//------------------------------// // 5: Call upon the Sea Ponies // Story: SNABU: Situation Normal: All Bucked Up // by RDDash //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle had been woken up in the strangest situation. She wasn't sure how exactly did all of this made sense to her or even to anypony else. The movie part was true, about two weeks ago Pinkie Pie visited the Friendship Castle aka the Embassy of Poniville for diplomatic relations with Princess Twilight and her friends as ambassadors to the international community. Pinkie Pie as an Ambassador to the Yackyackistan. Unofficially Fluttershy had been assigned to deal with the Republic of Minos, it's just happened that way. Rainbow Dash took in the responsibility of dealing of what's left of the Griffin Kingdom. Not only did Spike managed to win the title of the Dragon Lord he also got a role of a middleman between dragons and ponies, and Starlight was the unofficial ambassador to the new changeling's clan. That kind of happened too. So anyway, Pinkie Pie came and insisted that she finally managed to do it. There is going to be a huge movie project, and this time it isn't just an excuse for a government to spy on their citizens. It wasn't supposed to be in the first place, the previous director just took some liberties for the sake of ratings. Pinkie Pie warned Twilight, as well as, the vast majority of ponies who are going to participate in the project that for the next seventy-two hours they are going to spend in the state of the art virtual reality simulation environment that's been using the latest and the most advanced magic tech technology available. She said that a lot of really strange things are going to happen that sometimes aren't going to make a lot of sense. She said that the most important thing that they need to remember is that it's not going to be real. It may feel like it was real, but it isn't. So then why is that they in their quest of trying to find the fictional race of hippogriffs, they instead managed to find the very real portal that leads right in the middle of Celestial Ocean. Well, technically they weren't exactly fictional when Pony and the Griffins like each other really really much... Dear Celestia I am right in the middle of the ocean, very deep too, why am I am not dead yet, screw the Alicorn Immortality, I should be in the pony limbo right now! It was quite dark, but it wasn't dark-dark. She still managed to see the environment around her. She saw several underwater caves that are linked with each other. She managed to figure out that there was some sort of bubble that right now the only thing that keeping her alive. Twilight Sparkle didn't care how powerful Princess Celestia was she is going to be crushed by the water pressure in a matter of seconds. Of course, maximum pressure all-terrain emergency bubble spell. The matrix of it is integrated into my regalia and designed to function with the pony who generated magical energy for it. In theory, the battery is infinite as long as the drain does not equal regeneration. Okay, that's fine I just not going to use spells that easy. Twilight Sparkle thought process interrupted by a sudden creepiness of the whole situation, but the curiosity of the scholar won out in the end and then she decided to explore. Meanwhile, Rarity thought about how creepy the fusion of the magic and technology was actually was. In the span of those hours that they spent here, an entire place just felt wrong. She even felt a hidden malice oozing all around them. She thought back towards her sister, that's right Sweetie Belle wasn't in the simulated environment. Something to with Starship's artificial intelligence wasn't compatible with whatever it is that they are running here. Right now she was mentally bored with looking at the hologram of Capper, which was frozen in eternal limbo. The story behind that was Rarity started to question Capper, specifically, she asked what was the catman had been doing in the middle of nowhere so far away from the Catman Kingdom? Surely he would have found better job opportunities way over there, then in the place like this? She remembered that it went something like that "Correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't remember the correct name of the place where your people are located. What I am interested in is, what exactly prevented you to be able to succeed with your kind." "Well, I was just!" "I mean look at me, I choose to be the only seamstress in the whole town when no one else was willing to be or even cared about it. It strange to even think about it but in the civilized world as ours, ponies would think of some form of decency, yet the nudist culture was quite popular. "So I was wondering what exactly prevented you to find the career path among your kind, was it inequality, the lack of education, or you just wanted to be adventures. Or maybe you are just a..." "... Simulated program in a simulated environment created specifically for your own amusement?" Before Rarity could say anything else Capper snapped his paws and froze the projector image, probably just to annoy her. Twilight Sparkle had been studying the caves and so far she liked what she saw. she found the evidence of an ancient sea tribe called Seaponies. Then she started to whisper to herself. "Forced by some sort of catastrophe one of the land tribes was forced to go underwater. There they split into two categories Seaponies and the Sirens. Sirens wanted to use music to seek chaos among the earth tribes, and Sea Ponies just wanted to sing music, a terrible music, but music non the less. "Sirens then split into two other categories Sirens and Windigoes, The Windigoes caused the global catastrophe known as the one thousand years of darkness and ice....." The rest of the writing had been destroyed "Wait, what? That can't be it! There has to be more!" Twilight exclaimed forgetting that she was deep underwater. "But it is, there This is the only thing that's left from the old records!" Twilight received an unexpected reply. Twilight turned one hundred eighty degrees and then saw the small Seapony who was now watching her guest. "Hi, my name is a Princess Skystar, and well to tell you the truth that nopony lives here for many many generations." Twilight swallowed, honestly she has every right to be scared, she was all alone deep underwater inside of the lifeboat bubble "But you are?" "I was just passing by when I saw you, you were unconscious and was laying way over there. I just didn't know what do so I decided to come back later" She then swam closer to Twilight "Are you from the Earth tribe? I never saw the ponies above the ground, I wonder how you even got here?" "I... I was just... There was a portal and I just did something stupid. There is all there is!" Twilight started crying. When she really thought about it she should have taken Applejack's offer, and then later create some stupid excuse to shut down this project. She was a Celestia damned Princess after all. What Princess says, usually everypony else listens. "Oh the great portal to the land of the earth tribe, I heard my mom telling stories about it and..." Skystar started saying excitedly, but then she stopped, she could feel the stress of the pony of the land. There was some stress, mixed with sadness, probably some fear too. Princess SkyStar could see the pony desperately wished now that she would be somewhere far far away from here, preferably somewhere on the land. "Oh, I am sorry, please don't be scared of me, would you please tell me your name!" Twilight managed to calm herself down, and then replied: "Twilight, my name is Twilight!" "You have a beautiful name Twilight." "Thank you, Princess Skystar!... Did anypony told you that you have the earth tribes name." "Oh, that's just a traditional naming convention. We shouldn't stay here. If you'd like I wish you to introduce you to my mother" "Okay, I would like that!" Twilight agreed with her, and then pushed her bubble to make it swim next to the Seapony