Loops 42
42.1 (masterweaver)
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!"
Spike looked on in bemusement as his adoptive sister and the local weathermare danced on their tippytoppy hooves through the library. "Alright, I'll bite. What's up?"
"The loop's expanding Spike!" Twilight cried with a grin.
"Yes, I got that."
"That means baseline is getting more events, and that can be a mixed bag but--"
"A.K. YEARLING JUST ANNOUNCED SHE'S GOING TO HAVE THE NEXT DARING DO BOOK OUT!" Dash interrupted. "Can you believe it?! After all these loops, finally, finally, A REAL SEQUEL!"
"I'M SO EXCITED!"
"I'M EVEN MORE EXCITED!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!"
Spike raised an eyescale warily. "So... when is this new book coming out?"
"In four months and three days!" Rainbow cheered. "Hahahahahaha!"
"And... you two do realize that the loop ends friday?"
Pegasus and alicorn stopped dead. Magenta eyes slowly swivelled to meet lavender, wings furling as excitement drained away to sombre horror.
"....Clorophyl," Twilight finally mumbled.
42.2
“Okay, Cookie,” Applebloom said, cracking her elbows. “I'm out of other things to do. I'm getting It out.”
What, precisely, Cookie asked, is It?
“Oh, right, you weren't there for that. One of the really old loopers was clearing out his Pocket of loads of junk he didn't want – something about needing the storage space for another fleet – and there was this little golden egg thing going free, so I snapped it up. It looked interesting...” Applebloom mused.
She sat back on the roof of the Appleloosa home she shared with her sister and brother – neither of them Awake. In fact, she and Twilight were the only Awake ponies on Equestria.
It was a rather bizarre variant, from what Twilight had told her. Without Applejack to take up Honesty, Twilight had decided to try an experiment, and Gilda had ended up the Element of Brutal Honesty.
She, Dash and Pinkie were engaged in a three way prank war which was claiming their combined dignities as the first casualties.
So, what is it? Cookie pressed.
“That's just it.” Applebloom took a pair of tongs, and lifted the golden egg from her subspace pocket. “I've got no idea, except that touching it is a really, really bad idea. That was made pretty clear by the guy when I got the thing. And, well, when else am I going to get four years in a desert to work out what the hay it does?”
Right. The Intelligent Device/Founder emitted an electronic sigh. When you put it like that, it almost seems responsible.
“Okay. Examination of the marbled patterns on the surface reveals that they are the macroscopic expression of microscopic structures. This trend continues all the way down to the...” Applebloom spun the wheels on her microscope. “...huh. Well, looks like time to break out the electron microscope.”
You have one of those?
“Not yet.” Taking out tools, Applebloom went over to the gargantuan junk pile she'd got Twilight to dump near her carefully-protected cave.
“I dunno...” Mac said, frowning. “You want t' be homeschooled?”
“It'd give me more time to do what I really want to do, Mac,” Applebloom said earnestly. “Besides, I can already do the exams – I just want it to be official. Come on! Ask me somethin' difficult!”
“Well, if y' say so...” Mac looked off into the distance for a moment. “X squared plus four x equals five. What's x?”
“One or minus five,” Applebloom replied promptly.
“Huh. Differentiate e to th' x.”
“Answer's the same as the question – e to the x – unless you mean differentiating by a different variable, in which case zero. Come on, something a bit harder.”
“Okay.” Mac thought for a while longer. “Well, if y'all say that you really know your stuff... what's e raised to the power of the square root of negative one times a linear variable?”
“A cosine curve in radians.”
Mac looked at her. Then he nodded. “Eeyup, that's right. And y' say that you know all th' subjects?”
Applebloom nodded.
“Well, ah'll keep an eye on th' scores y'all get on th' exams, but fer now you got yourself a deal.”
“This is amazing!” Applebloom said, furiously tapping away at the controls which were moving the electron probe over the surface of the egg. “It's all machinery. Solid machinery, on an atomic scale.”
She paused over a number of pits in the surface of the egg, one after the other. “This is some kind of sensor – visual. And this uses scent. And this can only be a physical contact sensor! This thing can detect more with a square millimetre of surface than most animals can with their whole bodies!”
Carefully, she lowered the microprobe over a different kind of pit, and used the tunneling mode to peel back a tiny section of surface.
“This is just so cool!”
What's that you're looking at? Cookie asked, paying attention to the screen herself.
“It looks like a kind of... nanotech stinging cell.” Applebloom sobered a bit. “Okay, definitely not touching this thing. But I can probably use some of the tech that goes into this...”
“Okay.” Applebloom checked the range safety; good. Then the eraser warhead, which was ready to go.
Nanotech was scary stuff. But, with a few... perhaps slightly Trixie-flavoured precautions, a lot of the threat could be accounted for.
Which was why Applebloom was telefactoring a drone from ten miles away.
“Initiating mycelium.”
The drone (which, for reasons of Applebloom's own, looked an awful lot like a motorized pine tree) dripped the contents of a small vial onto the surface of a chunk of volcanic rock.
There was a froth of bubbles, which quickly died away, and then a mass of hair-fine filaments spread over the surface of the rock.
Five minutes later, the rock crumpled in on itself. What was left was a set of twenty nodules of varying sizes, each a pure metal ore.
Applebloom checked a couple of readouts, then exhaled. “Right. And it cleaned up after itself, too – good.”
Given the tech in question, that hadn't been a certainty...
What now?
“Well, ah think there's about three more months o' work before that node is completely dismantled,” Applebloom guessed. “Good thing ah've been takin' it slow, too, 'cause of all the traps an' all.”
True, Cookie allowed.
There'd been at least one close call with a nasty computer virus – one seemingly implicit in the very design of a sub-component of the object, and almost sapient in the sheer sophistication that went into it.
Fortunately, Applebloom had managed to catch it in time, and Cookie had fought it off within the computer system itself.
“This thing's almost an entire nanotech ecology, is what it is...” Applebloom mused, then shrugged. “Well, ah guess we're harvestin' the crops and tryin' to kill the pests.”
“And...” Applebloom saved the final file on her handheld. “Done!”
She grinned with the euphoria of finally having finished her self-appointed task, which banished the slightly muzzy feeling of two consecutive coffee-fuelled all nighters. The egg – which was, according to internal code snippets, something called a Jain node – had been completely dismantled, all the inbuilt traps avoided by a slow and steady approach involving a great deal of caution.
Sure, about ninety percent of what she'd learned was far too dangerous to use, but the remaining ten percent would let her finally crack the inherent problems involved with most nanotechnology.
Well... if she had Cookie to run it, anyway. A dismayingly large portion of the software needed to run this Jain technology was written in a form that was as virulent as the rest of it.
Um... Cookie cut in on her thoughts.
“What?” Before she forgot, Applebloom slipped the handheld into her subspace pocket. She wasn't about to lose fully five years of effort when the Tree of Doom rolled around next week.
You appear to have... wings. And a horn.
The filly went stock still.
“Can you repeat that, please?”
You seem to have Ascended.
“Oh.” Applebloom tried to get her head around that. “Huh, ah always thought we'd do it together. Scoots, Belle and me.”
Cookie didn't say anything.
“Right. In about ten seconds, ah'm gonna actually realize what just happened. So if you'll excuse me, ah'll freakout for a bit.”
Sure.
Applebloom took one more breath, then started running around in circles.
“Just...” Applebloom shook her head, watching the sun go down over a mesa in the far distance. “Ah'm still overwhelmed by this.”
I understand, Cookie said. I suppose it must be very confusing. I mean, I felt strange enough becoming a pendant, but I was at least ready for it.
“Yeah, ah know what y' mean,” Applebloom agreed. “Still, ah don't think th' loops have ever blindsided me like this.”
Technically, this was all you. Not the Loops at all.
Applebloom directed a glower at Cookie's pendant.
Sorry, that was flippant, Cookie said, with a tone of contrition.
“I... no, ah understand,” Applebloom admitted. “Just... don't tell th' other Crusaders, okay? Or your friends. Ah...”
She kicked the ground.
“Ah feel embarassed, is what it is, 'cause ah feel like ah've left them behind. Like... well, we always wanted t' find cutie marks, and... by the time we started loopin', we were told by Twilight that we'd all got several different ones in different loops we weren't Awake for. But...” The filly scuffed at the dirt again, before slumping to the floor and rolling on her back, heedless of her new wings, to watch the stars come out. “Ah never gave a moment's thought to how we'd all feel if just one of us got a cutie mark. Back before we got t' Looping.”
I think I see. You feel like you've lost one of the things which you shared with your friends.
“Yeah.”
For several minutes, neither of them made a sound.
You will have to tell Twilight eventually, Cookie pointed out.
“Probably, yeah,” Applebloom said quietly. “It'd be best to get it done this loop, when there ain't any other loopers and she can help me get all this worked out. But... ah don't want to. At all.”
42.1 continued (Masterweaver)
"Rainbow, I've got some bad news." Twilight sighed, holding out a newsletter. "Yearling's pushed back the release by two months."
"TWO MONTHS?" The pegasus snatched the newsletter and opened it quickly. "That's... that's eight more loops I have to wait!"
"Eight more expansion periods," Twilight corrected.
"Uuuuurgh, I wish she was looping so she could finish sooner."
"She's got a life of her own, Dash. We can't really force her to do anything." Twilight shrugged. "All we can do is wait."
"Yeah... I guess you're right." With a sigh, Rainbow Dash tossed the newsletter into the garbage. "It's not like anything important will happen because of this."
"Remember the old days where we'd go on crazy adventures just because, I dunno, you wanted a book from the hospital or I was late for a friendship letter?" The alicorn giggled and rolled her eyes.
"Yeah. We really got caught up by unimportant things. Well, loop's ending tomorrow.... wanna help me with a really stupid stunt?"
Twilight sighed. "Alright, but if I die then next loop you have to dress in style and give fashion tips."
"...I guess that's fair."
42.3 (Crisis)
Pinkie Pie loved this Loop. It had, in her opinion, everything. Epic battles for the fate of the universe; ninja; robots; aliens; mutant races nature probably never intended; an amazing back story of love, loss, and betrayal; the coolest non-deity identity she'd looped into yet; and the bestest new friends ever!
"So he was an ancient ninja master who turned traitor over some woman his rival loved and left the country to start a megacorp to take over the world, but really all along he was some squishy brain alien criminal in a robot suit who had designs on taking over the whole galaxy once he manufactured an army of ninja robots and super mutants her of Earth and the only force that could stop him was a secret band of mutant ninjas, you all, living in the sewers! Oh, and the lovely science assistant and intrepid reporter, me, of course. And we beat him!" Pinkie was practically vibrating with excitement. "You know what this calls for?"
"A pizza party!" her companion in the orange mask yelled with equal enthusiasm.
"Two of them," the one in the red mask griped for the umpteenth time this Loop. "Why in the wide, wide multiverse did there have to be two of them?!"
"Statistics," the one with the purple mask replied with good humor. "We were bound to run into someone like her in these Loops sooner or later."
The leader in the blue mask just gave a long-suffering sigh.
42.1 continued (Masterweaver)
Twilight and Rainbow Dash landed in the middle of a desert, eyeing the strange fortress warily.
"Okay.... how the hay did we not notice this before?"
The alicorn shrugged, reapplying the cooling charms on both of them. "A week ago this was a heavily forested region. Granted, I've been here a few times before, but...." She chuckled awkwardly. "Well, usually I was just out camping or doing one of my crazier schemes."
"Crazier."
"Did I ever tell you about the time I convinced Celestia and Luna that Equestria ran on Newtonian physics? I had to set up a secret lab to automate the weather and wrest control of the sun and moon from them... the looks on their faces, I'm telling you, hilarious." She gestured around the blackened sands. "Anyway, this is where I had my secret animal training facility. To... dedomesticate them... actually, yeah, this fortress was here then too."
Rainbow sighed, ascending for a moment. "Twilight, this fortress is practically throbbing with weather magic. The mystery of the heat wave? Right here. Frankly we're lucky to have found it before it melted itself down." She tapped the stone briefly before snapping back with a yelp. "OH SWEET MAPLE LEAVES! Ow, ow ow.... huh, it doesn't hurt anymore..."
"Here, let me see that." The purple pony brought her face close to the blackened hoof, wincing in sympathy. "Ow. Wow, okay, that's a fourth degree burn. I'm going to have to use a localized time spell to reverse this, there's no way it'll just heal...."
The blue pony held her hoof out patiently while her friend tended to her. "Fourth degree? It's difficult to burn a pegasus, what with our magic and all, and you're telling me that this fortress somehow managed to charcoalize an alicorn's hoof?"
"Mmmyep." Twilight took a breath, shaking her head. "Okay, before we go any further I'm going to need to put more defensive wards on us." Her horn glowed even brighter, spells weaving through the air for a full minute and enveloping the pair in brightly shining runes. When she finally finished, she took out two pairs of goggles and handed one to Dash.
The former pegasus put them on without question. "I take it that this is serious?"
"I'm operating under the assumption that somebody tried to make a star in here. So yeah, super serious."
Even with the shields on, the two could feel the blast of heat on their faces as they entered the fortress. Twilight cast a few spells and sagged in relief. "Ha, I was wrong. No stars, just... apparently a reverse heat ray aimed at the sun. It's overloaded, but at least the safeties held."
Rainbow Dash stared at her. "What, exactly, would happen if the safeties didn't hold?"
"All the heat would have been released at once and the atmosphere would be set on fire." Twilight trotted up to a pillar of melted bronze and gold, kicking away an odd skeleton and flicking a spell or two around the metal. "If I can just aim an exhaust spell at the sun, I might be able to send all the conserved heat back. I think this was meant to be a storm generator, you know, warm up the local air currents to cause a rainstorm or something.... who the heck pointed it directly at the sun?"
"Ahuizotl."
The purple unicorn rolled her eyes. "Rainbow, I'm pretty sure that the Daring Do series is labelled fiction this loop-"
Dash pointed at the big skeleton that Twilight had kicked away. "No, that's Ahuizotl. I know from one of my Daring Do loops. That is, one hundred percent, the real deal."
"What?" Twilight peered at the corpse. "Well... okay, that's weird. I was sure we were in a baseline loop, and the Daring Do is labelled as fictional..."
"You think she's around?"
"If she is..." With a sigh, the Anchor turned to face her friend. "She's dead. At least for this loop... should be ending soon anyway. This doesn't make sense! I'm going to have to stake this area out next loop...."
42.4 (Masterweaver)
Applejack broke out laughing, barely able to hold onto the mug that her brother had prepared for her. "So Maccy ended up being yer sister fer the loop, eh? Ah gotta admit that cracks me up ta think about."
Twilight rolled her eyes, sipping her punch with a smirk. "Biggest princess you ever saw, hooves as thick as his neck."
The farmer leaned over the table. "So what did ya have ta banish Mac fer when it came time?"
The librarian grinned slyly. "I didn't, actually."
"Wait... what?"
"Okay, okay, get this." Putting her glass down, Twilight spread her hooves out. "We've just imprisoned Discord, and all the ponies are worshipping us as gods. Typical, so far. Mac decides he'll be in charge of the judiciary branch of the government, I'll get executive, and the lawmakers will be mortal. So of course right off the bat the Wardens are formed to be my church and the Sages go off to follow him. With me so far?"
"Yeah..."
"Right, so about seven years in a law is passed that only Wardens and Sages can see us, cause the mortal ponies still view us as gods. I'm not happy with it, and Mac doesn't seem happy with it, but it does prevent some of the more constant genuflecting." The unicorn shook her head. "But Macintosh has some of his Sages start a few rumours. A sentence here, an argument there.... I don't know, I was too busy carrying out my duties to even notice. In about two hundred and thirty years, nopony believes we exist."
Applejack stared at her friend. "Ah.... wait, what?"
Twilight burst out laughing. "He, hahah, he managed to get us relegated to pagan gods! Yeah, the Wardens and the Sages still existed but aside from a core council, most ponies believed that the Blind Warden and the Silent Sage were just holdovers from less 'enlightened' times! I didn't even know until five hundred years after Discord when I finally decided to take a walk outside and got compliments on, on my costume!" She snorted. "Of course I was a tad miffed at first but the more I thought about it... If I didn't need to banish Mac then I wouldn't lose the connection to the elements, and Discord's prison wouldn't weaken, and, well, things were actually a lot calmer. Mac and I took to travelling Equestria to help out where we could--we did check back into Canterlot every decade to remind the Councils we existed, but other then that nothing."
The farmer stared at her friend. "Seriously. That... he did that?"
"Yeah, I know! Craziest thing."
42.1 continued (Masterweaver)
It was pretty common knowledge throughout the multiverse that loopers were, practically speaking, near demigods. True, they didn't always use their power and a number of them actively restrained themselves from appearing out of the ordinary to the non-looping populace. But when a pony has subjectively lived a few hundred millennia, using their time to study magic and gather technological trinkets, it wasn't at all difficult to set up a network of invisible spies around an ancient fortress, sabotage a stack of magical rings without leaving a trace, and watch the whole thing from the comforts of a home in a tree shaped library.
Twilight sipped her tea as the events on the magical screen played out again. Ahuizotl had his rant, left Daring in a death trap, and went to complete his evil plot. Daring struggled free, but not in time to stop Ahuizotl from placing the final ring.... which didn't do anything, thanks to Twilight's own sabotage. Then the creature would carefully examine everything about the ancient doomsday device, Daring would burst in, dramatic fight scene.... Daring flew away.
"This is the fifth loop this has happened," Twilight muttered, taking notes. She tapped her hoof thoughtfully, remembering her search of high end museums and being surprised to find "replicas" of artefacts from the series. The Sapphire Stone statue, the Griffon's Goblet – everything that the books said Daring had sent to a collection was actually in a collection, somewhere, though often a very secure and private one. Even stranger, though, were the people she encountered in her investigations; right out of the books themselves, Daring's extended family, various enemies and allies... Nothing for it but to say the books were true.
She'd have to ask Celestia about her cameo in some of them...
"Why would A.K. Yearling say this was fictional?" Twilight pondered. "I mean... who is A.K. Yearling anyway?" That had been the single gap in her investigations. The author of the series was only known through her publishing company. Yes, there had been the biography snipped in the back, but they were generic and, upon investigation, had no supporting paper trail. That led to the inevitable conclusion that A.K. Yearling was a fictional persona... but whose?
42.5
Keeping secrets from friends sucked.
That, Applebloom was sure, was the truth in any universe.
“So,” Sweetie said, grinning. “'nother loop without us, huh? Do anything good?”
Applebloom answered the grin, as well as she could. “Main thing was actually hundreds of miles away – ask Twilight about that. All I know is that, because we'd moved to Appleloosa before the loop itself started, the Element of Honesty got a new bearer.”
“Really?” Scoots nodded. “Tell us more!”
“You're not going to believe this...” Applebloom paused for effect. “Gilda.”
“No!” Diamond Tiara covered her mouth with a hoof to hide her giggles.
“Yep,” Applebloom replied, shaking her head. “From what Twilight put in her letters to me, she and Dash and Pinkie were involved in basically a permanent prank war from the moment the Nightmare Night thing died down to the moment the Loop ended.”
“Hey, what was her element like?” Scootaloo asked, curious. “You know, the whole user friendly thing. Twilight and Trixie tend to get crowns, the other girls get necklaces, Spike's one is a gorget with a flame on it... Gilda doesn't have a cutie mark, so?”
“Necklace, I think.” Applebloom shrugged. “We only went back to Ponyville once for a meeting with Filthy Rich, so I didn't have much chance t' look around. Could ask Twilight.”
She sniggered. “Filthy looked a bit run ragged, actually. And there was a crater in the main square which I think was Pinkie's fault.”
Diamond gave Applebloom a glower. It didn't work. “That is my father of whom you are speaking...”
“Yeah, so?” Applebloom winked. “We all laughed at Princess Maccie, didn't we?”
She stopped, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
“Anything else happen?” Sweetie asked, after a moment.
“Nothing really important.”
After so long living with the Element-bearer of Honesty, the lie slid out as smooth as silk.
“Oh, I did do a bit of research into nanotech, though,” she supplied, trying to get onto slightly safer ground without lying any more. “Should help in building my workshop without needing to keep half my pocket full of the heavy machinery.”
“Neat.” Scootaloo nodded. “It'd be good if we could get some aircraft carriers built next time we play battleships, actually.”
“I'm pretty sure that this stuff would let us build fleets if Cookie can run it right,” Applebloom mused.
“So!” Sweetie clapped her hooves. “Did you get a cutie mark for it?”
“Yeah,” Applebloom said, clamping down on her nervousness. “Nothing special.”
Another lie.
The mark in question had been a golden spanner, with what looked like the same patterns-made-of-patterns that the Jain egg had had.
It hadn't stuck around past the Loop refresh, though, which sunk that idea – but Cookie had just that morning confirmed that the ascension had, indeed, left a permanent mark on her magic.
A little twist of non-native pony type magic – some pegasus, some unicorn – ready to expand out on command, and with the proper catalyst. A catalyst like Smart Cookie.
Testing that would be a very, very bad idea. After all, she didn't know how to reverse it...
“Okay, so, what's next for this loop?” Diamond Tiara asked officiously.
“Ah vote we sleep through class an' get perfect marks,” Applebloom suggested.
“Good start,” Scootaloo allowed. “But needs something more. Diamond, any ideas?”
“Is Chrysalis awake?” Tiara pondered. “If so, we could set up a kind of 'kid superheroes' thing... you know, barely-there cover identities, interchangeable minions and one monster once a week...”
“I'll supply the ridiculously conspicuous base,” Applebloom volunteered.
42.1 continued (Masterweaver)
"What do you mean you can't take me to her?" Twilight Sparkle boggled.
Pinkie Pie smiled. "Exactly what I said. I Pinkie Promised not to reveal her location or identity to anyone."
Rainbow Dash growled in aggravation. "And how many loops ago was this?!"
"Doesn't matter! A promise is a promise is a promise."
"Pinkie, something IMPORTANT is happening here. And A.K. Yearling is at the centre of it. Can you... give me a hint, maybe?" The alicorn smiled wearily. "Please?"
"...Tell you what. Her birthday is in two weeks. If you can completely disconnect any sense of direction you have, no magic compass or anything, you can be the mare in the cake."
"WHAT?!"
"I'll do it!" Rainbow interjected.
"WHAT?!" Twilight snapped around. "SERIOUSLY?!"
"Eh, what's a little embarrassment compared to awesomeness?"
"Right, it's settled then!" Pinkie quipped brightly. "Oh this is going to be so much fun!"
42.6 (Stainless Steel Fox)
Harry King was a successful scrap metal merchant, in part because he was willing to take risks. For example, he'd invested in recycling and benefited from ever increasingly strict laws. His yard could even strip down aircraft and handle the more exotic metals such as tungsten and titanium. As a result, he got a lot of specialist trade, and those same metals were worth a lot more than most.
He was in his office, a double storey affair made out of 40 foot containers but upgraded considerably, overlooking the main yard. He was finalising one such deal, with an outfit that called itself Nightlight Industries. From his checks, a brand new company specialising in 'new developments in transportation and industrial processes' according to their website. Looked like one of their first deals had involved acquiring some wrecked aerospace gear and now they wanted to sell what they couldn't salvage. There was always good stuff in those.
The terms of the contract they suggested were agreeable, even generous, and they'd even agreed to pick up the delivery costs and import duties. While there was always the possibility of some kind of scam when you got a juicy contract like this, the payment, a percentage of the profits was due only after he'd processed and sold the materials. They were also liable for any disagreement over title. In short, he was golden, and he'd sent through the signed contract only a couple of hours ago.
Now he was on the phone with their deliveries staff, a girl by the name of Twilight. Crazy names some people hung on their kids these days, and not the sort of name you heard in connection with heavy transport vehicles. At least that's what he'd assumed when he heard the interference on her mobile phone.
"Okay, so where in your yard do you want me to deliver? The first load of 100 tons is ready," she said.
"We've cleared out bay 3 for your trucks, someone at the gate can direct you when you get here. You have the address in your GPS?"
"Got it up on Google maps, and I can see it clearly. Bay 3 is that one two down from the entrance?"
"Yes, you people certainly seem pretty on the ball."
"I've found it doesn't pay to let the grass grow under your hooves. Okay, it's clear of obstructions..."
That made him do a mental double-take. 'Hooves?!'
There was a bright flash and a fading purple glow around a big pile of scrap metal with an undeniable high-tech look to it that had appeared in bay three. Exactly what it had been was unclear as it was made up of finely divided pieces. Hovering over it was a floating figure, a purple pony of some kind wearing an orange coverall and white hard hat. She glided down on outstretched wings and walked towards the site offices. He absently noted that the hard-hat had a hole for a spiral horn. Wait, hadn't he heard his daughter going on about something like that in Japan?
The UK had suffered minimal raids by the invaders, but that didn't stop several of his workers from freaking out and running as fast as they could in the opposite direction. The rest just stood there in stunned surprise. The phone he'd dropped in his distraction spoke, and he snatched it up, fumbling it before he finally got it to his ear.
"Okay, you can check it yourself, but there's a minimum of 100 tons of stuff there. Not sure how much natural debris got mixed in, but it's mostly nickel iron anyway, so it should be all good." It was the same voice, and as the purple alien approached, he could see a mobile phone held up against her head with no visible means of support, and her mouth moving.
He responded in the most eloquent and concise manner he was currently capable of. "Gaaah!"
"I'm sorry? Look, I know I'm not what you were expecting, but you signed a contract, I delivered on it, now I'm coming up there to get your signature on the delivery receipt." The voice gave a long-suffering sigh.
"Yes, alien purple alicorn. I get that a lot. But I'm not one of those invaders, I'm just here to fulfil a business contract. If I was all 'Grr' and 'Argh' and 'kill, maim, destroy' then you'd have some comeback, but since I'm not, can we both at least try to behave like reasonable adults?"
He could hear her climbing up the exterior stairs to the office level as she spoke, but it was the unvarying calmness of the voice as much as anything that kept him from panicking. The outside door clanged and there was a squeak from outside and the voice said, "And your secretary fainted, just perfect! It seems legal secretaries are made of sterner stuff."
There was an echo to the voice which indicated the speaker was just outside. "May I come in?"
He put down the phone. "Could I stop you?"
"Well, yes, if you say 'no'. But that would make it hard to get your signature on the delivery note. I could always just blind teleport it through the door to you, or just leave it out here and go off for a coffee if you feel uncomfortable. Celestia knows I could do with a cup. Having people run away in terror when you say 'hello' can get kind of depressing."
She didn't sound like some ravening monster out to suck his brain out through his eyeballs, so he decided to once again take a risk. "Okay, come on in."
The door opened and the purple unicorn trotted in. Under other circumstances the big eyed creature in overalls would have been adorable. Her horn glowed, and an electronic tablet levitated out of a pair of saddlebags. It floated over to him, and she said, "Sign in the highlighted boxes please."
Dumbly, he took the stylus and signed under the eyes of the alien, who was watching with an expression of alert interest. "I know this is a lot to take in, but hopefully you'll come to see that I'm just a differently shaped person. One who you can do business with."
"I thought I was doing business with Nightlight Industries." Harry was finally coming out of his state of shock, and wondering about what other surprises he'd end up having to deal with.
"You are.” She tapped the coverall which he could now see had a logo similar to the contract he'd signed. “Legally I'm not a person, so I had to organise a company, a legal entity to act on my behalf. Well first I got a solicitor, a good one, and he fixed things up for me."
That begged the question of why, but there was a more immediate concern. "And is this even legal? Where did you get that stuff?"
"As of the Berne Decision of 2015, perfectly legal. As you saw I have powers, magic technically, and it allowed me to sweep all of low Earth Orbit clear of the junk that's accumulated, selectively to avoid active satellites and the inactive ones the Berne rules don't cover, but those are all intact and there aren't too many of them, so they're not a problem. I have all the rest balled up in an orbit 600 miles up, about 5000 tons in total; so if you're satisfied with this load, I've got a lot more business I can do with you. I guess they haven't released the news yet."
That had him reaching for the cabinet he kept his hospitality drinks in, then he decided he needed all his wits about him, and opened the side of the cabinet which had an instant percolator in. Almost automatically he offered, "Coffee?"
"Yes, thank you!" There was genuine pleasure in her voice. "Cream and two sugars please!"
He set the percolator going and turned back to face her, sitting down behind his desk. "What's the Berne Decision?"
"I'd have thought you'd know, it's more your field than mine. It used to be that even after a satellite had died and was just junk, it was still owned by the launching country or company. There was no right of salvage like there was at sea. But then you guys had a bunch of collisions, lots of damage and billion dollar payouts, and those owners decided they didn't want liability any more. Add to that the aliens blowing up even more of them, and you have all the ingredients for a major about face.
"The Berne Decision was signed just last year and was explained as an initiative to promote private space industry, and basically made satellites more than 2 years past their end of operational life legal salvage, along with parts of destroyed satellites. There was a big fuss from the Americans about somebody stealing technology, until some senator made a comment about paying out billions to protect technology less advanced than the game console he'd gotten his niece."
She grinned. "Lucky break for me, or what I did _would_ have been illegal, and while I can't commit crimes, being an un-person, Nightlight Industries would have been liable. Everything in that pile is within the laws. So don't worry, all the legal stuff is taken care of. I even arranged for a customs official to come over from the local airport to certify it. Of course, she doesn't know the full story, but this is the de facto point of entry, and you, or rather I acted with all possible speed to comply with the regulations on metal importation, so you're covered."
She pulled some papers from her saddlebag, and placed them on his desk. "Certification, permits, it's all there and all filled out. I've even included a paper with the relevant sections of the Berne Agreement and guidelines in case she hasn't boned up on them. I intend to do this again, and I want to make sure you want to do business with Nightlight."
"But why?" The buzz of the percolator showed it had a full jug, and he mechanically got up and made coffee.
"Why am I doing all this? Because I want to help, and your world needs it. But having some mysterious space unicorn come in and solve problems with a wave of her horn would be only slightly less terrifying than the invaders. Better I use my powers indirectly and work my philanthropy through human agencies. But that requires money.
"Why am I doing it the way I am, showily rather than behind the scenes which would fit better with my indirect action strategy? Partly because it amuses me, and hopefully because it will amuse the humans who hear about it, at least if they have any sense of the absurd. A friend of mine once showed me that it's harder to be scared of something if you're laughing at it, or with it."
Her telekinesis took the cup of coffee off the desk where he'd put it, and she sipped. "Ah! This planet has _good_ coffee! I intend to keep pranking the entire planet while at the same time helping out. Hopefully people will see not all aliens are like the invaders. Some of us have a sense of humour, and a sense of honour. Oh dear..."
There were flashing red and blue lights arriving at the entrance. "Looks like one of your employees recovered enough to call in the riot squad. It's okay, I've got this."
She turned to go, and Harry found himself saying, "Wait! You're just going to walk right up to them? They probably have armed officers with them, wouldn't it be safer to just do that teleport thing and leave?"
That got him a brilliant smile, back over her shoulder. "Thanks for thinking about me, but it's okay, I'm not doing anything illegal. Like I said, I've got this."
Three police cars and a van pulled into the yard and started spilling out police officers, though none of them had guns. The police cars formed a barricade for the police, and one of them raised a loud hailer. "Can anyone in the building hear me! Try to signal if you can. we have reinforcements on the way!"
Harry opened his window. "I'm fine, everyone in here is fine."
The officer with the speaker, an otherwise relatively blameless individual by the name of Inspector Burns, called out. "Sir, one of your employees sent us a video of an alien entering your offices. Has it hurt anyone?"
"Well, my secretary fainted, but I think that was just surprise. I believe she's about to come out."
"Your secretary?"
"The alien." As if that was a cue, the exterior door opened and Twilight stepped out into the metal stairs, still wearing her overalls and hard hat, but also wearing over her wings a pair of giant foam rubber hands with a Nightlight Industries logo and '#1' on them. She pouted. "And here I was ready to come out with my hands up. I've watched your visual media, isn't that what police are supposed to say?"
The officer goggled at the sight, and the fact that the ravening alien monster their caller had told them about seemed to treat this as a joke.
"Stay right where you, lay down where you are and put..." Burns stopped himself just in time, though in fairness he was going to say 'your hands behind your head.'
Surprisingly enough the creature complied and even spread her foam covered wings flat to the metal grid floor, though even across the yard they could see her roll her eyes. "Um... am I being arrested? Because that's not legal. I'm not a person, I'm a working animal, I even have papers to prove it. The most you could do is call an animal control officer. Or the RSPCA."
"We have! And the army, so don't get any funny ideas!"
"The RSPCA? But I wasn't mistreated, I even got coffee... I thought the foam hands were pretty funny, but okay. I'm perfectly willing to comply with any reasonable requests by a duly authorised representative of the law."
Her horn glowed and the wings vanished. All the police flinched. "Oh, for Celestia's sake! I don't have hands, so I have to do everything with magic. Look, we can sort this all out if you just let me present my papers. If you don't want me to levitate them over to you, you can just come and collect them. I won't move, won't light up my horn or anything."
Inspector Burns had to think. Risk the creature using it's powers for something else, or approach it. They weren't supposed to engage it, just establish a cordon and perform rescue duties if possible. None of his hasty orders had envisioned it co-operating. "Send them over."
Under other circumstances watching the folder full of paper floating across enveloped in a purple aura would have been fascinating. As it was, he watched the unicorn like a hawk until the folder landed on the bonnet of his car. He picked up the perfectly regular manilla folder and leafed through them. He wasn't an expert on such things, but it all looked properly legal. It basically said that Twilight Sparkle was a working animal for Nightlight Industries, like one of their own police horses. He had spent a year working in the mounted division so he had at least some idea what he was looking at. There was a veterinary certificate and everything seemed to be in order.
“How the heck did you get a vet to sign off on you?”
“One seriously surprised vet. He wasn't used to having a patient who could talk back. Used a couple of diagnostic spells on other animals to show how they worked, then cast them on myself. My, am I glad I helped my friend Fluttershy out at her animal shelter.”
Inspector Burns started to ask for more information, then decided the answers would probably just complicate things even more.
"But if you're a working animal, shouldn't you have a handler?"
"I'm my own handler, I got a BTEC in Animal Management from the University Collage of Kent. It's all in there."
"But, how? How could you enroll, how could you go to classes?"
"Distance learning, I did it all over the internet, and I paid my course fees myself. On my home world I'm a librarian, astronomer and magical researcher with the equivalent of multiple postgraduate degrees, and spells I developed specifically to help me learn faster, and that was when I was a plain old unicorn. I audited the course in three hours, and took the final exam right afterwards. Doesn't matter, it's an accredited school, and they didn't require me to demonstrate my person-hood, only my competence. Which since I got a top grade with distinction, I did."
Burns noticed something else. "It also says you're owned by Nightlight Industries... well you'd have to be, but isn't that slavery? Even if you're not a legal person, you're clearly intelligent. That would make the company acting illegally."
"That's covered. It's a private share limited company, I own all the shares as I put in the initial investment and capital equipment, such as myself, there's plenty of precedent for an animal owning shares, even a controlling interest, but being legally incompetent, they have to have a human with power of attorney to manage them, my lawyer in my case. That means I own the company's assets, including myself. So I own myself, and that's not slavery, in fact it's the very opposite. I know it's convoluted and daft, but I don't fit in any of the regular categories, so loopholes are all I've got."
She shifted a bit. "So, what exactly am I doing wrong that requires so many highly trained police officers to stop me? I delivered a load of scrap metals from the salvage I collected in orbit on behalf of Nightlight Industries, as required by our contract. At no time did I make a threatening action towards anyone on this site. The only crime here is wasting police time, and I wasn't the one who was responsible for that. Could I get up? My wings are starting to cramp."
"You were creating a disturbance." Inspector Burns was feeling as if he and the entire group of police had been made fools of.
"By existing? Surely that only applies if I was acting in a disorderly manner, and if I was a human. As an animal, animal control officers would be responsible for my capture, but that requires me to be acting in a dangerous manner. If this place has security cameras, it will prove I did nothing of the sort. So, please can I get up?"
Burns glowered for a moment, then nodded. "Very well, but make no sudden moves."
Twilight got up and flexed her wings, then stretched them out. “I'm going to come down the stairs now...”
She glided gently down the stairway before landing and walking slowly out into the open. "Look, I know this must feel pretty silly, but you're not the ones who are responsible..."
A news van rolled up at the gate. "... I've seen the sort of things you expected to face in Japan, and you guys don't even have guns. That's not stupid, that's courageous! Could I have my papers back...? On second thoughts I'll make a copy, with your permission?"
Burns nodded, and her horn flashed. Suddenly there were two copies of the paperwork in front of him, and one set levitated back towards Twilight, captured by the camera crew that was just moving up behind the police cordon.
"It's only a manifested copy, not real matter, so it will disappear in about three hours. I'd probably get it photocopied before then. Now, can I go? We've established that you don't actually have grounds to hold me. I have other loads to deliver, other contracts to fill."
42.1 continued (Masterweaver)
"How in the name of Tartarus did you find me?" the pegasus grumbled, glowering at the plate in front of her.
"You'd have to ask Pinkie," shrugged the other pegasus, tugging at a plastic hairclip. "I'm just the dancing girl."
"...I'm straight."
Rainbow Dash snorted. "And I don't swing at all. Honestly I think Pinkie wanted me along so you would feel 'justified' in writing the Do series. 'I'm your biggest fan, I'd do anything for you...'" She shook her head. "I know how that can get, so if you don't want that I'm cool."
The other pegasus peered over her glasses. "Really. Do you have a fanclub?"
"Mmmyep."
"What books have you written?"
Dash chuckled. "I'm more an athlete then a writer, buuuuuut...." She reached a hoof under the table, flicking through her subspace pocket and pulling out a duplicate of her own novel. "Ever hear of Iris Drake?"
Her companion accepted the book, flicking an eyebrow up as she examined it. "These are incredibly rare. And you're claiming to have written them?"
"Even have the original manuscript, if you want to see it." Dash grinned. "I did take some influence from your series, though."
"Hmmm. I didn't see any saddlebags on you when you came in."
"A wizard friend set me up with that trick." The athlete leaned back in her chair. "Do you have any, uh, tips? People have been clamouring for a sequel but...."
"Oh, I just... write the stories as they come to me." The other pegasus tightened her cloak. "Nothing special. I mean, yeah, the books are famous..."
"Mmmhmm." Rainbow nodded. "I've been in my share of trapped ruins, though. Pretty accurate."
The older mare's eyes snapped up. Gotcha.
"You... make a habit of entering ruins?"
"Not exactly." Rainbow sighed. "See, I was selected a while back, by 'fate' or whatever, to bear an ancient artefact known as the Element of Loyalty. Course, that means when I hear the world is in danger I just have to rush off and save it, you know? Ancient libraries and collapsed coliseums, they're just places where I do my part. It's not so much a habit as... coincidence."
"Hrmm."
Dash flicked her mane. "Crazy thing is, a lot of the ruins seem like they came right out of the books you write. Down to the tiniest detail. It's as if Daring was actually, you know, there." She smiled beatifically. "Of course, Daring Do is fiction, so obviously I must be wrong."
"Mmm."
"I mean, I would be pissed if Daring Do was hiding all this from the public for some silly reason, like... money, or fame. Privacy, that's a little more understandable. Maybe if some of the artefacts in the book can brainwash ponies who know about it, yeah, I'd get that. But knowing the world was in danger so often and I was being left on the sidelines?" Dash shrugged. "I sometimes wished she was real, just so I could thank her for her brave deeds... then smack her for passing them off as children's literature rather then forming some sort of group to, I dunno, keep the dangers under control."
"My family can handle that," the pegasus said, then clamped her mouth shut.
Dash raised an eyebrow.
"....fine. You got me. I'm Daring Do. The books are all... exaggerated, but true."
Dash remained silent.
"The thing is..." Daring took off the soft hat she was wearing, revealing her monochrome mane. "Saving the world, archaeology... it doesn't pay well. I originally wrote the stories in private to tell some family members, you know, swap tales over the fireplace. Then some publisher saw my Sapphire Stone transcript." She flung her hoof out. "''Great story, miss, mind if I make you rich?' I made a snap decision, called myself A.K. Yearling... They refused to believe it was nonfiction. And, over the years, it just... built up. I never meant for it to become famous..."
"...Celestia appears in one of your books."
Daring chuckled. "Heh, yeah. That was when I realized that my adventures were really important. Of course it wasn't nearly how I wrote it. I was completely panicking. But...."
Dash smiled as the pegasus rambled on, putting a word in here and there while the tiny bit of plastic clipped to her mane recorded everything. Twilight would have a ball. Or freak out. Maybe both.
"So... as far as I can figure, baseline you is supposed to get miffed about the two month delay, decides to 'help' Yearling write her book faster, then discover that she's actually Daring Do and somehow stop the whole Rings of Scorchero thing."
Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight sceptically. "And you got all that from a few dozen loops?"
"Mmmm. Yeah." Twilight coughed. "Most of which were lonely loops, soooooo...."
"Ugh. Please tell me you at least got the book."
The alicorn gave her friend a sheepish grin. "It's still a couple expansion periods out."
"....CLOROPHYL."
42.7
Applebloom had checked very carefully.
This Loop was only about thirty past a recent loop length increase, according to Twilight, which should mean it was a while until it lengthened again. With that in mind, the moment the loop ended could be known quite precisely.
Helpful for a new alicorn who had no idea how to undo the transformation.
So, in the full understanding that there were only two hours or so to go, Applebloom pulled Smart Cookie from her subspace pocket as the last rays of the sun slid off the Canterhorn.
“Okay, here we go...” she muttered, slipping the Device/Founder on and tightening the strap. “Tree-questria, but I feel nervous.”
That's only natural, Cookie replied.
Applebloom peered over the drop below her, and gulped. At least a furlong straight down, and then an increasingly gentle slope coated in soft, fluffy snow. (It helped that some confused pegasi had dumped three feet of snow on the mountain earlier that week.)
“Right. No time like the present.”
Applebloom closed her eyes, and broke into a run.
Now!
Hearing Cookie's alert, she gathered her hooves below her and pushed. The leap took her up and out, into thin air... then down, past where she'd taken off from.
She shut out the nagging part of her mind that was screaming something about mortality. (She was a Looper, it was allowed.) She also shut out the bit telling her that she was doing something stupid, which was harder.
Don't think about it. Think... back.
Remember the moment of excitement, the feeling of epiphany. The shining instant when an entire world of the nanoscopic lay revealed before her. No more tricks or traps, no more surprises hiding in the woodwork.
Just... an enormously complex machine. Nothing more.
And with that, ride the wave of sudden understanding.
There was a timeless sensation of depth-
And her eyes snapped open.
Good, Cookie said encouragingly. Now, bring your wings up at an acute angle, then turn them to bite the wind on the downstroke!
Applebloom bared her teeth in what wasn't quite a grin, but was too good natured to be a grimace.
The explanation helped, actually. Cookie probably knew almost everything about her, but one of the most important things was that “do this” wasn't nearly as satisfying without the why behind it.
After a dozen or so quick, flailing wingbeats, Applebloom had her glide trajectory stable. A few more, slower and with more thought into them, had her in the updraught rising as the Canterhorn cut into the prevailing winds, and from there she just had to hold her wings out and ride the wind.
For maybe half an hour she just floated, silently contemplating the country below.
I don't think I've ever seen it from this high, Cookie said eventually.
“Really?” Applebloom asked, experimentally trimming her wings to tack around. She flubbed it, slipping sideways instead of turning, and gave up before things got worse. “Whoa... yeah, now I think of it we ain't gone flying much.”
I have noticed a certain tendency to be busy on other matters whenever you and Scootaloo take up one of your creations, Cookie noted. But... it's an amazing sight, really. All our hopes and dreams become reality.
Applebloom tried again. This time, the more gradual approach worked, and they swung out to face towards Ponyville.
Look at that, Cookie said, sounding a bit distant. Ponies did that. The argumentative, hardheaded, hidebound refugees from a land buried under an ice storm of their own making. We came here, and we built this. All of this. Together.
Cookie's words made Applebloom look at Equestria with new eyes.
From her time in other worlds, she'd seen what the average medieval society looked like. How most worlds developed, in fire and death and war.
Equestria... didn't do that. No, the citizens of the land spread out beneath her wings had no need to fear war and little need to fear hunger.
That was the real achievement of Equestria.
For the next hour or so, the duo flew on over the star-speckled night below, mirroring Luna's canvas above.
“Time's nearly up,” Applebloom commented softly.
I know. Time for me to go back in.
“Sorry y'all have to do this, and all, but... yeah, it has to be done.”
With care, Applebloom returned Cookie to her subspace pocket. While Cookie could almost certainly ride out a loop reset and be resummoned from her shared place in Applebloom's soul, neither of them felt particularly inclined to test it out.
Alone now, Applebloom checked the time once more.
One minute left.
Acting on a whim, she closed one wing, flipped over, and went into a dive.
It was easy to see why Dash and Scoots loved speed so much. There was a thrill of adrenaline which you only really got when air was rushing past you, whipping at coat and mane and tail.
She was nowhere near Sonic Rainboom speeds, of course – that tended to take a lot of effort even for experienced pegasi – but, well, it was fun.
The last seconds of the Loop ticked away-
42.8
-and Applebloom Awoke, skidded on the floor as her galloping legs suddenly got confused, and ended up in a heap against the wall along with several other ponies.
“Ah, horsefeathers,” she heard Scootaloo say. “That wasn't the smoothest awakening...”
“Yeah, stupid wings,” Sweetie muttered. “I got confused again and...”
Sweetie tailed off.
“Again?” Diamond Tiara asked, extricating herself from one end of the pile and coming into Applebloom's vision.
She had a pair of wings, and a filly-scale horn.
Applebloom felt her own wings itching, and pulled them out from underneath... probably Sweetie, from the direction of the voices... before getting off the others.
She was an alicorn. In front of the others. Though, actually...
Scootaloo had a new horn on top of her usual wings.
Sweetie had wings, adding to her normal horn.
She and Diamond had both.
And Nyx, now revealed to have been all but flattened underneath all four of them, was her everyday alicorn self.
Relief ran through her. If this was a peculiarity of the loop, like that time Mac had been Princess Maccie, then she could retain her secret-
Then what Diamond had said penetrated. Sweetie had had trouble with her wings again?
“It's nothing,” Sweetie said quickly. “Just a loop a while ago where I was a pegasus!”
“Can't have been a while ago,” Tiara pointed out reasonably. “You'd have told us, right?”
Sweetie blushed.
“Who ran me over?” Nyx asked plaintively.
“I think all of us,” Scootaloo said. “Sorry. Anything damaged?”
“Just bruises, I think...” Nyx twisted herself from lying on her side to on her front, then came to her hooves in a surge of movement. “Ow.”
Tiara looked between them. “Hang on a minute... have you all ascended before as well?”
“As well?” Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo chorused.
“Gourd, have we all been hiding it from one another?” Tiara sighed, as one by one all the others apart from Nyx nodded slowly. “Guess this is what happens when we don't want to make one another feel small... you know, if I was still the boasting type this would have gotten resolved a lot quicker.”
“How long?” Applebloom asked, drawing the eyes of the others. “I mean, how long have you guys been... able to be alicorns,” she finished, looking down.
“About five loops,” Scootaloo admitted. “Sorry, guys.”
“Eight,” Sweetie said.
“For me it was four,” Diamond Tiara said, sitting down.
“Just two.” Applebloom shrugged, feeling even more uncomfortable. “It was the one with the nanotech, yeah. I kinda understated how complicated the nanotech was when I told you...”
“I think we've all been less than honest about our recent loops.” Diamond Tiara rubbed at her temples.
“I haven't,” Nyx said brightly. The others glared at her.
“...okay, sorry,” she added, shrinking back. “I kinda forgot how bad it makes you feel, when you think you've let down your friends.”
“I don't-” Scootaloo started, then sighed. “Yeah, you're right. I do. And part of it is that that loop felt kind of like a dream. It all seemed so unreal, but when I tested it out... there it was.”
Diamond Tiara's mouth twisted. “I didn't dare test whether I could do it again except at the end of the loop, because...”
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Applebloom said, to the nods of the others.
“Were you flying as well?” Sweetie asked.
Scootaloo shook her head. “Telekinesis spell. I've seen you do it so often, Sweets, and I... it's so different to my cloud manipulation. I was concentrating on that when the loop changed, so I wasn't ready.”
“I was flying,” Applebloom volunteered. “First time I'd tried.”
Sweetie smiled. “It's amazing, isn't it?”
“Hey, this means I can teach you!” Scootaloo said with a grin. “Well, so long as being an alicorn myself means that I can actually manage level flight without magic...”
“Far be it from me to interrupt,” Diamond Tiara said into the lull, “but what exactly about this loop made us all be alicorns?”
They scanned the so-far-neglected loop memories.
“...oh,” Nyx said, then giggled. “Poor Momma...”
Twilight carefully signed the final bit of paperwork for the day.
“Right, that's done...”
“Thank you, your majesty,” the seneschal said, lifting the pile in a magical grip.
“No, thank you,” Queen Twilight rejoined. “I'm grateful to you for your help. Now, I should go see what my... five daughters,” she said with a wince, “have managed to get up to during office hours.”
Frankly, if they were all Awake, she was lucky the castle was still standing.
Stats
Page generated in 0.044 seconds
Total duration
920 users online
541,277 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Niiice Discworld reference.
3620898 Naah, that would make sense... And we rarely do that....
3622115
Winged hexapuma?
I love the subplot with the Daring Do books. It must be difficult having to wait for, subjectively, thousands of years just to get the next darned book in a series.
42.3
Yep, this one's my doing.
In case anyone isn't getting the reference, orange mask = Michelangelo, red mask = Raphael, purple mask = Donatello, and blue mask = Leonardo. Pinkie is replacing April O'Neil.
That's right, Pinkie has met Michelangelo. Sanity bunkers are to your left. Please remember to sign the registry before entering.
Couldn't tell you which one is the Anchor though. Probably Splinter.
Chlorophyll.
"Chlorophyl"?
3622645
A while back a looping Celestia told Twilight how tired she was at ponies swearing by her name, or using it as a swear in general. While Twilight was casting around for something to swear by, Celestia threw out the ideas of using trees instead. It took off from there. And much laughter was had by the latest use.
3622767 3622645
It allows for endless variety of oaths.
Though Dash still falls back on "oh, me" under stress.
I look forward t the XCOM crossover with every update. I enjoy all the others too, of course, but it has swiftly become my favourite arc!
No Hitchhikers Guide references...this makes me sad
I think Twilight is a black hole. Because she is spaghettifying the legal code
...Great. As if the little fillies weren't enough trouble already when only ONE of them was an alicorn.
Loving the XCOM arc; Twilight's legal wrangling was both hilarious and subtly badass.
How about a Godzilla Loop next, with Twi and Company replacing the Kaiju?
3624262
Add to that that Twilight now remembers having no fewer than five foals. Possibly as quintuplets. (No wonder she winced!)
3622509 To the left? A'ight! *goes right*
Very nice chapter.
CLOROPHYL sounds like a medicine in pony form
In the middle of this set I realized something: What if we're (every single one of us) Awake in something similar to a loop, except when you die that's the only thing that shunts you into a new universe?
Oh my god.
I knew it couldn't be a coincidence. Harry King...digging through the scrap.
The CMC and Diamond Tiara are all alicorns and Twilight's daughtwers as well as Nyx?
Welp, we're all screwed.
Pinkie meeting Mikie. Dear Oaks we're all screwed.
Fuck everything
So much
At least RD is asexual, and there is a modicum of pony/bug lesbians.
This would be funny if it were spelled correctly.
Chlorophyll.
Uh wow, that last loop with CMC alicorns sounds intense.
Ok, ok, ok. I've been hanging on to this for a long time now, but 42.4 has pushed me over the edge.
I'm sure there's a bit of very subtle Twilight Sparkle/Big Macintosh shipping going on here.
I am most definitely not complaining. The big guy deserves a bit of Best Pony.
Mother of five alicorns? Oh my!
Being unfamiliar with the Polity series, I'd been assuming until this point that it was a Behelit. I'm afraid to ask which would be worse.
4026538
I hope you're not going to try to prematurely test that hypothesis.
The tree cursing thing reminds me how my chat room sometimes says "Skirts-dammit"
Just reading these chapters made me want to build something that boops people in the nose. I don't know how that happened, but it did.
5098395
Is that a reference to the writer on this site that goes by ShortSkirtsandExplosions?
5661712 probably.
I think we should all start swearing in trees, I think it would work out well.
Son of a birch, oh my elm CHLOROPHYLL!!
Not too sure on that first one, but chlorophyll is one I'm definitely going to adopt.
42.6. Go Twilight! Work the system!
42.8.....poor twilight, and oh dear tree I think the castle and the whole world is going to break down
6805409
King of the Golden River.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Discworld Reference)
I LOVE IT!!
42.2: ... Are you telling me that AB managed to reverse engineer fractally complex molecular circuitry? In less than four years from what amounts to a nuclear level tech base?
9819967
Yep, though she did have an AI partner and a lot of the knowledge required to take her tech base beyond nuclear.
It's actually a lot slower than it took in Polity Agent, where a Jain node was deconstructed in no more than a few weeks.
Ya, apparently only one senator can hold the US government's highest brain cell, and that was the guy. Then again that seems true with any government, if they have multiple leaders, then only one of them holds it at a time.