//------------------------------// // 37. Discordian Encounters // Story: Imperatives // by Sharp Quill //------------------------------// A search of contemporaneous news turned up nothing; they had not misremembered. No one had disappeared at that first-ever convention held in Discord’s then-new theme park. Even the inevitable trouble makers who had been “rewarded” with his personal attention had been returned in due time, physically intact. Twilight closed the lid to her laptop. “Maybe they would all be returned to the convention, as humans, after a few decades? Enough to get a population of native ponies started?” Time travel would allow that, but… “Wouldn’t they all be a few decades older? Even with rejuvenation magic, could they all truly return to their original lives as if those decades had never happened? Not breathe a word of what they had experienced? Because, if that is what had happened, not a single one had broken their silence over the remaining decades of their lives. That’s hard to believe.” “Well, we must have done it somehow!” “I know, I know. And it explains so much, like how ponies were speaking English centuries before there even was an England. Just need a spell to prevent the language from drifting over time.” “And pony mitochondrial DNA is identical to that of humans. But that doesn’t give us a clue as to how we pulled it off!” A flash of light caught their attention. “Allow me to offer a suggestion,” Discord said. He then added, in a grumble, “Not that sis gave me a choice.” Sunset Shimmer clicked on the start button. “So… as you can see… it’ll work if we leave the time dilation in place, but…” Twilight grimaced. “But it’ll take years for the corrective spell to eliminate the anomaly. And Discord can maintain the displacement for only minutes.” Even if Discord could maintain it indefinitely, the Royal Guards couldn’t hold position forever and the humans wouldn’t put up with displacement for that long either. But to ask the guards to hold position against the powerful winds that would result from the removal of the time dilation spell… They hadn’t trained for that. It wasn’t practical to recreate that environment! Maybe partially lift the time dilation? She shook her head. “We need a different solution. If we removed enough of the time dilation for the job to finish in even hours instead of years…” Sunset nodded. “There’d be so little left it wouldn’t make a difference.” Twilight stepped back from the workstation and began to pace around the cavern, deserted this early in the morning apart from the two of them. “We need a way to anchor each pegasus at a specific location, immovable by fierce winds. Sort of like how Canterlot…” “Is anchored to the mountain,” Sunset said, completing the sentence. “That spell violates conservation of momentum, but…” “But that’s not a problem while their world is displaced.” The spell anchored the position of one mass to another, but it didn’t transfer any force between the two masses. The winds would blow against the pegasi, but they wouldn’t budge, and the momentum lost by the wind was just… lost. “So. The guards get into position, activate the anchoring spell, then we undo the time dilation on the anomaly, the guards zap it, and when the displacement ends the anchoring spell will fail.” Twilight look expectantly at Sunset. “Am I missing anything?” “Do we need to anchor the guards?” Sunset asked. “Why not just anchor the spell casting devices. Once they start firing, they can fly away, out of harm’s way.” Twilight thought it over, then shook her head. “When the anchoring spell fails, they’ll fall far to the ground and possibly rupture, spreading uranium and their fission byproducts around.” “Yeah, good point. And what would shut off their magic beams? No, stick with anchoring the guards.” “Okay. Then we’ll need to prepare enchantments for each and every Royal Guard—” “Consider it taken care off,” declared Discord. Twilight spun around at the unexpected voice. The draconequus was standing in the middle of the cavern, fingering through an absurdly thick, loose leaf notebook. “Taken care of… how?” Discord continued flipping to random pages. “Once I’ve completed the displacement, I’ll anchor them all in place.” He looked down at Twilight, still turning thick sheafs of pages one way then the other. “Make sure they’re in position before that happens.” Twilight didn’t have a better plan. “Sure, works for me.” Still more random page turning. “What are you doing?” “Finding a free slot in my outrageously busy schedule, naturally!” She blinked. That notebook looked thick enough to cover centuries. “Uh…” Sunset said, no doubt thinking the same thing. “We kind of need this done like real soon?” A talon slammed down on a page. “There! Tomorrow morning, nine forty-one A.M.” Meg was prepared for the fallout from her interview, or so she thought. Sure, there were the tirades over her “treasonous” escapades; her explanations, as expected, had changed few minds. The latest insult was the lack of due process for her alleged murderers—some actually claimed the guns had always been joke guns and that there had been no assassination attempt! Just an admittedly somewhat tasteless exercise of First Amendment free speech that Equestria’s absolute monarchy clearly rejects. And when would everyone find out what had happened to those innocent protesters after they had been taken away by Discord? But this, however, she was not prepared for. “So you got your own religion now,” her brother observed. On the TV in front of them, CNN was interviewing self-described “Harmonists” who believed that Meg was… some kind of messiah? Regardless, she was obviously favored by Equestria’s Harmony, who blessed her with ascension. “You could try denying you’re a messiah,” Steve said. Matt smirked and solemnly stated, “Only the true messiah would deny her divinity.” Meg grimaced. That was so much funnier when it was just a line in a movie. “I’ll do my best not to lose a shoe.” That crowd probably would worship one of her horseshoes as a holy relic. If she had any horseshoes. Which she did not. At least it was past Susie’s bedtime, so her niece was spared this nonsense. “CNN Breaking News. We have just learned there will be another attempt to eliminate the anomaly tomorrow morning at around nine thirty Pacific time.” Meg hit the mute button on the remote—without using one of her human hands. “Guess it’s official, then.” Lori rushed into the room. “Does that mean more of that weird sky stuff?” “It sure does,” Steve said. “And this time, scientists the world over got an advanced warning.” Jackson was lying on a bed in his cell. Twilight approached, alone, unaccompanied by any guards. He was awake, fortunately, but seemingly unaware of her presence. Or just pretending? She stood in front of the bars, observing him. Probably not. Had his Discord encounter messed him up that badly? Twilight cleared her throat. That got him to look in her direction, but quickly he resumed his former state. “I’ve had encounters with Discord too. Before he was reformed. I can lend a sympathetic ear.” It took more than a few seconds, but finally, lethargically, he moved to a sitting position. His hollow eyes just stared at her. Finally he spoke. “I guess you’re made of sterner stuff than me.” “What did he do to you? Besides turn you into rats, I mean.” Discord hadn’t volunteered that information. There were rules, after all; had he taken it too far? A different prisoner answered. “He put us in mazes, made us look for the cheese reward.” Twilight walked over to him. “That’s all?” “It was a big maze. And that cheese smelled… it was irresistible. And every time I was closing in on it, the fucking maze would change! And during it all, Discord loomed above us, in a lab coat, watching, taking notes on a clipboard. We pleaded, begged, anything to put an end to it.” “Until he got bored with our complaining,” Jackson chimed in. “I guess.” Twilight would have happily taken that over what Discord had actually done to herself and her friends. Yet even Fluttershy had recovered far faster than these three! “I’ll see about adjusting the rules concerning troublemakers.” It was certainly possible that Element bearers truly were made of “sterner stuff.” “Look,” she said, “the reason I’m here is to inform you all that CNN wishes to interview you. Are you up to it?” There was no response. “It doesn’t have to be right away. You can have time to… recover first.” Though sooner would be better than later. The longer the human realm went without any real evidence that they were alright… Not that those three were looking “alright.” “I’ll do it.” It had been the third one who had spoken, the one who had yet to do so. Twilight went over to him. “When?” “Are we to be put on trial for attempted murder?” “That is the plan.” No point denying it; it was obvious enough. “I’m willing to throw Routledge under the bus. Will that be taken into consideration?” I’ll assume that was a figure of speech. If a rather unpleasant one. Twilight couldn’t help but notice the other two had suddenly taken a strong interest in this particular conversation. Jackson was clearly unhappy, but remained silent. “I believe it can be—if you can provide hard evidence against the senator.” Could she believe them? “Is what Meg said in that interview—before we, uh, interrupted—true? That everything in that warehouse was saved and handed over to the feds?” This was getting interesting. “Yes, it’s true. I personally brought back everything we could gather and hoofed it over to lawyers for the special counsel.” He looked away in thought for a moment. “Then they’ll find letters from the senator with instructions concerning a certain kidnap victim who was held at the warehouse.” “You mean Meg, right?” A nod. “That is helpful, it is true, but the special counsel would find those letters on their own, would they not?” “Obviously,” he conceded. “Maybe they already have. But what they won’t do is publicly say anything about it, not for a long, long time. I am willing to mention it on CNN, right now. Come completely clean.” He looked across to Jackson on the other side. “Sorry, boss, but even you can no longer deny things were not as we were led to believe.” Jackson took a while to respond. “What do you think that would accomplish?” he carefully asked. “Say by some miracle we’re let off with a stern warning and sent home. What do you think awaits us there, if you went through with this?” “Would it be any worse than being locked up here forever?” he said equally carefully. “Where Discord can pay us a visit whenever he damn well pleases? I say give ’em what they want.” Jackson laid there, motionless. Twilight was about to give up and leave, when he sat up and looked her in the eyes. “We’ll come clean to CNN or to any other news organization that’s interested.” “Just think about it, okay?” Andrew ended the call. Meg practically threw her phone back into her purse. “What’s wrong?” Steve asked. Matt and Lori looked on. “My so-called ‘worshipers.’ They want me to address them at the upcoming convention. Andrew, who never encountered an attendance booster he didn’t like, wants me to oblige.” Matt shook his head. “With you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” “Not helping.” He threw up his hands in self-defense. Lori pressed the remote to resume Sophie’s exploration of Discordland on CNN. The camera was looking up at an elevated track, on which smallish open-air pods every now and then trundled by. All unoccupied, of course. “Can’t wait until Susie demands we take her there.” Discord’s voice was heard off camera. “And this is the Indeterminate Person Mover.” “Indeterminate?” asked Sophie’s voice. The camera panned down to the human and draconequus. “While a pod is in motion, the species of the riders are indeterminate, randomly changing every so often. One minute you are a human, then you’re a griffon, or a pony, or a dragon, or a minotaur, or a—” “What will you be when the pod stops moving?” “Why, back to your original species, naturally—though I make no promises if one should exit the pod while it is in motion. That is strongly discouraged.” Discord started walking. “Now over there is the Everfree Cruise…” The phone was ringing again. Lori hit the pause button as Meg fished her phone back out of her purse. “It better not be him again,” she muttered. A quick glance revealed an unlisted number, though one known to her. “Hello, Twilight.” “Sorry if I’m disturbing you—” “No, no it’s fine. I assume it’s important. Something to do with the anomaly?” “Actually, no. I just came back from your attackers. They’re willing to spill the beans on Routledge to CNN, but only if we agree to return them to your realm. Are you willing to not press charges against them here in Equestria?” Meg couldn’t believe her ears. “This… isn’t some prank Dash or Pinkie put you up to?” Steve was about to say something but Meg savagely waved him off. “No, I’m deadly serious. Turns out their Discord experience had left its mark on them. Also, get this: they claim the records we got from the warehouse implicate Routledge concerning your kidnapping, and they’re willing to say that on CNN now, not whenever the special counsel gets around to it.” Implicate how, exactly? How could the senator have known she would be in her office? In fact, she wasn’t! Or rather, it was her future self who had been there; she was supposed to be on vacation. Or maybe it was a contingency plan? Or Jackson took the initiative, and Routledge— The details didn’t really matter. “Assuming they’re not playing us for fools, you have my blessing.” The phone returned absentmindedly to her purse and she turned to the others. “You’ll never believe this.” A steady breeze ruffled Twilight’s mane as she gazed upon the anomaly. The bubble of distortion dominated the view, despite being around a thousand feet away. It had grown to about a third of a mile in diameter. Not much was intact between here and there. The major interstate running through the town had finally been taken out; the time dilution spell had come too late to save it. It’ll grow another sixty feet or so by tomorrow morning. She stood inside an expansive circle of concrete barriers, located in the parking lot of a strip mall; for now, only a few federal agents and their cars were outside that circle. Tomorrow, the agents will be out in force to discourage would-be… tourists. Not that there ought to be many of those; mandatory evacuations were already in effect, due to the expected resumption of hurricane force winds. “Looks good.” The alicorn nodded in approval to Special Agent MacAuley, who was standing next to her. “By the way,” he said, “remember that drone that attacked you two weeks ago?” She had practically forgotten about it, what with all that’s happened since then. “Yeah?” “Its operator has been arrested. No connection to any organization we could determine. Probably an isolated case.” Isolated, maybe, but how many other such “isolated” cases might there be? “Thanks for resolving that.” “Just doing my job. Now let’s see how accurate those coordinates were.” Twilight retrieved her phone from a saddlebag and called Sunset. “Open the portal,” she said. Both held their breath. It took time, of course, for Sunset to go through the mirror into the portal control room, but it wasn’t long before the portal appeared, oriented to be parallel to the never-ending flow of air. Through it could be seen rusting railroad tracks and, a few dozen feet away, the entrance to the mine in which the converted cavern resided, and through that entrance the mountains on the other side of the unoccupied valley. “Perfect.” The Royal Guards could easily fly straight through. MacAuley stepped up to the portal. “So that’s Equestria?” Long shadows drenched the far side. “An abandoned part of it,” she replied. It was close enough to the truth. “You can step through if you want, but there isn’t much to see.” He turned away. “I’ll pass, if it’s all the same.” Sunset’s voice came from the phone. “Is it positioned correctly?” “It is. You can close it now.” “Will do.” An SUV raced towards them. The agents reacted, pulling out their guns. The vehicle came to a sharp halt right at the barriers. By luck or intent, it was positioned to face the open portal. The door opened, and out of it came the former Lord Tirek, eyes fixated on the portal. He just stood there, arms resting on the top of the car’s door, making no move to come closer. “It’s okay,” Twilight shouted. “I’ll handle this.” The portal vanished. The agents lowered their guns, but did not re-holster them. Twilight walked over. “Any particular reason for this visit, Andy?” Andy’s eyes remained fixed on where the portal had been as he stepped around the vehicle’s door and came to the barrier. “I’d never thought I’d see Equestria again—with my own eyes, that is.” “Not the most exciting part of Equestria,” Twilight admitted. A slow exhale. “Still better than nothing.” “You haven’t exactly answered my question.” He obviously had no intention of returning, not if Discord had anything to say about that—and he did. His eyes finally unfixed themselves and dropped down to look at the alicorn. “Once this barrier went up, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. I figured you’d be here.” Twilight quirked an eyebrow. “So here I am. Please make it quick, because I have a lot to do to prepare for tomorrow.” His face broke out in a smile. “So do I, believe it or not. I’ll be part of CNN’s team covering the action tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.” He pointed up at the sky. “There’s a drone up there watching us, by the way.” She looked up in surprise. “Okay… I guess? Are we live?” That drone must be high; now that she listened for it, she could barely hear it over the background noise. He shook his head. “No. Not to say some of the footage won’t be used, but it’s not live. And it’s way up there, so it can’t really zoom in on us.” His smile became just a teensy bit less friendly. “But now that I have your attention…” Oh dear. Now what? “I understand that some of my former cell-mates from Tartarus might be on their way back there. Mind giving me an exclusive as to what will happen to them?” He smirked. “Assuming they survived Discord, of course.” “They survived,” she declared. “However, if it’s ‘breaking news’ you want, then here’s a doozy: they want to be interviewed by CNN. I won’t spoil what they have to say, but let’s just say I’m happy to facilitate the interview.” She returned the smirk. “And I don’t think they’ll be returning to Tartarus.” “Really?” He shook his head. “I almost wish I could interview them myself, but…?” “It would have to take place in Equestria.” “Ah well. I’ll pass on the word.” He turned back to his car and opened the door, but paused before getting in. “You’re welcome to visit us in our booth tomorrow, if you should feel inclined to give the world an update on your progress.” “I’ll keep that in mind.” And I’ll keep Discord away. Though it was unlikely the draconequus would have the luxury of making trouble at CNN’s booth, given how taxing the displacement process was for him. The car’s engine started. Twilight watched as it backed up, managed to turn around, and drove off. Only then did it strike her. He learned how to drive a car? She herself had yet to do so, not that she’d had any need for it. MacAuley walked over to her. “Not that it’s any of my business, but attempted murderers aren’t sent to Tartarus?” “Actually, no.” Tartarus was for prisoners whose magic was too strong to be imprisoned any other way. The only reason those humans were ever put there was because they called Serrell and Twilight’s bluff. She couldn’t say that, obviously, so instead she went with, “It’ll become clear, once they appear on CNN.” Under the overcast sky, Meg made herself as comfortable as she could on the folding metal chair. It seemed better than the alternative, which was to sit on a concrete barrier. At least she was human. That barrier was now surrounded by cars, and on the far side of those cars were the agents providing operational security. MacAuley sat in the chair next to her, patiently waiting. All that security didn’t keep the media out. A compromise had been reached in which one camera was permitted within the circle, to capture for posterity what was shortly to happen. Meg’s attention was split between where the portal would appear, the darker than usual anomaly—no doubt due to the lack of sun—and her phone. That phone was streaming video from CNN. Twilight hadn’t been kidding; there was Andy sitting next to Anderson Cooper. Currently they were chatting about the upcoming interview with her would-be assassins. No time had been lost in scheduling it. I wonder if Routledge is losing any sleep. A text message from Twilight. Meg stood up. “Hey, everyone, the portal will be opening momentarily!” The camera operator came alive, pointing the camera at where the portal should appear. MacAuley himself stood up. Word of her announcement had reached the CNN booth, and the streaming video now carried a live feed from the nearby camera. The entire world must be holding its breath. After a seeming eternity, which couldn’t have been more than a dozen seconds, the portal opened. An all-too-familiar tunnel could be seen, and in that tunnel were dozens of pegasi wearing contraptions on their backs on top of their usual Royal Guard attire. One by one they took to the air and flew through the portal and up into the sky. They were supposed to gather on the roof of the mall, where Twilight was be waiting for them. The annoying sound of a drone grew louder. The guards had been warned about that and to avoid them. Meg looked down at her phone, and sure enough there was the feed from the drone, showing the guards assembling in front of their princess. “Excuse me, Meg?” She looked up. It was the camera operator. She noted the camera was not pointing at her. “Yes?” “Would it be okay if I went through the portal and took some footage?” Meg looked through the portal and saw that four Royal Guards had remained behind, two pegasi and two unicorns; these were in their usual attire. Obviously they were there to secure the portal from their side. “Quite honestly I’m not the one to grant permission.” MacAuley spoke up. “For what it’s worth, Twilight invited me to step through. I passed.” “She did, did she?” Meg sighed, knowing that Twilight was preoccupied with other matters. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask them. She walked over to and through the portal; a unicorn stepped forward to meet her. “Any objections to a human journalist coming through to take pictures?” “The princess has delegated authority to you in her absence.” She did, did she? So it was up to her, then, after all. It’s just an entrance to an abandoned mine. “Then I am granting permission.” The guard nodded in response. Meg turned around and—she was on camera. She took a quick look down at her phone, still in her hand, and sighed. What can you do about it? After walking back through the portal, all too aware of the camera’s presence, she said, “You can take your footage. Just… don’t do anything to annoy the guards.” The camera operator nodded and went to stand before the portal—but did not pass through. Huh? She looked down at her phone, and sure enough that camera was live—again or still? In a not-so-small box in the corner was the feed from the drone. The pegasi were taking off, heading to their positions around the anomaly. The shoulder-mounted camera had no cable. Guess we’ll see how far he can go before losing the feed. Then again, her phone hadn’t lost its signal during her brief foray into Equestria—and her husband’s magic only kicked in by invoking the return spell, which she hadn’t done. Meg kept her eye on her phone. The camera went past the four guards, who stayed by the wall and out of the way. It went all the way to the ledge just outside the tunnel, where it took in the view of the surrounding valley. Then it panned to one side, where it paused at a carriage—obviously transportation for those two unicorns. Then it panned to the other side, taking in the decaying mining infrastructure. During all this, Andy provided commentary, not that he had anything particularly useful to say. It wasn’t as if he had ever been there before. Well, he knew what the deal was with that pegasi-drawn carriage. The alarm on her phone went off. It was 9:41am. The displacement was to begin.