//------------------------------// // Chapter 37: Unlike the Matrix sequels, this makes more sense… // Story: My New Life in Equestria: Helping Has Its Ups and Downs // by HAZESHIFT //------------------------------// Chapter 37: Unlike the Matrix sequels, this makes more sense… Everything faded into white and then stayed that way. I don’t know how long I was just staring into an abyss of white. I lay on my back waiting for something to happen. Or at least I think I was laying down. Looking down at what I assumed was the floor, I only saw more white, and there wasn’t any clear indication of any kind of physical boundary. Finding that I could sit up I guessed that I was on the floor of wherever I was. Standing, I felt a bit scared that there was literally nothing around. “Ok, can’t say I’m not a bit worried about this. Just hope this is bigger than it appears…or doesn’t appear,” I told myself and as I started walking. Without any kind of visual stimuli it was hard to tell how long and how far I had been walking. It was like this picturesque and hellish winter landscape all wrapped into one. And all the while my mind was blank, usually I would have something to think about but here I had nothing. “Lost deep in non-thought?” I jumped as a familiar voice spooked me. I whirled around to come face to upside down face. The pony that helped me was standing on the what I hoped was the ceiling. “Give me a heart attack, why don’t you?” “Heh, with the heart I helped replace, I don’t think it’s even possible for you to have a heart attack…unless you eat nothing but butter for the next…one, two…three hundred and fifty thousand years,” her chipper tone was unbreakable. “Uh ok good to know….by the way, are you standing on the ceiling or are Looney Tune physics at work here?” I decided to ask. “Well while they were partially written here and can be applied, they’re more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules. As for the whole standing thing, I’m standing where I want, direction or place doesn’t really mean a thing to me when I can change it at will…but that’s not important. What is important though-” she paused as a confetti explosion materialized out of thin air and a congratulatory banner hung suspended from nothing. “Good job with the fight, it was exactly as I envisioned, and nice one-liner at the end. So first things first, I’m assuming you want to introduce myself. It’d be nice if you didn’t keep referring to me as ‘the mysteriously powerful Alicorn mare’ in your thoughts,” she slowly walked down and reoriented herself so she stood in front of me. “A name would be nice.” “Well allow me to introduce myself, my name is Faust,” she said as the glow around her lessened, finally letting me see her. Her coat was whiter, seemingly whiter than Celestia’s. Her hair was a complete departure from Celestia’s and Luna’s, it didn’t blow etherally into the wind; instead it looked normal, albeit being a very solid cherry red. And her light blue eyes showed her happiness. “….um….wow,” I responded slightly nonplussed. “What? Do I not look awesome…or even nice?” she asked, a small frown setting in. “Um, no it’s not that, I mean, I think part of me was just…” “Expecting more? I mean I did turn down the wow factor a bit seeing as how mortals usually get, but I mean if you want to be wowed by my presence then fine,” she said falring out her wings slightly as if preparing. “Oh no, you don’t have to, this is your….place and I mean I was impressed back in Equestria. It wasn’t hard to tell that you were pow-HOLY FAUST!” I stopped mid-sentence and screamed as powerful light literally burst from her and her form changed. Before, she had looked like an Alicorn if they were taking a vacation, but now she stood with an impressive posture, decked in shimmering golden armor along with a golden laurel wreath crowning her head. And above all that was a halo which seemed to shine like an explosive corona of a star. “WHAT DOEST THOU THINK NOW DANEL!?!?” I didn’t hear her words as much as felt them, and I didn’t respond to her question but not for lack of trying. I stood there, my mouth just hung open in awe. “Well I think that’s enough of that then,” as quick as she had changed into her impressive form she was back. It took me awhile to shake the afterimage off and just stared into space shaking my head every few seconds trying to reboot myself. “Well now with that out of the way I know you have a lot of questions and I know most of them so I’ll just start explaining. Walk with me, there’s somewhere we need to be soon,” she waved a hoof into the white distance. “What? Oh sure!” I said after she began walking ahead of me “Ok, so let me get some of the big ones out of the way first. Since you can see that, yes I am an Alicorn, came up with that one myself by the way. And yes I am Celestia’s and Luna’s mother. No, that does not technically make me Queen of Equestria. Yes, Celestia and Luna know about me and I think at least Celestia has an idea about who really saved you during the fight in your universe. No, Cadence is not mine, though I might take credit for planting the idea in her parent’s head. This place as you are probably wondering is my home, although not mine alone as you will see later. This place itself is a sort of nexus for all the universes in the multiverse. It is here I look after every single universe of the brand you humans call My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You keeping up?” she paused in her answering to make sure my mind hadn’t imploded, and to be honest it was slowly getting there. “So that means you're some kind of multiversal deity?” “Yes, though that title or goddess work both the same here,” she told me, which put an odd question in my head. “So does that mean you literall-“ “No, I did not physically give birth to basically infinite Celestias and Lunas. I may have a weird way of thinking but I’m not that insane!” she cut me off, rolling her eyes at the notion of giving birth to millions upon millions of blue and white baby Alicorns. “Ok…so you created all of the MLP universes….but how did you come to…exist?” I asked. “Well…what’s the best way I can put this…Back before you came to Equestria, did you ever watch a show called Family Guy, more specifically an episode where they went over something called a temporal causality loop?” “No way?” I stopped walking and stood still thinking about what I just heard. “Yes way, I along with the other multiversal deities created the universe so that it in turn could create us, so forth and so on, et cetera, et cetera.” she stopped to make sure my head wasn’t going to pop. “Not that I can’t get behind the sciency stuff like that but I’m kind of surprised that you with all your power, decided to use Family Guy to make a point like that.” “Hey, a girl can sometimes get bored up here. Excuse me, princess for wanting to laugh at something stupid sometimes. We can’t always be a shining beacon of the infinitesimal power of the cosmos!” she huffed and kept walking. “Ok, ok, I get it…So you said other multiversal deities…How does this whole thing work exactly?” “Oh thats kind of easy. Think back on your childhood and think of any brand of thing; tv show, book, movie, anything with at least a semi coherent story.” “Ok.” “And now think of the multiverse as a gigantic pie graph, like really huge, infinitely huge. Now take all those things you thought of and start filling that pie graph. Now think of one of those slices and imagine in it a huge number of different universe filled with the same people except that from one to another something can be changed, sometimes something small or sometimes something big. And with those changes the number of universes exploded into numbers that if you started trying to count from one….would just end with your death before you really got anywhere.” “Ok I get that….but how does it happen that me in my universe sees a television show of a completely different universe, or something where two universes collide, or for that matter how I came to be in a different universe all together?” I asked probably the three biggest questions on my mind. “Well let’s start with the first issue. You remember that pie graph? Well towards the center of the graph, all the sections of the multiverse technically touch. I say that cause I haven’t really been there myself. But at that point things tend to bleed into different universes. Sometimes they come out as natural things; weird rock formations and things in nature that look literally like they could be from another planet. And then sometimes it bleeds through not into something physical but more mental. Hmm...what’s a good analogy for that....oh who was that scientist of yours with all the zappy electricity things and was kind of eccentric?” “Tesla?” “Yes him, he always said he just had visions of inventions and things. Well that’s how it works basically…actually I just thought of a better way to relate it, cartoonists. They get the idea in their head, sometimes randomly and sometimes with a little help from one of us. Not all of them get it right though, sometimes it takes a while before the true message shines through.” “So I guess that’s where the 1980’s version of my little pony comes in, huh?” I said and watched her shudder at my comment. “Ugh, please don’t remind me, that was not one of my…better choices.” “I’m guessing after that you bided your…time until you thought Lauren Faust was ready….or not busy with another show? And created everything which in turn created you so you could create it?” “See! Now you’re catching on! What do you want to know next? More about me and the others like me? Or you and how you fit into this wacky puzzle?” she asked as we kept walking. “I kind of wanna know how far we have to walk, considering how hard it is to judge when there is nothing around,” I told her. “Well that depends on which question you want to ask. I would prefer to answer them in the order I suggested seeing as how I have a big surprise for you at the end. Oh it is going to be so fantastic!” she bounced on all four legs slightly making me laugh at the sight of a being with unlimited power acting like a little filly. “Ok, I’ll submit to your whims. First off, just how many of you guys are there?” “Not as many as you think. Don’t think that every time an offshoot of a main universe shows up that one of us is born. Like Transformers, there's only one Primus looking over all those different robot filled universes.” “Autonomous robotic o-” I stopped mid quote as the glare she gave looked like it rip me from reality. “But you get the point. If it falls under an already started universe then that deity ruling it takes care of it.” “But what about things like Power Rangers seeing as how they kinda copied off of the Japanese Super Sentai series?” “That’s a special case. In the case of something like that, if it isn’t a complete rip-off then it gets its own separate section of the multiverse.” “Ok, next question. Who runs the section of the multiverse with all the anime stuff?” “Oh that would be the two sisters, Deus and Ex Machina. And no I am not shitting you to answer your next question. There’s plenty of others as well, like your God from the Bible; goes by Bob and doesn’t know what’s wrong with some of you humans. Like I said before there's Primus, Yoda, M and DC for all the comic worlds, Master and Crazy Hand, Polygon Ma…oh and Buddha; let me tell you he is awesome, most of us go to him for advice from time to time.” “You guys need advice?” “Advice or just general conversation, he’s always so pleasant. Never seen him get mad either,” her wings shrugged for her as we kept walking. “Well I guess that’s an acceptable answer for that…now on to the big one. Not gonna sugar coat it with a lot of words. Why me?” I asked the question that had always been at the back of my mind. Why I was in Equestria I didn’t want to question for fear of waking up from some really long dream. “Well the answer is really simple but I’ll put something before it, it was kind of random. I’ve been looking for someone for this job for a while, not just humans either. All sorts of creatures have come under my scrutiny, beings far more capable than you were. At one point I was just going to randomly pick one or a bunch and see how they turned out. If you don’t mind me being blunt about it, in the beginning of my search you were definitely not a special snowflake that stood out amongst the vast crowd. “Ok I can see that…but what changed?” as she told me I tried to wrap my head around the fact that in an ever expanding multiverse I was just a small drop of water. But I wondered, what could change a powerful deities mind? “To put it simply, I was asked. But we’ll get there in a minute. From there I simply found you and then…invented an opportunity to bring you to Equestria. I knew that slipping a new spell into a book Twilight was reading would pique her interest. Yes, I could make her but I like the whole free will thing. The spell would bring you here and from there…well I guess you know the story. Although I do have to say you surprised me a few times, when you first got here, despite your knowledge you seemed to be taking everything real well…besides the pain that is.” “I’ve always been a bit more….” “Maladjusted?” “Then some people, yes.” “That was the first good sign I got from you, the second was the carriage factory,” I chuckled slightly at her mention of my somewhat crazy stunt. “So that was all me, no messing around with the thoughts in my head?” “No, but I did have to mess with your body though. With the fire still burning after the roof collapsed on top of you and those fillies, Celestia couldn’t move it without causing complications. So I had to burn what little magic you had stored up.” “What do you mean stored up?” “Well in most of Equestria’s creatures, magic is an abundant energy source-” “It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the universe together,” I interrupted her with a well timed Star Wars quote. “Exactly, except without all that midichlorian bull hockey…anyway, like I was saying. From the minute you were in Equestria you were slowly absorbing it. I used what little of it you had to have you free yourself from under the roof but I think I might have gone just a tad overboard, which caused you to pass out like you did there. “And is that why it took me till the end of the war games to actually use magic?” “Somewhat yes but mostly no. Technically you had absorbed more than enough by the end of the Gala but unfortunately because of some rules you couldn’t use it.” “What rules?” I had a thought in my head about where she was going with it but wanted to be sure. “Back….a really long time ago, me and a bunch of the other deities decided that there needed to be some ground rules for how the universe should run. We had to or everything could fall apart because of one lone universe. We were so worried about that scenario that nobody objected to Deus and Ex Machina’s rule that kind of runs rampant over all their universes.” “Don’t tell me. The hero can only get powers and such when he’s on the ropes and things are looking bleak and/or save someone he cares about cliché?” “Bingo! That’s why you only were capable of using magic after taking a beating during the war games and after you were on the verge of dying I stepped in.” “Thank you for that by the way, dying seemed like such a waste. Well that settles almost everything I have…except for one thing. You said you were asked…by whom?” I was stumped on who or what would tell Faust to give me a chance. “Oh you’ll see in a minute. We’re almost there,” she motioned for me to look ahead and when I did this time there was a dot that wasn’t white off in the distance. We slowly got closer and I started to feel a weird sense of déjà vu, and I could hear some kind of Russian folk music as we got closer. I could see a tv along with two chairs, big recliners. When we got within about twenty feet Faust called out. “Hey you two, I’m back! Look who came to visit!” with her words, the music paused and two figures stood up. ______________________________________________________________________________ As I watched the two slowly raise, I looked at Dan. I had planned many things for him when I decided to put him in Equestria. But this moment here I knew was my favorite. I’ve always loved happy moments. Some other deities don’t and some call it clichéd but there’s a reason most of my universe are sat in a brightly pastel colored land. His eyes widened as he recognized the two now standing ten feet from us. They were an odd pair recently departed from their original world. When a mortal breathes his last, his soul moves from that plane of existence seeking out its next life in another universe. So one day while looking through the vast cosmos I came across them. They shared a deep emotional connection but bickered constantly, it was heartwarming and yet entertaining. I brought them before me and after a little explanation they accepted the reality of what I told them. It wasn’t long before they were talking to me like I was a lifelong friend. I let them talk about their lives and listened to the wonderful stories they had. The times they shared, the friends they made, and the family they tried to keep together up until their passing. Which is when they asked something of me. They wanted to see a particular member of their family, one they had doted on a little more than the others. Being a mother myself I knew the feeling, even though all of ponydom was my creation I loved my two daughters more than anything in the world, which might have been my reason for making them powerful Alicorns. Opening a window into their universe, I narrowed down on their relative. It turned out that despite his brave face, his life hadn’t been going all that well. Failing grades, a job dragging on his sanity, and then possibly the worst blow of all, he lost the two people that were sitting right beside me. I had seen way too many cases of this, other universes that ended in a sad manner. We continued to watch as his life didn’t seem to get better, but as low as things got for him and as much as he despaired, he kept trying to move forward. He wasn’t the first being I’ve seen in this kind of situation nor would he be the last but watching one being personally was a different experience from searching the multiverse. I don’t know exactly how long we spent watching him but as we did a thought started to form in my head. I had been searching long and far and now I think that I may had finally found the being I was looking for to help me. I turned to the two and told them of my situation. For mortals, their intelligence was pretty good as they picked up on what I was going to ask. I told them of practically everything that could happen to their relative. Of the trials I would put him through. The danger, happiness, sadness, and possible love that would face him. They looked at each other, neither saying a word for a good while before turning back to me with proud and confident smiles on their faces. “He can handle it,” was their unified response. I decided to talk to Bob about these two later on, seeing the mirth they brought. With their blessing I locked on to him and then turned my attention to the universe I would put him in. I knew he watched the show that had sprung up in the human universes, so to him he would not be in the canon universe, but for him it would be so much more. I found Twilight Sparkle asleep, spell books strewn about her library. I found one which could serve my purpose and added an extra page with the spell that would bring forth a great story, and then sat back with the two as we watched everything slowly unfold. And now I was standing here as Dan slowly walked towards the two whom he had even built a small gravestone for, his grandparents. Everything about him was shaky, his body trembled with every step and his breathing was erratic. His grandparent, possibly a little tired of waiting for so long, walked to meet him and when he was close enough, he fell on them in a hug and his dam broke. He began to cry and wail. His emotions were scattered, he was happy at the revelation of his grandparents but also sad knowing of how he felt like he failed them. As he stood there embracing them, his legs looking like they would give out at any second he apologized over and over for things he had failed to accomplish. His failing of school and the case that multiple times he lied to them. Of how he was too afraid to be in the same room with his grandmother when she began to decline. I simply stood there and watched as everything he bottled up was let loose. His grandparents just held him saying nothing, his grandmother, slowly petting him to calm him down. When he finally stopped it was silent except for his ragged breathing. “It’s okay Danner,” his grandfather, Bill, broke the silence, “Do you think we’d really be angry with you?” “Maybe?” Dan replied, his head still hanging, refusing to meet his grandparents gazes. “Dan we’re your family. We may get cross with you but never really angry,” his grandmother, Marie, raised his head so they could see eye to eye. “Besides you know what your punishment would be,” she smiled gently and made him chuckle at her words. “Would you really make me say The Rosary? Even with another deity standing a couple feet from us?” he asked looking towards me, which I took as my cue to approach them. “Oh yes I would, it’s still a punishment. Even with Miss Faust standing here,” she said, bopping him on the head. “Just Faust, Marie. I think we’re friends enough to skip the whole mister or miss thing.” “Oh so you two get to be her friends and I get to work for her….that seems fair,” he gave a sarcastic remark and pouted. “Well if it weren’t for them this conversation and a bunch of prior things would never have happened.” “It really is impossible to argue with a deity, huh?” “Yes, but not because we are good at it but because your vision is limited to only your eyes. But anyways now that you know of how all this came to be we must move forward, and your grandparents must move on as well to their new lives. Such is the way the multiverse works,” I told him, I didn’t want to rip him away from his loved ones, but their new lives awaited them. Dan looked between myself and his grandparents for awhile, he contemplated in silence for a time before nodding. “You’re right, as much as I want to be selfish there’s probably someone else that can use the help of these two,” he said walking over to them and embracing them for the last time. “Except this time I get to say goodbye,” he said. It was a long embrace but unfortunately it had to end. Slowly, Dan let go and took his place beside me. Slowly, his grandparents form became more angelic, a white light seeming to fill them. And Slowly, they lifted of the floor and began to float away, but not before leaving some last pieces of advice. “Now remember Dan. It’s okay to get into fights with the ones you love. It makes life more interesting,” his grandfather said as his wife slapped his arm. “Bill, that is the stupidest advice ever. You can be such an idiot sometimes,” She chided him, causing him to roll his eyes and retort. “Jesus Marie! I shoot peas and you shoot cannonballs!” was the last we heard as they started to argue as their forms disappeared into the ether. ______________________________________________________________________________ I watched my grandparents leave, bickering with each other. And it made me happy, to know that they looked out for me way longer than they had to, and I would always be grateful for that. “Are you ready to move on now, Dan?” she asked, after she’d allowed me a moment with my thoughts, “We have to get to the business part of why you’re here. I want you to imagine a universe as a book, and the story within as its reason for existing. Now say you jumped to any part; beginning, middle, or end and ripped out a page. And then handed someone else the book what do you think would happen?” “I imagine that they would get to the part where the story is missing and then not continue any farther, and leave it to be…forgotten,” my brain started to connect the first few dots. “I think you’re starting to get it now. What I need you for, is to be a sort of…guardian. When I need you, I’ll have you go to different universes and make sure that things are going exactly as they should,” She told me as we walked over to the chairs that were still there and sat down. “And what exactly does that entail?” “Oh a whole bunch of things. Form saving ponies, to fighting dangerous creatures or ponies, to making sure somepony is in the right place at the right time, or if need be rewriting parts of the universe . But nothing that is too major to the overall plot of what is happening to shape that universe, although you can interact in that. And you will be known,” “Ok first off, how exactly will I be known if I’ve never been there before? And secondly…what was that part about rewriting parts of universes?” “Well you will have part of my power, not much but enough to fix some mistakes. Although it will not be yours to use freely all the time, you will need to have permission from at least one of my daughters, both would be preferable but I don’t want to handicap you incase you show up in a universe where they both might not be. As for the first part, do you think with all my power it wouldn’t be easy to go into every universe and insert a legend about a champion I selected and gave power to help ponies when summoned?” “Ok…that sounds…a bit complicated but still acceptable. How do I get to each universe because that sounds like the most difficult part.” “Well deities like me, since we’re bigger in the multiversal scale, can simply go between them at will. But you mortals, on the other hand, can’t simply force your way in. If you ever watched Doctor Who-“ “You really have to stop with the references.” “Says the human who experiences one every day. Plus it’s not my fault, if the humans in your home universe weren’t so afraid of intelligence then maybe your education system wouldn’t be so bad and I wouldn’t have to resort to the references! Now anyway, as I was saying, remember that you can’t simply force yourself into another universe because you could do some damage, so the simple way is to fall into it. When you’re traveling between universes you’ll come to a space like this, except gravity will be a little more…floaty. And like when I send you back to your Equestria you simply feel like you’re going down a long slide, although how you go down it is up to you,” She seemed like she could go on forever with all the knowledge she needed to give me. “Ok what about rules of different universe and such. As much as I like Jarvis I don’t think he’s that good.” “Well…ok I’ll admit on this one I’m completely stealing the idea. I had a talk with some of the other deities before it finally hit me. Consider this as an early Hearths Warming present,” she said as her magic lit up and from behind the chair a rectangle wrapped package floated towards me. “I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea what this could be, I said slowly taking of the wrapping paper which had little scrolls and quills drawn all over it. Upon getting it all off I had in my hands a silver rectangular box. I stared at it and then looked between it and Faust a couple of seconds before she noticed that I was missing something. “That’s the back cover you dingbat, turn it over.” I turned it over to find the same silver metal but this time with some engraving on the front. “The Hitchhiker’s…. You’re kidding!” I said in half disbelief and half giddiness. “Nope, me and Deep Thought worked hard on that to make sure it was just perfect, especially on the narration, that’s what makes it special. It holds information on practically every universe there is in the multiverse. Trust me, that took awhile. Go ahead, open it up and ask for information on anything!” the smile on her face was from ear to ear. “OK let’s see what it’s got,” I opened up and was met with a screen that lit up and in bright white letters held the title. “Umm…” I blanked on what I should ask of it till I looked at Faust and had an idea. “Faust,” I spoke into the book and waited to hear what it gave me. “Faust,” The guide spoke back in an English accent very reminiscent of Stephen Fry, “The deity in charge of every My Little Pony Universe,” it spoke. “Sounds about right,” I said before it continued. “A super cool and chill writer who prefers a home setting to write in instead of a coffee establishment like most mortal writers,” I looked at Faust, one eyebrow raised as I shut the book saving whatever else it had for later. “Really?” “I didn’t put that in there. How about we move on, I only have a little more left to tell you,” she rushed her answer as she blushed. “Fine by me but I’m going to listen to the rest of that later and laugh my ass off,” I told her and got nothing but a nod. “So I do this for however long…do I get a title?” “Yes, but I may change it in the future seeing as what is now is kinda…stupid.” “What is it?” “The Book Keeper.” “You’re making me sound like a famous Las Vegas mafia bookie.” “Well The Pagemaster was taken.” “I actually prefer the Book Keeper to that, never really liked that movie. Anything else I should know?” “Yes, there is the matter of your payment. I’m not one of those deities to save someone from death and hold that over their head for eternity.” “That just proves how ‘cool and super chill’ you are,” I joked. “Shut up,” she said giving me a death glare, “As I was saying, normally with the help of at least one of my daughters you can unlock my power and change things but I think that for your reward, after so many fixes and such you will be rewarded with one free use of my power. I haven’t figured out an exact number but your guide will let you know. Also it will let you know what it may and may not be used on…and besides that I think that’s everything. Any last minute questions?” She got serious for a second as she explained but once she was done she relaxed, it was like when Girl Scouts try to sell you cookies. “Maybe, I think, but I’m gonna let them slide and figure it out for myself,” not that I hadn’t enjoyed everything that happened but I was eager to get back to Equestria. “As it should be, if you were given all the answers it wouldn’t be as fun right?” she asked rhetorically as she used her magic and a portal appeared out of thin air. “Alright, time to send you back. You’re in for a couple surprises when you get back, I’m sure Celestia and Luna will fill you in. Oh and give them this note,” She floated a scroll over to me and I fit it in one of my pockets along with the guide. “And one more thing, when traveling through portals, your momentum and trajectory can be conserved so it’s important to not tr-” was the last thing I heard as my right foot caught the back of my left leg and I went head first into the portal. ______________________________________________________________________________ “-ip..” I watched as Dan did the exact thing I was just telling him not to do. “Oh fudge. I hope he doesn’t come out facing a wall, he’s had enough head trauma as it is…” I said as I walked back over to the chairs, sitting on one and pulling a TV out of the aether. “Well let’s see how this turns out,” I floated a remote up and turned the TV on and after a few seconds an image of Canterlot appeared.