Planar Parallax

by Kaelzoroden

Bumpy Landing

“So Twi, ya'll wanna run this through one more time for us?”

The six ponies had gathered together in the basement of the library, where a spiderweb of runes and glowing spell lines blanketed the floor, the walls and a substantial portion of the ceiling. Smiling broadly, Twilight slipped seamlessly into lecture mode.

“In theory it's quite simple. Picture our world, our universe, everything that makes up our reality as a sheet of parchment.” Her horn lighting up, she slipped a piece of paper in front of her, laying flat in the air. “In this model, we regard each separate reality as it's own distinct 'plane'.” Several more pieces of parchment floated up into the air, taking up position at seemingly random points within a short distance of her example sheet.

“We don't currently know how many 'planes' there are, but the number of known ones continues to grow. Now, planes don't simply sit in place and exist, they move and drift, a little like leaves in a breeze.” Keeping pace with her explanation, the sheets of parchment began to start slowly moving around, some coming near each other while some were left in a void. “When two planes come near each other, they start to influence each other. This can manifest as strange weather, strange magic, or in some cases, strange creatures.” Some of the sheets drifted towards the first sheet she had held up, the edges touching or overlapping at some points. “Most of the time, the effects are small enough that they aren't felt. This time however, the Royal Orrery has reason to believe that we're in for a pretty dangerous alignment.”

Many sheets of parchment began to drift towards the one Twilight had been using as her primary example, until the original page was completely obscured by the pages around it. It was nearly as thick as a slim book.

“As well as coming into alignment with many more planes than normal, there are signs that some of these planes are home to particularly violent beings. The recent trouble with Diamond Dogs to the East is, from what we know, due in part to this alignment. Just like there are some alignments that seem to make Unicorn magic stronger or Earth Pony crops more responsive, whatever we're coming into alignment with is making the Diamond Dogs way more violent, organized and strong than they normally are. That brings us to why I called you all here.”

Telekinetically straightening out the parchment, she deftly set it back down on the stack she had taken it from. Still in total exposition mode, Twilight turned to face the the blanket of spells and runework that covered her basement. “The problem is that we just don't have the forces to repel a massed attack from the Diamond Dogs. They've always outnumbered us, but they've always fought between themselves too much to be any real sort of threat. Whatever is coming into alignment is changing that though, and Princess Celestia is worried that they might manage a coordinated attack on Equestria. To defend against that we need a weapon, and a weapon is exactly what I'm going to get us!”

She began to get enthused, her passion for magic seeping into her speech as she began to gesture to swaths of spellwork. "We're going to summon some...thing from another plane! Something with parameters! Here, see these symbols? Whatever we summon, it's going to be clever!” she swept a hoof to indicate another segment, to the untrained eye hardly different from the first. “It will be resourceful! It will be inclined to get along with Pony folk! It will be familiar with combat, and adaptable to new situations!” She turned to face her slightly recoiling friends, her mane slightly askew while she panted lightly to catch her breath from getting worked up.

“I am going to summon us a champion!”

~~~~~~~~

It had been a pretty long day for you.

Classes were classes after all, but this schedule felt like it was going to be the death of you. You had what people called a 'scheduling doughnut', where you had morning class and night class but nothing in between. This was only really annoying because you lived too far away to go home between classes, meaning that you had to be down there by eight in the morning for your first class and you didn't get home until well past eleven at night.

As you open the door to your shared apartment- unlocked, as was the norm when any of your less than ideal roommates were home- all you can think about is just going to bed and blacking out. You can't help but grumble a little as you hang up your coat though, you seemed to be the only one that actually turned off the lights when you left a room. Leaving the living room in darkness, you walked down the hall to your cluttered room.

“FUCK! NO FUCKIN' WAY, THAT'S BULLSHIT! THIS IS-” You grimace as you pass by the room next to yours, home of one of the angriest gamers you had ever met. The rage was a constant thing with him, and living with it was just another thing you wish you had never needed to get used to. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself, you tried to ignore the bellowed invective and just tunnel-vision your way to bed, finally flopping down without so much as bothering to change.

~

Two hours. Two. Dos. Zwei. You had been fighting a losing battle to get to sleep for, according to the clock, a total of one-hundred and twenty minutes. Every time you thought you were going to finally slip off, he would yell something. He would slam his desk. He would lean back in that profoundly squeaky chair. He would do something invariably loud and abrupt and often crude, and it would wrench you back out of sleep. You had tried everything by now, you were getting quite sick of it. You must have asked him to be quiet like five times by now, and it was just getting stupid. Laying there in the dark, you swore to yourself. One more time, if he made one more sound, then by-

*WHIRR-THUMP*

Alright, you legitimately have no idea how he made that sound, some sort of cross between a lightsaber being drop-kicked down a flight of stairs and someone playing hacky-sack with a halibut. This late at night, you didn't really care either. Anyone else you would have forgiven. Anyone else, at any other time, you would have let it go. Sadly, it was him, and it was now. Rolling over and not bothering to open your eyes, you took a deep breath and roared as loud as you were able:

“IF YOU WAKE ME UP ONE MORE TIME, I'M GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!” in quite a mood, you braced yourself for him to continue being loud. To your surprise and slight relief, you didn't hear another peep from him. Smiling, you snuggled deeper under the blankets, blissfully unaware that neither you nor your bed were no longer located in your room, and not noticing the six brightly coloured and utterly terrified equines slowly creeping up the set of earthen stairs and leaving you alone.

Author's Note:

So this is still in its super early stages. I would hugely appreciate feedback on this, I can fix things quicker if people point them out to me!

Comments

[Kitche Vadimas]

That ending.

[Red_Velvet]

Bravo, humorous and well written.