The train ride back was completely uneventful. After Twilight invoked Celestia's authority by virtue of being her personal student (authority that she apparently doesn't technically have, but the engineer doesn't know that) we found ourselves simply waiting in a car with nothing to do. The mood was far too dark and serious to play games or cuddle or anything like that. Twilight insisted that we should try to get some rest while we could, despite the fact that we probably would have a hard time doing so.
She was right too. I didn't sleep at all. I was too mad. Although, to be honest with myself, I was also a little bit excited too. Not only was I about to get my powers back, but I get to show a giant monster what's what, and nopony will even get mad at me for it!
After getting off the train at the station, Twilight and I ran through the streets of the city so hurriedly that I could barely think about anything except ensuring that we didn't get separated. Ponies kept getting in our way. To my slight amusement, Twilight was spouting 'sorry' to everypony around us the entire way.
Getting through the palace turned out to be easy. Everypony apparently knows Twilight there, and they all just let her go wherever she wants.
It turns out that Luna is eating at the moment, specifically, breakfast, at least for her.
As soon as we barreled through the door to the royal dining room and saw Luna's shocked face staring back at us, Twilight started shouting.
"Princess Luna! I hate to interrupt your breakfast, but we there is really big trouble, and I brought proof!"
Twilight smacked a photograph of the Negotiator being pulled under the ocean down onto the table in front of the night princess. A picture taken by yours truly, I must add.
Luna waved down the guards in the room, wiped something off of her muzzle with wide eyes and stared down at the picture.
"By the moon, what in Equestria is occurring here?! She cried in confusion. "That is a siren, is it not?"
"It is, but that's not the worst of it!" Twilight cried. "You see how the Negotiatior is surrounded by a yellow magic barrier and being pulled under the water? I hate to be blunt, but the siren has enchanted your sister!"
"Nay!" cried Luna in shock, her bowl of whatever it is that she was eating forgotten. "What you say cannot be! My sister and I are adept at protecting ourselves from such magic in the blink of an eye! How could a siren possibly breach her defenses?"
"It threatened to hurt her guard," explained Twilight. "The only way to stop that from happening was to voluntarily allow herself to be enchanted!"
"Why does fate conspire against us so?" Luna wonders. "Even when my sister and I seek to avoid such troubles, trouble finds us all the same. We must take action," said Luna gravely.
"Princess!" cried one of the guards. "We are yours to command. What are your orders!"
"My orders are for you to leave this room and station yourselves elsewhere. I care not where."
The guards gave each other several looks, but immediately obeyed.
"I must attend to this matter myself," said Luna. "There will be no argument against the fact."
"Actually, I was hoping that you would say that," said Twilight.
"Twilight, thou must understand that we shall be throwing ourselves into extreme peril. Before we took the form of the nightmare, we were my sister's equal. But after thou and thy friends freed us, I was left in a most vulnerable state, my power greatly diminished. It is coming back with time, but I have not made a full recovery. Even with thou lending me your aid, we cannot match my sister's magic, to say nothing of the siren. We require thy friends' assistance to use the elements of harmony to force our sister to return to her senses, but I require time to formulate a plan in which subterfuge shall replace raw strength. With my sister on the side of our enemy, it will have to be a very well thought out plan."
"Actually..." Twilight began nervously. "I think I know of one more... individual who can help. I need you to help us by give my friend his power back. With his help, I think we can match even Princess Celestia."
Luna narrowed her eyes at Twilight. "This is a bold claim, Twilight. I trust that thou would not dare exaggerate or make jokes with my sister in such peril."
"I wouldn't dream of it," said Twilight. "Trust me. You won't regret it."
Luna held her head up high. "We do trust you, Twilight Sparkle, and we have not forgotten our promise to do this very thing. If thou insist that this shall help us, then we shall do as you say. Come! We must make haste for my sister's university!"
"Celestia's School for Magical Unicorns?" said Twilight, seeking confirmation.
"Indeed. Thy friend's magic is unstable in it's nature and it requires the constant attention of those educated in high magics to contain it. A handful of the school's best were sworn to secrecy and are acting as keepers in a secure location. I shall take you there."
"Shouldn't we just teleport there?" asked Twilight in confusion.
"Nay. We cannot teleport your friend, and thou must save thy strength."
A few minutes later, I find myself approaching the campus security building at Celestia's school, and suddenly I feel it. Magic. Chaos magic. Mine. After all this time, I'm really going to get it back. And it has been here the whole time. The sensation of my power is so shocking after being separated from it for so long that I probably would stop following Luna and Twilight and just revel in the sensation if I wasn't in such a hurry. The inside of the building isn't anything noteworthy. The only part that is accessible to the public is a customer service desk, in fact.
"We require access to the vault beneath our hooves!" states Luna to the sole security guard at the desk at this hour, who was reading the paper and drinking a coffee.
He sputters some of his coffee out and looks at the Princess in shock.
"Yes, of course Princess!" he says, scrambling to his hooves. He opens up a door to let us behind the desk. He then leads us down a hallway, passing several rooms of no importance. Offices, by the look of them. As we turn a corner, I am slightly surprised to see two of Celestia's royal guard guarding a door with no windows to look through to see what's on the other side. I am not surprised though when our security guard friend takes us directly to them.
The two guards stand at attention.
"I'm not allowed down there," says the security guard. "I don't even know what's down there actually. So I guess this is as far as I can take you."
Luna nods at the stallion. "Very well. Thank you for the help. You may be dismissed." She then turns back to the two guards. "We require entrance to the chamber below."
To my shock, the guards don't move a muscle.
"Did thou not hear my words?" cried Luna in frustration. "Give us entry through this door or I shall be forced to put you both to sleep and report- Oh, my mistake," said Luna blushing. I stare in confusion, and the guards are just standing their sweating in their uniforms, terrified out of their minds most likely. "Forgive me, it slipped my mind that you require a pass sign. This is slightly embarrassing."
Luna then just sits down right on the spot.
"You may enter," the guards both say, their relief obvious.
"That's the pass sign?" cried Twilight, giving voice to my confusion as well, not to say that I don't find it amusing.
"Apparently it is. I'll admit, it is not something that anypony trying to force entry is likely to do."
"I suppose..."
The doorway leads to a flight of stairs that go down into the ground.
So this is where they hid my powers, eh? I think to myself. I have to wonder if I would have ever figured it out on my own. And how I would have gotten in here on my own. I'm sure I would have thought of something, of course.
As we descend the startlingly long stairs, I suddenly realize that I can hear weird music coming from below.
What in the world are they doing down there?
I am walking behind Luna and Twilight so as to not get in their way with my invisibleness, so I don't get to see what's in the room before they do when Luna pulled the door at the bottom of these stairs in.
"What in Equestria?" cries Twilight, which I can barely hear over the music which just got much louder when the door opened.
Luna is just standing in the doorway. I wish I could see her expression.
"Come on!" I cry impatiently. "My magic sense is positively screaming at me, we're so close! What's the hold-up?"
"Princess Luna!" I hear. "This is an... unexpected visit. If anypony, I was expecting the Princess who set this all up. I take it you aren't here to join in the party?"
"We're afraid not, Mrs. Clandestine. We must admit, our sister's notes did little to prepare us for... this."
"Professor Clandestine?" cried Twilight in surprise. She eagerly stepped forward and Luna, taking the hint, stepped fully into the room and allowed Twilight to pass. "I haven't seen you since I moved to Ponyville!"
With the Princess and my marefriend out of the way, I can see clearly into the room beyond.
"Hold on," I cry out. "I thought that was a joke. Are you ponies literally having a party in there?"
I push my way into the room. I take a glancing look at Professor Clandestine, but she's just an unfamiliar white unicorn with a grey mane to me. Rather boring. I turn my attention to my far more colorful surroundings.
And then I stare at them.
Not what I was expecting.
The room is actually not very big. It is very rectangular and about five times wider than it is deep. But the room is painted in red plaid with green stripes and along one of the long walls is a big glass window. It doesn't have to be transparent for me to know what's in there though.
I stare at the swirling blob of purple and black energy with lightning streaking through it. It's writhing inside the isolated chamber which is coated in white and yellow swirls. The floor is flooded with about two feet of water, and there appears to be a unicorn stallion garbed in a striped swim suit sitting in a boat floating in that water. He's paddling around aimlessly and, I can barely hear from behind this glass, singing some terrible sea shanty.
I'm here! I've made it! I have selected the means by which that I would reach this point and... I am utter delighted right now.
"My chaos! My beautiful, beautiful- Holy candy cane clowns, what is that smell?" I cry aloud.
I whirl around and realize that on one side of the room is a table just piled with pizza boxes.
"They're literally having a party in here," I deadpan.
"Allow me to introduce my... I suppose colleages doesn't really describe the circumstance, accomplices shall I say?" says the professor pony. This here is-"
"DJ PON3?!" cries Twilight in surprise.
I look at the opposite end of the room and see that there is a bunch of sound equipment set up over there with a blue maned and white coated mare with purple goggles or something over eyes and headphones over her ears. She looks up from messing with some potentiometers on her sound board and waves. Er, I meant sliders! Wow, I've been hanging around Miss Science for too long.
"Princess Celestia requested her assistance in this project because we have need of somepony with her talents," says Professor Clandestine.
"And who is that?" asks Twilight, approaching the glass wall.
The professor walks to her side and stares down at the odd character paddling around in the water.
"That would be Chuckle Chanty. A student here at the school. He's working with us for- ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this... extra credit."
"Extra credit?" I ask in confusion. "What kind of extra credit could you possibly- Ugh, Twilight, ask them what they're doing to my magic!"
I turn back to look at my cloud of magic. After all, it is the reason I'm here in the first- oh cinnamon sticks it's moving toward me.
That is most excellent! Reacquiring my power will be even easier than I thought.
It occurs to me that this is going to cause quite a fuss, having the magic disappear like this, but...
That's fine with me!
"Err..." Twilight began. The professor looked to her expectantly. I'm guessing neither of them have noticed anything wrong yet, but I don't know for sure. I'm too busy staring at the cloud of chaos magic floating in my direction. "What exactly is the goal of this, er, project?"
The professor hesitates for a second. "You came here with Princess Luna and you don't know? Our primary goal is to keep the- ah, er... the... um... the magic... contained. The secondary objective is to study it, but we haven't been able to do very much of that. The magic is extremely unstable-"
*SNORT!* "HAHAHAHAHA!"
That came from me. Couldn't help it. Nopony else but Twilight heard that, of course.
"and although it doesn't seem to cause any real damage to anything or anypony it comes into contact with, we have Chuckle Chanty to thank for that little 'discovery', we can't get any consistent readings on it with our instruments. Or rather, we can, right up until we think we've figured something out. And then it changes. I swear, it has a mind of it's own, and it toys with us if we try to make any sense of it. The only study that is fairly reliable is purely observational. Obviously, it seems drawn to acts of chaos. Hence the circus."
My chaos magic is in right in front of the window now. That stallion actually fell out of his boat in his scrambling panic, but the sound of his struggle isn't reaching us in here. But... hmm, yes, the chaos magic is just hovering directly in front of the window now. It's not going anywhere now, just swirling and stirring in place.
... I feel like it's looking at me.
"It's obvious that the magic is drawn to acts of chaos?" says Twilight in surprise. "How do you know that?"
"Because- er..."
There is a long moment of pause. I continue to gaze at the magic in front of me, and it gazes back.
Okay, is it actually looking at me, or am I just crazy? It could be some sort of involuntary reaction to my presence. You know, I've never thought about this before, or at least I don't remember thinking about it before, but I wonder if it, deep down, has a mind of it's own. The elements of harmony certainly do, for sure. I'm almost positive that it isn't their wielders who decide what effect they have.
Okay! I speak in my head, in a sarcastic squeaky voice, speaking for the possible consciousness of the elements of harmony. So Luna's been a bad girl, and we have to keep her from going nuts, so lets put her on the moon for, oh, lets say a thousand years? Yeah, that sounds good! The time out won't teach her anything, but at least Celestia can feel horrible about the whole thing for all that time while she puts together a team of ponies to save her! Because she'll need about a thousand years to do that, obviously. Oh, you want to know why she isn't going to be turned into a statue like mean old Discord? Well, obviously she deserves to at least still be able to MOVE!
Or, wait. Was Lulu trapped on the moon in such a way where she could move? I was never actually told. There were a bunch of craters in the shape of her head on it while she was there. Did they turn her into some sort of disembodied face for a thousand years? Forced to stare at the world all the time? Oh CHAOS, she might have had it even worse than I did!
Actually, come to think of it, as far as I can tell, the elements of harmony intended to leave me trapped in that statue for the rest of eternity. It was actually Celestia's willing decision to let me out.
You know, I hate to admit it, but I think that the degree of animosity that I have for Celestia might be slightly overdone. At least some of the blame falls on those elements.
Did this never occur to me before? If it did, it obviously didn't stick.
"The magic, it has moved!" cries Luna in alarm. I turn around and look at her. "Twilight!" she continues. "Is this in your plan?"
"Discord!" cries Twilight in alarm, now paying full attention to me. "What's happening?"
"I am Discord, the lord of chaos. I don't have to wait for you all to give me the okay to take back what is irrefutably mine. You ponies have done an admittedly better job than expected in keeping it contained, but unlike them, I am in full control of my powers. Not to worry, I am not going to hurt anypony."
A panel of the wall between this room and the containment room opens up. Apparently a sort of hidden doorway painted over with the same paintjob as the rest of the room. The Chuckle Chanty stallion stumbles in. He is soaking wet and water is still gushing out of his coat and onto the ground.
"Professor!" he cries in panic. "The weird magic stopped dancing and is drifting away! Wait, Princess Luna?"
"Everything is under control," says Twilight nervously, "but I think we should keep away from it, just in case!"
I just shrug at her, noting how everypony seems to be taking her advice to heart. Quickly. I turn back to my magic.
I reach out with both of my hands and 'flex' parts of my body that haven't actually functioned in about two weeks.
"We have work to do, old friend," I say to it.
The cloud of chaos magic jumps straight through the glass as though it isn't there and surges up my arms, and then it's surging through my eye sockets and my mouth and then my everywhere and all I can see right now is purpley black stuff and oh ice-cream cantaloupe crepes this is like being electrocuted, but in an great way!
Suddenly I can see again and I feel like I'm floating in the air. I feel like I'm about to explode with power. Which, I suppose, is hardly surprising, since my body has been getting used to the sensation of being completely magicless for the last two weeks only for me to instantaneously once again become the most powerful magic users in the entire world.
Oh, hmm, actually, I wasn't just imagining that 'floating in the air bit'. And I didn't even do that consciously. Fascinating!
"Where did the magic go?" cried the Professor.
"Discord!" Twilight cries out in frustration. "We didn't even get the chance to explain to them what was going to happen!"
"Oh, how I have missed this feeling!" I cry in euphoria, ignoring Twilight and throwing my arms up in the air. I prepare my paw for a snap.
"Discord!"
I realize that unless I want Twilight to be even more upset than she probably is going to be already, I need to at least explain myself.
"It couldn't be helped, Twi, and that's the honest truth. The chaos was being contained by what was basically the equivalent of a ferrite magnet, but when I came along, I was like a neodymium magnet in comparison."
"How do you even know about that?" cried Twilight in bewilderment.
"I have no idea!"
I let the snap go, and I feel the oh-so-missed sensation of disembodiment take me as I transform into a bundle of fireworks and immediately launch in all directions and explode myself all over the place.
I hear cries of confusion from every pony present.
I pull myself back together and rematerialize my body.
"Hold up, surely you all can't see me now right, I mean, we didn't even fix the stupid node!"
"I'm not the only one who saw these crazy flashing lights just now, am I?" asks Chuckle Chanty.
I sigh. "Oh well, that's a problem to deal with later."
I turn to Twilight and see her face. I don't think she is amused.
"Okay, I'm sorry about this, Twi, but honestly, if I didn't do something chaotic the instant I got my powers back, I think I would have exploded, or something. You stay here and do some damage control, I'll be right back."
I ready a teleportation. Destination: that one part of the ocean where I last saw Celestia and Lady Lento.
*SNAP*
I find myself surrounded by darkness. I can hear the slight noises of the ocean below me, but I can't see very much in the moonlight.
"Of course it's nighttime," I say to myself, feeling oddly compelled to talk aloud to myself when nopony else is around to hear me talk. I've grown used to having constant company, it appears. "We spent all day on that dreadfully dull train."
Who am I talking to?
"Well, I can fix this whole talking to myself thing right here and now!"
I snap and create another copy of myself.
I put my hands up to my face and cup them together and put them over my face, like binoculars. This allows me to see in night vision.
"Anything around here?" My other self ask as I looking around.
"Not really, just water, water, everywhere. Go figure."
What do I do at this point?
Oh, right, I see what I can sense with my magic senses!
HOLY CHAOS, I can sense MILES AND MILES!
I fall over in shock.
I feel me pick myself up, and then he lightly slaps me in the face.
"What are you getting so worked up about?" he asks disdainfully. "We have a job to do, and if you keep stumbling at simple things, you might not be paying attention when you really should be!"
"You mean like that ordeal with the elements turning me into stone?" I ask.
"Obviously."
Okay, aside from me being rather rude to myself about the matter, this is actually really great! Ordinarily I wouldn't even blink at that fact, but being deprived of magic over the past two weeks has made realize how unbelievably fantastic I am all over again. THIS is the way things should have been all long, right here!
Okay, now, I didn't really get much a feel for that siren's magic, but I know Celestia's magical signature like the back of my own nostrils.
I'm not even exaggerating, the pose that I was trapped in for AGES AND AGES nearly left me staring up my own freakin' nose for an eternity.
I reach out with my sense into the mass of strange magics in the ocean. This shouldn't be too hard. Celestia's magic is both so unique and so powerful, she should stand out like a beacon.
Yep, I've got her! Now I go turn that siren into cheese.
Maybe. Actually, perhaps I should go with a more gouda idea.
Doesn't matter. I'll figure it out when I get there.
I vanish my other self for now.
Aaaaand teleport!
"Whoa."
I look around at this place I threw myself into.
I'm in the middle of some sort of a weird town made entirely out of fancy masonry. It's also very busy here, some sort of parade. There are ponies marching down the streets carrying statues and paintings of-
Ugh. Lento. Of course.
To make matters worse, they are all fighting each other about who has the best rendition of the great Lento or some garbage. Is this seriously what sirens make their victims do all the time?
Actually, probably not, if I'm being honest with myself. They seem to be celebrating Lento's 'glorious' triumph over Celestia and the other ponies on board the Negotiator, and I can't imagine that that is something that happens every day.
Bleugh, this needs a mega-dose of chaos, instantly.
Except I really should take care of Celestia first.
Where is Celestia anyway? I should have teleported exactly e squared meters away from her.
Oh, there she is, carrying a massive marble divan lounge thingy with a giant red cushion.
Not to mention the enormously huge siren laying atop it and-
Oh no, seriously, there's a giant building on top of a hill coated in silver and gold behind her.
And the rest of these buildings are embellished with squat.
I wonder what that place is?
I'm being sarcastic. If that isn't some sort of a castle or something for the local tyrant, I'll eat my hat.
I can totally do that now.
Where are we, anyway?
I fly way up high to get a good view.
Hmm, it turns out that this is an island. An island in the middle of nowhere. I guess there isn't some sort of crazy underwater kingdom or anything like that, but I do have to wonder why Lento made Celestia submerge an entire frigate into the water. Perhaps Lento was afraid that Celestia's boat wasn't alone and that there might still be others around, unseen. She was right of course, although the funny thing is that not even Celestia knew that we were there. If that was the reason, it didn't do the fool siren any good in the end, not when she's up against me.
All very interesting indeed. Most of these ponies have probably lived here for years. Not nearly as long as I was stuck in that darned statue, but I actually feel really bad for them. Of course, their hypnotic queen is about to go bye-bye, so there is that.
In fact, I should really just get on with it.
I teleport back to Celestia's position. Naturally, she has no idea that anything is even amiss.
I consider her for a moment.
I wonder if I can actually free her from the siren's control with my magic? It's probably safe to say that my experience in combating siren magic is next to none. I suppose there's only one way to find out.
I snap.
My whole vision goes white.
A sharp pain stabs through my head.
The white vision passes in a flash, as does the annoying head pain, and Celestia looks alarmed.
"Lady, something is amiss," she says.
You have GOT to be kidding me!
I quickly snap to turn Celestia into a living but immobile topiary, but this results in the same magical backlash.
Okay, so apparently Celestia really got annoyed that I got past her spells protecting the elements before and actually managed to figure out a way to block my magic this time. That's not good.
Ugh, chaos and now Lento is singing another siren song, make my head rattle why don't you. I also transform myself into a foal's rattle just because I can, even though I know nobody will see the joke.
I snap and turn the siren into a giant living jelly roll.
"ARGH!"
Or, rather, I try to! Are you serious, more backlash!
I reach out with my magic sense in frustration and realize that of course Celestia has on a thick coat of magical defenses as normal, but modified with some sort of metaphorical mesh that's keeping my magic from taking hold! AND she's cast the same protective spells on the infernal creature that her brainwashed mind considers superior.
Well this is a fine mess! Celestia actually did somehow manage to figure out how to shield herself from my magic! And I can't cast any sort of instant-effect magic on her OR Lento! This is utterly ridiculous! Out of everyone in Equestria, I just HAD to get the one and only creature who found a way resist my powers!
Of course, just because my magic can't even begin to take hold when I try to turn them into stuff doesn't mean I can't throw stuff AT them. If I throw enough magic at them, I could certainly overload the magic Celestia is using to defend them, but if I do that, it will probabily hurt Celestia, even if I throw magic at Lento.
What do I do? ... Seriously, what can I do? Wow, darn it to tartarus, I can't actually even DO anything! I mean, I could probably get the other ponies away from here, but that would just alarm Lento even more and who KNOWS what sort of crazy thing she'll make Celestia use her powers for in order to get them back. I'll actually have to leave everything and everyone here alone and go get Twilight's help, and her friends', and Luna's!
Ugh, well this little rescue attempt ended rather embarrassingly...
I snap and warp back to Twilight's side.
It seems that she is still in the observation room overlooking the holding place of my powers.
"I have to apologize to you on my friend's behalf since he can't tell you himself, but I promise that he didn't mean to be rude, its just that everything right now is such a mess and-" she yelps in surprise when she turns and sees me.
"Twilight, there is a teensy tiny little problem," I say in embarrassment. "Apparently, Celestia actually managed to figure out how to block my magic, and I can't free her from Lento's control, and I can't do anything to the siren either because Celestia is protecting her. Even though she can't specifically acknowledge that I exist."
"Wait," says Twilight in alarm. "So does that mean you can't help after all?"
"I wouldn't say that," I reply, waving my claw and materializing a mango pie, and then pointing at the wall and sending a pulse of momentum into the pie that sends it splatting against the wall.
"I can still throw stuff at them!"
Twilight rubs her forehead with a hoof.
"Discord, I meant something useful!"
"We smell mangos," says Luna conversationally. "For some reason, we feel as though nothing should surprise us any more."
I give her a surprised look. "Huh. Apparently even though she can't see the pie, she can smell it for some reason. Curious."
"Curious," agrees Twilight, "and, at the moment, irrelevant." She turns to Luna.
"Apparently my friend ran into some complications. He can't save Princess Celestia all by himself. We have to take care of the problem together."
"Of course," says Luna, as if this had been obvious. "There are a few preparations that I must make, however. I shall inform your friends of our need of their aid and the elements."
"Why you, Princess?" asks Twilight in surprise. "Shouldn't that be my job?"
"Twilight Sparkle, in the past you informed me that once you reacquired your friend's power, you would likely be able to find a way to end his affliction. Is this not so?"
My heart leaps into my throat.
"Princess, are you saying you want me to do this right now?" asks Twilight. "Aren't there mere pressing matters at hoof?"
"Actually, we believe that it is necessary," says Luna. "If he cannot undo the siren's magic directly, then he must fill a different roll altogether: a distraction. He cannot be an effective distraction if nopony can perceive him and his influences. Furthermore, it is also necessary to communicate with one another as the situation changes, and relaying all messages through you is far too inefficient to be practical. The solution is clear: You must undo the strange magic afflicting your friend."
Twilight looks toward me with an expression implying that she wants my opinion.
"Luna does have a point, Twi," I say with a shrug. "At this point, this is a team effort, and I can't be a part of a team that can't see me."
Twilight smiles at me, and then jerks her head back to Luna.
"I won't let you down, Princess!"
I snap and teleport myself wrapped around Twilight like a snake and hold my claws up again, ready to snap once more.
"Wait, wait Discord!" cries Twilight hastily. I put my arm down. "Princess Luna, perhaps you can bring my friends to my library, and once we finish with our task, we will meet you all there?"
Luna nods at Twilight. "It shall be done as you say."
"Okay. So, there's no time to lose and all, so I guess we'll be on our way."
Ah, there's my cue.
*SNAP*