Justin works for ARCO, and his favorite dimension jumper, Sarah Jordan, has gone missing. Justin jumps at the chance to save his crush and become the hero he's always dreamed of being. What could go wrong?
Justin was just a simple technician at ARCO, but he fell in love with a down on her luck dimension jumper the first time he saw her. Now she's gone missing, and it doesn't look like ARCO is really doing their best to find her.
Still, he has access to all the data, all of ARCO's tech, even the powerful conversion pods. He could fairly easily get his hands on some of the companions ARCO outfits it's jumpers with. He knows that, given just a little bit of time, he could rescue Sarah and be the hero he's always wanted to be.
It would help if he copied the world ID number down correctly though...
Features R63d Equestria.
Special thanks to The Amusementist for helping to beta read and edit
I sat there, stunned by what I was reading. I couldn't believe it. Simply could not...
She was gone.
Sarah Jordan was just ...gone.
I mean, I knew she was gone. I had been there in the conversion pod maintenance bay when the alarms had first sounded. ARCO's very first lost jumper. We all knew the drills, everyone had practiced. It had stuck me as only slightly odd at the time that I seemed to be the only tech remotely worried. Then again, given ARCO's track record there was little chance this would be an actual loss.
The first probe was launched, and we all seemed to hold our breath waiting. We waited for four hours. Everyone expected a damaged pod to be rushed into the bay, or a wounded jumper to be carried out on a stretcher.
While waiting for the probe, I looked up the relevant jump information, curious to see what kind of problems we might be dealing with.
And I saw her photo staring back at me.
Sarah Jordan.
She's gotten so much flack from other techs when they have to repair her poor dinged up pod in the past, and I'd heard she had trouble dealing with the other jumpers. I thought they were intimidated by her. In three years of jumping she has logged more hours and survived more dangerous missions than all but the first jumpers.
Personally I loved working on her jump pod. It was always a creative challenge to fix and each scar brought with it the jumper herself. I sighed and grinned, thinking of the parts I'd replaced while basking in her presence, listening to tales of narrow escapes, when the ping of a new email drew my attention.
to: All@ARCO.com
from: Rescue@ARCO.com
subject: Lost Jumper
Good morning everyone.
Let me start by congratulating everybody on near perfect response times for this event. It is clear that the drills are working as they should and everyone responded beautifully. It is with a heavy heart that we, at RESCUE, must inform you that the jumper, Sarah Jordan, is gone.
Initial signals from her pod indicated a rough but successful landing, but we can only assume that this was the last errors of a dying computer system. We have sent fifteen drones to her last dimensional coordinates to scan for our fellow jumper and work to bring her home. So far no evidence of Ms. Jordan, her companions or her pod have been found. We could not locate a landing site or even an trans-dimensional entrance vector.
All dimensional transit is suspended for one week while we review her logs and data to attempt to piece together what went wrong.
Grief councilors will be available to anyone who needs them, and details of her funeral services will be forthcoming.
Thank you,
James Matherson
Dimension Jumper and Head of RESCUE
Oh I was pissed. I was beyond pissed. Drones? When you have someone missing you don't just send drones, especially when the drones didn't find anything. And what was with the incorrect landing info? The AI's built into the pods weren't nearly companion level, but they were a damn sight better than most desktops. They wouldn't give bad reports. They might give them in German, as David's pod often did. The AI claimed it was a more precise language to communicate in, but I suspect David feeding it a book of German insults might have more to do with that.
I'd said as much to the VP of Resource Acquisition, the corporate term for the head of the jumpers. He told me to calm down and that things were being handled. He also denied my requests to see the raw data for Sarah's jump. Said they were sealed during the investigation, pending processing and archiving.
Well, fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
If no one else in this God damned place was going to do their fucking job and save the Best Damn Jumper ARCO had ever seen, then I was going to do it.
First thing I needed were the records of her jump. That was fairly easy, all jumps were processed and forms filed in the main archives. They were locked down, and not being the computer whiz I wished to be, I settled for going to the secondary archives. The physical archives.
Ever since the massive server crash about five years back, management has been a bit twitchy about storing everything electronically. So it all goes into storage somewhere, usually in the wrong folder in the massive collection of filing cabinets in our basement. Such files contain a lot of sensitive information, so the door had an electronic lock.
I could get by with the right key card, which I didn't have. I could also get in with the right number code, which I also didn't have.
Fortunately, the door had to adhere to fire code, so it opened outward into the hallway. That meant the hinges faced the hall. A few minutes with a hammer, a flat headed screwdriver, and a pair of locking pliers, and I pulled all the pins out of the hinges, swinging the door open on the lock.
I'd forgotten how big this place was, and was glad some poor idiot had the foresight to label the aisles. Here we are, jumpers. Lets see... Aa- Ad, Eh-El, Ho-Hp, Jn-Jo! The cabinet was locked, but I'd come prepared. Most tech's and maintenance personnel can pick locks with little more than a screwdriver and a paperclip, a necessary skill in a world where CEO's tend to leave their keys in their office. My brother, bless his heart, had actually gotten me a real set of lock picks for Christmas. As a gag, he'd locked them into a metal toolbox and lost the key.
Sarah's file was enormous. I realized in retrospect it would have to be. She had made roughly fifty jumps a year for three years, and each jump required six probe reports, one preliminary report, one launch report, one return report and a personal debriefing summary of not less than 500 words. A small folder with red markings stuck out, and out of curiosity I pulled it.
It continued like that for the whole page. 497 of the 500 words were just the word fuck. The last word was "NO" in capitals, bold, underlined, and italicized.
Realizing that it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the door was off it's hinges, I transferred the huge file into four boxes and loaded them all onto a cart.
I pushed my prize all the way back to the jump bay, noticing that with the week long shutdown, most of the techs had opted to take a vacation. I stashed the boxes in a pod I'd just finished overhauling yesterday and went to grab the other things I needed. A quick stop through the office supplies scored me a copy of the "Dimension Jumper's Primer," a short book that supposedly had information on the most common situations you would encounter on new worlds and how to deal with them. I tossed it into a backpack, along with a rope, pen light, knife, utility axe, purification canteen, a dozen MREs, and a few other odds and ends.
The last two things I grabbed, the things every jumper absolutely needs, were the companions. I could already hear people running around so I didn't have time to run through the activation, I just grabbed a spirit companion and an AI companion and ran towards the pod.
Locked inside and with the view window polarized, my pod was indistinguishable from the dozens of others littering the launch floor. I knew that someone was going to be digging through the tapes and trying to work out where I was before too long. Opening one of the boxes as best I could in the tight space, I dug through the folders until I found the last one. I popped open the internal keyboard and began entering the thirty seven different coordinates.
Now came the most dangerous part of this foolhardy mission. Once I pressed go, the launch bay would ID my pod and prep it for inter-dimensional jump. Normally there was a half hour setup, but I'd already done all the checklist items so I wouldn't be stuck and visible for more than about fifteen minutes.
The real danger is that I was firing myself right at where Sarah had gone, and whatever had happened to her might happen to me.
Still, nothing ventured and all that. I pushed the start button.
[START UP PROTOCOLS RUNNING...........DONE]
[CHECKING VECTOR PROTOCOLS...........DONE]
"HEY! I think someone's in that pod!"
Oh god they did that a lot faster than I thought they would. I crossed my fingers and hoped the lockout protocols would take a while to start. If I was very lucky, it would be a security guard.
*BANG BANG BANG*
"Alright you! Get out of there! Someone go shut this thing down!"
Yup, security guard. Well trained and reliable but they had no clue where the E-stop buttons were.
[CALIBRATION STARTING...........DONE]
[UNLOCK DIMENSIONAL GROUNDING? {Y/n} ]
"Yes."
[START DIMENSIONAL SHIELDS {Y/n} ]
"Yes!"
[START SHIELDING..
"Yes!"
[CORRECT PHASE VARIABLE..]
"YES!" The banging outside was becoming worrying.
[LAUNCHING POD]
A loud whirring noise like a jet engine drowned out the guard banging and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Wait, what do you mean correct phase-"
A hole in existence opened below the pod, and I fell through into an ocean of darkness.
Well, I have to say I was expecting a lot worse. When I landed I had a full two weeks in the conversion pod while it acclimated my body to the surrounding world. The forest around me has produced a number of interesting sights and readings, and unfortunately all I can do is read those, the pod's owners manual (version 1.117a and in desperate need of spell check), and the little media I picked up on first time dimension jumping. So far, I've spotted a huge variety of creatures, including what looks like a manticore, a wolf made entirely of wood, and over two dozen kinds of snakes and spiders.
God, I hate spiders.
I have been unable to activate either the spirit seed I brought with me, nor the class C AI module. I'm not entirely certain what I should do as the "Dimension Jumper Primer" simply say "activate your companions" in the section on jump prep.
I got out for a little bit and I managed to get the pod to determine the most likely direction of civilization. The reports received from the first few drones showed images of a town, and the pod should have put down only a few miles away. It should be a bit of a hike, but fortunately it'll be mid morning, so I should be fairly safe from most of the larger beasts out there.
The pod hissed and the door slid open, allowing me out for the first time. I put away my journal and pen, and picked up my standard issue backpack filled with rope, flashlight, blanket, MREs, a pair of filtration canteens, and a utility kit with everything from pliers to a hatchet. I stuffed the spirit seed, about the size of a computer mouse, into one pocket, and tucked the basket ball sized AI companion sphere under my arm before setting out.
The farm I found at the edge of town was large and spacious, thick with apple trees full of bright red apples. As I approached, I noticed a small red horse. It had half an apple painted on it's side, and ran off when it spotted me. I shrugged and kept walking, intent on finding the farm's owner. As I got closer to the farm house and barn, the red horse returned with a bright yellow one. I stopped and watched them as they approached, finally coming to a stop not far from me.
"<What the hey are ya?>"
I was surprised when it talked, but it was clear that the small horses, possibly ponies, were sentient. I sat down my backpack and pulled out my primer, flipping to the first contact section.
When you first encounter the a sentient species, it is important to observe their cultural norms. Your companions should be able to compensate for cultural and language barriers, given enough forewarning and data. Be friendly, kind, and honest. Remember that, though you are equipped with vastly superior technology and wisdom, they are not to be looked down on. If you still feel superior, keep in mind that they most likely outnumber you several billion to one and you are running on limited time and energy until you obtain an anchor.
Well that was certainly encouraging. I looked up to see the orange one, male from it's stature, wearing a stetson and motioning me to come closer while making cooing noises.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"<It talked!>" the red one exclaimed. "<What is it, Applejack?>"
<"Ah'm not sure, Macareina,>" the orange one responded, "<But we'd better git it ta Dusk Shine so he can tell us just what the hey is goin' on 'round here.>"
"Well, you two sure are talkative. I wish I could understand you," I said, walking a little closer. They retreated, the orange stallion gesturing over and over, guiding me towards the barn. "If you two think I'm going to be livestock, you're sadly mistaken."
"<Hey bro, what are y'all doin'?>"
I looked over to see a younger yellow colt with a red bow tie running up. It stopped a good distance away and eyed me warily.
"<Apple Buck, go 'n git Dusk Shine. This here critter just wondered outta the Everfree!!>" The orange one yelled.
"<Is it dangerous?>"
"<It came outta the Everfree. It doesn't look dangerous, but neither did the parasprites.>"
The yellow colt ran off, while the orange and red ponies continued to try and draw me into the barn. "If you guys are trying to trap me, I'm going to pull out my utility hatchet and hack my way out."
"<It's makin' noises, but I can't make out what it's sayin',>" the orange one said.
"<Eeeyup,>" the red one responded.
My stomach grumbled, and both ponies stepped away from me. "Heh, sorry. I guess I'm hungry."
The red pony left while the orange one continued to coo at me in a calming fashion. A little later, she came back with a small bowl of apples. The orange pony offered one to me.
"<Here ya go, nice 'n easy. Ah hope ya eat fruit 'n not ponies.>"
"<Or barns,>" the red one chimed in.
I picked up the apple and looked it over. It looked like an apple, and it kind of smelled like an apple. If the conversion pod had done it's work, I should be able to eat food in this world the same way I could on Earth.
Bracing myself, I bit in. It was crisp and juicy and delicious. I had to admit, it was one of the best apples I'd ever eaten. You couldn't get this from the grocery stores, this was just picked freshness. As I finished it off, the red mare tossed me a green apple. This one was a little more tart, and had a strange flavor I couldn't place, but I gobbled it down all the same.
"Wow, I don't think I'll ever go back to supermarket produce after this. I'd better find some farmers co-ops when I get back." I stood up, but did so too fast and had to lean against the barn. "Woo, dizzy."
"<Ya alright, sugarcube?>"
"Yeah yeah, I'm fine. Just a little light headed." I said, waving at him. I had no idea what he said, but the tone was worried so I made comforting noises in response. I sat back down and held my head. "Hoo, I must still be getting used to this world. I don't remember this backpack being so heavy."
"<Did Ah make ya sick?! What's goin' on?>"
"<Easy there, Applejack. Ah was worried it might not be all it seemed so Ah just put some tranquilizers inta the apple.>"
"<It wasn't hurtin' anypony! Why'd ya go and do a fool thing like that fer?>"
I could tell they were fighting but I wasn't really sure about what. There was a bit of yelling, but I was feeling so tired I could just take a nap. They would be done by the time I woke, I was sure. I locked my backpack with a thumbprint keyed lock, tucked it under my head, and closed my eyes.
While the hospitality of the indigenous species is not perfect, it is still better than might be expected. A strange creature wandering out of the forest and into a barn might otherwise have been met with fear or violence. I suspect that I have been met with more caution and curiosity. It is with some sadness that I woke this morning to find myself locked in a cage.
I put away the notebook and pen light and turned my attention back to the combination lock that had frustrated me for the past two hours. The light of the moon was strong, but it still made it difficult to see the symbols on the lock. I had to work by feel as much as sight, and with no clue as to what the combination might be I was forced to try every single one.
Each of the four tumblers had sixteen symbols on them, giving it a staggering number of combinations. At best guess I had tried slightly more than half of them, though I was starting to worry I had missed a turn somewhere. It was going to be light soon and I wanted to be out before then.
"<Hello?>"
I froze, looking over to the barn door. There was a silhouette, a small pony. I realized that while I could see it in the moonlight it couldn't see me. A moment or two passed and I shuffled back under the covers, pretending to sleep.
A warm glow of light sprang to life, and I rolled over to see the small pony had found a lantern. He was young, and didn't seem to have any markings upon his flank. He also had a big red bowtie around his neck. I recognized the same colt I saw with the other two ponies earlier.
"<Ya must be tha creature Mac 'n AJ caught,>" it said, walking closer. "<Ya don't look dangerous. I wonder why they have ya inna cage.>"
As he came closer I sat up. It was odd how he was able to carry the lantern and walk on just three legs. I had to wonder if physics in this world were just a little off.
Might as well try to comunicate.
"Hello. I'm Justin, who are you?"
"<It sounds like yer talkin', but Ah don't understand ya none.>"
"Yeah, didn't think you'd understand me. Any chance I could get a non drugged apple?" I pointed to a barrel of apples nearby.
"<What's that, boy? Ya want an apple?>" The little one went over and pulled one out, rolling it to me through the bars. I rolled it back to him. "<What's tha matter?>"
I mimed picking up and eating the apple.
"<That's right, ya eat 'em,>" he said, rolling the apple back to me.
I rolled it back and pointed at him, then mimicked the eating again.
"<Ya want me ta take a bite?>" He seemed confused but after a moment he bent down and took a bite of the apple. "<See? It's good.>"
I nodded, then made beckoning motions to get the bitten apple back. The young colt tossed it to me, and I ate with abandon. Now that we had this protocol sorted, three more apples came in rapid succession, each with a small bite.
"<Ah wonder if that's a custom where ya come from? Ta share a meal with the host or somethin'. Dusk will know, and he'll come see ya in tha mornin'.>" The colt lifted the lantern and went to leave.
"Hey!" I cried, getting him to turn around. I pointed to the lantern and made a begging motion.
"<Ya can't eat this,>" he said with a laugh. "<At least, Ah don't think ya can. Ya'd have ta be a pretty scary monster ta eat fire.>"
I couldn't make out what he was saying, so I just mimed putting the lantern on the ground while I lay back down under my blanket.
"<Oh, a night light! Ah getcha! Yeah, it must be pretty scary if yer far from home. OK, Ah'll leave it for ya, but Ah'll have ta turn it down so it'll burn longer.>"
He put the lantern down a good ways from the cage, turned a knob on the side so the flame became dimmer, then left.
I woke to the orange stallion banging a spoon against my cage and yelling.
"<BREAKFAST!>"
"What? Huh? I'm up, I'm up!"
"<Come on, Ah's gotta git ya ta Dusk's house, an' Ah don't want ya causin' any trouble on the way,>" it said, rolling me an apple.
I rolled it back. If he seriously thought I was going to fall for the same trick twice, he had another thing coming. I'd run through all the possible combinations the night before, only to discover that the lock had a keyhole as well at the end of the tumblers. The security was annoying, but I couldn't just pick the lock.
He rolled it back to me. I rolled it back to him and pointed at the barrel of apples nearby.
"<Consarn it, ya can't have none a those. Ah need ya ta eat this one. It don't have near the drugs the other one did, just enough ta relax ya.>" He rolled the apple back, then took an apple from the barrel and held it up, showing he was going to take a bite. Something sailed past his head and out of the barn.
"<Darn it!>" he said, dropping his apple and turning to look for the thrown one. "<Don't just go throwin'-">
There was a soft tap against his hooves, and he looked down. Now there were two apples in front of him. He looked up at me, and I just tossed up and caught another rock I'd pulled through the bottom of the cage.
"<Think yer so smart do ya? Fine, we can play it yer way.>" He picked up both apples and walked over close to the cage, holding both up.
After a moment's hesitation, I picked the apple on the left, reaching out for it. He pulled it back and tossed me the one on the right, munching down on the left apple quickly.
"<That's all the breakfast yer gonna get, so eat.>"
I glared at him and threatened to throw the apple, but he just glared back at me. With a sigh I ate it down and then curled back up under my blanket.
"<There, just rest a bit and Mac and I will git ya loaded up.>"
My captors have placed me upon a fair sized cart and covered my cage in a tarp. I must say that they are handling me with great care and, despite their attempt to drug me, must consider me valuable.
Already I have had to review my basic understanding of biology to reassure myself that I am not headed for a stew pot, though I fear a zoo is more likely to be my final destination. The fact that I am covered implies that either they want to keep me in the dark about where we are going or, more likely, to keep others from seeing my unusual appearance.
By pushing up individual pins in the lock and rotating the tumblers managed to partially pick this lock. I was nearing completion with the last tumbler when the cart came to a stop. Quickly, I noted down the combination I'd gotten so far and slipped my picks back in my bag before lying down.
A strange purple glow seemed to surround the cage, and it was lifted down with an ease and care that exceeded the care the farmers had used to load me. I could not see how I was lifted or by whom. Light and shadow moved across the canvas covering, and then it was drawn back.
I was inside some kind of library. It looked like the whole room had been carved from a single block of wood, like it was built into a tree. Around me were more ponies, in a variety of shapes and colors, along with a small purple lizard.
The two farmers were joined by a bouncing bright pink stallion that had a grin somewhere between gleeful and manic. I grinned slightly as I watched the orange stallion yawn, the drugged apple he had eaten still wearing on his system.
"<Sorry Dusk, Ah'm a might sleepy. Guess Ah didn't rest well knowin' this thing was in my barn last night,>" the orange one said, stiffing another yawn.
A purple stallion approached the cage, and I saw he had a small horn protruding from his head. I hadn't noticed horns on the farm ponies. Maybe it was a mutation or mark of rank. The horn glowed, and I saw the same glow encase my bag.
"Magic, huh? That's going to make this interesting."
The aura disappeared and the purple pony stepped back. "<It talked!.>"
"<Yeah, it does that. Any idea what tha darn thing is sayin'?>" Orange asked.
"<Um, is it really dangerous?>" a yellow stallion asked quietly. I grinned at it and waved, and received a huge surprise. What I had taken for saddlebags or maybe just a deformation in their bodies opened up into large feathery wings. The yellow stallion then wrapped the wings around himself, using them, his long pink hair to try and hide from me.
"<I doubt it's dangerous, but I don't know how intelligent it is,>" Purple said.
"<Darling, you have only to appreciate its garments to see its intelligence,>" a white one with a horn said. "<It's not just some monster, even if that color is a little drab. The fitting is loose but the number of pockets are definitely there for utility.>"
"<A brand new creature from the Everfree, and we are the first ponies to see it!>" An excited voice came from overhead. I looked up to see a powder blue stallion with a rainbow colored mane hovering on big blue wings. "<This is so cool!>"
"<Can we throw it a Welcome to Ponyville party?>" the pink one asked, bouncing around the others.
"<We need more information about it,>" Purple said. His horn started glowing, and he picked up my bag. I reached out and grabbed it, holding it close. "<Come on now, let go,>" he insisted. I shook my head, hoping it would be clear enough that I wasn't giving it up.
Finally he gave up, dropping the bag. "<Ugh, fine. I'm too hungry for this anyway. Let's get some lunch and then see if we can't do a few simple experiments.>"
The ponies and little dragon trotted into the next room, and I was left on my own.
In the library.
In a cage.
I counted slowly to thirty, then pulled out my lock picks.
"Pancakes for lunch?" Elusive asked, eyeing the syrupy stack in front of Dusk.
"Hey, this is breakfast for me," Dusk said defensively, carefully cutting the stack into sections of equal area. "I got so excited over this new creature Applejack found that I didn't stop studying until just an hour ago."
"Ya haven't slept yet then ah take it," Applejack said, waiting for his own stack of pancakes.
"Nope," Barb responded, passing out two more stacks to Rainbow Blitz and Butterscotch, while lifting a bowl of oatmeal and fruit over to Elusive. "Dusk has been so excited I'm surprised he didn't rush out to the farm last night."
"I told you, Barb," Dusk said between mouth fulls of pancakes. "It would take too long to drag all the books and equipment over to the barn."
Barb set a stack of pancakes down in front of Applejack and got to work on another stack.
"Barb!" Dusk chided. "You already ate breakfast once."
"I know, but your other guest hasn't," Barb said.
Applejack sighed. "Ah'll give em mine, seein' as everypony else has already bitten into theirs." He got up, picked up his plate and shuffled out into the living room.
"I can't believe I nearly forgot about it," Dusk said. "I must be more exhausted than I thought."
"Well, giving him food should help to build a bond of trust," Butterscotch said.
"And it was awful generous of Applejack to give up his breakfast for it," Elusive chimed in.
Applejack came back in chuckling and sat down as Barb finished another stack of pancakes. "Silly thing was fiddlin' with the lock. Won't be gettin' out without the key."
"Applejack!" Elusive protested, "it's not nice to laugh at another creature's misfortune."
"Yeah," Barry chimed in. "It looks kinda upset about that."
"What do you mean it looks-" Applejack startled as something reached around in front of him and pulled away his plate of pancakes.
Everypony jumped up, except for Barry who was busy emptying a can of whipped cream onto his pancakes. The creature stood next to the table with a stack of pancakes in each hand. It set down one set and took the other back into the other room.
"Um, you did lock the cage, right Applejack?" Elusive asked.
I smiled and waved at the ponies from inside my cage, biting into another fork worth of drug free pancakes. Purple pulled at the lock to test it and, finding it locked, started to examine the rest of the cage.
"<How in tarnation did it git out?>" Orange asked.
"<And why in Equestria did it swap breakfasts with you?>" White inquired.
"<Um, if you fed it drugged food before, it might resent it and be suspicious of any food you give it.>" Yellow said quietly.
Purple picked up my pancakes and set then just outside my reach beyond the cage.
"What, you want me to do? Tricks?"
"<Come on, boy, show us how you got out,>" Purple coaxed.
"<Dusk, it's not just some simple animal,>" Yellow chided.
"<Oooh! I got to see this,>" Pink said, pulling a bucket of popcorn out of seemingly nowhere.
Realizing I wasn't going to get any more food without giving away a few of my secrets, I pulled out my lockpicks and got to work. I'd already memorized the combination, so setting it was a snap. A few minutes work and the lock popped open. I pulled it off, then swung the cage door open and picked up my pancakes.
"<It popped the lock?>" Purple asked confused. "<It must have some amazing dexterity with those fingers.>"
"<Cool, it's like a super smart monkey thing!>" Pink exclaimed.
Purple picked up my picks and held them close, studying them. I finished my pancakes, picked up the plates and took them to the sink. A lot of this world, doors, sinks, tables, all fell into easily recognizable forms for me. I washed and dried my hands, dodging around the skittish purple lizard and came back out to find Purple trying to pick the lock using my picks.
Realizing that he could break them if he wasn't careful, I came over and plucked them and the lock from his magical grasp.
"<HEY!>"
"You don't use them like that. Here, let me show you." I set the combination and showed it to him, then put the tension bar in, pushing down on it slightly and showing how it rotated the tumbler just a bit.
"<Oh, ok, so you have to knock the pins and turn it at the same time.>"
He picked the lock back up and tried again, and instantly I saw my education had been somewhat lacking. Instead of applying tension and pushing the pins up sequentially, he was pushing up a pin, releasing and then trying to turn the lock.
I took the lock and picks back again and tried to show, but without three hands it was difficult. Applying torque with the tension bar wasn't easy without something tied to the lock to resist.
"<It sure seems ta be strugglin' with that now,>" Orange said a bit smugly.
"<Perhaps it needs something to turn the lock against?>" White offered.
Purple pointed to the lock and then to the cage, and I nodded, surmising he was going to reapply the lock. He ushered me into the cage and closed the door.
At which point Orange slapped a completely different lock on. This one had no combination, no key hole, nothing but smooth metal and a single gem.
"<Applejack! What did you do that for?>" Purple asked upset.
"<That thing was just wanderin' around free as ya please. What if it's dangerous?>"
"<It wasn't hurting anypony,>" Blue said. "<Why are you so frighted of it?>"
"<'Cuz the only thing to come outta the Everfree that hasn't lead ta near destruction of Ponyville has been Zicoro. Everythin' else from hydras ta parasprites have been bad news.>"
After looking over the lock for a bit I dug a rock out of my backpack and started to hammer at it, hoping to break it.
"<I don't think it's>" *BANG* "<happy about>" *BANG* "<being locked up>" *BANG* "<again,>" Yellow called out between the banging.
"<NO KIDDING!>" Blue shouted.
"<Let's get outta here!>" Orange added, leading the way outside.
The constant banging from inside the library drew more than a few concerned looks from passersby, but Dusk simply waved and mumbled something about renovations.
"Ah think ah may have made a mistake," Applejack said.
"Really?" Dusk asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "You think you might have made a mistake? What is wrong with you?!"
"Dusk, try to understand it from his side." Elusive said. "The last thing that was nice and cute that came out of the Everfree ended up eating all the food and most of the town."
"OK, yes the parasprites were bad, but Barry got rid of them," Dusk said. "I'm sure he can handle this one, too."
"What? I've never even seen one of those things before," Barry said. "Not even in my Ponyfinder Beastiaries."
"Um," Butterscotch said.
"What if it never calms down, or has a monster form, or eats dragons?!" Barb cried, slowly working herself into a panic.
"Um,"
"I wonder how fast it can run," Blitz mused. "I mean, it's not too strong, but it might be fast."
"Um,"
"Blitz, I can't believe you are concerned over its speed," Elusive scoffed. "And while I do recognize your concerns, Applejack, you have to see its clothes and equipment. It's not just some wild animal."
"Um,"
"Well I'm not going to let it out unless we can calm it down!" Dusk said. "We can test it's speed once it's stopped banging on the cage."
"Um, it has stopped."
The ponies and dragon were quiet for a moment. It was true, no more banging could be heard from inside the library.
"It couldn't have picked that lock," Dusk said. "It's a magic lock, only a unicorn can unlock it."
They peeked in through the window to see the strange creature relaxing in it's cage, flipping through a book. The door was closed.
Dusk stormed into his library and right up to the cage. From there he could see that the creature had a small stack of books from all over the library. History, fiction, science, math, even a few children's books. He poked the lock to find it battered but intact and still locked.
"Ok, how did you get those books," he asked, pointing at the stack.
"<I can't understand you. I can't read your writing either. Took me looking at the children's books to figure out progression for your sentences. I was worried everything here would work like manga.>"
"I didn't understand any of that, but you are going to put those books back right now!"
"Dusk, perhaps yelling at it isn't the best idea," Elusive said in a calming tone, laying a hoof on Dusk's shoulder. "We don't even know how it got out this time."
"Maybe it just pushed right through the bars!" Barry said, trying to squeeze through the bars in the door. "No, they are too close together."
As Barry pulled back, the hinges shifted. With a curious look, Barry pulled more. The door swung on the lock like a hinge. The real hinges now lacking their pins simply detached and let the door hang slightly crooked and wide open.
Silence filled the library as the thing reached into a pocket and pulled out a hinge pin.
My hosts, who I've taken to referring to by their color, have proven intelligent and generous. Purple seems to be the smartest and has subjected me to a battery of simple tests, some physical, some magical, and recording volumes of data on me. Sadly, dispite our best efforts we have not been able to comunicate verbally. Purple is some kind of writer, but he has a tendancy to use his little dragon to burn letters he doesn't like. I wonder what the criteria is for burnable since he clearly throws away a number of pages in the trash can.
Blue is the most athletic and is somehow in charge of the weather. I was amazed to see him pushing around clouds the other day. He seems most interested in physical comparisons and the least patient when trying to bridge the comunication barrier. There are times where, when I have not wanted to test my strength against his, I have been intentionaly unhelpful with comunication.
Orange is warry of me, more so than most of the others. I suspect something in his past prejudices him against either outsiders or the unusual. Not that I blame him. I still refuse to take food from him on principal, often swaping whatever I am given for what he is eating. I do it randomly though, so as to prevent a double swap.
Pink is..... energetic. He bakes, something I have learned to love in the last few days, but is more social than I can normally deal with. I get the impression he is suggesting something to Purple about me, but Purple keeps shooting him down. Strangely though I have even less ability to comunicate clearly with Pink he is the one most likely to understand my requests. His giberish and my giberish must mix in his head and come out making sense somehow.
Yellow is shy, but friendly. He takes care of animals, and brought a few over for me to meet. Most are nice, but that rabbit has a bad attitude. He is startlingly quiet, and more than once I have be startled by his appearance when I thought I was alone.
White is a tailor. He was more interested in my clothing than me. I get the sense that, next to Purple, he is the most frustrated by the language barrier. Once or twice he has shown me fashion magazines, but I don't know if he wants me to dress up in his fashion or give him tips on mine.
Finally there is the dragon. Young, childish, a little chubby, and tough. Purple seems to use it to burn up documents he doesn't like. It She seems very attached to White, though White is somewhat oblivious to her advances. She is the most like me in structure, posessing dexterous claws and a non-vegitarian apetite. That last bit is something I'll have to broach sooner or later, one can only eat so many eggs.
Without written or verbal communication things have been going slow. I've managed to work out a few simple pictograms for food, water, rest, etc, and carry a small chalkboard, chalk and eraser with me everywhere. I've proven to the ponies that I'm not a threat, at least when I'm not threatened, and today they are going to show me around town.
I put up my journal and gave Purple the thumbs up. He had been impatiently waiting for the last twenty minutes for me to get ready to go. He and the lizard were escorting me around town, hoping to keep me out of trouble and safe from ponies who jump to conclusions.
First was the market. I was a pretty big attention draw, standing nearly a head taller than most of the other ponies. The conversation around me made me feel more like a pet being shown off than a friend, and I glared at one or two ponies who tried to pet me. From the way Purple was talking I got the sense he was repeating the same story over and over again.
Not able to communicate very well, I settled into the fallback of diplomats everywhere: smile and wave.
I did get to see at least one friendly face. Orange's sister, a large red mare that I wanted to call Big Red, was minding a cart full of apples. The little brother was there too, and he ran up to say hello. He offered me an apple, first taking a bite out of it.
"<Apple Buck, why did you take a bite first?>" Purple asked, watching me accept the apple and eat it easily. "<Whoa, I thought he was always wary of food.>"
"<I visited him the first night and he showed me. I think it's a custom where he's from.>"
"<It might have more to do with Applejack and Macarenia drugging him the first night>" the lizard chimed in.
We went by the more permanent shops after. Bookstores, clock makers, the works. I pointed curiously to a shop that seemed to sell sofas and quills, and nothing else.
"<Yeah, it's a bit of a mystery how it stays in buisness.>" Purple said, as I conveyed my confusion over how such a store could stay open more than one week.
The blacksmith proved to be quite a learning experience as I watched a burly pony operate the forge without the aid of magic.
Next stop was White's home/ buisness, a three story botique. Inside was filled with what I could only assume was high fashion for ponies. Having seen the more rural life many lived here I didn't think there would be much call for such extravagent garments around town. Then again, most of the ponies I'd seen walked around completely naked.
White was there, and even had a timid little brother to introduce to us.
"<Sweepy Belle, go say hello.>" White instructed. The little one edged closer and made soft greeting sounds, so I smiled and waved. At that point I noticed something. While White had a tattoo or brand of some kind, this younger one did not. I pointed to the three blue diamond's on White's side, making an inquiring motion.
"<My cutie mark? It's about finding the hidden value in things. More specifically it's about finding gems hidden in the earth.>" White said.
"OK, lets try that again but with more gestures." I said, gesturing as I spoke.
"<Oh, right, language barrier.>" White said. His horn lit up, and he pointed at a bowl nearby that was glowing. I went over and found the bowl filled with imitation precious stones. Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and more I couldn't guess at. They were all roughly cut but none were smaller than a marble.
I picked up one and looked at it closer. It was filthy, with dirt stuck in the nooks and crannies. I had to wonder if she just salvaged them from somewhere. But that didn't fit the rest of the shop's style. Everything was shiny and fresh and obviously of the best quality. And how would you get dirt into the crevice like that? It was almost like a real diamond.
It felt a lot like a real diamond too, but I knew better than that. No one would leave a real diamond the size of my thumb just lying around. I pulled out my screwdriver and ran the blade over the gem.
Not a scratch.
OK, so it's a good strong fake. I dragged a sharp edge along the screwdriver's shaft, making a short screech. There was a notch on my tool.
"Holy shit this is real?!" I asked, boggled by the concept. I looked at the bowl and realized I didn't have the knowledge base to calculate it's value, but it was obviously worth more money than I'd ever seen.
"<Hey!>" the purple lizard said, walking up and taking the stone from my hand. "<Don't do that, you'll ruin the taste.>"
Then she popped the gem into her mouth and bit down, crunching it into pieces. This taught me two important things. One: dragons in this world eat gems. Two: if her teeth could bite through diamond like it was nothing, then I never ever wanted to get bitten by a dragon.
"I think I've wondered from the point." I said. I pointed to Purple's mark and made a questioning gesture.
"<My mark means I'm good at magic.>" Purple said. He lit his horn and levitated several things, turning some different colors or changing them entirely. "<I'm not sure if I conveyed that very well.>"
So each mark had something to do with their abilities. I nodded and pointed at the young foal, making the questioning motion again.
Almost instantly I realized I had touched on a sore subject, the young buck shying away and hiding behind White. White and Purple alternated between kind noises at the young one and gestures to me. As near as I could tell, the young one was not big enough or old enough to have such a tattoo. It would certainly be interesting to see how they got them.
White tried nudged me onto a stand and began chattering at me while he measured. He had already poked at my technicians jumpsuit a couple of times, looking through the pockets and remarking on the cut and style. I didn't have any real way to tell him it was just utilitarian.
He and Purple had also failed, once by coersion and once by force, to remove me from my clothing. I think Purple was more interested in my anatomy while White wanted to exampine my clothing better. They had made enough gestures and pleasant sounds to convey what they wanted, and became more and more insistant when I shook my head no. By the time Purple grabbed me to try and strip me I had a hostage and a weapon.
Well, a journal he had been writing in and a pot of ink, but it's the same thing.
I noticed that the little one was watching me with curious eyes while White bustled around me.
"Sorry if I struck a bad chord earlier." I said, smiling. He smiled back. I wondered what to call him, maybe Little White?
It was almost two hours later when we left the shop, and only after I'd given the go ahead on two roughly sketched out garments White wanted to make for me. Hopefully I can find someplace to work at where communication isn't needed, otherwise I have no idea how I'm going to be paying White back.
Purple and the gem eating tiny dragon guided me back through town, pointing out other places and trying to convey their importance or purpose. One particularly large building had Purple excited, and given it's centralized location in the town I took it to be either a town hall or the local ruler's home.
A white cloud floating over the town had the appearance of a house, and I was only a little surprised when Blue poked his head out of the cloud door at Purple's calling.
"<Dusk! You brought the thing!>" Blue shouted down cheerfully. "<Can we race? Do an athletic challenge? Test it's stamina?>"
"<I'm just showing him around town Blitz.>" Purple said, trying to calm Blue down. Blue was having none of it, and pointed to me, then a tree, then back to Purple.
"What?"
He made a jogging motion, then to the tree and back to Purple again.
"I really don't know what you want." I said, making confused gestures with my arms.
"<Dusk, this guy is dense.>" Blue said.
"<You just aren't explaining very well.>" Purple responded with a smirk. "<Here, race me real quick.>" He made 'stay' motions with his hoof at me and then stood next to Blue.
"<Ready. Set.>" Purple said, he and Blue taking up poses that looked like they were going to pounce.
"<GO!>"
The two raced out, Purple doing his best to keep up to the more athletic Blue. They raced around the tree and returned to where I was standing. Purple was panting a bit from the run, but Blue just looked warmed up.
It should be noted, I feel, that my hosts are of a somewhat equine nature. They stand maybe a head shorter than me, but are more massive. I'd call them ponies if it weren't for the horns, wings, intelligence and the ability to move their limbs and pick up things in a way I have yet to understand.
I have had the chance, once or twice, to contemplate if I could beat one in a fight or escape from one on foot if the need arose. While I'm certain that the strength of those not gifted with magic or flight would would finish me in a fight, and those so gifted would easily defeat me, I've never been really sure about their general land speed.
Blue pointed to me, then to the tree. I got the gist of what he wanted and looked around. About the same distance as the tree was a light post just down the street. I pointed to it then back to Purple. "<OK sure, whatever you want to loose at dude.>" He said, nodding.
I got into a running position, waiting for Purple to give us the go ahead. I didn't think I could win, but I did have a trick up my sleeve.
"<GO!>"
Wishing I'd spent more time exercising and less time scrambling around damaged conversion pods, I sprinted forward at my best speed. Blue matched me, but I got the sense he wasn't running all out.
"<Come on, is that the best you've got?>"
We were coming up to the lamp, and I saw Blue start to slow for the turn. At roughly my height he had to be almost double my mass, and my physics classes told me he would have a hard time turning on a dime without slowing first.
I didn't slow. Instead, I reached out my hand and caught the lamp post. The cool metal vibrated from the impact, and I used it as an anchor point to swing myself around until I was going the other direction.
"<Hey! That's not fair!>" Blue called out, rocketing past the post as he fought inertia to turn. I'd made it a quarter of the way back by the time I heard him coming up behind me. There was a blue streak, and suddenly I was running towards Purple and Blue. I slowed to a jog before finally stopping, leaning on a nearby building and huffing.
"<Not bad, but there is no way you are faster than Rainbow Blitz!>" Blue gloated. "<That wasn't a bad trick with the lamp post, though. I'll have to try it next time I race Applejack.>"
Purple was laughing about something, and I was finished catching my breath. I chuckled, feeling like a bit of a fool running around like that. After a few minutes of chatting Blue flew off and Purple motioned me to follow. I walked along at a casual pace, enjoying the warm of the afternoon and the quiet sounds of wind in the trees and birds singing.
As we walked I noticed that it was unusually quiet for the afternoon. Having gone through the market this morning I thought the town was bustling, but we had gone almost three blocks and I hadn't seen any creature aside from Purple, the dragon, and a few birds.
However, the strange quiet of the street was a mystery that would have to wait for a later time. Right now the main mystery I had to solve was why in the name of all that is holy would anyone build a house out of candy.
"<This is Sugar Cube Corner, where Barry works.>" Purple explained waving a hoof at the odd house. The only thing that came to mind was the story of Hansel and Gretel, and I was really hoping they weren't dragging me to a witch. What would a witch even look like? Would it be a pony witch? There were dragons and those were obviously intelligent, so I had to wonder what other creatures might live in this world. I was obvouisly unique, but still-
"<Are you just going to stand there?>" Purple asked. "<Come on!>"
He pushed me inside the darkened store, cutting off what little light there was when the door closed behind us. Suddenly there was a flash of light.
"<SURPRISE!>"
I now understood why the streets seemed so empty. The entire town appeared packed into this shop, all grinning and waving at me. A banner was hung overhead, though I had no idea what was written on it, and Pink was standing in front of a cake half again as tall as he was. From the way Purple reacted, I could tell all of this had been Pink's doing.
"<Barry! He can't speak, he's only been here a few days, and we don't know if he's dangerous.>" Purple chided Pink in a stern tone. "<Besides, when did you have time to deliver all the invitations?>"
"<Oh, I asked Elusive to stall you for a bit while I passed them out.>"
"<Yeah, and then she asked me to stall you so they could finish preperations.>" Blue said, grinning like the cat who ate the cannary.
Orange walked over to me with a couple of pieces of cake, taking a small bite of each and handing me one. "<Here, Ah know we got off on the wrong foot, so I want to tell you Ah'm sorry.>"
I nodded, he seemed very apologetic. I saw his brother Little Yellow playing with Little White and an orange pegasus I didn't recognize. It was becoming very apparent that a new naming structure would be needed if I was expected to meet and know every pony in this place.
Hours slipped away as I ate cake, drank punch, and nodded at ponies who came to talk to me. A few didn't come up to talk to me, and I got the sense that a small portion of town saw me as a curiosity rather than a sentient creature. There were even a pair of smaller colts who spent the evening pointing at me and snickering. I wan't thrilled to be the unintended circus animal of the party, but I did meet a few more friendly ponies.
An orange mare and a blue stallion seemed to be the owners of the candy shaped shop, and Pink was either a family member or an employee, possibly both. A grey stallion with some sort of ocular problem was kind, and kept offering me muffins instead of the sweeter treats available. A mint green unicorn stallion and a white stallion that looked like Little White all grown up but without a horn introduced themselves and were generally pleasant. A tan stallion with a grey mane spoke to me at length, alternating between a sort of pleading voice until I nodded and then changing into a more gregarious tone. I think he was the local lord or official of some sort.
By the end of the night I figured I must have either talked to or at least waved at nearly every pony there. All in all, a great party.
Now that I'm no longer some kind of secret among these six ponies it was becoming quickly apparent that the translation difficulties needed to be overcome. While one of the six, usually Purple, was accompanying me whenever I left the library it was near impossible to communicate by pantomime. My attempt to convince Purple to purchase eggs for me took nearly twenty minutes because he thought I was asking him to explain eggs. At least, I think he thought I was asking him to explain eggs. That's the only reason I can think of why he went to get a chicken and then proceeded to pantomime laying eggs. Having a Purple unicorn mime pooping in the middle of the market is not how I wanted to spend my morning.
Purple must agree with me because he is trying to teach me the language. Of course, with a mind like his, we aren't starting where you might think.
I tucked the journal away and looked at the complex scrawl that covered the chalkboard before me. Purple had started simply enough by pulling me to a seat and pulling out a dozen books, most of which were placed before me. The top three books were simple children's books with a word and a picture of what the word was. The next two were more advanced, and each one after appeared to double in length. Some of the bottom ones had a textbook kind of look to them. Purple'd started writing on the board and hadn't stopped writing or talking for nearly fifteen minutes.
<-and then we can progress up to conversational Equestrian which is harder than formalized but you should know most of the words by then. Any questions?> Purple turned around dramatically. I raised an eyebrow at him and he seemed to deflate a little. <Right, you didn't understand any of that.>
Picking up the children's book, I flipped through till I found a picture of an apple. I pointed at it. "Apple." I said.
<Is that your name for it?> Purple walked closer. <Apple>
"That doesn't sound right, I thought you called orange that. Ah pull."
<Do you want me to learn your language too? How exciting.> Purple smiled. "Aie ple?"
I nodded. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. <Tomato>
<What?! I thought you- oh, you aren't pronouncing it right. Ah pull>
<Darkness> I said slower.
<No, don't streach out the sounds, it changes the word. AH PULL>
<Apple> I tried again. Purple nodded and grinned even wider. "OK, lets see what else the book has." I turned the page and found what I could only assume was counting since it showed first one apple, then two apples, all the way up to five. I touched the first apple. <Apple>. "One <Apple>".
<Numbers? We aren't scheduled to do numbers for another three lessons.> Purple muttered looking back up at the board. I was surprised the concept of numbers confused him so. Maybe they counted differently? But I shouldn't be dealing with plurals yet. I tried again. "Whan <apple>"
"Whan aie ple." Purple tried again.
"One apple." I said, trying to correct him.
<What? That's not what you said earlier!> Purple let out a dejected sigh. <This might take a while.>
Purple walked down the market road, waving a hoof at items as they passed. "<That's the sofa store>" He said. "<Sofa>"
"<Furniture>" I dutifully repeated, accepting the nod that I now realized meant I was close, but not close enough. Still, it was better than pictograms. I smiled as I saw we were coming up to Orange's stall. Orange, his big red sister, and his little brother were all out today trying to entice buyers with their delicious wares. In addition to fresh apples there were also jars of sauce, jam, and pie filling, along with several baked goods. The sign across the front was almost illegible to me, but I was able to make out one word. "<Apples!>" I said happily.
"<Right,>" Purple said with a big grin, "<Those are apples.>"
"<Correct object apple>" I mimicked.
Purple sighed and turned to Orange and his family. "<How are things going today Applejack?>"
"<Not too bad,>" Orange responded, "<Ah'm tryin' to get Applebuck ta help sell apples, though I've given him tha job o' crier ta attract customers. Don't want him fillin' up bags with unwanted apples.>"
"<Hey there!>" Little Yellow said, bouncing around the side of the cart towards me. "<Ya wanna help sell stuff?>" He held up an apple to me.
"<Apple>" I said carefully, taking it from him. He grinned up at me and nodded.
"<Say it louder!>" He said, then yelled "<APPLES>"
"<APPLE!>" I repeated louder, earning the attention of several nearby ponies. A few came over to investigate me and the food stand.
"<Buy some apples!>" Little yellow said. I quirked an eyebrow. There were a couple new words there and I wasn't sure what they meant.
"<Aquire?>" I tried.
"<Huh?>" Little yellow looked confused. "<"No, buy. Buh-eye">
"<Purchase>" I tried again. Little Yellow scrunched up his nose for a moment before nodding. I must have been close enough, but still far off. "<Purchase Apple>" I called.
"<No, it has to be a number of apples.>" He said, holding up one apple to me. I picked it and held it aloft.
"<Purchase One Apple>" I called.
"< No, not one!>" He said.
<"Negative?"> I replied, trying out the word he'd said. I recognized the one, so maybe this was a multiplier. Like how the number ten can be written with a one and a zero.
"<Not one>" He replied with a nod.
I lifted the apple again "<Purchase Negative One Apple>"
Orange looked from me to Purple. "<Is he telling folks to return my apples?>"
"<I'm not sure>" Purple replied.
Little yellow was trying to correct me again. Apparently I was giving the wrong number for the sale. <"Some! Say some apples! sss-uh-mmm>"
<"Quantity?"> I tried. I was picking up a lot of the language today.
<"OK, that's good enough"> Little yellow turned to the crowd. "<Buy some apples!>"
"<Purchase quantity apples!>" I mimicked. I felt like there was something lost in translation.
The crowed stomped their hooves but they were smiling so I guess it was applause? At any rate, a good number came over to the stand and Orange and his sister Big Red were busy with customers while I and Little Yellow continued to yell out to passersby.
It was a fun hour, with ponies coming and teaching me new words every now and again. I'd gotten that their money was <bit> and learned a few colors. From what I can tell there is either an inflection or some additional bit of the language that I'm not doing correctly. I had quite a few ponies laugh at my way of speaking, but at least it was good for business and the locals weren't treating me like some monster.
"<Look at that thing!>" a new voice called out. "<It sure is ugly!>"
I looked up to see a little pink colt and a grey colt trotting up, big smiles on their faces. Little Yellow pointed at me. "<He's not ugly!"> He said. There was that multiplier again. it was used as a descriptor though, so maybe it meant something else? Singular? Or maybe it was an adjective like very.
"<He is ugly>" the pink colt said, pointing at me.
"<He looks stupid too>" the grey colt added. "<You're just a big ugly stupid monster aren't you?" he said in a baby voice.
They were smiling, and they seemed to be using descriptive words. Nice? Odd? They were saying them in a cheerful way, so probably positive things. They didn't sound like <nice> or <unusual> which I had learned before.
"<He is not stupid!>" Little yellow said emphatically. "<He is not ugly and he is NOT A MONSTER!>"
He seemed pretty passionate about it. I smiled, having him say I was very nice or whatever was great. I reached a hand out and tousled his mane, something I'd done a few times and earned a grin. Little Yellow smiled up at me in response, so I knew I was on the right track.
"<Purchase quantity apple?>" I inquired, holding an apple out to the pink colt.
"<Nah, I'd rather teach you something.>" he said, waving with his hoof for me to lean down.
"Ah, <learning>" I understood that at least thanks to Purple's work that morning. I put the apple down and knelt closer.
"<I want you to call Applebuck a blank flank.>" He said, pointing at little yellow. "<Blank Flank. Got it>"
"<Void side?>" I tried.
"<By harmony you are stupid aren't you.>" the pink one said with a laugh before nodding. "<Go on.>"
I stood up and decided to show off a little bit, adding that adjective in. "<Negative Void Side!>" I announced, pointing at Little Yellow with a grin.
"<NO!>" Purple said.
"<Negative?>" I repeated.
"<No! Blank flank!>"
Good, he agreed with me. <"Negative void side."> I repeated with a nod.
"<"Ugh, you are an idiot.>" he said, pointing at me.
"<Foolish?>" I asked pointing at myself. That got a smile and a nod. "<Negative foolish>"
"<Ugh>" the grey and pink one huffed together. Maybe the adjective wasn't universal? Like how saying furry water didn't make sense.
I pointed at the pink one and tried one of the kind words he'd said earlier. "<Ignorant>".
That got a bad response. "<What did you call me?!>"
Oops, maybe that word only applied to upright creatures? Or pets? "<Hideous>" I said, trying the next word.
"<I'm not hideous!>" He yelled. "<You are hideous!>"
"<Hideous abomination>" I tried. "<Idiotic, ugly>" What was that word White had taught me? Attractive I think, he did like it when I applied it to him. "<Negative Slim abomination>" I finished with a grin. it was the biggest sentence I'd strung together all day. Everypony around me was impressed, even the three colts had their mouths hanging open in astonishment. Little Yellow fell over laughing I'd done so well, though little pink started to cry. I guess I'd surprised him.
"<WHAT DID YOU CALL MY BABY?!>"
I turned towards the sound in time to see a fast moving hoof, but I didn't see it for long.
I winced and moved the ice pack a bit, juggling between the stinging ache of the bruise and the sharp pain of an ice cream headache without the ice cream. I lay on my mat in my cage and closed my eyes for a moment to fight off a short wave a nausea left from my quick exit of the market. Purple had pulled the enraged mare off of me after only a few blows and teleported us home, scolding me the whole time. I don't even understand what I'd done. He got a good hour of lecturing me before a knock at the door interupted us. A well dressed pony handed over a formal looking letter a few pages long and then ran as Purple started shouting at him. Then he pulled a dozen books of the shelves, consulted them for a moment and started to dictate to the little dragon.
"<Furthermore, Mrs. Rich, the creature you assaulted today does not have a firm grasp of our language. If he called your son and his friend an ignorant, horrible, ugly, blank flanked abomination I can only imagine it is because he was mimicking things your son had taught him. If you really wish to pursue a lawsuit for defamation of character then you can expect a counter suit for either attacking an endangered species or assault of a foreign ambassador. Take some time to think it over before you make a move you will regret. Yours, Dusk Shine, Personal Student to PRINCE SOLARIS! Send it Barb.>" Purple finished with a shout that saw the little dragon incinerate yet another scroll of paper.
I shrugged and shifted the ice pack. Maybe someday Purple would write something worth keeping.
It seems I've been generally accepted around town in spite of the market incident. I've managed to develop relations with a few of the ponies I met at the party and I'd even worked out a naming system based on the images on the ponies sides. The wall eyed mail stallion was Bubbles, the town official was Rolled Scroll, the mint green unicorn and his friend were Harp and Mints, etc. The first six I had met kept their original color names though, I just couldn't get used to thinking of Purple as Starburst, or White as Diamonds, and the whole naming convention fell apart around Orange and his family. Every last one of them had an apple of some sort.
Names aside I had three pressing problems. The first was that I still didn't have an anchor, and I was starting to feel the disconnectedness the Dimension Jumper's Primer warned me about, The second was food based.
I have eaten through my MREs and must now face the day I have dreaded. While I have been able to convey to my technicolor friends that not everything they eat are things I can eat, I have yet to really broach the protein issue. I've been staving it off a bit by supplementing my MREs and protein bars with beans, cheese, and any other protein rich foods as I could.
Purple appears to be the most scientific of the group, and yellow definitely cares for a variety of animals, some of which are carnivorous like snakes or omnivores like bears. It it my hope that I can use these creatures as examples to get the food I need.
The last issue has to do with the limits of communication. I have not forgotten my original goal of finding Sarah Jordan, though I am several weeks delayed already thanks to my pods extended acclimation stage. I'm having a lot of difficulty conveying the concept of Sarah to Purple, and have little hope of randomly stumbling across her, especially since her companions would give her the ability to blend seamlessly into this world. My only real hope is to find some way to activate my companions and remove the communication barrier. The only alternative is hoping Sarah finds me, making this the worst rescue in ARCO history.
It's the only rescue in ARCO history so I guess that technically makes it the best as well. Somehow that seems more pathetic.
It is with great concern that I notice that, though I am obviously able to pick the lock, they still insist on locking me in each night and only letting me out in the evening or in secluded areas. I have to wonder if it is for my care, as though they are protecting me from something dangerous. They seem to be just a normal group of friends who have stumbled upon something wonderful. The town party implies that secrecy is not important, so why lock me in? What are they protecting from me? Or, more disturbingly, what are they protecting me from?
I hope that this world does not have it's own version of Men In Black. Ponies in black? Sarah mentioned that one of her jumps ended with incarceration simply because she was alien.
Clearing my throat to get Purple's attention I very carefully asked to see Yellow. "<Wing pony quiet>" I was doing my best with a very limited vocabulary. They had tried to teach me each of their names, but either I'm pronouncing them wrong or they all are named after food because I keep hearing the word for apples in Orange's name and the last time I asked for Yellow by name I got a candy.
"<You want to visit Butterscotch?>" he asked. I nodded as that sounded correct. I'd learned Blue's name easily enough as every other pony kept yelling it. Last time he visited he had wanted to test my speed and strength, and purple had just gone along with it.
It didn't take us very long to walk out to the cottage at the edge of town. Yellow seemed happy to see me, but reluctant.
"<Oh, Dusk, I was just on my way to the spa with Elusive,>" he said. The tone sounded regretful, and I surmised we had interrupted something.
I waved my hands (an attention getter if ever there was one) and made the "just a moment" gesture used to keep people in place for long enough to sell them something. "<Stop. Need.>" Yellow nodded in response and opened the door to let us inside.
Wandering through Yellow's cottage, I found what I was looking for: a plate and held it up for him to see.
"<What? You want food?>" Yellow asked. I pointed to an otter he was tending, then to the plate. "<YOU CAN'T EAT MR. FLIPPERS!>"
His tone and excitement made me realize he had taken this entirely the wrong way. I shook my head and set the empty plate down in front of the otter, then went to fetch a fork. Yellow eyed me suspiciously while I moved about.
"<Um, do you know where it's going with this?>" Yellow asked Purple. Purple shrugged.
I sat down across from the otter and mimed giving it a fork full of food and then taking one for myself.
"<You want the same food as the otter?>" Purple asked, perplexed. "<But you aren't a carnivore.>"
"<It might be an omnivore, like a bear or a gryphon. Oh, if there were more gryphons in Ponyville, he could just eat at one of their restaurants.>"
"<Hmm. We know he won't eat flowers grass or hay, or almost anything given to him by Applejack. We can give him eggs and some fish.>"
"<Well, um, he seems to prefer most things cooked.>"
"<So?>"
"<Dusk, have you ever cooked fish?>"
"<No, but it can't be that tricky. I'll just find a recipe and follow it carefully.>"
"<If he can't have fish raw then, oh my, cooking it improperly might be very very bad for him.>" Yellow frowned at me. "<Let me give you some salted fish I've already cooked and some raw fish. It might be best to let him cook and observe. There uh, there will be a strong odor.>"
Three hours later and on the back end of Orange's apple farm I was doing my best to grill up some fish. I'm not the best chef in the world, so what I was cooking was parchment paper packets with a terribly cut filet and a lot of herbs and butter. At this point I didn't even care if I was going to be pulling fish bones out of my teeth, I was happy.
Purple watched nearby, while Orange kept watch over Little Yellow, Little White, and Little Orange as they played. I could tell from their expressions that the scent of my fish cooking was disturbing to them, probably because it smelled good. Mostly, it smelled like butter and lemons.
"<Dusk, Ah dunno know what kinda sorcery that critter's doin' with my old veggie grill, but ya gotta make him stop makin' that meat smell good.>"
"<Can I try some, Dusk?>" the dragon inquired, tugging at Purple's saddle bags.
"<Hush, I'm trying to understand the cooking procedure,>" Purple chided, making notes. "<And it's not my meal to share Barb, you'll have to ask him.>"
Orange leaned on a shovel and mopped his brow. He'd been putting in posts to support saplings and help them grow straight. The three younger ones had been helping out by putting the posts in, filling in the dirt and tying them off to a tree. Orange had spent the last half an hour undoing their help.
"<Ah thought it'd be easier if we tied tha posts ta the tree before we put 'em in tha ground,>" Little Yellow whined.
"<We didn't realize we'd tied the ropes too short for the stakes,>" Little Orange stated apologetically.
Little White just sat with his hooves over his nose. "<Can't we go play by the pond, away from this smell?>"
Little Orange sniffed the air and pulled a face. "<Ugh. It smells rotten!>"
"AAARRRROOOOOOOOOO!"
My head shot up. "Did anyone else hear that? It sounds like-"
"<TIMBERWOLVES!>" the three little colts cried, running for the farmhouse. A trio of creatures that looked like living wood carvings of wolves shot from the tree line straight for us. Orange ran to place himself between the three young ones and the wolves. Purple lit her horn and the little dragon panicked.
"<Come on!>" Purple yelled, picking up one of the wolves with his magic and tossing it away from us. Another wolf stepped up the grill and snapped up the fish packets. The last was chasing down the kids and Orange.
"<Git ya varmint!>" Orange screamed as he lashed out with a powerful kick. The one he hit broke into pieces and scattered across the ground. Little Yellow tripped as they ran and the last wolf, finished with it's meal of fish, pounced. Sharp wooden teeth bit down on soft flesh, and the claws drew blood from deep scratches as it landed.
"Ouch!" I hissed, holding the wooden monster off at the cost of my arm. A knee to it's rotten stomach and the thing released my arm to back off a half step. "Go to hell!" I yelled, swinging Orange's shovel around with both hands. The edge caught the side of the wolf's head, taking off the top in a single hit.
Everything was quiet for a moment as the dust settled.
"<Holy crap! Dusk, that guy just took down a wolf!>" the dragon said, pointing at me.
"<Huh, guess he's pretty strong,>" Orange chimed in.
"<Guys, he's bleeding! Barb, go get Butterscotch, quick.>"
I dumped my backpack out and started pawing through the items for my first aid kit.
"Spirit companion, AI companion, empty MRE pouch, where the hell are the bandages?"
"Here ya go boss," a small pair of hands passed me a roll of bandages.
"Ah, thanks," I said, taking it and wrapping my arm. I got half way to the elbow before I realized something was off and looked up.
There was a dark red skinned humanoid about a foot and a half tall standing next to my bag poking through the items with a tiny spear. It was wrapped in a ragged tunic, and had a pair of large bat wings sprouting out of it's back. It looked up and me and waved.
"Sup."
"<What in the world is that thing?!>" Orange asked.
"Whoa," the little demon thing said, "Better kick the translation in."
"Whoa, that one talks too," Purple asked. "I wonder what it does."
"It allows me, for the first time in days, to introduce myself." I said, smiling at the surprise on the ponies' faces. "My name is Justin Carter, and on behalf of the ARCO corporation I say 'Hello'!"
Yesterday my spirit companion awoke from me bleeding on him. According to the Dimension Jumper's Primer, spirit companions are used to deal with anything arcane in the worlds we visit. Mine is a "helper" spirit, and is supposed to act as an assistant, at least according to him. He can fly, lift small things, read and write, but I shouldn't try to overload him if I can avoid it. The translation spell he casts is near perfect, but it fails to translate some words or phrases properly sometimes.
I jumped slightly when Purple brushed against me when he walked by me. Purple jumped back as well, surprised. "Are you alright?"
"Fine Purple, I'm fine." I said with a huff. "I'm just a little jumpy for some reason. I didn't sleep very well either."
"It's Dusk." He corrected. "And I was just about to ask you about that. You've got bags under your eyes like the time Applejack tried to handle his whole harvest by himself!”
"Right, Dusk." I nodded. "Sorry, I spent a week calling you all by color, it's a little hard to switch over." I looked over to where the little dragon, Barb, was playing with my spirit companion. I watched him dance around her as she carefully spat small tongues of flame near him, seeming to luxuriate in the excess heat.
"That's understandable given the limited communication we managed to get between us." Dusk said. "Here.” He lifted a cup of strong tea in his magical aura and floated it over to me. With shaky hands I managed to grab the cup, relaxing a bit when the aura around it faded.
What is wrong with me? I'm jumping at shadows today!
"Howdy!" Applejack called out as he walked in. I startled, barely managing not to spill the hot tea. I took a deep breath and then a long slow sip, trying to calm my nerves. It was lightly spiced, and smelled faintly of orange and vanilla.
Imp had decided to stop playing with Barb and floated over to settle on my shoulder, balancing on it like a tiny monkey.
"Oh, hello Applejack!" Dusk greeted his friend with a grin. "What brings you by so early?"
"Ah wanted to bring our friend here a gift." AJ said, pulling an overstuffed satchel off his back and laying it down on the floor. From within the bag he pulled a fresh baked apple pie and a dozen bright red apples. "I brought these As thanks for saving my little brother yesterday, and as a apology for the way my family treated ya."
I looked warily at the food before closing my eyes and shaking my head to clear it. There was no reason to suspect the food was drugged or poisoned now, I'd proven myself sentient and non-threatening. The only thing different between today and yesterday was clearer communication.
"Ya alright sugarcube?" Applejack asked. I opened my eyes and bit back a cry of alarm. The orange pony had moved over to where I was sitting on the floor and was barely an arm's reach away. Dusk managed to catch my tea as it slipped from my fingers.
"He's been jumpy all morning." Dusk said.
"Well, I don't think he's going to get much of relaxing day then." Applejack commented with a huff.
"What makes you say that?" I inquired.
"Cuz it wasn't just my brother that ya saved."
Rainbow Blitz grinned at the strange creature as it gawked at his creation. The cloud sculpture was only half again his size but it managed to capture most of his features.
"How did you do this?"
"What?" Blitz snapped back a little bit guarded. "A stallion can't have a creative hobby?"
"That's not what I meant." The man, Justin, waved a had at the sculpture. "How do you even shape clouds? I've seen you push them around before but never do anything like this."
"I wanted to give you something as thanks." Blitz said, leaning on the statue and polishing his hoof on his chest. "And I figured out an awesome way to do it."
"Ya mean you found a way to show off." Applejack commented, rolling his eyes at him .
"It is pretty impressive, boss." The little red winged creature said, as if fluttered around the statue.
It tried for a moment to settle on the shoulder before passing right through the cloud substance. It caught itself shortly and flew back over to Justin. Justin raised an eyebrow and stepped up to the statue. Extending a hand, he push a finger experimentally into the cloud and watched it pass through without disturbing the shape.
"It really is made of cloud." He said, frowning. "What should I do with this?"
"You can keep it of course." Blitz said.
"Rainbow, I can't move cloud. I can't even touch it."
Rainbow's grin faded. "Oh."
"Also, Justin's living at the library right now." Dusk pointed out. "And there isn't really space for such a big statue there.
"Aw, but I really wanted to give him something." Dash said.
Justin flinched at something, and the little red thing spoke in some alien language for a moment.
"<Anchor>"
Justin nodded at it. "<I can ask, now turn the translation spell back on and warn me next time.>"
"What was that?" Dusk asked.
"A semi-private conversation." Justin replied. "There is something you could do for me, but I feel I should explain it more before asking."
"Sure." Dusk said. "Explain away, we've gotta get to Butterscotch's hut before noon so you can explain as we walk."
"Are you certain you can't use this?" Blitz asked, waving a wing at the cloud statute one last time.
"Yes." Justin said.
With a sigh, Blitz spun and bucked at the statue, dissipating it into a few floating parts that quickly faded. For some reason, Justin seemed unnerved by that and kept his distance during the walk.
"So, you want a what?" Applejack asked.
"A bit of jewelry." I replied. "Like a ring or necklace."
"That seems a bit frufru for you." Applejack commented.
"Yeah, I wouldn't think some critter who could take on a timberwoof with just a shovel would be interested in something so flashy." Blitz put in.
I ran a hand over my bandaged arm, trying not to think about how it still hurt. "A pendant then." I said. "Just something small like that, as a token of appreciation. I'll be able to carry it around a lot easier than a cloud statue."
"Geez, let it go." Blitz grumbled. "How was I to know? Besides, I don't know where to get those kinds of things."
"You could talk to Elusive." Applejack pointed out. "He's the king of frufru."
Dusk stifled a chuckle.
"Nuh-uh!" Blitz denied. "If I go asking Elusive for advice on jewelry, I'll never hear the end of it. You go ask him AJ, you owe Justin too after all."
"Nope!" Applejack said with a grin. "Ah already paid him back the Apple Family way!"
Blitz raised an eyebrow. "Food?"
"Food." I and Dusk responded.
The little imp giggled from his perch on my shoulder.
"Well, I'm going to go ask Barry." Blitz declared. "Elusive may be the King of frufru, but Barry is the Emperor of parties. If anyone knows gift giving, it's him." With that, Blitz lifted into the sky and zoomed off.
As he left I felt myself relax a bit more. I was jumpy around ponies today, and I felt as jittery as if I'd drunk way too much coffee. Everything clamored for my attention and I felt my eyes constantly flicking back and forth to all the ponies we passed.
What is WRONG with me today? I wondered, closing my eyes. The image of Blitz bucking my statue rocketed to the front of my mind, the sight of a silhouette of me falling to pieces and dissolving with a single strike. I opened my eyes wide and looked out at the beautiful day, trying to wipe the image from my mind. It really was a great day, and nothing was going to go wrong.
Everything was going wrong.
"Harriet!" Butterscotch fussed. "Put him down!"
The ten foot tall, brown bear glanced down at the butter yellow pegasus before it returned to glaring and growling at me. The thing had swept me up in it's claws as soon as I'd walked in and was letting me know what it thought of me in no uncertain terms.
"Now!" Butterscotch demanded, "Unless you want to find your own food for a week."
Harriet turned and looked surprised at the pegasus.
"I'm going to count, and if you don't put him down before three then you and I are going to have a very serious discussion." He tapped his hoof on the ground. "One!"
I landed hard on the floor and sat there staring up at the beast. It gave me one last warning growl before turning and stalking out of the house.
"I didn't know Harriet was so territorial." Applejack said.
"She's smelled Justin a couple of times after he visited." Butterscotch put in. "I guess she was just worried he was moving in. He is more like a bear than a pony."
"I thought it was because he resembled a minotaur." Dusk said. "Maybe Harriet was trying to stop another Iron Wilma event."
"You can get up now boss." Imp called to me as it fluttered down from where it had hidden in the rafters. "The bear's gone."
"I know it's gone." I said, "It's my legs I'm having trouble convincing. I nearly needed new pants."
Applejack chuckled at that, and Dusk rolled his eyes.
Butterscotch helped me up. "Sorry about Harriet." He said.
"It's alright, she just caught me without a shovel is all." I joked. My hand went to my bandage and Butterscotch frowned.
"Does it hurt?"
"Dusk put some medicine on it, but he didn't want to do too much. He wasn't sure what might interact with me poorly."
"I might be able to help." Butterscotch offered with a smile. "I care for the animals here and help ponies find pets best suited for them. I know a bit about cuts and scratches and might be able to treat your wound a little better."
"Sounds good." I stand up. "Lead on doctor Butterscotch, I'll-" I was cut off when I tried to take a step and fell forward. There was a tearing sound and a sharp pain in my leg. Rolling over I saw where the coffee table corner had torn through my jumpsuit and scratched a red line on my thigh. Movement at my feet brought my eyes to a set of shoelaces tied together and a small white rabbit. The rabbit glared at me and raised a paw, gesturing to it's eyes and then poking the paw at me. I hissed as I bent my leg and looked over the nasty scrape. It was bleeding a little in a couple of places, but my jumpsuit had taken the brunt of it.
"Oh dear." Butterscotch said, bringing my attention back around to him. He'd fetched what looked like a first aid kit from somewhere. "That is a bad scrape."
"You alright boss?" Imp asked, hovering over me.
"Do I look alright?" I asked. "Give me some help here."
I'd expected him to untie my shoes. I didn't expect him to zap my cut and make it close up.
"There you go boss, one quick healing blast."
"You can heal me?" I asked, sitting up a bit. "Why didn't you say anything before? I've been bleeding all night."
"You didn't ask." He replied with a shrug. "Anyway, I can only do quick healing like that once or twice a day, and only on little injuries. For something like your arm I'd have to do a more constant spell, like the translation."
"Well that's good to know." I said. "Would have been more useful to know sooner but lets just move forward." I kick my shoes off and stand up to inspect the damage. The leg on my jumpsuit is torn from the knee down, and will need a needle and thread to fix permanently. If this had happened in the shop, I'd have probably patched it with duct tape on both sides and chucked the suit after work.
"Ah bet Elusive could fix up your suit in a jiffy." Applejack offered. "He owes ya for saving Sweepy Bell anyway."
"Sounds like a good idea. The sooner I get patched up the better, and I can ask him about that bit of jewlery." In honesty I wanted to get away from Butterscotch's hut. Between the bear and the bunny I'd already been threatened and injured, I didn't really want to hang around and find out what else had it in for me. I've been here before, but everything seems so antagonistic now. Why? Is it because I can speak?
"I'll show you the way," Dusk offered, "Besides, I still had some questions for you."
"I've got questions too," Butterscotch chimed in, "But I need to stay here and look after my animals."
"Then we can split up." I waved at Imp. "He can stay here and answer questions and I and Applejack will head over to Elusive's."
"You're going to be alright?" I asked the imp as he hovered in the doorway.
"They want to ask questions, and you need to get your suit fixed." Imp said. "I figure Snapple Jack can get you there without too much trouble."
I was silently glad, as I was less jumpy around the farmer than I was around the librarian. I nodded at the imp. "Don't tell them anything that would jeopardize us."
"Got it." Imp nodded in return. "And you get us a you-know-what before we get into trouble." He paused for a moment. "Anything you want me to work on?"
"What do you mean?"
"In addition to the translation spell."
"Ah," I held up my wounded arm. "Healing."
The imp nodded and seemed to glow for a moment. The glow faded and he grinned. "There, some accelerated healing. You might feel a bit hungry since the spell needs to draw resources from somewhere." With that I turned and limped after the farmer. Imp had healed the surface scratch, but my leg hurt when I moved it.
"Crazy day, huh?" Applejack asked.
"It's not even noon yet." I groaned. "I'm gonna be in a full body cast in a week at this rate."
"Cheer up," Applejack said, nudging me gently. "Elusive will be a nice calm time after all this."
"You adjust perceptions of reality?" Dusk asked, looking at the little creature with a raised eyebrow. The thing had shifted its form slightly over the course of the day, the red skin becoming a deep purple and the humanoid features in the face and hands shifting do a more draconic appearance.
"After a fashion." the imp said with a nod. "I allow my jumper to accept reality as real more easily than they might normally do."
"In what way?"
"Well, it's hard to explain." He waved his hands. "Imagine you were taken to a world full of talking, living, moving furniture. The tables have their own kingdom, the bookshelves and the sofas have a longstanding feud, and there is an intricate political structure around desk lamps. You might find the place somewhat baffling and perhaps even a little ridiculous."
"Sounds like something Eris would do for fun." Butterscotch commented.
"What you might NOT do is take it as seriously as you should." Imp said. "You wouldn't see the tables as threats until the safes are charging you or you've sat on some high chair noble and caused a war. In order to prevent that, I share part of my nature with my jumper. Each companion grants some innate abilities by doing so, even low powered ones like me."
"Are there any other effects of this binding?" Dusk ask, his quill scratching away.
"It depends on how much we are used. As you can see, I'm already adapting to the local magical nature of the world. By extension Justin is changing too, though only on a small level. There are also other things, like my translation spell, that can also augment Justin."
"How does the spell work?" Dusk asked. "I would think a normal spell would run out of power by now."
"Normally yes, but my spells work on a principle of balance. Justin has a small negative spell applied to him that balances out the power needed for the translation spell."
"What sort of negative?" Butterscotch asked "Is that why Justin's been jumpy all day?"
"He's probably been jumpy because he's realizing everything here is really real." Imp said. "He'll get over it as long as he doesn't get too many shocks or anything. No, the negative effect is a slight burn from water, something that's easy to avoid if I just cancel the spell while he showers."
I stood trembling as my eyes tried to follow the flat yellow garrote that floated over my arms and around my chest. I knew it was a tape measure. I knew White Elusive wouldn't hurt me.
He'd instantly offered to repair my jumpsuit upon seeing the tear, hardly waiting for me to climb out of it before assaulting it with needle and thread. He'd thanked me profusely for saving his little brother, remarking on how he and his friends often got into trouble. When he finished I'd thanked him for the repairs, telling him I was glad my only clothes were fixed. That had been a great error.
I was now standing in my second hour as an accomplished tailor worked to create a suit of clothes for me. He'd started by taking apart the jumpsuit to understand how it went together, then had me hold various poses while he worked out how to make things fold and flow properly. Elusive had almost as many questions about my clothes as Dusk had about everything else.
"Your jumpsuit seems a bit filthy. Is that why you wear it all the time? So you don't get as dirty?" He asked, hovering pins in and out of my peripheral vision.
"In part." I replied, trying not to move. "The suit provides a protective outer layer against a number of environmental factors including grime and dirt. It also helps me regulate body temperature and can protect me from cuts and scrapes."
"Ah'll say," Applejack chimed in. "That scratch on your leg looked a lot worse than it was."
"What about the undergarments?" Elusive asked, indicating the boxers he'd talked me out of. I'd asked him to generate a few more of those so I could swap out, as I was somewhat tired of washing my only set and going commando for short periods while they dried.
"They help hold parts of my body out of the way during strenuous activity and act as a buffer between sensitive areas." I was trying to be as technical as possible to get around the embarrassing situation. Elusive had asked me if I was aroused when I'd first disrobed and I had to explain that the difference in our biology meant I didn't have somewhere I could just tuck myself.
Elusive walked around me nodding before smiling. "I think I've got the basic form done. What do you think?"
Turning slowly, wincing at the few needles I felt pricking at my skin, I faced the mirror and gawked. Elusive had, from scratch, created something of beauty. He'd kept the bottoms as simple black pants, but once he'd gotten my lower half figured out he'd obviously gone insane. A lightweight black vest with white edging hung from my frame, and though unfinished, I could see where he'd pinned the first of four large silver clasps that held the shirt closed. A white shirt with a high collar peaked above the vest, the majority of it hidden beneath a fluffy cravat that held a hint of blue in the cloudy white. I looked like some french nobleman from about four hundred years ago. "Do you like it?" Elusive asked hopefully. "It's amazing." I whispered in awe. I shifted in it slowly, careful not to move the pins or marks. As I moved, something caught my notice. Reaching carefully I felt under the edge of the vest. Less than a quarter inch below the vest joined the pants. Checking the top I found the same true with the shirt. I shifted the cravat and silver buckle and found a zipper pinned in place down the center. "It's a jumpsuit?"
"Of course." Elusive replied. "Isn't that what you wear?"
"Normally each piece would be separate, the pants shirt and vest all interchangeable." I smiled. "But for me this is perfect. If I need to meet anyone important, this is what I want to be wearing."
"I thought you might like it." Elusive nodded. "Now let's get you out of it so I can finish the details. Carefully now." He said when I started moving too fast. "You don't want to pull anything free."
"SURPRISE!" a bright pink thing suddenly screamed at me as I pulled the suit down. I ripped my arm free, pulling a portion of the new suit apart and smacked the attacker as I fell off the fitting podium. A soft cool something coated my face and chest and it took a moment to realize it smelled sweet and a little like lemons.
"BARRY!" Applejack roared. "What in harmony's name are you doing? You scared him half to death!"
"Aw, I'm sorry." Barry said, reaching down to haul me upright. He definitely wasn't there before.
"Sorry isn't going to cut it this time Barry!" Elusive yelled, not affected by his sudden appearance.
"You've nearly ruined the new suit I was making for him! And look at him, he's covered in frosting." The tailor shook his head and sighed, lighting his horn to remove the rest of my outfit from me.
"Take him to the bathroom upstairs and help him clean up at least."
"I'm really sorry about that." Barry said as he pulled me along. "I thought a sugar lemon cake with raspberry cream would be the perfect 'thanks for saving our little friends from monsters' gift. I didn't think you'd react like that."
"Yeah, I've been jumpy all day." I muttered following the pink pony upstairs to the bathroom. "Wish I knew why."
"You're probably just nervous is all." Barry said with a smile. "I mean, you went from not understanding us and us not understanding you to full comprehension in an instant." He chuckled. "I'd probably have had a little fun with that, saying things without worrying about someone misunderstanding. But now you have to watch what you say, and you can understand everything said around you." He'd started drawing a bath.
"Yeah, the other way around too. I remember a couple of little colts calling me an abomination," I'd struggled to say the word in their language, even as the spell translated it back, "And I've heard that same term whispered as we passed through town today." "Ponies have seen you, but they don't know you yet." Barry said, turning off the bath faucet with a flick of is tail. He'd found bubble bath somewhere and the tub was near overflowing with off-white bubbles. "They just need to see you as more than an oddity and they'll come around."
"You think?" I asked with a half smile.
Barry reared up and put a hoof on my shoulder. "Of course. As my grammy told me 'the ones that matter won't mind and the ones that mind won't matter!' Now come on, let's get you clean for your new suit."
Barry shoved me over the lip of the bathtub.
And into a pool of acid.
Rainbow Blitz flew through the air, scanning the streets of Ponyville for the distinctive pink coat of his friend Barry. He'd found the party pony earlier, and gotten a wonderful suggestion for a gift.
Blitz had thought back to Scoot's tale of timberwolves and shovels, and recalled that Justin had been cooking fish. His old griffon pal Gil had eaten fish a couple of times, and Blitz had even tried it once on a dare. Thinking a fishy feast would be a better thanks, especially since Justin had lost his first try, Blitz had gone out to Whitetail Woods and caught some.
Now a slimy cold bag squirmed oddly on his back as he soared over the town. He needed Barry to help him, since his own cooking skills were somewhat limited. But Barry wasn't at Sugarcube Corner, and the Cakes only knew he'd left with a cake a short while ago. Since it was a Barry Bubble Surprise Cake and not one normally ordered at Sugarcube Corner, the Cakes had no idea where the pink stallion had run off to.
Wheeling around his gaze settled on Carousel Boutique. Well, if I can't find Barry I might as well drop in on Elusive, he thought. Maybe I can gross mister prissy pony out with some of these fish!
Suddenly the cry of pain and surprise reached him eup in the clouds. He could see a flash of motion in the upstairs window, followed by the sounds of something breaking.
"Somepony is in trouble!" He cried, changing from a controlled descent into an all out dive. He crashed through the window, rolling from the experience of a hundred such crashes and coming upright in Elusive's upstairs bedroom.
Barry, eyes wide with fear and his coat and forelegs covered in some dark red substance, surged out of the bathroom and past Blitz towards the stairs. A nightmare followed the Party Pony close behind, long grasping fingers reaching out for him. Barry slammed the door in the things face, and it smashed against it with a meaty smack before sliding down to the floor. A metallic, coppery scent hit Blitz full in the face, and he saw the smear on the door and the dark red footprints from the bathroom. The monster turned to him, and Blitz fell back in horror.
The pale thing was covered in burns and sores, blood oozing from popped blisters, grey hairs stuck up in clumps on its head where the burns were less. A good portion of the face was covered in scar tissue, and the eyes seemed to glow a dull red. There was a hunger in those eyes, and bloody drool fell from its lips as the monster lurched towards him, reaching out with long claws.
Blitz hit it with the bag of fish and scampered towards the window. With a cry the creature jumped after him, and Blitz felt a slimy claw clamp around a hind hoof. On instinct he bucked with his other hoof, feeling as much as hearing the wet impact where his kick met flesh. The creature cried out and hauled back on the captured leg. It’s other claw gripped Blitz's wing and spun him around, holding the terrified pegasi nearly nose to nose with it.
"Get..... Dusk" The thing hissed.
Blitz stopped struggling for a moment. "Wha- what?"
With obvious strain, the creature spoke again, it's voice barely a whisper that held pain and hunger.
"Get.... Dusk..." It repeated.
Then Justin, bloodied and bruised and kicked by the very stallion who had come here to thank him for being so brave, shoved Equestria's Fastest Flyer out the broken window.
"RAINBOW!" a familiar drawl called from below. Blitz looked down to see Applejack beneath him. "SOMETHING HAPPENED TO JUSTIN! GO GET DUSK FROM BUTTERS-"
Blitz couldn't hear the rest, he was already flying as fast as he could.
"A full bathtub?" Imp asked the shaking Barry who nodded in response. The pink pony had been nearly inconsolable since fleeing downstairs. Elusive had done his best to clean the blood from Barry's coat, but there was only so much one could do with just cloth.
"He screamed and I thought he'd been hurt and I tried to pull himoutandhewassoslipperyandthenhestartedtodisolveandIdidn'tknowwhattodoandItippedthetuboverandtherewasSOMUCHBLOODAN-" Barry was only stopped by Dusk placing a hoof on his lips and shushing him.
"It's alright," Dusk said calmly. "You couldn't have known." He turned calmly to Imp. "If he's badly hurt we might need to take him to the hospital. Are there any problems with medicine or anything we should know about?"
"He's alive." Imp said, "Or I wouldn't be here. Jumpers and their companions are connected on a deep level, like I said before. He'd asked for healing before he came here, so that ability should be in effect too. He might need some help, a bit of cleaning up, but he shouldn't need a hospital."
"Not- not need a hospital!?" Blitz stammered in disbelief. "He was like seventy percent burns and scars! Maybe more!”
"Justin," Elusive called softly at the bedroom door, knocking politely. "Please let us in, we are worried about you." He rattled the knob but found it still locked. “It's ok if you don't want to come out”.
"If he gets some rest, some food, and maybe even a little spare magical energy the healing ability I activated should have him up and about in no time."
"Didn't you say all of your abilities had a cost?" Dusk asked.
"What do you mean sugarcube?” Applejack asked, all this talk of magic going over her head.
"Well, this water as acid is apparently a side effect of the translation spell." Dusk replied.
"He should be fine." Imp reiterated, though everypony could tell he was a little nervous about what had happened to Justin.
There was a soft click, and Elusive fell back a step as the bedroom door swung open. Everypony was on their feet as Justin descended the stairs wrapped and hooded in Elusive's sheets and blankets. The soft blues in the fabric were stained with smeared and dried blood, and Elusive cringed at the sight of such fine cloth being ruined. At the bottom of the stairs Justin crouched down and sat on the floor.
"Imp." He whispered.
The little creature flapped it's wings and flew over closer to him. "Yes boss?"
A hand, pale as moonlight, snapped out from beneath the fabric and grabbed the imp in mid air. Justin shrugged the hood of back, revealing long black hair and an equally pale skinned face. He glared with silver eyes down at the squirming companion. "You have a LOT of explaining to do."
"So I can't touch water?" I asked, "Unless you disable the translation spell?"
"Once the other companion is active, they can counterbalance my abilities." Imp imposed. "They will make it so the water doesn't burn you, and the healing spell doesn't, um." He settled back on a pile of books Dusk had been shelving.
"Leave me looking like I've never seen the sun?" I offered. Imp nodded. "From this point on, you are to inform me of each and every side effect of any ability granted BEFORE you cast the spell."
"That's going to be tricky boss," Imp replied. "I don't even know the side effects of some of the spells until it happens, and sometimes the spell will have an effect with something provided by your other companion."
"A 'try it and see' approach does not appeal to me after having a good portion of my skin melt off." I remarked.
"It doesn't appeal to me either." Dusk chipped in. "If either of you burst into flames in the library it would be catastrophic."
"You've already got a dragon wondering around your library, do you really think I'm going to cause trouble?" Imp asked.
"Good question, let's go ask Elusive." I snarked.
Imp sighed in resignation. "Look, I'm sorry for all of that. Once we get your other companion opened things will be much better."
"Any luck on that?"I asked.
Imp poked the small metal egg. "I'd say it's at about four percent charge. It can't even activate shy of ten percent, but It's charging faster now that I'm up and moving."
"Here," Dusk said, dropping a pile of books next to me. "You should read these, or skim through them at least. I glanced at the titles, all history texts or books on politics and law. "What, am I going to trial for damaging Elusive’s bed?"
Dusk shook his head. "We have some representatives from overseas coming soon. If you want to represent ARCO in any political sense, you'd best be able to act the part."
"I... don't know if I'm ready to be meeting foreign diplomats just yet. I haven't even met the local nobility yet”.
"That's the other reason to study." Dusk added another two books to the pile. "Our princes are visiting on the same day and I really want to introduce you to Lord Solaris."
I felt a tinge of unease pass through me, causing me to shiver. "LORD Solaris?"
Dusk shook his head and smiled. "Don't worry, he's very kind and I'm sure you'll get along famously."
Blitz dumped another dust pan full of glass and splinters into the trash can and looked back over the room. He'd managed to mop up most of the remaining blood and even cleaned the bathroom, though he was sure it wouldn't meet Elusive's very exacting standards. Still, he had helped to make the mess and he could certainly help to clean it up. He wasn't going to leave his friend with all this icky stuff in their bathroom. Looking around he his eye caught the glint of glass near the bed.
"Darn, did some of it get knocked under?" He stuffed the broom underneath and pulled it towards him. Out came a few tiny shards of glass, a half dozen dust bunnies, and a scrap of ripped up rough fabric. Blitz looked over the cloth in curiosity. It was too rugged to be something Elusive treasured, and the thing looked like it had been pulled apart. He turned it over a few times before he recognize it as the bag he'd brought the fish in.
"But-" His brows furrowed as he looked up and scanned the cleaned room. "But if this is the bag, where are all the fish?"
I woke this morning to a crash course in local politics, not enough to get me a job in government but enough that I don't embarrass myself. The Dimension Jumper's Primer notes that effort should be taken to prevent altering the political landscape too greatly. Just as there are concepts in physics that differ from world to world, so are there differences in policy and social structures. The Primer went into detail to show that even asking certain questions can be troublesome, as ideas we are comfortable with at home might be strange or destructive elsewhere.
So I have had to ask Dusk several times for clarification without being able to explain why I needed clarification or didn't understand something. He gave up on teaching me basic structures of government once the diagram ran off the chalkboard and decided to try explaining history and how the current systems evolved.
He's covered the Era of Division, the Era of Unity and founding of Equestria, the Era of Chaos and is just now getting started on the Era of Harmony. There are some concepts in here that are frightening, but I'm trying to calm myself with the knowledge that a beast capable of altering creatures minds or moving the sun and moon at a whim were defeated long ago. This Eris creature sounds like a Fae, and if there is one thing I have learned from Sarah it is that you do not fuck with the Fae.
At least without proper preparations, one of which Imp is off setting up now. Hopefully without setting something on fire.
"So, how long was the Era of Chaos?" I asked again, looking up from my notes.
"We don't know. Time didn't really behave back then." Dusk was erasing the board to start the next section. "Now, the end of the Era of Chaos came about when two alicorns-"
"Two what?" I quirked an eyebrow.
"Alicorns."
"Is that a profession, governmental title, or military position?"
"No, it's a kind of pony." Dusk drew a rough stick figure of a winged unicorn, or maybe a horned pegasus. "They have the attributes and abilities of all three pony races, making them very powerful."
I nodded and returned to my notes as Dusk continued. "Ahem, two alicorns, Artemis and Solaris, discovered the Elements of Harmony and used them against Eris to defeat her."
"What are the Elements of Harmony?"
"Artifacts of immense power, each tied to an aspect of harmony. The elements embody Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Loyalty, Laughter, and Magic."
I bit my tongue on a couple of questions, mindful that asking certian things could stir up trouble. Things like where did the alicorns come from? and were there any BEFORE the chaos spirit started mucking with everything? were not the sort of questions one asked without starting issues. Quiet inquiries at a later time could answer these questions without putting doubts into the teachers mind.
Instead I settled on. "So they slew Eris and the three tribes went back to ruling things?"
"Not quite. First, they didn't slay Eris, just defeated her."
"What, she ran off?"
"No, she was petrified." Dusk grinned. "They moved the statue to the royal gardens in Canterlot after a while."
"OK, so note one. Do not get hit with the Elements of Harmony, they will turn you to stone."
"That really isn't what the Elements are." Dusk huffed. "Anyway, after Eris's defeat the alicorns were made princes and given control of the Equestrian government. There was a long period of rebuilding and restoration, and the era was not without conflict."
Stepping over to a map of Equestria Dusk pointed to a region to the north. "The Crystal Empire was taken over by an evil unicorn known as Obscura. Solaris and Artemis confronted Obscura, and the dark sorceress was reduced to a shadow of existence. She took the empire with her, causing it to vanish for over a thousand years. It's only recently returned."
"Interesting, I'll have to schedule a visit someday." A comparison between the current and archaic cultures would give me a good idea of the technological and cultural growth rate. "Any other events?"
Dusk seemed to cringe. "There was the Nightmare Nebula incident. After Eris was defeated, the alicorns divided control of the night and the day between themselves."
"Wait, moving the moon and sun? I thought you said it took teams of unicorns to shift those."
"Normally yes, but alicorns are incredibly powerful. It also helps that each was tied on a deep level to their charge with Solaris controlling the sun and Artemis the moon. Over time Prince Artemis felt that his efforts in the night sky were not appreciated and that he was being ignored and relegated to a lesser position next to his brother. He felt angry and hurt at ponies seeming to devalue him, and soon he became embroiled with a dark dream spirit known as the NIghtmare. Enraged and empowered, Prince Artemis confronted his brother and refused to yield the night to the day."
"Well, we have day and night now, so what happened."
"Prince Solaris used the Elements of Harmony on Prince Artemis."
I cringed back. "Geeze that's rough, turning your own brother into a statue."
"What? The Elements didn't petrify Prince Artemis."
"NO?"
"No, they banished him to the moon."
I blinked. "What?"
"Prince Solaris used the Elements of Harmony on his posessed brother and both he and the Nightmare were banished to the moon."
I quickly wrote "Never get hit with the Elements of Harmony" and drew a circle around it and several arrows pointing at it.
"DUSK!" Barb called out running into the room. "You got a letter from the Prince."
"Well, you're fairly popular to be getting mail from royalty." I said with a nervous chuckle.
"Well, I am Lord Solaris's personal student." Dusk said with a flourish, taking the letter. "It's a lot of work, but it comes with some pretty nice perks."
"You are the personal student of the ruler of this entire kingdom?" I raised an eyebrow. "But you live in a library, in a tree. I'd think the prince could get you some better arrangements."
"What could be better than a library?" Dusk asked unrolling the scroll. "Oh, the princes are excited to hear that you've mastered our language and are coming to see you."
"Well then we better get to some etiquette lessons in after we finish history."
"No, we'll do a crash course on etiquette now."
"NOW? How soon are the princes coming?"
"This afternoon."
"You look nice." Elusive said assuring me. "I think the coat was a nice touch."
The coat was ridiculous. It fit well but was black with yellow trim and a wide, high collar that came to my nose before bending back towards my shoulders. Clearly an experimental piece if ever there was one, It couldn't even button shut.
"Thanks," I nodded to the unicorn. "Now explain this to me again. The Prince Solaris that is coming to see us right now is the exact same creature that defeated the spirit of chaos and banished his own brother to the moon over a thousand years ago?"
"Yeah," Barry smiled and bounced a little, his eyes double checking the "Welcome to Ponyville" banner that stretched between trees overhead. "He's really nice and fun though."
"His brother's reformed too." Applejack put in. "He isn't the evil stallion who wanted eternal night anymore."
I glanced down at my Dimension Jumper's Primer, skimming again over the rules and notes regarding encounters with the Fae. I didn't have holy water. I didn't have sacred relics. I had sent Imp out this morning to try and create cold iron, but I'd stressed caution and secrecy over speed and there was no guarantee he would be back with what I needed in time. I looked down at my feet and frowned, reaching out with a toe to reconnect a line Pinkie had bounced over. While a trio of concentric circles could keep a faerie contained it wasn't as effective at keeping them out. I'd added a poorly scuffed ward between the second and third ring, following instructions in the primer.
The books final option was "RUN" in big letters with several underlines. I was saving that as my last resort.
"There he is" Dusk called, pointing to the sky.
I spotted the twin chariots approaching, one of white and gold, the other of a deep blue. I boggled slightly at the sight of a wheeled carriage being drawn through the air. The dark one veered away while the golden one descended until it rested on the ground only a few yards from me.
The prince got out of the chariot, regalia glowing in the sunlight, a flowing ethereal mane blowing in a non-existent wind. He spread his wings once in a grand display, the wind and heat of even that soft movement pulling at my clothes and touching my skin from this distance. There was a power that seemed to radiate off of him, a presence that he projected that struck me with a mix of awe and fear. The ponies around me bowed low as he approached, and I had to fight with myself not to drop to one knee in reverence.
I instead managed to restrain myself to a stiff bow. "Prince Solaris of Equestria, I am Justin of ARCO. It is a great pleasure to meet you."
The prince smiled and raised a hoof to me, passing through the outer rings of wards without even noticing. When he touched the inner ring however, everyone noticed. The flash of light from the etched runes was blinding, and the sound of confusion and shouting was everywhere.
Dusk shook his head, clearing the flashes from his eyes before surveying the scene. Prince Solaris stood unharmed at the edge of a smoking ring in the ground. Justin was gone, a short trail of black footprints where his shoes had gone through the scorched earth pointed towards town. Rainbow Blitz and Applejack, loyal and honest, had stepped forward to try and stop whatever was happening and had been tackled to the ground by the two chariot guards.
"Prince Solaris." Dusk called with a worried tone. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine my student, though our guest seems to have vanished." The prince was regarding the burned remains of the circle with scrutiny. "If I understand what happened, we will need to find him before something bad happens."
"What did happen?" Applejack asked, pushing the guards off of him. "I ain't never seen a spell like that."
"And I've never seen him run that fast," Blitz said, squinting to try and spot Justin's form retreating into the distance. "I'll go get him."
"Blitz hold." Solaris commanded. "The circle I inadvertently triggered was a spell of binding and protection, and is only useful against a long forgotten foe. If this person believe me to be one such foe, any force used against him will only escalate his behavior. It may be best to let him flee without further incident."
"But he's running into town." Dusk pointed out.
"Is that not the way to his escape?"
"He walked out of the Everfree Forest," Applejack said. "I think if he had a way back, it'd be out there."
"Ahem," Elusive coughed. "I believe he has gone to retrieve his familiar, that foul mouthed imp."
Solaris turned his head suddenly to the town. "Oh no, my brother sensed something in the town and went to investigate."
Dusk cringed. This might escalate anyway.
I leaned heavily against the flower shop and fought for breath. A week of running around and racing Rainbow had not done enough to build up my sprinting speed to a point I could run halfway across town without trouble. As it was I'd managed only to make it to the market before nearly collapsing.
I knew Blitz wasn't chasing me because I hadn't been caught yet, and the guards weren't chasing me because I hadn't seem them in the skies. I had no illusions that I had eluded pursuit, which meant I either wasn't being chased at all or I was being discretely followed. Logic and paranoid screamed that the latter was far more likely.
"Hey Justin, is that you? Are you alright? You look like you just tried to outrun Blitz again."
I looked up and smiled at the flower shop owner, Chrysanthemum. He and his brothers had panicked the first time they saw me but seemed to calm down once Dusk had explained things to them. Chrys grinned and spoke again, slowly. "Are you all right?"
I nodded at him. It wasn't common knowledge in town that I'd mastered the language, and my breathless nature kept me from forming fuller sentences. "Blacksmith?" I gasped.
Chrys smiled and pointed a few shops down. "Three down on right." He said slowly. "I hope you're doing alright there Justin. You look so pale I thought you were a ghost at first."
Nodding again, I stumbled off towards the shop.
"Did you see that freak?" Shining Circlet asked, nudging his best friend Sterling Scoop. "He looks like he got dunked in bleach!"
"I know, is he dressed up for Fright Night?" Sterling replied, waving a hoof.
"I bet we could get him to harass those blank flanks if we acted nicely enough."
"I don't think so, your mom was pretty upset with him."
Circlet frowned. He didn't like letting anyone, even this stupid abomination, get away with insulting him in public. There had to be some retaliation. Looking around he spotted something that made him grin.
"Excuse me!" He called, running over to the towns resident pink party pony. "Could we get some baloons? We want to surprise a friend."
"Sure!" Barry smiled, "But you'll have to blow them up yourselves." Barry turned to a nearby cart and pulled a small bag of balloons from behind a wheel. "I tried hiding inflated balloons, but some mean pony came around and deflated them when I wasn't looking."
Circlet waved and Barry walked off.
"Why are we going to throw that freak a party?"
"We aren't! We are gonna get him good." Circlet said, watching the strange creature walk into the blacksmiths before turning to scan the rest of the market.
"With balloons?" Scoop cocked his head sideways.
"It's not the balloons that are important." Circlet said, pointing to a public faucet. "It's what they are filled with that counts!"
The front of the shop displayed various metalwork items. A few like plows and nails were generic items for sale, but others like locks and candlesticks were more examples of commission work. Nopony was up front, but I could hear Imp arguing with someone in the back where the forge was.
"Nah, listen it needs to be hotter than that." Imp said.
"I'm not sure if I can get it hotter without getting it brighter." a rougher voice replied.
"We believe it is possible, though the coal may not have the right elements mixed in to attain the desired temperature." A third voice added.
I poked my head around the corner to see Imp sitting in the forge poking a thing piece of metal. The burly smith was working the bellows and a dark blue unicorn I didn't recognize. I stepped in and as close the the furnace as I could without burning myself. "Imp, we need to go."
"Oh hey boss! What's up?" Imp lifted the thin rod of metal. "We're almost done. Prince Artemis here has been a big help."
I froze. "Prince Artemis?" I asked, eyeing the dark unicorn. The wings had been somewhat hidden in the smokey room but he fluttered them out for a moment and nodded at me in greeting.
"We have conversed with your familiar and have found him amusing."
"Imp, aren't the princes, um," I struggled for a description. "Fair Folk?"
Imp's eyes went wide. "What? The princes? Not a chance."
"You sure? I mean, he moves the moon."
"What exactly is it thou art accusing us of?" the prince asked in a threatening tone.
"Justin, if Prince Artemis was one of the, ahem, 'Fair Folk', I would have headed for the hills long ago." Imp said with a grin. "He's powerful, no doubt about it, but even in a disguise I'd be able to detect one of THOSE from this range."
"What do you mean I am not Fair Folk?" The prince demanded. "Do you think me unfair?"
"Your majesty I simply mean I thought you and your brother were OUCH!" I pulled my bloody hand back from where Imp had straight up stabbed me.
"NO! Bad jumper!" Imp shouted. "Call them the others, call them the outsiders, call them fair folk. But do NOT say that name. Not even here among all this iron." he turned and kicked a red hot chunk out of the furnace. "Useless as it might be."
"Another bad batch?" the smith asked, picking up the half molten chunk of metal from the floor with a pair of tongs.
"I swear it's like it jumps right over the critical temperature range." Imp threw his hands up in frustration and collapsed back among the coals.
"These other." Prince Artemis said slowly. "When you say other, you mean really other don't you. As in, beyond this world other."
"You know of them?" I asked. "Sticklers for rules, love to make deals."
"I have dealt with nightmares and tyrants and spirits of chaos." The Prince said. "And if half the tales of your Other are true, I would rather face all my past foes naked than deal with a single one of 'them' unprepared."
"Hence all this work," Imp said from the furnace. "For all the good it's done us. I got a test piece about the size of a pencil nearly right and that's about all I could manage."
"Better than nothing." I grumped. "Well Prince Artemis, I think I need to go apologize to your brother. I left in quite a hurry under false assumptions."
I opened the door to the blacksmiths.
"Hey, look at the freak!" a familiar young voice called. "He's all washed up!"
And for the second time in two days acid washed over me in a wave.
Prince Solaris had over a thousand years running a country and had seen nearly every concevable response a sentient creature could have to his presence. There had been the Griffons, who though the Alicorn a hoax or mutant or in one instance Eris the Spirit of Chaos in disguise. They had subjected him and his brother to a number of tests to prove their validity. Some had bowed, some had fought, some had fled. The ambassador of the Arach-taruian Empire had declared him "too strange to exist" and a figment of the diplomats imagination. That coming from a spider-minotaur hybrid that hung from the ceiling for the entire meeting was somewhat unnerving.
Justin had taken the option to flee (option 15) following a test with inconclusive results (sub-option 227) and had fled towards a population center (sub-sub-option 31). Since he had incurred the flight or fight response, understandable if he guessed the nature of their misunderstanding, then he would have to be careful how he approached the creature so that it did not switch from flight to fight. He expected to find Justin cowering (outcome a), continuing to flee (option b), or having collected his companions and any arms or armor, preparing to fight (option s).
He was not prepared to find Justin in the middle of the market covered in blood and trying to devour most of a two gallon pot of baked beans. The merchant whose cart he was raiding was trying to stutter out demands for payment while staying out of arms reach. He got growled at for his troubles.
"BROTHER!" a familiar loud voice called out as Solaris descended. Prince Artemis came running up followed by some strange purple bat-winged thing about the size of a volleyball. "Brother, we fear Justin has come under attack from some of the locals."
Solaris arched an eyebrow. "All evidence points to the opposite."
"Its that healing ability I tied to him." The little purple thing said. "He's lost blood and skin and he's trying to eat what he needs to grow it back."
"And what would that be, exactly?"
"Protien mostly." The thing said, "A bit of other elements and some carbs."
"Which explains why he attack the pony carrying a basket of muffins." Prince Artemis said, pointing to a sad faced grey pegasus mourning his now empty basket.
"And the beans." Solaris agreed. "Tell me, what happens if he runs out?"
"He'll try and find another convenient source of nutrients." the thing replied.
"You misunderstand me," Solaris started to approach the rapidly healing creature as it reached for another pot of beans. Two empty pots already lay at his feet. "What happens when he runs out of convenient, plant based nutrients?"
The creature looked at the prince, then back at Justin, then back at the prince. "Your majesty, I'm sure he wouldn't just attack somepony. He may seem somewhat feral at the moment but I'm sure he's still in control, probably."
"Probably is not good enough." The Prince of the Sun sighed and stepped forward. "This may not look good for him, publicly, but the alternatives could be far worse." Lighting his horn he enveloped Justin in a golden glow and lifted him bodily from the cart. "We shall discuss this at the library. Brother, if you can see to the damages we will meet you there."
The golden glow expanded to encompass the solar diarch, the strange creature, and the little winged beast before they all winked out of existence.
Once, when I was younger, I went swimming in caves near Cozumel. I had on a life vest and a little waterproof flashlight and most of the caves you could just wade through, but one was different. One was wide and about thirty feet deep. If you pointed your flashlight down, you could easily see the sandy bottom.
If you didn't it was just a dark void their beneath you in the freezing water. Black but not empty, for my mind filled it with every horror it could conceive. I crossed the cave, but by the far end I felt like I was trying to climb bodily from the water to escape.
Now I was floating in a place far colder and far darker, a place with no up or down, no where to run. And the things in the darkness were not just horrors that my mind imagined but actual monsters who were even now reaching hungrily for-
The library seemed to slam into existence and I hit the wood floor hard. I gasped for air and coughed, my throat ragged as though I'd been screaming, the late evening sun slitting through the windows to blind me. wasn't it just past noon?
"Brother!" Prince Artemis cried as he lept to Solaris side while the larger alicorn wobbled slightly. "You're here! DUSK THEY ARE HERE!"
"By harmony, I didn't think you would be that troublesome." Prince Solaris gasped.
"BOSS!" Imp dropped into my field of vision. "Unless you want to be walking home the long, bad way I would not recommend doing that again."
"What-" I coughed harshly again, surprised at the ragged sound of my own voice. "What happened?"
"At a guess," Prince Solaris straightened, "I'd say I just confirmed every claim you could make about being from another dimension in the harshest way possible. I've never seen anypony, any creature ever come so close to being lost in a teleport spell."
"Yeah, well unfortunately-"
"PRINCE SOLARIS!" Dusk yelled, bursting into the library. "Thank goodness, we've been so worried."
"Relax my faithful student," The ruler was still recovering his breath a bit. "We are all fine."
"Where did you go after the marketplace?" Prince Artemis asked.
"Go?"
"Your Majesty, we teleported right here." I told him.
"You- you've been gone a while" Dusk countered. "You couldn't have come straight here."
"How long?" Prince Solaris asked, narrowing his eyes. "Dusk, how long were we gone."
"Brother you have my apologies. I had no idea how hard it was to move both the sun and moon in my absence."
The prince and I turned and stared at the sun sitting low on the horizon.
The Eastern horizon.
"You were gone all night." Dusk clarified.
Prince Solaris looked at Dusk, the rising sun, his brother and finally to me.
"We are settling whatever this is right now."
Maxamilion the Great and Powerful glared through the window of the library and ground his teeth. It wasn't bad enough the town was crawling with royal guards when he'd arrived, he'd spent hours trying to figure out how to challenge that upstart librarian who fancied himself a mage. At first he'd thought Dusk had been forewarned about his arrival, though hanging out with Prince Artemis seemed a stretch.
He'd spent the night at the small hotel in town and had worked himself up to challenge Dusk bright and early this morning and there he was with BOTH of the diarchs! With that outlandish creature, whatever it was. Had Dusk found it? Had he summoned it? It had some unusual arcane energy around it.
Horse apples, if Dusk could summon things like this he might really be a better mage. Max, as great and powerful as he was couldn't summon something like that.
Not yet a dark voice whispered to him while Maximilian unconsciously stroked the Alicorn Amulet around his neck.
Not without a lot more study.
Then it would be him the royals would praise. It would be him who wold get the praise, the fame, the glory that such a feat would earn.
Maximilion slipped away from the window and started walking. Let the little bookworm sit in her Podunk town library and rest on her laurels for now. Canterlot had a far better library, and the amulet around her neck was going to guarantee her access to even the most restricted sections.
Max smiled. You wait a little longer Dusk he vowed I'm going to summon something to knock the socks off those Princes, and then everyone will bow down to my power.
I've been given about fifteen minutes to make myself presentable before dealing with the local royalty. Or potentially, the local deities. Some quick notes.
1) Teleportation is bad. At least local teleportation. Imp says I've got about forty-eight hours to get an anchor or get back the the conversion pod or I am walking home.
2) The dimension jumper's primer is shit when it comes to diplomacy and politics. Consists of zero useful advice and a huge list of "Don'ts".
"Don't eat the natives."
"Don't declare war on behalf of ARCO."
"Don't surrender on behalf of ARCO."
"Don't assassinate anyone on behalf of ARCO."
and finally "Do not, under any circumstances, use your exotic nature, strange power, etc to have intimate relations with the locals."
3) The Equestrian government is a complex mess of elected representatives, appointed officials, nobility and captains of industry all capped off by the apparently immortal princes. I'm about to go out and ask to be an ambassador for ARCO. I have no idea how to do that.
4) From what Dusk told me before I got to the bathroom I caused a decent amount of property damage today. He paid for it. He wants me to pay him back. I have no idea how to do that either.
Times up, wish me luck.
The Elements of Harmony and the Princes of the Sun and the Moon sat around the large cage in the center of the library. To ease concerns after my rampage through the marketplace, I was sitting in the cage. To ease my concerns over capture, the door was not only unlocked but completely removed. Since there were at least four creatures present capable of containing me by magic alone I knew this was more a compliment than any real promise of security.
"Perhaps it is best to start" Prince Solaris said "by stating what we hope to come away from this meeting with."
I nodded.
"My primary concern is for the protection of my ponies." Solaris nodded towards his student. "As much as Dusk might prefer to prioritize understanding. Twice you have been badly injured, for which I must express sympathy. Also twice you have shown a single minded pursuit of items to restore yourself, both times inflicting property damage."
"But not damage to any pony." Rainbow Blitz pointed out. "He actually had me at Elusive's house and tossed me out rather than hurt me."
A point in my favor at least.
"There is also the question of any other abilities you might have that could be dangerous, so I'd like some kind of assurance that you won't hurt anyone." Solaris smiled. "After that, establishing more formal relations and furthering understanding are secondary."
"Understandable. Under other conditions I would be pursuing the formal relations and understanding primarily." I winced as I felt a cold fire tugging at my gut. "There are other things that need to be addressed more urgently. I require an anchor to stay much longer, without it I either need to get back to my ship and return home or I'll be walking back."
"How does one walk between dimensions?" Dusk asked curiously.
"Prince Solaris, during the extended teleport, did you see anything?" The prince shuddered at my question. "That is what I walk through, and there is no guarantee I'll make it to the other side."
"Uh, if you could give us some idea of what you mean," Applejack asked, "Just so we're all on the same page."
"I'm surprised we can even be on the same book!" Barry joked.
"Imagine I live on the far side of the Everfree Forest and I want to visit Ponyville. I don't have wings but I've got a big spring and a very long rubber band. I throw myself over the forest and land here. An anchor holds me here so the band doesn't pull me back."
"But wouldn't the rubber band pull you back through the Everfree forest?" Elusive asked
"Yeah, very fast, through monster dens and past hungry beasts." I grinned as most of the ponies pale a little at the thought.
"An anchor would hold you here?" Prince Artemis inquired. I nodded. "Already you have shown some fair amount of power. Would your power grow with an anchor?"
"Imp?" I looked to my companion to better explain things, a good way to get out of explaining that I just don't know.
"There will be a moderate amount of power generated over time." Imp said. "That's a secondary part of the anchor, one ARCO uses."
"Right, when jumpers like me go home we take the anchor with us. The power buildup is used to help provide light, heat, and power to our civilization. A nice side effect to our exploration and discovery."
"Since my primary goal was to get you a little more under control I'm not sure I like you running around with more power." Prince Solaris frowned.
I looked to Imp for a long moment before turning back to the princes. "I can give you a- a very certain guarantee."
The prince raised an eyebrow so I continued.
"While it is generally best to get an anchor as a gift, it can be bartered for."
"Isn't that what you're doing already?" Rainbow asked.
"No, what we were doing was discussing things from a political standpoint. What we are discussing now is more binding."
"How binding?" Artemis asked.
"As in 'thou hast summoned and bound me to thy will' kind of binding." I said with a shudder. "But I get the benefit of arguing my contract before it's enacted. I can offer services and favors, as well as agreeing to limits, in exchange for an anchor."
"What happens if you break the agreement?" Dusk asked.
"My anchors burn me as a warning if I even try. If I push forward, the anchors stop being anchors and I get sucked into the void between worlds." I shrug, "It's a pretty effective deterrent."
"What sort of talents do you have to offer?" Artemis inquired.
"I can repair things, unlock some things, and have an array of other small skills. My companions will offer me additional abilities like translation and healing that I might be able to use for others." I spread my hands. "Until my other companion activates I'm afraid I'm limited in what I can offer concretely."
"Then how about a favor for me and Artemis, along with a set of restrictions."
"The favor can't be malicious," I stipulated, "And has to be reasonably within the limits of my abilities."
"Agreed," Solaris nodded, "And you must not harm any pony if you can avoid it."
"Directly harm, I cannot track the consequences and side effects of everything I do."
"Fair enough."
"And you have to answer any question put to you honestly and completely." Dusk put in.
"I cannot agree to that."
"Why not?" Dusk whined. "It's the best way for me to get information about your culture, civilization and such."
"Would you agree to it? So that I could get information about your culture, civilization, and such?"
"Of course." Dusk smiled with wide eyes, eager to share knowledge.
"Apologies for this your majesties." I nod to the princes and turn to face Dusk directly. "Sexual intercourse in incredibly pleasurable for my species and parts of my culture are based around it and its allure. To better understand and relate to your culture, please explain your biological reproductive process." I commanded of Dusk.
"It-" he started.
"And describe any and all personal experience and experimentation you may have had."
"WHAT?!" The unicorn was turning bright red.
"I'm just trying to make an example, albeit and embarrassing one. Some parts of my culture and civilization may be disruptive or destructive here, and some parts are better kept private."
"An alteration then," Artemis proposed. "You may choose to answer any question, but you must answer honestly."
"I vow to answer questions with the truth." I replied, hoping to get away with partial truth at least.
"Acceptable." Prince Solaris nodded, pulling a small golden ring from beneath his regalia. "Dusk informed me a little of these anchors before I arrived, so I came prepared."
"Wait, are you able to accept multiple anchors?" Prince Artemis asked.
I looked over at imp.
"They will act as one and split any duty between them." he confirmed. "But if you take more than one at once and one of the set gets revoked they all get revoked."
"Good," Prince Artemis nodded, lighting his horn. A moment later a silver ring flashed into existence. "Then please accept a token from both of us, so that we may each have some level of control."
"A fair idea, having both of you in control means one doesn't have to run to the other if I go off the rails." I held out my hand for the rings. "Not that I'm planning to, mind. Do you offer these gifts as tokens of the contract we have spoken?"
"We do," the princes said in unison.
"Then I vow to uphold that contract to the best of my ability until my departure from this world or either of you request the anchors return." I took the rings and slipped one onto each hand. They were a little larger than expected so I ended up having to put them on my thumbs. "I'm guessing these aren't usually used for hands."
"Horn rings," Dusk clarified, "Unicorn jewelry. We might be able to resize them to fit you better."
"These are anchors now, so we would need to be careful not to break them. I'll see what my companions can manage later."
"Good," Dusk nodded, "Now that that's all settled." A scroll lifted from a nearby table and unfurled. "We need to discuss the damage you did to the marketplace and how you plan on paying for it."
I stood outside, breathing in the fresh air and listening to the wind in the leaves.
"Not a bad deal, all in all." Imp said, hovering up to perch on my shoulder.
I looked around at the ponies, many of whom were keeping a distance. I couldn't say if it was respectful or wary, but I was happy for it.
"Kill translation for a bit." I whispered, and shivered as the shift occurred. The little bits of gossip floating to me on the breeze were complete gobbledygook to me now. "This stays quiet."
"I'm not the best at quiet boss."
"There was another jumper, one who came here first."
"You supposed to meet up?" Imp looked around. "Are they undercover or something?"
"Their pod malfunctioned on landing, I'm hoping they are still alive. I want you to help me look."
Imp frowned. "You use the same coordinates as they did?" I nodded. "First jump right? You spend a week in the pod." Another nod. "What class companions?"
"Class B I think, the files were a bit confusing."
"Class B experienced jumper with more than two weeks head start?" Imp shook his head. "If they went to ground it's going to be damn hard to find any trace of them."
"But you can look at least."
"Boss I ain't a searcher or analyzer or anything like that. I'm here to help with the arcane, and help you adapt to this world so you can survive in it."
"Your adaptations so far make me melt in water and go feral if I get hurt." I grunted. "And that is on the Prince's almighty fix-it list."
I glared down at the short piece of paper in my hand. Dusk had kindly made a checklist of things to do. First was find a way around my water vulnerabilities and feral nature, a project Imp had assured everyone could be accomplished with a bit of time. Second was paying back the money owed for damages, a sum of around nine thousand bits. I had no real grasp of a bit's value so it was hard to say if that was high or not. The last item on the list, and the simplest in description and largest in scope, was to become an officially recognized ambassador for ARCO.
"You get help with the fix-it list." Imp pointed out.
"I get a spy, that's what I get." I groaned. "I get a pony who will look over my shoulder, read everything I write, and most likely report on any little slip up. As if living with the personal student of the prince wasn't bad enough." I shook my head and sighed. "You sure you can't help with the search?"
"Your tech companion will be more useful. I can boot her up in another week."
"I thought you were charging faster than that."
"Had to spend a little to bump your healing and such. Nothings free boss."
I let out a long sigh. "Alright, kick the translation spell on again." I shivered as it took affect once more. "Come on, Barry lent me a few bits and I need a bite to eat. Lets see if any place is still serving eggs."
I stuffed the checklist back in my pockets, trying to ignore the last little note I'd scratched into the bottom. Solaris had pulled me aside and insisted on one last little detail, and I got the impression that a few plain clothes guards were going to enforce it.
Until a royal decree released me I was not to leave Ponyvile.
Not to keep me in, I got a nice "guest" bedroom. In the library. In the basement. Under the watchful eye of Barb and Dusk. No, the cage was dissembled and stored in the store room just across the hall from me. The speed at which Dusk was able to disassemble the massive cage hinted at a skill in assembly I did not want to test.
My first day following the arrival of the Princes was largely spent trying to set some ground rules. The conversations were very calm and logical but left me feeling somewhere between a roommate and a free-range lab subject. I could go anywhere I liked and do anything I wanted as long as I didn't leave Ponyville, didn't hurt anypony, and paid for anything I broke.
I was also, under no circumstances, allowed to eat meat in the library. Dusk Shine kept muttering about how hard it was to get ponies into the library before there was a quote meat eating monster in the basement end quote.
Today I'm going to deal with the start of two separate tasks. The first is finding a semi-steady supply of money via odd jobs. To that end I'm going to check around town to see who I can help with what. The second is the first shipment of papers from Canterlot which should arrive on the evening train.
Tucking away my journal I tap imp on the shoulder and nod. A side effect of the translation spell he has is that I write in Equestrian as well as read and speak it. Good for filling out forms, bad for keeping secrets. The journal might be staying behind with Dusk, but even he is going to have a bit of trouble reading English
Imp flaps his wings lazily and lifts up from the table to land on my shoulder. "Where to boss? Ya gonna put your freaky non-hoof hands to some use around town?" He grins and waves his little fingers at me. "Maybe do some massage or handy-man work?"
"I doubt that I'm naturally better at massage than some ponies who have not only trained for years at it but also have a, what did you call it yesterday? Tramp stamp of destiny? Anyway, they have a cutie mark for it so I'm probably not going to upstage them. I'll check the spa later but my best bet there would be restocking towels and such. No I'm going to check around the market first."
"Ah don't know sugarcube," Applejack said eyeing me.
"Come on, I know I pulled in a crowd last time I was your crier." I begged, "I can do it again, and this time I know what I'm saying."
"Maybe, but the novelty would wear off soon and ah don't think ah could afford to pay you well." He looked over my shoulder and frowned. "Not to mention the bad publicity you got last time."
I look back to see a familiar pair of colts walking towards me. The pink one has a nasty smirk on his face.
"Look Silver Solder," He said, "The abomination is back and walking around without it's librarian keeper."
"I wonder if it ran away, Diamond Circlet," his grey friend replied, "Do you think we'd get a reward for bringing it back?"
"Maybe," Diamond responded, "But first, I want to teach it to address me properly." He walked up and waved at me. "Hey, stupid! Try and get it right this time." He poked me in the stoumach. "Abomination. Ah-bomb-inn-ay-shun. Say it right this time."
"Well I'd say the translation spell works perfectly Applejack." I say, watching the look of realization replace the smug grins on the bullies faces. "What do you think?"
"Ah think Ah'm going to have a chat with these two young colts about the way ponies ought to be treated." Applejack said, giving the two a hard look. Realizing that I wasn't going to add anything to this confrontation, I took a chance to slip away just as the yelling started.
"A stock...boy?" Sandalwood asked raising an eyebrow.
"Or stock-colt if you prefer." I replied. "Someone who can do simple tasks like refill oils and lotions from stock, clean up and replace towels, that kind of thing."
"We already do most of this ourselves." The spa pony replied. "Taking you on would add an unnecessary cog in a well tuned machine. Not only that, but we would undoubtedly have to take on others to fill that job since you alone could not cover all the hours the spa is open."
"How about working the register or helping to make appointments?"
"I'm sorry, but you have to understand. This is a small town and our staff has a fairly personal relationship with most of our clientele. That starts from the moment they walk in the door to the moment they leave. It's not that I don't appreciate your willingness to work, more that I'm not sure we can find a place for you."
"Fifteen." Imp chimed from atop a bookshelf.
"What was that about?" Sandalwood asked.
"Oh, don't mind him." I said, pulling myself out of the low seat. "He's just counting."
"Twenty-seven rejections?" Elusive asked in shock, nearly dropping the measuring tape from his magical grasp.
"Twenty-eight actually." I replied. "We didn't really count Applejack turning us away at her stall."
"I find it hard to believe that a town as diverse as Ponyville is not in want for some talent you possess."
"I think it has more to do with the whole cutie mark thing." I remarked, lifting my arm at a touch so Elusive could measure it. The tailor was skilled, and he was taking extra care in measuring me. He recorded not only how long my arms were or how far around my neck was, but also how far my arms could move and where my legs bent.
"What do you mean it has to do with cutie marks?" Elusive inquited, jotting down another measurement.
"Everypony in town has a purpose. A thing they do better than any other." I replied. "I'm more versatile, but that also means I don't specialize."
Elusive let out a giggle. "Is that really what you think?"
I nodded and Elusive laughed harder. "Does my cutie mark look like a needle and thread to you? No, it is a trio of gems. My special ability is finding gemstones."
"No offense Elusive, but you don't strike me as a miner."
"Of course not!" He cried out, pulling a hoof to his chest in alarm. "Digging around in all that dirt every day? Can you imagine what that would do to my hair, not to mention this hooficure. No, I am a tailor by trade."
"But Sandalwood-"
"Sandalwood and Pumice are some of the best spa ponies I've ever had the pleasure to know." Elusive cut me off. "Their talents are in getting ponies to let go of tension and relax. Sandalwood does this with aromatherapy and Pumice with massages. Though they have used their talents in their work, each could have easily done something else."
"Well, what would you suggest?"
"You are tall for a pony, and your hands are dexterous like a griffon claw or a minotaur paw. I think you have the right idea with stocking, shelving, and customer service. You just need to find someplace that needs those abilities more than the current staff can handle."
"You're really alright with this Dusk?" I asked as we walked to the train station. The train was just pulling in as we approached.
"Of course," Dusk replied with a smile. "The town allocated a budget for an assistant librarian that should be more than adequate for your monetary needs. Plus it'll give Barb some more free time. She's ended up being more the librarian than I have, thanks to all the adventures I have to go on for the princes."
"Speaking of which, do you have any idea who we are looking for?"
"Prince Solaris said the courier would be very easy to spot. Probably some brightly colored pegasus or unicorn."
I scanned the small crowd leaving the train station and could instantly spot the courier. The thick aviator style mirrored sunglasses glinted in the light of the setting sun. That glint was the only thing bright about dark grey this pony, it's mane a shade of charcoal only slightly darker than it's coat. Other ponies took care to keep their distance from it as it marched purposefully marched right up to me.
"Justin of ARCO?" It demanded in an authoratative voice. I nodded, and it pulled a thick packet of papers from a saddlebag with a pair of bat like wings. "I'll need you to sign these."
"Aren't I supposed to look over the official forms before signing them?" I asked, taking the packet and flipping through it. They didn't look like official documents. They looked like shipping invoices.
"No sir." the dark, bat-pony replied. "You are to sign off on the shipping invoices and help me unload the crates of documents. Those you should read over."
"Crates? As in, more than one?" I asked staring at one of the invoices. The translation spell struggled for a moment before informing me the box I was looking at weighed over eighty pounds.
"There are thirty seven."
"THIRTY SEVEN!" Dusk exclaimed. "There is no way we are getting though all that in a week."
"That is to be expected." The bat pony, who i'd decided sounded female, replied. "I'm to act as courier for you to take up the documents as you finish them and bring them back when they need revision."
"You?" I asked, starting to sign as train ponies began to stack boxes on the platform.
"Yes, sir. I'm to be your official courier and contact for Canterlot." She saluted smartly. "My name is Nocturne."
So I've had to expand my clasification of ponies. In addition to the standard Earth, Pegasus, and Unicorn ponies there are also Thestrals who are sometimes called dark pegasi or "bat-ponies" though I've been told that phrase is derogatory. I've also been told there is a Crystal class that can encompass pegasi and unicorns, but that it would require a very long trip to see.
I've also had to reassess my opinion on the political jumpers. Forty-seven boxes of paperwork arrived for me last night, none weighing less than fifty pounds. I've had to give up a good portion of my domicile to the boxes while I sort through the forms. If possible I'd like to get a set of filing cabinets to replace the boxes.
Dusk Shine has been compiling books of law for me to review so I can correctly fill out all the forms. While I appreciate the effort, he already has a stack of books four feet tall and he hasn't stopped pulling from the shelves yet. Prince Solaris has also sent a Thestral courier to help carry documents back and forth from the capital city of Canterlot. Unfortunately for me, this pony, Nocturne, is a bit of a fangirl.
I looked up from my journal at the thestral mare standing in the corner. She was standing at attention the way a soldier might. She'd been standing like that since we'd gotten back from the train station the night before. I was half convinced she'd slept standing at attention last night.
"Um," I said and she started like I'd surprised her. "You don't have to be on guard all the time you know. You can relax."
"I- I know that." She said defensively, failing to relax at all.
"Everyone else has gone out to lunch. Barb and Dusk won't be back for another hour at least. You can relax."
Nocturne seemed uncertian. "But."
"But?"
"But I'm in Dusk Shine's house." She said, starting to shake with excitement. "I mean, Dusk Shine! I'm in his house! I'm in his house!"
"Are, are you alright?" I asked, concerned as she became more agitated.
"I mean I'm IN HIS HOUSE! DUSK SHINE! HERO OF EQUESTRIA! BEARER OF AN ELEMENT OF HARMONY! I AM IN HIS HOUSE!"
"CALM DOWN!" I yelled, grabbing the mare by her shoulders. "Calm down. He's just a pony, just like any other pony."
"But- but- but-"
"I know, I know. I've heard the stories too. Talking down a dragon. Confronting Eris the spirit of chaos and Anarchy Apollo, but trust me. He's just like any other pony in town."
"Just like any others?" Nocturne asked in a desperate tone. "But- but he-"
"Why are you freaking out? Do you want his autograph or-"
"He's the Prince's Personal Student! What if I accidentally- or if I don't- what if he- and I- and- and!-"
"Look, just relax a bit." I told her. "You really are working yourself in circles. Nothing bad is going to happen, okay?"
"I-"
"If you're worried about a bad impression, freaking out like this isn't going to help." I said. "Just take a few slow, deep breaths." She did so and began to calm a little. "Look, I'll fill out a couple of the simpler forms I can find, you can run them back to Canterlot and you don't have to come back for a couple of days. Plenty of time to work up to dealing with Dusk Shine." She seemed to calm down at that and even smiled a little.
"Then, when you come back, I can introduce you to all the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony!" I promised with a grin.
There was a weird little high pitched sound, almost like a wine.
"Nocturne?"
The mare stood perfectly still and held the stiff pose as she ever so slowly fell over.
"And that's when I tucked her into bed and came up here to shelve books." I said to Barb.
"Huh, I know Dusk and the others have done some pretty wild stuff, but I never really thought of them as national heroes." She handed me a book.
"Yeah well, you would think working for the Prince would expose her to tons of nobility. The thought that being in close proximity to Dusk, even with his status as a Bearer of an Element, would fluster her so seems odd."
"Well thestrals aren't all that common." Barb said. "I mean, I lived in Canterlot almost my whole life, and I never saw one until the Anarchy Afterdark celebration a short while ago. Even then, the two I saw were drawing Price Artemis's chariot."
I slid the last book back into place. "Well, maybe we can pull some books on them. A little research never hurt, and it'll break up the monotony of all those political books."
"Um, which political books?" Barb asked.
"What do you mean which?" I turned around waving a hand. "The huge stack over-"
The table was empty.
"Barb, did we just-"
"Hey, I've been dealing with the ones on the return cart." Barb threw up her claws in defense.
"Imp," I started, letting the frustration seep into my voice.
"YOU TOLD ME!" Imp cried out, flying up out of reach. "You told me EVERY book not shelved! I even had to figure out where some of the unmarked ones went."
"Unmarked books? There aren't any unmarked books!" Barb said. "Every library book has one of Dusk's sorting marks on it."
"Nuh uh!" Imp replied. "All those books in the kitchen were unmarked!"
"Those were the cook books!" Barb said, running off to one side of the library.
"And then there were the thin little graphic novels under your bed-"
"MY COMICS!" Barb tried to 180 on a carpet and crashed into a bookshelf, knocking a dozen books loose.
Imp let out a low whistle at the sight. "Think I should tell him about the journals?"
"IMP YOU TREACHEROUS LITTLE GREMLIN I WANT YOU TO PULL EVERY UNMARKED BOOK YOU PUT UP AND STACK IT ON THE TABLE RIGHT NOW!"
Nocturne rolled over and slowly opened her eyes. The ceiling wasn't familiar, but that wasn't unusual for a courier. She lay still and breathed slowly, remembering.
I'm still here. She thought. Still in Ponyville. She rolled over and looked at the door, sighing at the sight of it cracked open a bit. From the distance she could hear the sound of papers shuffling and pages turning.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She thought, closing her eyes and sighing. It was supposed to be simple. Lie low, take a few jobs, see Equestria. Now I'm stuck in this back and forth. I get to stand before nobility and the Princes, or hang out with the bearers of the elements.
With a grunt she rolled over and pulled herself out of bed. I've just got to keep going. If I run off, everything is ruined.
But if they find out, I'm going to be royally screwed.
The first set of forms I was able to understand and fill out have been sent back to Canterlot for processing. Nocturne was more than happy to get away, and I'm hoping she'll return a little calmer than she left. If not, I might have found the one pony who can beat Rainbow in a dead on race. I thought she was going to break the sound barrier!
In other news I've continued my job as an assistant librarian, and am still debating the introduction of the dewy decimal system here as the current sorting is done only roughly by category. I've not had much of a break from that and forms until this morning when Dusk approached me about some more interesting research.
I have been given a unique opportunity to explore some of the key differences between dimensions that appear in the basic laws of science, logic, and philosophy. While many of these can be tested by unnamed drones, the chance to do so in person is one I would not miss.
Even if I had to be the test subject.
I put down the journal slowly, careful not to disturb the nest of wires connecting several machines to electrodes all over my head and down my arms, back, chest and legs. I had argued long and hard to keep the boxers on, finally winning on the point that they were a new gift from Elusive.
"Didn't you do this test on me when I first showed up?" I asked Dusk as the lavender unicorn flittered about between readouts and control panels.
"Yes, but it is important to show that the outcome is repeatable." Dusk said, barely paying attention to me. "and besides, now we can graph the changes over time."
"I guess it gets me out of filling forms and studying for a little while." I grumped.
"Those are still important tasks." Dusk said, feeding another ream of paper into one of the printers. "So, how are things going? Made any new friends?"
"You sound like my mother when I went off to college." I groaned. "I think I'm on speaking terms with most of the town, but between all these forms and the additional duties you gave me as assistant librarian I haven't set foot outside for two days." I shifted slightly, careful of the wires.
Dusk grinned guiltily. "I'll try and reign in my enthusiasm, it's just that I'm excited to have a library assistant other than Barb." he adjusted a knob on one of the scanners while watching a meter very carefully.
"I made friends with the courier. She seems very... anxious. I'd say coming face to face with the heroes who saved Equestria, what, three times?" I asked.
Barb nodded in confirmation. "Anarchy Apollo, Eris, and then King Morphius and the changeling invasion." She counted off on her talons.
"Right, I think she got star-struck. You should have seen her Dusk, she was shaking she was so excited. She seemed worried she would say the wrong thing or accidentally hurt you and the Prince would banish her to the moon or something."
"She's got the wrong idea about me then." Dusk said. "I'm nothing special, just an ordinary pony. We had something similar happen awhile back with the local zebra, Zephyr. All a big fuss over a misunderstanding." He chuckled. "remind me to tell you the full story later."
"Yay," I said weakly, "We can have a story session."
"Justin are you feeling alright?" Dusk asked. "Your temperature is slightly elevated from the last recording."
"I've got a headache and I'm sore all over, but otherwise fine." I said. "Just hand me some painkillers."
"Now now, in Equestria we treat causes not symptoms."
"So I have to suffer while you diagnose me?"
"Yes, but it won't take very long." Dusk said, lighting his horn. "It really is a simple spell."
The glow enveloped me and I winced against the light. My headache was rapidly becoming a migraine.
"Hm, odd." Dusk said. "You have no injuries, no known contagion, no allergic reaction. The only thing that I can see that is off is your ITB is a little low."
"My what?"
"Innate Thaumaturgic Buildup." Dusk said. "The magic your body naturally holds."
"Dusk, I'm an alien creature from a distant dimension where magic is nothing but illusion and myth. The amount of magic my body naturally holds is zero."
Imp flew around looking at me and nodding sagely, affecting the manners of a concerned doctor. "Near as I can tell, you got too much magic in ya."
"Hooray, I'm saved." I said with sarcasm. "We knew that already Imp, how do I deal with it?"
"Leave this dimension and never return?"
The glares Dusk and I game him could melt iron.
"Kidding. Actually, I'm already helping with that. Your magic feeds me, and I'm building up a mana-electric charge to give to your other companion. It might be enough to wake her up." Imp grinned. "Actually, you building up a charge like this means we can start to mitigate some of the side effects before your other companion activates."
"Really?" Dusk looked intrigued. "Anything I can do to help?"
"He needs to use magic and build up his storage potential." Imp said. "It's like a muscle, you have to use it to exercise it stronger."
"Imp, I can't do magic."
"Nah nah nah, on Earth ya can't do magic. Here, things are different. I can try to study a magical ability or spell and copy a form of it onto you so you can do it."
Dusk's eyes seemed to light up. "I get to teach someone how to use magic! This is going to be so exciting!"
I held my hands up, desperate to stop something that could easily spiral out of control. "Hold on Dusk, you don't even know if I can do magic, or if I can do unicorn magic or anything!"
"No time like now to test that theory out." Dusk said. His horn lit up and a small ball of glowing energy manifested in front of him. "See if you can focus your power like this."
"Hang on," Imp said, flying up to the ball of energy. He stared at it for a few moments then nodded. "Okay, I got it. Go ahead Justin."
I held my hands out in front of me, feeling like a complete idiot. Really. I'm going to cast a magic spell by focusing on making a ball of energy. Next I'll light candles and dance naked under the moon for a good harvest.
I was about to argue when my mind pointed out that I would be arguing with a talking lavender unicorn that had a magical mark on his sides that designated him the best with magic in all the land of talking colored ponies. The absurdity of this meant anything was possible.
"Come on Justin," Imp cheered. "Just think of all of those fighting cartoons you used to watch of people throwing energy balls around."
I focused, and after a moment I felt something. Like when you were swimming and felt the motion and currents around you from another swimmer nearby. Faint pressure ran down my arms and pooled in my hands, feeling like it was under my skin rather than on it. I felt something in the back of my mind, and envisioned the glowing white sphere before it was manifested. "Prizyv Dukha."
"What?" Dusk asked. "I didn't catch that."
"I- I'm not sure." I said.
"I think it's a keyword," Imp put in. "It's tied to the spell, like an activation phrase."
"Glad it wasn't abracadabra." I muttered.
Dusk looked over the ball of energy and nodded. "You produced that fairly easily, We'll have to make more later and run some tests." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, this bit of energy is the basis of many unicorn spells. We manipulate this energy to change the world around us. First discovered by-"
"Dusk, honestly the history lesson can wait." I said. My little sphere, no bigger than a softball, was bobbing and waving slightly as my attention shifted.
"Ah, right." Dusk looked around and then smiled and reached out with is magic. A moment later a two foot tall white vase came floating over in front of me. "One of the simplest of spells for a unicorn is telekinesis, moving things with your magic." She set the vase down. "I want you to use your magic to try and pick this vase up."
I looked at the fragile vase with delicate blue drawings on it and grimaced. "Maybe we should start with something less fragile. Like a rock."
"Justin if you don't push yourself you will never know your limits." Dusk said. "You might not even be able to lift this vase, but I want you to try your best." He sat the vase down and stepped back.
I hesitated for a few moments, then focused on the vase.
Nothing happened.
I focused harder.
Still nothing.
"Maybe you should try directing the bit of power you have out already?" Dusk offered.
I looked at the glowing ball, now bobbing in a wobbly circle around me. As soon as I had my attention on it the sphere held still, almost like it had come to attention. I shifted my attention from the sphere to the vase with a simple thought. Go get it.
The sphere shot straight at the vase like I'd thrown it, reaching out to the fragile porciline.
And smashing straight through it, leaving little bits of white and blue china everywhere.
Two more vases, a glass, and three plates later and we were finally practicing with a rock while Dusk took measurements. The little sphere converted roughly half of its magical energy into physical force on contact with a solid object. Summoning and controlling the ghostly little spheres was pretty easy, and I could even get two or three going at once. The only downside was I could only summon one at a time and they vanished after two hits.
"I don't understand why you can't regulate the power converted." Dusk said groaning as the rock went bouncing around the room again.
"It probably has something to do with my dimensional nature." I said, directing a couple of spheres with my finger and trying to bounce the rock into the fireplace. "The energy might be dimensionally displaced and surges through on contact with something solid enough. I'm half tempted to toss one into a bathtub just to see how it reacts with water."
"GOAL!" Imp called as the rock lodged itself in the kindling. He grinned and continued shifting through the diplomatic forms.
"More disturbing is that there isn't anything on you that shows you are using magic." Dusk said. "My horn glows, but with you it just seems to happen."
"Please don't mention that to Barry or Blitz." I begged. "The last thing I need is them pestering me into pranks as an untraceable magic user."
"Oh you are far from untraceable." Dusk said. "Your energy signature is very unique." He yawned. "What time is it?"
As if in answer the golden sun peaked through the window and began to light the room. A collective groan arose and I stretched. "Well, at least my headache is gone."
"Hey boss!" Imp said. "I just found seventeen more forms we can fill out right now! Their short too, each one's only about ten pages!"
"aaaaaaaand it's back."
Nocturne stood shaking in the waiting room. She couldn't bring herself to sit despite being on her hooves and wings all day. The butler standing in the corner was the only reason she wasn't pacing up and down, that and her wish not to be billed for wearing through the very expensive rug.
The doors opened with a soft click and a well dressed earth pony stuck his head in and nodded. Nocturne returned the nod and followed him through the door, to where the mansion's owner sat.
"You have information?" She asked.
"I do, Princess." Nocturne replied. "About the strange creature your uncle's visited not too long ago. I heard you'd pay well for any information."
"You are a royal courier, aren't you?" The white unicorn asked smoothly, leaning forward with interest and brushing a long lock of blonde mane out of her eyes. "Spilling secrets is bad for your profession."
"I'm not telling you anything that would count as classified." Nocturne managed to say without stuttering. "I just want a fair amount for the information and I'll be gone."
"You're the courier assigned to that creature aren't you?"
"Not if I can bribe my way out of it." Nocturne blurted, cursing herself for letting that slip.
"But dear, I think you'd find your current position to be much more profitable." The unicorn smiled an unsettling smile.
"Princess Sanguine, I'm not sure that's-"
"Please," the Princess cut her off, "Call me Cerulean. Why don't you have a seat and we can come to a... profitable understanding?"
Recognizing a key phrase the servant who had shown Nocturne in activated a secret recording gem, then left the room. His mistress's plans were in play, and he had no wish to be a loose end.
Bureaucracy is an inevitability in any world it seems.
Let me start again.
It is generally accepted, according to the primer, that things which are "other" can be unsettling to any group and the more other something is, the more disturbed the group becomes. The primer acknowledges that jumpers are, by their nature, otherworldly and very "other" to the local inhabitants of a world. The best way to reduce stress and strain is to help the locals classify you in some way.
So while I might be a horrible, deformed monstrosity from beyond the stars, if the locals know that I am a specific kind of horrible monstrosity from beyond the stars they should panic a lot less. I thought this would be a fairly simple task.
This world is lousy with monsters, ancient temples, evil sorcerers, and things like that, and each one has expanded the classification process to the point of absurdity.
As for why I am now attempting to classify humanity within the monster/magic/threat rating system, let me simply say that one should not interrupt anyone doing magic even if you think it is very silly.
I watched the animals float around in intricate patterns, each surrounded by a soft purple glow. Next to me Butterscotch fretted and worried, Barb looked on with awe, and Nocturne watched with stiff posture and thick sunglasses. I couldn't tell if she was thrilled or bored.
With a long sigh Dusk set the creatures down and bowed. Barb applauded, bringing a smile to the librarian's place.
"Oh, thank goodness it's over." Butterscotch rushed over to his animal friends. "They were so scared." A couple of the critters seemed to be raising skeptical eyebrows at their yellow caretaker.
"What did you think of the demonstration?" Dusk asked.
"I think it was great." Barb called, giving two thumbs up.
"I liked it." I said, noting how many creatures had been moving in different directions.
"Meh." Imp chimed in.
"Meh?!" Dusk was shocked. "That was high level magic."
"But it doesn't look like high level magic." Imp waved a hand. "I bet butterscotch could train those animals to run almost that exact same pattern on the ground in like a week."
"We haven't got a week," Dusk huffed, "The Saddle Arabian ambassadors will be here in three days."
"It's the animals themselves that are the problem." Imp replied, then had to dodge up out of the way of a thrown carrot.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY ANIMALS!?"
"Nothing!" I stepped between Butterscotch and Imp, who was now cowering in the trees, "Nothing is wrong with the animals, but because they are intelligent creatures much of the motion we saw might be falsely attributed to them."
"Like they were trained to fly in formation?" Barb asked, "They're not wonderbolts."
"It's an illusion you'll have to work past. Spinning knives, plates, or even fireballs through the same routine would be just as difficult, and you'd get a better reaction."
Dusk frowned, "Maybe, but Butterscotch went to all the trouble of voleteering-"
"I don't mind if my animal friends AREN'T used for a terrifying and dangerous magical demonstration." Butterscotch cut in quickly, already gathering up said creatures and slowly backing away.
Dusk groaned. "Fine, I'll go work on making fireballs I can fling around then I <don't think it would be as impressive but if it makes you all happy>"
I glared at Dusk as he suddenly started speaking gibberish.
"Boss, quick pow-wow." Imp landed on my shoulder and whispered in my ear.
"I told you to warn me before you did that." I sniped.
"What's your main goal here?"
"Simple, find Sara and get home."
"Right, well scanning long range is beyond my capacity at the moment. But I had a thought, why not make Sarah come to us?"
"Great plan, how?"
"She might be in hiding, but she'd be on the lookout for other ARCO personnel or any rescue party." Imp waved a hand, "If we get you noticed and in the papers far and wide, then she might see and come to us."
"I'm working as an assistant librarian, I can't afford to buy popularity on my salary and the only place I can find fame is in the card catalog."
"You are working for a national hero, and you are going to be in close proximity to foreign ambassadors in just a few days." Imp grinned evilly at me. "That's a photo op if I ever heard one."
"I'm not invited to the meeting." I pointed out.
Imp gestured and returned the translation spell before pointing at Dusk Shine. "Yet. You're not invited yet."
"I'm not so sure about this Justin." Dusk said.
"Come on, it's perfect. You are a national hero, and a mock battle will be far more impressive than juggling animals."
"You do look menacing with the cape and shades." Barb offered. Nocturne nodded slightly, squinting in the evening sun.
"Sunglasses at night look ridiculous," Dusk protested, "And you'd have to drop the translation spell for any demonstration. I'm currently practicing with balls of water."
"Well throw one out and lets see how it looks." I said, summoning a single spirit ball.
Dusk huffed a tired sigh and pulled up a glowing sphere of water about the size of a softball and lobbed it up in the air. My spirit ball shot after it and on impact there was a great sploosh of water and a fairly impressive spray.
"OK, that was pretty cool." Barb turned to Dusk, "What about other elements? Earth, fire? OW!" She fell forward, clutching the back of her head. "Justin!"
"Oops, sorry," I cringed back from he wounded drake. "My spirit balls deal two hits before dissipating. They kind of target whatever takes my focus."
"Then I am going to spend the next two days working on my elemental 'juggling' and you are going to focus on target practice." Dusk turned away. "I don't want you accidentally smacking the ambassadors in the face if they ask you a question."
I nodded my consent and turned to the bat pony. "Nocturne?" she jumped at hearing her name, "Care to help me out?"
For two days it was fill out forms, restock books, and practice with Nocturne. The little bat winged courier was deceptively fast, able to toss seven of the little rubber balls in the air before I had more than two of the little spheres out. Imp and Barb were kept busy retrieving the balls and testing my concentration. Twice I batted Imp across the room, though I'm pretty sure he flew between a ball and one of my magic spheres the second time.
It was exhausting and I was quite happy when Imp told me there would be no more practicing on the last day before the demonstration.
"You've drained your magic reserves down so far that if you don't take it easy, you won't have enough to do anything at all tonight."
"What do you think Dusk, can we make it look good?"
The unicorn kicked one of the little balls and nodded. "I've mastered getting the spheres up and moving, and it's clear you'll be able to counter any I throw at you, but I'm concerned. The dirt and fire spheres will just pop spectacularly, but I don't think you'll be able to avoid getting wet from the water spheres."
"Damn, and we can't shunt the corrosive effect of water on me without my other companion."
"You said you could disable the translation, that would negate the effect of the water."
"Yeah boss, towel yourself off at the the end and I'll kick the translation back on." Imp hovered up on a bookshelf, halfheartedly looking for the location of a tome he held.
"You plan to actually hit me with any of the spheres? I can't block more than four in sequence."
"I'll time it well, you'll see."
I paced back and forth, noting with some satisfaction the way my cape seemed to furl about me with each step and turn. Elusive had really gone all out and I certainly looked the part of a regal villain. Dusk was out doing the initial introduction now and at any moment-
"I'm sure you know, my friends and I are capable of more than just simple feats of speed and strength. Tonight I present for you a mock duel with one of our newest friends, Justin of <ARCO>."
"You're up boss." Imp pulled the curtain aside. "Give them a good show, I got a towel waiting for you when you're done."
I stepped on stage and waved at the cheers and gasps. On the far side Dusk had over a dozen spheres of earth, water and fire swirling around him like electrons. I summoned up a pair of my own spheres and set them spinning about me before assuming a combative stance and nodding at Dusk.
The first sphere, one of dirt, shot straight towards me and I impacted it with a sphere before it had crossed half the stage. The great blast of dirt burst out, catching the spotlights and looking magnificent. With a flourish Dusk sent two more at me, an earth and fire.
The dirtball and fire were caught by my second sphere in a sequential hit. Flame shot out in a ring and the dust shimmered in the swell of light. I threw the last of my first balls power at Dusk, popping one of the water spheres over his head.
While he shook off the water and the crowd laughed I pulled up two more spheres. After that, the back and forth became too quick to follow easily. Dusk planted his hooves and threw the elemental spheres at me in great swooping arcs and straight dives. I even had to leap out of the way as a dirtball sailed past everything and slammed into the stage where I just was. The finale involved one of each element detonating overhead, with the water one dousing me in a light rain.
As one we turned to the crowd and the two ambassadors and bowed, and I enjoyed the cheers and applause. Imp brought me the towel and I dried off as I stepped off stage and walked towards my goal. Dusk was already speaking with the two large horse creatures, smiling and waving his hooves around.
Satisfactorily dry I tossed the towel to Imp and nodded. Which meant I only got to hear the last of the discussion.
"That was amazing!" the ambassador said. "here, do it again!"
and I turned to catch a large glass of water being thrown in my face.
Dusk had heard of the damage the water had done. He would never in his life doubt the words of Barry or Prince Artemis.
But there was something infinitely worse in seeing it than in just hearing about it secondhand. The left side of Justin's face steamed, bubbled, and melted away to skeletal bone. Justin let out an agonized scream, clutching at the wound and cringing away.
Then something seemed to shift in him and he leapt onto the ambassador's table. Both delegates let out screams and fell back as Justin fell on their food like a beast.
"It's alright, it's a side effect of his healing!" the little imp was calling as it flew after the Saddle Arabians and tried to calm them down. Having a strange creature chase you while shouting was not having the desired effect.
Other ponies were starting to panic, and guards stepped forward to apprehend the source of the disturbance. Dusk focused and lifted Justin from the table in his magic, spinning him around.
"Justin! Calm down, I know your... in... pain...." Dusk felt his mouth go dry as he looked at the creature that hung in his magic before him. Justin's eyes were solid black with glowing red pupils and his teeth. He had seen those teeth. He had carefully and closely inspected those teeth. They weren't all sharp points like that, and there was no way there were more than one row. This was a predator, plain and simple, and with an effort it reached out and smacked the tip of his horn.
In a start Dusk's magic collapse and he stepped back. Justin loomed over him for just an instant before he was gone, running off into the night.
Nocturne picked up the last signed paper and stuffed it into the outgoing envelope. Seventeen basic diplomatic forms had been completed and with luck she could crash in Canterlot for a few days waiting for replies before she had to come back here. Her stomach grumbled, and she eyed the baked salmon and asparagus the little dragoness had left out for her. Barb had said cooking for thestrals was like cooking for Justin, even if she had to hide it from Dusk Shine.
Just thinking about the powerful purple unicorn sent a shiver up Nocturnes spine.
"Just stay calm, everything will be alright. Just a few days reprieve to clear my head and I'll be back and ready to deal with all of this." She turned away and paced out of the room to where her bags lay packed, sticking the envelope in among them.
She jumped as the door slammed open and ran back to the workroom to find Justin devouring her dinner. She wasn't going to eat it anyway, but the bloodstained hands and disheveled look, not to mention the sharp teeth, caused the dark pony to fall back a step.
She bumped into the counter and a mug fell off, bouncing off the ground with a dull ringing. Justin spun to stare at her, deep red eyes in a see of black burning into her soul.
"Now... Justin... I know you're in a bit of pain right now." She could nearly feel it, the way half his face was so shiny and new, the way he carried himself. "I'm sure you've eaten enough so if you just Lay Down and Go To Sleep."
Justin was standing over her by the time she'd finished speaking, her eyes staring hard into his as she forced her will over his hunger. There was another staggered step and Justin toppled over on top of her.
I clutched my head and kept my eyes closed, sucking down the strong bitter coffee and praying the painkiller spell Imp had cast would kick in soon. Last night had been a fiasco, what little I could remember of it anyway. As a favor to Prince Solaris the whole event was being kept as quiet as possible, providing I donate a substantial amount of money to Saddle Arabia to cover the stress of their diplomats.
"We have to get this problem fixed." I groaned.
"I'm charging your other companion as fast as I can boss." Imp alighted next to me. "Just be glad you didn't hurt anyone or even really break anything."
A sheaf of papers landed next to me and I glanced up to see Nocturne. Our eyes met for a moment before she turned away with a furious blush. I'm apparently collapsed on top of her after running back to the library and had been found cuddling the poor pony while muttering in my sleep.
Dusk was jumpy around me, and hadn't let me be alone with him or Barb since. He had also given me additional homework. I picked up the top paper and groaned at it.
"You are seriously making me fill out a Monster/Beast/Villain registration form on myself?"
"Oh no, I tried for that, but Prince Solaris doesn't want any unfortunate repeat of last night with any other visitors from ARCO." Dusk magically dumped a stack of papers three times as high as the first next to me. "You'll have to fill out a registry entry for humanity in general."
"I don't know half of these number ranges. Thaumaturgic load? Elemental affinity rating? Challenge rating, wait why is there a challenge rating?"
"Oh, the Shoreline Mages printing company has an ongoing contract with the monster registry in Canterlot!" Barb said excitedly. "New creatures can be put into new adventures for Ogres and Oubliettes."
"Great, I get to be the baddie in a dungeon for teenage ponies to slay." I put my head back down. "Can't I go back to filling out diplomatic forms?"
"Not until these are finished." Dusk replied sharply. "Prince's orders."
As I may have previously noted, my body is slowly accumulating some kind of arcane energy. This buildup can become painful when it stretches the limits of what I can hold. Imp tells me that the more I use the power and the more I let it build, the more I will eventually have access to.
With the help of Dusk Shine I have managed to create a simple ball of telekinesis that I can use to bleed off the excess power. While I cannot lift or manipulate objects with this ball of force, I can knock them around fairly easily. The little spheres are mentally controlled, and can usually smack something twice before dissipating. I've managed to pull out three sequentially and hold them around me.
Unfortunately, being mentally controlled means that anything that breaks my concentration becomes the immediate target of any spheres I've summoned, and once they are "fired" I can't really call them back. I've given a couple of my friends near misses and at least one intruder got a black eye and a broken camera for their troubles.
Today Imp, Dusk and I are going to see if I can't copy any other abilities into a more stable form.
I grinned and waggled my fingers at the poor pony stuck in the nest of wires. Rainbow Blitz sighed and hung his head.
"Is this going to take much longer?"
"Just a few seconds more." Dusk looked over the paper readout and adjusted a knob. "There, I've recorded your basic energy levels and attributes."
"Great!" Blitz bulled off the cap and started unsticking the wires. "I know you are a major egghead Dusk, but I never want to have to sit through this little mad science routine again."
Dusk grimaced. "Actually, you're going to have to after the scan, that's why I needed this as a baseline."
Blitz groaned. "When you said 'Hey, want to teach Justin how to fly' this was NOT what I had in mind."
"Relax Blitz, we should be all done with the readings for a while." I waved a large broach at him. "The next bit will be fun."
Blitz hovered in the air, slowly flapping his wings. "How is this fun?"
"I need to understand how you do what you do." Imp said, flying around the blue pony. "You know you're about as aerodynamic as a brick right now, right?"
"Hey!"
"Blitz, think about what your are doing." I said, waving at him. "You are hovering in the air by barely flapping your wings."
"So?"
"So? A hummingbird is the only animal I can think of off the top of my head that can hover at all, and they have to beat their wings impossibly fast! Every other animal in existence, even here in the magical land of Equestria, is envious of your ability to just do what you are doing Right Now."
Blitz seemed to consider this before nodding. "Yeah, I am pretty awesome."
"Butterscotch can do this too." Imp said.
"And he's awesome as well, what's your point?" Blitz was defensive of his pegasus friend.
"I've got the basic form," Imp redirected, "can you show me some higher powered flight?"
"Finally!" Blitz groaned before taking off like a rocket. I watched in awe as he zipped through the sky, making hairpin turns that would have been impossible for anything bound even remotely by the laws of physics. As a grand finale he shot so high I lost sight of him.
A few moments passed in silence before I turned to Dusk. "Did, uh, did he just fly off and leave?"
Dusk squinted into the sky for a moment, then his eyes got real wide. "INCOMING!"
I looked back up to see the blue pony pushing a white shock-wave through the air. A moment later he passed through the barrier and a sonic boom shook the trees and rattled the windows. Additionally, a huge circular rainbow aura burst from the point and stretched across the sky. The prismatic aura settled over me and I could instantly feel my magic filling to near bursting.
"What was that?" I asked aloud as I pulled a spirit ball up and sent it chasing a falling leaf.
"You like it?" Blitz was already on the ground next to me. "I call it my Sonic Rainboom! Pretty cool huh?"
"It is awesome!" I turned to Imp. "Tell me you were recording, tell me I can do something like that!"
Imp laughed. "Yeah, sure, if you can hold about a thousand times the magic you currently have in your body then maybe you can do that, maybe. Otherwise, let the professional lunatics break the sound barrier in their birthday suit and you just sit back and enjoy the show."
"What's a birthday suit." Dusk asked.
"What you were wearing when you were born."
"Humans get dressed up when they are born?" Blitz looked confused and a little disgusted. "How would that even work."
"It means naked. You were naked when you did the Rainboom. Dusk is naked right now. Ninety percent of ponies are naked all the time."
"Oooooh." Blitz said in realization, then thought for a bit. "Why didn't he just say naked then?"
"Imp, please tell me you got the pattern down properly this time!"
"Well, I've got it," Imp held the bright blue broach up to me. "But it needs something to work on. You don't have wings, so it's going to borrow your power and your cape to give you some. Temporarily at least."
I clasped the thing in front of my throat and felt a surge of power. A moment later the pressure from the magical headache dropped.
"Alright, I think it's working. How do I turn it on?"
"No idea boss, it's supposed to be intuitive."
I looked around, noting our location in Dusk's front lawn and grumbled. With a sigh I began to swish my cape around, flap it around, run while holding it out, anything to make it work. All I got was chuckles from Dusk and Blitz, along with some odd stares from ponies on the road.
"Well, I've got no idea. Dusk?"
The unicorn's horn lit with a purple glow. "I can detect your magic on the stone, and on the cape, but it still seems inert." Dusk tapped his foot to his chin a few times. "Maybe, since Imp recorded Blitz in flight, you need to be up in the air to use the power?"
I did a little hop while glaring at the smirking Blitz. "I'm already the laughing stock of the block. If I'm seen jumping off ladders while flapping my arms, I'm gonna get laughed out of town."
"That's alright, I've got an idea."
The huge purple sack overhead rustled as the arcane heater pushed more hot air into the envelope. Never a fan of heights in any situation, I was huddled at the bottom of the balloon basked with a white knuckle grip on a rope.
"THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA!" I yelled at Dusk again.
"<Is he still complaining?>" Dusk asked Imp, who nodded. I'd been complaining since we got off the ground, but Dusk was certain this was going to work. He was going to have me jump from the balloon at a reasonable height of a few hundred feet, which would give me time to work out the fight mechanics before I hit the lake below. Said lake was why my translation spell was currently off.
Blitz was following along under his own power, and had been trying to reassure me with calm gestures. It wasn't helping.
"<Alright, we are at the proper height. Time for him to jump.>" Dusk said.
"It's go time boss." Imp tugged at my shirt with a grin. "Come on."
"You can tell them I'm not jumping out of a perfectly good balloon." I saw a gleam in Imp's eye. "And you are not going to sabotage it just to make me jump."
"<Why is he still sitting there?>" Dusk asked, "<Science awaits.>"
I stood up and got right in the pony's face. "You put me back on the ground right now!"
Dusk waved over the edge of the basket.
I shook my head.
Dusk made a pleading gesture followed by a motion to the edge. Blitz mimicked a dive.
I stomped my foot, crossed my arms, and shook my head.
I realized that I had let go of the rope I was holding to do so about the time a purple aura enveloped me and threw me from the balloon. I fell, screaming, kicking my feet and flailing my arms. I was going down and all I wanted was to go up instead just a little-
For a brief moment my cape seemed to unflurl and a pair of translucent feathered wings appeared. They were the same black and tan as the cape, but looked like they were made of glass. The wings flapped once, and suddenly I was going upward again.
I'd done it! I'd mastered flight! I could soar among the clouds free and I'm Still FALLLING!
The uppward motion lasted only a moment before gravity grabbed me and pulled. Blitz, thinking I'd gotten it had backed off and was a little slow in getting to me before I hit the lake.
The water didn't burn, thank goodness, but my clothes and cape were not designed for swimming. I sturggled as the surface of the lake slipped further away. I didn't burn, but I still needed to breathe.
My boots touched the muddy bottom and I pushed off as hard as I could, reaching for a surface that was just beyond my fingertips. As I started to slip down again the wings came back. Their ghostly nature was even stranger in the water, as they had no drag or pull but still propelled me upwards.
I broke through the surface and gasped air, flailing about for help. As I started to sink again Blitz caught my arm and pulled, keeping me above water and dragging me to shore.
"<Stay with me! I've got you.>" he yelled, and I waved and smiled up at him. He let me go when the water was only about chest deep and I wadded the rest of the way.
Dusk sat on the shore, his magic already drying me off and scanning me over. Imp flew over to me as I worked to catch my breath.
"What happened boss?"
"Well, I got it to work, sort of."
Walking back I showed my mastery of my new skill, jumping in the air and producing a sudden woosh of ghost wings and a higher elevation. I caught a tree branch that was nearly fifteen feet off the ground and hung there for a moment.
"It has to be your inter-dimensional nature, like with the telekinetic spheres." Dusk said.
"There's no wind or air movement from you flapping." Blitz noted. "How is that even possible?"
"I could do it submerged too with no resistance." I looked to Imp. "Any explanation would help."
"I don't think you are pushing against the air when you flap, more like you are pushing against reality." Imp looked over the amulet. "If I had time and your companion, we might be able to perfect this, but right now it looks like you have to reset after each flap."
"Yeah, I noticed I couldn't flap again after hanging from the tree." I paused to rub my sore legs. "But there's another question I've got. Dusk teleported down to the shore after splashdown right?"
"Of course!" Dusk put a hoof to his chest. "I was worried about you."
"Where is your balloon?"
Both ponies paused, looked at me, looked at each other, and then glanced skyward where a purple dot was rapidly disappearing on the horizon.
"I got it!" Blitz cried, a rainbow blur streaking up into the sky.
Gilded Hoof opened the packet from the strange new Justin, levitating the silver letter opener (Minotaur Adjunct, 996 AN) and slipping the sharp edge in skillfully. The sheaf of papers slid onto the desk and Gilded lifted the gold and crystal manacle (Griffon Criminal Expulsion Request, 982 AN) and scanned over them. Each was filled out properly and appeared correct. After flipping through them all he lifted the papers up and shook them, followed by the envelope. Nothing else fell out.
Frowning, Gilded pulled a fresh piece of paper and lifted a gem encrusted quill (Princess Cerulean Information Request, 1000 AN) before scratching out a simple letter.
Dear Applicant,
We appreciate your continued vigor and determination in your goal of becoming an
Gilded paused and consulted the forms.
an Inter-dimensional ambassador for ARCO. We here in the Canterlot Records Office wish you the best and want to help you in any way we can. However, your recent application was missing a few Bits.
Gilded chuckled at the subtlety of that line.
Please resubmit the forms and double check that there is nothing else you wish to add.
Nodding, Gilded signed and sealed the note before dropping it in the mahogany outbox (Yak Damage Compensation Submission, 979 AN). He looked over the submitted forms before nodding to himself. They had been expertly completed, it was nice to see a creature taking the paperwork that made Equestria run so seriously for once. There wasn't any hoofprints, jelly stains or doodles anywhere.
With a smile on his face, Gilded selected three of the hardest forms and placed them in an old silver pail beside his desk (Dragon Migration Registration, 725 AN). His predecessors had always found great use for it. As soon as the papers hit the bottom there was a bust of dragon fire and the forms were no more.
The primer notes that worlds will often contain sentient creatures and that those creatures will gather into societies with rules and restrictions. It advises jumpers not to get involved with politics and whenever possible to find the sub section of society that has "slipped through the cracks." That way you can emulate the lost and society will ignore you and anything strange you do. The primer warns not to be too weird, or you will attract unwanted attention.
I've somewhat failed at this, seeing as how I'm living with a national hero and known to the local leaders.
The next bit of advice says that if you have attracted attention then be polite and diplomatic while promising nothing. It also recommends becoming familiar with local customs and taboo very quickly as certain outbursts can have different messages in different worlds.
Above all else avoid playing politics.
Which would be a lot easier if politics didn't keep playing me.
The letter in my hand was an anxiety inducing mess. It bore the seal of the equestrian royal family, meaning that anything in it counted as an order from the princes and one I was bound to obey. The internals were written in such flowery prose that the tech part of me started twitching. Anything that uses that many niceties to explain a simple invitation either wanted something desperate or was hiding something terrible.
The simple summary an initial reading produced was that some noble in Canterlot had heard of me, was interested, and had invited me to lunch. The only trouble was, as far as I knew, my presence was essentially unknown beyond Ponyville and the Princes. Even my horrific botch with the Saddle Arabian ambassadors had been kept almost entirely out of the papers.
So, somepony in Canterlot knew that I existed, that I was bound to Ponyville until a royal command released me, and that I might have something of value to offer. They wanted to meet me at a fancy upscale restaurant in the capitol city in a couple of days. My best suit had been badly damaged and stained during the incident with the ambassadors, and I needed transportation arranged and a bit of spending money.
"Dusk," I edged over to where the pony was reading, flinching a little as he jumped. He'd been twitchy around me since my last freak out, but wound't say why. "I hate to ask this, but can I get an advance on my salary?"
The purple pony frowned. "You know most of that is being set aside to repay damages right? How much do you need?"
"Enough for a round trip ticket to Canterlot." I presented the letter, which Dusk read through and scrunched his nose in disgust.
"Do you know who sent this?"
I shook my head. "The letter says Princess Cerulean Sanguine, but I've never heard of or met them."
"I haven't directly met her, but Elusive has. She's a stuck up brat by his reckoning, though he's never gone into exactly what happened."
"Royalty Elusive knows and you don't? Imagine that." I chuckled while Dusk rolled his eyes.
"They met at a ball about a while back. He never gave the details, but when I found him his outfit was a mess and he was covered in cake and red faced from yelling."
I raised my eyebrows. In the short time I'd been able to understand the ponies Elusive had come across as a creature of infinite generosity and unshakable manners. Whatever this princess had done in the span of a few hours had apparently rattled the stallion to his core. "Well, I've got to get my suit fixed. Maybe I should ask him?"
"I would advise against that." Dusk said, passing over a small purse of bits. "This should get you to Canterlot and back with a little extra for snacks on the train."
I looked at the five bits left in my hand and grumbled. While Dusk had given me more than enough for a standard train ticket to Canterlot the ponies at the station had tacked on a number of extra fees and fines that dropped a thirty bit surplus into a handful of change. I had asked for a detailed explanation and receipt which I would give Barb and Dusk when I got back to see if they were just bilking me for all I was worth.
The train car was spacious enough and I stretched out on the long bench of a seat. It wasn't an empty car, three other ponies occupied it. There had been more but they had all discretely moved before we'd left the station. Of those that were left one was Nocturne who sat across from me clutching a packet of forms. She still blushed a little when she made eye contact, even though I've apologized endlessly about cuddling her when I passed out from pain and regeneration.
The other two were conspicuous in their nonchalance. The first was a train conductor who seemed determined to keep an eye on me, as though I was going to go mad and break the train in transit. The other was a plainclothes guard. He had on a suit that looked similar to my new suit, but you could see the breastplate peeking out at the collar. Heck, his sword was sitting half out of the briefcase because it didn't fit.
I ignored them both as a courtesy, they were just doing their jobs after all. The train rocked back and forth and I looked out the window to watch the countryside pass in the morning sunrise. I shifted and tried to sit comfortably in the suit Elusive had sewn almost overnight.
He had done a fantastic job! The fit and cut of the suit looked amazing when I stood or sat. The medium blue shirt and dark red tie went well with the dark blue slacks and jacket, and the shiny brown boots he'd had crafted completed the ensemble nicely. It irked me only slightly that the thing was still mostly a jumpsuit. The tie covered a zipper that ran from my neck down to my waist. He'd also removed pockets from the suit itself since anything in them would "ruin the line" of the suit. I'd managed to talk him into placing a few pockets inside the jacket, the only separate piece aside from the shoes.
And oh god the shoes. Pretty as they might be, the things hurt just to wear. They had no cushion, no support, and squeezed down on my toes in a way that built pain slowly over time. More than once I had started to ask Imp if he could fix the issue.
Which he couldn't because Imp wasn't here. Imp wasn't coming with me to Canterlot. The creature had reached the final stages of unlocking my other companion and needed to shepherd it through activation. It was probably for the best that the foul mouthed pest was as far from Canterlot nobility as possible, but this still felt like a bad idea.
The restaurant was easy to find, nearly everyone I'd asked had heard of it. The general response of "You? You are looking for Le Noro?" was not uplifting to my confidence, but I did eventually reach my destination. The princess was equally easy to locate, and I spotted her at the back before the Maitre D had finished looking incredulous. Long flowing blond mane around an elegant horn, soft white coat, and a thin golden necklace that reminded me somewhat of Prince Solaris's regalia. She was not an alicorn as I'd thought, just a unicorn. Still it was clear from her private table in the middle of a fancy place like this that she had some clout behind her.
She smiled pleasantly at me as I sat and the head waiter moved away. "It is good to see you are a punctual being, that and your dress imply an understanding of respect that will take you far in your dealing with nobility."
"Thank you your, um, Majesty?" I was uncertain of the honorific I should use in this situation.
"Please, just refer to me as Princess." She glanced around my head and shoulders for a moment. "Did you come alone?"
I attempted to suppress my shock and nodded. Knowledge of me was limited, and knowledge of Imp even more so. It was clear the princess wasn't looking for pony guides or aides with her glance. She simply nodded in response, and pushed my menu towards me. "Order, and we shall discuss options to aid both of us."
The menu was not large, but the options were quite varied. I mentally crossed off the selections composed primarily of flowers or grasses and settled on a seared fish and pasta entree. The waiter arrived, poured us water and took our orders. While we waited I decided to broach the purpose of the meeting.
"Princess, while I'm quite happy to come to Canterlot and eat with someone as esteemed as you," I noted the increase in her smile at the praise, "I have to ask what the purpose of this meeting is. Your letter was somewhat vague."
"It was vague on purpose, since I'm unclear what you can do for me and what you might need from me." The princess sat back in her chair. "You represent a complete unknown in terms of political power, economic influence, and many other things. So the purpose of this meeting is to get the answers to two questions. What can you offer, and what do you need?"
I sighed slightly. "What I need, at the moment anyway, is help navigating the Equestrian political system. I've started filling out all of the forms for ARCO to be recognized as a foreign power and for me to be an official ambassador, but the process is .... involved." Fucking insane is more like it. I'd had half a dozen forms rejected on minor technicalities, and some of those had just been forms to request MORE forms.
The princess nodded in understanding. "That is something I might be able to help with," There was a stress on might that implied such help would be minimal or expensive. "But it depends on what you can offer me. What can you give me in terms of trade? Raw materials? Manufactured goods? food?"
"Princess I'm afraid material goods are not something I can realistically offer to you, at least not in the way you might get something from the Griffon Empire or the Dragon Lands. Shipping bulk material here is nearly impossible to do and would be worthless upon arrival."
"How could something like gold or silk be worthless?"
I unfurled my napkin and placed it over my hand. "Princess, I'm not sure how much you know about me but I am not from this world at all. I'm not even really here in some senses. I'm a me shaped imprint on the world, held in place by the will of the princes." I waved my hand under the napkin. "Once I go, anything I've brought with me would just fade away." I put my hand on the table and pulled it away, leaving the napkin to collapse flat without anything to support it.
The princess did not seem to like this answer and frowned. She was about to ask another question when our food arrived. A plate of pasta in a creme sauce was placed before the princess, and I had a bowl of thick noodles in red sauce with several small, almost blackened pieces of fish on top.
The first problem I had was when I reached for my fork. There wasn't one. There hadn't been anything in my napkin when I'd unfurled it. I looked up to see the princess lift a small ball of noodles in her telekinesis and pop it into her mouth. A quick glance around showed that all the other patrons were unicorns.
"ARCO is primarily interested in an intellectual and cultural exchange. We may not be able to sell you a train car or a candle directly but we could sell you designs to make better ones. That information would be provided in exchange for a percentage of profits on the new designs."
"You just told me that you couldn't bring anything here and leave it, but you want me to believe you can take our money and vanish with it?" The princess snorted. "Such scams have been tried before."
"I couldn't take the money with me any more than I could leave raw gold behind." I carefully picked up a piece of the fish and popped it into my mouth. The blackening was not just char but a collection of spices that hit me hard. I had to very carefully drink some of my water, careful not to spill a single drop. It didn't burn the inside of my mouth as much as my skin, but there was still an unpleasant sting.
"Then what use have you for money?"
"Me? Not terribly much. Those who come after me though would do well to have a bank account accessible. They could invest that income in local businesses or hire ponies to build the things we design."
"Ah yes, I understand the concept of capital. Still, this knowledge seems an expensive piece to bargain with. A single piece might be the key to vast fortunes or it might be worthless, it must be hard to set a price."
"I have another potential thing I can sell." I said, finishing another sip of water after another piece of fish. I was careful not to gesture with the hand I'd used to pick up my food. It was clear such actions were considered rude and I could hear a few whispered snide remarks. Still, what could I do? They hadn't given me anything to eat with.
"Oh?" The princess leaned forward interested.
"Myself."
The princess leaned back in disgust.
"Not in any unwholesome way." I quickly countered. "I have certain abilities here that could prove useful. An employer might find someone from ARCO to be exceptionally strong or fast, they could use them as a courier, worker, or even adventurer. Even hiring me on as an adviser to get access to some of that expensive knowledge might strike someone's fancy."
The princess nodded at this. "That's not a bad idea, you definitely look intimidating enough to be a bodyguard, and you are clearly smart enough for more educated work. What kind of tasks are you best suited for?"
I thought for a moment, concerned about my answer. As a technician I was generally good at fixing things and solving logical problems. I was skilled enough to kludge together complex devices out of simpler ones to solve specific problems, but the kludges were not long term solutions in most cases. "My skill set is primarily focused on problem solving and troubleshooting, especially in technical terms." I finally answered. "I wouldn't be much use as an accountant or manager, but I can generally fix simple problems."
"Well I'll have to look around and see if I have any problems you could work on for me." Her smile seemed genuine for the first time. "Then we can discuss payment for favors and such. I have to say this has been a most informative lunch, and I thank you for coming all this way to meet with me."
"Of course princess, how could I refuse royalty?" I gave a slight bow in my seat.
"If you will excuse me." The princess pardoned herself and rose, walking towards the back of the restaurant.
I finished off the fish portion of my meal and started on the noodles. Having only fingers this was a far messier task, but one I hurried with in hope of finishing before the princess returned. While I might be eating like a savage in front of the other ponies, I was at least not doing it in front of the princess.
I was three quarters done when the waiter appeared next to me and coughed. I wiped my mouth and hand on the napkin before turning to look up at him.
"We can offer you a to-go container."
"No need, I'll be done by the time the princess gets back."
"Gets back?" The waiter asked with an air of confusion.
"From the restroom?" How dense was this pony?
"Sir, the princess left fifteen minutes ago."
It was then that I realized the waiter held a small black rectangle in one hoof, presenting it gently to me. I picked up the black wallet and flipped it open to look at the bill. The menu hadn't listed any prices, going by the policy that if you had to ask then you couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford it anyway, I had five bits to my name.
"Is there a problem, sir?" He was louder than he needed to be, drawing attention of several nearby tables. There was also a slight intonation in his voice that said I know there is a problem, and I can't wait to put you in your place.
"Yes, there is." I said in a reasonable tone. "Bring me your manager."
The pony wavered only a moment at this before leaving. I pondered the bill and considered options. My very expensive round trip ticket could be refunded to pay for maybe half of the bill, provided I could get a full refund on this half of the trip and there weren't more fees to pay. I'd also be walking home. I could offer to wash dishes, but then said ticket would expire, I'd still be walking home, and I had no idea how long it would take. I considered faking a medical illness, but I wasn't sure I could do it well enough to get me out of trouble.
I was eyeing the glass of water in front of me and considering using it's corrosive nature on me in some way when the manager arrived. I rose to speak with him and he immediately disliked me. The dark brown unicorn stallion had walked up with his nose already in the air, ready to look down on me. Since I stood about as tall as Prince Solaris, the stallion had to decide weather to look me in the eye or risk breaking his neck to keep looking "down" his nose.
"What seems to be the problem, SIR?" the sir was stressed and degrading already.
"I will be straightforward, I don't posses the funds to pay this bill right now."
The waiter, who was hanging around behind the manager, sneered at me in delight. The manager raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I was wondering if there might be some other way of covering it."
"Such as?"
"I could work for you-"
"You? Work here?" The implied absurdity and raised volume produced a few chuckles from the impromptu audience.
"What are my options?"
"You could leave collateral and come back to pay." The manager looked me over. "Those rings on your claws-"
"No."
The manager and waiter both fell back a step. They had clearly expected push-back, but my strong refusal was far more than they anticipated. The manager was quick to rally though, and in a loud voice proclaimed "Then I shall have to call the guard." He waved a hoof, and I turned to see a pair of royal guards in shiny armor step into the restaurant. The timing on that was just a little too on point, they must have been called when I'd asked for the manager. Jail time was going to ruin my train ticket just as much as anything else.
"Now hold on," a new voice cut in, "This fellow is obviously new in town and this is no way to treat guests." A wealthy looking stallion in a suit stood from a table nearby and trotted over, placing himself between me and the manager. "I'm sure we can all work something out without bringing the guard into this.
The manager didn't look pleased but relented when the stallion produced a fat wallet. With a disgusted sigh the manager waved away the guards and he and the waiter left.
"Thank you." I said to the stallion.
He shrugged. "Its alright, you can pay me back later, alright?" I nodded and he grinned, pulling out a small pad of paper. "Let me get your name and address, just in case." I told him, and he raised an eyebrow at Ponyville but nodded and kept writing. Once he had everything down, he handed me a card.
"Send what you can here." He said, scratching out the hundred and seventy five bit amount of the loan on the back.
"Thank you mister," I glanced at the card. "Selachimorpha?"
"Call me Lend," he chuckled, "Family name is always hard to pronounce."
With a grin and a wave I set out for the train.
I groaned as I walked through Ponyville in the early evening, rolling my shoulders and stretching. The trip to Canterlot had been uncomfortable on the hard benches, but at least I was able to stretch out a little. The ride back had been a small nightmare. First I was sandwiched between two loud stallions who were discussing some sports team called Dab Airs, then I nearly tripped over a filly running down the aisle when I went to the bathroom. The mom, who hadn't been paying attention until her child started hollering, was raising such a fuss a conductor had to come sort it all out. I ended up trying to walk the train to keep from getting cramps but that pony kept hollering every time I passed that I ended up asking to be moved to a rear car. I spent the last half of the trip sitting on an uncomfortable crate in a cargo car.
Still, be it ever so humble and all that jazz. I was actually looking forward to a light dinner and a quiet evening.
So I was surprised when I opened the door to find a sixteen inch tall silver woman in a dark blue evening gown with neon blue and green wings fluttering in my face. She looked me over, folded her arms and spoke in a clear and beautiful voice.
I am going to find the people who wrote the primer.
And I am going to do horrible, unspeakable things to them.
"You are a complete idiot." The cyber fairy reiterated. It had said it about a dozen times so far.
"Any chance you are going to quit saying that?"
"Yes," She said, "When you stop being a complete idiot."
"Alright, you want to go into why I'm a complete idiot?"
"You would literally die of old age before we got halfway through the list." She said. "So I'll summarize. You are, without a doubt, the very worst jumper in the history of ARCO. You have done everything you could do to entangle yourself and you are so close to critical that there is essentially no escape other than to march right back to your conversion pod and leave right now. This instant."
"It's fine." I said, waving her off. "I'm establishing a diplomatic foothold for future ARCO-"
"There isn't going to be any future ARCO anything in this world." She snapped. "Not for a century, and all because of you."
"Listen Pixie-" I started. The sprite froze in place for a moment, it's technicolor blur of wings freezing to show the neon light pattern that looked like one of those mathematical fractal pictures.
"Did- did you just name me?" She asked.
"Um-"
"Did you just Name me? On assignment? WHILE OFF WORLD?!" She was screaming now, and the wings were buzzing so fast she looked like she was glowing.
"What's wrong?" Imp asked, "He named me too."
Pixie stared at me like i'd grown a second head. "How are you so bad at this?"
"What's going on?" Dusk asked as he ran in. "Imp said he was going to power up your other assistant and then there is a bright flash and yelling."
"Now you know how I feel." Barbra snarked as she followed the unicorn in.
"Oh, um Dusk this is my other assistant Pixie." I waved my hand at the still stunned floating woman. "She's a little miffed at me right now for some reason."
"For- For some? Are you- Did you-" Pixie stuttered in frustration. "OK, private session. Imp, kill the translation."
"<What? Why?>" Dusk queried.
I raised an eyebrow to the fairy. "Whats up?"
"Who trained you?" She demanded.
"Um, no one." I said. "It's my first mission."
"Then where is the lead jumper?" She demanded.
"I'm on my own."
"You're on your- but you didn't get trained!" She was pulling at her hair, which seemed to manifest in long golden strands to compliment her silver skin. "How are you even functioning?"
"I read the primer."
"NO ONE READS THE PRIMER!" She yelled. "IT IS THE MOST USELESS WASTE OF WOOD PULP IN THE MULTIVERSE!"
"Geeze what is the problem?" Imp asked. "So it's a little unorthodox but it shouldn't be that big a deal. It's mostly a recon and first contact job anyway."
"Do you know how ARCO works?" Pixie asked.
"Jumper goes to world, gets anchor, spends time and returns the anchor to ARCO." I said. "ARCO drains the power from the anchor and we get cheap electricity and potential tech trade."
"What power?" Pixie asked, "What kind of power?"
"Dimensional displacement energy." I snapped off liked they'd taught us in tech training 101. "Like potential energy, the anchors represent a sort of weight with the height as the distance between dimensions."
"Then why does an anchor gain power the longer it is in it's home dimension?" Pixie asked. "A weight doesn't do that. Don't you know what kind of power you are playing with? This isn't some dimensional displacement power, this is something a lot bigger. You are playing with fate."
"That's a little dramatic don't you think?"
"It isn't a metaphor dumbass!" Pixie screamed. "YOU ARE LITERALLY USING FATE ENERGY!"
"What?"
A double face-palm and a groan of frustration. "Listen, some worlds have a kind of... power. Call it magic, psionics, or whatever, it has it and it has it in spades. Your home world doesn't have it, so you figured out a way somehow to go to worlds that do have it and sort of borrow it for a bit."
"How is that fate energy?" I asked.
"You literally cannot be this stupid. You would have drowned in a puddle by now if you were. Think for a moment, every world with that kind of power has a fate array. It's like some universal law or something."
"What is a fate array."
"Whoa, really?" Imp chimed in. "I thought you were messing with it on purpose."
I shook my head.
"Okay, so this world has power." Pixie said.
"Usually magic." Imp commented.
"Whatever, anyway this power is like a liquid sort of. It pools in places. Sometimes people or ponies or spider men or whatever work to collect it, sometimes it pools on it's own."
"But it can be dangerous if it's pooled together and doesn't have a focus or a target."
"Correct, so there is this feedback system called a fate array that targets collections of power and tries to assign them roles. If power is amassing in one location, it gets assigned a role as a villain or a hero."
"What?" I deadpanned.
"No, boss it's brilliant!" Imp said, grinning like a madman. "Like, say you got a wizard, right? If you name it a villian, then you can toss hero nodes against it and they will disperse each other. If you got a hero then you can usually set it up so it fights villian nodes."
"Yes, something along those lines." Pixie commented, "But the Fate Array can act in advance, whenever a buildup is just starting. Like if it sees a young child and the child has a great potential for power, the fate array will act on the world to create defining moments and set that child as a hero or villan."
"What do you mean set a defining moment?"
"A tragic accident might take a child's parents and make them devoted to justice or vengance or something." Imp said.
"The array is very effiecent though, if it sees something that matches some of it's key cliches it might start directing power to it. The more power directed, the more interconnected in the array you are."
"Dimension Jumpers and critters like us are natural outsiders, so we start off as an easy hook for the fate array. Usually jumpers will walk the line between hero and villian long enough to get power and get out."
"We never return to high magic worlds, the low magic ones can be farmed far easier than the high magic ones."
"Alright, I kind of followed all that," I said, "So why am I so stupid."
"You came unprepared into a magic heavy world!" Pixie was back to screaming. "You've just gotten back from a meeting with royalty. You live with heroes and have spoken with princes! YOU HAVE NAMED YOUR FAMILIARS!" She was gasping for breath now. "I'm not sure how many more classic cliches you can cross off before it gets irredeemable."
"Um."
"What?" Pixie asked in the most accusing voice I've ever heard. "What did you do?"
"No, see, it isn't my fault, I'm just a tech and-"
"A tech? You aren't even a jumper? Then why are you out here? Why didn't you go back your first night?"
"Look a jumper was missing and I had the data so I stole a pod-"
"Oh shit!" Imp said.
"You went after your friend!? What were you thinking? How could this get any worse? Are you planning on rescuing some unrequited love interest next."
I was very still and very quiet. Pixie looked at me with slowly widening eyes.
"No. No no. No no no no no. Don't you dare say-"
"Look Sarah was nice to me when I fixed her pod, so I'm a little sweet on her, it isn't a big deal."
"STRIKE ME DOWN!" Pixie screamed to the heavens. "STRIKE ME DOWN RIGHT FUCKING NOW! You are so tangled in the fate web that I doubt you could make it to your pod without stumbling across six magical treasures and an evil moon god!"
"Good news!" Imp cheered. "Her house mate already did that.
I stood very still for a few moments, the only thought entering my head was Dear Diary, today I learned that cyber pixies bang their heads against walls when frustrated just like humans do. Life is truly fascinating.
I convinced Imp to restore the translation spell long enough to keep Dusk from completely flipping out, explaining that all the shouting revolved around a poor resource allocation on ARCO's part and that my companions and I were going to have to spend a few hours figuring it out. Imp had managed to spin it so the translation spell was causing interference between him and Pixie, so it had to be shut down until the balance was found.
Thirty minutes of sorting through paperwork and notes later I had an impromptu meeting.
"So, what have you found?" I asked. "Am I a hero, a villain, a monster, or something else?"
"Keep in mind that it is near impossible to look at the fate array from the inside." Pixie said, raising a hand to ask me to be patient. "You have managed to use the worlds own nature to hamstring itself a little. Right now, until you manage to complete the forms for diplomatic status, you are a rogue element. Normally you could go either hero or villain with this, but you aren't doing either. You are sitting here, diligently filling out the forms."
"So I'm.... boring?" I asked.
"Yeah," Imp said, "But boring is good. The politics won't classify you till the paperwork's done, and as long as you don't act out beyond your basic political power, the array can't latch onto anything."
"It's got a catch to it though." Pixie put in. "You can't just stop doing paperwork, the stall is only effective if you are active. And, every piece of paperwork you turn in presents another vector for the array to act. It wants to cast you, and the longer you walk the tightrope, the harder it will be."
"Why not just go hero?"
"Two reasons." Pixie held up two tiny fingers. "One, it would be difficult at this point to push you in that path on purpose. The array might resent that and cast you as a villain instead. Two, as a hero you would be effectively on call for the array. A bad guy shows up and you would be directed to them to try and beat them, with no guarantee of success."
"Going villain is also a bad idea." Imp pointed out. "Cuz your plans will always get shot fulla holes. Even going shopping would get ya chased outa town."
"So I sit here and fill out forms until, what, I get cast?"
Pixie shook her head. "If it weren't for the missing jumper I'd say we just pack up and leave now. I'm still having trouble believing that ARCO would just abandon one of their own. Our plan is simple and comes in three parts. Part one, keep filling out paperwork. Part two, find the jumper. Part three, work on your energy imbalance."
"My what?"
Pixie glared at Imp. "Don't tell me you haven't dealt with the fate tangential energy buildup."
"A little." Imp replied. "He knows a kind of telekinesis he uses to bleed off the excess energy."
"Good, I can help with that." Pixie seemed to consider me for a bit. "Your energy will be unique in some ways, and having us as companions will alter it slightly. My skill allows me to craft or modify items and tools so they interact with your energy. A sword can become sharper, or a hammer easier to use. I'll get started on a tool for you."
"Nothing offensive." I put in. "Maybe something for mobility like giving me super speed or flight would be good."
"I'll see what I can do."
"With me you're stuck with mimicking abilities." Imp said. "Though they might all take on a somewhat destructive edge."
"Just like the companion who grants them." I muttered. "Theoretically useful, practically destructive."
"While we are not assisting you with paperwork or managing your magic, I will be working to construct a scanner so we can find our errant jumper." Imp put in. "Though I'm going to have to look over the pod you came in for records."
"No." I said firmly.
"What? Why?"
"Nevermind that." I said. "The pod is in a dormant state right now and you are going to leave it like that."
"Then how will I get the numbers for my calculations?" Pixie whined. "If I don't get at least starting numbers I won't know if I'm looking for someone in this town, this country or even this continent!"
"I brought all Sarah's files with me, including the readings for this one. Just pull the numbers from there."