M.A.G.I.C.

“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.