//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: The Best of All Possible Worlds // by McPoodle //------------------------------// The Best of All Possible Worlds Chapter 16 “Blue Belle? Blue Belle? Daughter, where are you?” Blue Belle tuned out the pleas of her father. He was probably after her because of that fight she had at the school. It just wasn’t fair! Blue Belle used to rule Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and no other student would dare to challenge her. Now she had to defend her reputation on a constant basis. What happened? That portal...that portal changed everything. Suddenly a donkey that nopony had even heard of was all that anypony would talk about. Ponies were buying and selling drawings that the servants had swiped from her walls. Her life was called a tragedy... ...and Blue Belle was the villain. In an instant, Blue Belle’s followers had abandoned her, and those she thought were her friends left her for the new favorite: Genevieve’s friend Zody. But Zody is my friend! Mine! Perhaps if Blue Belle was treated as a villain she might retain her respect. But that was impossible, thanks to the other change wrought by the portal. “In the castle fair, lives a stal’ so bare...” began the anonymous poem, the poem that revealed Blueblood’s idiocy for the world to see. And of course there was a sort of magical quality about Voltaire, that the only works of his that anybody read and knew were the anonymous ones. Blue Belle was suddenly at the bottom of the heap, the one being mocked instead of the one doing the mocking. And for some incredibly frustrating reason, the moment when she needed a thick skin the most was the moment when she appeared to be growing a conscience. She dreamed of Genevieve every night, and every night, her fate at the hands of the humans became worse and worse. But she knew, she knew every night, that she was the one responsible, and no matter how much magic she could summon, she would never be able to get Genevieve back. This offense was not only unforgivable, but also unredeemable. ~ ~ ~ “Blue Belle? Blue Belle?” She didn’t want to be around anypony right now. Instead, she was hiding in a forgotten storage closet in an obscure corner of the palace. By removing a board in the wall, she was able to look out over the day audience chamber. The chamber was two stories tall, and the closet abutted the far wall of the second floor, so there was little chance that the ponies milling about in the chamber below would ever think to look up into the shadows to see her. Those ponies were the Princess’s experts in magic, most of them aged beyond their years from their experimentation in the forbidden disciplines. Celestia understood that the urge to see the unknown could be overwhelming in some researchers, and (after they had burned themselves looking), those researchers were the best ones to assign to difficult cases, like re-opening the portal to Earth. The chamber had been abandoned to them from nearly the instant Voltaire had fallen through that portal in one direction, and Genevieve in the other. Blue Belle had to know what they were doing, how close they were to saving the poor donkey, and if there was anything she could do to help. She had tried simply entering the chamber on multiple occasions, but sooner or later Zody could come by and scream at her, or her father would show up and demonstrate his utter lack of compassion. So that left spying from the closet. A group of three researchers were talking to each other—Blue Belle strained to hear them. “Well, that’s the last of the leylines accounted for,” said Aether. I will not bother to describe these mages. If you’ve seen one mage, you’ve seen them all. “And...?” asked Phlogiston. “And now there are no magical currents in the room that are unaccounted for.” The group sighed in frustration. “Hold on, the human said that magic was rare to non-existent on his world,” noted Caloric. “Have you tried looking for an absence of magic?” “Of course I have, you simpleton!” yelled Aether. “Where were you on the first day?” “Trapped in the Everfree,” said Caloric with a sheepish expression. “Again?” “It’s the default destination of my plane alignment spell, alright? I just forgot to set the fourth coordinate.” “You’d forget your robe if you ever took it off at night.” “You take that back!” “The accusation of forgetfulness? Everypony knows...” “Oh, I would never deny that!” exclaimed Caloric. “I just want you to retract the shameful statement that a wizard of my caliber would ever remove my robe for any reason whatsoever!” “But of course!” the other two researchers replied. “I’m no good at this hooves-on work anyway,” said Caloric. “Surely the librarians have come up with something by now. Preferably three or four conflicting sources, so we can spend the next week debating their intrinsic importance. I got my cutie mark in disquisition, after all.” Well, this is getting nowhere, thought Blue Belle. She got up to find out what her father wanted. “We’ve had the detection spell all along...” said Aether. Blue Belle turned around and sat back down again. “...but it won’t do you any good.” Aether levitated a large tome towards Caloric and quickly flicked the pages. “Here.” Caloric glanced down. “That looks simple enough.” “That is not the detection spell,” explained Aether. “That is the spell to create the instructions for the detection spell. Watch!” Phlogiston took this moment to avert his eyes. Rising on his hind legs, Aether made a complicated series of passes with his forehooves, some of which should not have been physically possible. There was a bright flash from his horn, and an object made of blue light and inscribed with mystic runes materialized before him. It looked sort of like a cube and sort of like the head of a pike, depending on whether the last thought in your head was musical or not. Oh, and it had a tendency to suck out your soul if you stared at it too long. Blue Belle turned away in fear, feeling the dread effect all the way from the closet. “Put it away!” cried out Caloric. With another impossible move, the light sculpture vanished. “So,” challenged Aether. “Do you think you can cast it?” “No,” replied Caloric, trembling. “Impossible.” “The energy requirements are negligible,” noted Aether, “but the manipulations are maddening. Only She Who Must Not Be Discussed could comprehend it.” The three mages quickly looked around them, terrified that they might be caught by the Princess bringing up the forbidden subject. “That was one of She’s spells?” Caloric asked in a whisper. The others nodded in reply. “Of course,” Caloric realized. “This was centuries before The Fall. Anything She wrote back then should have been safe. Surely the notes were allowed to survive the purge that followed the Fall of She?” “Alas, these did not. A most tragic filing accident.” The trio briefly lowered their heads for a moment of silence. “Err...did anypony tell Princess Celestia?” asked Caloric. “No, but the Princess knows everything, right?” “Of course.” Caloric put forehoof to cranium to think. “Well, where did the instruction spell come from?” he asked finally. “She’s assistant, Obsidian, left a seven hundred volume set of memoirs behind,” answered Phlogiston. “Most of the work was dedicated to minute descriptions of what she ate for breakfast every morning, but she did eventually get around to describing her adventures with She. “Unlike our case, the portal opened up by the Roman lasted as long as he was on Equestria. She Who Must Not Be Discussed led an expedition, including Obsidian, that crossed through this portal and explored Earth. “The Roman had triggered the portal to open when he fell through a cleft in the back of a volcanic cave. Obsidian’s mistress estimated that this portal must have been formed millions of years ago. That mistress understood the process, but Obsidian sure didn’t, and therefore neither do we. “She’s team searched the Earth, and found dozens of other such portals in other volcanic caves scattered across the world. None of the others seemed to lead to Equestria, but the Princesses didn’t want to take any chances, so She closed all of them, ending with the Roman’s portal. “You can look over the relevant sections of the memoirs yourself if you’d like, but any time Obsidian tries to transcribe one of She’s theories, it becomes completely incomprehensible, and it’s obvious that Obsidian herself was in way over her head. The only part she understood well enough to make us understand it was the instruction spell.” “What we need is new blood,” said Caloric. “A blank flank who can read Obsidian’s notes, get a cutie mark in portalology, and solve all our problems for us.” “That’s what Cognizant was for.” Caloric groaned. “We’re going to be spending the rest of our lives in this room, aren’t we?” “No, just until that donkey on the other side of the portal figures out how a magic pencil works.” “But it’s been two days already.” “Well remember, the flow of time is variable between worlds,” explained Aether. “It might be the same instant as her arrival on Earth.” “I hope so,” said Caloric. “What if she doesn’t want to come back?” “Don’t be ridiculous,” countered Aether. “Voltaire and the Roman described Earth as ‘Tartarus for Ponies’. Why would she consider Earth to be a better place than Equestria?” Blue Belle, who knew she was responsible for Genevieve getting precisely this impression, had taken on more guilt than she could handle, and shuffled sadly out of the closet and back to the world of “death by a thousand cuts”. ~ ~ ~ “There you are!” exclaimed Blueblood. “I’ve decided that it’s time for you to wear this!” It appeared that Blue Belle’s father was not after her because of that fight. Held in his magic was a multicolored wig, a static reproduction of the Princess’s own mane, scaled down to a filly’s size. Blue Belle sighed, and submitted to yet another cut by not resisting when the hideous object was stuck on her head.