My Little Praetor: Phthisis is Magic

by FanOfMostEverything

Introduction: Seeker Found

The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt it.
—Rule 43 of the Internet

Ditzy Doo trotted her way home, another fulfilling day of postal work under her saddle. Not that she was wearing one at the moment, but hay, it's just an expression.

In any case, saddle or no, life was good for the mare right now. She liked her job. She loved her daughter. She was able to actually interact with her husband, which hadn't been the case for several years after a peculiar incident involving an insane human, a roll of stamps, and a bit of spontaneous existence failure.

Yes, life had been unusual at times for Ditzy, but it was really to be expected. When you're a planeswalker, one of the exceedingly few capable of moving between universes at will, any hope of a truly normal life is well and truly shot.

Apparently, Fate decided that the pegasus needed a reminder of this. That was the only reason she could think of for why there was a strange stallion on her couch.

The storm-gray earth pony looked up from his book. "Ah, Ditzy. How've you been?"

The blonde took a moment to identify him. "Tezzeret?" If the metallic foreleg and lower ribs weren't enough to identify the man who had introduced her to the Multiverse, the mane was a definite tipoff. She'd never seen a pony with dreadlocks before. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "Oh, you know. I was in the area, thought I'd visit an old friend. Also, I'd come across something far too useful to leave where it was, and your possession seemed like the best form of safekeeping. Sure enough, it's as though your attic was made for the task."

He had a point. The attic was where Ditzy kept the miscellaneous keepsakes of her travels between the planes. One more wouldn't hurt, though she had to ask, "What is it?"

"It's the rather bulbous-looking helmet next to that collection of Kamigawan netsuke," the artificer answered unhelpfully. He removed himself from the couch, giving the pegasus a chance to see his metal filigree cutie mark, before continuing. "I I wouldn't recommend putting it on your head, nor on anyone else's. Not unless one, you desperately need to take direct control of their mind for a few minutes and two, you don't mind having to rebuild the thing afterwards. The helmet, that is, not their mind. Well, maybe their mind. It depends on what you do with it. Definitely the helmet, though."

The mare frowned. "So I'm your storage facility now? You just come by when you need to drop off some dangerous artifact?"

Tezzeret smirked. "Well, as I said, I was also hoping to pay a friend a visit, but if you want to make this a business arrangement, I'm ready to begin negotiations whenever you are." His expression grew serious. "But before we do that, I have a warning to deliver."

Ditzy gulped. She'd delivered warnings from her old mentor before. They rarely ended well for anyone else. "What did I do?"

"What?" Surprise played across the stallion's muzzle for a moment before shifting to reassurance. "Oh no, this isn't like my vendetta against Jace or anything. It's a precaution, not a threat." He began to channel mana as he spoke. "It's a bit of a 'good news, bad news' situation. The bad news is the message. The good news..." Something popped into existence and fell into his waiting forehooves. "The good news is the medium. Isn't it nice?"

Nice wasn't how Ditzy would describe the device. She honestly wasn't sure how to describe it, beyond it being what was clearly a disembodied brain suspended in a transparent spherical container of some bluish fluid. The container was covered in enough metal handles and support struts that even hooves could easily carry and manipulate it.

The artificer took his friend's silence as impressed awe. "With a little ingenuity and a few spare parts no one will miss, I was able to recreate one of my favorite devices, and this time I didn't need to decapitate anyone!"

"What?"

"Long story. Suffice to say, this is my new Rennoscope. It lets me see the futures."

Ditzy raised an eyebrow at the plural. "How many futures are there?"

"A virtually infinite number, predicated on the outcome of even the most inconsequential-seeming decision."

"And that brain-in-a-jar lets you see all the futures?"

Tezzeret nodded. "All of them. I do so via the etherium wires I have linked into the temporal and occipital lobes of the primary component here."

The pegasus grew uneasy. "Yeah, about that. Whose brain did that used to be?"

"Hmm?" The dreadlocked earth pony considered the wrinkled organ as though the question had never occurred to him. "Oh. Not sure. Some vedalken or another. The point is that I don't have to rely on an antiquated, lossy mode of information transfer like talking. You can see for yourself through direct telepathic interface. I've queued up the sequence of events I wanted to show you in long-term memory."

"So what's the bad news I'll be looking at?" asked Ditzy.

Tezzeret paused for a moment. "Didn't I say?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, an ancient scourge of the Multiverse has returned from the verge of extinction to once again perform its depredations on existence."

"How'd you find this out?"

"Oh, I've been working for them for the past several years," he answered nonchalantly. "And against them, when the mood struck me. In any case, I want you to know what to expect if you run into one another. And on that note, you have a brain to probe."

By this point, Ditzy wasn't sure if the conversation had been more discomfiting for her head or her stomach. "Let the record show that this is really, really creepy."

"Duly noted," replied the temporary stallion. "Now, not to be rude, but while you're definitely the most pleasant item on my schedule, I'm afraid that you're not the only one. You see, I have a dragon I need to appease. If we could hurry this along?"

The mare gave a sharp laugh. "You've turned someone's brain into a glorified film projector. I think we passed rude a long time ago." That being said, she delved into the contraptionized cortex.

---

Prescience Tank 2
Artifact
3, T: Scry X, where X is the number of artifacts you control.
"As with most objectives, telling the future has two primary solutions: Learn how, or build something that can do it for you."
—Tezzeret

Comments

[Oaksong]

So, you decided to make this a story of its own. Me likey!

[DreadedCandiru2]

"I think we passed rude a long time ago."

It's times like this that I half-expect a pony version of Jethro Gibbs to show up and say "Ya think??"

[rabidchoco]

I know the man's a bit too cerebral for it, being Blue and all, but Tezzeret's attitude make him seem suitable as a temporary stand-in for Discord.

"Just kinda, 'oh, hey, I'm just your living reminder of everything that's wrong with creation, can I drop by for a bit?'"

[QueenMoriarty]

One wonders if Mister Bolas is even aware of Ungula.