Heat Death

by ScottTrek

The Darkest Hour (Part 3)

"You're a bastard."

Shadow grinned at Twilights unexpectedly blunt insult. He leaned back in his throne like chair as Twilight dropped herself into the chair facing him. "Accurate and inaccurate i suppose, is one truly a bastard without any physical parentage? Of course if i'm YOUR shadow then i guess your also a..."

"Huh..." Twilight huffed, "Can we skip the name calling and posturing? I just wanted to make my mood clear."

“Heh, as you wish.”

Twilight took a moment to look around, the space-station was resolving itself better in her eyes now. She could still see through most of walls around her, though the shapes were still cutting into her retinas, and as far as she could tell the structure was a few miles long in every direction. Even in her ruined state her vision remained eagle eyed. Turning back to shadow she propped up her staff against her chair and stared at the creature before her.

Shadow seemed to be the one thing in the whole station that wasn't shifting and ephemeral, a stark contrast to how he normally appeared. Well... at least how she thought he had normally appeared anyway. That detail was yet to be seen.

Even then he still looked wrong, not wrong the way Nocturne and Umbra looked if they caught you off guard, he had the air of a perfect work of art. It plunged him past the uncanny valley and into some henceforth undiscovered 2nd hellish valley.

"So," Shadow said, watching Twilight as closely as she was watching him. "I'm curious Princess. How does it feel to you? Facing ones perfect opposite? Are you as excited as I am? Or are you...?"

"When I said I wasn't in the mood I was being serious." Twilight said, voice cutting across him slow and controlled. "No posturing. Besides we both know you're not really my shadow. Or if You are its only on a technicality."

"Hmm," Shadow mused, "Is that so?"

"Tell you what... I'll tell you I think you are and how we both got here. And you can act smug and tell me how close I am?"

"Oh you do know me!" Shadow grinned. He clapped his hooves and a pair of small robots entered from a side door, both looking like large metal pine-cones with numbers of metal tendrils sprouting from the plates in their shells. They carried in a tea set and started setting it up.

"My goodness," Twilight commented sarcastically, "You do actually have manners."

"Of course!"

Twilight merely scratched at her bandaged head in response. Her whole body was itching besides. What little she could still sense of her internal magics were going absolutely haywire. A few moments back something had tangibly squished in her lower gut. Suppressing her internal discomfort she instead politely took some of the offered tea and settled down to her explanation.

Comments

[Alondro]

Why would a magical universe in which bug ponies can physically survive eating EMOTIONS have to worry about heat death?

Magic gives science BOTH middle fingers in such situations.

Just a thought.

[ScottTrek]

8891489
Idk i make the assumptions that

a. Equestrian is a planet like Earth (albeit one with a highly anomalous orbital structure to its local star)

b. The Laws of Thermodynamics apply and energy conservation

c. At some level Magic follows the same rules, most modern depictions of magic tend to at least throw something that way

whatevs

[PaintedPony]

I don't know, Alondro, it is a rather interesting thought experiment. We know that in mlp magic is treated as a 'science.' So maybe "magic" is just a branch of science we haven't discovered yet and all the other rules apply. I don't particularly believe that this situation will occur, but it is interesting to see the author's extrapolations and the story it produces. Me? I believe if there was a 'big bang', there's going to be a 'big crunch' and the universe runs like an automobile engine: suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Repeat ad infinitum.

[Alondro]

8891543 We have SEEN Celestia, Discord, and Twilight raising the Sun. We've seen the Sun and Moon share the sky, and the sky being split exactly in half day-night (light doesn't work that way. Physics doesn't apply in Pony Land, period.)

By this point, arguing that the Equestrian universe operates on our universe's principles is just flat out ignoring many things we've seen clearly in the show.

[ScottTrek]

8893225
I mean its not like it really matter one way or another of an alernate universe sci fi fic does it?

[Alondro]

8893238 Well, then an alt-universe tag would help. Otherwise I must assume this is connected to the canon Equestrian world.

[ScottTrek]

8893248
huh that wierd i thought it did have that tag? Maybe i changed it at some point and forgot?

[BoundlessImagination]

8893322
8893248
It doesn't matter, this story doesn't change anything from the show.