//------------------------------// // Dreamkeepers // Story: Bloom Filter // by ferret //------------------------------// So it turns out that levelling an entire forest, on short notice when you’re a baby small horse is easier to talk about, than it is to accomplish. Apple Bloom had Cheerilee’s support, but... Cheerilee wasn’t quite as vindictive about that particular copse. It was kind of crazy, if fun, to imagine just mowing down all those trees and getting rid of whatever it is once and for all, but on the other hand, Apple Bloom didn’t want to wake it up! If it could wake up, whatever it was that was making people forget. Sweetie and Scootaloo broke free right away, thus binning yet another hypothesis for a measurable earth pony power. But it was hard on both of them too, and they didn’t know what to do about it, either. It didn’t seem like anyone who was still human could get past the memory block at all, and that took out a lot of (legal) options for modifying the Apple family’s property. Scootaloo had the bright idea to snap Noi out of it, on account of Noi technically being a police sergeant could authorize just about whatever. Apple Bloom hesitated at that though, unsure of whether she wanted to put that kind of burden on the wheat colored filly. Bad enough that Apple Bloom’s own family didn’t believe her, if Noi tried to get the police involved, her whole police department wouldn’t believe her. They wouldn’t be able to believe her! It was so peculiar this sort of friendship Apple Bloom found she was developing with Noi. That filly looked, and... well, acted like a kid! Apple Bloom wouldn’t have known Noi was a police sergeant except when her squad was around for her to boss around. She was playing games with the three of them, running around and dancing with them, and even joining in on the occasional impromptu musical number. Noi wasn’t even that good at policing, no matter how much she might’ve tried to deny it. She worked hard, and she knew so much, but... it was like some kid from Apple Bloom’s gym class had just been put in a police outfit, and told that the whole city depended on her to take care of them. Even Noi was starting to pick up on this, and you could see it hurt her terribly. She had all this knowledge about laws and enforcement, and when it came time to discipline someone into submission, she just couldn’t summon up the will to do it. There was a time that Apple Bloom had been dead set on stealing a chainsaw (for some crazy reason), and Noi had actually shrunk back from her! “You’re just gonna run out there, and cut all those trees down?!” Noi exclaimed at her. “Why??” “Well, ah cain’t exactly tell you, without ...problems,” Apple Bloom said cautiously, “But I swear it’s for good reason!” “Just because it’s... good reason doesn’t mean you can just... um...” Noi said, cringing with embarassment, and saying “but they’re not your trees!” “They’re on my property!” Apple Bloom huffed. “Ah just ain’t the title holder, but I’m part of this family too!” “Well, maybe you could... ask the title holder?” Noi suggested, an uncertain waver in her violet eyes. “That’s Granny Smith, right?” “Suppose it has to be,” Apple Bloom said, giving Noi a thoughtful look, “She’s the only actual adult around here.” Apple Bloom was thinking more about Noi’s status than of Granny though, at this point. Noi seemed like she was even younger than her sometimes. Noi seemed to pick up on that something was odd then, and shook her head violently, saying, “Sorry I... yeah, it’s like a city code violation! Can’t just cut down trees in the middle of the city without—oh actually we’re on the outskirts hm...” The little tan pony trailed off again, and looked away. “You know I actually have no idea,” she mumbled, “have to look it up, but it just seems... bad, okay?” “Ah’m mostly just complaining,” Apple Bloom admitted. “You’ll be the first to know if’n I figure out any sort of actual plan to do with... the woods.” “What woods?” Noi asked curiously. Apple Bloom grimaced. She had to do something about this sooner than later. But what would pushing against it do? If they broke enough ponies out of it, would it backfire on them somehow? Were those alien pony girls hiding something in the woods, and using their... nonexistent magic to keep people away? Or, maybe it wasn’t the girls at all, but instead the source of that mysterious dream that Apple Bloom had? The dream that hid in those very woods that golden apple she dreamt about, what might be the key to the salvation of her humanity? Speaking of dreams—and Noi—Apple Bloom had a lot to do in her sleep these days, travelling from dream to dream in different ponies’ heads. She, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) Noi were all getting pretty good at dream hopping. Apple Bloom hardly had to stomp a hoof to stabilize herself, and it didn’t take her more than a moment to find the pathway into the next person’s dream. Meanwhile, all was lost. The earth had fallen. The barest pockets of humanity remained, clinging to life in the harshest of conditions, and everywhere else, zombie ponies stalked the earth. An unstoppable plague of mindless, candy colored creatures that had once been men. Their sugary touch would corrupt your flesh and consume you to fuel the growth of more twisted abominations. The piercing scream cut off, as another gaunt, pink zombie pony fell in half before an oversized sword held firmly in a little yellow pony’s teeth. “They’re swarming!” Apple Bloom shouted, from where she stood in a mysterious white cloak beside that little yellow pony, as more and more horrible beasts poured out from the surrounding buildings and houses, climbing out of windows, pushing down broken doors, all trying to catch them, to infect them! ...even if they were already ponies. “We gotta find the dreamer!” Sweetie Belle shouted to them from up on the rooftop, picking off corpses one by one, as they stalked up behind Noi trying to flank her. A black rifle floated beside the unicorn, with a sparkling, ruby red glow all around it. “Ah’m goin’ in!” Apple Bloom shouted, kicking in the door of the building they were trying to defend, the last one that hadn’t been overrun by these things. Noi backed in after Apple Bloom, slamming and barring the door. The two ponies backed up from it warily at the eerily creaky silent building around them. Then the rotting wood splintered as a diseased hoof slammed through it, groping for them. “Why didn’t she reach the roof?” Noi shouted, lopping off the hoof with her spinning blade. “Somethin’ must’ve got in her way!” Apple Bloom cried, charging for the stairs. Noi seemed to want to linger, but she couldn’t shore up the door, so she gallopped away too, bounding up the stairs even as the door busted in and zombie ponies came pouring forth. “Why does everyone dream that we’re a zombie plague?!” Apple Bloom demanded in exasperation. Noi didn’t answer, just kept focused forward and upward, sword held across her back... somehow. The third floor stairwell was broken in, and both ponies heard the cries for help coming within the floor. Charging in through an office complex of identical cubicles, they followed the damage until they found the dreamer in question, a battered and scraped lime green pony with a ragged, disarrayed mane of striped orange, crying out, “Please, I’m not one of them!” She was surrounded by four angry human beings, all armed to the teeth. “Well, that’s new,” Apple Bloom remarked curiously. A flying kick took out the one with the baseball bat, Apple Bloom’s hooves connecting with a solid thunk as the figure didn’t even change in his angry expression as he went soaring out the window at ludicrous speeds. Noi took out the two with rifles, their weapons hardly suited for close range even after the yellow filly sliced them in half at the barrel. Not even pausing to destroy the remaining constructs, Apple Bloom grabbed the mare by her cheeks and said right to her face “Roof! Get to the roof! Go!” The mare rose up and stumbled off on frightened hooves, while the remaining three humans squared off against the two fillies. The two disarmed ones now had a pipe and a crowbar respectively, and the third didn’t hesitate to unload her handgun on the two of them. Noi blocked the bullets with her sword, while Apple Bloom sent the angry, gun-toting lady slamming into the ceiling, then finished her off with that switchblade attached to her right hoof. The lady exploded in a cloud of grey smoke, even as the redheaded pony drove up through her midsection. “Where’s—ow!” Noi said, backing up as the other two were wailing at her with their respective tools of pain, “Scootaloo? Ow! Stop that—ow!” She cut one of the humans in half, the one with the eyepatch, the two halves similarly vanishing into smoke, while the bald guy knocked her across the room. “Little help!” she shouted out as a bunch of crates were shattered with the impact of her body. “On it!” Apple Bloom said, giving the last human another buck, sending them flying out the window just like the first one. Helping Noi out of the rubble, Apple Bloom shouted to Noi, “C’mon, Scootaloo said to be on the roof!” With the humans dispatched, the oddly reluctant zombie ponies suddenly started to flood up the stairwell. “Said she knew this game!” Noi gave a sharp nod and took off at a solid gallop, carving a path through the shambling pony corpses as she did. The two fought their way into the stairwell, and went charging up after the fleeing tail of the mare they’d saved. They got up there and Noi slammed the door to the rooftop, looking from the confused dreamer mare, to Apple Bloom. With her hair whipping in the wind, Noi shouted in the whistling wind that battered her so, “What now!” Sweetie Belle had been waiting for them up there, and running up beside Apple Bloom, the white unicorn stuck a hoof up in the air shouting, “Look!” Everyone on the roof looked up, to see a helicopter descending from above. At the helm, waving a cocky one-hooved salute their way, three guesses as to who was piloting it, and the first two don’t count. It seemed almost serene as it landed, and they stumbled into the machine, the rotors winding up as it picked up off the ground. A zombie pony that was suddenly there leapt for the edge of the helicopter, but it got a 20mm round to the face, courtesy of Sweetie Belle. As the helicopter flew away from the ruined city, the mare they rescued looked at them in shock and relief, saying, “You mean I’m not the only one who hasn’t turned?” “Nopony’s turnin’ into any zombies today, ma’am,” Apple Bloom said confidently to the larger yet somehow so much more vulnerable pony. “Gonna get you to safety now, so you should get some rest.” The mare’s smile was a sweeter reward than any of their kill counts, and she settled down right there on the floor and drifted off, the rest of the world sort of smearing into nonexistence as she did. “Huh,” Noi said, looking around at the bluish colored nothingness in which they were floating. “This is what it looks like when someone stopped dreamin’,” Apple Bloom explained. “See if you can hold it a while. Focus on the dreamer, how they’re all sleepin’ peaceful, and then just stabilize.” When she felt like Noi had taken the reins, Apple Bloom relaxed her concentration, looking with more attentiveness around at the surrounding area. It had a texture to it, sort of traces of light like bleeding in from a great distance. Then Noi said “Whoop—” and they both woke up. “Welp,” Apple Bloom whispered to Noi from over Scootaloo’s sleeping form in the middle of the night. “One more nightmare taken care of.” “Sorry I lost it,” Noi whimpered unhappily. “I wonder where that place is, when someone’s not dreaming?” “No problem,” Apple Bloom whispered back, “And ah dunno. Honestly it’s like tryin’ to hold onto a greased pig so don’t be hard on yourself. Only gotta hold it steady long enough to get to another dream before they wake you up, if’n you wanna stay sleeping.” “Can’t believe you know all this about dreams!” Noi said in honest astonishment. Apple Bloom felt herself blushing lightly, saying, “Well, the princess showed me a lot before she went all loopy... but I did figure out the staying outside a dream part on mah own. It don’t even work if the dreamer actually wakes up. And... ah may have been reading a book about sleep science, or two.” “Let’s get back to sleep,” Noi whispered. “See how the others are doing.” Noi was determined to master the art of dreaming like a pony, especially after she heard about what happened to Scootaloo. She couldn’t stand the idea of a bunch of kids going into that, without her being there to protect them. But again, that was more wishful thinking than reality, as Noi was the most inexperienced of the three of them. Apple Bloom had been working on some pretty intense dream training for almost half a year, so she was decent at teaching Noi, but Noi hadn’t even had a chance to even meet the dream princess, so all Noi could learn was whatever the CMC had learned, that they could teach her. But like many things, Noi was absolutely relentless in her pursuit of that, and her dedication was paying off in a way that Piña’s cheerful exhuberance, or Elias’s scientific curiosity could not match. Plus, in a certain sense, Noi was into it for the thrill of danger. There was always that threat that the princess might come after them, or they might catch up to her, or that something might go wrong in someone’s dream. They were pretty much surfing blind through this sort of thing at this point, and there was little indication of what would provoke the dire yet waffly warning that came from the Twilight Sparkle in the waking world. “Dreams are nothing to toy with,,” Twilight said to Apple Bloom once, in a very serious tone. “Only Princess Luna is allowed to go into other pony’s dreams. What you three are doing is... well, it probably would be forbidden, if it wasn’t so unprecedented. In my world, nopony leaves their dreams, because Luna keeps everypony safe in their own dreams. The secrets of dreamwalking, she remains fiercely guarded on, yet in this world, your dream princess taught you it openly, and freely. I’m... kind of jealous really.” “We’ll be very careful, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said, and before Twilight could warn her even more, Apple Bloom cut in with, “She’s the most dangerous thing in our dreams right now. We gotta learn how to do this if we wanna defend ourselves from that crazy princess!” “I haven’t ever really dreamt any other way,” Scootaloo added. “I wouldn’t know how not to dream walk, or whatever you call it.” “Three very good points,” Twilight had sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. Whatever dream muscles she had as a pony, Apple Bloom sure had to exercise them, because in the past months, dreams had served not just as training, but as an invaluable source of information. New people changed into ponies every day, more and more every month. They were getting two new ponies showing up at the farm every day now. People were starting to get worried. People were starting to panic. And worried, panicking people who were ponies, were starting to have nightmares. Bad ones. Sometimes it was zombies. Sometimes it was government experiments. Sometimes it was being trapped, or helpless, or exposed up on a stage for all to see. Sometimes it was about their closest friends rejecting them for what they’d become; sometimes it was about their closest friends becoming something they could not accept, or trust. And sometimes... it was like... this: Trotting through the burning building in full fireman’s gear sized for a pony, the dreamwalkers hosed down the wood until it was soaking and unlit. The pony they uncovered was a blue haired filly with a light yellow coat of fur, who was trapped under some burning rubble. “C’mon, we gotta get you out of here!” Scootaloo asserted, trying to lift the filly, a pegasus it turns out, only to drop her in shock when the filly squealed out in pain, louder than anyone they’d ever dreamed about before. “The heck?!” Scootaloo blurted, scrambling back in alarm. “What’s wrong!?” Apple Bloom asked the filly, pushing up her visor to see better. The rubble that had fallen on her was mostly cleared away, but the filly still wasn’t standing up. Her eyes were tearing up as she hissed, “My leg,” and glancing at it, Apple Bloom could see her right rear leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, even moreso than usual for ponies. “Listen,” Noi said to her seriously, while the others surrounded the pony in uncertain caution, the eaves of the building overhead groaning worriedly as the whole thing threatened to come down on them. “This isn’t real,” Noi said, “You aren’t really hurt. You’re just dreaming.” “What?” the filly whispered breathlessly, looking at Noi with unfocused eyes. “You can wake up from this,” Apple Bloom said next to Noi, “It’s just a dream. You’re only dreamin’ you’re hurt.” “No I’m... not?” said the filly, looking down at herself. “Ah know it seems real, but—” Apple Bloom started, before the filly whirled her head to face Apple Bloom, belting out in sudden urgency, “I’m not dreaming! I really am hurt! I swear I’m not dreaming—you have to help me!” “Ah’m tellin’ you the truth!” Apple Bloom protested. “We’re in your dream. You’re just dreamin’!” “I’m not dreaming!” she shrieked back at her in total panic with sweat trickling down her temple. “I’m really hurt, for real!” Apple Bloom was going to say something more, but Sweetie Belle was in her face then, saying urgently, “Where are you?” “Where...?” she responded disorientedly, turning to face the unicorn. “Where are you right now?” Sweetie insisted. “What happened?” Apple Bloom backed up, as the fires around them faded, while the filly said, “I was... couldn’t open my door so I just...” The whole building faded to darkness in fact, but not a pitch black darkness, just the cold, open darkness of a road passing by. “Where are you though?” Sweetie continued to demand. “What road?” “I—the highway,” she said tensely, climbing to her feet to tell them, “You have to—!” Then her dream tore itself apart so fast, Apple Bloom wasn’t sure where she was when she woke up. She was, of course, safe in bed, and laying there under the covers, she murmured into the darkness, “What the heck was—” Apple Bloom didn’t finish her sentence, because another pony in her bed had already risen, and was jumping over the other ponies sleeping on her floor, on the way to the door. As that little pony slipped through the door, Apple Bloom heard her hooves clatter down the hallway, and down the stairs. “Where’s Noi going?” Apple Bloom heard Scootaloo say groggily. “I think she’s going to get help,” Sweetie replied. “About that dream?” Apple Bloom asked thoughtfully. “What was going on with that filly in the dream? You think she needs help?” “I think she was telling the truth,” Sweetie said quietly. Any doubts the alien pony girls Twilight and Sunset had about the four of them walking through dreams pretty much evaporated, after a file clerk by the apt name of Rainy Feather was found on the side of the highway, having gotten hit by a car when she tried to make it to the farm on foot at night, in the later stages of the transformation. It was only the second night, when she’d passed out from exhaustion, that anyone knew she’d been hit. Because they managed to reach her pony dreams. There hadn’t been any... fatalities so far, as a direct consequence of transforming into a pony. Pretty good for about 200 ponies and a city of over fifty-thousand. Accidents had been minor, with the exception of Rainy Feather, and he (now she) was responding well to pain medication, and could put some weight on her leg when it was set and splinted. Unlike horses, Equestrian ponies had plenty of muscle tissue in their legs, and she had been struck rather than crushed, breaking her hoof on landing. Pegasus bones were more fragile than earth pony bones, but Rainy joked with Scootaloo as she hobbled around the farm, that she wouldn’t need her hooves anymore, after she got her wings working. Apple Bloom was starting to get hints of the dream princess again. Just passing glimpses as she tore through some nightmare or another. Whatever the dream princess was supposed to be doing to protect them she sure wasn’t, and every time Apple Bloom tried to follow her, chase those fragments of a hint of a princess, it was like trying to think about a square circle. Like fishing for catfish, by wrapping your hooves around them and holding on for dear life. Wherever the princess was, in whatever state she was in, she definitely didn’t want to be found. Apple Bloom had the strangest suspicion their dream princess was pouting. Sweetie Belle was having dream troubles of her own. She hadn’t told the others about it, but she’d been going on her own to visit the purple and blue unicorn known as Elias at times. It’s not that she didn’t trust her friends, but Elias’s dreams as of late had been really... vulnerable. Sweetie didn’t really want anyone else to have to deal with it, for Elias’s sake. Elias was dreaming about being a pony, and being a... girl, and it really showed how Elias felt about that, by what she was dreaming about. Being obsessed with your new anatomy was one thing, but Elias wasn’t dreaming about having any fun with it. So Sweetie kind of started... hanging out with her in dreams. If for nothing else to avoid having the poor filly dreaming about walking around with a broom—with some very odd things happening to her. Elias didn’t even seem to feel it when something should have felt so much, that it would wake her up. It was more about the spectacle in her mind, and having troublesome things to deal with, even if those things were completely ridiculous scenarios. That’s what dreams are for, Sweetie supposed, but this? This was ridiculous! The other men gone mares like Cherry Spice, or Jim (now going by just Red), seemed pretty normal about it, if a bit disturbing at times for the crazy notions they had about what a woman was. Dreams of over the top fashion shows, giggling tea parties, being held prisoner up in a tower while the brave knight outside charges the dragon, with another knight riding on top of his back. But for Elias, it was starting to get out of hand. That Elias was also curious about magic, and really fun to talk with may have also played a part in Sweetie Belle’s interests. For Elias’s latest nightmare, it was an over-the-top fashion show, but not a... normal one. Elias was forced to wear a flowery gown again, with ruffles on the sleeves and a lace fringe, and trapped up on a stage in front of every other pony. To make matters worse, a fan was blowing, making Elias’s dress billow up and get caught around her waist, exposing her privates for every pony to see. There was a stairwell up to the stage, for interested stallions to come up so that Elias would perform her marely duties, which usually got... really disturbing. There laying against the wall of the stage was that stupid broom, that in the nonexistent wind, it wobbled and threatened to tip forward and fly through the air right into... Well, Sweetie kicked that thing out of harm’s way, first off. Then with an identical dress to Elias’s, she let the wind pick her up into the air, and went soaring right past the surprised filly. “Hi Elias!” Sweetie Belle called out as Elias looked up at her in shock. As Elias’s attention fell on her, the breeze began drifting Sweetie Belle around in circles like a dandelion, making her dress poof out like a waist mounted umbrella. At the laughter below, Sweetie wanted to put her tail between her legs, but she forced herself to relax because this was about helping Elias get more comfortable with her body, not more insecure about it. At last landing lightly on the stage, she trotted up to the other filly and said, “Showing off your new dress, huh?” “Oh, yeah,” Elias said in her softly sweet voice, with a self conscious blush. “I don’t really want to wear it though. But I have to b-because...” “Yep, you sure are a girl,” Sweetie said frankly. “Nice girly dress, just like the stallions want us to wear.” Elias’s ears went down at this, but Sweetie had a plan. Elias whispered, “Don’t say that! The stallions will hear you, and then they’ll make us t-take care of them!” Sweetie looked over to the stairwell, where a number of bulky brutes were trotting up onto the stage, exposing their sides and... other things, for the two fillies to see. “Do we have to?” Sweetie sighed in an exaggerated whine. “We have to,” Elias insisted, “I don’t want to be one of those girls who... says no.” Elias was inexorably drawn to walk towards the stallions, and Sweetie found herself caught along with it. So far so good. “They only want us to wash their sides,” Elias said, picking up the sponge from the bucket, and rearing up onto the stallion, polishing his gleaming magenta flank like it was the side of a car. “It w-won’t get any more than that.” It always got more than that. Time to end this. “Excuse me,” Sweetie Belle said to the stallion she was... scrubbing for some reason. “Do you want to force us to do this, mister stallion?” “What?” the stallion said in a deep basso profundo, his expression unreadable as she wasn’t able to look at his face directly. “We’re being forced to do this,” Sweetie told him. “Do you want us to do this against our will?” “No,” the stallion replied, looking down at her in surprise. “I thought you wanted to do this!” “So, you don’t like it when fillies have to do this, and don’t want to?” Sweetie asked. “No, only if you want it,” the stallion repeated, “I don’t want to hurt any fillies.” “Then can you help us escape?” Sweetie asked. “We won’t have to do this, if you help us.” “Sure thing,” grunted the horse sized stallion, who went and squared off against the other stallions. While they clashed like titans, Sweetie grabbed Elias, and led her off down the stairs the stallions came from. They ended up in the audience, where the team of stallions had assembled themselves into a Battle of the Bands style laser light show. As the light flickered across their fur, Sweetie said to Elias, “Do you really think fillies have to do this? Maybe we’re just people, and we can just be ourselves, and have fun.” It was just like what Rarity said a few years back, when Sweetie and her friends joined the school newspaper. The three had thought that being journalists meant so many things you had to do, so many ways you had to act, but in the end the best thing to do is just what you feel is right, and let your true colors shine through. Or else you’ll get sucked into a web of lies that just gets weaker, and more constricting as time goes on. “But what about pregnancy?” Elias whined pleadingly to Sweetie. “What about s-s—the thing you do to a woman? They could do it to me now!” “Some things are different, yes,” Sweetie admitted. “But we don’t have to do anything about it. Just do what you normally do, and let the differences take care of themselves.” Elias looked down at the ground, the sounds and dancing diminishing around them as the dreamer thought to herself, reluctantly. “I’m... afraid it’ll make me want it,” she said at last, looking at Sweetie Belle with searching purple eyes. “I don’t feel the same about girls anymore as I... remember feeling. What if I have to... to want it?” “I haven’t quite been old enough, I think,” Sweetie said uncertainly, “But even if you do want um... boys, it won’t make you a different person. It’s just like... it’s like hay.” “Hay?” Elias said in confusion. Sweetie nodded. “You didn’t like hay before, and now you do. But you’re not a different person. You just... started liking hay.” “Sex is a bit more violating than hay,” Elias mumbled. “Are you kidding?” Sweetie countered. “Hay goes way deeper than that ...other thing. It goes all the way into your stomach!” A smile flickered across Elias’s round, blue muzzle, and a light of comprehension deep within her eyes. “Thanks, I think,” she said in relief. Then the dream dissolved, and falling out of it, Sweetie Belle snorted awake. Elias had enough troubles to even think about leaving her own dream, so Sweetie Belle still rolled with the CMC for the most part. Really, with so many ponies around to pay attention to, it was just about impossible for Sweetie Belle to make even more friends. They all just started to blur together, at some point. Sweetie just stuck by her core friends, and tried not to sweat the small stuff, spending the rest of her spare time totally not stalking the unicorn pony known as Vinyl Scratch, or DJ-PON3 as she liked to be referred to. There were an embarassment of unicorns at the ranch these days. First it was Elias, then Cherry, then Vinyl, then... well Sweetie lost track at that point, but there were over 2 dozen unicorns now. Only 8 of them were foals though, with only 2 unicorn colts. New foals continued to show up in small bursts every now and then, but had pretty much evened out to a still skewed but more sensible situation where there were about twice as many adults as foals. Twilight and Sunset still said it was more foals than predicted, statistically. But it wasn’t just foals and Cheerilee. As the most magical unicorn of all of the unicorns in the world, which is to say the only one who had successfully lit up her horn and used telekinesis, Vinyl Scratch was of particular interest to Sweetie Belle. Sweetie wanted to learn about magic as much as possible, so she wanted to learn about the pony who actually used magic. Vinyl used enough magic even to convince Professor Discord to come out of his funk enough to help them out! Boy what Sweetie would have given to see the look on that grouchy old man’s face, when Vinyl levitated something right in front of his eyes. Quite a while back, Professor Discord was tired of everything. He couldn’t believe what people were going off on nowadays. Some sort of pony plague that turned everyone it touches into ponies. Oh they tried to play it off as some sort of ‘mystical phenomenon’ bullshit, but it was just more blowhards pretending to bend the spoon with their mind, trying to weasel out of the responsibility for doing something so incredibly moronic as making pony contagious. He wasn’t looking forward to it himself, and did his best to stave off any infection by avoiding all social interaction and glaring down anyone who bothered to try to approach him. It wasn’t easy though. He’d been a better man, once. He had dreams once, ambitions. None of those ambitions involved being a high school statistics teacher, however. It was nothing but the ordinary mundanity of reality that had crushed his dreams forever. Everything he studied just led him around in circles. Mathematics was, as he discovered, a kind of mental masturbation, patting yourself on the back for following the rules that you declared should be followed. Science was just an exercise in utter futility. Once, he’d hoped that he could do incredible things by manipulating the underlying probabilities, unrolling the fifth dimension and such, but all his studies had proven to him was that doing those things was entirely impossible. He tried to make a model for self renewing energy, only to find that the very idea was a fundamental paradox. Portals to other worlds that those girls had raved about, those were beyond impossible. It would take the gravity of a supermassive black hole to create a traversal at all, and it would take an entire galaxy worth of negative energy just to open the damn thing. There was literally no other way to do it. You study the equations, the observations about gravity and physical consistency, and you learn that the fabric of the universe is so stiff, that distorting it can only happen in the most impossibly cataclysmic of situations. After all, if it were at all probable, then it would have already happened sometime in the last billion years or so. The more Discord learned, the more he learned just how screwed everyone was, trapped in this pseudo-existence. He learned that everything we are and were would be as unreal as a fictional story after the evidence of our existence expires, and it always expires. Eventually, Discord just decided to stop learning entirely, and teach statistics at some crummy backwoods nothing of a city where the greatest achievement was its high school. And that suited him just fine. So when those girls returned, and brought with them one of those mutant ponies, Discord was thinking very hard about taking some time to go to the gun store, buying a pistol, and keeping it unloaded in his desk. Just for scaring off any annoying invaders that decided (once again) that they were going to try to cheer him up. As if he didn’t have a right to be grouchy! “OK Professor Discord, we—” “Get that thing out of my office!” he squawked at the blue haired unicorn, climbing up onto the back of his chair, which obligingly tipped backwards and clattered on the floor. “This thing is a unicorn,” the purple one said vindictively, as acting sergeant of the Obvious. “And she is going to demonstrate the existence of magic.” “Path-dependent matter manipulation,” the yellow one agreed with the fierceness of someone who hasn’t been crushed by the system yet. “Even you can’t deny that’s impossible, right? Conservation of energy only applies in a conservative vector field!” “My bathtub is a non-conservative vector field,” Discord replied dryly, “But that doesn’t make it physics breaking.” He slowly righted his chair and settled into it. Discord supposed it was too late to worry about exposure now, especially with those things stalking about the halls of the school itself. “If you can show me some... phenomenon this unicorn can do,” he said, “That truly results in a path dependent force field, then I’ll eat my hat.” “Uh,” the unicorn spoke up in confusion, saying with some amount of slurring, “You don’ hafe a hat, prof.” “My point still stands,” he said acidly. “Well, your point is moot!” the purple one declared with an insufferably triumphant grin. “Go on, show the professor what you can do!” she said to the unicorn. “You’re the bosh, ma’am,” the unicorn said, with great irony in her voice. Discord already liked this once human creature better than these two self righteous lunatics, who preached magic to him like they were quoting the Book of Mormon. Well, he sat back in his chair to watch their attempt at trickery and slight-of-hand fail miserably before his powers of observation and deduction, figuring they’d already have a rigged prop with them—why yes, they had a feather. How quaint. The unicorn’s cosmetic accessory not only started glowing with a cherry red aura, but gave a sparkly twinkle noise as it did. Clearly synthesized. They then somehow got the feather to glow similarly, and lifted it up in the air! “Ha! See?” the purple girl seethed. “Bravo,” Discord replied, golf clapping at the unconvincing display. Then, with one sentence, he dismantled their entire deceit. “Now lift my coffee cup here.” The unicorn creature looked at the cup uneasily, and Discord’s heart would have soared with triumph if he gave a fuck about anything anymore. His only consolation was that he once again crushed the hopes of these girls, and possibly, maybe they’d learn their lesson, and stop trying to infect their fellow human beings with pointless dreams that can never be achieved. Then maybe he could be alone to his misery again. “Tha’ looksh kinda heavy,” the unicorn said. “I only prashticed with feazzers.” “Well, maybe you should have practiced speaking,” Discord replied, undaunted as the unicorn’s ears went down. Pulling open a drawer, he pulled out a cheap pen he used to scribble notes with, or fill out detention slips. Placing it on his desk, he looked into the unicorn’s so very humanlike cherry colored eyes and said, “Very well, miss ‘pony’...” But before he could finish his musing, those human eyes he looked at widened in surprise. “He gesh it!” the unicorn blurted out senselessly, looking around wildly and waving a hoof at him. “Ishhisho hard for heveryone elshe to figure out?” Discord really wasn’t sure what... just happened. A distraction tactic? “She wants to be referred to by her online alias,” the yellow one explained, a little disgustedly, “DJ-PON3.” “DJ Pony?” Discord replied. “Besh deshicion I ever acshidentally made!” the pony replied, proudly. This was quickly getting to be yet another waste of Discord’s completely worthless time. “Very well, deejay pony,” Discord replied. “Levitate this pen up into the air, without any of you three taking one step closer to my desk. Not any pen you brought with you, but this specific one.” The unicorn frowned, and one of them activated the sparkly sounding horn effect again. Discord was so preoccupied watching the three of them like a hawk, he almost didn’t notice his pen lift up from the desk and hover in midair. But then he paused, and stared at it in disbelief. “There’s a fourth student,” Discord snapped. “Where is the fourth one?” “We’re the only people here,” bacon-hair replied. “So now you have to believe us—” purple-nipples started to say, but Discord cut her off, with, “You broke into my office! And manipulated my pens, somehow!” Twilight’s face fell in a deadpan, and she stated more than asked, “Really?” “Yes, really,” he shot back. “You must have injected helium or... something.” Digging through his pockets, Discord found a quarter he’d brought with him from home this morning. “How about this?” he said cagily. “Can’t levitate this, can you?” The quarter levitated right out of his fingers to float beside the pen. Discord looked at the quarter and the pen, both of which seemed somehow wreathed in the aura the pony was... emitting. Some sort of gravity manipulation? The coin wasn’t turning as it hovered there. If it had been turning, that would indicate it was hovering in zero-gees. Touching the coin didn’t make it spin either, though Discord got an unsettling tingle from the red glow he stuck his finger into. Waving his hand around the objects in all directions did nothing to disturb their motion. There had to be an explanation for this. Discord had not spent most of his life finding absolutely nothing but dead ends, for a couple of high school girls and their pet pony to solve it completely on their own. There was a reason this was phony, faked, contrived, and Discord was just swept up in the moment. He was being rused just like any audience before a two bit carnival magician. He would deliberate about it later, and come to the realization that there was a string hanging from the ceiling somewhere. But until then... With a floating pen one side of him, and a floating quarter on another, Discord folded his hands and looked at the girls, saying, “Alright, I’m listening.” Yep, Sweetie sure would have loved to see him bug out, or whatever he did. The professor was in the girls’ portable laboratory at the moment, checking some figures he hadn’t collected the first time around. No, that was not an innuendo. He had just driven up in his battered coupe, coughing it to a halt, then stalked over to their trailer, knocking twice before being let inside. So, while Professor Discord bogarted the building and did his important statistical things, Sweetie had another golden opportunity to speak with the unicorn who actually did magic. She found DJ-PON3 sitting at the dining table with Sunset Shimmer, telling the very bored looking girl about her latest idea for a mix tape. Twilight was busying herself with an anatomy lesson for the newer ponies, but the DJ wasn’t interested in that tonight it seemed. “So, what was it like?” Sweetie Belle asked casually at a lull in the conversation. So casually. Sweetie was just coincidentally sitting besides the DJ-PON3 pony, the one who was a unicorn, who really did use magic. The huge, blue haired unicorn had lost her glasses at one point, or at least gave up trying to keep them attached to her face. Sweetie decided to sit next to her, while they ate a dinner of ...chili and hay, again. Not much variety possible, when you have hundreds of mouths to feed. No worse than cafeteria food, though. “Hmm?” Vinyl said, turning her head to look at Sweetie Belle. “What was it like, using magic, in your horn,” Sweetie explained eagerly. “You’re the first pony to ever do it in the whole world!” Vinyl had the poise to swallow... mostly, saying, “Oh, hyeah. Pre’y gool, huh? I’m getting houtta here shoon as I cahn talk good again. An’ when I grashuate look out! Beht the hwhorld hasn’ sheen a horshe deeshay before!” “I’m sure you’ll be really good at that,” Sweetie said politely, “I just wanted to know how it felt. I can’t use magic yet, so I’m just really curious how it felt.” “It’s uh...” Vinyl said a little nervously. She crossed her eyes as if to look at her own horn, and twitched a bit as she thought on it, but it wasn’t long before her horn ...burst, somehow, and was covered by a tinkling aura the same color as her ruby red eyes. “It’sh tingly,” she said uncertainly. “Like shticking my head forwhard, juth...” her glow enveloped a corner of the napkin, lifting it shakily up into the air. “...making it the shame,” Vinyl concluded, sounding dissatisfied with her own answer, the napkin fluttering down of its own power as she did so. “Sympathetic resonance, Twilight called it,” Sweetie pondered. “Making your magic be in two places at once. Sounds really tricky, but... I hope I can do it one day.” “Well, y’jus’ gotta like, pull it dhown your horn,” Vinyl said vaguely. “Pool the thaumic potential in your carbuncle,” Sweetie recited. “Like pulling a balloon on a string through your horn.” “H’yeah, justh like htat!” Vinyl slurred with a smile. She frowned then, and said more deliberately, “Just like thaht.” Then she grinned again and said, “An’ then you sort of do this shlippery shnap thing.” “You spark your focal point,” Sweetie translated, from what she’d heard at least. “Engaging the carbuncle like flexing a muscle, reinforcing the frequencies to peak at that spot.” “Yep, hlike adding shine waves,” Vinyl agreed. “You pull hte wiggy thingy an’ jus’ wave it till it goes poof.” Sweetie sighed, and nodded. “Hey, don’ be shad, kid,” Vinyl said, sort of uncoordinatedly trying to wrap her hoof around Sweetie’s back. “You already know whay more than I do. I be’ you’ll be hway good at zhis horn shtuff when you do gettit.” “I guess so,” Sweetie said glumly, “I’d settle for just helping someone with something though.” Vinyl looked at her enigmatically. “Gi’ me shome speesh leshons?” she suggested. Sweetie blinked, and a smile teased across her face. “Okay! Try biting your lower lip and saying ‘V’!” The scene was so adorable, with the young filly so eager for knowledge, sitting there lecturing the larger pony, Sunset Shimmer almost didn’t want to save Vinyl from Sweetie Belle’s relentless assault. Almost.