Adventures in Fanfictions

by Coltsguy

Paralyzer

I drank in the sight before me with a bit of glee. This was still fresh for me after all. Season 8 was still becoming a thing and not too many fanfics had made use of it yet. I’m talking about the Friendship School just in case you aren’t sure. It’s a place that’s practically in throwing distance from Twilight’s castle yet doesn’t really give off that feeling too much. But I digress…

The place itself looks awesome. It reminds me more of an attraction than a school. With the waterfalls and the main entrance being over a bridge makes the whole place seem more like it was going to be a castle themed park. Yet it doesn’t really feel like a castle with all the… ‘little’ tykes running around the place. What would be a good analogy for it? Even with perfect recall I just don’t have a good enough parallel for it.

“Seth? Is that you?”

I turn to my left to see Princess Twilight Sparkle giving me a wide-eyed stare.

“Yep. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine. I haven’t seen you in a while. Lots of stories keeping you busy?”

“That they are.”

This was the Twilight Sparkle who was no longer canon. All my involvement with the series proper had managed to stay concealed and there would never be any traces of me thanks to my new role. That role is to create new timelines. My essence had been tied together with this reality in a way that would keep me from creating paradoxes by my mere existence showing up. Still not ever interacting with any of them again just didn’t sit well with me so I split a timeline off immediately so that we could talk if necessary and trust me when I say that the folks who do my job in the other realities make this necessary just so I have someone to talk to that doesn’t have an inflated ego. Sure not all of them are like that, but they are a very rare group.

“So what brings you here today? None of us get to see you that much. I think Discord show up slightly more often than you do.”

“Just wanted to take a look at the school. I’m probably going to be working a lot more with it since the series just made it to this point in time.”

“Oooooh! That’s wonderful! The people are going to see how wonderful this place is now and how we can all come together in the spirit of friendship!”

“That they will. Just remember: this isn’t going to be an easy task. Even with your friends helping out you have to make sure to stay true to your convictions.”

“After dealing with the E.E.A. you can trust me to have already learned that lesson.”

“Ah, very nice, very nice. Then just keep an eye out for Chrysalis and everything’ll be fine,” I said only to realize my idiocy a moment too late.

“Chrysalis! She’s going to be coming!?”

“Where!? Where’s Chrysalis!?”

A look up showed Rainbow Dash zooming in quickly. Nor was she alone as a look around saw Starlight Glimmer and Applejack also closing in on our location. Not good.

“Everyone calm down!” I yelled to try and head this off before it picked up too much steam. “Chrysalis isn’t here. There’s nothing to be worried about.”

“Not yet, but the way you said that makes me worry that she will soon enough,” Twilight stated, “and I’m worried about the fact that she swore terrible revenge on Starlight.”

Said mare looked a bit concerned. I didn’t blame her. When Chrysalis was defeated at the wedding the changeling queen didn’t take it too well. Then when she was stopped once again she swore vengeance upon Starlight Glimmer. That drive can tell you that she is definitely willing to try and exact that vengeance with utmost certainty.

“I’m well aware of the situation. I also try to avoid changing major events as much as possible. Since I know this timeline is really close to the main one I know that things can work out for the best if you all use your best judgement and follow the tenets of friendship. I have faith in you all so I only show up to relax, talk, and hang out whenever I feel like I need to remind myself that I shouldn’t be by all by myself sometimes.”

“It is good to hear that you’re trying to keep yourself from being all alone all the time,” Twilight said with a smile. “It’s also good to hear how much faith that you have in us. But I think that-”

That was as far as I was able to hear before a terrible pain erupted throughout my being. While it started in both my head and my heart the pain spread quickly. It was agonizing. It didn’t last long, however, before it turned into both a freezing cold and a burning fire intermingling all over my body. I could barely even tell that there were hooves being planted on my body and magic being used upon me. Still, slowly but surely the feeling went away and I was left gasping for air.

“Seth! Are you alright?” everyone took turns asking.

“I… am slowly getting better,” my hoarse voice responded.

“What in tarnation just happened?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I’ve never had that happen before.”

“I’m really worried about you Seth. I’ll have to postpone my trip to Canterlot to talk to Celestia about her Onesversary.”

“A what now?” I asked.

“A Onesversary!” Pinkie Pie, who seemed to show up out of nowhere, began to explain. “It marks the one thousand, one hundred and eleventh year anniversary of the day that Celestia raised the sun for the very first time! Were going to ask her if we can put on a play at the school in celebration of the event.”

“Wait what? But that doesn’t make sense. Not from… What Celestia told me.”

“What Celestia told you?” asked Twilight. “What are you talking about?”

“And what’s with your hand glowing?”

Rainbow Dash’s question prompted everyone including myself to look at said appendage. Sure enough, the horseshoe on my hand was glowing and pulsating a red color instead of its usual royal blue. Definitely not a normal occurrence.

“Thaaaat’s never happened before.”

I started channeling magic into my hand and instead of the normal blue color there as well it began to emit an angry red color. Involuntarily my hand shot out and a large line hologram displayed in front of me. I knew immediately that it was the branching paths of time. I occasionally took a look at it to see how many affected areas some decisions made from some of the stories that were created when I started doing this gig. It was honestly a big mess that I got tired of and I hadn’t used it in a couple of years.

“What is this?” Twilight asked with a hint of awe.

“This is the lineations of time. All of the stories people come up with diverge from the normal path that events here take and branch out to make their own paths. I’ve had create so many branches that it resembles a tree to some.”

Most of the image was in white lines with a blue background. However, a few points on the lines were the same red color that I had glowed with a minute ago. These points were created along the central spire and were blinking to alert me to their location. After taking a look at them, I realized what I was looking at.

“You’ve been retconned,” I stated quietly.

“Retconned? What the hay does that there mean?”

“It’s a term used for when the history of piece of fiction is changed to conform with new facts,” Eris chimed in. “For example: if I was to say that an avalanche started when a large shout happened and everyone knows that to be the case then later it was stated that someone in another part of the area caused it by dislodging some snow, the fact that someone started it with a shout becomes wrong and the new story becomes fact instead. Usually it happens to work around inconsistencies that happen in the plot.”

“And do you think that’s what led you to collapsing?” Starlight asked me. “I remember you saying that you were tied to the timelines that make up this universe. If they were… retconned like you said then wouldn’t that affect you as well?”

“That… makes sense. A lot of sense actually.”

“What was changed that caused this to happen?” Twilight asked.

“Well,” I said while looking at my timeline chart, “I believe that isn’t as old as she told me anymore. Also this part about how unicorns raised the sun has changed as well.”

“But unicorns did used tah raise the sun. That is til Princess Celestia started raising it on ‘er own and became an alicorn fer it.”

“Yeah, I see how that is now. For some reason it says that five unicorns plus Starswirl were the ones who did it. It used to be that a hundred unicorns working together managed to do it just fine.”

“But why would they change the timeline for that? It seems unnecessarily cruel.”

“It does, but it also makes the feat done by Celestia look even more noble by comparison.”

“At the cost of unicorns losing their magic permanently,” Starlight said somberly.

“I'm not saying that it's a good thing. After all it's not me who makes these decisions. I mean are you aware that there are several other alicorns in existence other than you princesses?”

“What!?!” pretty much everyone yelled.

“Yeah, that's right. There was one in Las Pegasus that guided in the balloon that took the Golden Horseshoe Gals in for a landing. Heck, there’s probably even more that I haven’t noticed since I haven’t been around the entire world yet. Even I can miss things.”

“Ah don’t know. Ah mean ah can tell ya ain’t lyin’ but that still seems a bit far fetched.”

“Heh. Pokemon,” I said before thinking a bit. “You know, that sounds like something I ought to try out.”

“Pokemon?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“That, yeah, but I mean telling some stories. I mean, there are plenty of timelines out there and more places to visit than just those six worlds that you all went to. I mean, I know now that I’m capable of going to them indiscriminately, but-”

“You can!?” Pinkie interrupted. “ Can I go to the one with us and that other SI? Oh! Or can I go to the dragon one? I want to see some pirates! I bet that they throw the best parties!”

“...Okay that sounded pretty fun too. Maybe a bit of both?”

“I’m not sure about going back to those worlds that we traveled to before,” Twilight commented unsurely. “I do like the story idea. Why not tell a few of them to our students? I think hearing about friendships in other realities might be quite interesting to demonstrate.”

“Or I could do all of those things! Who says I’m just limited to one thing? I am a dimension-hopping, chaos-infused, badass mothereffer who has the means to show his friends a good time! I need some down time to cut loose and have some fun! To the school!”

Yeah that last line doesn’t seem like it fits with the rest of it, but if by some miracle some being is reading this life of mine then you know what I’m talking about. Time for some adventures in fan- Wait. No title drop!

Author's Note:

A big thank you to MLP:FiM for helping me figure out a way to keep my story canon despite the inconsistencies. The part with unicorns raising the sun was retconned in season eight and gave me the linchpin I needed to keep this story and it's predecessors legitimate. Truly, I was getting really concerned since I wanted to make it believable that this story can fit inside of the MLP universe and they sent me this softball.

Comments

[D48]

Well, I was a bit concerned you were going to be going all in on the recent stupidity after the first chapter, but the bit about the retconning makes it clear you are aware of how much of a nonsensical mess it is. Granted he really should be more than familiar with that particular sensation by now since they fuck up canon every other episode these days, but the point still stands.

[Coltsguy]

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I'll admit that this story probably won't have a real sense of direction to it compared to the stories that comprised it before. It's probably going to end up as several self contained stories with an overarching theme that I'm going to do my best to keep coherent. Hopefully people will enjoy it.