//------------------------------// // Act 2 - Chapter 4: With and without Discord // Story: Friends like these // by Istaran //------------------------------// Robert sighed as he opened his backpack to get the textbook out, and a little Rainbow Dash figure fell out onto the classroom floor. It was seen instantly by several other children who started pointing and snickering, so he didn't even bother to pick it up. It wasn't his. One of his new 'siblings' at the foster home had snuck it into his backpack. Robert liked Rainbow Dash. The real Rainbow Dash. And while he had never gotten intimate with her in all his iterations through time, she reminded him a lot of his first marefriend, Thunder Peal. Both were brave, loyal, athletic pegasus mares, around the same age. Robert had gone through adolescence in a world full of ponies, so it was only natural he had eventually tried dating one. The first time had been one of the times he ran away from the 'army man', Ryan, and his forces and just let the world fall apart for a while while he took a breather and just.. lived. He and Thunder Peal had spent over a year together. They had been tempted to marry, but it seemed.. pointless, knowing he would have to unwind time again soon. After that, their relationship had gotten weird. She gave him a letter, one which wasn't for his eyes. It was an introduction he used several times when he met back up with her in other iterations. He'd introduce himself, give her the letter, give her time to read it, then soak up her sympathy for a bit before they started dating anew. It was always fresh for her, but it just got weirder and weirder for him, looping back to the start, trying not to push unfairly fast. She was a good sport about it when he did, but he could always sense it hurt her, underneath her smile. So, one day he burned the letter. She caught him doing it, and he had to chase after her crying. He held her, soothed her, assured her it wasn't because he didn't like her. He ran from the world again that time, and they enjoyed a full year together, but he wasn't going to start over with her again. From then on, he essentially slept around. At most once per iteration, he would find somepony interested enough in him to date, and enjoy what time they had together. He was tender and affectionate with them, but never loved them like he had loved Thunder Peal. How could he? He really tried, but it was just too hard. There wasn't enough time to let them into his heart. Back in the present, he sniffled a bit, and everybody assumed it was because he was withering under the taunting looks of his so-called peers, embarrassed to be outted as a young brony. It was annoying to receive all this taunting, ultimately because he had accidently tipped his hand by answering one of his 'sisters' question about Twilight Sparkle to another, with all the confidence and accuracy of one who actually was familiar with the show. But the sniffles, and the watery eyes, were just a poorly controlled young body responding to the memories of his first and best love, made all the more difficult by the realization that it would be years yet before he was old enough to have a serious relationship again. "Mr Redcliff, can you answer the question?" the teacher demanded, pulling him out of his reverie. It was a simple word problem, and his eyes roved over it quickly, before he answered simply "ten". "Come up here and show your work. You can bring your little doll if it makes you feel better," he suggested sarcastically. How did this guy still have a job? You can't honestly work with ten year olds and get this offended if one gets distracted. In an act of pure defiance, Robert set the Rainbow Dash doll carefully on top of his head, and pretended to be flying, even making wooshing noises with his mouth as he ran up to the board, grabbed a piece of chalk, and wrote up the equation and answer in seconds, before wooshing back. If people wanted to think he was weird, he'd give them weird. It was all far more mundane than the truth anyways. Besides, balancing the little plastic figure added a bit of challenge to what was otherwise a painfully easy assignment. Even with so little formal schooling in his weird loop through Equestria, he had picked up more than enough math to make fifth grade word problems far too easy. English, was another issue, though. Many of the others had had the good fortune to appear in Equestria near a unicorn with the skills to cast a translation spell, and most of the others had simply had some magical effect placed on them by the Text to translate their speech for them. But Daniel and Robert had Items that made it plausible to learn Equestrian the hard way, so they had been left to do so. For Robert, that meant struggle through months of being a child who basically couldn't communicate with anypony verbally, until eventually the words started to take root in his mind. Now, he had spent the majority of his life immersed in Equestrian, and he actually thought mostly in Equestrian to this day. So he had, overnight from the perspective of this world, gone from being a native English speaker to essentially treating English as a second language. It was coming back to him, but he struggled. Not so much as to make a word problem hard, however. Mostly it just came out in him quietly taking a few extra seconds to translate everything back and forth in his head, making everybody think he was 'slow'. His foster parents and case worker assumed it was emotional trauma, from his mother's disappearance. He tried not to contradict that. For one: he dearly missed his mother. And he was happy to have his therapist help him through that genuine grief. But beyond that, he really didn't want to try to explain his life in Equestria to any of them. Except his therapist. His therapist, of course, thought he was completely crazy and making this all up as he went along. Robert did his best not to cross the line with him, and do anything that would risk proving he was telling the truth. He just wanted someone to talk to about it all, and not tease him about it afterwards, and Dr Schrödinger was good for that at least. The good doctor would kindly hear him out on all of his fantastic tales, and then play this little game where he tried to ask questions to draw out the deep emotional meaning of these fantasies. Not once had Robert mentioned his travelling back in time to the doctor, which helped ensure that the doctor never believed him: too many of his stories contradicted each other by virtue of being from different iterations of the timeline. As the school day wound down, Robert kept the plastic pegasus balanced on his head, so consistently that by the end of the day no one was even talking about it anymore. It did deter anyone from socializing with him, though, but that wasn't all that untypical for him even without RD. So at the end of the day, he wooshed out to the traffic loop, where Dr Schrödinger would be waiting to take him to his appointment. For some reason, the good doctor was standing by his car now, talking with a uniformed police officer. It didn't look confrontational, which was good if even more surprising. As Robert approached cautiously, and the doctor responded with recognition, waving him closer, the officer turned to him. "You must be Robert Redcliff. I'm Detective John Miller." "You're the one who was investigating Zeke's disappearance. I'm sorry I haven't written you back. My foster parents are very strict with my internet time, and I couldn't promise to meet with you anyways. Have you found him?" Robert asked, almost losing his passenger from looking up too steeply. "That's right, I'm glad you remembered. Would you mind passing up your normal appointment today to come talk with me?" He added quietly "a certain somepony thought you would be more helpful than most may think." Robert blinked, then nodded, quickly catching Rainbow as she fell from his head. "Purple?" he asked. "Purple," the detective confirmed, before turning to the doctor. "Thank you for waiting with me. I'll take him from here, and get him back home tonight. Sound good?" "Very well, zen, just remember zat his new parents are very ztrict with za curfew, ya," the doctor said with his typical thick accent. "Alright, no problem. Thanks again for your help, doctor." They shook hands, and parted ways, and soon Robert was in the squad car on the way to their interview. Robert was thankfully able to sit in the front, with RD sitting on his lap. "I wasn't really prepared to believe any of it," John confessed once the doors were closed and no one else could hear them, "until Ms Sparkle managed to arrange a video call. Now I have to either believe that someone has gone to incredible lengths to make a photorealistic animated or perhaps animatronic purple talking unicorn just to mess with my head, or that you and your friends did somehow travel to another planet, and left them with the means to connect to our internet." Robert nodded, "I see your problem, there, Officer. I have some even harder to believe things to tell you, whenever you want to hear them. But maybe we should start with how much you know?" John shook his head. "No, we start by getting to the interview room, and starting the recording equipment. I know no one else is going to have an easy time believing you, even after seeing the recording of Twilight's call, but I want it recorded anyways. And then you start from the beginning or what have you. It'll help all of us believe you both if you can confirm each other's stories independently without contradiction." Robert sighed, nodding. "Alright, though my shrink will tell you I have a hard time not contradicting myself. But that's because I haven't told him yet what my 'Cheat code' did." "Cheat code? No, save it for the interview room," John said. When they arrived, Rainbow Dash drew a lot of looks from her position on Robert's head, even without any wooshing noises. Finally, they got into the interrogation room, and got the recording equipment started. "Okay, so first off, can I have your full name, for the record?" John asked as he took his seat. The chair was a bit low to the table for Robert, even with the help of a plastic booster seat they had gotten from somewhere, but he made do. "I am Robert Redcliff, son and only child of Garfield and Rebecca Redcliff, both now deceased." "And, what can you tell me about the night of November 3, 2011?" John inquired. "I can tell you a lot, though you will have a hard time believing it, even with what you know. But I'll just come out and say it. For the record. My mom, Rebecca Redcliff, and I boarded our usual bus home, along with ten other passengers. From front of the bus to back, they were Daniel Holden, my mom, myself, Scott Jones, Frank Cobbler, Monique Ashland, Angelica Ericson, Joshua and Relena Swift, Benjamin Coleman, Zeke Goldstein, and Ryan Smith," Robert began. "That's.. very accurate, are you reading off my list? It's strange for a ten year old to have something like that memorized, don't you think?" John inquired. Robert shook his head, "I'll make clear soon enough how and why I memorized that particular bit of information. Can I continue? Good. We were riding the bus, not expecting anything unusual to happen, when suddenly we were all plunged into darkness. We were each separated into our own dark void, where glowing text appeared to ask us a handful of questions. It asked us where we wanted to go... anywhere, real or fictional it said. We each gave a different answer, before being informed we were going to Equestria instead. No one had picked it, not even Relena, so I don't know why it was picked for us. I think that was meant as a clue, though. Then we were each asked to pick one item to bring with us. These are what Relena later dubbed our 'Cheat Codes'. We each picked something different, some of them obviously very powerful. I picked the Ocarina of Time, from the Legend of Zelda video games. I was a big Link fan back then, and I thought being able to roll back time would be really helpful." "Did you get it? and did it work?" John cut in. Robert nodded. "Yeah. It worked. I'll get back to it shortly. After picking our items, we were each told that our starting location would be chosen based on the power of our item, and then informed that we were to play in a 'survival game', with no clarification on what that meant and dumped into an alien world. At first, I was alone in a desert wasteland, with nothing but my clothes, backpack full of school supplies and the Ocarina in my hand. I knew the songs from the games, and very quickly learned that the Song of Time worked to reset everything back to the start of the game, except myself: I would be transported back to my starting location, but otherwise unchanged. Which is to say that I was the only thing changed by the time I experienced before resetting." Robert paused to give John a bit of time to think that through, or ask questions. At length, John finally asked "how long did you spend, looping through time?" "Fifteen years, give or take. I didn't have a good way to measure the time other than my own growth. I was a good way into adulthood when we finally succeeded at coming home, only to have my growth finally reversed upon my return," Robert replied. "I've heard that since the incident you've struggled a bit with your schoolwork, aside from a few subjects like math. Shouldn't they be a lot easier having been an adult for some time?" he inquired. Robert shook his head. "Most of the others had the benefits of magic to temporarily learn the local language. Since I had time travel powers, I wasn't given that advantage and had to learn Equestrian the hard way. Eventually I became more used to talking and even thinking in Equestrian, and now I have to translate my thoughts back to English. Also, learning a lot of Equestrian history, social conventions, and so forth makes it harder to keep Earth history straight, not easier. Math is the same though. But honestly, I didn't use it that much in day to day life as essentially an adventurer. That's part of why I don't mind going back to school.. I need to learn how to be a human in America, not a human in Equestria. Completely different skillsets. All my hard earned skills with a sword and bow don't do much good here." "So, does that mean you can speak Equestrian for us?" John inquired. Robert nodded and replied with "" in Equestrian. The sound of it came across as a bit ponyish, with a distinct neighing to parts of it, but otherwise roughly in the range of human speech.. but not matching any particular language John could recognize. "Maybe something more specific.." he checked his notes, "how about 'That's alright, Detective, I knew you didn't believe me, so I expected a bit of shock. After all, that's why I wanted to talk to you this way instead of just by email. Is everything coming through clearly? Is the translation all making sense?'" Robert shook his head. "I don't know the Equestrian word for email, I didn't know they even had the concept." "Maybe try to guess how Twilight would word it?" John suggested. Robert nodded and tried using the Equestrian word for 'letters' in its place. "Great, now how about 'Thanks. I hope your investigation goes well, Detective. I especially hope you manage to find Zeke, alive and well,'" he asked. Robert sounded that out as well. Notably, 'Zeke' was just 'Zeke'. "What are you hoping to do with this translation?" Robert asked curiously. "Well, the video call was being translated audibly, so Twilight Sparkle's lips didn't match the sound of her words. If they match the words you gave us, it will be an extra bit of evidence for the reality of this whole situation. If we want anyone to take us seriously, we need all the proof we can get," John answered. "Well, the big proof is going to be Daniel Holden doing something 'villainous' any day now. Probably in downtown Seattle. I don't know what he's planning, but I know it's going to be really obvious, and probably obviously impossible for anyone else to pull off. When that happens, people are going to be open to a lot weirder of explanations than normal," Robert offered. "Do you know what his 'Cheat Code' can do?" John asked. "I'm guessing Twilight wasn't able to give you a good answer on that? His item was a single, self-replicating, nano-machine. I would suggest thinking them as a cross between the Borg nano-probes from Star Trek and the Replicators from Stargate. Basically, his blood is full of little machines that can make more of themselves, or make basically anything they understand. He can control them with his mind, and they make him smarter, like having a computer wired into his brain. Definitely not wiser, though. Normally the main limitation on what they can do is his own inhibitions, but from his last few emails it sounds like his 'dark side' is in complete control, which means he may well do anything, up to potentially destroying or conquering the world," Robert explained. "Are they really that powerful? I mean, we have a pretty powerful military ourselves..." John asked. "I think that if you were to drop a nuclear bomb on the city right now, you would probably eliminate the threat. If you don't, if you start by using cops with pistols and then slowly escalate, by the time you break out the nukes they won't be enough to stop him. Ryan was able to fight him effectively because the soldiers his item created forced a kind of 'video game' logic on the world, that allowed them to shoot and kill microscopic enemies with perfect accuracy. Even then, he had to bust out volleys of nuclear weapons, and that only worked in the timelines where Daniel hadn't started building up far enough in advance. But in the real world, a single nanospiders the size of a human cell is impossible to detect, much less shoot, and I'm not sure a bullet would really stop it anyways." Robert said, obviously getting nervous at the thought. "Well, is there any way we could get a hold of Ryan's item?" John asked, swallowing. He was really hoping this was all BS right about now. A good old fashioned hoax, yep. "No, it was destroyed. And Twilight mentioned to me that the Ocarina is missing, so we can't even unwind time now. You'll have to try to exploit his other weaknesses," Robert said. "What other weaknesses? What do you know?" John asked. "Daniel's dark side, 'Istaran', has something he calls 'chronic honesty'. He doesn't lie, and has a hard time even keeping his mouth shut, especially about things that are directly disadvantageous for him to reveal. He calls it a 'classic villain's weakness'. So, that's the biggest one there. If you email him, he'll probably answer your questions, and if he answers at all it will be honestly. And you can probably get him monologuing anytime you need to buy a little time. Beyond that, you need to figure out what motivates him and use it to your advantage. I know he is fiercely protective of his subordinates. I just wouldn't recommend trying something like taking one hostage though.. it tends to make him vengeful, and he likes to do vengeance with extreme overkill." "Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Should I just email him and ask him what he's planning to do?" John asked. "You could try that. As I said, if he answers it will be honest. But don't mistake that for idiocy. If he tells you, he'll know you know and plan around that fact. His plans don't generally rely on secrecy, considering he is well aware of his own weakness," Robert answered. "Let's try this..." John said, taking out his cell phone. He quickly sent out an email. Daniel Holder, a.k.a. Istaran, What villainous activity are you planning in the downtown area in the near future? Thanks for your quick response, -Detective John Miller Within seconds, a response arrived in his inbox, causing the phone to vibrate before he could even slip it back in his pocket. Detective Miller, Thank you for your cordial inquiry! It's so nice to have a polite adversary, don't you think? Would you like to be my nemesis? It would be so much fun. You don't need to decide right now though. Tomorrow afternoon, beginning at approximately 1pm, I am planning a record breaking bank robbery. Here is the address: (link). I've attached a map of the area with suggested deployment for the police barricade. As per standard policy, don't come rushing in or I'll have to kill the hostages, yada yada. Nobody wants that. Hope to see you there! By the way, congrats on the historical first video call thing! Very nice! And Twilight even got all dressed up for you? They usual go about naked, you know. Looking forward to ruling your city with my great pal, Sombra, -Istaran "Okay, how did he even type that fast?" John asked, "and how did he know about Twilight wearing a dress?" Robert shrugged. "He probably has some kind of internet connection to his brain by now. Maybe he was able to hack into your call somehow?" John shuddered. "Alright. So.. I think it's time I get you home for your curfew. Do you think you'll be up for more sessions with me?" Robert nodded, "it's nice to talk to someone who will actually listen to what I have to say. Though, it's kind of depressing. I was hoping being 10 again meant I don't have to get involved in any more saving the world bullshit." "More popcorn, sun-butt?" Discord asked as he finished off their shared snack. "Surprise me," she requested with a smile, still engrossed by watching their little magical viewing portals into the human world. Earth was completely beyond her ability to reach in any way, but Discord had been able to set up a set of scrying screens for them to watch events unfolding there. Since even the spiders couldn't force her to foresee what would happen on that other world, everything held at least some degree of unpredictability for her, and she was hooked. Ironically, part of the appeal was trying to guess what would happen through simple analysis of the situation and characters involved, and then seeing how close she got. Discord loved trying to be surprising, and could generally accomplish that. The new batch of popcorn looked like any other, but had the chewiness of taffy, and tasted like butternut squash. Celestia gave a delighted moan as she savored the first bite, nodding her approval. "Your friend is getting questioned by the police. Looks like he's going to get things heated up over there soon." "Bah, he's no friend of mine. Hardly even an acquaintance! Though he is quite a curious one to watch," Discord replied. "Well, he freed you, so he deserves some appreciation from both of us for that. And he is a timetraveller with over a decade of looping through time, so that seems like the kind of character you could appreciate," Celestia mentioned. "Really? And I missed that. Well, some things I just won't stand for," he said, lying down. "Go. You can come back to a few seconds from now," she suggested. Discord snapped his fingers and vanished from the local space-time, only to reappear a few seconds later, covered with little square stickers saying 'Equestria' or other various countries around their world. "I'm back, did you miss me?" Celestia pounced him and hugged him tight, panting heavily and dripping with sweat. "I did, I really did. Do you have any idea how many picoseconds that was?!" Discord was shocked and surprised, looking at her wordlessly before she disentangled herself and gave him a playful grin and a wink. He laughed when he realized she was playing with him, or at least playing it up to comical proportions. "Anyways, I got to know little Robby a bit better. Did you know he had a serious marefriend for a few years? Not in the same timeline, mind you, but altogether. Now that's a love story I can appreciate." "Oh? I did not see that coming," she said, though Discord had already clearly tired of her overuse of that line. She used it every chance she got these days. She started clopping her forehooves together slowly. "We should reunite them! I'll call Cadance, she'll want in on this!"