The Rocks And Water

by KingReptarAlmighty

Ch. 14: Something New

“Well, not to say I expected this, but it certainly makes sense.” Discord floated, mostly unbothered, through the greyed out version of the dining hall, taking stock of the situation. “You triggered a Gap.”

“Did I break something?” The hesitance in Spike’s voice made no attempts to conceal itself as he approached Discord, still carrying the scale and fur. “Why is everything grey?”

“I believe you’ve seen this before. During your last rewrite you triggered this state to give yourself more time, now it’s being triggered because you need to be more specific. Let me guess…” Discord glanced at Pumice’s newly transformed aura, and back at the items he’d given Spike. “You tried to fill in the gaps?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“Well, that part is tricky.” Discord landed, pulling a scroll out of seemingly nowhere. “Your last rewrite allowed you to fill in the gaps because the creature you were using them on was no longer alive. Now, they are alive, and attempting to just let the gaps fill themselves could leave things out. For example, Diamond Dogs don’t have the throat gland that ignites your fire breath, so in the case that he produces the enzyme that powers that gland, it would have nowhere to go, and would contribute nothing at all.” Discord rolled up the scroll, before leaning down to Spike’s level. “This is why you need to think very seriously when creating new organisms, because most things serve a purpose or an advantage, and when mixing species, these things can cause problems if not dealt with properly.”

“What about your weird rabbit giraffes?” Spike questioned. He snapped his fingers absently, and one such creature appeared next to him, greyed out like the rest. “Don’t these things have problems?”

“Yes, being that the ratio of calories exerted to movement used is terrible. They eat an incredible amount, this single one could consume almost an entire grain silo in one afternoon.” Discord’s facial expression shifted to one of absolute glee. “Also, your first successful summoning! You’re progressing incredibly fast! Soon you’ll be able to do these things on massive scales, creating entirely new intelligent species, or maybe just finally making jakelopes an actual thing.”

Spike blinked in confusion. “Those don’t exist yet?” Discord shook his head no, before snapping a few times.

“Focus! Alright, here’s what’s happening, you need to figure out how to get Pumice here to that middle point, and you need to figure out what gaps need to be manually filled, so give me a list of what’s wrong.”

“Uh…” Spike blinked a few times, before glancing back at Pumice. “Okay, no heat resistance, fur versus scales, fire breath, and flying.” Discord nodded.

“Okay, now how do you fix each one of those? Remember, don’t lean too much in either direction, you want the middle. You want to find the middle ground.”

Okay, think.

Fire breath was too dragon, but heat and fire resistance made sense, especially because Diamond Dogs are subterranean. Flying is out of the question, that goes against the below ground idea, but to not include flying means including scales in some capacity to balance it out. Maybe the digging claws? That could bolster heat resistance, which made sense if they were meant to be digging in lava for gems!

“Would I like-”

“Naturally understand this topic?” Discord extrapolated. “Possibly, but you’re startlingly studious, and you know a decent deal about animals to begin with. Something like this is likely child’s play.” Spike stared at him for a hard second.

“Either you stop reading my mind or I start reading yours.” Spike didn’t give the threat time to hang in the air before turning back to Pumice.

He could do this. It’s just like figuring out his true form, except he could make the changes much quicker.

First step, start with the scales.

Spike let the pieces fall into place naturally, rather than snapping his fingers every time, guiding the process with his thoughts. The scales were the easiest part. Just replace the fur on the arms with scales. From there, the first hurdle arrived. Blending the two into each other.

“Changing the scales to be like the fur is working backwards.” Spike thought out loud. “But changing the fur to be like scales…”

“Would make it easier to apply heat resistance across the entire body?”

“Exactly. A two fold solution.” Spike leaned in, looking closely at the scales on Pumice’s arm, and doing what can best be described as splitting. Like splitting the ends of a strand of hair, he just pulled apart the ends of each scale, pulling apart more and more as he moved closer to where the hair met the scales, until the final scales simply looked like very thick strands of hair. He pulled those scale strands along the entire body, replacing the regular fur with the sort of scale-hair, making it appear much coarser, but certainly accomplishing an even blend between the scales and the hair, and also accomplishing the heat proofing.

Just in case, he made the skin underneath a lot more burn proof too.

“What if I made the tail spikes more… dragon?” Discord raised an eyebrow at him.

“Meaning?” For bravado’s sake, Spike did snap this time, and the tail faded from something canine to something more reptilian, longer, and stronger, meant more as a balancing limb than something expressive, though he did make the end still very club like, and rather than the rounded tail spikes of your typical diamond dog, these new ones were blunt, but strong, meant for breaking rocks and smashing dirt. Discord gave him a praising look. “Brilliant enginuity. Though some part of me would prefer something that makes less sense, the rational, teacher part of me says top marks!” Spike rolled his eyes, though he was still smiling.

“You like this teacher thing too much.”

“Well from what I’ve seen, teachers sometimes make for the best friends. If Twilight and Starlight are something to base things on, anyway.” Discord smiled sadly. “I love her more than I ever believed I could, but I don’t believe Fluttershy would accept immortality as a wedding gift, so if she does go… I’ll be alone. Celestia and Luna have gone and retired, and Twilight and Cadence aren’t my best friends, outside of a certain bookkeep with whom I’m not particularly close, you’re the best chance I have at a long lasting friendship. One that can outlive the mortals whom we have been cursed to care for.” Spike went silent for a moment, staring at the floor.

“I never thought about it like that.”

“In all fairness, you’re perhaps luckier than me. Thorax will live to be nearly ten thousand years old, by my most conservative estimates, and that’s assuming he wouldn’t accept if you offered him immortality.” Discord sighed, before continuing. “I happened to love the one pony in the world for whom eternal beauty and eternal life isn't something they’d give anything for. Though I suppose that is part of her charm.”

“...I think you’re wrong.” Discord glanced up from the floor, staring at Spike. “I think Fluttershy knows you a bit more than you’d think, and she knows that you hate being alone. She wouldn’t leave you behind.” Something in Discord’s eyes had gone from aloof to desperate, and he stared at Spike, tired frown on his face.

“...Don’t give me hope.”

“You deserve it.” With that, Spike turned back to Pumice, adding a few finishing touches including a mane of sorts, (He was feeling inspired) and a pair of pink horns (It felt absent without horns, but he also couldn’t pick a color, so he went with pink at Discord’s suggestion). He snapped his fingers once more, and the color bled back into the world. Pumice came to consciousness, looking all over himself and taking note of his new appearance. “So,” Spike said cautiously, “What do you think?”

Spike was tackled into a hug, and he was very thankful for his natural strength in that moment, because it’s the only reason he was bowled over.

Author's Note:

This chapter is mediocre, but I felt like exploring in brief why I made Discord so invested.

I did draw Pumice's new form, and that's on my tumblr, but I'm not the biggest fan even though I do like how it turned out, and it's not particularly integral to the story, so I won't post it in the actual chapter. Go to my tumblr if you want to see that.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/generalgeryuganshoop

Comments

[The Sandwich Guardian]

I don't think this chapter as mediocre. I think it's quite good.

[Kowhaifan]

This chapter has got to be my favorite so far, It's just amazing.