//------------------------------// // 012 - Call of the Stars, Part 1 // Story: Songs of the Spheres // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// Twilight’s castle had a different sort of beauty about it in the middle of the night. While in the day it shone like a pearl, at night it flickered softly, sending sparks of soft light out in a sort of reflection of the stellar sky above. Sometimes, when sleep proved difficult for any number of reasons, Princess Twilight liked to come out to her balcony and stare at the stars overhead. Sometimes she thought about what had been going on in her life, sometimes she wondered what the future would bring, and sometimes she just appreciated the natural beauty of night. How could anypony have ignored this a thousand years ago? She wondered. It’s just so… mesmerizing... She started examining the constellations. There was the triangle, the bear, the bull, the alicorn, the Handmaid, the dragon, the sphinx, the belt, the noble circle… She stared at the noble circle. It was several stars in a loose ring around a single, much brighter star. One of the brightest in Equestria’s sky, Sarin. A deep red spark on the blue night. “Stargazing?” Starlight asked, walking onto the balcony. Twilight smirked. “Yep. Sleepwalking?” “No,” Starlight said, yawning. “Though I suppose this could be a dream and I really am sleepwalking in reality.” Twilight rolled her eyes, returning her gaze to the stars, their luminous points reflecting in her huge eyes. “Whatcha lookin’ at this time?” “The noble circle. And what, if anything, is actually up there.” Starlight raised her eyebrow. “You mean aliens?” “Maybe. I’m talking more about the Stars though.” “Stars? But – oh, you mean capital S Stars. Didn’t you say they were just legends?” Twilight smirked. “Most of the stories about them are. For instance, the idea of one crashing into Equis long ago and bestowing the sun and moon to us is laughable, even more so based on what I’ve seen in the other universes. But the Stars themselves certainly do exist – some of those sparks of light hold consciousnesses.” “Have you ever talked to one?” Twilight shook her head. “No. Celestia has, though. She says they’re… rather indifferent to us.” Starlight frowned. “…When I was little, I used to pray to the Stars. I still do, sometimes. Started again around the time you took me in.” Twilight smiled softly. “There’s no shame in that, Starlight. Though you didn’t strike me as the type.” Starlight laughed nervously. “I’m not. Yet I still feel the urge to do it sometimes. To ask for protection. For help. For all of you.” “…Maybe some of them do listen.” “You’re just saying that.” “No, it could be true. There are many different kinds of ponies – there are probably many different kinds of Stars. Some would care more. A large part of me wants to visit them and find out.” “Well we don’t have any starships, and no universe we’ve come across has had any either.” “That doesn’t change anything…” Twilight said, holding a hoof up to the stars. “I want to go up there, Starlight. I want to see them, to feel them, to be among them. Maybe to get some answers about our universe.” “Heh. If only we could find a ship.” “If only…” Starlight coughed slightly. “Uh, Twilight?” “Hrm?” “There’s something… Well, uh, you know those things I make with my souvenirs?” “Those things? What about them?” “Well… You see… They… Uh…” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “…What is it Starlight?” Starlight let out a long breath. “Eheh… Sorry. No idea why I’m so nervous. I… May or may not be working on a way to get into space. Yes. That’s it.” Twilight blinked. “…R-really? But you don’t have any idea of all the math involved?! How are you-“ “Discord! And, heheh, brute force magic! That’s all it is. Definitely.” Twilight frowned. “Starlight? Are you okay? You’re… being a little odd.” Starlight gulped. “Er, yeah. I think I’m just tired. And crazy. And I may have also been unable to sleep because I was thinking too hard about my place in the universe. Great idea, coming out here to talk about Stars.” Twilight rolled her eyes, fears put to rest. “Sometimes we just need to think about these things. I’ve discovered it’s always better done with other ponies. I was feeling the same way, really. So thanks for joining me out here.” “I’m glad I came out. It’s better than wandering the pointless maze of corridors in your castle.” “They aren’t pointless!” “You don’t use half the rooms and the floorplan can’t be mapped out on a flat piece of paper.” “That doesn’t mean they’re pointless!” Starlight chuckled. “It just means it’s a mess to navigate, Twilight.” “Now that I can understand.” Twilight chuckled, turning back to the light of the stars – and Stars. “…You really want to go up there don’t you?” “Yeah…” Twilight said. “The studies of space in all these worlds… The more I read, the more I want to see it with my own eyes. It’s like the Stars are calling me.” Starlight nodded. She lit her horn, creating a small bubble of magic in front of her mouth. She whispered something into it and launched it into the sky. “…What was that?” “A prayer spell. It launches the words into the sky at the speed of light. There’s no way it actually does anything, but it’s symbolic.” “I… see.” “No you don’t,” Starlight said, nudging Twilight playfully. Twilight shrugged. “Fair enough. You’ll have to explain these customs to me at some point. But right now, we really should be in bed.” “Yeah.” The two of them left the balcony, allowing the night to fall into silence once more. ~~~ The next morning, Pinkie had a question. “So. Twilight. Why the sudden announcement of an instant adventure? Not that I mind or anything, but I think Gummy might be stuck to the ceiling right now.” Twilight chuckled. “This is why.” She went to the Directory, flipping to the last page. “I was testing the latest batch of worlds for safety, when this happened.” She pulled a lever, setting the coordinates to a specific dimension. When she did so, the green diamond in the Mirror Portal flashed brighter than it ever had before and some sparks went flying off the machinery. Rarity raised an eyebrow. “While impressive, and mildly concerning, we have no idea what that means, dear.” Twilight unrolled a scroll in front of them all and grabbed a pen. She scribbled a dot on it. “All right, so. Let me explain ‘distance theory’ as we currently understand it. Let this dot represent our world, okay?” Everypony nodded. “This next dot, almost right next to Equestria, is Earth, a world extremely closely related to our own. So close, in fact, that the worlds are basically inseparable. They are connected by a very short line.” She drew a line between her two dots. “A little further out are worlds that are close to ours, but not the same. The world of liars, Lai, etcetera. Curiously, we find worlds like this far out as well, almost as if we’re inside a membrane of pony worlds with others dispersed around randomly, like a pepper in a salt and pepper shaker.” “…Uh…” Fluttershy said, confused by the metaphor. “Not important to understand. But if I draw more dots here further out…” She drew several dots and lines in quick succession. “I create a map of the known multiverse. We know of just over a hundred worlds in this map, with some close, and others like the Static world very distant compared to others.” On the edge of the map she drew a single dot to represent the Static. “Now, the longer the path, the more energy it takes to get to a universe.” “So, I take it this universe takes a lot of energy?” Starlight postulated. Twilight grinned. “A hundred thousand times more energy than the Static draws. If I tried to draw it on this sheet of paper I’d need to stretch it all the way to Canterlot. It took so much energy that, for the first time, the green thing showed strain. And, to put the cherry on top the universe is safe. Checked just a few minutes ago then called you all here.” “Well what are we waiting for then!?” Pinkie said. “Let’s go to the furthest reaches of the multiverse already!” Without waiting for any of them, she bounced through the Mirror Portal. Twilight rolled her eyes. “Well, guess we’re rushing in head first then.” She shrugged and leaped in herself, passing through the Mirrory Barrier. Traveling felt slightly different this time – whereas every other trip had always felt instant, she could have sworn there was a fraction of a second where she wasn’t in either location. She couldn’t even imagine what that would be. The five of them appeared in a largely gray hallway with large numbers painted on the walls. It was mostly concrete with a few metallic pipes snaking around, indicative of a deep underground bunker. Judging from the height of the hallway, something human sized lived here. Twilight blinked. “I… Was expecting something more exotic.” “Definitely seen this kind of thing before in Earth government bases,” Starlight said. “When were you in an Earth government base?” Rarity asked. “I was on a random Earth universe. Upset the government. Had some fun.” “I wonder how in Equestria you manage to get up to so much without us…” Starlight shrugged. “I make time.” “Are you neglecting your other friends?” Twilight asked. “When was the last time you saw Trixie?” Starlight blinked. “A week?” Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Mmm… I’ll be watching you, Starlight. Watching…” “You already are. I doubt there’s a single secret I have that you don’t know.” Pinkie giggled. “Yeah… How you doing with your thing, by the way?” She winked cheesily. Starlight turned beet red. “Pinkie…” “Hey, I’m not telling.” She held her hooves up in surrender. “You’re the one who brought up me knowing secrets. Like tha-” Rarity put a hoof over Pinkie’s mouth. “Things are usually secret for a reason, Pinkie. It wouldn’t be decent to shout it out.” “Duh, I know that! I learned that lesson a long time ago!” “Flurry’s only a few years old, Pinkie,” Twilight deadpanned. “Egad! Years! I’m getting old!” Fluttershy facehooved. “Girls, we haven’t done anything here yet. Think we should look around?” “Right, right,” Twilight said. “Celestia, we get sidetracked easily. Let’s go… this way!” With a confident grin on her face, she turned a corner in the hallway. A dozen humans in green military uniforms were pointing guns at her. “Already with the guns!?” Twilight blurted. “Come on!” “Should I get the drone out?” Starlight asked, poking her head cautiously out from around the corner. “No… They’re not shooting yet.” She waved at them. “Hi! I’m Twilight Sparkle!” One of them said something in a bizarre language. “Of course humans this far out wouldn’t be in the translation spell…” Twilight muttered. She sat down, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. “We come in peace. Please keep talking so we can get the translation to work, okay?” One of the men said something. No words were translated yet. “Yep, this is going to be a far-removed language,” Starlight said. “Might take some time.” “Never could have guessed that,” Twilight deadpanned. The human man said something again. “You’re going to have to talk more, I really can’t understand you.” The man angled his gun closer to Twilight. He gestured to the left, where the other ponies were. “…Girls? I think he wants us all where we can be seen.” Fluttershy shrunk back. “Is that… safe?” “Well, if they were going to just kill us I think they would have already. I say we go along with what they want.” Pinkie shrugged, trotting into plain view of the soldiers. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie!” She waved. Two of them started muttering things to each other – but the leader silenced them. “Hey! Keep talking!” Fluttershy and Rarity walked into view as well, Fluttershy making sure she was as far back as she could be. The lead soldier seemed pleased with this. He issued a command to his men, and they backed to the sides of the hallway, guns still poised. He himself gestured for the ponies to follow him before he set down the hallway in an ordered march. Twilight shrugged. “Well, guess what we’re doing? That’s right, following him.” The five ponies had to line up in single file to get through the men on either side of them. When Fluttershy passed the first set of soldiers, they fell in line behind her, startling her. Everyone tensed for a moment, thinking fighting would break out, but no such thing happened. Starlight let out a breath. “Good. Everyone here just needs to calm their nerves a bit.” “Why aren’t they talking?” Rarity asked. “They’re all being dreadfully silent and it’s making our lives more difficult.” “They’re soldiers,” Starlight said. “They’re trained to say what needs to be said. Speaking out of line will not help them here.” “Hmm…” Rarity mused. “I think lots of them would like to talk but they’re scared of the big guy,” Pinkie suggested. “Or they’re scared of us…” Fluttershy added. “Very possible,” Twilight said. After a few more minutes of walking, they were led to a medium-sized room with no windows, one door, and a single nondescript table. There was only one chair, and seated in said chair was a middle-aged man with large glasses and brown hair. Behind him was an older man in a blue uniform with a wrinkled frown on his face. Judging from all the colored rectangles on his shirt, he was either high raking, accomplished, or both. The man in the glasses greeted them with a warm smile. He moved to offer them a seat out of habit, but realized that not only did the room not have chairs, but he wasn’t even sure if ponies needed chairs. He said something to the older man – who just shrugged. Twilight cleared her throat. “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and we come in peace. You cannot understand me, I know this, but please just respond.” The man in the glasses responded warmly with what was presumably an introduction of his own. Then he pointed to himself and said two words – “Daniel Jackson.” Twilight smiled. He was trying to translate the old fashioned way. That helped her, at least. “Hi Daniel.” She pointed at herself. “Twilight Sparkle.” Then she pointed at her friends. “Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Starlight, Fluttershy.” “Hi Daniel!” Pinkie echoed. Daniel smiled. He gestured at the older man. “O’Neill. Jack O’Neill.” The man simply nodded in confirmation. Twilight bowed, believing she should show the man some respect. “Now that that’s out of the way, what’s next on your list of attempts to communicate with us?” Daniel started speaking rapidly, changing the way he spoke dramatically every few seconds. “…He’s shuffling through languages,” Rarity said. Twilight facehooved. “That won’t help the spell. Unless he hits one it knows. Which… Doesn’t appear to be happening.” “Wow, he knows a lot of languages,” Fluttershy commented. “He’s still going.” “…Impressive,” Twilight agreed. Eventually Daniel ran out of languages and turned to O’Neill to say something. O’Neill shook his head, responding negatively to something. Their conversation lasted several seconds, but still the translator couldn’t work anything out. Daniel pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, covering the table with a sheet of hundreds of written scripts. Almost all of them looked familiar to Twilight, but none of them made any grammatical sense. She smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Sorry. You’ll just need to keep talking amongst yourselves until we get something…” “Twilight, I propose finding a way to improve this spell,” Rarity suggested. “It’s one of the most complex spells around, improving it is much easier said than done!” “I’m sure you can do it Twilight!” Pinkie encouraged. Twilight returned her focus to Daniel – he was talking to O’Neill again. Twilight had no idea what it was about, but O’Neill was looking rather tired. As if what was happening wasn’t all that unusual for him, and it was just a sign of “one of those days.” That’s a curious response… Twilight thought. Then she caught a word come from O’Neill’s mouth. “Again.” Twilight grinned. “Again!” She shouted, grinning. “You hear that, again! You can hear the world ‘again’ coming from my mouth, a partially translated sentence!” Daniel turned to her and blinked again. He said a few more words, “again” and “meaning” came though. Pinkie grinned. “Woo! There it is! Meaning! What kind of meaning? I don’t know! But I do know it’s finally working!” Twilight nodded, grinning in Daniel’s direction. He looked right at her and spoke. “Translator?” “Yes!” Twilight said, nodding vigorously. Daniel nudged O’Neill. “Speak.” “Again.” “Again?” “Why?” “Translator.” “Working.” Twilight spread her wings, beaming. “Yes! Oh my Stars that took a lot longer than it usually does. Rarely does it need any more than a few sentences to latch onto something…” “Something?” “Slower?” Came through from Daniel. O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “Speaking.” “Thing.” “There.” “Faster.” Daniel said. He started talking so fast Twilight could barely hear anything, but the spell was still able to pick it up. The sounds blurred together in Twilight’s mind – and apparently O’Neill’s as well, since he was fixing Daniel with the ‘have you lost it?’ look. But Pinkie was more than able to keep up. “OhmygoshyouknowtheartoffasttalkingfastwellsodoI! Weshouldgettogetherandhaveacompetitionsomeday!” Daniel took a breath. “Okay, I understood that entire sentence. I believe your translator has enough words now, Miss Sparkle?” Twilight smirked. “I believe so. Also, you can just call me Twilight. Though I believe real introductions are in order now. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and these are my friends whose names I presume you already know.” Daniel nodded. “I’m Daniel Jackson, and this is General Jack O’Neill.” Twilight bowed again. “Nice to meet you.” O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain why you were in our hallway?” “We’re explorers,” Twilight answered. “We opened a portal to somewhere new and it happened to be in your hallway.” “…How did you get here, then?” “Through a portal,” Twilight said. “If you look around the corner where you found us, you’ll find a shiny spot on your wall. That leads directly back to our world.” “And you’ve traveled to other worlds… often?” Twilight nodded. “Around a hundred at this point, and we haven’t even been at it for a year! Your world is the most distant one we’ve visited so far!” “So, let me get this straight…” O’Neill said. “You are a bunch of colorful ponies that go through a portal regularly to explore other worlds?” “Yep!” “Daniel, they’re pony versions of us, except instead of space it’s other universes.” “Yeah, I got that-“ Starlight and Twilight glanced at each other and spoke at the same time. “Did you just say space?!” Daniel blinked. “Yes? Do you do that as well?” “No!” Twilight said, grinning. “And neither does any other universe we’ve encountered! This is amazing, we finally found one that can go to the stars! Oh yes oh yes oh yes!” “Twilight, get a hold of yourself,” Rarity muttered in her ear. Twilight blushed hard, forcing herself to stop bouncing around. “Ahem. Yes. I and the rest of my people would be very interested to see how you travel the stars. Or to see the stars themselves. Are we on a spaceship right now!?” “Ah, no,” Daniel said. “You see, we use…” He paused when O’Neill grabbed his shoulder. “Oh, am I not allowed to tell them?” O’Neill let a smirk crawl up his face. “Oh, they’ve got the same clearance as any other alien visitor. I just want to see the look on their faces when they see it.” “See what?” Starlight asked. ~~~ “…Celestia…” Twilight said, jaw hanging loose. It wasn’t a spaceship. It was a giant ring with alien symbols all the way around it. The metal was a dark dull gray, giving it a somehow ancient feel. Seven orange triangular shapes were spread along the edge of the ring, glowing softly, each one pointing at a singular symbol on the inner part of the ring. The inside of the ring was currently blocked by an iris hatch, clearly designed to open and close the ring quickly. O’Neill nodded slowly. “Behold! The hunk of metal that’s more trouble than it’s worth!” Daniel sighed. “It’s the stargate.” “I like mine better.” Twilight turned to Daniel. “How’s it work?” “Well, I’m not really a scientist… But I know it operates by forming a wormhole connection with a gate at the other end, creating a near-instant passage from gate to gate. Just enter the coordinates and wait for it to connect, basically.” “Sunset would love this…” Twilight said. “She’s been looking for a non-magical solution for months now, and if this thing can make wormholes…” “…Did you just say ‘magic’ there?” O’Neill asked. “Uh… Yes?” Twilight said, smiling nervously. “We’re very magical creatures from a world where the arcane arts are used in day to day life. I take it that’s not the case here?” “No,” O’Neill deadpanned. “Well, uh, I can demonstrate if you want…” “Please do,” Daniel said, adjusting his glasses. Twilight gulped. “Now, don’t be scared or anything…” She lit her horn, taking a pen out of her saddlebags with her telekinesis. She grinned stupidly. “…I was expecting something more, I don’t know, impressive,” O’Neill said. Starlight lit up. “Do you want impressive!?” “Starlight no,” Twilight said. “Starlight yes,” O’Neill said, nodding in confirmation at Starlight. Starlight lifted herself into the air and created a crystal from the aether. Then she teleported to the other side of the room, frowning. “That took a bit more effort than usual…” Daniel’s glasses slid down his nose. “…Do all of your kind have these abilities?” “Only those who bother to study,” Rarity said. “For instance, you won’t see me teleporting around randomly.” “And only unicorns,” Pinkie said, appearing behind Daniel. Daniel jumped back from Pinkie. “And what about you?” “I’m just Pinkie Pie!” “I know that, I mean you aren’t a unicorn, but you just appeared behind me!” “Already answered the question!” O’Neill nodded in approval at the pink pony’s response. Suddenly, an alarm went off – not a particularly jarring one, but one designed to get everyone’s attention without causing a panic. The stargate made a large clunk sound and its inner ring started turning, and one of the orange triangles shifted overtop of a symbol, presumably entering it into the system as the first digit of the address. “Ah. SG-14 must be coming back,” Daniel said. “Looks like you get to see it work.” The ponies fell silent, staring right at the gate as its inner ring cycled around slowly, coming to a stop only after several seconds of turning for one of the triangles to lock in a symbol. The grinding sound the gate made was somehow comforting, though Twilight wondered how it didn’t wear out from the constant rotating. Every time one of the symbols was locked, the strange noise sent shivers of anticipation down Twilight’s spine. She was overcome with a feeling of it taking way too long. Four symbols. Five. Six. Seven. With the seventh lock, a noise vaguely reminiscent of an engine revving and failing to startup filled the room, and then a noise that could only be described as a ‘kawoosh’ greeted their ears. There was a blue glow coming from behind the gate, though its source was blocked by the iris. O’Neill looked behind him, up at the bulletproof glass separating the gateroom from the control room. “It them?” A balding man nodded from behind the glass. He pressed a button and the iris slid open with the noise of a dozen knives scraping against each other. Behind the metal was a rippling puddle of blue and white energy, kept in place by the stargate itself, its glow filling the entire room with watery light. A soldier stepped through, followed by three other men. They saluted to O’Neill and walked down the ramp to him. “Alien visitors today, sir?” O’Neill nodded. “It always happens when I’m here, doesn’t it? I should just stop agreeing to help Landry with his vacations.” The soldier looked at the ponies. “So, these guys again?” Twilight blinked. “Wait… Again? You’ve met others like us before?” Daniel’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. Forgot about that. We did have a unicorn in here for a short while several months ago. She was chasing a being made of blue crystal.” “No way…” Twilight said. “You know them?” “Sort of. Their chase ended in our world. When they vanished the crystal man left his dimensional device. It’s why we’re able to explore the multiverse at all. That’s all we know of them. But… You aren’t the first people besides us who saw them, strangely…” The soldier who’d just come through the gate raised an eyebrow. “Multiverse? One of those days, eh General?” “Yes it is,” O’Neill said. Rarity raised an eyebrow. “…Do you guys travel the multiverse as well, or am I reading this wrong?” Daniel put a hand to his forehead. “The stargate is, under special circumstances, able to link to other universes. Such events are rare, poorly understood, and, as Jack would say, more trouble than they’re worth.” “You girls come across evil versions of yourselves yet?” O’Neill asked. Twilight pondered this. “From time to time, yeah.” “That’s why. It also gets really confusing differentiating one person from another.” “Did you ever consider nicknames?” Starlight asked. “I mean, Twilight here goes by Twinkie sometimes.” O’Neill tried to suppress a laugh and ended up snorting instead. “…No, we didn’t consider that…” Daniel said, a little embarrassed. “Still, it’s not something we really looked into that often. We could count the number of times other universes were encountered on one hand.” “So you must be really good at space travel then, huh?” Starlight asked. “Yep, even got ourselves a few ships,” O’Neill said. Twilight’s eyes sparkled. She looked right into O’Neill’s eyes with the cutest expression she could muster. “That’s cheating,” he said. Pinkie giggled. “No it isn’t! If Fluttershy was doing it would be cheating, but she’s not.” “…The Apollo is in orbit,” Daniel said. “They’re not doing anything at the moment.” O’Neill relented. “Fine. Let’s go on a space cruise. Show off our ship.” He turned back to the control room. “Walter! Tell the Apollo to pick us up and prepare for a little demonstration.” The bald man – Walter – nodded and got on the phone. “You have a ship…” Twilight said. “…How fast does it go?” O’Neill blinked. “Uh…” “Thirty thousand light years per hour, give or take,” Daniel Jackson said. “I can’t even comprehend that speed,” Starlight said. “Twilight, what’s a light year?” “The distance it takes light to travel in a year…” Twilight murmured, processing exactly how fast that was in her mind. “…I take it that’s a really long distance?” “The nearest star to Equis is about five light years away. It would take you thousands upon thousands of years to fly there if you could survive.” Starlight blinked. “So, am I the only one not able to comprehend this sense of scale? Anyone else?” O’Neill pointed at Starlight. “This unicorn gets it.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “That she-“ Suddenly, there was a flash of blue-white light, and they were somewhere else. “-does,” Daniel finished. O’Neill tensed up and sighed. “I thought we’d stopped the ‘teleporting without warning’ thing.” Twilight blinked. “Technological teleportation!? How’s it work?” Daniel raised his hands. “I can’t answer that one. I’m an archeologist by trade, not a theoretical physicist.” “It also doesn’t matter,” O’Neill deadpanned. “Something about atoms and stuff.” “But that is matter!” Pinkie said. “Matter doesn’t matter.” “So matter’s an oxymoron?” O’Neill paused for a moment. “…Maybe.” Twilight took the moment to examine her new surroundings. Instead of bland concrete, now there was cold metal all around, arranged in a practical manner. The novelty of the metal made it less boring than the concrete hallway they had just been in, but no doubt the grey color would seem monotonous to those stationed on here. A few people in uniforms walked around, glancing curiously at the ponies but not paying them too much attention. Screens lined the walls, displaying schematics of what Twilight assumed was the ship itself – a large rectangular center with two rectangles on either side and one large neck. She hadn’t the foggiest idea what any of the parts of the Apollo actually were, just that it certainly looked spaceworthy - though she couldn’t really be considered a worthy judge of such a thing. “This way,” O’Neill said, marching through a doorway. “You want to see space, well the best way to see space is from the bridge.” “Ohmygosh yes,” Twilight said, giggling to herself. She was trying very hard to keep herself under control, but even she could only take so much. They walked up to the bridge of the ship. O’Neill exchanged pleasantries with the captain, but Twilight definitely wasn’t looking at that. She passed the command consoles and other controls, walking right up to the front window. She pressed a hoof to the glass, delicately. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks and her mouth went slack. She could see stars – and a large blue marble. A planet. “It’s really somethin’, isn’t it?” O’Neill said. “Yeah… I… I can’t believe I never asked the Binaries to take me up…” “Captain, engage hyperdrive. Take us to Chulak.” “Huh, wha-“ Twilight began, only to be stunned into silence as the starry field was replaced with a blue-purple vortex of energy surrounding the ship on all sides, passing all around them. She reeled back, a little nauseous at the patterns she saw. “…What is this?” “Hyperspace,” O’Neill said. “Can’t tell you much else about it.” “…It’s beautiful…” Rarity said, placing her hoof on the window as well. “I could get used to this…” The moment she said that the blue shimmer of hyperspace vanished, replaced by a different planet, and a different star. Twilight grinned. “How far did we go?” “Only a few dozen light years,” Daniel said. “Only a few dozen,” Twilight emphasized. “Why, with this it would be easy to find the stars in our world… Just jump around until you get one you can connect with…” O’Neill raised his eyebrows. “Since when did we give you permission to use our ship for your scientific curiosity?” Twilight laughed nervously. “Yeeeah… You didn’t.” Pinkie shrugged. “Twilight’s just getting ahead of herself, don’t hold it against her.” Daniel smiled. “It’s fine. We’re used to people being overwhelmed.” Twilight cleared her throat. “I believe our next course of action should be to form official relations and discuss diplomacy, yes? Unless your human culture is very different than the others we’ve encountered.” Daniel blinked. “I… Have no idea if we’re the same or not, but that would be the next step.” “Politics…” O’Neill muttered under his breath, making a ‘great’ gesture with his hands. “Oh no… Politics…” Pinkie muttered. “Twilight, do we have to?” “You girls can head home, assuming our friends here can take us back to where we came from. I’ll do all the talking.” Rarity raised a hoof. “I’ll stay.” Twilight smiled. “Thanks. I could stand some backup. Funny, this is actually the first time we’ve gone right to diplomacy. Usually there’s some crazy adventure first or-“ “DON’T JINX IT!” Pinkie shouted, covering Twilight’s mouth. Twilight rolled her eyes. “Anyway, can you take us back?” O’Neill gave the order. ~~~ Discord sat in Starlight’s secret room, playing some random game where he was a human killing blobs with a knife. He had no idea about the story of the game (if there was one), all he knew was that killing amorphous blobs was fun. Really, really fun. Also a little hard, but that was part of the fun. Starlight teleported into the secret room. “Discord! We are going on a trip!” Discord blinked. “Where to?” “We’ve found a new world – one with science-fiction technology. Spaceships. C’mon, we’re going to steal their secrets.” Discord dropped the controller. “Yes! So, what are we going for?” “I don’t know. Ideally, we get spaceship blueprints, but only if we can grab it without them noticing. If they notice, they’ll probably blame Twilight. So not only do we need to be invisible, but intangible. Got it?” Discord snapped his fingers. “Got it. We are now invisible and intangible. To the Mirror Portal?” “To the Mirror Portal.” With a snap of his fingers, Discord and Starlight appeared in front of the Mirror Portal. Bon Bon looked up from her paperwork as if she sensed something, but shrugged and went back to work. “Can we be heard?” Starlight wondered aloud, quietly. “Nope!” Discord giggled. “HEY BON BON!” Bon Bon didn’t so much as flinch at the scream. “Good,” Starlight said. “Can’t take any chances. That place is probably crawling with cameras, sensors, the like. But they don’t have magic. So that’s our way in.” Discord pressed his fingers together evilly. “Perrrrfect…” Starlight stepped through the Mirror Portal, appearing back in the hallway. There was a human guard there, completely unaware of them. Starlight passed her hoof through his body. “We’re like ghosts.” “Who knows? Maybe ghosts are just ponies who learned this spell and didn’t know how to undo it.” “What a comforting thought…” Starlight muttered. “How in Tartarus are my hooves touching the ground?” “Magic. Duh.” “I do not believe for a second you had the foresight to make me not pass through the floor.” “You wound me so. Maybe you just want your hooves to be solid. Ever think of that?” Starlight rolled her eyes. “Riiight. Anyway, let’s check this place out. To the gate first. It’s down a few levels. …Maybe I can just…” She jumped into the air, and landed face first on the ground – passing through to the level below. “Sweet.” “We could just teleport,” Discord noted. “You obviously know where it is.” “Right,” Starlight lit her horn and then they were in the gateroom. At the moment nobody was there. Starlight glanced towards the back – through the glass she could see the control room, and she also noticed a higher ‘window’ overlooking the stargate where Twilight and Rarity were talking with a bunch of humans. “Okay, so… the meeting probably isn’t important, but I bet that control room is.” They walked through the walls, climbing up the stairs to the stargate control room. There were dozens of tall computer boxes with hundreds of blinking lights distributed among them. Wires snaked across the walls and floors, and screens of all kinds were littered around in a fashion that looked disorganized but was actually optimized for space. Starlight furrowed her brow. “And now, to figure out if anything here is particularly useful…” Discord reached a finger out to poke a scientist’s hat, presumably for a prank. “Discord! Stealth!” “Fine then.” He folded his arms. “What should I do if I can’t have fun?” “Look at the screens, see if they can tell us where the interesting stuff is!” Discord pointed at one of the bigger screens. “This one shows a hangar right above the stargate. Status: closed. Calls it the Jumper Bay.” Starlight shoved her head closer to the screen Discord was pointing at. “Wow. That was fast. Good work.” “It’s on multiple screens and seems like it’s an important thing. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it.” “I was… Interested in numbers. Yeah.” A soldier walked right through her. She shivered. “That just doesn’t feel right at all.” Discord waved his hand through her face. She glared at him. “The epitome of comedy, everypony.” “I’m here all week!” “Let’s try not to be here all week.” She levitated herself up, floating back into the gate room and through the ceiling. They arrived at a large room with a handful of cylindrical shaped objects with windows in the front. Little ships. Probably little spaceships. Little spaceships that looked designed to fit through the stargate. “…These are probably the Jumpers,” Starlight said. Discord rubbed his hands together. “Let’s take one.” “Are you crazy!? There’s no way in Tartarus that we’ll be able to get one of these out without them noticing!” “Starlight, I can turn an entire city into utter chaos in a manner of minutes. I can make everyone think there’s still a ship here. Just have to mess with their heads.” “…Discord! We do not want to be caught! What if they have some kind of alarms!?” Discord smirked. “Then I just have to be precise with my chaos, don’t I?” “Discord this is a bad idea and I’m telling you-“ “Done.” Starlight blinked. All the Jumpers were still there. “…What do you mean?” “I mean I stole the Jumper. I currently have it in my hand.” He unfolded his claw, revealing a small metallic cylinder. “But… But none of them are missing!” “That’s what everyone thinks. But that one right there isn’t real.” “…While I admit that’s impressive and makes me wonder why you don’t do these things more often, they’ll still notice when they try to fly it!” “Oh, but that’s the beauty of it!” Discord grinned. “We can take this home, have some fun with it, figure out how it flies, and then return it! They’ll never know.” “I’m not sure a copying spell will work on this.” “Well at the very least you can download the computer or whatever.” “…Fine. But we need to work fast, okay? Who knows, maybe there’s a Jumper cleaning day today!” Discord snapped his fingers, taking them back to the hallway where the Mirror Portal was. “After you.” Starlight rolled her eyes, stepping back into Equestria. Once again, Bon Bon looked up. This time she furrowed her brow, like her sixth sense was acting up, but since she didn’t see anything she went back to her papers. One more teleport took them to the secret room. “Why do you even have a door?” Discord wondered aloud. “Seal it up with bricks, make it more secure.” “Never know what’ll happen. I might lose my horn or magic or something and need to get in here.” “…How would you open the magic lock then?” Starlight blinked. “…Good point. Time to invest in a different lock. Anyway…” She facehooved. “Discord we can’t look at it in here, not enough space. We need to be outside.” “I could just shrink us-“ “Discord, I think if there was ever a time to adhere to the laws of physics, it’d be now.” Discord rolled his eyes. “Fiiiiiine. Everfree Forest?” “Everfree Forest.” With a quick teleport, they stood in one of the many clearings in the magical Everfree Forest. The mixture of purple and green trees was usually uninviting and mysterious, but today the sun shone bright and the air felt friendly. Discord dropped the stealth spells and grew the Jumper back to its normal size. They stood there for several seconds. “Now what?” Discord said. “…There should be a way to open it…” She walked around to the back, prodding the hatch with her magic. “Locked.” “Then use an unlock spell!” “I don’t know how it’d rea-“ Discord snapped his fingers. The back of the Jumper slid open, creating a ramp into the surprisingly roomy interior. Starlight twitched. “You know, if we break it…” “They’ll blame it on their technicians.” “…Mmmf. Whatever.” She walked in. “…Looks like there’s supplies here.” She levitated a bag off one of the side shelves and opened it. Inside was a first aid kit, food rations, a few devices she couldn’t identify, and a couple guns. One of the guns looked different from all the others. She took out the small, vaguely snakelike pistol. “Huh. Looks alien.” Discord snapped his fingers and created a dummy outside. “Fire away.” Starlight clicked the button on the side with her magic. With a startling noise, the pistol readied itself, but didn’t fire. “Geez, all these noises are going to give me a heart atta-“ She accidentally fired it, hitting the dummy head-on with a coursing bolt of power that vaguely resembled electricity. The dummy shook, singed. Starlight’s mane was now standing on end. “…Welp, that’s probably an effective weapon,” Starlight said, shoving it back into the bag. “Let’s never shoot it again.” “I say we do more experiments to determine if it’s shocking in the electrical or emotional sense.” “Nooooot right now!” She rummaged around through the extra boxes for a while longer, finding a box with dozens of crystalline chips inside of it. “…I bet these interface with the system computer.” “Is there an instruction manual?” “…Sorta?” Starlight pulled a small booklet out of the case. “More like scientific gibberish for people who already know what they’re doing.” “Well copy some of the stuff and let’s move on already. Come on, I want it to fly.” Starlight frowned. “Why don’t you duplicate some things?” With those words, Discord decided to make another one of the snake-pistols. “AUGH!” Starlight blurted. “Not those!” Discord pointed it at the dummy and fired, successfully knocking it to the ground. “Looks like I still have it.” “Could you just duplicate the entire ship then!?” Discord frowned. “…I could try… HUZZAH!” Another Jumper appeared. “WE DIDN’T HAVE TO STEAL IT AT ALL DISCORD, FOR THE LOVE OF F-“ Discord burst into laughter. The duplicate Jumper fell over, revealing it to be a cardboard cutout. The gun in Discord’s hand disintegrated into sound. “I can’t replicate things this complicated, why do you think I’ve been helping you steal things?” Starlight twitched. “…Fine. We can take that entire bag out, they won’t miss it.” She threw the bag with the gun, rations, and other supplies out of the Jumper. “But now I want to see how this thing flies…” She and Discord walked to the front of it and sat in the two chairs. Starlight pressed one of the buttons with her hoof. Nothing happened. Not even a consolatory beep. Starlight furrowed her brow. “Great.” “Maybe we need a key…” Starlight tried a simple ‘unlock’ spell. Nothing happened. “Nope, not a key. Not in a literal sense at least.” “I’m sure you’ve got spells that break into just about everything, including the minds of ponies.” “Leeeeeet’s not talk about that!” Starlight laughed. “I’ll just try my ‘skeleton key’ spell. It should allow access to anything that isn’t magically guarded in some way. And I’m not detecting any magic on this thing, so…” She cast the spell, and the console lit up. “Cool. It’s on.” Discord snapped his fingers, turning his head into a car. “How make go?” Starlight rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe you just ask it to go up.” The Jumper opened up its sides, revealing two engines. It activated them and floated a meter up into the air. Starlight blinked. “Okay. It’s interfaced with my mind. Not creepy at all. Nope.” “Starlight.” Discord grabbed her face and touched her muzzle with his nose. “Take us. To. The. Moon.” Starlight thought about this for a moment – then decided it was time to throw caution to the wind. “You got it!” She thought about closing the Jumper’s back hatch, and it complied. She thought about flying into the sky, and it compiled. The Jumper rocketed through the atmosphere, passing all the clouds in a matter of seconds. Starlight briefly wondered why she wasn’t feeling any acceleration – but then she decided she didn’t care. She pushed the thing as fast as it would go, leaving Equis behind rapidly. The blue orb shrank behind them to a tiny pinprick as they sailed towards the sun. “Moon, Starlight. Moon. Not the fiery thing.” “Right, right…” Starlight turned the Jumper around, looking back at Equis. The day side was nice, brilliant, and inviting. Not to mention absolutely amazing to look at. She wasn’t even sure she knew all the landmasses she saw. She ordered the Jumper around to the other side, the side in shadow. She could see small pinpricks of magical light wafting from parts of the globe, but there weren’t that many. But the moon was certainly easy to see. She sailed right for the mysterious silvery orb, thinking that they’d arrive at any moment, certainly. The moon was a lot further away than it looked. It took a few minutes to actually arrive, and Starlight didn’t even land. She just skated over the surface. “Wow. Bigger than I thought it was,” Starlight noted. Discord shrugged. “Eh, it’s not that interesting.” Starlight blinked. “…You could have just teleported us here.” “Yeah, but at least we know the Jumper works!” Starlight twitched. “Discord, those last two minutes were of no help determining if the Jumper worked or not…” “But they were fun!” “Discord…” “And who cares about two minutes anyway?” “We need to get this computer system downloaded so we can return this thing!” Reacting off her anger, the Jumper decided it was a good time to fire a weapon. A yellow drone shot from one of the Jumper’s sides, impacting the surface of the moon. The weapon hit, bounced off the surface after making a crater, and decided to hit again in the same spot. Starlight blinked. “…That’s too small to see from Equis, right?” “I’m sure nopony noticed,” Discord said, the uncertainty in his voice clear. “Take us back.” “Good idea.” Discord teleported the Jumper back into Equis orbit, and Starlight took it down to the Everfree Forest, landing back in the clearing. She let out a breath. “…I’m going to try to get the computer’s information out, somehow. Something tells me we won’t have enough storage. Then we can return and-“ There was a knock at the back of the Jumper. Starlight and Discord tensed. They turned behind them, looking at the closed hatch. There was another knock. Starlight told the Jumper to open the hatch. She put on the most innocent grin she could manage, and Discord followed her example. On the other side of the hatch was a very ticked off Princess Luna. “Why Luna! Fancy running into you here!” Discord announced. “Why, Starlight and I were just-“ “You two are going to explain to me exactly what’s going on here,” Luna interrupted. “There will be no lies, no deceptions, and no half-truths. Understand?” Starlight gulped. “Y-yes, Princess.” Luna sneered. “Now, how about we start with what hit my Moon?” ~~~ Rarity laid the dimensional device on the table. “And here it is. The portable device. It can’t store anywhere near enough power to get from here to Equestria, but it can go most other distances. We are most willing to share it and our knowledge of dimensional travel with you, in exchange for some of your own devices. Namely the hyperdrive you use to travel the stars at ‘impossible’ speeds.” Daniel glanced at O’Neill and the other politicians and soldiers in the room. “Well?” O’Neill nodded. “I approve. Now all we have to do is wait several weeks while the senators sort out the paperwork.” “It really takes weeks to do that?” Twilight asked. “Anything that isn’t urgent will be deliberated until it can’t be deliberated anymore,” Daniel admitted. “If there was a crisis on hand, O’Neill could authorize it. But it’s not like you need it to survive.” “Yeah… Mostly just curiosity. I guess I can wait a little longer.” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Should there be any formal signatures of any kind? Humans generally like that sort of thing. No offense, mind you.” Daniel chuckled. “Signatures won’t come until your lawyers and our lawyers actually draw up a treaty of some kind.” Rarity took in a breath and let it out. “I was mildly afraid of that. Our society isn’t big on… Lawyers and legalese, usually.” “You two seem fine at it.” “By necessity only. Run into enough different cultures you realize that lots of them like paperwork.” O’Neill smirked. “So the opposite problem we have.” “I suppose so.” Twilight used her horn to create a scroll. She shook her head. “Wow… This universe must have extremely low levels of magic. It’s difficult to perform spells. Glad there are at least enough to maintain the translation, but ponyfeathers…” She levitated a pen out of her saddlebags and started scribbling out some lines. Daniel adjusted his glasses. “That makes sense, seeing as magic doesn’t exist here, far as we know. The only things that come close to having it are Ascended beings.” “Come again?” Twilight said, looking up from her scroll. “There’s… some kind of spirit-force in our world that you can advance through a number of… bizarre and seemingly inexplicable methods. Eventually you can turn your mind and ‘soul’ into a physical entity with immense power.” “It’s like ‘enlightenment’, but in space!” O’Neill remarked. “Curious…” Twilight said. “That doesn’t quite sound like magic… More like the powers the Elemental Nations have. Powers that come from within. Hrm… I may wish to meet one of these Ascended to learn more. I’ve been trying to formulate a theory of esoteric powers, and it’s been proving rather difficult.” Daniel shrugged. “You’re looking at one. Or, well, a man who used to be one.” “Really? Why aren’t you one anymore?” “Lots of reasons. Mainly because the Ascended enforce a pretty strict non-interference policy. I had the inability to just sit by and let things explode.” “Ah. Don’t suppose they’d be willing to talk to me then.” “Probably not,” Daniel agreed. “Well…” She turned back to her scroll, scribbling a few more things down. She handed it to Rarity, who crossed out a few items on it and scribbled a few ideas of her own. She then slid it to Daniel. “This is a… ‘draft’ of sorts.” Daniel read it over. “Very basic, but we can work with this.” “Then let’s hope all goes well with your political processe-“ There was a knock at the door. O’Neill sighed. “Timing… Yes, what is it?” Walter stuck his head in the room from the doorway. “There’s a ‘Princess Luna’ here about... Something.” Twilight blinked. “Luna? Here? …Why?” “You know her?” Daniel asked. “Yes, she’s one of the rulers of Equestria, alongside me. But she never leaves Equestria… I wonder what she’s got to say. …Maybe she wants to look over what we’re doing? It should be fine to bring her in.” O’Neill nodded to Walter. He left the doorway to let Luna in. Everyone got the impression something was about to go wrong when Starlight was tossed into the room, faceplanting on the ground. She covered her face with her hooves and couldn’t make eye contact. Twilight paled when Discord was tossed in next, landing face-first next to Starlight. Luna strode in afterward, scowling. “I take it you are General Jack O’Neill and Daniel Jackson?” “…Yes? What is this about?” Daniel said, frowning. He set the scroll down on the table and folded his hands together. “These two have committed a crime against you. They stole one of your devices for their own needs.” “We were going to give it back!” Discord spat back, standing fully upright. A few of the soldiers drew guns on him. He snapped his fingers, turning the guns into silly putty. “Discord… Just stop…” Starlight moaned, refusing to look up. O’Neill stared right at Starlight with a stare that anyone could feel boring into the back of their head. “What did you take?” “…One of your Jumper ships,” Starlight muttered. “There’s no way, we would have noticed.” Luna slammed the Jumper – currently miniaturized – on the table. “The one in your hangar is currently a fake, crafted by Discord and Starlight here. They were planning on stealing all the technology and secrets they could, and would have had I not stopped and found them. I turn them over to you for prosecution.” “Luna!” Twilight blurted. “You can’t do tha-“ “They’ve been doing this for months, Twilight. Starlight has a secret room filled with stolen objects from other universes. They need to see that there are consequences for their actions.” She turned back to O’Neill, refusing to respond to Twilight’s aghast expression. “How does your kind go about this?” O’Neill took a deep breath, picking up the tiny ship in his fingers, studying it. “…Well from what I understand, there’s a trial, and for something like this we lock them up in jail for a while. Though… This will be an odd case…” “Nope,” Discord said, “not dealing with that.” He snapped his fingers, vanishing in a puff of white light. Starlight stared at where he’d just been, tears in her eyes. “…Discord…” Daniel turned to Luna. “Can you…” Luna shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Discord’s power is far beyond that of any others. I was lucky to get him this far.” “He’s basically an Ascended...” Daniel commented under his breath. O’Neill turned to Starlight. “…You really handing her over to us?” “Yes. Considering her position in our society, I believe Twilight would just pardon her with a stern talking to.” Twilight shot Luna a look. A look that was both accusing and hurt. Luna remained impassive. Daniel let out a long, deep sigh. He slid the scroll back to Rarity. “I’m afraid this is no longer on the table. I don’t think we could convince our people to work with those associated closely with thieves. I’m afraid discussions have to be suspended.” “It was going so well…” O’Neill sighed. “Take her away, men. And… hold on, what about her magic?” “I’ve sealed it,” Luna said. “She won’t be able to use it unless I release her.” O’Neill nodded to his men. Then grabbed her and dragged her away – she didn’t fight. “By the way,” he said. “It’s a Puddlejumper. Not a Jumper.” He left without another word. Everyone began to file wordlessly out of the room after him, including Luna. Twilight turned to Rarity. “Rarity, what am I going to do.” Rarity furrowed her brow. “We’re going to talk to Luna, that’s what.” She trotted out of the room, face determined. They met up with the lunar princess in the hallway. “Princess Luna!” Luna was clearly not used to one of her subjects addressing her with that tone. She turned around and loomed over Rarity. “What? Choose your words carefully.” Rarity didn’t flinch. “That was a political mess Luna! A mess! We were working towards a better tomorrow and a great friendship, and because you did that you ruined it!” “Would you rather I let them do what they wanted?” “Maybe!” Rarity spat, standing as tall as she could muster. “Or just make them return it with no one the wiser!” “That’s dishonest, Rarity.” “If you’re honest all the time the world will grind you into powder. This was one of those times.” Luna glared. “Starlight was acting far out of line, and she’s ruined Stars know how much with her constant thefts. She needed something like this.” “Then you could have punished her!” Twilight blurted. “You and I both know you would have found a way to pardon her. Turn Cadence and Celestia to your side.” Twilight fumed. “Did you ever think that, maybe, if you thought the rest of us would disagree with your choice that maybe it was wrong?” “How many times has Starlight overstepped a major boundary, Twilight?” Luna said. “She learns, yes, but she learns slowly because you keep pardoning her. Brainwashing, mind control, magic abuse, theft - you just talk to her and tell her to learn. I see her dreams. She never does those particular things again, but her nature is still disposed for going against the rules, against harmony. She needs more of a kick than you’re willing to give.” “She’s my student, Luna, not yours!” “Didn’t you let her ‘graduate’, Twilight?” Twilight took a few steps back, tears in her eyes. “W-why didn’t you just tell me about this earlier? Talked it out?” Luna sighed. “Twilight… I – I probably should have. But I needed to act now in this particular instance. I cannot say I handled the situation perfectly, but I stand by it.” Rarity shook her head. “Luna, there’s more to this than what Starlight and Twilight need. Your actions have changed things forever between these people and Equestria. They may never trust us again.” “Should they?” Luna asked. “…We’d want them to.” “Isn’t that manipulative?” Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Please, princess, you live in Canterlot. You know how things are. You can’t be as high as you are without pulling a few calculated strings.” Luna’s expression lost its certainty. “…Maybe. Regardless, what’s done is done. Now we all have to deal with it.” She walked away, trying to keep a regal figure – but her stature was damaged. Rarity let out a panicked breath the moment Luna turned the corner. “Oh. My. Stars. I just shouted at the princess. Twilight I just shouted at the princess. TWILIGHT I JUST SHOUTED AT THE PRINCESS!  I’m dead!” “No… No you’re not dead,” Twilight said, wiping her eyes. “She… I think she needed to hear that. I’ll have to go talk to her later. But… But right now, I’ve got something else to do. We need to stay here to deal with what Starlight’s done.” “I still can’t believe she did that…” Rarity said. “…I can,” Twilight said. “She tried to tell me as much last night. There were signs… And Luna’s right, it is in her nature to just do things against Harmony.” She shook her head. “What a mess…” Rarity hugged her close. ~~~ Starlight sat in a cell. The door was locked, she had no magic, and she was crying. What in Equestria was I thinking? I should have known, I should have known, I should have known, I… No, I made this choice! I knew exactly what I was doing and did it for the future of Equestria! Equestria just didn’t want me! So why did I bother? Was there even a point…? Discord betrayed me. He just left me here to dry. He… AAAAAAAAAAA “AAAAAAAA!” She screamed, ramming her head into a nearby wall. Since she already had a splitting headache, the pain didn’t even register. She just couldn’t deal with this right now. Her mind was a swirling mess of contradicting thoughts and emotions, urges to beat herself up and to inflate her own ego coming at her from all sides. She couldn’t think. What did this even mean? Was she wrong? Was everybody crazy? Was it somehow both? Was she crazy? What did Twilight think? Oh no. Twilight. She probably hates me. They were doing something important and I… I… There was a knock at the door. Starlight looked up to it, unable or unwilling to say anything. Even she wasn’t sure. It slid open. A guard let Twilight in. He shut the door behind them. Starlight froze. Tears dripped down her face but her expression was blank, her pupils tiny. Twilight sighed. “…Why?” “…I, I wanted to help Equestria. Y-you wouldn’t do it, so I had to. I… that drone that saved your life? It wouldn’t exist without what I d-did.” Twilight bit her lip. “I was afraid of that. Starlight, bad things can result in some good, and good things can result in bad. If you’d never brainwashed that town, we’d never have met. But I still think it would have been better for you never to do that.” Starlight sagged. “…You’re right.” Twilight frowned. “Am I really?” “Of course you are! You’re always right!” “No, I’m not, and you know this. Luna doesn’t think I’m right either. She thinks I’m way too soft with you. That you need to be punished like this.” Starlight blinked. “You… don’t think so?” “No. I think you need to be taken back to my castle so we can talk this out. There didn’t need to be public embarrassment or irreversible consequences. There didn’t need to be persecution. Or… I thought that.” “…And now?” “I’m not sure. Luna’s made me think about it…” she leaned against one of the cell walls and sighed. “I can probably strike a deal to get you out of here. All I’m wondering is if I should. What do you think?” “I…” Starlight grabbed the side of her head. “I don’t know. I’m not in my right mind right now. There’s part of me that thinks I need to be locked up forever and there’s the other part that’s begging you to let me out. To forgive me.” Twilight shook her head with a sad smile on her face. “I’ve already forgiven you. Just like all the other times.” Starlight wiped her face. “You are way too forgiving, Twilight.” “I know. I think that’s part of what Luna wants to teach me.” “Nopony ever stops learning, huh?” “No.” Twilight hugged her. “It’s something we share.” “You should probably let them have their way with me,” Starlight said suddenly. “It’s the politically correct thing to do at this point.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m not thinking about that right now. I’m thinking about what’s best for you and me.” “Well, I can’t tell you that.” Starlight removed herself from the hug. “You’ll need to make your own decision.” “It seems like I’m making a lot of those lately…” “Yeah…” Twilight took in a breath. “I’m going to think this over. Whatever I decide, know you’re still my friend, Starlight. Okay?” “I know.” They hugged again, and Twilight left, leaving Starlight alone in the cell again. It was so silent. ~~~ Discord analyzed the situation. He was not about to let Starlight succumb to this, oh no. He had the power in him to stop all of this. It’d take a little effort, but he could do it. The plan was deviously simple. All he had to do was teleport Starlight back to Equestria, then use a complicated chaos matrix to alter everyone’s memories to have no idea she ever existed – on this side of the portal, anyway. It would be better if he could alter Luna’s mind, but she and her sister were very resistant to that. Twilight probably was as well, come to think of it. So manipulating ponies was out of the question. He’d find some way to make Twilight believe that these humans had released Starlight because they felt like it was a good idea. Perhaps disguise himself as that Daniel fellow and do the speech himself. Then he’d actually go to that Daniel guy and give him the scroll draft again. He’d find it and suddenly remember that it HAD to be written up exactly as the ponies wanted it. And everything would be better, Starlight would be off the hook, and Discord would feel great. He’d also engage in a campaign against Luna to stop her from trying to assault him again. She’d learn her lesson. He teleported into the meeting room – it was empty now. Nothing remained on the table except the drafted scroll that nobody had known what to do with. He grabbed it, read it over, and shrugged. “Guess this is it.” He then set to work on the cascade spell. There wasn’t much magic to work with here, but he was a master. He could alter the memories of an entire city in Equestria, altering just a few dozen individuals would be nothing to him. He teleported to Starlight’s cell. “All right, I’m getting you out of here.” Starlight sighed. “Discord, that’ll just make things worse-“ He held up the scroll. “They won’t remember anything, Starlight.” “Discord, no. We can’t just undo this.” Discord folded his arms. “…Well I’m doing it anyway. I’ll just-“ Before he could snap his fingers, he was enveloped in a flash of light. He was suddenly standing in a well-lit and simple diner filled with old patrons. “…What in my name is this place?” The patrons paid him absolutely no mind. One sipped his coffee in a way that annoyed Discord. He twitched, snapping his fingers, attempting to turn the coffee into a singing bean. Nothing happened. He blinked. “…Okay, something’s up.” “That it is,” a woman said, turning to him, turning her seat around. Her features were young, but her eyes extremely old. “Who are you?” “Sestar. I’m what you may or may not know as an Ascended Ancient.” “A what now?” “One of many beings in this universe with powers similar to your own.” She leaned in, contempt evident on her features. “You’ve broken our laws.” “What did I do?” “You were about to heavily interfere with the course of history. We allowed you to take the Puddlejumper, thinking you would leave and not interfere again. This has proven to not be the case. So we’re going to keep you here.” “What.” “You heard me.” ~~~ One thing Discord failed to realize was that there was supposed to be more than the scroll in the meeting room - the dimensional device. The humans hadn’t touched it before they left, and the ponies forgot completely about it in their emotional stupor. It would be a long time before anyone asked where it was. And by then it would be far too late. Somewhere far across the galaxy, there was a large pyramidal ship among a small fleet of similar, golden ships. They were drifting in the endless void between stars, trying their absolute best to remain hidden. After all, they were on the run from the forces of the Milky Way, labeled as the eternal ‘bad guys’ of the conflict. They were the alien forces under the name of Ba’al. Ba’al sat on his throne in the largest ship, plotting. He was a tall, middle-aged man with a short black beard and sly, cunning eyes. To his side was a man who looked exactly like him – another Ba’al. One of many, many Ba’al clones in the fleet. They all knew they were running out of options. Their enemies – the humans, the Tau’ri – had gained powerful allies and risen as the dominant power in the galaxy, and Ba’al was the only one of their enemies still alive. Hundreds of thousands of clones had fallen to the Tau’ri, and as far as this Ba’al knew they were the last sect left. Drifting in the void, waiting for an opportunity. The opportunity came in a way none of them expected. A man – one of Ba’al’s informants that had been planted amongst the Tau’ri – ran into their presence. He bowed to one knee and presented them with an unusual device. “…What is this and why have you left your station to bring it to us?” the two Ba’al’s said at the same time. “It is a device from a different universe, my Lord. A device with the power to travel between universes, near and far. It will lead us to new lands to conquer.” Ba’al raised an eyebrow at his clone. The clone raised an eyebrow in return. “This galaxy is lost to us.” The other nodded. “All we’d have to do is find a simple world to start the empire again. Build our forces without their knowledge.” The first picked the device out of their servant’s hands. He twisted a few dials until he came to a name he liked – Ardent. “Hrm… Now how does it work?” “There was no demonstration, but it needs power.” Both the Ba’al’s stood up. “You do not have to return to the Tau’ri,” they said at the same time. “I doubt we will stay here for long.” The servant bowed respectfully and scurried away. “Let us hope this thing actually works…” One said. “I have no doubt it works. It will likely need some altercations though…” “With a few hundred of us working on it, it should take no time at all.” They grinned and let out slow, evil laughs.