Bronygeddon

by pjabrony

Chapter 4

Lisa looked at her calendar. It was Sunday. She briefly wondered if Equestrians went to church on Sundays, and if she would be welcome. Then she chastised herself for being so silly. There was no need to sing praise to somepony in the sky when you knew exactly where she lived. If a pony wanted to talk to Celestia, they just sent a letter to Canterlot.

Her eye came to rest on the basketball in the corner. How long was it, she wondered, since she’d practiced? She picked it up and dribbled a few times. She hadn’t found any more friends who were interested in the game, and Olivia hadn’t had time to play at all.

She thought about walking over to her and seeing if she was free, then remembered that she was busy with some other friends on some project. She set the basketball down and let it roll to the corner.

There was no getting around it. Lisa was bored.

Her invention of melted wood had been a huge burst for her. Ponies and humans alike had thanked her and shown their gratitude in material ways as well. Steady deliveries of food and supplies were made to her house, which itself was larger and more comfortable than the average. And she had enjoyed it at first. She had spent endless hours organizing her house, sleeping in, and generally having the fun of not working. When that paled, she started walking around Humantown, looking for things to do to help.

The reactions were less than appreciative. It seemed to Lisa that people were quite willing to set her up as a lady of leisure, but when she wanted to work, they were abrasive. Sure, she wasn’t as hard a worker as everyone else, but she tried. Wasn’t that what was important? Wasn’t that better than sitting alone and just watching others work?

She figured it out soon enough. She was a reminder. Even though she wanted to help, she didn’t have to. Other humans worked their farms and their shops because they needed the bits. She did it as a hobby. That was too much to expect people to put up with.

She paced the house in her boredom. A melted-wood chair with a donated cushion faced a melted-wood bookcase. There were a few books there that she had borrowed from the library.

It amused Lisa to think of how easy it had been to give up electronic content. No TV, no Internet, not even a radio. The books were there, and without distractions she had been able to quickly master the written Equestrian language. Being bilingual before she came to Equestria had helped. She sat in the chair and floated a book over.

She had asked Twilight once why the language looked like English through a mirror, or with some parts of letters altered. She had explained that Equestrian characters were based on runes, the language of magic, which was as universal—or multiversal, Lisa thought—as the laws of mathematics. The spoken language of ponies was based on it, making it easy for humans to understand when they spoke. When humans spoke to ponies, they had to do a little mental translation, but they had made the effort.

With her hands aglow, Lisa flipped through to the section she liked. It was an adventure story, a tale of a brave unicorn mare rescuing beautiful stallions from rampaging dragons, but in one part the mare travels to an obscure village and uses her magic to get rid of a plague. The villagers are so appreciative. Lisa had nearly worn the paper out by rereading it. That day, she wasn’t being entertained. The boredom was too deep.

She floated the book up and snapped it closed. She had made her decision. She floated over her jacket and magically fastened it around her. She grabbed a few more books and made a stack of them. With the stack in magical tow, she walked to the library.

She let the books rest on nothing as she knocked at the door.

“Hi, Lisa,” said Twilight, letting her in. “What brings you round? Nopony’s returned any more Daring Do books, so unless you want to read the first one for the fourth time. . .”

“No, thanks. What I’m really looking for is somepony to talk to. Are you free?”

Twilight looked over at her desk laden with work. “Well, I’m sure I can spare you a few minutes.”

“Great. I’ve just been feeling so useless lately.”

“Useless? But you’re a great mage! You came up with a spell that no unicorn had, and everyone’s homes were built on that.”

Lisa sighed and smiled. “Yes, but it’s different here. I mean, everyone on Earth dreams of making something that everyone wants, but to actually do it. . . ”

“How is it different? You have inventions on Earth?”

“Of course.”

“Then what would happen had you made melted wood there?” asked Twilight.

“Well, to start with, it would probably be MeltyWood, with a little TM at the end. I’d incorporate, have a lot of paperwork to do, and sell it to everyone. I’d have people to tell me how best to market it, and we’d do lots of environmental studies to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. And after I got popular enough, some big outfit like Home Depot or Lowe’s would buy out my company and raise the price while I went on my way.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It would be,” said Lisa. “But at least I wouldn’t be so bored.”

“Well, there’s plenty to do around here.” Twilight started walking toward her desk.

“I know, and studying’s nice, but I have to have a reason to do so. I’m not like you. I can’t just read to fill up my head.”

Twilight looked at Lisa and thought about how to help. “Your problem is that you had success too soon. I went through something similar when I first began working with Princess Celestia. But she taught me that you always have to keep pushing yourself and finding a new challenge.”

“Yes, but what?”

“Well, I’m sorry if this sounds cruel, but you made one spell. What have you done since? Make another, and then another.”

Lisa slapped her palm with her fist. “No, I’ll go beyond that! I’ll figure out what’s at the heart of magic so that everyone can understand it. I’ll discover the. . . the Grand Unified Theory of Magic!”

“Whoa, now. Hang on. It’s possible to go too far the other way.”

“No, no. This is perfect. Do you have books on magical theory? You’ve got to, I’m sure.”

Twilight tried to restrain the rampaging human in her library, but Lisa was undaunted, tearing around different sections looking at titles, and floating a few into a new pile. When she had had enough, Twilight magically restrained Lisa and sat her down.

“OK, wait just a minute. If you want to do research, that’s fine. But you’ve got to be organized and methodical about it.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I just got a little excited.”

“Also, you’re going to need more than books,” said Twilight.

“You’re right. I’m going to need pen and paper.”

“I’ll give you a few scrolls and a quill, but beyond—“

Lisa waved her hand. “Don’t worry about that. There’s an advantage to having provided a service to the community. People and ponies willing to help you out.”

“Yes, I’m sure. But what I really meant is that you need a plan. You have to set out goals and then a series of stages of how you’re going to meet them.”

“Right. As I see it, if I’ve come up with one spell, then the first thing I need to do is to come up with another. Then take one that some unicorn has created and compare the similarities and differences between the two. Twilight, you’ve got to have some cool spells, right?”

Twilight put her hoof to her chin. “Well, I suppose I’m best known for the self-teleportation spell.”

“That’s it. See, when I first started using magic, my friend Olivia—you’ve met her?—did object teleportation by just moving the thing really fast. But you can jump yourself without running at all, so if I can figure out how to do that, then I’ll have a control spell to compare and do experiments with.” Lisa started walking out of the library, still talking. Twilight shut the door behind her. “But what I have to do before that is to. . . “

A few hours later, Lisa’s happy mood had soured. She had organized all her materials and plans, but was now lost and had no idea how to proceed.

“It’s all well to say that I want to make a new spell, but how do I do it?”

She thought about the time she made her last spell, sitting in the wood wishing that there were an easier way to build. Then, there had been a coherent need. Here, everything was vaguer.

Lisa woke up the next morning still at her desk, a thin trickle of drool on her scroll. “Ugh. Too easily distracted. I’ll never get anywhere if I can’t stay focused.”

The morning was no more productive as she first procrastinated by making breakfast, then by washing up, then by cleaning the house. “All right, I can’t do this. I’ll just have to go back to the library and try something else.”

As she left, happy to at least get out of the house, she racked her brain to think of a new angle. By the time she was at Twilight’s, she had something to ask for.

“I want to make sure,” she said, “that I’m not duplicating anypony else’s work. Maybe there’s a lead in Equestria’s history. Do you have any books that were written from the perspective of unicorns?”

Twilight climbed the rolling ladder and floated out a few titles. “These were all written by unicorns, though I don’t think they’re as specific as what you’re looking for.”

“Hmm. I may have to wind up writing one myself.”

“What’s on your mind?”

Lisa looked at the books, then out the window. She paused to choose her words carefully. “All of the books I’ve read—and it’s what Rarity has been talking about at her classes also—have looked at magic from an internal perspective. How to think and how to control your power. It makes it sound like training, and frankly, it’s less fun. As I see it, there have got to be some shortcuts.”

“There’s no shortcut to proper learning,” said Twilight in the lecturing tone she sometimes adopted.

“Yes, but there might be to what you’re learning. If we could get at the theory I’m after, really powerful spells might be possible. What we really need is a new classification of magic based, not on what you do, but on what it does for you.”

With her new stack of books, Lisa went home to try again. As she shut the door behind her, the sound brought Spike, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, to full awareness. “What’s her deal?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Twilight. “She’s found her way to a new world, but she’s still searching for something.”

Lisa pored over the new books she had borrowed, cross-referencing two and making notes on a scroll. She was struggling not to admit that the historical angle was something of a bust.

“Why can’t ponies aggrandize their history like normal people? There’s almost no record of good old days. Everything was barbaric, and all these books are about how much better its going to be for the foals of the next generation. Where are the hidden secrets of the past for me to exploit?”

She looked at the quill and the scroll. They would be anachronisms on Earth, but were still in use here. Why hadn’t ponies adopted the loose-leaf? The quill pen she could understand. There were enough birds around willing to part with a feather at need, and it made no sense to waste metal. Idly she directed the pen to copy out another unpromising anecdote.

It brought back a memory. A test in school, one she had studied for and not needed to. She had barely needed her brain to fill in the blanks on the history test, and had wished that she could just stand her pencil up and let it write for her so that she could go have fun. It was exactly the same thing here.

“But it’s not really,” she said out loud. She grabbed the quill with her hand, breaking the spell and flipped over the scroll. As good as her memory for facts was, she needed to write when she was thinking out an idea.

“There’s an actual difference between directing the quill to copy something already written, and to write something new, or even something that’s known but not written down. But suppose I could go even further and craft a spell to make it write down a complete unknown, like who really killed Kennedy or something. It might be impossible, but it would be a benchmark, and that’s what I’m looking for.”

Lisa was ready to jump up and run back to Twilight with her discovery, but held up. “It’s even odds that I’m wrong, or that this has already been looked at and rejected. For that matter, she might say, ‘Of course that’s so. Unicorns know that without being told.’ Well, she wouldn’t say that. She’d be nicer. But I’ll complete it anyway, because at least I’ll have something to be wrong with.”

The second setback was worse than the first. She was still stuck as to how to actually create the spell. “If I actually had the theory I was looking for, I could do this.”

She made her hands glow and picked up the quill. “Come on, write the answer for me.” But the quill just hovered over the scroll. “I guess it was just too much to hope for. It’s such a shame. I’ve got magic, the thing that everyone on Earth is looking for all their life, and I’ve still got problems. It’s not fair.”

After a few hours of this, the scroll still had nothing on it but a couple of random doodles and half-formed formulae. She chuckled and said, “Well, now I need a new scroll. I said I’m sure I could get them.” She went into Ponyville.

Looking around for a shop that would sell them, Lisa’s eye was caught by the curio shop. Luke was outside drumming in customers. A throng of ponies and a few humans were poking their heads in and occasionally reaching for their wallets.

“Hey there!” he said to Lisa. “You in the market for something? I’ll give you a discount.”

“Just need some scrolls. Do you have that?”

“Oh, sure. In the back. I don’t sell many to Equestrians but I always bring them to Earth with me to exchange there. Hang on.”

He came back out a few moments later with a bag full of scrolls. “I’ll take dollars for them if you don’t have bits,” Luke said.

“Actually, yeah. They’ve been burning a hole in my pocket ever since I got here. Wait, you go back to Earth?”

“Sure, all the time. Lots of humans do. You didn’t know?”

Lisa scratched the back of her head. “I’ve been kind of cooped up in the house for a while. Working on a project.”

“Mmhm. Well, yeah, the Gates are always running.”

Lisa thought about that. When she had been through the Gate, it was just to check in by phone with her parents, to let them know that she was all right. But to make a visit was something she hadn’t considered. Even then she was skeptical. What exactly would she do?

As she opened the door to her house the light bulb over her head went on. “Wait a minute! I’ve got a project that I don’t know the next step on, and a visit to Earth that I don’t have a purpose for. These cancel each other out!”

She started packing immediately.

At the Gate, Twilight was waiting for Lisa. “How did you know I was coming here to travel to Earth? Do you have some kind of mind-reading spell?”

Twilight tilted her head. “No, you just talk to yourself too much. Spike was walking by your house on an errand when he heard you say that you were going to Earth, and he mentioned it to me. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you to be careful and to wish you good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s your plan?”

“I thought more about that,” said Lisa. “I want to go to a library there and do some research. Not that your library isn’t well-stocked, but—“

“Of course I don’t have any human books.”

“Or periodicals, which is what I’m looking for. You see, magic here is a lot like science on Earth, in that it’s what our economies and culture is built on. But there’s a difference. I can’t quite put my finger on it, and that’s what I want to work on. I think if I can get a handle on the differences between science and magic, I’ll be getting somewhere.”

Twilight put a hoof on her shoulder. “Well, I hope it works out for you.”

“Thanks. I’ve been down enough blind alleys lately.” She stepped through the Gate.

The library in New York was not like Lisa’s hometown branch, which was closer to the homey charm that Twilight’s treehouse had. It was large and sectioned, but she was able to locate the periodical section quickly enough. She started hunting at random when a young man in glasses came over to her.

“Is there anything specific you’re looking for?”

“Science articles. General science, nothing specific, more like state-of-the-industry publications.”

“OK, I think I can help with that.” He walked her over to a back room where a lot of dusty stacks were kept. Lisa suddenly felt nervous, and a moment later realized why. This was the first time in months that she had been alone with a non-brony human, and a male to boot. He hadn’t done anything threatening, but she was reluctant to use magic around him.

She sat at a cubicle and made notes. It was annoying having to grip the pen with her hands and write it, and progress was slower than she anticipated, but it was getting done. She felt as if, at any time, a breakthrough would come and her tension would be relieved.

The library was nearly empty. As she stretched and went to the water fountain, she wondered why that was. It was a Saturday, and in her experience libraries were usually packed then, but she only saw a few old folks, and they weren’t talking to each other. She thought about magically holding down the button for the water fountain, but saw the young librarian eyeing her.

When she sat back down, she looked at her reading pile. It had dwindled to about half, and an old black and white magazine was sticking out at an odd angle. After checking to make sure no one was looking, she made her hand glow and slid it out from underneath. It was turned to a page with an article about the space program.

Two ideas hit her at once, and she knocked over the stack that she had already finished, barely catching it with her magic.

Lisa was writing furiously, using both her hand and magic. The hand was writing in Equestrian runes; it was the formula for a spell. The magic was writing in plain English; it was an essay. Lisa read it out loud as she wrote.

“The shift in the use of science—a subtle shift, so much so that no one noticed—was not in its method or purposes but in its attitude. Before the shift, science spoke of a wonderful technological future for mankind, a world of gleaming metal and plastic, homes in space or under the sea, unlimited energy and unlimited luxury. Now it speaks of nothing but the risks the world has to mankind and how most of our problems are our fault.”

She didn’t know whether she was writing the essay for her own clarification or to explain it to others.

“Both the popular press and the scientific journals are filled with articles about how are diets are wrong, our environments are killing us, the things we enjoy are poison. And that’s only the physical sciences. The social sciences are even more accusatory, If one were to believe those journals, every single human being is the victim of some neurosis, psychosis, or addiction.”

She took her focus off the essay for a moment to look at her runes. The spell was working the same idea from the other end. She planned to have them meet in the middle like the transcontinental railroad.

“The cumulative effect of all of this is to get us to expect disappointment, convince us that things won’t get better, and when we suffer, to accept it without complaint. Such a goal might be noble except for two drawbacks. One: it makes it more likely that we will suffer. Two: on the chance that we don’t, it blunts our enjoyment of what we do achieve. Science brings a world of miracles, but convinces us that there are none.”

The spell itself was complete, and she was mentally translating it from the runic language to what she actually needed to cast it. She realized that she needed someone else to test it with, and started packing up to return to Equestria.

“The other horn of the dilemma would be to eschew science and technology, and many people on Earth do exactly that, with no better result. Rejecting the blessings of science only brings accusations comparable to those of heresy in ages past. There must be a third way to deal with the problem. Whether it can work for those on Earth, I cannot say, but for Equestrians, particularly unicorns and magical bronies. . . “

From behind her, she heard a voice. “Hey, it looks like you’ve got things coming along, so—“

It was the young librarian. Lisa turned her back and let go the quill, but she could tell from his expression that he had seen it glowing and writing on its own. “Um, yeah,” she said, “Yeah, I’ve actually got something good. Thanks for your help. I’ll start putting everything back in a few minutes.”

“Don’t worry about that, it’s my job.” His voice had a tinge of bitterness to it.

“Look, I hope I didn’t offend you, I know some people don’t like it. In fact, I was just working on—“

He cut her off. “No, if you can do that, it’s none of my business.”

Lisa suddenly decided she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She hastily picked up her essay and other papers and stuffed them into a bag. She gave the librarian one last thank-you and was on her way back to the Gate.

Back in Equestria, Lisa was smiling, not sure if it was because of the enjoyment of discovery, or the discovery itself. She ran straight to the library where she was pleased to find Twilight there alone.

“Hi, Lisa. How was Earth?”

“Great, just wonderful. Well, I don’t know how they’re doing there, but it was great for me. I got it.”

Twilight was skeptical. “The Grand Unified Theory of Magic? Already?”

“Huh? No, I don’t have that. Maybe eventually, because I did come up with another spell, and I can do those experiments we talked about, but maybe I don’t have to. What I found was the answer to my boredom.”

“OK, I’ll bite, what is it?”

Lisa looked around. “Pick up one of those books, hold it up.”

Twilight shrugged and made her horn glow. A thick textbook floated up from Twilight’s desk and stayed there. Lisa concentrated her own power and held out her hands. Like a candle flickering out in a vacuum, the purple glow of Twilight’s horn faded out into nothing and the book dropped to the desk with a clatter.

“What did you do?!” said Twilight.

“I made a magic suppression spell.”

“Please tell me you can reverse it!”

“Oh, it shouldn’t last long,” said Lisa. “Five minutes at most. I can scale it up to maybe an hour, but that should be enough. You see, what I figured out was that it wasn’t about theories or universal concepts. It’s about me. I’m the only one who can make myself happy. When I first learned to use my magic, it was the best time for me. Now that it’s commonplace, I didn’t enjoy it as much. But if I had to spend an hour a week as a normal human being, then go back to being magical, well, that should let me rediscover the thrill of magic again and again, and never be bored, at least not to the point where I’m depressed.”

Twilight was poking at her horn. “Well, if I had used this during Winter Wrap-up, things might have gone a little better, but I don’t know that it would be all that useful.”

“Oh, come on. Think back to when you first turned a page in a book with magic. How did it make you feel?”

Twilight looked down to her right and was silent for a few moments. Then she said, “Maybe I would like the hour-long version. Just to try it.”

Lisa smiled. “Are you sure? I mean, I do still have my hands, but you might be a little helpless.”

“No more so than a young earth pony. Actually, show me how you do the spell. I’m always interested in seeing how another mage designs something.”

“I wrote it down. Hang on.” Lisa opened her bag and poked through. “Oh, here’s the essay I wrote when I had my revelation. Might make for some interesting reading. Here we go, no wait, that’s not it. Hmm. . . I can’t seem to find it. I’ll just show you how it’s done.”

Lisa and Twilight delved into a technical conversation that no non-magical pony or human, and only a few egghead-type magical bronies or unicorns, could understand. Twilight, being particularly adept, picked up the spell quickly and the two of them recreated the runic version. Lisa got ready to go.

“Listen,” she said as she walked out the door. “I really have you to thank for this. Not just for this, but for bringing us all to Equestria. Heck, I need to thank you for just existing. If it weren’t for you, at best I’d be a regular human, and at worst I’d be just some bullied kid.”

“Don’t mention it. But you’re wrong. There’s greatness inside of you, I know. Someday you’ll be sure of it yourself.”

Comments

[Mossy Mare]

Uh oh.
If that bitter librarian has it, and humans manage to figure out how to suppress magic on a large scale...
Well, let's just say that Amon and the Equalists would be the best case scenario.

[LazerFace]

I am certain that a missing magic suppression spell will never have any negative consequences, ever. EVER.

[donceluzza]

Impressive, I particularly like how you built up the people disliking enhanced humans bit. Overall feels very real, definitely tracking.

[RedvsBlue327]

THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THIS CAN GO WRONG.

[Griseus]

Attitude shift... surprised no questioned if this was a subconscious result of events or a directed action of some people's results.

[chrismonteith]

nice

[DrZed]

A missing magic suppression spell? checkov's gun anyone?