//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Imperatives // by Sharp Quill //------------------------------// The inter-dimensional teleport spell completed, transitioning Meg from the hyperspatial void to above the Everfree Forest within sight of Discordland. The theme park looked startlingly different, here in the distant past. It wouldn’t be the showcase of chaos if it didn’t. Discord suddenly appeared in front of her, right on cue, with a sour look on his face. “I know it’s you, Meg, from the future.” She waved a griffon talon in front of herself. “That obvious? No, don’t answer; I know you can smell a new alicorn a million miles away. Besides, it’s not you I need to fool.” She smiled big. “You know where this is going.” His face turned dour. “Do I want to know—no, do I need to know what you’re doing here.” “As far as you’re concerned, I’m taking a stroll down memory lane.” Which, actually, was not a falsehood. “All I ask is that you help keep my past self away from me. Also Twilight’s past self away from her, once she gets here.” Discord sighed. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” Meg casually waved a claw. “Not unless you want to know how your future self plays into this.” “Fine,” he grumbled, just as she expected. “Oh, one more thing…” He rolled his eyes in response. “I’ll be making a temporary modification to your transporter setup. Just an FYI.” He opened his mouth, then thought better of it and vanished. He’ll survive. It would be several hours before Twilight arrived, according to her own Discord. That couldn’t be helped, what with the uncertainty principle. Not a problem; there was no rush. It gave her time to do that strolling. She eyed the theme park, hosting its first ever brony convention—first ever convention period. It would go down in history as the event that finally forced the hold-outs to acknowledge the reality of colorful, magical ponies. Many of said hold-outs were down there, cell phones in hand, determined to “expose” the scam, and, well, didn’t. The videos they shot, several of which featured Discord having his fun with some troublemakers, as well as the numerous videos taken by the actual bronies, had been mined by numerous documentaries over the following decades. She had re-watched many of them to refresh her memories. And, of course, that first documentary of all, the one from the group behind Andy’s trip to his homeland—which, speaking of, had its premiere at this convention. Casting a spell, she turned herself invisible, the better to get inside without drawing undue attention to herself. The barrier around the park did not prevent her from passing through; she had come prepared for that. Once inside, flying just below the barrier and thus staying out of the way of other flying creatures, she circled Discordland. Tens of thousands filled the park, mostly human but with a healthy number of ponies and other creatures. She would be far from the only griffon present, hence why she choose that species. A lesser number of minotaurs and dragons could also be seen. Her past self should be in the hotel; she truly had no interest in encountering herself for a second time, nor did she remember such an encounter having taken place. An isolated spot revealed itself, underneath the tracks of the Indeterminate Person Mover, and she quickly teleported herself to it. After making sure no one was looking in her direction, she went visible. She looked around; no one was pointing in shock at her sudden appearance. She picked a random direction and started walking, and before long she came across a human family. “Look! A griffon!” shouted one of the kids. She gave them a smile—as much as griffons could smile, anyway—and waved a claw. But their attention was pulled away from her, to something above them. In the direction of the Indeterminate Person Mover. Meg turned around and looked for herself. A pegasus stallion was leaning out of the pod—currently a pegasus, she reminded herself—then realization dawned on her. “This was it?” she softly asked herself. The pegasus leapt out of the pod, threw open his wings—and fell. Those pods did not give magic to those originally lacking it. By all rights, that fall ought to have been fatal. Eyebrows had been raised, but eventually survival had been attributed to incredibly good luck. Now I finally get it. Meg grabbed him in her magic and ever so carefully reduced the impact speed, just enough to survive but not enough to unrealistically avoid injury. Another time loop completed, she thought, a time loop she hadn’t even known about until just now. A crowd was developing. Word was even then racing towards her past self and it wouldn’t be long before she arrived at the scene. Meg edged away, in the opposite direction, towards the nearest transporter pad. If her past self was coming here, then she would go to the hotel and convention center. CNN’s new Equestrian correspondent, Sophie Henshaw, would soon be arriving too. And from her the rest of humanity would learn of this disaster. It would be weeks before the poor fellow was fully healed and then finally restored to being human, all of it covered non-stop by the news networks. The ride had to be shut down and it wouldn’t re-open for months, only after new safeguards had been put into place. Dealing with the fallout had made her miserable. The only saving grace was the clear instruction to remain in the pod or risk losing your original species. In hindsight, that was begging for a “hold my beer” moment. It could have been far worse. The old Senator Routledge would not have let this crisis go to waste. By this point in time, fortunately, he had become almost accommodating, pushing the narrative of personal responsibility, in not so many words stating that the guy was an idiot for not remaining in the pod as instructed. That might have seemed ironic, considering what the senator had once been accused of. Oh, sure, he had helped bring the founders and funders of The Section together—he even came up with the name, borrowing it from an old sci-fi novel where the secret organization of that name defended humanity from alien invaders—but he had no involvement in its day-to-day operations. Indeed, that was a feature; it freed them to do “what was needed” to save the world from the existential threat of ponies (yet more irony, in the form of that anomaly fiasco). The records from that warehouse? It turned out, incredibly enough, that they had not implicated the senator. That was what had enabled the provisional truce between himself and Serrell—provisional because it would be far too many months before the special counsel would announce the results of its investigation. Regardless, the truce was honored. Everyone would stop trying to take the senator down for crimes for which he was adamant he had no involvement, and he would stop trying to take down everyone else and be open to Equestrians, “everyone else” being defined so as to exclude the loose cannons in The Section, of course. But those warehouse records sure as hell implicated Jackson and his goons. They spent years in an Equestrian dungeon for that assassination attempt on Meg, while their extradition to stand trial for the anomaly played out in slow motion. An extradition treaty had to be signed first, you know. Meg hadn’t fought it, figuring they’d rot in jail for the rest of their lives back on Earth, and that’s exactly what had happened. Hurst shared their fate. Meg reached the transporter pad. Several people were standing nearby eyeing a sign with instructions. They remained standing, not stepping onto the pads. Their unease, while understandable, was unfounded. Never had there been a single mishap, not so much as a duplication incident. Not unintentional duplication, anyway. In a saddlebag was a gemstone. Meg walked past the doubting Thomases and stepped onto a transporter pad, her constituent molecules about to be disassembled for all to see. The classic transporter sound began… …and ended, leaving her reassembled off to the side of the main lobby of the hotel. The gemstone, of course, was no longer on her, having performed its function. Dozens of humans, ponies, and other creatures close enough to hear the transporter engaging over the noise of the convention stared at her, alerted by the iconic sound. Meg just smiled and said, “It’s kinda neat, actually.” Then she stepped off the pad. Her endorsement didn’t exactly initiate a stampede ready to beam themselves elsewhere, but baby steps. Anyway, the ones for whom she had just added that duplication spell would not need her encouragement. Present-day Discord would know what she had done, obviously, but he would also know the origin of that spell and that ensured his non-interference. Griffons in attendance were few enough that being one attracted a certain amount of attention; she ignored that, heading over to where a wall-mounted display listed current and upcoming events. She knew A. K.Yearling would have a session, but that was many hours from now. There would even be a book-signing event tomorrow. A last-minute agreement had been reached to allow purchased copies of her books to return back to Earth. The pegasus never did make public her “Daring Do” identity, and it would be another decade before Meg learned her true name, the one Lyra knew her by when they shared archaeology classes in Canterlot, the one “Yearling” went by when she was in the field in a professional capacity, back when she still did that sort of thing. All finally made public knowledge, nearly two centuries later. The Great and Powerful Trixie would put on a performance to standing-room only crowds, which led to lucrative tours in the human realm, and Rarity had her auction for charity. Meg couldn’t believe how much money that had raised. That had been a news story in and of itself. Another news story was the absence of Faust and anyone involved with the cartoon. They did attend a few years later, but for this first one it was agreed by all for them to keep their distance. Smooze would appear on a panel, alongside Discord and Pinkie Pie, putting that voice synthesizer to the test (it passed). Yet surprisingly enough, Smooze wasn’t the star at that event, nor was Pinkie. Discord was. And he ate up the adoration from the mostly human standing-room-only crowd. He didn’t mind in the least being treated like a god. It was everything he could have hoped for, and more than compensated for the constructive feedback he had to endure concerning the theme park. Meg, on the other hand… It wasn’t like she had lacked warning, but experiencing it in person was different. She had made her peace with it long ago, along with the other alicorns, but at the time… She just politely ignored it the best she could, as she had done ever since. She had reached the display. One event immediately caught her eye: a Pinkie Pie autograph session, already in progress. It had been far far too long since she had last seen the pink party pony. Pinkie would hold more sessions than any other; she just couldn’t meet enough new people, regardless of form, and make them smile. As Meg approached the room the blast of the party cannon assaulted her ears. Of course every brony wanted to see it in action, to have party hats magically deposited on their heads and cupcakes into their hands. The autograph line stretched into the hallway. Meg would skip that, content to stay in the back of the room, just listening to her. She went through the other door, the one without the line blocking it, and she saw her: a young and vibrant Pinkie Pie. It had been so, so long… Thank the stars Meg would not see her late husband, knowing that he had not attended that day. She was not alone back there. Many who had already had their moment with the Element of Laughter were also hanging around, not yet ready to move on from the pink one. Others were standing around the party cannon, trying to divulge its mysteries. Good luck with that. Took Twilight decades to finally solve it. “Oh, that one?” Pinkie said, everyone fixated on her latest twitching. “Nothing much. It just means a time traveling alicorn from the future is visiting us.” The mare threw a wink in Meg’s direction. Everyone naturally looked in her general direction, unease growing as they failed to see an alicorn—an absence no one had the guts to point out, and no way was Meg going to out herself as the alicorn in question. I better move on. No point in risking more Pinkie being Pinkie. She never did tell me her Pinkie Sense had sensed my presence. But perhaps that might have caused a paradox. Was there a Pinkie Sense for that? None that she had ever mentioned. Pinkie Sense was one mystery never cracked by Twilight—and she likely never would. How could she? The means to experimentally test hypotheses was long gone. Meg wandered back to the display of current and upcoming events. There was nothing she cared to experience live, after having re-watched the ancient recorded videos. She made her way outside the hotel and took to the air. A few hours later, she spotted Celestia and Luna in Pandemonium Plaza. In front of the large crowd, Celestia lowered the Sun, followed by Luna raising the Moon, and then they both teleported away. After another hour of exploring the park, it was time to meet up with Twilight. She found an isolated spot and went invisible. Next stop, the top of the hotel. Twilight was already there, still in human form, on a patch of sweaters. Sweaters? Well, better than the patch of swampland next to it. Twilight got down to business as soon as Meg landed. “Transporter taken care of?” “Naturally. Tokens all distributed?” “Of course.” Every person who agreed to being cloned had one of those tokens. All they had to do was go through the transporter with their token on them. Each token was bound to a specific person. Each person would materialize minus the token—only one clone per person allowed—and a copy would remain in the pattern buffer—yeah, just go with “pattern buffer.” The magical equivalent anyway. In a few days, Twilight will gather up all the copies, undo Meg’s modifications, and return to the present. There, all the copies would be materialized, turned into ponies, made magical, and begin their training; the originals would continue their lives, lacking any proof that their duplicates were to become the first generation of ponies. That training would take a year, at least, and then more years to help them establish their new lives in the distant past. Maybe she and Twilight would have to spend a whole decade back then, but what’s another decade to centuries-old immortal alicorns?