Chapter Eight
What Dreams May Come.
Twilight Sparkle looked out over the sleeping Equestria from her balloon. The stars glittered like diamonds and the moon was starting to swing low in the sky. She sighed as the balloon accented to the altitude that Cloudsdale was at. The city made of clouds and rainbows glittered and glowed in the distance.
The past five hours had been..eventful to say the least. Like Spike had said:
“It’s one thing to have strange ponies falling out of the sky. It’s another to have them fall out of the sky and know your name, let alone your friends names.”
Rainbow Dash had fallen through her window on more than one occasion, leading Twilight to become a regular customer to one of the locals that made windows for Ponyville. There was so much about the pony that currently was set about on breaking the library windows that had Twilight confused. What was her name? How did she survive a fall from Cloudsdale? How did she get up there in the first place? And how did she know so much about Twilight and her friends? Wait... Did she even have a cutie mark? She tapped her chin and then her head in frustration. It didn’t help matters that the mystery pony wasn’t willing to give up too much information. What had ever happened to her had her must have been particularly traumatic, she seemed to be completely disoriented. She didn’t know where she was, who she was, or even the fact that she was a pony!
“And yet she could clearly recall details of an event that she wasn’t even at. Makes me wonder what else she knows...Ugh. None of this makes any sense.” She said out loud and leaning over the edge of the balloons’ basket. “I just hope Spike is having more luck with her than I did.” Rainbow Dash zoomed up next to the balloon.
“Alright, Fluttershy should be arriving at the Library shortly.” She looked at Twilight whiles slowing down. Hot air balloons weren’t the most expedient form of travel, but without wings they’d do. “You want that I go ahead and let security know that you’re coming?”
“Actually I would rather you get me to Cloudsdale as quickly as you can.” She tossed Rainbow Dash a rope that was tied off to the basket of the balloon. “Magic this strong might leave a trail, but it’s still magic never the less and can be rather fickle. A trail can grow cold making tracking it back to its source almost impossible.” Rainbow Dash grabbed the rope rolling her eyes. From position of authority to pulling balloons.
“How the mighty have fallen.” She thought looping the rope around her middle.
“So.” She said starting to slowly tug on the balloon. “Got any ideas about the mystery pony?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Twilight responded. “I mean you were there when she arrived.”
“Technically I was in the Cloudsdale Monitoring Room. By the time she got to you, I was discovering the hole she left in the floor.” Dash said picking up some speed.
“Great, that means that you weren’t there when she teleported into the room. Which means that you can’t tell me too much about what happened.” She sighed. It was a shame that none of this could wait till morning. The shock of all this had finally given rise to the fact that she had been woken up in the middle of the night.
“Well...I could tell you one or two things.” She grunted pulling on the balloon. The thing wasn’t exactly aerodynamic and had a hard drag on it. But if Fluttershy could pull this thing, so could she. “But I think that we should wait till we get to Cloudsdale.”
“Alright, You don’t mind if I take a nap do you Dash?” Twilight asked in a half pleading and tired manner.
Rainbow Dash sighed. Over these four days on security detail she had kinda forgotten that the rest of Equestria was passed out at this time. “Go right ahead. I’ll wake you when we get there.” Rainbow Dash replied.
Twilight didn’t respond. She was already softly snoring a bit. Rainbow Dash smiled and chuckled.
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“I missed you too.” Said a voice to Twilights’ right. Twilight blinked her eyes. She found herself laying on her back on something warm and soft. She was in a bedroom of sorts. And she was laying on a bed.
“Where am I?” She thought. The room smelled like burnt vanilla and some other fragrance she couldn’t place.
“Huh?” She asked looking to her right. She was met face to face with a most curious creature. They lacked any fur save for eyebrows and a mane that grew all over the top of their heads. Their ears were barely noticeable and their eyes were set forward in their face. They were clothed from shoulder down. They reached forward with an almost graceful looking multidigited limb and touched Twilights’ face.
Whatever this creature was, it seemed to mean no ill will and looked almost mare-like. With shadowy eyes, delicate lips and high musical voice, she was clearly female. It felt nice that she was touching her face. It felt right. But there there was an underlying sadness to this all. As if something beautiful was dying. Twilight closed her eyes and suddenly felt things shift.
“And using this method you can clearly improve your gaming experience.” A colt’s voice said.
She opened her eyes, she wasn’t in the warm and safe bedroom anymore. Now she was seated at a table in what looked like an office room. In front of her there were many more of those same creatures. There was a strange sameness about them. Each had a mane that only seemed to be atop their heads. She could make out more details of their faces, they didn’t have muzzles but a beaky thing with two nostrils protruded from their otherwise flat faces. Various forms of strange clothing adorned them.
“Are there any questions?” A voice from behind her asked. One or two of them raise a limb. With appendages like these they almost looked like a monkey of some kind. Opposable thumbs were a clearly primate trait.
Her hoof moved and a small metallic ringing sound was heard. She looked down to find that there was a bit sized medallion of some kind hanging on a rather braided necklace. Holding it up she could see that it was a shining silver of some kind. On one side there was stamped a strange face of some kind, one that looked like it was made of leaves. With its unblinking eyes, it was rather creepy. She couldn’t make out the other side.
That’s when the girl she had just been laying in bed walked up to her across the table.She was looking at the medallion with intent eyes. Like it belonged to her. There was a feeling of apprehension, shame and fear. She slid it to her across the table.
“Here you go.” Twilight said. Her voice sounded detached and void of the emotion that was invoked just moments before.The girl squeed and thanked her in an all together too happy manner. Then she left... A wave of sadness crept over Twilight. Though she didn’t have any idea why..
“Twilight...Twilight...TWILIGHT!”
“Bwah!” She gasped and woke up breathing heavily. Her heart was pounding and the world blurred back into focus.
“Whoa. You must have been really tired.” Rainbow Dash said. “Heh. Sorry, but we’re here.”
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Twilight and Rainbow Dash trotted down the halls of Cloudsdale’s various factory rooms.
“It was the strangest dream I’ve ever had Rainbow Dash. Well one of the strangest.” Twilight said. A dusty brown security pony looked at the two of them.
“Cloudsdale Security.” Rainbow Dash said holding up her ID. “Right, Strange monkeys with no fur and one of them had a crush on you. Cloudsdale Security.”
“But that’s the thing, While I was me, it was like I wasn’t me. It was just really...Weird.” She said in a rather detached manner.
“Dreams are like that Twilight. Cloudsdale Security.”
“I guess so...I just wonder if it had to do with our mystery pony..” Twilight turned the corner only to find herself in a head-on collision with some pony who had his head buried in a book.
“Ah!” They both screamed as they were both knocked down.
“Twilight?!” Rainbow Dash rushed over and helped her friend up. “Geeeze are you alright?”
“Um yeah...I guess I took a wrong turn there...” Twilight responded. Rainbow Dash looked up, her face twisted in a furrowed snarl.
“Cloudsdale Security! Hey Clut-” She suddenly stopped mid sentence as she recognized who Twilight just crashed into. “Gremlin?”
The lime green pegasus eyes bobbled behind his thick taped glasses. He shook his head to clear out the dizziness of the collision.
“Whoa.. Ouch” He said in a rather nerdy and nasally voice. “Oh hey RD! You came back, I was worried with Security Pony Dan was messing with you.”
Rainbow looked up at Gremlin. “Messing with me?” She asked.
“Oh yeah, he plays this joke on the new workers, sometime when they are just starting, he’ll tell them that if they don’t finish some bit of paper work or find some non-existent tool, they can’t clock out, and if they go over the time that they are to clock out, it starts to eat at their time.” He snorts. “Then they get into a flying frenzy about things without knowing that they if they don’t clock out in like fifteen minutes, the front desk clocks them out and puts a mark on their performance sheet. You then have like two days to contest the mark, most of the time it is easily removed, but most newbies don’t know anything about the system...” He explains.
“Wait...You mean I did all that worrying cause some jerkface security guard enjoys playing pranks on the newbies?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Gremlin sighs. “Yup. Sounds like he got you too...Horse Feathers. Looks like I owe Dust Storm twenty bits...”
“You sound like you know all this from experience.” Twilight said with a puzzled look on her face. A number of books had been spilt on the floor. “Here let me help you with those...”
“Oh thank you. Um yes. When I first started I spent an entire month looking for “Bulkhead Remover”.” Gremlin said with a slight blush on his face. “I kept asking other pegasi about it but they only laughed and brushed me off, finally somepony was kind enough to explain it to me...Boy did I ever have egg on my face, M-haaven!” Rainbow Dash lifted her hoof and opened her mouth. Moments later her hoof dropped and her mouth closed. Her mouth finally reopened.
“I don’t know whether to be angry or impressed that a pony other than Pinkie Pie out pranked me. Then again, that was a pretty mean prank.” She finally said.
“I’ll say..” Twilight responded lifting the books with her magic. A few titles caught her interest. “Unweaving the Rainbow, Advanced Quantum Chromodynamics, Daring Do and the Winds of Change, Instruction Manual for the TI-9000 Weather Monitoring system.”
“Wow, some of these are pretty heavy reading for a pony as young as yourself...Gremlin was it?” Twilight asked.
“Weeeeell...When you don’t have much to do because not much in your skill field breaks down and then you have ooodles of time on your hooves...You have to fill it with something...” He looked at Twilight. “Um Rainbow, She’s not the unicorn that teleported up here is she?”
Rainbow snickered. “What? No, Twilight is smarter than that.” Twilight smiled and offered him a hoof and introduced herself. “Thank you Rainbow Dash. Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”
“Gremlin.” He responded shaking her hoof. “Then what happened?”
“Um, well that’s kinda complicated.” Rainbow asked as she nudged Twilight to start following her.
“Oh Do tell! Cause really I am very interested to know.” He said.
“Well.. When I finally found who dove out of the Rainbow Vat, It turned out to be an earth pony! She apparently doesn’t know how she got there.either” Rainbow explained.
“Ooo ! A Mystery on top of a Mystery!” Gremlin exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“Well you see -mmheem- When I went to check RD’s machine, it turned out that there wasn’t a thing wrong with it. Every diagnostic checked out right. No problems whatsoever!” He replied.
“That fits with what we think happened. Somehow, somepony with very strong magic Teleported our mystery pony into one of the rainbow vats. From there without any protection she fell from Cloudsdale and crashed into my window..” Twilight explained as they walked.
“Oh Look!” Rainbow Dash interjected, “We’re here! At the Rainbow Room! Soo Gremlin...”
“Well that is a valid theory to be sure but there is one flaw in it all...” He said.
Twilight looked a bit worried. “Really?”
“Well yeah.” He opened up the door to the Rainbow room. “Here let me show you.”
Rainbow Dash smacked her face. “Ugh! More Egghead talk! They are going to be at it for hours on end!”
The three ponies entered the room.
“MmmmAaaas you can see,” Gremlin started out. “Oh wait. I need my thinking cap...” Using his wing he lifted the flap to his side saddle bag, Rainbow Dash almost rolled her eyes until Gremlin pulled out a brown Stetson fedora. She zipped past Twilight and admired the cap now fitted atop Gremlins’ ginger mane.
“Is That...” She began.
“Yup! Collectors’ edition one of a kind Stetson!” He adjusted it and pushed up his glasses. “There, Just like Daring Do and the Mystery-”
“Of the Sky Blues!” Rainbow Dash said squeeing like a little school filly.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “So Gremlin, you were saying?”
“Right!” he trotted over to a discolored patch of floor. “You see, after RD’s shift ended, the next shift took over, seeing that the hole that was left from our mystery pony falling through is a -eeehm- Haazard, they filled it in. I asked them if they would be kind enough to use a bit of newer cloud cover.”
“That way you could tell the difference between the old floor and where the hole was originally?” Twilight asked.
“Precisely!” He swept a hoof forward. “Now as you can see we have Rainbow Vat C-3. This is as far as I can tell the point of origin that our assailant was dropped into. This seems all nice neat and tidy right?” He asked. Twilight put her hoof up and was about to speak.
“Wrong!” He said standing on his hind hoofs and pointing upward. “For you see, there is a good fifty paces from the tank! If we are assuming that she was -mwaaa- teleported above about the middle of the tank, or anywhere in the tank, stumbled over the side, the most she could could even hope to get would be four to five paces, six if somehow she was able to push herself forward!”
Twilight looked thoughtfully.. “Yes. But she made it all the way to fifty paces. That would have to mean that she was being propelled out of the tank...”
“Exactly! But this causes another conundrum of sorts -Mhaven!-” He started to flap his wings and flew rather clumsily up the side of the tank. “You see...Oh wait.. Um you can’t fly...Hummm. Oh!” He pointed to a ladder on the side of the tank. “If you can um climb up here I’ll show you...” Twilight groaned. It took awhile but eventually she had made it up and to the lip of the tank.
“Whew! These things are big.” She said holding on to the lip and looking at the surface of the rainbow liquid.
“Right, As I was saying.” He pushed his glasses up. “Pure rainbow fluid needs to be kept at a constant temperature and not jostled around too much, there are some very volatile magical components to this stuff. Too much agitation can cause it to swirl together and if it is too hot, well again big melted mess.” He pointed at the surface of the liquid. “Now, if your mystery pony had fallen in here, it would have made a particular pattern on the surface here. A Splash pattern colours would be everywhere, then she would have to maintain her buoyancy. Not too easy seeing that this stuff has a variable density.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. Sure Gremlin was wearing the hat, but really, under it all, this was still Gremlin. Gremlin was more of an egghead than Twilight, she was amazed that he was a pegasus.
“But isn’t that a splash pattern there?” Twilight asked.
“Well, yes and No.” He pointed at the middle of pool. “See, it’s like the difference between a cannon ball and a swan dive. But in this case it is neither. According to what I have been researching, This particular splash pattern would be made if our particular pony was a dolphin! She would be breaching the surface of the liquid here.” He pointed out an arc following back to where the filled hole was. “And was propelled all the way over there.”
“Where she fell through the clouds and into my window. Interesting. That would mean the vat itself was the point of origin?” Twilight asked. Gremlin nodded his head smiling.
“How is that even possible?” Twilight asked.
“Haven’t a clue. It’s just like gravity. I can explain how gravity works, just not were it comes from. I know all things have it, but I don’t know what if anything makes it.” Gremlin said. Twilight mulled all this over in her head. Nothing about any of this made any sense.
“Wait. Are any of the components of liquid rainbow highly magical in nature?” She asked. Gremlin nodded his head and was about to speak when Rainbow Dash flew up to the top of the vat and looked down on him.
“Um. Yes.” He cowered at Rainbow Dashes glower. “But most of them are Highly Classified. Even I am not allowed to know every single ingredient that goes into making the rainbows.” Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash.
“I’m sorry Twi’ but like Gremlin said. Highly classified.” She took out a pair of shades and put them on.
“I just wanted to know if they are highly magical Dash. I don’t need to know anything more. Eeesh.” Twilight blinked. “But If they are highly magical in nature, that might give a bit of weight to an idea I have...” Dash peered over her glasses.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She looked thoughtful. “It’s a long stretch but what hasn’t been in this situation? However as Fetlock Homes said ‘If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, Must be be the truth.””
Rainbow Dash and Gremlin looked at Twilight in a rather strange manner.
“Who?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“What? Nopony here other than me knows who Fetlock Homes is!?” She asked.
“Oh I know who Fetlock Homes is, but that reference is so last season!” He said.
Twilight grumped. “Right, So my thought in all this, our mystery pony here might have been muttering a lot of non-sense when we got to her, but one thing stands out. She claims not to be of this universe.”