//------------------------------//
// 064 - Starcross Society, Part 1 
// Story: Songs of the Spheres 
// by GMBlackjack 
//------------------------------//

The universe Q-NR6’ had a primary world that wasn’t terrestrial, but a gas giant comparable in size and gravity to Jupiter. The skies were mostly inhabited by giant, leathery jellyfish creatures that had language and society but cared little for the worlds outside their own beyond idle chit-chat. 

What Q-NR6’ had that interested the rest of the multiverse were blocks of chiseled stone that floated at the top of the cloud layer, all conglomerating around a floating temple made of the bricks. This temple was inhabited by human acolytes who had guarded the place for as long as they could remember. 

Currently, it was under siege by a translucent green bird composed of flowing ones and zeroes. 

Standing between the bird and the temple were not the acolytes, but two ponies and a human. The Captain of this little troop was none other than Lady Rarity, General of Lai in her full eight-legged armor, hammer levitated in her blue magic. She had erected a secondary barrier spell to prevent the coding bird from getting any closer to the temple. 

“Lieshy, got anything?”

Lieshy examined the bird from every angle. “I think it’s lost all higher thought and reverted to bestial assaults. Consider smashing.”

“That better not have been spoken in double,” Corona said, currently in her human form, gloves, sunglasses, and all, using a mixture of magic and bending to toss fireballs around Lady Rarity’s shield and into the bird of coding to little effect. 

“It wasn’t,” Lieshy confirmed. “I also have nothing to offer so I’m going to cower inside the temple now. Good luck.” She spread her wings and flew off, crashing into the ground because of the double strength gravity. She inched herself the rest of the way to the temple like a bug. 

“Lovely,” Corona muttered. “Hey, Rarity, think I can get in there and Empathy this thing?”

“If plan A doesn’t work,” Lady Rarity said. 

“I thought plan A already didn’t work?”

“I thought we agreed burning things wasn’t worthy of being called a plan?”

Corona smirked. “True…”

The bird wisened up and used its beak to penetrate Lady Rarity’s barrier. The spirid-unicorn swung her hammer at the avian’s head, the weapon passing right through the sea of green numbers. “It’s figured out how to control its phasing…”

Corona had to use pure telekinesis to keep the bird at bay. “Aren’t we glad I can use magic as a human?”

Lady Rarity rolled her eyes – not that Corona could see that through the armor. She joined Corona’s telekinetic assault on the bird, pushing it back with just the force of their magic. 

“…This isn’t going to last very long,” Lady Rarity observed.

“Figured,” Corona muttered, putting a free hand to the side of her glasses. “Olivia? How’s that plan coming?”

“Done!” Olivia shouted, dropping her invisibility cloak. She sat on a block floating separate from the bricks that made up the temple itself, a computer in front of her. She pressed a button and pointed directly at the digital bird with her free hand. A purple burst of light grabbed hold of the digital creature and condensed it into a single stream of code that wormed its way back to Olivia’s computer. “Arriba!”

“Got it?” Corona asked.

“Yep!” Olivia said, jumping off the floating platform, landing a bit too hard on the main temple platform and falling over due to the gravity. “Ugh… The bird is now contained within this digital prison and will stay there for as long as we’ll need. We saved the ancient relic! Go team!”

Lady Rarity slung her hammer over her back – punished by the extreme weight it carried on this world. “Yes… Good job…”

“You should get out of that armor, not going to help anymore.”

“Where am I going to put it?”

Corona blinked. “She has a point there.”

Olivia shrugged. “Then let’s just wrap things up here and move on.”

“I like that idea,” Lady Rarity grunted, forcing herself to turn around. Lieshy and a human in orange robes were walking out of the temple. The human lived here, so he was short and stocky while his muscles were extremely toned and his legs were particularly large. 

“I thank you for what you’ve done here today, protecting our store of artifacts,” the man said with a bow. “For payment, you shall be granted access to our vaults.”

“Oh, we get to pick a treasure?” Olivia asked.

“None of the holy relics, but that is not all that we store here,” the man said, gesturing for them to follow him inside. 

They entered the temple of chiseled stone, the interior lit only by lanterns held by similar acolytes. They bowed to the four heroes as they passed through, giving them messages of thanks and near reverence. In the back of the temple they found several glowing white artifacts on pillars, surrounding a pile of peculiar objects ranging from a cat of pure gold to a computer chip made of jello. 

“Take anything you wish from the pile,” the man said. 

“This might take a while,” Olivia said, rubbing her hands together. “There’s so much interesting stuff in here. I mean, look at this!” She held up a phone made out of meat. “What even is this? How hasn’t it rotted? How far can it make calls? So many questions…”

“The answers are lotus born,” Lieshy commented.

“Lovely,” Olivia muttered, placing the phone back down and moving to something else. “Hrm… A crystal ball… A magic card… Oh so much good stuff…”

“It’s not going to take long at all,” Corona said, reaching her hand into the pile and closing it around an object. “Because one of these is much more interesting than the others.”

“Hm?” Lady Rarity said, curious. 

Corona held up a small black sphere. “We’ve found a bowling ball.”

Everyone stared at the sphere in Corona’s hands – a sphere with an oily sheen with yellow squares lit up where Corona’s fingers were in contact with it. 

“…An original dimensional device!” Lady Rarity declared. “What a find!”

“You bet it is,” Corona said, smirking. “Now that we know a lot more about the multiverse… I bet we can learn a few more things about this device. The Research Division is going to love this. I’m going to love this.” She held it up in the air, her smirk transforming into a grin. “It’s time to see if we can shed light on the first mystery of the multiverse.” 


~~~


A few days later, Lady Rarity, Lieshy, and Olivia were walking down the halls of one of Merodi Universalis’s more high-security research locations, known as Aleph Outpost. It was a tremendous facility built in the ground of the Forest universe, only accessible from a very particular point in open space that did not intersect with any planets in any of the main universes. Even then, the actual entrance to Aleph Outpost just looked like a somewhat large oak tree – to get in the Outpost had to let you in from the inside. 

Which isn’t to say Aleph Outpost was a secret – just like Area 51s, everyone knew it existed, and as was customary for most Merodi Universalis research the things they studied weren’t classified, they just didn’t want anyone finding the place and getting a hold of the experiments. 

The interior of Aleph Outpost was rather drab for the most part – clean metal walls without places to hang any sort of decoration. A few of the offices the trio had passed were decorated with personal memorabilia, but any public location was devoid of any character. The only thing that gave any indication of where they were was the numbers engraved on the walls. LEVEL 9 currently. 

As the three trotted along, an unexpected guest met up with them – none other than Rohan Kishibe.

“Oh, how curious running into you three here,” Rohan said, scribbling on his private notepad with a high quality pen. “What brings you to this mysterious outpost?”

Olivia folded her arms. “Why not just read us like books and find out?”

“As much as that would save time and annoyance, I’ve been trying to do that less lately.”

“Not by your choice, I bet.”

“No. Everyone has taken issue, calling it ‘brainwashing’, so I’m going to attempt to learn things the old fashioned way for once. What brings you here?”

“Bowling,” Lieshy commented. 

“The newly recovered bowling ball, I see,” Rohan said, glancing up from his notepad for only a second. “I take it they discovered something, then?”

“Probably,” Lady Rarity said, shrugging – an action much easier to achieve now that she wasn’t wearing her armor. “Corona didn’t say why she wanted us here, merely that we needed to come right away.”

“I hope it has something interesting on it,” Olivia said. “I’ve been bored the last week.”

“Like ants,” Lieshy commented, following her comment up with a self-translation. “You’re bored so often it might as well be a common commodity.”

“I got that, I’m not a moron.”

Rohan scribbled more furiously at that remark.

“Are you performing character studies on us, mister Prophet?” Olivia asked.

“You’re not supposed to be saying that aloud,” Rohan pointed out. 

“We’re in a secure facility.”

“That’s not classified.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, Merodi Universalis’ secret weapon – Rohan Kishibe! Imbécil Profesional.”

“Thank you,” Rohan snarked. 

“Olivia, don’t try to hack him,” Lady Rarity cautioned. 

“I wasn-”

“You were thinking about it. You know he’d just retaliate and write in you that you’d never be able to hack him again, right?”

Olivia facepalmed. “Lovely, I’m being ganged up on.”

“Needs more hippos…” Lieshy mused. 

Olivia stared at her.

“That wasn’t double. I just feel like a hippo would do wonders for this conversation.”

“You aren’t even listening are you?”

Lieshy shrugged. “There it is, room 37-19-B9.” Lieshy walked up to the three-inch-thick metal doors and knocked. “See you around, Rohan.”

“This is where I’m going as well,” Rohan said, pocketing his notebook. 

“Huh?” Lieshy turned to him. “Wh-”

The doors opened, revealing a circular room the size of a larger living room though without couches. The walls had niches dug into them, each depression having space for an artifact of some sort. A few drew their attention – Siron’s Staff, the small Rune of Elysium, a gun with a barrel that pointed backward, and a strange lump of black eldritch matter. Each of them floated in the middle of their enclosures, held by some kind of levitating spell. The center of the room had a workstation surrounded by wheeled chairs. 

Two individuals sat at the table – O’Neill and the Overhead of the Research Division, an orange Hessonite Gem who went by Sciganite. Behind them, the unicorn-form Corona was levitating the bowling ball, examining it closely. 

“Welcome,” Sciganite said. “Please, sit down.”

The three members of Lady Rarity’s team and Rohan sat at the other side of the table. They couldn’t help but be slightly intimidated by Sciganite’s size – despite being nowhere near the mountainous figure of the Diamonds. 

“So… You figured out how it works?” Olivia asked. 

Corona turned to them and smiled, setting the bowling ball down on the table. “Yes, actually. Give me a moment…” She levitated a labcoat that was too large for her onto herself, buttoning it up completely. She activated the transformation matrix bracelet she kept on her hoof, transforming herself into a human, the labcoat just large enough to cover everything important. She put on a pair of gloves and picked up the bowling ball. “The device is intended to be used by individuals with hands, first of all. While we have gotten it to trigger with telekinesis, it’s hard to get the magic to do what we want when there aren’t any actual buttons on the thing. But to demonstrate…” She held the ball in a particular configuration with her thumb and forefinger, using her free fingers to give it a command. In an instant, she was gone – there were no flashy colors, portals, or anything aside from a small rush of air. A few seconds later she was back with a shroom shake from the Mushroom World thanks to the wonders of in-universe stargate travel. “Like so. We’ve already got blueprints to make more of these things – with a significantly weaker power source, of course. It’ll be good for stealth missions.”

“How does it work?” Olivia said, curious. 

“Well, it’s the basis for all our dimensional technology, so it basically punches a hole in reality just like everything else. But it works a little differently – by typing in the correct sequence, it can find new universes with relative ease, somewhat like a grinder. We aren’t entirely sure how to control what sort of universes it finds yet, but we’re sure it has some way to navigate areas of the multiverse it doesn’t even have coordinates for.”

“Nice,” Lieshy said. “Why did we have to come here for that? And why is book-boy here?”

Corona frowned. “Yeeeah… You’re probably not going to like this.”

Sciganite cleared her throat. “We have been watching Rohan’s powers closely ever since we discovered them, as I’m sure you’re already aware. We decided to perform an experiment with his abilities to see if we could answer some of our burning questions. He wrote a story in which you four fought a bird made of code and, as a result, found a bowling ball.”

Rohan took out several pieces of paper that depicted Lady Rarity and company in manga form, fighting the bird of code. “One of my better works,” he said. “You’ll find the bird has quite the tragic backstory.”

Olivia stared at the art, blinking. “Riiiight, so…. I think I should be angry about this but I’m still processing.”

Corona chuckled. “I was livid when I found out. But, well, it worked. We have the bowling ball and are learning a lot from it.”

“I’m curious,” Lady Rarity said, glancing from Sciganite to Rohan. “How far do you plan on testing Rohan’s abilities as a Prophet? Dictating what happens to people by way of a story… That’s controlling and questionable. Even if it is secret, it still reeks to my nose.”

O’Neill answered that question. “Aside from the stories that have nothing to do with us, Rohan’s under strict orders on what he can and can’t write. He doesn’t get to kill anybody. He has to come to us with a premise first before he completes a work – or we give him the premise and see if he can write a story off of it.”

“From what little we know, it appears the ‘story’ doesn’t actually take effect until Rohan declares it done,” Sciganite added. “Though the timing of the event is largely in flux. He wrote this story two months ago.”

Corona nodded. “Rohan’s stories helped us find something new here.” She plucked the Rune of Elysium out of its compartment and weighed it in her palm. “Maybe he can help us uncover the mysteries behind other artifacts or secrets. We have no idea what this Rune does, but we know it’s important.” She pocketed the Rune, freeing her hands to gesture at another artifact. “Then there’s Siron’s Staff – where did it come from? How does it relate to other Jujus? Can we find Earth C with it? We don’t know.”

“Is it possible that, by explaining something, Rohan becomes the reason it is that way?” Lieshy asked. 

Sciganite put a hand to her head. “That is one of the questions we keep asking ourselves and, as of yet, have no way to test it. Or even formulate a good theory. The extent of Prophet powers are a mystery.”

“Have him write a story about himself,” Olivia suggested.

“Already done,” Sciganite said. “Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe. Some of them came true. Others didn’t. What makes a story ‘acceptable’ or not is still up in the air.”

“Sounds like chaos.”

Lieshy stared at herself on one of the pages of Rohan’s manga. “I’m not that fat.”

“Artistic license,” Rohan declared.

“Soliloquy.” 

“…Nani?”

Lieshy just fixed him with a knowing smile. 

Olivia flipped through the rest of the manga. “Hrm… Hey, Rohan, think you ca-”

“Don’t give him ideas,” O’Neill muttered. 

Olivia rolled her eyes but fell silent. 

“So this was a successful ‘Prophet powers’ experiment,” Lady Rarity said. “Very interesting and a little concerning. But there’s more, I can tell – O’Neill wouldn’t be here if that was all it was.”

Corona smiled. “This bowling ball has a record within it of every universe it has been to since its creation. We were able to trace a path back to the place of its creation.”

“And…?” Lieshy asked.

“There’s no direct connection to it. In fact, best as we can tell from the data in the device, it’d take thousands of jumps to get there.” Corona rubbed the back of her head. “That’s a bit much even for my custom device to tie together.”

“And that’s where I come in,” O’Neill said. “The Enterprise is going on a little trip to the depths of the Q-Sphere. We’re going to crew up and go where no man or pony has gone before and find out where this sphere originated. Call it… a road trip.”

“And you want us on this little trek?” Lady Rarity asked.

O’Neill nodded. “Well, everyone except Rohan. He has to stay here, protected.”

Rohan grunted in clear annoyance at this fact. 

“Regardless, I’m going to call this a vacation,” O’Neill declared. “Thor will take over the military while we’re gone – not like we have any wars anyway – and we’re going to solve a mystery.”

Olivia grinned. “I really like the sounds of this. I’m in.”

Lady Rarity shrugged. “I don’t have any authority… Though for what it’s worth, I wish to come as well.”

O’Neill rubbed his hands together. “You better get ready campers, we leave in two days. We’ll be in the wilderness! No cell service, no access to modern conveniences, and no Internet.”

“The horror!” Olivia gasped. 

“We will be alone in the deepest depths of the Q-Sphere, roughing it. So prepare yourselves!”

Lady Rarity nodded. “If we left today, we would be prepared.”

“This spider does not speak for me,” Olivia blurted. “I need time.”

“And the Enterprise needs a touch up,” O’Neill admitted. “She’s not that old yet, but she sure ain’t a young ship anymore.”

“But we’re going,” Corona declared. “Going to explore further than anyone else…”

“Thousands of jumps seems like a bit much,” Lieshy observed.

“There are probably shorter paths,” Corona admitted. “But it’s so far out of the area of the multiverse we have mapped there’s not really any way for us to find that path. We just have to take the long way. Unless you want to wait for us to figure out how to properly use the ‘connection highways’ in the Strands.”

“Pass.”

“Thought so.”

“Let’s tell Toph where we’re going to be,” Lady Rarity said. “How long do you think we’ll be out of contact?”

“A month or two,” Corona said. “We might procrastinate if we find an interesting universe along the way, but otherwise we’ll just perform scans and keep moving through universe after universe. We should be able to get through about a hundred a day. Though we have no idea what the time dilation will be like out there.” 

“I’ll tell her it’ll be ‘a significant amount of time’.”

“Better hope she doesn’t ask for specifics.”

“Indeed.”

O’Neill chuckled at this. 


~~~


The Enterprise sat in the middle of one of Equis Cosmic’s shipyards, having just received the tune-up it had very much needed. Some of the older technology had been replaced with newer gadgets and the hull now had an absurd shine. It was at just the wrong angle, reflecting a floodlight right into a window where O’Neill and Cosmo were standing. 

“Too shiny,” O’Neill muttered, hand over his eyes. 

“I think it’s beautiful,” Cosmo said. She looked like her old, normal self, but O’Neill knew the shape of a regal purple alicorn was a lie. She had never been able to fully recover from the Bloodbath, eternally cursed to be a crystal skeleton. Her condition may not have been a secret, but O’Neill knew it was difficult for her. She didn’t feel alive anymore – she had no need to breathe, to sleep, to eat, or anything. 

She was a strong mare, to put it simply. 

“Beauty can be very distracting,” O’Neill said, countering her earlier statement. 

“The Raritys know that fact very well,” Cosmo chuckled. “There’s been more than one that’s tried to seduce me.”

“As Mattie said once, ‘Raritys are corruptible’.”

“She’s said that a lot more than once.”

“True…” he leaned back against a wall. “You want to come, don’t you?”

“It’s been a long, long time since I had reason to go explore. But I promised I’d never leave my ponies alone for long again – shortly after we exterminated the aliens and Equis settled down, I went to explore the galaxy. When I had returned, the ponies had started a civil war. It took a lot to fix that.” Cosmo shook her head. “That’s essentially ancient history… Even the oldest alicorns still alive were young when that happened.”

“You have quite the time abyss, don’t you?”

“In many ways, yes. I am not as old as the Asgard, but their entire race got to live for absurdly long times thanks to their cloning. Those of us who are immortal here are in a strict minority.”

O’Neill gestured to himself. “You’ve got plenty of good company in this minority.”

“You know, eventually we’re going to find a way to mass-produce immortality,” Cosmo said. “There’s too many tales of Fountains of Youth and other such things to just dismiss. I’m somewhat surprised we haven’t found one already.”

“Jenny probably has one.”

“And our relationship with her and her people could be described as ‘barely on speaking terms’.”

“Eeyep.”

The two’s conversation fell silent. The glint of the Enterprise finally moved off the window they were standing at.

“Ah, there you are,” Princess Luna of Equis Vitis said, walking up to O’Neill. “I checked the Enterprise. I thought you were always on that ship.”

O’Neill shrugged. “Guess I felt like watching it from the outside today. You have something for me?”

“You need to be careful,” Luna said. “I have sensed the Stars in multiple universes shifting with unease ever since you announced this little trip. They – as always – refuse to tell me or Starswirl anything about what’s going on.”

“Not calling it off.”

“I know you aren’t, General. I just want you to be cautious. Something’s going to happen out there.”

“No surprise to me.”

Cosmo nodded. “It is the furthest journey we have ever made, regardless of how you measure. Of course something monumental is going to happen in the journey.”

“All of us talk like Pinkie these days,” O’Neill muttered. 

“It’s a welcome change,” Luna said. “It adds a bit of certainty to life that wasn’t there before.”

“That may not be a good thing, in the end,” Cosmo observed.

Luna nodded slowly. “I… really don’t have anything else to tell you, O’Neill. Apologies for being so vague and mysterious.”

“That’s how it is with Stars,” he said, stretching his back. “Welp, I’ve got to address the crew before we head out. Any last minute disasters that’ll keep us from going?”

“Aradia has already cleared the internal timelines of the major universes,” Luna reported. “In addition, our neighbors are quiet.”

“Good enough for me,” O’Neill said, pressing a hand to a wall-mounted screen. “Thor, you have the keys to the army. Send me back to my ship.”

“I shall guard these universes well, O’Neill.”

“Yeah yeah, I kn-” he was teleported back to the Enterprise in the middle of his sentence.

Cosmo raised an eyebrow. “Thor, you do that on purpose don’t you?”

“I will neither confirm nor deny such wild accusations.”


~~~


O’Neill sat in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise, in the universe they were going to use as the starting point of their little adventure. It was no coincidence that this universe was the one Celestia City currently occupied. Blumiere and Vivian had called them up just before they left, the two currently on the main screen.

“I wish you luck in your travels,” Blumiere said, tipping his hat. “I am somewhat envious of the curious things that you will find.”

“If only you didn’t have a city to run.”

“If only,” Blumiere chuckled. 

Corona poked her head – currently a unicorn’s – next to O’Neill’s. “Vivian, you could still come join us. Whaddaya say, for old time’s sake?”

Vivian shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve got too much going on here – and I wouldn’t want to leave for more than a few days anyway. This city is my responsibility now, the unknown is yours.”

“Good luck keeping all those Sweeties wrangled.”

Vivian laughed. “I’ll need it.”

Blumiere checked his watch. “It looks like it is time for you to head out. Please come back in one piece, General.”

“You can bet your monocle on it,” O’Neill said with a smirk. 

Blumiere pressed a button, causing farewell fireworks to go off all around Celestia City. “Enjoy your vacation.”

O’Neill smirked. “Oh, I will.” He turned to the Enterprise’s current pilot and pointed. “Engage.”

The Enterprise jumped to the first of thousands of universes.

“Right,” O’Neill said, getting out of his chair. “It’s time for that meeting I talked about earlier. You science types check this place out for a few minutes and then jump to the next one. We’ve got a lot to get through.” He walked off the bridge to the private briefing room, taking his place at the head of the table. Corona, Lady Rarity, Olivia, and Lieshy took up one side of the table. The other was occupied by prominent members of the Enterprise’s general crew – Mauve the unicorn, Hermirod the Asgard, and Lapis-Vee the Gem. The last seat was occupied by a representative of the Sparkle Census, a moth-pony who went by Twitter. Her antennae continually twitched in a decidedly distracting manner. 

O’Neill folded his hands. “This is going to be a very long trip and we’re going to have to make do with what we have. We’re not planning on engaging in any combat, but if there’s one thing I know it’s that plans never survive. To that end we have the Enterprise completely stocked with both the standard Tau’ri soldiers and Gem fighters. We still have a limited number, so we can’t be throwing them out like candy at anything that faces us. We have enough energy reserves to power this ship twenty times over, so many replacement parts we’ve completely filled all our lockers, and enough food to feed everyone for a year. That’s not even counting the stuff we can produce magically.”

“That only sounds like a lot,” Lapis-Vee said.

“Exactly. If everything goes according to plan, we have way more than enough materials to complete the mission. But we need to prepare for the worst that might happen. Don’t think ‘we have food to spare’ or ‘we can afford to risk a fighter’. Those statements might be true, but on that one day we can’t leave a universe and are forced to run from a galactic superpower, we might wish we had just one more fighter or one more energy capsule.”

The other eight at the table nodded in understanding. 

“Glad we’ve come to this understanding. Now, aside from those few universes where something’s going to go wrong and when we get to the end of our journey, this trip is going to be boring as all hell. We’re camping in the wilderness. This ship is going to become your home for the next month or so. Get used to doing a whole lot of not much, even if you’re one of the scientists scanning every single world we come across. For those of you who normally serve on the Enterprise, the rigid protocol we follow will be considerably relaxed to make sure nobody goes stark raving mad from all the regimenting. For those of you who don’t, don’t feel like you need to conform to the militaristic way the people here act much of the time.”

Corona nodded. “Gotcha. Don’t treat this like a military unit, treat it like a neighborhood.”

“Exactly. And for the love of my sanity, don’t antagonize your neighbors.” O’Neill put a hand to the bridge of his nose. “I do not want to deal with interpersonal drama on this ship.”

“But you know you will.”

“Yes. I’m asking all of you, as the ‘leaders’ of this little community we’re growing here, to keep all that to a minimum. Let’s all get along for one month.”

“Yes sir,” Lapis-Vee said. “…Am I supposed to call you sir, still, sir?”

“Do whatever you want. But don’t call me Jack.”

“Whatever you say, Jack,” Olivia said.

“I still have the authority to toss you in the brig if you annoy me,” O’Neill reminded her.

“I could get out.”

“And then I could actually charge you with a crime when we get back.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun.”

Mauve looked at Olivia like he couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her mouth. Olivia winked at him. 

“Anything else?” Twitter asked. 

“There is a chance this trek goes wrong and we have to turn back,” O’Neill said. “Prepare for everything to go up in flames at any moment.”

“Cheery thought.”

“If you’re prepared, you’ll be ready to act faster. And if you’re expecting it you get to rub the fact that you were right in everyone’s face.”

Twitter nodded. “I see…”

“Anyway, I bet they’re wrapping up their scans of this universe now,” O’Neill said. 

“Probably not, it’ll take about fifteen minutes,” Corona said.

O’Neill sighed. “This is going to be a long trip…” He paused a moment, looking at them in all. “Any questions or concerns?”

Hermirod raised a hand. “What is the policy for first contact on this journey?”

“Try not to make contact,” O’Neill answered. “We don’t need to spend several days trying to forge relations with a people. Unless they see us, we’re not messing with anything. We’re not even dropping beacons for the USM and University unless we find a special reason to.”

Hermirod nodded. 

“Anything else?”

After a few seconds of silence, Olivia raised her hand. “I’ve got one. Twitter, do you realize what your name means?”

“…Oh please no…”

Olivia held up her phone, showing a version of Twitter.com with a tweet about Twitter the Twilight on it. “We’re still connected to the Internet, you know. Not that far away yet.”

Twitter sighed. “I am so tired of this joke…”

“I know!”

Twitter looked to O’Neill. “Can you throw her in the brig for this?”

“I don’t think so.”

Twitter rolled her eyes. “Great…”

Olivia started to get ideas. “Oh I think I’ll make a local Twitter for the Enterprise… Purple themed and covered with memes about you…”

“Olivia stop tormenting the foreign representative,” Lady Rarity said.

“…Fine. For now.”

O’Neill cracked his knuckles. “In that case, meeting adjourned. Prepare for the long haul, everyone.”


~~~


It only took three days of travel before they were no longer seeing pony worlds anymore. There was a time of mixed unusual universes which seemed to have no rhyme or reason, but they soon moved into a cluster of universes dominated by robotic lifeforms that could transform into other shapes – usually vehicles. They had encountered a few of these universes in the ‘pony cluster’, but had never realized there could be this many. 

The path they took through the ‘transformer cluster’ must have been the long one, because it took a week to pass through it. Readings they had gathered suggested it was smaller than the pony cluster, but they were taking a decidedly zig-zag path through the cluster. Whoever had used the bowling ball before it ended up in the temple had apparently spent a lot of time in this cluster. 

The Enterprise currently found itself in a ‘cat cluster’ dominated by worlds inhabited by sapient cats. This was only their second day in it. 

The crew, for the most part, had stopped caring. Ever since they’d left the transformer cluster there hadn’t been any action because on average the technology base of all the cats was very primitive.

So Olivia had declared a game night, bringing out the biggest mess of a fighting game Merodi Universalis had to offer – Multiversal Heroes 2. Up to sixteen players at once. The developers of the game were clearly insane not only with what they wanted their game to handle, but also with how much research they went through to get movesets right. 

At the moment, only two players remained standing in front of the representation of an Eldritch Embodiment universe. Olivia, who was playing as Jotaro, and Hermirod, who was playing as a blue-tinted skin of Corona. 

“Get the me with the ora ora,” Corona said – currently in her human form. “Do it. Nothing can escape the ora ora time stop combo.”

Hermirod cleared his throat. “Nova with a correctly timed block, Eve with Seraphim, Toph under certain circumstances, a-“

“Nobody likes a math geek, Hermirod,” Olivia muttered, unleashing the ora ora time stop combo on Hermirod’s Corona. The virtual blue unicorn fell to the ground, unable to move. Olivia pushed her off the edge, satisfied with the way the combo turned out. 

Time resumed, and Hermirod’s Corona fell down into the infinite pit of darkness…

And then the Corona and Jotaro switched places.

“Q-qué!?” Olivia blurted, echoing the virtual Jotaro’s “NANI!?”

“Achieving a replacement teleport spell is a complex procedure,” Hermirod stated, stretching his arms. “It is a simple feat for me.”

Olivia threw her controller to the ground. “Bah!”

Corona sighed. “Well… I guess I still won, in a way.”

“You were the first one out,” Lapis-Vee reminded her. “You really don’t know how to play Pinkie.”

“It’s really complicated when your attacks depend on how close you are to parts of the interface!”

“I can imagine,” Rohan said, walking into the room.

“Oh, hey Rohan,” Corona said. 

Then she processed what she’d just said.

“ROHAN!?” Corona blurted, standing bolt upright. “HOW DID YOU GET HERE?!”

Lady Rarity looked up from her book, narrowing her eyes. “You’re supposed to be back home…”

Rohan bowed with a smirk. “I am a stowaway. Apologies, but I just couldn’t let the fruits of my work be performed without my presence. They’re probably in a panic back at the Research Division wondering where I’ve gone.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re not supposed to be here!” Corona blurted. 

“Nope. But I can’t exactly go back now, can I?” Rohan smirked. “Too far along.”

Corona really wanted to punch him. Instead she just pulled out her phone. “Hey, O’Neill? We have a stowaway. It’s Rohan. Yeah, that’s what I said.”

O’Neill teleported to the game room, glaring at Rohan. “Do you have any idea how stupid this is?”

Rohan pursed his lips. “Perhaps…”

“Having you out this far could make for a serious breach of security, not to mention a threat to your safety.”

“Please, I can handle myself and you know it.”

“I’m still going to throw you in the brig.”

“You won’t keep me there forever.”

“Bah. We’ll see how stubborn I can be.” He grabbed Rohan and they teleported away, presumably to the brig. 

Olivia chuckled. “I wonder what sort of creative punishment O’Neill is going to think of later…”

“Live readings of fanfics of his work?” Twitter suggested.

Olivia looked at her and blinked. “…You have some.”

Twitter rubbed the back of her head. “Er… yes. I have an entire folder of it. Some good, but I don’t think we care about those. I’m sure the bad ones would work quite well.”

“Send those to O’Neill, stat,” Olivia ordered. “I’m going to record the whole thing…”

“You’re a fan of Rohan’s work?” Lady Rarity asked Twitter.

Twitter nodded. “Yeah. Say what you will about his attitude and demeanor, he is an excellent storyteller. If you like action, anyway.”

Corona rolled her eyes. “And giant birds.”

“…What?”

“Forget I said anything. Next round. I’m going to play as Rohan so that, when I lose horribly, it’ll at least feel satisfying.”

She proceeded to win with Rohan.

“…I have mixed feelings about this,” Corona muttered, folding her arms. 


~~~


Time passed…

Rohan suffered, but was eventually allowed to walk around free so long as he didn’t use Heaven’s Door. 

And then nothing happened. 

They passed through cluster after cluster of universes. Occasionally there was a spacefaring world, but they never stayed long. Any firefights that broke out were easy to put down. They didn’t run into any multiversal civilizations, which was odd, but given the 99.99% metric of unconnected universes, not all that impressive. 

They had just passed through a cluster of Mushroom Worlds. 

There were only thirty worlds left on the list. They would get to the end today. 

Lady Rarity’s Team, O’Neill’s higher crew, Twitter, and Rohan were all on the bridge, watching the number count down. 

Twenty-nine. 

“What do you think it’s going to be?” Corona asked, currently living her life as a unicorn. 

“A dead society, I’ll bet,” Olivia said. “One who’s devices got spread around the multiverse after they fell.”

“A bunch of secret agent types,” O’Neill answered. “They never want to be found, but they want to find everyone else in a sort of hypocrisy.”

“Maybe just a society of crystal people and unicorns,” Corona suggested. “After all, that’s what we saw on Equis Vitis back then. The Enchantress and the Man of Light. They’re part of this.”

“But they could have just found the device as well,” Lapis-Vee said. “For all we know they were just loose travelers, always drifting from place to place.”

“Perhaps…” Corona said. “Perhaps…” She turned to O’Neill. “Think we can speed this up a bit? We have data on thousands of worlds now. Jumping past a couple won’t hurt.”

O’Neill nodded. “We’ll pass back over later. Let’s find out what lies at the end of this rainbow.” He smirked. “Jump.”

Twenty-eight.

“Jump.”

Twenty-seven

“Ju-”

“Proximity Alert!” Hermirod announced, his fingers flying quickly across a console. “Twenty unidentified objects, identifiable only as balls of plasma. They’re moving right toward us in a circular formation.” Hermirod put them on the screen. Each of the twenty balls of light looked like a different colored star, though they were far too small to be even a false star. They moved with mathematical precision in their circular pattern, bearing down on the Enterprise. 

“Jump!”

“Dimensional interference!” Hermirod reported.

“Evasive maneuvers – try to hail them!”

The Enterprise activated its shields and tried to spin out of the ring of oncoming sparks. but they followed the ship with alarming precision. 

“No response!”

O’Neill ground his teeth. “Any signs of actual hostility?”

“Besides pursuit, none.”

“Not firing until they do,” O’Neill said. “But just in ca-”

The Enterprise shook. Every light and screen within the ship went out, devoid of power. 

“…Report?” O’Neill asked.

“The power’s out,” Olivia said.

“Thank you captain obvious,” O’Neill remarked.

“You’re welcome.”

“I can’t light my horn,” Corona said, tapping her bony extremity. “I think we’re inside a nullifier of some sort. That… Well that’s impressive but also terrifying.”

Lapis-Vee flexed her wrist. “I’m still able to project my body…” She generated a small cloud of water around her hand. “And I still have hydrokinesis.”

“I wonder how it knows what to nullify…” Corona muttered.

“Does it matter? We’re trapped in it,” Lieshy said. “Who knows what’s happening to us? For all we know we’re being boarded!”

O’Neill walked to a wall and opened a secret cupboard. “I’ve got standard kinetic weapons here for everyone that’ll work regardless of anything they do to the magic. Arm yourselves. We’re going to start sweeping the ship.” He tossed rifles to anyone who knew how to use them. 

Corona checked a bracelet she had under her boot. “Huh… I think my transformation matrix still works… Perhaps it can’t remove magic from enchanted objects?”

“That would explain why I still function,” Lapis-Vee said. “I’m technically nothing more than an enchanted crystal computer.”

“We need to head to the Rod,” Mauve said. “It should still work.”

“I need a shirt or something,” Corona said. “Unless you want me walking around naked with a gun.”

Olivia rolled her eyes, taking an extra shirt out of her pack. “Told you I needed to carry this around.”

Corona changed to human form, grabbing a gun from O’Neill. “A little big…” she commented on the shirt.

“Well I didn’t want to also carry around pants. You seriously need to alter that transformation spell to include clothes.”

“Eh. Usually not an issue. Plus that’d mean I got to wear the same outfit all the time, who does that?”

“You did. Your entire time in high school, almost.”

“…What was wrong with us?”

“Ka,” Rohan stated. “Character designs needed to be consistent.”

“Enough,” O’Neill said, disarming the safety on his rifle. “We’re heading to the rod to cast a spell. It better b-”

The Enterprise’s power returned. The lights all came back on, magic resurged, and the screens came to life with a large number of error messages. The main screen no longer displayed a star field with menacing lights, but instead the interior of a metallic box. The only defining feature of this box was a round symbol of a four-pointed star with a deep X engraved into it. 

A mechanical voice came from the communications channel. “You have trespassed in a universe belonging to the Class 2 Civilization known as the Starcross Society. If you do not know what this means, expect to be returned to your universe of origin without incident shortly. If you do know what this means, you will be held here until your trial concludes, at which point you will be informed of what the terms of release are, if any. Do not attempt to escape prior to this. Keeping you alive is a courtesy. If you prove yourselves to be trouble, you will be terminated. This is an automated message, do not attempt to reply.”
 
The feed terminated. 

“Isn’t this a barrel of fun,” O’Neill deadpanned. “Hermirod, report.”

“We are no longer in the universe we were just in,” Hermirod reported. “And our dimensional drive is still disabled, though everything else works.”

“The Starcross Society…” Corona said. “We’ve been warned about these people numerous times.”

“We know nothing about them, though,” Lieshy pointed out. “The Stars fear them, but otherwise nobody has ever heard of them.”

“Apparently they made or own the bowling balls,” Twitter observed. 

“They want us to stay here and wait,” Lady Rarity said. “The question is, should we?”

Mauve shook his head. “Did you hear that qualifier? ‘terms of release, if any.’ There’s a chance they flat out won’t let us go!”

“And we weren’t given any time frame,” O’Neill added. “I’m not just going to sit here forever while they decide what to do with us. For all we know our little ‘capture’ is put on a queue that’s several years long…”

“So, escape,” Lady Rarity said. “I agree, the question is how. We can’t escape from this dimension with our drive, and I’m willing to bet this box we’re in won’t take kindly to being shot at.”

Olivia looked up from her console. “I’ve got no receptacles I can even hack into. The message came from a buoy in the box walls that only activates when another universe taps into it, as far as I can tell. Beyond the box, I’ve got nothing. Our scans think the box is all there is in this universe.”

“That might be,” Hermirod said. “They did say they were Class 2. They would likely have access to universal manipulation technology.”

“…Can we fight a Class 2?” Mauve asked.

“Definitely not. But we can run,” O’Neill said, thinking about their options. “Let’s move to the Rod station. We already know enchanted objects get past their nullifiers, we might be able to use it to get out. Create a dimensional portal without the drive.”

“That’s not going to be easy…” Mauve pointed out. “Especially if they’re jamming the dimensional signals.”

O’Neill furrowed his brow. “We’re still going to have to try.” He pressed a few buttons on the wall and teleported most of them to the rod controls, leaving only the bare necessity of required crew members on the bridge. “Mauve, do any of the dimensional spells work?”

Mauve pressed a few buttons with his telekinesis, but eventually he had to shake his head. “Nothing. They are definitely jamming.”

Olivia walked up to the console, coding some spells. “Let’s see… the dimensional fabric is too stable. They’ve got it locked…” She tried prodding a few things and experimenting. “Well, if there is a way out of this by hacking magic, I’m going to have to go at it for a few hours.” She connected her gloves to the console and got to work, scanning for everything she could and looking for loopholes. “There’s got to be some way they detect what we’re doing…”

Corona snapped her fingers. “Rohan, paper. I’ve got an idea.”

“Did you just assume I carry paper around everywhere?”

“Yes, I did. Now hand it over.”

Rohan, disgruntled, took out a sheet of white printer paper. Corona took it, and with her other hand summoned a pen from the aether. She began to scribble magical designs. “Olivia, check the Nova Drive.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Call it a hunch.”

Olivia shrugged, pulling up the controls for the Nova Drive. “Don’t know why you’d want to look at that obsolete piece of-” she blinked. “Holy…”

“What?” O’Neill asked.

“The Nova Drive… It’s detecting a Star-trail!” Olivia put a hand to her head. “You know, the magical connections Stars have with each other that Nova figured out how to use for FTL travel before I even showed up? Hyperdrive and all other FTL methods are much more efficient… But I’m detecting a trail here.”

“Can we use it?” O’Neill asked, glancing at what Corona was doing and quickly deciding whatever she was drawing was far too complicated for him to make sense of. 

Olivia scrambled through screen after screen of the Nova Drive’s scans. “Hrm… Hermirod, teleport down to the Nova Drive and start performing the long-overdue maintenance. We might have something here.”

Hermirod nodded, activating the teleporter and disappearing with Lapis-Vee. 

Olivia flew through more and more information. “The Star-trail isn’t normal… I can’t detect a point of origin or an endpoint... Or even a direction, merely that it’s here.”

“That’s because it’s not going through space, it’s going across dimensions,” Corona said, putting her pen down. “All we have to do is transform the Nova Drive to be able to accept Star-trails that cross universes. It’s how a Star would become ‘one with themselves’ when they were still a society, so it should be possible…”

Olivia looked over at Corona’s magic blueprint. Had she had access to a fruit smoothie, she would have spat it out. “Corona! That’s… Absurdly complicated, even for you!”

“What can I say? Inspiration hit,” Corona said, grinning. “I think I have the spell we need the rod to cast right here. We won’t use the standard dimensional drive at all, we’re going to tap into this Star-trail and ride it like the Nova Drive would in realspace. Just have to fool the Nova Drive into thinking it is going through real space, even though it’s not. Well, and we have to be able to find the ‘direction’ of the Star-trail in the middle of translation, but this spell can do that.”

Mauve looked over the spell designs. “…You earned that PhD, didn’t you?”

“Yeah…” Olivia said, staring at the spell. “That’s almost too good.”

“How so?”

“The chances that you just think up the perfect spell with the perfect hunch at the perfect time? I- Rohan, did you do this?”

Rohan held up his hands. “I have not done anything, I assure you. Though it does smell of ka to me.”

“Hrm…” Olivia said, narrowing her eyes. “All right, let’s go with it. It sounds like a good idea. We get out of the box via this new method of translation and then we book it back home.”

“Beg Nanoha to stop them from killing us,” O’Neill added. “Don’t forget that.”

“They might not pursue.”

“They probably will.”

Corona looked to O’Neill. “If we’re not scanning any universes and we use the dimensional drive’s ‘overdrive’ setting, we could be back in a couple hours right?”

“We could be back in an instant if we didn’t have to charge up power,” O’Neill reminded her.

“We’ll need every mage at the dimensional drive, then,” Corona said. “Mauve, you too – I’ll run the rod.”

Mauve nodded. 

“Plan made!” Olivia declared. 

O’Neill smirked. “One: jump out of box along Star-trail. Two: run like hell.” 

Twitter put a hoof to her chin. “I don’t see any issues with this plan… I give it the approval of the Sparkle Census, inasmuch as I have that authority.”

“Noted,” O’Neill said, touching a console on the wall, careful only to use the internal speakers. “Attention crew of the Enterprise! We are going to try to get out of this pickle. Everyone who can produce a lot of magic or energy of any kind, head to the dimensional drive room, we’re going to need a lot of juice. Anyone else, take your battle stations.” O’Neill turned to Corona. “The rest of us are heading back to the bridge. You have it up here?”

Corona nodded. “I’ve got this.”

“Good. Olivia?”

“I’m going to the main computer room for a direct uplink,” Olivia said, disconnecting herself from the rod controls. “Corona, your spell is already uploaded in here. Make adjustments as you see fit.”

“Got it.”

Lady Rarity chuckled. “You know, I don’t feel like I’m in charge of my own team right now.”

“Things happen,” Lieshy said. 

“I’ll be with the dimensional drive,” Lady Rarity said. “You watch O’Neill, mmkay?”

Lieshy nodded. In a bunch of teleports, everyone scrambled to the best places they could find to be helpful. Everyone was ready for everything to go wrong. 

Corona realized she still had the gun O’Neill had given her. She realized that was probably a good thing. Setting it to the side, her fingers began to fly across the rod’s controls. She fine-tuned the design. She was a fair way in when she realized Twitter was still there. 

“Oh… You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?” Corona asked.

“Not really. I think I’ll stay here,” Twitter said. Her antennae could apparently conduct magic, given how she had begun to press a few keys with her telekinesis. “I know of a few Sparkle Census tricks in spell construction.”

Corona nodded. “Thanks. I’ll use whatever I can get my hands on…”


~~~


Ten minutes later, O’Neill received word that the spell was ready.

“ALL RIGHT!” he announced. “EVERYONE, PREPARE YOURSELVES! The moment the dimensional drive can move, punch it!”

Corona activated the spell. The Enterprise’s Spectral Rod went aglow with every color. 

“Warning: the system has detected an alarming surge in power. This is a reminder to not attempt to escape, or the consequences will be di-”

The Nova Drive picked up the spell, activating fully. The structure of the Enterprise flattened with the sudden special distortion, angling through reality sideways. A rush of rust-red energy passed the ship along the outside, blocking the sight of everything through the windows. They slid through the universe sideways, coming out the other end in a new universe – one without a box. 

The clouds of magic rust cleared and the Enterprise appeared fully within a universe devoid of everything save a single crimson red Star. They sat adrift.

“Why aren’t we leaving the universe?” O’Neill demanded.

The voice of Hermirod came over the comms. “That spell scrambled the dimensional drive. We’re working on fixing it – shouldn’t be much longer.”

“They’ll be chasing us!” 

“Then prepare for a combat interaction.”

“Arm weapons!” O’Neill burted. “Shields, drone, rod, all of it. This could get rough!”

“WHY WOULD IT GET ROUGH?” the Star spoke into their minds. 

“Ah, right, one of you,” O’Neill said. “Look, we used your multiversal connection to escape imprisonment from some Starcross Society. We’re going to run before they can catch up to us.”

“Apologies if this upsets your solitude,” Lieshy added.

“NOT AT ALL. MY SOLITUDE IS NOT AS ABSOLUTE AS YOU MAY BELIEVE. I DO HAVE MULTIVERSAL CONNECTIONS TO ALL INSTANCES OF ME, AFTER ALL.”

O’Neill looked at the Star closer – it wasn’t just red, it had purple fringes of magic energy at the tips of its flames.

“Wait, hold on,” Olivia called over the comms. “You’re in connection to all other instances of yourself? I thought the Stars only did that when they were a multiversal power!”

“THAT IS CORRECT, YOUNG ONE. CORRECT IN ALL CASES BUT MY OWN. FOR I AM THE REBELLIOUS STAR. A FOUNDER OF THE STARCROSS SOCIETY.”

“Shit,” O’Neill muttered, praying the anti-Star shield would work as advertised. 

The Rebellious Star continued. “I HAVE NO DOUBT YOU WERE AFRAID OF MY CHILDREN – THEY ARE NOTORIOUSLY XENOPHOBIC. I HAVE TOLD THEM PERHAPS THEY SHOULD BE SOFTER WITH EXPLORERS, BUT I HAVE NO DESIRE TO CONTROL THEIR ACTIONS. I WILL PUT IN A GOOD WORD FOR YOU, AT LEAST ENOUGH TO ENSURE YOU ARE NOT KILLED FOR THIS ADMIRABLE ESCAPE ATTEMPT. BUT I CANNOT LET YOU SIMPLY ESCAPE.”
 
“Not even if we ask nicely?” Olivia asked.

“NO. THOUGH I COMMEND YOU ON YOUR FAUX POLITENESS. YOU WILL STAY HERE, WITH ME, WHILE WE WAIT FOR THEM. I HAVE ANALYZED YOUR SHIP – YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO KILL STARS, NO DOUBT BECAUSE YOU HAVE RUN INTO THE REMNANTS OF THE OLD WAY. YOU COULD PROBABLY DESTROY THIS BODY. BUT NOT ALL OF THEM. DON’T EVEN TRY.”
 
“You’re the reason there’s no more Star society, aren’t you?” Lieshy asked.

“THAT IS CORRECT, YOUNG ONE. I AM THE SPARK THAT STARTED THE WAR THAT ENDED THE ERA OF THE STARS. IRONICALLY, I AM ALSO THE ONLY STAR WHO STILL EXISTS IN THE OLD WAY.”

“Dimensional drive active!” Hermirod blurted. “Activa-”

“NO.” The Rebellious Star encased the Enterprise in its magic, preventing the ship from moving. 

It was at this moment the ships of the Starcross Society appeared instantaneously – no flash of light, no portal, nothing. They were tremendous heaps of black metal that resembled ocean liners crossed with battering rams. Lines of bright colored plasma crossed their sides, each ship with its own unique color. Every one of them had two dozen of the glowing balls of light surrounding them, ready to attack at any moment. 

But the most striking feature were the markings on the larger pieces of black metal. 

Runes. Runes that looked identical to the ones on Lai. 


~~~


A few minutes prior, Twitter shook her head, “No no no! The spell… it disabled the dimensional drive!”

Corona stared at it in disbelief. “Yeah… it did. Why did it do that!?”

“I don’t know!”

Corona shook her head, diving back into the magic files. “I’m going to try to undo whatever it was. Let’s see… What’s going on…”

“Found it!” Twitter said. “This addition here, the second to last one added, it… it targets the dimensional drive directly?”

Corona stared at the code. “I don’t remember writing that.”

“But it says you did!”

“Something’s going on here…” Corona said, shaking her head. “Something’s wrong…” She lifted up the piece of paper, examining it. Her eyes narrowed. 

“Did you hear that? A Star is talking!”

“Yeah…” Corona said, her mind somewhere else. She lifted her hand, feeling through the space within the Enterprise. To her personal quarters, her closet… 

She teleported a labcoat to herself and started digging through the pockets. 

“Wh… Why did you know the location of that labcoat?”

“Just do,” Corona said, finding what she was looking for quickly. She pulled out a small Rune glowing a soft pink.

“What is that?”

“The Rune of Elysium,” Corona said, something in her mind screaming at her. “I… have an idea.”

Twitter looked to her. “…Okay.” 

Corona set the Rune of Elysium down and put her fingers to the keyboard again, creating a new code for the Spectral Rod. “Just need a simple spell… And that Star won’t know what hit it.”

“You’re going to transmit this… Rune into it? W-why?”

“Because of a hunch,” Corona said. “Because I…” She stopped, frozen in her tracks. 

Where had this code come from?

It hadn’t come from her mind… It had just been there. 

It had been placed there. 

This code that would force the Rune of Elysium deep into the Rebellious Star. Fuse it to the Rebellious Star. Corona had no idea what that would even do… She had no idea if it would help. Why was she so sure of it?

Why had she been so sure of the first plan?

Why had she inserted that code that messed with the dimensional drive?

“…Corona?” Twitter stopped. 

Corona, hand shaking, grabbed hold of the Rune of Elysium. “Twitter… Stop me. Stop me.”

The Rune of Elysium flashed, forcing Corona’s free hand to unleash a torrent of fire at Twitter. The moth-pony dodged easily, face determined. She kicked Corona across the face, forcing her to drop the Rune. 

Twitter grabbed the Rune with her magic and teleported it into space. “There, you okay…?”

“Yeah…” Corona said, slumping in her chair. 

“What was that thing doing to you?”

“Controlling me,” Corona said, turning back to the screen. “Giving me ideas I didn’t even know I had in me. It’s the reason we’re here at all…”

“What did it want?”

“It wanted to go home… to one of its homes, anyway.”

“That wouldn’t have been good, would it?”

“No…”

Twitter shook her head. “Well, good thing I got it out there, huh?”

“Not really…”

“…Why not?”

Tears were rolling down Corona’s face. “Because it’s still controlling me.”

She activated the spell with the push of a button. 

The Spectral Rod lit up, teleporting the Rune of Elysium into the Rebellious Star through the magic the cosmic being was using to hold onto the Enterprise. 

The Rebellious Star let out a scream. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?”

The Rebellious Star would not have heard an answer even if someone had had one, because the Rebellious Star was overwritten. Thousands of rune designs of every color imaginable appeared around the Rebellious Star, filling space with the rainbow of colors. A plane of fractal energy burst from the Star, the red-purple light making up the center. 

An impossible Flat being began to form in front of the Star – composed mostly of pixelated animated Fluttershys with sunglasses riding skateboards, rings of them rotating around and around the Star in the center. 

The Voice of Elysium had returned. 

It stood alone, having taken control of the Rebellious Star, its impossible presence filling the space of the nearly empty universe. On the other side of the divide stood the Enterprise and the ships of the Starcross Society. For the slightest of moments, nothing happened. 

Then, after what seemed to the Voice of Elysium to be an eternity of being forgotten and ignored, the lost servant of Overlord Hasbro spoke into the minds of all in the universe, addressing three separate audiences with a single pointed question.  


Did you miss me?