//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: Ponystuck // by confoundtheseponies //------------------------------// No words passed between them. Almost as quickly as he had appeared, future Comet turned and trotted purposefully around the remains of Hephaestus and out of the large chamber in which the three ponies - Comet, future Comet, and Silver Edge - had been standing. No words, but an understanding was passed between the two Comets. Comet would allow his future self this chance to be a complete silent badass, and so would in due time be allowed to be a silent badass when his turn came. Silver Edge, however, was less impressed at the sight of the retreating Page. "Hmph. That was cheating, you know." Though she didn't approve, neither did the unicorn reject the rewards that future Comet had left behind, as she quickly swept up the immense grist hoard. "So was that stupid riddle." Comet interjected, joining Silver in gathering the grist. Gog damn there was a lot of the stuff. "And at least I actually did something." "Don't go there." Because Silver and Diamond had until recently been sharing their one strife deck - camerakind, much to Diamond's annoyance - and Diamond had been the first to reach their shared body, Silver found herself without any strife deck to speak of. Even so, the scowl on her face was threatening enough. "Just... just don't." "Understood. Now, let's get this show on the road." Once again entering the well-rehearsed answer of 57 into his sylladex, Comet retrieved his laptop and began pestering their ride off of LOCAR. [fractalAbomination began pestering homelessChicken] FA: ahoy thar FA: requesting permission to board the good ship backstab HC: Hm... HC: I don't know about that. FA: oh come on FA: i did the pirate voice FA: how can you not let me on HC: Why would I let a pirate onto my ship? FA: because pirates are cool FA: they're like FA: the third or fourth greatest demographic ever HC: Very well then. But only because I'm in a good mood. FA: you're always in a good mood HC: Do you want to get onto the boat or not? HC: Anyway, we're practically at LOCAR by now. Can you wait five minutes? FA: no HC: <:\ FA: yeah, ok, i'll see you then HC: OK, bye! [fractalAbomination ceased pestering homelessChicken] Packing away his laptop, Comet realised Silver was waiting for him to tell her what was going on. "We're all heading to Skaia together, so they're flying that Dersite warship that Mild stole around the Medium to pick everypony up." It then occurred to him that they were at the heart of a huge, convoluted labyrinth, and that this would need to be changed in five minutes. "They're about five minutes away, so we should be trying to get out of here. Maybe if we - ooh, hello, what's this?" A small card lay on Hephaestus' throne. A small white card with a green border. A strife specibus, and it had an item equipped. Closer inspection revealed that the card was, in fact, an axekind abstrata with a legendary axe equipped: the Gidian's Regret. He was about to slot it into his strife portfolio, alongside his preferred choice of bookkind abstrata, when the card was surrounded by a faint purple aura and flew out of his hands towards Silver. Oh, right, she didn't have a strife specibus. Equipping the axe and giving it a few experimental swings, Silver began to survey the ceiling of the large chamber they were in. The underground palace had been carved out of solid rock, and rather than a smooth, artificial surface, the top of the chamber was instead the rough underside of a huge sheet of rock. Although she wasn't physically holding it, Silver tested the weight of the axe. "Are you sure this isn't going to make the whole cave collapse?" While the last few hours had been entertaining enough, they had not exactly reinforced any kind of trust in Comet's judgements. "No." So saying, Comet closed his eyes and encased the two of them in a bubble of magic. "Just get on with it." Weighing up her options, and shrugging to nopony in particular, Silver grinned as she swung the axe upwards. *** In a completely different incipisphere, one where the Queen still lived, we find Silver Edge grinning as she swings an axe upwards. Though, due to the odd fancies of paradox space, this took place at the exact same time as her previous attempts at upwards axe swinging, this time the axe did not burst through several kilometres of rock, manipulating its own spatial properties at differing points in time in order to maintain its initial velocity throughout its journey. Instead, it simply completed the usual path for an axe tossed skyward - barely scraping against the roof of the Derse palace, the weapon once again came crashing down towards the unicorn, who swiftly caught it in its descent and flung it up into the air once more. Silver had some time before the plan was put into action, and so she had decided to practice with her axe while she had the chance. And so she was able to continue catching and throwing the axe, rather than dodging between falling slabs of rock which completely failed to acknowledge any magical barrier a certain teal unicorn had attempted to place in their way. "Enjoying yourself?" Almost dropping the axe in surprise, Silver spun around to face Mild Darkness, who had crept into the palace without her noticing. Or maybe he had barged in loudly, and stolen her awareness of his presence. She wasn't sure if he could do that or not, but thinking about his powers in any context made her uneasy. In spite of, or perhaps because of her thoughts, Mild smiled thinly as he approached her. "He should be here any moment. He has the third component, then things can begin in earnest." "Do you have to keep talking like that?" While initially the three of them had been a coherent team that trusted each other, the third member of their group had clearly become the mastermind of the operation. As far as Silver was concerned, Mild was just dragging them down, and she had been left here to be dragged down with him. "Nopony repeats their plans as frequently as you, it's getting annoying." Mild shrugged. "Well, this is what you do when you're taking over a country, or a Universe, or any kind of relatively impressive conquest." "No it isn't! That's what made up leaders do. Fictional evil emperors are the only ones who monologue anywhere near as much as you're doing!" In Silver's opinion, Mild was growing into the role of 'villain' a little too well. He was acting like the traditional bad guy, which was a stupid thing to do. Firstly it was obnoxious in the extreme. And secondly... "If you've learnt anything from fiction, surely it's that ponies who act the way you're acting never win?" "That's hardly down to their tendency to rant, now is it?" Although he was attempting to be civil, inside Mild was struggling to restrain himself. He was a God, and deserved to be shown respect that reflected his power. Who did Silver think she was, anyway? "Besides, there's nothing to necessitate the victory of good over evil, not in real life." "That's another thing. Can you stop insisting that we're evil, or at least that the others are, in any quantifiable sense, 'good'? If there's anything I learned from the few hours spent in that group, it's that they're just as rotten as you." Nopony thought of themselves as evil, wasn't that how this was supposed to work? If Mild went around calling himself evil because it was 'cool', then maybe that meant he wasn't taking this seriously. "We're not evil, this isn't some fated victory. We're just three Sburb players who have found themselves in a certain place, at a certain time, which presents us with a unique opportunity. I suggest you realise that, and start taking this a little more seriously." Her lecture complete, Silver was prepared to storm out of the palace indignantly, when a familiar voice sounded directly behind her. The third member of their group had returned. "Well said, my dear." Although Silver knew the horrific form that would greet her if she turned her head, she still allowed herself to smile at the compliment, before trotting past Mild and exiting the palace. It was a cold night, but the cool wind felt refreshing after so long inside the palace. Leaping forwards into the night, and spinning around, Silver was greeted by the tall and imposing front face of the castle from which the Black Queen - and now, herself and her allies - dictated the movements of Derse. Higher above the castle, five prototyping towers stood, four of them undamaged. These four had all been successfully filled with information from the kernelsprite. One of the others, of course, had been damaged by that reckless Dersite, and had smashed into the side of the other on its way down. Now, on top of this final unprototyped tower, the prototyping sphere was no longer a smooth white sphere. Now it was littered with cracks and scratches. Absently, Silver wondered what that meant for this session. Not that it would make any difference, in the end. *** [suspiciousSerpent (SS) began pestering suspiciousSeraphim (Ss)] SS: OK, 'Silver Heart', you've got some explaining to do. Ss: What? Who are you? SS: I'm Diamond Heart. I'm on a boat. SS: this boat is about to pick up a unicorn by the name of Silver Edge, who uses the username shiningSerpahim. SS: I would like an explanation, right now. Ss: Wow, that's... that's a pretty amazing coincidence, isn't it? SS: I wouldn't call it a coincidence. I'd call it suspicious. Ss: Oh, of course, I can understand that. But trust me, I've never even heard of you before you started talking to me just now. SS: well, I'm in Acapella's group. SS: what about you? Ss: Oh, I'm in Golden's group. SS: I see. well that's very helpful. Ss: :\ Ss: Well I'm sorry, but if it makes you feel any better I won't be talking to your group any more. Our """"leader"""" flipped his lid when he found out we'd all been talking to you despite his orders otherwise. Ss: With triple quotes because I'm implying that he's the only one who thinks he's the leader. Ss: Stupid lousy stuck up leader. SS: I like the sound of your leader. Ss: :( Ss: Well apparently you'll all be talking to us later, but until then... Ss: Bye Diamond! SS: sure. [suspiciousSeraphim (Ss) ceased being pestered by suspiciousSerpent (SS)] Urgh, that was just confusing to read. Far too many 's's. Closing down her laptop, Diamond took in the view from her current position - sitting on the top deck of the RDS (Royal Dersite Ship) Backstab - and saw that they were already descending through the atmosphere of Comet's planet. That had been a quick journey. Although Diamond had decided to stay on the top deck throughout the trip across the Medium, the others had remained inside the ship until now, as Acapella emerged onto the top of the ship. Not that there were any ill effects of being exposed in the Medium, despite its apparent lack of atmosphere. It was probably for the best that none of them questioned it too much. Diamond wearily rose from her comfortable position on the floor to greet Acapella. "Hey." Her greeting was deliberately kept concise - she wasn't particularly in the mood for Acapella's enthusiasm right now. "Hello again! Good to see you didn't get blasted off into space like I expected." She paused, continuing again just as Diamond opened her mouth to speak. "Expected, despite the already existing evidence to the contrary." Another pause, once again finishing just as Diamond decided to speak. "So, what's it been like up here?" She paused again, but this time Diamond decided to wait it out. She wasn't going to fall for that again. This waiting continued for two minutes, before Diamond decided to answer. "Well-" "Aside from, obviously, cold and quiet and boring." Acapella added onto the end of her question, before smiling sweetly as she waited for an answer. This was ridiculous. "It's been very nice, actually. Relaxing." And it had been - this had been the first chance for rest Diamond had gotten since they had started playing the game, besides when she had been sleeping. And their session had lasted for almost a week. It was nice to get some time to herself. "I talked with Silver a little." Now Diamond paused, waiting for Acapella to begin to speak. She didn't, so Diamond sighed and continued. "By which I mean Silver Heart, not Silver Edge." This seemed to get Acapella's interest. "Oh yeah, that's right, once we land you'll come face to face with yourself! That's going to be so cool, isn't it?" At least she had been paying attention, it seemed. "Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of 'unsettling', but sure." In truth, Diamond didn't know what to expect. Finally, she would meet the pony who had filled her house with cameras, made her social life increasingly awkward, terrified her when absent and pestered her when present. This would be interesting, one way or the other. *** [CURRENT crespucularMagicant created a new memo RARITY/RAINBOW ENTRANCE on board TEAM CHAT] [CURRENT adamantineCorsair began responding to memo RARITY/RAINBOW ENTRANCE] [CURRENT prismaticAscension began responding to memo RARITY/RAINBOW ENTRANCE] CCM: Right then, let's get started! An hour had passed, and Twilight had made good on her promise to connect to Rarity. This was good, because the meteor was dreadfully close. And, more than that, it was huge. Wasting no time in getting down to business, Rarity activated the client scroll. A few minutes later, a group of large machines were placed at various points around Carousel Boutique - the alchemiter at the top of the building, in Rarity's bedroom; the totem lathe next to her sowing machine; and the cruxtruder was placed in the centre of the main room where Rarity and Rainbow had been standing around while this was taking place. "OK, so we need to hit the top of the cruxtruder, right?" Rainbow's understanding of the process was somewhat fractured - she knew only what she had already carried out with Applejack, and what she had gained from watching Pinkie's entrance over Rarity's shoulder. But Rarity confirmed her guess, so she quickly leapt up to the top of the cruxtruder, and gave the lid of the machine a solid kick. This achieved the desired effect - a kernelsprite was released, the wheel on the side of the machine now turned to produce cruxite, and the base of the machine lit up with an ominous countdown. 0:03:56 The two ponies looked at each other in alarm. The others had taken around five or six minutes to enter. Then again, they knew the process a lot better now. They could do this. Maybe. "Alright Rainbow, I'll take care of the totem. You can deal with the kernelsprite." They had already discussed what was to be placed into the kernelsprite during the hour they had waited for Twilight. In the first place, Rainbow was to prototype with Opal. That was, in and of itself, a challenge. Who knew where that animal had gotten to. While Rainbow began the search for Opal, Rarity busied herself with the cruxite artifact. Using the cruxite artifact could potentially be the most time consuming part of the whole process, so it made sense to make it as quickly as possible. Rushing up to the totem lathe, placing the cruxite dowel she had made into the grip, and inserting the pre-punched card that Twilight had given her into the machine, Rarity quickly carved the needed totem to correspond with the item on the card, which was... Inspecting the card, Rarity attempted to make out the obscured image hidden beneath the punched holes. This was difficult, because her cruxite ore was solid white. Against the white background of the card, only a faint line betrayed the edges of the object. Some kind of ball? Whatever, it wasn't important. Captchaloguing both the card and the totem into her safe modus, Rarity headed up the stairs to the alchemiter. Her safe modus was based off of a similar system to Applejack's stack modus. It also used a 'first in, last out' system, but with a few differences. In the first case, items were not ejected if she picked up too many. Instead, she simply wouldn't be able to captchalogue them. Another difference was that the modus would order any captchalogued items, in terms of value. As such, the most valuable item in her sylladex would also be stored at the bottom of the stack, with the least valuable the easiest to obtain. On the plus side, this made her valuable items all the more secure. On the other hoof, there wasn't any way to steal items from a sylladex anyway, and this system just made it awkward to access the items which she would likely require the most. Still, with no way of changing her modus, Rarity had to make do. In this case, luckily, the item she needed was at the top of the stack. Running by the logic that the card would take more effort to replace than the totems, the pre-punched card had been placed at the bottom of the stack while the totem took the top of the pile. Retrieving the totem, and placing it onto the alchemiter, Rarity produced a large pyramid of white spheres. Then, suddenly, all but one sphere disappeared, leaving her with the one remaining ball of cruxite. Picking it up, she inspected the sphere. It was made of solid white cruxite, but was covered in cracks and fractures. What in Equestria was she supposed to do with this? CCM: What is it? CAC: It's a white, cracked sphere. CCM: Oh. CCM: ... um. CCM: What in Equestria are you supposed to do with that? CAC: I have no idea... Downstairs, Rainbow Dash had eventually succeeded in prototyping the kernelsprite with Opal. Although the cat had been entirely determined to get away from the pegasus, now that Opal had been prototyped she seemed accepting of her fate. As much as it was possible for a floating ghost cat head to show emotions of any kind. Taking a moment to catch her breath, Rainbow turned her head to the stairs as Rarity came rushing down holding a broken sphere of cruxite. "Oh, hey Rarity. I finally managed to prototype with Opal, so that's that taken care of. What's that?" She pointed a hoof at the sphere. "This is our cruxite artifact, only I have no idea what to do with it!" Rarity glanced at the cruxtruder, then immediately wished she hadn't. 0:01:26 "Isn't this the part where a mystery pony from some other session tells us what to do?" Rainbow asked, only half joking, as she lifted the sphere out of the grip of Rarity's magic and spun it around in her hooves. CCM: So, any idea? CAC: Not yet. CPA: Do any of our mysterious omniscient future friends have any ideas? CCM: Well, I was trying to talk to them, but it seems like they have their hands full at the moment. CPA: Isn't that thoughtful of you, leaving them to their troubles while me and Rarity get killed. CAC: Rainbow, that's enough of that kind of talk. We're going to be fine, we just have to get clever about this. CPA: OK, sure. How? CAC: Any ideas, Twilight? CCM: Not as such, no. CAC: :| CAC: Well... this is a bit disappointing. CPA: Isn't there anything we could try? CCM: I don't know! This was stupid. Dismissing her own spell and leaving Rarity to talk things through with Twilight, Rainbow flew outside the shop for some space. Not that there was much space between the ground and the huge meteor which was now only a minute away. Rainbow had been in this position before, but this time it would be a lot harder to get up from. They needed help from somepony. Anypony. As it turned out, it was certainly not the pony that Rainbow had been expecting the Universe to offer her. [insanityPrelude began talking with prismaticAscension] IP: Hey! PA: Oh, hey Pinkie. IP: I figured it out! PA: You figured what out? IP: Your artifact! I saw you guys talking about it on the memo, and I thought about it for a bit. IP: And it's obvious, really. PA: Really? Do you think you could tell me in less than a minute? IP: Heheh, maaaaybe! PA: Pinkie. IP: Oops, sorry. It represents Rarity's prototyping sphere! PA: Rarity's what now? IP: Oh, I forgot that your dream self is still asleep. Figures that you wouldn't know this! IP: But there are six towers... well, five now, that match up with all of our kernelsprites. IP: Your artifact represents the one on top of Rarity's tower. PA: So why is it all smashed up? IP: Oh, that was... uh. IP: Let's just accept that it is, and not bring up painful memories, OK? :) PA: Uh, sure. PA: But what do we do with it? IP: If I had to guess, which I do, the game is giving you a chance to fix Rarity's prototyping tower. IP: Whether that will help in the long run, since you failed to enter, I don't know. IP: Maybe it's just another bend in the road to our ruin. PA: Wait, what? IP: Nothing, just thinking out loud! :D IP: Regardless of how good an idea it is, you'll need to fix it or you won't get into the game. PA: OK, whatever. How do we fix the sphere? IP: I don't know. It would require a lot of energy, so the natural assumption would be that you need to prototype something that will give the sphere enough power to fix itself. IP: Since it's not actually a flawed sphere, it's just taken a bit of surface damage from your tower. PA: Right. I thought that- IP: There's no time to debate what this may or may not mean! Go! PA: Oh. Right. PA: How do you know all this stuff about the prototyping towers? IP: I dreamed, and I paid attention. PA: ... OK, sure. PA: Later, then. IP: Bye! [prismaticAscension stopped talking with insanityPrelude] Rushing back inside to Rarity, Rainbow threw her the sphere. 0:00:38 "I think I know what we need to do." While she talked, she began to fish around inside her fetch modus. In the interest of keeping the pace, no explanation of her modus will be provided at this point, except the fact that it took her quite a while to retrieve anything from it. "What? Who were you talking to?" Rarity inspected the sphere once more. It seemed almost more damaged than it had been before. "Pinkie has an idea. She said that the sphere represents your prototyping tower, so to fix it we have to prototype the kernelsprite with something that will give the sphere enough power to fix itself." "Doesn't that fly in the face of everything we know about prototyping something weak so that the enemies aren't as powerful?" "Yes. It's also the only idea we have, and we have twenty seconds left." Finally accessing the desired item, Rainbow presented the ring Luna had given to her to Rarity. "So maybe this will work." Rarity seized the ring from her, and gave it a closer look. Sixteen white orbs glowed back at her. "Where did you get something like this?" "It was a gift from Princess Luna." Rainbow paused, thinking it over. "Come to think of it, maybe Luna knew this would happen, and that we would need the ring!" "Maybe. Or maybe you're seeing patterns that aren't there. It is the best chance we have, though." Turning to Opalsprite, who seemed only vaguely aware of what was going on, she sighed. "Well, here goes nothing." CCM: What are you doing? CPA: I am so sick of explaining this. CPA: The orb is Rarity's prototyping sphere, which is damaged. CPA: To solve the puzzle, we fix it. To fix it, we need to give it energy. CPA: To do that, we prototype something powerful, so we're using a ring that Princess Luna gave me. CPA: ANY MORE QUESTIONS? CCM: Wait. A... ring? CPA: Yeah. CCM: Don't do a thing, I'll be right back. CPA: Uh. We really can't wait, Twilight. CCM: Just hold on! 0:00:15 *** [crespucularMagicant began talking with fractalAbomination] CM: Hello? FA: this had better be quick CM: My thoughts exactly. CM: What did you say a few conversations ago about a ring? FA: uh FA: that our prince prototyped with a monarch's ring FA: and is therefore a complete and utter dumbass FA: i mean, where did he even find one? CM: How do you know if it's a monarch ring? FA: it's a gold band, with white orbs around the outside CM: Oh. FA: why? FA: ... FA: hello? *** CCM: Don't do it! CPA: Twilight, we're out of time. CCM: But- CPA: Sorry. [CURRENT adamantineCorsair stopped responding to memo RARITY/RAINBOW ENTRANCE] [CURRENT prismaticAscension stopped responding to memo RARITY/RAINBOW ENTRANCE] CCM: ... oh. *** Deciding that Twilight probably wouldn't be coming back for a while, Comet closed his laptop and joined Silver by the cliffside temple where they had emerged. The ship was in the process of pulling up alongside them, and on top of the craft they could see their assembled team members - Diamond, Acapella, and Mild. After this, they would then continue looping around the Medium, to pick up Ember, Destiny and Summer. And then they would journey into the centre of the incipisphere, to the Battlefield, and fight the Black King... That was going to be one hell of a fight, Comet reflected as he and Silver stepped onto the ship, and Silver was immediately grabbed hold of by Acapella and dragged off somewhere. Thanks to Ember's poor choice of prototyping, the king was twice as powerful as he should have been. Still, they could do it. Despite his lack of abilities in problem solving and/or simple addition, Ember was good at smashing stuff. Mild being at God Tier was obviously a huge benefit, and Silver's addition to the team gave them an extra source of damage. Then again, since Diamond's strife specibus was camerakind, maybe Silver's addition meant they didn't lose any sources of damage rather than gaining an extra one. How did a camera even work as a weapon. Briefly, he wondered what Twilight had been asking about the rings for. Surely she didn't mean that one of her group was prototyping with a ring? Aside from that being a really stupid thing to do, he still didn't know how it was possible to obtain a queen's ring before entering the game. What were the chances of that happening twice, to two sessions that were communicating with each other, both of which were from the same original Universe? They were either very slim or almost certain, that was for sure. Below deck, Silver Edge and Diamond Heart stood facing each other. Now that they were in separate bodies, Acapella noticed that there was a difference - Silver's eyes were red, whereas Diamond's were blue. Beyond that, they were identical - the same light purple coat, the same roughly shaped mane and tail, even the same camera cutie mark. It was rather disconcerting, especially when they spoke with almost the same voice. It was Diamond who spoke first, extending a hoof towards Silver and attempting a warm smile. "Uh, hello! I'm Diamond Heart." She felt like an idiot as she said her greeting. It sounded forced. In a way, it was forced, but she had to say something. To her credit, however, Silver forced herself to take the greeting at face value, shaking hooves with Diamond. "And I'm Silver Edge." A pause. Acapella rolled her eyes painfully as she sat watching the two ponies attempting to have a conversation. This was going to be a long journey. *** To pass the time, while she and Destiny waited for the ship on the Land of Brooks and Woods, Summer Dawn performed a grand total of 97 backflips. *** Ember probably did something on the Land of Joy and Frogs while he waited, but it wasn't very interesting, so let's move on. *** Outside of the incipispheres with which we of the alpha timeline choose to concern ourselves, perhaps there exists a game session where Rarity and Rainbow Dash are able to enter separately. What might such a session look like? It is not our place to know, only to wonder. What we may know is that Rarity and Rainbow Dash entered together in this incipisphere, and found themselves on a planet which Skaia designed to accommodate the heroes of both Heart and Breath. And so they found themselves emerging from Carousel Boutique to take in the sight of the Land of Silk and Flames. Before them, stretching for miles into the distance, the ground seemed to be literally shaped out of light, silver silk, rolling across hills in great sweeping sheets of the fabric. As if this was a perfectly acceptable substitute for actual soil, trees could be seen in the distance, along with small villages built into the hills. Whether or not this made any sense, the whole planet seemed to shine gently. While this looked very nice, somewhat less appealing was the great plume of smoke drifting upwards from over the horizon. That was alarming. Deciding to ignore the smoke for the time being, and returning inside, they were pleasantly surprised to see that the communication spell had gotten over its usual short period of not working until it reconnected to Twilight. They were less than pleasantly surprised to see what was waiting for them. [crespucularMagicant began talking with adamantineCorsair] CM: Rarity? CM: About the ring... CM: I think we might have made a bit of a mistake. AC: Twilight. It was that, or me and Rainbow would have died. AC: We had no choice. CM: I know. I just... CM: This is bad. Really, really bad. AC: What's even so bad about it? It was just a ring. CM: This happened in Comet's session. Their last player prototyped a queen's ring, which they had somehow obtained from Celestia knows where. AC: And what does that mean? CM: Well, the queen's ring is an item that the queen of Derse wears, which takes on the prototyping information as players enter. AC: So? CM: So, for every glowing orb on the surface of the ring, the monarchs - and underlings - of our session gain an extra prototyping. CM: ... how many orbs were on that ring? AC: Um... AC: Sixteen? CM: Oh. CM: ... CM: Well, I'll talk to you later. [crespucularMagicant stopped talking with adamantineCorsair] In the distance, from somewhere outside the Boutique, a blood curdling scream echoed across the landscape, and both ponies were overcome by the feeling that they had been very, very stupid. *** At first, the realisation that the MAP was gone had led to panic. A few minutes of frantic searching later, and Fluttershy had come to the realisation that somepony - or something - had taken it. This meant that Applejack’s suspicions had been right, and they hadn’t been alone. Which was a terrifying thought, although as Applejack had pointed out, whatever had taken the MAP had probably used it to travel somewhere else. So they had continued onwards, until the time had come for Applejack to move on to Pinkie's planet. Seeing as Fluttershy still needed to travel around the Medium, and no longer had her MAP, she had resolved to continue adventuring with Applejack. And so the two of them had both progressed through the next gate and into the Land of Presents and Laughter. However, they were not greeted by Pinkie Pie when they emerged in the middle of LOPAL. Their friend was nowhere to be seen, and hadn't responded to any of their attempts to message her. This was worrying. They had eventually made their way to Sugarcube Corner, by walking towards the enormous tower that Rarity had built up from Pinkie's house. And, of course, they had found Pinkie inside. Where had she been, they asked, while they had been trying to contact her? "Oh, I was asleep!" Pinkie replied brightly, as she bounced out of the door past her two friends. "Staying well rested is very important, dream self or not!" This sentence had been proclaimed very loudly, in a manner which usually suggested she was about to burst into a song about the virtues of getting enough sleep. In an instant, Fluttershy appeared at her side, cutting short any forthcoming musical. "Oh, of course, Pinkie. We were just getting worried about you, that's all." Applejack followed as Pinkie and the pegasus headed out from Sugarcube Corner in the general direction of Pinkie's next quest. "So, uh, would you mind if we all went around together?" Pinkie looked at her, almost hurt by the possibility that she would mind. "What? Me, mind? That's crazy talk! Come on, there's plenty of-" she stopped, her face suddenly deadly serious. "Oh." "What is i-" Fluttershy began, before stopping as she looked around. The three ponies suddenly found themselves blocked by all manner of underlings - gliclops, liches, basilisks, and more - all of them horrifically warped by the latest prototyping. None of them knew exactly what Rainbow and Rarity had done, but they knew that it couldn't have been anything good. In the shock of facing such a fearsome wave of enemies, Fluttershy was only vaguely aware of Applejack pushing herself in front of the pegasus and the earth pony. "Uh... Applejack?" "Don't y'all worry none." Brandishing her scythe, Applejack stood on her hind legs with calm in her voice and determination in her eyes. "This'll be over quickly."