//------------------------------// // MLP Loops 127 // Story: MLP Time Loops // by Saphroneth //------------------------------// 127.1 (Gamma Cavy) Children of the Nightmare: Part 2 Celestia panted harshly. This new Nightmare Moon was stronger by far then Luna had been, and while the damage had thankful been contained by the attachment to Twilight, still, things could not be left as they were, and the black Alicorn was refusing to listen to anything she tried to say. Magic flared up from where Twilight lay, sending every combatant flying, as a pillar of violet light shot up to the heavens. power pulsed outwards, and all of Equestria felt it, and turned their heads in that direction. Then Twilight's voice rang out over the clearing, subtly changed, young and immeasurably ancient at once. "Daughter, be still." Nightmare Moon ceased her furious, desperate defense of Twilight, bowing her head. "Mother, they could have killed you!" "And you have punished them accordingly. Yet some good came from this, in your presence here, Daughter." Twilight stood, eyes alight with magic. Magic crackled off her newly formed wings, and danced in sparks along her coat. Her horn, long and gleaming, was lit, as her eyes were, and her mane rippled with a full aura. "I am Awakened, My teacher in this mortal life, Celestia, would not harm me, Daughter. And as for these," her eyes fell on the cult. "You have harmed Me, and you might have destroyed the world in doing so, yet you did it for the sake of loyalty to My Eldest Daughter. I am first, and I am Magic, then came My Daughter Darkness, Midnight Nyx. From our tie to each other came Bright Loyalty, who even now awakens in her mortal guise." A Rainboom detonated over head, and Dash, having been apprised of the plan by telepathy, landed, in her own Alicorn form, and mane aura in full kaleidoscopic glory. "You have all shown my gift, if to extremes beyond what should be," she said, surveying the cult. "This one's all on you Twi. They have enough loyalty tying them to each other and Nyx, that I would be a biased judge. Loyalty to leaders, and between family and friends is my gift, not judgement." "Indeed. they may live, and learn from their mistakes, and grow. Know this, though. If you ever act against the Forces again We will not be so kind a second time. Now go with these nice guards, and take your punishment by the laws of this world as well. GO!" Celestia caught her breath. This new Twilight was stronger than her, and something deep within her, recognized this Twilight, from long ago. When she and Luna had been very young there had been legends of an ancient goddess of Magic, and there had been a unicorn then, who had taught the two of them how to use their power, and vanished before they could show her what they could do. Twilight had always reminded her a little of their old teacher, but now- Luna blinked, at the sight before her. There was her sister, and beside her were two of the element bearers, although there was something odd about them, and a, was it?! It was, a black Alicorn with a starry mane! Twilight Sparkle shifted, and suddenly it became clear, that she and the Element of Loyalty were also Alicorns, but where had the one that looked like a double of her come from? And why did Twilight suddenly seem familiar? Their conversation reached her ears as they came closer, "- restore the rest of her power to Princess Luna, and then explore this world with Nyx. If you need me to take over throne sitting I'm willing, but please don't just hand it over to me? I've never had to rule mortals like this before, and it's only thanks to my memories as just Twilight, that I'm managing balancing with my Cosmic Self, as well as I am." "What she said." Loyalty replied. Their Old Teacher! Twilight somehow felt like Magic's Dawn, the violet unicorn who had taught them so long ago. Side by side a restored Luna and a fully adult Nyx were awe inspiring, and every pony in the throne room could see that. Celestia smiled, and addressed the crowd. "A year ago, My sister was restored to me. Now my eldest sister Nyx has come to this world, fully sane, and with her arrival, Our mother Magic awoke to her memories." Twilight entered the room and nuzzled Nyx affectionately, before turning to face the crowd, all of whom could feel her power, even the idiot named Blueblood. Those who had been about to ask about Nyx's resemblance to Nightmare Moon, fell silent. "Greetings, my little ponies. I am Twilight, Queen of magic, and Magic Incarnate. Long have I wished to visit this world, and experience it as all of you do. Celestia has asked Me to rule for a month, while she and Luna vacation, and I will do my best to provide for you all, while they do so." "But who will command the sun and moon?!" a particularly unintelligent courtier asked. Celestia spoke again, "Long ago, when Luna and I were fillies struggling to master our power, we were taught by a violet unicorn named Magic's Dawn. she taught us, among other things, to raise the sun and moon. She was our Teacher and our adoptive mother, for we had never known a mother before her, and then one day she was just gone. That mare was the same one who stands here today! We can command the moon and sun, but she made them and set us as stewards over them! If you doubt her skill, then you doubt the Mother of all! Do you fear for the safety of Equestria with us gone? Fear not, for She is fully capable of ending the denizens of Tartarus themselves! I advise that you politicians behave while we are gone." 127.2 (Detective Ethan Redfield) From the Research Journals of Dr. Vahlen: Throughout the multiverse, I have had the unique opportunity to study a wide variety of beings and creatures, whether as an XCOM scientist or in my own private time. One being in particular has eluded me in my attempts to understand. There are admittedly a whole section of beings that are difficult to understand how they operate, but this one operates under unusual circumstances even in her home universe. Subject: Pinkamenia Diane Pie Race: Equus Sapiens Terrestris (Earth Pony) Universe: Equestria My first encounter with the subject was during an XCOM loop where an Equine race, henceforth referred to as ponies, invaded Earth through a magical breach in order to convert humanity into their own likeness. Their leader, codenamed Tyrant Sun, delegated this task to her six most trusted underlings, Pinkamenia, or Pinkie for short, being one of them. When briefed by Officer Bradford, he confided in me that these ponies were a radical aberration from their normal baseline. He described them as peaceful, seeking harmony with the multiverse at large through mutual understanding. Even as he said this, however, he spoke in a manner similar to grudging respect, as if he was complimenting them despite his feelings. When attempting to understand his position, the officer declined to comment further. He shared details of each of the ponies that our troops may one day encounter. As for meeting her for the first time, outside of seeing videos of Pinkie in action, she was not alive at the time. The subject was DOA (dead on arrival), terminated after converting many of our operatives at our European Base. The courage of those brave men and women who gave everything to end the threat this variant Pinkie held will live forever within this journal if nowhere else. Preliminary analysis shows her to be of the Earth species of pony with a deep pink mane. Her coat was a lighter shade of pink with a trio of balloons marked on her flank. After determining cause of death (gunshot), I attempted to take blood samples, to which I discovered her very blood was almost completely composed of sugar. It was amazing she has not died of Diabetes long ago. The autopsy showed nothing else out of the ordinary about the subject, of which was strange in and of itself. When further research was performed, Pinkie was shown to have what appeared to be a sort of precognitive ability in sensing events that were about to happen. The subject's biopsy showed no unique glands nor any sort of precognitive nervous system. Further research would need to be conducted when I had a loop in Equestria. 127.3 (Leviticus Wilkes) "Say Ditzy, what does your cutie mark mean anyway?" The mailmare looked up from her delivery list and winced. "Oh... whoops. Sorry Twilight, I forgot the ping." Twilight rolled her eyes in good nature. "We all forget sometimes. It's no big deal." Ditzy smiled. "Well, this time around, my cutie mark allows me to do... this!" And without further delay and a series of popping noises, a thought bubble appeared above Ditzy's head. Twilight chuckled as Ditzy turned her thoughts into a pay-per-view show. Ditzy shut down the viewing screen and gave her chest a self-satisfied polish. "I think I'll keep that talent. It has a neat side effect too: I can use it to record my dreams." Ditzy's smile turn downright bashful. "Which also allows me to record dreams of worlds where I'm not awake." Twilight's lavender eyes widened, while Ditzy's became tearful. "Ditzy... really, it's-" The mailmare suddenly nuzzled Twilight, cutting off the pony who cared for her daughter so often. "Thank you... Thank you so much for watching out for Dinky, all those times I went pop." 127.4 (Filraen) "Soooooooo", Pipsqueak's word was cut by a big yawn. "what do we do next?" Luna was enjoying this loop's developments. During the celebrations of Nightmare Night last month Pipsqueak had mentioned he wanted to know the Royal Castle at Canterlot to which Luna happily asked if he wanted to go visit her one day, either as a guest or even as a sleepover if he so wanted. Eventually Pipsqueak accepted the sleepover with the condition of letting Pip returning the favor: Luna had to go to a sleepover at Pip's house. Accompanying him to ask permission was an amusing affair, especially with Pipsqueak being so oblivious to his mother's awkwardness when she realized "the friend" he wanted to bring over for a sleepover was actually one of Equestria's Princesses. Eventually Pipsqueak's mother agreed to the sleepover, which when put into contrast with how at the beginning she had simply accepted it as if it was a Royal Decree, Luna considered a good development. The sleepover was a simple affair: eating dinner, playing board games, seeing Luna raise the moon... the usual things, though Pipsqueak almost had a heart attack when he realized what pyjamas he was left to wear that night, though Luna didn't realize why by the time Pipsqueak put on another pair. Eventually, time passed and he looked like he was getting sleepy. "How about a story?" "Yes, please Princess!" "I told you little Pip, please call me Luna." "I'm not little! I grew two sixteenths of an inch last month!" "Pip is it, then, so story..." Luna put a pensive look for a moment. "I know!" she suddenly produced a small music box from... somewhere and placed it by the nightstand and winded it up so it could play its music. "Well, this story is about a little pony princess. By powerful magics and a strange destiny this princess was forced to travel... you could almost say it was a curse." "A curse? How horrible!" Pipsqueak said aghast. "You could say that Pip, but the spell wasn't cast out of malice and the travelling pony princess had learned a lot during those travels, she she didn't think ill of the spell or her travels." "But, doesn't she get lonely? Always travelling means she can't stay with her friends" "True friends will stay with you even if you are far away, Pipsqueak, but yes, our little travelling princess sometimes gets lonely. But that isn't tonight's story. The story for tonight is about one of the places out travelling princess visited during her travels. This place was unique, one the strangest she had ever seen: the sun and the moon moved on their own and nopony controlled the weather for there were no pegasi." "Everywhere... like the Everfree Forest?" Pipsqueak asked with a bit of horror in his voice. "True. But you know Zecora, right?" At Pip's nod Luna continued. "Hard as it may be Zecora shows it's possible to live in the Everfree Forest. In the same way, everypony who lived there had to live in a place where the weather is free, mostly because they didn't have any choice, so they had to make do with whatever they had." "But the travelling princess was an alicorn right? That means she can help control the weather!" "That's also true, but the travelling princess won't be able to stay: she's forced to always keep travelling so while she may help some it'll be only temporarily. Also she's only one pony. Do you know how many ponies take care of Ponyville's weather?" As Pipsqueak realized how many ponies took care of the weather in Ponyville he simply mentioned a weak 'oh!' and returned to listen. "It's true that Tia, Cadence and I are powerful alicorns. But an alicorn can only help so much because we can't be everywhere at once. But let's return to the story, shall we?" Pipsqueak nodded. "Most strange of all, though, was that no ponies lived there. No unicorns, no earth ponies and no pegasi." "Who lived there then? Zebras? Griffins?" Luna shook her head. "None of those either. They call themselves humans and are about this tall" Luna said as she raised her hoof to demonstrate, "have very little fur outside their mane, and walked in two legs like a minotaur but without a tail." "They are strange." Pipsqueak frowned. "They may seem that way for you, but for them they have lived all their lives that way so it was normal for them. Imagine the travelling princess' surprise when she realized she was as strange to them as them were to her because only humans lived there and they never have seen a pony princess." At pipsqueak confused expression Luna pressed on "But in the end their strange form didn't matter much: they eventually offered the travelling princess friendship, food and a place to rest." "Not everything was good, however. There was a legend in that place: evil sorcerer wielding a terrible power wanted to destroy everything, and the only way to stop it was the prophesied princess which would be supposed to wield a silver crystal." "What did the travelling princess do then?" Pipsqueak asked, completely drawn into Luna's story. "She decided to help," Luna simply answered. "It's true they offered friendship and rest but the important part was that they needed help, help only the travelling princess could give. She was no foal, however, so she decided to gather powerful friends to help her in battle: the prophecy said the princess had to be who destroyed this evil sorcerer but nowhere in the prophecy it said she had to do it alone." "The travelling princess gathered four allies and the seven parts of the silver crystal, colourful as a rainbow, before confronting the evil sorcerer. The battle was hard but the five of them managed to fuse all those rainbow crystals into a single one, white as the moon. With that the travelling princess fulfilled the prophecy, destroying the terrible power and banishing the evil sorcerer to the moon... much like the Mare in the Moon, I suppose." "But weren't you the Mare in the Moon, Pr-Luna?" "Correct again, Pip, but the travelling princess managed to heal the evil sorcerer before banishing her. She didn't know how much was the sorcerer's own doing but at least part of it was because of the terrible power corrupting her." "So the travelling princess saved everypony right?" "Right, but that isn't the end of this story. The fate that forces the travelling princes to travel works at intervals so she decided to enjoy life with her new friends before she was forced to leave. She eventually reutilized a shapeshifting spell to look human..." "Why?" "Because even after defeating the evil most humans have never known of ponies, and so she could prevent humans from freaking out." At Pipsqueak still confused look Luna's horn started to glow, and suddenly two things happened: first, the bedrooms lights were out; and second, she looked completely black, with no fur, green eyes and holes in her legs and horn. "How do I look, Pipsqueak?" At Pipsqueak's dumbfounded face lacking an answer Luna stood up and continued, "Now I look like Chrysalis, a good friend of mine. However if were to do this..." and then Luna did a step towards Pip. At Pipsqueak surprised look suddenly the lights returned and Luna returned to normal. "... you could get surprised and even afraid, even if I don't have ill will towards you." "I...see." Pipsqueak answered back. After returning to her precious place Luna continued "so the travelling princess enjoyed her time with her friends until one day another human arrived, claiming she was the prophesied princess." "What?!" "Just like I said, Pip. She could even prove it, as she make note the prophecy mentioned about a princess, true, but it was a human princess." "But how then the travelling princess could defeat the evil sorcerer if she wasn't the princess in the prophecy?" Pipsqueak asked in newfound confusion. "Friendship. The bonds the four humans and the pony princess, and their will to save everyone were what triggered the fusion of the silver crystal. Also, the human princess said the prophecy only claimed one way to defeat the evil sorcerer, and she didn't like prophecies anyway." "Oh.." "But then the human princess made another surprising revelation: she had been watching the travelling princess all the time, treating the whole threat of the evil sorcerer as a prank." "What?! How could she make a prank about something so terrible?" "Because she was a traveller too, far older than the pony princess. In her travels her great magic power had only increased, much like the pony travelling princess, but as the human had been travelling for so much time she could have stopped the evil sorcerer whenever she wanted. It took some demonstration to calm the pony princess down, but after that the pony felt very humbled of meeting someone who left her feeling like a filly." As Luna paused to drink from her glass of water Pipsqueak intervened "O... kay, but I still I don't see what was so funny about letting the evil sorcerer threat to destroy everything." "Oh, that was easy," Luna quickly answered. "She found hilarious finding somepony else who claimed to be the princess of the prophecy and decided to see what happened." "What?" "Yeah, it seemed like the human princess has bored. Still, the pony princess forgave her easily: the pony princess gets confused with an evil being way more often than she likes in her travels, so being a prophesied heroine was a feeling she could cherish, even if she really wasn't. Also the friendship she build with the humans was real. "Eventually, the pony princess realized she had to do something. The silver crystal was an artefact of great power and the prophecy explicitly claimed it was the princess', so the pony princess decided to surrender it to the human princess. The human princess, however, insisted the pony princess kept it as she was the one who had recreated it from the rainbow pieces and used it to defeat the evil sorcerer. "After that, the travelling princesses simply enjoyed the world. Went to meadows, mountains and sea, learning about each other and their other friends when the world isn't at stake until the day the travelling fate claimed them both again. Before it did, however, both travelling princesses made a vow to meet each other again someday, when their travel path crosses once more." Returning from her reverie Luna realized Pipsqueak was already asleep. Making sure he was well covered by his blanket she turned her attention to the music box, which at some point of the story had stopped playing. Lighting her horn Luna winded up the music box, finely crafted on silver and retrieved a gemstone from inside it. Its soft rendition of Moonlight Densetsu made her reminisce a loop so long ago, where she had replaced Usagi Tsukino's animal companion, whose name was also Luna. "No, Luna," Usagi said with a warm smile as she placed the Silver Crystal on Luna's hoof. "You created it yourself and defeated Metallia with it, you have earned it. Besides, I still have mine." Usagi said as she showed the interior of her brooch, showing a gemstone similar to Luna's. "Luna, we have the whole rest of the loop! Why don't we go roller skating this weekend? If you want you can cast your shapeshifting spell on us too so you go biped and we go quadruped. We can compete who falls less!" "Your time as Nightmare Moon must have been horrible," Usagi said as she hugged Luna tighter, tears falling from her face. "I'm so sorry, Luna." "Wow that was something else, 'heart-song' you called it? How about we try it on Ami and Mako? They don't realize but they have great singing voices." "The Silver Crystal is very powerful, it isn't so hard to crash a loop by using it so be sure to have no doubts on your heart if you wish to call its power. Now the first thing you can do with it is..." "But Luna, this isn't goodbye, am I clear? We're both loopers so we're bound to meet again! Next time I want you to show me around your land and bring me to the best ice cream place in Equestria." Raising the Silver Crystal so it could be see by the side of her moon Luna thought on how her experiences with her fellow Moon Princess made her realize what really means being a Looper, how important is not to lose herself to madness while living loop after loop. "Usagi, I hope we meet again soon." 127.5 (Evilhumour, fractalman, and Filraen) One Crazy Week: part one Fluttershy blinked as she Awoke, tending to her birds. It was the day when Nightmare Moon would come and everyone had agree to play things to baseline for a quite run if everyone was Awake and if nothing was too out of the ordinary. Going over her memories while waiting for the pings, the memory of Twilight on her way to her library as she found something new and wish to study it the first to surface. Finally, the pings were sent out and nearly all of her friends were Awake. Smiling as she pinged back, she turned around to enter her house to get ready for tonight when somepony coughed behind her. Turning around she saw an unusual sight. There were two ponies; one was an earth pony who looked quite awful. His mane was droopy, his butler outfit had many holes and tears, his nose seemed to have a broken vessel, his fetlocks were messy, and his eyes were bloodshot. His companion was even more unusual; he was a blond maned pony with a fabulous well brushed and shining coat that Rarity would die to know how he managed it although he did have rings around his eyes. He was almost as tall as Celestia was, and the most unusual thing about him was that he had both a set of wings and a horn. He was also resting in a strange bath chair that her friend Dash would love to have. "Are you Lady Fluttershy, Bearer of the Element of Kindness, Guardian of the creature known as Angel, Care-keeper of the animal of Everfree Forest, Flying Hatred, Befriended of Discord, the Little Mother, potential mother-in-law of Nyx Sparkle, the Mare who held the Emperor-God to a draw, Befriender of the Changelings, High-Master of the Druid Arts, One of the Seven Harmonious Princess, She Who Once Made a Honey Badger Care..." The butler continued to ask her with a complete straight face, listing more and more of her titles she had gained over the loops. Fluttershy blinked and nodded her head, wondering what exactly the birch was happening. "Excellent." The butler pony nodded his head, reaching behind himself for a cage that was not there before. Lifting the cage over to the mare, the butler pony continued to speak. "Mister Monday has been informed that you are the premier animal care keeper throughout the secondary Realms. It is my master's wishes that you care for his seven bibliophages for the time being." Placing the cage down, Fluttershy saw he had several pieces of gold. "Note that Monday will pay you handsomely for this service should you accept." Fluttershy should have questioned this a bit more, but these were new animals to care for! She found herself nodding her head as she looked at the snakes slithering around docilely. "You don't need to pay; this is my special talent. Is there anything I should know about taking care of them mister...?" "Sneezer, Lady Fluttershy." He gave a sharp little bow of his head. "The bibliophages are harmless, and require little food. They sustain themselves on anything with ink or text on it by spitting acid on it and then begin to digest the object in question." "Oh my, that's quite unusual." "If you do not wish to look over them, Lady Fluttershy, then you may decline." Sneezer told her in a gentle tone. "Of course I will look after them mister Sneezer!" Fluttershy blushed as she nearly shouted, looking at the snakes. Wait, something was wrong.... "Good." A sharp voice startled her, causing her to look at the alicorn. He gave her a dirty look, which ruined his good features, and flapped a wing at her. "I shall send my Dusk to retrieve them in a week's time." "Wait a moment, there's one mis-" Fluttershy blinked as both of the strange ponies were gone. "-sing." She then remembered that Twilight had taken a snake home with her to study. Her library home. "Oh dear." (fractalman) Twilight's pupils narrowed to pinpricks as she beheld the interior of her library. Acid. Acid everywhere. 127.6 (Kris Overstreet) Twilight Sparkle, currently in the body of a pre-adolescent girl, looked at the fairy hovering across the kitchen table from her. "Let me get this straight," she said. "My father took out a loan from your mysterious financial agency, and somehow I'm responsible for it?" "Well, the agency is offering you the chance to repay the loan on favorable terms," Tear replied. "If you decline the offer, the agency will file to seize your father's remaining assets, which consist of this home and all its contents." "I see," Twilight growled. "And how am I supposed to raise this money, the amount of which you refuse to tell me because it would discourage me- a fact which by itself tells me it's astronomical- when I am, at the moment, approximately twelve years old and possessed of no marketable skills whatever?" "Well..." The fairy looked over her glasses with a touch of embarrassment. "First, may I say you are considerably more mature than the person I usually work with?" "How many Fused Loops have you had, exactly?" Twilight asked. "I think you're my third," Tear admitted. "Recette has mentioned a few others, but my first one involved hanging around this elf who dressed all in green. He wasn't much for economics, but he had barter down cold. And then there was this little straw-haired boy named Jim who joined the Adventurer's Guild and earned enough to pay off the debt in only two weeks. He never mentioned he was a Looper, but what else could he have been?" "So you're relatively new," Twilight said. "Well, I'm normally a unicorn in my late teens to early twenties, and I've been Looping a very, very long time. And I've had far too much experience dealing with smooth-talking salespon- er, salespeople." "Have you had any experience being one?" Tear asked. Twilight's ears would have perked up had she been in a more familiar body shape. "How's that again?" "The usual method of paying off the debt," Tear continued, "is to convert the ground floor of this home into an item shop for the adventurers and townspeople. Items can either be bought for resale at the merchant's guild or market, or can be discovered by accompanying adventurers through the dungeons that keep popping up around this town." "Or," Twilight smiled, "I could just dig a bunch of stuff out of my subspace pocket, sell that, and spend the Loop at home reading." She reached into subspace... ... and found nothing there. Nothing at all. "Yes, about that..." Tear looked a bit apologetic. "Link tried to teach me the trick, and someone named Mario tried to teach it to Recette, but it doesn't seem to work here. We already have a similar trick, and the two methods seem to interfere with one another." "Really? Hold on, let me try something." There were two apples left in the fruit bowl on the table. Twilight took one and tried to put it in her pocket. The apple went... somewhere else, a different space which, Twilight sensed, had an arbitrarily limited number of slots for things. Twilight took the other apple and, with very careful concentration, managed to shove it in the fifth-dimensional vector that led to her normal subspace pocket. "Okay," she said at last. "Normal subspace pockets appear to be deposit-only this Loop. Have you tried putting anything into your pocket, or did you just try taking out?" Tear considered this. "Only taking out," she admitted at last. "But thanks to the hall closet, neither Recette or I had been particularly worried about it." "What about the hall closet?" Twilight asked. "Any merchandise in the store at the end of one Loop appears in the closet at the start of the next," Tear said. "Unfortunately the money simply vanishes." "Really?" Twilight stood up and walked from the kitchen to the hallway that led past the stairs to the large living room. "You mean this closet?" she asked, opening the door. What she found wasn't merchandise. Fortunately, the contents of the closet didn't fall down on her in some comedic avalanche. The closet was much too large for that to happen. In fact, Twilight reflected with awe, the last time she'd seen a closet this large was on her trip to Tenchi's world, where Washuu's laboratory that covered the same surface area as five normal planets was accessed through a subspace portal linked to a broom closet under the stairs. Near the front sat, neatly stacked, dozens of pieces of scientific equipment and half a dozen large tool boxes full of smaller items. Immediately behind them sat a few dozen spaceships for various kinds, ranging from a Federation shuttlecraft up to a heavily armed war cruiser. Tall stacks of binders and scrapbooks wobbled slightly on uncertain centers of gravity. And bookshelf after bookshelf after bookshelf ranged beyond these things, receding into infinity like a library built in a funhouse hall of mirrors. And directly in front of her, just across the doorsill, sat the second apple. Twilight gently closed the door. "All right," she said at last. "This is something new." Tear frowned. "No vending machines?" she sighed. "No platinum armor? No millefuille?" "This is my subspace pocket," Twilight continued. "But I've never seen it this neat and orderly... I almost never see it from the inside, period. And it's never been so easy and convenient to access!" Her speech sped up as her enthusiasm built up steam. "Washuu can do this, but only through a major application of technology. This is a simple Loop-specific universal constant! But how does it work? Can it be duplicated? Can it be applied in Loops outside this one? This calls for some intense research!" Her eyes gleamed at the prospect. "On a more practical note," Tear muttered, "there's none of the things we usually use to get the store running. You'll have to begin with bare shelves and boxes and whatever merchandise you can scrape together. Or else we lose the home in eight days, and thus lose the ability to research." Twilight sighed. "All right, all right," she said, "we'll do it your way, just long enough to pay off the debt. But then I MUST study this inventory system your universe has! If I could replicate this effect, it would revolutionize the lives of Loopers everywhere!" "Applejack could have backed out and made a ton of money, but instead she stuck by her bargain and kept her word! She is the Element of Trust!" The shards of one of the stone globes glittered, transforming into a golden choker with gem, which clasped itself around the farm pony's neck. "Fluttershy helped the manticore remove the thorn from its paw! She is the Element of Customer Service! Rarity's makeover of the sea serpent helped him land a mate! She is the Element of Presentation! Pinkie Pie brought us safely through the doppelganger forest by calling out to us! She is the Element of Advertising! And Rainbow Dash chose to stick with us over the slick, misleading offers of your Shadowbolts! She is the Element of Customer Loyalty!" The little unicorn pony known as Bags o'Bits stepped forward as the other elements swirled into existence around the necks of her newfound friends. "All of my friends and I worked together to get here- and if you work together in good faith, you can accomplish anything! That is the true meaning of friendship- and friendship is CAPITALISM!" A tiara appeared on the little filly's head; the jewel at its crest was shaped like a dollar sign. Nightmare Moon stared at the group, watching the rainbows of the Elements of Capitalism link one pony to another, and could only think, You've got to be kidding me. I mean, you are having me on, right? And from her prison in the Sun, the Awake Celestia completely failed to control her giggle fits. The Looper known elsewhere as Recette would later convert the disused Ponyville library into the most renowned single general store in all Equestria, at least until the hostile takeover attempt by Taur-get. 127.7 (Leviticus Wilkes with Wildrook) Applejack's replacement typically lounged comfortably in the monotony of farm life. Now, as owner and one of the four employees of Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack's baseline tranquility and simple nature aligned nicely with her replacement's day to day routine. A family that loved him, with a precocious little sister, stalwart older brother, and a wise, if slightly kooky grandmother. It even came with a dog that, showing the multiverse did have a heart, was already named Daisy. Yes, Applejack's replacement was all set. But there were times, he experienced, when he missed the old loops. But then again, the violence was something he had grown out of loving, and the prospect of an eternity trapped in his home loop was synonymous with Hell. The loopers could have his loop for fun and action, he was enjoying his loops away from it. He would just thank the Admins for letting him have as many fused loops as he needed to maintain his sanity. This was the beauty of Equestria: absolute peace when needed. The anchor had even let him off Applejack's usual responsibilities. (A... thing - called Gilda - was filling in for him). Yes, all was good in his life. Then Discord showed up. "My my, what have we here? A pony with a apple orchid?" The draconequus wove between the replacement's legs. "What a brilliant apple orchid. Ssssshame if ssssomething were to happen to it." Applejack's replacement cocked an eyebrow. "Don't 'cha mean apple 'orchard'?" Discord smiled that smile that made regular ponies go 'oh buck, it's him' and shook his head. "Oh, I misspelled orchard in my manifesto. I just decided to use it for inspiration." The Apple scion raised an eyebrow. "Uh... what?" Discord pointed at the rows upon rows upon columns of newly minted apple orchids, plucking a flower from the ground and giving it a green wet willy. The draconequus then noticed something barking amongst the flowers. "Why, what have we-" the master of chaos promptly had his mouth slapped shut by Applejack's replacement. "Don't. You. Dare." Discord laughed cheerfully from within one of the orchids. "Oh, trust me you little pony, I won't lay a finger on your nice little puppy." Discord snapped his fingers, and then his fingers. Daisy the dog was then promptly consumed in a small mushroom cloud, before emerging from it as a shoe. A shoe that, in turn, was transported to Discords head, where it began buzzing pleasantly. "Oh, I do love my orthopedic shoes, don't you?" The element of honesty was not amused. An hour later, the Mane Six plus Gilda reached Ponyville, all relatively exhausted (by looper standards) from the obstacles that Discord had thrown up at them, but more annoyed at how Twilight had wanted to study them. They were all looking forward to turning Discord back to stone this loop. However, as they approached Ponyville, something seemed... on, somehow. Not off, but the opposite of off. On the mark, if it could be called that. In other words, not chaotic. A fact made all that more apparent when the six arrived at Apple Acres. Twilight allowed herself a moment of stunned silence before informing Applejack's replacement of what she had done. "Killing isn't exactly legal here in Equestria." The element of honesty's doppelgänger shrugged his shoulders, petting Daisy happily. "He hurt my dog." "Still... how did you do it anyway?" Twilight stared at the mangled remains of the element if chaos. And yes, it was 'element if chaos', not 'element of chaos'. Applejack's replacement, locally known as Applewick, and known in his home loop as John Wick, shrugged. "I tried filling him with lead, but when that didn't work, I decided to try emptying him of lead. Surprising how effective that was." For a moment, no one made any remarks. Finally, Gilda turned to Rainbow Dash with a light smirk. "Your sure this guy isn't Neo?" 127.8 (fractalman) Many, many loops after her failure to make Dodecanitrododecaazaisowurtizane, Trixie found herself in Trek. She decided that, if Dodecanitrododecaazaisowurtizane was too much, perhaps she could make a simple dodecahedron out of nitrogen. Twenty borg cubes emerged out of a transwarp corridor next to Earth. "We are the borg. Please do not resist while we assist in evacuations." Much the same happened all over the galaxy. Using a boronite laser-she'd happened to have some on hand-Trixie built the structure up atom by atom. When she'd forced 17 out of 20 nitrogen atoms into position, it happened: the rest of the nitrogens simply moved into position of their own accord. It was beautiful. Harmonious. But it exploded. "So." asked Picard. "What possessed you to move every life form out of the milky way galaxy?" "It is quite simple" said the borg queen. "The galaxy was about to be destroyed. If all life is wiped out, there will be nothing left to aid our quest for perfection." Picard rubbed his forehead. He supposed it made sense, in a twisted sort of way. "Just one more question: what destroyed the galaxy?" "We believe someone synthesized an omega molecule out of nitrogen." Picard's brain shut down. Trixie awoke as Naughty Trix Trix, the vacuum cleaner of Teletubbies. The message was not lost on her: she should not have used a boronite laser. 127.9 (Gamma Cavy) Silver Spoon stormed into the bar. "Drink. Now." Mac recognized the signs of a bad loop. "What happened?" "Amestris Loop where I was Envy, and all alchemists were Sparks, with the ones who had been to the Gate at a Heterondyne level. Ed tried, but.... the Spark was too strong. Brain Bleach please?" Mac winced, and retrieved the bottle labelled Brain Bleach from the shelf. 127.10 (novusordomundi) "Applejack." "Yes, Rarity?" "Where's Twilight, darling? It's a bit unusual to do a Gag Loop without her..." A shrug. "Don't know. I'm sure she's around here somewhere. Now, you want to tell me why we're cyclops? Rarity sighed. "That's usually my line..." 127.11 (Gamma Cavy) Twilight, jounin sensei to Team Seven, consisting of Naruto, Shinji Ikari, and Pinkie Pie, winced. Which Admin did I upset enough to get this? "We all know the drill, Likes, dislikes, dreams for the future?" Shinji spoke first. "I like messing with my dad, rotten scumbag that he is, I dislike dealing with a non-Awake Asuka, and my dreams for the future are to go at least four fused Loops before coming home, preferably reaching the end of this one first." Pinkie grinned, bouncing up and down. "I like parties, I don't like party poopers, and my dream is to throw the biggest party yet, even bigger than the one that let me ascend!!!" Twilight fervently hoped that if she managed it, it would be far away from Equestria. Naruto winced. "I only have one dream for the immediate future. Manage to put a muzzle on Kurama!" In his mindscape, said fox grinned. "I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves, I know a song that'll get on your nerves and this is how it goes..." 127.12 (Kris Overstreet) Twilight Awoke to the sight of a Canterlot in ruins. Many of the broken buildings still smoked and smouldered from whatever had laid waste to the city. Half the towers of Celestia's castle had crumbled in ruins. Ponies of all types were hard at work clearing away debris with a slow, grim determination about their actions. What the buck happened? Twilight automatically sent out a ping, and almost instantly a host of return pings rang in her head, most very close by, a couple from an incredible distance. So, she thought, at a guess most or all of our Loopers are awake, plus a couple of others in some other star system. And space travel plus mass destruction... oh, I hope this isn't what I think it is. At about that point Twilight's Loop memories kicked in, and verified that no, it wasn't what she thought it was; it was slightly worse. Equestria had just thrown off, at massive cost, a probing strike by the Imperium of Mankind, with the help of their patron warp goddess of chaos, Pinkie Pie, and her chief demon Discord. A proper invasion force would likely be along in a few months, one Equestria couldn't hope to resist, one which would likely end in the extinction of all native life on the planet. And that was if things went WELL. If things went badly the orks might show up first, or even at the same time as, the human second wave. Mentally Twilight began composing a note to Sleipnir or whatever admin might find it. Sorry I threw myself off Mount Canter and crashed the Loop ten minutes in, but I wasn't going to have anything to do with it. Could I kindly request the Teletubbies world for my punishment Loop? After this ten minutes I'm going to need a long spell of nothing exciting happening at all, ever. Princess Celestia landed next to Twilight. "Well, this is a particularly bad Loop, isn't it?" the princess asked. "It's almost as bad as the time I woke up in a Fallout variant as an earth pony." "Don't worry," Twilight said grimly, "you won't have to deal with it for long." "Er... I'd hold off on that option if I were you," Celestia said. "For one thing, you might not be the only Anchor Awake in this Loop." Twilight shrugged. There were many reasons why Twilight avoided the most obvious way of crashing a Loop, and the possibility of her friends being forced to endure a bad Loop without her because of the presence of a visiting Anchor was near the top of that list. But if a Loop was bad enough... well, this one looked it. "I'm listening," she said, "for the other thing." "The other thing," Celestia said, "is actually six other things. Nightmare Moon captured the Imperium's ships intact and functional." She waved a hoof upwards, and Twilight looked up to see six immense crimson vessels descending through the smoke-clouded Equestrian skies towards Ponyville. "Which means we can defend against a second strike... and then take the battle to the enemy." Twilight's eyes widened. "Celestia," she gasped, "I didn't think you of all ponies would-" "Not my idea," Celestia smiled. "Hers." She pointed to a patch of open air, which promptly unzipped itself to admit a pink alicorn with glowing eyes. "Hiya, Twilight!" Pinkie Pie chirped greetings before turning to face Celestia. "The Emperor's Awake, and he's A-OK with the plan!" The party goddess pouted as she added, "And Candy Cane just hid under his bed until I went away. I don't think anyone else is Awake who isn't a pony or Discord or Gilda or Angel or-" Celestia gently silenced Pinkie with a hoof to the mouth. "That's excellent news, Pinkie," she said. "Though the Chaos Gods not being Awake means we can expect trouble from them," Twilight said. "Not with THIS plan!" Pinkie grinned. "Lessee, we're gonna need everypony who's Looping eventually, but we're going to need you, Trixie, Applebloom, and Vinyl Scratch on the engineering side of things to start. We've got a lot of rebuilding to do before we're ready to conquer Terra!" "Conquer Terra??" Twilight gasped. "With only six warships? And those aren't even the biggest the loop has to offer!" "Silly filly!" Pinkie giggled. "It's not about how big the ship is- it's about what kind of gun it has!" Six months later six ships, repainted in a variety of pastels, emerged from the warp into orbit above Earth, just outside of weapons range of the home defense fleet and the almost-completed fleet for the conquest of Equestria. "YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!" a voice sounded on all broadcast channels. "We, the people of Equestria, having suffered mightily at your hands, have come to ensure that it does not happen again! Your rampant xenophobia and religious intolerance is a danger to all other life in the universe and cannot be allowed to continue!" As the defending fleet went to alert status and began to form up for an attack on the six Equestrian ships, the voice continued, "However, we will not lower ourselves to your genocidal level. Instead of wiping out mankind, we shall wipe out the evil that clouds your hearts. Whether you can live with yourselves afterwards will be your choice." On the Equestrian fleet's flagship, Twilight Sparkle nodded to Luna, who at at the communications station. "That should do nicely," she said. "Flag to all ships: set Elements beam to wide aperture. Planetwide targeting, but include the oncoming ships in your firing solutions. Full rainbow power. Fire at will." Moments later, one ship after another, one city after another, and eventually the entire planet learned the true non-terror and non-destruction of six warp-capable orbital friendship cannons. "So what happened?" Twilight asked Sleipnir, who stood on a grassy hill under an exceptionally friendly sun. "What happened? You got over-ambitious. I thought you could have guessed that." The Admin calmly cropped a bit of grass, chewed a bit, and then continued, "The Fused code simply wasn't up to handling an entire empire of friendly, jovial, and above all non-violent orks. A squad or shipful, certainly. A colony world, maybe. The whole species? No go." After another bit of grass- it grew surprisingly delicious here- he added, "My colleagues and I are discussing whether or not we should nerf the Elements of Harmony a bit, make them harder to weaponize like that." A loudspeaker rose from the surface of the knoll. A sweet feminine voice called through it: "Time for teletubbies! Time for teletubbies!" "Ooops! Time to go to work!" Twiley-Wiley sighed. "Can we talk some more about this later?" "No trouble," Sleipnir said. "I'll just have a long lunch." He returned to his grazing. (Evilhumour) The Master smiled, he was happy, so very happy. While many would have seen this as a punishment loop, and considering what he did in that under water hell (pitying that squid enough to torch the entire city to the ground) he supposed he did deserve some form of punishment. But this? He watched one of those creature with a TV in their stomach ran past him, one named Twiley-Wiley as she went to play/work with the others. This was pure paradise for Masty-Wasty. (wildrook) Then Twiley-Wiley stopped...then looked at Masty-Wasty. If she could speak, she would go "For the love of the Mighty Oak, what insane person would enjoy this loop?" As if to respond, Masty-Wasty gave her two thumbs up.