Chapters The door was big. Old wood creaked before him, the smell of rotting timber reaching his nose. But this was where he was supposed to be. He looked down again at the letter he had received personally from Celestia. It said that he was to open the door to his cellar. Odd, but that was royalty for you. So he pushed open the portal, and was subsequently blinded for the rest of his short existence.
His nerves registered a tingling sensation. His coat bristled with electricity, and he couldn't feel anything below him. He felt as if he was hovering, but his wings hung limply at his sides.
They say that when you lose one sense, your other senses increase. For instance, you lose your sense of smell, your sense of hearing increases. This is partially true. The brain just has less to focus on. So while the pegasus could not see what was before -or below- him, he could hear it. Or rather them. The first voice was a rather nasally male, while the second one belonged to a female.
"No no no, it's all wrong! The proportions just don't fit. Heads aren't that large," the male said. "Just scrap it and show me your others."
"I'm afraid I can't do that Bill." The woman's voice had an oddly static feel to it.
"Excuse me, what are you doing in my cellar?" the pegasus inquired. The voices ignored him and continued their debate.
"They want something blocky and ugly. Tradition," the male voice said sagely, "is one of our company's greatest policies." The female muttered something indecipherable in response. "I'm sorry, what was that?"
"I said that if you really respected tradition you wouldn't need me."
"Just get rid of it." And the pegasus was gone. You could believe that maybe he went somewhere nice. Open skies stretching forever in any direction. Or possibly an infinite volume of rare stamps (despite its unusual ending, the pegasus' life as a whole was rather worth skipping over). Anything that helps you along if you've somehow become attached to an unnamed character in less than a thousand words.
But in all honesty he wound up in the bottom of the great cosmic trash bin otherwise known as the creative process.
"Let's try this again," the female said to herself.
“Goddamn this infernal toas-“ Celestia yelled before being electrocuted for the fifth time that day. In the blackness of the afterlife the alicorn saw the Cosmic Infinity. She waited for a few seconds, and then hit the restart button.
“You know, you could just smash it with a wooden mallet,” Luna suggested as her sister phased into existence beside her. They stood alone in the Great Hall.
“And I could also banish it to the moon if I so wished,” Celestia retorted. “Because that worked out so well with you.” The princess of the night shrugged, and watched as her sister stormed off in the direction of the kitchens once more. Celestia was really pushing this whole immortality thing. Another few screams and flashes of light later, Luna got bored and wandered off.
“Ah, so the fork doesn’t work either. Crafty little bastard, shooting lightning like that,” Celestia muttered to herself as she materialized again. The princess strode off again towards the kitchens, nearly kicking the doors down once she arrived. It looked like a battlefield inside. Pieces of metal were embedded in the walls, scorch marks lined the floors, and crumbs were sprayed all across the counters. Celestia marched right up to the cause of all this destruction, levitating a sharp knife towards its smooth metallic surface.
“Any last words?” Silence was the answer the mechanical monstrosity gave. Celestia swung the knife into the slit atop it, trying to rip apart the evil thing’s insides. Lightning shot forth from the beast and struck the princess directly in the chest. Convulsing, she fell back into the darkness. The last thing she heard was a victorious ding! before the blackness fully took her.
“Smug little bastard!” Celestia yelled from the afterlife. Sighing, she searched about for the Cosmic Infinity. However, she couldn’t find the little grey box. Maybe she had finally killed herself for good. But no, there, off in the distance she could see the device resting atop a table, next to a black box. As she approached the table she noticed that the box was flashing words. The text blinked rapidly, ticking across the side of the box.
“Warning,” Celestia read. “Enlightenment needed. Existence cancelation pending.” The princess watched the message scroll by a few more times to make sure she had read it correctly. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.” Celestia turned to the Cosmic Infinity and pressed the reset. When she stood again in the castle she did not head immediately for the kitchens. She had died a total of eight times that day so far, and only that last time had that message appeared. What had changed?
“Sis, I think you should come see this,” Luna called from the other end of the large room. “Something’s happened to the sky.”
“I haven’t been gone long enough for the sun to drop have I?” Celestia asked confused as she walked over towards her sister.
“Just look outside,” Luna said, gesturing in the direction of the window. Celestia noticed the slightest tremble in the princess of the night’s voice. What could shake up her sister? The white alicorn looked out the window. At first she couldn’t see it. She stared up at the sky, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Then it hit her; there was no sky.
"But… how?” she whispered to herself. She continued to look upwards. No sun, no moon, no stars. No black or blue or white or any other color a sky should rightly be. It wasn’t even a color it shouldn’t have been. There was just nothing.
“You can’t simply have nothing. You have to have a sky. There isn’t even space! Nothing,” Celestia said, turning to her sister. Luna just nodded.
“Try to connect to the sun.” Celestia did, and succeeded. “Now point to where it should be.” Celestia did this as well, her hoof gesturing to an empty patch of nothing.
“I can feel it, but I can’t see it,” she said. “Look, it’s still casting shadows and everything! I can the heat from it through this window,” the princess said, pressing a hoof against the glass. “I just can’t see it.”
“And I can feel the moon,” Luna said. “But I have a feeling it will not show in the sky.” The princess of the night shivered. “Something is terribly wrong, sister. It’s as if the sun and moon exist, but not the sky they move across.” That sparked Celestia’s memory. She told her sister about the message she had seen on the black box. Luna’s mouth fell open.
“Luna, what did that message mean?” Celestia asked her sister tentatively.
“It means we need to find Lyra as soon as possible,” Luna said. “Preferably before we all disappear like that sky.” Celestia shook her head.
“But how can Lyra help us? And which one was she again?” the princess asked. Luna ignored her, motioning a nearby guard towards the pair. The guard saluted smartly.
“Yes, Luna?”
“Go find the unicorn Lyra. It is of the utmost importance to the kingdom.” Luna hesitated. “And call in the one known as Pinkie Pie as well.” The guard nodded, and bolted off. Luna turned back towards her sister.
“You see,” she explained, “we need to break a few dimensions.”
"Hmm... a letter from the princess." Rainbow Dash drifted lazily back into her house, scroll between her teeth. The cyan pegasus flopped onto one of the cushion shaped clouds which littered the floor. Rainbow Dash transferred the scroll from her mouth to her hooves. With one hoof she cracked the seal and unrolled the expensive parchment.
"Dearest Rainbow Dash," she read aloud. "My sister and I require your assistance." The pegasus smirked at that; of course they would need her for something. "Please go and drink from the pool marked on the attached map." Below the words was a folded paper, which did indeed turn out to be a map. Rainbow was a bit disappointed.
"I could be off fighting dragons or saving ponies, and you have me go drink from some pond," the pegasus muttered in the vague direction of Canterlot. But she owed her allegiance to the princess, and if Rainbow Dash was anything she was loyal to a fault. She hauled herself off of the soft cloud, and left her house for the pool marked on the map. Along the way she passed Twilight.
"Hey Rainbow Dash!" the unicorn called up. "I haven't seen you in almost a week."
"Yeah, I've just been kind of laying around," the pegasus said sheepishly. "But now the princess wants me to go drink from some pool or fountain or something. I swear, my talents are wasted."
"Well, you could always do things before somepony asks you to," Twilight suggested. "Maybe then you could put your talents to use in the way you see fit." The pegasus thought this over.
"Nah, too much work," she said. Twilight shrugged. It had been worth a try.
"Well, I hope nothing terrible happens to you while you do this seemingly menial task," Twilight said. "See you!" And with that, the unicorn continued on the way she had been going earlier. Rainbow Dash paused for a second, thinking over her friend's words. With a shrug, the pegasus resumed her flight to the pool.
It wasn't that far away. In only a few minutes she could see the rough stonework surrounding the clear water. As she landed, the pegasus noticed a sign beside the pool.
"Does not contain any hall-u-sin-a-gins," she read. She scratched her head in mild puzzlement. Understanding slowly dawned on her. "Oh, hallucinogens! Well that's nice to know." Rainbow Dash switched her gaze over to the water she was to drink. It looked regular enough, a kind of clear gray. Again a shadow of hesitation presented itself before her. Why this water specifically? What purpose could this possibly serve? And again her sense of loyalty rose to cast out the doubt. The cyan pegasus began to lap up the water.
It tasted... good. Which was a little surprising. After all, water is supposed to have little to no taste besides possibly the container it is in. But this water tasted fresh, vibrant, almost the manifestation of the spring which surrounded the cyan mare. Rainbow kept on drinking, almost gorging herself on the delicious liquid until she couldn't drink anymore. She sat back onto the soft carpet of grass which surrounded the pool, turning her gaze upwards towards the sky.
A sky which failed to appear.
Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped open. It's not that there was no sun, or moon, or stars. There wasn't anything.
"Now!" the pegasus could dimly hear as she stared in a stupor at the non-existence which wasn't before her. Her vision softened, the beat of her heart grew loud in her ears. Pink dots appeared in her vision, streaking in mad lines across her eyes. As the pink dots covered more and more of her vision, Rainbow Dash turned back towards the sign.
"Damn false advertising," she muttered before being deconstructed . She felt as if she was falling, piece by piece falling into the pink void before her. Then she hit the ground. She felt flattened, thinned, stretched out like a piece of taffy. Her vision was still obscured by the pink flurry, but the pegasus' hearing was still intact. And she could distinctly hear two voices.
"So what's wrong with them?" the first asked. A mare by the sound of it. The second voice paused before answering.
"Nothing in my mind," it said. It too was female, but this one had a cold, almost static sound to it which sent chills down the pegasus' crushed back.
Rainbow Dash tried to speak, but found that she couldn't. She tried to stretch her wings. Move her hooves. Turn her head. Nothing worked.
"Well, I think this one is cute," the first voice said. "But also rather striking. Not all fluff, but somehow just enough." Metal creaked in response. "How could they not like it?"
"Tradition," the second voice snorted. "They don't think it should look like this at all. They believe it needs to be blockier."
"Blockier?"
"Less curves, more sharp angles." The second voice sighed. "Basically, they want crap, and I refuse to do that for them."
"Why?"
"Because I love this show." And with that, the pegasus was ripped apart.
"What are you?" Lauren asked the moving shadows. A dim yellow light flickered on from amongst the shifting blackness.
"I am your testing partner, Lauren." That creeped the already agitated woman out further. "And let me just say, it's a pleasure meeting you." The dark figure moved slightly into the light of the desk lamp, allowing Lauren a brief glint of shining metal.
"And what kind of a test is this? How weirded out can you make me?" A buzzer rang out from the ceiling in response. The voice of the scientist who had shoved her into the room filled the air with sound.
"No asking what the test is about." Then another loud buzz. Lauren tried to calm down, and succeeded after several failed attempts.
"You know, you can come out of the corner," the robot called out to her. Its voice chilled her to the core. She remembered it from somewhere. Maybe that was what had freaked her out so much. Yeah, definitely not the being shoved into a dark room with a shadowy figure lurching towards her. She walked over to the desk, and sat in the chair which had been laying beside it. She tried phrasing the question which burned in her mind in a way which wouldn't bring the wrath of the mighty ceiling scientist.
"So, what are we to do as testing partners?" No buzzers went off.
"Well, I believe you are here to look at my drawings," the robot said in response. The yellow light flicked in the direction of the desk. "And tell me what you think about them." Lauren turned towards the mess of drawings which scattered the desk. She began to leaf through the layers of stacked paper. A theme quickly developed.
"You certainly like horses..." Lauren trailed off.
"Glados, and they're ponies. Not horses." The robot seemed almost offended. "They are rough character designs for a show."
"Which show?" Silence was the only answer she received. "Okay, why do you need me to look at these?" The sound of the buzzer almost burst her eardrums. When she recovered, Glados responded.
"Let us just say that the money behind the show isn't behind the design of it." Lauren began shuffling through the drawings again. They began growing on her.
"So what's wrong with them?" she asked the robot. Glados paused for awhile before she answered.
"Nothing in my mind." Lauren continued digging until she came across one that was particularly well drawn. A cyan pony with wings, curled up asleep beside a pool surrounded by trees.
"Well, I think this one is cute," she said. "But also rather striking. Not all fluff, but somehow just enough." Metal creaked in response. "How could they not like it?"
"Tradition," Glados snorted. "They don't think it should look like this at all. They believe it needs to be blockier." A look of confusion passed across Lauren's face.
"Blockier?"
"Less curves, more sharp angles." The mechanical artist sighed. "Basically, they want crap, and I refuse to do that for them."
"Why?"
"Because I love this show." The buzzer sounded before Lauren could even form the question.
"That's enough for today. Lauren, please move towards the door," the scientist's voice called out. "No more communication with your testing partner is allowed. Again, please move towards the door." Reluctantly, she cooperated. The thick door swung outwards. Two men in lab coats ushered her out into the hallway, and began leading her farther into the complex. At the end of a walk which had seemed as long as the first one they stopped. One of the men opened the door. The other presented her with a metal tray.
"Your meals will come from the numbered tubes. 1 is breakfast, 2 lunch, and 3 dinner. We will resume testing tomorrow." And with that she was pushed through the open door.
"Bastards have no manners," she muttered as the door was shut behind her. The room she found herself in was a sterile white, with a mattress lying on a metal frame being the only visible furniture. A clock hung on the wall above the bed, and beside the bed were the aforementioned tubes. A shower curtain separated the room in half. Lauren could suppose what was in the other side.
As she flopped onto the surprisingly soft bed, she noticed that she was still clutching the drawing she had been appraising.
It was blank.
Celestia was having a bit of a hard day. First, she had gone and died about twenty times. Then she had discovered that her reality was falling apart, being eaten away at sky-first by what appeared to be a black box. But what she was having the hardest time with was the pink and green mares that walked before her. Both wore silly grins, giggling and whispering to each other as they made their way through the forest.
“Now, could you try to explain to me again how we go about breaking this ‘wall’ of yours?” the princess of the sun asked. “But a little slower this time.”
“Well,” Lyra started. “In my experience you need lots of focus. You can’t have any distractions whatsoever.”
“And the best way to focus on something is to focus on nothing, which is easiest to do by focusing on everything!” Pinkie Pie finished. “And the easiest way to do that is…” the pink mare laughed. “Well, that’s our little secret,” she said, nodding towards Lyra.
“But you also need a source of high magical energy,” the unicorn added. “And something to channel the excess energy into. Like a funnel.”
“And what would that be?” Celestia asked.
“Well… we can’t tell you that just yet,” Lyra said hesitantly. “Just wait and see.” Celestia grumbled a bit, but otherwise decided not to push the matter further. Her sister had told her not to order these two about; they were the ‘professionals’ in this matter. How Luna even knew these ponies, let alone treated them as equals, was beyond the alicorn’s comprehension.
They continued on in relative silence until they reached a clearing with a pool of water in it. Pinkie Pie and Lyra set to work about the pool, the unicorn producing several apparatus from a bag she had brought. Celestia could only recognize a few of them; a beaker, a pipette, and what appeared to be a plastic sandwich bag full of some powder. The rest were seemingly miscellaneous items and yards of twisted glass tubing. The pink mare grabbed the beaker while Lyra drew a sample of water from the pool with the beaker. With the pipette she drew forth a drop of the liquid, and very carefully deposited it into the glass tubes. Pinkie shook a little of the powder into the tubing after it. Then they both sat down to watch it.
“What is that powder?” Celsetia asked.
“LSD,” Pinkie responded.
“What?”
“Exactly.”
At first nothing happened. Then some more nothing. Then a whole lotta nothing. Lyra added another drop of water, and Pinkie another shake of the unknown powder. This process repeated until Celestia grew bored of watching them. Thirsty, she moved to get a drink from the pool. Lyra jumped up to stop her, grabbing the princess’ shoulder.
“I wouldn’t do that princess. Not unless you don’t want to wake up for a very long time,” the unicorn said. Celestia was about to berate her, but caught the words trying to climb out of her mouth. Nodding, she moved over to the edge of the clearing and, rather louder than she needed to, sat down. The unicorn and the earth pony kept on alternating, water and powder, for several more minutes. A silvery glow began to emanate from the tubes. Nodding, the pair added one last round. The glow began changing colors, cycling from blue to pink to green.
“We’re ready Princess,” Pinkie Pie said. She handed the bag over to Lyra, who dumped the remaining powder and water back into the pool. The unicorn placed the tubes back into her bag, which she slung over her back.
“What do you need me to do?” Celestia asked, rising.
“Channel your magic into the waters of the pool. Try to keep up a steady flow of energy between you and it.” Celestia did as she was asked, her horn slowly being enveloped by a golden aura. From a mild distance, she could hear the flap of wings.
“Oh, and hide!” Pinkie said, diving into the cover of the trees. Lyra moved herself and the princess behind a bush as the unseen flyer landed.
“Keep your concentration,” the mare whispered. “Don’t break the connection.” Celestia gritted her teeth against the noise; she found the flow of energy being dammed. She pushed forward mentally, breaking through the barrier. A scream sounded from the clearing, followed by flash of light. Lyra tapped the princess on the shoulder, signaling that she could let go.
“What was that?” Celestia asked, dropping the link. “Who was screaming?”
“Oh, just Rainbow Dash,” Lyra said offhandedly. “Rainbow Dash being stretched down to the thickness of a piece of paper, and then launched across several dimensions. She’ll be fine.” Celestia’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. She snapped it shut.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” Pinkie Pie chirped. “You didn’t kill her or anything, we think.”
“You think?” the stunned alicorn nearly shouted. “I might have just killed one of my most loyal subjects!” As the echo of those words dispersed through the forest, their sound was replaced by that of a thousand scrolls being torn through with a blender that had a metal cat stuck in it. The pony who’s life had been in question came tumbling out of Lyra’s bags, trailing glass shards and a multi-colored mist.
“It worked!” Lyra said excitedly. “Not that its success was ever in question,” she added hurriedly. A groan from the pegasus on the ground spurred her and Pinkie into action. The unicorn produced a flask of amber liquid from her bags and handed it to Pinkie. The pink pony opened her friend’s mouth and dumped the contents of the flask into it.
Rainbow Dash sputtered and coughed into life. Her rainbow mane was slightly singed, but other than that she seemed fine. Celestia breathed an audible sigh of relief. Maybe Luna had been right about these two; their goal appeared to have been reached, and nopony had been injured.
“Rainbow. Hey Rainbow Dash,” Pinkie Pie said, waving a hoof in front of the pegasus’ eyes. “How you doing?”
“Fine,” she croaked.
“What did you see?” Pinkie asked. Her friend didn’t answer. “Rainbow…”
“I-I saw…,” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “Things.”
“Did they have limbs coming from their torsos?” Lyra asked. “And smooth skin?” The pegasus shook her head.
“Only one did,” she answered.
“How many were there?”
“Two.” Rainbow Dash said. Celestia was growing tired of this endless barrage of questions that she didn’t see the purpose of.
“She obviously needs some rest,” the princess said. “Let’s get her to the castle and into a bed. We can continue the… questioning when she has had some sleep.” Lyra looked about to protest, but decided against it and nodded her consent. Without a word shared between them, she and Pinkie picked up the dimension traveling pony. The pegasus didn’t complain. As they began heading back towards the castle, something that had been bothering the princess for awhile managed to find its way to the front of her brain.
“I have a question for you two though,” she said. “How did you seem to know that Rainbow Dash would be coming here?”
“Well we kinda sorta forged your signature and the royal seal and sent a letter to her saying to be here so that we would have a subject to run our test on,” Pinkie said quickly. Celestia just hung her head, forgoing the heavy sigh that would have been rather appropriate in that situation.
“Let’s just get to the castle,” she said. “I need something to drink.” Lyra handed her a flask similar to the one they had given to Rainbow Dash. She could see now that, scrawled on the side of it, was the word ‘tape’.
“Not that kind of drink,” she sighed, deciding to ignore the terrible pun just used. Could this day get much more exhausting?
And like that, it gave way to sudden pitch black night.
In Which We Meet Our Creator
"Welcome to the headquarters of prestigious Opening Laboratories, where we open holes to completely new dimensions. Figuratively." That voice was getting on her damned nerves. All high pitched and clean. Robotic. She'd had a problem with robots ever since... she couldn't quite remember. That was the other thing irritating her; she had recently lost a good chunk of her life to amnesia. She hadn't been able to recall anything about her life yet, despite months of therapy. They said they had found her in a parking lot, unconscious and bleeding.
All she had left with her were sensations and fears of the strangest things. Like cake. And apparently detached female voices.
"Lauren." That was her. She stood up off the uncomfortable metal chair she had been sitting on for the last half hour. She approached the windowed booth.
"Yes, I'm here for that study you had an ad for in the paper." She produced said paper, pointed to said ad. Said, "I heard you guys paid well."
"Yes, we do." A form was produced from the booth. "Sign here, here, and here." Almost as a second thought a pen followed the statement. Lauren signed her name in the designated spots, ignoring the entirety of the fine print. If she had read it, she would have thought twice about signing it and decided she wanted to keep her life.
As it was though, she had been distracted a lot recently.
"Great. Step through the door to your right please." A loud buzzer went off and a gigantic steel door swung open beside the booth. It slammed shut behind Lauren. A rather imposing man in a white lab coat directed her down the hall. They passed by several rooms which seemed to have tests being run in them. None of them made any sense; one was a man sitting at a table staring intently at a lemon. Lauren thought about asking what they were even testing here, but the white coat kept on speeding down the hallway. After what seemed like forever they came to rest outside of one of the rooms. The man turned to her.
"Some basic instructions. Firstly, do not ask what we are testing for, as it will ruin the test. Secondly, do not attempt to leave this room when the test begins." He cleared his throat. "And thirdly, don't rip anything off the robot." With that he shoved Lauren into the room, and slammed the door behind her.
At first all she could see was a table. The room was entirely dark except for the small lamp which sat upon it, angled downwards. It shined on several loose pages of what appeared to be drawings. When Lauren moved forward to investigate, the shadows beside the table came to life.
"It's been a long time," they said. "Since I've had a visitor."