Heartstrings Transplant

by Malandy

With a Zap of Indigo

Many months of multiversal movement by magical mirror, had inured those at Canterlot High to the phenomenon, but only if it was a regular. When a robotic dog came out of it, right when the students were arriving in the morning, almost everyone gave it a second glance, along with third, fourth, and fifth glances, since while it looked sort of like Spike, Twilight Sparkle's dragon-turned dog, everyone knew that he was made of flesh and blood, while this construct only approximated an animal's appearance. Filigree for flesh, glass eyes, and lightning bolts for blood. Highly energetic, of unknown construction and clearly magical, it would have scared the students, and they did step back, but they had a savior in their midst, Sunset Shimmer.

But before she could take action, the people started arriving. First was something that looked like CopBot. A figure of silver metal and articulated joints, with a visor for a head excepting the only visible bit of flesh, the mouth and chin, which was also the only hint of a sex, that of a male. The only decoration was a symbol on its left breast. A row of three triangles above a shield containing nested runic circles.

By that point, the students had stopped to stare at the products of the plinth.

After seeing the CopBot's symbol being similar to her brother's own icon, Twilight Sparkle stepped forward, with a protective Sunset Shimmer at her side.

The second person that arrived, was a wobbly Indigo Zap, who everyone knew was missing. Quickly regaining her footing, she walked to Sunset Shimmer who teleported her away with a flash.

Right after Indigo had appeared, Twilight Sparkle had emitted a flash, but which faded to reveal that nothing had changed. But after Indigo disappeared, Twilight approached the cybernetic being.

"Shining Armor?"

"Yes. And I assume-"

Shining didn't get to finish his assumption due to being interrupted by the sound of someone falling over behind him.

A third person had arrived and looked like she was covered in algae, along with making a significantly worse entrance than the rest of the recent arrivals, having fallen on her hands and knees.

When the girl started to get up, Shining realized who it was. And so did a few other people, such as the version of his sister and Sunset Shimmer.

"Lyra Heartstrings?"

However, only Shining Armor had something more to say after that.

"By the authority granted to me by Isperia's Edicts and the Revised Guildpact, you are under arrest for unregistered elective bio-augmentation. You have fifteen seconds to surrender peacefully before you will be forcibly detained."

In response, Lyra faced Sunset Shimmer and yelled, "I request asylum!"

At that, Sunset could only respond with, "What."

While her girlfriend was indisposed with confusion, Twilight Sparkle took the lead.

"Shining, Lyra, we can discuss asylum after you tell us how you got past customs. But thank you for getting Indigo Zap back to us."

For that, Shining had something like an answer. "Well, we got here by a portal made by my sister, which, if you're anything like her, already explains a lot. I just came to make sure we had the right place, pick up the scout," At this, he pointed towards the mechanical dog that had sat right beside the portal, before finishing his sentence, "And leave. Then she arrived," This time, he pointed at Lyra, and made a guess. "Which I am now suspecting was intentional!"

After being pointed at and accused, Lyra decided to make a statement. "Well, why don't you go back and talk to your sister? Wouldn't want to be trapped now, would you, Arrester?"

And the actual situation he got himself in made itself clear to Shining. "Damn it! You... Her... I'll be back!", and so, Shining Armor ran for the portal, picking up the dog and leaping though. Soon after, the portal shut off.

All thoughout that, Twilight and Sunset were thinking, which ended in Sunset extending her right hand and saying, "Okay, you want asylum? Take my hand."

Lyra took the hand with her own right hand, and both Sunset and Lyra teleported away, while a new instance of Sunset arrived beside Twilight, so she could go to class.

...

A few minutes later, in in ETSAB Agent Heartstrings's office, a.k.a a spacial fold in Canterlot High's gym closet, two versions of Lyra Heartstrings were meeting, both not native to the universe they were in, brought together by the not-a-god that held their current universe together, Sunset Shimmer.

Agent Heartstrings was just there to observe and record the interrogation so the ETSAB could learn more about what lay beyond Equestrian probablity space, as Indigo had gone somewhere untrackable by any of their resources.

After everyone got seated, Sunset and the Agent behind the Agent's desk, and the new Lyra in front of it, the interrogation began, with Sunset asking a question.

"So, you said you wanted asylum. Why? What's so bad that you would jump in a portal and... Oh, you wanted to be a human, didn't you?"

Lyra chewed her lip in thought, before deciding what to say. But Agent Heartstrings decided to speed things along.

"It's okay, Lyra, every Lyra wants to be a human. If we can't find a place for you here, we can take you back home, as a human, but if you don't tell us what happened, we have to send you back, so it really is in your best interest to explain."

Lyra took a deep, calming breath before starting her story.

"Okay, okay, so, I'm basically the best at pony hybridization, and my Twilight, she wanted to become part-dragon, so I did it, but my guild would've sanctioned me if they knew, so I asked her to keep it quiet for a year, help her with some illusions, even. But what does she do? She throws a damn party! I was stuck hiding in her lab for the last. Three. Months!"

Lyra takes another calming breath, and finishes her tale.

"Then your Indigo comes along, talking about other worlds with humans and so on, Twilight comes up with that portal idea, and here we are."

Sunset took a moment to take that in, and came to a conclusion.

"Well, I'm willing to grant your asylum request, if you'll accept the living conditions, which are..."

..................

After the interrogation concluded, it was evening, and Lyra was teleported to her new accommodations, along with a plan that included purchasing personal items and an introduction to her new high school, Canterlot High.

And as she looked at her room in the Housing and Enrichment Location for MinorS, or HELMS for short, she took a good hard look at what she'd gotten herself into.

There weren't many residents at HELMS, but everyone else was clearly some kind of science experiment, such as the human-sized green humanoid rats. When she was told that all their creators were imprisoned, it was easy to see that this wasn't out of the kindness of Sunset's heart, but a warning.

Make new life, and we'll put you in prison too.

Lyra started to wish she wasn't so obsessed with humans, as facing the Council of Speakers again would've been better than this life of being unable to fully express her talent for fear of imprisonment.

But she made her bed, now she had to lie in it, and at least, she was lying in it as a human.

While lying in bed, she fell into a habit formed from living with Twilight Sparkle for three months. The habit of making checklists and thinking things through. As a new arrival to the universe, nothing was tying her down, so she could just return to Ravnica and face the Council. She got what she wanted! She was fully human now!

However, learning from Twilight Sparkle also meant learning that, when you need to operate at peak performance, but lack access to magical stimulants, proper bedrest was the most important thing, so Lyra wanted to start on that, as she would be just as free to return to Ravnica in the morning.

Author's Note:

RoboCop Shining Armor Inspiration. Hewing to the picture a bit more than FOME did, due to the more modern technology available.

He would be less RoboCop, but Twilight wanted to strap monitoring equipment and such to him.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

A compound sequel? Can't say I was expecting that.

When a robotic dog came out of it, right when the students were arriving in the morning, almost everyone gave it a second glance, along with third, fourth, and fifth glances, since while it looked sort of like Spike, Twilight Sparkle's dragon-turned dog, everyone knew that he was made of flesh and blood, while this construct only approximated an animal's appearance.

This is a textbook example of wanton cruelty to the common comma.

It is not at all clear from context that "CopBot" is meant to be the local equivalent of Robocop. The rationale for Ravnican Shining looking more like something out of Kaladesh really needs to be in the text.

I'm sorry, but this is a mess. I could barely tell what was happening, and I wrote every story this leans on. There needs to be more lead-up, a clearer indication that this is the Oversaturated World early in the actual text, and... well, just more in general. So much happens with inadequate or completely missing explanations, and inadequately or completely lacking further exploration. Especially everything having to do with Indigo.

All told, your krasis hasn't fully gestated. It's still grafted onto its predecessors and unable to survive out of the incubation pod. Full standalone stories are held to a higher standard than Group Precipitation shorts, Malandy. I'm glad to see you branch out into longer-form fiction, but it needs more development time than what you've given it. Still, thank you for entering the contest. I hope this will be a valuable learning experience for you.

[SirNotAppearingInThisFic]

Too much is happening in too little space; this is hard to follow. And you've gotta tread carefully with the previously-established universes. I've read Oversaturation, but it was a while ago. I also don't know very much about Ravnica beyond the broad strokes. I have many questions about what's going on and nary an answer, at least to the ones I have.

For future endeavors, I'd recommend sticking with less complexity, at least until you know you've got the hang of supporting your ideas and getting them across to your audience clearly.