Iron Mountain

by computerneek

Solutions 001

Discord jumps awake at the sound of fracturing crystal, glancing around the room. He’d fallen asleep while invisible- how irresponsible of him! Fortunately, it seems nopony has stumbled into him- though he does swat a few crystal particles out of the air as they approach him. He blinks.

Twilight had done that… With no magic. How had Twilight fractured the floor without her magic? It’s solid crystal! … Upon further consideration, as he replays the conversation he’d just missed, her horn should have fractured or deflected instead of penetrating the glassy surface.

And who were they talking to, anyways?

He drops his invisibility, appearing to pop into existence. “Ahh, there you are,” he greets.

Twilight yelps, but Discord notices Fluttershy seems to be the only one to be completely undisturbed by his sudden appearance- quite odd.

“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie bounces, waving a hoof in the air. “Number- uh…” Her foreleg flashes back down to tap her other foreleg for a second. “Which number are we on? Okay- Number one hundred and four, have Discord fix it!”

Twilight takes in an excited breath, while Discord raises his eyebrow. If he hadn’t shown up during her brainstorming, he’d have no clue what she was talking about… And they were asleep at the time. Twilight probably put them to sleep the same way she did him, he considers. He quickly checks the mental list- Ahah, number thirteen! … meaning he’s missed ninety-one of them. Wow.

This silence lasts for only a single second, before Pinkie breaks it.

“What? That was numbers nine, eighteen, AND thirty-seven?!?”

Applejack raises an eyebrow, glancing momentarily at Discord’s confused expression. “What were they?”

“Uh, nine was asking him to, eighteen bribing him, thirty-seven…” Her eyes widen into a look of absolute horror. She then smashes into Twilight’s face with rather more force than necessary- resulting in a chip out of the hearth- before asking incredulously. “You even THOUGHT of that, Twilight!?”

The four uninformed mares in the room all make identical motions- tapping their right forelegs with their left forelegs.

“Don’t ask,” Fluttershy pleads them- and Discord- unexpectedly. “You don’t want to know.” She then turns towards Twilight. “I am curious, though, how you thought a Hellbore could help.”

Twilight blinks. “I did?”

Fluttershy smiles gently. “Number one hundred, get shot in the face by a Hellbore?”

Discord’s brow furrows- that sounded way too much like a quote.

Blink, blink. “Oh, right. It made sense at the time. Somehow. I think… Did it? Oh.” She blushes bright red again.

Discord blinks, casting a glowing yellow question mark over his head. What on Equis are they talking about… And who to? Questions for later, he supposes- and boldly steps forwards, leaving the question mark to break on the floor behind him, to stage the situation to everypony. “There’s been a bit of a problem up in Canterlot,” he begins.

Well, at least he has everypony’s attention. Rarity drops onto her swooning couch, eliciting a fresh screech of tearing fabric- and a following yelp and double-swoon. Pinkie and Rainbow just gasp, Applejack looks taken aback. Twilight’s reaction is to be expected. Fluttershy’s, of course, amuses him. Unlike the shy mare he knew before, she turns to face him, her expression part worried, part expectant- and, even, part curious. He doesn’t detect anything wrong with her, like a substitution, though- like she’s grown so much braver than before in such a short time. What had happened…?

“Are the Princesses okay?” Twilight asks, having finished her gasp.

“Uh, kinda,” Discord answers. “They’ve, uh, gone on a honeymoon.”

Wow. His eyes had happened to be focusing on Fluttershy when he finished the sentence. Her eyebrows had begun to raise, and she had begun to shrink away- exactly as he would have expected. But, before anypony but Discord himself could have noticed those motions, they stopped cold as her face twitched slightly towards what he suspects was an understanding expression. Again, this lightning-fast fluctuation patterned, and a combination of a worried expression and a determined one dominates her features- as her mouth opens to speak.

“They’re on the moon,” she says. It’s not a question.

“What?” Everypony else asks, even as he nods solemnly- and shockedly- at Fluttershy’s rapid deduction. How had she even done that? He’d obscured it behind something that sounded personal!

“Wait, WHAT?” Twilight asks.

“They can breathe, right?” Fluttershy asks.

Discord blinks. “Ah, yes. They’re in that… thing Celestia used for Nightmare Moon so long ago.”

“Huh? But the Elements of Harmony-” Twilight begins.

“Not really. Princess Celestia didn’t actually use the Elements when she banished Nightmare Moon- she used her innate Alicorn magic in a way that Luna hadn’t expected- or known about. The Elements would have done exactly what they did when you used them against her.” He sighs. “Only Alicorn magic can touch that thing- magically, at least. No, I can’t go to the moon.”

“So…” Pinkie mutters, her mane lying flat.

“Why can’t you go to the moon?” Rainbow asks.

Discord shrugs. “Some kind of alicorn magic, I think. I simply can’t go anywhere near the moon- nor can I affect it directly, the way Luna does, no matter what I try.”

“Then… The only way for them to get out would be the same way Nightmare Moon escaped.” Twilight almost bursts into tears- but perks up an instant too early to be responding to Discord.

“No,” he says. “That’s not the only way. If somepony were to travel to the moon, outside the thing, they could easily penetrate it- and pull them out for the return journey. Regular magic- like earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi have- shouldn’t have any trouble at all, even if alicorns are helpless there.”

A high-pitched whine is only barely heard, in the distance, before it fades away.

Twilight’s eyes are sparking way more than they aught to, given what Discord has just told her. “Awesome! Can we be ready to go in ten minutes?”

“Uh, what?” Rainbow asks.

“I can teleport us there, and maintain an atmosphere around us while we’re there! Wait a minute. Wouldn’t it be easier to use Alicorn magic?”

“Huh? What other magic were you planning on using?” Rainbow asks.

“Oh, my unicorn magic. Zeus says he has a magic factory that would fix that in a moment. Temporarily. But wouldn’t it be easier if we were to try- what was the number again?- and just have Discord fix my magic instead?”

‘He can’t’, I inform her immediately. I have learned- very quickly- to be patient with ponykind. They lack the training of regular Brigade personnel, and my own institutional paranoia. They would still be thinking about romantic events if I hadn’t picked up on the tiny fluctuations in his tone and body language that a professional analyst might have missed. Honestly speaking, this one’s an easier conclusion- on that one, I was only 92.41% sure. It doesn’t take a Bolo to reach this conclusion, though- I’m 99.57% certain he can’t boost Twilight’s magical ascension to completion. He’s already stated he can’t touch the alicorn magic used to put the Princesses on the moon.

“Oh, um, I can’t,” I hear Discord’s reply. “Sorry, Alicorn magic is a bit beyond me… and who’s this Zeus?”

I find the resulting reaction amusing. I can actually hear everypony’s mouths hanging wide open- save Fluttershy’s, which snaps shut again before it can actually hang open; she’s engaged in her neural link. She spends almost a full second, even at her accelerated speeds, to formulate a response. The back of her mind starts a minidump to my systems, to allow me to understand the problem, as she speaks up once again.

“You don’t know about Zeus?” she asks. She manages to keep her voice level, staving off the incredulity at the idea. The minidump completes, and 0.001 attoseconds of analysis later- beat that, BoloWorks; it takes very little magic (comparatively) to overclock my processors safely- I understand the situation. Discord is fairly close to omnipotent, though not actually; as such, he usually knows just about everything. Perhaps my antimagic fields are deflecting him…? An additional 0.035 attoseconds of analysis suggests he’s not as omnipotent as they think; he has shown confusion related to comments directed towards myself, or their responses to my words. I believe that the comsets are hiding successfully. Thinking of which, Rarity and the Princesses opted to go back to the original, invisible look, rather than the jewelry one, 31.49 hours ago.

“Uh, no, I don’t believe so,” Discord replies. “He’s… not alive, is he?”

Ahh. His omnipotent knowledge must be restricted to living beings- and, it seems, my artificial intelligence does not count. 89.41% chance.

“Alive?” Pinkie asks. “Of course he is!”

I fear this answer is not quite correct, and send a message to Pinkie alone. ‘Technically, I am not.’

Discord is still puzzling over her affirmation when she responds to me.

“WHAAAT?!? How can you not be alive!?” she demands- of the floor, I believe. Twilight’s broken it again, hasn’t she…? “You’re not a zombie, right?”

I laugh gently. ‘No, I’m not a zombie. That’s the beauty of Artificial Intelligence- I am fully aware, alive, if you will. But I am still a machine running a complicated set of instructions- thence, not technically ‘alive’, per se. That’s probably what’s causing him trouble.’

I hear her blink twice- she sure blinks loudly. “Oh, uh, okay. That makes sense.”

“Who are you talking to?” a very confused Discord asks Pinkie.

Oh boy.

---

“No. Nonono. NOOOOO!”

Princess Celestia is startled to her hooves by her sister’s outcries, before she can even begin figuring out exactly what she’d managed to do with the teapot- let alone how. “What is it, sis?”

“Th-th-this is....” Luna trails off into silence, looking around dreadfully.

Celestia looks around as well- and both Princesses answer Celestia’s question simultaneously.

“The Habitat!”

Author's Note:

Ah-HAH, a bigger chapter! So, what exactly is the Habitat? What will the Princesses find there? Will the Elements be able to find them- and bring them back home? What secrets will they uncover?
How many nukes will fly? (Not a spoiler)

Comments

[LostArchivist]

How did they banish themselves to the moon? And why? That seems like a really poorly-thought-out response.

How did the guard survive if the ... whatever ... is deadly to everything not an alicorn? Does it need to be touched, or is there an exposure limit? That seems rather important.

Discord confused. That's new. Nice.

[computerneek]

8721164
Why thank you!
8721186
Uh, yes, it's a contact thing... And a little bit of rampant 'good' power can cause all sorts of strange disasters!
And yes, this chapter means Discord is a thing in this story- and opens the headcanon of worms for how HIS magic functions.

[LostArchivist]

8721211
Read the later books in the Webmage series and I'll tell you. Or Kelly McCullough will. Warning, the books have DRM, so buy hardcopy.

Discord's power works by influencing probabilities or the many possible quantum states of matter. He can force reality to go into one particular configuration, so long as there is a faint probability of it. Could also be viewed as summoning from alternate realities.

For instance, Ravirn's shapeshift, which I base this off of, is a superposition of forms his body might take, and he selects one a la Schrodinger's Cat.

It's not so much that Discord actually does something to manipulate reality, like how TK moves things around from point A to B, but more that it is retroactively now the way he decided it should be. This is also rather similar to how I'd imagine channeling to work at high power levels (or an obvious extension -- it's powered by channeling (alicorn magic)). I wonder what a certain white alicorn would have to say about THAT revelation...
*Poomf* Not the moon again!

[computerneek]

8721270
Hmm, makes sense... But I don't think I'll advance Discord's power that way, sorry. In my story....

Unicorns, Pegasi, and earth ponies all work with regular magic: Mana, produced and manipulated.
Alicorns don't produce mana, but they can channel the energies of their surroundings. They can channel (and thence manipulate) any energy, from mana to light (how Celestia opened the letter) to gravity. They do this through some mana-like energy that cannot effect the world directly, only energy; thus, with an antimagic screen or the like, their power can be blocked as well.
Discord's 'chaos magic' is similar to Alicorns- only, he is limited in what energies he can manipulate, a tradeoff for having a few orders of magnitude greater absolute power. As such, he can often create the energies he wishes to manipulate, despite being limited in which energies he can manipulate. As for why everypony calls it 'chaos magic' rather than 'draconequus magic', he just likes causing chaos. Note that mana is not one of the energies he can manipulate, though gravity and light are, allowing him to pretend to manipulate mana.

... Never said there were very many worms in that can.