Ponystuck

by confoundtheseponies

Chapter 4

***ACT 1 ACT 2***

In a quiet, unassuming pocket of paradox space, a king once again found himself running from the enemy amid a vast open blue sky. Pausing for a moments reflection, he considered his options - even though they were the same as they had been for the hundreds of previous turns. There was no use going back the way he had run from - he would just be heading straight into the path of his adversary. There was only one sensible option - forwards. This was a matter of life and death, he mused as he waited for his opponent to continue the pursuit, but as long as he continued onwards in this manner there was no real threat. Both kings were constrained to the same speed, and on the battlefield where they fought there would always be a safe path open to them. He supposed he should be grateful - after all, an uneasy ceasefire such as this was always preferable to open warfare. It wouldn't last, of course - soon this petty race to nowhere would end, and the battle could begin. It was a battle that his armies would inevitably lose, but he had to believe. In himself, in the heroes, and in the might of Skaia.

Then it was his move, and the king was presented with the same decision that he had faced countless times before. He now had two choices, as he could skip the corner ahead of him. But what was the point, when the pattern would continue regardless? He simply took a step forward, and then waited patiently for the opposing king to do the same. Round and round, over and over. This process continued for a long time, somewhere in between a few hours and eternity, as the black and white kings chased each other ceaselesly around a grid of nine squares. The battle remained unwinnable, and the great sphere of energy in which this pointless campaign was being waged remained dormant.

This was the scene which appeared before Twilight Sparkle, apparently coming from one of the many clouds which surrounded the tall tower that she had awoken to find herself in. She recalled using her quill to stab through the purple cruxite scroll, but beyond that she had no memories other than waking up in a strange bedroom that seemed oddly familiar. It was, as far as she could tell, at the top of a large tower of gold. Out of the windows all she could see were white clouds against the blue sky, which strangely detailed visions seemed to emanate from. One of which, as mentioned, currently displayed a small 3x3 chess board, on which the two kings ceaselessly followed each other around the outside of the grid. An unbreakable stalemate. This was made more interesting by the background, apparently part of the same sky as the one she was looking out into. So, somewhere in this enormous blue expanse, a small chess board was hovering in mid air. Which was interesting.

As many had done previously, however, this cloud now dissipated, and Twilight turned her attention to the other clouds surrounding her tower. As far as she could tell, they displayed real events that had happened, were happening, or would happen at one point or other. She had caught a brief glimpse of various memories - the time Applejack had gone to work in Dodge, the time when she and her friends had defeated Discord, and the time when Fluttershy had decided to nurse an injured storm atronach back to health in her cottage. More interesting to Twilight were the clouds which seemed to predict the future. She could see Applejack amidst a thick purple fog fighting off a group of strange creatures, which looked a little like reptilian cats. In another cloud, Rarity and Rainbow Dash were exploring some kind of ruined temple. And in another cloud, Twilight saw herself in a unfamiliar grey room filled with machines and lights. Almost as if the Twilight in the image knew that she was being watched, she turned and looked directly out of the cloud and waved happily to where Twilight was watching from her tower. Then that cloud faded away, like all the rest had.

At this point, Twilight slowly became aware that her tower seemed to be rotating, as the relative position between her and the clouds was gradually changing. The clouds drifted up and away from her, until the tower left the sky entirely, and Twilight realised that what she had previously been calling up was - depending on how you looked at it - down. At least, it was down relative to the centre of the blue sphere which her tower had briefly entered as part of its slow rotation. As she could now see, the blue sky belonged to a large blue planet filled with white clouds, around which her tower seemed to orbit. Presumably, this orbit brought the tower within the atmosphere of the large blue planet, as it had been when she had woken up in this place. The tower had now left the edge of the strange orb and its prophetic clouds, leaving Twilight staring out of an open window into space. But it wasn't space - something was wrong. For a start, she could apparently still breathe. It was only now, as she paid more attention to herself and her surroundings, that Twilight realised she was wearing a bright yellow dress decorated with a golden crescent moon. Which was odd. Something about all of this was wrong. She had been in her library a few moments ago, and now she was suddenly wearing a yellow dress while staring out into the eternal void from a golden tower that was orbiting a strange blue planet that contained magic clouds that showed the future.

Deep within the blue planet, which - although Twilight couldn't have known - is more commonly referred to as Skaia, the black and white kings chased each other around a 3x3 chess board. But now, as we will see, the conditions which keep them in eternal conflict were about to change. It was not a subtle change, and in no meaning of the word could the transformation of the board be described as gradual. Instead, there was a sudden flash of light as Skaia took on the information provided by the kernel. The battlefield swelled, growing to a fully sized 8x8 chess board. The first waves of the armies of Light and Darkness approached to join their kings in battle, taking their positions in opposing corners. The two king's scepters also took on the prototyping information from the kernel, and so the kings also began to transform. The stalemate was broken, the stakes had been raised considerably, and they were no longer playing an endless war.

This war would have an end, a very definite one. The white army knew this, but would fight admirably regardless. After all, every dersite they killed would buy the heroes a few more seconds. The clock was ticking.

***

"Whoooo!" Even though the golden tower and the large blue planet had long since faded into nothing, Twilight was still lying on her stomach with her eyes shut. Unfortunately, it's hard to stay asleep while you're being haunted by an owl.

"Whoooo," the voice of Owlowiscious called to her. "Twilight, wake up!" Wait, was that the same voice? "Wake up, we have much to talk about. Whooo!" Twilight reluctantly opened her eyes, if only out of curiositiy.

It was night, judging by the almost complete darkness. There was light coming from somewhere, though, which allowed her to see the library just a short distance away in front of her. Also in front of her, floating in the air, was something which had clearly been her pet owl at one point. But now he was different; it almost looked like he was a ghost now, shining in a faint purple light.

"Uh... Owlowiscious?" Twilight asked tentatively, only to be rewarded with a 'whoooo' of confirmation. "Did you... did you talk a second ago?"

"Yes, I did. Whoooo!" He seemed fairly smug about this. "You used me to prototype your kernelsprite, remember? So now that the kernel has gone off to do its own little thing, the sprite is left behind! That's me, by the way."

"OK... where are we?" That seemed important. It was probably important.

"Now, that's an interesting question. Whoooo! One answer is that we are now in the incipisphere, the game world. But more specifically, we're on your planet. Welcome to the Land of Night and Glow. It's nice, isn't it?"

Paying close attention to her surroundings for the first time, Twilight saw that the library was placed at the top of a sheer cliff, beyond which the land dived into a narrow canyon. She could see this, in spite of the darkness, due to the eerie glow which shone brightly out of the ravine. A similar glow was the cause of what little light she had on top of the cliff, and she could clearly see that it was coming from the plants surrounding the library. Presumably at the bottom of the canyon were more of these plants, all generating this soft glow. It was quite soothing to look at, in a way. At least she could see why the planet was called the Land of Night and Glow.

It suddenly occurred to her that she was talking to an owl.

"So... why can you talk?"

"A sprite is intended to function as a sort of mentor to players. Our job is to provide information about the game and the way it functions. If a sprite normally wouldn't be able to talk, the game gives it the power of speech - and increases its intelligence, if necessary."

"I see." And she did, to an extent. There were still a hundred questions to be answered, though. "So why did I need to prototype the kernelsprite at all?"

"Whoooo, well, when a prototyped kernelsprite enters, the game world adapts to take on the changes it introduces. Unless every player has at least one prototyping pre-entry, Skaia will not be able to reach its intended final form, and the game will be unwinnable."

"At least one?"

"You can prototype the sprite twice, which enhances its abilities, but you shouldn't prototype it a second time until the kernel has left the sprite. The reason being, as well as changing the game world, the prototyping information also augments the enemies of the game. The more pre-entry prototypings, the harder it will be to defeat the monarchs of Darkness. Whoooo."

"OK, I can tell that this is going to take a while." It seemed that 'Owlsprite' was incapable of giving an explanation that didn't involve some concept she hadn't learnt about yet. Luckily, Twilight was nothing if not a fast learner. "Right, so, who are the monarchs of Darkness?"

And so Twilight continued to ask, and her sprite continued to answer, as best as he was able. There are some things that a sprite may not tell its player until the time is right, and there are some things that a sprite doesn't know. Luckily, you have the advantage of an omniscient narrator, and have no need to struggle through the tedious back and forth of dialogue. So we shall leave Twilight Sparkle to learn things the hard way, while I tell you more of the realm in which she now found herself.

Twilight, after leaving Equestria, entered a place known as the Medium. It is little more than a huge, impenetrable void which takes up most of the incipisphere (the collective name for this bubble universe), and indeed it is intended to serve as a sort of blank canvas. Besides the Medium, the incipisphere holds several key features that are always present in any session. The largest, and most important of these features, is Skaia. This has been touched on briefly already. Skaia is, in essence, a giant sphere of creative potential. At its heart is the battlefield, the place where the armies of Light and Darkness wage their terrible and bitter war, and it is - at least, in successful game sessions - the place where the players will achieve their ultimate goal. It is also the target of the two factions, which I have already referred to as the armies of Light and Darkness. On Prospit, a golden planet which orbits Skaia, the armies of Light are charged with defending the battlefield. And, on the very edge of the incipisphere, beyond the Veil (a ring of meteors which completely surround the inside of the Incipisphere), lies the dark moon of Derse. From Derse, the armies of Darkness seek to destroy Skaia in order to prevent the players from winning the game.

This is the basic layout of the incipisphere, which is a constant across any session. What differs between sessions is the contents of the Medium. Although initially empty, the Medium is where the planets of the heroes will appear. Just as Owlsprite has explained, Twilight's planet - the only planet in the Medium so far - is the Land of Night and Glow. As each player enters, their planet will be created. Over the course of the game, each player will travel around their planets, travelling between them, and eventually finding their way onto the battlefield.

A final detail to note is the nature of prototyping. As stated by Owlsprite, each player must prototype at least once before entering. Doing so will allow Skaia to reach its final form, and make it possible to win the game. Also, prototypings will change the enemies of the game, who will take on characteristics of whatever was prototyped. While this has an affect on most enemies encountered on the planets in the Medium, although the soldiers of Prospit and Derse are not affected, the effects are most noticeable on the monarchs. The white king and queen of Prospit, and the black king and queen of Derse, all possess artifacts that gain the essence of the prototyped information. The kings both wield scepters, and the queens both wear rings. The underlings found on the planets of the heroes are affected, but the wielders of these items are the ones who experience the changes most drastically - and benefit the most from the impressive power increase that each prototyping brings.

And that, I believe, is more than enough information for today. Maybe even for a few months or so. Now, let us turn our attention to an entirely different universe.

***

After rather forcibly worming his way out of Fluttershy's grasp, Angel had finally managed to get back to sleep, leaving the pegasus feeling lonelier than ever. Rainbow Dash had visited her a while ago, to tell her about the library - or lack of library, but of course that had only made her feel even worse. Twilight had trusted her. And now, because of her, Twilight was dead. She was obviously dead. She was completely and utterly dead, and no amount of praying and hoping was going to change that. Fluttershy knew that. And, although she didn't expect that she'd ever recover from it, it was time to admit that Twilight was dead. If she were so inclined, she might say that on a scale from 'dead' to 'not dead', Twilight was so dead that the scale was in very bad taste and should probably be taken outside for a time out. But she wasn't, and the fact remained that Twilight was incredibly dead.

[crespucularMagicant began talking with reticentButterfly]

CM: Hey Fluttershy, I'm not dead!

CM: :D

CM: Oh, wow, I did the face thing. Somehow.

Considering how long she had been working on convincing herself that Twilight was dead, Fluttershy cheered up surprisingly quickly.

RB: TWILIGHT!

RB: YOU'RE ALIVE!

CM: Uh, yeah, I am.

CM: Heh.

RB: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

CM: Yes Fluttershy, I'm alive. You can calm down now.

RB: Oh, sorry.

RB: I'm just so happy that you're still alive!

RB: And not dead.

CM: Well, so am I.

RB: It was just awful, I thought you had died, and it was all my fault.

CM: What? How would it be your fault?

RB: Well, I did leave you for ages. If I hadn't, it wouldn't have been so close.

CM: But that's understandable, the forest was on fire.

CM: Oh, wait, the forest was on fire!

CM: Are you OK?

RB: Yes, I'm fine.

RB: The fire's been taken care of now, and I've captchalogued all of my animals, so they're safe.

CM: Ah, good.

CM: OK, well, I've gotten into the game world. And my library is here too, so I guess that's pretty convenient.

CM: And according to Owlsprite, now I have to travel around my planet.

CM: I have a planet now.

CM: It's amazing.

RB: Uh...

RB: Who's Owlsprite?

CM: Oh, it's Owlowiscious. But now he's my sprite, so he can talk to me and tell me things about how the game works.

RB: I... see...

CM: Anyway, here's the situation.

CM: Above my house are these purple round portals called 'gates' that travel around the game world.

CM: I don't really understand the rotation yet, but I know that the first one will lead to somewhere else out in my planet.

CM: But in order to get to it, I need you to go build up my house so that I can reach it.

CM: And you can't build anything without grist, as you found out when I entered.

CM: So here's the three part plan:

CM: 1. I go out and defeat some enemies, thus earning us some grist to work with.

CM: 2. You use the grist to build my house up towards the first gate.

CM: 3. I go through the first gate and start my quest, and then you can get into the game.

RB: OK, that sounds fine.

RB: But my screen has stopped working.

CM: It probably just cut out when it lost the connection.

CM: Just try opening the server interface again and it should work.

RB: OK then. See you in a little while, Twilight!

CM: Bye!

[crespucularMagicant stopped talking with reticentButterfly]

After the conversation log closed, Fluttershy walked over to the screen that had allowed her to see Twilight a few hours before. She then activated it, and it showed Twilight standing outside of the library. As she had said, it did seem like she was on another planet, judging by the odd coloured grass, and the lack of stars in the sky. But now, we must leave Fluttershy for a while, as Pinkie Pie is suddenly being interesting.

***

After the meteor had hit Ponyville, most ponies had begun to evacuate. More meteors were on the way, after all. Of course, it was the middle of the night, and a lot of ponies didn't know what was going on, so Rainbow and a few other pegasi had decided to spread the warning around the town. Applejack had taken care of her family, apparently. Rarity would obviously make sure that Sweetie Belle was OK, and Sweetie Belle would obviously make sure that Scootaloo was OK. So Rainbow decided to visit Pinkie Pie, just to make sure that she had told Mr and Mrs Cake to evacuate.

Inside Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie hadn't told Mr and Mrs Cake to evacuate. They were still sleeping upstairs, and she didn't want to wake up the babies. Instead, she had spent most of her time talking with her friends.

[insanityPrelude began talking with adamantineCorsair]

IP: Hi Rarity!

IP: You're not busy, are you?

AC: Hello Pinkie.

AC: Sorry, but yes I am busy.

AC: Busy making sure Sweetie Belle is alright.

IP: Oh, right.

IP: :/

AC: What is it?

IP: You're all so busy tonight.

IP: Nopony has time to talk to me.

AC: Well, I can't just tell Sweetie to leave Ponyville, and then leave her to it.

AC: At least Mr and Mrs Cake are independent enough to get on with things.

AC: I would imagine.

IP: Huh?

IP: Oh, I haven't told them yet.

AC: You haven't?

AC: Don't you think that maybe you should?

IP: But they're sleeping, and they're really tired after dealing with the babies all afternoon.

IP: It'd be mean of me to wake them up.

AC: But surely it'd be even worse if you let them get killed by a meteor?

IP: Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to let that happen!

IP: I'll tell them in the morning. The next meteor will only just be falling by then anyway.

AC: ... and how do you know that?

IP: I just know!

IP: Remember? :)

AC: Oh, right... I forgot.

AC: Anyway, I still think you should let them know.

IP: Maybe...

[adamantineCorsair stopped talking with insanityPrelude]

While she would have normally picked a friend at random and started talking to them, Pinkie became distracted by Rainbow Dash knocking at her front door. She answered, and Rainbow quickly rushed inside.

"Pinkie! Are the Cakes here?" Despite the urgency in her voice, Pinkie simply burst out laughing, much to Rainbow's annoyance. "This isn't funny! This is serious!"

"Oh, Rainbow..." Pinkie's reply came in bursts, amidst fits of laughter. "Of course... of course the cakes are here..." Thinking about what she was about to say almost made her unable to get the words out, but she managed it anyway. "IT'S A CAKE SHOP!"

"Pinkie." Rainbow's voice became flat, her face devoid of any expression, as she tried to be as serious as possible. "You know what I meant."

"Yeah, but the way you said it was funny!" She seemed far too happy, Rainbow decided. Only half listening to the crazy pony in front of her, she started towards the stairs to go and find the Cakes herself. "Anyway, yes they're still here. I didn't want to wake them up, so - hey, where're you going?"

"To wake them up. I know that there's no danger until Fluttershy enters the game, but we can't take any chances. Especially when we have to think about the babies." Pinkie had to admit that it made sense. "I'll go and tell them about what's happening, and then..." Rainbow paused, trying to decide if she really wanted to do this. But Pinkie seemed a bit deflated after being reminded about the babies being in danger. "And then I'll stay here and keep you company. For a bit." She hastily added that last sentence after seeing how quickly Pinkie returned to her normal self.

"Really? Great! We can make cupcakes, and play Monopony, and sing songs, and-" Rainbow had her serious face on again. "-and then we can do boring preparation stuff for this game." Satisfied, Rainbow continued up the stairs and went to tell Mr and Mrs Cake about the meteors, while Pinkie stayed down in the shop grumbling to herself.

***

While initially surprised - and more than a little disturbed - by just how effectively a quill could act as a weapon, Twilight had managed to put any morals to one side and tear a path through the swarm of imps that were attacking the library. She had been assured by Owlsprite that underlings were little more than simple game constructs - not citizens of either kingdom, but just simple minded programs with no thoughts or feelings. Real or otherwise, apparently, whatever that was supposed to mean. Although it was a little off-putting that they all had the heads of owls. Regardless, she had quickly begun to accumulate a large amount of grist, which Fluttershy had started to use to build up the library. Twilight suspected that she might have just wanted the excuse to stop watching the violence. The pegasus had been horrified by the sight of imps bursting into nothing more than a few nuggets of build grist. Which could be a problem when it was her turn to enter if she refused to fight, Twilight thought. Though they might be easy to destroy, the imps were very aggressive, and she had a feeling that they would only get stronger over time.

These thoughts were pushed from her mind as the last of this wave of imps exploded, leaving behind a few units of build grist and a single unit of amethyst. As Twilight collected it, a familiar fanfare sounded and a small message box opened up next to her, announcing that she had climbed another rung of her echeladder. Her echeladder, as far as she could tell, was a system that let her become more powerful over the course of the game by reaching higher and higher levels. As a reward for defeating enemies, her abilities would be enhanced so that she could defeat stronger enemies, and so on. Which was interesting. Currently, she was apparently at the rung of 'Huygens Apprentice'. So far she had climbed several rungs of her echeladder, each of which had been similarly named, though she suspected the name had no real significance.

[crespucularMagicant began talking with reticentButterfly]

CM: I just climbed a rung again!

RB: Oh, great...

CM: ?

CM: What is it?

RB: Nothing, just, how did you climb it?

CM: Well, I suppose I just gathered enough experience to jump up a rung.

RB: So you mean you killed enough imps?

CM: I guess so.

RB: As long as you're happy, then.

CM: Fluttershy, please don't be like that.

CM: I told you, they're not really alive in any meaningful sense of the word.

CM: They're just simple game constructs that exist purely so that we can get experience and grist from them.

RB: Nothing's that simple.

CM: ...

CM: OK, whatever.

CM: How's the library coming along?

RB: It's just fine.

CM: But is it at the first gate yet?

RB: No.

CM: ... do you have enough grist to get it up to the first gate?

RB: Maybe.

CM: Fluttershy...

RB: ... no, so you'd better go and kill some more imps.

CM: Sorry...

RB: Just do what you have to, and I'll stay here and build.

CM: OK.

[crespucularMagicant stopped talking with reticentButterfly]

Briefly glancing back to the library, Twilight saw that Fluttershy had indeed managed to build up quite a distance above the tree. The gate, however, remained high above the top of the building, tauntingly close and yet unreachable. Looking forwards, down the narrow winding path that led down the nearby cliff, she could already see the next wave of underlings gathering for an attack. Quill at the ready, she began to charge.

***

In the interest of moving the story forward, we will now skip ahead a while. Don't worry though, as you haven't missed anything important. Or at least, you haven't missed anything important that I wouldn't have found some other way to avoid telling you about. Assuming that there was anything that I don't want you to know about yet, which there might not be. I'll leave you to decide that for yourself. In any case, I will skip past the highly repetitive chore of stabbing imps with a quill, to when Twilight finds herself confronted with yet another complex machine, installed next to her totem lathe.

[crespucularMagicant began talking with reticentButterfly]

CM: So, what does this latest creation of yours do?

RB: I don't know, it was just available to deploy...

RB: It's called a 'Punch Designix'.

CM: Punch? As in punched cards?

Scanning across the machine, Twilight saw that there was a slot for inserting captchalogue cards. Next to that, was a small pad of buttons which seemed to be able to correspond to letters or numbers. There were also two lights, one of which was currently shining red.

CM: OK, so I think I can put a captchalogue card into here.

CM: And then, presumably I have to use these buttons for something or other.

CM: Any ideas?

RB: Uh...

"How about you, Spike? Any ideas?" The dragon thought for a moment.

"Well, I don't suppose you could... try typing in the letters on the back of the card?" Taking a card out of her sylladex, Twilight turned it over. As she had seen before, a string of wavy, hard to read letters could be seen on this side of the card. The truth was that she had forgotten all about the code, not that she would admit that to Spike.

"I guess. But then what would it do, make a punched card based on what I type in?" And then, just like that, something clicked in her mind. "Oh, so I made an item before using a punched card. But with this, I can make my own punched cards. So it must be that the pattern that is punched onto the card relates to the code. Which means I can put in codes from the backs of cards, punch a card with that code, and then use it to make the item on the original card!"

"I... yeah?" Spike scratched his head in confusion. This was all a bit too much at once for him.

Punching in the code on the back of the card (a small sapphire she had captchalogued, mainly to keep it from Spike), Twilight inserted it into the slot.

RB: Twilight, stop!

Retrieving the card from the machine, Twilight saw that it had indeed been punched, and in a different pattern to the pre-punched card she had used to enter. The only problem now was that she couldn't retrieve the sapphire.

CM: What? I got it to work!

RB: Yeah...

RB: But you could have punched a blank card, so you'd still be able to use the original card.

CM: Oh, right. Oops.

RB: :/

Well, there was always time to learn and improve, Twilight reasoned. Besides, if she could take the codes from any item that could be catpchalogued, and use it to replicate the item, then she and her friends could send each other any item in their posession. Which had potential.

"Well, I'm going to go and find something to eat." Spike called behind him, as he strode off towards the kitchen. He seemed less than happy that his perfect, delicious gemstones had been effectively destroyed by the designix. Meanwhile, Twilight had a lot more investigations to do into this machine and its uses. Retrieving another few captchalogue cards (blank ones, this time) from her sylladex, Twilight reached a hoof up to the machine.

"Ah, there you are!" Quickly retracting her hoof, Twilight spun around towards the source of the voice - it was a male voice, but not one she recognised. Turning her back on the designix, she could now see a teal unicorn standing in front of her, hovering a large open book next to him. "I wanted to talk to you, for a moment."

"Who are you?" At the question, a brief flash of confusion appeared on his face, disappearing after a few moments of thought.

"I'm a friend, even though it will become hard for you to believe that." He paused, carefully considering his next words. "You've already talked to me, briefly, but quite soon we'll start talking again."

"I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what you're talking about." And she didn't, to an extent. Though she did have a hint of an idea. "You're saying that you're going to start talking to me, in the future?" He nodded.

"Relatively speaking. Your future, my past. Technically, I shouldn't be here talking to you. It's against the rules. The rules that I made up. The rules which, in due time, I will give everyone a hard time over. Wait, stop, let me start this again." So Twilight waited for the pony to explain himself.

"OK. I come from a different session of this game, that I played with my - and I use the term loosely - friends. In a little while, past me will start talking to you. Your session and my session communicating is a thing which has to happen. It's really important for continuity reasons, so there's no point trying to change it. So we'll talk, and help each other out, and so on."

"I see. So, is there a point to all this?"

"The point is that I wanted to come back here, to see you before we start talking to your group. To see you before you'd met me, so that I could actually speak to you properly and civilly. So that I could say... sorry." With that word, a weight seemed to fall from this strange pony, as he gave a short sigh of relief to have gotten through his introduction. "I'm sorry, Twilight Sparkle," Even though she should have expected it, it still surprised Twilight that he knew her name. "For everything I'm about to do, or about to have done, or going to have done in the future-past. I'm going to be really stupid, really annoying, and really mean for no reason, and I'm sorry. I was stupid, and I wasn't thinking things through."

"But, I need to tell you now, so that you can remember in the future, that I feel bad about everything I did. I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking, and then I'm going to need your help. And you won't want to give me your help. You'll hate me, you'll want me to go away and leave you in peace. And I won't know how to reach out to you. I don't even know if this is going to work. I just want you to know now, before I say or do anything to screw it up, that all I want is for us to be friends." He seemed sincere, although Twilight had no idea what anypony could do to make her hate them in any serious way.

"Right... sorry, but this is kind of a lot to take in." In truth, Twilight was still puzzling her way through what the term 'future-past' was supposed to mean, or even if it was a proper term.

"Of course, of course. That's all I wanted to say, anyway, and I really shouldn't hang around here for longer than necessary." He nodded towards the designix. "Oh, and once you have enough grist, try making 'PH04?D6E'. I'll see you later, Twilight." So saying, he turned his attention back to his large book. A few seconds of hurried page-turning later, and the mysterious stallion disappeared into nothing.

Shaking her head free of the hundreds of thoughts attempting to get noticed, most of which were variations of the phrase 'what the hay just happened?!?', Twilight turned her attention to the designix. Whatever that had been about, she would probably find out soon enough.

Comments

[Fallen Prime]

Okay, so I can basically confirm that Twilight and Pinkie are Prospit dreamers. Until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that the other one is Applejack; with Fluttershy, Dash, and Rarity having their dreamselves on Derse. If you WANT to confirm or deny any of what I just said, feel free; otherwise, I'm keeping to my fun little delusions.

Also, I'm gonna assume we just met the pony equivalent of Karkat. Which gets a resounding "YES. FUCK YES. HELL FUCKING YES."

[confoundtheseponies]

169754
Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?
Which basically means: "you're right, but I don't want to admit to being predictable".

Also, to everypony in general, I'm just going to mention this now: while I plan to follow the mechanics of Sburb as closely as possible, the recent comments by UU make it seem like the title system may be getting some more detailed explanation. If so, it may well turn out that some of the titles I may or may not have used go against what is 'legal' in terms of Homestuck canon. I already have titles and such in mind for all the ponies involved. Which means that, while I'll change it to fit if I'm able, there might be some discrepancies between this fic and future information from Homestuck.

I wouldn't normally bother saying that, since it's kind of obvious, but there's already a kind of problem for one of the planned OCs (although it's not a huge issue). So yeah, just thought I'd point that out.

[Awe Striker]

169811

Well, it depends. While the +/- orientation of every non-Thief (-), non-Rogue (+) class is an unknown, whether there are an equal number of + and - classes in each session is also an unknown. As long as you don't have any polysyllabic class or aspect names, I think it'll be fine.

[ray10k]

oh dear, the weird time shit commences.

[Fallen Prime]

169811 I wouldn't call it being predictable. I think I may just be looking into it to an unholy degree. When your circle of friends dedicates about 20% of its normal conversation to Homestuck (we will find some arbitrary way to link ANYTHING to Homestuck), it stops being a thing that can be helped.

[Bitness909]

1) Holy hell, this is amazing. With all the chapters, I was like, "Hell no, I cannot read all of this!" But I do not regret it. Great work!
2) Rarity = AC. Nepeta = AC. Rarity is my favorite pony. Nepeta is my favorite troll. :D

[GMBlackjack]

Yep. Owlsprite.

Of course, Fluttershy's a little afraid of killing imps. I hope that gets fully explored later.

Hey look! Trollpony! Who are you!? Please be interesting. Please be karkat. Yell at everyone in a scratchy little voice.

...Gosh darn it they're going to have typing quirks aren't they.

I wonder why the initial message said eleven ponies and not twelve...

-GM, master of comments.