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// Many Sights 
// Story: The Weary Traveler 
// by The Psychopath 
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Three weeks had passed, and many of Equestria's greatest alchemists and wizards had come to the auditorium, filling the room out completely. In fact, there were so many who had come that many were forced to stand on the sides, but they weren't angry about this. Far from it. Twilight peeked from behind the curtains to see the ponies rummaging through the papers they had been given about Twilight's experiment. There was quite the brouhaha in regards to it.

"Oh, I wasn't expecting this many ponies to arrive," Twilight mumbled nervously.

Celestia hummed in surprise. "There wasn't. The auditorium was supposed to be half-packed. Might have been last-minute arrivals on account of their colleagues telling them about the flying saucer floating above my city."

"When is it starting?" one of the audience shouted. "I want to know about the metal thing floating high in the sky!"

"We all do! You're nothing special!"

"Oh dear," Celestia said.

Luna huffed. "Sounds like they're about to start fighting." She looked towards Twilight and Celestia. "Perhaps we should start it now?"

Celestia tapped the ground a few times. "Right. Send the signal to the saucer. Twilight and I shall make the presentation."

Celestia, her stance and expression becalming; And Twilight, her gait and expression perturbed, made their way upon the stage. Every step brought about a sound that gradually quieted the auditorium and attracted every eye towards them.

"My most valued wizards and alchemists, I've called you all here to witness the arrival of that which you all seek an answer to: Who dwells in the saucer?"

Twilight stepped forward. "As you may have noticed, what you have within your hooves is a dna analysis I did between the visitor's blood and that of a royal guard of the princesses." She cleared her throat. "He claimed it, as per the princess' word, that they were identical, and...well, they were! Like you I'm also really confused as to the significance of this, but I--"

"Believe that he can handle it from here," a voice interjected.

"Wha-YAH!"

Twilight flew away several feet, and the sudden appearance of the visitor created a loud brouhaha in the room. The lavender alicorn looked at the pony with confusion, curiosity, fear, intrigue, and many other contradictory emotions. A massive metallic pony more ball than creature, stomped out from the hidden space behind the traveler. They were quite literally gigantic, easily towering over Celestia, but their pudgy face gave the impression of them smiling constantly. Apart from their bizarre shape and size, they had no visibly different forms to Equestrian ponies.

"What in Equestria is that creature?!" one of the audience members bellowed.

"I am a pony, like you," the traveler stated calmly. "Of whom do you think that blood belonged to?"

Another loud brouhaha, much angrier than before, erupted, drowning out any thoughts the princesses and the traveler had. One of the unicorns jumped forward from the second balcony, her horn thrumming with magic.

"We'll see if you're actually the one in control of that monstrosity in the sky or not!"

Those around her tackled the mare to try and stop her, but it was too late. She had already released a lightning bolt that grew and glowed in the air towards the cephalopony. The round pony appeared in front of the stallion, then its form warped instantly. Its round body become long and serpentine, and its stubby legs became long and accentuated by an inwards-curving nail. Its happy face became emaciated and mournful, with bags dropping below the eyes. Its mane sparked with magic as it caught the spell, dispelled it, then cast one of it own, freezing everypony in the audience and compressing them painfully downwards. It was only from the traveler tapping on its leg that it stopped and resumed its pudgy and jovial shape.

"What was that?!" Twilight whisper-yelled. She had lost her voice.

"It's just basic magic," the giant said in a happy tone. "There's nothing to awe at."

"WHAT?!" Twilight blurted. "You froze everypony in the audience and disabled their magic! That's NOT simple magic!"

The traveler looked over his shoulder. "I'm afraid it is, Element of Magic."

"Explain," an audience member demanded.

"Who here can explain to me how unicorns utilize magic?" the traveler asked.

"We have natural reserves of magic, the size depending on the pony, which we can call upon," a stallion answered.

"Correct."

"And unicorns can utilise that magic by focusing it through our horns."

"Incorrect."

"WHAT?! What do you mean?! This is information that we've known for centuries! You're here telling us to believe that what we know is a lie?"

The traveler rolled his eyes. "When you've made a mathematical theorem, and it has been tested by peers, is it not accepted?"

"In theory," a mare replied. "But what is the comparison you are trying to make?"

"Patience." The traveler scratched the side of his face with a tentacle and started walking calmly along the stage. "When you use a formula and time goes on, you end up discovering that the theorem is no longer valid. It is still going to work, but must be revised to encompass new information brought by 'physics defying' anomalies." He stopped and looked straight at the audience. "If it exists, then it is not an anomaly. It is the math that is faulty."

"So what does that mean with magic?"

"What I will teach your kind will not be able to be put into effect in your lifetime, but it will still see itself held by your descendants and successors." He tapped his forehead, pretending that a horn was there. "You use magic based on those thoughts, which means that you utilize the unicorn equivalent of 'brute strength' to use magic. Horns do not focus magic, they channel it. It is cleansed, passed through the spirals, then released accordingly to the magic taken from the pony and its environment." He gestured the round giant to bring Twilight forward. "Princess, if you would demonstrate."

"B-but I've never done--"

"Just focus and do as I say. Shoot a simple...beam of light by using the magic within you and try to filter a bit of that around you."

"Okay..."

Several minutes had passed with nothing happening, and the audience was getting antsy. However, just as they were about to yell, Twilight released a beam of light from her horn. It was so powerful it threw her back into the alicorn sisters and melted through the roof, leaving everypony in awe.

"This is just basic talent. You need to learn to control it next." The traveler huffed. "With technology we learned more about magic and understood it. With magic, we improved upon the technology and improved our lifestyles. There was no end to the progress!"

"So you would...share this knowledge with us?" a pony inquired.

"To an extent. I will be supervising to prevent any...incidents."

"What do you mean by 'incidents'?"

"You won't see later on. I'll make sure they don't happen, you can be sure of that."

"And what of your presence here?" another wondered. "You say you are like us, but we've never seen a pony of your kind. Are you some kind of ancestor or an alien?"

"I am neither. I am a pony from a different timeline, not too dissimilar from your own, save, of course, for the physically obvious. There are other things, but they aren't of interest."

"A different...what?" Twilight stepped forward. "I've used a spell that allows time travel, and I know of somepony else who knew it as well, but I never knew--"

"The spell you refer to is flawed. The other you refer to, I know not."

"Well, let's just say that it didn't turn out well with every' attempt' I made to stop it," Twilight grumbled.

The traveler tilted his head to the side and raised two brows. "A proper time traveling spell? Remarkable, considering you didn't figure out the reason behind you always changing timelines with every 'change'."

"Huh?"

He looked at the crows and shouted. "What happens if one travels through time and modifies something in the past?"

A loud mixture of answers came through, with the vast majority spewing rhetoric and theorems about modifying the future, erasing timelines, and so forth. The large pony leaned in, chuckling.

"Even here they're still going on about that."

"I know..." the traveler lamented.

"WRONG!" his voice exploded. "The first thing you will learn is the time and how to travel it. This requires quantum theorems of both mathematical and physical boundaries, and Reality Theorems." He shook his head. "But that is for another day. There is much to share, and I have technology to display to the general public first through way of the princesses."

The audience grew upset that he would not explain further about an aspect he had been aggrandizing , many outright ordering him to develop on the idea. While it was not part of his 'schedule', the traveler pondered the idea.

"Should we do it or not?" the colossal metal pony asked.