015 - Magitech, Part 2
Twilight lifted her head as the lights flickered back on. “Wha… What happened?” She rubbed her head – she’d fallen over and hit it on a console. It was definitely going to leave a bruise.
“Uh…” Starlight sifted through images on the console, trying her best to actually understand what was on there. “…I think the hyperdrive blew up. Halfway. Or something.”
“Is everypony okay!?”
“Same amount of life signatures on board. Apparently everyone got out of the reactor room in time…”
“Did they at least try to fix it?” Applejack asked.
“How should I know? I wasn’t looking before the alarms started blaring!”
Twilight took a deep breath to calm herself. “Starlight, Applejack, Pinkie, Spike, with me. We’re going to check out the hyperdrive, see what the damage is. Rest of you… I guess stay with Malat.”
“I CAN TALK TO YOU ANYWHERE IN THE SHIP. I HAVE BEEN TALKING TO A CERTAIN GRIFFON WHO IS NOW HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. VERY SATISFACTORY.”
Starlight winced. Twilight wanted to take a moment to talk to her, but there were more pressing matters to deal with. Namely the giant hole that had just been blown in the ship.
“NOT TO MENTION THAT YOU’RE FALLING TOWARDS ME. THAT’LL BE PRETTY CRISPY.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Er… Are maneuvering thrusters still working?”
Spike looked at a console. “Yep.”
“Get us into a stable orbit.”
“Done.”
“All right then, that was easy.” She lit her horn and teleported five of them to the hallway outside engineering. A dozen humans and ponies were sitting on this side of the doorway, breathing heavily.
“Twilight!” One of the humans said – Janus, she recalled – “Thank God, I thought we were goners!”
“We would be goners if I hadn’t patched that hole,” a unicorn by the name of Craft Box said. “You have any idea how much energy’s stored in this thing?”
Janus nodded vigorously.
“What happened?” Twilight asked. “What made it explode?”
“Indeterminate,” Craft Box said. “The hole wasn’t the only problem, I can tell you that.”
“Sabotage!” Another human shouted, one by the name of Gilles. “There’s no way that thing just blew up without some external force!”
“Who’d do that?” Starlight asked.
Applejack fixed Starlight with a look. “Ah’m not that involved, and Ah can tell you the options. Ba’al, Ba’al, or Ba’al.”
Twilight sighed. “Right… I’m going to have to screen all of you. This could take some time and may feel a little weird.“ She lit her horn and focused a spell on Gilles, scanning the insides of his neck. It took a few seconds for her to get a clear picture of the spinal column, but she saw no Goa’uld snake on it. Then she moved to Jones.
Janus raised his hands into the air in surrender before she even started. “All right, fine, you got me.”
“Wait, what?” One of the Engineering ponies said, eyes widening. “You?”
Janus just shrugged and smirked. “I play a pretty convincing panicky idiot, don’t I?”
Twilight scanned Janus anyway to make sure. Yep. There was a Ba’al symbiote in there, affixed to the brain stem. She facehooved. “How did we miss you? We scanned everyone who came through!”
Ba’al shrugged. “Isn’t that hard to infect someone who’s already passed inspection. Just portal in, portal out, done. By the way, pleasure to meet you face to face, I don’t think any Ba’al has had the honor quite yet.”
Pinkie frowned. “You’re too happy for having been found out.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? My goal was to disable your ship. Not only have I done that, but I also stranded you all out here in the middle of nowhere. Not as good as destroying the entire ship, but, you know.”
“…You were on a suicide mission?” Pinkie blurted. “That’s not like you!”
“How do you know what’s like me?” he said, leaning back and smirking.
Starlight turned to Twilight. “Can I just probe this guy’s mind? Please?”
Twilight frowned. “It’s not-“
“Twilight, he tried to kill us. It’s less than he deserves.”
“…All right.”
Starlight’s eyes went white as she connected her mind to Ba’al’s, forcing his eyes to go white as well. The connection lasted a few seconds before Starlight removed herself from it. “He has no idea where the Mothership is, there was an escape plan but he was unaware we changed destinations to Malat instead of Proximus, so they couldn’t portal him out. His escape team has assuredly abandoned him at this point and moved to another dimension. He is of little use and…” She frowned. “Well that’s odd. Apparently they have some kind of magical artifact with them.”
“Does that help us figure out where they are?” Twilight asked.
“Nope. Just some dark magic mask.”
Ba’al frowned. “You know, it isn’t fair if you can just read people’s minds.”
“It isn’t fair to bomb a planet that has only minimal means of defense. Plus, you can teach yourself to resist it.”
“Don’t tell him that!” Pinkie shouted.
“Oh. Right.”
“He’s not going to be able to tell any of his copies though,” Twilight noted. “He’s going to be extracted from Janus and squashed.” She shivered a little at the thought that this Ba’al would soon be dead. Even if he was an abject monster, he was still alive. But he had basically declared war on them all…
Ba’al smirked. “Tentative about turning me over to them, are you? You ponies are very soft, you know. Security almost doesn’t exist, everyone gets a second chance, and you sing and dance all the time! It’s a little amusing to watch!”
“Little. Ha.” Pinkie winked, somehow sarcastically. “I see what you did there.”
Ba’al shrugged. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re all stuck out here and your ship is crippled. What now?”
“We wait for the Apollo to realize something’s up,” Twilight said. “They know where we are.”
Ba’al frowned. “You sure you have enough air for that? You’ll discover soon that your air recyclers have been corrupted and that you are leaking atmosphere.”
“I can literally create more air out of the aether,” Starlight muttered. “It actually seems easier here than on Equis.”
Ba’al clearly hadn’t thought of that. His confident smirk vanished, replaced with one of annoyance. “…Well then, congratulations, this entire outing has been nothing but an annoyance to everyone involved.”
“I AGREE WITH THE GOA’ULD ON THIS CHARGE.”
Ba’al blinked. “The voice of the Star, I presume?”
“Yep,” Applejack said. “And that’s all you need to know.”
“I didn’t even need to know that. Ever consider investing in a ‘keeping secrets’ course? I’m sure it’ll be worthwhile.”
Twilight teleported Ba’al into the brig. “There we are, done with that. So done with that.”
“He’s just as infuriatin’ as everyone said he’d be,” Applejack said.
“Definitely not what I was expecting…” Starlight commented. “Seems a lot less mad supervillain and more… Clever and mischievous.”
“Still really dangerous,” Pinkie reminded them. “We can’t let him smooth talk us!”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Anyway, think we should actually look at the drive and see if we can fix it?”
“Right,” Twilight said. She cleared her throat. “Everypony out of this section! The atmosphere is about to be vented!”
All the engineers quickly scrambled out of the hallway, leaving just four ponies and a dragon. Twilight encased them in a magic bubble and sealed all the doors shut. Then she opened the one leading to the engine room. The atmosphere in their section of hallway rushed out into the vacuum, pushing the magic bubble out into the room. They floated aimlessly since the gravity generators weren’t working, likely because there was no floor to contain them. They looked down and saw nothing but white stars and the soft red glow of Malat.
“HEY.”
“Hey,” Twilight said, looking down at Malat – or, well, what she perceived as down.
“THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT EARLIER. THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL IS INADVISABLE.”
“Oh, and how’s that?” Applejack said as Starlight pushed the sphere towards the sparking hyperdrive.
“ENEMIES. ENEMIES AROUND EVERY CORNER. DESTRUCTION. ALL WHO FLY CLOSE TO THE TOP GET BURNED.”
Twilight examined the cables on the Hyperdrive. “Well, that certainly seems pessimistic,” Twilight said. “How would you know?”
“UGH. APPARENTLY I ACTUALLY GET TO TELL YOU SOMETHING. YAY. WE, THE STARS, USED TO BE A MULTIVERSAL RACE, ONE OF THE MORE POWERFUL ONES AT THAT. BUT THEN THERE WAS WAR, BROUGHT ON BY FORCES WE COULD NOT HAVE FORESEEN. AND YET, WE STILL BROUGHT IT ON OURSELVES. WHAT MY RACE WANTS TO TELL YOU IS TO STOP, TO GIVE YOU A WARNING.”
“Maybe we’ll be different!” Pinkie said. “We’re obviously quite a bit more friendly than you!”
“Plus, how could we stop now?” Twilight asked. “We’re in too deep.”
“YOU’RE NOT IN TOO DEEP YET. YOU CAN RETREAT, STOP EXPLORING, LEAVE THE DIMENSIONAL WORK TO OTHERS. DO WHAT MOST OTHER ALTERNATE EQUESTRIAS DO WHEN THEY ENCOUNTER YOU – TALK TO TRAVELERS THAT COME BUT FEEL NO NEED TO JOIN THEM ON THEIR QUEST. YOU’VE VISITED WELL OVER A HUNDRED WORLDS, AND WHAT, LESS THAN TEN ACTUALLY JOIN YOU ON YOUR LITTLE EXPLORATION? DOES IT OCCUR TO YOU THAT MAYBE THEY’RE JUST SMARTER?”
Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think so. We’re called to do this. I’m sorry, but we’re just not going to drop it.”
“CALLED BY WHAT, EXACTLY? WE ARE THE FORCES OF DESTINY IN YOUR UNIVERSE. WE ARE THE STARS.”
“The Tree of Harmony, for one,” Starlight said.
There was no response. Twilight examined the entire dimensional component of the drive in the silence.
“…Why’s she silence?”
“She wouldn’t answer Starswirl’s questions about the Harmony Forces,” Twilight reminded her. “She won’t make any comment on the Tree. So I’m going to take it to be a valid reason to keep exploring.”
“Sounds good to me,” Spike said.
Starlight just frowned. “I don’t know… It’s not just Malat saying this, it’s the other Stars as well. Shouldn’t we at least consider listening to them?”
Applejack frowned. “Ah’d consider it, but Ah know y’all can’t just leave it be now. There are too many friends out there. Too many connections.”
“It’d be a betrayal in more ways than one,” Twilight admitted.
“Yeah!” Pinkie said, turning to look directly at Malat. “So guess what? We’ll take whatever horrors are coming our way! And we’ll face them together!”
“I TOLD THEM YOU’D BE STUPID. I WAS RIGHT. THANK YOU.”
“Any hints on helping us survive?” Starlight asked. “Since, you know, the Stars care?”
“NOT FROM ME, I’M DONE. ALSO, SOMEONE STICK A SOCK IN STARSWIRL’S MUZZLE. HE’S GETTING REALLY ANNOYING.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Not doing that.”
“I COULD DESTROY YOUR SHIP WITH A THOUGHT.”
“You won’t,” Pinkie said.
There was no response. There was no exploding either.
Twilight finally let out a loud sigh. “Drive’s completely shot. We need new parts to repair it. So we’re stuck here until someone comes and gets us. Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours. We didn’t exactly set a timetable for them.” She teleported them back into a hallway with air and removed the bubble. “So… I guess we wait then.”
“Rainbow Dash is going to go crazy,” Applejack muttered.
“You’re implying she hasn’t already gone crazy,” Pinkie said.
“Back to the bridge then?” Spike asked.
“Back to the bridge,” Twilight confirmed, teleporting them all back.
Starswirl was still yelling, but his voice was very scratchy now. “Malat! Do… Do you hear me!? I’m… I’m not going to stop until I get answers! Malat!”
Rainbow Dash grabbed Twilight’s face. “Get me out of here, this guy’s loco.”
Twilight facehooved. It was going to be a long day.
~~~
General Sunset was trotting around the Hub, observing all the new things that were slowly forming. The embassies were truly established now, and more than a few shops had already opened their doors. She’d stopped by Earth Gizmos herself and purchased something called a ‘smartphone.’ It apparently would make calls on Earth, but for her it was only useful for taking pictures, videos, and other such things. Its ability to store data was more than enough for her to consider it worth the price, which was pretty exorbitant. She had it though, being a General had its perks.
She had found using magic to press the screen worked far better than carefully aligning a hoof or her tail. The hoof was far too wide and her tail didn’t listen half of the time, even when she fed it that hot dog. Meat products usually kept the tail satisfied, but for whatever reason today was not one of those days.
She snapped a few pictures with the smartphone of every shop she came across, and added some notes to it every time she did. She had no doubt the Queen would want to visit the best of these shops, and this was a much better way to categorize than scroll or memory.
If Sunset was right on the money, the Queen would probably like the ‘Trinq’ the best, a shop that already had small pieces of art and sculptures from several worlds. The Queen was always fascinated by the ‘beautiful’ and ‘interesting’, something Sunset rarely understood herself, but at this point had learned to tell the Queen about.
The next shop was Arcane Academics. Judging by the sign out front, it was run by a pair of unicorn brothers who GUARANTEED that anyone could learn magic there. Sunset raised an incredulous eyebrow absentmindedly. That shop would either make a killing or get kicked out of here faster than an Arcei out of town square. …Though she wasn’t sure that metaphor applied here. They’d probably accept Arcei here. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an explosion of holy white power. A nearby Embassy – that of the Binaries – exploded in a flash of white. Sunset was fairly sure nobody was inside, but that didn’t matter because the holy power was spreading, tearing apart the walls and ceiling with increasing intensity.
Sunset lit her antlers, driving her hooves into the ground and summoning the power of the scenery around her. The metallic ground vibrated with her hooves, sending out a wave that forced everything within several meters to stop moving – except the holy energy, which just kept on destroying things.
Ponies and people screamed, running away from the burst of power. A few tried to stop it – a Hylian raised some magical staff that exploded before it could do anything, and one of the demons charged and was flung back like a silly ragdoll. Alarms blared as more and more people arrived and fled, only adding to the chaos.
Sunset noticed something odd. The magic wasn’t hurting anyone. It obviously could, but it wasn’t. It seemed far more concerned with causing meaningless destruction…
A distraction.
She knew one when she saw one. Her mind went into overdrive – what would be the purpose of a distraction? What could they possibly be after in this place?
The Mirror.
She bolted, trying to scream that it was a distraction to everyone around her, but nobody was in a mood to listen. She was on her own, running toward the center of the Hub. She rushed through the large doros to the main room, horn and antlers glowing, ready for anything.
There was a version of Pinkie Pie wearing a plain white mask leaping over everyone still in the main room, beelining for the Mirror Portal by bouncing over heads. Sunset was able to register that Toph’s team was providing the most resistance, with earth, yo-yos, and fire spells being tossed around, but the Pinkie dodged everything.
Sunset decided to put an end to that. Using her deer powers, she accessed the scenery again. This time, instead of making everything stop, she launched a perfectly rectangular slab of metal out from the ceiling into the Pinkie. The Pinkie grabbed it, twisted, and was suddenly on top of the falling slab. She used it as a springboard to approach the Mirror Portal, throwing a bean bag from nowhere into Sunset’s face at the same time.
Lieshy dove out of the sky, impacting the Pinkie from the side. Her mask slid off her face, revealing two alien blue eyes. An oculus. The Sage.
Sunset’s already high levels of anger went through the roof. She launched a bolt of blood-red flame at the Sage, but she used her mask to deflect it with some white holy shield. Vivian shot out of the ground and punched her with a flaming fist, but the fire was simply absorbed by the mask this time. Tendrils of white shot out of the Sage’s four hooves, pushing all opponents back.
“Get down here!” Toph yelled, forcing metal and earth to shoot out of the ground in the shape of a hand, grabbing the Sage by the tail. The Sage was suddenly on top of the hand. She grabbed Fef’s yo-yos before they could do anything and pulled, knocking both the demon and a few bystanders over. Lieshy swooped again only for the yo-yo to be tossed at her, tying her wings up and getting tangled in her mane.
Sunset teleported in front of the Sage, explosion spell ready, only to get a white tendril to the face. She flew right into the central column behind the Mirror Portal, the wind knocked out of her. The Sage dodged the last few rocks thrown by Toph, but was unable to dodge Bon Bon’s quick use of a grappling hook.
Sunset realized with mild horror that the Sage probably wanted to get grabbed by the grappling hook. She sailed toward Bon Bon and kicked her in the face. The mare reacted surprisingly quickly, grabbing the Sage’s midsection and piledriving her into the ground. However, being a version of Pinkie, the Sage simply didn’t care about this. She bounced right back up and blew Bon Bon into Vivian with a burst of holy energy. She tapped a button on the desk, setting the Mirror Portal to Lai.
Sunset cleared her head, trying one last time to stop the Sage from reaching the Mirror Portal. She lit her horn, creating a wall of reddish magic. The Sage did as expected – use her strange new holy mask powers to plow through the forcefield. Sunset readied the explosion spell as the Sage flew over her, ready to bring the Sage down – but a giant rock hit Sunset in the face.
“Great, I hit the wrong pony,” Toph muttered. She readied another rock, but it was too late.
The Sage leaped toward the Mirror Portal, a white tendril of energy snaking behind her. She bounced through, using the white tendril to grab a hold of the green diamond at the last possible moment and drag it through with her. The Mirror Portal lost power a second after the green diamond was removed, just enough for it to pass through the boundary between worlds as well.
Bon Bon blinked. “…She just took the diamond.”
Sunset took out her dimensional device, sneering. “She won’t have it for long – dammit!” She noticed her device was out of power. It’d take a few seconds to charge with her magic.
Toph, Vivian, Lieshy, and Fef all lined up behind her. Toph pointed at her. “We’re coming with you.”
“Not complaining,” Sunset said, finally opening the portal. The five of them leaped through.
Lieshy turned and looked through the portal at Bon Bon. “Tell anyone who asks that we’re on the case. We’ll get the diamond back for the key-link.”
Bon Bon barely had time to nod before the portal closed.
On the other side of the portal, Toph slammed her foot into the ground. “There’s no way she moved fast enough to get out of range… But I can’t feel her…”
“She’s a version of Pinkie,” Lieshy said. “Pinkies are knights – as in, knights in chess. They don’t operate like the rest of us.”
“That is not going to stop us from hunting her down,” Sunset asserted, using her horn and antlers to find whatever she could. “I can sense the trail of holy magic her mask left behind. South.”
Toph slammed her hands into the ground, creating a large slab of rock for them all to ride on. Then she rolled her arms around, pushing all of them forward on a wave of rock. It was almost like surfing.
Sunset shook her head. “I didn’t think earthbenders were this powerful…”
“I’m not most earthbenders!” Toph smirked. “I am the best in the world!”
“Debatable as cherry bombs,” Lieshy muttered under her breath.
“Come again?”
“I’m allowed to double talk my insults, thank you very much.”
Fef shrugged, trying to pull her yo-yo out of Lieshy’s hair with minimal success.
Vivian pointed. “What’s that?”
“Just a large pointed rock, nothing to worry about,” Toph said.
Sunset paled. “Stop the earth wave! That’s a Rune Obelisk! You need to-“
Toph barreled through the large orange Runes, knocking the structure to the side. Needless to say, this awoke the golem, and it was a very angry giant orange spider.
“RUN RUN RUN!” Sunset yelled, turning behind them to defend. She was able to combine the earth beneath her with fire to create a burst of lava, but as always Golems were annoyingly resistant to everything. Their only hope was to get out of its circle of influence, and given the size of it, that was probably a very large circle.
“Got anything else to try?” Lieshy said. “I ask because Toph’s busy making us run, and the rest of us would be useless against a giant light spider.”
“I am not useless!” Fef assured her, throwing a yo-yo at the spider. The string snapped instantly. “Okay, fine, maybe I’m not particularly useful in this instance.”
“It’s gaining!” Vivian yelled to Toph, launching a fire spell of her own at the spider, to no effect. “Great.”
“I can feel how close it is, morons!” she muttered. She upset the balance of the earth wave to grab a rock from nearby and fling it at the spider, slowing it down slightly. “How much further?”
“I have no idea! That was a large Rune! It could be a mile or more!” Sunset shouted, trying to melt the earth beneath the spider. It worked, but it just walked right through the hissing ground. Sunset hoped she didn’t just cause a forest fire with that move.
The spider lunged at them, ready to sink its teeth into Sunset – and then it shattered. They had reached the edge of its influence.
“That could not have been any closer…” Sunset muttered.
“Nothing’s so close that it can’t be closer,” Lieshy observed.
“Words of wisdom, yes. Necessary? No.” Sunset frowned, looking further south. “The holy energy is coming from that town. Can’t tell from where exactly though. We’ll have to ask around.”
It wasn’t until after they started getting the strange looks that Sunset considered that might have been a bad idea. She facehooved. “Riiiight… They’ve never seen a human, demon, or… whatever you are Vivian.”
Vivian shrugged. “Shadow siren.”
Sunset sighed, producing a general’s insignia. “I’m General Sunset Shimmer, they’re with me, you do not need to be afraid. We are here looking for a pink oculus who may or may not be wearing a smooth, white mask.”
The ponies of the town murmured amongst themselves, unsure of how to respond. It looked like one was about to say something, but then another gasped. “You!”
Lieshy blinked, trying to find out where the voice was coming from. “Me?”
A pegasus-seapony hybrid dropped from the sky and looked right into Lieshy’s eyes with identical eyes. “You look like me!”
“I’m Lieshy, you’re probably Fluttershy, and we don’t have time for this,” Lieshy muttered.
“DID YOU STEAL MY FACE!?” She roared.
Sunset turned to stare at her. “…What?”
“I’m asking a perfectly logical question. DID YOU STEAL MY FREAKING FACE?”
“No,” Lieshy said, monotone. “Can we please talk about this later?”
“THEN WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE ME?”
Sunset made the pegasus-seapony fall asleep with a simple spell. “Okay, enough of that.”
“…Not the standard Fluttershy,” Fef said.
“Definitely not,” Toph agreed. Then she cleared her throat. “ALL RIGHT! PONIES! Stop gawking! We need to find this pony and fast! Who knows where she is?”
An elderly mawlie walked up to them, his tail purring like a cat. “I dunno where you’re goin’ with this. But we don’t just turn in ponies to random strangers.”
Sunset waved the insignia around. “Here on official business of the crown. She’s wanted.”
“Why?”
“She stole an artifact. Looks like a green diamond that isn’t completely solid. It’s a tremendous source of power and could be dangerous in the wrong hooves.”
Lieshy raised an eyebrow. “Why feed the details?”
“What?” The old mawlie said.
Sunset got Lieshy’s message – that had probably given too much information. “Just tell us where she is, okay? We’ll just take her in, that’s it. Nopony will be killing anyone.”
The old stallion scratched his beard. “Well, I dunno where she is. I did see someone similar rush down third street a few seconds ago. You’ll have to ask around there.”
“Where is third street?”
“There are only three streets in this town,” Toph said, tapping her foot on the ground. I’m going to bet the one furthest from the big building is third street.”
Sunset sighed. “Thank you for the help.” She followed Toph to third street and repeated the question.
A couple mares there glanced at each other. “I thought I heard you say you saw her.”
“Ah, but you said you saw her first and I think I was just going crazy!”
“No, no you really saw her. Left I think?”
“No, right.”
“No, left”
“ARGH!” Toph yelled. “These ponies are all morons!”
“No…” Lieshy said, walking up to one of them. “…Who paid you?”
“C-come again?”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. That was the response of a guilty pony.
Lieshy smirked. “Let me tell you what I think happened. She planned this out in advance and paid you all long ahead of time. She gave instructions for you to distract anyone who came looking for her, to keep them occupied long enough for her to make a getaway.”
“Er…”
“And your response – the slight facial twitch, the single step backwards – is all I need to confirm it. I think you can arrest them for collusion, General.”
Sunset nodded. “That I can. Or… I can save them a trip to the dungeon if they just tell us where she is now.”
They both pointed to a boring building on second street. “She stays in there.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said, walking over to that building. She melted a hole in the wall and strode in.
The interior was like an empty warehouse. There was evidence of big, heavy things having been moved very recently. Namely, lots of places where dust had been kicked up, lots of drag marks on the ground, and lots of hoofprints. There were a few loose screws, planks of wood, and chunks of black rock laying around – chunks of Runes.
The only major thing left in the room was a small box, on top of which sat the green diamond and a hoofwritten note.
Sunset walked over to it and read the note.
I won’t be needing this anymore. Thanks for letting me borrow it! –Pinkie the Sage.
Sunset crumpled the paper in her magic, lit it on fire, and smashed the ashes into a flat mess under her hoof. She grabbed the green diamond. “We’ll return this. We’ll deal with the fallout. Then I’m coming back here to track that irritating oculus down. She’s made a fool of me. I’m not going to let that stand.”
Toph put her fist in her hand. “I am feeling the need to throw a rock in masked pony’s face…”
Sunset nodded. “She knows not what she’s done…”
If Susnet was being honest with herself, she would probably have admitted that the Sage knew exactly what she was doing. She was clearly a practiced oculus, and they rarely did things without planning astronomically well. This was going to be a significant challenge.
~~~
Starlight stared at the main screen on the bridge, looking right at Malat. She knew the Star could see her staring, and probably even knew what she was thinking. But nobody on the ship had heard anything from Malat since the empty threat. The Star was apparently done talking to the mortals and was now… doing whatever it was Stars did when they weren’t messing with the affairs of lesser beings. Starlight had no idea what that was, if anything. Now that she was thinking about it she was having a hard time coming up with anything the Stars could do besides watch other things. Maybe they talked over long distances with their impressive magic? What did they even talk about?
How had they even had a multiversal society? They never seemed to move, never did anything besides occasionally speak and heat planets up... or if the legends were to be believed, changed and manipulated things in small, yet key ways.
But all of those were just legends- wait.
Starlight turned to her left. “Twilight, how exactly did the Stars aid in Nightmare Moon’s escape?”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “I’m not exactly sure. Four of the brightest Stars ended up in precise alignment with the moon, and she was released from her prison. Then we used the Elements of Harmony to banish the Nightmare Forces and return Luna to her right mind.”
“But why would the position of the stars matter in relation to the moon?”
“I have no idea. What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know, but I think I might be onto something… hey Starswirl!”
Starswirl looked up, grunting. His voice had given out well over an hour ago.
“Why would the positions of Stars cause a seal to be broken?”
He sighed, summoning a scroll with his magic. He drew a diagram of a single point at several points in time, moving from the top to the bottom. Then he arranged four stars, not in a square, but a spread out pattern. He drew lines connecting every pair of them, then circles connecting every set of three points possible. There turned out to be an X right on top of the point moving through space when he was done, where several circles and lines connected.
“…I think I know what he’s drawing. Magical fields,” Twilight said. “The places where these lines intersect are where the magical fields of different Stars intersect, giving them more intense power. Or providing more intense power. Or both.”
Starswirl gave a sideways nod, as if to say ‘close enough.’
“So, the Stars basically channel magic between each other through a complex maze of circles and lines?” Starlight asked.
Starswirl gave the same nod.
Starlight started grinning. “Twilight, remind me again why there’s no ‘faster than light’ spell.”
“Because the arrangement of arcane energies off of Equis is inconsistent. In deep space there’s simply not enough energy to supersede what the humans call ‘relativity’.” She rubbed her head, no doubt remembering the moments Sunset had tried to explain the extremely complicated topic.
“What if we ride these lines, though?” Starlight asked, pointing. “We could keep up an impressive speed so long as we found a powerful enough conduit.”
Twilight blinked. “Maybe… Find a path between two Stars that goes right through Equis and just ride the winds of magic… No, that wouldn’t work, rarely will anything in space line up that perfectly.”
“It apparently did on the night Nightmare Moon was released.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “That will take a lot of calculations and drawing to find a path that gets us anywhere near Equis…” She tapped a screen, bringing up a map of all the local stars. “And how are we going to know which of these are capital S Stars and which ones are regular?”
“You’re the princess of Friendship right? Friendship is magic, just scan Malat with your magic.”
“I can’t scan something that big!”
“Just feel around for the flow of magic.”
“That’ll take forever!”
“So? Maybe O’Neill will wise up and come get us before then. If not, we’ll get lucky.”
“Fine…” She lit her horn, feeling the magical aura around Malat. Her horn sparked, igniting a small magical explosion. “…Bad idea.”
“What happened?”
Twilight rubbed her skull. “Magical overload. We’ll need to bring a machine to scan the magic channels, but I think your idea is sound. We could use the Stars’ connections to move between them, and the various circle points to get to other locations. There are enough Stars, there should be some combination that gets you just about everywhere…”
“Any other ideas?” Starlight wondered aloud, turning to Starswirl.
He started sketching a circle.
“Dimensional travel won’t work, we’d just appear in deep space in another dimension. Plus, it’s not like we have the power to move the entire Starfinder.”
Starswirl shrugged, returning to doing not much of anything.
“We could try using special-displacement to get help,” Twilight suggested. “See, when you translate an entire ship from Tau’ri Earth to Ardent, you get closer to the world of Ardent than you were to Earth itself. It’s as if each universe has a ‘size’ that has to translate from one to another. We could go to Arde- wait, nevermind. Our universe is ‘small’ compared to the others. We’d just move even further away.”
Starlight looked at Malat again. “There’s a whole ton of magical power here, we just need to find a way to use it… These Stars produce the magic, and… Hooooold on a second…” She lit her horn. “Which way is Equis?”
Twilight pointed at a faint yellow speck on the screen. “That’s the sun. We’re close enough that we can still see it. Why?”
Starlight lit her horn and closed her eyes. She didn’t dare touch the Star itself, but she probed the space between Malat and Equis. “…There’s a magic channel there. It’s how they watch us, Twilight. They use these channels. The only reason we’ve never noticed them before on Equis is because all of them are pointing at us.”
Twilight blinked. “That makes sense. I wonder if there are other planets out there they’re looking at. Or… How they’re able to look at Equis if these ‘pathways’ are made between Stars. …Right Starswirl?”
Starswirl nodded at that remark.
“I’m not sure…” Starlight said, glancing at her cutie mark. “But I do know that we can use it. We have smaller ships, right?”
“Right. I think they’re called Tel’taks.”
“Let me use one. I think I can move it. Get O’Neill’s attention.”
Twilight frowned. “You sure?”
“Nope. But it can’t hurt to try, now can it?”
“It most certainly can! You could blow your horn off!”
“Ha! Right.”
Pinkie appeared from nowhere and glared at Starlight.
“Pinkie there’s no such thing as ‘jinxing’.”
“That’s where you’re wroooooooong…”
Starlight rolled her eyes. “I’m still going to try it. Coming?”
“No. Dashie is though.”
Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up. “Did somepony call me?”
“Yes. You’re going to get to ride with Starlight in something that has a pretty good chance of blowing up!”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “…Better than staying here and sleeping for eternity. Can I pilot?”
“I think I’ll be doing all the moving,” Starlight said. “Also you don’t exactly have… hands, do you?”
Rainbow Dash spread her wings and raised an eyebrow.
“Fair enough. I’ll let you see if you can figure out the controls once we’re back home.”
“Awesome!”
Starlight waved to Twilight. “See you soon!” Twilight teleported the two of them to the hangar, filled with a few dozen Tel’taks. They, like almost all Goa’uld designs, were reminiscent of pyramids, though this one had one of its three bottom points stretched out significantly further than the others and had a segmented appearance. The two walked in and sat at the two main seats, looking right out the windshield.
The bay doors slid open, and Starlight lifted the entire Tel’tak into the air and out into space. It was difficult to move the ship while the false gravity of the Starfinder was in effect, but once they were out the smaller ship moved almost effortlessly.
“…I like space,” Starlight asserted, turning the Tel’tak upside down just because she could. “There’s no resistance at all out here. Not to mention all the power from Malat…”
Rainbow Dash put her wings on the unusual red control mechanism, trying to get a feel for how it worked. “Let’s see…”
“Rainbow! I said when we got back!”
Rainbow Dash ignored her. She pulled the round, red ovoid back, maneuvering the ship upwards. The view outside began to spin rapidly.
Starlight removed Rainbow Dash’s wings from the control mechanism, trying to keep herself from hurling. “…Ergh…”
“What? Can’t handle it?” Rainbow Dash snarked.
“No… Just… Let me do this, and you can play all you want later, okay?”
“Fine.”
Starlight moved the small ship directly between Malat and Equis, ten light years distant. She felt around herself, latching onto the linear flow of magic. Then she enveloped the entire craft in a bubble of blueish magic, and pushed.
The acceleration was too much for the Tel’tak to absorb. Rainbow Dash and Starlight were pushed back into their seats as the ship sped up far more than it should have been able to. It sailed through the stars with a much less comfortable motion than the hyperdrive. They shook, jumped, rattled, twisted, and wobbled their way across the cosmos.
From outside, it looked like the Tel’tek was trying its best to escape from a translucent blue balloon, the front point stretching the ‘rubber’ as far as it could go, while the rest of the balloon trailed behind the ship like a heavy sack. Streams of yellow energy spiraled off the ship’s point as it cut through the magical conduit, tearing at space slightly.
Eventually, the speed stabilized enough to where Rainbow Dash could pull herself out of her chair. Starlight stared straight ahead, unblinking, her horn surrounded by a double-strength magic aura.
“Wooo-wee!” Rainbow Dash whooped. “This is fast! I have no idea how fast but it’s fast.”
Starlight made no response.
“How fast do you think we’re going Starlight? Has to be faster than the Starfinder, didn’t get any acceleration rush from that at all. Don’t care what Twilight said, that still has to hold true in some way out here in the stars. Ooh, do you think we’ll run into any aliens? Can we defend ourselves if we do?”
“Rainbow…” Starlight grunted. “Be… Quiet… I need… To… Focus…” She clenched her teeth. Her eyes were starting to burn from being kept open so long, but she didn’t want to risk blinking.
“Oh. Right. I’ll leave you to that, focusing, thing. I-“
“RAINBOW!”
“Right. Shutting up now.”
They rode on through the stars in shaky silence.
~~~
Spike woke up as the screen he was sleeping on beeped at him. “Wha-huh?”
Rarity looked at him. “What is it Spike?”
“We - we’re getting a call!”
Twilight blinked, looking over. “Really? Who could be talking to us way out here?”
“I don’t know…” Rarity murmured. “Answer it.”
O’Neill’s face appeared on screen. Twilight blinked. “Uh… O’Neill? How are you talking to us?”
O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “I just dropped out of hyperspace. I’m in the system now. Can’t you tell?”
“Uh… No. Either we’re not paying attention or the sensors are broken too.”
“Too?” O’Neill turned to the left, getting some information from a crewmember. “…I see your reactor blew up halfway.”
“Yeah. It was Ba’al. I take it Starlight got to you and told you about our problem?”
“…No? We just decided to leave after we’d not seen you for an hour. You didn’t really say how long you’d be gone. Not to mention I had certain people breathing down my back to wrap this up and get back on the Ba’al hunt. Yours got anything useful?”
“No. Starlight probed his mind, didn’t get much. Just as useless as the rest. He’s in one of your people, Janus. You can teleport him right out of the brig, if you want.”
O’Neill nodded. “Done. Would you like to order a ride on Apollo Towing incorporated?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Sure. What’s the price?”
“Nothing but a bruised ego.”
“Well then, we’ve already paid,” Rarity said. “Get to towing.”
“Riiiiight away!”
~~~
Corona had no idea where she was. It was dark, and yet oddly purple everywhere at the same time. She could see her hands and legs clearly, but nothing else. She could tell she was standing on something hard, but that was all her senses told her. Well, besides the fact that it was cold. She couldn’t see her breath but she wouldn’t be surprised if someone came along and told her it was forming clouds right in front of her face.
She lit her hand on fire, but it did nothing to cut through the murky darkness. She launched a fireball, losing sight of it long before she should have. She frowned. “Hello?” she called.
There was no answer. Did she feel a breeze though? …No. If there was a breeze, it was extremely slight.
Corona’s heart was starting to race, but she forced herself to keep control. How had she gotten here? She tried to retrace her steps. She’d gone to college earlier that morning, attended all her classes, checked in with Storm to see if he needed anything (he had not), did homework, and… And probably fell asleep sometime around 2 AM.
Ah. She was probably just asleep, having nightmares from all her stress. This relaxed her mind considerably. “Okay then. Subconscious, hit me with your best shot.”
“Suuuuunseeeeeeet…”
Corona frowned. “It’s Corona now, brain. Get used to it.”
“Nooooooo…. Suuuuuuunseeeeeeeeet…”
Corona tried to identify the sharp, ghostly voice but couldn’t. It was probably just her mind’s default idea of what a ‘scary voice’ sounded like. Nothing all that creative, interesting, or even all that scary. She sighed and shook her head. “Look, disembodied voice, your little remarks aren’t going to get me to change back.”
“Who said that was what I was doing…?”
“Me. And since you’re just my mind, that’s probably how it’s going. Unless I’m lying to myself. Or reading far too much into this. Probably the latter.”
The voice seemed to move to a position behind her. “Does it matter? Sunset, does it matter?”
Corona shrugged, turning around slowly. “Not really.” There was nothing behind her, as expected.
“Exaaaaactly…” The voice was louder now. Not necessarily closer, though. “Don’t treat me like your mind, but something elssssssse…”
“Yeah, right. Like you could be anything else.”
“Does this feeeeeeeel like a normal dream, Sunset?”
Corona twitched at the use of her old name again. She really shouldn’t be annoyed, but she was. “No, not really. Ground’s a bit too solid, I can feel a slight pain from the chill, and my mind’s not filling in the blank purple space like it should.” She put a hand to her chin. “What are you suggesting?”
“This isn’t a normal dreaaaaam…” The voice was louder now, and Corona was sure it was closer. “There’s something in here with you…”
Corona took a defensive stance. She quickly went over the mental defense material she’d learned during her time in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.
“Taking me seriously now…?”
“A precaution. There’s rarely such a thing as too careful.”
“Wise. But you still aren’t scared.”
“Why would I be?”
There was a sudden thump that came from nowhere. It was there. Right in front of her. The mask. The purple heart, the spikes, the eyes.
The eyes looked so much more alive than when she had seen them last. Much more vibrant. Menacing. Corona’s confidence faltered. “Y-you’re the mask.”
“Yes, I am. Isn’t that somethiiiiiing?”
Corona clenched her firsts, planting her feet in the ground. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll fight you.”
“You think you caaaan?” The voice clearly wasn’t coming from the mask, but Corona could no longer tell where it was coming from. “Sunset, Sunset, Sunset… Why assume you have a chance?”
“Why not? You’re just some freaky magic mask.”
“J͠U̧S̸T̵!?͝” The voice ululated, somehow producing enough force with just one syllable not only to knock Corona to the ground but also to give her a pounding headache. It hurt to hear it speak like that. She was suddenly sure it hadn’t spoken at all, but rather made known to her what it thought.
She could see through the purple now. She wasn’t standing on anything hard, but something soft and fleshy. It had always been there, how had she not felt it? How could this possibly have been hiding around her the entire time?
She saw the rest. She couldn’t partake of it. Her brain wanted to shut down – the eyes, the purple tendrils, the horror. The moon. What the hell was that? Why was it twitching?
“You seeeee… I am so much more than this mask…” The voice continued, no longer whispering, but no longer speaking in Truth. “And I have you, Sunset…”
Sunset whimpered. “No… No you don’t…”
“Yes I do. And it won’t be loooooooong…” Then everything collapsed around her. She closed her eyes, but the mask was still visible. She felt the tendrils grab her from the inside somehow, tearing at her, clawing at her, pulling her from the inside out. She knew they were looking for her soul.
She lit herself on fire. She couldn’t let them have it. She’d die first-
Corona gasped awake, sitting up with enough force to fling sweat to the wall across from her. She was literally dripping with it. She threw off the blanket, got out of bed, and tried to walk to the bathroom. She failed – instead she leaned against a nearby wall and started crying.
“It was all just a dream… It was all just a dream… It was all just a dream…” She couldn’t remember what the mask had shown her. What was behind the purple everything. But she could remember the mask. How it spoke. How it drilled into her mind.
But everything was fine now. She was in her dorm. It was early morning. Sugarcoat was still sleeping in her bunk, stirring only slightly from Corona’s noise.
Corona wiped the tears from her face. Why was she so scared? It was just a dream. It was always just a dream. There was never any danger to her…
“You look like you’ve been to the track meet and back,” Sugarcoat said as she rubbed her eyes.
“Terrible nightmare,” Corona said, gasping for breath. “I just… I don’t know where it came from.”
“Stress. You’ve got a lot more on your plate than the regular college student.”
“That… Is certainly true,” Corona agreed. “It just… It felt different this time.”
“You need to schedule an appointment with a government therapist.”
Corona nodded. “Maybe…” She pulled open her sock drawer and took out the dimensional device. “I think I’ll go for a walk first, though.”
“Suit yourself. Physics in two hours, be there if you want to pass.”
“I will.” She dialed Equestria and stepped through. She ended up in a field outside Ponyville, the light of Celestia’s sun shining down on her and filling her with warmth. She smiled – everything, for once, felt fine. She could forget about the dream completely and just enjoy her original home. She walked around for a few minutes, smiling, the dream quickly becoming but a memory,
She saw somepony she recognized sitting on a hill, looking up at the sky. She walked over. “Hey, Starlight.”
“Hey, Corona,” she said, not taking her eyes off the sky. “What brings you here today?”
“Needed some real fresh air to clear my head. You?”
“Return from a trip into space. I used everything I had to drag a small ship from a nearby star to here, only to find out that wasn’t necessary.”
“Ouch. …Wait, you dragged a ship here from a nearby star?”
“Yeah. Discovered how to use the magic connections between Stars. Wasn’t really hard, just needed a way to know they existed. Bit hard to do that from here. Still took a lot of energy.”
A small, vaguely pyramid-shaped ship dropped from the sky. Starlight used her telekinesis to keep it from impacting the ground, tossing it back into the air.
“…Rainbow Dash driving?”
“Yep.”
“Huh. …Must be nice.”
A look of sadness crossed Starlight’s face. “Yeah…” she shook her head. “Anyway, so I feel both amazing and useless today. I invented magic spaceflight but the Apollo just went and saved everyone anyway.”
“Don’t lessen what you did. It was amazing. Worthy of being named after you, anyway, putting you in the history books.”
Starlight laughed. “The ‘Starlight Drive’ sounds silly. As does ‘Glimmer’.”
Corona raised an eyebrow. “Then change your name. You’ll need to eventually.”
“To what? Something like Spartwinkie? Stars, no!”
Corona laughed. “No, not like that, unless you want to. I chose Corona because it was similar to my own, carried much of the same connotations, but also meant… more, somehow. To differentiate me.”
Starlight frowned. “I mean, I’ve thought about it. Talking to other Starlights is a pain, and it’s not exactly polite to ask them to alter their names. …But I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re Starlight and you just did something Star related, why not make it somehow related to a Star?”
“Like what? Star Star?”
“How about… Nova. What happens when a star sheds its outer layers.”
Starlight snorted. “That’s-“
Rainbow Dash crashed the ship into the ground at that moment. In a panic, Starlight teleported Rainbow Dash out of the Tel’tek. This turned out to be a good move since the craft exploded a moment later.
“You were supposed to catch me!” Rainbow Dash yelled.
“Well somepony messed me up!” Starlight gestured at Corona.
“Hey, all I did was suggest a name!” Corona said, hands in the air.
“What was it?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Nova.”
“I like it.”
Starlight blinked. “Really?”
“Really. It just sounds… You.”
“…Okay, I guess,” Nova said. “I’ll have to think about it though.”
Corona smirked. “Something tells me you won’t have to for long, Nova.”
“Are you two going to force it on me?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m calling you even if you don’t choose that. Another nickname for the pile!”
“…I’m not sure how I feel about this.”
“It’ll be fine,” Corona said, kneeling down and putting an arm around Nova. “Trust me, you get used to it. I wasn’t sure about my name at first, thinking I would still go by Sunset. Now… Well, I get a little upset when I’m called Sunset. Completely illogical, but, you know.”
“Not at the moment…”
Rainbow Dash nudged her. “C’mon, at least try it out.”
“Fine. Though I feel like I am already doing that.”
Corona chuckled.
“Hey, who wants to go out for ice cream?” Rainbow Dash said suddenly. “We never hang out anymore, Nova. And we never hung out at all, Corona.”
Corona’s smile faltered. “I… I’d love that, Rainbow Dash.”
“Then come on! Let’s go!” She flew away in a blur of rainbow.
Nova smirked and lit her horn. “Teleport to beat her there?”
“You betcha.”
~~~
Meanwhile, in orbit…
”PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!!” Luna roared in the loudest Royal Canterlot Voice she could muster.
As scared as Twilight was, the only thing Twilight could think was If I had a middle name this would be even more terrifying.
Luna stamped her hoof inches from Twilight’s face, shaking her considerably. “Twilight… Why… Did you shoot… The moon…?”
“Uh. Oh. About that. Accident.”
“Oh. Just. Just an accident?” Luna’s left eye twitched. “Let me tell you about how this affected my day, Twilight. I was playing a nice little video game from Earth. It was cute. I jumped around and collected things on this bright screen, and it was all just great. And I was inches from getting a particularly hard piece that I’d been spending the better part of an hour building up for, and guess what happens?”
“Er… You get it?”
“Oh no! Instead, some crack decides to shoot my moon! Which, by the way, I have a constant connection to. I jumped from the impact, fell into a bottomless pit, and lost all my progress. Oh, and my beautiful moon got yet another crater on it that didn't need to be there! Why do you all have to go and change it!? Then I discovered that you had run with your tail between your legs, and that I’d have to wait to talk to you!” She leaned in, touching snouts with Twilight. “I’ve been sitting here, stewing, for well over an hour.”
“Eheh…”
“As punishment-“
“You can’t punish her,” Applejack said. “Wouldn’t be proper.”
Luna shot Applejack a look that made her back up several steps. “Ah mean… Whatever works, Princess…”
Luna sneered. “Twilight can, in theory, refuse the punishment. But she knows deep down that I’ll find some other, more creative way to make her suffer should she do that. All I’m asking her to do is do a little errand for me.”
“Oh?”
“You know about Earth. Find out what the good games are from your friends and other connections. Get me them. Understood?”
“Of course.” That’s not so bad, just have to contact everyone…
“You have twenty-four hours.”
Twilight’s face twisted into barely controlled panic. “Starswirl, teleport us down to the surface. Now.”
That he did.
~~~
That night, it was a different pony’s turn to dream…
“Nova.”
Nova opened her eyes. She was floating in the middle of space without a suit, looking right at a bright blue star. “Huh. So guess that really is going to stick. So… Star?”
“Yes. I am Sylius. I decided I owe you more than what Malat gave you.”
“Why not just do this earlier to save the trouble?”
“It is not our way. You need to carve your own path.”
“Why is that your way?”
“…I will not say. I will not answer any questions about your world, nor about your destiny.”
Nova raised an eyebrow. “…Then what are you here to say?”
“You clearly will not heed our warning about the practice of traveling to other universes. So at least hear this. You don’t want to catch the attention of the Starcross Society.”
“Why?”
“…I am sorry, it seems so cruel to you, doesn’t it? Not to be told. To be kept from what your world really is, what it means.”
“Well can you at least point me in the right direction? Show me how I can find out?”
Sylius paused. “…There is one on your world who can answer many of your questions. It is not Discord. Find this individual to get the fastest answers. That is, if you can be convincing.”
Nova narrowed her eyes. “That’s pretty vague.”
“It’s stretching our tradition enough as it is.”
“Why not change?”
Sylius chuckled softly. “We’d have to agree. Most of us are old enough to remember when life formed on your planet. It would take a long time for us to do anything of the sort.”
“…I think I understand,” Nova said.
“You do. I also hope I’ve given you a better image of our kind than… Malat.”
“That you have. I was starting to be… disillusioned in you. Still am. It’s… It’s a bit much to take in, what you actually are.”
“We may be more than you, and higher, but we are never what you hold us up to be. I apologize if that’s not to your liking.”
Nova drooped. “It’s… Fine. Really. …So what, do I just wake up now?”
“No. You fall back into regular sleep. It wouldn’t do for this to end like a nightmare, would it?”
~~~
Link walked down to the brig. As luck would have it, there was no one outside Ba’al’s cell at this moment. Good. They could finally have a one-on-one talk.
Ba’al’s eyes flashed the moment Link entered the room. “Ah, finally, the hero arrives.”
“Ba’al. Figured we should have a talk, just you and m-“
“She read my mind, hero. She knows about it.”
Link’s eyes narrowed while Ba’al’s grin widened. Link leaned forward. “You could tell anyone you wanted. But you know they’ll just try to take it from you.”
“She’s calling out, hero. She wants them all. Maybe your little mind-reading pony is affected by that slight glance, maybe not, but there are others. They’ve seen it. And now she wants them.”
Link glared. “Where are you hiding it?”
“It moves. Ba’al to Ba’al. World to world. Spreading.”
“You’re mad.”
“Quite possibly. But she will give us power.”
“She wants nothing but her own power.”
“So? Mutually beneficial arrangement.” He glanced at Link’s shadow. “I’m sure you can sympathize.”
Link stood up. “You’re not going to be any help.”
“Nope. Nice talking to you though.”
Link started walking out.
“She will be free, Link. There’s no more delaying the inevitable.”
Link left the room completely, bumping into O’Neil as he did so. “Sorry.”
“Talking to the prisoner, huh?” O’Neill said.
“No help, as usual.”
“I could have told you that.”
Link nodded, but hurried away. Something was obviously on his mind.
O’Neill shrugged, taking a sip of his unidentifiable drink. He walked to his office, sitting down in the big chair. He pulled up a computer screen and played a video. He watched and listened to the entire conversation between Link and Ba’al, frown deepening as he did so.
He opened up several other videos, watching them again. Conversations between Link and that thing – Midna – in his shadow. They thought they weren’t being watched. They were, closer than most other passengers, because they were hiding something.
From what he was seeing, O’Neill was pretty sure Link’s heart was in the right place. But the man in green was hiding something very, very nefarious.
~~~
Sage Pinkie held the white mask to her face – and froze.
They were watching again. She couldn’t let them know anything about where she was, or what she was doing.
She was in a dark room, the mask providing the most light of anything. It illuminated a wooden floor and a tremendous object four times taller than the oculus herself. It was composed of dozens of large gears, pieces of colored runes, magical items, and a few metallic chains. In the center was a single, bright white rune that was shaking with immense power. It was held in place by another rune, a greenish-brown one, which had recently been powered up by a certain green diamond. It would be able to keep the white power in check indefinitely.
The Mechanism was functioning properly… but the plan was not yet finished.
There was still much, much more to do.
It would involve a lot of waiting.
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twilight is arrogant
Well, I'm caught up, and hoo boy is this a lot to take in. I get the feeling that multiversal politics will get worse long before they get better, and that's assuming none of the big fish notice this forming cloud of zooplankton.
Indeed, given the name of the arc, this is going to be a pivotal moment for this would-be society. Now is no longer the time for free and breezy exploration. They need to define the very soul of this consortium. Let's see what they choose.
So... why did Starlight change her name to Nova?
8659490
A) The primary reason is because there's a lot of name confusion when wandering the multiverse. (Twilight and other Twilight using Twinkie and Sparky nicknames). Everypony (well, most everypony) will get themselves a name change eventually. The main help here is that there doesn't have to be the "twilight?" "Yes?" "Yes?" that would happen a lot. It's rude to make the beings of other universes change their names, and it's a trope called all too often that the 'prime' universe has to nickname the others. This way there's only need for names when the ponies they visit decide to get involved in the multiverse, which isn't all that often.
B) Because Nova just had a rather meaningful encounter with a star and she felt like it was a good moment to think about her name, not to mention the fact that she just invented a magic FTL drive that would probably be named after her.
C) Nova is tangentially related to Stars, which are related to her. Kind of like Corona.
D) Because Corona suggested it when Rainbow Dash was around and now Rainbow will not stop calling Nova that.
-GM, master of COMMENTUS.
Malat is voiced by GLaDOS in my head now. Really enjoying this story so far.
unsure of how to respond.It looked like one was about
had one of it’s three bottom points stretched
bright white rune that was shaking with immensepower
1. Forgot your spacing.
2. Its.
3. Forgot your spacing.
8692538
God dammit..
9423204
She's getting used to it and has taken it as her identity. Though, to be fair, if it was someone she knew talking to her she wouldn't mind, though she might say it'd be easier if they stopped calling her Sunset.
In this particular case she's being talked to by a disembodied probably-evil voice. She's not going to be understanding and will naturally be standoffish and poke at the thing however she can.
-GM, master of spice.
9423251
Gotta be honest, these name changes feel too forced and too early. As you develop these characters to be your own rather than borrowed from the show, it could work to give them new names. But they don’t feel like separate characters yet. If a character had a big moment where they realize how much they’ve changed or something like that, a name change would make sense. But Sunset just decides she’s gonna go by her agent name with no explanation, and i still can’t reconcile Corona with Sunset in my mind.
Tl;dr I feel like you should have waited longer to change their names.
Starting to get an inkling here of the long game. All Pinkie's are, if not connected, at least able to tap into some unknown information source, so...by that logic another Traveler Pinkie could try to get in front of the Sage. We are currently seeing the Sage as a villain, but that is as planned.
And now we get a warning about a 'Starcross Society'. And the Sage has repeatedly referenced hiding from a group watching her. I think her end goal is toppling this dangerous Starcross Society, though to what end after that I can't say.
So "Pinkie"'s are Knights.
My first thought is what a Knight of Space would be like.
Karkat and Dave are Knights.
... So, using space as a weapon. A version of Pinkie that uses space as a weapon. That's ... scary.
And, a chess knight differs from the other pieces in that they can travel through the other things on the board.
Hmm ...
"Debatable as cherry bombs" to me means "a debate on that would be explosive with vocal disagreements".
9762168
hahahaha no, Pinkies are Knights in the sense of chess.
In the sense of Homestuck Pinkies are Bards.
-GM, master of oh it's so much worse now.
Aren't Bards the masters of destruction? (goes back to the classpec sites to verify)
... yea, passive destruction.
So, by that viewpoint, we should see classic show Pinkie causing massive destruction all around her.
Hmm. Parties that wipe out everything that was going on before in order to have something new. Check.
We should see other examples of pinkies, or party ponies, that destroy things.
Hmm. Star Mares. Check.
Ohh -- gotta put "Star Mares" on the LSB fiction list.
See that is her problem right there... hotdogs only qualify as "meat" by a technicality.
Is Susnet a Wide Area Network dedicated to playing Among Us?
No, no we don't. You are definitely a Ba'al, but you're also just a decoy to ensure no search for /other/ Ba'al.
At least, based on your quick surrender.
Edit: Okay fair, you did already complete your mission, but that quick "ya' got me!" was far too suspicious.