//------------------------------// // Incubation // Story: My Little Praetor: Phthisis is Magic // by FanOfMostEverything //------------------------------// Fluttershy raced back to the library, a friend's need driving her to speeds she'd never even dreamt of. Her heart raced, her lungs burned, and her wings ached, but she still flew her fastest since the Cloudsdale resupply waterspout. A continual chant of "Oh my goodness" gave her a rhythm by which she could push her nearly exhausted body to its limits and beyond. When she collapsed, a small, petty part of her was rather put off to see that she was still the last one there. Most of her was more concerned with the sudden absence of her destination. "Wh-where's... the... tree?" she panted. "Dang if Ah know," answered Applejack, "but it looks like Twilight done tricked us good." She glowered. "When Ah get mah hooves on that mare—" "Get in line," growled Pinkie Pie. Yes, Pinkie Pie. The other Bearers, each wearing her respective Element, looked at her, astonished by her uncharacteristic vitriol. "Um, Pinkie?" Dash said uneasily. "You feelin' okay there?" "Long story," grumbled the party pony, her expression sour. She turned from the site of the vanished library and marched away purposefully. The others followed her half out of herd instinct, half because they had no other leads. "Normally, I'd explain it in as oblique and metareferential a way as possible, but now I've got more pressing concerns." "Such as?" prompted Rarity. Pinkie groaned. "Don't get me started. I've got a planar counterinvasion to plan, a protagonist to alert, foreshadowing to provide, red herrings to slip, and an order of five dozen red velvet cupcakes that needs to be filled in a few hours. Thanks to Twilight, my schedule is more overstuffed than a morbidly obese eclair!" Dash frowned in confusion. "What's Twilight got to do with... well, whatever it is you just said?" The poofy-maned mare followed suit. "Wait, you didn't know?" A moment later, she shook her head in disgust. "Ugh, of course you don't know. That's the point." She gave a long-suffering sigh. "Be thankful, girls. Medium awareness can be a heavy burden." With that, she ducked into an alley and out of view. When the other four ponies followed her, it was empty. "Pinkie did seem even Pinkier than normal to you guys, right?" asked Rainbow Dash. "That wasn't just me, right?" This got a trio of nods. "She's trying to channel the worry and frustration she's feeling at Twilight's vanishing into something constructive." Fluttershy thought over this for a moment. "At least, I think that's what she's doing. I could be wrong." Applejack kicked at the dirt. "So what're we gonna do now? We've still got a posse o' real nasty characters fixin' ta invade an' now we got two friends crazier 'n usual. One's off doin' Celestia knows what, th' other's turnin 'erself inta one o' th' enemy, an' long as they're goin' nuts, these ain't more 'n fancy necklaces." She looked despairingly at the Torc of Honesty. Rarity smiled reassuringly. "We've still warned Celestia of the crisis." "Yeah, but Spike's with Twilight," noted Dash. "What if she writes back saying she's trusting us to take care of it?" "We cannot concern ourselves with 'what if's," the designer said primly. "We all must hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We can do no more. For good or for ill, the matter is out of our hooves." A pink force of nature swept into the post office. The receptionist looked up, fear and awe in his gaze. "C-can I help you?" He clearly hoped that he couldn't. "Out of the way, Cannon Fodder. I need to see Ditzy." "Actually, I'm Grazing Fodder." Pinkie paused. "Oh. Sorry." She grinned. "Tell Cannon I said 'Hi.'" The twin smiled. "Don't worry, it happens all the time. Mrs. Doo is in her office." A few minutes later, her mein of urgency reestablished, the party pony barged into the indicated room. "Ditzy. Big news. We gotta talk." The pegasus looked up, one eye staying on her paperwork. "Can it wait? I'm in the middle of writing a letter that officially doesn't exist." "Nope. Sorry. Time of the essence. Remember that thing in the park with the guy?" "The giant, vaguely humanoid guy made of pointy chrome?" "Yeah." Ditzy gave the earth mare a flat look. "No, I completely forgot about the horrific being from beyond darkest nightmare." "No sarcasm, filly, we don't have time for it." "What's the rush?" The blonde paused as the pieces came together. "Oh. We're doomed, aren't we?" "Kinda, yeah. Not set in stone. Not yet, anyway." Pinkie paced about the office. "Point is, I'm going to try to undoom us as best as I can, and I'm on a clock. You know how Creepy-Chromey is apparently Phyrexian?" "He did mention that, yes." "Well, it's Invasion Two: Equestrian Boogaloo, and this one didn't come with millennia of prep time. I'm gonna go track 'em back home and go crazy-go-nuts. You stay here and call in the super-secret cavalry. Cool? Cool. See ya." "Wait!" cried Ditzy. She frowned. "I understand that we don't have much time, but why are you in this much of a hurry?" Pinkie went still. For a brief time, she said nothing, made no motion beyond breathing. Finally, she looked her friend in the eye and answered, "Glistening oil doesn't get along well with the planeswalker Spark. I need to go before I can't." With that, the party pony vanished in a rosy, six-pronged burst. Most readers have, by this point, either begun to wonder how Pinkie knows that she's been slipped glistening oil or have already attributed it to Pinkie Sense, fourth-wall awareness, or a combination thereof. The truth is rather more complicated than that and lies in the nature of the Elements of Harmony. Most Equestrian arcanists believe that while the Elements are one of the most powerful magical forces in the world when brought together, each by itself is little more than a pretty bauble. This is only partially true. The physical Elements are simply foci for that incredible force, channeling, containing, and directing it. However, the metaphysical Elements, those aspects nigh-inseparably attached to their Bearers' souls, carry great individual potential. The trick lies in knowing how to use it. In nopony is this potential better demonstrated than in the Bearer of Laughter. More than any other Element's, the magic of Laughter, or thaliamancy, operates on its own peculiar principles. The Order of the Lampshade of Damocles, codifiers of the narrative conventions of existence, encapsulate these laws in what they call "the Rule of Funny." That is, as long as it's funny, it doesn't have to follow any other rules. Pinkie Pie (who, like many pre-Mending planeswalkers, once spent several decades browsing the Order's archives without realizing even a day had gone by,) understands this Rule better than any other inhabitant of Ungula. As such, she had been an incredible thaliamancer even before becoming the Bearer of Laughter. Now that she is soulbound to the Element, she obeys the limits of reality only when she feels like it. As has been noted, elemental Laughter embodies all laughter, from the innocent and mirthful to the cold and cruel. It also encompasses comedy, from the knock-knock joke to the sublime absurdity at the heart of existence. Most pertinently, this wide field includes certain forms of dramatic irony. In short, Pinkie knows that she's been infected because we knew and she didn't. If this doesn't make sense to you, that's because, like most Laughter magic, it doesn't make sense to nearly anyone. If it does make sense to you, you may have potential as a thaliamancer yourself. Once in the Blind Eternities, Pinkie Pie breathed a sigh of relief, for a given definition of "breathed." The portals' æther trail, the passage they carved through the space between worlds, was wider than Sugarcube Corner. The eddies of primordial chaos had done little to wear it away. She easily followed it back to its source. When she got to that source, her relief gave way to dread. It certainly explained a lot, but that didn't make the realization any less horrifying. With a heavy heart, the party pony left the Bastard Plane for perhaps the last time in her life. When she regained her bearings, she was exactly where she'd thought she'd be. Corroding chimneys belched noxious vapors into air already thick with them. A layer of greenish-purple sludge swallowed her legs and brushed against her belly. Three suns hung in the sky, with hints of two more on the horizon. Pinkie Pie had tracked the invaders to the Mephidross. New Phyrexia was the plane formerly known as Mirrodin. Any mourning she might have planned on for the bygone Mirrans was cut short by the sound of motion disturbing the gunk. Hunched figures began to gather around the earth pony, sallow flesh clad in lead and gunmetal. Spouts on sides, spines, and joints hissed as they released necrogen gas, tiny recapitulations of the chimneys in form and function. Yellowed teeth gnashed in anticipation of the meal. Pinkie sighed. The nim. Of course. Just because the plane was under new management didn't mean that the zombies were going anywhere. If anything, it probably encouraged them. Well, that suited her just fine. After all, her one-pony counterstrike had to start somewhere on this world of metal. Hmm. Now there was an idea. The muck around the planeswalker bubbled and seethed as she called down mana from the red sun overhead. Pinkie's coat darkened to a shade somewhere between wild cherry and fresh blood. As she felt her blood begin to boil, a manic grin spread across her muzzle. "Your attention, please! This is the 9:03 express to Crazyburg now departing! And believe me, folks, this is gonna be a short trip. ALL ABOOOOARD!" The call trailed off into maniacal laughter and, somehow, the low throb of a bass. As the nim continued their shamble towards the party pony, she began staving in their leaden skulls with her bare hooves. "Ay ay ay!" went her battle cry. An electric guitar cut in from beyond space and time. As the zombies fell by the dozen to the earth pony's assault, she began to sing, her carefree cadence blended with an oddly melancholy undertone. "Crazy, but that's how it goes." Down went a flight of imps, knocked out of the sky by a well-aimed corpse. "Millions of creatures living as foes. "Maybe it's not too late," she speculated while using an undead goblin as a bludgeon, "to learn how to love and forget how to hate." She threw her improvised weapon to the ground and leapt skyward, channelling more magic. "Poisoned wounds unhealing, life total's the same..." In every sense, she exploded into the chorus. "I'M GOIN' OFF THE RAILS ON A CRAZY TRAIN!" Ditzy knocked on the door, then began to fidget. She couldn't help it. This was a genuine emergency, and now the fate of the world might depend on how fast a pony took to walk to her front door. The pegasus was about to knock again when the door opened. A mint-green unicorn stood on the other side, clearly puzzled by the mailmare's presence. "Ditzy Doo? If this is about that subscription to Finger Fancy, that's for a friend. In Cloudsdale. Her name's, um... Skyra." There. The perfect alibi. Ditzy chose not to comment. Instead, she simply said, "My wings are so pretty." Lyra shuddered, then went still for a moment as the trigger phrase went to work. A blink, and her posture subtly shifted. "Come on in." The mares entered the house, and when the hostess next spoke, her tone was all business. "What's the situation?" "Extraplanar invasion. The first wave has already been repelled, but more are likely on the way. Twilight Sparkle has been compromised and is currently off the grid. It looks like she's in the middle of a bulk teleport; took Spike and the whole library with her. Destination uncertain." The ETSAB agent bit back a curse. "Hit us right where it hurt the most. Can't be a coincidence. Do you know how they got that kind of intelligence?" Ditzy wingshrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Pinkie's gone to make trouble on their end. Hopefully it'll buy us some time. Still, we may want to consider evacuation." Lyra shook her head. "Aside from the logistic concerns, the Princesses would never agree to it except as a last resort. We'll have to—" Another knock at the door. "Hang on." She answered the knock. "Hello?" "Let's fly to the castle." "Already active, Doctor. Ditzy beat you to it." "Told you," a blue unicorn said smugly to the brown earth stallion. "Yes, yes," he groused in a similar Braytish accent. "Now is hardly the time, though. May we come in?" "Please." Lyra moved out of the way and the hourglass-marked duo proceeded. The mare nodded to the pegasus. "Mrs. Doo." "Colgate. Doctor." "Right, that's hellos taken care of," the stallion said impatiently. "Now, we've got a rather massive situation on our hooves—" Lyra interrupted. "Extraplanar invasion. Ditzy was telling me." The Doctor gave a brief nod at this. "Well, it is her area of expertise, after all. I suppose you both know about Miss Sparkle's disappearance, then?" "No, what happened?" Everypony jumped at this fifth voice. A third unicorn mare, yellow of coat and orange of mane, lay on a sofa, concern in her eyes. Her cutie mark was a silhouette of a pumpkin, patches of yellow forming a stylized question mark over it. "Miss Cake, how many times have I asked that you announce yourself as you enter a particular region of spacetime?" asked the earth pony. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I was going to after you finished talking. Now what's this about Aunt Twilight?" "She's gone rogue," answered Colgate. "And, depending on who you ask, stark-raving mad." "She wasn't already?" Despite herself, the blue mare grinned. "Yes, well, that's why it depends on who you ask. In any case, she appears to be in the middle of a hyperspace jaunt, so we'll have to wait for her to come back out before we can address her. In the meantime, we've got reports of unpleasantries from here to the Drackenridge." "The griffins are letting us know something?" exclaimed Ditzy. "Comes as a surprise to me as well, I assure you." "They've got Diamond Dogs flooding out of the woodwork," elaborated the Doctor. "Er, stonework. The point is, the burrowers are being driven to the surface and the griffs aren't pleased about it. Of course, we're rather more concerned about what's driving them out, but they haven't bothered to ask." "So what's the plan?" asked Lyra. The stallion drew himself up. As ranking officer in Ponyville, logistics were his duty. "We're mobilizing every able body. And when I say 'we,' I mean the Bureau as a whole. And the Guard, Day and Night. Officially, this is a preparedness drill. Unofficially, Equestria is in a state of emergency, and it's only going to stay unofficial until Their Highnesses get an official statement ready. We personally will be marshaling the Ponyville militia." The pegasus frowned. "There is no Ponyville militia." "Well, yes, that's admittedly a bit of a complication, isn't it? Right, recruit the militia, then marshal it." "But only after that official statement," noted Colgate. "Otherwise everypony will just think we're a pack of loonies." Lyra frowned. "Speaking personally, most ponies already think I'm a loony. And not without reason." "I don't exactly have the best reputation either," noted Ditzy. "As far as they know, I'm still gumming rubber chickens," added Pumpkin. The Doctor sighed. "Very well. Agent Minuette and I will legitimize you as best we can as part of the recruitment process. Miss Cake will obviously need an alias of some sort, especially once her contemporary self returns from visiting her grandparents. The official statement should be delivered by noon tomorrow. I'll arrange for something afterwards with the mayor." He took a deep breath. "I won't lie to you all; I am genuinely afraid. But I have the utmost confidence in each and every one of you. I haven't the slightest doubt you will do us all proud. We'll give these rotters what for, and..." He facehooved. "How long has Pumpkin been gone?" Lyra blinked, confused. "What pumpkin?" "I hate it when she does that," groaned the stallion. "When who does what?" asked Colgate. Out of respect for the circumstances, Ditzy held back a giggle. The Elements each resonated with the oil in a different way, altering its influence even as they felt it. For most of the Bearers, this was a subconscious process, which is why they had such interesting dreams that night. Rainbow Dash dreamt of a land without a sky. A ceiling of metal restrained the inhabitants, and no one looked up. Endless toil demanded all attention, and no one rested. Demands and expectations loomed, and no one dreamed. But beneath this nightmarish existence, hearts railed against their confines. Unrest simmered in the molten heat, and unease flowed like the liquid metal. Though monstrous, the strange beings who dwelled here felt. They thought. They cared. And they didn't know what to do about it. Most caring of all was their leader, though he dared not admit it. He offered refuge to those driven from their homes by his siblings. He avoided those siblings rather than admit his uncertainty. He questioned the results of what he had been told he wanted. And like his subordinates, he tried to bury these doubts and insecurities in furious labor. Alas, they always came back, no matter how hard he ignored them. Loyalty felt for these unfortunates. They could not follow their hearts without betraying their kin. They could not behave as others said they must without denying their own souls. They stood paralyzed, trapped between freedom and duty, with no way to reconcile them. The workers called for one who would dare to aid them, a motivator who could balance the demands of self and others, an iconoclast confident enough to point the way and say "This is what is right." They called for one to teach them to reach for the sky. "We are Hidden," they said to the stunt flier. "Will you help us be Awesome?" Rarity dreamt of a wide savannah that glittered in the light of five suns. Wide stretches of polished metal shimmered like a vast mirror, and her sleeping mind admired it and herself through it. Then came the despoilers. Hideous creatures of exposed meat and cracked porcelain, of black iron and dripping oil. This last they spread everywhere, indelibly staining the shining land. Foul carbuncles that seeped corruption rose in its wake like acne on the skin of an embittered teenager, her foalhood innocence lost and forgotten. Valiant defenders rose against the monstrosities, but skill and nobility were cut down by sheer numbers and rebuilt to serve those against whom they had fought so courageously. When there was no one left to defend beauty, the hideous forces cried victory and built temples to the foulest of them all, a vain fool who thought herself like unto a goddess. She preached unity, and they sewed themselves together. She preached belonging, and they made more of themselves from those few who still resisted. She preached selflessness, and they purged individuality. This clownish priestess had taken Generosity and warped it into a justification for genocide. She gave what was unwanted and would not accept, would not consider the possibility of her own error. She basked in an echo chamber of praise, mindless acolytes hailing her absent grace, her vacuous wisdom, her nonexistent nobility. She knew nothing of nuance, of subtlety, of consideration. And worst of all, she believed her own PR. Beneath its foulness, beneath the capering ninnies who danced upon it, the glimmering expanse begged for reason. For thought. For moderation. It pleaded for one who knew how to bring forth true beauty of the soul and the body, who could give what was genuinely needed, not only what she was willing to bequeath. It asked for one who could heal it, restore it, make it truly whole. "The Cenobite has broken us," it said to the designer. "Will you be our Synthesist?" Applejack dreamt of a forest that made the Everfree look like a park in comparison. There was nothing there but hunger, the hunger of a million bellies crying out for nourishment and a million minds enslaved to them. This wood was not wild. It was feral. Once, its denizens had been content, but now there was nothing but predator hunting predator in a savage spiral of self-consumption. With a start, she realized that the wood was not even wooden. There was no plant life here, no bottom link to ground the food chain. Crude parodies of tarnished copper and moldering steel stood in for the basis of all ecology. Without vegetation, everything else was in an eternal state of strife and chaos. The land needed plants. More, it needed a planter. Instead, it had a bully. A brute. A cruel demon who cared nothing for the misery of those he supposedly led. All he concerned himself with was his next meal. Worse was his lieutenant, who had once fought for truth before she was perverted into the chief perpetrator of the imbalance of nature. Both saw anything beyond a desperate struggle for survival as weakness. They wanted to cull anything good and decent from life. They not only denied the truth of how nature worked, they sought to redefine it to suit their beliefs. Honesty demanded that someone defend what was, what was meant to be. Not a savage who would twist life until it suited his agenda, but a caretaker who would nurture it, let it flourish in whatever way it manifested. Not a fallen traitor who had forgotten the truth she had fought so hard for, but a reliable mistress who knew the ways of the land and how to do right by it. The forest cried out, but not in fear or ferocity. It cried out for a savior. "Hunger does not speak for us," it said to the farmer. "Will you speak for Vigor?" Pinkie did not dream, for she was already in the depths of the Mephidross. Her mind's eye did not need to see the noisome necrogen gas billow from the leaden chimneys, for her body's eyes were doing that quite well on their own. And in any case, she was currently operating on a cocktail of sugar, red mana, caffeine, and certain other alkaloids that made sleep physically impossible. Thus, she could see for herself that what little society there had been in the fetid morass had disintegrated. The scavenging Moriok humans had been enslaved and retooled into living instruments of death. The nim were roving killers who had taken a quantum leap in monstrosity under the auspice of the glistening oil. Vampires had been torn apart, the choicest bits integrated into ever-thirsting abominations. And those were just the creatures who had gotten in the way. The true Phyrexians were divided amongst themselves in a seven-way civil war, each of the Steel Thanes driven to prove his, her, or its philosophy on the true path to ultimate power was correct by eliminating all competitors. Omniscience, politics, fearmongering, flesh-loathing, oil hoarding, omnicide, and eternal self-destruction all clamored for supremacy with little actually being achieved. Frankly, thought Pinkie, it was a miracle that the thanes had put aside their differences long enough to win the war. In any case, she knew they all had it wrong, all for the same reason. It wasn't power that was important but what was done with that power. Using it simply to accrue more power was self-defeating; eventually there would be no more power to be had, and then what? No, what was best is to use that power to maximize happiness. After all, who didn't want to be happy? Who didn't like getting what they wanted? Well, Pinkie was going to test that last one. After all, what better way to demonstrate the flaws in the thanes' arguments than through demonstration? She wouldn't do it for the land. It didn't give a flying femur one way or the other. She would do it because it would be fun. "Whispering has gotten you nowhere," the party pony said for the sake of parallel structure. "I will show you what Partying can achieve." Fluttershy didn't dream either, though for much different reasons. She was too busy retching. Horses are physically incapable of vomiting. That didn't stop her. It only made the already unpleasant sensation all the more unsettling, since it had never happened to her before. Angel Bunny, to his credit, held back her mane as she paid her respects to the Porcelain Throne. While each of the other Elements had some opening through which the oil could make itself more palatable, Kindness was completely antithetical to Phyrexia. For hours, the two had warred for Fluttershy's mind, body, and soul, and the Element emerged triumphant. Unfortunately, that meant the oil had to be purged, the sooner the better. Hence the unprecedented Technicolor yawn. Eventually, around two in the morning, the last stubborn trace of the foul substance had been expunged. The gentle pegasus collapsed, exhausted, her mouth filled with a taste worse than any she could imagine. Angel flushed the toilet and fetched her a glass of water. Fluttershy gave her companion a weary smile. "Thank you, Angel." The rabbit smiled and stroked her mane as she washed out the aftertaste. Both fell asleep there on her bathroom rug shortly afterward. As for Twilight, she was far too busy to sleep. After all, she had a student-teacher conference to plan. Spontaneous Musical Number XWW Instant Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal X cards or an enchantment card. If you reveal a enchantment card this way, you may put it onto the battlefield. If you do, you may put X verse counters on that enchantment. Put the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order. Biding Time 2U Enchantment At the beginning of your upkeep, proliferate. When you cast a spell, sacrifice Biding Time. "Vorinclex is right about exactly one thing: Sometimes it is best to allow one's plans to advance themselves." —Jin-Gitaxias, Augur of the Core