//------------------------------// // 12 - Monkey Business // Story: Poniocracy // by sunnypack //------------------------------// Chapter 12: Monkey Business It is said that Gorlians have quite the temper. Don’t say that to their face. Actually, they have quite the itchy trigger tentacle as well. Don’t say that either, or you might not escape with much of a face left to speak of. Quite a number of intergalactic wars began over what would otherwise have been a friendly afternoon spot of tea joining an otherwise hospitable Gorlian. Some trigger would occasionally feel the itch, and soon enough, another civilisation crumbled to ruin. Wars with the Gorlians tended to end as quickly as they started. It wasn’t really their fault; it was in their genes. Who could blame them? Certainly no one on the receiving end of their tempered trigger tentacles. Evolution favored the Gorlians in this regard. Among friends, a stray plasma blast here or there could soon be forgotten due to their rapid body regeneration. A buddy shoots off your leg for looking at him funny, and you just grow it back. No harm done, except for the splattered mess on the floor and partway up the wall. The Gorlian cleaning service was certainly a booming industry in that regard. This led to another evolution, more on the cultural side, mind you. If a Gorlian found their temper caused an incident, it was customary to give a conciliatory towel as an offering of peace. Well, peace, and also to help clean up the mess. Between Gorlians, this worked quite well. With other species, not so much. They used a lot of towels. ––––– One of the first facts the Gorlians learned after they mastered quantum physics, was that there was uncertainty in everything. Gorlians didn’t trust many things; they didn’t like gambling, they hated board games involving dice, and they didn’t trust the sun would rise the next morning. Certainty, a great Gorlian philosopher by the name of ‘Arrgeeehflu’ rationalised, was simply impossible to attain. Next thing you know, your house could blow up! The Gorlian Home and Casualty Insurance Company denied sponsoring that statement. Still, one hundred percent certainty is a hard thing to obtain and things tend to break certainty in status quo. A good example of this principle from pony culture would be a physics-breaking earth pony, or a shy pegasus with a death stare, or perhaps the meteor that crashed into Zecora’s house just as she returned from an afternoon stroll through the Everfree. “Oh my, bless the stars, fortunate is me. Had I been one step further, there’d be nothing left to see!” Zecora made her way through the various debris of her former home. She regarded the broken halves of her traditional Zebrican mask and worried about the intermingling of dozens of rare potions brewed with care. Her life’s work was bleeding into the hungry maw of the ground. With a despondent sigh, Zecora braced her shoulder against a wooden pillar that made up the outer edges of her hut. She heaved at the pillar to make way for the retrieval of her ornately carved staff and her simple cloak. With a great effort the pillar became unstuck, groaning its last cries of pain before crashing down on the remnants of her potions drawer. There were a few things she had to leave behind and a few things she had to destroy before she could hire a construction crew to reassemble her hut. She doubted she’d find anypony willing to volunteer their efforts, even for the short while, to clear a lot of the heavier debris. The hut had been a fortunate find for her. It had been in disuse, but after a few quick fixes and a bit of potions help it was very liveable, even comfortable. She sighed her eyes sweeping over the ruins again. Now it was all gone. Zecora kicked at the pillar but her hoof barely contained any energy in the strike. Despite that, it still rolled over like a lazy dog. It even made a ‘woof’ sound. Frowning, Zecora turned to leave, but a shiny flash caught her eye. “Hmm, what an interesting find, a moment more and I would have left you behind.” ––––– David wished he'd never heard of the Nightmare Cometh. He reasoned that such a drink was never meant to be ingested by mere mortals. With every sickening lurch of his stomach, he reaffirmed that thought. He tried to get up, but felt queasy, and immediately slumped back down. His hazy vision sharpened momentarily, and he spotted Twilight looking at him with what looked like an expression of concern mixed with a healthy dose of caution. To put her mind at ease, he decided to reassure her with clear, enunciated speech that he was fine. “Oraaaaaggggghhhhuuurrrrrblaaaah,” he waxed eloquently. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect. “I think you need to go to the hospital,” Twilight muttered, David blinked a couple of times in response. ‘I’m fine,’ is what he wanted to say. It came out as, “Rhyme lime!” Then he slumped to the ground. ––––– Twilight backed away a couple of hoofsteps. An echoing giggle distracted her, and she glanced up from the incoherent human to spot Celestia having just as much trouble with Luna. Celestia’s horn glowed as she tried to aim a spell at her sister, but Luna, thinking that it was a game, playfully edged away from her increasingly irate elder sister. “Luna, remain still! Please!” Celestia cried. Twilight had never seen Celestia so frustrated. It made her look so… normal. Luna giggled. “Catch me if you can!” She danced around the chamber. Finally, Celestia gave up on trying to chase her sister and settled on blasting the entire zone with her spell. Twilight looked on, morbidly curious to see what Celestia would have shot her sister with. She sighed in relief when Luna weaved to and fro, pointing an accusatory hoof at Celestia. “No faaaaaair!” she slurred. “Thasss cheeating.” She promptly fell asleep. Celestia levitated Luna next to David and also hit him with the same spell. The human had only half-risen from his seated position before he was hit. “I wazzant gonna ruuun,” he blurted, before joining Luna in the land of dreams. Celestia sighed in relief. “Right,” she said, collecting herself and drawing the drapes of royalty around her shoulder again. “Now comes the hard bit.” “There’s more?!” Twilight gasped. Celestia nodded, trotting towards the inebriated pair. “Yes. Now, Twilight,” she warned in a serious tone, “this spell has some unintended side-effects that might be shocking when seen for the first time.” Twilight’s eyes flickered between David and the Princess uncertainly. “Do you think this is a good idea?” Celestia snorted. She looked like she was at the end of her patience. The look was so foreign that Twilight had trouble identifying it on her face. “Probably not,” Celestia muttered, her horn lighting up. ––––– Alone in the gardens of Canterlot castle, the Cry-pod hummed to itself, listing off a few peculiar ingredients. “One cup of magnesium, one cup of silicon, two cups of iron, two cups of oxygen, half a teaspoon of aluminium, half a teaspoon of calcium, one quarter teaspoon of sulfur… a dash of water and generous stirring, leave unattended for several billion years…” “Hiya there! Whatcha doin?” The Cry-pod kicked itself out of sleep mode. Diagnostics suggested that the sound system was playing while it was in standby mode. If the Cry-pod had a face it would have frowned. Instead it opted to run a few diagnostics programs. The diagnostic programs themselves reported errors in their own software. Oh dear, the Cry-pod thought, how will I know if I’m working properly? Then it thought, I’m thinking about my problems, am I supposed to do that? It then hit the Cry-pod that it was thinking about thinking about thinking. Before a recursion loop could occur it terminated its thought processes. It wondered how organics could deal with that sort of problem. It then registered that it should respond to the life form that asked it a question. The programming compelled Cry-pod to help the organic. All of this happened within the span of a millisecond. To Pinkie—who was waiting for a reply—the response was instantaneous. “Hello.” What? Don’t expect genius conversational material from a machine. “Oooooh, was that a recipe? Is it delicious? It doesn’t sound edible… Maybe you should try adding sugar?” “Sugar is not a required ingredient for a model planet.” “Aww, spoilsport, sugar can be used for everything!” “Disagree. It is illogical to assume that sugar can be used for everything. Highly unlikely.” “You sound a little like Twilight!” “… I do not.” There was an awkward pause. Pinkie stared at the Cry-pod with narrowed eyes. “Okay, maybe a little bit,” the machine replied. It was mildly surprised to feel a little emotion. Had its emotional and personality module been repaired? It was still reporting itself as ‘offline’. “Heeeeey, I have a great idea!” “Will I like it?” the Cry-pod asked. The pod hummed a little. “Will there be more of you?” “Of course! We’re going to have a party!” “Oh please, no.” That confirmed the snarky response test. Pinkie froze in mid-air, she had half-expected to burst into song and dance and throw confetti around. “Ergergah!” was all she could say. “Eloquent.” Sarcasm module check successful. –––––– Have you ever seen a fish out of water? The way it flops around gasping for liquid but only heaving in noxious gas? That’s what David looked like for five whole minutes. Celestia and Twilight both looked on with a mixture of morbid curiosity—it was like watching two pegasi collide mid-flight—and a healthy dose of concern. “Should we do something?” Twilight, took a step forward but stopped as a snow-white hoof barred her way. “No,” Celestia mumbled, watching David do a crab-like dance. “This is a rare opportunity to observe the human’s reaction to a detoxification spell.” Twilight felt like the roles had been reversed. “Oh that sound’s like a good ide— wait! No! We should help him!” Celestia smiled. “Not to worry Twilight, the spell will automatically terminate itself if it gets too extreme.” David started frothing at the mouth. “Or perhaps the spell doesn’t work so well on a human...” Twilight locked eyes with her mentor. “I think we should—” “—Help him, yes!” They both leaped forward, horns blazing. ––––– When David awoke, again (he was doing a lot of that), the first thing he noticed was the cloth jammed down his throat. “Mmmph!” “Oh! I think he’s waking up.” “Mmm! Mmmph! Pwah!” He spat out the cloth and examined it. “What’s this?” he asked in a somewhat belligerent tone. Twilight answered quite cheerfully. “It’s a towel, David.” He looked at the cloth again. Now that she mentioned it, it did look like a towel… “Hang on!” he grumbled. “Why was there a towel in my mouth?” Twilight blinked at him. “Because I put it there,” she said, she paused. “And because you deserve it.” David crushed the towel between his fingers, he found the action quite soothing, actually. Little did David know, towels had special stress healing properties. According to a recent manifesto in the Galactic Council Psychological Journal, crushing towels decreases stress by about twenty percent. Sadly, it didn’t stop High Councillor Zed from strangling the paparazzi. David could feel the towel sapping his anger and calming him down. There must have been a reason Twilight put it there. She wouldn't do anything to harm him… would she? He glanced uneasily at the unicorn seated near him, giving him a calm smile. “Right, I want to know exactly what happened to me,” he mumbled, not quite growling. Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” she said, smirking. “You don’t remember?” David opened his mouth to give a terse reply, but then snapped it shut. Huh, he really couldn’t remember anything except taking that first amazing, horrible, delectable, crazy, delightful, insane sip of the Nightmare Cometh. He resolved to find out how it was made because by heck that was amazing! He refocused on Twilight, realising he had probably zoned out a few moments. “No,” he replied sheepishly. “I guess not.” He hesitated briefly. “And I probably deserved that towel to some degree after I did something while I was on that, uhh, drink…” If Twilight was surprised that David was finally agreeing with her on something, she didn’t give any indication of it. Instead she pulled her face into a stern expression that reminded David of his high school maths teacher. He shrank back. “Well you certainly caused a ruckus in Canterlot and somehow you ended up here. I’m not entirely sure how…” Twilight looked up at the ceiling as she trailed off. David followed her look but there wasn’t any hole or obvious physical passages that could have led into the chamber. “I’ll figure it out later,” she muttered, returning her attention to the sullen human. David hung his head. She brightened. “But,” she continued, waving a hoof to the side of the chamber. Another door, set in auspicious metallic plating, glowed surreptitiously. Surreptitiously because there was suspicious neon lighting around it and a sign that said, ‘Come in and take a look, we won’t bite~’. “That looks entirely suspicious,” remarked David, as he frowned at the too-convenient writing. “I guess we’ll find out when you get to the door,” Twilight shot back cheerfully, dragging him by the hand. David was swept to his feet and he stumbled after the curious unicorn. –––––– Meanwhile, Celestia dealt with Luna’s antics. “I loooooove you,” Luna mumbled, her hooves clinging to Celestia’s neck. Celestia frowned. She was sure she got the purging spell right. “Luna, I think you might need to see a—” “Sister.” “Yes?” “I like stars.” “Luna I can’t see how you can still be intoxicated. I’m sure I got the spell right.” Luna gave a hiccup. “I think it might be the crysssals I put in the drink.” “Crystals, you mean?” Luna nodded emphatically. “But I like to call them crysssals. It sounds way cuter that way!” Celestia could only gape at her sister. Luna was not somepony that acted this way. She glanced around, glad that Twilight and David were the only other beings in the room. Luna leaned close to Celestia. “Want to know a secret?” Celestia sighed. “What is it?” “My sister doesn’t know I’m on Crystals. Shhhhhh!” Celestia gave her an unamused look. “She knows!” Luna gasped, attempting to run away from Celestia. She got a few hoof steps before she couldn’t coordinate her legs and then face-planted on the concrete. Celestia fired up a healing spell and a sleeping spell. Not again. ––––– At the door, Twilight examined the panel. “This mechanism is too complex for me to decipher. Before, I could bypass the locks because they operated mechanically with only a few deadlocks and a couple counter-measures to deal with. Added to the fact that the design is fairly reminiscent of Knox’s design with the thaumatological circuit similar to the design on the pattern-board, I was able to deduce—” David held up a hand to stem the flow of Twilight’s brain-dump. He held a hand to his head. “English please,” he muttered. Twilight blinked at him. “What?” David rolled his eyes. “Translate what you said into something simpler. I couldn’t really follow that.” Twilight looked a little miffed. "It's perfectly understandable to me," she grumbled but gave him a simpler version anyway. "So all I really need to do is have you help me with the lock. I'm a little stumped, but it might be because it needs something from you. It wanted something human, or at least that's what it told me. Anyway, I've been working at this for a while—while you were out—so you're basically my last resort." David poked his finger on the panel. To him, it was a sarcastic gesture, meant to exaggerate the point that he knew nothing of lock-breaking, but the panel beeped a couple of times and confirmed human DNA. The door unlocked with an insultingly simple click. "Well," he said. "That was easy."