A Method to his Madness

by Luna-tic Scientist

34 -- No Structures Capable of Knowing Joy

I won't believe it. Luna cast about with her shadow sight, hunting for the tell-tale signature that would shout out 'Celestia'. Glimmers dotted the thaumically dark landscape below -- the pin-point glares of unicorns, the crystal insect-wings of pegasi and the glassy models of earth ponies -- but nothing the brightness or size of Celestia. The city on the horizon would make things harder, but it was next on the search grid that filled her mind.

Eyes narrowed, she reached out, feeling her destination to make sure the airspace wasn't occupied, then pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--arriving with a bang and a violet flash at three kilometres altitude, the riot-damaged streets of Baltimare spread out below her. The place seethed with activity, a hive of ponies and spellcraft mechanisms engaged in rescue from, and making-safe of, the damaged and frequently still burning buildings. Luna ignored the work, hunting instead for her sister's characteristic signature in the shadow world.

Something went crack overhead, the sudden shockwave crash of a sonic boom. Luna tracked the glittering shapes of a pair of Loup-Garou fighters, decelerating rapidly and heading in her direction. Leave me alone! She went back to scanning the city. She could have come out anywhere she'd visited before, and Celestia has been everywhere. A twist of her wings and she changed from circling to a steady glide that took her through the centre of the city and over the areas of greatest damage.

Still nothing. Luna gritted her teeth, lifting her head to look at her next destination, towards the west and the zebra lands. The patterns formed in her mind, only to distort and evaporate under a sudden surge of power from the pair of fighters. She glared at the distant, orbiting, dots. "What do you want with me!?" She tried again, but the disruption effect just intensified. She reached out, feeling for the spellcraft mechanisms, preparing to twist their power back into the body of the aircraft. And what will happen to the unicorn controlling it?

Magic flared, not at the Loup-Garou, but slashing the air under her hooves. Acceleration surged, compensated for by her iron grip on the local gravitational gradient, and she leaped upwards, cracking the sound barrier within a second. The fighters curved upwards, their afterburners throwing out spears of green fire patterned with shock diamonds, trailing in her wake. She fed in more power and the Mach numbers ticked upwards, far faster than the Loup-Garou could manage.

Princess Luna, wait, please!

The familiar voice entered her head without going through her ears, clear and intelligible, if a little faint. What do you want, Director Krett? Have you found something? Luna directed her reply down to the fighters, her head-long flight stilled for the moment. I will not stop my search until I have proof.

I understand, but you must stop. The Zebra Alliance has been tracking your progress, and they know you will soon enter their territory.

So? I will search this whole world if I have to. Luna prepared her magic once more; this time there was no disruption.

They are afraid of you; they think that you are carrying some taint of Discord.

Then tell them that it isn't so!

The reply was slow in coming. Princess... how can we prove that to them if you won't work with us? The Triumvirate has reached an agreement with the Alliance and the gryphon states, but...

Luna's ears folded back and she turned in a circle, slowly descending. What exactly have they promised?

Please understand that they are testing us. If it was up to me, we would let you search... but if you continue as you are they will try and stop you.

I would like to see them try! She nearly screamed out the words but had a sudden vision of the flash-bulb pulses of nuclear explosions scattered across Equestria. They won't be able to kill me, but to stop them I might have to... I have the Elements, I could do now what I couldn't do back when the Dogs tried to kill us all. Other memories surfaced, from her brief days as the Nightmare, bringing the insidious promise of power and a sociopath's freedom to act. That thought was enough, and she pushed the desire away with a shudder. What have they promised, Topsy? she sent, a sudden sinking feeling making her chest freeze.

You, Princess, the Director said, the telepathic signal getting stronger as the fighters climbed up to her level. They want you locked away for a few days while things calm down.

The cells under the Palace, she sent. You want me to sit in a shielded box and do nothing. What happens if I ignore this 'request'? You know full well what I am capable of.

Like I said, they will try and stop you... There was a pause, and when Topsy's voice came back, it was full of pain. ...and we will have to help them.

I see.

The search won't stop, Princess. We want to know the truth as much as you do.

I would cut a swath through anything they send against me. Luna kept the thought back from the telepathic communion. How many ponies am I willing to kill in your name, sister? A sick despair seemed to fill her from the hooves up, and she twisted her wings, angling her glide towards the distant Canterlot and the cells in the deep levels. I have one more thing to do, and then I will return. Do not disappoint me, she signalled, resuming her meteoric climb.

Beneath her, the pair fighters, now joined by four more, orbited in wide circles.

===

The shock cone built up in front of Luna's head, an interface of huge pressure and temperature that rapidly became incandescent. Her altitude climbed and the heat died away as the air pressure dropped; more magic took over, applied without conscious thought as it became hard to breathe. The bubble of air, a layer over every part of her body, pulsed with each great gasp of her lungs, yet more magic cracking the carbon dioxide into oxygen and tiny particles of soot that burned with a yellow glow as they entered the high-velocity slipstream.

At the top of her ballistic arc, high above the official limits of the atmosphere, Luna stilled the useless pounding of her wings and drifted in free-fall. The sun was still up in its abnormal position while the planet turned beneath them both, and she stared into its light, reaching out in the same way as she did with the moon. It took longer, not because it wasn't hers, but because of distance, and the fluid, boiling touch of its power stung like stepping into too-hot water.

There was a reluctance to it, as though it knew her and didn't like her very much, but this was no more than she was used to. After she'd returned from exile, and was stripped of all the poison Discord had planted in her mind, Celestia had insisted she practiced with the sun. And to think I never wanted to do this... too much like planning for failure. For me to do this is a step to believing you are really gone. She pushed, carefully shunting the sun back toward its proper location.

After a little coaxing it moved readily enough, almost like an old dog returning to its normal position at its master's hooves. I'm going to have to do this every day, all those little modifications and adjustments to stop the sun from wandering about the sky. The moon was never so much work as that tiny, massless thing, that flaw in the universe that let all the light in.

Every time I do this I will think of you.

The thought made her shiver, and Luna pulled in her legs, tucking them up under her belly against a cold that came from within, rather than without. Is this how you felt, after you sent me away? The first time you adjusted the moon's path? Only it's not the same, is it...? "Because you're not coming back." Luna tasted the flavour of the idea, the whispered words hanging in the silence of orbital altitude, the world rolling beneath her in an endless parade of green, blue and brown.

"No!" Fury flooded through her, and she let it, casting around for something to break. There, no more than a hundred kilometres away, was one of the rocks she used to decorate the night's sky. Her horn flared, a brilliant, lurid violet that would probably be naked-eye visible from the ground, and the fifty metre boulder vanished into a soundless spray of fragments under the hammer of Luna's telekinesis. Parts of it glowed a dull red, heated by the sudden impact.

"Damn you! Why do you always have to try and do it all!?"

More impacts. Hitting, smashing, pounding the larger fragments again and again until they were reduced to gravel, then sweeping them together and squeezing, hard enough to turn the red heat into yellow, then white. Sweat and tears, flung off by her exertions, drifted away as tiny, glittering spheres, and surrounded Luna with her own little constellations of stars.

Finally she just hung there, lit by the fading glow of the molten rock, as the terminator swept under her hooves and cloaked the world in darkness once more. I wonder how much of that was seen... Luna snorted, then shook her head. All of it; well, let's give them something to really look at. She reached out again and started to break up the magma, pulling it out into a cloud of little spheres the size of river pebbles. She worked quickly and with precision, not rage, until there was nothing left, then spread the whole mass out and altered its orbital velocity.

There's only one place to watch this kind of show. Luna teleported ahead of the cloud, moving in ever longer jumps as she killed her kilometres-a-second velocity, finally arriving at the snowy peak of Mount Aither-Erebos. Breath steaming, she looked out over the city, still burning in places, where it spread around the lower slopes, and the Palace, looking as dark and forlorn, and just as damaged as the city. There were aircraft in the distance, heading in her direction, but there was still plenty of time.

We won and we lost. You always said there would be a time when they wouldn't need us. I hope you were right. If... if they can't find you... Goodbye, sister.

Overhead, stars started to fall, filling the sky with a glittering rain.

===

There is a word in any language that, when used in the proper context, will flood the body of even the bravest stallion with both hope and a terror so profound that it should have its own name.

That word is now.

Neightmann awoke to the sound of a groan followed by rapid breathing. The fabric-walled 'room' in the prison camp, one of a number partitioned off from the communal tents-cum-barracks, was dark and filled with scents both familiar and strange, a curious mixture of Libi's musk and blood. She was standing by the side of the sleeping pad, shifting from hoof to hoof, her pale hindquarters darkened with liquid.

Libi groaned again, as sudden muscular contraction rippled down her flanks and made her ribs starkly visible. "Body says now," she squeezed out between pants.

Suddenly clumsy, Neighmann staggered to his hooves. He reached out with his magic to shift the soiled bedding, but there was nothing apart from a frustrating blankness in his mind and a sudden diffuse glow from the spellcraft mechanism at the base of his horn. Cursing his gryphon captors and their zebra allies for using the things, he pawed at the thin blankets, kicking them against the wall and out of the way. You'd think after a week I'd be used to it. "Now now?" he asked, then winced.

"Yes of course now!" Libi snapped, then gasped.

"Sorry," he muttered, voice high with strain, then looked at the door as another pony poked his head through the flap. The arrangement of features and coat colour were familiar, but Neighmann couldn't put a name to the face. Even the sex was indeterminate until the movement of air brought him the other's scent. Manny Fold, the engineer who he'd worked with in the summoning circle, so close that they were practically on top of each other. He stared at the other, trying to reach that conclusion from sight alone but, like his magic, there was nothing there.

Libi's teeth snapped shut and her tail twitched and lifted, something pale and alien protruding from the shadowed space underneath. Gracelessly, she folded her legs and lay down on the mesh floor, rolling onto her side. The sight unlocked something in Neighmann's head and he stepped forwards, gripping a clean segment of the sleeping pad between his teeth and dragging it under the mare's head. She rested against it gratefully, then shuddered again.

"Oh, wow, that's fast! Normally it's ten minutes or more before you get to that stage. I'll wake the flight surgeon," Manny said, ducking back into the main room. There were questioning voices, still muzzy with sleep, and things that sounded like orders, but Neighmann wasn't listening. There was a sudden terror in Libi's eyes. "Discord had his claws on me, do you think--?" She broke off, legs kicking helplessly.

Neighmann froze, remembering the long, stuttering conversations with Libi, slowly drawing out what had been done to her. Even after a week of having nothing else to do, he was certain she'd told him only a fraction of what had happened. His own trials had been nothing in comparison. "I'm certain not. He only got to your mind, like me and everypony else." He cursed the tremor in his voice. He likes to play with his food. Who's to say what plans that thing might have had for Libi after he'd taken Luna and Celestia? "No. I can't think that... I won't think it."

She nodded and closed her eyes, hind legs drawing up, almost in an attempt to escape what was trying to break free of her body. The mental image was a strong one and sent shivers down Neighmann's spine; it really did seem like Libi's body was trying to expel something monstrous. A pair of dark objects were visible within the pale membrane, pointed things less than the width of his horn, twitching to the call of some hidden signal. She's not been examined magically since then... and Luna was more interested in her mind than her body. "No," he said again, this time managing to at least sound convincing. ...and she'd not the only one who's been within Discord's reach, is she?

Long hours working in close proximity to that statue, spread over days and years as they carried out experiments to try and measure what effect Discord might be having, or to refine when he might escape. How long was he out before he made his bid for power? Was it months? What about that evening, eleven months ago, when Libi came to visit at the Palace because the time was right and he'd not come home? The unanswerable questions whirled through his mind, and Neighmann sank to the floor next to Libi, inhaling the scent of her sweat as he nibbled along the line of her shoulder. Am I this foal's sire in any meaningful way? The thought was persistent, hanging on in the way only a truly horrible idea could, and he desperately tried to lose himself in the mindless animal activity of grooming.

Two ponies barged in, and Neighmann's ears went back at these sudden, unknown, intruders. The first, a unicorn, came straight over, dropping its head to touch his muzzle. "I'm Systolic, remember? This is one of my nurses, Anneal," she said, blowing gently so he could catch her scent. "Keep doing what you are doing; this all looks normal, but it's important for everypony to keep calm," she said, in a no-nonsense voice. "Nopony else will be coming in." Systolic lifted her head, looking back over her shoulder into the other room. "See to it please, Manny."

"Yes, ma'am," the chief engineer said, and there was an immediate sense of space, as ponies were moved back from the divider.

Neighmann felt a wash of gratitude. She diagnosed me; of course she'd know the best way to act. His eyes were drawn to the nurse, a blue and green earth pony stallion who had dropped the pile of bedding he'd been carrying next to Libi's back end, then lay on it, using the stack to support his chest clear of the floor. Forelimbs free to move, he pulled out a spatula that must have been improvised from items around the camp and, gripping it between his teeth, gently probed the now much larger shape protruding from under Libi's tail. "Anneal. You an engineer?"

"Mostly. I'm also the best non-unicorn medic the Express had. Head's clear; all looking good." he mumbled, and Systolic gave Neighmann a quick nod before shifting to the other end of Libi.

What did you expect, two horns? It won't be anything obvious. Something hidden, perhaps something in the deep structures of his brain or coiled in his genetics, only to emerge after a few years-- Neighmann cut off the thought with a snort. If there's one thing that Discord has, it's arrogance. He'd never have planned for his defeat this way... would he? With that level of power it wouldn't be difficult. He carried on nibbling, ears twitching for the slightest muttered comment from the other two. Beneath his lips, the muscles of Libi's throat alternately tensed and relaxed, in time with the contractions rippling down her flanks. "Hear that," he whispered, "everything is fine."

"Good," she grunted. "Wish it felt fine."

Medical jargon flowed back and forth, but the tones never shifted from calm and business-like, and the motions of the two medics never became urgent, so Neighmann shut out the world and lost himself in a tiny universe of warmth, skin and fur.

"Oh!" Libi said, a few minutes and an eternity later. "That's it." She relaxed and sighed, letting her whole body slump, then her ears came up and she twisted around, urgently trying to see her foal.

Neighmann stood to give her space, his own gaze focused on the slender, spindly-limbed creature, still covered in slime and parts of the amniotic membrane, that lay on a folded blanket. Discord likes to play and likes to leave little hints. There will be something, however brief, if my foal is enveloped in his schemes. He tensed, a sudden coiling of the muscles in his forelegs and chest. What am I going to do if there is something there? It wouldn't take much, a step forwards and then stamp.

"A beautiful little colt," Systolic announced, standing up and backing away, followed by Anneal.

Libi glanced at Neighmann, and in that moment it was like they were sharing again. She stared intently at the foal, eyes roving over every part of his peach-coated body, searching for something out of the ordinary. There was nothing, and they both gazed at his face with its closed eyes. What's behind those lids? Will they appear mismatched for a moment, or perhaps the whites will be yellow and irises red? Neighmann held his breath willing the foal to move.

The miniature head moved in unsteady arcs, nostrils flaring as he sampled the unfamiliar air and detected the scent of his dam. Mouth working, little pink tongue protruding from tiny, delicate lips, his eyes opened and he peered back at them both.

Neighmann sighed and Libi relaxed, her head resting against his leg.

The foal's eyes were green; a wonderful, clear, even, apple-green.

===

It was briefing time. Each morning, General Buckler would show up with a portable terminal and take her through all they had done the previous day, and what they had planned for the next. So far there had been no news, but the efforts continued apace.

They are late. Luna shifted from hoof to hoof, futilely trying to see down the short corridor to the door to the cell block. Finally, there was movement; it wasn't one pony, but a whole entourage. Her ears came up and she stared, suddenly excited. Something's happened, it must have! The ponies gathered on the other side of the crystal wall, unsettled and nervous expressions on their faces.

Nopony seemed willing to speak, and Luna felt her excitement shift over into alarm. "Well? Has the search finally found something? Out with it!" she snapped. They exchanged looks, still silent, and Luna gritted her teeth, holding onto anger to avoid sliding into despair.

"Oh, for-- Get out of my way!"

The voice, elderly and full of grumpy disgust, came from a dappled grey pegasus of advanced years. His face would probably light up if allowed to smile, but right now held nothing but a scowl. "Princess, my name is Professor Haygen. I was called in by the Triumvirate."

"I know who you are, Professor. Why are you here?"

The pony turned and glared at General Buckler, then raised a wing and swatted the unicorn mare across the back of the head like she was some abnormally ignorant student. "You haven't told her?! Of all the stupid, disrespectful--" He broke off, then sighed. "Princess, they have called off the search for your sister."

"What!" Luna's wings flicked out and she tossed her head, glaring down at the group from her full height. "I was promised a full and thorough search in return for agreeing to stay here," she hissed, anger bleeding away into fear. And now they have you, why should they keep their end of the bargain?

Buckler frowned at Haygen, then pointedly took a step further away. "It's been a whole month, Princess, without any sign. During this time, we also asked the Professor here and his research group to carry out extensive research into teleport accidents... that work has now reached a conclusion."

"Teleportation is a relatively rare skill among unicorns, and the spell is remarkably safe, in that, if you get it wrong, most of the time it just doesn't work," Haygen said.

"This is not news, Professor. If you have a point to make, I suggest you make it."

"Sorry, Princess. I am too used to idiot students." He cleared his throat, then his tone shifted to that of one used to talking in public spaces. "There have been a number of instances of failure-to-return, and never has any trace of the teleportee been found. That said, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so the mass has to go somewhere--"

"Exactly!" Luna said, stomping a forehoof. "If necessary I will recreate her jump and follow her."

"That would be... unwise, Princess. It is obvious that the destination of these failures is not here, so therefore it must be somewhere else. Examination of the spell gives us some clue as to the possible range of destinations, and their nature." Here his voice carried a note of warning, and Luna tried to focus on what the pony was saying. "All such destinations appear to be hostile, not just to life, but to chemistry."

"What do you mean, Haygen? I am not in the mood for vague hints and implications," Luna said, her voice going dead and emotionless. The fear came back, stronger even than what she had felt back in Discord's chamber, and she clamped down on the urge to scream and shout. That desire was getting increasingly strong, these last few days, as the lack of progress became obvious.

"Princess, when I started this work there was some hope that, whatever the conditions at the other end of a rogue wormhole terminus, they would be such that a creature of power like yourself or Celestia might survive. It wouldn't be in her original form, obviously, but the possibility existed that the environment would still support structures capable of knowing joy, if you catch my meaning."

Luna's brow furrowed, horn glimmering as she made an unconscious effort to reach out and shake some sense out of Haygen. Structures capable of knowing joy? What is he-- A quiet whimper escaped her lips and she trembled. Minds. He's going to tell me that no minds can exist at the other end. Luna's legs folded underneath her and dropped her to the floor. All the strength drained from her body, and she stared at the pegasus, wanting to tell him to go away, but her mouth opened silently and nothing came out.

Haygen looked her straight in the eye, a sombre expression on his face. "I'm sorry to say, Princess, that this possibility has now been eliminated."

===

Echelon stretched out his wings, then flapped them vigorously. The pressure of the ground under his hooves lessened, and he managed an awkward hop, then came back down only a few metres away.

"Will you give it a rest!" Willow snapped, turning her head away from the sudden downdraft and its associated bits of dirt and vegetation. "They won't grow any faster with you playing with them."

"Sorry," he mumbled, holding one wing out and glaring at the truncated set of primary feathers. "And I was only a month out of my moult. Bastards." He returned to her side and lay down, gazing out through the coils of razor wire and along the steep-sided valley. Their prison camp, housing all the survivors from the Friendship Express, was a raw addition to the landscape, hastily assembled from part of a cattle farm.

"Yes, I know. Look on the bright side; at least you don't have to wear a suppressor, even though your horn doesn't work." She waggled her head pointedly, waving her stubby, distorted horn under his muzzle. Far shorter than it had been, and gouged out like somepony had taken a power tool to it, Willow's horn was a constant reminder of how close he had come to losing her. The suppressor, a bright yellow thing covered with intricate patterns of inlaid crystals, pulsed sullenly where it was clamped next to her skull. "The thing keeps throwing off my balance, and I've no real idea if I've a trace of power, even now."

Echelon stared at the distasteful device. The Guard and Equestrian military always had a few of the things ready in case of need, but this was of Zebra manufacture. Could have been worse; they could have just shot us as spies. He shivered; their first few days in the camp -- obviously just a cattle farm hastily fenced in for the purpose -- after Twister had surrendered to the Razorclaw forces, had been extremely tense. The last thing they'd heard was that Celestia had disavowed their actions completely; without the backing of their government, everypony present could be considered to be a terrorist.

The brief appearance of Princess Luna had fixed that problem, but she'd left them to the tender mercies of the gryphon state security apparatus. The ensuing interrogations by Talon intelligence officers had been unpleasant at best and down-right violent on occasion, but the knowledge that Luna was taking a personal interest seemed to have put a damper on the worst excesses that he'd thought might happen. Then, three weeks ago, they'd stopped coming.

"I just wish I knew what was going on." He sighed, then laid his head on her back. "Should you be able to do magic by now, if they take the suppressor off?"

Willow leaned sideways a little, putting some of her weight against his shoulder. "A bit, I think. The flight surgeon had to burn pretty deep, but at least she caught it before the plaques extended into my horn bed. It will probably be a year before I'm back to full strength, though."

Echelon grunted, staring out over the fringe of Willow's mane and along the valley. A triplet of aerodynes, accompanied by a flight of gryphons, was coming towards the camp. Looks like the normal supply run, he thought, then narrowed his eyes as the noisy vehicles came in for a landing a hundred metres outside the wire. That's interesting... I don't know that symbol. Gone was the grasping talon of State Security, replaced with a set of wings on either side of a staring eye. The troopers with the aerodynes didn't have the same uniform harnesses, either, and seemed to be unarmed.

I guess we'll find out soon enough. Funny... and add this to the lack of interrogations... "What will you do, when we get out of this? Going to stay in the service?" he asked idly, still thinking.

A shudder ran through the muscles of her back. "No, I don't think I could, not now. The thaumic shock was... I can't describe it. Horrible. Sometimes I think I can still feel it when I sleep. What about you?"

Echelon nodded. "I thought so." More than once he'd been awoken by the tension in her muscles and the sweat in her fur as she dreamed. "I love the flying, but if I can't do it with you, then I'd rather not do it at all. Probably join one of the weather teams; they're always on the look-out for an experienced pegasus. Unless--" He twisted slightly, looking hopefully at her. "--you fancy some company?"

Willow laughed, a low throaty chuckle, turning her head to nibble behind his ears. "Oh you featherbrain, as if you have to ask."

Echelon sighed, eyes half closing, feeling content and happy with the world, while the surrounding coils of razor wire cast jagged shadows over the thin grass.

Comments

[Luna-tic Scientist]

"The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. However, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps in the course of time the new vacuum would sustain, if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated."

-- S Coleman.

Hang in there, ponies.

[lazyreader19]

Holy bejeezums....

[Cedric Bale]

I wonder, if someone described Discord's original state of existence as (I think) a bunch of rogue math living in the inner workings of physics, devoid of chemistry (I think), to Haygen, would he believe it capable of having a mind?

[Luna-tic Scientist]

10313147
When you get that far down into physics, it's pretty much just math-made-real (seems to be!). Knowing about the original Chaos, I'm sure he would understand at least a fraction of how it 'worked'. As to if he's right that nothing complex enough to call a mind could exist in a lower energy vacuum state (which is where they think a rogue wormhole terminus might emerge), that's the question. How complete do you think their knowledge of physics is?

The lack of chemistry line is referring to the problem that atoms would no longer 'work' if you change the physical laws (not that you are just operating at too small a scale). To put it another way: change the physical laws and molecules don't interact the same way (biology fails), electrons no longer orbit nuclei (atoms fail), nucleons don't bind (nuclei fail) and all the way down to the structure of space-time itself. I'm a chemist and not a physicist, though, so that last statement may not be accurate (but the effect is really bad).

[Q07]

I just read the last 2 chapter together, and I am very sad. It's not the most eloquent way to describe things, but it's the simple truth. I was pretty much wracked with cold sweats the entire time, and now I'm depressed. This is a very good story so please keep it up, my friend.

[Luna-tic Scientist]

10314268
This part is sad. It is terribly, terribly sad. Even though I wrote it several years ago and have read it many times, I still tear up a little.

[Alondro]

10313341 Eliminate either the weak or strong force, and there are no atoms at all. Shall I demonstrate? Davros eliminated the electromagnetic force in "The Stolen Earth", with the Reality Bomb.