//------------------------------// // Ordo ab Ovum // Story: Error's Vanguard // by Stalin the Stallion //------------------------------// “Come on, just a little closer,” Applebloom said through gritted teeth, a playing card held in her maw. The wooden floorboards the clubhouse creaked, a birdsong peeping through a closed window as she inched her neck forwards, eyes locked upon the house of cards. Each second ticket by as if each were an hour, and Applebloom felt every nanosecond of it in her pounding heart. A click of the clock, and the card was set. Applebloom held her breath, not even blinking for fear that the air would collapse her creation. With a slow, deliberate movement, she backed away from the cards. Then, a fire raging in her lungs, she gasped, staring down the house. It stood. “Yes!” Scootaloo shouted, her little orange wings flapping hard. “No!” Sweetie Belle hissed, lunging for Scootaloo’s wings. “You’ll knock them over—” Without a sound, the house of cards collapsed, the whole deck scattering out across the small wooden room. The girls all froze, and for a moment nopony spoke. “Scootaloo!” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle barked in unison. Scrunching her wings up, a redness crept upon Scootaloo’s cheeks. “Um. Hehe. Sorry, girls.” Running a hoof through her red mane, fixing her large red bow, Apple Bloom let out a long sigh. “No, no — I get the feelin’ that setting card houses is another failure.” “Well, have we checked?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking at her white haunches. “Nothing on me.” “Ditto,” Scootaloo clucked, poking at her orange flank. Then, scratching her fuschia mane, she said, “Nothing on you, Apple Bloom.” Slumping against a wall, a hoof to her chin, Apple Bloom replied, “Yeah, I kinda figured.” “Well, there’s still ‘Interpretive Walrus Taming’ to try today,” Sweetie Belle offered, holding up a notepad. “But where are going to find cheaply-priced, non-unionised walrus labor on a Sunday?” Scootaloo asked. “Hmm,” Sweetie Belle hummed. “Double well, the last entry is ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Strike Breakers’.” “But where are we going to find a union-organized strike on a Sunday?” Biting the corner of her lip, Sweetie Belle looked back at her notepad. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Labor Agitators? Pretty sure Apple Bloom’s uncle Gravenstein could help with that.” “Wait—labor agitator?” Scootaloo asked. “What does that even mean?” “Cutie Mark Crusaders Dictionary Writers?” “Now you’re just making things up.” A pause. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Trustbusters?” Appleboom sighed. “But last time we tried to get to talk to Uncle Andrew Apple Ponegie, he told us he’d help us whenever we needed absurd amounts of steel for our cutie mark crusading. Why would we want to bust the Equestrian Steel trust?” A high-pitched yet earth-rumbling whistle ripped through the air, jerking everypony’s head upwards. “What was that?” Scootaloo asked, jogging for the window. Sweetie Belle, standing up slowly, offered, “A whale?” “Don’t be silly; whales don’t live here,” Apple Bloom scoffed, trotting over to Scootaloo’s window. “Okay, fair enough,” Sweetie Belle replied, her eyes going wide. “What about giant flying snake whale things?” Apple Bloom cocked a brow as she reached the window. “Say wha’?” Her eyes reached skywards, and she gasped as the visage. Not too high in the blue firmament, slithering through the air was a titanic serpent. She watched as it came from the direction of the Everfree Forest, inching nearer and nearer to the ground with every second; and moving fast, slower than it looked like it should be but still respectable, it came in the girls’ direction. Its time half, Apple Bloom couldn’t help but notice, was a light, aetherial blue, while its bottom was a creamy, cloud-like white. And as the aether-bound titan hurdled by, she saw it’s very center — splitting the serpentine body into forward and aft sections — was a massive sphere of water. Swimming within the massive sphere were two giant koi fish, one of a blood-moon hue of red, the other blacker than onyx; they moved around each other in a perfect circle, swirling in the sphere of water.   As it flew over the clubhouse, the whale-like whistle rang out again, like bells at a funeral. The girls galloped across the wooden building, going to the other window and watched as the titan swam it the direction of Canterlot, the city upon the great and distant mountain. A purple glare streamed from the city, and the serpent hunted towards it. Moving itself towards, the girls lost sight of the leviathan behind the nearby apple orchard. Silence. “Did we just see a giant snake with fish for a belly fly past?” Sweetie Belle asked, her tone without inflection. “No. No, we did not,” Scootaloo said. “But—” “If anypony important says they did, then we did too. Okay?” “Um... okay.” “Girls, look!” Apple Bloom gasped, pointing at the center of the clubhouse, where a house of cards stood. *** “Daisy, Daisy,” Lucian mumbled, singsonging as his arms hung limp beneath him. “Planted one day by a glancing dart... Planted by Daisy Bell.” He looked down at the distant ground as it sped by, then up to the tethers of magical light which held him aloft, tethers with chords leading to Princess Luna. Her wings flapped as she ascended into the firmaments near Canterlot. Beside her was Princess Celestia. “There is no magic wall surrounding Canterlot, is there?” Luna asked. Celestia shook her head. “I presume that message of his wasn’t tailored to this exact situation.” “After this is all down, can we still go to that tropical resort? I’ve never really been to one, and—” “Yes, yes, I’m quite aware,” Celestia chuckled. “And of course, little sister; I’d be honored to go to one with you.” “This would be an appropriate time to say ‘cool’, right? Right? Okay, then, um, cool. That is cool.” “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you,” Lucian continued. “Do we really have to take him with us, though?” Luna inquired, gesturing to the trainer. “I mean, he’s seemingly harmless, and would have just rolled around on that knoll.” Looking down as the white city now below, he went on with: “It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.” Celestia sighed. “We really can’t trust him to be on his own, can we? Yet I’d feel bad about putting him up in a cell.” “While I understand the reasoning of... that...” Luna trailed off as her eyes fixed themselves to one of Canterlot Castle’s prominent towers. The once gleaming ivory tower was now pockmarked with holes which billowed out quickly dissipating black smoke. Scattered around and in the tower were large rectangles of compressed rubble, most floating, paying no heed to gravity. Her eyes caught sight of cube-shaped pockets of air where the air itself seemed to just stop and grow stagnant. Celestia dove ahead and landed through a hole in the tower, Luna following her lead, and Lucian crashing and rolling behind them. As his body stopped rolling, the trainer mumbled, “Nun, mein Lieber, wie soll es nun weitergeh’n?” “Hmm?” Luna hummed, looking over her shoulder to him. “Amadeus,” he groaned. “Come and rock me.” “Neither head nor tail of Discord,” Celestia commented, and Luna snapped her attention to her. “Ma’am!” a stallion shouted as he landing behind the mares, saluting them both. “Ah, Lieutenant Steelwing, right?” Celestia said as they both turned to him. “Aye, your faithful leftenant, Your Highness. I’ve null to report, I’m sorry to say, Ma’am.” “What, then, can you tell me?” “W-well, that thing showed up, faster than before. ’Fore we could act, the bastard—pardon my French, Ma’am—had smashed into the tower. Soon as we could act, a pink bubble thing showed up; whenever one’a the boys touched it, they got teleported to a random location around the castle courtyard.” He took a hard breath. “I saw you coming from outside Canterlot, but I was sure you were inside the bubble, a-a-a-a—” Celestia rose a hoof, and the guard went silent. “Calm down, Lieutenant.” “With all due respect, Ma’am, I ain’t done. It’s Discord.” “What did he do?” Luna asked, her tone making the guard flinch. “W-well, ’e and that thing burst out of the bubble, destroying it with a great pink flash, and with it huge parts of the tower. The thing moved somewhere fast and vanished; Discord went after it and too vanished. I don’t know where.” Celestia poked her tongue into her cheek as she mulled everything over. “We know that Discord is fine, at least for the most part, and is in pursuit of that thing. But he and I are going to have a long discussion after this.” The Lieutenant nodded. “Right, but there’s another matter.” “What would that be?” “The city is about to riot, the ponies are so scared, Ma’am. I don’t mean to tell you how to rule, but maybe you could please go out and help us? The boys and I are out of horsepower just trying to hold the streets and keep the ponies in their houses; we could really use the hoof.” “A good thought, Lieutenant.” “Thank you, Ma’am.” He blinked. “Wait — that other one is getting away too!” The Princesses looked over to see Lucian perched on top of a pile of rubble, his position like that of a frog. He grabbed an a randomly strewn branch and put it upon his back, then remained motionless. Luna cocked a brow. “What are you—” “I am a tree!” he shouted, his voice staying on a single tone, his face without expression. The ponies just stared. Pulling out a pen and pad from his pocket, he wrote a little note. Then he put the note on his face, and it stuck to his countenance. “Not a human,” it read. They continued to stare. The trainer crept backwards, the mound of rubble beneath him beginning to shake. With another step backwards, the ground beneath the rubble caved in, sending Lucian’s mask and the tree branch flying away as he entered freefall. It lasted for a second as the rubble hit the floor, the rocks smashing against his ribs but breaking nothing. Lucian wretched from the impact, his empty stomach spewing up nothing but a burning, acidic feeling his throat. Groaning and clutching at himself, he rolled over the rubble, straight through a hole in the wall and re-entered freefall, now with sunlight beating down upon his falling form. Hardly a second into his fall and something slugged him in the gut, forcing him to gasp for breath. As he looked around, he realized that he was no longer falling, yet was still in the air. He wanted to speak, to curse, to make an annoying remark or an allusion that only he would understand, but instead he just groaned. “You really should be more careful,” Luna chastised from beside him, her horn alight, her wings aflutter.” Forcing his lungs to work with his mouth, he groaned. “You again? Hells bells, why it is always you?” She rose a brow. “Would you rather me let you go?” He glanced at the far, far, far away ground, and gulped. “Gee, have I ever told that you are a lovely lady, and, and, uh... What do ladies like? Um—you have a nice ass.” “Never ever say that again, understood?” Luna growled, narrowing her eyes into snake-like slits. “I like how calling you names doesn’t bug you as much as me giving you a really sexual compliment.” “Never. Again. Understood?” she said in a more forceful tone. “Promise not to drop me, and it’s a deal,” he chuckled, then coughed. She groaned. “Fine.” *** Lucian felt his legs return as the ground as the Princess landed in the castle’s courtyard. She watched as her sister flew off with the remaining guards, inevitably trying to solve the panic-stricken city’s woes. Luna sighed, rubbing her forehead. “If you try to run away again, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to you, in order to keep you safe,” she said in a nonchalant tone, and Lucian froze. Sliding her forehooves forwards, she stretched out her wings. “It has been a sort of long day, you see, and I am near to the point where one stops caring altogether.” “Wit’s end?” Lucian offered, scooting his back against a stone wall. “Yes, that. That’s the phrase I wanted, I think.” Lucian looked to his left, then back at Luna. “Pony.” “What?” she asked, looking out at the castle’s gate, towards the city. “What would you define as weird?” “A lot of things, I’d imagine.” “How quickly can ponies repair extreme destruction, like what happened to this castle?” “I’m not sure. It depends on how quickly we could get the resources to do it, plus hire an appropriate work team, deal out wages, put up scaffolding—” “Are giant flying Wailord serpents a fairly standard occurrence?” “What’s a Wailord?” “So... that’s a no?” She rubbed a shoulder. “Yes, I would suppose so. Why?” “Oh, I was just wondering how, on scale from ‘one’ to ‘all of it’, how much fear should I feel for a giant flying serpent that looks like a certain giant sea Pokemon.” “What are you talking about?” Luna asked, looking over her shoulder. Her eyes went wide for an instant. “Oh, because there’s one right there.” Lucian shrugged. “On the plus side, all the damage to the castle is fixing itself.” He pointed to the ruined wall next to him, to the giant whale-like yet serpent head poking through as the wall’s bricks picked themselves up, each returned to where it was before the entity showed up. “So, on that scale I mentioned, how much fear should I be feeling? ’Cause I’m not feeling any, and I’m worried that that’s either because I’m become too numb to it, or that my ability to feel emotions has been compromised, possibly turning me into a sociopath.” “I wonder how I didn’t see that earlier,” she muttered, staring at the sight. The serpent angled its massive eyes to Luna. Then, with slow, careful words, it spoke. “Lu–na.” She nodded hesitantly. “Good to see you again, Remora.” “How. Have. You. Been?” Using her wings to articulate the gesture, Luna shrugged. “Better have I been, yet worse too. I suppose that, if anything, I’m... at wit’s ends.” “I. Am. Most. A–pol–o–get–ic. To. Hear. This.” “Wow,” Lucian whistled. “Dude talks slow as a mental moron.” A door to the courtyard slammed open. “Princess, there’s a giant thing!” All parties turned their heads to the newcomer, to Twilight Sparkle, standing atop a small level of stairs. She panted hard, droplets of sweat on her forehead. “Oh, hello,” Luna replied. “Yes, by the way, he and I have met.” “Say what?” “What are you even doing out here?” Twilight gulped down breath after breath. “Saw an explosion. Used magic. Canterlot got. Snake-whale fish thing!” “You came from Ponyville, then?” “Yes,” Twilight panted, leaning against the doorframe. “And once you got here, nopony tried to stop you?” “Nopony. To stop me,” she huffed, trying to catch herself. “No guards. No nothing.” “That. Makes. Sense,” Remora commented. “It speaks!” Twilight gasped, hyperventilating all over again. “I wish Celestia were done with calming down the city,” Luna sighed. “I suspect that she’d be better at explaining this than I. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you want an explanation about him correct?” Twilight nodded, her breaths hard, unable to get out any proper words.” “Pity, my lack of popcorn,” Lucian grumbled, laying down on the grass, folding his arms into a pillow. The Princess ran a hoof through her flowing mane, taking a deep breath. “A very long time ago, before there even was an Equestrian state as you’d know it, I was out near the ocean of a faraway land. Long story short, I found a giant egg. Neither I nor my sister knew what to do with it, nor to whom it belonged. “Perhaps not quite thinking straight, I decided to try to hatch the egg myself. And no — I used magic; never once did I sit upon it. Anyways, that failed horribly. I actually held it in suspended animation, trying to find conditions where it’d hatch, since I knew it was alive inside. It was like that for some five years, then even I gave up. So, being the rational pony I was, I tossed to back where I found it, even though that whole region was at the time withstanding a major hurricane. “For reasons that I’m still rather vague on, returning it to the ocean made it explode. Rather than obliterate a huge swath of sea, the titanic explosion actually stopped the storm. I suppose it was as if the explosions wrought order from the chaos. But from this egg came this little serpent thing. “He had already named himself Remora, calling himself a ‘spirit of calamity’ from the moment he was borne. I thought it was neat, so I brought him to Celestia.” She shook her head. “A-anywho, he sort of raised himself from thereon. But the older the got, oddly, the slower he became, as you see him now. We let him be free, but every once and again he’d show up again, like when we first had problems with Discord. He seems to like showing up during calamities, hence his self-appointed name, I suspect. But other than that, he tends to stay in his oceans, doing whatever he pleases, I imagine.” Luna shrugged. “That’s all, really. I feel that my sister could have done it better, but we get what we get, no?” Twilight, finally catching all of her breath, let out a sigh. “I feel as though I need to spend another week in the Royal Library, figuring out at least half of that story.” “You’re the one who showed up at this most inconvenient time. Blame me not for not preparing better.” She turned her head in Remora’s direction. “So, I assume there is a problem.” “Yes,” he replied. “There. Is. A. Great. Dis-tur-bance. In. The. World.” The Princess shifted her weight, taking as step to the left. “And that would be?” “Deep. With-in. The. Ocean. Blue. An. Err-or. Lives.” “Excuse me?” “A. Hole. In. The. Fab-ric. Of. Re-al-i-ty. In. The. Mur-ky. Depths. Of. The. Great. Blue. There. Is. This. Hole.” Lucian rolled in the other directions, listening to Remora drone on about the vague problem in the ocean, and then that he suspected a magic like Discord, only for Remora to doubt that. So, the story went on, the serpent figured the likes of Discord and Celestia might be able to help him sort out the problem, and in kind he’d help them find Discord, whom Remora had felt vanished. “Okay,” Luna mumbled, nodding slowly. “That’s a bit to take in, but I think we can manage. Know you where we would start?” “I know where I could start,” Celestia’s voice rang out. “Princess!” Twilight exclaimed. “Greeting, Twilight,” she said, landing on the grass. “But I heard enough of Remora to know why Luna and he must do, which leaves me to my own devices, and you to yours.” “Wait,” Luna probed, “why do I have to go with him? Er, not that I have a problem, but why aren’t you accompanying us?” Celestia sighed. “You two will search one likely place, and I the other.” “The... other?” “The Library of Babel, sister.” Luna stood a step back. “Y-you can’t possibly mean—” “But,” Twilight interjected, “Metus is long gone. Without him, it’s just an endless labyrinth. I should know.” Her mind flashed, just for an instant, to a distant journey of hers and Spike’s from a long time ago, and she shuddered. “I know, Twilight,” Celestia replied. “But if there’s anywhere we can found out more, or even where Discord or the entity might have gone, it would be there. In the meanwhile, Luna, you should listen to him and figure out where to go.” Luna, gritting her teeth behind her closed mouth, nodded. “And as for you,” she said, pointing at Lucian. “Where the Walrein pits?” the trainer groaned, rolling onto his back. “Can I trust you not to harm any of my little ponies?” “If you promise me the same protection,” he replied, looking up at the clouds. “And of your pets?” “Pokemon?” “Yes, of them.” “Well, being that they sort of listen to me, they’re cool. Speaking of which, can I have them back? I get lonely without Mr. Fish.” Celestia hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, you may have them back, so long as you keep your end of the bargain.” “Oh, and wherever-to you go, if you find a way to send me home, that’d be dandy.” “But, Princess,” Twilight said, “what will I do if both you and Luna are gone?” “Hmm,” Celestia hummed. “A fair point. Would you mind babysitting him for me until I get back?” “Say what?” She nodded. “I trust you can handle that, am I wrong?” “N-no, of course not, Princess. I mean, you’re right. It’s just that I—” “It’s only for a small while,” Celestia chuckled. “Just make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble until I return to collect him, understood?” “But what if—” A door opened, interrupting Twilight as a tall stallion walked out, his blue trenchcoat with white sleeves flowing as he entered. Behind him flanked a unit of armored pony, their faces hidden by blue-painted helmets that Twilight knew the Royal Guards didn’t wear. “Sorry to interrupt this little meet-and-greet,” the stallion said with a refined upper-class Mare Orleans accents, “but we have and problem on our hooves.” “Oh, hey, it’s you,” Lucian groaned. “Your accent got heavier, too. What’s up with that?” Celestia looked over her shoulder to the stallion. “Director G, don’t you think it’s somewhat rude to go barging into other ponies conversations?” “I thought he was a doctor?” Lucian muttered, scratching his head. “My sincerest apologies, My Majesty,” the Director replied, bowing his head, “but this isn’t something that can wait.” He glanced to Lucian. “And before you ask, my full title is: Sir Doctor Director G, Duke of Mare Orleans. I’d say I’m quite accomplished, but we Southerners are too humble a lot to brag.” Luna rolled her eyes, but held her tongue. “But as it were, my Princess,” he went on, “what has just happened is a matter of national security, and you know how that song and dance goes.” Lucian elbowed Twilight as she walked to his side. “Yo, purple chick, who are those guys? I get the feeling shadiness is afoot.” “They are the Cherchen,” Luna answered in Twilight’s stead, cantering up to Lucian’s other side. “They’re an independent organization with incredibly close ties to the government, to the point where they almost are an government organization is all but name. ‘Cherchen’, you see, is Old Equestrian for ‘to search’.” Sitting up against the wall, he asked, “Then why does ol’ Milky Way there seem like the two of them’ve got a problem?” The Princess sighed. “It is a long story, but suffice it to say that the only reason they don’t have more power and influence is because Equestria is far from a democracy, and entities like them are the reason for that. They’re big on science, too.” She blinked. “Wait. Milky Way? You... you mean my sister?” “How dare you call Princess Celestia something like that!” Twilight hissed. Lucian shrugged. “Well, why not call her that? Her hairs reminds me of an aurora, and she’s white. Auroras got something to do with space and solar particles hitting some layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. And I think Deoxys has something to do with all that, I dunno.” “I. Like. Milk-y. Way,” Remora remarked. “Shh!” the trainer snarled. “No one asked the giant floating Magikarp. Maybe you should try to get your head outta that tower, rather than sit here and jerk about.” Twilight poked Lucian. “Quit.” Looking up, Lucian noticed Celestia and G were still chatting. But then Celestia stopped and looked over at him. “Where’d Remora go?” He shrugged. “Outside. Pulled his head outta the wall and everything. Even had the good sense to repair his broken wall.” He looked around. “Come to think of it, all that damage is now all good as new. It’s like magnets were at work.” Celestia nodded. “Back to what I wanted to say: I’m handing off a good portion of the investigation over to them and the Director, allowing them to hunt for anything left by the entity that we could use. Lucian, you’re getting an observer to watch over you, on top of what I asked of Twilight.” Lucian slid his back up against the wall as he stood up. “Cool. Another thing to harass me.” He whistled, jerking his head in G’s direction. “Just one thing, mate: use all your science-y shit to help find me a way back home, okay? Otherwise, I’ll find a way to go into your dreams and give you an Oedipus complex.” *** And endless sea of still blue stretched out in all directions, the twilight raining down across the water. Floating mere feet above the calm surf and in a seemingly random location was a humanoid figure in a trenchcoat, its djinn-like tails of particles playing games of chicken with the lapping water. Arms folded behind its head, it almost looked like it was resting on an invisible hammock. It moved out one of its hands, the particles contorting into a triangular shape, and the entity leered at the sun through the triangle. Without wanting, a gale erupted from the east, tossing the entity off balance, forcing it to twist in order to stay above the water, but tearing off its trenchcoat, sending it darting off to the west. Looking down at itself, it saw the gaping hole in its chest, where a wound which dug out into a cavernous crag of oblivion stood. With a furrowed, irate glare eastward, its tail-borne particles formed themselves into a new black coat, all the while the wind kept howling. Snapping its finger, the entity creating a solid but invisible cube-like barrier around it. It watched as a swirling force of wind and particles sprang from the gale, touching down on the waters not far from. From this touchdown erupted a huge ball of silver particles, radiating light reflected from the day’s ending sunlight. Then a tiny, round, and blue bird-like creature with fluffy-white wings popped out of the ball. The bird, its flight unsteady, sputtered for flight control, chirping like mad all the while. As its flight steadied, its beady black eyes caught sight of the humanoid entity, and its squealed, darting off to the west, using the wing to propel it. Ignoring the bird, the entity glared back at the sphere, just as a presence sauntered out. It couldn’t see what it was, but it felt that the thing was there, and the portal crumbled just as soon, scattering to the four corners as dust and misshapen micro-particles. A flash of red streaked across the entity’s vision, forcing it to close its eyelids. When they opened, the entity was still there, but now a swarm of particles whipped around, forming feet-like shapes above the water. It watched as the particles moved upwards, the presence gaining more and more form until it was completed. When the particles had settled, the entity gazed out at a figure with its exact same form, a form stolen from itself. And then both entities disappeared in a flash of light leaving no trace behind. Far away and upon a cloud lurked a serpent creature. As a little blue bird flew by, he held out a talon, casting a quick spell. The bird landed on the talon as the spell was finished. “Why, hello there, little fellow,” Discord chuckled. “Now, just what chaotic stew spat out a creature like you?” He glanced over to the two identical creatures now holding a staring match over yonder waters. “The more important question is, do I tell our fair lady Princess about you two, or do I keep silent and let the chaos play out? What do you say, little guy?” The bird chirped cheerily. Discord chuckled, crushing his talon into a fist, feeling the chaotic energy being absorbed into his body. “My thoughts exactly.”