25. Moving Day
“Do I get to keep my job?”
Agent Fowler was waiting for them in the RV, sitting in the driver’s seat. That was a rhetorical question, right? Twilight wondered. Rain was splattering against the roof, adding its noise to the drone of the air conditioner.
“I guess this is your lucky day,” Reubens facetiously acknowledged her. “Twilight, before you go.”
The alicorn looked up at him expectantly.
“I’ve already told Mrs. Coleman what I’m about to tell you. Your existence has been classified. We must ask that you do not reveal yourself to anyone else.”
Just like we’re keeping your existence a secret. Probably for similar reasons.
That reminded her of the private conversation between those two. What else had he told Meg, had asked her to do? It was an uncomfortable reminder that she and her husband were not their subjects, but subjects of this “President.”
“I understand,” she said, acknowledging his request. She wasn’t there to stir up trouble for this realm’s government, and it wasn’t as if she’d planned on making public appearances anyway.
“Also, about tomorrow,” she added. “Even if there’s no helicopter, we could still use some helping hands—emphasis on hands. I’m sure Agent Fowler here would be willing to volunteer?” She looked at the FBI agent for an answer.
“Of course!” Fowler enthusiastically replied. “I’ll see what we can arrange.”
Twilight was hoping for something firmer than that, but she supposed it all depended on what this President decided. That was the price for getting his attention.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
She returned to the observation lounge, to find it empty of ponies and baby dragons. Looking outside, she spotted everypony talking to her brother. Curious as to what was going on, she teleported over to them.
“Ah, Twily, you’re back. You’ll want to hear this.” Shining Armor looked at Steve, inviting him to explain.
“Perfect is the enemy of good enough,” he profoundly stated.
Twilight cocked her head. “Perfect what now?”
The lifelong student didn’t get it. Of course perfect was the enemy of good enough. It ought to be. What was “good enough” supposed to be anyway?
“You’ve found that a shield to block the flow of magic can’t last. You’ve been attempting perfect shields, so perfect that there’s no magic on the other side, inevitably causing the shield’s breakdown.”
All quite obvious, but it was missing the point. “Assuming a leaky shield could be sustained,” she countered, “that could only delay the inevitable. It doesn’t fix anything.”
“Twily, you’re pursuing the wrong objective.”
Huh? If those words hadn’t come from her own brother… Slowly and carefully, she said, “The objective is to stop the flow of magic.”
“No,” Steve declared. “The objective is for the mirror to be embedded in enough magic that Discord can open the portal, go inside, and fix it.”
And a perfect shield guarantees that objective cannot be met. It would be a stalemate, at best. Okay, that could not be disputed. But she was still missing something. “A leaky shield won’t do it either. There’s no magic around the mirror right now; cutting back on the flow won’t change that.”
“And that’s where the doll comes in,” Steve continued. “A black hole, if it could have been managed, would have been the ‘perfect’ barrier. We only need ‘good enough,’ a sufficiently powerful gravitational field that would squeeze the junction to a small enough size. A leaky shield on this end would reduce the pressure of magic against that junction, making that easier.”
It was becoming clear. Once that had been done, let the shield get even leakier until there was enough magic surrounding the mirror. Maybe the shield could be dropped altogether. With the squeeze on the junction being maintained in the other realm, the flow ought to remain sufficiently staunched to give Discord the little time he needs—emphasis on sufficiently staunched. They were right. There was no need to completely stop the flow.
“Shiny, how leaky does it have to be for it to last indefinitely?”
He answered, uncertainly, “I don’t know. We’ll have to experiment.”
Twilight closed her eyes in thought.
I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
Could an experiment gone wrong make things worse? He had tried perfect shields already, and nothing bad seems to have happened when they collapsed, but how did they know nothing bad happened? Nopony was taking measurements at the time.
Why couldn’t they’ve brought me in sooner?
Even if nothing bad had happen, the hole was a lot smaller then. It had to be riskier now—though, obviously, less risky with a leaky shield than with a perfect shield.
She reopened her eyes. “Meg, can this be simulated on a computer?”
The pegasus gave a shrug. “I don’t know. You’re the domain expert.”
“Touché,” Twilight meekly replied. “Give me another minute to think it over.” She wandered off into the un-trampled, foot-high grasses, away from the construction.
They had been able to simulate a sonic rainboom and that perturbation. It ought to be possible to simulate a leaky shield as well; yet there was an important difference: this shield was the consequence of an actively cast spell, a continuous act of will, external to the underlying equations of the magical field. She would have to conduct experiments, gathering data, in order to properly model the effect of that spell on the field. Only then could they run simulations, verify they were accurate, and arrive at an optimal and safe solution for a leaky shield.
They didn’t have time for any of that.
With a sigh, she teleported back to the others. “As much as I hate to do this, we’ll have to play it by ear. We can start with a shield that barely impedes the flow and slowly work our way up—after we move The Mirror here, naturally.”
If this actually worked, and could be perfected, perhaps there was no need to move the mirror. But that was a big if. Too many uncertainties, and not enough time left to eliminate them. Better to ensure the safety of Crystal Heart and the city first.
“What about the doll?” Steve asked. “Same thing? Start with a weak gravitational field and scale up?”
Twilight smiled at him. “You’re the domain expert there.”
“I’m not so sure,” he said, closing his eyes as he thought. “The usual, non-magical means of generating a gravitational field aren’t relevant here. The magical means are a mystery to me, but I can still see problems with creating a field out of nothing. Our conservation laws may prohibit it.”
Of course. Every time it seemed like there might be a solution, it got snatched away. She tried to remain optimistic; maybe there was a way around it. “For example?”
“Well… any object inside the new field loses energy due to time dilation. Under normal conditions, that ‘lost’ energy was turned into kinetic energy as the object fell; but that wouldn’t happen in this case.”
Twilight had to suppress a groan. I’m beginning to understand how Discord feels. Sure, there was nothing wrong with being organized, but how does anything work in that realm with all the gratuitous, fanatical, and unavoidable bookkeeping?
Yet, to her relief, there did seem to be a loophole. “What if the spell could avoid time dilation?”
Steve had a ready objection. “Then it would be accelerating stuff, creating kinetic energy and momentum out of nothing.” He face-hoofed, realizing what he was saying. “Telekinesis already does that, and we now understand how that actually works in our universe.”
Finally!
Oh, it wasn’t quite that simple, of course not. Telekinesis works on objects in space, not on space, but she had studied enough of Star Swirl’s spells to be confident that was a technicality she could work around.
The sun was setting as Rainbow Dash and two other pegasi struggled to position the hot air balloon, tied to them hundreds of feet below, over the balcony of the Crystal Palace. A strong breeze had kicked up, driving the balloon to swing like a graceful pendulum. They had spread out, forming a tripod, and with some success damped out the languid swings. The balloon’s weight was increasing as it cooled off, also helping.
What could not be done, though the weather pony dearly wished she could, was to position other pegasi so as to generate a canceling breeze. A pegasus needed magic to do that—never mind that experienced weather ponies were scarce in the Crystal Empire. These two, a mare and a stallion, served onboard the Zephyr. They were in good physical shape, as would be expected, but they were not professional weather ponies.
On the balcony, Twilight and Cadance observed as Spike lazily swung back and forth three dozen feet as the balloon slowly descended. There wasn’t much the alicorns could do. They had no telekinesis, and even grabbing onto the basket would have been challenging. At least humans, with their hands, would have better luck; they could also hope for the stillness of tomorrow morning’s air.
“Abort!” the prismatic mare hollered. All three pegasi pulled up, while Spike upped to maximum the non-magical heater that was installed only an hour ago. Once it was high enough to clear the palace, they began pulling the balloon to an empty grass field outside the city.
It took around fifteen minutes to get the hot air balloon safely to the ground. The stiff breeze was much less of a problem at ground level. No sooner did Rainbow Dash land, as far away from the basket as possible to keep the line straight and untangled, Twilight and Cadance teleported in front of her.
“What’s your verdict,” Twilight asked.
Rainbow Dash finished removing the harness before replying. “Seems up to the task, if there’s no wind.”
Twilight gave the harness a close inspection. The local engineers had done a good job, but perhaps she could come up with improvements. It had a beam that extended well past either side of its wearer, with loops on both ends. The “fishing line” went in the loop on one side, across the beam, and out the other. The line was free to go in just about any direction without interfering with the wings of its bearer.
Without making any comment, Twilight then teleported over to the basket and began inspecting the modifications. Cadance quickly followed suit, and the pegasus flew over to join them. Spike was occupied with deflating the balloon; with dusk falling, there would be no more test flights that day.
Mounted above the basket was a large crystal ring, wide enough to pass all the ropes tying the balloon to the basket. On this ring were three pairs of fused loops. One loop encircled the large ring, while the line threaded through the other. The same line threaded through all three loops and harnesses. The pegasi would be just over five hundred feet away from the mirror; that was considered adequate, as a greater distance came with its own problems of controlling the movements of the balloon.
“So what d’ya think?” Rainbow Dash asked, for Twilight had yet to say anything. “I know you wanted to be involved in the design, but, ya know…” After all, it was her hot air balloon.
“What?” Twilight had been focused on one of the loops, where instead of passing through, the two ends of the line were tied directly to the loop. “No, it’s fine.”
She sighed as she gave her full attention to the pegasus. “You had the right idea, spreading out to dampen the swinging; it was just too little too late. You need to do that before the wind starts it swinging.”
“The air should be still tomorrow morning,” Cadance offered, “so that ought not be a problem.”
“Just remember to keep it slow and steady,” Twilight said. “Go too fast, and the mirror will toss about.”
Dash rolled her eyes. One needn’t be an egghead to know that! “I kinda figured that out already.”
There wasn’t really any rush getting it to its new home; the rush was in getting it away from the Crystal Heart. It’d take a half-day at a safe speed, with the Zephyr following at a safe distance. If necessary, they could set the mirror down on the ground so that a fresh set of pegasi could take over.
“Have you given up on using one of their flying machines?”
“Yeah. What about that new dude you brought over?”
“I wish I knew.” Twilight gave them a weak smile. “The uncertainty makes it hard to plan and organize.”
Her former foal sitter touched her withers with a wing. “I’m afraid the life of a princess is full of uncertainties.”
Twilight dipped her head. “I need to work on that.” She began folding up the deflated balloon with her magic. ”I guess we’ll find out, one way or the other, tomorrow morning.”
“Well look at that,” Meg said as she looked down far below. “Will wonders never cease.”
Hovering beside her, Rainbow Dash scrunched her muzzle. “Doesn’t look that different from Pinkie’s, if you ask me.”
“This one doesn’t depend on magic for its operation.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she replied dismissively, waving a hoof. “Should I go back and let everypony know?”
That last question was addressed to Twilight, who was also studying the desert below. In the center of the RVs was the fabled helicopter, which indeed did look much the gyrocopter Pinkie Pie sometimes flew.
“Not yet,” she decided. “Let’s make sure there aren’t any strings attached.”
The three ponies drifted down in a spiral, coming to a hover next to the flying machine. None of the humans were outside at the moment, giving Twilight a chance to inspect it.
It was a bit larger than she had expected. Looking in through the open door, it was apparently designed to carry cargo. The Mirror could easily fit inside behind the front seats with plenty of room to spare. There were some ropes inside that could be used to secure it to the various hooks on the floor near the walls.
Hanging outside and above the door was a hook. Assuming it could be lowered, that would be perfect for picking it up. It may even be possible to lift it up to the door and move it inside while flying. That would allow for much faster flight. How fast can these things fly anyway?
She poked her head inside to look at the controls. They looked very complicated. Why was that complexity needed?
After backing out the door, she drifted around the flying machine, looking for anything that might be a weapon. There wasn’t anything obvious. Meg was hovering beside her; she would know. “What’s your verdict?” Twilight asked her.
“Couldn’t ask for anything better. I’m impressed.”
Their arrival had not gone unnoticed. Agents Fowler and Reubens exited one of the RVs and walked over to them.
“No hands?” Fowler called out to the orchid pegasus.
“One less person for Twilight to carry across,” Meg explained. “Who’s the pilot?”
That was a good question, Twilight thought. It could be another unknown variable, somepony who didn’t know Equestria was real until today.
“I am,” replied Reubens. “I flew Apaches in the first Gulf War, and I’ve been keeping in practice since.”
First Gulf War?
At least the pilot was a somewhat known quantity. “Who else will be going with us?”
“Myself, of course,” Fowler responded, “and Eduardo.”
So there would be up to four humans to handle The Mirror. That seemed more than enough.
“Where’s Special Agent Holmes?” Meg suddenly asked. Twilight had noticed herself that he hadn’t been around for a over a day.
Fowler did not immediately respond. “He’s in Washington right now. It’s not clear when he’s coming back—or if he ever will.” It was obviously an uncomfortable subject for her. “This has evolved into something not normally under our jurisdiction, and there’re some power struggles going on to decide who does have jurisdiction.”
Reading between the lines, the agent’s concern was clear: this might be taken away from her, too. Regardless, it wasn’t really any of her business, and whatever the outcome of those power struggles might be, right here, and right now, the helicopter was being offered for her use.
“Rainbow Dash, tell everypony it’s on.”
“On it.” The pegasus vanished as she returned to Equestria.
Eduardo came out of a different RV carrying the doll—which was missing its gemstone collar. “I figured you’d want to do your measurements first,” he said as he approached them.
If they’d rather study that collar than let it do its job, that was their choice. “Thank you.” Taking it in her magic, she set the doll down on the ground. Her ritual of measurements gave her a chance to mull things over.
There was the incidental mentioning of multiple wars in some nameless gulf. Equestria has had its own wars in the past, of course; but, it would seem, not as frequently, at least in the recent past.
Her brother would certainly desire information on their military capabilities. Yet however impressive they would be—and she had little doubt they were incredibly impressive—they were also completely defenseless against magical attacks, nor did they have any means of independently crossing between realms.
Could she be certain of that? I need to talk to Discord about this. She’d bet he could sense them crossing over, and he would make an excellent first line of defense. As Reubens had said, nations were entitled to secure borders; Equestria actually possessed the means to secure its own. Just give the Spirit of Chaos royal permission to “have fun” with any invaders, and he’d do the rest. Or maybe she should run that past Celestia first.
The measurements were completed. No surprises, just the expected gradual worsening. Tomorrow, maybe even this afternoon, they could start experimenting with leaky shields.
“I’m done,” she declared. “Every… one who’s coming, please gather inside the helicopter.”
Aaron, who had joined them while Twilight was taking her measurements, picked the doll up off the ground. He was staying behind, the designated caretaker of the camp while the others were away.
Fowler, Eduardo, and Reubens all climbed aboard the helicopter. Twilight began concentrating, pouring her magic into the flying machine and its contents. It was quite a bit larger than Meg’s car, if not that much heavier, but nothing she couldn’t handle. It floated a few feet off the ground, to the surprise of some of the occupants.
Twilight invoked the return spell, and found herself standing in the exact same spot where she had swallowed the plaid pill, a hundred feet away from the nose of the Zephyr. The helicopter slowly lowered onto the grassy plain, and the lavender glow surrounding it evaporated.
Three humans hopped out and looked around.
“I figured it’d be more… interesting,” Eduardo said, as he scanned the endless grasslands.
Fowler walked past the nose of the helicopter and found what she was looking for. “Over here,” she said, pointing in the direction opposite to which Eduardo was looking.
Eduardo and Reubens joined her.
“That’s definitely more interesting,” Eduardo said as he gazed upon the Zephyr.
“So that’s what it looks like on the outside.” Reubens turned to Twilight. “What does E, R, S stand for?”
“Equestria Royal Ship. The Zephyr is on loan to me from Princess Celestia.”
His eyes scanned the ship from one end to the other. “I’m guessing it’s a dirigible of some sort, but what pushes it?” There were no propellors, no jets, nothing obviously a means of propulsion. “Don’t tell me: magic.”
“Okay, I won’t,” she replied teasingly. She hovered above the tall grass and pointed at the completed enclosure for the mirror. “The crystal floor extends past the entrance. Set the mirror there, and we can then roll it inside.”
“Sounds simple enough. And all I have to do is follow you to the city?”
“Right,” Twilight confirmed. “We’ll land in a field outside the city, you’ll pick up Steve, then he’ll guide you to the balcony and then on to The Mirror. How fast can you go?”
“I can cruise at a hundred miles an hour easily.”
“I’ll inform the captain of that. Shall we be on our way?”
“By all means,” Reubens said, and made his way back inside the helicopter.
“Would it be okay if I rode with you?” Eduardo asked Twilight.
“You certainly may,” she replied with a smile.
“I’ll join you,” Fowler said. “Helicopters are sorta noisy.”
Meg popped into existence, catching their attention. “Sorry, but Aaron had the usual questions he just had to ask me.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, hooves instead of hands and stuff like that.”
“Maybe you should—”
Fowler was cut off by the roar of the helicopter’s engine firing up. Twilight’s ears flattened in self-defense, and they all rushed over to the Zephyr, distancing themselves from the ear-splitting whine.
So much for riding in the helicopter. Twilight had wanted to observe its operation, but it wouldn’t be this time. Turning to look back, she noted Reubens was wearing some sort of headset. Magic-based technology was so much quieter.
The helicopter made its presence known long before it could be seen, the lack of noise pollution within the Crystal Empire making sure of that. Steve scanned the sky and found the far larger Zephyr approaching. Eventually he could make out the helicopter as well.
“There it is,” he said, pointing it out to Shining Armor.
“It must be awfully loud to be heard that far away,” he said disdainfully.
“It is, unfortunately.” The helicopter wouldn’t need to go lower than that balcony, which is well above every other building in the city; but even so, the crystal ponies wouldn’t fail to notice it. We just have to hope they’ve been sufficiently prepared for this.
A few minutes passed, and the helicopter, being much smaller and more agile, landed on the manicured grass field first. The turbine continued idling, Reubens having decided it wasn’t worth shutting it off for only a few minutes. He exited the vehicle and walked over.
“You’re coming with us, right?” the agent said to Steve. “I figured you’d be human for that.”
“And I will be, once Twilight gets here.” He nodded his head to the white unicorn beside him. “Allow me to introduce Prince Shining Armor. You two have something in common: Shining Armor was once the Captain of the Royal Guard, entrusted with the security of Canterlot in general and of Princess Celestia in particular.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Agent Reubens,” the prince said with practiced formality.
The agent gave a modest bow. “The pleasure is all mine, Your Highness.”
The Zephyr had landed and its passengers were disembarking. As the two ponies and two humans made their way across the field, Steve pulled his phone from his saddlebag and presented it to Shining Armor. “Could you hold onto this for a few minutes?”
“Sure thing,” he said, as the phone was passed from one telekinetic field to the other.
They waited for Twilight and the others to arrive. Once they did, the alicorn got down to business. “Ready to transform?” she asked Steve.
He stepped to the side, giving himself some room. “Ready.”
Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating hard, her horn glowing brightly.
Everything was suddenly smaller, his first clue the transformation had happened. His phone floated over to him and he picked it out of the air with his hand and put it in a pocket. A key floated over next from the remaining unicorn and he took that and put it in a different pocket.
“Okay, let’s go.” He started walking to the helicopter, but then noticed no one else was following. “Something wrong?”
They were all looking at him like they had seen a ghost. Eduardo spoke first. “Doesn’t that, like, faze you… or something?”
That was what had freaked them out? “You’ve seen me transform before, Agent Fowler.” The agent seemed as shocked as the others.
“Not exactly. I didn’t actually see you change.”
“And I didn’t see Meg change either,” Reubens added. “For all I knew, she could have been left behind, and a pegasus claiming to be her was waiting for us to arrive.”
“Yeah… that,” Fowler added.
Was I at your camp when you returned, or did you think I ran off into the desert?
No, that wasn’t being fair. He had gotten too used to all this. It was a bit scary, too, that very first time, when he had witnessed Meg being zapped by rainbows.
“Well… no,” he patiently explained. “It doesn’t faze me, or anything, really, not even the first time. It’s a property of the spell, something I can thank Princess Luna for, I guess, though Twilight here does an excellent job of casting it.”
“This wouldn’t happen to be the same spell you used to become breezies, would it?” Fowler asked the beaming alicorn.
The beaming eroded just a bit. “It is.”
Now why would that question bother her? The obvious follow-up question then came to mind: Have any ponies been turned into humans?
There were none to his knowledge. It had never even been suggested as a possibility, not even when it might have made things easier.
But for now, it was a possibility that the feds did not need to consider. They still didn’t know ponies could be invisible. They didn’t need to worry about ponies hiding in plain sight as humans. They already had enough to lose sleep over.
“We really should get going,” he said as he resumed walking towards the idling helicopter. This time, the others followed.
Once they were all inside, Steve took a seat up front, the one next to Reubens. He found a headset waiting for him on the seat, already plugged in, and put it on. The other two agents were handed noise-blocking earmuffs as they went into the back, where they would have to stand for a lack of seats. At least there were handrails for them to hold on to, and it would be a short flight.
Reubens powered up the turbine and the helicopter began to rise.
“Climb first,” Steve instructed. “We’ve been asked to remain above the tallest building while over the city. That’s also our destination.”
“Climb first, remain above tallest building while over city,” he repeated.
The flight was uneventful. The crystal ponies far below were certainly aware of them passing by overhead, but they did little more than pause and look up. Whatever Princess Cadance had told them, it seemed to have done the job.
Soon they were above the Crystal Palace. “There’s the balcony,” Steve pointed out. Where there ponies down there? Orange, pink, cyan… not hard to figure out who those could be. That wasn’t part of the plan, but if they wanted to observe, no reason why they couldn’t. Hope they can handle the noise…
They slowly descended. The rotor was wider than the balcony, so they had to set down near the railing, which being so low there was no chance the rotor could hit it. Princess Cadance, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash watched from a respectful distance, all three wearing earmuffs, the kind that protected against cold weather. That’s one way to handle the noise… barely. At least they could fold their ears as well.
Fowler lost no time in sliding open the door and hopping out, Eduardo close behind her. Steve unplugged his headset, but leaving it on for the noise protection, and hopped out as well. The rotor was still turning rapidly, the howling downdraft adding its noise to the turbine whine.
Steve acknowledged the mares’ presence, giving them a wave, but otherwise ignored them and walked briskly after the other two. Fowler knew where the mirror was kept and was making a beeline for it. If the ponies wanted to talk to him about something, they would have no trouble catching up. That was the advantage of being a quadruped.
Indeed, he was soon accompanied by a trotting pegasus and earth pony. He removed his headset and hung it around his neck, almost instantly regretting it. The crystalline walls of the ballroom reverberated the noise from the balcony. Fortunately, it sounded much worse than it actually was.
“What’s up?” he asked the mares. “Is something wrong?”
“Nah,” Rainbow Dash replied. “We figured somepony ought to keep an eye on things.”
Cadance was still out on the balcony. Was she keeping an eye on the helicopter?
“And lend a helpin’ hoof if’n it’s needed.”
How they could lend a hoof wasn’t at all clear—that was the whole point of this exercise, after all—but their presence didn’t hurt either.
They reached the door to the storage area. Laying nearby were a pair of dollies, and also a harness to be slipped around the mirror so it can be lifted by a hook.
Steve fished out the key from his pocket and used it to unlock and open the door, revealing the mirror, reflecting his image back at him.
They kicked the dollies over to the mirror. With quick tilts, the dollies slipped underneath the mirror without difficulty. The light was better in the ballroom, so they first rolled it out of the storage area. There the harness was assembled, by the threading of straps under and around the mirror, and the attaching of the ends to a crystal loop that went at the very top.
So far, so good. Steve closed the door, locked it, removed the key, and pocketed it.
The next part was the time critical part. They were about to move the mirror closer to the Crystal Heart. They pushed it as fast as they dared back to the helicopter. By the time they reached it, a hook had already been dropped from the unit above the door. They attached it to that crystal loop, then signaled Reubens to lift it. As soon as it was level with the door, they signaled him to lower it again, while simultaneously pushing the mirror inside the cabin.
Eduardo tied the mirror down as Steve unhooked it and Fowler put the dollies inside. She slid the door closed, but not before Rainbow Dash jumped inside. There wasn’t time to deal with that. Reubens opened the throttle and they began to rise.
Dash immediately hopped into the seat besides Reubens, who did a double take but decided to focus on flying. They climbed a hundred feet then headed back to the field where the Zephyr waited.
Holding onto a handrail, Steve poked his head up front, giving the pegasus a dirty look. “Need I ask why?” he asked, loudly, competing against the muffled but still considerable noise
“I wanna see this thing fly,” Dash simply stated, a big grin gracing her face.
He pulled back his head. “Whatever,” he mumbled.
Looking ahead, the Zephyr was already high in the sky and accelerating, on its way back to the enclosure. “Remember to stay far back, at least a thousand feet.”
“Magic, gotcha.”
Steve got down on the floor and tried to get comfortable, exchanging awkward smiles with the others. It was only for a half-hour or so.
He looked at the mirror. Maybe he should have brought along some of Twilight’s measuring devices. They were moving through full-strength magical field. She didn’t believe that would be a problem. It was full-strength, yes, but also high viscosity. It’d take time for that to break down, time it wouldn’t have as they rapidly flew through it. Yes, magic in the flight path would get scoped up, resulting in a flow higher than before, but not enough to be dangerous.
The space-time continuum hadn’t ripped open, so apparently she was right.
That viscosity also meant the Crystal Heart’s recovery wouldn’t be quick, but at least it would recover.
The flight back was uneventful. Rainbow Dash did not make a nuisance of herself, content to just observe.
There was one small problem when they arrived: they couldn’t land on that crystalline platform, which extended out from the mirror’s new home, because it didn’t extend far enough. The rotor would hit the enclosure.
It was easy enough problem to solve. While still above the ground, the mirror was hooked once more, pushed out the door, and lowered in front of the enclosure’s door. More line was let out, allowing the helicopter to land away from the enclosure.
Then it was a simple matter of getting the dollies under it once more, unhooking it, and rolling it inside. All during this time, the Zephyr remained a safe distance away, high in the sky. The harness was removed and the mirror tilted one last time as the final dolly was removed.
Mission accomplished.
“Rainbow Dash, what are you doing here?” Twilight was at the door. “And why are you wearing those? It’s summer.”
The pegasus shrugged. “I just wanted to see that thing fly, okay?” Her eyes briefly looked up. “And these are for the noise.”
Twilight looked skeptical. “Those can’t be very effective at blocking noise.”
“Yeah, not really,” she admitted. “But once the doors are closed it’s really not that bad.”
“It’s not?”
Oh, no…
Twilight had that look in her eyes.
No comfy chair for me on the flight back.
Fowler went to retrieve the doll as Twilight levitated her measuring devices out of a saddlebag.
The flight back had been fascinating. She tried restraining herself the best she could—it wouldn’t do to distract the pilot too much—but there were so many questions that simply demanded answers. Whether those answers would be relevant to other ponies was difficult to say; however ingenious their technological solutions may have been, they were merely workarounds for the lack of magic.
The helicopter was no longer there, on its way back to… from wherever they had acquired it.
The agent returned with the doll and set it down on the ground. Twilight looked at the meter and frowned, even if it wasn’t unexpected. The flow was higher, worryingly higher. It had a fresh, full-strength field to suck dry. Hopefully, it would diminish once the nearby magic was gone. At least the Crystal Heart was saved, she thought, sighing.
No. She couldn’t rely on just hope. She needed to find her brother and begin the experiments with a leaky magic shield as soon as possible.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
1,081 users online
1,998,574 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Sparkle refuses to admit Muggles Can Do Better.
Please Twi, go and investigate about human modern military and warfare so your brother can go and cry on a corner.
And don't forget telling Dash about supersonic planes on Match Three , so she can make him company
38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls4qtr6Wsx1r1hg2mo2_250.gif
Are they really considering the use of a Black hole?, that easly could go bad:
Interesting work..though methinks they got that chopper from the surrounding area somewhere, plus it would've been too easy to have some recording equipment working as well.
6216221 I gotta agree with Twi on this one. The helicopter is one of the best examples of "if you put enough power into it, it will fly." From an engineering perspective the machines have horrible mechanics, and from a piloting perspective they're temperamental and require vastly more attention than fixed wing aircraft. Look up videos of helicopters crashing -- it doesn't take much to disrupt the balance of forces at work and when something does go wrong it goes wrong spectacularly.
6218050
Too bad the plan wasn't to launch the mirror into a solar escape trajectory. "Hey, can we borrow an Atlas V rocket? ITAR be damned."
Now THAT would have provided interesting reactions.
Well, read through the story now and this is quite interesting story. I like how you explore how the 2 worlds would react to each other with the cartoon thrown into the middle even if I do not agree with a lot of the suppositions. The learning how Equestria is real for the 2 main humans is well thought out. The actual interactions with the humans and ponies is nice too. What gets me is the continuous assumption that all the rest of the Bronies would have a mass fangasm and be a pestilence upon the ponies. What I do not see at all is the equestrians adapting to that the human world knows a fair deal about them. The MLP tv series is more than just entertainment. The show inspires people to be better. And the ponies should realize that people can empathize with them just from seeing the show.
The princesses in my opinion are being too isolationists. There would be around 20-30 new stars from the common background ponies and ~13 new superstars from the main characters. of the main characters all of them are royalty or can be considered nobility. It would be trivial to just put Ponyville off limits to humans. Equestria has the perfect boarder security. No one can come over without the help of the equestrians. Introduce both worlds to each other, telling Equestria about the show and then have nothing happen after that. Have the only contact be official government meetings. Draw them out and it will give everyone time to calm down. Have both worlds do documentaries/editorials on each other so they can know each others cultures and how everyone thinks. When it comes time for people and ponies to actually go to each others worlds they can pre-screen the candidates that will make the least amount of waves. Control where they can go. Japan comes to mind how they operated when they were coming out of their isolationism. From there it is just a matter of getting used to each other which then can allow higher levels of integration till it is like any other foreign nation.
Ohh well that is just what my take of what should happen if this story happened in real life. I have a funny feeling that something huge will happen that will render both the human and equestrian world's plans and preferences moot. Seeing how that is handled would be worth pulling up some popcorn and watching the fireworks.
They didn't actually need a helicopter here, just a scaffolding. Based on the perspective shots of the castle and the crowds underneath it (S3E12,S6E1+2), I'd say that balcony was around 7 stories (70 feet) off the ground, give or take a few based on how big ponies are. Make a big fat ramp out of wooden beams, roll a flatbed cart up, tip the mirror onto it, and push it down the ramp and out of the city, all without getting too close to the Crystal Heart. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be doable by Equestrians without magic or human assistance.
That said, you seem to have blown the scale up so that the bottom of the castle is taller than most skyscapers. 600 feet is a reasonable number for the height of a building in midtown Manhattan, not as the ground floor of a castle that, by that measurement, is probably taller than any building humanity has ever made.
You know, they could have always tried creating a clog for the magic flow. With the momentum lost once it's clogged, there would no longer be a magic vacuum through whatever portal to the human world it is.