Infinicheese
“You’re not just a thief!” cried Twilight. “You're also a vandal! I can't believe you destroyed Discord’s doors!”
“I normally wouldn't dare,” said Sunset. “I don’t need to draw that kind of attention to myself. But now that Discord has the crown, I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it back. Please don't tell me that you told him about the magic inside it.”
“I didn't tell him! I have at least as much to lose as you if he steals the crown. However, there is just a small complication. Discord wasn't in possession of the crown when he shot into the air like that.”
“Don't lie to me. He can't have used magic without it.”
“I believe that he absorbed some of the crown’s power before he hid them, without actually realizing what happened.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that? How could he have done that?”
“I don't know, but back in Equestria Discord has a very strange and unique magic that doesn't follow the same rules as other forms of magic. Maybe this one is similarly able to manipulate magic in ways that nobody else can. He just hasn't had any magic to actually use until now.”
“See, I can't trust anything you say to me,” said Sunset in frustration. “I know perfectly well that you don't want me to get the crown, so it would make sense that you are just lying to me.”
“I don't want you to get my crown, but I am not lying,” said Twilight, crossing her arms. “But I can't prove to you that I am not lying without actually finding the crown.”
“What,” cried a new voice, “the heck is going on here?”
They turned toward the door and saw Rainbow Dash stepping over the splinters of the broken door, fists raised.
“What are you doing here?” groaned Sunset, hefting the sledgehammer up and holding it at the ready.
“Fluttershy texted me and said there was trouble. Lucky I live so close by.”
“She isn't the only one,” Fluttershy added. “Soon there will be six of us.”
“Wait, you called everyone from our old group?” asked Rainbow. “Even Applejack and Pinkie Pie?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Hmm. Not too excited about being with those two again,” said Rainbow reluctantly, “but even though some of us have our differences, there is one thing that we all have in common, and that is the fact that we really don't like you, Sunset. And now you're blatantly committing crimes? You might get away with all kinds of stupid crap at school, but guess what?”
Suddenly, Rainbow looked behind her in surprise, and then stepped aside and let a shocked Rarity into the room.
“As I was saying,” Rainbow continued. “This isn't the school; therefore, all of that authority doesn't mean anything here. Sure, you have a huge hammer, but if you try to fight us all, it will not end well for you. Now where is Mister Discord? You better not have hurt him.”
“Ya got that right,” said Applejack, who then stepped through the doorway. “Ah might not interact with the man very much, but trespassing, vandalism and violence are completely unacceptable.”
“Well, on that we can agree, at least,” said Rainbow.
Sunset glared at Rainbow Dash, and then looked around and realized that she was outnumbered.
“I didn't do anything to the weirdo. I only came in here after he blasted off. Technically, I am here for the same reason you all are, I just want to know where he went.”
“Technically?” asked Rainbow suspiciously.
“She is telling the truth, actually,” said Twilight. “Sunset may not be the friendliest person around, but she hasn't done anything to Discord aside from breaking down his door.”
“Seriously?” cried Rainbow Dash. “Why the heck would you break in if you are trying to find Mister- oh, wait, because you can't get in, duh.”
“Uh, obviously.”
“He is going to be super ticked off at you when he finds out. But forget about that for a moment, what the heck happened to him?” Rainbow asked urgently.
“Did you see the hole in the ground before you came down?” asked Twilight.
“No, what hole?” answered Rainbow.
“Ah was in too much of a hurry to take notice of a hole in the ground,” said Applejack. “Did Mister Discord fall into it?”
“Not exactly… You will just have to see this for yourself. You won't believe me otherwise.”
“And what about Sunset?” asked Applejack.
“She should come along.”
“What?” cried Rainbow.
“Wait, you want me to come?” asked Sunset in surprise.
“If we let you go now, you will start plotting revenge against the wrong person. I can't allow that.”
“And you really expect me to stay in your company after Rainbow Dash threatened me?”
Twilight sighed. “Rainbow Dash. I understand why you don't like Sunset, but so far the worst that she has done is break into Discord's house. Violence isn’t going to help Mister Discord.”
Suddenly, there was a rumbling that could be felt through the floor and in the air. A moment later, the wall erupted and a giant drill machine came through and into the room.
There were screams from everyone in the room as they ran away from the machine in panic.
The drill machine came to a stop and a hatch on the top popped open. Discord popped out of the hatch with his hands over his ears.
“Would you all please stop screaming!” he shouted loudly. “I can’t hear myself think! Which actually might be a good thing, come to think of it!”
The shock of his freakish entry was enough to silence the screaming girls as they stared at him in shock.
“Thank you!” cried Discord, still shouting. He climbed out of the hatch and hopped to the floor, and then held out a frying pan.
“Sunset, you don’t like me, right?” he said hurriedly.
Sunset was able to recover from her shock easier than most of the other girls because she was aware that there was a magical explanation for everything that had just happened. “Um, yeah!” she said with open hostility. “You stole my crown, so yes, I have a significant amount of animosity toward you, you nutcase!”
“Good!” he cried happily. “I need you to knock me out with this!” He held the frying pan out toward her.
“...What?” said Sunset, not expecting this reaction at all.
“You’re completely right, I am a nutcase! I’ve completely lost my marbles! I have no idea where they are! I have suddenly started hallucinating all sorts of crazy things, and I realized that just about anything that I think of suddenly appears and starts chasing me. The only way to make the hallucinations stop is to knock me out cold! Hurry, they’ll be here any second!”
“Who will be here any second?” asked Sunset in bewilderment.
There was more rumbling as another drill machine erupted out of the wall. It came to a stop and the hatch popped open.
A very strange face popped out of the machine. Twilight realized that it was a human doppelganger of one of the diamond dogs that had kidnapped Rarity back in Equestria.
“Behold!” he cried. “The Underminer! We are beneath you, but nothing is beneath us! We hereby declare war on peace and happiness!”
Sunset gaped at him for a second before turning to Discord again.
“What in tartarus is the Diamond Dawg Gang doing here in that thing?” she cried.
“I told you, my every strange little thought is coming alive and chasing me!” cried Discord. “Hurry up, knock me out cold!”
“If you say so. Hey Twilight. It looks like violence is exactly what will help Mister Discord.”
CLONG
Sunset had not held back. Discord fell backward onto the floor. Additionally, both drilling machines and their occupants glowed white and then vanished.
Inexplicably, Sunset also fell to the floor unconscious.
“Hey girls, what did I miss?” cried Pinkie Pie joyfully as she arrived through the door leading into Discord’s cistern.
“What in Sam Hill just happened?” cried Applejack.
“I believe Mister Discord’s insanity has rubbed off on me,” declared Rarity. "That cannot have just happened."
“You’re not crazy,” said Twilight. “And neither is Discord. I have to confess something to all of you, but it will take a while to explain everything.”
Sunset Shimmer groaned as she abruptly woke up. She was startle to hear another voice doing the same. She quickly sat up and tried to look at the other person in the room with her. Unfortunately, her vision was blurry, and her head was pounding. Fortunately, this person was dressed colorfully enough for her to figure out who it was anyway.
“Mister Discord. Where are we?”
“Ugh!” moaned Discord, grabbing his head. “If I had to guess, I would say that after you knocked me out, someone brought me to the madhouse, so this is probably my cell.”
“What?” cried Sunset in confusion. Thankfully, her vision was returning to her quickly, and she could now make out that the room that they were in. There room contained nothing other than the two inhabitants, but it did not look like a room in an asylum. The floor was a series of waxed wooden planks and the walls were painted green. There were no windows, but there was a simple wooden door that was the only way out.
“Does this look like a madhouse to you?” asked Sunset in frustration.
“No, but that’s kind of the point. I’m clearly insane, which means that I can’t trust that what I am seeing is even reality. This may look like a green room with a wooden floor, but I bet in reality I’m wrapped up in a straightjacket in a padded white room.”
“I’m seeing the exact same thing as you, Mister D!” cried Sunset.
“That doesn’t mean anything either. Either you’re a figment of my imagination, or else you really are here and my poor brain thinks you are telling me that I am not crazy when in reality I actually am. Either way, I can't trust anything you say to me. If it is the second case, then I should at least thank you for visiting me, even though I’m not actually hearing anything you’re actually saying to me.”
“You think I’m a hallucination too!” cried Sunset in realization. “Look, if this is an inmate cell in an asylum, the door would be locked, right?”
“Obviously,” answered Discord, who had scooted into the corner of the room and was holding his head.
Sunset tried opening the door. It opened without resistance.
“Ha!” cried Sunset triumphantly. “You see?”
Discord frowned and stood up, and then walked toward Sunset. He stopped in front of her and examined the doorway suspiciously, and then stepped outside.
Sunset followed after him and found that they were now in a green hallway.
“I must be even crazier than I thought,” Discord decided aloud.
“Discord, you’re not insane!” cried Sunset. “You’ve been using the magic inside of the fall formal crown and you have no idea to control it! That’s why we are in this place, wherever it is!”
“You’re telling me that I have out of control magic powers?”
“Yes! The crown is from another world where that Twilight girl and I are both also from. In that world, I’m a unicorn and Twilight is an alicorn princess, even though she doesn’t deserve to be. That’s a unicorn that also has wings by the way. And that world has magic all over the place.”
Discord stared back at her in bemusement.
“Oh, crud!” said Sunset, slapping her palm to her face. “I just made it sound like you are totally bonkers, didn’t I?”
“Pretty much. Goodness me, but my mind can sure come up with some weird stuff.”
“There’s really no way to convince you, is there?” said Sunset in defeat. “Alright, you know what? It doesn’t even matter. Go ahead and think that you’re crazy if you want, but you must still remember where you put the fall formal crowns. You obviously don’t have them with you. Where are they?”
“They’re in the janitor closet in the same hallway that my classroom is,” said Discord simply.
“Wait,” said Sunset in surprise. “You’re just telling me? Just like that?”
“Sure. It’s not like I have a reason to care about anything anymore.”
“Oh.” Sunset almost felt sorry for the man. But she had a mission. “Where exactly in the closet?”
“There is a ladder in there that goes into the rafters of the school, I put them up there.”
“Perfect!” cried Sunset happily. “Then you are of no further use to me. Have fun.”
She started walking away, but almost immediately stopped when she realized that Discord was following her. She turned back to face him.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Well, even if in reality I am still locked in my room, this is still far more interesting than just sitting on my butt for the rest of my life.”
“Go away.”
“No, I don’t want to.”
Sunset grit her teeth as she realized that she could not stop the madman from following her without resorting to violence. She had already hit him, of course, but he had asked her to, and attacking him now would almost certainly get her into deep trouble.
“Fine,” she said begrudgingly.
Discord wordlessly motioned for Sunset to lead the way. And so she did.
The hallway was fairly long, but Sunset could see the end without much trouble. Which, now that she thought of it, meant that she had apparently recovered from being unconscious without any lasting damage. She hoped that Discord was okay too. Just because she wanted everyone to recognize her greatness didn’t mean that she wished harm upon them, even Discord. Of course, considering that hitting him had banished the hostile constructs that he had unknowingly manifested with magic, it was obviously the best thing to do.
She stopped walking as she realized something.
“We aren’t going to be attacked by more of your wacko ‘hallucinations’ are we?” she asked nervously.
“Well, I still can’t stop myself from thinking about all sorts of different monsters and stuff, but nothing seems to have jumped out at us yet. Maybe they gave me some medication to help keep it under control.”
“Discord, you’re not insane,” repeated Sunset, even though she knew it was futile to say so. “I’m telling you, even though my explanation sounds even more unlikely than yours, it is the truth all the same. It’s all just magic.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“Why are you even responding to the things that I am saying if you think that I am just another hallucination and everything that you are hearing from me is not really what I am saying?” asked Sunset.
“Well, you see, if I just ignore you and everything around me, I am just going to get super bored. At least I can keep myself mildly amused by talking to you.”
“I guess that makes sense,” said Sunset.
“At least my brain saw fit to give me some company, even if it is, well, you. I would get very bored very quickly otherwise.”
“Don’t treat me that way,” Sunset snapped. “You have no idea who I am and what I am capable of.”
“Well, according to what I heard from you a bit ago, you said you are a magic wielding unicorn.”
“That’s not what I- Whoa!”
Sunset stopped in her tracks, staring at one of the walls. Or, rather, a lack of a wall. There was instead thick iron bars that separated them from another hallway beyond. But the thing that had startled her so was the fact that there was a Sunset Shimmer and Discord in the other hallway, and they were both carrying an assortment of items that Sunset and Discord certainly did not have, eliminating the possibility that it was a mirror.
“What. In. Tartarus!” shouted Sunset as she stared at herself. She lifted an arm up and pointed an accusatory finger at her other self. “Are you-“
“No, I’m not a human Sunset Shimmer that you never found until now,” said the other Sunset.
“How did you know that I was going to say that?” demanded Sunset.
“Because Discord apparently created a strange loop with his magic and I am you.”
“Oh no,” moaned Discord. “It’s one of those situations, is it?”
“Yep. Also, you’ll need this.”
Sunset gaped as the other Sunset passed a silver bowl through the bars and held it out toward her.
She reluctantly took it and looked inside.
There was a block of cheese sitting inside the bowl.
“The frik is this for?” she demanded.
“You’re going to get hungry.”
“You’ll also need this,” said the other Discord, and he passed a blunt kitchen knife through the bars.
“What?” cried Sunset in alarm. “What’s that for?”
It’s for the cheese,” explained the other Discord as the first Discord took the knife. “And you’ll need this.”
He passed a pair of tweezers through too.
“Alright…” said Sunset uneasily. “And what are these for?”
“They’re for the cheese too,” answered the other Discord. The first Discord took them as well.
“Wait, wait,” said Sunset. “You said we’re in a strange loop, and that you two are us. Have you figured out where in the world we are?”
“No,” said the other Sunset. “I’m not even sure that this place is actually even in the world at all. Time and space doesn’t make any sense here.”
“What?” cried Sunset. “What the heck did Discord do with the element of magic that screwed things up this badly?”
“It wasn’t the element of magic,” said the other Sunset. “Twilight Sparkle had the Discord from Equestria imbue his magic into the fall formal crown that you left with her, but when this Discord here touched the stupid thing, he accidently sucked the magic up like a magnet.”
“What?” cried Sunset. “Why would she- Oh. Right, she was going to use the magic to get the element of magic back, duh. Wait, hold on, how do you know all that?”
The other Sunset rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. “Um, the other me told me that.”
Sunset’s eyes unfocused as she processed that information. “Let’s get out of here before I totally freak out,” she said, tugging on Discord’s sleeve. She started running away, and Discord did as she asked and followed after her.
“There’s no reason to be surprised by any of this,” Discord said as he jogged alongside her. “None of this is real, so none of it has to make any sense.”
“It’s all real Discord!” cried Sunset. “And that’s what makes it terrifying!”
Sunset quickly reached the end of the hallway, which was in fact an L turn leading into another hallway. She stopped and leaned her back against the wall and took several deep breaths, trying to keep from freaking out. She looked down and realized that she was still holding the bowl of cheese.
“Can I see that for a second?” asked Discord.
“The cheese bowl?” asked Sunset. “Sure. I need a moment.”
She gave him the bowl, and then sat down.
"Thank you,” said Discord. “So, you’re a unicorn from another world called Equestria, huh?”
“I thought you said you didn’t believe me,” said Sunset suspiciously.
“I don’t, but I figured that I could get a rather entertaining story out of you anyway if I ask you about it.”
“It’s the world where I came from, and it is very much a real place, thank you very much.”
“Yes, yes,” said Discord, cutting into the cheese with the knife. “But what is it like?”
“There are a lot of ponies there who look and act just like people here. Celestia is an immortal alicorn tyrant who rules over Equestria and controls the sun.”
Discord had just popped a piece of cheese into his mouth, but after hearing Sunset’s statement, he lurched and spat it out again before collapsing on the floor laughing.
“Now that is funny!” he cried between laughs. “Can- can you imagine? Celly the queen of horsy land and- and controlling the sun! Hahahahahaha!”
“Actually, it’s Princess Celestia. Not Queen.”
“Wait, really?” said Discord in surprise. “They let the princess rule the kingdom? What, is the King or Queen too sick to rule or something?”
“No, there is no King or Queen. It’s not a hereditary system like what your human Kings and Queens use. Like I said, Celestia is immortal, she doesn’t need anybody to claim the throne when she dies because she won’t ever die ever! Actually, it’s basically a dictatorship. ... Wait, did you just eat some of the cheese?”
“Yeah,” said Discord, taken aback at Sunset’s sudden severity. “Was I not supposed to?”
“Do you have any idea what it means to be trapped in a strange loop?” demanded Sunset.
“Of course I-“
“It means that that bowl of cheese, and the knife, and the tweezers have no point of origin!” screamed Sunset. “We got them from our other selves, and, unless I am very much mistaken, they got them from their other selves, and those other selves got them from yet another pair of other selves, and on and on for infinity!”
“Yes, I know that,” said Discord.
“So tell me this, Mister D!” cried Sunset. “How are we supposed to give our other selves the cheese when you ATE THE CHEESE?!”
“I didn’t eat all of it!” Discord pointed out defensively.
“That doesn’t matter!” cried Sunset. “It’s still less than what we got!”
“So what? It’s not like something bad is going to happen, right?” said Discord, apparently slightly worried.
“I don’t have any idea what’s going to happen now!” cried Sunset frantically.
“Well, let’s go find out, shall we?” said Discord, motioning toward the new hallway.
Sunset gave Discord an accusing look. “Fine, but if anything bad happens, it’s your fault.”
“Sorry.”
Sunset snatched the cheese bowl away from Discord.
“I’m not letting you eat any more of this,” she said. “It will probably make everything even worse.”
She started stomping away down the new hallway.
Meanwhile, Discord stroked his beard in thought. Eventually he realized that Sunset was getting away from him and he shrugged to himself and took off after her.
“You never finished telling me about this alternate version of my boss!” cried Discord as he caught up with Sunset. “You make her sound awful.”
Sunset slowed down and hung her head. “She wasn’t all bad. She might selfishly hoard all of the most powerful magic for herself, but Equestria has thrived under her rule. It doesn’t matter what you think of her, you only have to look around the country to realize that.”
“Well, considering that people over there, sorry, ponies over there don’t have to spend a fortune campaigning against each other, they probably have more money to spend on practical things,” Discord mused.
Sunset huffed. “I know, right? And even with hereditary monarchies, the most evil King or Queen will still ensure that the kingdom’s economy is as strong as possible because they will be feeding off of it for their whole life, and then their descendants will too. Most people don’t care about that in a democracy, they just want to plunder the system as much as possible before their time is up."
“But keep in mind that hereditary monarchy leads to all kinds of disputes between siblings over who should be the ruler,” Discord pointed out. “And those disputes often turned into wars.”
“Okay, yes. That is a good point. And another good point is that with every ruler, it’s a gamble whether they are a good one or a bad one, but with a monarch, if you get a bad one, you usually have to deal with them for several decades before you can toss the dice again. But Princess Celestia doesn’t have either of those problems. Nopony is starting wars for her throne because, one, there isn’t anypony else entitled to it, and two, she isn’t ever going anywhere anyway. Good grief, I never wanted to steal her throne, I just wanted two things. Firstly, I wanted some public recognition for being the second most powerful pony in Equestria, and two, I wanted access to the most restricted spellbooks in Equestria, which I was entitled to as Celestia’s most powerful and trusted student! I worked extremely hard for that position! I deserved it!”
“Well, if Celestia won’t give you what you want, then go out and make a name for yourself without her, is what I say,” said Discord. “Who needs her, right?”
Sunset looked at Discord in surprise. "That's basically what I did when I came here. Also, Celestia’s your boss,” she pointed out.
“Well, she finally agreed to let me do things my way, and so far, it’s been working out great, so that shows her!”
Discords pleased expression suddenly fell flat.
“Or, at least, it was working out great. I guess they’ll have to replace me now.”
“Wait a second,” said Sunset, stopping. “Are you actually saying that you are on my side here?”
Discord also stopped and turned to look at her.
“For the record,” he began, “I happen to think that nothing that I hear you telling me is true because I am insane. But I can’t stand people who have that holier than thou, stick to the rules and never make any exceptions no matter what attitude. So, yes, I am on your side there. But if you step all over my students while trying to prove your point, then I am most definitely not on your side there.”
“Figures,” said Sunset bitterly. “For a second, I thought that you might actually understand. People don’t pay any attention to you unless you make them!”
“People used to pay attention to me, and I didn’t make them do that.”
“That was because you are such a psycho that people couldn’t help it. So, in a way, you kind of did!”
Discord looked surprised, and then thoughtful. “Hmm. Good point.”
“See? I’m right.” Sunset started walking again.
“I think we’re finally getting somewhere,” she called to Discord. “There hallway ends right up here.”
“Good, a change of scenery would be nice.”
Sunset and Discord said nothing more as they approached the door. Sunset reached it first and pulled it open. When she saw what was on the other side, she gasped.
“Holy Tartarus, this place is huge!” she cried.
Discord peered through the door and beheld the scene with a bemused expression.
“Another hallway. More green walls and wooden floors,” he muttered. “Darn.”
“Does the fact that it is about two hundred times taller and wider than the one we just came out of not bother you at all?”
“Sunset,” he said slowly. “I’ve gone mad. I was expecting weird. What we should be more concerned about is the fact that that there appears to be about a five hundred feet drop to get down there. There does appear to be another door that is more our size on the floor of the opposite wall, but I doubt we’d survive if we jumped. Unless it's not as high as it looks, and it probably isn't...”
“There’s something coming!” said Sunset in surprise. “Who is… Oh, holy crud!”
“Hmm, now that’s interesting,” said Discord. “It’s you and me again, only about six hundred feet tall if I had to guess.”
Sunset said nothing as she watched the two giants come closer.
They drew near, and then stopped directly in front of them, looking straight at the doorway.
Sunset tried to speak, but found that it was difficult to do so when she was so terrified. “Are… are you… the two we met before?”
The enormous other Sunset put her hands on her knees to get a better view of them.
“I’m pretty sure we’re all the same two people, actually,” whispered the giant, although her voice was still so enormous that it boomed anyway. “Here, let me help you.”
The giant Sunset held out her hand just below the door. Her hand bobbed up and down slightly, as she was incapable of holding it completely still.
Sunset looked up at her giant self.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Look, I know it’s scary as Tartarus, but I’m not going to hurt you, and the sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Sunset gulped. “Okay, you have a point.”
She stepped out past the door and onto the giant Sunset’s hand, and then immediately lost her footing and fell over on her face. She quickly flipped herself around and looked up at her giant self nervously.
“Sorry, can’t help it,” said the Giant. “Come on, Mister Discord.”
“Well, this is certainly a new experience,” mused Discord. Then he shrugged and turned around, and then let himself fall backward onto giant Sunset’s hand.
After Discord was securely held in the giant’s palm, she started moving. Thankfully, the enormous scale of the room made it seem like they were moving at a decent rate of speed, even though Sunset knew that from her own perspective they were probably actually moving at about a hundred miles an hour. Thankfully, the giant hand around the blocked out the majority of air friction.
Still, the short ride was, in a word, terrifying.
The giant Sunset set her hand down on the floor of the enormous hallway and waited for Sunset and Discord to hop off.
“I hope I never have to do that again!” cried Sunset after hitting the floor.
“There’s no telling what the future holds,” said Discord as he did the same.
“Yeah, well until today, carrying myself in a giant version of my own hand was not something that I thought was even in the cards!”
“There are plenty of other cards in the deck that have yet to be drawn,” warned Discord.
“All things considered, I don’t like thinking about the implications!”
“But consider them we must.”
“Hey, I have something for you,” called the giant Sunset.
They both looked up and saw the giant lowering her hand toward them again. She was holding a giant pair of tweezers.
As it drew nearer, Sunset realized that there was a cube of cheese in the grasp of the giant tweezers. Tiny in comparison to the size of the one who was giving it to them, but it was still almost the size of her own head.
“What the tartarus!” she muttered, but held out her cheese bowl to accept the gift. "I have been saying that a lot recently..."
The giant Sunset released the cube and it fell into the bowl. It was about quadruple the size of the cheese that they had originally started out with.
“That was just a tiny piece of what they have!” said Discord in fascination.
“Yeah,” agreed the giant Sunset. “And for us, it was basically nothing. We can still give the rest to ourselves and still have some leftover.”
“This place is super freaky,” said Sunset. “We have to get out of here.”
Without waiting for any response, she suddenly dashed away toward the door to the door that the giant Sunset had set them next to. She hurriedly pulled it open and was slightly bemused to find another green hallway with wooden floors.
Discord clearly shared her sentiment. When he came through behind her, he took a look around and said, “Well, here we are again. I hate being trapped here, it’s like I’m trapped as a statue all day and forced to stare at the same thing for forever.”
Sunset whipped her head around to stare at Discord.
“Why did you say that?” she demanded. “How did you know about that?”
“Know about what?” he asked in confusion.
“There is another version of you in Equestria. Apparently, he got trapped inside a statue.”
“Really? How did something like that happen?”
“Celestia and Luna trapped him in there with magic.”
“Hah!” cried Discord in amusement. “If it wasn’t for the fact that I am sure that I am hallucinating right now, I would marvel at what a remarkable coincidence that is, but as it is, it is pretty obvious that my brain set that up for myself on purpose.”
“Good grief!” cried Sunset in frustration. “I can’t impress you with anything anymore! ‘Hey Discord!’ “ she said in a parody of her own voice. “ ‘I’m a magical unicorn from another world!’ ‘That figures,’ " she said, this time parodying Discord’s voice. “ 'I’m insane, so nothing surprises me anymore!’ I mean, come on! Remember when you were an art teacher? Remember how you used to find such wonder in the most seemingly simple of things? I mean, it was a little weird, but it’s like you don’t even care anymore.”
“Yeah…” said Discord wistfully.
“Come on,” said Sunset. “If there is a way out of this place, we’re going to find it. I haven’t come this close to reclaiming what is mine only to give up now.”
They continued walking for a little while longer.
Eventually, Sunset noticed a small spot on the wall that stood out. As she drew nearer, she realized what it was.
“Oh no…” she muttered.
“Fascinating,” said Discord with a grin.
Sunset proceeded and stopped in front of a tiny little doorway in the middle of the wall. Inside was a tiny version of herself and Discord.
The tiny version of herself was clearly terrified, and with good reason. Sunset smiled at the irony. The tiny her said something, but she was too small and speaking too softy to be heard. Fortunately, Sunset already knew what she had said.
She put her hands on her knees to get a better view of the tiny copies of themselves.
“I’m pretty sure we’re all the same two people, actually,” she whispered in answer to the unheard question. “Here, let me help you.”
She held her hand out under the doorway, ready to return the favor to a version of herself who had not even helped her yet.
The tiny Sunset looked at her incredulously.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Look, I know it’s scary as Tartarus, but I’m not going to hurt you, and the sooner we get out of here, the better.”
The tiny Sunset gulped, and then said something that went unheard.
She stepped out past the door and onto Sunset’s hand, and then immediately lost her footing and fell over on her face. She quickly flipped herself around and looked up at her giant self nervously.
“Sorry, can’t help it,” said Sunset, understanding exactly what condition her tiny self was in at that moment. “Come on, Mister Discord.”
Tiny Discord said something, and then he shrugged and turned around, and then let himself fall backward onto Sunset’s hand.
After Discord was securely held in the her palm, she started lowering them to the ground, making sure to drop them as close to their intended destination as possible. Actually, she had not even looked to see if there was indeed a tiny door for them, but there it was.
Sunset felt conflicted about the situation. On one hand, it felt nice to be able to help herself, in this strange, strange manner that was occurring. But on the other hand, she felt bad that it was necessary to scare her other self nearly senseless in order for them to be able to proceed. It was a necessary evil. Hopefully it would pay off in the end.
Sunset set her hand down on the floor and waited for the tiny Sunset and Discord to hop off.
Tiny Sunset started wailing as expected after she had hopped down, but Sunset couldn’t hear her. And then Tiny Discord spoke, and then Tiny Sunset again, and back and forth and back again.
Sunset decided that she didn’t have the time to wait for the two of them to stop arguing about whatever it was that they were arguing about. She had actually already forgotten. It didn’t matter.
She turned to Discord, ready to ask a question, but then realized that he was already holding the handle of the knife out to her and grinning at her like an idiot.
She rolled her eyes at him and took the knife, and then carefully sliced a tiny chunk of cheese out of her cheese bowl. She then passed the knife back to Discord and accepted the Tweezers from him.
“Hey, I have something for you,” she called down to the tiny people in a restrained volume.
They both looked up at her and watched her lower the cheese chunk down in the tweezers. Her other self cried out, but held out her own cheese bowl to accept the gift.
Sunset released the cube and it fell into the bowl.
This time Discord managed to speak loudly enough to be heard. “That was just a tiny piece of what they have!” he said.
“Yeah,” agreed Sunset. “And for us, it was basically nothing. We can still give the rest to ourselves and still have some leftover.”
The tiny Sunset said something, and then scurried away through the tiny doorway.
The tiny Discord took a moment to give her a thumbs up and then ran after his companion.
Sunset turned to look at her own Discord with a raised eyebrow.
He smiled and shrugged.
“She’s still right,” said Sunset. “This place really is super freaky. Being on this side of the whole exchange was just as bizarre as being in their place, if not nearly as terrifying. At least the first other versions of us were the same size as us. I swear, if Princess Twilight knew what kind of crazy I’m going through right now…”
She trailed off.
“What?” asked Discord.
“I don’t know. It's not like she will decide that I deserve to have it and let me have it. Come on, until we get out of here, we have to keep moving.”
“I’m following you.”
And so Sunset continued on.
It was only a short while later that she came across something that made her sigh with relief.
“Oh, thank goodness, look, its those bars where we saw ourselves for the first time!”
She pointed at a set of iron bars, behind which was another pair of themselves.
“Hold on!” she suddenly cried in shock. “We only made one ninety degree turn on this whole trip! How in tartarus did we wind up back here without doing a one-eighty?”
“Not only that,” said Discord. “But our bigger selves and our smaller selves both were traveling along a path perpendicular to our own. We never took any turns during that portion of our little adventure either, which means that if they really were us, then space warped somehow.”
“Oh, so that’s what I meant when I told myself that time and space is warped here…” Sunset said to herself in realization. I wasn’t sure that I believed myself when I said that you didn’t absorb the power of the element of harmony. I don’t think it can do something this nuts. This is insane!”
Suddenly she realized what she had just said, and quickly added, “Pun not intended. Because you are not insane.”
“Right.”
Sunset sighed.
“I just realized that the cheese is still too big. Give me the knife again.”
Discord passed it to her and she went to work.
“We have to give them the bowl, you realize,” Discord said. “What are you going to do with the rest of the cheese?”
“I’m going to take it with us in my hands, of course. I never ate anything.”
“Oh, so you’re suddenly okay with eating the cheese now?” asked Discord, crossing his arms.
“There is nothing wrong with eating it after the loop has come to a full circle,” said Sunset, who had finished the job and handed the knife back. Discord took it and Sunset started crushing the remaining cheese strips into a ball behind her back.
“There is nothing wrong with eating it once the loop has been brought full circle,” Sunset said. “But, I will admit, this is super weird, even weirder than what I was expecting.”
“How so?”
“When we give the bowl, knife and tweezers to the next group, they will disappear from the timeline for good. They will cease to exist. The moment that the loop both begins and ends is the moment that they stop existing. But the cheese… We are giving them all of the cheese back. In fact, I have a suspicion that I ‘coincidentally’ sliced the cheese in exactly the same shape as what we first received without even meaning to. But… I think we’ll still have some of the cheese left afterward. The cheese which was created because of a strange loop. And we’ll still have it after the loop is over. That’s not supposed to happen.”
“I don’t think strange loops are supposed to happen at all,” said Discord.
“You know what I mean!”
Suddenly, another Sunset walked in front of the iron bars on the other side. She immediately noticed them and froze, stared at them.
"Whoa! What. In. Tartarus!” shouted the other Sunset as she stared at herself. She lifted an arm up and pointed an accusatory finger at her other self. “Are you-“
“No, I’m not a human Sunset Shimmer that you never found until now,” said Sunset, remembering her intended accusation from before.
“How did you know that I was going to say that?” demanded Sunset.
“Because Discord apparently created a strange loop with his magic and I am you.”
“Oh no,” moaned the other Discord. “It’s one of those situations, is it?”
“Yep. Also, you’ll need this.”
The other Sunset gaped as Sunset passed the cheese bowl through the bars and held it out toward her.
The other Sunset reluctantly took it and looked inside.
“The frik is this for?” she demanded.
“You’re going to get hungry.”
“You’ll also need this,” said Discord, and he passed the knife through the bars.
“What?” cried the other Sunset in alarm. “What’s that for?”
“It’s for the cheese,” explained Discord as the other Discord took the knife. “And you’ll need this.”
He passed the pair of tweezers.
“Alright…” said the other Sunset uneasily. “And what are these for?”
“They’re for the cheese too,” answered Discord knowingly. The other Discord took them as well.
“Wait, wait,” said the other Sunset. “You said we’re in a strange loop, and that you two are us. Have you figured out where in the world we are?”
“No,” said the other Sunset. “I’m not even sure that this place is actually even in the world at all. Time and space doesn’t make any sense here.”
“What?” cried Sunset. “What the heck did Discord do with the element of magic that screwed things up this badly?”
“It wasn’t the element of magic,” said Sunset. “Twilight Sparkle had the Discord from Equestria imbue his magic into the fall formal crown that you left with her, but when this Discord here touched the stupid thing, he accidently sucked the magic up like a magnet.”
“What?” cried the other Sunset. “Why would she- Oh. Right, she was going to use the magic to get the element of magic back, duh. Wait, hold on, how do you know all that?”
Sunset rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. “Um, the other me told me that.”
The other Sunset’s eyes unfocused as she processed that information. “Let’s get out of here before I totally freak out,” she said, tugging on the other Discord’s sleeve. She started running away, and Discord followed after her.
Sunset let out a long sigh.
“Please tell me that that was the end of the loop, and we can go home now."
“We’re not out of here yet,” Discord pointed out.
“Well, one can hope. Also…”
Sunset held out her other hand. She had a blob of cheese clutched in it.
“It looks like I was right.”
“That can’t be sanitary,” Discord remarked.
“It’s not like I have a choice. Come on, the next door is just over there.”
Sunset hurried toward the door. She opened it.
“What the-“
“What are we doing in my classroom all of the sudden?” said Discord, looking past her shoulder.
“Why are you questioning this?” Sunset asked. “I thought you decided that everything can be explained by your insanity.
“Oh, right.”
Sunset stepped into the classroom.
“Did… did we make it out? Are we back in the world of normalcy?” she asked, unsure.
She looked back and realized that the doorway that she had just walked out of was Discord’s closet.
Still, it was possible that the doorway served as a portal between the classroom and Discord’s magical world of weirdness.
There was at least one way to find out.
She ran toward the classroom’s door and flung it open without waiting for Discord. Everything in the hallway appeared to be normal at a glance. She jogged down to the janitor’s closet, and opened that door too. Thankfully, it seemed to be unlocked.
The inside of the closet was extremely cramped. An entire wall was occupied by one of those giant machines that the janitors rode around on to clean the floors similar to how a riding lawn mower mows lawns, but she had no idea what it was called. Nor did she care.
She quickly saw that the ladder that Discord had mentioned was hiding behind a group of mops. She shoved them aside and climbed up, opening up a hatch in the ceiling when she got near enough, and then poking her head through.
It was quite dark in the rafters, but thankfully the light in the closet was just powerful enough to shine slightly into the darkness. Sunset studied her surrounds carefully. She finally saw the shine of light reflecting off of metal and gemstone. She reached out and grasped at it and her hands closed around something. She pulled it into the light and confirmed. Yes, it was the crown!
Both of them, actually. Discord had apparently stacked the two crowns together. Sunset gleefully ducked back down the hatch and climbed the ladder with only one hand, using the other to ensure that the precious crown wasn’t damaged. She didn’t even wait to reach the final rung before jumping off, and then she carefully separated the crowns from each other.
Identifying the one that came from Equestria was easy. She reveled in her achievement for only a moment, and then adorned the crown upon her head and waited for the power to make itself known to her.
But that didn’t happen at all.
After a few seconds of waiting, she yanked the thing off of her head and quickly tried the other crown, thinking perhaps that she might have somehow made a mistake. But clearly she had not. This one seemed to be just as powerless as the first.
There was only one explanation. They hadn’t escaped into the real world yet. This was clearly a magical recreation of the school from Discord’s subconscious.
She moaned in frustration. They would have to keep searching for a way out.
She took a look at the crowns, one on her head and the other set on a stack of towels.
She took the one she was currently wearing and switched it for the one on the towels.
Even if it didn’t have any power, wearing it made her feel… somehow more driven, determined to make it back home.
She ran out of the closet, and then sprinted down the hallways, looking for the nearest exit from the school. When she found one, she would know for certain whether they were still trapped.
She found a side exit and turned the handle, opening it.
In her adventure with Discord, she had been surprised by a great many things. The threat of being inadvertently crushed by her giant self had certainly been the most terrifying. But nothing that she had yet encountered shocked her as badly as when she opened up that door and looked at the other side.
The other side of the door was not outdoors at all. It was a room, an extremely huge room, apparently built to a similar scale as the hallway where she had encountered her giant self. She had seen this room before, although never two hundred times bigger than it should have been, of course. She spent a good deal of time in this room in the past. It was the school library.
She bolted back into the building frantically, rushing to the place where the library should have been. Along the way, she literally ran into Discord, knocking them both to the ground.
“Whoa!” he cried. “There you are. What’s the rush?”
“Come with me!” cried Sunset, and she offered no further explanation as she scrambled to her feet and ran off again.
She reached the library door and hesitated. Who knew what horrors the library might have been replaced with?
But she had to know. She gripped the handle, gulped, and then pulled it open.
Inside was the library.
Sunset stared at the room, not believing her eyes. She rushed to the spot where she was sure she saw the oversized library from when she had tried to go outside.
And there on one of the tables was a model of the school. Now that she was seeing it, Sunset vaguely recalled it being a recent addition to the school library.
But she was almost certain that this one wasn’t even a model at all.
“Good grief girl, what has gotten into you?” said Discord, hurrying to catch up.
“Discord!” cried Sunset. “There’s no way out of here!”
“Isn’t there?” asked Discord. “Wait, why did you come to the library to find that out?”
“Because the school is inside the library!” said Sunset, pointing at the model.
Discord gave Sunset a look.
“Are you sure you haven’t lost your marbles too now? Of course the school is in the library.”
“No!” screamed Sunset. “That’s not what I mean! If you go out the doors that are supposed to lead outside, you will come out of this building right here! The one that I am pointing at! The school is inside itself, which means that there is no way out!”
“Oh,” said Discord. “That’s a problem.”
“Yes! That is a huge problem!” cried Sunset in panic. “We’re going to starve!”
“No we’re not,” said Discord, apparently untroubled. You still have that cheese, right?”
“That will tide us over for, what, a day?” cried Sunset. “If that?”
“No, look, we can basically do the same thing that we did before,” said Discord. “Give me the cheese.”
Sunset, wondering if Discord genuinely knew some sort of way to make the cheese last, hesitated only for a second before holding her hand out and dropping the glob of cheese into his hand.
“Look,” said Discord.
He set the cheese blob on the grass of the soccer field in the school’s model.
Sunset’s eyes bugged out as she stared at the simple act that Discord had done.
He had effortlessly solved the problem.
“Holy tartarus,” she wheezed, finding the wind had been knocked out of her from the shock.
She rushed for the door, out into the hall, and then ran toward the side of the school and opened another door leading outside.
And then she gawked at the unmissable yellow blob the size of a building in the middle of the soccer field.
Suddenly, she heard maniacal laughter behind her. Discord had caught up. He was truly happy for the first time since their adventure together had begun.
“See? I am a genius!” he cried out, clearly pleased with himself. “And even if we manage to eat all of that giant thing, we can just take a piece inside and do it all over again, so long as we don’t ever eat all of the cheese and leave nothing left.”
“When you started eating the cheese, I was pissed,” said Sunset. “I thought you had doomed us forever by making it so that we could never finish the loop. But if you hadn’t eaten any of it, we would have just walked through that place and given our other selves the uneaten cheese and it would all be gone. Instead you ate it and we freakishly wound up getting even more cheese, and now...”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” said Discord gleefully.
“If your blatant disregard for continuality had resulted in the universe being destroyed, or something like that, that would have made sense. Instead... Your blatant disregard for continuality has resulted in an infinite amount of cheese. I can’t believe that I just said that, and actually meant it.”
“Hmm, infinite cheese! I shall call it infinicheese!”
“Okay, I guess we won’t starve to death,” Sunset admitted. “Not that it actually matters, now that I think of it. We can just live off of what’s in the cafeteria until we figure out how to get out of here.”
“Actually,” said Discord, ”I searched the cafeteria when I was trying to figure out where the heck you had run off to. I should have realized that you had gone to go grab your crown. By the way, does it work?”
“No. This isn’t the real crown.”
“So you’re finally admitting that I’m insane?” he asked hopefully.
“NO! cried Sunset. “For the last time, you are not insane! Is this place a hallucination? No. Is it a replica of reality constructed with magic? Yes! But this replica of my crown is not the real crown, and therefore it doesn’t actually work!”
“A pity,” said Discord. “I would have liked to see what kind of chaos you would pull off. Anyway though, as I was saying, I searched the cafeteria, and for some reason, it’s empty of all food. Luckily, there seems to be water still, and we can create more of that the same way we do it with the cheese.”
“Oh. Well, then yeah, it’s a really good thing you somehow created infinicheese. Now we just have to figure out how to get out of here.”
“Sunset, you just said that there is no way out because the school is inside itself.”
“That’s true. But the way that we got here in the first place was through magic, so the way that we leave must logically also be through magic!”
“I thought that your crown thingy doesn’t have any magic,” said Discord.
“I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you! It was your magic that put us in this mess in the first place.”
“You want me to just ‘magic’ us out of here?” asked Discord incredulously. “Ha! As if. I can’t just snap my fingers and instantly stop being insane. Nobody ever returns to sanity that fast.”
“Oh my- Discord, if you say that you’re insane one more... Actually, wait a second. So, if I can get you to magic us back into the normal world, and if I show you how to control your magic so that your mind stops using it subconsciously, would you take that as evidence that you are not insane?”
“You mean if everything suddenly goes back to normal and there are no more monsters?” said Discord.
“Yes, basically.”
He paused to consider.
“I suppose so. Like I said, you can’t just suddenly decide to stop being insane and poof, you’re sane again, so there would have to be another explanation. I would definitely have to rethink things if we can get back.”
“Perfect. I am so glad that I didn't make you leave me alone when you started following me! I am going to teach you how to control your magic so that you can get us the heck out of here! I might not be familiar with whatever freaky magic this is that you have, but if anyone can figure it out, it’s definitely me. It’s not like either of us have anything better to do, right?”
“That’s true. So the teacher is to become the student, eh? What a plot twist.”
“Mister Discord, try to be serious for once!”
“I am being serious! Believe me, if there is the slightest chance that this will get us out of here, I’ll do it! The school may be more bearable than that awful, stagnant hallway place, but it's still terribly lonely here, and nothing ever changes unless you or I do something ourselves, which means that it is quite boring around here. I want out.”
“Good! Let’s get started! And I really hope you’re a fast learner and that I can be a good teacher, because I don’t know how long I can stand to eat literally nothing but cheese.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.049 seconds
Total duration
1,107 users online
1,653,524 hits today, 1,872,792 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.®
Well, this turned out to be quite long. Also, this is without a doubt the weirdest thing I have ever written.
Zone!
...
You're in the
Actually, maybe not. This chapter actually had very little to do with her.
9006674
Unless Magic gives Demon Sunset immunity to mortal weapons, a single sniper should be able to take her down.
But what kind of cheese is it? Is it at least good cheese?
9036374
Yes, it is the Gouda cheese.....I'm sorry, I should be handling puns more Caephilly, but they're just too grate.
...I so badly want one of them to pick up the model of the school in the library and attempt to carry it outside of the school
9036644
It made my head hurt to think about this, but I think I actually have an answer for you about what would happen, even though they aren't going to do it. The first thing that needs to be established is that this scenario is obviously impossible in real life and that magic fills in the gaps where necessary. Because of the fact that there are an infinite number of schools that are bigger than the one that they stand in, they should all be crushed into oblivion instantly by gravity. In order to avoid that, gravitity is disconnected between schools. If Sunset were to go outside the school, across the school grounds and drop onto the table of the library, at that moment she would start experiencing more intense gravity. However, because of her relative smallness in comparison to the rest of the big school, she would still be able to stand up without problem. However, if she falls down in the intense gravity, she would hit the floor almost instantly, although thankfully it still would only hurt about as much as falling normally.
Because gravity is disconnected between schools, the school actually only sticks to the table because of the vacuum between it and the table. If they picked the model up and then released it in the air, it would float in the air and conserve whatever momentum they gave it, but still stop because of air friction. If they took the model outside and set it on the ground, the plane that the school sits on would stack on itself infinitely in a pyramid-like fashion, but there would be nothing above them at all. Because this has to be a pocket universe, the only thing that would be above them is space. Originally, the air was totally enclosed in the school, but now it can expand into the space above them. Thankfully, gravity still keeps it bound to the school, so there would only be some decompression. But they still can't escape because gravity will keep them bound to one school or another.
If they release the school in the air above the ground outside, then the school would still hover over itself in a pyramid-like fashion, and even if they jump off the edge and land on the next school, they will never be able to get away from the school no matter how many times they do it. However, now the air from the school has an infinte amount of space below it that it can expand to, and it will. The air from the school would fall off of the school's plane and onto the next one, and probably decompress to the point of becoming unbreathable. It depends on whether or not the gravity from the school is capable of holding it tight enough to be thick enough to breath even while flowing, and I don't think it would be. It doesn't matter though, because the air is flowing from a normal sized school to a bigger sized school, and it will not be able to fill nearly as much space in that bigger school, even if it stayed put, which it won't since it will just fall off of that school too. So even though the school that the air came from will also be recieving air from the tiny school resting on top of it, it won't be enough either. This will cycle over and over, with air falling off the edge of the world until it reaches a world of extremely gargantuan proportions and finally manages to get trapped in small valleys in the ground or in the grass, and there would be no air at all to speak of. Needless to say, Sunset and Discord are dead by this point.
If we ignore the fact that they can't carry the school this far without the previous scenario happening first, let's say they take it a step further and release the school beyond the edge of the school grounds however, then they will finally be able to see the space below the school. The whole loss of air thing still happens, but I already explained what should happen there. Assuming that they don't die, they can get away from the school by jumping off the edge, but then they would fall through space for forever, even though they would lose gravity after getting away from the school, because momentum will continue to carry them away into the void.
Of course, they will never find any of this stuff out because they are scared to death of messing with the model. If they accidently dent the model, they dent their own school. If they crush it completely, they kill themselves. Discord put the cheese on the soccer field out of necessity, but they are going to stay the heck away from it otherwise, and with good reason. There are multiple ways that they can accidently kill themselves with that thing.
Of course, I am not completely certain that all of this is what would happen. There may be other factors that I didn't consider, and throwing magic into the mix makes explaining anything especially difficult. For instance, the giant cheese and the cheese that Discord put on the table should be composed of the exact same number of atoms because they are the same cheese. If that is true, then the atoms in the giant cheese are also giant, and therefore indigestible. In order to make it work, magic has to intervene somehow.
If anybody has any further ideas about what would happen in this scenario, or other ideas about how to exploit the self-referential loop, it would be interesting to hear them.
9036952
Actually, I think I already know of one correction. In the situation where they set the school on the ground outside of the school, yes there is now space above for the air to fill, but that air will not be filled by their own air decompressing, it will be filled by the air from the bigger school, which has enough air that it towers up way higher than the atmosphere in the normally sized school, so it would fill up their atmosphere to a high air pressure without losing very much of it's own air, and it is also receiving addition air from the school bigger than it, and so on. The air pressure would not be completely crushing because the range of each school's gravity only reaches so high. However, because the air can flow freely between all of the schools, the amount of air will fluctuate as the total amount goes up and down for the same reason that the amount of cheese increases. If air flows into the smaller school, then the air supply increases. However, if the air flows into the larger school, the amount of air decreases. Because of both the fact that the larger school is below them, and air wants to fill the bottom of things first, and the fact that the amount of area where the air is traveling into the larger school is much greater than the amount of area where there is air going into the smaller school, the air supply is going to tend decrease. So in that scenario, the amount of air would slowly diminish until there is almost none left.
9037013
Isn't life wonderful? You never know what sorts of hypothetical madness you'll be contemplating a week or two from now.