• Published 26th Sep 2011
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Elementals of Harmony - FanOfMostEverything



(FiMtG) The only thing standing between Equestria and apocalypse is Ditzy Doo. Yes, really. Stop laughing!

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Plans Making Contact

The sun shone bright on another new day in Ponyville, but one resident was staying indoors regardless of the beauty outside, busy with a plan that would ensure that everypony could continue to enjoy such days without fear of calamity or catastrophe.

Ditzy Doo was also hard at work. Though there was no mail to deliver, that meant that she could split the day between Dinky and keeping every bearer of an Element of Harmony appraised of the situation she'd found them in. However, there were a few issues she'd have to figure out before she could do the latter. Each of the areas of high magical density had a different character to it, no doubt influenced by the unique nature of the Element that was attracting that magic. In a strange display of convenience that the pegasus had seen more than once before, five of the elements had delineated themselves along the five colors of magic she'd learned about in her earlier days, the exception being Magic itself.

As she'd so bombastically reminded herself last night, Ditzy Doo was a planeswalker, a being capable of moving between different planes of existence through an exertion of magic and will. Each plane possessed its own slightly different physical and magical laws, its own ecosystems and societies, and could be as small as a few square miles or as large as an entire multigalactic universe. And yet, throughout all of these myriad worlds, a few things remained constant, among them the colors of magic. White, red, green, blue, and black made up that mystical rainbow, and in the time she'd spent searching for her home, Ditzy had found it essential to learn the nature of each and the general demeanor of their users.

The Sugarcube Corner bore the most dangerous aura, saturated with black mana, the energy of death, decay, and madness. The Element of Laughter, it seemed, truly encompassed all laughter, not all of which was friendly, innocent, or even sane. Fortunately, the bakery was also home to the pony most receptive to her warnings. Ditzy believed that Pinkie Pie was, if not quite crazy, then at least a few degrees out of alignment with the rest of reality. Just enough to see glimpses of other worlds, to understand that she was part of a small system in a much larger existence.

The others wouldn't be nearly as easy to convince. For the most part, the grey mare wasn't as close to them as she was Pinkie, as they lacked that awareness of something greater than their world that had acted as a surprising but welcome foundation to her friendship with the party pony. Furthermore, that lack of awareness would no doubt make them disregard as direct and overt a warning as the one she'd given earlier. Ditzy's unfortunate reputation, acquired as she'd struggled to master the aerial layout of even a small town like Ponyville, would not help matters. She might as well start wearing a sandwich board painted with "THE END IS NEAR" and march around the town square, for all the good it would do.

Ditzy sighed and shook her head. No, she could make this work. She had to make this work. There was no one else who could. To her knowledge, there wasn't another being in the world with the ability to literally see magic, and the odds of the princesses listening to some nobody who had by all accounts ceased to exist for six years was laughable.

"Mommy?"

The blonde turned from her desk, where she'd been doodling possible approaches to the subject of vast mystical cataclysm. She saw the most important reason she needed to get this done. "Yes, Muffin?"

"Can we go to the park?"

Well, it wasn't like she'd be able to figure this out by driving herself into a frenzy before she even did anything. "Of course! Just let Mommy get her saddlebags and we'll be on our way."

Dinky Doo trotted up to her mother and gave her an affectionate nuzzle. "I have the best Mommy ever!"

Ditzy's heart melted, and she swept up her daughter in an ursa hug. She only hoped she could live up to such expectations.


Nearly everypony in town knew about the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Even if you hadn't been at their hilariously bad rock operetta, they had probably crash-landed in your yard at some point, likely covered in tree sap. Opinions, unsurprisingly, were mixed. Any foal who wasn't named after jewelry or an eating utensil thought the Crusaders were the coolest thing since milled oats. Some adults considered them a nuisance, wreaking havoc with debatable innocence. Others thought them fools who were delaying their cutie marks' appearance by trying too hard and ignoring their obvious skills. But a few couldn't help but be amused by their antics, the follies of youth overshadowed by the thrill of excitement and the heart-warming sight of three young friends supporting each other in what was a rough time for anypony.

Ditzy put herself in this last group, only hoping that it took nothing as drastic for the trio's marks as it had for hers. As such, she was happy to have Dinky catch up with her friends (or, as the young unicorn thought of it, genuflect before her heroes), especially since Apple Bloom's brother was keeping an eye on them. So sensible a stallion would surely stop any sap-soaked sallying forth.

"I hope you don't mind having one more filly to watch, Big Macintosh." Ditzy was already hovering off the ground in preparation for her next destination, but that was no reason to be rude. "I shouldn't be too long, but, well, Dinky's a bit too young to be casting cloudwalking spells and a bit too old to be carried around."

"A bit?" cried the filly indignantly. How was she supposed to look cool in front of the Crusaders with her mother making her look like a baby?

"All right, you're much too young to be casting cloudwalking spells." This prompted laughter from everypony but the younger Doo, whose scowl and blush both deepened. Dumb moms.

"Ain't no trouble at all, Miss Ditzy," Big Mac assured her. "We should be in th' park all day. Y'all just come back when yer done with those errands in the clouds."

"Thanks again. Be good, Muffin! I love you!" With that, Dinky was, in her mind, blessedly free of the mare who she still considered to be the best Mommy ever. It was just that even the best Mommy ever was still a parent, and thus couldn't be expected to understand the complex dynamics of coolness.

"C'mon, Dinky!" called Apple Bloom. "Yer an honorary Crusader fer the day! It's time we got to crusadin'!"

Pleasantly surprised that she hadn't been exiled to Losergrad, the young unicorn admitted to herself that maybe she didn't understand those dynamics too well either.


Rainbow Dash's house was a superb example of the uniquely pegasine craft of practical cloud sculpture. Sure, other races could walk on clouds and manipulate their weather output, but no other Equestrian species thought to build their dwellings out of the very sky. Pegasi claimed that this proved their (and by extension, ponykind's) intellectual superiority. Other races felt just the opposite. To them (and some unicorns and earth ponies, for that matter), you had to be pretty stupid to think that making a building that could be destroyed by a strong breeze or prolonged drought was a good idea. Of course, there was a great deal of magic involved, but both sides had agreed to disagree, as long as the pegasi went easy on that whole "We're the best" thing.

In any case, the door Ditzy Doo knocked on felt as solid as any carved from wood, despite being little more than water vapor and dust. This came as a relief. She hadn't been sure how stable the floating home would be, given the coruscating field of red mana that surrounded it. Red magic, normally more associated with the mountains than the clouds, was the stuff of instability and chaos. Solid walls were anathema to it, but Dash's craftsmareship was apparently up to the task. Still, the crimson energy had been called by Loyalty, weighing more towards passion and emotion than mindless destruction. Destroying the home of what attracted it would certainly be a betrayal, wouldn't it?

Ditzy sighed. Magic worked by its own logic, and some parts of that logic came more easily to hers than others. Red mana was her worst subject, so to speak. Much of the path of the red mage involved acting before or, more often, without thinking. As one old acquaintance had put it, the key was to "stop worrying and learn to love the boom spells." That kind of Nightmare-may-care attitude just didn't sit well with Ditzy. Some corner of her mind would always nervously recount the things that could go wrong, and it ruined any effort to shape the power of fire and lightning. (Ironically, worrying about what could go wrong with such power inevitably caused that very event to transpire. Red mana was, in the grey pegasus's opinion, kind of a jerk like that.) Her ability to understand it was similarly impaired, since she couldn't grasp the reasoning guiding such a reckless person... if any.

Just as the bubble-flanked mare was about to knock again, realizing how much time she'd already spent here, the door opened a crack. A bleary-eyed blue head, topped with a mane colored in six hues and pointing in twice as many directions, poked out of the opening. In an odd mix of imperious disdain and exhausted slurring, the sleepyhead stated, "You have interrupted the Best Young Flier in Equestria's nap."

Ditzy rolled her eyes, which was rather more impressive for her than most. It wasn't as bad as the week after she'd gotten the trophy, but Dash still felt the need to sprinkle her conversation with the occasional reminder that, yes, she'd won that contest. It raised some unpleasant memories about the judges. The blonde didn't even see how her flying could be described as "pitchy". Oh well, not important right now. What was was that the drowsing pegasus didn't even have her eyes open. "Hello, Rainbow Dash."

This perked up the other pegasus's head for a moment before it began to slowly sink back to its previous position. "Oh. Hey, Ditzy. 'Sup?"

"Look Dash, I know we haven't always gotten along."

"Uh huh."

"I've been trying, but you probably still think of me as the doofus that can't tell north from south or the Everfree from the library."

"Uh huh."

"But I hope that, if not as a friend, then at least a colleague, you listen to me when I tell you—" Ditzy paused, sighed, and facehoofed. "You're asleep."

"Uh huh."

Well, thought the mailmare, let's try this again. She leaned to one side of Dash and knocked on the wall. The resulting tone was louder and deeper than the door. That wasn't saying much, but it seemed to work better in rousing the drowsing hostess.

"Huh? Wha? Who?" The sky-coated mare flailed her forehooves in what she must have thought was some kind of martial art maneuver. The presence of her guest registered, and she sheepishly broke out of the supposed combat stance. "Oh. Hey, Ditzy. 'Sup?"

Ditzy took a few deep breaths before trusting her voice. "Hello, Dash. I realize this is going to seem like an odd question, but when was the last time you discharged this place?"

Dash squinted at the other pony as if she'd suddenly gone nearsighted, then fully opened the door, the better to approach Ditzy with every word. "Did you really wake me up just to question my housekeeping?"

The grey mare had been prepared for this kind of response, and demonstrated it by lightly placing a hoof on a point she'd located before knocking. The point was similar to a pony' pressure points, except that instead of connecting to a nerve cluster, it was tied to the static charge permeating the cloud. There was a tremendous rumble, and then the entire house went black as pitch. Then came the lightning. This was no fleeting bolt outlived by its own afterimage, but a pillar of incandescent plasma brighter than the sun, seeming to support Dash's home above the base earth.

This whoop-shooping continued for a good five seconds before petering out. When it did, Rainbow Dash's mane bore a striking resemblance to a clown wig. Ditzy, strangely, seemed entirely unaffected. "Stay on your hooftips, Dash," she said nonchalantly. "Never know when one like that might crop up again."

She flew off amidst a "Yeah, sure," that was stunned in every sense of the word.


Years in the past, but not many...
(With apologies to Andrew Hussie)

The smell of fresh baking wafted through the Cloudsdale apartment. (Along the seams of the door and windows, it literally flowed through the thin cloud.) Smiling to herself, a blue-maned white pegasus called out, "Muffins are ready!"

"Yay!" Muffled hoofsteps sounded as the youngest occupant rushed towards the tiny kitchen. They were terminated by a soft thud and a sheepishly grinning filly's head sticking out of the kitchen's wall several inches to the side of the doorway. One yellow eye managed to find the baker while its twin examined the ceiling. "Hi, Mommy."

The mare gave a smile that combined affection, exasperation, and concern in that unique way known as "maternal". "Ditzy, I've told you not to run in the house."

"I'm sorrREE!" To the grown pony's astonishment, her daughter's head seemed to get sucked back into the wall. A moment later, the reason became clear, as she reappeared in the doorway proper, suspended by her tail.

The suspender was a slate-gray stallion with eyes identical to those of the foal he held. Opening his mouth, he gently laid Ditzy on the floor, looked at his wife, and smirked. "I believe this is yours, Ma'am?"

The baker couldn't resist a titter at the antics. "Oh, I think it's clear who she takes after."

He put a hoof to his heart. "Ah! Cruel spear of insult, thy name is mare!"

The melodrama was interrupted by a hug and a "Thank you, Daddy."

The stallion returned the embrace. "Of course. Daddy will always be there when you're being a silly little muffin."

The mare's response to this was a shake of her head. "I wish you wouldn't call her that, Derby. You'll make her into a cannibal."

"My dear Nimbus, I will have you know that I am continuing a proud tradition. The Doos have always been muffins, and we have always loved muffins! So ever it shall be!"

"Muffins!" added the dramatist's daughter.


"Are you alright, dear?"

Ditzy blinked, feeling tears she didn't recall shedding. She reflexively moved a foreleg to wipe at her eyes, but the feel of fabric against the limb reminded her of where she was and what she was doing. Namely, in the Carousel Boutique and acting as a ponnequin for its proprietor's latest creation. As she returned to a standing stance, the mailmare replied, "Fine. Just thinking."

Rarity gave a sigh of relief. "Good. For a moment I was afraid that I'd stuck you with a pin. So, anything you want to share? You're doing me such a tremendous favor that the least I could do is to offer an ear."

The pegasus bit her lip. "It's... personal."

"Ah. Say no more, I understand perfectly. I shan't barge in where I am not wanted. Now, where were we?"

As the seamstress returned to her work, Ditzy, still feeling disconnected, walked through the last hour or so to steady herself. After the twin exercises in frustration that were dealing with red mana and with Rainbow Dash, she had decided to opt for where her best color was concentrated. To her eyes, the Boutique was awash in blue mana. Some civil conversation with Rarity and an enjoyable soak in the magic of thought, air, and water would do her good. At least, so had gone the theory.

The reality was that the mentally stimulating power was sending the designer's fashion muse into overdrive. Ditzy hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise as she'd been ushered, neigh, herded into Rarity's design studio, all while the unicorn had chattered a mile a minute about a commission from Denvertigo. ("The Five-Mile-High City! Can you believe it? Oh, I always hoped that my fame would reach the stratosphere, but I never meant it literally!") Apparently, the bubble-flanked mare was just the size needed to assemble the garment. By this point, Rarity was already gathering bolts of fabric and enough straight pins for an entire bayou full of voodoo dolls, so it was clear that saying no wasn't an option.

As Ditzy had resigned herself to clotheshorse duty, she'd tuned out the dervish swathing her with cloth and had begun wandering her own thoughts. Perhaps it was the ambient azure energy that had set her mind on the path of nostalgia. It certainly could do that, but—

"Ditzy Doo!"

"Huh?" Feeling even more floaty-brained than before, the pegasus realized she was being shouted at. "Oh, sorry."

Rarity frowned. "Really, dear, I don't want to pry, but whatever is going on that head of yours must be beyond engrossing." Her expression shifted into a smirk with a hint of leer. "An old flame, perhaps?"

It took Ditzy a considerable share of her self-control (and an estimate of the number of pins less than an inch from her skin) to stay still. "Nothing of the sort!"

The elegant mare released a resigned a breath. "I suppose it was a muffin recipe or some such, then."

This formed a bruise on the grey pony's ego that she found intolerable. "There is more to me than muffins." She forced the words through clenched teeth, not trusting her temper if given an open mouth.

"If you say so. Turn, please."

"I was thinking about magic." Ditzy paused in the turn. Had she really just said that? Why had she just said that?

In any case, it prompted a cocked eyebrow from Rarity. "Magic? No offense meant, Ditzy, but I wouldn't think that to be among your interests."

The mailmare scrambled for something to cover her hindquarters, half-finished dress notwithstanding. "W-well, everypony has some degree of inherent magic. Walking on clouds, for example." Out of the corner of an eye, she could see the unicorn wince. After all, Dash wasn't the only news from the Cloudosseum that day. "And earth ponies have strength and stamina the likes of which we can only dream about."

"As Applejack can attest, yes." Rarity was now fully out of sight, presumably adjusting something in the train, or the undercarriage, or the dining car. Ditzy had never been much of a fashionista. "If I may ask, what about magic got you in such a fugue state?"

"Several things, among them the means by which non-unicorn ponies could cast spells." Tongue had outraced brain again, much to the shock and dismay of their owner.

Also to her shock and dismay was the unicorn horn jabbing a very sensitive spot as the seamstress whipped her head up in shock. "What! Why, why the very idea—" Her indignation was interrupted as she recognized the tableau before her: Scraps of fabric in disarray, and in the center Ditzy Doo performing an impressive headstand while wearing an expression of unspeakable pain. As the pegasus tipped forward, Rarity could see why. "Oh dear..."


Several apologies and a discreet ice pack later, the two continued their conversation under more equitable conditions, both seated (Ditzy rather gingerly) with a pot of tea between them.

"So," summarized Rarity, "you're saying that there's a growing concentration of magical power around the Boutique that's been fueling my recent flurry of ideas?"

"Exactly."

"I see. Now, according to what you've been telling me, at least part of the reason behind the intensity of my inspiration is because, as a unicorn, I'm much more sensitive to this manner of thing. Why haven't I seen any change in Sweetie Belle?"

The pegasus shrugged. "Several factors could be in play: Her immature, undefined magic, her spending less time in the Boutique than you, the nature of her soul. It's also possible that it is affecting her, but in ways you either can't see or don't notice."

"I'm sorry, what was that about my sister's soul?"

If Ditzy noticed the venom under the honey in that sentence, it was too late to stop her answer. "Your soul is precise, methodical, controlling; even your cutie mark is crystalline. Sweetie is more open, more flexible. Blue magic would alter her in different ways than it does you."

"'Blue' magic? Why should color matter?"

The grey mare's brain finally got around to reviewing the transcript of the conversation. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks.

"And where did you learn all of this, anyway?"

"I... uh..." The unicorn stood between Ditzy and the only exit that didn't involve an open window, of which there were none. "I... have to go pick up Dinky! Big Macintosh has enough on his hooves with the Crusaders."

Rarity stood her ground. "Not until I get some answers."

"Rarity, please..." There was one other option, but it was an absolute last resort.

"Something very fishy is going on here, and we're herbivores, if you'll pardon the waxing Pinkie Pie. Now, I want you to sit yourself back down and... and..." The violet-maned mare trailed off as her eyes began following Ditzy's. The yellow orbs were moving in a hypnotic rhythm enhanced by a small sample of the mind magic suffusing the shop.

"You will forget everything unusual I said today," the pegasus intoned, eyes still swaying in their sockets. "You will remember the warning, and should what I warned you about come to pass, you will know to seek me out. Do you understand?"

The reply was a quiet monotone. "Yes."

"Good. You will now allow me to leave and leave this trance ten seconds afterwards."

"Yes." Her own eyes still oscillating, Rarity moved to one side.

"And for what it's worth," Ditzy muttered as she made for the door, "I'm sorry."

As the planeswalker closed the door, the unicorn's response was twofold: A single tear down one cheek, and a quiet "Derp."


Derpnotism UU
Instant
Tap up to two target creatures. Pony, Pegasus, and Unicorn creatures tapped this way don't untap during their controller's next untap step.
"Look into my eyes. As if you weren't already."
—Ditzy Doo