//------------------------------// // Part III - The Dungeon // Story: The Effects of Gravity // by Akela Stronghoof //------------------------------// The Effects of Gravity – Akela Stronghoof ---xOx--- Part III – The Dungeon ---xOx--- Twilight bit her lip, a bead of sweat soaking into the fur around her muzzle. She was shaking with excitement, bouncing slightly, looking for all the word like a little filly waiting for a brand new toy. Twilight leaned forward, horn tapping against the magically polarized glass. Inside were the twin focuses of her attention—the things that they had ran into in the forest. Pale, hairless, soft, a bit larger than the average pony, and apparently wearing actual clothing—a conundrum. Why would these things—whatever they were—be in the Everfree Forest? Well, actually, that wasn’t that hard a question to answer, given that Everfree was basically where all the weird stuff cropped up. The real mystery was figuring out why they hadn’t seen anything like them before. They were obviously intelligent enough to figure out tools, because their clothing looked made for creatures of their—peculiar—dimensions. They look kind of like Diamond Dogs, actually, Twilight mused. Maybe some sort of evolutionary offshoot? Filing that hypothesis away for later, she continued to brainstorm. They didn’t look like predators—no claws, no natural armor. Prey animal? No, no, couldn’t be prey, if they’re advanced enough to make clothing they’re obviously advanced enough to have a primitive sort of society. Why hadn’t they made contact with ponies before? Twilight was in the midst of making plans to tunnel under Everfree—they had pale skin, so there was a possibility of an underground city—when a large white wing draped itself over her back. Twilight jumped, and then made a noise like letting air out of a balloon when she realized just who was there. Standing beside her was her teacher, friend, mentor and monarch, Princess Celestia. Twilight hurriedly bowed, horn almost scraping against the floor. “P-Princess Celestia! I’m sorry, i-if I had known you were coming I would have—” Celestia’s chuckle was warm and gentle. “It’s quite alright, Twilight. I came down here to see you, not because I had planned on it.” The alicorn shook her magnificent wings, feathers rearranging themselves into perfection before she folded the appendages back to her sides. “How are the subjects?” she continued, glancing towards the things behind the glass. “Um,” Twilight began, the fur on her cheeks turning a darker shade of purple. “Um, well, uh, they’re still unconscious,” the unicorn said, tapping the floor with her hoof. Teacher and student looked through the glass where the things were, indeed, unconscious. The one with the long fur on its head had the other one’s thumb (Twilight recognized the structure now; these things had hands, similar to those of a minotaur) in its mouth. “Yes, I read the preliminary reports,” Celestia said, turning slightly to face the lavender pony and cocking an eyebrow. “Quite an impressive feat of magic.” Twilight’s blush deepened. Right after the thing had landed on her and they had started screaming, a large timberwolf had loped through the same bush and straight at Twilight, growling all the way. Poor Twilight’s beleaguered mind had done three things in quick succession: One: established enough bladder control to prevent the terrified pony from wetting herself. Two: kicked the thing on top of her in the stomach, hard, sending him flying back first into a tree. Three: sent out a wave of magic so potent that it knocked ever single living thing in a fifty foot radius unconscious and completely dismantled the wooden canine. When she stood up and realized what had happened, Twilight had gone around and woken everypony up with small, controlled bursts of magic. She had carefully avoided the two strange creatures, opting instead to let guards deal with them and provide magical assistance if needed. Fluttershy was the first one to investigate the two things, gently prodding at them with a hoof before shakily declaring that she had never seen anything like them before. After the resident animal expert had backed off, the two unicorn Guards and Twilight moved in to scan and identify everything that could be feasibly scanned or identified. They had quickly discovered that the two had a magical signature that matched that of the unexplained pulse, but only traces. As if they had been in contact with whatever caused it, but in and of themselves were not the culprits. When the three unicorns had discovered that they were wearing actual clothing, and not just some kind of weird coat of fur, Storm Runner had made a comment about “bringing them to Twilight’s house, waking them up, and befriending them and then bringing them to meet the Princesses.” Commander Hardwell had immediately ripped into him for having the gall to suggest such an insipid idea. No. Doing that was stupid. Bringing an unknown, intelligent species with unknown capabilities into the middle of an undefended population center, trying to become friends with it, and then presenting it to the ruler of your country was stupidity on par with trotting up to a dragon, looking it in the eye, insulting its mother and then telling it to give you its best shot. No, the smart thing to do, the logical thing to do, the thing to do if you weren’t a complete and utter imbecile, would be to guard the bodies and immediately call for backup. Having received a regiment of elite troops and an aerial escort, they would then lock them in a heavily warded quadruple-locked cage and fly them to Canterlot. Once there, they would put them in the deepest cell in the Royal Palace, which would be guarded twenty four hours a day by six different rotations of guards in order to minimize the risk of any thought-influencing effects (Shining Armor had learned his lesson after the debacle with the Changelings). They would be heavily tested and examined by the Canterlot Magical Research Society, and if they proved non-threatening to the Equestrian nation, then and only then would they be allowed to walk freely. So they did that, and here they were. They had proven to have only the innate magic that supported all living beings and apparently had no form of claws or fangs, and were therefore marked non-dangerous (though it still raised the question of what the buck was that magical pulse), so Twilight was waiting for them to wake up so she could conduct her interroga—interview. For science. ---xOx--- “It’s not fair!” Rainbow Dash flopped back onto the couch, waving a hoof about indiscriminately as she spoke. “I mean, c’mon! We were there when they found the things, why the hay can’t we be there with Twilight!?” Behind her, Rarity sighed, her horn glowing light blue as she stitched a rose pattern into a sock. “We’ve been over this before, darling. Twilight is the personal student of Princess Celestia, and a certified genius. She’s really the only one of us qualified to be a part of the research, let alone to actually talk to those things.” She sighed again, resting her chin on her hoof. “Though I do wish I could examine that marvelous clothing. Did you see those cross stitches? So perfect! Why, if I could get my sewing machine to work like that, I’d. . .” As Rarity launched headlong into her fantasies of fashion and profits, Applejack spoke up. “She’s right, ya know. If we tried ta help out down there, we’d just end up getting’ in th’ way.” Dash made a noise between a growl and a sigh. Light played over her wings as she stretched them out to their full length, butting up against the plush pillows. “I know, it’s just—” She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Her voice lost its usual bravado as she continued. “It’s just—I’m concerned. I mean, Twilight’s one of our best friends, and I know she’s super smart, and I know she’s super magically powerful. But still, it just doesn’t feel right leaving her alone with those things, y’know? Everything we’ve been through we’ve been through it together. All you guys came to the Junior Flier’s competition to cheer me on, we all went on the dragon migration to help Spike, hay, we even fought the Changelings together. Now, we can’t be there to have her back and— it’s bugging me.” This was a one of those rare moments—where the barriers of foolhardiness and bravery Rainbow had put up crumbled down, and the pegasus showed her real feelings. Deep down, Rainbow Dash was quite empathetic (and a bit of a geek, but she’d never admit that to anypony), and during moments such as these her friends could gain insight into what was going on in the pegasus’ mind. Pinkie Pie smiled, bouncing over to the couch and laying a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “Rainbow Dash,” Pinkie bubbled, “Twilight will be fine. She’s really strong and smart, and she knows how to deal with this kind of stuff. Even if anything happens, the room is just down the hall and we can be over there in a jiffy.” “I know that,” Rainbow growled, “But that doesn’t change the fact that those things could be dangerous! Even if it only takes a minute to get there, a lot can happen in a minute.” Rainbow Dash jumped off the couch and turned to Pinkie, eyes narrowing. “We don’t know if they ‘re friendly or not!” Rainbow snarled, moisture prickling in the corners of her eyes. “They could be evil, or crazy, they could attack her, Twilight could end up—Twilight could be—” A pale-yellow hoof came to rest lightly on her haunch. Rose-colored eyes flickered over to Fluttershy; Rainbow hadn’t even heard the quiet mare approach. “Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy murmured. “It’ll be okay. Relax.” It was an odd reversal, Fluttershy of all ponies tellingher to calm down, but it worked. Rainbow let out a shaky breath and tucked her wings; she’d extended them when she’d advanced on Pinkie, some ancient instinct making her puff up in anger. It dawned on Dash that the room was almost completely silent now, save for the gentle sound of breathing. Everypony’s eyes were on her; Applejack and Rarity had both stopped what they were doing, entranced by the conflict. Rarity’s needle continued to sew, a haphazard red line winding its way across the surface of the tube sock. Rainbow shut her eyes tightly and bit her lip. “You’re right,” she breathed. Turning back to her earth pony friend, “Pinkie—I—I didn’t mean to—” Pinkie Pie giggled, waving a hoof in a dismissive gesture “Don’t worry about it, Dashie,” the mare laughed. “You were just worried about a friend. I forgive you!” Pinkie punctuated this statement by launching herself at the pegasus, knocking Rainbow Dash down with the force of her hug. “Oof! Pinkie—ack—can’t breathe—” The tension in the room dispersed instantly at the twosome’s antics. Applejack laughed, adjusting her hind legs. “Consarnit Pinkie! Yer gonna choke the poor filly!” “Never! She’s mine!” Pinkie cried dramatically, squeezing Dash even tighter. The room dissolved into laughter, with the exception of Rarity letting out a wail when she realized how badly she’d messed up her socks. ---xOx--- Twilight took a sip of coffee and let out an involuntary yawn, clamping her muzzle shut instantly so as to not let the offending sound go. If she let herself yawn once, it would make her even more tired, and she would yawn even more, and so on in a vicious cycle until she fell asleep and then she wouldn’t be the first one to talk to them and somepony else would write a paper on them and get it published, and it would become famous and she’d live the rest of her life knowing that she had been so close and eventually she’d despair so much that Princess Celestia would ban her from magic for being too much of a buzz kill and she’d end up living alone on the outskirts of Hoofington with three hundred cats— Twilight really should not be allowed to have caffeine. The day had been long, however, and Twilight couldn’t think of an alternative to stay awake. She sighed and leaned forward, bloodshot, drooping eyes taking a few seconds to focus on the creatures in the cell. They were still unconscious, as they had been for the last six hours. Celestia had chatted with her student for about half an hour, before apologizing and leaving to “attend to royal business.” She had requested one of the guards to notify her or her sister when they woke, but so far there’d been no sign of the mystery creatures waking up. Just how much magic had Twilight put into that spell? The unicorn was starting to get nervous, actually. What if these things were overly-susceptible to magic, and she hadn’t just put them to sleep, but given them permanent brain damage? What if they never woke up, and they just stayed that way till they died, and that started a war with wherever these things had come from, and Princess Celestia tried to give them Twilight as compensation but they invaded Equestria anyway and a thousand years from now Twilight was only known as “That Extremely Stupid Unicorn Who Started The War That Ruined Equestria” and— Wait, never mind, it looked like they were waking up now. Exhaustion forgotten, Twilight channeled Pinkie Pie as she bounced towards the containment cell. The guards moved aside, one of them heading out to talk to Princess Luna. Twilight waited, shifting excitedly as the iron door unlocked. This was going to be great. ---xOx--- Dipper woke to darkness. His eyes took a second to adjust, and then he saw that no, it wasn’t darkness, just bad lighting. He was in a chamber of some sort, the walls made of some glossy material. On one side of the room was a metal door, and for some reason his stomach hurt a lot and his thumb was really warm oh god. Dipper yanked his hand away from Mabel’s mouth, sticking his tongue out in disgust and wiping the digit on his pants. He struggled for a second, mind racing. This wasn’t the Mystery Shack; what the heck was going on, where were they—and then the memories hit. That damned cave—crystal, red light—mouthful of leaves—river—unholy abomination of wood and terror with a screeching howl that sounded like someone had stuffed Sebastian Bach into a meat grinder—tiny, brightly colored horses—and Dipper started hyperventilating, all of the stress of the day slamming into him with the force of a freight train. He took a second to calm himself down (it took less time than he expected; Dipper must have been getting used to weird stuff happening all the time) and then grabbed Mabel’s shoulder, shaking her violently. “Mabel!” he hissed, “Come on! Mabel, wake up!” “Shinji. . . Mustn’t run. . . Zzz. . .” Mabel was clearly not about to wake up. Dipper said something bad, then stood up. Then the door opened. ---xOx--- Twilight shot forward a few feet, stopping right inside the door. She stared excitedly at the standing thing, before launching into a stream of questions and shouting. “Hi! I’m Twilight Sparkle. Um, I’m sorry for bucking you in the stomach earlier, it was an accident and I freaked out. What are you? What were you doing in Everfree? Do you live there? Are you a subterranean species? Can you use magic? How old are you? What’s the average life span of your species? Are you male or female, or are you a hermaphroditic species? Are you two related?” Twilight stopped, waiting for a response. The thing said something that was definitely not Equestrian. “Uh-oh.”