Ponystuck

by confoundtheseponies

Chapter 26

"OK, the frankly ridiculous gap in power levels, I can handle. I just wish you weren't so weird about it," Comet panted, ducking underneath an oncoming... on second thoughts, he'd rather not know exactly what he had just evaded. It had looked entirely too moist to be anything good. "I mean, sure, you killed my White King by yourself. That's pretty damn impressive, but I reckon I can work around that." Leaping backwards, he narrowly avoided his opponent's next attack. Whatever it was, exactly, it had made the area surrounding its impact a little too empty for Comet's liking. "And sure, it turns out you're the ringleader of the Asshole Squad. Which makes sense, there's basically no way Mild came up with this plan. Silver, maybe, she's a lot more devious than I first thought. And by 'devious', I mean she's a complete bitch." Anticipating the next attack, Comet somersaulted backwards, landing neatly on the ground which was suddenly above him. "But despite all that, I think there's still some good in her. Enough to not come up with a plan to fuck up everything for no adequately explored reason, at least."

"Can we figure this out after we've made it out of here!?" Twilight asked hysterically, only recently having calmed down from the revelation that their current enemy was... he wasn't really sure what it was, but Twilight seemed to recognise it. Comet wasn't really sure what the deal with that was, but he was probably going to hear all about it later. Assuming, of course, that there was a later.

"First of all, it would be easier to just ask him. Second of all, we might not make it out of here, and I'd hate to die without knowing anything about why it happened. Sheep at three o'clock, by the way." Twilight turned at Comet's warning, barely managing to duck beneath the sheep which was flying towards her for some reason. "But yeah, like I was saying, that kind of brings me to the conclusion... that there ISN'T a good reason for all this stupidity."

"Oh?" Discord asked, calmly stroking his chin with his lion paw, while his eagle claw bombarded the ponies with ridiculous devastation. "Whatever do you mean by that?" This was stupid, Comet thought to himself, but at least Discord seemed to be enjoying this brief conversation. Which was probably the one thing keeping them alive for so long.

"Well, if it was Mild, then obviously the long term goals would be something I could relate to, like boondollars or power or sweet loot. But, with you..." Comet shook his head, recalling some of the more eventful moments of the fight so far. Fighting giant lava golems that ceaselessly asked for hugs stood out as one of the strangest. "It's entirely possible, if not overwhelmingly likely, that you're just doing this because you're bored." The sheep which Twilight had dodged earlier was coming back for another run, but this time it had explosives strapped to it.

"Very true," Discord said thoughtfully, as Twilight once again dodged the sheep, noticeably more carefully than before. "That's one of my favourite reasons for doing things. For instance, why haven't I just slaughtered you all?" Suddenly, Comet and Twilight found themselves lifted into the air gently before being plunged downwards at a ridiculous speed. "Because toying with you is so much more entertaining!" At that, he burst into a fit of laughter, as Twilight teleported safely to ground level and helped Comet to slow himself down as he landed beside her. "But no, rest assured that there is a very good reason for all that my cohorts and I have done."

"I don't suppose you're in the mood for sharing?" Comet asked. If they could just keep him talking for a little longer then... a chill ran down his spine as he realised that his friends were the only ones who could save him and Twilight. This was not good.

"I suppose I could tell you all about my brilliant scheme..." Discord pretended to consider. "But then, I'd hate to put Mild out of a job. Still... how about this," he said, rising from the cloud throne he had conjured for himself. Apparently he had no problems about stealing Mild's fondness for theatrics.

Within our tale's heart,
A late plan is full of cracks
That is our escape.

Finishing his recital, Discord sat back down onto the throne.

"What was that?" Comet asked incredulously. He had long since passed the amount of riddles he was prepared to take.

"It was a haiku," Discord said calmly. "That first line took me a while, but I'm quite proud of it myself. If you're confused about what it means, don't worry, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually..." Clapping his paw and claw together, Discord once again tore at the fabric of what reality was prepared to accept and sent Comet and Twilight plummeting into a newly created bottomless pit. "Where you're going, you'll have all the time in the world!"

Sadly, the whistling of the air as Comet and Twilight plunged towards their imminent deaths was not enough to drown out Discord's maniacal laughter. It felt strange to be fighting a proper enemy for once. It was if Mild had become competent.

"So," Comet said calmly. If he was going to die then he was going to be chill about it. "How are you holding up? Because I'm not holding up too great. I'm doing the opposite of that, in fact."

"I can't believe this is happening," Twilight said, her face completely failing to recognise the danger they were both in. "I just... how is he here? How can he be here?"

"Who, old Chuckles up there?" The laughing had faded away now, leaving them with nothing but about three more lines of progressive dialogue followed by a thoroughly unpleasant ending. "Why, do you know him?" Twilight sighed, which technically counted as a line of dialogue.

"Unfortunately."

"Who is your leader?" Luna asked, while the three ponies in front of her simply stared back with a mixture of shock, fear, and surprise. "And... why are you all staring at me like that?"

"P... princess?" Fluttershy asked, this latest revelation causing her to seriously doubt that the world actually made sense. What was the princess doing here? Luna seemed just as confused as her, which wasn't terribly reassuring.

"Huh?" Giving a bemused laugh, Luna nervously made sure that there was an escape route available in case this group of ponies turned out to be insane. "No, I'm Luna. Uh, pleased to meet you." Diamond shook her head.

"No, you're Princess Luna. I don't think we'd get that wrong, it's not like there's very many winged unicorns running around." Admittedly, Diamond had never seen Princess Luna wearing a dark blue cloak with a dark swirly symbol on it. But that hardly seemed relevant.

"OK, now I'm confused," Luna said, suddenly noticing Diamond's familiar appearance for the first time. "What are you doing here, Silver? And why don't you remember me?" Acapella gasped in surprise, before quickly equipping her cane and aiming it threateningly at the bewildered Maid.

"Silver? You're in league with Silver? Guys, the princess is EVIL!" Acapella cried, only to be immediately silenced by Diamond placing a hoof over the excitable unicorn's mouth.

"Calm down, I think I get it now. I assume that by 'Silver', you mean Silver Heart, right Luna? Or should I call you midnightEclipse?" If not for the conversation Luna had gone through several minutes before, she might have been caught off guard by this Silver impersonator knowing her chumhandle. Luna nodded, and Diamond released Acapella. "I apologise for the confusion. We thought you meant somepony else."

"I know who you mean, I think," Luna said, extending a hoof towards Diamond, who shook it. "So, who are you?"

"I'm Diamond Heart. As opposed to Silver Heart, or indeed Silver Edge. Yes, I realise that doesn't make any sense. No, I don't have the slightest idea why my life is so fucked up. Any questions?" Something about the way the question was phrased told Luna that it was in her best interests to say 'no'. She shook her head. "Good. Now, what can we do for you, princess?"

"I told you, I'm not a princess!" Luna protested. "I'm just Luna, from another session of this game, which I've been playing with my friends." Suddenly, she paused, as something else occurred to her. "Wait... you're not... Fluttershy?" Fluttershy looked quite alarmed by the recognition, but nodded timidly. "No. Fucking. Way." Luna was speechless. A founder. She was talking to a founder.

"Uh... is... is that bad?" Fluttershy asked, terrified by the thought that she had somehow upset the princess. After all, she was a princess.

"Bad? How could it be bad?" Luna cried, before collecting herself. "You're one of the most important ponies in history! Without you, Equestria might never have existed!" Rather than terrified, or even alarmed, now Fluttershy's expression was one of confusion.

"Uh, that really doesn't sound like me. I think I would remember something like that..." Diamond shook her head.

"No, look, this makes sense. This is Luna from a parallel universe, where Fluttershy is responsible for Equestria's existence or whatever, whereas we come from our universe where Luna is a princess. That makes sense, I think." The others, including Luna, looked at her as though she had grown a third eye.

"And... how did you arrive at that conclusion?" Acapella asked. "Also, can I just say that 'we come from our universe' is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." Diamond simply shrugged.

"Well, I've been thinking about it a lot since I found out about Silver Heart. It works." What she hadn't realised was that the third session from a different universe included Luna (and probably Celestia as well). Suddenly everything was a whole lot more complicated. Acapella just shrugged.

"Um, girls..."

"If you say so," she said, not entirely convinced by Diamond's crazy theory. "So, Luna, uh... why are you here?"

"Um, girls..."

"Oh, right. I'm from another game session, and we're, uh... we're in a bit of trouble right now. There are these two crazy ponies, and one of them looks exactly like Diamond, and they're ruining everything!" After that brief confusion about who came from what universe, Luna had almost forgotten how badly her friends needed help. "One of my friends is dying, another one is injured, those two crazy ponies are still out there, and we have less than 24 hours before it doesn't even matter anymore."

"Um, girls..."

"Wow. That sounds pretty bad," Acapella said. "But we have our own problems too, you know! This session's not too far off its Reckoning, half our group has died at least once, and... Hey Fluttershy, what's up?" Fluttershy, who had been quietly waiting for a chance to speak, jumped at the mention of her name.

"Oh, uh, I just wanted to say that, um... we're not alone here, uh..." A loud, obnoxious, and depressingly familiar laugh cut off the pegasus as Mild flew into view, knives at the ready.

"Don't look so surprised," he admonished the assembled ponies. "I'm surprised you didn't see this coming, after-" Mild froze, as he suddenly noticed Luna staring up at him with a smug grin on her face.

"Hey," she called to the Thief. "Don't look so surprised."

"Agh!" Abruptly waking up with the unpleasant feeling of falling - or more accurately, of landing after a fall - Twilight almost fell out of her bed before she caught herself and gently picked herself up. The fancy bedroom and golden dress told her exactly where she was. This was her dream room. But if she had died, her dream self should have died soon afterwards. Since this was quite clearly not the case, that left two potential explanations. Either she had somehow survived her descent, and was simply sleeping, or she had been revived. Which meant that someone had...?

Silently, Twilight wished that the former explanation was the correct one. The only two beings in her immediate vicinity had been Discord and Comet. Eurgh. Neither of those were mental images she had particularly needed. Although admittedly, one was much, much worse than the other. Just what the hell was Discord doing here, anyway? How had he escaped, and how could he have possibly gotten into the game? None of this made any sense, although that in and of itself made a small amount of sense. Logical plans and motivations had little meaning when Discord was involved. Well, when either Discord or Pinkie was involved, but Pinkie wasn't here. Or anywhere. Exactly where Pinkie was was another thing that Twilight didn't understand, but that was less pressing than the revelation that now they had Discord to deal with on top of everything else.

A sudden explosion from outside drew Twilight's attention, and she quickly ran to the window in time to see what had once been Pinkie's dream tower crumbling into dust. That probably wasn't a good sign. Quickly leaping out of her dream tower, Twilight glanced back as a second explosion devastated the room she had been in mere moments before. The only other tower was...

Racking her brains, Twilight tried to remember whether Applejack's dream-self had woken up yet. Was she still in there? Several seconds later, however, and the question answered itself. There was definitely nopony in the third dream tower, as it disappeared in a cloud of smoke and rubble. What was all this? First it was Discord, and now the dream towers were being destroyed. Why was everything suddenly going wrong?

"You're Twilight, right?" Quickly turning on the spot, Twilight found herself confronted by a pony that looked surprisingly like Diamond. Was this Silver?

"Uh... yes?" Silver smiled.

"Well, Twilight, no hard feelings or anything," her horn began to glow, and a second later Twilight found herself reeling backwards as a powerful wall of magic crashed into her. "I'm just very good at tying up loose ends."

"Ember? Sorry I took so long, something came up. Uh, Ember?" Fluttershy called out, returning from Derse only to find herself alone in the ectolab. That wasn't where she had gone to sleep. In fact, it was a good few miles away from where she had gone to sleep. "Ember!" A few minutes later, Fluttershy accepted that Ember was either too far away or too unconscious to hear her, so she rose to her feet and began making her way out of the lab.

Fluttershy was still trying to figure out exactly what the deal with Ember was supposed to be. On the one hoof, sometimes he was quite sweet in a moronic kind of way. On the other hoof, he was a complete psychopath. He was on the exact opposite end of the scale to her; while she outright refused to fight the underlings, Ember relished the chance to obliterate a few dozen Granite Ogres. Shaking her head sadly, Fluttershy finally reached the entrance and stepped outside.

The sight that greeted her as she looked out on the rolling hills of LOTAF was both unexpected and somewhat worrying. Literally carved into the hillside, presumably using a hammer, Ember had left her a message.

fLUTTERSHY
i WANT TO APOPL AO SAY SORRY FOR EVERYTHING THAT
uH
i MEAN THAT i WANT TO
tHANK YOU FOR HOW NISE
fUCK IT
gONE TO FIX EVERYTHING. BRB

It was probably very hard to carve into the ground like that, Fluttershy reasoned, although now she was less convinced that Ember's capitalisation was an accident.

"Ember? What are you doing here?" Destiny asked; as the earth pony in question flew down to greet them. She, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash had been making good progress through the Land of Silk and Flames, although it had been slow going at first. The main hazard was the fact that the entire planet was slowly being engulfed by fire, and would burn away completely unless they did something quickly. This wasn't a huge problem for the time being, although Destiny was a little nervous about progressing into the silk lined caves in front of them. If they were trapped down there when the fire reached them, it wouldn't be pretty.

"Oh, I'm just travelling around taking care of a few things," Ember replied, swinging his hammer violently into the ground. A few seconds later, the ground beneath them shook and quivered, then gave way entirely as a huge temple was lifted from within the planet. "Such as saving you about half an hour of trudging through a cramped, smoke filled dungeon."

"Awesome," Rainbow Dash said approvingly, as she and Rarity strode ahead into the temple. "Why can't I have cool powers?"

"You can fly fast enough to break the sound barrier," Destiny pointed out, following her friends into the ruins. "That's a pretty cool power."

"Yeah, but I can't do this."

"Well, that's that," Ember said, retrieving his MAP. "I'll be off, for now."

"Oh, Ember, before you go," Rarity began, drawing her attention away from the temple. "How did you know there was a temple here, or even that we needed to get to it?"

"Uh," Ember paused. "The answer to that is." With that, he quickly pressed the button, and transportalised somewhere far from silly questions that are silly.

"Oh. It's you again." Comet was not overly excited to see the elusive Bard again, especially given what had happened last time. "So I guess I'm dreaming again?" Pinkie nodded happily, glad to have any company in her dream bubble. "Well, that's preferable to dead. So, what shitty twist are you going to reveal this time?"

"I don't know. I just wanted somepony to talk to," Pinkie said, grinning madly. "It gets kind of lonely where I am, so I come here for company."

"And where are you, exactly?" Neither he nor Twilight had any idea where Pinkie had gone, only that she occasionally turned up in dreams from time to time.

"I can't really say," Pinkie said. "There are a lot of bad consequences for explaining this kind of thing too early." She paused. "There's almost as many consequences as there are for explaining it too late."

"Right. Where are we, by the way?" Comet didn't recognise their surroundings in the slightest - he and Pinkie were both hovering above a huge lake surrounded on all sides by colossal mountain ranges. The sky above them was covered in a thick grey layer of dust, and in the distance a colossal structure extended miles into the sky - the familiar silhouette of a player's house extending to the seventh gate far above their planet. "I don't recognise this planet."

"You wouldn't," Pinkie said calmly, using whatever power she had over the bubble to accelerate their progression through the sky until they reached the shore of the lake. A group of ponies sat on the small beach, clearly in bad shape. One of them was bleeding far too much for it to be healthy. "This is the Land of Warmth and Frogs. And its hero is..." She didn't need to complete her sentence, as Comet recognised the white earth pony sitting dejectedly to one side of the group.

"That isn't... Celestia?" Pinkie nodded. "Why is Celestia playing this game? And why is she an earth pony?" The amount of sense that this was making was rapidly declining.

"She's only young," Pinkie explained. "Give it time, and she'll be the winged-and-horned earth pony that we all know and love." The implications of this were not lost on Comet.

"Wait, so, you're telling me that the reason Celestia and Luna are both winged unicorns... is that they played this game and ascended to God Tier?" That was a pretty big revelation, in his eyes. It was also rather far-fetched. Although, then again, it was Sburb. Anything was possible, and the less believable it was the more likely it seemed to be.

"Well, I can't be certain," Pinkie admitted. "I mean, there are other ways of becoming one. But it seems likely, given the circumstances."

"I see. That's a pretty crazy turn of events," Comet noted. "But why is it relevant?" There was a pause. "It is relevant, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, I'm just not sure if I should tell you yet. You're about to find out anyway." She pointed a hoof down at the group, where Comet could see a unicorn he didn't recognise shouting about something to the others. Whatever it was about, young Celestia seemed rather agitated by it, rising to her feet and equipping her staff. And then Comet saw what they were shouting about - a far too familiar Thief approaching them menacingly.

"... fuck. So this is where Mild went after our session." Comet sighed wearily, already sick to death of dealing with Mild's nonsense. "Just how many historical figures are going to fail miserably at this game due to my mistake? As surprising twists go, this is getting really old, really fast."

"Exactly. And that's why you all need to go over there and help them!" Pinkie said, as Mild began battling Celestia, the unknown unicorn, and another unicorn who looked like Diamond for some reason. The dying pony didn't really help, but he did try to bleed a little more threateningly. "There's still time to stop all this if you hurry. So, since time is of the essence, I can't really be gentle here..."

"Huh? What are you-" Comet broke off halfway through his question, as the answer knocked him over the back of the head. Shortly after, Pinkie found herself alone in her dream bubble, save for the battle that she had already seen several times over. There was no time to waste remembering. Her true task was fast approaching.

"Ow!" Comet shook his head sleepily, lifting a hoof to the back of his head. There was nothing there, nor should there have been, but it still hurt. After a few moments sitting with his head in his hooves, he suddenly realised that he wasn't dead. He also noticed that he wasn't on the Battlefield, but instead was sitting on top of a giant mountain of cake. This was certainly a turn for the unexpected.

"Hey, get down from there," Twilight's voice called. Looking down the mountain, Comet saw her waving from a pile of shortbread at the base, next to a pile of large presents. He obliged, sliding gracefully halfway down the mound of cake, at which point his leg caught on something and he rolled unceremoniously to the bottom of the pile. Twilight burst into laughter.

"Yeah, laugh it up Sparkles," Comet grumbled, picking himself up and properly looking around their surroundings. "Is this LOPAL?" Twilight nodded, gesturing to a large red present next to them. Attached to it was a small note.

yOU CAN THANK ME WHEN YOU GET UP
sINCE i JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE AND TWILIGHTS LIFE
jUST GOING TO FINISH SOLVING EVERYTHING AND THEN iLL COME BACK HERE TO TAKE YOU BOTH TO dERSE
aND YES
i AM AWESOME

"This is... I..." Comet was dumbfounded. Ember was making his own decisions? Good, thought out decisions? "It's the apocalypse." Twilight began to laugh, before catching herself.

"Come on, don't be so mean. He saved us both."

"Yeah. He did." Glancing back up at the cake mountain, something clicked in Comet's brain. "And he even thought to teleport us onto a mountain of cake to cushion the landing. He actually remembered momentum. This... this kind of thing just doesn't happen."

There was silence for a few moments, while Comet thought about that, before speaking again.

"I..." he shook his head sadly. “I’m not sure what I believe in anymore."

Twilight had been knocked out by the attack, but Silver wasn't about to take any chances. You never knew with these ponies. No, the way to handle this was to keep well away from her victim, and to throw axes at her. A truly honourable death. Equipping her axe, and throwing it forwards without much thought, Silver watched as it arced through the air towards Twilight, before suddenly disappearing. This struck her as something which axes are not necessarily know for doing, and she quickly glanced around for any sign of what had gone wrong. This turned out to be a wise move, as she managed to catch sight of the axe before it hit her. Magically slowing the axe and returning it to its default position of hovering beside her, Silver looked around her to determine what had gone wrong. Presumably one of the other players was somewhere nearby. This would require caution.

And then the ground itself literally exploded upwards, as the surrounding buildings were shunted out of the ground and began spiralling away. Spires snapped in two, and huge chasms were torn out of the ground. Whoever this was, Silver wasn't sure if the target was her, or just Prospit's moon in general. Another explosion and her adversary emerged from the newly created tear in the moon's surface. Ember.

"Hey Silver," he said calmly. Silver paused, a little unsure of herself. As far as she was concerned, it was blatantly obvious that she was Ember's enemy. She had outright confessed to as much. But then again, this was Ember Glow. "What's up?"

"Uh. Nothing much really," Silver said, more than a little unnerved by Ember's calm expression. After all, he had just devastated this side of the moon, probably killing a lot of Prospitans. "Just chilling. You?"

"I'm kind of on a quest at the moment," he replied. "Trying to prove that I'm useful, fix everything, that kind of thing." Silver looked around her. Sure, she had destroyed the three dream towers. But this, this looked like the Reckoning had already happened.

"Uh... well, I can see at least two buildings that are still structurally sound, so I suppose you're making progress?" Ember laughed.

"I mean like, stop all the bad guys, save everyone, that kind of thing. You know, the stuff I'm supposed to do." So saying, he spun his warhammer experimentally. "So, I guess I'll get right on with that." Ah. So maybe he had been paying attention.

"That's-JEGUS!" Leaping into the sky, Silver narrowly dodged a colossal spike of earth that was driven upwards from underneath her as Ember swung his hammer downwards to connect with the surface of the moon. If he trying to save Twilight, he was going about it in a very strange way; the tumbling boulders of displaced earth rolled in all directions, a few narrowly missing Twilight. "Oh, is this what we're doing now?" Apparently it was, as Ember flew up to join her in the sky above Prospit's moon. "Bring it on, bitch."

"So let me get this straight," Twilight said. "There's another game session, the one that has been sending us messages, that consists of Luna, Celestia, a pony who looks like Diamond, and a few others that we don't know about... and they need our help?" Comet nodded. "How does that make any sense!?"

"I've got a few ideas. Nothing concrete yet, but we'll see. In my experience, the more I talk about my theories, the less accurate they turn out to be." Comet flipped open his laptop. "So yeah. I'm going to go with whoever else wants to come and help them out, for the same reason that I came here to help you."

"The reason being, you know it was all your fault and this is how you deal with the guilt?"

"A simple 'thanks' would have sufficed."

"Fuck. Yes. That was awesome," Summer breathed, thoroughly exhausted from the battle. Eventually, the power that was reviving the underlings had diminished, and she and Applejack had been able to finally clear the room. Now they only had the denizen herself to deal with. "Awesome, but tiring. I vote that we take a break in the interest of staying alive." Applejack, who had arguably been doing more physical work during the fight, nodded in agreement.

"Eeyup. Still, we're doing pretty well, aren't we? Shouldn't be long now before we're finished here." Of course, even after dealing with Applejack's denizen, there was still an awful lot of work to finish.

"Yeah," Summer said, absently opening her laptop while the two of them caught their breath. "Ooh, looks like it's all been happening while we've been busy."

"How so?" Applejack asked, walking over to Summer to get a better look at her screen.

[CURRENT suspiciousSerpent (SS) began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CSS: so, the latest plot twist is:
CSS: Luna's here! and yes, that's Luna as in Princess Luna, except she's not actually Princess Luna.
CSS: and yeah, she and her group needs our help because we're just that awesome. that's what the deal with that is.
CSS: oh, and also she has awesome powers that render Mild's crappy mind control completely obsolete, so now she is my best friend.
CSS: sorry about that, Acapella.
[CURRENT homelessChicken began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CHC: <:(
CSS: soooooorry!
[CURRENT midnightEclipse began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CME: Uh, yeah, hey everyone!
CME: I understand that your group isn't in much better shape than mine...
CME: But there are lives at stake!
[CURRENT adamantineCorsair began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CAC: Princess?
CME: Uh, I'm not actually a princess.
CSS: DO NOT ASK ABOUT THE PRINCESS THING.
CAC: Ah, noted.
CAC: Wait a moment. If 'ME' is Luna, then...
CSS: yes. all those strange ponies we didn't know about are actually Luna and her friends.
CME: Oh, right, so the ponies we had to talk to were your group?
CSS: the ponies you HAD to talk to?
CME: Uh. Never mind.
CAC: Well, we would be happy to help, Luna.
CAC: Just as soon as we're done with our quests.
CME: But Golden is dying!
CAC: I...
[CURRENT mechanicalNoisemaker began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CMN: 'sup bitches
CHC: Hey Summer!
CMN: Hey
CMN: So the way I see it
CMN: They need help
CMN: We can't just drop everything
CMN: So how about enough of us go back with her to help out
CMN: But the rest of us stay here because the AS aren't going to fuck themselves up
CMN: Except maybe Mild but he's not representative anyway
CME: Any help would be appreciated.
CSS: OK sure, let's do that.
CSS: who's going with Luna?
CMN: How long do we have?
CME: Uh... I don't know. :\
CSS: let's say half an hour.
CMN: In that case, I'm in

"What do you think?" Summer asked. Applejack frowned, still digesting the fact that the princess - who wasn't actually a princess - was playing the game and needed their help.

"Why are ya going?" Applejack eventually asked.

"Aside from anything else, I'm curious," Summer answered.

[fractalAbomination began pestering mechanicalNoisemaker]
FA: that's an understatement
[fractalAbomination ceased pestering mechanicalNoisemaker]

"... about meeting Luna's group. I mean, aren't you?"

"Ah suppose. Plus, one of them's dying..." Applejack glanced back at the door which led to her denizen's chamber. "So someone like me would come in useful."

CMN: And AJ's in as well
[CURRENT fractalAbomination began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CFA: yeah, me and twilight are in as well
CFA: also, bright pink bards who creepily know absolutely everything are much better at summaries than you guys
CSS: shush.
CSS: well, I want to go for... reasons.
CHC: We can't really lose anyone else, or we're going to be understaffed.
CHC: That should do, anyway.
CSS: yeah, I guess.
CSS: is everyone on LOSAF OK with staying here?
CAC: Well, I can't say I wouldn't want to go, but I will stay where I am needed.
CSS: Fluttershy/Ember?
[CURRENT reticentButterfly began responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]
CRB: Uh, I'm not sure where Ember is at the moment, but I need to stay here and finish the frog.
CSS: understood. well then, all relevant parties meet back here in half an hour.
CMN: Sure
[CURRENT mechanicalNoisemaker ceased responding to memo TEAM NUBLET]