

"No problem." He was in the process of saying, but Twilight vanished too quickly.

"Geez, somepony's in a rush." He muttered to himself, before picking the books back up.

~~~~~~~~~~

She flashed back again, reappearing in an electric *BANG*, among her friends,

The yellowest one nearly fainted, and for a split second, her smooth hair stood up in spikes, before she cowered under her front hooves. She took a peak to see that it was Twilight and immediately stood up again, a slight blush on her face. all the rest were only mildly startled, Pinkie Pie stood unfazed, and staring intently at Twilight.

"Hi Twilight!" The pink one said.

They had been expecting her return.

"Ah don't s'pose you got the Boss Hoss to help you?"

Twilight cracked up a bit, and so did the rest, until Pinkie Pie just plain burst out laughing. She only really earned glares, but obliviously continues bellowing.

"Boss Hoss huh?" Dash asked.

"Wow, how informal" said Rarity.

"Celestia isn't a horse, silly filly!" said Pinkie.

“But I sent the letter, she should be here any minute.” Twilight responded, ending the fit.

Another few minutes passed, in which the ponies nervously scraped the dirt.

In an amazing feat of speed, the alicorn descended from the sky. Following her were a few unicorn students twilight recognized, about six, so far nameless pegasi, and an equal number of strong, earth stallions. Occupying flying carriages pulled by guards.

It took the princess a grand total of seven minutes to gather a workforce, and arrive, miles from Canterlot. This wasn't the first time in her ageless existence she had to rally up a workforce in a moment's notice. Unfortunately such action interrupts all of her or business.

"I want you to get this excavated." The alicorn said to one of the crew. Getting a brisk nod in response.

“What are the pegasi for?” Twilight asked

“You never really know.” Said Celestia

Right before leaving, she turned to applejack, with a stupid grin on her face, and whispered something into her ear.

She stood up from her kneel, and took off

The orange pony turned a few shades paler.

"Boss.. Hoss.. She heard that..." Applejack choked out.

"It's called scribing." Responded Twi

They laughed some more, and Twilight Sparkle told Applejack that Celestia was just messing with her. After which, she loosened up quite a bit.

The team of work-ponies began their labour.

Mounds of dirt weighing at least half a ton each were scooped up in bubbles of magic, and expertly tossed rearward. Grains, pebbles, and boulders alike tumbled down the mountainside, ripping up dust, and threatening a rock-slide. The earth ponies, and pegasi simply shoveled surrounding dirt away that might become a hazard to the excavation.

The soil was moved within minutes. Soon, there visibly were five or six feet of rusty steel rebar, jutting out in a rough circle from the mountainside.

Amidst the rebar, in the face of a dusty concrete circle, a large metal door was uncovered, round, and turned so its side pointed out of the mountain, like a butterfly valve. After a short time of careful excavation, it rolled out of its perch, cracking from its hold in the caked earth, when it was a little more than half-uncovered. It almost crushed the pony who had taken the final piece holding it fast. Its heavy, steel, gear-like form bounded down the mountainside with tremendous momentum, embedding itself halfway into the ground when it slammed into a foothill. An audible, concussive thump resounded both through the air, and below their hooves.

"Ok, if that doesn't cause another landslide, then I don't know what will." Said Dash.

Thick concrete was now visible, with rebar spearing out equidistantly.

The concrete incrementally more resembled a tube over the next minute, traveling into the mountain, as more debris was hurled from its face. The whole thing was beginning to look like a sewer pipe.

rather quickly, a tunnel was being excavated, chunks of stone being hurled out were quickly replaced with chunks of ice in their stead.

“This place was frozen in, I don’t think there COULD be any ponies in here” Said Rarity.

"How the hay'd it get frozen in?" Asked AJ

“Easy, something down there's enchanted to absorb heat, and at some point of time, while this mouth was covered, there was a lot of precipitation. Although... reinforced concrete is a relatively new invention, and it takes eons for a place like this to gather so much ice, something just doesn't add up. What if there’s history down there?.” Twilight replied, getting audibly excited.

The mane six sat down, and watched intently, as stallions, and mares alike worked tirelessly, exhuming an ever-growing mass of glacier, and rock. Eventually a call came out from deep within, resounding into the outside world.

"HEY, TUNNEL'S CLEAR PAST HERE"

The girls perked up, and peeked inside, they didn't have to stand outside anymore because they would no longer get in the way of high-speed cobble, and ice fragments en route to exit the cave.

for about fifty feet, the inside surface of the six, or seven foot diameter tube was covered in ice. which was quickly ground off with magic, by a couple unicorns. The concrete hallway appeared to travel at a slight down-angle, into the mountain, for about a thousand feet. An ambient humming, and draft was audible, originating from the far end of the tunnel.

The tunnel was regularly lighted by bright bluish-white tubes, mounted on the walls, which seemed to activate as soon as the mane six passed the ice. The work team paused, one of who said

"This is as far as we go. We weren't given orders to explore this thing, you can go ahead, and find what you were looking for."

Most of them left immediately.

As they left, they left a substantial coil of rope, with one end tied to the rebar outside of the tunnel. Which applejack immediately took responsibility of.

Despite not being payed much attention to, Fluttershy was in shambles, and Rainbow Dash was very reluctant to go on.

"This place is too small" the cyan one said. With a fearful look on her face. Her claustrophobia was understandable. Pegasi are very used to being free, in extremely open spaces.

"ECHO" Pinkie screamed, the sound returning many times in the next few seconds.

"Eeep" was all the shy one could squeak out.

"What are these?" Said the lavender one, as she hoofed one of the lights on the side of the tunnel. Who could not help but stare at each one as they progressed.

"This place is so drab!" Rarity complained. It was true, the walls were very plain, cracking, and cold, and the whole thing smelled of musty old concrete.

Every hoofstep echoed back loudly, with a sewer-esque distortion the tunnel gave.

Twilight peered back, the mouth of the tunnel was now dark-purple, the sun was setting.

It took another ten minutes, the gaping mouth of the tunnel shrunk to a pinprick, and the end of the tunnel was visible. Another metal door stood in their path.

This one wasn't rusted, or turned sideways, though. a button was visible on the side of the door, about a foot higher than the heads of any of the ponies.

As they neared it, they realized that it probably moved the door, quite how though, was a mystery.

the group stood in front of it, it's huge presence slightly intimidating.

"Do you think we should?" Applejack aked, spitting out the much-thinned coil.

"Of course! What could possibly be in there to harm us? There aren't any known creatures that lived past an ice-age." Twilight said. "Those lights alone prove that somepony, or someone was good at using magic. This might even be where Starswirl disappeared to after his final time spell. Opening this door could have a profound effect on the future of Equestria."

"I gotta see" Said Dash.

Pinkie pie momentarily spazzed out. "Whoa! a double-back leg fold, a tail-twitch, and a neck wobble all at once?"

"what do you think that means?" Applejack said.

"I have NO idea!" The pink one said. "Should be fun to find out!". Immediately after, she bounced up, and slammed the button with her nose.

The rest of the group gaped for a second.

"Uh oh" said Dash, as Fluttershy backed into her.

“Sorry, had to do it to advance the plot.” The pink one said.

Steam burst out of the crack of the door, hissing, and dampening the nearby concrete.

The door rolled into an alcove beside it, pushed by an unseen force.

Inside, there was but a single room, about thirty feet squared.

The way this room was furnished was strange. The floor was made of criss-crossed strips of metal, making a mesh, with the thin-sides pointed up, and down. There was a large, metal table, with a strange, glass pod mounted to its top. The walls, and ceiling were made of metal, there was a large, metal cabinet on the near, right wall, and a tall metal pillar, with the top cut at a slant, also about a foot higher than any of the ponies, covered in switches, and dials. A large knife switch, painted red stood out from the rest of the items.

The whole room was cold, very cold, and absolutely still. Finally, there was a metal tube, standing six feet high, in the middle of the room. There were gaps in its hull, which a blue light shone through. It hummed loudly, very loudly, but dully. The air around it seemed cold. Perhaps that's what caused the ice to stay frozen.

On the button panel, there was only one set of recognizable symbols, which read:

"457,695"

From the walls, and ceiling, more of those autonomous light-fixtures were mounted. The lighting they provided was bluish-white, like a hospital.

Nopony said anything, they just walked in, each wincing slightly as the metal-grate hurt their hooves.

All six wandered to the table first, which, conveniently, was quite close to the floor.

Twilight sparkle was the first to look, and let out a gasp, as she beheld, there was something inside of the pod.

It looked like nothing any of them had ever seen.

Through the glass, the group observed an unfamiliar form, with a gait like that of an upright dragon. It had four limbs, a torso, a face, and joints in most of the appropriate places, but almost completely lacked scales, or hair for that matter. On the ends of its forelimbs, it bore hands, though lacking the claws of a dragon. Its forelimbs themselves were far longer than that of a dragon's. On its rather flat face, what could only be its snout protruded, but did not contain its jaw. Its eyes remained unmoved, staring straight up at the roof of its pod.

Several pieces of smooth, shiny, oblong black metal were hovering around it, each about an inch long, at random points, hovering an inch from its skin, in the pod with it.

"What is it?" Asked Applejack.

"It looks so.... naked." Said Rarity. The creature had a little bit of clothing, but it was nothing more than a pair of short white pants that covered its nethers.

"Is it an alien?" Asked Dash, who got a pretty supportive look from Twilight.

"Is it even alive, still? This looks like a technological tomb."

The cabinet was locked, by means which none of the ponies, not even Twilight Sparkle could pick. It had three, deep sockets, which appeared as something should fit into, and it split down the middle into two heavy doors. The whole thing made out of an amorphous, glossy, black metal.

“We should probably tell Celestia about this” Said an unsure purple pony.

"Of course we should! This is something unwitnessed by ponykind!" Said Rainbow Dash.

"I dunno, Dashie, this thing looks familiar. An old mare once told me a story of an adventurer who unwittingly brought a spirit of Chaos into the world. The description of his form was similar to this thing in here, but I was just a little filly, and she was pretty senile."

The nearby pillar, which everypony figured to be a control panel bucked as it warped. Pinkie stood atop it, gazing down triumphantly.

Twilight visibly winced as Pinkie pulled the red knife switch without so much as a thought.

It made the noise of rust getting ripped from its host.

"What are you doing??!! You can't just..." Twilight screamed.

“Setting it free, duh!” She calmly replied with a great grin.

A humming sounded, much sharper, and more irritating than the glowing tube in the middle of the room.

Several clacks could be heard, as the oblong pieces of metal dropped to the bottom of the glass tube.

The tube warped in a polygonal style, short, crystalline, grinding noises could be heard, as the pod split up into an array of congruent triangles, which flew away from a center-point a short distance, before vaporizing.

The creature did not move for many seconds in suspense , but its eyes finally did.

It wildly flicked about the room, before training on them..

They were getting ready to burn rubber, right the hell out of there, until it softly said.

"Doc?" Nothing more than a dry whisper. Though it resounded in the skulls of the bystanding ponies like artillery shells.

"Doc?!" It said again, with more strength in it's voice.

"Doc, I can't see!" It hoarsely groaned.

What felt like an hour passed before it spoke again.

"doc..."

"doc, what are those?"

a lazy, limp arm tumbled out of its glass tomb, pointing a weak finger at the group of ponies. All of whom flinched at the horrific sight.

~~~

(Pointless suspense adders are pointless)

The whole group stood stone still, not doing a very good job blending in. (About as well as a bunch of skittle coloured ponies in a dimly lit, monochromatic, blackened steel room.)

Apprehension is such a funny thing.

Some more details about our “alien”:

It was ghost pale.

It had canines.

The little hair it did posses was black as night, and gathered on top of his head

It just used a finger to point.

Its weak voice clearly sounded masculine, but nopony was going to make any assumptions.

YOU GET IT, IT'S A DAMN HUMAN!!

Fluttershy squeaked.

The group simultaneously flinched.

On this, the creature turned its head slowly, so it no longer had to strain its eyes to the side to look at them.

“Doc, you aren’t here... are you?”

Rainbow dash killed the suspense, a stern expression appeared on her face. She trotted up to it.

“What are you?” She asked softly. Getting urgent gestures from her friends to come back.

“I think I can see again”

She moved in closer, now only about six inches from its face.

“What are you!?” She asked louder.

The whole group was silently screaming, covering their faces with their forelegs, and hooves.

“You look...... kinda cute.” It said.

The remark threw rainbow dash out of her offensive stance, and cleared a lot of the tension that was stringing the group up.

It was not intimidated by her.

“The question is.... what are YOU?” it asked, in a groan.

It sat up. Everypony flinched.

“A Pon-” Dash began to say

“Wait a minute, you look kinda like horses........ Small horses... I swear this is familiar.”

“They all di.... disappeared, a lo.... long time ago.” Twilight stammered out.

“Ponies” Dash finished.

“Ponies... Ponies.... Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know where the Doc is, now would you?” Mumbling something along the lines of “... There’s more of them?”

Dash re-assumed her stance.

“What are you?” Demanded Dash.

“I am what you would call a 'human'. Didn't the doc tell you about this?”

“Who's this Doc?" She inquired further.

Fluttershy was almost fainting behind her friends, quivering, and flat against the ground at this point.

“Will you save it Dash?” Twilight said. “we can have him explain himself when we have him in Canterlot, with Celestia, Luna, and some scribes to write down what we learn.”

“Celestia, and Luna?” It quizzed. “They are still around?”

“What do you mean? They are immortal! Nopony could replace them!” Twilight replied

He only furrowed his eyebrows, and mumbled "Frickin' crazy ponies."

Pinkie was encouraging the shy back one up at this point.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celestia was back in her castle, expecting a letter, any minute, from her student, though doing her normal chores adherent to being a princess.

Luna was re-learning the layout of the castle, there had been a lot of changes over her thousand-year absence. Though she had already learned all of its basic layout, there were hundreds of secrets, nooks, and crannies where artifacts of high magic, or treasure lay.

She was just getting strong enough to bring night about by herself again. In fact, tonight was the first night she had tried since her return from banishment. Not surprisingly, it was beautiful. Far more beautiful than Celestia could have ever done. The stars were made to appear bright again, the moon was full, the constellations were exactly right, the milky way behind the stars was very clear, and a few ponies stayed up a couple extra hours to witness its awesomeness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I hope you don’t mind” It said.

It dangled its feet out of the pod, forcing itself upright when they connected with the ground.

It was frightening to the ponies to say the least. It stood higher up than any of them were long, on two, wiry, single knee'd back-legs

The black, metallic spheroids followed it on its way out of the glass coffin, hovering, upright over the ground. Like scattered ducklings behind their mother. They dipped, and bobbed over the metal grating as they, and their master hobbled for the panel Pinky was just on moments ago.

After looking drunkenly for only a few seconds, the biped reacted as if it’d been struck. Snapping away from the dashboard as if it saw the eyes of the devil laying there.

“457,695...... oh, that’s sobering.” He mumbled. A single tear began to well up, only to be swiped briskly, and cast unto the floor..

It got on its knees.

“what’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked

“all..... gone” He muttered.

“They’re all gone.... My whole race!... The job will be finished by the solstice!”

“What!?” Said the group in unison.

“It means I have been in suspended animation for over four-hundred fifty thousand years!.... M.A.G.I.C. succeeded in its endeavours, and has wiped out our entire race, and I am the only survivor, only because I was in complete suspended animation. I'm soon to be vegetabalized like the rest, unless by some freak accident, something might change me enough to let me slip through, or you happen to have some otherworldly material, like enderblood, and there's no way you could get enough to keep me for an extra day!” It yelled, pressing its hands into its forehead.

“What in the hay are you talking about?” Applejack asked.

It paused, at this, and continued. “I guess the only thing that will remain of my race is what I pass on, and the only option is knowledge.... Do you ponies know what magic is?“

“Why, yes, it’s a very important part of our culture!” Twilight said.

“Then I will teach your people the deep, dark secrets of M.A.G.I.C. The secrets that lie behind its very foundations” It concluded after a minute.

“What did you say about magic?” Asked Applejack

“suspended animation?” Asked Twilight

“Vegetabal...ization?” asked Pinkie Pie. Who was about to elaborate on her inquisition until Twilight plugged her maw with a hoof.

“I.... I will explain in.... In.... what was that place mentioned?” Red marks of light tears on his cheeks, and around his eyes.

“Canterlot” Twilight answered.

“Y...Yes, Canterlot... But first...”

He stood up off his knees, and walked in a slump, to the tall, metal cabinet. He motioned his hand upwards, and three of the... about twelve oblong metal pieces floated up into his hand, orbiting slowly around each other.

He smiled a little, but it faded away in short order.

“I have been meaning to ask, what are those?” Twilight said.

“Just modern technology. Multipurpose material. We call it ‘Pullus Ferrum'. This specific forging made devices known as 'Orbitors'. They do lots of things.”

He pushed the three masses into their matching three sockets on the metal cabinet. Almost without delay, the doors popped open. There hung about six pairs of long leggings, and tops, that looked more like armor than clothing, made of a black, reflective material, stretched into strings, and woven, with thick plates of a similar make attached here, and there. Below the clothing, hung several odd looking devices on hooks, made out of an identical black metal. One looking like an extra-long unicorn's horn, with a handle obviously designed for hands to clutch, and with smaller horns spiralling up, largest at the base, and smallest at the top, comparable in appearance to a ferrofluid spire.

This device, it grabbed, along with some of its strange clothing.

“aah, this old friend... it would be folly to leave home without it.” The human said. “Who knows what the field has done to the world, I might be killed in seconds proper knowledge.”

“Uuuh... We know.” Said Applejack.

"Oh... Right."

While he was fitting on the clothing, Rarity was itching to make a comment, and was just opening her mouth when Twilight stopped her.

“Rares, I know what you’re thinking, but this creature is obviously grieving. A comment on its strange fashion isn't going to help.” Twilight said, with a hoof on Rarities shoulder.

“I’m sorry” The white pony said, a look of guilt crossing her face.

“I assume that your kind doesn't know much about its origins, now does it?” The human said.

“We have a recorded history of about 50,000 years, there are much older countries, with much longer history attached to them. Though in those times, the lands were ruled by chaotic forces. Records past then are... inconsistent.”

“Damned machine. Can simulate a genetic algorithm, but doesn't have a hint of empathy for some things. Say... You and the white one have horns, can you manipulate the field?” He asked, pointing to Twilight.

“You mean cast spells?” Twilight quizzed. “Of course!”

She then levitated the fractal horn out of the humans hands, and dropped it back down.

“Oh, this history lecture is gonna be a lot of fun.” It said.

It stood up, and lifted up its soft, toed foot, and motioned towards it, a few of the

metal-objects out of the cabinet hovered to it, melded together, and transmogrified into a boot that couldn't have been thicker than paper, and on inspection, wasn't. This process it repeated for the other foot, covering both in a hard shell of black, polygonal metal.

All six ponies stared in awe, none had ever seen anything like this, magic tricks, sure, but this material was beginning to scare them. It stood up on its two feet, and said.

“Well, let’s get a move on then.”

It couldn't run very fast, only about one third as fast as any able-bodied pony, its lack of forelegs on the ground was probably to blame for that. So the ponies slowed town to a trot.

Everypony, but the pink one was wondering how it managed to balance all of the time on those two long, spindly, weak-looking legs so well, though Pinkie always had a freaky talent for standing on two legs.

“You are the weirdest creature I have ever seen in my life” Said Rainbow Dash, while they were in the deep end of the tunnel.

“You obviously haven’t seen much of the deep ocean, have you?” It said, earning a confused look from everypony around.

"You guys have no idea. Stop looking at me like that."

They spent a while walking out. The pinprick of night, barely visible from their end of the tunnel beckoned, the powdery smell of old, moist concrete was beginning to make the ponies nauseous.

On the way out, he learned the names of the ponies, starting with Twilight, and ending with Rainbow Dash, but none had asked him for his name, so he hadn’t told.

It took a good twenty minutes to get out of the cave, and on the last stretch, he snatched one of the glowing blue-white tubes from the wall, and tinkered with it a bit, before it glowed about six times brighter, and was half concealed by the creatures' orbiters, to form a bright, floating lantern, almost blinding to whatever it shined upon.

“At this rate, you’ll be dead before you even reach Canterlot” Dash bluntly complained, earning a hurt look from the human, before he smiled, and motioned to the remaining mass of liquid metal, forming black spheres in his hands, that his long fingers grasped around.

Apparently pushed upwards by his boots, and given balance by the spheres, he was hovering, and was about to show off his speed when...

“you know what, let’s just all teleport, wandering around the night, especially in the Everfree Forest is a BAD idea, and there’s miles of Everfree from here to pony-ville, and miles more to Canterlot. According to you, we don’t have much time, and it could take the rest of your life-span to teach us all you know.”

“I agree, but you’ll see that, despite the fact that I will definitely live for at least six days, at least, I will only really be able to teach for the first three” it said morbidly, apparently also being familiar to the concept of teleportation.

“What do you mean?” asked Twilight Sparkle

“will the teleport mess up my mane?” Rarity asked, before receiving a fiery glance from everypony, and the human.

“sorry”

“it will be a challenge teleporting all of us though” Twilight said. “It takes a lot of energy to teleport even one pony, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand on my own after the jump”

“I have a solution” The human said, re-ammassing all of his liquid metal, except that on his feet, into a single lump, hovering in front of him.

“Touch it” it said simply

It did so itself, and the liquid began to act like an adhesive, sticking to his finger, before spreading over its entire arm, and then his entire body, leaving gaps only for his eyes, mouth, and nose, the whole process took only about two seconds, for the fluid glided swiftly.

“I dunno, that looks kind of dangerous” Said Rainbow Dash

“I thought you were s’posed to be courageous, I say you go first” Said AppleJack.

“Are you kidding me? I bet he’ll kill me with that as soon as I touch it”

“Look, will you just touch it? I never thought this would be an issue.” The human said.

The rest of her peers gave her a glare.

“Alright, fine, I’ll do it.” Dash said, defeatedly.

She did so, and in a couple seconds, there stood a silhouette of a pegasus, taking the mirrored colours of its surroundings, rather than black.

“This isn’t so bad” Dash said.

The rest of the group complied.

“Ok, we are all covered, Twilight, you can teleport now.” It said.

She did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An instant later, they were in the Canterlot palace. Not so much as a peep was emitted by a teleport that would usually break windows with a concussive blast. The pullus ferrum almost instantly separated from the ponies, leaving not a trace of its presence. No, Rarity’s mane was not harmed.

A few guards swiveled their heads to meet the intruders, but they took no action when they saw that Twilight Sparkle was among them.

The human tucked the light-rod into a fold of its black, metallic clothing.

Before them stood a massive pair of ornate red doors, trimmed with gold, and guarded by many pairs of hardened sentries, who were straining not to give their attention to the human.

Twilight knocked on the door loudly, the white guard-stallions giving very strange looks to the spectacle that stood besides Twilight, failing to keep their composure.

“you had better stay back here” Twilight said. “I don’t want to risk anything going out of my plan to explain this all successfully.”

The doors opened, dragged by more guard stallions.

Twilight entered the spacious room, along with her five friends. Celestia’s, and Luna’s raised thrones sat in the middle of the establishment, next to each other. Huge tapestries hung from a ceiling too high to see the details of, at either side of the princesses, with depictions of the sun, moon, and a yin-yang of both. Both princesses appeared so kind, yet so intimidating, to all but Twilight who was used to being around them.

The white princess closed, and dropped a book she was reading, and said. “There must have been much more there than a trapped pony for you to come here in person.”

“You’re absolutely right my princess, In fact, it is rather urgent that we get some scribes” Twilight said before getting cut off by Rainbow Dash

“Princess, we found a super-old, techno-alien from four-hundred-something thousand years in the past, and he’s only got six days to live, or five.... or three.... Whatever, He wants to talk abo...”

She got cut off by Applejack “It’s trying to pass on the dying knowledge of its race”

Who got cut off by Celestia “Ok, ok, calm down my little ponies, bring him in, we will have a talk. Though, this wasn’t planned for, so we may... ”

“MASTER SCRIIIIIIIIIIIIBE!!!” Luna yelled in her royal Canterlot voice.

A dragon, appearing many years older than spike, blue scales, with white spines, almost as tall as Celestia, appeared quickly through a small door, left of the chambers main doors. He scurried up to the throne, receiving a quiet “Hi gargoyle” from Twilight, as he ran past her. He gave her a quick smile, before addressing the princess of night.

“You, and your troop, all have a lot of notes to take today.” Luna said much more softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A small crowd of dragons were present, of highly varying stature, and color. All ready to take notes, of different interpretations, and viewpoints, of what the ancient being was going to say.

The room was quite small, with a ceiling that the bipeds head often brushed up against, and had ornate marble walls, few furnishings, but a nearby chalkboard, and a chair that it sat in.

Twilight anxiously listened, hoping to hear a Revelation.

“It looks kinda like one of us”

“does it even speak equestrian?”

“Can it breathe fire?”

It sat, quietly, in its chair, until the dragons stopped babbling to each other.

He stood up, placing his black horn on the ground, and began.

The dragons immediately began to write, even before he said anything

“Hello, I am Stoic, Stoic is my name, that is, and I am belonging to the oldest known sentient race to occupy the planet Earth..............”

End of part 1

Part three; the Tower

There were many miles to go before reaching the Tower of Babyl, or the ‘Sky Needle’ as the ponies called it. Many miles while ascending a few thousand feet too, this was going to be a trip over an two hours long. Even with the help of four, strong pegasi.

“So, I guess this is where we really get to know you.” Said Twilight.

“Yeah, those scientists, back in Canterlot already asked pretty much everything about me, though, they probably could have asked a lot more. It isn’t exactly possible to get to fully understand another race in one night... They didn’t tell you anything about me, did they?”

“No, they didn’t, even though I trusted them.. So let’s begin some questioning of our own, starting with...” Twilight began

“What do you eat?” Asked Pinkie Pie

“We all have been wondering that, really!” Rarity chimed in.

“Eeyup” Applejack said, trying to imitate her older brother (Minus the baritone voice).

The group shared a short chuckle, all but Stoic, who was confused.

“Well, have a look at my teeth, all the evidence is there.” He said after a his confusion faded.

He bore his teeth, letting the ponies lean in to have a look.

“Whoa, he’s got incisors, molars, and canines... ” Twilight began

“He must be an...” Pinkie cut off.

“A gem eater!” Rainbow dash yelled, cutting Pinky off.

“What?” everypony around said, even the pilot pegasi, who had to defy their harnesses in order to turn, and simultaneously deliver the ಠ_ಠ face with enough intensity to be hazardous to ones health.

“No Dash, I get why you'd think that, but canines are for tearing flesh.” Twilight said flatly.

“That’s absolutely correct, Twilight. I can eat almost anything, minus a few, obvious exceptions, like wood, or grass. This means I can eat meat.” Stoic said. “Though, I might want to give gems a try sometime. Back in our era, pretty much all gems were a lot harder than anyone’s teeth by a long shot. But if dragons can eat them, I think that may have changed.”

“I don't get how you can live with being a meat-eater.” Rarity sais, who was quite disgusted.

“Well, I can be, and might resort to, should I be on the brink of starvation, but that doesn't mean I am. Our race sort of got past that stage. After we formed a Utopia, it became unnecessary, and impractical to raise animals for slaughter. I guess that's one of our nice achievements.”

“Wow, were ponies around then?” Twilight asked. “Did humans ever eat ponies??!!”

“Well, yes, and no, there were ponies around, though they couldn’t speak, fly, use magic, or come in vibrant colours, nor were they more intelligent than a baby. And no, ponies weren’t ever a target for farming to slaughter. We sometimes bred them, and rode them around like horses, but the greatest impact ponies had on our society was unrelated to physical ponies.”

“Wait, horses were there too?”

“Yes, and people rode them all of the time before the age of automobiles. We would breed them in masses, and tame entire herds. Horses, and humans, were quite inseparable for a long time, in an amazingly strong symbiosis.”

“Oh, and not forgetting the subject of food, did you ponies bring any? It’s been almost a full day since I’ve eaten. I need some water too, but not so badly, the princess supplied some just a few hours ago.”

“I brought some cupcakes, cornbread, cake, and cookies!” Pinkie Pie exclamed.

“I brought some apples” Said Applejack

“I brought a couple heads of lettuce, and some grass.” Said Twilight

Rarity, brought clothing mostly, and a few essential objects, like a compass, a firestarter, and some tools, but no food.

Fluttershy brought a heavy quantity of medical supplies, no food either.

Rainbow dash didn’t bring anything, but promised that she could get water on demand.

“Oh, great, that all falls within my range of ‘edible’, all but the grass that is. Humans were originally hunter-gatherers, not grazers.”

“Hunter-gatherer... Oh, that reminds me of a bear I know.” Said Fluttershy, as Pinkie was hoofing the biped a size-able chunk of sweetened cornbread.

“Thanks...”

“...How can you be around a bear for long enough to know him, without getting mauled to death?” Asked Stoic. Happily taking a bite of bread afterwards, unaware of how he accidentally offended her.

“What? He would never do such a thing!” Replied Fluttershy, who didn’t know how dangerous bears used to be.

“Stoic, are these enders really evil? I’ve seen forest animals be violent, but none have ever really been evil.” Fluttershy asked.

“Oh, that’s a good point. I don’t know if they just hate being looked directly at, but they have been the causes of some of the most brutal, and mutilative deaths since our pre-utopian era! They don’t even eat what they kill, or draw any kind of observable energy from them, their killings are pointless! Oh... I forgot to mention, they have a tendency to negate magic, so if you are going to use magic to fight them, use it indirectly... throw something at them, don’t try to throw them.”

“Now, I only have two Light-rods on me, but I can defend pretty well from them anyhow. You ponies shouldn't get too worried about it, fear only makes you act irrationally, and because we’re going to be facing some extremely unpredictable, violent monsters, being irrational could quite easily be the loss of a good friends’, or your own life.”

“Ok, ok, I don’t want to talk about the enders, it makes this trip a heck of a lot more grim.... Did you have a family?” Twilight asked, changing the subject.

“Ooh, the scientists never asked me that one... I never had a family of my own, I stayed very distant from other people, including the girls. Though, my parents, and siblings were well, and alive before FATE-S decided it didn’t need us around any more. Not much of a dark backstory here.”

“So, you are male!.....Umm, just been wondering.” Twilight inferred, wearing a slightly blushing, bad poker face.

“Well.... I guess you never got a clue other than my voice. So yes, I am male.” He replied

“Can I see your claws?” Dash asked, changing the subject.

“They’re called hands, and they aren’t even that sharp.”

Dash felt around the bony structure of the fairly alien, bony extremity. Pushing around fingers, pressing the tendons to observe how the fingers responded.

“It reminds me of a spider... Kinda.” Dash said.

“Hey, wasn’t Lyra always babbling about hands?” asked Pinky.

“I don’t think so, Pinky. Lyra probably doesn’t even know what hands are, let alone want a pair.”

Stoic clenched his hand around Dash’s hoof while she was pressing at the palms.

“I’d still prefer wings” Dash concluded.

Stoic released his soft grip.

“You could build wings with these. Don’t underestimate the potential these tools have. Hands were easily one of the biggest reasons humans dominated the world for fifty-thousand years, and had immense technological resources to show for it!”

“Whoa, how the hay are you supposed to build wings? Don’t they grow?” Applejack asked.

“Wings of metal. It’s really easy to grasp, and make tools of hard material with hands... Haven’t you listened when I spoke of aeroplanes back in the debriefing room?”

Dash was pressing on the sides of Stoic’s hands, bringing the thumb, index, and pinky near.

“Haha, that’s kinda cool!”

“Will you stop playing with his hands, Dearest? It’s a little disturbing. Besides, I don’t think he likes it.” Rarity interfered.

“Buzzkill.” Dash muttered.

“I don’t mind, I kinda enjoy it. It’s not every day you get to explore the details of a sentience so radically different from yourself! Quite frankly, I think we all need to get to know each other better, I will stress myself to death if I don’t get any friends to rely on to forget my old life.”

“Whoa, you can stress yourself to death?!” Quizzed a somewhat horrified Pinkie.

“Yes, definitely yes, although, seeing what FATE-S has done to this place, that probably never happens.”

“How is that possible?” Asked Twilight.

“Well, when someone would go through a lot of trauma in their life, or get highly overworked, the chemical/hormone balance of his/her body would often go way out of the safe zone. This would result in his/her immune system becoming extremely alert, to almost anything, because the body is evidently in trouble. The immune system would try to find the source of the imbalance, and attack it, anything really, from food, to other certain cells, to pollen, to dander. Anyhow, this would result in a huge array of resulting sicknesses, from allergies to everything, to cancer, to starvation because of the inability to hold food down.”

“Whoa, that’s gruesome!” Dash said.

A wild pause appears.

Twilight uses Revive.

“So.... you’ve lightened up, a lot, but you’re still so... stoic.” Twilight said.

It’s super effective!!!

“Hey, is Stoic your real name? I haven’t met anyone who only has one name, especially one like ‘Stoic’.” Said Pinkie

“Pinkie, please.” Rarity whined.

“No, seriously, I’m ok with it, you don’t need to speak up for me.”

“Alright... Sorry” Rarity said, a little embarrassed, and exasperated.

“My name is Stoic because I was named under the effect of FATE-S, like you all. One of its functions was ensuring people were named after who they will become. Or really, they become what they are named. Stoic is my full name, and at the time, very few people had more than one name. I think it’s fairly obvious, though, that I stay true to my name.”

“Ok, don’t mind if I ask, but, how old are you?”

“Well, not counting my time in stasis, I am eighty five years old.”

Everyone looked stunned, ponies lived to be around seventy most of the time, and rarely made it to age eighty five. That, and he had no signs of age whatsoever (at least as the ponies could tell).

“Whoa, you are older than I thought. How old do humans live?” Dash said.

“Around two hundred, two hundred fifty maybe... on average.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa, that’s positively ancient!” Rarity remarked.

“What....? You ponies haven’t.....? OOHH, ok, I see, you’re still around the seventy year limit, assuming your lifespan is as long as ours naturally. We humans have advanced our medical science to the point of extreme longevity. We genetically modified our population, injecting various ‘free radical protection’ genes from many different animals into our population. It started with the transplant of the mitochondria of parrots, which could already outlive humans. That action alone boosted our average lifespan as a globe to about 135 years.” Stoic explained.

“Holy moly!! You could so bored after two hundred years!! I sure hope you humans knew how to throw great parties!!” Pinkie said.

“Wait, how come you don’t have a family of your own after eighty five years? It’s usually only twenty years before a pony has his, or her own family!”

“As I said, I was always very distant from people. That, and I am elven.”

“Elven?”

“Oh, gee, I have a lot of explaining to do. The elves were an emerging race of humans, who had another set of genes implanted into them, though, this gene did quite a bit more than just make a person last longer. we elves lived quite a bit longer, as expected, but also were taller, thinner, and more angular. The hair on our heads was usually white, if not jet black, otherwise we were quite hairless, we stereotypically had our own way of speaking, pointed ears, and unique formalities. There was both a lot of respect, and contempt for the elves.”

“How old did they get to live?” Applejack asked.

“Three hundred-fifty.”

The group stared again, as another huge number just dropped from the mouth of Stoic.

“You’re going to live to be three hundred-fifty?!” Twilight shrieked.

“No way!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“Well, maybe, I might just die today, in the tower, I might die during ponification, and I might not get to keep my elven genes when I get ponified, and die of old age immediately after ponification, I might die of old age fifty years after the transformation, I might keep my genes, and live to be three hundred-fifty, or I might even become immortal like Celestia, and Luna. See why there needs to be a lot of planning before a spell like ponification, especially for something like me?”

“Yes” Was the answer from the mane six, that was quoted by all of them, but not in unison.

“Anyhow, I was only about one fourth the way through my life, and when it comes to issues like children, being bound to the wrong person by one is a very bad thing. So, I basically decided to wait for the right person to drop into my life, I had another hundred years to go before my extended prime runs out, and I begin to slowly deteriorate. So, I felt that patience was the best option.”

He brushed some of his hair away, exposing a pointed ear.

“See.” He said, pointing to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The carriage ride was quite long, and despite the fact that they conversed until they were nearly out of questions, they spent the last half of the trip discussing the plan to infiltrate Babyl Tower, fight off any enders they met, reactivate the Babyl Reactor, climb to the top floor, retrieve a good quantity of Pullus ferrum, get back down, and escape. The consequences for failure to properly execute this plan were dire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The tower was visible in the distance, sticking out behind the foothills of a nearby mountain to the east. The wind began to pick up.

“Knowing the Babyl Tower, we’re going to have to start flying low soon, and afterwards, land, and walk another quarter mile to the tower.”

“Why?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“The wind picks up as you get closer, Babyl Tower has air spiralling around it reaching an excess of 600 Mph at its direct surface, and, strangely enough, much faster than sound near the top. The two-hundred feet around the tower maintain constant hurricane speeds. Approaching the tower, even on foot, will be a daunting task.”

“Yeah, We have that detail written in many books, the Sky Needle always had mysterious winds. Though, nopony could get inside, They could get close enough to make some good observations.”

The tower was veiled white, and its surface was rapidly shifting, occasionally revealing black spots underneath it. the upper section of the tower wasn’t visible at all, because there was a thick, dense layer of wind, completely solid white, and spinning so fast it was now audible to the ponies as a subtle buzzing noise, from nearly three quarters a mile away.

The carriages silently continued, lowering in altitude slowly, not much was spoken until they landed, nearly a quarter of a mile from the tower.

The Ponies got out, thanking the pegasi for their long, persistent labour. They fetched their armor from the second carriage, and spent the next few minutes fitting it on. The human sat precariously on the edge of the carriage, staring up at the tower, taking in the refreshing, cool winds.

“Don’t you need any armor?” Applejack asked.

“Ha, no, not really. My Dark Iron-weave is the ultimate coat, though I will truly miss it once I’m ponified... It repels blows from anything more than 30 PSI an inch from its surface, and spreads the impact into the ground I stand on, and the air nearby, not to mention, it does a lot more than just that. It’s absolutely frictionless to liquids, nothing sticks, ever, it can’t be torn, it’s extremely flexible, and not to mention, it has built in medical systems in the case that I am irradiated, poisoned, or somehow broken.” Stoic answered, fiddling with the various black plates that were joined into the tough, metallic fabric.

“Though, that can make it very hard to swim...”

“Whoa, I could sure use something like that around the farm..... A pair of boots that mud never sticks too, and that survive more than a month of applebuckin’.” the orange pony giddily said.

“Anyhow...” Twilight began, but paused.

“How did you get into this building every day? And why on earth is this wind present in the first place?” Twilight asked, a little frustrated that they were going to walk into the most blindingly powerful winds they had ever experienced.

“One, shuttle cars, and two, to protect the building from time, extreme winds did an amazing job at keeping away damaging elements, be it water, or animals, or vandals, or even projectiles. Not to mention, it looks beautiful!”

He picked up his field manipulator from the carriage.

The earth had been stripped away of light sands, and soil, leaving only smooth, dark, round stones behind. The mass of the stones required to stay where they sat grew much higher, as distance to the tower shortened. The ground was smooth gravel several feet down, no plant-life was present whatsoever. Closer towards the tower, only the most smooth, dense, and large pieces of stone remained, having been agitated by the winds over hundreds of thousands of years to a smooth polish.

Right around the tower foundation, for about twenty yards, the rocky ground was replaced with a single, huge sheet of polished granite, in a perfect circle around the tower. Probably buried hundreds of feet into the ground past the surface.

“Whoa, there used to be tons of soft dirt here, now there’s nothing but rocks!” Stoic exclaimed.

“Well, enough of this, we are prepared to move on, so let’s do so.” Stoic cut off the jabber.

They marched towards the tower, sharp veins of air coating it almost entirely, the once quiet buzz sounding from the upper section, now a monstrous, almost unbearable roar.

At first, the wind was only strong, but after approaching closer, no one could hold their eyes open without getting a swift, tear-inducing serving of air. The winds were rotating clockwise, so the ponies were getting blasted from the right, facing the tower.

“Geez, this is terrible!” Dash said.

“Oh god, don’t open your wings, whatever you do.” Stoic screamed, getting a mouthful of wind.

“Are you kidding me? I did a sonic rainboom with these!”

Pinkie pie was lolling her tongue out, and forcing her eyes open. She was enjoying this.

“UGH, this will totally ruin my mane!” rarity screamed over the cacaphony of wind.

As they got closer, the wind transformed from chilling, hindering, and loud, to a frost-bite inducing, deafening wall of air.

Stoic loosened a stone from its precarious perch, surrendering it to the violent grasp of the wind, hurling it with frightening speeds, zipping it past Rainbow Dash’s face, who flinched, and was almost flipped by the sudden increase of surface area exposed to the winds.

They were almost onto the granite platform, everypony was leaning into the wind, but pinkie pie, who was remained completely unfazed.

“ACTIVATE THE SPELL, STOIC!” Twilight screamed, almost inaudible compared to the winds blasting her.

He held his manipulator out, a familiar black aura pulsed around him, a hemisphere of absence roughly twelve feet across began to fade in, around the group, barely visible at all, but acting as a sanctuary from the artificial tornado. The ponies’ manes, and tails fell back into their ordinary places, everypony smiled.

“Oh, ah sure am glad to get out of that blasted wind.” Applejack said.

Pinky Pie stuck her head out of the radius of the bubble, lolling her tongue out again.

“Pinky, will you quit that?” Said Rainbow Dash, who was getting irritated with her friends refusal to be serious.

Pinky couldn’t hear her, she was getting blasted by winds over one hundred miles an hour.

Stoic tapped her on the back, mildly entertained.

Pinky pulled her head back in. At least her mane didn’t change much.

“We have to move on, Pinky, besides, we’ll get even more amazing wind speeds just stepping onto that granite!”

“Okey dokie loki!”

The whole group followed stoic in a crowd, closely packed together, a few feet more onto the granite. Pinky Pie immediately stuck her head out of the bubble, her facial expression of curiosity, excitement, and uncalled for bliss became completely unreadable as her eye sockets, cheeks, nostrils, and ears filled with air, and flapped in the wind.

Everypony chuckled at the odd sight.

She pulled her head back in after a full five seconds.

“Whoa, that was totally fun, you guys should try it!”

“I dunno Pinky, I don’t think we’ll enjoy it as much as you do.” Twilight said.

“You’re right, those wind speeds made a jump from one hundred-twenty, to two hundred miles per hour, you’d probably get dry eyes instantly...” Stoic stopped for a second.

“Pinky, you don’t have a horn at all, but you are packing some serious magic, unusual magic at that... It’s like you are an out of place cartoon character, really! Why do you defy logic? you even sometimes talk at nothing, and stare off into space wearing an out of place, goofy grin!”

“Because it’s funny!! ….Well... at least I think it’s funny!” Pinky answered

Stoic was not really satisfied with the answer, but didn’t feel like interrogating her.

They got closer to the tower, only about ten yards from it now, Pinky decided it was time to run an experiment.

First she stuck her hoof out of the bubble.

Immediately a loud blasting could be heard, as three hundred fifty mile an hour winds slammed into it.

She yanked her hoof back in, almost frightened at her results.

Next, she reached into her saddlebag, and removed from it, a small sack of flour. This, she partially held into the wind to see what would happen.

The bag of fluffy powder was ripped out of Pinkies hooves in no time at all, and after a second, exploded into a cloud of flour, and pulled into a white, smoky ring, around the tower, bending its path around the sphere.

“Whoa, that’s amazing!” She cried. The surrounding ponies also appeared amused.

they walked another five yards, now they were so close to the tower that they could see, in great detail, the air currents forming the skin of the tower. The thin layer of air began to part where the sphere contacted the wall, making the bubble seem much more tangible.

“Now, do not let anything outside of this bubble past here, the winds around the tower are far more than strong enough to cut flesh!”

The group moved on, getting close enough to touch the tower, its now revealed surface a shiny, smooth, sturdy, black metal.

“Now, there should be a keyhole somewhere around here...”

Walking around the tower revealed three, small, round holes in the outer wall, grouped closely, at about Stoic’s chest level, veiled beneath the thin layer of white wind.

Stoic pushed his three ‘key’ orbitors into them, one after another.

The wind stopped.

The whole tower, from top to bottom, was revealed, appearing to be a gargantuan, black cylinder, seamless, and windowless, with no visible sloped ceiling, though the top was revealed to be made of glass.

The wall in front of them hummed a bit, and a huge, straight split appeared in its surface, twenty feet tall, at least. The split widened, going straight up, being the crack between two, enormous doors.

Rainbow Dash moved up to the crack, to peer inside.

Stoic yanked her back by her tail after he realized what she was doing.

The doors pushed out of the tower, highlighting their curved shape. They floated out on their own accord, and sideways slid onto the surface of the tower, coming to a rest, and nestling against it with nearly congruent curve.

The inside of the tower was momentarily black, a pair of tiny, violet spots were visible, deep in its depths, for a few milliseconds, before vanishing completely at the sunlight rushing in. An immaterial orb of light, floating thrice stoic’s height, brightened in the middle of the room, illuminating a wide, clean, polished granite floor, in the back-middle of which protruded a great tube of metal, with windows into a black interior, all reaching up to the ceiling, twenty feet up. Many empty desks were surrounding the object, with soft, moving, chairs tucked into them, surprisingly dust-less.

“Here it is, the Babyl reactor, in Babyl Tower!”

A notepad flew out of Twilight’s saddlebag, which met up with a pen in mid air, and began frantically scrawling details, and drawings of the rooms contents.

“I saw some purple dots in here, I don’t see them any more though.”

“You didn’t look directly at them, did you?” Stoic asked, losing his composure a bit.

“No, you stopped me before I could do that.” Dash answered, becoming a bit worried.

“those were the eyes of an ender, be glad you didn’t look into them directly, oh, thank god, we could have risked a surprise attack if you did. Let this be a lesson, dark rooms are dangerous, do not, under any circumstances, walk into one until you light it up.” Stoic declared.

“WE FOUND ONE ALREADY?!” Dash screamed in response, rearing up onto her back two hooves.

“Hey, the first floor is a big, open place, it was quite fortunate there weren’t two in here.”

“Now, we need to reactivate this generator, like... now.... We can’t go anywhere here if we don’t have a containment room to push those enders into, c’mon.” Stoic said, gravitating to the huge, metal pillar, erected out of the polished, granite floor.

“This shouldn’t be too hard...” He was fiddling with another panel of switches, and buttons.

“Aha, the GUI should be active now...” He said, softly tapping a large, translucent, prismatic, green square, on the control panel.

A holographic screen popped into existence, emitted from a black lens above the screen, which glowed green for a moment, before a billion images exploded across it, flashing and disappearing in front of the panel.

“Haha, such old technology, they never upgraded this stuff, still using the old auxiliary processor connection, no direct mind contact, and a sleepy AI if you ask me.”

“Auxiliary connection?” Twilight asked.

“a highly direct, sensory-aided data connection with the auxiliary processor, one such device being in my skull, right now.” He answered.

“This isn’t the time for questions, Twilight.” Dash said.

“Yes it is, we have a few minutes for this reactor to start up again... Though, in those few minutes, the lights will flash on, and off, the fields required to start this thing interfere with the other, smaller, more stable reactors... So, blindfold yourselves, don’t risk attack if you don’t have to.”

He removed his two lights from his armor-like suit, and along with them, a long strip of black cloth, similar to tho the material he was wearing, but with thicker threads, and about as wide as his hand, from wrist to fingertip.

Curiously, he broke the ferro-weave off at intervals, forming sections of cloth about three feet long, the ends of the cloth, where broken, began to morph slightly, the torn threads’ ends shriveled back into fat beads.

“Put these over your eyes, to prevent visual contact with them, those few, dark minutes in this room could be your last if you overestimate your self-control. I, however, will not put any on, I must assure they haven’t changed their habits about being looked at, and get this reactor running, and let’s not forget what happens if we all blindfold here.”

He broke off the last piece of cloth, which he handed to twilight. He proceeded to distribute the black strips, until everypony had some.

“This stuff is surprisingly soft” Said Rarity.

“I’m surprised you could tie those using only your hooves.”

“I can’t help but feel queasy about this.” Said twilight.

Pinky was abnormally quiet, and tense.

Fluttershy didn’t even move as dash tied hers on for her.

Dash refused to put on her blindfold.

“I gotta see this, I’m sure I’m brave enough.”

“Oh, are you serious Rainbow? If you really want to do this, then..... you know what, you might be helpful, umm.... You know what, since you think you’re so brave, I’ll let you see through a couple mirrors, they don’t seem to care if you use a mirror. Though, it may be the most frightening experience you’ve ever had.” Stoic said.

“Oh, we’ll see about that, I am the bravest of the brave!” Dash gloated.

“I almost want to see your pride fall, but I don’t want to see you crushed either.” Stoic said, reattaching the piece of cloth to his original length. The cloth curiously crackled as the threads rejoined, beads immediately snapping together, and becoming thread, to rejoin the threads they were previously attached to.

He formed a couple of his orbiting globules into a flat sheet, darkly reflective, but perfect.

“Hold on, I don’t normally use anything but black, so I’ll have to change this so it is more visibly reflective...” Stoic said, staring intently at the mirrors.

The two sheets brightened up, from their oil-ish, pitch black to a perfectly clear, non-interfering mirror. Both of the sheets floated parallel to each other, and levitated to the rose eyes of Rainbow Dash, turning upwards, and separating, so that dash, while looking into the mirror in front of her nose, saw a reflection of the mirror now hanging above her head.

“This reminds me of a parascope.” Dash said.

“That’s essentially what it is, now, we got to seal off your peripherals...”

the two sheets’ side ends folded to meet each other, effectively boxing off Dashie’s side-vision, which, considering that she was a pony, was a lot.

“Geez, I can barely see anything.... is this what it’s like to have your eyes on the front of your face?” She complained.

“Almost, now sit down, and don’t freak out, those enders will be trying hard to get somepony to look, flinch, or fight.”

Stoic fiddled some more with the machine in front of him. The reactor began to hum, and loudly at that.

The massive doors began to slide back into place.

“Now what?” Twilight asked.

“We wait.” Stoic answered.

“The things I will do for science...” Twilight complained, as the doors quietly sealed, killing the last glimmer of outside light.

The lights flickered momentarily, the building began to vibrate lightly from the winds turning back on.

“I’m.... scared.” Fluttershy said.

“Great, fear is the proper response.” Stoic said.

“You’re not helping... Wait, why don’t we all wear these?” Dash criticized, looking quite odd wearing the periscope-goggles.

“They tend to define “Eye contact” on their own terms. If no one is able to make eye contact normally, they loosen the definition some, to bypass whatever mechanism they consider 'unfair'. I don’t know if it’s some kind of code of honor, or some sort of game, but fortunately they have to follow its rules. Oh, and try not to touch them, if you so much as brush against them, they will probably find it excuse enough to disembowel you.”

The lights shut off right after he finished, leaving everypony feeling for eachother.

“Oh, Celestia, there’s one already!” Said Dash, pointing a hoof at a pair of violet eyes, mere seconds after the lights shut off.

Stoic didn’t look, he simply readied his lights, turning their brightness up to where he could see, and operate the panel in front of him.

“If you see anything odd, or if it starts charging, instead of creeping, give me a yell. There are no containment rooms on the bottom floor, so every possible second to slow them down counts!”

“Oh, there’s another, and another!”

The monsters creeped in closer, and closer to the group. Their audible, gargly whispers to each other raising the atmosphere to a choking ozone, everypony tensed, sitting tightly together.

The group of monsters were pitch black, blending in perfectly with the surroundings, all but their violet eyes were nothing more than a blacker-than-black silhouette hidden in a sea of blackness.

“Again, don’t make any sudden movements.” Stoic yelled to Dash, hearing her hind quarters plop against the granite.

“Ohmygosh look!” Rainbow Dash yelled, pointing a hoof.

“Wish I could, Dashie, tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s so close to her, this is creeping me out.”

Rainbow dash saw, through her periscope that one of the enders had crouched down, and begun to hover its fingers over Fluttershy, leaving streaks of frost on the surface of her armor. The pegasus froze.

“There’s something above me, it’s so cold, it isn’t even touching, and I feel it.”

“Fluttershy, don’t move, it’s trying to invoke a reaction.”

It made a loud, warbly grunt, right behind Fluttershy’s head.

The yellow pony jerked, and squirmed over to a nearby Rarity, making a squeak in the process, entirely blindfolded.

The whole group of nearby enders stopped, abruptly, and snapped their heads towards the shrill sound.

“I gotta help her!” yelled Dash.

“No you don’t, you’ll only ensure everypony’s death here if you so much as brush against one.” Stoic said.

The enders unfocused from Fluttershy.

The rest of the enders were joining in, soundlessly stroking frigid, slender, bony fingers, just millimeters away from the fur, and armor of the ponies, who, in turn, quivered, and eeped, squirming away from the slightest sense of cold.

One of the enders had begun to tug at the blindfold on Fluttershy.

Another ender turned its attention towards Dash, and began to approach her. Dash backed away two steps for every one the ender took.

It soon stopped pursuing, and turned its attention to the human.

“Hey, one’s coming for you, Stoic!!”

“I can feel it, Dash, these things are driving my auxiliary processor nuts, it’s like they are physically unable to attack, unless provoked, and they are looking for the slightest excuse to call ‘provocation’.”

Fluttershy's blindfold was coming loose.

“Stoic... DO SOMETHING!” Dash said.

The ender behind Stoic crept up to a mere inch away, breathing down his neck.

“Geez, that’s cold!” He said, leaning away from the noxious, icy winds, and vigorously throwing a switch.

The lights zapped on a moment later, brighter than ever.

The enders waited a moment, squarked in unison, and vanished into thin puffs of black, noxious vapor.

“Are... Are they gone?” Fluttershy asked, beginning to release the immense pressure she was forcing into Rarity’s side.

“Yes, but we’ll see them again, but maybe not so up close, and personal. They never tried so hard to kill us like this, perhaps they fear re-imprisonment.” Stoic answered, lowering the brightness

“Now, the lights shouldn’t do this again, but the containment fields will take another few minutes to warm up, and, let’s not forget, we have a mission to do, that slick is not going to acquire its self.”

They headed up some stairs that were lining the wall farthest from the door, curving up the side of the tower many feet into another, round floor above.

“How many floors are there, again?” Dash asked

“Twenty one, the ones after the first aren’t quite so tall. I thought we went over this.”

“Oh, ok, I just forgot....”

“‘Forget’.... That isn’t a word I’m used to hearing..... of course, you don’t have brain implants... that might poke a hole in my plan.”

They came upon, yet another heavy, metal door, at the top of the stairs, with a nearby nearby square of blackish material, protruding from a panel at the doors side, above which was printed ‘EMPLOYEE ACCESS ONLY’.

Stoic lightly pressed his finger against the black square.

An audible beep resounded.

A clear, robotic, female voice sounded from an unidentifiable direction. “Welcome back, Stoic! We hope remain unharmed throughout your duties as our chief logician.”

“Logician? What kind of job is that?” Twilight asked.

“Me... A logician... Oh, it meant me, and my following group of nearly four-hundred comrades worked as thinkers, scientists, and dark iron folders. I was good at what I did, Really good, so I got the title “Chief” as a sort of monument to it, allowing my opinion to be more loudly heard among my work kin.” Stoic said, leading through the door.

“Now, during that last hour of preparations, and planning, I retrieved from my cabinet, the last few of my devices.” Stoic said, reaching behind his back to grab an object that softly clicked as he detached it from his back.

“What is that thing?” Asked pinky

“Is that... Is that supposed to be a weapon?” Asked Twilight.

“It’s the best work could buy, an arbalest.... errr... a crossbow, made mostly with pullus ferrum. It has over six-hundred, seperate folds, and about about seventy different types of folded dark iron! Doc told me i should get one before I go in stasis, and now I know why.” Stoic said.

“You had a weapon the whole time?!” Rarity shrieked.

“What? What’s wrong? It’s only a crossbow, in the hands of someone who would never use it against you.” Stoic replied, snapping a thin, cyan-glowing, transparent hose, made out of some transparent, rubbery material, from another object mounted to his back, into his crossbow.

Upon the nubbed end of the line connecting, parallel to the stock, and into a socket next to the latch, the weapon emitted a beep, the bow bent back, and the string stretched back in a V, and slipped into the latching mechanism. This all happened silently, and in about a second, until, audibly, the pressure of the bow was re-released onto the string, causing it to twing, and screech a bit.

“Ugh, this whole encounter has been nothing but a drove of uncomfortable. Just... Just try not to kill any of us with it” Applejack complained.

“You're all flying off your handlebars, I don't know if you've been exposed to a ton of social propaganda, or not, but..."

"I know, dearie, but it's just so.... Look, let me put it this way. The princess keeps the heads on her own guards' spears dull, we sort of... Shun weaponry." Rarity cut off.

“I’m sorry, really, I am, I hope you can put up with it." He said, loading seven more spikes into the thin box, before slamming it into the body of his crossbow with a click. "Wait... What's the point of having spears in the first place?"

"Look, the spears are more of a symbol than a tool."

"Speaking of spears, I feel really barbaric, using a crossbow. It's laughable compared to what we had before the Utopia. It's all I could find that was practical, though. I don't think any standard will-weapons work on enders, energy weapons don't do jack for stopping power, and..."

"Let's just... move on." Rainbow Dash said.

They walked/trotted into a hallway, with several doors lining both sides, one of which had a bright red X taped onto it, leading up to a thick, shiny, steel double door, that was presumably attached to an elevator.

“No doubt that thing doesn’t work any more, it broke at least once a year, even when not in service! Trying to use it would probably result in our entrapment, and/or our immediate, violent, fear-filled deaths.” Stoic said.

“Ain’t there any stairs ‘round here?” Applejack asked.

“Yes, there are, you can find ‘em.... just behind the elevator, though they don’t go all the way to the top.”

“...Why on earth not?” Asked Applejack.

“Oh, it’s just the architecture of the building, had no idea that we would be regretting it though... There are more stairs from the fifteenth floor, to the twentieth, and another from the twentieth to the twenty-first.”

The group advanced a bit, shying away from the slightly tarnished doors as they passed them by.

Stoic halted, and the group did likewise, in front of the door marked with a red X

“This is a containment room, there are sixteen of them, one for each ender, and a spare, in case one happens to fail, or another one shows up through the portal. We took a few precautions, but never expected to have a 7 versus 15 scenario. So, don’t forget where you see a red ‘X’.”

The group looked up at him, nodding. Fluttershy, who was at the back was not immediately recognizing her surroundings, and failed to respond.

Stoic slammed the butt of his crossbow into the elevator door, a snapping was heard from the inside of the shaft, and a moment later, a crash below, from the first floor.

“Haha, I had a feeling that those cheap, steel cables wouldn’t last long, imagine if we got on that thing. All I had to do was vibrate the jig slightly!!” Stoic said, pushing a button on the elevator door’s side.

The button beeped, and a red light flashed. A familiar robotic voice sounded.

“The main elevator is out of commission, unless you are of a repair crew, please refrain from entering this doorway, at the expense of possible death.”

The doors shot open with a pneumatic hiss.

Stoic looked down the shaft, expecting to have a sight to show to the ponies. A pair of violet eyes stared him back instead, standing on top of the rusty wreckage, a cube of heavily oxidized metal floating in front of it.

Stoic instinctively jumped back from the doorway, raising his crossbow.

“Did you see one?” Dash asked, a bit of fear audible in her voice.

“I shouldn’t have looked away. We only have a couple seconds!!”

The group backed into the hallway, distancing themselves from the elevator.

A ductilated, knobby, shade materialized in the doorway, noxious, translucent, violet fumes flowing in tendrils all over the place, and across the floor. It was gripping the frames.

It screamed, a shrill siren of pure malice, leaning towards the group as it did so. Frigid spittle, flew everywhere, hissing, and leaving marks of frost where it landed. The violet vapour shifted into a deep, angry, dark red, along with its eyes.

The monster hurled the cube of steel it held. The massive projectile was perfectly aimed, and made a trajectory straight for the middle of Stoic's chest. An aura of blue surrounded the cube of junk, and redirected it a few degrees upwards. The hunk of steel whizzed over Stoic's head, very nearly combing a protrudance of steel through his hair, though leaving him unscathed. The massive block finished its arc of travel to the back of the room, smashing violently into the steel wall..

"Thanks Rares."

Stoic hit a lever on his crossbow, a fat spike jumped up in front of the string, which stood straight, and at attention, like a soldier, until he took aim, and fired it into the face of the ender.

The mechanism worked beautifully, a nearly silent *twung* resounded, the bolt buried its self deep, to the synthetic feathers. Before the beast could even react, another spike popped up, hovering over its channel, situating in front of a now re-tensed string.

The hideous beast shrieked again, but not a shriek rage, but a shriek of pain. It clutched with its fingers, each almost a foot long, around its face, and the buried bolt, and fell to its spindly knees howling in agony.

A spurt of black liquid shot from its partially concealed visage, spattering against the ground in front of Stoic. The ground where it landed hissed, and bubbled, as the liquid boiled, and evaporated, leaving a streak of frost where it used to be.

The group backed away, re-approaching the marked door.

The group looked in awe, as the ender removed its hands, and the bolt slid out of its face, dropping to the floor with a clink.

An inaudible, invisible energy of complete, and utter malice, and hatred filled the hallway, the ender picked up the spike again, and held it high like a dagger, poised to strike.

It did not rush, but simply walked, again, the ponies retreating two paces for every stride it advanced. The human did likewise.

Just a few feet from the door, Stoic tripped on a misplaced hoof and fell. No-pony caught him, and he landed on his backside.

The whole group froze, as did the ender, who faltered momentarily, and then leapt.

The ponies cleared a path for it to fly, but Stoic had neither the freedom of motion, or the reflex to move.

It landed atop him, driving its knee into his belly, which the armor redirected the force of. The building vibrated, indicating that it had taken most of the shock. The ender, a moment later reassured Stoic’s fate by pinning Stoic’s shoulder, and arm to the cold granite with a single, elongated, clawlike hand.

The ender howled again, raising its clutched spike high in the air, ready to drive it straight through the armor Stoic wore, which wasn’t nearly so strong now that the ender was interfering with it’s magic-circuitry.

Stoic wheezed as the immense pressure the ender put on him with its knee began to sink in, and squeeze all of the air out of him. He felt his flesh begin to freeze, his head throb, and his vision tunnel.

The spike began to plunge down, Stoic fainted to the sound of a hiss, and a meaty thump.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Take another break, go grab a snack,. You have a while to go.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wake up.”

“Huh?” Stoic groaned, as a capsule of smelling salts was held to his nose.

“Wake up, there might be more!”

Stoic jerked away from Fluttershy, yelping a bit as the powerful fumes of the smelling salts were beginning to render.

Fluttershy flinched at the sudden movement..

“Argh..... why am I.... alive?”

“Twilight figured out how to open that door, and applejack bucked that thing in the blink of an eye.” Fluttershy said, in her ever-soft voice.

“Applejack, I owe you big, ‘twas a hell of a thing you did there, I won’t forget that when I am crafting something for you, same goes for you, Twilight.” Stoic said, glancing at the heavy, marked door, which now bore a set of four, deep gashes in its steel frame. From which behind, muffled screaming was audible.

Applejack was sitting on her haunches, looking at her hind hooves, which were now wrapped with gauze.

“What’s happened to your feet...... err.. hooves?” Stoic asked.

“That thing was cold, so cold it numbed my hooves on the first buck, the second I think caused a sprain... How am I s’posed to buck right if I can’t feel what I’m buckin at?!” She replied.

“I did my best to fix her.” Fluttershy commented.

Stoic tried to stand, but fell to an unexpected shock of pain coming from his abdomen.

“Your skin was frozen when I looked, you got some serious frostbite from that creature. You mentioned that your suit has medicine in it already?” Fluttershy said.

“It does... And it certainly will heal this wound, but it will take a few minutes or so... But for now, I think Applejack needs these more than I do.” Stoic said, yanking off one of his boots.

He handed her the boot, and then the other.

“Gee, I ‘preciate the offer, but I don’t think these’ll fit.” Applejack said.

“You’d be right, but I don’t think I told you, these boots were designed to fit anyone, anything, anypony that put them on, including people with lost sections of their feet (who eventually regain them because of the boots’ properties), this shouldn’t be too different. Just try to put them on, and give me a minute to configure them.”

“Alright, thanks, I was starting to worry that this sprain would be the death of me.” Applejack said, as she stuffed her first hind-hoof into a boot, wincing as she did.

“Ow, just gotta...” Applejack said, stuffing her other hoof into the second boot. This time, the whole group winced, imagining doing the same with an injured hoof.

“Can you hurry up, this hurts like the dickens.” She complained.

“Applejack, you are tough!” Stoic chuckled, focusing on the boots, until they began to change shape.

“That’s better” She said, halfway through the process.

“Now, those should get to accelerating the healing process by a factor of about a thousand as soon as I....” Stoic stopped.

“What? As soon as you what?” Applejack asked.

Stoic’s eyes rolled up into his skull, and he fell to his knees.

“What the... What in tarnation is goin’ on?”

Stoic snapped back into attention.

“Sorry, I just had to compensate for the fact that you are hoofed, you wouldn’t want to start growing toes, now would you? Anyhow, that was a huge mental piece of work, but I finished it, and simulated it about a hundred times, you should be good to go.” Stoic said.

Applejack simply stared, she didn’t quite know what to think of what she just heard.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear more about that when we’ve got the chance.” Twilight said.

Applejack got onto her hooves, and immediately jolted.

“Oh my gosh, I aint’ feelin’ no pressure on mah hooves... it’s like I’m walking on air.”

“It’s an effect of the boot, one I modified to suit you better. It takes the pressure off of your hooves, and spreads it over your entire body, this will be especially beneficial since you’re healing right now.” Stoic said.

“Oh, I could get used to this.” Applejack said.

“Hey” Twilight interrupted.

“What is it Sparky?” Stoic replied.

“Shouldn’t we get a move on? The less time we spend in this dreadful tower, the better.” She answered.

“Right, let’s get going.” Stoic said, bearing the pain as he stood up again, onto his bare feet, picking up his crossbow, and throwing a switch somewhere on it.

The visible spike fell back into the body of the arbalest, leaving the channel empty.

“Are those hands on yer hind legs as useful as those on your front?” Applejack asked.

“Umm... no, those are feet, and those toes aren’t nearly as useful as fingers.” Stoic said.

“Wow, humans are so weird.” Dash replied.

“Oh, hey, that bolt is still here!” Stoic said, picking up the fat spike that was covered in black blood a moment ago, and loading it into his crossbow through a hole in the bottom of the clip.

The group reproached the elevator, and instead of looking down it again, went ‘round it’s side, where a circular staircase spiraled up for hundreds of feet, but only visibly for about ten.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The climb to the fifteenth floor went uninterrupted, and wordless, minus Stoic’s comment on the ponies ability to efficiently climb stairs at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ugh, what a workout, I don’t want to become all burly, and muscly...... No offense Applejack.” Rarity complained.

“I don’t even know how Pinkie hopped all the way up” Twilight said, obviously out of breath.

“it was easy, just a hop, skip, and jump!” The pink one shouted in reply.

Twilight looked even more confused than before.

“Uh-oh, I don’t see the stairs at the end of this hallway. I reckon we’ll have to find some way around.” Applejack said, who was barely tired at all.

Rainbow dash wasn’t nearly as tired as the rest of the group, mostly because she weighed very little, and was an athlete by any standards.

“Right, this point, and up, no-one but the roughest employees saw often, really, so they didn’t keep the place looking so nice, or so simple, not to mention, this place, and up has its own, independent energy system. But if I’m not mistaken, all room-lights should be off up here, because it’s a standard for the lights to be off when everyone leaves at night, and if I’m not mistaken, humanity’s dooming hour came ‘round during the late night, but since no-one was thinking straight the night before, it’s all too likely that at least some will be left on.”

“Oh, you got to be kidding me, we have to explore dark rooms now?” Applejack complained.

“Umm, you’ve already planned this out, so let’s just follow you.” Said Fluttershy.

“Alright, settled, but keep away from the doors, especially if they’re open.” Stoic said.

They advanced down a shorter hallway, with similar, metal doors, that presumably were meant to fall into their frames somehow.. A single door was left open, a window into blackness, a potentially deadly gate.

The group pressed into the opposite wall, staring straight ahead, having as little to do with that door as possible, until Stoic killed the tension by pushing a button to shut it. The door followed the command, a thick sheet of marked, and riveted steel shot up into the frame, from the floor underneath.

“Hopefully, the door we need to take doesn’t lead into a dark room.” Stoic said, pointing to a frame on the right side, near the end of the hallway.

They neared the door, which was closed, and marked

“ENGINEERING FACILITIES; LACKS NEWER SAFETY FEATURES; ENTER AT OWN RISK”

“Alright, let’s review, there is basically a maze of metal catwalks, and steel grill, exposed piping, and electrical wires past this point. Much of this place should have deteriorated, because the place wasn’t very strongly protected with slick coatings, so navigating may be difficult, or impossible.” Stoic recited.

“You’re telling me that we may have gone all the way up here for nothing?” Applejack said.

“Well, don’t forget we have a huge resource of magical energy, and horns to put that to use.” Said Stoic, pointing to the flat, black device latched onto his back near his now re-attached crossbow, which several shimmering, blue tubes sprouted from, and reattached to.

Stoic fingered the button connected to the door, letting the tension in the atmosphere build.

“Alright, shut your eyes.” He said, before hitting the button.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The door was heard slam open, and after a hesitation a few seconds long, they walked in, the lanterns following, floating through the air as if they sat on waves of water.

“Dear Celestia, I don’t think I can take much more of this!” Rarity said.

“I feel for you, but right now, sentiments can’t help.” Stoic said, cracking his eyes open to a squint. The room was indeed dark. Stoic stared high, near the ceiling, searching his peripherals for that vile sign of an ender, the telltale pair of violet oculi, straining his conscience to suppress his fight, or flight, which was prone to cause visual connection.

Stoic spun around a few times, lowering his gaze on every rotation.

“We’re safe, you can stop treading blind.” Stoic finally said.

The ponies opened their eyes, not very surprised to see the room they stood in, to be plain, made of a grey metal, with a solid, metal floor, sporting few furnishings, but a box of mechanical tools leaned on a wall, and a control panel against another.

The room its self was lit only by Stoic’s lanterns, causing the long shadows of everypony to bob, up and down on the walls they were cast against.

Stoic hit a switch on the control panel.

The room’s own light shined, an immaterial point of light, not nearly as bright as that of the first floor, floating an inch under the ceiling, in the precise center of the square room.

“You have to tell me about those lights, because so far, I am quite baffled as to how they work.” Said a curious, purple pony.

“Later. Sorry, but now is not the time to give lessons on theoretical physics, and self-managing enchantments.”

“Next room, we go.” Stoic said, hitting a button, on the only other door present in the room.

The whole group shut their eyes again, all but stoic, who began to stare at the ceiling once more, but stopped, as he realized, that the lights in the next room were on.

“Haha, these lights were left on for over four-hundred-fifty thousand years!” he said.

Everypony opened their eyes, but Fluttershy.

“That means you can open your eyes.” Stoic said , slightly bemused..

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean not to catch your hint to...”

“Nonsense, it’s adorable, keep being Fluttershy, Fluttershy.” Stoic said with a grin.

Fluttershy blushed slightly. Despite the fact that she was, in fact, adorable, not many called her so to her face.

Another plain room, but with two other doors, and a map pinned to the wall.

Stoic looked briefly at the map, which depicted the top ten floors of the building, sliced apart, and colour coded into a rainbow. A red dot in the middle, marked *YOU ARE HERE*.

“Alright, it should be... this one.” Stoic said, almost hitting the button on the door across from their entry.

“Wait... wait a minute, our dash back may not allow us to study each map as we leave, let’s just...” Stoic said, pulling a stick of dark iron out of a compartment in his clothing.

It was about six inches long, about half an inch thick, and had a cap.

Stoic removed the cap, revealing a bright, red tip that tapered into a round point. He walked back to the door they came from, and marked a red O on it, which was transferred from the tip.

They walked back to the far door, taking their blindness routine, before opening it.

They were, again, pleasantly surprised to hear Stoic say, again “LIGHT!”. But were met with a unique, strange scent, slightly pungent, faintly of ferment.

The group opened their eyes, to an ugly sight, all over the walls, was scrawled in red, increasingly sloppy handwriting, eventually trailing off to a curved line to the floor, pointing to where a device similar to Stoic’s own marker sat, on it’s side, on the edge of a thin pile of fine, grey dust, which also harbored in one of it’s oddly shaped protrusions, a small, flat silvery box, about the size of a quarter, sprouting from which were millions of fragile-looking, thin, hair-like structures, that reached out to form a roughly spherical shape, insides filled with billions of branches, in a tree-like pattern. Though some were crushed against the floor, .

“Oh my gosh, what is this?!” Twilight quizzed, taking in the disturbing scene, beginning to read the writing on the walls. While Stoic turned his body, but not head, to draw an ‘O’ on the door, just as it shut.

Stoic stared, hard, intently at the words, taking in their meaning. “this is someone’s death-scene, these are his death-notes!!”

The writing began cleanly, in slightly sloppy print, making coherent sentences, and ending, after about a paragraph, in illegible symbols, before forming a curved line to the floor.

“This is engineer Vigour. I think, that, like our networks have been coming to a conclusion to, we are about to all die. This is now confirmed I might just be losing my mind but everything falls faster I must to breathe harder... hard to stand up I fall too fast for my reflexes to...” It read, before ending in a line that traveled downward, and terminated. But written at about thigh level, was another section of lettering.

“I’m running out of time Cant stand eyes not focus arms obey %^& @!# -!+/**-

(*&@# @(*(*^# <>+_ΞξΞξ

THE END IS NEIGH

ot*$&%@#help!

@$&2#$<:{::no think””#*@& λ Ϙ

Σ mind Ω ω Ξ ξ ς

μ Δ φ

gone.._____~~~\”

The line after gone trailed to the floor. The scene obviously depicted Vigour’s death, and his travel to insanity on the way. It became a lot more apparent what that ashy powder was, exactly.

“Vigour.... I knew Vigour... well too! There was no harder worker in this whole DAMN facility. and this is his DAMN grave now, thanks to him working overtime!” Stoic shouted, clenching his teeth, and breathing hard.

A long silence formed.

“At least somebody found him...” Stoic said, breaking the silence, looking down at his bare feet.

Everypony noticed, finally, that Fluttershy was backed into a doorway, repulsing from the ancient remains. Which Stoic leaned over, to pick up the tiny, silver box, breaking off the tree of threads at it’s trunk.

“This is his auxiliary processor, it contains all of the important moments of his life, and anything he ever thought noteworthy, which means that if we can build something to read it, then from it we can extract knowledge of the arts of magic, some of which not even I have learned, for he took a different course of education, than I.” Stoic said, carefully pocketing the device.

Nopony was about to question the morality of such an action. They didn’t want to cause Stoic to break down, or cause a very long discussion about beliefs. Such an action would result in tons of undue stress.

“Well....... Stoic, I don’t exactly know what it’s like to lose a friend, but we need to get goin’.” Applejack said, killing a new silence.

Fluttershy was still backed into the doorway, staring, wide-eyed at the far decayed remains of Vigour.

The door opened.

Fluttershy fell in backwards, hitting something cold on her way down.

The whole group turned to see an ender, a finger on the button, standing over little Fluttershy, it’s eyes turning red, as everyone, stared at, and Fluttershy stared up, to it.

“There aren’t any containment rooms on this floor.” Stoic said, a tear blurring his eye.

Everyone stood frozen, in apprehension.

The ender opened its mouth, and sprayed forth a shower of burning cold ichor.

Everyone flinched at once, occasional drops of sputum bouncing, and sizzling off of the metal armour they wore.

The ender took that opportunity, snatching Fluttershy by her forehooves, and retreating into the dark room from whence it came.

“HELP, HELP! CELESTIA, NO!!” She screamed, before all else said was muffled by the door, slamming shut when the cruel monster hit the button controlling it.

“No, no, NOT FLUTTERSHY, NO!” Screamed Dash, as she pounded her hooves against the metal door.

More screaming could be heard, muffled, and shrill.

Stoic lifted his crossbow.

“Open the door, Dash!” He shouted

Dash slammed the button with her hoof. The door hissed, and strained, but stuck fast. The ender had damaged the frame after the door closed, jamming it shut.

“OH NO YOU’RE NOT!”She screamed, before slamming the button again, and again.

The door strained, and scraped, for a full ten seconds, with dash abusing its control panel, before ripping open, sending little bits of scrap metal flying off from the door scraping the warped frame.

The scene that was just obscured by the big metal door now became the greatest subject of attention.

“Wha....What?” Rarity quizzed.

The whole room was a festival of dropped jaws, it was an unbelievable miracle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“HELP, HELP, CELESTIA, NO!!” she screamed, fingers cold as liquid nitrogen wrapped around her hooves, beginning to crumple the armor in its way.

The door slammed shut, and she was turned against her struggling to meet the red glare of her imprisoner’s eyes. They stared her, like icy pits of hatred, and spite. Fluttershy stared back, harder, even though her hooves were beginning to numb, and sting. The surprising intensity of her glare caused the ender to falter. The ender stepped it up, hoping to crush the soul of its’ victim.. Fluttershy did likewise, but tenfold. Her eyes burnt like hot smoke to look into. The ender was beginning to shudder, leaning away from the pony it held like it was toxic.

The ender broke eye contact, glancing away, Fluttershy worked the very most furious of her expressions possible,

It dropped her, and shrieked, finally releasing its sub-zero grip. Falling to the ground on its behind, crawling away, backwards, making indeterminable, though undeniably vocal sounds as it did so.

The door opened, a crowd of ponies who were moments ago ready to fight, and die for their friend, now stood flabbergasted at the pathetic sight.

Fluttershy didn’t stop because of the distraction. The pair of eyes went blue as the light from the near room fell onto its’ face in the farthest corner of the room. The ender made the hopeless whines of a convicted child who knew what he did wrong.

Fluttershy approached. A cruel, maternal scolding followed, every word thumped into the head of the ender like a lobbed anvil, despite that it could not discern their meaning. It put its hands up, between it, and her, and uselessly swiped its feet against the floor as an attempt to back further into the corner, shrieking, and bawling.

Fluttershy paused for a moment.

From the enders own mouth, words flowed, but not in any known language, not vowels, or consonants, but short, strangled syllables, stuttered sounds, squawking, and various clicking, and popping noises. It was pleading, pleading in its own language for Fluttershy to relent her horrid, menacing stare.

Any pride this creature previously had, was now void. It lost, playing its own game, to a yellow pony, and was bawling, begging, and pleading for the pony to stop.

The yellow pony had no mercy for it, continuing her berating until the ender began to smoke, tendrils of familiar black smog branching away from it, floating up to the ceiling, instead of down to the ground.

A tear colored black rolled down its cheek, splattering against the floor. Followed by black particles of ash to the cold, granite floor, and collecting at its feet.

More ash followed, the rate of falling rapidly accelerating. The ender was disintegrating at the hands of an invisible flame. In no longer than five seconds, the monster had burned into a small pile of soot, stinking up the whole room with the smell of brimstone.

Fluttershy snapped out of her trance realizing what she had done, and backed away from the dead beast. She turned to meet the faces of her astonished friends, with not an expression of victory, but of horror.

“What’s wrong Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

“I.... I killed it.” She sputtered,

Stoic had lowered his crossbow long ago, and was staring off into the distance, not hearing a word said, the apparent signs of his ‘Processing Mode’.

“I KILLED IT!” She screamed, rushing towards her friends.

Twilight sparkle caught her in a hug, letting Fluttershy sob into her shoulder.

“There there... you had to, it was either you, or it.” Twilight tried to console.

“I KILLED IT AND IT HAD A GOOD SIDE!!” She screamed into Twilight’s shoulder.

Stoic snapped out of his own trance, and spoke up.

“Fluttershy, why are you...” He broke off midsentence, putting together the puzzle in his head.

“You didn’t kill it.” He said.

“It’s still alive?!!” Dash yelled in response.

“No, it’s dead alright, Fluttershy just didn’t kill it, it committed suicide.”

“What.... can... Are you saying these enders are capable of suicide?” Dash replied.

“Look, I barely understand those things, and no human ever has much, but my auxiliary processor was picking up billions of extremely complex spells, I had to spend a lot of thought to figure them out. Fluttershy was basically teaching it, forcing our own system of morals onto it, talking sense into it. Apparently, not many creatures can live with being brutal mass murderers while holding a morality like Fluttershy’s. No, Fluttershy didn’t kill it, Fluttershy made it feel guilty, the rest was its’ own choice.” Stoic said, killing some of the emotional controversy, but adding more in the process.

The room broke into argument, but Twilight and Fluttershy stood together, Fluttershy too busy grieving, and Twilight too busy comforting.

Stoic stood processing for another moment, trying to emotionally package his words.

“It never had a good side, but you gave it one. Before it died, it finally knew how to care, and it did. Fluttershy, you created something beautiful, it just didn’t last. We need to move on, forget what happened in this room, and survive. No amount of crying, or fighting could possibly help us, or bring back that ender, and it would only commit suicide again should we succeed.” Stoic said, surprised that he managed to say it right. (He was quite bad at giving emotional speeches)

Fluttershy looked up from where she had her head buried, Red marks showing where tears ran through her coat, from her eyes. Giving Stoic a look which made him question whether he believed his own words.

Stoic hated things like this, almost every point in his life he had to be emotional for someone, he turned up short, failed to give the right reaction, acted too slowly, or hurt someone. That was the real reason he was always so alone in life, and he avoided moments like this like a plague.

He decided again, hoping that he wasn’t doing the wrong thing. Kneeling down to Fluttershy’s level, and hugging her around the neck.

It worked, she calmed down, lost tenseness, sniffed a few times,whispered into his ear “Thanks”, and hugged him back, upon which stoic had to fight her weight, which wasn't as high as he expected.

The hug relented, and they both got back onto their feet. Stoic removed a white, cotton cloth from a pocket, and wiped away her tears.

“Now let’s move on.” Stoic said, breaking a long silence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next few rooms were without event. Whatever happened to the slain ender, the live ones feared the ponies greatly for it.

Stoic also found himself using a couple orbiters to uncrumple the armor Fluttershy wore, because it was digging into her hooves

“A ladder... I didn’t think this through well enough, did I?” Stoic said, pointing at what he had previously called a staircase when discussing the plan.

“Can ponies climb ladders?” He asked the group.

“Uuuh.. no, if that thing is a ladder.” Answered Applejack.

“Is that a ladder?” Rarity asked, pointing to the runged pair of metal bars, traveling eight feet into the ceiling, topped with a hatch.

“Well, yes, and I am going to have to figure out how to get you all up there...” Stoic replied, stopping to think.

“... And maybe also how to get you down.” He finished

He hefted his manipulator, which he was just carting around with a couple orbiters a minute ago, and opened the hatch with its magic. He proceeded to pick up each pony, and lift them through, though Rainbow Dash refused its grip, and flew through the hatch on her own.

Soon they were all standing over the hatch, in a great, round room of glass, which was protecting them from the milky layer of winds going much faster than the speed of sound, accelerated, and tethered by unseen forces generated somewhere in the building. The whole room vibrated softly, as the air stumbled over its self in its haste, hitting the single, round wall millions of times per second with tiny vortexes.

The inside of the room is what was interesting though, there were two dozen pipes, about a foot wide, emerging from the floor and facing the wall. Stoic discussed those pipes before, they were meant to carry canisters of slick to all parts of the building, one of which leading to the lobby of the first floor. Aside from these pipes were shelves, and shelves, just full of canisters harboring a dense, black material. Hundreds of them.

“Well, we made it... halfway.” Let’s throw these down into the lobby, and get out of here alive, sound good?” Twilight said.

“Alive sounds good” Applejack said

Stoic located the pipe labeled “Lobby” and hefted the first canister into it, the glass, and metal of the great jar fitting tightly into it.

The container sat in the mouth of the pipe for a second, and then was violently tugged down by a massive vacuum force, accelerating out of view, and audibly scraping down the pipe.

Twilight brought one, complaining. “It feels weird carrying this, it still has lots of inertia, but feels much lighter than it should be!” after leaving it in the pipe like Stoic did.

Twenty containers later, they sat down together to take a short break. Letting their wired nerves calm, and sharing some warmth. The wind against the glass was doing a great job of making the room very cold.

A black hand emerged from one of the pipes, clutching against its rim to pull the owners body out.

“What the hay?!” Yelled Applejack, pointing a hoof to the intruder.

An ender was now in the room, head peeking outwards from the impossibly small pipe. Several more began emerging from different pipes, in near unison

The group was soon trapped, forced against the glass wall, closed off from escape. Thirteen enders, the whole of the survivors, all seeking revenge for their fallen brethren.

The attempted stares to hold the enders in place only stopped seven of thirteen from advancing at once, the eyes of the group grew frantic as they tried to stop their advance. The ones closest got the staring first, but their peers soon shuffled past them.

Ten feet away was the nearest. none of them broke into a run, savoring the intense, mind numbing fear their soon-to-be victims felt.

Stoic lifted his lantern, which after a second blasted light so brightly that even the black enders were appearing a dazzling white.

The enders shrieked, and hissed, and burned, but fought against the light anyhow, continuing their grueling advance.

Five feet away, arms outstretched, ready to inflict mortal wounds.

“Worst possible thing” Rarity squeaked.

The group of enders froze abruptly to the que of an odd buzzing noise, arms mere inches away from the group. The collective cold of their bodies was unbelievably chilling.

The group stood in apprehension for about fifteen seconds, waiting for the creatures to spring back to life.

“Are you going to come out from there, or not?” An accented British voice sounded from behind the enders.

“DOC?!” Stoic yelled, rushing out of his cramped position, knocking over a frozen ender in the process.

“Doc, you made it!!”

“Who... what?” Twilight asked.

The rest of the group slipped between the gaps between the enders to find a brown earth pony, with a darker brown mane that stood up in short, frizzy, back-pointing spikes, and an hour-glass for his mark. He held a device with a glowing blue tip on his hoof that was emitting the buzzing.

“Bloody great timing there, any later and you’d be mince meat.” The doctor said.

“You were THAT lonely?” exclaimed Dash.

“Wow, eighty years and y...” Rarity was about to say.

“You’re forgetting what’s important. Somehow this pony was around four hundred thousand years ago, and unless he’s immortal, that’s not possible.” Twilight said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End of Part 3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part six; A Taste of Peace

“Then off we are!!” The survivor exclaimed, before clumsily trotting out the front door, and into the wide, cobbled streets of Canterlot. His legs not moving in tandem, and dissonantly catching each new imbalance that arose every step.

They had decided to head to the restaurant ‘Daisy’s’, a family-owned company, that had a branch out in the middle of town. It wasn’t nearly as high-class as some of the other places around, but this was ideal, for The Survivor wasn’t familiar with high-culture, and would require some training before heading off to a fancy restaurant.

Stoic, though having left first, quickly ended up in Lyra's trail, careening to and fro, and side to side mildly, due to his handicap.

When they arrived, the first thing he noticed was a distinct lack of breads, or things of cooked nature. The place was called Daisy’s, after all. There were instead, visible through an enormous glass window, vases of flowers filling the window-sills, and crates of various fruits, vegetables, and berries on display, on a counter inside.

“How quaint!” Said Nameless as he paused to figure out how to open the door, and decided to with magic, setting off a bell that hing from the top of the frame. The place smelled distinctly earthy, and sweet, and was a little humid, rather than the cool, dry, odourless air outside.

“Ooh, a new face ‘round here. Whaddaya lookin’ fer’ hun’?” The clerk asked, looking up from her counter.

“I’m not sure, is there any way to decide what I'm looking for without building up a line?” Nameless asked in reply.

“Yeah, just si’down, n’ read this menu.” She replied, picking up, and dropping a laminated booklet on the counter.

He and Lyra sat down at an empty table in a far corner, away from the restaurant’s other visitors, and away from any windows.

“Alright, I recognize most of the fruits, and vegetables in here, but are these flowers any good?” He asked, seeing that they were actually on the menu.

“Yeah, they’re alright. Most of ‘em are sweet, but some are bitter, or even spicy.”

He thought for a minute, before saying "Are Daisies any good?"

“They’re more of a snack. They won't fix you.”

“Then what?”

“A big ol’ plate of grass’ll do the trick... Hey Daisy, can you get this guy 4 daisies, and two pounds a’ grass?” Lyra called.

“Grass? Hahaha. Do you... we ponies ever graze, like... Right off the ground?” Asked the former human.

“If we have to. But it’s considered a little barbaric.”

“Alright, hun! Issis your new colt-friend or something?” The shopkeep called back.

“No, the poor sucker just hasn’t eaten in days.”

“Oh, gee, how’sat happen?”

“he was umm...”

“I was spending the last 3 days in a constant strife, fighting for my life against the endermen of Babyl Tower, and battling out the world in demonstration for scientists. I haven’t had any time for real food in a while.”

"Well great, we got explaining to do." Lyra quietly scolded through her teeth.

“So you’re workin with that human the princess was yakkin’ about?”

“Well, no. Close though.”

"So... You are the human the princess was yakkin’ about.”

“Used to be, hahaha!” He replied.

“That’s a little off-colour...” Lyra said nervously, face-hoofing afterwards.

“I got nothin’ to say, ‘cept good luck!!” Her yell out echoed from deeper in the kitchen.

They waited a minute, and Daisy called back. “Got'cher food, hun.”

He headed to the counter, with a few bits that Lyra gave him.

“What’ll it be?” He asked.

“Oh, fer’ a feller like you, it’s on the house.”

“Really? Thanks!”

“No kidding, you’ve gotta be starvin’, and ye’r already skinny as a broom.” She replied.

“Err... yeah.”

He lifted the white, ceramic plate off the counter with magic. It contained nothing short of what they ordered; Roughly two pounds of long cut grass in a heap, and four daisies lined up neatly on the side.

“Hahaha, you’re eying that plate like it’s gonna bite you.” Lyra said as he sat down.

“Err, it’s just that I’ve never eaten such basic plant matter before. The closest I’ve ever had was celery.”

“You can add some spices if you want.”

“No, that’s not it. It’s that for humans, plant materials like celery, or sprouts took more energy to digest, than they yielded. Any more basic than that, and humans couldn’t fully digest it. I’ve never been able to eat grass, and the times I tried when I was a tiny kid taught me that the stuff simply wasn’t edible.”

”Well buck up, and give it another shot. It’s a staple here.”

“alright.” He said, reluctantly lifting a few blades to his mouth with magic.

He took a nibble, contemplated it, and then took a much larger bite.

“Whoa, way sweeter than it should be.” He said through his chewing.

Lyra simply shrugged and said. “Ch’yeah. I guess you’ll just get used to that.”

He noted that, and simply lifted some more grass to bite out of.

Another few seconds passed, before Lyra interjected. “You know, I thought you’d have a bigger appetite.”

“Trust me, I am completely starved. It’s just that most humans stop feeling hunger as a pain, during your early years of life when you're most likely to irresponsibly spend time in white-space.” he said, taking another bite.

“I guess it'd have to be something like that. Being that tall, you should weigh more than Big Macintosh.” She remarked.

“I have no idea who he is.”

“He’s an apple farmer back in Ponyville. Huge guy, red, doesn’t talk much. (He gets all the mares)” She whispered.

“Aah, a farmer. He will know my name very soon... Well, if I get one... Say, you’re not from around here, are you? You act differently from most of the other ponies I’ve observed in this town.”

“I grew up in Ponyville. Simple as that.”

“Then It’s safe to assume the people... ponies there are relatively folksy?”

“There’s far folksier around, but yeah... They’re a lot less up-tight down there. Daisy can say that’s her, and her family’s home town too. Are humans normally so lanky? It carried over into your pony form, so I think it's a personal trait."

"It's a sign of spending unhealthy amounts of time in any kind of incomplete stasis, which can be white-space. Older humans only stood about six feet tall at the healthiest of societies, and I had most of my artificially altered DNA remain. It's a huge risk, and I might die because of it, but that risk is necessary if we are to have longevity copied over to ponykind."

Other than the unnervingly high attention they got from the rest of the ponies there, things were uneventful. Little details were ironed out and all, but honestly nothing interesting happened.

Yes, our so far nameless character was rather surprised with the sensations that came with being equine, and he left for home, and slept in Bonbon’s abandoned bed. All without the interruption by some dangerous monster, or a crowd of anti-revolutionists. Things like that won’t be happening for a while. In the meantime, our protagonist will go to the Summer Sun Celebration. It’s more of social thing, he has plans to change society, and how would he do that if he never knew it in the first place?

Two days passed since then, only one other separating them from the Summer Sun celebration. In fact, where we find them is right about to get on the train to head there.

The Survivor did indeed receive his old equipment, which, though hardly suited for him any more, could still function when held by magic. His old clothing, however, remained in the princess’s custody for scientific study, because it was one of the few recorded, permanently enchanted objects in existence. Along with all this, he was allowed to take some of that hard-earned pullus ferrum with him; A guard showed up at their door two days after their little excursion, packing his IFM machine, a canister of ferrum, and his crossbow. But his generator which could power the crossbow was not returned until later in the day, when it was discovered not to be part of his clothing.

The train finally hissed to a halt in front of the station, spewing clouds of steam into the air after its massive, steel, manhole cover-like wheels froze up and spewed sparks all over the rails. The doors opened, and several conductors hung out of the doorways.

“ALL ABOOAARD!!”

“It’s kind of funny, really. That this old piece of tech should ever reappear. It’s exactly like one of those old steam engines. Does it use coal as fuel?” The Nameless one asked his companion.

Lyra shrugged, and said “I think they use unicorn magic.” She never thought much about trains.

They boarded, and were guided into a little room that had a bunk bed, and some basic furniture placed about.

“It’s not like everything can be going wrong all the time, all at once!! I am so glad to be having a little peace. I thank the bead of realism this world has left, haha!” The survivor said, throwing himself haphazardly onto the bottom bunk, and setting down his luggage (Some Ferrus, his IFM, and some clothing, and food) by the bedside.

“What, are you saying that we’ve... Lost realism?”

“Well, yes, sort of. Depending on what you decide is the opposite of real. Haven’t I mentioned before that earth has some serious distortion in space? Everything is ridiculously cartoony. You have a blasted outline!! That, and some of the creatures here are straight out of old fantasy. Like dragons, for example!!”

“I don’t get it. An outline? Cartoonishness? Fantasy...? Please tell me what you mean by all this.”

He paused in thought for a minute, putting a hoof to his chin.

“Well, there’s no way, ever, that I could expect a creature who’s been seeing outlines since birth, and taken them for some kind of rudimentary, unquestionable artifact of vision, to have noticed outlines as strange, or maybe even to have noticed them at all. To me, someone who's been around in a time where everything looked pretty grainy, and fine, everything looks weird..." Breaking into a mutter, he said " On the other hand, Some, or most of the fantasy things here, are likely just ways of applying a ‘Need’ force to stop the ponies from becoming spread-out, complacent with magic, and/or nomadic. Why it chose to use things straight out of old human lore, I have no idea.”

“What? Ok, you can’’t leave me hanging on this. Please do tell me more about this outline, or at least try to make it understandable.”

“Alright, I want you to look at the very edge of my figure, and notice the visual artifact in which the outermost edge of me, or anything for that matter, pronounces my colour from the background. It’s like... A slightly darker shade of gray from the rest of me.”

“Oh, I see it. Everypony has noticed those when they're little. It’s just that nopony cares once they grow up.”

“Nopony has so much as seriously questioned them? This worries me.”

“No, no. There’s always our stalwart, curious ponies who dedicate their lives to asking questions like those. It’s just that they always had harder, more interesting questions to try answering. That, and their theories for these ‘outlines’ always sounded really nutty, and impossible.”

“Well, broken space is probably responsible for this. Magic’s influence has slowly damaged space-time over the years. Light-waves get ‘broken to pieces’ as they travel. This has some really weird implications, and has a ton of extremely advanced physics behind it, so I’ll put it in short. Light doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. I can hardly see fine details any more, but this is way better than when I got out of suspended animation. I couldn’t see at all, and even after I adjusted, I was half-blind, as a human. We’ve experimented with broken space before, just so you know. You don’t even need magic to rip a big enough hole for a portal.”

“Why were you blind, though?” Lyra asked.

“Well, the real question is why you ponies aren’t blind, rather than why I was. I think the answer to that has something to do with the way your eyes, and brains are set up. However, to sate your curiosity, we are blind in damaged space because we are not meant to decode this encrypted, and fuzzy visual information. We simply lack the processing pow...” He was saying, before they both felt the train begin to move.

“We lack raw visual processing powerful enough to decode the fog of distortion. But I’m not sure, these theories are just thoughts. It could be a lot of different things.” He had to speak up, to be heard through the banging of the machinery.

“But if you're right, do you think FATE-S gave ponies those features on purpose?” She asked.

“For sure, that machine would have seen this issue coming eons in advance. It already figured out how to make biological horns, so it knows how to adapt life to the world under its influence.” He answered.

“Wait, onto the subject of space colonies. You taught me about them in our white-space session, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, are they still out there? Are there humans still alive today?”

“Haha, I don’t know. Those space colonies probably still exist today, with even more powerful supercomputers than we have on earth. They just can’t come here for anything any more, they will invariably die if they try to retake earth. They don't matter.”

“So humans aren’t really extinct?” She pleaded.

“I guess you could say so, but in all reality, we were never truly extinct. That computer running this solar system represents many million human lives of work, and you ponies are already like... 80% human. Well, you act 80% human, but your bodies are very different. The philosophy of my time revolved around the mind being what makes a person, hardly the body.”

Lyra grinned. It was a victory for her again. Maybe, someday she could see more of them in their natural form.

The landscape was now speeding by. They looked down the mountainside to see the entire equestrian valley. There, between Ponyville, and Canterlot, occupying a huge space in the golden-brown grass stood the monument Stoic had ripped from the ground. The rest of the field it sat in had ripples towards it, like waves frozen in time. There was still a visible crowd of ponies congregated around its base.

There, west of ponyville, and twice as west from canterlot, on the complete opposite side of the valley, sat the scarred mountain. The rip in its surface barely visible at all from this distance.

“This Ponyville. I’ve never seen it before. What’s it like?”

“Oh, it’s podunky, and small compared to Canterlot. But despite all this, the folks there are a lot nicer, and forgiving. They grow all sorts of crop around there, more than what’s needed to feed it. Ponyville actually feeds most of Canterlot... Umm... The Apple family has the biggest farm there, growing... apples, of course. But Ponyville’s not all about farming. Ponyville ponies are kind of renowned for their great character, and their unique traditions. I even heard the six elements of harmony all live there. But that’s just a rumour.”

“THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY?!” He cried out.

“Calm down, it’s just a rumour.”

“But the Elements of Harmony never worked!! We spent a long time trying to fix them, in the hopes of creating a last resort balancing force, and they just start working on their own?! This is preposterous!!”

“But they’re just a fantasy for fillies! The Elements of Harmony probably never even existed... Wait... no. You talking about them pretty much proves it.”

Nameless simply shrugged. A very familiar shrug to our reader, if you see what I’m communicating here.

They eventually arrived at the train-station, though it took almost 8 hours of non-stop traveling.

“We should have teleported... seriously. Why didn’t we?” Asked Lyra as they, and multiple other passengers exited the train-car.

“So we could connect... how did you forget that?" He asked.

"I dunno... lost in thought."

The both of them had fallen asleep on-board to communicate even further, though they were woken up by a mare with a cart of food half-way through. This resulted in Lyra jolting awake the instant Nameless stirred from her nudging hoof. The mare even wondered if they had some kind of psychic connection.

“It won’t just be thought. Soon it will be action. This society will be putty in my hands... hooves soon. Don’t mistake this for a threat, though. I’m not planning to do anything sinister.”

“Good. Historically, when anything but a pony has tried to intervene in our society, they end up oppressing us.” Lyra said.

Nameless furrowed his eyebrows, and said “War still happens?”.

“Hey, we’ve been around for a while, and sometimes those creatures from outside Equestria get organized enough to try a takeover. Of course, they only had limited success. Nowadays, the only things left of those gryphon crusades are a handful of gryphons who act like ponies. Besides, when we have quarrels with something smart enough, we don’t even fight with real weapons, unlike you humans. We use placeholders, like pies.”

“You fight with pies?” He quizzed.

“When we’re fighting something that won't willingly downscale the casualties, no. We use spears, hooves, and magic missiles.”

“I see. Not even the herbivores are to be caught without teeth, haha.”

They had been walking towards the town hall, hoping to find the ponies they knew.

Sure enough, Bonbon was found in no-time, sitting with her chin on her hoof in a candy-stall, bored out of her mind. Her eyes lit up, though, when she saw Lyra, and Nameless following her closely.

“Lyra, I heard the reports!” She called out once the two were in earshot.

“And I’ve heard much more than just that!” Replied Lyra

“You have no Idea how much it bothers me to say this, but you were right, and I'm sorry.” Bonbon said once Lyra drew near.

“There were probably many just like me who have all been wrong in their obsessions. You could easily have been right to hate me for chasing humans all day.” She replied.

“I guess you finally got your wish.”

“Haha, more than that.”

“What do you mean?

“No, more than that. I’ve been assigned the human's caretaker.” Lyra said.

“Dear Celestia, what? Where will you keep him? Is he going to be a problem around the house?” She asked.

“Relax, he’s chill. He doesn't act that different from us. He's pretty courteous too... a little too courteous, if you ask me." She said, finishing in a mutter.

"Well... where is he now?"

“Well, do you see this guy?” She said, smugly.

“Yeah, what about him?”

“He’s the result of a transformation spell put on him to save his life.”

“He’s the human? But he looks too normal to be the result of a transformation spell!” Bonbon replied.

“They had the archmage, and everything working on it. They planned it for hours. The spell was spectacular!”

“Well why does he look so... funny?”

“I think they left certain parts of him remain. A lot of his... DNA they called it... Well, a lot of that stuff they didn’t change. He sais that DNA is the code that defines what a creature is.”

“Deoxyribonucleic Acid. The stuff of life!!” He said.

“How does it work?” Asked Bonbon.

(One long, boring biology lecture you probably already heard, or don’t care about later.)

“Oh... I hardly got a word you just said.”

“Well, teaching by mouth was never very effective. You'll get it when you're... When I have ti... Some time in the future... DNA isn't that much compared to other modern concepts.” He said.

“He uses this thing called white-space to teach. It's like a dream-world where thoughts can have a physical form.

“Don’t get me started on white-space. I’m here to learn about society, not to starve to death trying to teach random ponies the hard concepts of science. I’ll be doing that when I have a schoolhouse, a decent server, and a couple hundred students to teach in one sitting.”

“How...?” Bonbon was saying.

“Long story, you’ll be informed with everypony else in short time.” Lyra cut off.

“Oh come on. I'm your best friend, can I at least get a front-row seat to this?”

“There’s literally a couple hundred hours of things to learn on this subject alone, by mouth. Stoic, or I can teach it in a lot shorter of a time if aided by a computer, potentially to a lot of ponies in one go.”

“Not even a summary?”

"Alright, fine. Here it goes." Said Nameless.

(One shortened explanation that you’ve already read later)

(Hey, what do you expect? I think it’d be more annoying to read the same information five times than to frequently get these small reminders of the fact that you’re reading a damn story.)

“Oh... Ok. I had a feeling it would have to transcend words.” Bonbon said after the double-team lecture led by Nameless.

“Well, we’ll be seeing each other soon, but this guy needs to find some of his friends.”

“Adios!!” (Toreador)

"But this doesn't mean I'm ok with you standing on two legs!" She cried as they distanced themselves.

They wandered around town for an hour afterwards, that train ride had eaten most of the day, and the sun was almost ready to set. With only a couple hours left before nightfall, the duo finally stumbled upon Twilight’s library. Only Lyra knew it was a library, but she didn’t know Twilight lived there, though.

From the outside, it was clearly visible it was full of ponies. Ponies raving.

“Are those... Are those rainbow strobe lights, and electronic music?” Asked The Convert.

“Haha, yes, and no. This is by all definitions, a rave party. But everything there is powered by magic. There is no actual electricity, therefore no electronic music.” She replied. (By all definitions except the ecstasy, booze, and crack-whores, mind you. You cheeky monkey.)

“Alright, I get it. But I want to see how this works up close.”

“It’s not hard to, the DJ there would probably tell you all about it.”

“DJ? Who is this DJ? What is a DJ?” Inquired the survivor.

“You know... The pony who has all the songs, and mixes the tracks...? I don’t know his/her name, though.” Replied Lyra.

As they approached the building, they could feel the ground beneath their hooves softly shake with the beat of the song.

Faintly, over the cacophony of synthesizers screaming, and bass drivers tearing up the air, Nameless faintly picked up somepony screaming “This tune is so juicy!!”.

He stood outside the door, it wasn’t hard to tell the song hasn’t quite hit its zenith

He opened the door, and the muffled song blasted through. Though the very moment the door cracked open, the song itself got much louder.

“Very LOOOUUUUD!!!!!” *WAAH-WAAH AAAH IIH WUBWUBWUBWUB IIIIH WUBWUBWUBWUB....*

The speakers blasting this noise were surrounded by an aura of blue, and were oscillating so hard that the entire tree-building shook to its roots from the violent assault of dubstep. Between the two destructively powerful bass-cannons stood a white mare, baring violet goggles under her horn, and spiky blue hair.

“Oh, that’s Scratch!!” Shouted Lyra, but the lanky grey pony standing in the doorway could not hear her.”

He stared into the room of dancing, pie-eating, punch-swilling ponies for a full minute, before.

“Not until we get our CUTIE MAAAARRKS!!!” *WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB*

He put his jaw back up, and closed the door. That was by far the loudest music he’s ever heard.

“Holy moly, Lyra. Is that normal?” He said, over the muffled bass-drop.

“On the eve of the Summer Sun celebration, YES!” She said.

“That music. I don’t like it very much.”

“You’ll get used to it. Alex S. is a genius. You should hear his cover of Luna, by Eurobeat Brony.”

“What... How long does it take to get used to?” Asked Nameless.

“Oh, only a few days. I didn’t like dubstep either when I first heard it, but it can just be so... JUICY sometimes!!” Replied Lyra.

They waited for the music to quiet down, after the “Bass had finished dropping”, and after an “I’m going in” signal, Nameless entered the hollowed out tree.

He ran as well he could to the DJ, between the two tower-speakers, and was about to tap a hoof on her shoulder until he saw Twilight Sparkle peeking her head down from the upstairs room.

He ran instead towards her, and up the stairs. He confronted her in the stairwell

“Hey, I spent all day looking for you!” He exclaimed over the pounding music.

“I wasn’t expecting you to pop up here in Ponyville!” She yelled back.

“Where are the others?!” He asked.

The Bass dropped a third time, and everything was drowned out.

She simply beckoned him to follow, as she trotted for the front door out.

He lowered the shields he put over his ears once the door was shut.

“How can you ponies handle that music?!” He asked.

“I sure can’t. But I think the others simply got used to it. Pinkie Pie is always hosting parties like these.” Twilight responded.

“Did she host this one?”

“Yes, of course!! Who else could get Scratch to come here?”

“Umm... Well, I came here to see you, and your five friends. The ones to pull me out of that pod.”

“They’re around. Pinky, and Dashie are both in that library, taking a blasting. Nutcases. But the rest are kinda scattered.”

“Can I safely assume fluttershy is in her house, and AJ is working herself to pieces on the party?”

“Yeah. Rarity is also at her house though. Probably putting some final touches on her stitchwork.”

“But it’s the eve of the SSC!! Nobody... Nopony misses out on that!!” Said Nameless.

“How do you know?”

“Because we had the Summer Sun Celebration too!”

“Wha... How?”

“What, you don’t think our princesses raised the sun?”

“No... Yes... It’s just the names. Why would they ever be the same? I wondered if someone told you all about the celebration, not if you had them. You just caught me off guard when you said you had the SSC too.”

“Well, this misunderstanding turned up another little factoid, didn’t it?”

“Well... Yeah... It did?”

“I can’t excuse the name of the holiday, though. I think it’s just a lovely coincidence.” Said the survivor.

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Look, I just don’t know the answer to this one. If it wasn’t just a coincidence, then the computers are responsible for it. Though it’s such a small detail, I don’t see why FATE-S spent its precious processing power on it.”

“But... Ugh. Fine. It’s probably not worth OUR precious processing power either.”

“Ch-yeah. I wanna go back in there, and learn how those turntables work. Maybe even play my own song. Then we can go find your friends, and have some fun with this canister of pullus ferrum I have.” Replied Nameless

“Oh. You had music too?” She asked.

“Of course!! Music would be like... The very first thing you’d notice if you traveled back in time! Though, I never got very good at it, I know how it all happens.”

“What does your music sound like?” Asked Twilight.

“Well, umm... I’ll show you.” He said.

Lyra had sort of been floating outside of the conversation, waiting for a gap to open, where she could speak. She finally found one, so...

“Hey, uh... Twilight. I’ve been a bit slow to say this, but sorry for knocking you out.” Lyra said.

“Oh... it’s alright. I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’ve forgiven you. So what have you learned about humans? Just curious.” Asked Twilight.

“Oh, lots of things. More than I could even say. But I can tell you right now, you’ll know everything I do, and more, in due time. That, and the ruins of broken glass are confirmed an old human city.”

“Well that’s new. Are you going there?”

“Yeah, Stoic... Uh, Nameless says that there’s some cool things there he wants to show me there, he also mentioned that there’s something there called a flux anvil. And it’s in his house, along with a huge collection of blueprints he’s been saving for ages.”

“A flux anvil? What is this?” She asked the survivor.

“It’s a basic crafting bench for pullus ferrum. Utilizing immensely powerful, and various field generators. Boy oh boy, it’s been my friend for a long time, and because of its material, and environment, it should be in ok condition.”

“Why do you need it, though? Didn’t you make that sleep solution without that... Flux anvil thing?” She asked.

“Yeah, but that stuff was simple, and I only needed a little bit of it. It didn't take much, or very high-caliber folding.”

“Oh, ok. When are you going?” Asked Twilight.

“Well, tomorrow, actually. Should be fun.”

“Can I come?” Asked Twilight.

“Yeah, if you can find the time.”

“It was a mane-ripping nightmare to fix my schedule when I got back. I think it’d be more than worth it to go through that again, just so that I can see some more of your human technologies, though.”

“It won’t be as long. Not to mention, there aren’t any locked away horrors to battle there. Wait, were you being sarcastic.”

“Wait... the Ruins of Broken Glass?!” Piped Twilight.

“What about it?”

“There’s so much I want to know about that place!! Sometimes the ground turns to mud without any rain at all, or clouds form by themselves, but nopony stays for long, there are rumours of ghosts.”

“Ghosts? Those don’t exist.”

“Well, I know that, but the spark behind that rumour is the voices. Sometimes you can hear someone crying for help, but using a spell to look for living creatures doesn’t find anything.”

He simply made a doubtful, and slightly incredulous face/.

“So, you’re sure I can just go in there, and talk to Scratch?” He said, changing the subject.

“Yeah, I’m sure nopony will mind if their sonic assault halts for a couple minutes.”

The song, rather conveniently was coming to rest, and Nameless entered the room. He headed to the DJ, and tapped her shoulder with a hoof Just as the song stopped, she turned to him, and took off her headphones, lowering the magic she was running on the turntable machine.

“Yeah, what is it?” She said.

“Hello, I’m new to Equestria... Or very old to it. Depending on how you like to think, but how does that turntable machine work?” He said.

“Lemme show you. Here, put these on.”

She got another pair of headphones from inside a compartment in the turntables, and fit them snugly onto his ears. They fit surprisingly well, designed to be worn with the band on the back of the head, rather than the top, pushing the cups onto his ears from the front. All sound was squelched instantly, he couldn’t hear a thing.

She put on her own phones, and lowered a stick to mouth level. Presumably, the stick, hinging (Hinge-ing) from one of the cups was a microphone.

She spoke, but he didn’t hear anything. She reached over, and flipped a switch an inch from his ear, activating his headphones, and it was confirmed. The sound of her voice played through into Nameless’s ears.

“Ok, gotcha into the right frequency, you’re good to go...”

“...You see, the left record has the song, the right one has the sound effects...”

“Nonono, I don’t think you get what I mean. I want to know the mechanics in this thing. I want to see the cogs, and wires of the machine, in action.”

“Oh. Ok... Umm...”

She yanked a panel off of the turntable with magic, and levitated a new record from a compartment, labeled ‘Rainbow Factory’, oddly enough.

The insides of the machine were rather simple, the most prominent component was a couple crystals, held in place by thick brass wires.

She put the new record on the left space, after removing the old one, deftly storing it back in the compartment with telekinesis.

She put some unicorn power into the machine, the record began to spin, and the needle on it twitch.

In Nameless’s headphones, he could hear the music begin to play. Though not nearly as loudly as being blasted from the speaker cones. It began with a dark, and heavy piano solo, but beside the music, what interested him was what was going on inside the machine. The needle, twitching ever so slightly on the thin track of the disk, was connected directly to one of the internal crystals, which looked like it only weighed a couple grams. The thing was, though, that a beam of energy was being shot into that crystal, and the beam exiting it twitched also, and changing the direction of the beam ever do slightly whenever it twitched. There were a few reflectors on both sides of the machine, so the slight twitches of the crystal became strokes an inch across at the end of the path. These strokes landed on a black panel, which presumably absorbed the energy, and conducted some kind of simple logic, exerting force on the speakers.

“Now a rainbow’s tale isn’t quite as nice” Sang the musician, his voice heavily distorted, and automatically corrected.

With every syllable, the energy beam oscillated, and vibrated beautifully. Upon further inspection, the entire mechanism was suspended a short distance from the speakers, and housing by about a centimeter with magic, likely to keep the actual sound waves from feeding back into the vibrator crystal, and ruining the audio.

“Haha, you really got a cool machine here, did you make this yourself?”

Clear as day, her voice returned. “Ch’yeah. What kind of DJ doesn’t know her tables inside, and out? I built this baby only a year ago, isn’t she nice?”

“It’s innovative, for sure, but how’d you get one of those recording disks?”

“Well, it’s not really THAT innovative. The only thing I thought of myself was the suspension, that’s why this table is one of the clearest sounding in all of equestria!!”

“The records...”

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, the records, I bought those about 30 bits apiece from random friends, and shady ponies. But if I had the skill to make my own, I would, for sure.”

The ponies in front of the tables were completely flipping out, headbanging to the intense, synthetic waves, and colored strobe lights that followed the beat of the song.

“Well, how do you make them?”

“Umm... well, there's many ways. The most popular is to stamp them out with a dye. But sometimes, with the occasional magical talent, you can carve a new song into one. But it's really hard, mostly because you have to know how to make waves out of sound. I've only met one, or two unicorns who could do it, but they weren't all that into music. But they can't do it without hearing what they're writing.”

He thought about it, and hard. That sounded like a ridiculous feat without an auxxie, no one he ever knew could pull it off without one.

“Have you ever heard of anypony who can do that?”

“Well, yeah. He called himself Glaze. What a legend he is. Barely in his middle ages, and has already ushered in a new musical era.”

“Do you have any of his songs?”

“You’re listening to one now!!”

As the communication stopped, the volume of the song increased in the headphones.

“But with all great things; comes great responsibility, that of Cloudsdale being weather stability. How you ask, are they up to the task. To which the answer is in a simple facility.”

The bass boomed, and sharp violins assisted the sound.

“In the Rainbow factory!!”

“Where your fears, and horrors come true!!” She sang along.

Nameless was rather surprised at the quality of the song. Even when it wasn’t so loud, it was still impressive.

“Haha, your music is awesome. Do you have any blank records?” He asked.

“Any other day you’dve asked, I woulda said no. But today’s the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration, and all sorts of weird stuff is going on, so I brought a disk just in case I would need to copy a broken one with somepony else’s help.”

“Can... Can I try to write it?”

“Do you even know how?”

“Err... I’ve never tried, but I think I’ve had enough experience with magic to figure out how, and thinking in waves will not be a problem for me at all.”

“Are you serious?” She asked, taking off her glasses to show her surprise.

“Yeah, dead serious.”

“Alright, but you owe me ten bits if you ruin the blank.”

In the same compartment she kept a bunch of other materials, she removed a black disk, about a foot across, and dropped it onto an empty section of the table with her teeth.

He picked it up, thanked her, and kneeled down behind the table, scrutinizing the primitive data storage device.

Once he noticed the tracks, he made a lens with magic, and examined them more closely. He could see they were completely straight, and smooth, sans the fact that they curved slightly towards the center of the disk.

He actively bent a piece of the track, just to see how easy it was to manipulate, and straightened it just after.

He took a moment to think of one of his favorite songs. Aah, yes, a classic, one he’s heard so many times, it was basically a nursery rhyme to him now. He made his auxxie pull up a copy of that song, and give him an oscilloscope image of it. He could see the wave form in all of its complexity. All he had to do was shape the tracks like the wave.

He did exactly that, calculating how stretched out, or shortened the physical copy should be relative to the wave form, by examining the rotation speed of the track currently playing on Vinyl’s table.

It began. At about a rate of two seconds written for one second of writing, he spiraled down the track, bending the semi-hard plastic the disk was made of.

After about three minutes, he finished his project, and handed it to Scratch. Who had been nervously glancing at his progress since he began.

“Play this.”

“No. Freaking. Way.”

“Why not? it’s a great song!”

“No, I mean... You ACTUALLY DID IT?! I don’t believe this!!”

“Uhh. Yeah, I did. Will you play it?”

“Well, chances are that it’s not any good, because it's a first try... Oh what the hell, let’s give you a shot.”

She waited for Rainbow Factory to end, and used an amplification spell to talk to her near-deaf audience.

“Hey, my new friend here, I don’t really know his name, thinks he just successfully carved a disc in silence. If you know anything about records, then you’d know that’s darn near impossible. Let’s put this pony to the test!!”

The crowd cheered, but quieted for the music to begin. They didn’t quite know what to expect.

She flipped the record into its spot, and set the needle.

(For the sake of place-holding, I found a song for you that quite appropriately fits the bill here. Start at 4:20, please. The genre is Psy-Trance, BTW.)

The tune began, starting with some natural, albeit electronically distorted instruments, at first. It was too quiet, much too quiet.

“Darn, I shoulda made the amplitude higher!” He said.

“Chill out, I got this.” She said, turning a dial, which increased the brightness of the beam being fired into the crystal.

The music got louder accordingly. And in doing so, became revealed as a rather strange tune. It was alien, and complex in nature, and just full of rather tasteful distortion. In short time, the electronic sounds kicked in, and the music got much louder, and much more stressed. Every note at that point was riveting, and emotional, but not nearly as powerful, or aggressive as the dubstep. The music played on, and on for a few minutes. The audience was more intrigued than electrified. They stared blankly into space, rather than danced spastically.

“It’s not exactly like your party music, I know. But I like it.” He said.

He spotted Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie in the crowd, and waved to them. Both of them had been eying him since he got behind the tables. They waved back.

“You’ve got weird tastes in music, but I can’t say that didn’t sound cool. But that’s not what’s important. Keep it up like this, and you’ll be as big as Glaze. Where did you say you were from?” Said Vinyl

“I’m from this valley. I’ve lived here most of my life.”

“But you said you came from elsewhere.”

“No, I said I’m new to Equestria. Oh, and I’m actually pretty horrible at music. That was someone else’s song.”

“Some-one... As in, not a pony?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re dancing around something. Will you quit beating around the bush, and just tell me your story?” She asked, rather annoyed.

“You know that human Celestia had publicized to all of equestria?”

“Yeah... If you’re him, I’ll eat my records.”

“Then I hope you’re hungry for... vinyl!”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She asked.

“I figured it was irrelevant when exactly I told you.”

“Well... That was a surprisingly straight answer.” She replied.

“So, sorry to ditch this place so soon, but I gotta go find my friends.”

“Do you want fifty bits for engraving this? I bet Tavi could get some inspiration from it.”

“Keep it, I was only curious.”

“Don’t let my... Demeanor kill this message. That spellwork was awesome. Keep it up bro!” She said, as he turned around to leave.

As he headed out the door, Scratch threw another record on the tables, and began shocking the night awake with her strobe lights, and dubstep again.

He went out to meet Lyra, and Twilight, who had been waiting outside for him.

“Find what you were looking for?” Asked Lyra.

“Yeah. There’s some pretty cool stuff going on inside those tables, but they aren’t exactly advanced. There’s a lot more complex machines for playing music I’ve seen than those vinyl records, and vibration crystals.”

“Like what?” Asked Twilight.

“Oh. Lemme think. Using electrical computers to store, and play music, or using speakers that were crystals, or chunks of pullus ferrum that oscillated based on the charge they receive, or tesla speakers... Which are a little too complex to talk about, but look amazing at the cost of a little sound quality.”

“Geez, Quit defying age-stereotypes. Anypony a decade younger should be occasionally forgetting to breathe!” Lyra commented.

“What are you talking about Lyra? Granny Smith’s nearly a century old, and still pretty sharp.” Replied Twilight.

“What... she is?!”

“Yes. Granny Smith is older than Stoic... Nameless... But her head’s still on pretty tight!”

“Ugh, whatever, she’s an exception, then.” She replied.

Enter Pinkie, and Dashie.

“Hey Stoic!!” Cried Pinkie as she left the library.

“Pinkie, he doesn’t have a name any more.” Said rainbow Dash.

“But the author told me he was tired of typing the word ‘Nameless’. Besides, I think even Stoic is getting sick of it. And thinking about it, I think the audience is getting tired of it too.”

(Nameless regains his title as Stoic!! But only as a placeholder.)

“Pinkie... What author? What audience?” Asked Stoic.

“The ones reading this right now, of course!!”

“What in... How...? This is real life, Pinkie!!”

“Well yes, and no...”

“Just quit it you two!! Pinkie does this a lot. Don’t let it get to you. She's just being Pinkie Pie.” Said Twilight Sparkle.

“Uugh, I am so glad we got over this whole nameless thing already. Let’s just find Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack already so we can just have a good time.” Said Rainbow Dash.

“We’re not exactly in a hurry either, Rainbow Dash. But yeah, let’s go.” Said Twilight Sparkle.

The five left to visit Rarity’s place, for no reason other than it was the closest to Twilight’s house.

Applejack’s farm was outside of ponyville, and Fluttershy’s cottage was on the outskirts. There was quite a distance to travel to reach those two.

It didn’t take long to reach her boutique, or spot it, for that matter. They just trotted along the streets of ponyville for a couple minutes, and it was in plain sight.

“See, it’s just like I said.” Said Pinkie.

“Wow. You really meant it when you said ‘Ornate’. There’s even an actual carousel at the top!!”

“I know right!! Rarity built this whole place by herself!! It was the most amazing thing!! You should have seen it! We threw a party right after and...” Pinkie Pie was saying.

“With magic, I presume?” Stoic cut off, before she could really get into her verbal rampaging.

“Yeah! Unicorns do all of the construction now-a-days. It used to be they would hardly ever leave Canterlot!!” Said Rainbow Dash.

They knocked on the door, and a muffled voice from inside called out. “Sorry dear!! The Carousel Boutique’s closed tonight!!”

Some crashing commenced, a symphony of falling objects, and Rarity screaming. “Confound it Sweetie Belle!! This is the last time!! Go to your room!!”

“Uhh... It’s us, Rarity.” Said Twilight to the door.

“Oh, sorry! I will be right out in a minute, dears!!”

They waited patiently, and the door opened to show Rarity, and the hastily cleaned boutique behind her.

“Please do come in, it’s getting dark.”

They entered, the place was riddled in odds, ends, bits, bobs, and scraps of cloth. Rarity, who was usually quite obsessive compulsive in her mannerisms, was completely overwhelmed by the amount of work she had to do. Along with setting up decorations on the town hall (Again), she had been stitching like mad to make up for lost time. All sorts of clothes were hastily crammed over hangers, and put on a rack.

“Rares, it’s the eve of the summer sun celebration. Are you sure you wanna miss all the fun?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, I wish I didn’t have to, but I’ve got far too much work to do. Those escapades in Canterlot, and the tower have taken it all out of me, and left me with all this concentrated work, three days before the Summer Sun Celebration. I’ve already finished putting up the decorations today, but that’s simply not enough.”

“I still don’t want to think about what I saw in that tower...” Said Rainbow Dash, shuddering.

The whole group froze for a second, staring at her.

“Yeah... lets just... forget that ever happened for now...” Said Twilight Sparkle. “I hope Fluttershy’s ok. She’s locked herself into her house, and’s been stewing alone.”

“Look, guys, the past is the past, and what’s done is done. It doesn’t even matter how much we sidestep it, and pretend. But if Fluttershy is dwelling on it too much, that’s a real problem. Even if she doesn’t hurt herself, she’ll shorten her lifespan for sure. This is how people... ponies stress themselves to death!!”

“Ugh, this keeps getting more, and more morbid. Are you coming with, or not?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“If it means I can help poor Fluttershy, then yes. But for nothing else.”

“Then it’s agreed, let’s go pick up applejack.”

“Wait a minute, why haven’t any of you tried to help her before?” Asked Stoic.

“We’ve all just been so busy, dear, and it’s a little too easy to forget about Fluttershy.”

They took off, towards Applejack’s farm. It was necessary to have as much emotional support for Fluttershy as possible, and Applejack was rather good at giving support.

They didn’t need to knock on any doors, everypony was already outside, and they were celebrating a fruitful, hard day of work.

“Where’s Applejack?” Asked Stoic, sifting through the crowd.

“I dunno.. and I dunno why she has so many relatives!!” Said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack found them instead. “Come to check on our progress, Twi?”

“No, Applejack. You’re doing just fine. We just need your help with Fluttershy.”

“Oh, I haven’t seen her ‘round. What’re ye plannin’ ta do with’er?”

“She’s shut herself into her house, I think she’s letting that tower get to her.”

“I can’t say it hasn’t left me a little disturbed too.”

Stoic looked at the floor guiltily.

“S’alright St... uhh... Nameless. We all did what we had to, you were gonna die if we didn’t.”

“Thanks AJ, can you come with us to help Fluttershy out?”

“Sure as sugar, anythin’ for that mare.”

“Applejack, we’re calling him Stoic again.” Said Pinkie.

“Alrighty then, Ah can’t say that placeholder name hasn’t bugged me either.”

They took off, looking back to the party they were throwing in the open fields of Sweet Apple Acres. Piles, and piles of food were being carefully packed into carts, and being shipped towards town, along with our ponies.

They arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage, and indeed, the windows, and doors were boarded up. They gingerly approached the front door, and knocked upon it.

No reply.

They knocked again, waiting to hear a response.

No reply.

“Hey, Fluttershy!! Open up!!” Yelled Rainbow Dash.

They paused for a minute, waiting for a response.

“Open up, or I’ll break this door down.” She yelled again.

Still nothing.

Rainbow Dash took off into the air, to get some distance between herself and the door. The group moved out of her way.

She began her arc, already moving at ludicrous speeds only after a couple flaps of her wings. She straightened out, now heading directly to the door, and with a crunching, cracking, splintering of wood, flew straight in, blowing the door straight in.

The group peered into the house to find it abandoned, not an animal in sight, or a candle lit.

Each pony stepped through the damaged frame, and began exploring the house, calling for Fluttershy.

“Where’s she gone?” Asked Applejack worriedly.

“Oh dear, everypony, come here!!” They heard Rarity cry mutedly.

They followed the sound of Rarity’s voice, to find her in Fluttershy’s bedroom.

Fluttershy lay asleep on her bed, obvious marks of tears on her sheets, and pillow, and the telltale red marks on her eyelids.

“Oh, will ya’ look at that... She’s asleep. Guys, I don’t wanna wake her up.” Whispered Applejack through her teeth.

“If you didn’t already, Rares.” Whispered Dash angrily.

“Well we smashed in her door, we should at least do what we came to do...” Said Twilight.

They lightly shook her awake, and her eyes cracked open. Stoic could be seen putting away a bottle of waking solution when they began without him.

Her mane, and tail were a mess, splayed all over the bed in a knotted maelstrom.

“Why, why are you all here?” She softly groaned.

“We want to know why you boarded up your windows, and doors... again.” Said Dash.

“Get out of here, I’m a murderer.” She whined.

“Oh, come on Fluttershy, it was all in self defence!!” Said Dash.

“Ah dunno, Fluttershy, he sorta did the work on ‘is own... That, and you didn’t know ‘e was gonna do it, and he was gonna kill us all if you didn’t stare him down like that. The way Ah see it, you saved our lives, and nothing more.”

“But I didn’t have to push him so far!! I could’ve stopped, and he would be fine!!”

“If ya knew it was hurting him so bad, you would’ve let him go, but you didn’t know!!”

“But I did know!! You all saw it! He was crying for mercy!! It was cruelty, nothing but cruelty!!”

“Look Fluttershy, we’ve all done bad things...” Applejack was beginning to say.

“But nothing like murder!!”

“Ah, umm...”

The group paused, and Stoic took his hoof off of his chin.

“Fluttershy, there’s a lot of things that can be said about this. For starters, the very definition of right, and wrong is something defined by your environment, by your world, and by your surroundings. That being was not part of your world, it was not of this world at all, and the emotions you’re imagining that thing was feeling are absolutely ambiguous. You do not know if that thing was really feeling fear, or sorrow, or shame. For all we know, it might have killed itself as some strange honor ritual because you beat it in a staring contest. But what we do know is that the only thing you’ve done so far were huge services to the society here. You’re no more dangerous to anyone, you’re no more cruel than you ever were, and you for sure, are no more cruel than your fellow pony. Besides that, your own overdoing of emotional warfare can be excused. There were seldom will-warriors who didn’t overdo it. It’s a tremendous power to be able to force a point of view onto others, and it’s very easy to go overboard with it. This is especially true after a physical battle, or during a moment of enragement. Don’t let it get to you, you merely failed where millions of others had, and the only thing you need to, or can do to right it in the eyes of an intelligent society is make sure it never happens again. Even besides that, a huge weighting in the suicide likely stems from the being’s own doings, he would not have so much as faltered if he didn’t do something that became wrong in his eyes, even if that WAS just losing the contest.” Said Stoic.

“Yeah, Fluttershy, nopony thinks bad a’ you for it, and yer pretty much justified. There’s hardly a reason to be beat’n yourself up over the self-inflicted death of a violent, reasonless, ageless creature that killed dozens of ponies himself.” Said Applejack.

“I... um... thanks guys.” She replied

“No problem Fluttershy. Now are you gonna come and see the princess tonight?”

“I don’t know, I still feel sick to my stomach about all this.”

“If you just wanna sleep, then go right ahead.” Said Applejack.

“I’ll pay for your door.” Said Rainbow Dash, dumping out a sack of bits.

“No, it’s alright, I shouldn’t have boarded everything up in the first place.”

“Well I insist, because it’s what friends are for.” She said while counting out bits.

Fluttershy simply watched her push around coins, until she swept a second, meagered pile of coins back into its satchel.

“That’s 50, should about do it...”

“Thanks.”

Stoic watched them all group hug, with a smile growing across his face.

They killed the lights, and left the house, crudely leaning the remains of the door back on its frame on the way out, to at least partially stave off any drafts.

Rarity went back to her boutique to feverishly slave away on her fabric, and occasionally fuss at Sweetie Belle's antics.

They played, and made merriment, but eventually, all but Fluttershy met in the town hall to watch the Princess raise the sun.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, it is my pleasure to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun celebration. Our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year, and now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun each morning, each, and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria... Princess Celestia!!” Said Mayor Grey.

“Wow, she copied her old speech, word for word from last year.” Said Twilight Sparkle.

“Umm, you remember last year’s speech?” Quizzed Rainbow Dash.

“Yes!” She replied proudly.

“I’ll be honest here, I could never remember something like that if I didn't have an auxxie...” Said Stoic.

The princess appeared on the balcony, and the crowd cheered.

Yeah, yeah. Fast forward, she raised the sun in front of everypony, yada yada yada. The duo went home on the train, and it's a while later. Now Twilight Sparkle was at Lyra’s home, along with Stoic, Lyra herself, and Bonbon, packing some supplies for an excursion.

“Are you guys ready yet?” She asked.

“Not quite yet. Still need my rubber boots.” Said Stoic.

“Why do you need rubber boots? Where did you even get rubber boots?” She asked back.

“I’m pretty sure one of the problems we’ll face over in the ruins is really high voltage electricity. Rubber boots will stop electricity from traveling through you on its pathway to the ground, in most cases... and I made them myself.” He said.

“Alright, then. Just get them.” She said as he left.

He returned levitating a pair of crude rubber hoofboots, and trying to find a spot for them on the saddlebags Bonbon let him borrow.

“Stoic, you need four boots, not two.”

“I uh... Oh, Ouch. you’re right... Umm... I didn’t see that one coming... I guess we can just go anyways, if we ever have to deal with high voltage electricity, I could potentially just stand on two legs... which I’ve been getting better at, lately.”

“Whatever floats your boat. So are you ready, or not?” Asked Twilight.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” he replied.

“Took you long enough.” Said Lyra, as he used his couple remaining orbiters to lubricate the imminent teleport.

Twilight’s horn glowed briefly, before they were slingshotted through a wormhole to their destination, the Ruins of Broken Glass.