What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate (Arrow 18: Lone Ranger)
The desert appeared as the visage of death. While there was life of a parasitic sort within the soil, a cursory inspection revealed only the carcasses of long-dead trees. In this place, there either was no sun or the sun was hidden behind the ever-swirling inter-dimensional vortex held in the sky, reminiscent of the storms of Jupiter. The vortex eternally gazed down on the lifeless wastes below, providing the only natural light.
And yet, in this inhospitable place, there was a sign of civilization: an absolutely massive train track cutting across the desert from one horizon to the other. No stops along the way, no visible destination: just the track. One moment, it was empty.
However, soon the Train arrived.
It was no normal Train. Five stories tall with wheels larger than most trees, it blazed across the wasteland with brutal efficiency. Every car was rectangular and without windows, attached to each other by metal bridges. The cars were devoid of almost all ornamentation, caring only about efficiency in their design with only one exception: the doors. At the entrance and exit to every car was a pristine red set of double-doors with a skewed infinity symbol serving as a rotating knob.
If one were to enter one of these doors, they would discover a unique universe within. Every car contained something different, from bubbles to tiny wizards to screaming ethereal fruit…
One car in particular contained a universe filled with nothing but screaming rubber chicken toys.
“I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE!” Cinder shouted, attempting in vain to be heard over the aggravating noise.
“WHAT?” Adder called back.
“WHAT?”
“WHAT?”
“AUGH!” Cinder lit her horn on fire and blasted through the rubber chickens, only adding to the noise. The attempt to push through the rubber blockage was foiled when the molten rubber fused the chickens together into a solid block of screaming, noxious-smelling toys.
“THAT DIDN’T WORK!” Adder called.
Cinder didn’t need to be able to hear her to know what she said.
“HOW ABOUT WE TAKE IT SLOW?”
Cinder pulled a piece of paper out of her mane and folded it into a clawshot. Pointing it at the wall of agonized poultry, she fired, intending to punch through her self-made blockage.
The claw got stuck in the rubber goo.
Cinder, having lost all patience at this point, lit her hooves on fire and started punching her opposition with a wild flailing that was close to panic. She made little progress before the rumbling started.
“WHAT’S THAT?” Cinder looked behind her, unable to find Adder among the chickens. “ADDER!?”
Her search for her friend was cut short as every chicken around her began to surge forward like it was part of an ocean. It was impossible for her to resist the force of the chicken wave, getting dragged along like flotsam in an annoying tide. Chickens moved until they reached the end of the car, at which point they spewed forth from the excessive pressure within their universe. Cinder was tossed through the air with ease, landing hard on the bridge between train cars.
Chickens poured out of the doorway, falling to the train tracks below where they were crushed with agonizing efficiency.
“Yer welcome,” Adder said, smirking.
“You… got through? Opened the door? HOW!?”
“We ain’t in the car anymore, you can stop shoutin’.”
Cinder raised an eyebrow. “Would you be so kind as to inform me how you saved our collective plots, oh dear friend of mine?”
Adder rolled her eyes. “Just walked around the molten brick you made. Took some time, but you were so fixated, I figured I’d do it on my own.”
“...Fair enough,” Cinder said, peeling a molten chicken out of her mane and violently throwing it to the wasteland below. “Don’t go doing that with any monsters, though, you can’t really defend yourself if something goes wrong and I’m distracted.”
“Ah know, Ah know, Ah’m not dumb enough to do that.” Adder smirked. “Then again, Ah’m not the one melting rubber chickens…”
Cinder chuckled. “Well, that’s another car down…” She looked at the base of her right hoof, finding a softly glowing green number there. 442. “...I went up, only slightly.”
Adder held out her hoof, proudly displaying a 7. “Ah’m winning.”
“You started with less than a hundred!”
“Even countin’ percentages, Ah’ve lowered more of my number than you have yours.”
“Adder, you’re named after a snake, not math.”
Adder shrugged. “Maybe the name has depth.”
Cinder blinked a few times. “...I’m supposed to be the one making those observations.”
With an aloof roll of her eyes, Adder walked up to the next car door and opened it with her hoof. The interior was a dark, damp cave. The other door was easily visible, glowing slightly from luminescent crystals in the rock around it. Otherwise, the car seemed abandoned.
“...Huh. Kinda boring, considering,” Adder pointed out.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before… dark cave, seemingly empty. Yep. This is a trap of some sort.”
“Really?” Adder raised an eyebrow. “You can just… tell?”
“It’s more of a guess, but, well, it’s a good guess…” Cinder placed her hooves on the ground. “Let’s try to run through it.”
“...Uh…”
“Adder?”
“Right, right, you know what you’re doin’.” Adder prepared to run as well.
“Three… Two… One…” Cinder sprang forward. “GO!”
The two of them dashed through the rocky scenery, hooves clopping in synch. They made it about halfway through the cavern before they attracted attention from its denizens. With a sickening rumble, the ground behind and in front of them cracked like an egg. A half dozen monstrous bug-creatures erupted from each hole, roaring with a hideous reverberating sound that belonged in the depths of some dark magic temple. They came in several colors, though most appeared brown as if made of the rock they had come out of. Every last one had a double segmented lower jaw, no doubt excellent for latching onto flesh and never letting it go.
A larger pink one opened its mouth and spewed a stream of white webbing. Cinder dodged it, pulling Adder to the side as she did. The bugs behind them took the opportunity to move forward, only for Cinder to impede their progress with a startling burst of fire on the ground. This did not stop the monsters blocking their forward passage. The pink one opened its mouth again, ready to spew the noxious webbing.
“JUMP!” Cinder shouted, bouncing into the air, Adder moving just in time to avoid the web bolt. Cinder planted her back hoof squarely on the pink beast’s head, forcing its jaws shut and stunning it. It made an excellent springboard—allowing her to roll through the air and land on her hooves near the exit door.
Adder landed next to her, flat on her face. “Ow…”
“No time for pain!” Cinder dragged Adder forward and through the door on the other side, stopping only when they had arrived at the bridge connecting them to the next car, the smell of the wasteland replacing the damp and vaguely waffle-like odor of the cave.
“...Since when do webs smell like waffles?” Cinder asked, checking herself for injury.
“Ah dunno, since when are you able to predict bugs shooting out of the ground? There’s no way you dealt with that every day!”
“Eh, more or less,” Cinder said, tilting her hoof back and forth.
“More or less!?”
A bolt of web sailed over their heads, reminding them that they had forgotten to shut the door. The monsters were crawling out of their car in pursuit of the two ponies.
As they ran into a car with soap for a floor, Adder continued berating Cinder. “Are you tellin’ me they might be fightin’ giant cave bugs right now?”
~~~
The pink glyphid shot a burst of webs at Celia’s shield spell, creating a shell of sticky white goo.
Celia sniffed. “...Waffles…?”
“Glyphids are strange creatures,” the heavily armored dwarf next to her said, grimacing. “Almost as though they have a sense of sadistic humor buried within those toothy maws of theirs…”
“Pretty common, all things considered,” Blink pointed out, phasing right through a stream of webs spewed at her.
“Webs that smell like waffles?” Celia snorted. “I dont think so.”
“She means an animalistic bug sadistic sense of humor,” Nira offered while driving a spike of darkness through the soft underbelly of the pink glyphid.
“Oh! Like how you get a slight smile whenever you stab these buggies!”
Nira shot their tag-along—Insipid—a look.
“What?” she asked, innocently.
“We need to get you back to your team before you drive us insane.”
“What? No!” Blink gestured at Insipid with proud hooves. “Insipid’s the best!”
Nira drove one of her bloody blade-spells into a green glyphid’s exposed rear. “She’s retarded.”
Blink gasped. “Nira!” Tutting as she phased through a red glyphid’s suicidal explosion. “That’s not—”
“I’m not the diplomat, that’s Celia, I can say what I feel like.”
“I’m haven’t been able to renew my license, yet,” Celia pointed out, throwing a small glyphid into a much larger one with her telekinesis.
“Then you can say what you want too.”
“It does sound more interesting than being called an idiot,” Insipid said.
“Not helping!” Blink hissed.
“Oh, okay. SWORD!” Insipid lit her horn and congealed a handful of jet-black crystals together until they formed a blade. She jumped at a green glyphid and smacked it head-on. Her blade bounced off as though it were made of rubber. “Uh…”
“Lass, don’t even bother,” the dwarf said, jumping behind the beast and filling its exposed rear with lead. “The beast’s more armored than a tank.”
“Fine! Be that way, tank!” Insipid smacked the now-dead bug on the head for effect.
Nira spiked several more glyphids from the ground up. “How many of these are there?”
“More than we were supposed to deal with on a peaceful exploration mission,” Celia muttered.
“That’s what you get for interrupting us!” Insipid sang.
“We had no idea you were here!”
“I did!” Blink offered, tossing an explosive glyphid at a wall - revealing more glyphids behind it. “Frick.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything!?”
“Excuuuse me if I wanted some excitement! I wasn’t on Vision at all!”
Celia twitched as her razor-top severed a brown glyphid head. “You didn’t want to be.”
“I want to know what Cinder went through, but no, I don’t get to know, I just get to sit here trying to figure out from secondhoof information what drove her away.”
“Blink, now is not the time…”
Blink shrugged, phasing through a green glyphid and re-appearing inside its exposed back, tearing it to shreds. “Fine…”
“There has to be an end to this,” Insipid muttered, managing to stab a glyphid right as it opened its mouth to devour her, gouging out its throat. “The repetition is getting booring!”
“It won’t be borin’ when they eat your leg,” the dwarf pointed out.
“Well, duh, but—hey, you know these things, how many of them are there!”
“Normally, about a hundred more. But we’ve got some bad containment practices so for all I know the entire brood’s coming after us. No idea how many that’d be.”
Insipid sighed. “I hope the others are doing well…”
With a flash of purple light, the dark form of Starlight Shadow appeared in the midst of the group. “Everyone but the dwarf, I’m evacuating you so I may truncate the swarm with some decisive purge spells.”
Celia’s eyes widened. “Shadow, we can handle th—”
“I’m not spending another dozen hours irradiating silicate bugs and providing them the opportunity to get a fortunate assault on my person.” She levitated the dwarf onto her back. “Point and I will exterminate.”
“Shadow, we can h—”
Shadow ignored her and opened up a random dimensional portal, in the ground, dropping Celia, Nira, Blink, Insipid, and two glyphids through it. They fell about a meter to the soft, green grass of a standard Equestria. Shadow closed the portal before Nira could do anything.
“Ret’chn’karskaffa!” Nira swore in her eldritch tongue, waving her hoof at the portal. She created a spike behind her, skewering one of the glyphids.
The other glyphid—a pink one—got its comeuppance in the form of Insipid jumping on it and sinking her blade into its neck. She let out a delighted giggle as it fell beneath her, lifting her sword in victory.
Celia groaned. I suppose Shadow does have it under control, but that was seriously uncalled for… She stood up and examined her surroundings, finding nothing out of place for an Equestria. They were at the base of Canterlot mountain, right next to the main road into the capital city. Consulting her dimensional device, she discovered that she couldn’t read the words on it.
Wait, what?
The lettering was unfamiliar to her. Which was bizarre, the translation spell should have bee—
“Ni reso vo sepin?” Blink asked.
Oh, Celia thought, the translation spell is broken.
“Translator’s broken, dears,” she said, realizing after she spoke that none of them knew Gem Standard. “Right… Ah… Word machine not working,” she said in Equish Alpha, getting blank stares from all of them. “Word magic not working?” she tried in Equish Beta.
“Ooh! I understood that!” Insipid replied in Equish Beta, forcing Celia to take a moment to translate back. As a member of Relations, Celia had taken care to learn the most common languages in her line of work, just in case the translation spell failed. That said, she rarely had to practice the languages, so even her Gem physiology could only help her remember so much.
Turning to Blink and Nira she tried the last two languages she knew. “No word change,” in English Alpha and “spire word no,” in Japanese Alpha. She knew she was butchering the grammar and syntax at least a little, but she wasn’t aware of exactly what she was saying.
The good and bad news was neither Blink nor Nira had any idea what she was saying - or what each other was saying. Whatever Blink’s language was, it was unique, and Nira’s two methods of speaking didn’t make sense either.
Great. So it’s just Insipid I can understand.
“At least we’ve got something, right?” Insipid asked. “Woohoo!”
I’m sure Cinder would have had some adorably insightful comment about all of this… Celia forced herself to keep a level face—no use dwelling on that now.
“Niski neigggh rispin,” Blink muttered, shaking her hoof at the sky. “Novie sirach y a neretis, Celah.”
That’s probably my name, Celia noted. She narrowed her eyes, attempting to piece together what Blink was saying.
Giving up on words, the little ghost swiped the dimensional device from Celia and hit the ‘return’ button. Nothing happened. She let out a disgruntled noise and tossed the device back to Celia.
Pointing at it and cocking her head, Celia hoped Blink would understand she was asking what was wrong with it.
Blink understood, for sure, but her series of bizarre pantomimes were beyond Celia. Blink spread her front hooves, jumped up and down on her back hoof, and curled herself into a ball that sunk into the ground.
“Er…”
“The device wants a hug from a new friend or it will self-destruct?” Insipid guessed.
Celia had to take a minute to make sure she’d translated that correctly. Blink made no such effort—she just knew that Insipid had got it wrong.
Insipid huffed. “What do you know? You can’t understand me!”
“Blink has a sense for your words, yes,” Celia said.
“You’re talking funny.”
“I lack… vocabulary.”
“...Huh?”
“Do not mind it,” Celia shook her head. She pointed at her three companions and pointed to Canterlot, moving her lips without making a sound. Nira and Blink understood.
“What are you doing?”
“Maybe speak to ponies here,” Celia explained. I am so glad I can speak to her, otherwise it would be impossible to get anything through that thick skull of hers.
Nira lit her horn, and before Celia could say anything, she’d teleported them all to the front gates of Canterlot. The guards looked at them and asked a question.
A question none of them understood.
We really do take that translation spell for granted, don’t we?
“Greetings, esteemed guards of Canterlot,” she spoke in Gem Standard. “My companions and I are far from home, you incoherent incompetent whelps barely deserving of being called guards, and we were hoping if you could let us in so we may learn more about your idyllic stupid city?” She fluttered her eyelashes.
Both of them were instantly smitten by the graceful mare with a crystal in her forehead. Already she could see the signs of competition forming on their features for a mare neither of them could understand had just insulted them openly.
With a chuckle, Celia decided the translation failure might not be so bad after all. She gestured forward, asking permission to enter Canterlot. They nodded vigorously and spoke with a loud declaration of what Celia presumed was supporting, each attempting to be louder than the other.
What bothered her was that she thought some of the words sounded familiar, which probably meant they were speaking one of the standard languages. It just wasn’t one she knew. Lovely. A quick survey of her companions revealed none of them had any clue what was being said, either.
They entered Canterlot without much fanfare. Even though Celia wasn’t disguising her gemstone, she did look like a pony, so the most she got were a few curious glances, but nothing more than that. Canterlot itself was almost disappointingly normal. Every building looked standard, the palace essentially copy-pasted from any number of the other Canterlots she had set hoof in. The only issue was that none of the buildings beside the palace were in the same place as a standard Canterlot, as if the Universe Generator had shuffled the city like a tile puzzle.
“Find school, teacher, will know other words,” Celia said.
Insipid nodded. “Right. I’ll be on the hunt! Hey, you, are you a teacher?”
A version of Cheerilee stared at her in disbelief.
“Well? Are you?”
Celia pulled Insipid back. “She is likely, but does not understand.”
Insipid frowned. “Oh. Fancy teacher. We just need to find the School for Gifted Unicorns, right?”
Looks like you pick some things up after all. “Yes.” Turning to the others, she gestured to Insipid’s horn and pantomimed sitting at a desk, writing something. Blink got it, nodding and running off to do her own ghostly searching.
Nira stared at her, blankly.
With a sigh, Celia generated a crystal shard with her magic and drew Celestia’s cutie mark in the ground, over a bunch of small horns. She made a square and put math on it. Placing it inside a simplified house, she pointed at the house and raised an eyebrow.
Nira raised an eyebrow in return.
“You know what you’re looking for.”
Nira shrugged, teleporting away.
“Sooo…” Insipid tapped a hoof on the ground. “What do we do?”
“Talk until heard.”
“Huh?”
Celia walked up to a local stallion who was clearly aristocratic and at least wanted to look educated. She said, “can you help me?” in every way she knew how, getting not even the most basic indication of understanding. With a shrug, she moved to the next pony, and the next, and the next.
While they didn’t understand her, they did start to notice a pattern. That pattern being that she was foreign and specifically seeking out higher society ponies to “interview” with her strange, alien words. Celia may not have been able to understand their responses, but she knew the upturned snout of arrogant disdain when she saw it.
Let’s try getting a bit more dramatic. She lit her gemstone and waved her hoof, trying to mentally condition the unicorn mare she was hounding to help her. All this accomplished was giving the unicorn an expression of deep-seated confusion. ...I suppose that was wishful thinking. Not one to be deterred so easily, she attempted to twist the emotions of the mare to a more helpful state. Emotions were much more universal than thoughts, though a lot more nebulous. It would take a significant amount of time, but Celia reasoned that other methods had failed, so far.
“Hey. Hey Celia.”
“Busy,” Celia said, focusing on the mare’s head.
“I found help!”
“Insipid, there is no way.”
“But…”
Celia noticed a police mare eyeing her out of the corner of her eye. Celia stopped manipulating the rich unicorn’s emotions and smiled warmly at the officer.
The officer didn’t budge. She was likely waiting for some kind of confirmation or signal that Celia really was manipulating the mare. No more emotion magic would be done here.
On second thought… “Insipid, what did you find?”
“Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie shouted, crashing into Celia.
Celia noted that Pinkie had spoken her name in Equish Beta, though this fact didn’t surprise her—it was Pinkie Pie, after all. “Hello, Pinkie.”
“Hi! Word! Fun!”
“She knows words!” Insipid declared, raising a hoof.
Pinkie squinted her eyes, focusing for a moment. “Uh… yes! Words! Not good.”
Celia raised an eyebrow. “Wait. You not know words well?”
Pinkie stared at her, struggling to parse the meaning of the sentence.
So it’s not just Pinkie being Pinkie, she really does have a vague understanding of Equis Beta… But how? Nopony else has had the foggiest idea!
“Come! Come!” Pinkie gestured at the two of them, pointing to the palace.
“Why?”
Pinkie scrunched her muzzle and let out a groan. “COME!”
Celia and Insipid knew full well that you never refused a Pinkie when she shouted like that.
~~~
Log entry: date uncertain.
It occurs to me that I no longer know what day it is. Back home, I mean. The days here are close—eerily close—to what I think of as a day, but it’s not exact. I’ve been here long enough that there has to have been some drift, so the dates I’ve been scrawling in this record are probably complete trash.
Can’t say I’m surprised, to be perfectly honest. The universe seems to love throwing little inconveniences at me left and right.
And big ones. I haven’t forgotten that I don’t have legs at the moment, but it’s best not to dwell on that. The wheelchair works just fine and it has all sorts of fancy magical additions that I still haven’t plumbed the depths of. I swear, it’s like one of those super fancy toilets you see in high-tier hotels: so many buttons and functions you’ll never find out what they do and you’re more than a little scared to press them and find out.
Whatever, today is… might as well use the local calendar. Uh. Envinter the 8th, 1109. Started from the year Equestria was founded. Shortly before Princess Celestia raised the sun for the first time, which apparently was done by unicorns before?
Yeah, Twilight doesn’t know how they did that, and neither does anybody else. Apparently that secret vanished, like so many other things, with the “great and powerful” Starswirl the Bearded eons ago.
...In the middle of our conversation about dates Twilight just realized that Celestia’s “One’s-versary” is coming up in a few years. One thousand, one hundred and eleven years of raising the sun. She then proceeded to swear me to secrecy concerning the event, declaring it needed to be a “surprise” even though she had no idea whatsoever if it was even going to be a surprise party.
How she ran around in a little self-indulged panic was as cute as it always is, but… well, as normal as it is for her, she probably was on a hairpin trigger from the events earlier today.
Oh boy, did a lot of bizarre stuff happen today. That I appear to be avoiding writing about.
You’d think after being here for years I’d start to acclimate to the random inexplicable nonsense that keeps happening to me. But no, I keep seeing new things and absolutely losing it. Just…
Why can’t the rules ever stay the same?
Twilight and I were the only ones in my room when Pink led them in. We were studying, of all things, the history and experiments of Starswirl the Bearded. If you don’t already know from all my other entries, this has to be one of her favorite topics. I feel as though she’s trying to teach me academic level magic theory through his work, as if I can absorb information as fast as she can.
I suppose I did rely on her a lot to learn my language and my ways, but really, she should know I’m not as smart as she is. ...Actually, she does, I just don’t think she cares. The mare clearly has a gift for teaching.
Maybe that’s why Celestia gave her those wings.
Man, I wish that would work on my legs…
Regardless, I was happy to see Pink, and more than a little confused at our visitors. When they walked in, the first thing I thought was, did Rarity clone herself? I’m not sure why I did, since neither of the mares looked exactly like her besides the shape of their faces, but it was an uncanny feeling. One of them was an ugly gray color with a jarring yellow mane. The other was white, as tall as Cadence, and had a crystal in her forehead instead of a horn. She looked more like Rarity than the first, but… well, the color of her mane was too pastel, and her teeth were slightly sharp. That did not belong on a pony. But they seemed to belong on her.
To my absolute shock the gray one spoke to me in absolutely perfect English with a valley girl accent. I kid you not. Drawl and all. “Like, wow, you’ve got a human! Or, uh, half a human, anyway.”
I was too shocked to feel insulted. I was also too shocked to speak. Luckily for all of us, Twilight’s response when she’s shocked is to talk a mile a minute. These days she rants off in a weird mixture of Equish and English. ...It’s like Spanglish, only without a nice way to mesh the two language names together.
I’m not entirely sure what she said through her flurry of words, but the white pony got the jist of it. She knew English too, but when she spoke it was a lot like Twilight had early on—simpler words, simpler sentences, and the occasional pause while she searched for the right word. She didn’t appear to know the word for “language” at first, always defaulting to “words.”
Introductions happened quickly. The gray one was Insipid, a word that apparently means “flavorless.” Twilight, of all people, had to tell me that, saying she’d come across it in her many perusals of the dictionary. When questioned about why she had such a name, her only response was, and I quote, “dad was an a-hole.” There was no follow-up since I then had to explain to Twilight what the figurative meaning of “a-hole” was.
During this all the white pony was sizing me up. Those eyes were both terrifyingly intelligent and insultingly amused at my plight. Despite having the vocabulary of a ten-year-old, she came across as very careful, calculating, and almost too friendly. It’s like the conversation was some kind of game to her, with every piece moving exactly as she wanted it.
Her name was Celia. And she introduced herself as a representative of Merodi Universalis, a multiversal society containing hundreds of separate worlds.
Yeah.
Not only do we have alien pony life, but now the whole freakin’ multiverse has opened up like the cork off a champagne bottle.
Twilight and I attempted to press her for details about what their society was like, how it worked, and what sort of technology they had, but her explanations always fell flat due to vocabulary.
...You know what, looking back, she was probably making herself look dumber than she was to avoid unnecessary conflict… Crafty.
Speaking of dumb, Insipid was. The number of non-sequiturs and obvious observations she made over the course of the conversation… come on, read the room! I feel sorry for her more than anything. At least she and Pink seemed to get along really well.
For the sake of whatever agency reads this as a report when I’m hopefully picked up at some point, I should probably mention that Celia’s not a pony at all, she’s a creature called a Gem. If you can call her race a creature at all—apparently she’s a kind of magical AI contained entirely in the gemstone in her forehead. The rest of her is just an adaptable hard-light construct, a bit like a hologram. Except solid. And able to pull a top with a sawblade out on a dime.
I can’t stress enough that experimentation to figure out how this ability works is most definitely ethically unacceptable. But I’m no doubt just as curious as the rest of you are.
I don’t know anything else about her race because, while we were trying to talk that out, Chrysalis walked in for her usual check-up-and-chat with me.
Celia tensed slightly at her appearance, but she otherwise remained calm. Insipid on the other hand… she shouted “SWORD!” at the top of her lungs and drew a multi-segmented sword and pointed it at Chrysalis. Chrysalis raised a shield, baring her teeth with a rage I hadn’t seen from her in months.
It all ended rather abruptly when Celia tripped Insipid with her magic. I thought for a moment Chrysalis was going to smite the poor unicorn while she was exposed. Insipid, however, rather than snarl in rage or start begging for her life like any normal person would do, started laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. This gave Chrysalis—and me—pause.
Does she like looking the fool, or something?
Celia apologized profusely, taking a bit to explain that they had run into “other Chrysalises” in the past and usually the encounters were rather unpleasant. She also mentioned that she wasn’t surprised Chrysalis was “turned” or “reformed.”
Apparently reformation is a common thing in the multiverse, even for Chrysalises, even if they’re less likely to turn than others. All seems a little ridiculous to me, I mean, who just turns back on their ways like that just because? Chrysalis had a real reason
Wait. The Nightmare Moon incident ended in “reformation.” That Discord guy has been given a pardon and allowed to roam free. And...
No, not going to entertain that thought any further.
Celia asked how our Chrysalis was “reformed” and Chrysalis herself explained it, in English. It was about as broken as Celia’s, but the two seemed to get along just fine. The whole “crashing into the sun” thing without Celestia’s control was brought up. Celia seemed shocked. It took a while to figure out why: most “Equis” universes either operate with a miniature sun that can orbit naturally, work with Celestia simply rotating the planet, or, get this, have a celestial sphere set of physics.
That’s right. Planets and stars affixed to a perfectly spherical shell centered around the planet. Apparently there are universes like that. I have no idea what this means and, frankly, the oddities of this planet are enough for me to ponder for eternity, I don’t need a half-dozen more with different laws of physics stacking up in front of me.
Chrysalis was the first to think of establishing diplomatic relations with Celia’s people, something Twilight was more than a little embarrassed she hadn’t thought of doing first. Celia admitted she was open to the possibility, but she didn’t want to start that until she could contact her home. They were stuck here, after all, and were trying to figure out the issue. The lack of active communication made it difficult.
I thought this was odd at first, until she told me that they used a universal translation spell. A spell that this universe’s physics don’t allow for.
What are the laws of physics, selections on a menu? Rules of government? The way she talks about them I swear they could be selected, or at the very least you can search for a universe of a particular set of rules and find it. She talks as if it’s so… normal.
Twilight mentioned that she understands how I felt, now. Maybe.
The worst part? They weren’t actually speaking English. The language I’m writing in right now? That’s called Equish Beta, traditionally found on pony worlds rather than human ones. When Celia spoke in English Alpha, the most common variant, I couldn't understand a word she said. In fact, it sounded a little like what the ponies here speak… but not exactly the same.
Let the linguists figure that out. We don’t even speak human. I do not envy their job.
Regardless, Twilight was in the process of offering to cast her translation spell on them when we heard the explosion. Right outside the window there came this dark flash that shot into the sky. Apparently a telltale sign of a lot of dark magic being used.
Celia’s long, drawn-out sigh was impressive. She may not have known what was going on down there, but she knew who. Her demeanor changed from calm and collected to a commanding one almost instantly. She said she was going to deal with this and told Insipid to stay put.
I tried to tell her to not charge into danger, but did she listen to me or Twilight? No. No she did not. She teleported away.
“I like her,” Chrysalis said. Of course she would.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get my wheelchair there to witness what happened next, but everyone who was there tells me it was a sight to behold…
~~~
Nira worried about Blink.
She’d only admit it in moments of what she considered weakness, but worry she did.
Several times on their journey with the League, Nira had noticed an unsettling pattern with the ghostly mare. Traumatic things happened to her… and she seemed to bounce right back with only a minimal change in behavior. She would be sad for a while, perhaps let out some biting comments, yes, but otherwise… she’d just keep moving forward. Not even blinking.
Nira secretly suspected that was why she’d chosen the name Blink in the first place. Not because she could “blink in and out of existence”, but something much more personal.
The worst example was when Ser had betrayed them. He had betrayed all the Sweeties, yes, but he’d done more to her than most of the others. Yet, out of everyone on board Swip, she recovered the quickest and held on the strongest. And now Suzie was no longer in charge, Cinder had left them to do some soul searching on her own… and Blink was bouncing around some Canterlot looking for the School for Gifted Unicorns with a mischievous smile on her face.
Not like nothing had happened… but almost.
She’d been one of the closest with Cinder, too. It was uncanny. Nira was, herself, purposefully detached, but Blink… Blink was always involved, Blink played, Blink laughed, Blink made friends.
Nira hoped it was just a personality quirk. But, deep down, she suspected Blink was using the Void on herself. Nira knew it was possible—when she had been possessed by the wyrd she obfuscated her emotional state so well even Celia hadn’t picked anything up—what if she did that whenever she was suffering? Force it to be hidden from everyone who looked at her?
What if she did it all the time?
Had they ever seen Blink as she truly was?
Nira forced those thoughts out of her head—she needed to look for the School for Gifted Unicorns. Probably to find somepony skilled in translating, or something. Nira didn’t really know, she was cursed with being from a world with a unique tongue and not having Celia’s specialized education.
Of course the tag-along idiot was lucky enough to have a common tongue, Nira seethed inwardly. What else could have possibly happened!?
Nira ran into a sign in her distracted stupor. She suppressed the urge to disintegrate it and looked behind it. She couldn’t read anything, but she knew a School for Gifted Unicorns when she saw one.
“Huh,” she said. “Convenient.”
“Nervii covenna,” Blink said, appearing next to her.
“How long have you been waiting here?”
“Reskii van re y viets,” Blink responded, raising an eyebrow over the tips of her shades.
“Nevermind,” Nira grumbled. “I’ll find Celia and drag her back here.” To avoid another round of “I have no idea what you just said,” Nira drew Celia’s gemstone in the ground with a fine laser spell.
Before Nira’s magic ping could find Celia, however, a griffon dropped from the sky, shaking the ground slightly as he landed on the sidewalk. Upon his head was a golden circlet studded with gems and his robe was a lavish purple, telling of his wealth and importance. He pointed an accusatory talon at Blink at let out a shriek that made nearby ponies cover their ears. He said something.
Blink cocked her head, smiling nervously. “Quni? Haba te y novosk, querentinaso.”
The griffon let out more shrill calling noises that were probably words, though they were even less intelligible than Blink’s nonsensical babbling.
“Rabbadashiranaskampa.”
Nira was ninety-percent sure Blink was either saying nonsense or using elaborate insults just because she could. The griffon likely thought the same thing, because he lashed out in anger the moment after.
Naturally, his claw passed right through Blink. This unsettled the avian considerably.
Before Blink could capitalize on this, a tall, regal unicorn mare teleported between them and started shouting official-sounding words at the griffon. The griffon shouted back with even more vitriol and rage, going so far as to shove the mare back a few steps. She gasped in shock and lit her horn, speaking some sort of ultimatum.
Nira stood to the side, a bit dumbfounded. What exactly was she supposed to do when she couldn’t even understand what was being said?
It was at this point a golden artifact dropped out of the unicorn’s robes, clattering to the ground: a griffon claw clutching a spiked ball. No doubt some kind of griffon artifact.
One that the griffon thought belonged to him. With a predatory call he swiped the artifact up and began pointing at the unicorn—Blink forgotten very quickly in his rage. He lifted the artifact up, catching the light of the sun.
Nira sensed a buildup of violent magical power aimed at the unicorn.
“Oh for the…” Nira cast a dark shield to intercept the attack.
She had to put about twenty times as much power into her spell than she’d expected, but she did manage to deflect the beam of focused sunlight into the sky.
Mixed with her dark magic.
Like a beacon.
Celia was going to notice that.
And, in less concerning but slightly more pressing news, so did everypony next to her and Blink.
“Uh-oh,” Blink said.
Apparently, some things didn’t need to be translated.
~~~
Celia arrived on the scene in the middle of a three-way standoff.
On one side, a mad griffon with some kind of powerful magical artifact.
On the second, a pony aristocrat trying her best to sneak away from the confrontation while also looking brave. She was failing miserably on both counts.
On the third, Nira, letting all her dark blood magic flow freely. Blink was no doubt somewhere nearby, not that Celia could see her.
Nira, why do you have to look so evil when you try to be the hero?
Celia jumped in, knowing there was no time for deliberation if she wanted this to end well. She teleported into the middle of the confrontation, slamming her razor-top into the ground with enough force to crack the pavement beneath. “STOP!” she shouted at the top of her lungs in Gem Standard, hoping the message would cross language barriers with the proper show of force.
They got the message, all right. They froze.
Though the griffon was still able to charge his artifact like this. She was barely able to raise her razor-top in defense, and even this wasn’t enough. Nira had to rush in with a blood shield to protect her, thereby declaring Celia and the bloody monster of death on the same side.
Oh, how she wished she could give Nira an earful right now.
Nira charged the griffon, spells flying. Celia had to grab the small unicorn and trip her to keep the griffon from getting severely injured by the dark spell, though this left both Celia and Nira open to the unicorn aristocrat’s attack.
The griffon, seeing the unicorn exposed, pointed the artifact at her. She screamed like a filly who thought Nightmare Moon was in her closet.
Celia pushed the mare away with her telekinesis, saving her life, but the griffon was charging up for another shot. It wouldn’t have been an issue if Nira hadn’t decided Celia was in the way and needed to be dragged away.
I have to end this now or someone is going to die. Probably that pathetic mare…
Nira completed her interference by tossing Celia roughly to the ground and deflecting another burst of magic energy into the sky.
As Celia hit the pavement and rolled over a few times… an idea came to her.
A very, very dumb idea.
Here goes nothing…
She teleported herself into the middle of the three once again and swung her razor-top, as if to attack all at once. Carefully, she lowered the top’s handle just a bit too far, resulting in the swing smacking her square in the head. As a Gem, she didn’t have a skull or a brain that could get injured, but she could sure fake getting knocked silly by a blow to the head. In a slightly exaggerated motion, she toppled over and fell flat on her back, allowing the razor-top to skid comically into an abandoned cabbage-cart before dispelling it.
This display of clumsy idiocy was enough to stun the combatants into stopping.
This would only have lasted for a few seconds—shock is always temporary—had Celia not capitalized on the opportunity.
She started laughing. Pulling off a convincing fake laugh is no easy feat, but she came through, and once she had it going the fact that she was laughing on the ground while having faked an injury to herself amused her enough to keep it going.
As the adage goes, laughter is contagious. Celia wasn’t sure if the unicorn aristocrat started laughing because she realized what Celia was doing or if she was actually amused, and Celia didn’t care. The ponies watching from the sidelines came next, eventually spreading the laughing plague all the way to the griffon, who pointed at Celia and let out a few presumably degrading jokes about her posture.
Nira refused to laugh, but she was stunned enough just from seeing her elegant, careful leader knock herself silly and laugh about it. The longer the laughing continued and spread the more confused Nira’s look became.
Then, finally, Princess Twilight Sparkle executed a teleport, bringing her, Insipid, Chrysalis, and the human Randy in his wheelchair to the encounter. They had no idea what the laughing was about either, but at least there wasn’t a fight anymore.
With Twilight here, there wouldn't be. They would be able to talk things out.
Celia, still giggling to herself, stood up and winked at Insipid.
“Huh?”
“Insipid, you are genius!”
“...I don’t get it.”
Celia laughed. “Exactly, exactly.”
“Can someone explain what the hell is going on!?” Randy shouted. “Why are they laughing? What’s with the bleeding unicorn? Why are you…?”
“Answers come with time,” Celia said, grinning. “But they do.”
“I’d like some answers right n—”
A portal opened up in the sky. Instead of the expected Merodi rescue team or Swip, a monstrous green glyphid dropped out of the sky, crashing into the road with a THUNK. It was a very dead glyphid, but the sudden appearance of a green rock-monster falling from the sky ended all laughter in an instant. A green, noxious gas began to waft upward from the carcass, letting everyone know it was probably not harmless.
“Extermination successful,” Shadow called from the portal in the sky, the dwarf on her back. Celia was relieved to hear the words in Gem Standard—the spell was working again. “You may return at your leisure, assuming you have completed all previous engagements?”
“I think there’s a bit more to deal with, Shadow,” Celia said. “For one, you just dropped a dead monster into the middle of Canterlot.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Insipid asked. “It’s awesome! Fresh!”
“Many things, but we don’t have time to get into that right now.” Celia pulled her mane back, turning to Twilight and company. “I am terribly sorry about this, but it appears as though Agent Shadow has decided I needed to see proof of a job well done. I most certainly did not but I can at least thank her for establishing a proper connection so we may speak properly. Randy, dear, close your mouth.”
Randy forced his jaw shut, clenching it.
“So what kind of human do we have this time?” Blink asked, appearing next to Celia. “Isekai? Magic experiment?”
“You weren’t there!” Randy shouted, pointing at Blink.
“You look… just like Sweetie Belle…” Twilight said, her jaw dangling open now.
“Well… we are the League of Sweetie Belles,” Celia said, smirking. “And before I tell you what that is, you should probably stop that aristocrat from running away, she’s been trying to make a break for it for quite some time now.”
Shadow encased the aristocrat in magic chains before she could so much as let out a peep.
Celia sighed. “Shadow, do you have to be so… direct?”
“Yes.”
Celia let herself chuckle for a moment. “Well, I suppose you can carry on then. Now… shall we continue our diplomacy?”
“Can the diplomacy involve dropping more giant bugs from space?” Chrysalis asked.
“...Sure?”
“Then yes, let’s continue.”
“You just want to see things explode,” Randy muttered.
Chrysalis didn’t deny it.
~~~
So it turns out, for some reason, Geraldor had thought Blink stolen the Claw of Goom, so he somehow managed to track her down. Yeah. Track down a ghost. I know.
I swear, my life… it can’t possibly be real, right? I’m in some kind of hyper-realistic simulation or a coma or something.
Anyway, Chancellor Tulip Vine was the one who had actually stolen the artifact, though she claims she’s completely innocent. Given the stories about her I heard from Goom, Chrysalis, and even Twilight about how much of a shrewd dishonest weasel she is, I’m not buying it. She’s currently in prison, awaiting trial.
It probably won’t go well since Equestria wants to avoid a major diplomatic incident. Lucky for them Celia was there, she not only defused the situation, she also gave the world something else to think about.
And then there was the bug. But that wasn't her plan. Dang did she capitalize on it, though. The girl’s a born diplomat, able to go with whatever’s handed to her. Who pretends to knock themselves silly and laughs about it to stop a fight? Besides Insipid.
Seriously, why isn’t Celia re-certified as a diplomat yet? Yeah, she’s apparently working to get it back. This incident alone should be more than enough to prove her mettle.
Chrysalis is still fascinated by those space bugs for some reason. I don’t want to go anywhere near the things. She’s either determined to meet the bugs or determined to squash something into the ground for the fun of it. I’m really not sure. That… dwarf… seems to like her.
Dwarves are real too. I bet Frodo’s out there somewhere getting corrupted by a magic ring, or something.
I wasn’t needed much after that initial meeting, since they used portals to make sure their translation spell worked. Using physics from the universe on the other side. Yeah. That works, apparently, and doesn't cause massive instability in the fabric of reality itself. There’s not even any technology involved, it’s just how portals naturally interact with universes!
They discussed a lot of stuff behind closed doors. I didn’t mind, I’m no politician, never have been and never will. I heard a few tidbits here and there, but I don’t want to spend time speculating on random rumors. What I do know is that they’re chartering a ship to get me back to Earth. They’re not sure about how long it will take, but since they mentioned easily being able to travel between galaxies, I might be home at the end of the week. Might even intercept whatever rescue mission is coming for me!
Imagine that. Running into my rescuers on an interdimensional spaceship.
That’s going to be awesome, as Dash would say.
I guess that means this will probably be the last entry, too. The next report I’ll make will have a computer of some sort, this book won’t be needed anymore. Then I’ll be home and have my brain picked for months about what happened. My only hope is they’ll at least let me come back at some point.
Honestly, this place feels like home, now, I’ve been here so long. There’s a lot of people on Earth I want to see, but I couldn’t imagine leaving this planet forever. With these fancy new ships, it probably won’t even be a long trip.
Either way, things are changing, both for Earth and Equestria. Probably not the multiverse as a whole, since this all seems pretty run-of-the-mill to Celia now that the translation is working, but I like to think we’ll provide something to the rest of existence.
Maybe the story of a human crashing on a pony planet and making friends with aliens he couldn’t even talk to will be enough.
Who am I kidding, it’ll be the big freaking star Celestia moves around on a daily basis. I’m glad at least that’s not normal out there.
It gives us something unique.
End of journal.
~~~
Cinder and Adder entered the next car covered in ice cream.
“You know, the phrase ‘ice cream car’ sounds more fun before you actually go through it,” Cinder commented.
“Sugar is real sticky,” Adder admitted, checking her hoof. “Hey! Ah’m on two!”
Cinder checked her own. 420. “...I feel mocked.”
“Hey, at least it’s goin’ down! That cat said that was a good thing!”
“And you trust that cat?”
“Not at all, but it’s somethin’, ain’t it?”
“I suppose…” Cinder directed her gaze forward. The car was a small one—smaller than the massive exterior, in fact—and rather featureless. Metal walls with simple supports stood on both sides of the car, flanking the only object in the entire room: a pedestal with a cylindrical device covered in knobs floating about a foot in the air.
“...Wow. Treasure,” Adder said.
“It’s a trap,” Cinder said. “You grab it, who knows what’ll happen?”
“Ah dunno,” Adder admitted. “But Ah do know Ah want it. It’s… callin’ to me.”
Cinder pursed her lips. “All right, we can chance it. Has to be here for a reason, right?” Cinder folded a paper shield and lit her horn on fire. “Go nuts.”
Adder pulled some rope out of her saddlebags and tied a lasso. With a twisting motion that would have made her sister proud, she nabbed the treasure with one toss and pulled it back to her. She caught it in her front hoof, accidentally pressing the button on the side. A brilliant beam of yellow light shot out of the cylinder, ending at a sharp point.
It was a weapon.
“Wow…” Adder said, twisting the blade around in her hoof. “Ah’m gonna call it… the beamsword!”
“...Pretty sure it’s called a lightsaber.”
“Psh, Ah found it, Ah get to name it.”
Cinder shrugged. “Sure.”
“Also, where’s the trap?” Adder raised her eyebrows, smirking. “Ah don’t see nothin’.”
The moment she said this, a robot dropped from the ceiling, two guns in its hands. It pulled the triggers, shooting two laser bolts at the ponies. Cinder rushed forth, blocking one with her shield and letting the other impact harmlessly on one of the walls. “Stay back, Adder!” Cinder rolled, casting fireball.
The robot, as it turned out, was heat-resistant. She had to raise her shield to block another volley of fire. No matter how much her abilities allowed reality to warp, her paper shield was still paper on some level, and paper burned. A few more shots, and it was reduced to ash.
“Well then…”
Adder jumped over Cinder, the lightsaber poised to strike.
“Adder, no!” Cinder shouted. “You c—”
The robot fired.
For a moment, the horrible image of Adder getting shot through the chest crossed Cinder’s mind. She would be the one to blame.
I can’t be responsible for that…
Adder swung the lightsaber down, intercepting the laser. To Cinder’s shock, the laser bolt reflected off Adder’s new weapon and hit the robot right in the head. The central processing unit of the robot exploded and it fell to the ground as a pile of scrap metal.
“Hah!” Adder shouted, twirling her lightsaber a bit before clumsily dropping it on the ground. “Er…” Carefully, she picked it back up and turned to Cinder. “Ah did it!”
“Yes, you did but… That was incredibly dangerous!”
Adder narrowed her eyes. “You know what Ah just realized? Ah’ve been paranoid, followin’ your every whim just… cuz. But you aren’t my captain or somethin’, you’re my friend. It ain’t good for me to just do everythin’ you say, we both need to be there for each other. Ah’m not a helpless little filly, Ah can do some things on my own.” She smirked, lifting up a hoof. “Ah did just save your life, after all.”
“Well… Yeah, you’re probably right, sorr—” Cinder stopped short. She ran to Adder’s hoof and looked at it. “Adder… your number!”
Adder looked down.
0.
With a flash of green light, a translucent door appeared in the ground before them, designed like the doors of the rest of the Train, but composed of green light. The infinity-knob on the front twisted and opened, revealing a dimensional portal to another world.
“Ah won…” Adder realized. “Ah won!”
Cinder looked at her own hoof. 405. “I… wait, are these numbers seriously a measure of how close we are to learning a lesson of some kind?”
“Ah dunno, all Ah know is that Ah got to the end of this Train’s game! Woo!” She gestured at the portal. “And this is my way off.”
“Yeah…”
“Oh, psh, Ah’m stickin’ with you until you get to zero as well, obviously.”
Cinder glanced at her hoof. “...I’ll just get off through your portal. I’m getting a little bored of this Train.”
406.
Adder cocked her head. “You sure…?”
“Yeah. Let’s go for a change of scenery.” She jumped toward the portal. “Plus, something tells me this isn’t the last time we’ll see this Train.” She juggled her dimensional device. “We can always come back.”
“Ah guess so. But you’re not charging in first—we go together, Cinder.”
Cinder grinned. “Absolutely. Can’t be ignoring your development now can we?”
Adder rolled her eyes and tackled Cinder through the portal.
Off the Infinity Train… for now.
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Arrow 18 is the story that first brought me to FimFiction, so I'm rather happy to see it visited here. It's especially interesting to see AdmiralTigerclaw's strict adherence to the most realistic and rules-based physics possible being directly contrasted against the looser magical approach that most stories take; Celia and co. have just found out how good they have it. On the other hand, poor Randy; he just can't catch a break, getting his worldview picked up and turned on its head every time he thinks he's got it worked out. At least he gets to go home early now.
Or, in other words: Woohoo, we made it!
How many chapters long will this story be? Will it ever end?
10026913
I have often been quoted saying I will write LSB until the heat death of the universe.
Suffice it to say, this is not the kind of story that gets an ending.
-GM, master of eternity.
Someone forgot the fun side bits: =p
10027069
Wait I was supposed to put those somewhere?!
Uh.........
-GM, master of hiding under blankets.
10027072
Don't hide under blankets! That just makes you look like a burrito to a Glyphid!
10027076
That is part of my plan to exterminate them! I am the bait of my own trap!
-GM, master of next level glyphid extermination.
10027104
Well if that's your pla-
** GLYPHID DREADNOUGHT! **
ARMOR ====================================================
HEALTH ====================================================
...Oh balls.
(Hint: When a swarm game screeches a horror chord, starts boss music, and plasters a HUGE health an armor bar in the top middle of your HUD, you know you're in trouble.)
I must admit that the "Vision" arc has seriously hurt my enthusiasm for this story.
10027039
It is a good job I caught it near the beginning then, otherwise I would never feel the motivation to read it.
Hmm... Now I’m just gonna wait for M.T. to get a door to Sunset’s Isekai. Should be interesting.
Amazing chapter as always, keep it up mate.
10027353
The entire multiverse can be fun or very deadly and dark, song of spheres and the league have it, the bad it's out for now, but it most likely return in future arcs.
Here is a nice peaceful universe for the Sweeties to take a break in: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/250132/sucker-for-a-cute-face
10030101
Direct all fic suggestions / upvotes HERE:
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/213761/songs-of-the-spheres-extended-multiverse/thread/390984/the-league-of-sweetie-belles-post
-GM, master of urls.
10030314
I just tried to. It seems to not be allowing comments right now.
10030972
That's not how groups work. You join to leave a comment. (You can leave afterward)
I manage it there so I can keep track of who has voted and who hasn't, to prevent duplicates.
-GM, master of ice.
Glyphids?
... Huh. Deep Rock Galactic. One of my favorite things about this setting is how it exposes me to all kinds of interesting media I'd never have heard about otherwise. (Mind you, I already knew about Infinity Train.)
You do and you'll clean it up, young lady.
Ah. Of course translation magic doesn't work in this world. The story's all about communication issues and overcoming them. This is perfectly in theme.
Ah, the Animal Crossing phenomenon.
Hypothesis: "Pinkie Pie" is a nearly multiverse-spanning cognate, even in universes that lack pie and/or the neurological goofiness that leads to antigreen.
Centaur? You know, ignoring Tirek.
The beauty of Celia is that there's no way to be sure.
And so did those others. You just don't know what they are. (Though a few have managed biological reformation without any shift in attitude.)
Yeah, there's a brain melter. I assume it isn't one of the variants composed of actual horse noises.
One of Elemental Four's greatest legacies: Cabbage carts must die.
... No one tell Corea.
Copying Insipid. Not how it usually goes, but you can't argue with the results.
Many times over, yes. And then there's Boatmurdered...
Well, maybe if your knee-jerk reaction to everything wasn't blazing it...
The Force is strong with this one. I wonder if Adder will get any kind of precognitive capabilities to go along with Cinder's narrative senses. I do look forward to their further adventures together... but I have to wonder just how deep they get into it without Merodi support. Dimensional devices can break, and even multiverse-spanning phones don't get reception everywhere...
Fantastic chapter all around; it was good to revisit one of my favorite sci-fi stories on the site.