Party of Flux
By A Random Guy
Flux was in a rather chipper mood this morning. Her head bobbed to an imaginary beat as she walked into her kitchen. She made herself a bowl of cereal, ready to get a head start on the day with Apple Oats, the taste everypony loves! Morning sunlight from the window poured over the cereal, which the cheerful pony complimented by pouring in some milk as well.
With spoonfuls of oats being eaten, Flux reminded herself to thank her boss next time she came into work. Sure, she dropped at least a thousand thank-yous before she left work, and written at least twenty notes that expressed her gratitude, but given the rare occasions that her boss gave her vacation days, it was even rarer that Flux was able to spend time with her daughter on special days.
She looked up to the wall to remind herself how special of a day it was. A chain of paper letters that spelt out “Happy Cute-ceañera” hung from wall pegs she feverishly put up the night before. Flux still couldn’t believe the day had come.
Granted, she was rather shocked with what her daughter’s cutie mark turned out to be. Her daughter, River Flow, was a special case for magical talents. She never had an obvious talent growing up. In fact, River Flow was starting to go full-blown question mode about why her classmates had cutie marks but she didn’t. But after an incident with a toilet in a high end restaurant, her destiny magically appeared on her flank, in the form of a plunger.
The party store sold all kinds of decorations for any cutie mark, from sports piñatas to candy balloons to even plastic bone tableware, the latter being for future chiropractors. They even offered custom decorations for unique cutie marks. But when Flux asked about plunger decorations, the store manager strategically led her to the generic party aisle.
Even if the party wasn’t going to be adorned with janitorial equipment, River Flow was still ecstatic about her cutie mark, and that her mother was going to be there spending time with her. Flux was ecstatic as well, for once since the dawn of time, literally depending on how you look at it, she could take part in her daughter’s life.
Then she felt the tingle. The tingle always started behind her shoulder blades, where a pegasus’s wings would connect to her body. She froze up. Flux knew her day was ruined, since she never got the tingle unless she was being called into work. She began shoveling her cereal into her mouth in the hope that eating a balanced breakfast would, in the off chance, make the tingle go away.
But the tingle process continued. Thin beams of light arced out from where the tingle originated. As Flux was engulfed in luminescence, the spoon continued to shovel cereal at a dangerous rate, splashing milk and oats across her face.
As the light beams grew to full length, they began to bend towards each other. The ends made connections and bent inwards, making two heart shapes on either side of Flux. The last oats disappeared as she hastened her shoveling.
The tingling reached its final stages. Flux ran out of cereal and began shoveling blobs of milk against her mouth. Magical particles began to appear from the aether. They filled the light beam hearts to form a thin, transparent film. Flux tried to outpace the tingling with her shoveling, but to no avail.
The film had completely filled up the light beam hearts. The room was engulfed with a bright white flash, and then returned to normal. Flux dropped the spoon in utter defeat. The tingling had stopped. Her face dripped with splattered milk. She turned her head in hopes that she just had a mental break down.
But no, her mental facilities were just fine, though her emotional facilities were questionable. Located right behind her shoulder blades, she had been given a pair of translucent, magical, company appointed butterfly wings.
Flux face-planted into the bowl. The milk bubbled and boiled as it repressed the sound of her scream.
Reality as we know it is a mixture of space and time. Space is composed of multiple dimensions, being which the space around us, space around other people, space of people of different probabilities, space around people of different realities, so on and so forth. Time, being all so special, gets its own dimension right between the space around other people and the space of people of different probabilities. Cheeky time. All of these dimensions merge together to form what everyone calls everything.
Flux’s boss resides in the void between the space of people of different probabilities and the space around people of different realities, collectively referred to as the multiverse void.
Flux’s wings, being company appointed, could be used to fly through the void to enter different universes. Fortunately for Flux, her wings were equipped with the reality-altering version of GPS, so she never needed to know how to get somewhere, only to know that she just needed to be there. They also came with a 9th dimensional cup holder. She didn’t know how it worked in the slightest, but used it on a regular basis anyways.
Flux’s wings flew her to her boss’s office within the multiverse void. Even during her bad days, she was always awed by the splendor of her boss’s venue. There weren’t any walls, floors, ceilings, or anything a conventional home. Instead, the images of other universes were projected as a multidimensional mural.
Nebulas and constellations arced way above her head as she waited for her boss to appear. The gasses of a sun below her were being peeled away and sucked into the bottomless stomach of a black hole. Off to the side, a trio of galaxies were colliding into each other. An enormous volume of their stars were flung off into the emptiness of space as the gravitational pull of the galaxies sling-shotted themselves into each other.
It was an average Saturday on the job.
The void around Flux began to ripple from a central point in front of her. Space twisted and contorted as a shape formed from the point. Nebulas, stars, black holes, and galaxies filled the shape as it formed. A pony face with the height of several solar systems emerged from the shape. “Good morning, Flux,” the face bellowed. Each of its constantans was punctuated by a flash of light.
Flux put on her best smile for her boss. “Good morning, Galactica. So, what do you need that’s so important that you pulled me out of my vacation?”
Flux covered her eyes as Galactica began to glow. “Last night, I was watching a small planet populated with civilized weasels when something occurred to me. These weasels undergo social interaction on a daily basis, but as of late I’ve only been able to socialize with few mortals such as you.
“As a being that has lived trillions of trillions of years, I hardly require social interaction at all. Yet, I still need an encounter every few billion years. I require you to help me in this endeavor.”
Reality slit open next to Flux. A pile of stylized envelopes spilled into the void from the slit. As she picked up an envelope, the slit closed and reality returned to its previous state. She looked at the front of the envelope and read the large gilded letters. “To Titan, from Galactica.”
“The pile of envelopes before you is a set of invitations. On each invitation is the name of a god. I want you to go to each god to deliver their invitation and tell them that they are to come to my party.”
“Your party? You pulled me out of my vacation so you could use me to send invitations to a party?”
“Gods have parties all of the time, so I am told.”
Flux threw the envelope back into the pile. The envelope blew through the pile and drifted off into space. “I was using my vacation for something special. Can’t I send the invitations when I get back?”
“Is a party for the gods not special enough for you?”
“Well, it’s my daughter’s Cute-ceañera today. I was hoping to spend the day with her.” Flux’s face flashed as she was hit with an idea. “If you want to socialize through a party, why not come to the Cute-ceañera?”
Galactica shrugged “The event of a single mortal life does not interest me. Besides, I cannot if I wanted to. I already paid the deposit for the catering.”
Flux looked at the pile of envelopes that were floating though the void. She estimated that there were about a couple hundred invitations in the stack. She figured if she was fast enough, she could distribute them all and be back to the party just in time for her to cut a slice of cake for her daughter.
“Do I have a choice in the matter?”
The contorted space in front of her shook her head.
“Fine.” She turned to fly to her first destination, putting as much speed her butterfly wings could muster to get this over quickly.
Flux flew into the first universe, which at her vantage point from high above the limit of where pegasi fly, it didn’t look so different from her home universe. The mountain range with Canterlot was present, along with Canterlot. The train tracks that went off across the country were sprawled all over the place. Ponyville was situated right next to the Everfree Forest, which looked gloomy as ever.
The only notable difference was that there was an enormous tower jetting out of the forest where the old Everfree castle was supposed to be. The tip of the tower was about as high as she was flying at the moment. It stood like a giant black needle against the horizon. Its shadow ran across the Everfree and halfway towards Canterlot.
It just so happen to be the home of the first potential guest.
Flux assumed that if somepony was over-compensating that much, they should have a throne room at the top. She flapped her wings and glided for the tower.
As she got closer, she began to search for an entrance, which wasn’t hard since it seemed that every opening to the tower was burning with an ominous red light.
She tilted her wings to send herself into an orbit around the tower. Her wings almost failed when a sulfuric aroma sucker-punched her in the nose. It wouldn’t surprise Flux if the place was built on top of a volcano, or if it was a volcano of sorts itself.
She tilted into her orbit when she saw a hole at the top that wasn’t glowing. Her wings flattened out to bring her to a steady glide into the hole.
As she entered the hole, Flux tilted her wings up to slow herself to a hover. She ended up in the middle of a cavernous room. Little red bubbling pits covered the floor. Pillars made of bones stretched to the roof. In the center of the room, on top of a pedestal, a twisted black throne stood. On top of the cushion of the throne, a black alicorn sat in a regal pose.
The alicorn was about three times the size of what Celestia normally would be. His skin was pulled tight against his thick biceps. His entire body was covered in a plethora of scars and red stripes. The alicorn’s horn was at least a yard long. Flux couldn’t see his eyes, as they were covered by a pair of aviator glasses, but she assumed they would be red cat eyes or something similarly ridiculous.
The alicorn smirked when Flux entered his presence. “I am Gilgamesh Megadeath of Epicness! Savior of Equestria twenty times in a row! God of all the Alicorns! Husband of Luna, Trixie, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and others! Have you come to please me, pretty butterfly lady?”
Flux pulled the first envelope out of the void. She checked the name written on it to make sure she didn’t make a mistake. “You wouldn’t happen to be Gary, would you?”
The alicorn opened his mouth to respond, but left it hanging as he thought about what Flux had just asked. He judged if revealing that his birth name wasn’t Gilgamesh Megadeath of Epicness and was, instead, Gary was worth a single letter. “What’s the letter about?”
“It’s an invitation, from Galactica.”
“Oooh! Oooh! Gimme!” Gary’s magic violently pulled the envelope from Flux’s grasp. He shredded the paper, leaving an intact parchment floating in front of his face. “I wonder if she wants to be my ninety seventh wife.” He began to read the letter aloud in his proudest and loudest voice.
“Dear Gary, I have decided to have a party in the multiverse void today. I feel as if the gods should have another grand time of festivities. We shall partake in party games and eat oceans of food. Cake shall have its own separate ocean that we will feast on. I have invited all gods aware of the multiverse and shall be expecting them to have a good time here. You, on the other hand, are not invited.”
Gary’s voice dropped a couple of octaves upon reading this. His smirk dropped from his face as he went on.
“Seeing as you are not a real god, I expect you to be well beyond exactly one hundred galaxies away from this party. I made sure you were the first for my messenger to visit, for I do not want you to see a real god coming and conclude that where ever he was going, you are supposed to go as well but the invitation was lost. I do not want you getting the wrong idea. Also, do me a favor and tell all your pfffseoodoh… psssadoo… pffswede-oh... P, s, e, u,”-
“That’s pseudo, pronounced ‘soodoh’. The p is silent.”
“Soodoh, thanks. Tell all your pseudo-god friends the same thing. I do not feel like wasting paper for writing the same message over and over again. Go fall in a hole. Sincerely… Galactica.”
Gary remained silent after finishing the letter. He left his mouth agape as he stared out into nothing. A couple of inaudible whines came from the back of his throat. His aviators slid off his face and shattered against the floor, revealing a pair of red cat-like eyes that were starting to water.
Flux began to fly out from the throne room. “I’m just… going to leave now.”
“She wants me,” the alicorn murmured, his voice cracking a bit. “They all want me.”
Flux decided to leave him on his own and continue on as a messenger.
Not all of her visits were alicorn gods, and after the first, none of them were pseudo-gods. Most took the form of a pony dressed up to embody whatever they represented as gods. The life god was an earth pony dressed in plants, the war god was a pegasus in armor, the squirrel god was an alicorn dressed in nuts, etc. All of them were extravagant, all of them spread all across the multiverse, all of them were a pain to fly to, and all of them showed a lack of interest in the party.
Flux’s next stop was a peculiar place. It was a warehouse in Manehatten in a universe not too far from where she started. The place looked rather odd for the domain of a god, that is to say it blended in with the surrounding urban environment. She knew it wasn’t the camouflage god, since she just spent a half hour trying to discern him from a pair of trees. (Turns out he wasn’t camouflaged. He left earlier to get a cup of coffee and came back seeing an angry Flux shoving an envelope into a tree.)
Flux entered the building figuring that it was bigger in the inside. It wasn’t, but it was full of couches. There were couches of all kinds, placed haphazardly all over the place. The walls were covered in posters warning about the dangers of goats. Floating in the center of the warehouse, there was a giant couch. The couch was made of a shiny fabric, but was completely torn up on its left side.
The cushions of the giant floating couch began to flop up and down. “WHO IS THIS THAT ENTERS?” a voice boomed throughout the warehouse.
Flux waved the envelope above her head. “I have an invitation to Galactica’s party, it’s addressed to the God of Couches. Would that be you?”
“YOU COME IN HERE AND OFFER AN INVITATION TO A PARTY?”
“Yeah. That’s the point of an invitation.”
“WELL, I REFUSE TO BE DEGRATED BY THE GODS OF A PONY.”
“I’ll take that as a no. I’ll be”-
“I RESUSE TO BE SAT UPON BY YOUR GODS. IT IS AN EMBARASSMENT FOR COUCH KIND! SOFAS, FEAST UPON HER!”
A herd of sofas jumped from the crowd at their leader’s command. Each targeted Flux as their prey, and pounced on the puny pony.
“Oh for Celestia’s sake”-
A sofa tackled her and pinned her to the floor. Its cushions engulfed Flux and clamped down hard on her. She heard a slurping noise, and then found herself floating in a void.
“Well, that happened.”
She mentally checked the God of Couches off the list, and flew out into the multiverse void.
After a few more hours of playing courier, Flux began to get an idea of how many gods there were. Not that much, to be honest. There were a couple hundred to be sure, but they were all spread out across the multiverse that their numbers seemed relatively small.
Despite the low number, Flux was rather surprised that the multiverse was lacking in a couple of gods. As she was flying around, she looked through the invitations that she had left to pass out. Two types of gods that she thought were guaranteed to be on the list were a time god and a messenger god, but they weren’t referred to on any letter. She was hoping for a time god just so she could make this process faster. The lack of a messenger god was a disappointment due to the fact he could be doing her job right now.
Of all the gods that were on the list, there was one god that had a “?” in his label. What was written on the envelope was “Dranorth, God of ?”, as if Galactica had absolutely no idea what his affiliation was. After a second look at the letter, she noticed that there was some fine print labeled on the bottom that read, “God of Electricity/Gravity?” Flux knew she would have to ask just so Galactica wouldn’t have this problem in the future.
She was going to ask soon, since her next stop was the universe the God of ? was residing in. When she flew out of the multiverse void, she entered a large empty room. It looked like the interior of a factory without all of the equipment. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made of a dull metal. Rows of lights lined steel support beams high above, holding the ceiling in place. The support beams aligned with the ribbing of the walls. The entire place seemed to have the dull hum of ghostly machinery.
The room clearly was devoid of any form of life, so Flux flew around looking to see if there was any way out. As she dipped down to see if there were any doors at ground level, she heard a groaning noise to her right. She looked over to see a panel on the side of the wall slide up to reveal a hallway behind it. Standing in the center of the hallway was the figure of a pony.
“Hey,” Flux called out to the pony figure. “I have a letter addressed to”-
She was interrupted by a strong pull in her gut. It was the kind of pull somepony would get if they were falling down at a high speed, which was exactly what Flux was doing at the moment. She tumbled as she watched the ground race towards her and braced herself just as she made contact.
Her left wing touched the ground first. It crumpled from the impact between the floor and the body that fell on top of it. She didn’t feel her butterfly wing get crushed under her own weight, but she did feel like a train had rammed her side when she hit the ground.
Flux tried to move the foreleg that didn’t hit the floor, but some force pulled it towards the ground, flipping her face up. She couldn’t turn her head and was forced to watch the ceiling.
Past the sound of her side throbbing in pain, Flux could hear hoofsteps walking on metal. It was a few moments before she could hear the hooves walk next to her ear before they stopped. Before, her vision was filled with the view of support beams lined with lights. Now it was filled with the view of a purple pony’s head looking straight down at her.
The pony was dressed relatively nicely. He wore a bowler’s cap and a black suit jacket. A black tie hung down from his neck, lightly tapping the side of Flux’s head as it slightly swung back and forth. His upper eyelids were halfway shut over a pair of cyan eyes. His mouth was curled down in slight disappointment.
Remembering what she was supposed to do, Flux cleared her throat. “I have an invitation for you, but I can’t pull it out if”-
The pull lifted from the hoof that wasn’t in utter pain. Flux pulled out the letter from the void, which was lifted from her hoof by the mysterious force that held her down. The pony read the back of the envelope, and opened it up to read the parchment inside.
He pointed a hoof at Flux, which began to arc lightning along his foreleg. “How did you get in here?” the pony asked as he glanced over the invitation.
Flux stared at the electrified hoof. The constant sparking made it hard to look at, but it didn’t make it look any less threatening of a gesture. “I flew in. That’s how I usually get around. I assume you’re Dranorth.”
The purple pony nodded, never breaking off from scrutinizing the floating letter or retracting his arcing limb. “How did you fly in? I bet it was through a dimension higher than the third, wasn’t it?” The hoof inched close to her face. She could feel an intense heat emitting from it.
“It was the ninth, actually.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake!” The hoof was redirected away from Flux’s face, and she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. But she flinched as a crumpled invitation hit her right between the eyes. Dranorth threw his head back in grief. “It was hard enough to shield this ship for seventh dimension travel, but now I have to worry about the ninth? That’s two extra dimensions I have to block out.” He rubbed his forehead has he tried to figure out what to do.
Meanwhile, Flux was still on the floor. She knew that she should ask about letting her get up, but this was still a question that was gnawing at her. “So, what are you a god of? God of Electricity? God of Gravity? God of Question marks? To be honest, you’re not dressed up to be any of them”
Dranorth ran his hoof down his face. “I’m not a god. I am a very powerful being that has apparently confused your god in some aspects.” He looked at the writing of the open envelope. “Galactica? I thought she wanted to kill me? Why is she inviting me to a- Oh… Right. Well, this is an obvious trap.”
“I think she just wants to have a party.”
“If that’s the case, I disrespectfully decline.” Flux flinched as a crumpled envelope hit her right between the eyes. “There’s a special needs kid named Gary. Give him the invite. Lord knows he needs friends.”
Dranorth turned around and walked away. Flux felt the pull release her. She flexed her limbs a bit, which weren’t hurting as much as before. She looked at Dranorth’s backside as he walked away and asked, “So, you’re the Introversion God?”
“Get off my ship,” Dranorth called back. He stopped walking for a moment to think. “And if I see you on my ship again, I’m punching you in the face.”
Flux, remembering she had something to finish up, gladly took his advice and flew out. As she flew through the multiverse void, she rechecked how many envelopes she had left to deliver. She gave up somewhere past fifty.
Public benches, historically, have been places where nothing significant happens. This is why they’ve become one of the most iconic symbols of multiverse media that no one has ever thought about. Nothing happens when ponies sit on them, so ponies have come to unconsciously associate them with somber moments.
Flux was having her somber moment on her bench in her backwater town in an unknown universe far away from home. She slumped along the back, her butterfly wings drooped over the back of the bench. She could only look at the final twenty seven invitations that sat in a pile in front of her.
Flux, having a job that required her to travel a lot, kept a pocket watch handy in the void to keep track of what time it was at home. In her haste to deliver all of the letters to their recipients, she had forgotten to check the time in her home universe. It was five minutes ago when she remembered to check.
The watch read 11:36 PM five minutes ago.
She thought of what happened in her home universe while she was gone. The party would have ended at seven. The cleanup of the part would have ended at eight. River Flow would have gone to bed by nine. The watch read 11:36 PM five minutes ago.
For those five minutes, Flux just stared at the twenty seven letters stacked in a pile in front of her. Twenty eight if you count the invitation Dranorth shoved in her face. She didn’t feel the need to do anything else than to just sit and stare at the twenty seven letters.
Unlike the masses, universes tend to be aware of the bench trope. The trope usually conflicts with the law of entropy, which states that a closed system can only lose energy. Since nothing happens around benches, energy isn’t lost or gained. Universes deal with this situation by either ignoring it or rectifying it. Some universes tend to do the rectifying method with a twisted sense of humor.
As Flux stared at her pile of letters, the Flux native to this universe just so happened to walk by the bench and sitting Flux. Flux, the multiverse traveler, was used to seeing herself in different universes, it came with the territory. Native Flux, however, wasn’t quite used to the sight, never having ventured beyond her hometown much herself. These encounters usually boil down to one-way excitement.
“Well that’s interesting,” Native Flux remarked. “We look exactly the same, except for the giant butterfly wings.”
Winged Flux broke her gaze with the pile of letters. “We are the same, just from different universes and other metaphysical stuff.”
Native Flux was slightly weirded out by Winged Flux’s comment. “Okay… different universes. Right. And is there a reason you’re moping on a bench?”
Winged Flux rubbed her temples. “I missed my daughter’s Cute-ceañera because my apathetic boss wanted me to be her errand girl.”
“Well, that bites. Why didn’t you say no?”
“Because my boss runs the plumbing of the multiverse and knows how to make my day miserable.”
“Well, you seem miserable now.” Native Flux tilted her head towards the pile of letters. “And staring at those doesn’t seem to help either.”
“Yeah, I should probably set them on fire and throw them at my boss’s face. It’ll be hard to miss that thing.”
“If you hate your boss so much, why not quit your job?”
“Other than paying bills, I have no clue.” Winged Flux rubbed a butterfly wing with a hoof. “The wings alone were enough to convince me to take the job. But I beginning to feel like flying through the multiverse isn’t worth it anymore.”
“I don’t think being a lab rat for experimental drugs is ever worth it to begin with.”
“Experimental drugs?”
“Yeah, that multiverse talk of yours makes you sound like you’re on some strong psychiatric stuff. You have the symptoms. Depression, altered perspective of reality, that kind of stuff.”
“You know what, I am.” Winged Flux jumped from her bench and shoved her face into Native Flux’s personal space. “I am currently doped up on prescribed narcotics. How else would I think that delivering letters for a boss I hate for a party that no one cares about is a good idea?”
Native Flux backed up as Winged Flux bore down on her. “Overreaction is also another symptom you may want to look into,” she quickly added as she tripped over onto the ground. Winged Flux flared her wings out.
“Here’s a question: would you like to partake in an experimental pharmaceutical trial?”
“I’m kind of one of those clean-body, clean-mind kind of ponies, so I think I’ll pass.”
“No choice.” Winged Flux grabbed her double, who yelled and fought back in response. Her butterfly wings gave a powerful flap, and the double pair shot into the air.
“AAAH! Putmedown! Putmedown!”
“Not until you see this.”
After gaining enough vertical distance, Winged Flux leaned back to level off in the sky. She flipped herself right-side up as her butterfly wings pushed her through the air. The wind howled as the duo cut through the atmosphere.
In the next moment, a casual observer on the ground would have said that the double vanished in the air they glided through, unaware of the marvelous event that was really happening.
The duo flew out of the universe.
Native Flux was mentally rebooting. In one moment, she was trying to break out of her captor’s hold while thousands of feet in the air. The next moment there was no air, or wind, or any ground to speak of. In fact, there wasn’t any world to speak of at all. There was only the multiverse void, and it was spellbinding.
The reflections of celestial events played out in the void. Supernovas seemingly collided only to pass through each other. Galaxies tore through each other as they clashed together left nearby nebulas alone and intact. Planets orbited black holes, but avoided their gravitational pull in favor of the suns hidden by the lifeless giants.
Native Flux could only grasp a handful of the projections that flew by her. Each projection seemed close and cluttered yet far and grand at the same time. Blasts of gamma radiation and planet sized asteroids passed through her yet left her unscathed, for this was the nature of the multiverse void. It only showed the events of the universes, but never held them, for it could not. It could only view them with seething jealously.
“What prescription did you say you were taking?”
“Bad-Boss pills. They ran out of placeboes.”
“They must be popular on the black market. This place is amazing!”
“Just wait till you meet the inhabitants.”
Winged Flux tilted into a collapsing sun. She flew into the abyss that was being drilled through the center. Darkness overtook the duo as they pushed deeper into the dying gas giant.
Winged Flux squeezed her passenger closer to herself. “Hang on.”
Native Flux didn’t know what to expect when her double said “Hang on”. She especially didn’t expect flying back into reality and getting hit in the face by a wall of air. It took her a second to readjust to the new lighting. When she did, she didn’t expect to see herself hurtling towards a wall at break-neck speeds.
Before Native Flux had a chance to react, the butterfly wings sprung out, getting caught by the resistance of the atmosphere. She felt her insides slam forward as the duo decelerated to an utter stop.
“Where are we?” The captive analyzed her surroundings and determined that they were in some kind of metal chamber. Mounds of metal were arranged in semi-circles that went behind a steel tower in the middle of the room. Each mound had a glowing rectangle engraved into it that displayed multicolored bars and patterns.
Directly under the duo, sitting in a chair in between two semi-circle mounds was a purple pony with a bowler’s cap and a back suit jacket. He was leaning back against the mound behind him with his legs propped up on the mound in front of him. A paddle ball that floated next to his head was whacking a ball that kept bouncing back.
Winged Flux pointed a hoof at the pony below, holding her other hoof tight against her passenger. “See that guy? I have to deal with ponies like him that would rather maim me than say ‘no thank you’ to a party invitation.”
The purple pony below them looked up to see the sight of two clones floating in midair. “Are you talking about me? I feel like this is a conversation I need to be involved in.”
“He pinned me to the ground, and when he started asking questions, he decided waving lightning around my face instead of asking politely like any other pony would.”
The pony shrugged. “I found a random person in the cargo hold of a heavily shielded ship. What did you think I would do?”
“I was actually hoping you would be a messenger god just so you could do my job for me, but seeing as you’re not a real god, I don’t really expect much from you.”
The pony raised an eyebrow at the comment, and then looked at Native Flux. “You wouldn’t happen to be a victim of whatever crime ring she’s hosting, would ya?”
“No, just waiting for the pills to wear off.”
“And that phrase will get you incarcerated in America. Speaking of skewed justice…” He knocked the paddle’s ball from its rhythmic bouncing with a poke from a hoof. “Little Miss Butterfly Wings, didn’t I threaten you if you entered my ship again?”
“You did, but you’re going to need a very large bug zapper to knock this butterfly out”- Winged Flux yelped as she dropped enough to dodge a lightning bolt. “Time to go, Flux.”
Dranorth watched as the double pair flew out into the multiverse void. “Dang, missed her face.”
The next location seemed more surreal to Native Flux, but seemed significantly safer than the previous area. When the duo first flew into the next universe, all they could see was couches. She tried to determine how many couches there were, but was interrupted by a dropping sensation. A comfy sofa below her cushioned her face-plant.
As she righted herself up against a fluffy pillow, Winged Flux drifted downwards onto the seat next to her companion. She rested her eyes as she leaned back on the sofa.
“So, what’s so special about this place?”
“It’s a show-don’t-tell experience. Plus I need a rest, you were getting heavy.”
“So, are we done complaining about your boss?”
Winged Flux shoved a hoof against her double’s mouth. “Shhh. No talking. Only resting. It’ll only take a minute.”
Flux obeyed her double and leaned back along with her, giving the chance to thoroughly analyze the area they were in. She couldn’t see how large the place was since her view was surrounded by couches. The place had a high roof with greasy windows lining the top of the walls. Beyond the windows she could hear the sound of traffic and crowds. What little of the walls she could see was covered in propaganda targeted against goats. Other than that, her vision was filled with the fabric of the sofa in front of her.
Somewhere in the distance of the warehouse, a growling sound echoed through the building.
“Something doesn’t sound like it knows quiet time.”
“I guess my minute is up then.”
The growling grew louder, and was soon accompanied by hissing as well.
“Can we leave now? I think something wants us to leave.”
“Sure. But we’re leaving through an unconventional way.”
“Aren’t butterfly wings an unconventional way- AAH!”
Native Flux was interrupted as her body folded from being pulled in between the cushions. The next thing she heard was a slurping sound, and then she was floating through a void.
“What just happened?”
“Something abstract. That was weirder the second time round.”
“Second time?”
“Next universe!”
The first thing that hit Native Flux was a breath-full of sulfuric air. With such a pungent sent, she was expecting this universe to be in the interior of a giant turtle’s intestines or something similarly outlandish. But thorough disappointment had set in when she discovered that it was only an evil volcanic lair. They lose their shock appeal when you have one as a summer home.
This particular volcanic summer home had a giant obsidian throne in the center, but had no giant obsidian gluteus maximus sitting in it.
The throne, however, was supporting the torso of a black and red alicorn that was slumped on his belly with legs in the air and eyes reading a book on the floor.
“Oh, this is a pain,” the alicorn muttered. “I already used admire. Yearning and lust got old fast. Intense affection is a bit long. Oh, Twilight, what else could I use to describe your undying love for me?”
Native Flux dropped to the floor as Winged Flux’s hooves became occupied with throwing around meaningless gestures. “This is the epitome of what my boss expects me to deal with! I’m supposed to show respect, no, praise, for all of these deranged ponies dressed in trash. Why should I show praise for gods that degrade themselves like this?”
Her outburst drew Gary’s attention from his masterpiece to the duo that appeared in the middle of his chamber. “Well, look, it’s the pretty butterfly lady. Did you come back to give me a present and set it on fire?”
The Flux on the floor answered for the Flux in the air. “Don’t mind her. She’s been in an inconsistent rant for the past couple of universes.”
“That shouldn’t excuse her from writing mean notes.”
“Hey, my boss wrote that. If you have complaints, we have a hotline for that. It’s called ‘praying to a greater power.’”
Native Flux looked up at her double. “I tried that hotline before. I think the operator still has me on hold for that call.”
“We’re understaffed. We’re just getting started with the complaints from the Middle Ages.”
“Well tell your boss,” Gary said as he flipped over from his awkward slouching position and teleported in front of the duo through a dark smoke cloud, “that she has a bad view of shadow gods.”
“She said pseudo-gods.”
“Well, she has a pseudo-view of them. Us pseudo-gods demand the same pseudo respect that non-pseudo gods get, and that means going to any pseudo-party we want.” He stamped his hoof down to solidify his position.
“Pseudo means fake, by the way.”
Gary’s eyes went wide as he thought about this new meaning of the word. “She called me… fake?”
His weight hit the floor as his knees buckled from this new revelation. “But I’m Gilgamesh Megadeath of Epicness, Savior of Equestria. I-I can’t be fake. I just can’t…”
Winged Flux drifted down to pick up her companion. “Trust me. It gets sad from this point.”
As she embraced Native Flux for takeoff, Gary latched onto her double’s forelegs. “She wants me,” the alicorn murmured, his voice cracking a bit. “They all want me.”
Gary’s grasp emptied as the duo flew off into the next universe, setting their position on the matter as an affirmative “no”.
Contrary to popular belief, traveling through the multiverse is an extremely common practice. The opposite is only a popular belief because nobody from the multiverse stops by for gas and coffee. Who could blame them? Other universes already brewed the perfect coffee eons ago, and decaf is still a relatively new concept in our neck of the woods.
Despite being more common than believed, multiverse travel is a rather lonely endeavor. The multiverse void is absolutely infinite, and though it is filled to the brim with infinite universes, the vast amount of empty space is infinite as well. Surprisingly, the statistical probability that one were to encounter another traveler in the void is about one to nine trillion. Although it’s a slim chance, it’s still significantly more probable than one to infinity.
Native Flux, unaware of any of this, wouldn’t have cared if she knew. At this point, she only cared about where her double was taking her, which at this point, seemed to be anywhere she could complain about slightly. They did only visit three places, but she was starting to get the pattern.
As an exploding star passed through her, Native Flux’s curiosity got a hold of her. “So, what’s the next stop? Is it a world ruled by a tyrannical god?”
Winged Flux only stared into the void.
“Okay, no tyranny. Is it a post-apocalyptic world? I have a feeling there’s a bunch of those.”
She flew through a fractured planet, oblivious to the inquiries.
“Here’s a wild guess. The next world will have a sub-population of sociopaths that secretly murder their friends and turn them into pastries. How close am I?”
The last one got Winged Flux’s attention. “Those are some dark ideas you got there.”
The passenger shrugged. “Friends make me hungry.”
“Well… We’re not going to any place like that. In fact, we’re not leaving the void.”
“I would prefer it if I went home.”
“Do you know why I flew you out here?”
“Because it’s a place where no one can hear the screams?”
“It’s because you’re my double. You can understand me best out of anyone in the multiverse.”
Native Flux gazed around at the surrounding void. “I’m still trying to understand how I can hallucinate all of this and still maintain coherent thoughts.”
“Out of everybody I know, you can understand best how horrible my boss is.”
“And why do you need me to understand?”
“Because she’s an inconsiderate jerk who forces me to miss my kid’s childhood!”
“Your kid will grow up fine. She doesn’t need parents breathing down her neck at every moment of her life.”
“She’s growing up while I’m not there! She’s going to grow up without a mom because my boss cares about nothing but herself. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You want me to understand. You don’t want me to understand. Which is it? At least let me understand how long it’ll this flight will take.”
“We should be there after I take the next right.”
Directions in the multiverse void are completely useless unless there are perspectives. Something simple such as “taking a right” needs to be accompanied with a point of reference, proximity to planes of existence, your velocity compared to said plane of existence, and how many fast food chains you saw on your way over.
Winged Flux didn’t bother to pass on this information to her passenger, so Native Flux had no point of reference to determine if they had taken a right. The only way she could tell that they reached their destination at all was when a green mailbox marked “Galactica” flew over past their left. The multiverse may be infinitely empty, but its residents do have an efficient postal system.
“So, now that we’re here, what are you going to do?” Native Flux asked as they floated over a welcome mat that drifted past in the void.
“I’m going to give her a piece of my mind. I am going to go up to her and demand to be treated with respect, and I am going to demand that she manipulate time to get me to River’s party in time!”
“Wait, if she can change time, why couldn’t you ask her to do that for you after you did your job instead of abduct me”
“She’s one of those people that think messing with time will destroy everything. And if it does, I’ll still be spending time with River, and that’s all that matters!”
“You’re willing to destroy time and space for your kid. Nice. So, where’s this god boss of- Oh my Celestia!”
Native Flux was expecting an alicorn with a gaudy coloring scheme to be the boss. She wasn’t expecting the void to contort into a giant face. Floating in front of her was the largest pony head she had ever seen. The mouth was so big it looked like it ate suns for nourishment.
The voice that came out of the enormous mouth had the volume of several planets colliding with each other, yet was graceful enough that it didn’t blow out Native Flux’s eardrums. “Flux, welcome back. I see you have brought a friend for the festivities. Which of the gods declared they were coming?”
“To start off, the squirrel god said no, so did the nature god. The bagel god was too busy eating donuts. The unemployment god had to go to a job interview. Now that I think of it, everybody impolitely declined.”
“Nobody said they were coming?”
“No. And you shouldn’t be surprised why. You’re an inconsiderate jerk who only thinks of herself! You take advantage of every pony you meet. You put in minimal effort while you expect everybody else to do everything for you! You…”
Winged Flux continued to rant, but Galactica didn’t appear to be listening. For the first time, Native Flux bothered to look anywhere but at the giant space face. She noticed that tables were spread out across the void in an elegant manner. Each was covered in cloth and dinnerware necessary for any party. There was even a very long table with a buffet set up for the pickings.
She also noticed that at each table had an empty seat. At each seat was a little paper sign with the name of a particular god. Galactica’s attention seemed to be bouncing between every empty seat, occasionally glancing towards the long table where the food was reaching room temperature.
“… You don’t even consider if we have families! I have a family! In fact, I have a daughter whose party I missed just so I can tell a bunch of stuck-up gods about another party they don’t care about! I want, no, need to go to my daughter’s party, so you better use your time magic or something to get me there or I’m getting my union involved in this!”
A moment of silence settled in as Flux finished her rant and Galactica continued to look at all of the empty chairs. “What about Dranorth? Is he coming?” Galactica asked.
“No. I don’t think he wants to attend a party that’s being hosted by someone who apparently tried to kill him.”
“How disappointing, I was hoping he would come so I could apologize for that.”
“And that’s another thing. You have history of doing things to other ponies and expecting them to forget about it.”
“What about the God of Couches. I was hoping I could meet someone new.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
Native Flux was growing tired of the conversation and directed her attention to other places. What grabbed her attention was a bit of space slightly below her and off to the distance from her left. A nebula cloud seemed to be getting sucked into a single point inside itself. The cloud was contracting inward, compressing itself into a smaller and smaller ball. Then it exploded.
It was a rather odd explosion for a projection in the multiverse void, mostly because it didn’t seem to be a projection, and because it was actually doing something other than sitting and looking pretty. The explosion rolled through the tables at the far end of the party setup, sending tables flying. Galactica and her employee didn’t even bother to look at the party crasher, and Native Flux’s view of it was blocked by a table soaring right at her face.
She kicked off from Winged Flux, sending them flying in opposite directions as the table flew right between them. Winged Flux stopped herself from drifting away with a few flaps from her butterfly wings. Native Flux stopped drifting when another table corner nicked her in her left side with enough force to stop her. The force wasn’t pleasant for her pain receptors.
As the explosion cleared up, a massive metal square hulk emerged from where the nebula cloud used to be. Its chrome surface wasn’t as massive as Galactica, but was still large enough to have a major city grow off of it.
Among the tables flying from the steel hulk, Winged Flux could make out blue streak shooting through the carnage. She didn’t worry about it until it changed direction, towards her.
Before she could move out of the way, the blue steak engulfed her in a torrent of electricity. She didn’t have time to react to the shock before something hard rammed into her, sending her spiraling through the void.
Flux, having a pair of company appointed butterfly wings, had a personal magical shield that blocked all damage to her being. That’s not to say her nerves couldn’t feeling anything, and if they could talk, they would say it felt like a truck that was pushed off a skyscraper fell on top of her.
Despite the pain, Flux’s wings flared out from pure reflex in mid spiral, decelerating her and leveling her off with what collided with her. Floating in the void in her place was a purple pony wearing a black bowler’s cap, a jacket, a tie that drifted around its tether, and a demeanor that was crossed between sleepy and ticked off.
Galactica was the first to recover from the explosive event. “Dranorth! Welcome! I am glad that you came! Grab a seat and enjoy the buffet.” She remained oblivious to the buffet that was now scattered and drifting through her face.
“Galactica, I expect your messengers to have better manners. They shouldn’t be boarding ships without permission.” He swung a hoof towards Winged Flux, who was having trouble moving without her body cringing in pain. “They’ll end up getting punched in the face some day.”
“I do apologize for my employee’s rudeness. I assure you she will not ruin your time at my party.”
“Party?” He looked around at the remains of the tables, which were floating off into the distance of the multiverse void. “Oh. If this was the party, then this must be the trap I parked into.”
“I am not aware of any trap. Please elaborate.”
“You know, a trap to capture me and do what you please, or something along those lines. I lived long enough to know that people like to try to kill me at parties. Why else would you invite me?”
“I invited you so I can apologize for trying to kill you before.”
“Oh.”
“So, do you accept?”
“Accept what?”
“Do you accept my apology?”
Dranorth rubbed his chin as he contemplated what Galactica was saying. “I will, but under one condition.”
Galactica’s solar-system eyes lit up with glee. “What is it you ask of?”
He pointed towards the giant metal hulk of a ship. “You need to invite him.”
When the females of the group turned to look at what he was pointing at, which was a comically oversized black and red alicorn that was slowly flying towards the conversation, they all exclaimed in different tones depending on their attitude towards the pseudo-god, “Gary?!”
“Hi,” he called. The glee in Galactica’s eyes snuffed out.
“I picked him up on the way here. You have to invite him to your party, no exceptions.”
“But he’s a mockery to the sanctity of divinity.”
“Divinity didn’t have sanctity to begin with. Case in point, me.”
“He’s still a mockery.”
“Don’t say that.” Dranorth gave Gary a pat on the head as he flew next to him. “He may be special needs, but he’s a god in your book if you thought I was one as well.”
Gary looked at Dranorth with disapproval. “Dude, I’m not special needs.”
“You know I read your file. You banished your psychiatrist to the depths of the timeout corner when he said you needed help.”
“He was extremely biased.”
“You spent a week trying to find a timeout corner in a tower with only circular rooms. That’s a textbook example of a special-needs deity.”
Galactica interrupted with her own input. “Well, special needs or not, I can’t invite him now. You crashed through the party and now we have nothing to party with.”
Native Flux added her own input as well. “Miss Pretty Butterfly over there has a daughter who had a Cute-señera today. We just need to do a little time-traveling and we can arrive just in time.”
“But that involves time-traveling,” Galactica argued. “If a god were to travel, he may disrupt the balance of the multiverse. And we have two gods”- Dranorth coughed loudly –“Three gods. Not even I know what will happen when three gods attempt time-travel.”
“Actually,” Dranorth started, “as long as we don’t meet ourselves we should stay under the legal limit of multiverse disasters. And a kid’s party sounds more fun that whatever you had planned.”
Gary jumped up with excitement. “Does that mean I can eat cake and ice-cream?” he asked Winged Flux.
She seethed through her teeth as she rubbed her shoulder. “Yeah, and piñatas and other stuff.” Gary jumped further in excitement. “But I haven’t agreed to you all coming to the party.”
Gary provided the excuse. “God’s will, divine right, all that heavenly blessing stuff that says we don’t need an agreement. Why are we still here? There’s ice-cream and cake at a party we need to have attended in the past!”
Time travel has been one of the most controversial subjects in the history of the multiverse. It’s so controversial that a small quiet debate on the subject has led to past wars on multiple occasions. In order to avoid getting their great grandfathers enlisted in a great grandson’s war, most governments have banned the discussion of the topic altogether.
Gods, however, are exempted from this rule since they’re gods, and they don’t give a flippity bulge about government rules.
Galactica used her god status to indulge the group in a bit of time-travel just to make it to a filly’s Cute-señera party. Some critics would argue that this is a blatant misuse of the time-altering ability. They would also protest against the theory of evolution after being swiftly selected as the weakest and mysteriously eliminated from the gene pool. Gods do what gods do.
And these gods know how to party at a filly’s party. Gary was trying to seduce several mothers that he thought were single, only to be pushed back by both male and female spouses. One particular mare managed to shove his aviator glasses down his throat along with the piece of cake he was eating. Despite that, he had to leave the party because his bedtime was coming up in his home universe.
Dranorth was playing Pin the Tail on the Pony with the fillies and colts of the party. He managed to get close to the target, only to let the center of the party, River Flow, beat him by an inch. He acted disappointed, only to be comforted by River by saying he might win hitting the piñata. Dranorth almost beat the thing to death, but let River be the one to finish it off.
Galactica was having a metaphysical conversation with some of the parents. Being a face several solar systems high that contorted space instead of having an actual physical appearance, she disorientated the parents as they thought they were talking to the air.
The God of Couches would later tell Galactica that he couldn’t make it due to goat problems.
Flux was just glad she could be with her daughter at her party, even if it meant she had to bring some associates with her. But even at home, she had to work as a parent. She stood in the kitchen, prepping the cake for consumption. Her universe double sat on the sidelines, helping her in any way she can.
Native Flux, now Foreign Flux in this context, passed the icing as Winged Flux, now Native Flux and wingless, put the candles on the nearly finished product. “That was pretty nice of your boss to do this. She may not be that bad of a person after all.”
Native Flux scoffed as she carefully inserted each candle in the frosting. “She did it after some manipulation from an outside force. She’s still inconsiderate.”
“I was wondering, since she’s your boss, what is your job.”
“Oh, I fix toilets.”
“Toilets?”
“Yeah, they’re not regular toilets. I have to go around and fix toilets that have broken the continuity of space-time and stuff like that. It’s a nasty job, but pays well.”
“So then River’s plunger cutie mark…”
“She fixed a solar storm in a urinal. The pony that went really had to go.”
“So you would know what Galactica was talking about when she said something about the dangers of gods time-traveling?”
“It was just an attempt to get out of the party. She’s extremely introverted. I’m not going to worry about it.”
Just to spite her for time-traveling, the universe sent a giant tatzlwurm to devour the entire party. No one but the gods attending survived.
The End