//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 - Rage // Story: Nature of The Experiment // by Cracked Egg //------------------------------// It was being sarcastic, wasn't it. When it said, "PROBABLY NOT", it was referring to my comment earlier about not taking this seriously. Arceus dammit, MISSINGNO. ... Oh well. As I hovered in front of the styrofoam hole, I noticed a few of them had already began to fall out, or just disappear entirely. While I will say I flippin' called it, I'd also say that the barrier is actually doing pretty good. I would describe more, but it's been a long day. A very long day full of books and reading. Now I must do more reading. Someone knock me out already. Yeah, I know I had energy earlier, but no one told me the tiles shifting meant it'd be nigh-impossible to fly anywhere in the place! It took forever. I ducked just in case something somewhere decided to grant my wish, and sure enough, Rainbow Dash whizzed past my head. She slammed into the wall of packing pellets, and the noise was muffled due to them being styrofoam. I flipped through the pages in the book I had, the thirteenth one in the series, and started my research aloud. "Let's see. Says here 100Miles had an issue with a portal. He needed to close it, but with no Void Star, it was a lost cause. Something something, I need caffeine, machine that will replicate the effects of a Void Star." I paused, and turned the book upside-down, then right side up, just to make sure I was seeing the diagram on how to build it correctly. "Okay, what even is this?" ROBLOXia has some weird physics, and that is clearly shown by this machine. There's a couple of materials called Trusses, some average blocks found on the planet, and a disco ball or two. I had a double take at that, but yes, disco balls are a component. The primary one, in fact, because it seems to act as a battery. This is complete bullcrap. My eyelids drooped slightly as I tried to memorize the picture. Rainbow Dash had already recovered from... from... hitting the... barrier... foamy... You know what? The ground seems to be a pretty comfortable option right now. I zipped open the backpack, and while fumbling with the book, put it back in. I closed it, then headed to the ground. Dropping it near a tree, I laid down to rest from all this crap that's been happening. Sure, I had been knocked out a few times, but it wasn't completely restful. Rainbow Dash and MISSINGNO. both were flying down to me, with Dash showing a bit of worry, as I drifted off to sleep. [|||] "soo, cann i giet oiut now?" The guards resisted the urge to walk into the cell, behead her, and get it over with. Naked Pigeon had been asking the exact same question for the past hour or so, and it was becoming grating on their nerves. The strange pegasus had tried to use her spacious mane full of items to escape several times, but the guards caught her in the act while she was doing so, mainly because of her singing. She was now sprawled out across her cell's cot, twirling her tail with a hoof in boredom. The barred door creaked open, and a royal guard beckoned her to follow. Pigeon complied, but when she had attempted to fly out of her prison, she fell flat on her face. The guard simply picked her up with a levitation spell, while eyeing the mare with obvious distaste. Three more guards joined in the escort, and received a few looks from the maids as they carried their prisoner along. Once they reached the throne room, which was simple considering every pony had been cleared out, the guards already present told them to halt. One of them walked up to Pigeon. "Princess Celestia is currently in a meeting. If you wish to wait here, do so." One of the escort guards tried to reason with him. "This prisoner has been causing trouble, and we need to see the Princess at once!" He leaned in near his fellow guard. "Also, Iron Horn, we're still up for drinks later if you let us in." The guard, Iron Horn, brightened up at this, and pointed a hoof towards the doors. "Alright fine, but if Princess Celestia has a fit over it, it's on you." The doors groaned open through aid of a magical aura, and the escorts plus one Pigeon entered the throne room. In which Celestia was in the process of strangling Discord with a pool noodle. [|||] I swear, I just cannot have a normal night's sleep. After falling to dream land for no reason at all, I woke up in the mindscape and found out it wasn't random at all. I was laying on a grassy field, with a large weeping willow tree swaying in the cool breeze next to me. A certain blue alicorn was standing over me, the sky above her reflecting her irritation. The lunar Princess was glaring at me, and I just blinked a few times. She abruptly kicked me into the air, righting me immediately. "Well, it appears thou hath been busy." I rubbed the back of my head, not that I needed to, and groaned. "Hello Luna, how are you doing?" I went back to the Y-pose, and spun around. "I'm guessing a lot of things have happened so far, am I right? Sorry I couldn't be there, really now, I just had my own problems to deal with." I gestured behind me, while Luna scowled. I turned my back to her, and began hovering away. "So, if you'll excuse me, I need to get an actually worthwhile rest here. Cya!" I disappeared over the horizon... ...and ran right into an alicorn. "OH COME ON!" Luna snorted, and grabbed me with her aura. The day in the dream quickly became night, the moon acting as if it were an eyeball that was silently judging me. "Thee cannot abscond from thy mistakes forever." I sighed, going limp. "I know, but there's just too much happening at once. I can't keep track of it all, nor deal with it." I shrugged, and pointed at the moon. "Besides, from my experience, these types of ordeals sort themselves out pretty nicely." The moon shimmered, a gold hue forming on it's surface. Luna squinted, glancing between me and the moon. "Despite appearances of events settling, tis' not an excuse with which to shirk thou's responsibilities." The dream around us slowly began to fade into ones and zeros, the binary code ascending towards the heavens. "Oh, believe you me, I've been busy alright. I've learned a crapton, and I'd love to share it." Luna released me, as the various shades of light blue numbers became computer terminals and filing cabinets. I hovered over to a cabinet, and opened it. Rummaging around inside it, I retrieved the file, and threw it to the alicorn. She caught it in her magic, and rifled through the document. Her eyes widened at what she was reading. I floated over to her, and wrapped a flipper around her neck. "So, what'cha think?" She didn't answer, instead opting to light up her horn. The room fell away, and we were now in the depths of space. I looked around, and saw she was on the page that contained information about Artemena Erratica and it's planets. Luna was trying to recreate it. "Uh, Luna, you might not want to strain yourself there. It's kind of complicate-" She interrupted. "Quiet! We are concentrating." The solar system slowly formed around us. Equeia was now in front of Luna, and it's true sun exploded into existence next to it. Luna's face held a perplexed look to it for a moment as Argon appeared nearby, and the planets began orbiting. Their moons also appeared, with Equeia's solar moon lighting up like a bulb. I watched the system take it's course like clockwork, the two moons providing day and night, whilst the true sun sustained the rest. Luna and I were in awe at the magnificent beauty, the absolute genius of such a design. I broke the silence. "It's amazing." The alicorn was in silent agreement, as we both observed the turn of the planets. I then thought of something. "Luna, we're in a dream, meaning I can edit it as well?" Luna nodded, not taking her view off of her home planet for a moment. I pointed a blue arm at the true sun, and wanted. My pure intent directed at the star caused it to collapse, leaving the two planets in the dark and adrift. Luna was appalled I would do such a thing, but it didn't stop there. The two planets suddenly started moving closer to each other, until Argon had started orbiting Equeia. Their moons had also began to orbit around both of the planets, each moon trading off to the other planet once they were in range, almost like an atom. "Intriguing. At the loss of a star, a new kind of system takes it's place." Both Luna and I simply floated there in the endless expanse as I played music, not wanting to move at all, lest we dare ruined the spectacle before us. [|||] A few minutes before Naked Pigeon's trial... WHAM! The clean ground of Canterlot's road had been mercilessly crushed and cracked under Princess Celestia's landing. Luna touched down just behind her, being close enough to calm her yet far enough to prevent getting involved. They both trotted through the streets, not answering any kind of reverence the ponies present had given. Instead, they were heading towards the lawn chair with an umbrella over it. Within the lawn chair, was a sunbathing dragonequus. Celestia angrily stomped up to him. "Discord." Discord lowered the sunglasses he had on, and feigned surprise. "Oh, Celestia! My, I didn't realize you'd be coming." The chaos entity winked at her on the last word, while Celestia simply stood still, scowling. Discord saw this wasn't going to go anywhere but horribly, so he went for a different approach. He folded up his sunbathing mirror and snapped his talons. In place of the lawn chair and umbrella, there was a large inflatable pool. Discord motioned to it. "Care for a swim?" Celestia was about to scold him, when she noticed a lack of weight on her body. She checked herself, as her regalia was now replaced by a blue swimsuit. The Princess glared at Discord with even more vehemence than before, and he cringed. "Now, now, I think that swimsuit looks wonderful on you! How about we bring in a pool noodle too?" He summoned a foam noodle, and tossed it into the water. Celestia was furious, steaming even, but Discord wasn't about to let up. "Really now Tia, I think a bit of relaxation is just what you need to soothe those frayed nerves of you-GAHGHGHG!" The spirit of chaos was cut off in both voice and wind pipe as Celestia had wrapped the noodle around Discord's throat, keeping him aloft in the air via her golden aura. She spoke sternly and evenly, like a mother telling her son he had screwed up for the last time. "Discord. I have had enough games today." The angry Princess pointed at the floating mass of styrofoam covering the dimensional rift. "Now fix this." Discord tried to gulp, but his Adam's Apple was stuck on the noodle, so he simply spat it out onto the ground. He felt the foam noodle tighten far more than a regular pool noodle should, and he was starting to get nervous at how Celestia was reacting. "Tia, you flatter me, you really do. You've cleared stepped up your game since last time, but is this really how you should go about this?" Discord carefully pointed at the crowd of ponies spectating their ruler strangling the dragonequus. Celestia looked at them, and felt a pang of guilt seep into her. "I really don't think they'd appreciate it." The white alicorn squinted, not moving for some time. Without warning, she cantered off, with Discord in tow. Celestia was headed for the throne room, and there was nothing that was going to stop her. Luna frantically tried to keep up, but failing that, decided to return to her quarters. She grumbled all the way there. "Tis' too late in the day for this tomfoolery." Meanwhile, the throne room doors were nearly blown off their hinges as Celestia stormed inside. She held Discord in front of her, like a kid eyeing a pinata right before he puts on the blindfold and swings. The spirit of chaos knew he could simply teleport away from the alicorn, but he was far too amused to not see exactly where this would lead. "Well Celestia, now that you're out of the judgmental eye of your precious populace, how's about we try that pool agai-HURK!" The pool noodle tightened even further as to shut him up. Celestia hadn't stopped staring intently at him for the whole way, and was clearly in deep thought. She finally spoke in a low tone. "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Discord raised an eyebrow at that, and chuckled heartily. "Ah, that's a good one, Tia! Maybe we could trade menacing lines! Oooh, now wouldn't that be fun? Here, listen to this!" He struggled to clear his throat, but did so anyway, and spoke in a ridiculously gravelly voice. "Twilight Sparkle, I am your father!" He switched to a high-pitched voice. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-AUGH!" The pool noodle, and Celestia, were still intent on trying to squeeze the life out of the chaos spirit. He rubbed his sore neck, and shrugged. "Fine then, do with me as you will." Celestia was about to toss Discord through one of the windows, but stopped as soon as she heard the throne room doors open. "Princess?!"