***ACT 3***
A young colt is lying unconscious on the floor of a tunnel beneath his home. He has recently discovered this tunnel after his ancient floorboards finally decided to give way, but has so far been unable to make any meaningful observations about the nature of the tunnel. This is mainly due to the fact that he is unconscious. Another regrettable side effect of his current state is that he is incapable of giving a name by which we might refer to him. But if he was capable of naming himself, he would introduce himself as Star Swirl the Great. Or maybe Star Swirl the Wise. Perhaps Star Swirl the Mighty, although that one was usually reserved for special occasions.
Star Swirl is a unicorn who lives in Canterlot, in a decidedly run-down building. He is a talented magician, and has already created a vast number of spells despite his tender age. Not that his creations are the most important thing about magic, as far as he's concerned. If he was awake, and could see us, he would probably begin his well-practiced rant about the importance of a wizard behaving in a wizardly way. Aside from his technical ability, Star Swirl is a firm believer that showmanship is just as important - which is the reason for the ancient building, the cloak and that he is often found wearing, and his tendency to occasionally use outdated language and/or introduce himself with made up titles. He fully intends to become an old, wise stallion, with a cloak and a staff and a beard and all sorts of magical paraphernalia.
That said, he is not impartial to a good computer game, and also possesses a fair amount of skill when it comes to programming. In fact, he has managed to create a game for his friends by modifying old technology, which he plans to play later. Just as soon as he wakes up. Some of his other friends call his programming skills into question due to his rather pedestrian choice of language, but what do they know? ~ATH is such an unwieldy mess of logical and illogical loops overlapping in imperfect disharmony, it's just not worth the hassle to get it to behave.
Although traditionally a dream self would be awake while the corresponding player was unavailable, Star Swirl's dream self is yet to awaken. Instead, it is sleeping soundly in its dream room around the moon of Prospit, completely refusing to do anything interesting. He will awaken later, in very convoluted and dramatic circumstances, and at that point there will be no end of interesting things for him to do. But for now, observing his dream self would simply be a waste of time.
At any rate, Star Swirl will probably be out of action for quite some time. Maybe we should look at somepony else?
***
A young filly has just returned to her home in Canterlot. She is an earth pony, something of a rarity in the city. But she is far too optimistic to be crushed beneath the disapproving looks which are often aimed her way. Besides, she has more important matters to attend to.
Although she is only vaguely aware of it, she will soon begin to play a game with her sister and their friends. It is going to be just SO GREAT. But before she can do that, this filly is in desperate need of a name.
What could that name be?
On second thoughts, the last thing we need right now is to offend her with any silly suggestions. That would be no way to treat royalty, after all. Not that she is royalty, of course. As everypony knows, Equestria is ruled by a democratic republic consisting of several representatives from all three races. But still, that wouldn't be very nice, so let's just accept that and move on.
Her name is Celestia. As mentioned, she is an earth pony living in Canterlot, and her special talent is... uh... being... sunny? She guesses? It probably doesn't mean that she has a special talent for fusing hydrogen. Clearly, her cutie mark is one of the more symbolic and abstract special talents, rather than any concrete ability. She can't even remember when she got her cutie mark. Weird. Although she is not aware of the game she will soon be playing, she is fully aware of another scheme which is currently unfolding. This is a scheme which she and Star Swirl have been planning, and that she is about to set in motion.
Come to think of it, scheme isn't the right word. It's not like there are any complicated twists or sinister motives involved. She just has to talk to her sister.
[heliacalDreamer began pestering midnightEclipse]
HD: HEY LUNA!
ME: Ah, just the pony I was waiting for.
HD: You were waiting for me?
ME: Yes.
HD: WHY!?
ME: There's no reason to shout. I was waiting to send you this game.
HD: What game would this be?
ME: Swirly's game. The one he was talking about aaaaages ago, remember?
HD: NOPE!
ME: Well, whatever. We're playing it.
Accepting the files which Luna was sending her, Celestia briefly meditated on what this would mean for the plan. If Star Swirl had agreed then presumably that meant everything was going to continue as planned. Or maybe he was just being an idiot because of obvious reasons. The obvious reasons being that he was an idiot. And it was obvious.
HD: I don't suppose you know why he isn't online?
ME: Swirly? I have no idea. He just stopped responding to all my messages suddenly, and then a few minutes later his computer must have put itself on standby or something.
HD: HAH.
HD: And you're sure he's not just hiding because you were annoying him?
ME: I was not annoying him!
HD: OH, SURE.
ME: We were having a perfectly friendly conversation, I'll have you know.
HD: Yeah, I'm sure he was more than happy to make time for you, wasn't he.
ME: And what the hay is that supposed to mean?
HD: NOTHING WHATSOEVER.
HD: I'm just saying, he's always really nice to you.
HD: ISN'T HE.
ME: I don't know. He's not mean to me for no reason, if that's what you mean.
ME: But the same could be said for Golden. Or Silver. Or really, anypony who isn't you.
Hm. Maybe this would be harder than expected. Or maybe Luna was just being dense for ironic purposes. Celestia found it annoying how difficult it was for her to understand her sister, although she supposed that she was probably just as hard to understand for Luna.
HD: Hey, calm down, I'm just speaking my mind. NO BIG DEAL! It's just what I've noticed.
ME: Well, your opinion is acknowledged. And then discarded immediately.
HD: OH MAN I'M JUST SO DEPRESSED NOW THAT LUNA REJECTED MY PROTIPS.
HD: But seriously, why don't you just talk to him about it when he gets back.
ME: Talk to him about what?
HD: HOW ARE YOU SO DENSE!?
HD: About how he's so nice to you.
ME: I just said that I haven't noticed him being excessively nice to me in particular. He's just a nice guy to everypony.
HD: WOULD IT KILL YOU TO ASK?
ME: Why are you getting so worked up about this?
ME: Is this some kind of misguided attempt to use reverse psychology to dare me into talking to him about some kind of obscure shipping fantasy you've got?
ME: Because if you admitted that then I would just want to go and talk to him immediately.
HD: At least I'm better at reverse psychology than you are.
ME: You do realise that I just won, right?
HD: YOU DID NO SUCH THING.
ME: Whatever. I'm going to go and search for food. You can install that game, I guess.
HD: Fiiiine.
[heliacalDreamer ceased pestering midnightEclipse]
All things considered, that could have gone smoother, but Celestia couldn't pinpoint exactly where the conversation had abandoned any genuine attempt to follow the plan. She suspected that was because the conversation had only ever been about her ongoing series of increasingly childish/ironic arguments with her sister. Achieving the intended outcome for Star Swirl would have been a bonus, sure, but it wasn't a big deal for her. Not when she had more important things to be doing.
Most of these things were alcoholic.
***
Star Swirl was not particularly happy. Not ony had his floor collapsed, but he was in no fit shape to teleport out of the tunnel he now found himself in. The only option left available to him, it seemed, was to wander aimlessly around the undergound paths he had discovered until one of them led back to the surface. And that was just what he was going to do. Nopony got between him and playing a game with his friends. Nopony. Not even gravity.
***
A unicorn living in Manehattan is currently burying his head in his hooves, after entirely failing to properly communicate with one of his friends. As a result, she is still simply a friend, rather than anything more than that. Still, she could potentially be even less than a friend, which is one of the reasons why he completely failed to talk to her properly.
Shipping is confusing.
His name is Golden Shine, and he - like so many others in the world - has a variety of interests.
Golden is not known for his eloquence and skill with words, but regardless he has a quiet fondness for riddles. Riddles are awesome. If there was some kind of contrived situation in the future when the life of his friends depended on his ability to answer a riddle, then he would have no trouble. Still, he can't imagine anything like that actually happening. Riddles are still awesome, though.
Another of his interests is food. All kinds of food, but most especially pies. All kinds of pies, but most especially apple pies. Oh man, apple pies. Apple pies are literally the greatest thing ever. If there was any one reason why one of the founders of Equestria, arguably the six most important ponies to have ever lived, was an apple farmer, apple pies were that reason. Golden wasn't sure exactly how much the founding of Equestria had to do with apples, but there had probably been apple pies involved somewhere along the line. And they were probably delicious.
In fact, it is Golden's love of apples that earned him his cutie mark. A solid gold apple, although exactly what it was supposed to mean he didn't know. Did he have a special talent for eating apples or something? Whatever, it probably wasn't important.
Before he could contemplate any further interests, however, Silver returned to her computer and began messaging him. Golden gave himself one final kick in the brain - figuratively speaking. He was doing this, he was not going to be a complete idiot. He had this conversation sorted. No problems.
[suspiciousSeraphim (Ss) began pestering eclecticSage]
Ss: I'm back!
ES: oh, HEY
Ss: So...
Ss: Have you decided to tell me what you're thinking yet?
ES: yeah i have
Ss: Oh. Good. I wasn't expecting that, but OK sure.
Ss: So, what is it?
ES: the answer is YES
Ss: The answer to what?
ES: last time we met up, and you were asking if i wanted to hang out
Ss: Oh, right...
ES: the answer to that is YES, yes i would
Ss: Ah. Good, that's good. Not like a date or anything, of course.
ES: .... silver
ES: i have an idea
Ss: What?
ES: how about neither of us give a flying fuck whether or not this is a date
ES: or whether we would agree to it if it was
ES: and just hang out, which is all that you were asking IN THE FIRST PLACE
Ss: ...
Ss: You know, that sounds like a really good idea.
ES: GREAT
ES: ^^
Huh. Apparently he had made it through what he had wanted to say without fucking up. That was... convenient? It was unlike the Universe to allow things to go so well for him. It was almost suspicious, although Golden wasn't about to complain. Maybe it was just his luck finally balancing out?
Ss: You know, in a few days there's a comet due to pass right across Fillydelphia.
ES: oh?
Ss: I was going to stay inside and try to use its power to open a gateway into the doom weary realm...
Ss: But I suppose we could go out and take a look.
Ss: If that's cool with you.
ES: YEAH, that sounds awesome
ES: were you actually going to do all that weird eldritch stuff you always talk about?
Ss: Heh, maaaybe.
Ss: You'll never know! :D
ES: ^^
Well, that went better than expected. This run of not screwing up was incredibly unsettling. Even so, he was feeling better with himself now that that had been taken care of.
***
After wandering through the dark for quite some time, Star Swirl was beginning to wonder exactly what these tunnels were actually for. Surely there wouldn't be a network of underground passages beneath Canterlot for no reason. And the markings on the walls were rather strange as well, apparently consisting of random combinations of turtles, crocodiles, and some other animals that he couldn't identify. As he pondered their meaning, it suddenly occurred to him that he could see wall carvings when he should have been in almost total darkness. Exactly how he hadn't noticed the faint orange light which was filling the tunnel, he had no idea.
Running down the steadily brightening tunnel as cautiously as possible, Star Swirl was unsure of whether he should feel relieved or frustrated as the path opened up into a large chamber. Although he had actually found something other than endless tunnels, which was reassuring, a few quick glances around the room told him that there were no other exits. So he had been going the wrong way the entire time. Having spent the best part of an hour wandering around, he was not about to turn around and head back the way he had come. Instead, he decided to investigate the chamber.
Immediately drawn to the centre, he slowly approached the large statues which surrounded a central platform. The entire setup looked like it was some kind of temple, to something or other. And, looking more closely at the six statues, he realised exactly what it was.
As he stood on the large round platform in the very centre of the chamber, and rotated clockwise, he mentally checked off the list as his gaze passed each statue. Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity. The six founders of Equestria. He suddenly understood very little. Why were statues of the six founders in a temple underneath Canterlot, surrounded by drawings of reptiles?
And why, for that matter, was the platform beneath him suddenly glowing red? Suddenly looking down as he noticed the glow, Star Swirl realised that the entire platform now bore the symbol of a large red cog. Whatever it meant, it seemed almost familiar to him, and for a few moments he was frozen in place as he stared down at the glowing shape.
And then everything went crazy.
***
A unicorn is in her room in Fillydelphia, having just finished talking to one of her closest friends. And when she says that he is a friend, she means that he is a friend. Seriously, those two are just so friendly. Their friendly friendship is just a testament to the power of friendship when you believe in your friends. Wow. So friendly.
Her name is Silver Heart, and her interests - although varied - are a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, she has more than a passing interest in matters of the occult. Some would call it an obsession; she would call it an appreciation. Regardless, she finds all incarnations of dark magic and grim legends fascinating. She often attempts to perform summoning’s, which is the closest to full-blown dark magic she can get without breaking the law. So far, none of her attempts have worked. Maybe demons just don't take her seriously or something?
One reason why that may be the case is that Silver also enjoys going out with her friends. That is, she enjoys hanging out with her friends. Not 'going out' as in dating her friends. She doesn't do that, because all her relationships with her friends are exclusively friendly. Where did you even get the idea that she wants to go out with her friends, that's what she wants to know. Really, the very idea is almost laughable. Haha. Friendship, on the other hand, is incredibly serious business.
Silver prides herself on being one of the few ponies in her circle of friends that has a cutie mark which makes perfect sense and doesn't have any hidden meaning behind it. It's a camera. She's good at using cameras. It doesn't get much clearer than that. Cameras are just so cool. Or at least, using them is. Silver doesn't appreciate having photos taken of herself, that's just not OK. Even so, Silver does sometimes wonder why so many of her friends have vague or unfitting cutie marks. Take Luna, for example. She had a moon. What the hay was that supposed to mean? Was she a werepony? Then again, it was only a crescent moon, not a full moon.
It was at that moment that Luna decided to message her, which was thoroughly disconcerting.
[midnightEclipse began pestering suspiciousSeraphim (Ss)]
ME: Hey Silver.
Ss: Luna!
Ss: To what do I owe the pleasure?
ME: I came to give you this...
Ss: Huh. What's that?
While their conversation continued, Silver quickly began to download the files Luna was sending her.
ME: Remember at that picnic we had ages ago?
Ss: Urgh, why has everypony been talking about that today?
ME: They have?
Ss: Yeah, I was just talking with Golden about it.
ME: Ah.
ME: Why, what was he talking about?
Ss: Well. That is.
Ss: Yeah.
Ss: So anyway, what about the picnic?
ME: *raises eyebrows*
Ss: You can do whatever you want with your eyebrows.
Ss: Just tell me what the point is.
ME: The point is, do you remember the game Swirly was talking about?
Ss: Vaguely.
ME: Well, it's finally happening.
ME: As soon as he gets back, that is.
ME: In the meantime, I'm going to send it to Golden.
Ss: Oh, right. OK.
ME: I'll talk to you again in just a bit, OK?
Ss: Yeah, sure.
[midnightEclipse ceased pestering suspiciousSeraphim (Ss)]
In all honesty, Silver couldn't remember anything about a game. Still, it could be fun. Especially since Golden would be playing.
By which she meant that if Golden was playing then there would be one more friend playing than if he wasn't. And more friends is better. Because of how friendly they are.
Friendship. So great.
***
"Urgh... head. Ow." The first thing that Star Swirl noticed when he eventually woke up was the sunlight which burned into his drowsy eyes, causing him to cry out in pain. Or at least, it would have done if he hadn't been so tired, so instead he simply grunted in annoyance. Then he tried again, and was greeted with an unexpected sight.
He was standing in an area which was recognisable as Canterlot, minus most of the buildings. A few, such as the large building where the leaders of Equestria met to discuss whatever it was that they discussed. Star Swirl had never paid much attention to politics, especially when he was busy figuring out exactly why half of Canterlot was missing. Before he could investigate, however, a bright pink earth pony appeared out of nowhere, grinning maniacally.
"Hi!" Pinkie Pie cried, causing Star Swirl to fall backwards in confusion. "I'm Pinkie Pie, and you must be new here because I've never seen you before, but you look nice and friendly so let's be friends, can we be friends? Oh please say we can be friends, I love being friends! Friends are my favourite!" As she spoke, Pinkie happily bounced on the spot, saying one word as she kicked off of the ground and another as she landed again. Star Swirl just stared up at her in shock. "Is that a no? Why, stranger, whyyy? Is it the bouncing? The hair? I can change, I swear, just give me another chance!" Her act would probably have been more convincing if she wasn't beaming madly at him.
"I. Uh. Hello. I'm Star Swirl," Star Swirl managed, somewhat perplexed by Pinkie's erratic behaviour. It wasn't what he would have expected from a national hero. Then again, he wouldn't have expected to ever meet her. On a related note, what the hay had just happened? "I don't suppose you know how I got here?" He asked, although he already knew what her answer was going to be.
"Of course I do!" Oh. Maybe he didn't. "You time travelled from the future!"
"Ah. Uh." Despite the fact that the idea made a worrying amount of sense, he couldn't help but feel a little confused. He had made several attempts to do what some of his peers had termed 'breaking the time barrier', but sadly they had all ended in failure. Some more painfully than others. The fact that he had apparently managed it entirely by accident was both encouraging and irritating. "How... how do you know that?" In response, Pinkie jumped unnervingly close to him, and sniffed deeply.
"Smell that? That is undeniably the smell of negatively charged tachyons. Hence, time travel from the future." Warily, Star Swirl followed her example. The smell of cinnamon filled his nose. "Or possibly delicious pastry," Pinkie admitted. "Which is just as exciting."
"Right. Um." Well that was that, Star Swirl decided. Now he was in an interesting position. He could learn so much about the founding of Equestria. This was kind of a big deal. Only the vaguest bits and pieces were known about this time, when six ponies had changed the face of the planet forever. Working alongside each other, they had brought all the races to work and build together. And from that, many great things had happened. The first tentative steps towards the first computer were made, the council had been formed, and all of them had in some way contributed to the peace which came to the land. Specifically, Pinkie Pie... if memory served, Pinkie Pie had - among other things - made a lot of spookily accurate predictions about the future. And as far as Star Swirl could tell, she definitely showed every sign of knowing a lot more than she should do considering her time period. It was kind of unnerving, if he was being honest. "I don't suppose I could ask you a few-"
"No!" Pinkie cut short his request, an alarmed look on her face. "There's no time, you have to get back to your friends!"
"Uh." There were a few problems with her demand that Star Swirl noticed. In the first case, he couldn't actually time travel. Not properly, and certainly not reliably. A few failed experiments didn't count. And in the second case, how did she know about his friends?
"You're playing a game with them, aren't you?" Pinkie asked. Although a little taken aback by her worrying knowledge, Star Swirl nodded. "In case you haven't realised it yet, that game is incredibly important. You have to get back and play it straight away. The fate of more than one Universe depends on it!"
"Wait. If time travel is involved, then surely it doesn't matter when I leave?"
"You'd think so, but it's all relative. Every second you spend here is a second missed in your time." That still made no sense, Star Swirl thought to himself, but he wasn't about to try to argue with one of the founders about temporal mechanics.
"Is there any point in asking how you know all of this?" Pinkie thought for a moment.
"Nope!" Of course. It was an act of sheer optimism to ask the question in the first place. That still left one or two questions, however.
"So... uh. How do I get back?" Even as he said it, he found the answer - the ground beneath him once again lit up with the familiar red cog; presumably whatever mechanism had launched him into the past in the first place was about to reel him back to the present. "Oh." He looked up from the cog at Pinkie, who was still beaming happily. "Uh, goodbye then? I guess?" Suddenly, her eyes widened.
"Oh! Oh, waitwaitwaitwaitwait! I need to give you this! It's super important!" Seemingly summoning a box out of nowhere, Pinkie reached into it and triumphantly retrieved a large sceptre. It was solid black, and somehow it was levitating 10 glowing white orbs around itself. Whatever it was, Star Swirl was getting a strange feeling from it. Something told him he didn't want anything to do with it. When Pinkie handed it to him, though, he lifted it out of her hooves all the same. "Listen very, VERY carefully. When you begin playing the game, you'll see a glowing ball of light. It's called a kernelsprite, and you'll all get one. You'll all have to throw something into it before continuing, and when it's your turn, you need to use that sceptre. OK?"
"Why? What will it do?" Despite his misgivings about the sceptre, Star Swirl quietly placed it into his sylladex.
"I can't tell you that. All I can tell you is that it is very, VERY important." Pinkie smiled again, her task apparently complete. "Anyway, goodbye Star Swirl!"
"Yeah, OK."
"Oh, and remember: no matter what happens, you can never EVER let Golden-"
And then the steadily increasing red glow engulfed him entirely, and he was sent flying across centuries, back to the future.
***
A pegasus is in her home in Cloudsdale, and has been patiently waiting for her turn to be introduced into the story. So let's get right onto that.
Her name is Luna, and she is about to play a game with her friends. She has spent the last few hours sending the game to everypony or otherwise preparing, but has yet to discover the exact nature of what the game is or how to play it. All she knew was that, whatever game it was, it was apparently huge. In the time Star Swirl had been gone, the game - calling itself 'Sburb' - had barely had time to install itself onto her computer. And, upon attempting to open it, she had discovered that the two programs (the client and the server) each required another player using the other program in order to run. Apparently this game was exclusively multiplayer. She made a mental note to ask Star Swirl about it when he got back from his suspiciously long tea break.
Speaking of Star Swirl, Luna wasn't sure what Celestia had been implying earlier. She suspected it was just another attempt to get under her skin, but even so she found herself pondering how Star Swirl acted around her. Was he always nice to her? Luna liked to think that she would have noticed, but the more she thought about it the less sure she was. Maybe she would have to talk to him about it, after all. The fact that she was spending most of the day waiting for Star Swirl was not lost on Luna, although she was sure that it wasn't important.
And then the unicorn in question returned.
[midnightEclipse began pestering amniomorphicWizard]
ME: Swirly!
AW: Luna!
ME: Tell me, where - and I mean this in the nicest way possible - the FUCK have you been?
AW: Erm. Well, I could tell you. But I'm not so sure you'd believe me.
ME: Try me.
AW: My floor collapsed, and I was forced to spend several hours wandering through pitch black caverns.
ME: Oh. Well, that's kind of amusing, but perfectly within the bounds of random stuff that happens for no reason. Why wouldn't I believe you?
AW: I wasn't done.
ME: Ah. Carry on then.
AW: So, I was walking through these tunnels for ages, and then I find this temple dedicated to the six founders buried underneath Canterlot.
ME: Right...
AW: And then I ended up being sent back in time somehow, had a brief conversation with Pinkie Pie...
AW: And yes, by "Pinkie Pie" I do mean Pinkamena Diane Pie herself.
AW: Then I got pulled back into the present, and the whole wall of the cave opened up and I got out.
AW: After that, I ran back here.
ME: I see.
ME: Um. I want to believe you, but.
ME: Well.
AW: It's not very believable, I know. Especially since I told it so terribly.
ME: Ah, never mind.
ME: At the end of the day, does it really matter what happened?
ME: Whatever it was, you're here now.
AW: Yes, I suppose you're right.
ME: I've sent everypony the game while you were gone, although I wouldn't expect them to be ready yet given how long it took me to install it.
ME: It's all ready on my computer, though.
AW: Good, that's very good. I'm beginning to think that this game is a lot more important that any of us realise.
ME: Why?
AW: No reason in particular, just something that Pinkie said.
ME: Heh.
ME: Anyway Swirly, now that you're here...
ME: Shall we?
AW: I thought you'd never ask.
ME: ;)
ME: Let's get this show on the road.
***
ME: Let's get this show on the road.
Retrieving the black sceptre from his sylladex, Star Swirl placed it next to him as he and Luna connected their respective programs. He still had a bad feeling about it, but he was prepared to trust Pinkie's word in this case. Especially since, as he had discovered while rushing towards his home through the streets of Canterlot, this game really was serious business. Turning absently to the window next to his computer, quickly stuck his head outside and glanced upwards. Just as before, the rapidly growing
meteor refused to deviate from its path. Which, unless he was mistaken, was directly onto his home.