Flowers and Hats (Project: Sunflower)
Squiddy took one look at the world and decided this was it. Six worlds that had been dead, lifeless rocks and then… this.
She’d had enough.
She tipped forward and slammed her face into the soft, grassy ground and let out a muffled scream.
Cinder poked her. “Come on, it’s not that bad!”
Squiddy kept screaming.
“Look, there’s no Friendship Castle in Ponyville this time! We can’t just go march to Twilight and say hi!”
There was no change in Squiddy’s state of existence.
“...Shouldn't she run out of breath soon?”
Seren shrugged. “She gets a lot of screaming practice in on an average day, I wouldn’t be surprised if her lungs held far over the average capacity.” She tapped Squiddy with her scepter. “Soon as Sweetaloo gets back, you’re going to need a looooong session.”
Squiddy couldn’t keep it up any longer. She needed to breathe in. She had every intention of continuing her scream after the breath, but she failed to take into account the presence of loose dirt beneath her face. She sucked in—and then entered an immediate coughing fit, spewing dirt everywhere as she rose to her feet.
“AUGH AUGH AUGH!” Squiddy screamed, waving her tentacles around.
Celia’s gem flashed, the spell smacking Squiddy in the back of the head hard enough to eject all the dirt from her esophagus. With a groan, she sat down on a Ponyville bench and held her head in her hands.
“Squiddy…?” Cinder asked.
“Just… let’s… let’s get this over with.”
Seren nodded. “If we’re quick, maybe we can go somewhere more interesting after we’re done…”
Celia smirked knowingly. “Oh, I don’t think the world is going to be quite that simple.”
“Oh?” Cinder asked.
“While you were all encouraging Squiddy’s tantrum…”
“Hey!” Squiddy shouted, ignored as usual.
“...I was making observations. First point of observation—none of the ponies here are all that surprised by our presence.”
“Ponyville ponies are used to weird stuff happening on a regular basis,” Seren countered.
“Yes, human-shaped things like you usually get an odd look. You haven’t been getting them.”
Seren looked around, curious. “But I don’t see any other anthros here…”
“No, but do you see that human over there?”
Now that Celia pointed him out, he was easy to see—a man with big glasses in a well-tailored suit was walking through Ponyville and nopony was batting an eye at him.
“...Okay, I get it, not standard,” Squiddy stood up. “Should I be expecting some human with tentacles to walk by next?”
“Wait…” a version of Berry Punch stopped in her tracks. “That’s not hair?!”
“...You ponies really need to look closer,” Squiddy commented, twitching her tentacles.
“...Okay. Not human then. I’ll… just… spend the rest of the day internalizing yet another race to keep track of!” She laughed nervously, trotting away.
Celia nodded. “We are only slightly outside the norm here.”
Squiddy sighed. “Fine. I’ll admit, I should stop judging books by their covers.” She stood up. “Golden Oak Library?”
Seren pointed her scepter at a pole with several signs, one of which said ‘Library’. “Yep.”
“Right! The library still exists!” Cinder clapped her hooves. “I haven’t seen it in forever!”
The four of them walked through Ponyville. For the most part, they were treated as a normal part of everyday life, though occasionally one of the passersby would notice that Seren’s face wasn’t the right shape. Even less realized Squiddy was unusual—the tentacles just looked like white hair to them.
There was a single human that looked at them and stared, but she didn’t say anything. All the ponies around her were acting normal, after all, no need to make a scene…
They arrived at the Golden Oak Library without incident. It was… just how Cinder remembered it back home. A large treehouse with a few windows here and there and a balcony jutting out near the top. It smelled like books, even from the outside.
Celia gave Cinder the honors of knocking on the door.
A young Spike opened the door. “Welcome to the Golden Oak Librar-” his voice caught in his throat. “...Oh. Uh…”
“We’re here to see Twilight, Spike,” Celia said.
“...O-of course! Come right in!” He pulled the door back and let the Sweeties into the Library’s main room. The local unicorn Twilight was easy to find, sitting at one of the tables, chatting happily with another pony the Sweeties didn’t recognize.
A normal sized pony with both a horn and wings. Alicorn for sure, but definitely not a Celestia or a Luna. She had a soft cream coat and a simple brown mane that went well with the center of her sunflower cutie mark.
“Oh, hi Rarity!” Twilight said, brightening. “We were just talking ab-” her confident smile vanished the instant she actually looked at the Sweeties. “Wh-what!?”
The alicorn dropped the teacup that had been resting in her telekinesis, her jaw hanging open in shock.
Cinder beamed. “Hi Twilight and… you!”
“E-erin…” the alicorn said, blinking.
Weird name. “I’m Cinder, this is Celia, Seren, and the grumpy one is Squiddy.”
“‘Sup,” Squiddy said, waving with a tentacle.
“We represent the League of Sweetie Belles, an interdimensional organization comprised mostly of Sweetie Belles!” Cinder beamed. “We were exploring and found your world!”
“Explorers!?” Erin asked, her uncertain eyes suddenly sparkling with curiosity. “H-how do you explore? How do you get the resonance perfect with enough regularity to make exploring viable? Wh…”
“All can be answered in time,” Celia said. “But, well, the short version…” She launched into the general speech once again, outlining everything they needed to know. “...and unless I’m mistaken, you have a direct connection to Princess Celestia, Twilight?”
“I… Wh… yes!” Twilight forced a smile. “I can get you to her! She’ll definitely want to hear about this! The humans will too…”
“Ah yes, I did mean to ask about that. Most worlds don’t have humans already in them.”
“That’s because we’re not native to this world,” Erin said, simply. “We come from Earth.”
“We?” Cinder caught.
Erin blinked. “Well, I… I am a human. I’m just currently studying magic in this altered body. Just started last week, actually.”
“Heavy body modification… cool…” Seren said, rubbing her hands together. “How do you do it? Spells?”
Erin smiled. “There are no spells, we use highly advanced nanobots to alter someone’s body on the molecular level.”
“A purely technological solution?” Seren clapped her hands together. “You have to show me! I’ll need to determine if we’re running on mad science physics or close to baseline. If it’s baseline that’d be… a discovery!”
“Base… line?” Erin cocked her head. “I... “
“I think we’re all using a lot of words the others don’t understand,” Cinder said. “Maybe we should take a few steps back and just try to get to know each other?” She extended a hoof to Erin. “I’ve never met an Erin before. Why don’t you tell me your story?”
“Well… the Earth was dying… and then we invented Harmonics!” Noting her confusion, she explained. “A way to travel between worlds. We found several worlds with it, including Equestria! A whole new world… Though I guess that’s not that unusual, is it?”
Celia smiled warmly. “Equestrias—or Equises—are the most common world type in this area, though yours appears to be surrounded by an unusual number of lifeless ones. However, what is rare is when we find a world that already knows about dimensional travel. That’s something special.”
Twilight and Erin beamed.
“Do continue your story.”
~~~
Sweetaloo rarely left Swip these days, but occasionally something would crop up where she felt the need to go elsewhere. This was one of those times. She had been performing some research into magic dream-based therapy and had asked Swip to bring her all the known files on the subject, only to find that the most important ones were classified by the Research Division, a Division the Expedition Team only had standard clearance within.
She could have stayed on Swip and issued a formal request for access, which probably would have been granted given her position and record… in a week or so. The other option was to drop by Celestia City and pay a visit to some Research eggheads she knew and get the clearance that way.
Suzie had let her go without a fuss—shouldn't be that hard to track down some information, right? Even if she was delayed heavily, she’d still be back on Swip in less than a day, no problem. The only unexpected part of the trip was Blink, who had decided to tag along because she “just felt like mixing it up.”
They flew into the space around Celestia City in a standard-build Merodi Skiff, a crescent-shaped craft with a sphere embedded in the middle of it, serving as the cockpit. It, like most structures in Merodi Universalis, was built out of white metal. There was a single door in the back of the ship to access the cargo hold, but more often than not the windshield would pop open to let people in and out.
Sweetaloo was driving, going right for one of Celestia City’s entrance highways. She took her hooves off the wheel and let the city AI take over. Their destination was the League of Sweetie Belles, already set the moment they left Swip.
“Why don’t we just call Tab?” Blink wondered, floating through the air, a juice box in her hoof.
“Tried. Got the answering machine.” Sweetaloo watched, smiling as the scenes of Celestia City passed her by. “It might take her all day to check her messages, if she ever does. We have the technology to get anywhere in a matter of hours, we should use it!”
“If you were going for efficiency, we could have just portaled directly into the League. Celestia City doesn’t block portals.”
“I’ve been here a lot longer than you, Blink, I think I know that.”
Blink shrugged. “Eh, good point.” She sat down in one of the Skiff’s six chairs, adjusting it to her frame.
“Anyway, I like seeing the sights. Celestia City is… amazing.”
Blink shrugged. “I think I like that massive city we found in a Jupiter that one time more.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Right, right. You need to get out more.”
“Last time I got out I broke a bone and had to fast-talk a dragon Matriarch.”
“A fluke!”
“A few days ago. Fae.”
“Fay,” Blink corrected.
Sweetaloo rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to psychoanalyze your tendency for rebellion through cheap jokes?”
“Wow, you know how to take the fun out of everything, don’t you?”
Sweetaloo grinned. “It comes with the territory.”
They pulled into the League of Sweetie Belles and popped the windshield open the moment they could. Sweetaloo was more than a little surprised to see Nausicaa waiting for them.
The Sweetie pegasus smiled. “Ah, Blink, Sweetaloo. You’ve returned. I trust everything’s going well?”
Sweetaloo nodded. “All’s well. Just here to get some information from Tab. The mare isn’t answering her phone.”
Blink shook Nausicaa’s hoof.
“I, for one, am glad there’s no reason for us to be at each other’s throats this time,” Nausicaa admitted.
“There’s never any reason in the first place.” Sweetaloo countered.
Blink coughed. “Let’s not start a new incident, kay?”
Sweetaloo shook her head. “Right, sorry. See you around?”
Nausicaa nodded. “I do have a significant pile of paperwork to overturn… we’re moving to Earth Shimmer in a few weeks and that’s going to be dicey.”
“Hooo boy,” Blink said, rubbing the back of her head. “Fay?”
“Hopefully not.” Nausicaa waved at the two of them with a smile and flew away.
“...She’s so much nicer when she lets go of her fixations…” Sweetaloo said with a sigh.
“Hey. She’s a good mare.”
“We are all ‘good mares’. That doesn't mean we can’t be better.”
Blink let out a thoughtful hum but didn’t say anything. They made their way down to the League Research levels and trotted right into Tab’s laboratory.
“YO TAB!” Bink shouted at the top of her lungs. “CHECK YOUR MESSAGES ONCE IN A WHILE!”
Tab looked up from the robotic pumpkin she and Entrapta were working on. “I have Entrapta look at them and tell me what’s important.”
“I haven’t looked at them in a week,” Entrapta pointed out, not looking up from her welding.
Sweetaloo rolled her eyes. “It’s something short and simple. I need somepony with Research clearance to get me the files on Humming Dream’s psychological effects and the related research.”
“Right, right…” Tab pulled out her invisible tablet and started scrolling through it. “Searching… search… huh.” She blinked. “I actually don’t have instant clearance for that.”
“...What?” Sweetaloo cocked her head. “Why not?”
“I don’t know… Entrapta, you keep working on Gourd-O, I’m going to investigate this.”
“Mhm…” Entrapta hummed, not really paying her any attention.
Tab walked up to a wall console. “Right, so, the R.O. is currently off in some secret base somewhere, but Corona’s in the City. We just have to find her…” She pressed a few buttons. “Hold for teleport.”
“I envy magic-rich Sweeties,” Sweetaloo muttered.
Instantly the three of them were on a ‘Chinatown’ street in Celestia City, appearing on one of the main teleportation terminals. The street was abustle with tourists and the mostly cat-people who lived on the street. Despite the dense crowd, it was easy to pick out Corona walking out of a restaurant, two ponies behind her. One was Evening Sparkle, face of Merodi Universalis, and the other was the Fluttershy of Equis Vitis, Flutterfree.
Blink found Flutterfree odd. She was slightly too tall for a Fluttershy, and had sharp red eyes. Today she didn’t have her bow of light slung over her back, but most of the times Blink had seen her, she had.
Tab waved at them. “HEY!”
Corona saw her instantly. “Oh! Hello… Sweetie!”
“Tab. I’m Tab. The one with the invisible computer spell in my head.”
“Oh! Tab!” Corona brightened considerably.
“...Tab?” Flutterfree asked Eve.
Eve shrugged with her wings.
“I’m going to ignore my relative obscurity,” Tab grunted. “We’re trying to access the files on Humming Dream’s psychological effects and the related research. I have no idea why I can’t.”
Corona’s smile twitched ever-so-slightly. “Ah…”
“We were done eating,” Flutterfree pointed out.
“Still, my work is never done…” Corona held up her hand, creating a holographic screen with the crystal embedded in her glove. “Oh. That file’s physically isolated.”
Tab blinked. “What?”
Sweetaloo cocked her head. “Why would we need to physically isolate a file about psychological phenomena?”
Corona shrugged. “I don’t know, I wasn't part of that Research project.” She waved her finger around, pressing a few buttons on the screen. “You have access to that file specifically, now, but it’s not safe to transmit. You’re going to have to go into the Archives for that one.”
“And I have work to do,” Tab commented. “Good luck Sweetaloo, hope you find what you’re looking for.” She lit her horn—and poofed.
Sweetaloo frowned. “I hope I’m not on the tail of some kind of conspiracy…”
“You probably are,” Corona, Eve, Flutterfree, and Blink all said at the same time.
“Oh boy…”
“Let me know what you find, would you?” Corona said. “After I have my day on the town.”
“Right, sorry for interrupting you.”
“Adventure calls,” Corona said.
“...Yay,” Sweetaloo deadpanned.
“Turn that frown upside-down!” Blink encouraged.
“Meh. Part of me wonders if I should just drop it at this point.”
“You won’t,” Flutterfree said.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Come on Blink, to the Archives.”
Blink nodded. “Right behind you. See ya, Page!”
Flutterfree rolled her eyes. “You too, Witch.”
~~~
Cinder had to admit, Celia was good.
They had arrived on the Equis what, a couple hours ago? And already they had jumped through a portal to an Earth, walked right into a UN compound, and were talking to several men in suits and both Equestrian princesses.
It had all happened so fast…
“How… does she do that?” Erin asked, sitting in a chair next to Cinder. They were sitting with Seren, Squiddy, and Twilight toward the back of the dark, military-designed room devoid of decoration. They were, to put it simply, not part of the discussion happening, only there because it was convenient.
Cinder shrugged. “She’s a natural politician. She knows what to say to people.”
“No one ever gets into a meeting with Robert Thomson that fast! Not even Malachite managed that! He got a video call!”
“Malachite?” Cinder asked.
“...Not important.” Erin shook her head.
“It might have something to do with teleportation,” Seren offered. “And, well, the fact that the Princesses were already here for the meeting.”
“Well, yeah…” Erin frowned. “But still!”
“We’re pros!” Cinder said, beaming.
“You’re a newbie,” Squiddy commented. “We’re pros.”
Cinder stuck out her tongue. “I’m already better than you at the introductions.”
“Good. You’ll be the next Celia.”
“...Given the whole thing with the Fay, I don’t think I want her job.”
“And yet you all need it,” Twilight pointed out. “Without her… well, would any of you be able to answer these questions?” She gestured toward the older human man in charge of the whole meeting, Robert Thomson. He had a stern expression that was impossible for Cinder to read.
“You offer membership to almost anyone?”
“That’s correct,” Celia responded. “Since you’re not a standard Earth, Oversight will need to vet your governmental systems, but since you have a strong U.N. I believe you’re better off in that regard than a standard Earth. Admittedly I have not been here long, and have no authority to make a final judgment.”
“Forgive me if this admissions process seems… too easy.”
“It was designed that way. Admissions need to occur quickly or every world risks getting left in the dust by the exponentially rapid progress of the multiverse.”
“It is still a rushed process.”
“It has worked perfectly fine for hundreds of universes. Such things never happen immediately regardless, we always start with simple trade and Aid-based relations in cases such as yours. If this… Black Tide of yours wasn’t already dealt with, we would eradicate it. It wouldn’t have cost you anything. We save lives where we can, Mr. Thomson.”
“I have a question,” Celestia said, speaking up. “How far are you willing to go for Aid?”
“In places of tragedy, as far as it takes to fix everything. Your worlds are stable though, we’d only interfere if you requested.”
“Hmm…”
“Yeah, I’d be quaking in my boots,” Cinder admitted, turning back to the people around her. “I’d be able to say something…”
“Something smart?” Squiddy asked.
“Eh…”
“I’d say something smart no matter how terrified I was,” Seren said with a wink.
“By the way…” Erin turned to Seren. “What are you?”
Seren grinned. “I’m an anthro! Specifically, homo equus unicornis, the human-unicorn variety.” She tapped her horn.
“So… Uh…”
“No, there are no humans or ponies in the world I’m from. Biologically speaking, what you’re thinking of isn’t possible without a splice, though that level of genetic modification is used at times!”
“By psychos,” Squiddy muttered.
Seren shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Again, not a splice, just a kid.” She winked.
“Just a kid…” Erin paused. “And you explore the multiverse!? Isn’t that… dangerous!?”
“Definitely!” Squiddy chuckled. “Just last week Burgerbelle got flattened by a giant!”
“I burned a timberwolf!” Cinder bragged, proudly.
“But… but…” Erin shook her head. “You’re kids!”
“Only Seren is really a kid,” Squiddy pointed out.
“...Somewhere around half the Sweeties are significantly younger than me,” Cinder pointed out. “We are a bunch of kids, more or less.”
“How are you allowed to do that?” Erin asked, more than a little horrified at the idea of so many children working in such a dangerous job.
Cinder blinked. “We want to?”
Erin looked like she wanted to object again—but she closed her mouth. After all, their culture was just different, she shouldn’t be so judgmental. “Okay. We’re not going to be fans of that, though.”
“Earths never are,” Squiddy said, kicking her feet back. “But then they start getting profit…”
“Thank you for your time,” Robert Thomson announced, seemingly out of nowhere. “I will deliberate with my allies and colleagues. Will you step out?”
“Yes, Mister Thomson,” Celia said, bowing slightly. She waved a hoof, leading her team, Erin, and Twilight out of the room.
“That went well!” Cinder said, grinning.
“No, no it did not.” Celia grimaced. “They were putting on a show of being accepting, but they didn’t trust me.”
“...Can you really blame them?” Erin asked.
“I am well aware of the human tendency for distrust. This was different. This was active. They weren’t treating me as some… unknown, they had it out for me from the start.” She turned to Twilight. “I even sensed it from your Princesses. An… antagonism. Which is rare, from a Celestia and Luna.”
“...I didn’t notice anything,” Seren pointed out.
“You… don’t have the eye,” Twilight said. “I saw… something. I don’t know what. But Celestia would never do something like that without reason. She may have experience with stuff like this?”
“She didn’t know much of anything about portals before we arrived,” Erin commented.
“But she did know about the Veil…”
“Regardless,” Celia tossed her mane back. “There’s not much we can do about it. Just know that there’s… something going on.” She sat down in a chair and smiled. “Until then, why don’t we get to know each other a bit?”
~~~
There were many things deep within Celestia City. The immense dimensional drives larger than city blocks. Vast crystal networks that carried magic energies to and fro. Multiple backup stations for the City’s AI. Rumor had it there was even some kind of guardian space god in the center of the city, but that was unfounded.
There was also something down there that nobody talked about because it was boring—the Archive. Endless halls of computers used to store the entire knowledge of Merodi Universalis. It was also one of the biggest drains on Celestia City’s energy reserves, simply because they had to keep the magical properties of so much knowledge from folding into L-Space constantly. The amount of dimensional manipulation that required was alarming.
But it was worth it, so many said. Backups of every Internet in Merodi Universalis (and some beyond) were stored within the Archive. Even with all sorts of temporal tricks and dimensional loopholes used to keep the space used to a minimum, the Archive was still a silver brick the size of a small town. Most of this was open to the public, but who would ever come down here for that? All the open stuff could be accessed by transmission. A large chunk of the classified stuff, too, was deemed safe enough for transmission over certain secured lines.
But then there were the depths. A single room in the entire Archive that contained information deemed too important for transmission. This was where Sweetaloo needed to go.
All I wanted was some research files…
Sweetaloo and Blink were walking through an area of the public Archive—as empty as always. They were standing on a square of levitating metal that flew through columns of blue light that extended as far as they could easily see. Every column was lined with metal along the corners and crisscrossed around some edges, giving it the appearance of a building under construction. Well, it would have looked like that, if each column weren’t the size of a house and wasn’t filled with bright blue magic.
“Wow.” Blink pointed at a single blip of blue light traveling up the column. “That’s probably, like, the entire history of a universe from big bang to heat death.”
“Puts things into perspective,” Sweetaloo admitted. “We know… so, so much. The vast majority of this isn’t even indexed. You can’t search it without spells and knowing exactly what you want…”
“It’s times like this I’m glad I’m not a nerd.”
Sweetaloo smirked. “You’re a Sweetie. There’s a little nerd in all of us.”
“Eh, potato, po-”
“Meanwhile, I’m part Scootaloo, and I’m getting a little bored of this.” She leaned down, grabbing hold of the hovering platform with her hooves. “Hold on tight.”
“Sweetal-”
Sweetaloo tilted the platform sharply forward, instructing it to go much, much faster. It obliged, rushing past the columns of information at exceedingly high speeds, barely giving Blink enough time to hold on herself.
“SWEETALOO!”
“What? Can’t handle the heat?” Sweetaloo winked, pulling up and executing a perfect loop-de-loop. Then she brought it to a skidding stop at a reception desk floating in front of a silver wall—blocking access to the classified data section.
Sweetaloo landed and hopped off the platform. “Hello! I’m Sweetaloo. I should have recently received clearance for a portion of physical data?”
The receptionist nodded, jumping onto the countertop separating her from the Sweeties. She was a child in a purple shirt, yellow cape, and stylishly large top hat with a golden stripe around the base. She gave Sweetaloo a thumbs up.
“...Huh. I have to admit, I am rather surprised to see you here, Everykid.”
The Everykid grinned, tipping her hat.
“Wait, wait, wait…” Blink waved a hoof. “Everykid? As in, part of the Everyman?”
The Everykid nodded, an innocent smile on her face.
“W-what were they thinking letting you work down here!?”
“I believe the reasoning is she already knows everything in here,” Sweetaloo pointed out. “Or, well, the Everyman as a whole anyway. When you have as many different minds as the Everyman, there’s hardly anything that’s secret from you.”
“But.. but… security!”
“I did a case study on the psychology of the Everyman, once,” Sweetaloo mused. “I find him very fascinating. I may not be like him—since my three components do not have distinct thought patterns anymore—his remarkable ability to do away with consistency is… if not admirable, impressive. Everykid here is sweet, innocent, and adventurously helpful while that professor was not only evil, but mad. And yet they are both the same person, in a way, connected to the same consciousness…”
“Seems like an accident waiting to happen, to me.”
The Everykid yawned, gesturing at the door behind her with a tip of her hat.
“Oh, yes, right, we are here for a purpose, and you have a job to do.” Sweetaloo smiled. “We need all the way into the center.”
With a wink the Everykid opened the sliding doors, entering an area with more data columns, though these were thinner and red rather than blue. The data here was much smaller than the data stored outside. They could easily see the black box that took up the center, where the real secrets were held. As they approached on their hover square, the guns on the box fixated on them intently, ready to defend their secrets if needed.
They recognized those who were coming as cleared, so they stood down. They arrived at the black wall without incident.
It really is the size of a living room… Sweetaloo thought, looking at the black box. The Everykid put her hand to the black surface, and it recognized her as a registered data handler. A door that hadn’t existed before slid open, revealing a small room coursing with purple light along the walls.
The Everykid gestured with a hand, saying they should stay behind. She took two data pads out of her pockets, and automatically purple wires shot from the walls into the pads. One displayed a report of the goings on inside the deepest, darkest locations of the Archive while the other downloaded the research Sweetaloo wanted.
With a smile, the Everykid handed Sweetaloo a pad. She performed a quick, cursory examination of the contents—all the files were there. Naturally, the data pad itself was a state-of-the art high-encryption model that was resistant even to magic hacking. It also came with a recommendation to ‘wipe as soon as you are done’.
Sweetaloo wasn’t sure what she was going to find in these files and…
...wait…
“Hey, this says it was supposed to be filed under standard classified intel.”
Blink cocked her head. “Huh?”
“It wasn't even supposed to be in this deep! H… how did the computer misfile this!?”
Blink shrugged. “Beats me. It handles hundreds of thousands of files a day. It’s gotta mess up at least one.”
“And that one was mine?”
“I mean, ka, right?”
“But there’s nothing down here of any interes-”
Suddenly, the Everykid was shoving the other data pad in Sweetaloo’s face. It showed that, not two hours ago, a massive amount of data had been downloaded from the room—about 0.1% of its total contents.
“...That’s not supposed to be there, is it?”
The Everykid shook her head.
“You were saying about nothing being down here?” Blink asked.
Sweetaloo sighed. “Fine. Let’s try to trace the security breach…”
~~~
“And then I had to come up with a cutie mark story without actually knowing what a cutie mark really was,” Erin said, chuckling nervously. “That was… beyond stressful.”
“And your Rarity bought it?” Celia raised an eyebrow. “Must have been some story.”
“It was based on a story that actually happened when I was little with my family. Even though, well, I had to stretch it a bit to make it fit the whole sunflower thing.”
“But she has a real story too,” Twilight spoke up. “That sunflower does mean something. Isn’t that right, Erin?”
Cinder’s eyes opened wide—she knew she wanted to hear this.
Erin smiled contentedly. “Yes… yes it does. See, when I was first going through all the preparations to become a pony, I was told to choose my own ‘tattoo’, and I-”
The doors to the meeting room opened, revealing the Princesses, Robert Thomson, and the other human officials.
Oh, come on… Cinder whined inwardly.
“We have made a decision,” Robert Thomson said. “Both of our worlds have.”
“Though we cannot speak for all the nations of Equis,” Celestia admitted.
Celia nodded. “I understand. On what terms have you decided on?”
Thomson folded his hands together. “We appreciate the offer for further relations with Merodi Universalis, but we are going to have to deny your invitation. We wish to make our way into the multiverse on our own terms, without influence of a nation that far outclasses our worlds.”
“Are you certain?” Celia asked.
“We are aware of your Aid and Cultural Divisions’ practices as you have told them to us.”
“In that case, I shall leave you with a communication device and we will be gone within the day.”
“That will be appreciated. Thank you for letting us make this choice.”
“It is our policy.” Celia stuck out a hoof and shook Thomson’s hand. Then everyone filed out of the room—save the Sweeties, Erin, Twilight, and Celestia.
Celestia took a look at Celia.
“You could change your mind,” Celia offered.
Celestia shook her head. “I appreciate what you are trying to do, but…” she fell silent, shaking her head. “Twilight, come with me.”
“Y-yes Princess!”
Only the Sweeties and Erin remained.
“...What was THAT!?” Cinder shouted. “You just… let them say no?”
“I have to,” Celia said. “There are limits to the case-by-case law. There is no major need for relief in these worlds, they have already saved them. We cannot force anything on any universe that denies us.”
“But… but there’s something fishy going on!”
“I suspect they found a story about us—or a nation similar to us, such as the USM—and they were horrified. Misinformation is no reason to initiate outright conquest.”
Erin blinked. “Wait… you do conquest?”
Celia nodded. “Occasionally. Worlds where there is no hope, where there is a brutal dictator, or a plague of darkness.” She frowned. “Sometimes we can’t remove the darkness.” She put a hoof on Erin’s shoulder. “Watch out for them. There’s darkness out there you can’t comprehend, yet. Be careful.”
“I… I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask. Now…” She forced a smile. “There is something I want to see before we go.”
~~~
As a custodian of the Archive, the Everykid knew exactly what to do in case of a security breach. She smashed the Big Red Button. For additional flair, she said “boop!” as she did so. The alarm went out and no doubt the rest of the League of Sweetie Belles were alerted of a high-end security breach in their city.
Luckily, the Everykid didn’t have to wait for any other Sweeties to arrive. She had two right here! She clapped her hands and grinned.
“...I thought you were mute,” Blink said.
The Everykid shrugged, saying nothing. She was a kid of few words. Even though she operated more on Gallifreyan age logic than human one… Well, this body of hers anyway. She was perfectly aware of a twelve-year-old boy three universes over enjoying homemade cooking. Wow, that garlic bread smelled real good.
She kept the sensation of her other self in her nose while she got to work, plugging a data pad into the purple walls again. This time, however, she didn’t access any information—she plugged information in. A complex spell laced into the very walls of the cube activated: the best FIND IT spell. The cube would only interact with data pads created from the Archive, like the one the Everykid was currently holding. The spell would find EVERY VERSION of that data pad it could.
Naturally, if the thief was smart at all, they wouldn't be anywhere on Celestia City. But since this spell was being performed in the middle of an Archive of all sorts of information, it would be able to find pads that existed in the past through recorded data and footage.
The program found the data pad in the moment the data was accessed, tracing it out of Celestia City into the cargo hold of a ship—a Galaxa Quadrants Galaxy design—that promptly left Celestia City.
The Everykid was stumped at this point. The Everyman, on the other hand, wasn’t, and this multiversal quandary was interesting enough to warrant the attention of a few of his other selves. A mad scientist working on reviving squirrels offered his assistance while a man with a desk job suggested a way to run the numbers.
The Everykid cracked her knuckles and began typing furiously on a holographic keyboard.
“Huh,” Blink said, cocking her head. “...I’m suddenly glad she’s here.”
“See? ...Though, she must think it’s serious. The Everykid is known to actively avoid using the skills of other aspects of the Everyman.”
“Well, duh, massive security breach! There are things in there like the existence o-” Blink paused. “Wait, you don’t even have clearance to know that.”
“...I’m surprised you do, whatever it is you’re talking about.”
Blink laughed nervously. “Forget I said anything.”
The Everykid didn’t. But she wasn’t the sort to report every tiny suspicious activity. That wouldn’t be fun!
Reporting is the way of the just citizen.
Hah! Like I am really a citizen of Merodi Universalis!
The Everykid shook her thoughts out of her primary focus, instead looking at what she had available now. The Merodi Universalis ship manifest. The ship was currently docked at Canterlot Castle, Equis Vitis. “Tah-dah!” She pointed excitedly at the address.
“Got it!” Sweetaloo said. “Blink, transmit to the League.”
“Done,” Blink said.
“Time to go!” The three of them stepped back on the levitating platform and left the secure area of the Archive. The moment they were out, the Everykid pulled out her personal dimensional device and opened a portal directly to Equis Vitis.
One of the founding worlds of Merodi Universalis, often considered the default Equis, even though it was anything but these days. They came out the portal in the middle of Ponyville, which was far from the simple country town it had been a few decades ago. Now it was a thriving crescent-shaped metropolis that held the Everfree Forest on the concave side. Buildings of all sorts of structures and makes rose everywhere—not quite as impressive as Celestia City’s endless sprawl, but still impressive nonetheless.
“Requesting emergency teleport for three to the docks of Canterlot Castle!” Blink shouted into her phone. “This is Blink, LSB, Code seven-one-nine-one-three. And lock down the Canterlot docks!”
One of the many Merodi ships in orbit responded to the request automatically, teleporting Sweetaloo, Blink, and the Everykid to the docks, which were just a few large hallways spread out from a skyscraping needle. Numerous ships of space were present—even though teleportation technology was easily and readily available, sometimes it was just better to be docked somewhere.
Though in the case of the Galaxy, it most certainly wasn’t. When Sweetaloo, Blink, and the Everykid arrived, there was already a small troop of Sweeties at the Galaxy’s dock shouting “stop in the name of the law!”
“Wh… what!?” a humanoid with white skin, a red spike in her chest, and green hair said—startled. The Everykid easily recognized her as one of the Ga race. “Why are you?”
Nausicaa strode to the front of the line. “Let’s see here… your ship is suspected of carrying or having carried government property.”
“T-this doesn’t make any sense!”
“They’re stalling,” Blink hissed. “Sweetaloo, I’m sneaking in.” And then she was invisible.
The Everykid decided she didn’t like Blink being invisible. With a snap of her hand, she replaced her usual top hat with a fox-like mask that allowed her to see the unseen—such as Blink. The Skaian Ghost passed right through the frantic Ga woman and nobody noticed.
With a smirk, The Everykid switched hats again, this time to a small, lopsided hat with a translucent ribbon doubling as a visor.
Sweetaloo looked at her in confusion. “What a-”
The Everykid stopped time. With a giggle, she jumped into the air and rolled over the frozen Ga, into the Galaxy itself. She ducked behind a corner just before time resumed.
Goal: find the lost data pad.
She could feel the weight of her other selves acting upon her, wishing to offer her assistance. But she ignored them. Blink was already on the case, there was no need for extra shenanigans. She’d use her normal assets like she preferred. The rest of the larger Everyman responded with mixed groans and cheers, though the Everyman as a whole approved. After all, who was he if not inconsistent?
The Everykid ran toward the back of the ship, stopping time as often as her hat would let her, dodging past the crew with ease. Her antics were probably setting off a few alarms somewhere, but this wasn’t a Merodi-built ship, it probably wasn’t equipped with advanced temporal scanners. Probably. Who knew, really?
It was pathetically easy to get all the way to the cargo hold of the ship. Security was nothing. They weren’t paranoid enough to be holding the information they were looking for… unless most of them didn’t know.
She put back on her normal top hat, tapping it with her finger. It shifted on her head a bit, telling her the direction of an ‘object of importance’. She hoped it was the data pad, but her find-it hat had never been all that reliable outside her home universe.
Luckily, today it came through. She popped open the top of a sealed container, finding the data pan within. She grinned, holding it up with one hand like it were some kind of treasure.
“Wh… how did you get here so fast!?” Blink shouted, dropping her cloak.
The Everykid shrugged, pressing a button on the pad to access the data.
There was absolutely nothing on it.
The Everykid’s smile vanished. The data was encrypted in such a way that it wouldn’t be duplicated outside an Archive… Which meant someone had plugged the data into another data pad!
She tossed it to Blink, miffed.
The data was still out there.
~~~
“This… is what remains of the Black Tide,” Erin said, holding out a hoof and a wing to the endless expanse of concrete-like stone before them. It went all the way to the horizon.
The Sweeties stared at the expanse, solemn.
“It landed on Earth and started eating everything,” Erin said, keeping her voice level and deliberate, sucking all emotion out of it like a leech. “We thought everything was lost.”
“And then?” Cinder asked.
“And then we found Equestria.” Erin paused. “We were going to evacuate, at first. But then… then we found out they had magic. It… it took some effort, but together we were able to stop the Tide once and for all.” She tapped the concrete with her hoof. “There are still pockets of it that weren't turned to stone down there, but it’s lost all direction.” She frowned. “Had it still been a problem, we would be at your knees begging you to help us.”
Celia nodded slowly, frowning. “Sometimes… we don’t arrive at the right moment. There are numerous stories of teams arriving in the middle of a conflict, choosing the wrong side, and causing irreparable damage.” She looked Erin in the eyes. “There are many more of worlds being saved at the last possible minute.”
“Equis Always Summer,” Cinder offered. “The day lasted forever. We ended it.”
Erin chose not to think about the logistics of a world where the day didn’t end. “I… I believe you. I barely even met you, but I believe you.” She laid a hoof on Cinder’s head.
“I seem to have that effect on people.”
“I wish you could stay…” Erin sighed. “But I’m not in charge. I’ve never been in charge, despite all I’ve done. Or… not done, as the case may be.” She shrugged with her wings. “We’ll be fine, though. Go back to your adventures and save as many worlds as you can. We’ll still be here.”
Squiddy snorted—prompting Celia to slap her.
Cinder forced a smile and extended a hoof. “See you later.”
Erin chuckled. “I hope so too.”
The two shook hooves.
Celia nodded. “Here’s some last minute tips. Pinkies are most likely to believe the insanity, seek them out. Don’t assume you’ll always be able to get home early. Time doesn't always flow at the same rate between universes. Beware worlds that have physics antithetical to your very life force. And don’t poke any sleeping bears.” She pulled out her phone. “We’re ready, Swip.”
A portal opened up behind the Sweeties. Waving goodbye, they jumped through the portal.
Pop.
They were back on Swip.
“...This sucks.” Cinder observed.
“I’ll try not to take that as an insult,” Swip beeped.
Squiddy shrugged, dropping into one of the lounge chairs. “Sometimes, adventures go nowhere.” Swip flung her tentacles over the back fo the chair and recliner. “Despite all evidence to the contrary, things do not always go our way.”
Cinder sighed. “...I’m going to go call Rarity.” She trotted away to her room.
~~~
“But…” the Ga was sweating. “I don’t understand, I just…” she grabbed her head and crumpled to the ground, crying profusely.
Several of the Sweeties took a few steps back, but Nausicaa was not one to be swayed by tears – crocodile or otherwise. “Get up.”
The heap wouldn’t stop crying.
“I sa-“
“Nausicaa, calm,” Sweetaloo said as if ordering her. She trotted up to the downed woman and lifted her chin up with her hoof. “Shhhh… it’s okay.”
“B-bu-but that’s what you said earlier! Y-you said it’d be okay!”
“E… earlier?”
“Yes! Earlier!”
“…We weren’t here earlier,” Sweetaloo said, frowning. “Unless one of the time travelers…”
Nausicaa shook her head. “I don’t have any paperwork for that.”
“Listen to me,” Sweetaloo said, looking intently at the woman’s eyes. “Someone’s trying to play us both. We need to figure out who they are. Can you help us with that?”
“But they… they’re you!”
“A Sweetie…?”
The woman nodded slowly.
“What did she do?”
“She… she…”
Blink and the Everykid returned in that instant, tossing the data pad on the ground.
Nausicaa stared at it wide-eyed. “Empty!?”
“Yes. Empty.” Blink twitched. “Someone got to it before we did.”
“That was you!” the Ga shouted. “Y-you came and said if you took it nobody had to get hurt!”
“...Oh boy,” Blink said, facehooving. The Everykid took some candies out from under her hat and started munching.
“Start from the beginning. Why did you have it?” Sweetaloo asked.
The Ga sniffed. “It was… loaded by a guy in a cloak. We don’t ask questions on the Galaxy, I don’t know who he is! I…” she sniffed. “When we docked, you… you were waiting for us! An Agent of the LSB! Demanded to see our cargo… found that… thing. T-told us… told us…” She fell silent again.
“We don’t threaten,” Sweetaloo muttered.
“Uh, have you met Nira?”
“BLINK!” Sweetaloo roared, making the minuscule ghost cower away. “Does this woman look like she needs to hear that right now?”
“Uh…”
“Then. Stop.” Sweetaloo glared at Nausicaa, daring her to criticize her treatment of Blink.
Nausicaa said nothing, her expression letting Sweetaloo know the pegasus had seen the trap.
Good. Now she could get back to what was important.
“I’m sorry…” Sweetaloo laid down, so her head was lower than the woman’s, as if she was submitting. “The original passenger?”
“N-no idea…”
“And what did this Sweetie look like?”
“She… had a horn… wings…”
Sweetaloo didn't need to hear anymore. The woman kept saying things, but they fell into the background for Sweetaloo.
“She… she got everything she could ever want on us…”
~~~
“Celestia, why?” Twilight asked as they descended the stairs into one of Earth’s military compound. “They have so much to offer us! There’s so much we could learn from them!”
“That much is true,” Celestia admitted. “But there are many dangers.” She frowned. “It all happened so quickly, Twilight, and I had been meaning to tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“These Sweeties were not the first people from distant worlds we encountered.” She walked up to a door guarded by two humans. They nodded at let her through. “Somepony came before.”
“Some… pony?”
They entered a room filled with important humans—including Robert Thomson—and Luna. There was only one pony Twilight didn’t recognize from the earlier meeting. She had a bright white coat, soft green eyes, and a musical cutie mark. She had two wings not made of feathers, but light itself, and above her horn sat a crown of many multicolored jewels.
“W-who is that?” Twilight asked.
“I am… the Crown Princess.” She bowed in Twilight’s direction. “I am a tragedy in motion, brought about by the Merodi.”
Twilight wasn’t sure how to respond to this.
The Crown Princess trotted over to Twilight and smiled sadly. “I… I know they’re friendly. They’re very friendly, and they certainly mean well. But they don’t think things through. They are no better than conquerors who fool you into thinking you’re making your own choices.”
“They wouldn’t…”
“You met Celia. Would you put it past her to lie to get what she thought was best?”
Twilight frowned. She didn’t know the crystal mare very well… but that certainly sounded like her.
“But… Cinder.”
“Cinder is an amazing mare.” The Crown Princess sighed. “She’s the best of them. But she doesn’t see what they are, and is another victim of their trap. I know her personally. She’s just too… naive to understand what the Merodi do to the worlds they encounter.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “...Explain. Why are they bad?”
“Beyond their complete, fanatical devotion to their version of ‘harmony’? Well… there’s three ways they bring worlds into their folds. The first is nothing to be concerned about—they make friends, and those friends decide it would be beneficial for everyone if they stood as one. There’s one problem though: this hasn’t happened since the early days of their nation. They only have two methods now: manipulative control of markets and resources, or direct conquest.”
“...Direct conquest?”
“If they believe their people will approve of it, they will step into a world they think is ‘evil enough’ and completely wipe it clean. Remove and replace all rulers. In a few cases, they just outright destroy the universe. But that’s not what you have to be worried about. I had to worry about that. I was a filly, and I was an ancient artifact. I am now neither. An abomination, you could say…”
Twilight felt a pang in her heart. This poor mare…
“You have to worry about the much subtler version. Manipulation. They have seen so many versions of Earth that they have the ‘indoctrination’ of them down to a science. They will throw excess goods and technology at the world in a pattern specifically designed to get the Earth to like the Merodi. Then they will ask Earth to join, and Earth will invariably accept. Promptly thereafter big businesses will fall and the economy will fuse to become one with Merodi Universalis. All the stuff they traded to Earth becomes obsolete as the more up-to-date stuff moves in, and any individual power the Earth might have had is swept under the rug as they join a coalition with several dozen other universes who have been there much longer and have more say.” She stamped her hoof. “They become a footnote. The same goes for Equises, though they often don’t even have to manipulate the market, ponies will just jump on the bandwagon without thinking.”
Twilight frowned. “But… they d-”
“They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” the Crown Princess said. “To them, this is just spreading the Magic of Friendship." Her expression hardened for a moment, her tone grew chilly, and the crown's jewels glimmered. "And that means they'll never, ever stop."
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Twilight demanded.
“She has provided us with much intel on how their government works,” Celestia said. “Everything she said checks out with what Celia told us today.”
“And I’ve got more,” the Crown Princess said, pulling a small data pad out from under the table. “I procured a bunch of Merodi Universalis’ classified files. A bunch of the things they actually try to keep hidden.” She slid the pad along the table to Robert Thomson. “I don’t know everything that’s on here. There are records of forbidden experiments, an Intelligence Division that doesn't officially exist, and much, much more. Make of it what you will.”
Before Thomson could grab the data pad, Luna picked it up in her magic. “Excuse me for being skeptical… but one could say you are doing the same thing Merodi Universalis is.”
The Crown Princess shook her head. “I am not asking you to join anything. I’m just giving you what you need to know to survive in the multiverse next to the oppressive might of Merodi Universalis. You explore on your own and create your own alliances. I’ve just given you the tools to get started. ...I have no nation, friends. I am without a home. And instead of trying to reclaim what is mine, I am going to build up whoever I can with what I know. This includes you.”
Thomson took the data pad from Luna’s telekinesis and scrolled through it. “Thank you for this, Crown Princess. And… everything else you’ve done.”
“The pleasure is mine,” the Crown Princess said, bowing. She turned to Twilight. “We should have lunch. I’m sure you have a lot of questions…”
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OH! The Crown Princess! That title makes so much sense!
I hope Sweetaloo gets the info she wanted... Even though there are bigger things at work...
----
Everykid / man's Origin Story is what?
----
Typo:
Bink > Blink
Oh dear... The Crown Princess is going to make a mess...
Right, right... and UI don't think the SAS would work on that, after all, it's designed to deal with a certain type of megalomaniac and his daughter of a griffon
oh well, can't do a thing now
Except maybe politely kick her ass outta the universe if she comes by...
Interesting.
9669698
Not really an origin story, more of an alternate introduction:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/382944/71/songs-of-the-spheres/071-the-everyman
But here it is nonetheless.
-GM, master of chapters.
yeah I called it the crown princess lied through her teeth …..and that equis and earth fell for it
So LSB has take the same path Supernatural did for me. I loved it at the beginning when it was purely episodic and purely about the monster of the week, or in LSB's case universe of the week. But now that it actually has plot, while I still enjoy it, I don't enjoy it quite as much as I did. I know this is a weird outlook but I needed to get it out of my head.
9669976
There's always going to be some kind of plot - but don't worry, there'll always be single standalone chapters as well. I just really like to, every now and then, make callbacks to stuff that happened. Hope you can keep enjoying anyway!
-GM, master of ice.
9669979
I still enjoy it a lot. It's just that I think it would work better as purely episodic. But you keep doing your thing GM. I took this ticket and I'm riding this ride to the end.
Aaaand everyone from Sunflower's universe has the idiot ball!
I really want to write a snippet that showcases a couple of my characters trying to stop the other from outright killing the Crown Princess, therefore disrupting the flow of Ka, with a spray bottle. On the other hand I don't feel brave enough to do it.
Burgerbelle's not with Sweetaloo. You mean blink. Where is BB in this episode anyway? On the Swip?
I can't really fault the Crowned Princess for what she's doing, not really. She got screwed over by the LSB, albeit unintentionally, and she's not actually getting revenge on them in a direct sense, and she definitely sees what she's doing is right. the only bad thing she's done so far is steal their secrets. She's definitely not made a villain of herself, so Ka won't try to work against her. She's going to be a slow-burn kind of side plot, isn't she? I like it.
She's an antagonist, but not a villain. Closest thing we've had to that so far is probably the collector. (Close, but not exactly.)
They've become what the tribunal warned them about. Conquerers by Friendship.
Wait, orange? I thought she had the standard Sweetie color scheme.
The Sweeties are Gourd? Or am I crossong universes that shouldn't mix quite yet?
Probably.
I approve of the data columns being blue for card game reasons.
As for the Crown Princess... Does she know about the classification of multiversal civilizations? Because her actions take on starkly different tones depending in whether she's aware of the Class 2s and 1s. I suppose we'll find out soon enough.
9672753
crud, Squiddy's a white inkling, that's my mistake there.
-GM, master of AUGH.
Ah hat girl is in this universe, neat.
That's a mood for some reason
Ooooh
You! Makes sense
..... who's everyman?
11033846
In LSB he's a bit of a mysterious entity. If you read this without reading SotS you don't have any context (nor are you meant to, you are explained as much as you need to know about how the Everyman works as you see him.)
If you are dying for context Chapter 071 of Songs of the Spheres, titled "The Everyman," focuses on him. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/382944/71/songs-of-the-spheres/071-the-everyman
-GM.
I laughed far too hard at this.
So, I know I've said this before, but I always think of Sombra(hacker) as looking like Entrapta. And since the connection was formed partially due to perceived similarities in their personalities, they blend together easily in my head. My first thoughts were: 'What is she doing working here? Oh, that's right, she was here when Tab was introduced. She must be an alternate Sombra. ...Wait a minute...'
Yes, completely made up, probably by some kids looking for excitement because they were bored. Certainly not something that will come up in the middle of an important moment years, or even decades, from now. Nope, nosiree!nominee!
Ditto.
Ahh, Miss Crown Princess Sweetie Belle. The one who blames the Merodi for not doing what Blackjack blamed them for doing. Seriously lass, they made an effort to get the whole story before making any drastic changes to an apparently non-time critical world. And then they helped you. Some people can be so ungrateful.
9669841
I wouldn't say 'lied through her teeth'. I think it was more that that is how she views them. She is quite wrong on several counts though, primarily the whole 'they will take you over any way they can' bit.
Heh, time travel. Plugs all the holes!
11405577
While also making new ones...
-GM, master of AGH.