MLP Loops 205
205.1
"Well," Twilight said, flaring her newly acquired wings a little, then lowering them. "That was... quite an experience."
It was. Even after so long, after so many repetitions of the very same events... doing a near-baseline run of her first ascension into Princess Twilight still brought a tear to her eye and a spring to her step, and the just-concluded coronation was the same.
"Indeed it was," Princess Celestia said with a gentle smile. "I am prouder of you than I can express, Twilight."
"As am I, too!" Princess Luna agreed, somewhat louder. "I am gratified to see my student has achieved the mantle of alicorn."
Celestia turned to her, with a chuckle. "Your student, Luna? That's quite a strange thing to say, if you don't mind my saying."
"I taught her how to use dark magic safely," Luna said. "That makes her my student as well."
"I think that most ponies would consider Twilight to have been my student alone," Celestia riposted, still enjoying the game. "It's who taught her most and last."
"Oh?" Luna asked. "It is, is it?"
She turned her attention to Princess Cadence, visiting with her husband for the coronation. "The moon's regolith is largely composed of basalt."
"I never knew that!" Cadence said brightly.
"There," Luna declared. "I have taught an alicorn, and you have taught an alicorn. We are even."
Celestia blinked. "I'm... not sure that counts," she said dubiously. "Cadence was already an alicorn."
"Very well, then!" Luna said, more loudly this time. "If it is that a pony must become an alicorn after becoming my student, then we shall see about that!"
She pointed at Shining Armor. "My newest student, the speed of sound is different at altitude for the air is thinner!"
Celestia took a startled step back as Shining exploded with light, then stared as the fading glow revealed that the former-unicorn stallion was now equipped with a pair of snowy wings.
Luna turned her attention to the other Elements, one at a time. "My new students! Cephid-variable stars are part of a giant puzzle in the skies to find a prize I hid before my banishment, and nopony has worked it out yet!"
As five more flashes of brilliant light marked the winging and enhornification (as appropriate) of five more alicorns, Celestia's jaw slowly dropped.
"I have more trivia to teach!" Luna said loudly. "The stone was once defined as a fraction of my mass, so I dieted to make it appear that Celestia was gaining weight! Captain More Gin was arrested for drunk sailing seven times – once in each sea – before finally inventing rum! And no map requires more than four colours to paint, assuming there are no exclaves!"
Blast of light after blast of light filled the annex, to Celestia's increasing bemusement - the fillies who'd bone the train of Twilight's dress, the local mayor, a nearby Zebra shaman, a dubstep-wielding unicorn who'd been physically restrained from providing the music and a blue-maned unicorn who Celestia vaguely remembered to have been the focus of a Friendship Letter some time ago.
"Luna, what... what?" Celestia tried. "...is that filly a draconequus now?"
"And, for the bonus round," Luna finished. "I am sometimes overly competitive!"
With a faint bang, a miniature version of Luna with a darker coat appeared next to Celestia.
"Hey, I never knew that!" called a griffin from across the antechamber. "Amazing the things you overhear!"
"Yeah," the griffin's tail agreed. "Almost proverbial, really."
Celestia's gaze went from the ascended griffin, to the chibi-Luna smiling up at her, to the room that was now almost entirely full of alicorns.
Aside from Spike – who was wearing a tux, so might have just sprouted wings – the only unascended pony in the entire room was a green-maned black mare accompanying the magician.
Several emotions warred on Celestia's muzzle, but after a few seconds she decided on what she was going to go with.
"I see we will have to start buying ascension cake in bulk," she decided.
"Pay up," Twilight whispered.
Luna did so, passing over a half-dozen bits. "How did you know?"
"You gave her too long to react. She's still over a thousand years old, loop or no loop..."
205.2
“….aaaAAAAH!”
Twilight blinked, looking up from her work. “That was… odd...”
She put a bookmark in the book she was reading, and looked over at the pod to her right. “Everything okay?”
The Twilight-Sparkle-shaped changeling in the pod nodded.
“Glad to hear it. Thanks for taking my place for this whole 'the baseline says I get captured' thing.”
Another nod.
“Any idea what that shout was?”
The Twiling shook her head, looking disappointed, and Twilight smiled. “That's okay. I was just hoping you knew.”
There was a brilliant green flash of light.
Zecora looked up from her potion pot. “I wonder who might visit me, in my home 'neath a shady tree.”
“Zecora!” said a familiar voice, and Zecora tilted her head slightly.
“Chrysalis? What is this?”
“Enough with the rhyming, I am not in the mood for it!” Chrysalis replied, then took a deep breath. Zecora got halfway through composing a rhyme about rhyming, but before she was done Chrysalis spoke up again. “Okay, so… here's how this is going to work. I am going to step out into the open so you can see what the problem is, and then you are going to give me your best possible solution.”
The Changeling Queen's tone became just a little pleading. “You've done lots of this fix-problems-throughout-the-multiverse stuff, right? I did remember you're Awake today?”
“I am a looper, that is true. Let me see what is wrong with you,” Zecora told her. “Though, if I remember right, you had an appointment tonight.”
“That's part of the problem,” Chrysalis said. “Or it might be… anyway, look.”
Zecora watched as Chrysalis slowly trotted into view.
The sight was not what she had expected.
Chrysalis was still basically the same, at least in her body form – a definite insectile cast to her abdomen, a long tail and mane with a look different from that of a normal pony, a set of insectile wings and a slightly curved horn… but beyond that simple set of broad facts, everything else was entirely different.
Rather than the harsh black and sinister turquoise which had made up Chrysalis' colouration the last time Zecora had seen her, the Queen of the Changelings had a body that shaded from spring green at her hooves to a much more neon-green colour at the top of her legs. Her belly itself was a dark blue, and from her neck on up was a yellowy-orange which didn't stick to a single colour but got yellower and yellower the higher it reached.
Her mane's design had changed, becoming longer and curled, and the only thing Zecora could think to apply to the colour was that it had somehow become a neon teal. Two antlers rose out of it either side of her horn, serrated a little on the inner edges and curved to form the vague shape of a heart, and Zecora was fairly sure the ears were longer and somehow perkier as well.
Her wings were thin and gossamer, with a pink leading edge and three little pink hearts on each one, and another trio of pink markings graced her peytral as well. Her tail was much the same as her wings, though lacking the hearts, and was currently twitching back and forth in an almost feline gesture of irritation.
She was also totally lacking in holes, anywhere in the assemblage, which looked more than a little odd after so long knowing the changeling.
“Please tell me you can fix this,” Chrysalis said flatly.
“While I would not belittle your dysphoria,” Zecora began delicately, “I feel like this way ponies will want more of you.”
Chrysalis buzzed her wings in irritation, which didn't seem to help her mood. “That wasn't even a good rhyme.”
Zecora shrugged.
“And – and – I look like a neon moose or something,” Chrysalis added, stamping a hoof. “Don't you have a potion to fix something like this?”
“I do not have a fix for 'this', unless I can tell what 'this' is,” the Zebra told her.
There was a brilliant flash of stippled white-black light and Zecora transitioned to alicorn. “What was it you were doing, when this new form was brewing?”
“Well, I – okay, so I was trying to do this thing baseline,” Chrysalis explained. “Twilight told me what my role was, what my lines were, all that kind of stuff… kind of annoying really some of the stuff that turned up, but I thought it was always good to do something baseline the first time you run into it – unless it's really bad, just for the memories. Kind of annoying now that this is what's settled down to baseline, I could have had a lot of fun messing with that anti-magic chair...”
The Queen shook her head. “That doesn't matter! Anyway, so I kidnapped about half the Equestrian government and replaced them with body-doubles – oh, don't look at me like that, there were changelings in the pods too – and then Starlight Glimmer came along with Trixie and Discord and… some others… to sort the whole thing out. It was kind of interesting watching, until this drone Thorax – you've met him, right?”
The zebralicorn confirmed that she had.
“Right, well… some speeches and stuff got said, and I was enjoying hamming it up… right until somepony said something about sharing love instead of taking it, and Thorax did, and then it kind of… got out of control.”
She waved a hoof at herself. “And now...”
The glow shining on Zecora's horn died away.
“Well?” Chrysalis asked. “Did you get anything.”
“I fear I cannot help you this morn, for this is now your new and base form,” Zecora answered. “Unless you want to roll the dice – perhaps Poison Joke might seem quite nice?”
Chrysalis' jaw worked for a long moment, then she vanished in a green teleport.
Zecora shrugged, deciding that she could entirely understand why Chrysalis wasn't feeling a hundred percent right now.
“Please tell me you have some way to reverse this process,” Chrysalis requested.
Big Macintosh considered everything he'd learned through his looping life.
“Nope.”
“Errgh...” Chrysalis groaned. “I knew that was one of the answers I was going to get, but I was hoping it'd be the other one...”
“Gilda!” Chrysalis shouted. “You've got all kinds of weird stuff going on, you must have something you can do to stop this!”
Gilda looked her up and down, then sniggered.
Chrysalis picked her up and shook her. “This isn't the time for that!”
“This is funny because you seem to think I should know what's going on,” Gilda said, still sniggering. “You know I've never seen you before in my life, right?”
Chrysalis stopped mid-shake and put the griffin down.
“...oh, right, not looping,” she said. “Um… forget that?”
The embarrassed royal vanished in another flash of teleportation.
“All right,” Chrysalis said, several hours later, as she landed outside Twilight's comfortable room in the palace. “You win.”
Twilight looked up. “I'm sorry?”
“I said you win!” Chrysalis repeated, lighting her horn and conjuring a set of lights to show her new body and colouration. “You got me with a prank. A good prank. An epic prank. A prank I never expected, because you told me it was baseline, and I assumed that that meant you wouldn't be sneaky about calling things baseline.”
She sighed. “But, whatever. You managed to, uh… rainbow-moose me, or whatever it is this is.”
“Actually… there's a few things I want to correct here,” Twilight said.
She held up a hoof. “Firstly, I was exactly correct about what happened in baseline. I wouldn't lie about something like that. I did leave something out, but that's because I thought you'd get a laugh out of seeing it for the first time.”
She held up a second hoof, her wings beating to keep her stable. “Secondly, when this happened the first time it didn't hit you. It hit Thorax really hard, making him into a Changeling King when all the changelings started sharing their love, and it hit the rest of them enough to… well, you can see.”
Twilight indicated the ruby-red changeling standing patiently in the middle of the room waiting for his medical exam to be finished, then continued. “But it didn't hit a couple of other changelings either, because they didn't get the shared love for one reason or another. So in that light… congratulations, Chryssy, even when you're trying to be as evil as your baseline self you're instinctively nice enough that your subjects want to share with you, and you with them.”
Chrysalis blinked, not really sure how to take that.
“So,” Twilight concluded, landing back on all fours. “I was expecting a fun reveal for you, not to give you a case of magically-induced dysphoria. And I'm sorry about that.”
“Of course you are,” the monarch sighed. “How is this Thorax thing going to work out with the loops?”
“I have no idea!” Twilight replied, with a smile. “And I think it'll be interesting to find out, no matter how it works. But there's one other thing I want to quickly point out.”
“Go ahead,” Chrysalis said. “I'm not sure anything can help redeem the roller-coaster ride today has been.”
“You do remember you can shapeshift, right?”
Chrysalis froze.
“Wait, I didn't lose that?” she asked. “I thought… I didn't…”
She facehoofed. “I am a very silly changeling.”
One flash of green fire, and she was back to her old self. Then she examined herself in the mirror, and tried again – removing the holes.
Again, and she changed her colour palette to something much more wintry – blues and purples, along with touches of black.
“Hmmm...” she said, critically. “Need to think about that. Will this happen every time now the expansion has got here?”
“That's actually what I was confirming,” Twilight reported. “I got scans from two dozen changelings last expansion, this was me testing my conclusions. There'll always be variations, but as far as I can tell this is now your normal baseline biology and name structure; individuals who gain this body type on sharing love, at the very least when catalyzed under the right circumstances – that deserves further testing, by the way.”
“I'm not sure whether to be relieved there is one now or annoyed that this is the one it settled on,” Chrysalis grumbled. “Well, whatever...”
She paused. “Oh, yes. I should probably let Discord know where Fluttershy actually is before he turns me into a dishrag.”
The changeling Twilight was examining raised his hoof. “Should I understand any of this?”
“Depends how much you want to know about what's really going on, Pterostigma,” Twilight assured him. “Oh, by the way, Chrysalis, from what I can tell the changelings have started arguing about their political organization.”
“...started?” Chrysalis repeated. “I've been gone all day.”
“Most of that time was spent arguing about how many of them were allowed in the argument,” Twilight told her. “Which… I suppose is also basically the same argument.”
“Right,” Chrysalis said, her wings buzzing a little. “I'm going to go in there and tell them exactly what I think.”
Thorax looked left at his friend Spike, then right at Starlight Glimmer. “That wasn't what I expected Queen Chrysalis to say.”
“You're right,” Starlight agreed, quoting. “'I resign and I'm off to see what Celestia sees in surfing'. I wonder if she means it?”
“I wonder if Celestia's really into surfing,” the young dragon volunteered. “That sounds pretty cool!”
205.3
“Princess?”
Luna harrumphed. “Just Luna, please, Twilight. The number of times I have said this...”
“Sorry,” Twilight said, checking back over her body to make sure she hadn't inadvertently ascended. “I thought because I wasn't currently one myself...”
She shook her head. “Anyway, uh… I was wondering if you knew why the sun just went out, the moon just rose, and the moon started glowing red.”
“Now therein lies a tale,” Luna replied. “As you have probably guessed, I raised my moon to replace the lost light of the sun, and the red glow is because I normally rely on reflecting Celestia's sun for much of my light.”
“But what's happened to the sun?” Rarity stressed, speaking up. “I know most of our friends are busy with their jobs, but I simply can't work on the dresses I was planning under these conditions of illumination! I had to come and ask!”
Luna grumbled something about trying the best she could under short notice, then took a deep breath. “In an argument with my sister, I asked her how she accomplished her habit of surfing upon the prominences of the sun.”
“Right, because they're made of plasma,” Twilight agreed. “Gas if they're cool enough.”
“Exactly my thought,” Luna confirmed. “And Celestia told me that she could make the sun be whatever she wanted.”
“Whatever she wanted?” Rarity repeated. “So… not just fire and stuff?”
“Rarity, that is exactly what I said in my turn,” Luna told her. “And then my sister got a strange look on her face and teleported off.”
She turned her attention to Twilight. “I would be grateful if you could help reassure the citizens. I just know they're going to think this was a Nightmare Moon thing again.”
“But what is Celestia doing?” Twilight pressed.
A long way overhead, the Senior Diarch of Equestria clutched her surfboard as she plunged towards the sun.
Her sun was no longer made of incandescent plasma, or indeed gas. Instead, the entire enormous celestial body was entirely, one-hundred-percent cake.
Mostly Battenberg.
“Best idea ever!”
205.4
“Do-be-doo,” Gilda hummed tunelessly to herself, slipping a pair of oven mitts on. She glancedthrough the toughened glass of the oven door, judging how her latest work looked, then undid the fastener and took out a just-finished garlic pizza.
“You're awful at humming, you know,” Grizelda muttered.
“Whatever,” Gilda replied with a shrug of her wings, flicking the oven mitts to one side and considering the pizza. “Hmm… I don't know if this quite qualifies as a bakery thing, but it's probably close enough.”
That decision made, Gilda slapped the pizza with a stasis spell and picked up a wooden spoon, then poured flour into a bowl with her other hand. As she did, Grizelda flicked back and forth and conveyed water into the same bowl, then fire from the nearby candle to heat it up to a workable temperature.
“Thanks,” the griffon added. “Hey, you remember what Dash likes?”
“She'll probably be okay with the garlic one,” Grizelda said. “What's your plan for Pinkie?”
“Probably… yeah, I'll just do this,” Gilda decided, starting another bowl. This one she set up in much the same way, using both forepaws to stir the batches of dough together, but instead of most of the flour she just filled it up with icing sugar.
“Kiinda sucks waking up this late in baseline,” Gilda added, speaking out loud to no-griff but herself. “You kinda miss half the fun. Still, I guess it'll be fun to go after the Idol again.”
She frowned. “Wait, shouldn't you have known my plan already?”
“Yeah, but I know I like to hear myself talk,” Grizelda pointed out.
“Fair enough.”
The doorbell rang, and Gilda turned to see who it was.
“Oh, hey,” she waved. “Dash, Pinks. Nice to see you girls.”
Dash did a double-take, then turned to Pinkie. “What the heck? Pinkie, you didn't say this was why your Pinkie Sense told us to come in here!”
“I didn't know, silly,” Pinkie replied. “My Pinkie Sense doesn't always give me the details!”
She pointed a hoof at Gilda accusingly. “But you! What are you doing in the bakery?”
“Baking,” Gilda answered. “It's actually kinda relaxing.”
“...uh, so, is this weird for you?” Dash asked, a little plaintively. “Because it's kinda weird for me, and I don't really know where to start here. The Cutie Map told us we were needed here, but… not… what...”
She glanced over at Pinkie again. “Hey, uh… is it just me, or does she have a tail that's holding a spoon?”
“What, you ponies never do that kind of thing when you're busy?” Gilda asked, turning to rummage through the cupboards. “Oh, yeah, that reminds me.”
She pulled the pizzas out, undoing their time-stop as she did, and put them on the counter. “There you go. Let's sit down and talk about this, huh?”
Dash tilted her head, and Gilda half-flared a wing. “You said you got sent here for a reason, but you don't know what it is. Like it or not, I'm the closest thing you have to a local expert.”
“Don't you kinda hold a grudge or something?” Dash asked. “I mean, you, uh… we didn't really get on the best back when you left Ponyville.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gilda agreed. “That's why we need to talk, catch up on what happened. I'm sure you've done stuff since we last met. I've done stuff since we last met, mellowed out a bit… picked up a sarcastic tail...”
“Finally, I can contribute to the conversation,” Grizelda sighed. “Build up the suspense much?”
“Hey, you're the one who didn't butt in until I brought you up,” Gilda countered, hopping over to the door with a flare of her wings and hovering there for long enough to turn the card over to 'closed'. “Let's talk, okay? Over pizza.”
Twenty minutes later and with the trio outside most of two extra-sized pizzas, Gilda leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
“Okay, so… let's get a few things out of the way first,” she said. “Firstly – you're right, I was a jerk.”
“I didn't-” Dash began, then stopped. “...yeah, I did think that, a lot, and… I think that's what the letter to Princess Celestia basically said, too...”
“Don't sweat that,” Gilda advised. “I was being a jerk, like I said.”
She ticked one point off on her claws. “Secondly, I'm sorry about the stuff I did. I can give you the list if you want, but it might take a while.”
“She's got it written down and everything,” Grizelda said. “Got me to write it, too.”
“That's because writing things is kind of what you do,” Gilda shot back. “But there's a couple of other things, too, and they're not so nice to you guys.”
Pinkie looked indignant, then ate another slice of Gilda's incredibly sugary pizza and looked conflicted instead.
“But you were ruining a party!” the pink party pony protested. “What kind of person does that?”
“A jerk,” Gilda replied with a shrug. “Like I said. But here's the thing… Dash, have you thought about me much since then?”
Dash swallowed her mouthful, and looked down at the table. “...yeah. I don't like to think about it, but… yeah.”
“I thought about you too,” Gilda supplied. “And you, Pinkie, and how I did stuff that was wrong. But if you feel guilty about something, that usually means that there might be something you did wrong too – especially if you keep telling yourself you didn't.”
She smirked a little. “I did have a bit of an advantage, though… you girls made the news. Even over here. A lot. And… if you're being really honest with yourself, do you think the arguments we had were any worse than what happened between you and your friends?”
“Hey!” Pinkie said, standing up and balancing on two hooves on her chair. “That's not fair! Fluttershy didn't mean to be mean when she caused that stampede of animals! And all we did when Dashie got too big-headed was dress up as a superhero and show her up repeatedly in front of the entire town! And...”
The Pie paused, then blushed. “Uh… I guess maybe… you've got a point?”
“Pretty sure I've got several,” Gilda said, holding up her clawed forepaw with a chuckle. “But here's the deal, okay? If you're willing to forget the bad stuff, so am I.”
She stood, pushing the chair away. “Griffinstone does need help, and I do know why your map sent you here. And I want to help as much as you do… but we can't do that if every time we look at each other all we're thinking about is what went wrong back in Ponyville.”
“I guess that does make sense, yeah,” Dash nodded.
“So,” Gilda concluded, holding out a forepaw. “Let's start over. I'm Gilda, this is Grizelda, and I'm some sort of griffin. What's your name?”
“Rainbow Dash,” the pegasus replied, shaking it. “Element of Harmony, various other cool stuff.”
“Neat,” Gilda replied.
“And I'm Pinkamena Diane Pie, but my friends call me Pinkie Pie, so call me Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie announced, taking Gilda's other paw and shaking it vigorously. “Hey, what's your tail called?”
“Grizelda,” the aforementioned tail told her, then got shaken as well. “H-he-ey!”
“Pinkie!” Dash groaned.
“Oopsie,” Pinkie blushed. “Umm… is that forget the bad stuff offer still good?”
“Sure,” Gilda replied, ignoring the grumbles from her rear half. “Now, let's go sort this place out.”
205.5
“Thorax!”
The changeling looked up, a little confused. “My Queen?”
“Yes,” Queen Chrysalis confirmed, her horn glowing slightly. Thorax tried to sense something about her emotions, to try and work out whether or not he was in trouble, but stopped after a moment trying – the confusing welter of resigned/amused/planning/anticipation was just too much for him to decipher.
“I want the entire hive to gather in my throne room,” she added. “Immediately. If not sooner.”
“Y-yes, your Majesty,” Thorax agreed, buzzing into the air.
“And that goes for the rest of you,” Chrysalis added, looking around the room. “But Thorax! I want you down in the middle. I have an announcement to make.”
More than a bit worried, Thorax flew off to spread the word.
Despite the immediacy of Queen Chrysalis' command, it took a little over twenty minutes for the entire changeling population to be brought together in the single vast room. A significant part of the delay had been the need for Chrysalis to reiterate that, yes, she meant everyone, and that included on-duty infiltrators.
Even teleport spells could only do so much.
“Well, now,” the Queen said, pacing a little. “You're all here, which is very good. And now… Thorax.”
“Yes, my Queen?” Thorax replied, shifting a bit from hoof to hoof.
“I am aware that you are… somewhat discontent,” she said, making Thorax much more worried. “That you don't like that we have to steal love to live, or how we go about it.”
Thorax started wishing he was one of the ones who'd had the time and ability to learn a teleport spell.
“What that means is that we are going to do a little experiment,” Chrysalis continued, smiling. “I am going to give some love to you, and you are going to share it with everyone else. And do you know what will happen if it does not work?”
She bent down to whisper in his ear, and Thorax winced.
“I will apologize, and we will try again in a week.”
She wasn't lying.
That was the thing which Thorax was astonished by – she wasn't lying. For just a moment, the confusion of her emotions had stilled into a single firm fact.
The apprehension of the rest of the hive seethed around him, but Thorax knew something they didn't. It let him calm down, and that calm rippled out into all the other changelings.
Queen Chrysalis lit her horn, and sent Thorax the love.
It was… strong, and sweet, and pure. Something about it felt different.
It felt right.
And Thorax sent it on, broadcasting it out to the hive-mates he knew and loved, and they sent it to the others, and the amount of love bouncing around grew and grew until there was just an enormous maelstrom of light-
-and there was a crack like the walls breaking-
-and when the light died down, Thorax blinked.
The throne was gone. Exploded, by the looks of it, into dust that had then exploded a second time.
“Hmm...” Queen Chrysalis hummed.
Thorax looked in her direction, and did a double-take.
She was… different, now, with her holes gone and her black carapace replaced by mellow shades of yellow and green. Her mane and tail were long and blue, and dusted with glitter at the ends, and three little pearls shone at her peytral.
It also appeared that she'd shrunk.
“Not as bad as the first one,” she said, out loud, then shapeshifted herself until she looked a lot more like she had before – still no holes, but with a deep near-black green for her carapace. “Good work, Thorax. Now, two decrees, to take effect simultaneously.”
Thorax noticed that the changelings he could see in the audience didn't seem black either. And they looked smaller than Queen Chrysalis did.
“Firstly, I abdicate. Secondly, you're promoted to King. Enjoy.”
With that, she vanished in an enormous flash of green light.
“Thorax?” Pharynx asked, from behind him. “What happened to us? How come you're… tall?”
“I'm what?” Thorax asked, then finally adjusted for scale.
“...huh.”
“Did she say you're king now?” Carapace said. “I guess you are taller than everyling else, and I always thought that's how we picked who was in charge.”
“Fascinating!” Two Scoops gushed. “So you're the queen of a hitherto undiscovered tribe of ponies?”
“Well, not exactly ponies,” Chrysalis replied with a smirk. “And not exactly queen, either. I suppose you could say I'm Queen Emeritus. But, well… changelings have been around for a while, you just haven't recognized them.”
She shifted into a perfect copy of Two Scoops, then back again. “You see, we've always been worried about how ponies would see us. We have a natural talent for shapeshifting, so we've always preferred to hide out and hide away… but I decided it was time for new leadership and time for the changelings to come out into the open.”
“And what made you decide to step down?” Two Scoops asked.
“Well, the best changeling for the job was Thorax,” Chrysalis answered. “And of course that meant I had to make him king. But I wasn't interested in settling down, at least not with him, so I abdicated instead.”
She winked. “Remember to tell your readers – I'm available, and so is King Thorax.”
Princess Celestia put down the newspaper.
“...what the buck?”
205.6
“Where is your magic?” Tirek demanded.
“Gone,” Celestia answered, grey-tinged flanks heaving. “You're not going to get it from me, monster.”
“Hmm...” Tirek snorted. “So, you try to deny me my right… who has it? Is it the moon princess?”
Luna emerged from behind her throne, just as dull and grey as Celestia, and Tirek scowled.
“Not sun or moon, and not the Crystal Empress...” he said, his voice harsh. “Then it must be the fourth alicorn. The one in the windows!”
“No!” Luna cried. “Thou canst not-”
“I can,” Tirek replied, smiling cruelly. “You thought to hide her from me, but you forgot. Such a simple thing to forget… may you remember it for what little time you have left.”
Disdaining further talk, Tirek crashed through the wall of the throne room and galloped off in a westerly direction – his hooves shaking the ground for a long time after he left the grounds of Canterlot Castle.
“Well,” Celestia said, sitting back on her throne. “This should be amusing.”
She pressed an indicator on the side of her throne, and a screen appeared in front of her – one made of shimmering light.
“Sister!” Luna gasped. “Did Twilight Sparkle achieve what we sought? Has thy magic been concealed?”
“No, this isn't magic,” Celestia replied, as a map of Equestria appeared – a red dot on it marking Tirek's location, now moving at astonishing speed, and a window in the corner showing a view of Tirek from twenty thousand feet. “This is technology.”
“...that is not the way to Ponyville,” Luna said, watching. “And this technology is truly marvellous! I have not seen the like.”
She examined her sister. “What art thou planning, Celly? I know that look of old.”
“Humour me, Luna,” Celestia requested. “Go and look at the stained glass windows.”
Luna did so, trotting off with a heavy gait.
About a minute later, she galloped back.
“Thou didst not.”
“I did,” Celestia replied, with a smirk. “I don't know quite what's going to happen, but one of our problems is going away tonight.”
“Come out!” Tirek bellowed. “Come out and fight!”
“Who are you?” Queen Chrysalis replied, sticking her head out beside the door.
“I am your doom!” Tirek declared. “I will have your magic, and all the magic of Equestria! None can defy me!”
“Oh? No, this isn't happening,” the Changeling Queen replied. “I'm not coming out to fight. If you think you can beat me, you're coming in here… if you think you can beat me.”
Tirek roared and charged.
“It's almost an unstoppable force and an immovable object, really,” Celestia said. “That antimagic throne is very annoying, but sometimes it can be entertaining instead.”
“Antimagic throne?” Luna repeated.
“Chrysalis has one, long story.”
205.7
“Excuse me? Ms. Starlight Glimmer, I believe.”
Starlight nodded. “That's me. I'm the mayor of Our Town, and I'd like to give you a heartfelt welcome.”
Ivory Scroll nodded, adjusting her glasses. “Yes, I understand that to be the case. You know, I happen to be a mayor myself, perhaps we can share some of our experiences.”
“I'm not sure that would be very useful,” Starlight replied. “Our Town is a new model of harmonious living, so we don't face most of the same problems faced by other towns in Equestria.”
“Perhaps,” Ivory said. “But at the same time I feel I should point out that many of the activities of a mayor are universal. For example, the political campaigning involved with winning the election to the position in the first place.”
Starlight's smile did not waver. “I was elected by acclamation, actually. As the founder, everypony agreed that I was the ideal choice for the position.”
“In a town where everypony has an equal amount of ability at all subjects, by definition,” Ivory said, just to make sure it was clear. “Well, I'd be glad to give you tips for your re-election campaign – when is that, exactly?”
“Oh, well, it'll be in another three years,” Starlight explained. “We have a six-year electoral cycle here.”
“Interesting,” Scroll said, making a note. “So you were elected by acclamation the day after the town's founding. How many ponies have joined you in the last few years?”
“Oh, plenty,” Starlight said brightly. “We're a growing community.”
“No doubt,” Ivory replied. “How's the birth rate?”
“Well… nonexistent, to tell you the truth,” Starlight admitted. “We don't have any foals here.”
“Could be a problem for your philosophy in future,” Ivory said, making another note. “Unless that is you have a plan worked out for antenatal and post-natal care.”
Starlight tossed her head. “It's not really a subject I've spent much time considering.”
“No doubt,” Ivory said again. “Now, I wanted to discuss the other issue. You see, I'm fairly sure that at least ninety percent of the paperwork relating to Our Town is either out of date, misfiled, or often both.”
“We're simple folk, here,” Starlight told her. “I do apologize for any errors which crept in.”
Ivory nodded. “Of course. Without any ponies with cutie marks relating to administrative talents, an informal system which worked to administer a double-hoofful of friends would get rather unwieldy as the population grew and things became more complicated.”
Starlight's smile started to become a little fixed.
“That brings me to something I thought I'd address, actually,” Ivory said. “You see, I know a little magic myself, and I'm fairly sure that I couldn't change the cutie mark a pony has for another one. How is it, exactly, that one becomes a member of your community?”
“Do I detect some interest?” Starlight asked. “You can't have wanted to be a dry, dusty mare with a focus entirely on bureaucracy for your whole life, after all.”
“Ms. Glimmer, I think you don't even begin to understand how cutie marks work,” Scroll said with a sigh. “A mark is not a lock, but a key; take my own, which is of a scroll tied in ribbon. This could mean that I am talented in legislation; in management; in writing letters; in winning awards. It could have come from something as simple as deciding to write to a friend who was moving away so we did not drift apart, to something as complicated as securing a legally binding treaty agreement amongst previously warring nations.”
Starlight looked ready to interrupt, but at Ivory's first example her expression froze.
“I am, of course, sympathetic with those ponies who have decided that their marks do not fit their personalities,” the Mayor went on. “But I fear that if one's logic is that a pony should not be bound for their entire life to an accident of chance that came when they did not know the full details, then they should likewise not be bound to any agreement made to move to Our Town.”
She looked over her glasses. “Tell me, Ms. Glimmer, how many ponies have moved away from Our Town?”
“Well, I – none,” Glimmer told her. “Because there's no reason why anypony would want to leave!”
Ivory fixed her with a cool regard for several long seconds, then nodded. “Of course. Which is why I will be willing to join your community for one week, provided that I then leave without incident.”
“And what if you change your mind?” Starlight asked.
“Then I would leave for one week, and return,” Ivory told her. “It's all laid out in this contract.”
She presented it, a simple thing with five or six short clauses, and Starlight examined it for almost a minute. Her horn lit with several detection spells engineered to catch out fine print or hidden clauses, and finally she nodded.
“This seems acceptable.”
“I see the ponies of your town are all very good at sophisticated document examination spells,” Ivory observed blandly.
“Well – yes, of course,” Starlight said.
“Be your best, by never being your best.”
“It's almost funny, you know,” Scroll said, leaning back on the couch. “You seem to think that was the only copy of my statement of intention.”
“Free yourself from-”
The brainwashing speech stopped abruptly.
“What?” Starlight asked instead.
“I filed an official statement of intent to visit for a period of no more than one week,” Ivory Scroll said, rising to all fours again. “Ponies like you don't seem to appreciate the positives of paperwork.”
The equals sign on her flank flared, and she grimaced. “Paperwork doesn't mean that something is being trapped. It means it's being recorded. It's tedious because it's important; it can be used for ill, just like most things.”
She shook her head. “Though a magic soul-stealing staff is quite a long way up there on the list of things hard to use for good, I should add.”
Starlight didn't reply.
“Given that I also stated that interim reports would be delivered on the third, fifth and seventh of the month,” Ivory continued, “that should mean an intervention platoon arrives before long.”
“They won't be a problem,” Starlight replied.
“No doubt,” Ivory said, with a little smile. “One of two possibilities here – either you think that what is functionally a militia of ponies whose ability to fight is another example of the lowest common denominator can fight off an armoured platoon of Royal Guard, or you're considering ripping away all their cutie marks. I suspect it's the latter, unless of course you've avoided using your staff on yourself.”
Her legs trembled a little from the effort of fighting the constant draining buzz of the Equal mark, making her muscles burn like she was running a marathon. “But I have no doubt that the conversation I had with Mage-Lt. Sunburst before my departure will bear fruit; he will have had a week to determine how to block whatever magic you are using to hold me here, and...”
The Mayor paused, listening to the hoofbeats rapidly receding into the distance, then sank back onto the floor with a sigh of relief.
“Should have mentioned Sunburst sooner,” she judged. “Ow.”
After several long minutes of rest, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a jar. A glittering scroll-and-ribbon cutie mark rested inside it, ready for her to break the glass in case of trouble.
“Not just yet,” she decided, re-pocketing her insurance policy. “Let's see what happens first.”
The things she did to handle zoning complaints...
205.8
"All right, class," Cheerilee said brightly. "I hope you're all having a lovely day today!"
"...Miss Cheerilee?" Silver Spoon asked, raising a hoof. "Why are you a pegasus?"
"That's a subject for another day," the educator told her.
"But you were an earth pony yesterday-"
"That's not relevant to the lesson today, Silver," Cheerilee warned. "Now. Today we're talking about cutie marks, and one of the most popular theories about how you get them."
Turning to the board, she flew up to write the letters TCR on the board. "Task, Concept, Revelation. I've invited some friends of mine to talk about each one, so you can get examples, but we'll go over what they mean first. Can anyone tell me what a Task cutie mark is?"
Diamond Tiara's hoof was first up.
"It's a cutie mark you get for doing something," she announced.
"Exactly," Cheerilee said. "It's a cutie mark you get for doing something. It usually means that that's something you're good at, though even that isn't guaranteed."
She wrote that down, then looked over her shoulder. "Before we continue, I need to warn you all that how you get a cutie mark doesn't really matter. Any cutie mark can be interpreted in a very narrow way or a very wide way, and it's up to the pony who has it to work out what meaning works for them."
There was a general muttering.
"So my sister," Applebloom began, then flushed and held up her hoof. "Um, that is, my sister's got apples for her cutie mark, but that doesn't have to mean apples are what she's good at?"
"It means she's most likely good at apples, but there are other ways to look at it as well," Cheerilee confirmed. "Now, here's the pony who's going to talk to us about her task cutie mark."
The door swung open, and the class nearly passed out.
"My thanks for having me," Princess Celestia said with a warm smile. "It is quite refreshing to not be the teacher in a classroom, and I fear I would not make a good student."
She turned a little, properly showing the sun shining on her flank. "As Miss Cheerilee said, my mark was earned for a task... in my case, it was raising the sun. I am not the only one who can raise the sun, of course, but I feel I am the best at it - and my talent has other meanings, as well."
"Does anypony have any questions?" Cheerilee asked.
A forest of hooves shot up.
"So the next kind of cutie mark is the concept cutie mark," Cheerilee told them all, levitating the chalk with her magic. "That means that the mark is not directly linked to what you were doing when you earned it, but to everything around that topic. Concept cutie marks tend to have a slightly less simple first explanation."
"Miss?" Silver Spoon asked. "Umm... you're a unicorn."
"That's correct," Cheerilee said. "So as an example, a concept cutie mark might be one which runs in families. Or a unicorn who cast a fireball spell but who got a cutie mark of a wisp of smoke might decide that that meant their talent was for all fire magic and not just the fireball."
She gestured to the window. "As another example, a pony whose cutie mark was earned for making a Sonic Rainboom but whose mark was actually a multicoloured lightning bolt could be said to have their mark actually earned for the concept of speed, while another example of that kind of cutie mark would be the one borne by our second guest – the town librarian, Twilight Sparkle."
Never one to miss a cue, Twilight teleported into the room. "That's right, Cheerilee. My mark is a bit complicated and has several interpretations, but the simplest one is that it represents the Star of Magic. That means my talent is closely linked to the very concept of magic itself."
"Cool," Snips breathed. "So you could do any spell?"
"I could," Twilight replied, waving a hoof a little. "Though I'd have to invent or learn them myself, rather than being able to just know them like a unicorn with a more focused speciality. My friend Rarity's cutie mark is more focused on gemstones, so she's got a head start on anything to do with gemstones or jewels."
Sweetie Belle waved her hoof. "I know how my sister got her cutie mark, but how did you get yours, Miss Twilight?"
"Well..." Twilight looked a little embarrassed. "I turned my parents into potted plants and hatched my dragon friend, Spike... and immediately made him a hundred feet tall. That's how I know I don't have a task cutie mark, because I don't have a potted plant."
There were chuckles at that.
"Now, it's time for the final cutie mark type," Cheerilee told them, her tail writing on the board with swift strokes as she looked towards her class.
"Umm..." Silver Spoon began. "You're an Earth Pony now, and you're writing on the chalkboard with your tail like Pinkie Pie does."
"Thank you, Silver," Cheerilee smiled. "The third kind of cutie mark is revelation, and it means that the moment of earning your mark is all about realising something about yourself - such as making a decision based on what feels right deep down."
The earth-pony indicated the cheerful flowers of her own mark. "Mine came when I realised I loved the act of nurturing, specifically through helping ponies and other things grow as strong as possible. But it wouldn't be fair to only give you two guests, so today we're also going to have a visit from another pony who earned her mark from a deep realisation about herself."
She waved, and the door swung open.
"Well, howdy there, all y'all," Applejack said, smiling. "Who's hankerin' for a good story?"
"If there's one thing I want you all to remember about today," Cheerilee concluded, as the clock ticked towards the end of the day, "it's that none of the ways of earning cutie marks we've seen are any better than others. A pony can interpret any mark in any way which works for them, and their mark can be for a hobby instead of a job; it does not have to define who they are, it's just a nice big hint."
She paused for a moment. "Any more questions?"
Silver spoon raised her hoof, then slowly lowered it again.
"That's good," Cheerilee said. "And, finally, if you haven't earned a cutie mark yet that's nothing to be ashamed of... it might mean you haven't tried the right thing yet, or thought about the right thing, or just that you haven't realised something important about yourself. Give it time, it'll be there. Thank you all... and have a lovely weekend."
205.9
"Captain!"
"Major Armor," the Captain replied, saluting. Shining returned the salute, then both unicorns let them drop.
"Captain, is the 5th Unicorn company ready for dispatch?"
"Yes, Sir," Captain Hotfoot replied smartly. "First platoon's infantry stand ready, second platoon's specialists are equipped, and third platoon's heavy spellcasters are prepared for action."
"Very good, Captain," Shining replied. "We should be on the move later today. Liaise with the commanders of the 5th Earth and 5th Pegasus companies to split up your specialists and heavy spellcasters accordingly, and to get your recon elements and engineers in return."
"Sir."
"The annoying thing about waking up in this situation," Shining said out loud, some hours later, "is that you end up wanting to see where it's going."
Eight years since the last conflict between the Lunar Protectorate and the Solar Empire, and from Shining's loop-memories things were getting gradually worse as each day passed. The countries on either side of the nascent war picking sides, both the Protectorate and the Empire stepping up their troop counts - Shining's 2nd Composite Battalion of the 6th Solar were Regulars, but they were going to be badly outnumbered by the militia and ninety-day ponies of both sides - and the sun brighter and the moon harsher every day as the two alicorns readied for war.
But then, there was that shining shard of hope. The sky itself, visible day or night no matter how hard Celestia and Luna tried to blot it out, and the great shimmering wings-spread alicorn of stars.
"I'm counting on you, L.S.B.F.F," Shining said then.
Then, after a long moment of contemplation, he shook his head and trotted over to the camp bed.
He had a job to do tomorrow.
The Loopers of Equestria were all different sorts, and they represented different kinds of ponies – and non-ponies, as well. And for all their age and years, there were certain trends that were hard to break away from.
Twilight Sparkle was the eldest and wisest of them all, by pure accumulated experience if nothing else. Rainbow Dash was quick at everything, even if 'quick witted' had taken a while to pick up, and Angel Bunny was frankly slightly worrying.
But there was something which was a core part of Shining Armor, something which wasn't his only trait or the only thing about him… but which was something nearly unique among the Equestrian loopers, and something which he cherished for that.
He was their only true soldier.
Gilda was a real warrior, right enough, and he wouldn't say any of his fellow loopers couldn't fight, but Shining was a soldier for years before his marriage and he was acutely aware of the difference between a fighter and a soldier.
And, as the 2/6th moved out onto the low rolling hills east of Canterlot, right up near the Protectorate-Empire border, those skills were at the forefront of his mind.
“Captain Firefoot, move your wing forwards, please,” he rapped out sharply. “Have your engineers dig in along the ridgeline – no parados, we might be pushed off the position and I don't want it giving our opponents a ready-made defensive line. Runner to Captain Snowmane.”
A pegasus flitted over to hover at his shoulder – she looked vaguely familiar, perhaps somepony he'd met a dozen loops ago. “My compliments to the Captain, and his wing is to set themselves up as a skirmish line.” Shining looked around once more as the pegasus flew off, and pointed back behind him a little. “Captain Lightfoot is to command the reserve, to be positioned on this knoll here – but not on the crest, some way down.”
On some level, it was just a tactical problem – Cadet Armor, you have these assets, the terrain is thus, place your forces – but Shining found it hard to forget that sooner or later it would be ponies fighting ponies.
I really hope you get here soon, Twilight.
“Major.”
Shining turned, surprised, and bowed. “Your Highness.”
Princess Celestia gestured for him to rise with one armoured wing. “No time for that, Major. What is the situation?”
“Under control, You Highness,” Shining replied. “Protectorate forces have been trying to get around our flanks, but our heavy spellcasters have repulsed all their attempts so far. They've pushed the skirmish line in, though.”
And it was thanks to good luck and more than a little of Shining's enormous repertoire of shielding spells that the casualties had been minor and entirely non-fatal. So long as the fighting was confined to a mere twelve hundred ponies on his side and a little north of two thousand on the other, he could split his attention enough to shield ponies – just enough to turn a deadly blow into a flesh wound, or just enough to divert a spellbolt to make it a warning shot rather than a lethal one.
His horn was already continually lit just to keep up the shield which protected his command post, and it gave him the ideal excuse.
“Good, Major,” Celestia told him, her voice much more detached than he was used to hearing. “Very good. Your stand here has given us time to finish concentrating.”
Shining blinked, loosening his focus a little to take in the entire area rather than his own personal not-a-war, and he realized that Celestia was entirely correct – the thirty hours or so of fighting that had taken his concentration had also allowed three corps to concentrate on the field. Fully a third of the Solar Regulars were present, eleven composite battalions, and supporting them more than sixty thousand of the militia he'd been fretting about a few days previously.
“My accursed sister has concentrated her own forces as well,” Celestia added. “Fifty-five thousand if she has a mare. But we have the better ground, and a slight numerical advantage – General Sunset will take her corps around the flank, and we shall force her to fight or retreat.”
Celestia's mane glowed brighter than normal, the sparks that perpetually ran through it flaring into yellow-and-orange embers. “I do hope she chooses to fight.”
Then her horn lit as well, and the sun halted in its descent towards the horizon. It blazed brighter, red and orange and yellow all at once as it grew slightly, and began to rise back towards the heavens.
The moon rose a moment later, glittering a steely blue-white as across the field Luna began to do just the same as her sister – trying to gain an advantage, setting the terms under which the battle would be fought.
The air began to crackle with magic and tension, and Shining looked up at the sky.
To anyone else watching, he would clearly be checking on how Princess Celestia was doing in raising the sun to the zenith – and he was, in part, though the fact that her mane and tail were now entirely composed of flame made him wonder whether he shouldn't just go ahead and call her Daybreaker now.
But much more importantly, he was looking past the blazing sun. Past the harsh moon.
The stars were brighter than ever, forming a sweeping pattern visible past the blue of the sky.
Then, all at once, they vanished.
Daybreaker barely noticed, her horn alight with brilliant solar energy as her Sun began to clash with the Moon – Nightmare Moon trying to push her Moon to eclipse Daybreaker's Sun, and Daybreaker doing her best to force Nightmare's Moon out of the sky entirely.
“Attack!” Nightmare ordered, her voice reaching Shining despite at least two miles of distance. “Distract my infernal foe so she cannot keep her sun alight!”
“Destroy them!” Daybreaker commanded in her turn, her order reaching her entire army. “Nothing must distract me!”
Shining's horn lit up with a brilliant overglow and his Cosmic Spectrum necklace appeared around his neck, as he got ready to intervene-
-and a blazing slash of pure starlight carved an irregular line along the hills, slicing them apart like a knife wielded by an angry god. The starlight remained where the slash had been, forming a curtain of glittering light that separated the two armies.
Twilight Sparkle floated gently down to land between the assembled armies of the Protectorate and the Empire.
“You,” Daybreaker said, her voice lower than before – more surprised than enraged, now. “The Mare of the Stars. I thought you were gone.”
“I was,” Twilight replied. “But I couldn't stay away, not when you were endangering your subjects like that.”
Her wings spread, and Shining smiled with fraternal pride.
Twilight Sparkle was no soldier. But give her a friendship problem, even one as enormous as this one, and she was all over it.
Then her horn lit, and a curtain of cloud spread over the entirety of the sky. The sun and moon both vanished from view, leaving a comfortable level of illumination, and Twilight nodded – half to herself.
“Much better,” she said.
Daybreaker snarled, and kicked off from the hill – half-molten earth rising up in a plume from where she'd taken off, and the air moved by her wings smelling faintly of hot metal.
Opposite her, on the ridgeline occupied by the Lunar Protectorate forces, Nightmare Moon took off as well.
Twilight's wings hammered the air as she rose to meet them, already beginning to weave combat spells, and her brother spun out an enormous shield to cover every last pony and auxiliary on the field below.
“Major?” Firefoot began, a little apprehensively. “What's going on?”
“Well, Captain,” Shining replied. “There are two answers to that. The first is that we appear to all have been permitted to stand down. It seems we're rather irrelevant to how this is all going to work out.”
“And the second?” Captain Firefoot asked.
“We're getting a lesson in why not to ignore thousand-year-old tales, I'd say,” Shining pointed out.
Firefoot looked at him, then up at the sky.
In just the few moments he was watching, Twilight spun up a spell matrix carrying a gravity spike. Daybreaker shattered it with a concentrated burst of solar energy, and Twilight dispelled the illusion she'd been setting up behind to reveal at least a dozen other spell matrices already into firing state – sending incredibly powerful spells hammering into the Solar Empress, hammering through her armour and splashing away chunks of hot gold.
Nightmare Moon attacked her a moment later, and Twilight got her as well – not with unicorn-style magic this time, but with a well-aimed apple-buck delivered with alicorn strength that knocked Nightmare into, through, and out the other side of a nearby mountain.
A stray beam of condensed moonlight speared down at the 2/6th, making Firefoot flinch, but Shining's shield absorbed it with little more than a glittering light show.
“The shield just got stronger,” he informed Firefoot. “It's a very well refined spell.”
“I can see that, Sire,” Firefoot replied.
Shining frowned for a moment, noticing the change of address, then glanced back along his body barrel.
“Huh,” he said. “That's interesting. I suppose defending an entire army at once does count as an ascension-worthy use of my talent.”
There was an almighty bang overhead as Twilight launched Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon at one another at considerably over the speed of sound, and the clouds began to dissipate.
“I'm actually kind of embarrassed,” Shining admitted, some minutes later. “I haven't ascended by accident for a long time.”
“Well, you are still kinda young,” Twilight pointed out with a chuckle.
Shining gave her a brotherly glare, and Twilight shrugged. “Let's be fair, that was low-hanging fruit.”
“...fair,” Shining allowed. “But you'll still be my little sister to me. It's too late to come up with a new nickname now.”
Twilight smiled, and gave him a hug which he gladly returned.
“All right, Shiny,” she added. “Any thoughts on what to do now? I did just knock out the rulers of most of the continent, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a co-ruler in this universe.”
Shining thought about that, then raised his forehoof.
“I vote we confiscate all the weapons and banish all alicorns present to the moon.”
“Any other suggestions?” Twilight asked, rolling her eyes and chuckling slightly.
“...we could try making it a law that all alicorns have to go through military service, starting as private soldiers,” Shining said, after a bit more serious thought. “I was actually a 'mustang' in this world, so I've already done it, but it'd put Daybreaker and Nightmare through something for long enough they might calm down.”
“And me?” Twilight pressed.
“Well, you'd have to do it too. It's only fair...”
205.10
“Hmm...” Twilight said, inspecting herself. “No cutie mark, we're kind of a long way back.”
It felt like there were two other Element-bearers Awake, and that matched with the number of pings she'd got.
A little more prodding localized her in the timeline. About… three or four months before the Rainboom, it felt like.
There was a flash of unlight as Nyx materialized in her room. “Hey Mom! Wow, heh, you're smaller than me for once.”
“You know you're normally younger than me by choice, Nyx Sparkle,” Twilight said, shaking her head – though she smiled a little at Nyx's obvious mix of happiness and exasperation at the name. “Or is it Sparkle-Rush now?”
“That sounds kind of like a game mode,” Nyx said. “It's Russ, Mom, I took his name…”
“Sorry,” Twilight flushed, a tad awkwardly. “I know it's important to you, love, it's just that it has been two thousand, one hundred and ten years since we've seen one another last…”
Nyx nodded understandingly at Twilight's hint about Sisters loops. “Just so long as you're trying… so, uh… how do you want to do it, Mom?”
Twilight sat back, thinking about that.
“I think… imaginary friend,” she said. “I make the Mare in the Moon book my favourite story to read, then start talking about my imaginary friend, then when I have my mana flare you show up to help me calm down and we play it off like I made you real.”
Nyx giggled. “I like that idea! Only… Princess Celestia's not Awake, is she?”
“Two other Pings, two other Element bearers,” Twilight responded. “Celestia's not attuned to one. There's my Magic, your Honesty, and someone's Kindness… your guess is as good as mine, though.”
“Not like there's a huge number of choices,” Nyx shrugged. “Well, I guess we'll see what happens.”
A long way away and a little later, Starlight Glimmer tried to bite back tears.
Sunburst was leaving. He'd got his Cutie Mark, and he was going to leave, and… it wasn't fair!
“Hey,” somepony said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Starlight responded quickly, then paused. “I… n-no,” she admitted. “I'm...”
“Aww, you poor thing,” the voice sighed, and Starlight found herself abruptly being given a snuggly wing-hug. She squirmed a little, trying to fight it off, then relaxed into it a bit and took a hiccupy breath.
“My friend's going away,” she said, to the unknown pegasus who'd found her. “And… and I don't really know anypony else very well, and he's leaving, and I won't see him again...”
She swallowed hard, trying not to cry because if she started she didn't know if she'd stop.
“Well, if you miss him a lot, we could always post you to him,” the young mare said – it sounded like she was only a few years older than Starlight – and the idea was so absurd that it made the unicorn giggle. “Or maybe you could send a stamped self-addressed parcel, and post him to you?”
“I… don't think the postal system allows you to send ponies,” Starlight said.
“Oh, that's no fun,” the mare sighed. “When will they ever accept some of my suggestions? Well, perhaps you can send him muffins instead, those are always nice.”
“I… think I might just send him a letter,” Starlight suggested.
“Letters are kind of boring, but I guess you could do that if you really wanted,” the mare said, letting Starlight go. “Oh, but I can help if you want to send big stuff – I'm a mailmare! They give me all the difficult jobs.”
“Why, is that because it's your cutie… mark?” Starlight began, then stopped – staring at the mare's cutie mark.
Bubbles.
Try as she might, Starlight couldn't even begin to work out how to link “bubbles” to “mailmare”.
“Oh, heh, nope!” the pegasus said, smiling. “It's all about my bubbly personality! Ditzy Doo, that's me! What's your name?”
“Starlight,” Starlight replied. “Starlight Glimmer.”
“That's a nice name,” Ditzy told her. “It sounds like… oh, I just realized! Have you told your friend how sad you are to see them go?”
Starlight blanched. “Oh – n-no, I haven't! He's going to think I forgot him!”
“Come on, then!” Ditzy said, taking off. “Hold on tight, it's time for me to make a special delivery!”
“Special – wait, what do – whoa!” Starlight yelped, as Ditzy grabbed her hooves and lifted her into the air.
“And… who might you be?” Celestia asked, inspecting the little filly alicorn with not a little complete bafflement – hidden well by her many centuries of political experience, but not perhaps perfectly.
“Huh?” the alicorn replied, and checked behind her – then looked back up at Celestia in surprise. “Um… Twilight?”
“Yeah?” Twilight replied. “What is it, Nyx?”
“I thought nopony else could see me this morning?”
“Well, Momma always-” Twilight began, then looked up at Celestia.
Back to Nyx.
“You can see her too, Princess?” Twilight asked. “Does that mean I'm going to be a Princess too? Is that what makes a Princess a Princess?”
“Um,” Night Light vocalized, shaking his head to get rid of the last residual effects of his beplantification. “Twily? Is that Nyxie? We thought you made her up!”
“I did make her up!” Twilight told her father. “But she's still real!”
She paused. “Is daddy going to be a Princess too? I didn't know you could do that!”
Celestia looked back and forth, then began to chuckle.
“Oh, my,” she said. “I must admit I am quite surprised, I had not expected to be so amused today. I can indeed see your friend Nyx, or at least if your friend is a young black alicorn then I can see her. However, I feel that everypony can see her now.”
She sat down in front of Twilight. “Do you know what you just did, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Well, um...” Twilight frowned. “I was trying to cast a spell to make a dragon egg hatch, and then there was that big flash of rainbow light, and I think my spell went into a positive feedback loop. It got confused about the animate/inanimate boundary, so it turned the Professors and my parents into inanimate objects and it made the egg into an animate object.”
She put her hoof to her chin. “So I guess that must mean that I put lots of magic into Nyx as well, and now everypony can see her!”
“A fine conclusion, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said, smiling to show she approved. “But I must admit to some confusion about why your imaginary friend here is an alicorn.”
“Well, um… wait, I know!” Twilight interrupted herself. “Nyx, you know where our favourite book is, right?”
“Yep!” Nyx replied, and vanished with a flash.
“We always thought she was just teleporting things or moving things around and playing pretend,” Twilight Velvet said. “So she'd ask her friend to get something, and then it would float in from the other room. I didn't think something like this was happening.”
Nyx reappeared in another flash of negative light, and put the book down on the floor – making Celestia's breath hitch in her throat.
The story of the Two Sisters, and their adventures.
“I didn't know this book was still around,” she said, touching the cover. “It's very old… and full of stories most ponies don't know, these days.”
“I like both of the sisters,” Twilight told Celestia. “But there's already a Celestia, so having a Celestia as an imaginary friend would be kind of funny. But there isn't a Luna in Equestria, but it seemed kinda rude to use the Luna name, and Luna would be an adult now. So I imagined a filly Luna, and she's really nice too!”
Nyx flared her wings proudly, and Celestia smiled again.
“I am glad that I met you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “And you, as well, Nyx. And I am also glad that we will be seeing a lot more of one another.”
“We will?” Nyx asked, lowering her wings. “That sounds nice.”
“I imagine it will be,” Celestia said. “You see, I would like to take Twilight Sparkle on as my personal student.”
Twilight's face lit up, and she began prancing around in circles cheering.
“After all,” Celestia went on. “It is not often that a unicorn earns their cutie mark for quite such a feat of magic. And I see that you are most certainly her protector, Nyx.”
Twilight stopped, checked her flank, checked Nyx's flank, then went right on celebrating – joined by Nyx, this time.
“Well, here we are,” Twilight said. “I can't remember if you've done it from this side before?”
“Not recently,” Nyx shrugged. “So… meet Pinkie, Dash, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy in no particular order, spend the night at the Books and Branches, then next morning it's whatever we were going to do to handle Luna?”
“Pretty much,” Twilight replied, then frowned. “But, um… that seems unusual.”
Nyx followed her gaze, and did a double-take.
“Welcome to our town,” Starlight Glimmer said with a smile. “You must be Princess Celestia's special envoy. And you must be Nyx?”
“That's me,” Nyx agreed. “I'm kind of surprised you know, though, I thought it was mostly a Celestia's Academy thing.”
“I'm sure it is,” Glimmer replied. “I just have a penfriend at the Academy, he told me about you both.”
She stepped back a little. “Do you have anything you'd like to drop off before you do your job?”
“Yeah,” Nyx supplied, lifting a huge bag with her magic. “Twily's book collection, which also has the rest of our luggage in it.”
Glimmer laughed. “Since you're staying with me for the night, we'd better make sure to keep track of which books are yours and which are the library's.”
“You're the librarian?” Twilight asked.
“I know, it's nothing like my cutie mark,” Glimmer said. “But an old friend pointed out that they often don't have anything to do with what you do – they're just as likely to be about who you are.”
“I like that,” Twilight replied, sincerely. “And I think I'd like to meet your friend.”
“I'm sure you will,” Glimmer told her. “She delivers the mail every morning, after all.”
205.11
“Everything set up?” one mare asked.
“Everything's set up.” the other mare confirmed. “I suggested the idea to her last night, and they're both busy somewhere else.”
“Good,” the first mare said, smirking. “It's so rare we get a chance for a proper Twilight prank...”
“All right, Dash, everything's nearly set up!” Twilight smiled. “Thanks for helping me test this.”
“Hey, it's not a problem,” Dash replied, hovering nearby. “Or, at least, it won't be one if we get started soon – how long is this going to take?”
“Not much longer,” Twilight reiterated. “I just need to set up the prism spell.”
The unicorn lit her horn, and the air about fifty feet over Ponyville shimmered. It took on an odd, split cast, and it cast a shadow lit by a broad rainbow of sunlight instead of a single beam.
“Okay, Dash, we're ready!” she called.
“All right!” Dash replied, turning, and got some distance before pulling a sharp turn and ramping up to speed. Her signature rainbow-trail formed, fainter than normal as she wasn't moving all that fast, and she hit the prism spell.
There was a flash, and Twilight's jaw dropped.
“Twilight?” Princess Celestia asked, slowing to a hover and looking around in confusion. “Is this Ponyville? What just happened?”
“Princess!” Twilight said. “I… I didn't expect that, sorry!”
“I don't think you've done anything to be sorry about, Twilight,” Celestia replied, landing in front of Twilight. “Though I must admit I am confused about what you did do. I was in Canterlot a moment ago.”
“Oh, well – I wanted to see what would happen?” Twilight said, blushing a little. “Rarity was working on a dress, and she pointed out that prisms could combine light as well as split it – so I asked Rainbow Dash to fly though a prism spell, and… well…”
She waved her hoof at Celestia wordlessly.
“I see,” Celestia chuckled. “Well, I think that experiment will have to fall under the category of 'not reproducible.'”
Twilight nodded, still a little mortified by what had happened.
“What would happen if I flew back through the spell?” Celestia asked.
“Oh, well… I think it would just reverse the effect?” Twilight guessed.
“That I shall do, then,” Celestia announced, and took off. She moved in a smooth curve to gain speed, looping around in most of a figure-of-eight, and flew into the prism spell again.
There was another flash, and Rainbow Dash came out the other side.
“...huh?” Dash asked, skidding to a halt in mid-air. “What gives? I'm sure I was flying the other way...”
“You, darling, are a wonderful actor,” Rarity pronounced, raising her glass. “Well performed.”
“It's kind of a racial thing,” Chrysalis replied. “Of course, this is going to fall apart when she asks one of them about what happened.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” Rarity agreed. “Still, look on the positive side. Maybe the Anchor this time around will show up before then and we'll never have to have that conversation.”
205.12
Angel Bunny sat.
The air around him hummed, charged with power, and little flickers of movement touched the pebbles and grass around him.
Many of the ponies who knew Angel thought of his name as one of the most ironic out there – there was very little angelic about such a mean bunny, after all.
Those who had exposure to the wider literature beyond that on the Equestrian world, including Sunset Shimmer whether or not she was Awake, had a slightly more nuanced view.
Angel Bunny had not fallen from heaven like lightning, perhaps, but… he was the companion of the Element of Kindness, and had been since long before she had earned that role and title. It would be easy to think of this as a simple one-way relationship, with Angel the bossy bunny who stayed with Fluttershy because she was nice and couldn't tell him no.
But Discord wasn't the only one who had the experience to point out the flaw in that argument. Fluttershy was kindness, sweetness and light, and she was certainly nice… but she was not weak, in the slightest.
Slowly, Angel began to float into the air.
In truth, Angel served Fluttershy many roles – especially the young Fluttershy, untempered by the experience of looping. He was her touchstone, the one who would distract her when she was getting herself too worked up about nothing… even if he did it as rudely as possible. He was her protector, capable of a quite astonishing violence for those who didn't instinctively associate bunnies with Caerbannog. He was cute enough that Fluttershy could never be scared of him, and unpleasant enough by nature to serve as a continual reminder not to judge by appearances.
None of that prevented him from being approximately far too much viciousness compressed into the form of a cute little rabbit, of course.
Reaching into his ear, Angel pulled out a pile of components. Metal pieces, alloyed of copper and gold or made of pure steel. Tiny electronic components, wires, a power cell, and a pair of angry-looking red crystals.
All of them floated in place around him, orbiting him like the miniature components of a planetary system, and he twitched his nose for a moment before bringing them all together – touching the crystals to his paws, igniting them with a fizzing internal rage which almost seemed to turn the air red by their merest presence.
The rest of the pieces fell together in a few seconds, forming a steel tube with a dozen red-gold rings of increasing size girdling it and an opening topped by a little green cap.
Taking it in his paws, Angel inspected it – then flipped the cap to one side and ignited it, and swung the ruby-red blade down to cleave a boulder in half with one electrified strike that left scorch marks for twenty feet in every direction.
A Timberwolf fled yelping from the display of power.
Angel nodded, and placed the result back in his Pocket. A relaxing of tension, and he dropped five feet to land gently on the scorched grass.
Time to go and demand lunch.
205.13:
Berry Punch examined her cutie mark, looking at the grapes-and-strawberry floating in a jar in front of her.
“Something up?” Cheerilee asked her.
“Oh, nothing much,” Berry replied. “Just thinking about… what I've missed about it.”
“You've missed something?” Cheerilee blinked. “You are aware you ascended, right?”
“That doesn't always mean you got your mark right,” Berry shrugged. “Or complete. I was just thinking… this has two parts, and I'm really heavily biased towards the grapes. Have been for a long while.”
“Is that just because strawberries are harder to make drinks with?” Cheerilee frowned.
“No, not that,” Berry said, turning the jar around – running a hoof over the embossed In Case Of Unwanted Equalization, Break Glass. “More like… symbolism. Your cutie mark is literally happy flowers, but your interpretation of it is something else – and, I might add, something which uses the entire symbology. Mine is berries, but… I'm doing what the grapes are symbolically associated with, not what the strawberries are.”
Cheerilee nodded at that.
“So… what do you plan to do about it?” she asked.
“I don't know, yet,” Berry told her. “I might not even work it out this loop, or next loop, but… it's what I'm thinking about, so there you go.”
Her sometimes-maybe-often-statistically-significantly-sister tapped a hoof. “Perhaps the reason you're thinking about it is that your cutie mark contains two dissimilar elements?”
“That's… got some mileage to it, yeah,” Berry admitted. “So maybe the reason why I feel all discontent is that no one thing could really fully supply me with what I need?”
She tapped a hoof on the floor behind the bar. “I have had a lot of loops in Equestria in a row lately, maybe that's made it worse?”
Cheerilee smiled. “There you go! That's something to assume, at least.”
She trotted a bit closer. “Tell you what, Berry. I'm pretty sure you, I and Twilight are the only ones Awake, so we can do without the bar for a loop. Go and discover yourself.”
“Do you include beating up Nightmare Moon in that?” Berry asked, deftly stowing the emergency-cutie-mark jar in her Pocket.
“I'm afraid not, it's the day after the celebration,” Cheerilee said. “Twilight did what I'm pretty sure wasn't the standard baseline, if only because I think no rainbow trout were involved back then.”
“Sounds pretty efishent,” Berry chuckled.
She pulled a tumbler out of her Pocket, and exploded with light as she transitioned to alicorn. “What do you think would get me a better chance of joining the Griffish Foreign Legion? Earth pony, unicorn, or pegasus?”
Cheerilee took a step back, startled, then smirked. “I'm kind of interested how your talent would handle pegasus.”
“That's what I'm going with, then,” Berry decided, descending down to pegasus.
Then she frowned. “Wait, hold on, I need to say goodbye to Ruby first… oops, shouldn't have switched yet...”
“Huh...” Twilight mused. “That's kind of unusual...”
She felt her element connections; nothing unusual. Well, the same amount of unusual as normal, but more to the point no Element of Honesty.
But that was definitely Gilda standing in the reception line at Cadence' wedding.
“Your Highness, allow me to introduce the Mayor of Griffinstone, name of Gilda,” one of the protocol functionaries announced.
“A griffin?” 'Cadence' asked, puzzled. “Why is there a griffin here? I thought they didn't like ponies.”
“Hey, some of my best friends were ponies,” Gilda shrugged. “Besides, free food.”
She bowed. “Princess. It's an honour to meet you, or whatever the correct way of saying it is.”
The disguised Chrysalis looked down her muzzle at Gilda, then sighed. “Yes, well… whatever.”
“Pretty much what I was thinking,” Gilda said, shrugging again.
“Hey, girls?” Twilight asked, glancing around. “Can you cover for me a bit? I kind of want to see what was going on there.”
“Really?” Dash replied. “I… have to admit, I'm kind of curious why Gilda's here too, but… we are kind of busy, it's not long before the wedding itself!”
“I know, Dash, but I really want to find out what's going on,” Twilight said. “And, well… I guess I'd be really upset if my brother's wedding wasn't perfect. Even if I don't really like what's happened to Cadence, he does love her, and it's his wedding too...”
“Oh, yeah, well… kinda funny story, that,” Berry Punch said, shrugging her wings a little and making the armour slide across itself. “See, I went off to find myself, and joined the Griffin Foreign Legion. But it turned out that it was run out of, like, one mountain, and even Griffinstone counted as foreign so we got sent there a few times… and that's where I met Gilda.”
“That's Mayor Gilda to you, fruity,” Gilda jibed.
“Yeah, but you weren't elected yet,” Berry countered. “And… well, long story short, we found the Idol of Boreas, and Gilda got elected. So now I'm kind of her personal guard.”
“That sounds like a story,” Twilight said. “I-”
She paused. “Wait, that sounds odd? Can either of you hear something?”
A very drunk-looking Lyra staggered into the room, hiccuped, and turned into a changeling.
“Miight have spiked the punch,” Berry volunteered. “Does wonders for reducing the number of assassination attempts.”
“Is that a changeling?” Gilda demanded. “Sergeant, you know what to do!”
“I can help,” Twilight volunteered, her horn lighting up. “Everypony watch out, I'm about to fire off a big dispel!”
“No!” 'Cadence' demanded. “We should have my wedding and then find out why someone wanted to ruin it! Don't let them ruin it!”
Berry took off to hover over the Mayor of Griffinstone, and flicked a punnet of strawberries into the air.
“Hey, watch this!” she called, drawing her hoof back, then slammed it forwards.
Berry seeds went everywhere, shotgunning every pony in the audience with at least one little high-speed strawberry seed. Most of them just stung, but about one in every ten flashed as their targets flared with green light – the impact just enough to dispel their shapeshifts.
And, up on stage, Chrysalis' disguise collapsed completely.
Twilight jumped forwards, horn flaring as she began casting spells, and the room dissolved into chaos.
In other words, a typical royal Canterlot wedding.
205.14
After the crowds, after the petitioners, after the adjustments to the guard schedule… after everything… there were just two ponies, sisters reunited.
“I…” Luna began, her hoof scraping at the floor slightly. “Celly, in truth… I fear I cannot apologize enough for all I have done.”
Celestia smiled, giving her a nuzzle. “Lulu… oh, dear… I did say I'd already forgiven you, didn't I?”
“Sooth,” Luna admitted. “But still I feel I should say it.”
She paused. “Canst though hear something?”
Celestia listened as well, hearing the sounds of an argument filtering through the door.
“...can't go in there, miss!”
“But this is vitally important!” a younger voice replied. “I must speak to the Princesses!”
“That sounds as though it cannot be more than a filly who speaks,” Luna said, interested. “And she speaks of us both rather than just thee?”
“So she does,” Celestia agreed. “If you do not mind the interruption, Sister?”
Luna indicated she did not, and Celestia pulled the door open.
A pink earth pony filly tumbled through the door, followed by one of the guards.
“Lightning Cutter, at ease,” Celestia ordered. “I wish to hear the petition of this very determined filly.”
“Of course, your Highness,” the pegasus confirmed, rising back to all fours. A quick thinker, he nodded to Luna as well. “Your Highness.”
“Finally,” the filly muttered, then straightened herself out and faced Celestia.
“I need to be a Princess.”
Luna blinked. “What didst thou say?”
“My little pony,” Celestia chuckled. “I know this must be a strange time, with my sister returned from the moon. But I am afraid-”
“No, I don't mean I want to be a Princess,” the filly interrupted, mildly scandalizing Luna. “I need to be one.”
She turned a little to show her flank, adorned with a well-wrought tiara, and kept going. “My special talent has to be related to being a Princess, and you know how bad it is for a pony's mental state if they don't get to do their special talent!”
“Thou should watch thy tongue,” Luna proclaimed. “Sister? This is thy castle more than mine… what punishment does thou feel is appropriate?”
Celestia didn't answer for a long moment.
“What's your name?” she asked.
“Diamond Tiara,” the filly responded.
“Well, Diamond Tiara,” Celestia continued. “Perhaps I have an idea which would help you see if you really want to be a Princess. You see, my sister has just returned from the moon, and there is a great deal of paperwork involved which she may have trouble with.”
Luna's eyes widened.
“Perhaps we could see if it helps if you act as her assistant,” Celestia concluded. “But, miss Tiara, understand that this is a privilege and not a right.”
“Oh, I know being a Princess is all about responsibility and stuff,” Tiara said airily, waving her hoof.
“Thou canst not really be considering-” Luna began, then paused. Inspected Celestia's expression. “… I see that thou art, and more, that a game is afoot. What art thou planning, 'tia?”
“If this does not work out, Luna, then nothing was ever the problem,” Celestia explained. “And if it does… it might well help your reintroduction to Equestria.”
“Your Highness, here are all the papers you need to sign,” Tiara announced, putting a thin sheaf on the desk.
She trotted off and brought back three or four more folders. “This one is for the things which require one Royal Assent and already have it from your sister, but which I thought you might like to sign as part of the reintegration; this one is the ones which your sister hasn't gotten around to yet; this is a number of letters from ponies who are interested in hearing from you. And this little one here is a personal letter from Twilight Sparkle.”
Luna looked back and forth over the folders. “Thou art most efficient,” she said, eventually. “We did only take thee on as an assistant two hours ago, correct?”
“That's correct, your Highness,” Tiara agreed. “And so you know, the informal thee/thou form of address has fallen out of use. The formal you/yours has expanded to cover all situations.”
“...ah, I see,” Luna realized. “That would explain why it seemed to me that all the ponies I met were most formal.”
“I don't think it's just that, your Highness, but it's useful to know.”
“...how?” Luna asked, not for the first time, looking at the filly following her around. “I can understand why you would accompany me in the doing of my duties, for if you need to satisfy your talent then you must take on the role of an assistant princess, but...”
She waved her hoof at Diamond Tiara. “How?”
Diamond tossed her head. “Well, it isn't too hard to follow you into the dreaming realm if I'm close enough. I couldn't begin to explain why, of course; so many things about cutie marks are instinctual.”
She frowned. “Oh! Since we are dreaming...”
A pair of wings appeared on her back and a horn on her brow, neatly fitting just behind her namesake tiara.
“...I have decided not to question it,” Luna announced. “If th- if you are to accompany here, then you may as well keep my schedule.”
“Of course, your Highness,” Tiara agreed.
“She did what?” Celestia asked.
She stared at Luna. “No, seriously. She did what?”
“From the beginning,” Luna decided. “Tiara and I visited a jewellers' so that I could acquire a new peytral, and whilst there she spotted a fine necklace. I considered it quite tasteful, so purchased it for her with some of my discretionary funds.”
Luna shrugged her wings. “Then we went about our day, and at the Masked Ball somepony complimented me on the discretion of my unicorn attendant. That was when I wondered, but it was not until the ball ended that I could confirm my suspicions.”
Celestia nodded to herself. “So… hmm. What was the necklace made of?”
“There were diamonds and fire opals,” Luna answered. “Very small ones. And one larger stone, which I believe was that fine hard stone out of which the Crystal Heart was made.”
“Cosmic Spectrum,” Celestia said. “Well. It seems her talents truly do include being a Princess… and that you may need to acquire a new assistant.”
“Must I?” Luna sighed. “We were getting on so well...”
205.15
“So… I think I understand most of this, now,” Starlight Glimmer said. “And I'm half convinced that, in some way you haven't revealed yet, it's my fault.”
“Nope,” Lyra replied cheerfully.
The unicorn floated over a drink. “See… I get that time travel is kind of a complicated process, but internal-to-the-universe time travel? Like what you were doing? Not usually a problem.”
She took a sip. “Hmm, that's pretty good.”
“What is it?” Starlight asked, curious.
“Oh, some mare Twilight met made it, it's fizzy berry pop,” Lyra explained.
She put the glass down. “Okay, so here's the thing, Starlight.”
Starlight looked up, and Lyra folded her hooves. “I know you feel kind of all… self-loathing-y because of what happened. And I get that, I really do. Seriously, we've got enough ponies and non-ponies who did things they regret that it's basically a support group, and that's before getting into the visitors.”
“So… what you're saying is that every looper has done something they regret as much as this?” Starlight asked. “As… as trying to wreck the world because I couldn't take being beaten? Destroying Equestria?”
“Well, not every looper,” Lyra said. “Partly because Angel Bunny is looping sometimes, and that bunny regrets absolutely nothing.”
That got a chuckle out of Starlight, and Lyra tapped a hoof.
“But it is common, yes,” she went on. “I mean, take me as an example. I managed to give myself MPD by breaking a loop open, and let me tell you it stung.”
Starlight blinked. “You… did what?”
“Yeah, it's kind of complicated,” Lyra shrugged. “But the important thing, Starlight, is that you neither forget nor focus on what happened in the past. It happened, and it does you no good to pretend it didn't.”
She took Starlight's hoof. “And some day, Starlight – maybe not this time – you might find yourself waking up on the day before the Lunar Restoration. Or maybe it'll be in a world where Equestria is fighting Sombra's armies, or maybe one where Luna has reigned for a thousand years. You might even end up in high school, that's a thing.”
“I might?” Starlight asked, sounding suddenly hopeful.
“You might,” Lyra repeated. “You probably won't, I'm afraid, but you might – and as one of Twilight's close friends, you're one of the ones we have our eye on as ponies to explain this to on occasion.”
She stood, releasing Starlight's hoof. “If that does happen… well, look for Twilight. She'll look after you. And you can take that from all five of me.”
205.16
“So,” Diamond Tiara began. “How have you found Ponyville so far?”
“Not too difficult,” Silvertail replied, half-flaring her wings and then closing them again. “I just went to the same place it always is.”
“Ha ha,” Diamond deadpanned. “And I wasn't talking to you, you hippogriff you.”
“This is very strange,” said Thorax, currently in the form of a colt with a cutie mark bearing an orange-glowing axe. “You feel… odd.”
“Yeah, that kind of comes with being loopers,” Diamond told him. “We're old, old ponies – or in Silver's case whatever takes her fancy – but we spend almost all our time being young.”
“It's more the being old that troubles me, then,” 'Thaw Ax' decided. “When I spoke with the Queen I felt some of the same, emotions shifting under the surface…”
“Of course,” Silvertail nodded. “I'm actually the least empathic of the three of us here, so I have a bit less perspective on it, but… it's something that happens to loopers, I understand. The core parts of our personalities remain, but others buffer and buttress them – strength upon strength, layers of the mind which support the whole.”
She flicked her tail. “One side effect of that is that – especially around here – loopers get really good at spoofing emotional signatures. So we could both show you whatever we wanted – and we're not.”
“That is… I think I understand,” Thorax said. “But… what I wonder is why my Queen sent me here.”
“It's… kind of an exchange program,” Diamond Tiara said. “Not just in terms of why Silvertail's here, she's always here – the question is whether she's a pony or something else. But… okay, so Twilight gave you that talk about what loopers mean?”
“Yes,” Thorax verified. “And the Queen told me much as well, though in a different way.”
“Right,” Diamond agreed. “That's the start of it. But… basically, Twilight has tried to work out which of the people we know in Equestria – ponies and non-ponies – are the ones who are the most likely to begin looping in the future. And she thinks that you're one of the possibilities… but if you do, then you might have a problem, because of the Changeling need for love.”
“I won't steal it,” Thorax protested.
“That's… actually the problem, oddly,” Silvertail said, rolling her neck a little and stretching. “Changelings can absorb love that's freely given… but, to put it simply, not all of us know you well enough. So… that's what this is for.”
She snapped her claws together, and produced a pack of playing cards from under her wing. “Speaking of which, have you ever played Chaos?”
Seeing him look a little lost, she smiled. “Don't worry, it's a trick question, the game didn't exist until Discord invented it.”
“That would be… the great calamity, Discord?” Thorax asked, shrinking back a bit.
“Well, kind of depends on when you speak to him,” Diamond replied. “But… yeah, basically. It's a good game, though – come on, we'll walk you through it...”
“I… have a few questions,” Thorax said, some time later.
“What, about the play?” Silver asked. “So what Tiara is doing is she's setting up a rule change. She's already declared the Ultimate Question to be 'What do you get if you multiply seven by nine', so when she institutes it it'll change-”
“No, not about that,” Thorax said. “About… the loops thing. The game is… almost incomprehensible, but fun.”
“You kind of get used to it,” Tiara told him, putting her cards down face-down. “So, what was that about the loops thing?”
“Well...”
The disguised changeling took a deep breath, then let it out.
“Firstly, um… why me?”
“It's who we know you're going to be,” Silvertail answered. “Who you have the potential to be.”
“That and you're a good friend of people like Spike,” Diamond added. “Will be. We'll introduce you.”
“Right,” Thorax said, looking a bit lost in tenses. “And – well, you said that not everyone loops. So… what if I am, and the Queen isn't?”
Tiara nodded to him. “That is a good question. We're working on it… if you do start looping, then your first few loops especially might be a very difficult experience.”
She picked up her cards again and tapped them on the table for a moment. “We've had some rather unfortunate outcomes in the past when ponies started looping – and when your Queen did, actually, by all accounts Twilight was ready to pull her mane out over that one.”
“I do love Twilight, but she gets ready to pull her mane out over her tax returns being late on the last day of the loop,” Silvertail contributed. “Hmm, maybe I should see if I'm related to Silverstream this loop...”
“We're getting off topic,” Tiara judged. “Anyway. We're doing our best to try and lead to a soft-landing for any new loopers. It's a point of pride as much as anything else.”
“I think I understand,” Thorax nodded. “And… how many are there who might start looping? Who are getting the treatment I am?”
“I'm not very sure,” Tiara admitted. “Twilight's mathematical model for it is extensive. I know there's Starlight Glimmer, though, and her niece… you, of course… and at least half a dozen much more long-shot options.”
She shrugged. “It's hard to tell how much control even random chance has over looper activation, though.”
“Hope that answers your questions,” Silver added. “If so, back to the game!”
Thorax picked his cards up again, concentrating on all the rules he'd been told.
“And… there!” Tiara announced. “Rule sixty-three is in place, everyone swaps genders.”
“I do?” Thorax asked, then shifted to a filly.
“...well, there goes four weeks of gradual integration planning,” Tiara said lightly, as all conversation on the village green just stopped. “Time for the backup plan.”
“You have a backup plan for this?” Silver asked. “Getting a bit Twilight there?”
“It just has one word on it,” Tiara told her. “Improvise. Here goes...”
205.17
“There we go!” Starlight said, laying her staff down. “That's much better, isn't it! You don't need to worry about that silly cutie mark and trying to work out what it means, and you can just relax knowing exactly what your new one is.”
Silver Spoon examined her new equals-sign cutie mark, then nodded. “Yes. I know exactly what this means.”
“You could be a bit more cheerful, couldn't you?” Starlight asked, with a smirk. “I've done you a favour, remember.”
“I guess so,” Silver agreed. “After all, everypony else here can do what I can do. That's kind of relaxing.”
Double Diamond stared.
“...what… what are you doing?” he asked.
“Huh?” Silver replied, looking up. “Alchemy. What else?”
She tapped the circle she'd drawn, and it lit up – the spiralling tracery deconstructing the pile of wood and stone Silver had put in one of the foci, then reconstructing a chair out of diamond and carbon-fibre and thin sheets of quartz and green peridot.
“But… how did you… earth pony?” Double Diamond tried. “And… we're all equal!”
“Yeah, though you're not doing great at using it,” Silver said critically. “I mean, I know you're not great at designing stuff, this is basically just a copy of a chair I saw in the library back in Ponyville, but I haven't seen a single heating circle or water-purifier or any of that.”
She sat down on the chair, which seemed to take her weight well enough. “How come you're so surprised? It's equivalent exchange. I deconstructed the wood and stone, and I reconstructed something else out of the same atoms – the stuff I used equals the stuff I got out.”
Double Diamond twisted around a little to look at the equals on his flank, then the equals on Silver's flank.
“I… didn't even know that was what it meant,” he said.
“Well, I guess now you do,” Silver smiled. “Tell you what, I'll run you through something basic. What about a circle which converts cold air to hot air by stripping and recombining nitrogen?”
“You lost me about… four words from the end,” Double Diamond said. “But… I guess that would be useful. The fireplaces here aren't very well designed, because...”
He shook his head. “It doesn't matter, sorry – I don't mean to be rude.”
“Well, no wonder if you're using a fireplace when your talent is alchemy,” Silver mused. “Still, I hope you remember it does have limitations. You've got to accept them before you can design something that'll work.”
“That makes sense,” Double agreed readily.
“This isn't how it's supposed to work!” Starlight seethed.
“Why not?” Silver asked, curious. “I mean… this is a cutie mark about giving everyone exactly the same kind of talent, right? So everyone can do the same skills, instead of having different ones because of their cutie marks?”
“I… no!” Starlight hissed. “It's supposed to be about how any talent is going to tear ponies apart! How any skill at all is going to – how are you even doing that when the mark is specially made to suppress special talents?”
“Well, it's an equals sign,” Silver said. “And alchemy is about equivalent exchange. So it fits the cutie mark. Kind of like how everyone in town could be great at mathematics, too, because of how much of that is equations.”
“That's not… but...” Starlight began.
“Hey, calm down,” Silver advised her. “It's not like this is a substitute for hard work – and you're invited to the lessons too.”
She waved her hoof. “But everypony's enjoying themselves, getting to be creative with their new talents.”
“They shouldn't be creative,” Starlight mumbled. “They should all be the same, creativity is bad for you...”
“Hey, creativity is what came up with the idea of Our Town, right?” Silver shrugged.
She produced a new scroll from her saddlebag. “Besides, I think you'll like this one. See, these little circles… you put these salts here and here, this limestone here, and a big bucket of water here… and it gives you a hot soapy shower! You like those, right?”
“It… does what?” Starlight asked, as Silver activated the circle. “Wait – no!”
“Oh, okay, that explains it,” Silver said knowledgeably, as Starlight's real cutie mark appeared. “Everything makes a lot more sense now, funnily enough.”
Starlight cast a powerful stunning spell, which slammed into Silver and knocked her against the wall.
“I've worked for this for too long to let a foal like you take it away,” Starlight said. “So you're going to have to forget this ever-”
A furry silver squirrel tail wrapped around her hooves and tripped her over.
“By the way,” Silver added. “Secret draconequus. Sorry I didn't tell you. You know how it is, agent of chaos, maximum trollage, all that.”
Starlight muttered something unprintable, then teleported.
“Huh,” Silver shrugged. “You'd think she'd at least finish her monologue.”
205.18
“I'm sorry, Sunset, I really am,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “This is one of those subjects which Man Was Not Meant To Know.”
“But we're both girls,” Sunset replied. “Doesn't that count for anything?”
“A bit, but not enough,” Twilight told her. “And anyway, on the other side of the mirror the saying is Pony Was Not Meant To Know. Bit better on gender, not an improvement species-wise.”
She glanced at her friend. “Isn't that unhealthy?”
“Smoking behind the bike sheds is a tradition here,” Sunset countered, rolling the cylinder of unaltered paper between her fingers. “Besides, the smoke's all coming from fire magic, I'm just channelling it out my mouth for the look.”
Twilight chuckled. “Well, Olorin does indulge, so I can hardly say it's not becoming.”
She put her hands together. “But… here's the thing, Sunset. I firmly believe that, if any world would be able to work out who was going to start looping, it's ours. My portfolio as a Princess starts with friendship, after all.”
“I'm guessing it's not working out that way,” Sunset said sagely.
“Pretty much,” Twilight confirmed. “I've got a few theories, but they're only really statistical and it's impossible to tell how accurate they are. They're just the most accurate based on all past data of looper inception, and back-testing them I can only predict about a quarter of them closer than a thousand loops and only about half of them at all.”
She put a hand on Sunset's shoulder. “Which… is why I'm unable to tell you if anyone from your side of the mirror is going to start looping any time soon, or even ever. It might be that the dimensional mirror interface stops the spread – you were only awakened by Lyra accidentally the whole universe, after all.”
“I get you,” Sunset agreed, sighing. “Well… I guess I'll just keep on keeping on.”
She gave Twilight a hug. “And thanks for the help whenever you can send it, by the way. Those times the looping Pinkie comes over here are a real stress relief, for certain kinds of stress anyway.”
“Yeah, she doesn't actually tell me about those,” Twilight said ruefully. “I've got very little influence over what she does… and, apparently, I'm not very good at spotting when your Pinkie has come ponywards in an exchange program.”
She stood. “I should get back, I've got my brother's wedding to save. You know how to contact me if you need anything.”
“Of course,” Sunset agreed. “What's your plan for this one?”
“Oh, I was thinking of declaring that Shiny didn't have to marry my foalsitter just so she'd stay around and keep me happy, and that Cadence could marry me instead of Shining who she obviously didn't like with how much she was screwing up the wedding prep,” Twilight replied. “I'm going to see if I can make Chrysalis just awkward her way out of there...”
205.19
Twilight blinked, Waking up in her usual place – reading the book which had first warned her of the return of Nightmare Moon.
A moment's checking, however, revealed that she was in some sort of variant – the fact that she was attending Princess Cadence' School for Talented Ponies was the first sign of that, and the second sign was that for as long as she could remember the moon had borne the shape of a heart and the sun had had a glittering blue shield spread across it.
“Wait...” Twilight added, thinking about that one more closely.
Princess Cadence was definitely a thing, but she'd also had a foalsitter by the name of Happy Hearts who looked very similar… aside from being a pegasus, that was. And Prince Armor had ruled by her side since time immemorial, but she still had a B.B.B.F.F – by adoption, though if she counted it out then Strong Shield had been adopted as a unicorn colt by her parents about six months before Twilight herself had been born.
Sending up a ping, Twilight was pleased to get two back.
“You guys...” she said, smiling, and very happy that her favourite royal couple had made sure they were part of her life.
Returning her gaze to the book, her smile became a frown.
“The alicorns of the Sun and the Moon raged against one another, each threatening destruction upon the world. Prince Armor spread his greatest aegis over the day, so the sun would not burn, and Princess Cadence radiated her love over the night, so the darkness would not chill. And they took up the Elements of Harmony, to seal away the enraged spirits and return order… though they warned that in a thousand years even the magic of the elements might decay, and the spirits of the sky would return.”
Putting the book down, Twilight took a deep breath.
“Great. Both at once. Well, no pressure then… just need to find the Elements...”
“It really helps that you're so good at magic, Twily,” Shining said, once the audience chamber door was closed. “It means we've been able to get you on as our apprentice without anyone actually asking any awkward questions.”
“Right,” Cadence agreed. “And that means we can have a private chat.”
She paused. “By the way, how long has it been since we've met?”
“Hmm… about ten or fifteen loops,” Twilight said. “Mind you, one of them was about five hundred years long, so… I've missed you guys.”
Cadence held out her hooves to give Twilight a hug, and Shining came over to join them. For a minute or so, Twilight just luxuriated in feeling her friends and relatives so close… then she sighed, and they got down to business.
“So I saw we're likely dealing with both Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker,” she said. “What's the good news?”
“Well, there's two of us,” Shining replied. “And you're here as well.”
“Okay,” Twilight mused. “So the fact that that is what you're saying is the good news leads me to think there's more bad news?”
“Just a bit,” Shining answered. “Okay, so, real quick… the statues down in the garden include both Discord and Sombra, as far as we can tell the Storm King is out there somewhere, the Crystal Empire vanished because of changelings, and we haven't managed to locate Starlight Glimmer but she's out there somewhere.”
“And...” Cadence winced. “No Rainboom.”
“Oh, right,” Twilight said. “So… I'm guessing none of my friends are around in the right state to form the Elements of Harmony?”
She stretched, cracking her neck a little.
“Right. Right.”
Twilight took a deep, steadying breath, and let it out. When she did, her posture had suddenly changed.
The friendship student was still there, a little, and the Princess of Friendship was waiting in the all-too-literal wings, but this was the Twilight who was an archmage. The Twilight who swapped tips on magic with Incarnate Maiar, who bore an Intelligent Device more for the look of things than for the need. Whose whole being was so steeped in magic that she could deconstruct and invert an incoming spell on the fly.
Prince Armor glanced at his wife. “Am I the only one getting chills?”
“Nope,” Princess Cadence replied.
OWL materialized as Twilight pulled it from inside her Pocket, changing mode to form a clockwork owl that hovered beside her.
“The spells are breaking tomorrow, right?” Twilight checked.
“As nearly as we can tell,” her brother confirmed. “We're holding the Equinox Event in Ponyville-”
“...okay, not going to comment on the name,” Twilight decided. “I've come up with worse.”
“Thank you,” Cadence said tartly. “So we'll send you there ahead of time to set up.”
Stand by ready, OWL declared.
“Not you.”
Who?
Shining chuckled. “You never did get tired of that joke...”
“It's hard to say why,” Twilight mused, the next day. “But in some vague way I feel cheated.”
“Don't be like that, Twily,” Cadence advised. “Can't you be happy for them?”
“Oh, I'm happy for them,” Twilight smiled.
She held out her hoof, letting OWL land on it, and looked at the Elements of Harmony.
Trixie, with her talent of magic and the Element of the same, was familiar enough. But the rest… the names were the same, but the talents and the life stories were a much rarer variant.
In fact, thinking about it, Twilight was fairly sure the time she normally saw this combination of pony and cutie mark was when she fluffed Star Swirl's spell during the process of her ascension. Still the same Elements, but… different ways of handling them.
“You know, the Storm King probably is going to take a fight this loop,” Cadence added. “Even if he's not able to get hold of Berrytwist. He's that sort of problem.”
“I take your point,” Twilight agreed. “It's not that I'm upset, at all, it's just… I got myself all ready for a big epic knock-down drag-out brawl with Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, and then Rarity's moving the weather around with her magic while Rainbow Dash gets the animals to chip in… and by the time I'd readjusted, Trixie was already going and it'd be rude to interrupt.”
She shrugged. “Well, it's like when you've got yourself ready for something nasty and it doesn't happen. You feel like you wasted all that good getting-ready.”
Cadence smiled. “Like a test?”
“Don't be silly,” Twilight chuckled. “A test is something to enjoy. I would be upset if I missed a test!”
She looked at the just-purified Celestia and Luna, the former being shown a dress by Applejack while Fluttershy crept up behind the dressmaker with a prank and the latter inspecting the apple treats Pinkie Pie had laid out for her with more than a little curiosity.
“But I don't think I can mind this,” she said. “And I'm kind of intrigued to see where else this is going to lead...”
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So it would seem.
Of course.
Excellent question.
Very much so.
This is nice.
Oh yeah.
That is fair.
I would imagine, yes.
Sort of.
If you hurt Fluttershy, yes.
Of course.
NOPE.
205.10
Dammit. Now everyone's going to think my Magic, Heart, and Soul story was an idea I stole from you...
that last part reminds me of a silly fan-comic where, instead of fixing Starswirl's spell,Twilight simply cast the spell four more times...resulting in a bunch of one-panel gags, like Rarity harvesting apples, Fluttershy making dresses, Pinkie trying to wrangle clouds, and so on.
and at the end, Celestia says to Luna, "that's just what Starswirl himself did."
9328990
Link?
Just checking - 205.4 is a Gilda who has forepaws, instead of eagle claws?
9329562
He ascended to alicornhood but instead of sporting it outwardly, he internalized it and made it apart of his Earth poyn form. Meaning he can use his hooves to do unicorn and pegasus magic. He can also shift to an interalized alicorn pegasus form where he has wings and used them to do unicorn and Earth pony magic.
That make sense for you?
Do we call her "Cel-galeo" now, or...
Changelings confirmed as amovorous Irken. Praise the Tallest!
And I'm a bit disappointed we never saw the outcome of Throne vs. Tirek. You know, for science. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the interaction changed from Loop to Loop.
All told, fantastic batch. Especially Ditzy single-hoofedly disarming Starlight, but I'm sure no one's surprised by my enjoying that one.
9330282
I couldn't decide what kind of anticlimax it would be, to be honest. Possibly reality can't.
And yes, I might have guessed...
9329942
The term for a bird's scaled foot is "foot"; since they're being used as hands in the scenes in question, I went with "paw" as the closest available term.
9328896
Only if they can't read timestamps.
Loved this chapter, great work.
9329969
Wow, yeah actually. That makes a lot of sense, thanks.
9332913
... I've heard better jokes
9334210
...Do you actually get what the joke is meant to be?
9334258
I mean, I assume it meant Trixie killed 2 of them, right?
9334782
I was talking more the recent Master storyline during the 12th Doctor’s tenure. They redeemed the character quite fully. And the Master and Doctor were always more rivals than enemies. The Master would try to undermine him and cause chaos on the Doctor’s pet project (earth) just to try and push him over the edge, but whenever things went south he wasn’t beyond asking the Doctor to help bail him out of trouble. They had a lot of respect for each other even early on. The way humans would see it, yes, the Master was evil, but for a race of time travellers who could cheat death it was more just an ongoing decent into madness.
The key thing is they never truly hated each other, the Master just liked to pretend he did.
9334872
Eeeyup.
9334822
Pretty much.
9344597
Oh. Well, here’s hoping.
8632329
9344597
9344606
To clarify: I'm pretty sure Marvel loopers have appeared at some point, but the MCU variant for the Marvel branch hasn't gotten much focus in regard to snips featuring MLP, as far as i'm aware.
9344735
Ah. Ok.
Quick question, are we allowed to use OCs in writing Loops, or only characters from movies/TV shows?
9345720
OCs are only allowed as what basically amounts to background characters. They can't become Loopers or remember previous Loops if they appear again
Nyx being the one exception for the MLP Loops since she's kinda-sorta Nightmare Moon
9345720
What Vinyl said, basically. There's something of a 'No OC Loopers' rule in place. Characters who are OCs, such as Nyx from here or the Ree from Evangelion, as little as they're seen in writing these days, are artifacts of a time when this was less enforced.
9345721
The link I give will depend what exactly you're looking for. MLP forum thread specifically? Just the project's main or navigation threads? All of those?
9345729
Well, I can understand the reason (would lead to a lot of poorly written chapters about nothing but the author's OC), it also disappoints me enough that I've lost interest in reading anymore (was up to Loop 38).
My idea would have been a one-shot anyway but I appreciate the responses. Thank you.
9345915
You can always write your own Time Loop story if that kind of thing interests you, and then you won't have to follow any rules but your own.
9350798
I GUESS
Though I doubt you'd call them "spent clips" that way. Its like calling old hairclips you're tossing out "spent hairclips"
9352203
Thank you
Always love coming back to this fic after two months to see a wave of updates.
I continue to await the eventual looping adventures of Starlight Glim Glam Glimmer, (as well as seeing Big Mac dealing with his baseline self being in a relationship--hint hint).
9357675
That being?
9357675
Short of shipping Sunset with herself, you're going to have to be clearer about what this one means.
9357833
Wild guess? Sunset/Sunburst.
(Which, given the multiple stories I've read where they're related, would be kind of odd.)
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
9359125
Activating new loopers has been something that's been on hold for a very long time due to the excessive number MLP already has. There's been talks on the forum thread recently of activating Starlight and Thorax, as well as maybe (and only maybe) activating someone from the other side, but that's as far as that goes right now.
9359437
Huh, well, good to know. Thank you.
Finally, after a year and a half, i have finally caught up. I love these fics.
Now that the Thanos vs Darkseid DeathBattle Trailers are both out, I can properly comment on this story:
This story is the Darkseid of wasted potential. It is the physical manifestation of tyranny. Because of how many different storylines there are in this fic, that is that many different stories that can never be wrote now. Its impressive, and disturbing, what people on this site allow.
9363778
...this fic is a collab work written by a wide range of authors. It's a passion thing and sometimes writers lose interest or aren't able to finish things. That's the nature of this. If you came here expecting anything else, you were always going to be disappointed.
9363802
Then I shall express my disappointment through viciously posting comments on this story.
9363778
I'm not sure exactly why you think that stories can't be written if they've turned up in the Loops.
In some cases they're storylines which couldn't work outside the Loops concept, but in other cases they would - and, as I wrote in the authors' notes of this very chapter on which you comment:
I wouldn't wish to accuse you unjustly of deciding to insult this fic without having read the ANs, but... there it is.
I also admit I'm not sure how this is "disturbing".
9363979
If that's your preference, by all means go ahead. Just don't expect me or anyone else to take you seriously.
9371315
Here you go.
9376992
I mean, he's shown able to do whatever he pleases, no questions asked. That is some divine stuff that would probably ascend you to adminhood in a Madoka fashion and potentially destroy the loop. It makes sense for the loops to suppress him.
9378528
Definitely. Though sometimes, I like to keep myself in the dark purposefully. Like one of the XCOM crossovers (the one with Sunset) has a plotline that differs from the main game, but has characters and events that closely follow it. So while I'll probably get the game, I don't want to play it until the fic is finished.
I don't want to know in advance whether a character has a tendency for betrayal, or something like that.
At the same time, with the Loops, it does add an extra layer of references if you know the material well.
9388598
It's actually pi*F*a degrees.
9389073
Well yeah, I get that. My problem wasn't the usage here; more like the idea that all FRB is actually bad. I've actually done a bit of research on it, and found out that it's in many ways better than the gold standard. Like you said though, it really only works when confidence in the country in question is strong. Helps to explain why the Euro is so poor right now.
9389641
You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that FRB and the Gold Standard are mutually exclusive. They're not.
9390084
That is my impression as well.
9389175
Rainbow by a country mile, since Vinyl usually has Octavia to keep her grounded in reality.
Which is also why I really don't want Octy to Loop, so she can be a non-looper anchor for Vinyl instead of joining her on her insanity.
9357676
9357833
9358115
Sunset Shimmer x EG Sunset Shimmer
I feel I should mention that I do not believe them to be identical, nor the same person, per se. To me, they are separate people who happen to share an identity, with only one being explored to any degree in Canon. Their concept of Self may well be entirely different, or it could be so close as to be near interchangeable. Until Hasbro tells us about Human Sunny, I ship SunShim, and depending what they give me to work with, I may continue to do so.
Jesus, there are 2.2 million words? It looks interesting but:
9409802
The Fallout Loopers (Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier, Nate, and Nora) are having the time of their lives in Appalachia.
Mostly because of how absurd and silly it can get due to all the "features" like things falling through the earth, enemies freezing in place, and of course being able to launch nukes all day every day.
Although they learned the hard way not to launch more than two nukes at the same time and have taken the Valve approach of pretending the number three doesn't exist.
Which means launching four, five, or six nukes works fine...