//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Explanations of the MGH // Story: Guardians of the Multiverse // by Draknir //------------------------------// “So, you enjoy your first day on the job?” asked Pinkie once she, alongside the rest of her squad, had begun to relax. She was sitting on the couch alongside Twilight while her other two squad mates were sitting in the chairs across from it. “Well, it certainly was interesting,” answered the Unicorn, “I mean, I guess it was okay?” “Like we’ve said before, you’d best get used to it,” stated Sunset Shimmer, “Anyway, you want us to teach you this game?” “Uh…I guess?” replied Twilight, noticing that the Earth Pony had a deck of cards sitting next to her, “I take it that’s the game you were playing last night?” “Yep. We don’t actually have a name for it,” replied Sunset Shimmer, “We’ve never really needed a name for it. Basically, each player starts with eight cards. Each turn we draw a card and try to play at least one pair, trio, or set. If a player can’t do that, they must either steal one from another player or draw until they can play or steal one. A pair is one point, a trio is two, and a set is four. If a person runs out of cards in their hands, the round is over and any player with cards left loses points equal to the number they have. Ten rounds and the game is done, and whoever has the most points wins. Understand?” “I think so,” answered Twilight as she made a mental note of the rules. “All righty, then! Let’s get this game going!” said Pinkie happily as she got up off the couch and walked over to one side of the room. She quickly dragged a table to where it sat between the four ponies, “Shining Armor, care to do the honors?” “Sure, why not?” answered the white Unicorn as she lifted the deck of cards next to Sunset Shimmer with her magic and began to shuffle them. After a second or two, she proceeded to deal out the hands to each of the players. “You know, this seems like a great time to do something that should have been done last night,” said Pinkie, “I mean, I would have done it last night but you went to bed before I had a chance, Twilight. One of the most important things you need to know about the MGH are the rules and regulations.” “Naturally,” said Twilight as she looked at the cards she’d been dealt, “I assume there’s a book containing them, right?” “Oh, Twilight, you’re just like the pony I knew from my Universe. Always concerned about whether or not there’s a book on a subject,” laughed Pinkie, receiving a glare from the Unicorn, “Nah, we don’t have any books like that. These are things that we’ve all come to memorize, seeing as how important they are.” “So, what kind of things do I need to do or not do?” “Well, first off when we’re scanning Universes, we can only ever indirectly visit a Universe once per shift,” replied Shining Armor as she took her turn, “If we indirectly visited every Universe, we’d literally have no job other than to fix disturbances.” “Why’s that?” “Whenever we choose to indirectly visit a Universe, we obviously can’t search many stability points, if any,” explained Sunset Shimmer as she drew a card, “So, the computer that controls the portal does the work for us and alerts a squad’s captain to any sort of problem, as you heard about today. Not only would this mean we’d have an easy job, it would also divert resources to maintaining the constant scanning of Universes that we simply cannot afford.” “Wait, we have to worry about resources?” asked Twilight, “Doesn’t the MGH encompass all of existence?” “In order to maintain the scanning mechanisms of the computers, more beings would be needed than we can even possibly bring here,” replied Shining Armor, “Even when we use the scans three times at most in a day, we still constantly need a pony there to make sure things are running. Multiply that by the number of Universes in existence and the number of computers needed to scan those, and we end up with a shortage of ponies.” “How? Wouldn’t the number of computers be less than or equal to the number of Universes, meaning we’d actually have a surplus or at least break even?” “No, since each computer can only handle a single Universe under constant surveillance and two ponies to switch shifts,” replied Pinkie, “The only reason you’ve seen FF-4763 is that our shifts always coincide. He’s always on from 0700 to 1900, and we’re always on from 0800 to 1800. You know, I myself am not even sure who the other pony that monitors our portal is.” “Okay, moving on, anything else I need to be aware of?” asked Twilight once she felt satisfied she knew enough of that subject. “Well, obviously bringing any unauthorized being to the MGH is against the rules,” started Pinkie as she waited for Twilight to take her turn, “However, bringing an unauthorized being from a Universe that a member of the MGH also hails from is, like, a super humongous taboo.” “Why is that any worse than the former?” “Because then there would be two beings that were taken from a Universe,” replied Shining Armor, “While having one doesn’t cause any sort of strain on a Universe, taking even one more would increase the natural rate of instability exponentially. Plus there’s the whole deal of having to keep the MGH a secret.” “If we have to keep it a secret, why’d we blurt that little bit out when we dealt with drocsiD?” asked Twilight, watching for what she might do next. “The way the squads are set up is that there is always at least one Earth Pony, one Pegasus, and one Unicorn, with the fourth being a wild card of sorts. The Unicorn, or in our case Unicorns, always learns a spell to wipe a being's short term memory aside from knowing not to do anything in that area,” explained Sunset Shimmer, “Which reminds me, Shining Armor will have to teach you that spell when she gets the chance. It’ll be invaluable to our work in the future, especially if one of you gets incapacitated somehow.” “Anyway, bringing an unauthorized being in general causes a huge mess and bringing one from a Universe a member of the MGH is from makes an even bigger mess,” summarized Pinkie, “So, don’t do either of those things under any circumstances. Moving on, something important to remember is that you aren’t, under any circumstances, to use the portal room without me present.” “Why’s that?” asked Twilight as she stole a trio of cards from Sunset Shimmer to make a set, “Is it that you’re the captain of the squad?” “You got it,” answered the Pegasus, “If we let ponies do as they please with the portal rooms, there’d be no order. And that would look pretty bad considering the fact that our whole organization is meant to keep order.” “I take it that’s the same reason we can’t use the portal room when our squad is off?” “That’s right,” replied Sunset Shimmer as she laid down her last card, “Oh, and that’s game.” “Drat,” muttered Pinkie as she began to count how many points she had, “Oh, and you remember that super important rule that I told you about yesterday?” “Uh…which one was that, again?” asked Twilight as she looked at the cards in front of her. “You can’t visit your home Universe directly,” replied Pinkie, “That would cause even more problems than anything else that could possibly go wrong here.” “How so?” asked Twilight, “Oh, and I guess I’ve got…seventeen points.” “That coupled with how the MGH handles taking beings from a Universe would mean there would be too many of the same being in said Universe,” replied Shining Armor, “Shoot, I’ve got fifteen.” “How would there be too many?” asked Twilight, “How does the MGH handle that sort of thing?” “Well, whenever we get a new recruit, that would naturally leave a void in the Universe from which they came,” explained Sunset Shimmer, “So, in order to rectify that, an almost exact copy of that being with all of their memories takes their place, meaning it’s like nothing happened. None of the other beings in that Universe ever suspect a thing.” “Wait, there’s another me living my life right now?” asked Twilight, almost speechless, “So, while I had to leave my life behind, this copy of me is living it for me?!” “It’s something that all of us have to deal with,” said Shining Armor, “We all know how you feel hearing that, since we’ve all been there.” “I’m…gonna go to bed,” said Twilight, her voice cracking slightly as she got up off the couch. None of her squad mates said a word as she walked to her room and shut the door. Her thoughts were all over the place as she climbed into bed, trying to hold back some tears.