Excitement = Twilight * Death^2

by Needling Haystacks

Post-Script: Omake! Fun with Konami

Twilight Sparkle popped into existence in the in-between. Today's experiment was to see how far back she could contact the dead by learning about someone older from each creature in the chain. How far back did Pony history go? She was practically prancing with anticipating. And by practically...

"Oooh, this is so exciting!" Twilight Sparkle said with a squee, prancing about, "Who should I start with? Starswirl the Bearded? Oh, right, he's still alive. Clover the Clever then. Just have to... what's this?"

Twilight spotted a sealed letter that she had not envisioned in this realm of pure thought. By all accounts that should be impossible. When she saw the draconequus on the seal, she understood. She broke the seal carefully with her magic, just in case there was some trick. Sure enough, a pig flew out as soon as the letter was opening, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"Dear Twilight Sparkle," she read, slipping into her imitation of Discord's voice as she went along, "Thank you for cleaning out my dimension. Even if it was your fault it was a mess to begin with. In thanks, try this the next time you find yourself on the border between life and death."

Following this was a series of instructions.

"Friendily yours, Mr. Dr. Professor Discord." Twilight grimaced at that title. He was STILL calling himself that. She briefly considered ignoring his instructions, but curiosity got the better of her.

"Let's see... step forward twice... Step backward twice..." she said while carrying out the instructions, "Then left... right... left... right. Jump on your right legs... then the left... and say as loudly as possible...."

"START!" Twilight yelled into the misty space. A short tune played and something like an arcade cabinet's screen appeared.

'CONGARTULATOINS!' it displaced, 'NOW BEING A NEW ADVARNTURE!'

Twilight blinked at that for a moment. Then reached out her hoof and touched a little box labelled "Translate into proper ponish." A little image of Discord appeared, winked, and gave a thumbs up. The screen went blank and was replaced.

'New game plus unlocked!' it said, 'Please select an option!'

Huh, Twilight thought, maybe there was a bit more to all this than she thought.

Author's Note:

And that's a wrap! The omake is a reference to this story: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/406749/continue, where Twilight in the Alicorn realm encountered a 'new game plus' screen. Thanks to DiscoPanda84 for finding it.

I may return to this idea at some point, but right now I have a long-delayed season 9 review to produce.

Comments

[DiscoPanda84]

The omake is a reference to a story I can't find again, where Twilight in the Alicorn realm encountered a 'new game plus' screen.

I remember reading that one...

Story: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/406749/continue
Sequel: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/469151/select-difficulty

(Interestingly enough, while the FimFiction search didn't help much with finding it again, a DuckDuckGo search for windmill site:fimfiction.net did help find it.)

[Needling Haystacks]

10834229
Thanks! I'll edit that in shortly.
What does 'windmill' have to do with it?

[DiscoPanda84]

10834237
If you do a Ctrl-F for windmill in any chapter (including the sequel), you'll find multiple instances of it, and that's not even counting in the comments.

While it's not quite a plot point, a particular one does appear to be the various princesses' preferred method of accessing the Continue screen, for whatever reason.

[Needling Haystacks]

10834270
Oh right, that rings a bell now.

[Xanderfox]

That's not the Konami Code! It's Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left Aright, A, B Start. I grew up on NES games, I remember. I even remember in Gradius 3 you used the L and R buttons in place of left and right on the D-pad or you blew up! I ever recall why it was there, play testers couldn't get to the later levels of Contra and Gradius to test the whole game, and they forgot to remove the code when the games finished development.

[Level Dasher]

10834546
Absolutely right, you've got the proper code. Though I will say, jumping on her left legs, then her right in place of A-B does kinda make sense, given the position of the buttons on the NES controller.
Also, I loved that story. Good on you for giving it a shoutout on your own.

[Needling Haystacks]

10834546
Doh! I played a game that used a variant (actually I think it was UUUDDDLLLRRR ab+start) and I got confused. I'll correct that.

Edit: I feel silly now because I've played plenty of games that use the original and looking up what I wrote wasn't even the variant.

10834569
Yep, that was my thought! I wasn't sure what to do for start so I figured yelling was good.

[Sozmioi]

Geez you people. Konami code ends BA, not AB. SMH

[Needling Haystacks]

10836082
...So it is. Making the change.

[Sir Starshine]

10876947
Hmm… I could use this stuff for some pretty decent world building for some other ideas… if I ever manage to get back to writing.

[Super Trampoline]

If this story has the same energy as the chapter titles, it's going to be lit.

Were it not for Pony Donut Joe, I'd been repeatedly murdered long time ago

[Xanderfox]

11053241
When you go though it you learn how complex the process is. For 3 years I had a VAD(Vascular Assist Device) which was basically a spinning rotor implanted into my heart that helped the weakened muscle pump the blood and creepily gives you no pulse! The rotor spins constantly so the pressed is constant and overwhelms the rush of blood that heart creates as it beats.

[Super Trampoline]

11053442
Conviction didn't notify me of this comment because of the air that night he has never fixed where if you comment a reply that's in a different chapter you don't get it out if acacian sorry I'm using voice to text but you probably hopefully get what I'm saying anyway that's pretty crazy hopefully you've gotten to freak some people out by asking them to feel your pulse and then saying you're a zombie?

[Super Trampoline]

And alternative motion joke would have been the lyrics to the time warp from The Rocky horror picture show which would be especially appropriate given that she's trying to travel in time in a sort of way

[Xanderfox]

11054023
Oh now I got a new heart so it's back now :) but when I had the VAD I dunno how many times I had to say at other doctor visits "You can't take my blood pressure" to the nurse. Freaky was the nurses who could find it, it's was so weak!
Heard lots of horror stories about people mistreating thier VADs though, it has a big(though the kel making them smaller like every 8 years) external battery/controller so you can expect dumb people don't take it serious.
If you or someone you know ever needs one, I would recommend the procedure, the are used as a "bridge" to transplant but on rare occasions the heart can recover enough you can have it taken out.

Relating back to the story, Equetria medical tech is going to improve a lot with a unlimited supply of organs to experiment on. Twilight might invent artificial hearts

[Super Trampoline]

11054493
Well I'm glad you're doing better! Thank you for teaching me something cool!

[Sir Starshine]

11053247

11053247
It's from a Futurama episode where they deal with alternate dimensions, dubbed "Universe 1" and "Universe A." But one of the Frys wanted to call it "The Fighting Mongooses."

[Needling Haystacks]

11056401
I thought it was just "The Mongooses" but it's been awhile. I believe my idea there was that the Equestria Girls universe has an equivalent to Futurama.

[Super Trampoline]

11063675
Alright I found what story I'm talking about. It's:

ESecond Sunrise

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Slice of Life

Last semester, Luster Dawn stopped a cabal of the rich and powerful from overthrowing Princess Twilight. This year, Princess Twilight is the one keeping secrets. What truth is Equestria's royalty hiding, and what dangers does it bring?

• OC
• Other
• Luster Dawn

MagnetBolt · 68k words  ·  60  5 · 754 views

which is a sequel to

EMythic Dawn

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Mystery

Luster Dawn has never gone on an adventure before. She's never had real friends before. Unfortunately she's going to get both.

• OC
• Bat Pony
• Luster Dawn

MagnetBolt · 62k words  ·  174  4 · 2.4k views

Both feature some of my favorite OCs ever and I extremely highly recommend them

[Sunset Shimmer The Great]

11269499
Yay. I'll go look at it.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well, this was delightful. It is good to see some consequences for trying to game the system, and it's always nice to see Twilight(s) do some actual science. Thank you for a lovely little story.

[Discoris]

One of the best story I read here (mostly because of science). You mentioned somewhere in comments there is one with even more science talk. Could you kindly repeat with one?