> A Frayed Notebook with Pages Missing
>  by Ezn
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> THB: Spirit of Magic Chapter One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flickering light from a candle danced around the ancient, browned page that renowned adventurer-archaeologist Digging Doo stood hunched over. Her eyes squinted to make out what parts of the faint, hornwritten text remained legible.



I think I’ve made a real breakthrough here! For generations upon generations, the Princesses and their greatest scholars have studied magic and laboured to create a definitive set of rules for its workings, but with every new revision of the laws of magic, another spell would soon come along and make all of their hard work obsolete.

I think I know why.

An Argument for Magic as a Living Being
by Professor T Sparkle

Uurgh, no, that’s a terrible name for an essay! Note to self: come up with a better one later.

Anyway, my argument:
Since my birth, Equestrian technology has progressed in leaps and bounds. We now have machines to do all kinds of things that our parents had to do by hoof – machines to buck apples, machines to do mathematics, and even machines to move us around at great speeds. All of these machines are powered by a pure, unmanipulated form of magic that can be created by any unicorn. Rather than molding the magic to its purpose, ponykind has become more and more accustomed to just pouring some magic into a device and letting it do all the work.

While this does have its advantages, it means that the more complex forms of magic - levitating magic, growing magic and cutting magic, to name a few - are becoming less and less commonly used. Ponykind is coming to understand magic not by seeking out knowledge of all its forms, but by using only its simplest forms and rejecting all mutations. Ponykind is robbing magic of its soul.

When a pony teleports, she faces no danger of teleporting into a wall. When a pony lifts an object, she does not have to perform mental calculations regarding its weight to avoid lifting it too forcefully. These things just work. When a pony changes one object into another object, she needs only visualise both objects in her mind, without worrying about individual atoms becoming scrambled. When a pony shrinks or grows an object, she need not even know about the square-cube rule.

From this, I conclude that magic is not a rigid or mechanical force, nor is it a system governed by specific rules. Magic exhibits judgement. It will not harm its user without its user intending to harm herself. It will not interpret mental commands literally, but perform them in spirit. Magic can infer meanings and ignore details that are prudently ignored. Magic grows more powerful when bolstered by “friendship” – an intangible bond between beings. Magic is a thinking – and maybe feeling – entity.

[Too dramatic. Reword a lot.]



Digging Doo scoffed. Her experiences with magic had painted it as anything but thoughtful and benevolent. The uncomfortable way her wings were plastered to her sides by tight swaths of bandages served as a reminder of the most recent one.

As if the universe had just then chosen to play a cruel prank on Ms Doo, the candle on her desk was blown out by a sharp gust of wind, plunging the room into darkness.

The darkness lasted only a few moments, as three unicorn horns soon lit up to bathe the room in an eerie multi-coloured glow. Digging struck a match on the table and relit her candle before turning to face her assailants – ponies who wore dark glasses and stony expressions.

“Well,” she greeted. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, gentlecolts? It was my understanding that we would only be completing this transaction in the morning.”

“Our bosses are not accustomed to waiting for what they want,” replied the biggest unicorn, who was obviously the leader of the group. His friends growled menacingly to back him up.

“Wellll...” Digging said, slowly elongating her speech while she stealthily used her tail to hide the professor’s notes under her pith helmet – an invaluable skill she’d learnt at a Sun-worshipper monastery. “I’m afraid that... sometimes... good things come to those who wait!”

Punctuating the end of her sentence with a few more exclamation marks, she smacked the candle off her desk with a foreleg. It landed on a pile of newspaper, which caught fire instantly. Doo had to jump back to avoid singing her coat – and to mount the windowsill.

“Better luck next time, Ahu – uh, unicorns!” she shouted into the smoke-filled room.

A crouch followed by a daring leap landed her on the windowsill of a neighbouring building. A few more swift hops found her on its roof, and soon she was hopping from rooftop to rooftop, speeding across the Manehattan skyline in a dirty pink blur.

Once she felt she was far enough away, she looked back and sighed deeply at the trail of smoke she saw wafting into the grey sky above. It’s a shame about that hotel, she thought. Wherever am I going to find another one that still offers room-service?








THE HUMANIFICATION BUREAU:


Spirit of Magic


by Ezn


Set in the Humanification Bureau universe | Inspired by Blaze's The Conversion Bureau









Chapter One: Another Day, Another Dungeon


Digging Doo looked at her reflection in a cracked mirror.

At birth, her coat had been a pastel pink colour, but her latest escapades, piled on top of years of rough and dirty living, made it look like a patchwork of mud, dust, soot and that original pink colour, but faded. Her mane and tail were black striped with two different shades of grey, but this had been an intentional dye job, carried out by the last hairdresser in Fillydelphia.

Her white pith helmet was scratched and dented, and her brown shirt had patches and stitches running all over its surface, but both were still in one piece. Considering Digging had found them in an abandoned Nightmare Night costume shop, it was pretty surprising.

A pile of dirty bandages lay at the bottom of Digging’s reflection. Tentatively, she stretched out her wings. Okay so far, she thought. I’ll try flying in the morning.

Digging turned around a few times, checking her reflections for cuts and burn-marks. When she didn’t find any, she smiled confidently to her reflection and trotted away from the mirror.

The only other room of Digging’s secret headquarters contained a ratty old bed with tattered sheets and a crudely-constructed bookcase. Twelve brown-paged, dog-eared books were neatly arranged on the middle shelf. Digging’s eyes lit up as he pulled one out with a forehoof, not even needing to look at it to know that it was Daring Do and the Griffon Goblet – appropriate reading material for an adventurer-archaeologist with recently-healed wings.

Digging placed her helmet on the top shelf of the bookcase and folded her shirt carefully before placing it on the bottom one. She sighed happily as she lay down on her bed with the Griffon Goblet clutched between her hooves. Her head was already reciting the opening paragraph...

Digging stopped. A rolled-up piece of parchment lay on the floor between the bed and her bookcase. In all the excitement, she’d forgotten about the important document she’d been keeping under her hat. Scolding herself, she swiftly scooped it up with her mouth. She was about to put it back under her hat when she realised what a good bookmark it would make.

An hour later, Digging put her book back on its shelf, with Professor Sparkle’s notes sandwiched between page fifty-six and fifty-seven.


***


It had been a year since the opening of the first Humanification Bureaus. Those of ponykind who still remained had fled the open fields and small towns for urban ruins and secluded mountain hideouts. For the most part, the weak-willed and soft-minded had undergone the conversion process. None had the resources or the inclination to conduct a study of how many had been converted and how many remained as their birth-species, but anypony could see that their population was dwindling.
 
Those who remained ponies where either too stubborn and proud to abandon their kind, too worldly to trust the humans’ stated good intentions, or savvy enough to squeeze some personal gain out of the new balance of society.

The Manehattan Central Park marketplace attracted the third type of pony in droves. From one dirty brick building to another, the city block was covered by hastily-set-up canvas awnings and ramshackle wooden display counters, adorned with all manner of goods and all manner of excited mouth-painted signs proclaiming their quality.

An array of torches set up all around the marketplace made a valiant effort at simulating the light of the sun, but the flickering firelight ultimately failed to make the scene any less shadowy.

Annoyance written on her face, Digging Doo jostled her way past milling customers and eager vendors. Stupid wings, she thought. Two more days and I could have been flying over this...

Digging ducked into an alley, exhaling in relief. She trotted over to a rusty old fire-escape and swiftly climbed its creaky stairs. At the top of the stairs was a worn door painted in a red that had mostly flaked off.

"Knock, knock!" announced Digging as she rapped a forehoof against it. "Anypony home?"

A rattling and three distinct crashes were poorly muffled by thin wood, and the door was yanked ajar. A pair of spectacled eyes peered out from above the door's chain, suspiciously at first, but then calmed by a light of recognition.

"Ah, Ms Doo, my favourite scavenger!" said the pony behind the door. "I didn't expect you back so soon! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Got some more business to conduct with you, Hoard."

The chain was released from its hook to allow Digging a swift admittance into the room before the door slammed shut. She blinked as stepped into the bright room from the dark alley.

"Well, Ms Doo?" asked Hoard.

Hoard was a brown-and-white-coated paint pony with a darker brown mane. He claimed to be the last living member of a wealthy and powerful family from Trottingham. Digging wasn't sure about any of that, but he certainly spoke like he was from Trottingham.

He wore a small pair of spectacles on the end of his snout and a dusty old creme dress shirt with a black bowtie and waistcoat. Digging imagined he did so to look sophisticated. She didn't know much about optometry, but felt that surely his glasses were too small to be of any real use to impaired vision.

It was with this thought in mind that Digging applied a swift right hook to Hoard's snout, knocking his tiny spectacles across the room.

Hoard was knocked onto his side with a bloody nose.

"OW! What'd you do that for?" he demanded, stopping the bleeding with his left forehoof.

Digging looked down at him with hard eyes. "When I ask for a buyer, I want a buyer, not a murderous cult. Try to keep them straight."

"Oh, that. Sorry. I didn't know, honest!"

"Well maybe you should be more careful about who you associate yourself with!" spat Digging. "I managed to get out of it this time, but I may not always be so lucky! What would you do if your biggest supplier suddenly turned up dead, Hoard?"

Hoard sheepishly raised himself to his hooves and produced a spare pair of tiny spectacles from a waistcoat pocket, which he used to examine the carpet while muttering.

"Yeah, you'd be dead," Digging said indignantly. "If I'm dead, you're dead – keep that in mind. And while you're keeping it in mind, find me another buyer!"

Wordlessly nodding, Hoard trotted across the room to a battered filing cabinet next to a scratched-up desk. He pulled open the top drawer and grabbed a few folders in his mouth before trotting to his desk and fanning them out in front of him.

As he pored over his documents, Digging looked about the room idly. It was cluttered, she noted. Curios and bits of debris littered every available surface, including the floor. Books were piled haphazardly onto shelves and shared space with everything from wooden zebra sculptures to bits of jewellery (ones that Hoard would no doubt claim belonged to the bearers of the Elements of Harmony at some stage).

"Aha!" Hoard exclaimed, prompting Digging to turn to look at him. "I've found a buyer, Ms Doo. Not a buyer I think you're going to like much, but a trustworthy one that pays well nonetheless."

"I like anypony who can pay me for my services and isn't out to kill me, Hoard," Digging replied.

Hoard smiled nervously. "That's just it, Ms Doo: this particular buyer isn't a pony."

"Not like I have a problem with griffons or zebras, Hoard."

"It's a human, Digging – well, a group of humans."

Digging Doo's mouth clamped shut and she stared blankly at Hoard.

"They call themselves the 'Pony Appreciation Society'," he continued, " or 'PAS' for short. Basically, they study our history and collect artefacts of significance with the hope of preserving the memory of ponykind for future generations... they're good clients, Digging."

"I'm sure you'd say the same of Nightmare Moon if she paid on time," Digging hissed, eye narrowed.

Hoard glanced at the ceiling in momentary thought. "Well, yes, I probably would do that. These are hard times, Ms Doo, and we must place our survival above all other concerns. A customer who pays is worth more than Princess Celestia resurrected at this point."

"That's blasphemy."

"Does it matter?"

There was a tense silence in the room as Digging fought to stop herself from slapping Hoard again. Fortunately for him, a low rumbling from her stomach managed to cool her anger before her restraint could falter. Her mind involuntarily returned to the empty larder in her hideout. I'm hungry...

"I believe we both know what the most prudent course of action is right now, Ms Doo," Hoard said, smiling as his ears perked up to take in the sound of her hunger. "The fastest way for you to make the money you need to survive is to sell that manuscript to the PAS. We both know that you don't have the energy or the resources to mount another expedition right now, and that you need to get rid of that manuscript as soon as possible – don't think that those crazy cultists are just going to let you keep it..."

Digging frowned; he was right. Hating the necessary sincerity in each word, she said, "Alright, fine. I'll do it. Just point me in the direction of these PAS guys and I'll sell them a priceless pony artefact in order to feed myself."

"Excellent!" Hoard said, grinning as he grabbed a map from one of the files in his mouth and offered it to Digging. "Jfhust fogglow ghis."
Digging took the map from him and turned to leave with a curt nod.


***


Two days later, Digging's wings were ready to fly and she set out on her journey.
 
Following Hoard's map took her a good deal further from the city than she usually went. While her idol had spent her time raiding ancient tombs and traversing dense jungles, she had managed to conduct most of her expeditions inside the more dangerous areas of Manehattan. Navigating old, unstable buildings and maliciously enchanted streets was not the easiest or safest way to make a living, even in modern Equestria, but for an agile, quick-thinking daredevil like Digging Doo, it was a thrill and a healthy paycheck – most of the time.
 
Digging beat her wings against the cold air, looking down occasionally. The countryside that spread out below her was nothing like the lovingly preserved photos of rolling green hills and fluffy white clouds her mother had shown her as a child, and only similar to the grainy films of centuries past in their monotone colouring. The grass was dead, the trees were dead, and the whole expanse was coloured grey by the everpresent twilight in the sunless land.
 
Straight ahead of her, a tall ivory-white column cut through the middle of the grey horizon. That must be their outpost, she thought.
 
Before long, Digging touched down on the dusty ground in front of the column, and confirmed her assumption with a glance at the sign above its ground-level door, which read "Pony Appreciation Society Central Hub".
 
Digging cast her eyes around the area. No humans, she noted. Big surprise there. Guess even the ones who are supposed to like ponies are too scared to leave their disinfected little towers.
 
Grunting with disapproval, Digging trotted up to the ground-level door. She rapped her forehoof against it as hard as she could, trying not to wince in pain. "Open up!"
 
A camera on a stalk extended out from a compartment above the door and swivelled around briefly before retracting back into the column. To her great surprise, Digging heard a lock disengage in the door.
 
"ACCESS GRANTED," said a mechanical voice.
 
The heavy steel door slid open in front of Digging, revealing a clean white lobby with no furniture except for the smooth-surfaced desk in a corner at the back. She stepped inside, and the door closed quietly behind her.

Digging bit her lip and trotted to the desk. As she stepped near it, she heard the tinny tinkle of a recording of a bell. Within moments, a mop of frizzy brown hair shot up behind the counter and reached out for her with a bony pink hand on a long, fuzzy green stalk.

"Hello, ma'am, how are you today?" asked the mouth beneath the frizzy brown mop. "My name's Heather Watts, and I'm very happy to see you here!"

"Digging Doo," said Digging, extending a tentative forehoof for the creature to wrap her bony pink fingers. "I used to know somepony named Heather."

"Really? How interesting! Goes to show that we humans and ponies do have an awful lot more in common than you might think."

"Yes, you could say that."

Heather smiled and chuckled lightly. "Now, what can I do for you?" she asked.

"I need to talk to whoever's in charge here, Ms Watts." Digging patted her left saddlebag with a forehoof. "I have an item in my possession that sources tell me would be of value to your organisation."

On her way there, Digging had worried about how well she would be received by the humans, should she have the misfortune of dealing with a gruff guard or a bureaucratic stickler to get what she wanted. Looking into Heather's uncertain green eyes, pale beneath spectacles, she knew that this human was neither.

"Oh! Um, alright, let's go then!" said Heather, bringing a small, sly smile to Digging's face. "Just come around behind this desk and I'll take you to see the boss."

Digging was only too happy to comply, and swiftly trotted behind the desk, where Heather bade her to stand still and adopted a rigid, upright stance herself.

"What now?" asked Digging.

The words had barely left her mouth when she heard a whooshing sound from above, and a wide glass cylinder descended from the ceiling, swiftly encasing her and Heather behind the desk. Then, before she could implore Heather to tell her what was going on, the floor lifted, and her stomach lurched towards it. "Ulp!"

Heather chuckled warmly. "Never been in an elevator before, I take it?"

The small lobby receded from sight below the ascending floor, and was replaced by a wide, open space that extended in a circle around Digging's glass tube. Built into the walls were metal platforms surrounded by railings, on which Digging could see humans in long white coats scurrying around, pushing carts and carrying clipboards. Here and there, she'd catch sight of a tree, or a potplant, or – as she got higher – paintings, sculptures and pottery.

"Impressive, isn't it?" asked Heather. "All of the artefacts you see around you have been scavenged from your world's ruins. Your civilisation has a great and long legacy, and it is the hope of myself and this organisation that we can learn about and preserve it... even beyond its demise."

"Demise?" asked Digging, narrowing her eyes at Heather.

"Well, err, uh, you see... Oh, here we are!"

Heather had ummed and ahhed at Digging's questions just long enough for the elevator to finish its ascent and arrive in a small room similar in appearance to the lobby they had just left, but with a number of doors set into its circular walls. Digging noticed that each door had a nameplate, and assumed that this was the organisation's administrative section.

"Welcome to the PAS organisational hub!" Heather proclaimed, getting a twinkle in her pale eyes. "It may not look as exciting as down below, but this is where the real groundbreaking work gets done!"

The glass tube lifted and disappeared into the ceiling, and Heather led Digging to the door immediately opposite them. Although it had the appearance of a normal painted wooden door that Digging might have expected to see in any Manehattan building, rather than needing to be opened, it slid into the wall as they stepped in front of it.

Behind the door was a great big hairless ape in a black business suit, sitting behind a desk that Digging thought far too small for him. He smiled a great big toothy smile, which made his eyes squint a little. Digging gave a half-hearted grin back.

"Afternoon – or is it morning, so hard to tell – Mr Jameson," Heather said. "This is Ms Digging Doo, and she's here to speak with you about an artefact that she feels will be of value to the organisation."

"Excellent!" the ape boomed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms Doo."

"Likewise," Digging replied, already digging through her saddlebag.

"Please, sit down, and then we can discuss this... item of yours."

Digging sat on the floor in front of the desk, ignoring the chairs on either side of her. She heard the door click closed behind her, and then the soft noise of Heather returning to the elevator. "I'll cut right to the case," Digging said. "I've got a page from the journal of Professor Twilight Sparkle, and reliable sources have informed me that that's useful to you. Now, I don't usually like to do business with humans, but a girl's gotta eat, so if you can come up with the bits, I'm happy to sell this old scrap."

Mr Jameson's eyes widened and he smiled broadly. "The journal of Professor Sparkle, eh? That's certainly something worth preserving. I'm hardly the foremost expert on your history – I handle the business side of things, really – but I know enough to see the value of that. How does –"

There was a loud noise from the hallway.

CRACK! Digging dived down just in time to avoid being impaled by a giant wooden splinter as the door burst open behind them. Digging panicked. This was a trap! An evil trap, perpetrated by evil humans!

Fuming with anger, Digging lifted herself up and spun around to face the remains of the wooden door. Her ears flattened against her head, and she blew a puff of breath out of her nostrils before charging into action, head down. No human was going to get the better of Digging Doo.

Digging galloped out of the office and into the hall, her head jerking from side to side. Her heart was pumping, and the unfamiliar feeling of the soft carpeting beneath her hooves put her on edge.

Before she could catch sight of her attackers, Digging felt herself lift off the ground. Her wings flared out, but not quickly enough to stop her from being flung into the hallway's hard metal wall. She slammed into it with a sickening crunch.

Digging slid down and landed in a slumping pile on the floor, her pith helmet falling over her eyes. As soon as she pushed it up to see what was going on, she wished she hadn't.

The three unicorns from the Manehattan hotel room were there, grinning at her. Or, at least, it felt like they were grinning at her; they were wearing gas masks, so she couldn't be sure. And beyond that, her vision was getting kinda fuzzy.


***


Not humans.

Digging Doo opened her eyes and stared up at a cracked stone ceiling crawling with ivy. Her head hurt and her saddlebags were missing. The sound of soft sobbing reached her twitching ears.

"Hello?" Her voice was cracked and her throat dry. "Is somepony there? Are you okay?"

The sobbing turned into a loud wail, and Digging sighed inwardly. Overcoming the pain in her aching legs and back, she swung herself over to the side and pulled herself up. She noticed a few fresh tears in her shirt and smiled weakly at the sight of her battered pith helmet, which she swiftly scooped up and placed on her head.

Digging stepped towards the sobbing, which was coming from a dark corner. Digging squinted to make out a fuzzy, balled-up lump of hair, convulsing as it sobbed.

"H-Hello?" she repeated. "What's the matter? You can tell me... I won't hurt you."

The fuzzy lump sniffed a few times as its sobs dried up. Digging stepped closer, and a head slowly lifted out of the lump, staring at her with big, sad green eyes. The grey fur on the pony's face was damp and matted, and her brown mane fell about it in frizzy disarray.

"Y-Yes," she stammered, fighting back a fresh onslaught of tears. "Somepony's here."

Digging looked from the pony's pale green eyes to her grey-coated frame, but instead of a grey coat, she saw a dark green jersey. It was loose on the pony's frame, and its long arms dangled off the ends of her forelegs.

Digging gasped and put a forehoof to her mouth. "It's not possible!"

Heather nodded sadly.

> THB: Spirit of Magic Chapter Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Two: The Predators Following Her Every Step

Heather the grey earth pony stood up, her new legs shaking beneath her. The long arms of her jersey rumpled at her hooves. Digging knelt down and swiftly rolled them up.

"How did you do that?" asked Heather, marvelling at Digging's hoofwork and looking down forlornly at the ends of her own forelegs.

"Practice. I know we don't have hands like you humans, but we're not totally helpless."

Heather raised her left forehoof to her eyes and gave it a puzzled glance.

"I'll teach you all about that sort of thing later," Digging said gruffly, "but right now we need to figure out how to get out of here."

Heather nodded and she and Digging began scouring the room for anything that might help them escape. They were in a square stone cell with a tiny barred window set into the highest point of one of its walls, and a thick wooden door opposite that window. Digging flew up to the window, but found the bars too narrow for her to even get a hoof through. Defeated, she fluttered down to rejoin Heather.

Something above the two crackled, and a deep, masculine voice said, "There is only one way of getting out of your cell... and that's by waiting for us to deal with you. Patience, my little ponies."

Digging snarled. "Show yourself!"

"It's a radio transmitter... probably stolen from the base. There's no-one else here." Heather sighed. "Ms Doo, a radio is like –"

"I know what a radio is!" Digging snapped. "We have them in Equestria as well, you know. There actually are things we can invent without needing humans to show us how." Digging's eyes glinted. "Like ponification spells!"

Heather gasped. "That's –"

"Yeah, how does it feel, Heather?" asked Digging. "How does it feel to have your identity destroyed? To have your species changed?"

"Ms Doo, I'll have you know that there's a big difference between the voluntary service we offer ponies and forceful species –"

"Time! That's the only difference. Or weren't you around for the big 'Equestria is dying and we all need to humanify and go live on Earth' speech? At least whoever these cultists are didn't play mind games with you before they zapped off your fingers!"

"Wait... cultists?"

"Duh." Digging rolled her eyes. "Typical know-nothing human. Everypony knows that the only ones with the resources or the will to break into human outposts are the crazy countryside cults. It's why I moved to the city – needed to stay out of the way of those idiots. Didn't help in the end, of course."

"Tell me more about these cults," Heather asked softly, silently thankful for the situation's defusal.

Digging put a hoof to her chin and cast a thoughtful eye to the ceiling, the last of the anger in her face disappearing. "Well, you see, a few hundred years ago, we had these two princesses who ruled over Equestria, and they were kind and benevolent and wise. But then war broke out and they got killed, which obviously upset everypony. Some were even upset enough to group around minor nobles and charismatic speakers in their desire for new rulers, and as Equestria became more dangerous and chaotic, their groups got bigger and started to move away from the rest of the country. They went to live in the mountains, on the plains, and in the forests, and a few of the bigger ones are still around today."

Digging paused for a moment. "They didn't used to mingle with the rest of us much, but ever since you humans arrived, well, at least one of the cults has been making a lot more of a nuisance of itself."

"I guess they must feel threatened," Heather said.

"Yeah, it's a way folks tend to feel when their worlds get invaded by aliens."

Heather huffed at this, looking for a moment like she was about to say something, but then apparently thinking the better of it and keeping her mouth shut.

"Don't think I'm going to forget about that, Heather," said Digging. "We're going to need to co-operate with each other to get out of here, and you may make a cute little pony but –"

"Thanks!" Heather smiled with her muzzle for the first time.

Before Digging could continue her speech, the speaker on the ceiling crackled again. "We are ready to attend to you two now. Please step up to the door and wait for further instructions."

Digging and Heather exchanged glances before obediently trotting towards the door – the latter wobbling on her legs a little as she did so.

"Open the door and step outside." As the voice finished speaking, a clicking noise sounded from the door's locking mechanism and it creaked open slightly.

Heather stared down the hallway before them with wide eyes, and Digging took a deep breath. The walls were lined with torches, but the first set wasn't for a good number of metres, and the second set looked even further still.

Wordlessly, the two ponies slowly walked down the passage, one of the two sets of hoofsteps growing steadier as they want.


***


"You're getting better at that walking thing," Digging observed. "You're almost doing it naturally."

Heather beamed for a second time. "Thanks!"

"You'd better be able to gallop as well. We'll probably need to do some of that later."

"Uh..."

The end of the passageway was in sight, much to Digging and Heather's relief. They hadn't been walking for long, but the torches had stopped before one of the hallway's corners, and the utter darkness of the past few minutes made the twilight-accustomed Digging uneasy.

What made Digging even more uneasy was the sight of a large, fat unicorn stallion sitting on a throne, which slowly came into view as they reached the end of the dark passageway.

Two loud voices on either side of Digging and Heather boomed an introduction: "Hail to His Majesty, The Great Emperor Soluna, he who is to create the moon-sun and shepard us into a new dawn!"

Digging rolled her eyes and then let them land on the stallion in the throne, bitterly noting how unsuited such a filthy, fat creature was to such a grand title. He was a middle-aged stallion with a thinning orange mane and a yellow coat. A rusty crown sat lopsided on his head, and on his back were fastened a pair of metal wings. Digging almost pitied his pathetic attempt to appear royal.

"Salutations, Ms Digging Doo!" he boomed, voice dripping with mock respect. "It is an honour to finally meet you in the flesh!"

The room at the end of the hall was a large and well-lit, but its decorations were gaudy and badly co-ordinated. A long crimson rug clashed the with sickly yellow and cyan wall-hangings, and Soluna's throne was a filthy, decaying couch that might once have been green.

"What do you want?" Digging asked bluntly. "Did you want the journal page? Because you've got that now, so I don't know what you're keeping me around for? And why did you turn this human into a pony? What was the point of that?"

Soluna smiled a slimy smile, full of yellow teeth and bits of his lunch. "So many questions..." he droned. "You're a fiesty one, Ms Doo, but I suppose all bird ponies are – never obedient to anyone they feel they can escape... it's no wonder nopony else ever wants to deal with you lot."

Digging glared at him, saying nothing.

"Not that you don't have a point, of course. I do need you for something, Ms Doo, and I'm certain your formerly human friend can help as well."

"Hmph." Digging scanned the room for exits. Guards were everywhere, and the only apparent opening was to the passage she and Heather had entered from.

"You see, Ms Doo," Soluna continued, "that journal entry you found for us was the final piece of a puzzle we've been working on for quite some time. Thanks to the information recorded on the back – it was in invisible ink, bet you didn't figure that out – we've been able to locate a place of great importance, where an artefact of great power lies."

Digging sighed. "My services aren't free, you know."

"But of course not!" Soluna chuckled. "I'm perfectly prepared to pay you with the most precious thing I have to give – your life."

Digging snarled and bared her teeth, expelling a puff of breath from her nostrils. As her hoof scrapped against the ground, she heard the sound of every unicorn in the room lighting up their horns.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Soluna warned.

Digging glanced at Heather, who was shaking and wordlessly imploring her to listen with wide, tearful eyes. She groaned and let her body relax.

"Why did you turn Heather into a pony?" Digging spat her question out vehemently.

Soluna grinned. "Mostly to show that I can – my scientists are very proud of their successful reversal of the humans' formula. Besides, she looks much cuter as pony, don't you think?"

Heather whimpered and her head receded into the neck of her large jersey.

"Uurgh, just looking at that bundle makes me feel sweaty," Soluna said. "She must be burning up! Guards, cool the lady down!"

Heather squeaked in terror as two burly unicorn stallions approached her. She clung to the jersey with her legs as their magic grasped and tugged at it.

"Hey!" Digging shouted, jumping between the unicorns and Heather. "Leave her alone!"

"What's the matter, Digging Doo?" asked Soluna. "You turning into a human sympathiser?"

Digging's wings flared out and she stared menacingly at the guards. "No, I just don't like bullies. You touch one thread on her jersey – or one hair on her head – and you're not going to have a co-operative Digging Doo."

The room was silent for a moment, and then Soluna sighed. "Guards, stand down. Let the silly mare die of heatstroke."

The guards retreated and Digging turned to back to Soluna with a confident smile on her muzzle. "Now, Mr Soluna, what is that you would have me retrieve for you?"

"At last, the lady sees reason!" Soluna's eyes glinted briefly, and he focused them in Digging's direction. "I'll keep this brief and to-the-point: there exists an object of great power in a well-hidden, even-better-guarded site at the summit of Mount Arcana, and I'd like it to exist in my possession instead."

"That's not an awful lot to go on."

"It doesn't need to be. In my immense kindness, I've arranged for my people to take you all the way to the site's entrance. If my sources are correct, the celebrated Digging Doo should be more than capable of handling herself from there on in."

Digging huffed. "Your slimy little spies are right about that one."

"I look forward to seeing you back that up." Soluna clapped his forehooves together. "Guards! I tire of my guests! Escort them back to their quarters at once!"

Digging and Heather were swiftly taken back down the dark passage and put back in their cell, with the door locked behind them. The guards' hoofsteps had barely faded into the background when Heather forced her jersey up over her head and tossed it into a rumpled heap in the corner of the cell.

"That king guy may be an unpleasant creep, but he was right – it's far too hot around here for a jersey," she said to Digging's inquisitive look.

"That's not what I was going to ask about..."

"Huh?"

"Heather, did you know you're a pegasus?"

Heather gasped and looked back at the creased white shirt covering her trunk. Her eyes widened as she noticed two large holes in its back, and beneath each one a grey, feathery wing. She inhaled sharply as they flicked out to her sides, and then slowly retracted them. "N... no... I had no idea..."

"You know what this means, right?" Digging asked slyly.

"What?"

Digging flared her own wings. "Flying lessons."


***


Heather's wings wilted at her sides as she slipped off her hooves into an exhausted sitting position. "This is a lot harder than it looks."

"So is anything worth doing," Digging called from above, her wings beating exuberantly. "You're doing well, don't worry!"

Heather lifted her head just long enough to smile weakly.

"And I mean it, too! Young pegasi take years to learn this stuff, and you're already hovering after only an hour of training. That really is very good." Digging neglected to mention that the duration of Heather's longest hover could easily be mistaken for a jump.

The two ponies looked up at the ceiling as they heard a familiar crackling. Try as they might, they remained unable to locate the speaker it was coming from.

"Playtime's over, kids! It's time for both of you to say goodbye to your luxury suite, pack up your luggage, and get ready for an all-expenses-paid, first-class trip to the exotic and lovely Mount Arcana!"

Having made no escape plan, Digging and Heather looked at each other, shrugged and nonverbally agreed to go along with it. Heather pulled her jersey back over her head – "It's probably cold at the top of Mount Arcana," she said – and the two ponies walked out of the now-open door and into the hallway.

They were greeted by two tight-lipped, solemn-face earth pony mares, who escorted them down a previously unseen corridor and out into an open air clearing, where an unmarked, khaki zeppelin sat, awaiting passengers.

"You guys have airships?!" Digging exclaimed, forgetting herself momentarily. "I didn't know there were airships anymore! This is going to be just like in Daring Do and the – uh... whatever."

One of the earth ponies smirked as she led Digging and Heather on board.

The wooded interior of the zeppelin was lined with benches, the red fabric seats of which were torn and losing their stuffing. Digging nonetheless gazed at them with childlike wonder, a rare grin forming across her muzzle.

A crackling noise, similar to the one Digging and Heather had become accustomed to hearing in their cell, sounded from the roof. "Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. We will be departing for Mount Arcana shortly, so please find your way to your seats."

Digging and Heather sat down next to each other on one of the less-damaged benches. "It's so weird sitting like... urgh," Heather whined.

Digging snorted and rolled her eyes.

Gently, silently, the zeppelin lifted up, and Digging and Heather felt their stomachs lurch slightly. They look out the window at the grey sky and its dirty, drifting clouds, uncared for by pegasi and blown haphazardly around by the wind.

"I knew this world didn't have a sun, but I've never..." Heather's mouth hung slightly open as she stared at the bleak vista beyond the window.

Thunder cracked in Digging's mind. "We had one once. I remember it. It was... bright."

The room fell silent as the zeppelin continued its journey through the monochromatic heavens. Digging looked at her companion, the grey pony born to this grey Equestria in a grey, half-lit time. Even Heather's green jersey was a subdued, greyish green – not light or pastel, nor dark or rich.

She herself was a pale pink. Although she'd often wished she could have been born with a tan coat like Daring Do's, at least pink stood out a little more against the grey.

"This is your captain speaking," came an urgent voice, piercing the contemplative silence. "We've sighted griffons. Prepare for turbulence."

"Griffons?" asked Heather, her eyes widening more in fascination than shock. "They never told me there were griffons on this world!"

Digging's blood ran cold, and she felt for a moment like clubbing Heather over the head with her forehoof.

"Consider yourself blissfully ignorant. Maybe they'll leave us alone and you won't get an opportunity to study them."

The loudspeaker crackled ominously. "We've been sighted."

"Get out your microscope, lady," Digging said between gritted teeth. "Make a gift of it, and maybe they'll only kill me."

Heather gasped, bringing her forehooves to her mouth. "Are they really that bad?"

"Stay calm, passengers. I'm going to try to outmanoeuvre them," the loudspeaker said.

Digging had already left her seat and was looking for a way off the zeppelin. "Worse," she called back. "I heard they used to be alright, but for all my life we ponies have known that if you see a griffon in the sky, you get outta there or you're birdfood."

Heather sprung up from her seat to follow Digging. "W-where are you going?"

"I'm getting off this floating graveyard, and you'd better follow me if you value that new flank of yours."

"But the captain –"

"No slow, bulky zeppelin's gonna outmanoeuvre a pack of bloodthirsty griffons. We stay here, we're a stationary target. At least out in the open we may have a chance to outfly those griffons while they're focused on the ship."

"But I can't –"

"Death by freefall's better than death by griffon!" With that, Digging grabbed Heather roughly and started pulling her towards an exit door.

"What are you – ah, no, let me go!"

But Digging just pulled her forelegs tighter around Heather's chest and neck. With a well-placed buck from her left hindleg, she kicked the door off its hinges and sent it spiralling out into the empty sky. Wind whipped fiercely at her mane and tail and roared in her ears.

Digging could feel Heather squirming and pounding on her, desperate to get away from the open door. With a mischievous grin and all the strength in her forehooves, she pushed Heather closer, until she was teetering with most of her body outside the ship.

"I can't!" Heather cried.

"Sure you can!" Digging grabbed the bottom of Heather's jersey in her teeth and hoisted it up to her neck so her wings could move freely. "Just remember those lessons!"

"But I'm not –"

She never finished her sentence, because at that moment, Digging shoved her out of the ship. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Digging waving at her, green jersey gripped in her mouth.

Heather was falling. Instincts she didn't know she had flicked her wings out to the side, and her fall slowed. Slowly, she righted herself and fell into an awkward glide. She tried to flap, but fell further. She screamed.

Air whooshed around her, and she felt a steadying hoof on her shoulder for a moment. "Relax!" came Digging's voice. "They're going to hear us if you scream like that! Besides, you're doing fine!"


> Sour Note
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sour Note
by Ezn


Chapter One: Our New Roommate is a Pirate

With a barely audible tick, the small arrow of the clock slid into place, marking the hour and pulling a lime green string taut. On the other end of the string, the needle of a phonograph hovered above a shiny black record. The string gently lowered the needle to the record's surface.

Octavia drifted awake to the sound of Symphony's "Song for the Sunrise" slowly filling her room, as she did every morning. A delicate smile played across her muzzle as her magenta eyes flittered and flicked open.

WUBWUBWUBWUB!

There was a crash as her door burst open, nearly flying off its hinges, and a streak of white and blue shot inside.

"Ga-ga-ga-ga-good morning, Octy!" Vinyl Scratch shouted. "I don't know about you, sister, but I am ready to drop this 'morning' thing, almost as if it were a bass, ya feel me?"

"That joke is nearly as offensive as that infernal noise you're disturbing the peace with," Octavia replied. "It's barely even gone seven, you know."

Vinyl just grinned, her purple shades no-doubt hiding a terrifying manic stare. "If I'm gonna get up this early, I'm doin' it my way!"

"Uurgh. Well, at least you won't be slovenly. Just see to it that you're on your best behaviour – we don't need to scare the rent money away."

Vinyl batted the air with a hoof. "Pshaw, you know me, Tavi, I'm all about not scaring money away. With my charm and general slickness, our new roommate's gonna be paying my portion of the rent as well as hers, just out of gratitude!"

"Gratitude for what?"

"Basking in my awesome presence, of course." Vinyl slid her shades down her snout to cock an eyebrow at Octavia. "I mean, you pay for it all time!"

Octavia could only turn her eyes to the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh.


***


Sparkler looked at the number on the door, and then down at the one on the slip of paper magically suspended in front of her face This is the place, alright, she thought. She lifted a hoof and knocked. Once, twice, thrice. That's polite, right?

There was some low muttering, followed by a melodious "Coooming!" and the door slid open. A grey mare about Sparkler's age, or possibly a little older, smiled at her from the frame. She was wearing a bowtie and had a well-kept black mane.

"Octavia, right?" Sparkler asked.

"Yes indeed!" replied the grey mare. "And you must be Sparkler! It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Likewise. Now, about –"

"FRESH MEAT!"

The cry came from inside the house. Octavia was violently yanked from her place in front of the door, screaming as she went. Sparkler heard a crashing, followed by a soft tinkling, and then something blue and white jumped into her face.

"AH! NO! GET IT OFF!"

The thing retracted and revealed itself as the head and spiky mane of a white unicorn with a grin full of teeth and a pair of magenta glasses that jauntily on her snout.

"Hellllllo, Miss Sparkler!" the thing cried. "I am the one... the only... not an imponynator... absolutely genuine... one hundred percent certified not fake" – she took a deep breath – "Vinyl Scratch! My roommate almost forgot to introduce me."

Sparkler blinked.

Vinyl's grin fell instantly. "Octy! Octy, she's into shock! I told you my presence was too much for some ponies to handle! Quick, get some paper! She needs an autograph, stat!"

A faint groan drifted from the other end of the room.

"You're right! No time for paper!" Vinyl's horn flared, and there was a whizzing sound as a quill cut through the air towards her. "I will sign... your face!"

The quill turned to Sparkler. It homed in. She didn't have time to scream.


***


"I really am truly sorry about what happened," Octavia told Sparkler a few hours and one trip to the hospital later. "Vinyl's... like that, I'm afraid."

Sparkler paused her trot and rubbed the patch over her left eye. "At least she didn't sign her whole name..."

"I suppose it always helps to look on the bright side." Octavia smiled weakly. "If there's anything, absolutely anything I can do to make it up to you..."

"Well, you could start by helping me move my stuff up to the apartment."

Octavia couldn't believe her ears. "Wait... you're still going to move in?"

"I don't exactly know anyone else in Canterlot," Sparkler replied, making a sweeping hoof gesture around the street they were walking along. "And I need somepony to help me find my way around these spires and all this marble. I didn't expect it to cost an eye, but..."

"Oh, that's wonderful! You won't regret it, I promise! I'll make sure to keep Vinyl under control."

Sparkler chuckled dryly. "I'll definitely need somepony to lead me around if she comes for my other eye."


***


The next morning, Sparkler opened her good eye to see a pair of purple glasses hovering just above it. "I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's lack of depth perception that's making it look like you're trying to rub our faces together." Her nose wrinkled at the smell of a particularly strong brand of spearmint toothpaste. "Or perhaps not."

"Sparky!" Vinyl Scratch shouted, blasting her snout with a wave of painfully fresh breath. "Hey, can I call you Sparky?"

"No."

"Awesome, Sparkles! Listen, I'm real sorry for that little accident yesterday, and I'll really like to make it up to you, because we're roommates now, and that means we need to be besties. It's not even, like, slightly negotiable." Vinyl's voice had become deadly serious, to the point where Sparkler could feel her intense gaze even through opaque shades.

"Well, unless you've got some instant eye-healing cream or something..."

Vinyl jerked backwards before thrusting a hoof in Sparkler's face. "Even better!" A piece of cardboard fell off Vinyl's hoof and drifted onto Sparkler's snout. "I'm giving you a personal invite to my next gig! I want you to be there, at The Place, when I wub the woof – err, roof – off!"

"Err, thanks, but... what exactly is 'wub' supposed to mean?"

Vinyl Scratch, who up until that moment had been twitching and buzzing with nervous excitement, suddenly stopped moving. Her manic grin drooped into a blank expression that Sparkler didn't think suited her well. Her white coat almost seemed to grow whiter, and she stood motionless, hovering above Sparkler's bed for a full minute.

Sparkler took deep breaths to calm her nerves.

"You... don't know what wubs are?" Vinyl said at last. "Throughout your entire life, from when your mother brought you into this world to this very moment when you are a fine young mare and my soon-to-be bestie roommate superpal... during all that time... nopony has ever – not even once – not even half a time – thought to mention to you that there is a purpose for ponies to trot upon this giant rock?"

Suddenly feeling very trapped between the white forehooves pinning her blanket down, Sparkler managed to croak, "...No."

"Well then you're in for the time of your life!" Vinyl yelled, her grin snapping back onto her muzzle. "Times two!"

Sparkler forced a grin.

"Yes indeed, Sparkplug! This Friday your life will change forever!"

"I wonder how many times my name's going to change before then..."

"Too many times to count!" Vinyl lifted her hooves up and bounded off Sparkler's bed, dashing for the door before freezing in its frame and turning to look back. "I just winked at you, Sparklark, but you can't really see because of my glasses. But anyway, have a rockin' day!"

And then she was gone. Sparkler breathed a sigh of relief, but as her exhale ended, she remembered the ticket in her forehoof. She still had no idea what "wubs" were supposed to be, but she could feel a headache coming on just wondering about them.

"Maybe it'll be fine," she said to nopony.

"It won't," nopony replied.

"Octavia?" Sparkler asked, looking at the prim shadow in her doorway. "You're not nopony!"

Octavia trotted up to Sparkler's bedside, her face painted with sympathy. "I heard the whole thing – you poor pony!"

"Is – is this 'wub' thing bad?"

Octavia's right eye twitched. "You... you have no idea."

Sparkler gulped, pulling her blanket up to her snout. "Can I, uh, would it be okay if –"

"No! You absolutely cannot deny Vinyl's generous invitation. Once she gets that ticket in your hoof, it's over."

"Well, I could make an excuse. Like, I think maybe I have – uh – family coming over that day! Yeah, that's it! Family." Sparkler nodded her head vigorously and suddenly got a very serious expression in her eyes. "Family is very important."

Octavia cocked an eyebrow. "Nice try, but you wouldn't have come to live in Canterlot on your own if you really thought that. Besides" – she scooped something off the floor with a forehoof – "she gave me a ticket too, and I am not going to suffer alone."

Sparkler let out an exasperated sigh.

"Oh come now, it won't be that bad – well, it will, it will be horrible. Never mind. You'd better show up."


***


Friday came far sooner than anypony except Vinyl Scratch wanted it to, and Sparkler felt she had barely woken up before it was already Friday night and time to head to The Place.

"Octy, Speckler, this is going to be" – Vinyl paused dramatically for almost a minute – "incalculably awesome. Like, they will have to invent new instruments to measure the level of awesomeness we are about to witness, and then they will have to invent units for those instruments to measure in – units that are exponentially larger than anything the scientific community has ever used to measure awesomeness before!"

"Seriously?" Sparkler mouthed to Octavia.

Octavia leaned over to whisper in Sparkler's ear. "She wrote her master's thesis on the categorisation of 'awesomeness'."

"Vinyl has –" Sparkler started, cutting herself short when she decided she didn't really want to know.

"I won't tell you about her PhD then."

Vinyl wrenched the front door of the apartment open with blue magic, nearly tearing it off its hinges. "Come on girls, time is wasting! The Doctor of Wubology has a club full of patients to treat, and their condition is critical!"

With another one of her maniac grins, Vinyl spun around and raced out the door. Octavia and Sparkler hung back for a moment before the former started walking determinedly forward. The latter stood still.

"Hey!" cried Sparkler, feeling a strong earth pony leg wrap itself around one of her own. "What's the big --"

Octavia shut her up with a horrifying death glare. "If you don't come with us, I can promise you'll be sleeping in the street tonight. And I will throw everything you own into the fireplace for kindling. It'll save on wood costs; I don't know what Vinyl keeps doing with the stuff."

Sighing a heavy sigh that was fast becoming the most common noise from her throat, Sparkler stumbled forward into position next to Octavia, and the two mares trotted out the front door, shimmering pink magic reluctantly pulling it closed behind them.


***


The club was hot, noisy, dark, and altogether too similar to what Sparkler's older brother had always told her dragon caves were like. She'd spent many foalhood nights in the throes of horrifying nightmares brought on by his gruesome stories. A glance at a bare torch on the wall sent a shiver down Sparkler's spine.

"Isn't this place cool!" said an excited voice. "I have to ask Vinyl how she finds these crazy weird clubs sometime. I mean, who even knew there was a party spot in Canterlot named 'The Dungeon'."

Sparkler looked away from the rough wood and dangerous open flame of one of the many torches lining the wall and faced the voice's origin, a green-coated unicorn with a lime mane that Octavia had informed her was named "Lyra". Her grin, while not as wide as Vinyl's, was accompanied by that same frightening sparkly-eyed look that usually hid behind magenta shades. In Lyra's yellow irises, it looked positively psychopathic.

"Aren't you guys just soooo excited for the music to start?" Lyra asked, prodding Octavia with a playful forehoof. "Sparkler -- that's you name, right, I hope I'm saying it correctly -- this is your first time listening to Vinyl's musical genius, right?"

Sparkler nodded so slightly she momentarily hoped that Lyra hadn't seen it.

"Well then" -- Lyra's eyes seemed to glow even brighter than before, glinting like dragon's gold -- "you are in for a treat tonight!"

Sparkler felt a warm gust of air near her left ear. "She's a beautiful lyre-player, one of the best, actually," whispered Octavia, "but sadly her, um, taste in music leaves something to be desired. You won't find another pony in all of Equestria who actually likes Vinyl Scratch's insults to music and common decency -- well, another pony of worth, anyway."

"What was that?" asked Lyra. "Couldn't hear you whispering like that, Octy!"

Octavia blushed and rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof, closing her eyes. "Nothing, nothing, don't worry about it, dear. Now, last time we talked you were telling me about waaaah --"

The floor shook, nearly knocking the three ponies off-balance. Sparkler broke out in a cold sweat. It's starting, she thought. Oh well, I've lived a good life, I suppose.

The darkness of the club instantly gave way to bright blue light that sliced through the middle of the room, moving from the floor to the ceiling, and illuminating a pony-shaped creature, standing on its hindlegs, forelegs raised above its spikey mane as if offering something to the heavens. Vinyl Scratch stood, bathed in light, in front of a large rectangular table with what looked like flat black dinner plates on top.

Ever so slowly, her forelegs bent downwards, and her hooves came into contact with the plates. She tilted her snout down, gave the crowd a devilish look from behind her magenta glasses, and then spun the plates.

The club exploded into noise and motion. Octavia and Lyra seemed to melt out of Sparkler's perception, and all she could see was the mare in the blue light, horn ablaze and sparking wildly, hooves twitching and turning and rotating two plates of black. A heavy, thundering rythmn filled the room and entered Sparkler's bloodstream through her ears.

For a time immeasureable, Sparkler stood transfixed, uncertain whether she was experiencing nirvana or the final, most unspeakable torture in the depths of Tartarus. Eventually, her foreleg struck out to her side, and then bent at the knee, at a ninety-degree angle. Her face snapped down.

"Oh no..." she somehow heard Octavia murmur through the juddering beat. "Oh no..."
> Not a Comic Artist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small green stem broke through the surface of the dirt, stretching up towards the ceiling as it stretched and grew. It glowed with a flickering cloud of cyan magic as it stretched... up... up... up...

The stem grew to the height of a few centimetres before coming to a stop. A tiny bump formed in the middle of the stem, expanding and preparing to burst out as a young leaf. As it bulged, a tiny seam appeared across it.

White Noise gasped and his magic faltered. The plant in front of him turned brown and went limp, before evaporating altogether. With a sigh, he fell to the carpet in a sweaty heap.

"I guess growing magic isn't your special talent, then," said Inkblot, White Noise's friend.

"Doesn't look like it... no," White replied flatly, slowly picking himself up off the ground. "What's next on the list?"

Inkblot levitated a clipboard in front of his eyes with a cloud of grey magic and glanced over it, his green eyes darting from side to side as they made their way all the way down the list. "Uh-oh."

"What? What is it?" White asked.

"We... seem to run out of things to try." Inkblot rubbed the back of his light grey mane with a brown hoof.

White was silent for a moment, but eventually gathered his thoughts and asked, "So we've been through everything, and I'm still" – he glanced backwards morosely – "a blank flank?"

"Well, that's not... I mean, there are other... umm..." For once, Inkblot was at a loss for what to say. "Yes, I suppose that is the case."

"That's what I thought. Thanks for your help, Inkblot, but..." White trailed off, and ended his sentence by turning tail and trotting out of the library, his head hung in shame.


***


In the whole of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, he was the only pony in his age who didn't have a cutie mark yet. Well, he sometimes admitted to himself that that wasn't true, and that there were actually one or two more, but they were in the minority and thinking of himself as the only one was more dramatically satisfying.

White shivered as the word "dramatic" brought back unpleasant memories of his short-lived experimentation with acting magic. Magically manipulating his own moods was not something he wanted to ever try again.

It was easy for Inkblot, White thought. All he had to do was comfort that one homesick kid and BAM! Cutie mark in psychology... or lying on couches – it's not clear.

White's mood was lifted slightly by his little joke, and he looked up from the black-and-white tiled floor to see a wooden door in front of him. There were wooden doors all over the school, and a good number in his immediate vicinity, but this particular wooden door had a sign that piqued his interest.


Communications


White's grey eyes widened as he realised that he'd never tried to perform any kind of magic to do with communication before. He'd just found something that Inkblot had left off the list.
> Unchangeling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The creature didn't have a name. She spent most of her time pretending to be someone else, so what use had she for a name of her own? She'd considered thinking of one, of course, during her more boring days, but never did, for she couldn't stand the thought that should she name herself something, it would likely be forgotten in a shroud of fake names and assumed identities. She had no friends and no relatives in her natural form, so who would there be to call her by whatever name she invented for herself? That was a sad thought, and usually the one which ended her naming daydreams.

In her natural form, she was a pitch-black insecty-looking thing around the same size and shape as the average earth pony with buggy turquoise eyes, sharp white canines and legs full of holes – natural holes, not injuries. She wasn't anyone's idea of beautiful, so it was fortunate that she was also a shapeshifter.

As of recently, her shapeshifting powers had remained unused. Back in New Canterlot, she'd been a famous and beloved film star, adored by her fans and critics alike... well, at least until a sudden change in attitude and refusal to take on new film projects killed her public image, and she'd realised it was time to move on.

Some idle days, she still wondered if Heartspark Dazzle was having any luck salvaging the remnants of her image. A mare without the gumption to even attempt to escape a changeling cocoon for months on end couldn't be terribly resourceful, but there was hope for everyone, she supposed.


***


The road to Hayton was cold and wet, but she didn't mind. Even the coldest, heaviest rainfalls buffeted by the strongest winds did little to penetrate her hard exoskeleton, and she was accustomed to dark, unpleasant conditions – she was dark and unpleasant herself.

Her mind switch off as her insect wings buzzed her over the rolling grey hills and towards her new feeding grounds. The world between bodies was black, and already she longed for the colour – and the love – that would soon come with a new identity.
> First Impressions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Ponyville train station was a pretty wooden building with pink walls. They were newly-painted, as the station itself had been constructed very recently. The low, late-afternoon sun heated the empty steel tracks.

Pinkie Pie bounced near the edge of the station's only platform, eagerly peering out at the still-barren tracks. Her eyes shone brighter than the sun at that moment.

"What are we doing here, Pinkie?" Twilight Sparkle asked from her position on the bench just in front of the stationhouse, where she was reading a book with far duller eyes than her friend's. "And why did I have to come, again?"

"Because you really need to get out more, Twilight!" Pinkie answered, shooting a glance over her back. "Sitting in that library all day must be sooooo boring! You should be thanking me!"

"Yes, um, thank you Pinkie Pie," Twilight replied, not looking up from her book. "Thank you for inexplicably dragging me out here without even giving a reason."

"You're welcome, Twilight!"

"..."

Just then, Pinkie's whole body tensed up, as if she was about to go into a spasm - which she promptly did.

"Pinkie! What's wrong?!" Twilight shouted, forgetting her book and rushing to her friend's side.

Pinkie writhed and convulsed on the wooden floor, shaking and jerking around without abandon. Thinking quickly, Twilight jumped in-between her and the edge of the platform, preventing her from writhing off the edge.

"It's... my... PINKIE SENSE!" Pinkie forced out between convulsions. "Something... isgoingtohappen! Atthistrain... station!"

"Is that why you dragged me out here? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"It... was... meanttobeasurprise!"

"This is a horrible surprise, Pinkie!"

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the convulsions stopped. Pinkie's muscles relaxed, and she collapsed into a limp heap of pink pony parts on the floor.

Twilight tentatively poked her friend with a hoof. "So, uh, 'something is going to happen at this train station'. Got it. Do you have any idea what?"

Pinkie gave a weak shrug. "My Pinkie Sense isn't a science, Twilight. Like, when my tail twitches, I just know that something is going to fall! But it would be super-duper terrific if I could know what it was! Like if one twitch meant an anvil, and then two twitches could mean a haystack... ooh, and THREE twitches could mean a giant pinata full of candy and presents! Wouldn't that be amazing?!"

"Sure, why not?" Twilight replied, feeling exhausted from talking to Pinkie for so long.

CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUG!

"Look! The train's coming!" Pinkie bounced to the very edge of the platform and teetered over its edge, with a more sensible Twilight coming to a stop a good few inches behind her.

The two ponies looked out at the colourful new train that was riding in from the north-east. Having returned from Canterlot, it would likely contain a few of their unicorn acquaintances from around town, like the lyre-player and the unicorn with the mane that looked like toothpaste.

"Rarity didn't take a trip to Canterlot that I forgot about, did she?" asked Twilight.

"No, silly! She already went last week! And besides, I don't get a doozy like THAT whenever Rarity gets back from a trip! That would be silly!"

"So... somepony else is on this train?" asked Twilight. "Somepony you know?"

"Maaaaybe," Pinkie replied. "Or maybe the sky is going to fall!"

"Pinkie Pie, it is quite impossible for the sky to 'fall', because–"

Much to Pinkie's probable relief, her friend's lecture was cut short as the train finally pulled up to the platform and came to a stop. The doors of the various cars slid open, and within moments ponies began disembarking.

"I assume that this latest 'doozy' has something to do with somepony on this train," announced Twilight. "It's the most logical explanation."

"Oh, Twilight..." sighed Pinkie.

Turning away from her friend and ignoring her sighs, Twilight surveyed the disembarking ponies. At first, nopony struck her as particularly special. Most of the train's occupants had been unicorns, and most of them were familiar faces from around Ponyville. There was Sparkler, the babysitter. Then there was Lyra, followed by Colgate, followed by that one friend of Moondancer's Twilight simply could not remember the name of... what was she doing in Ponyville?

The train was soon empty, all of its passengers hastily leaving from the station. Twilight had noticed nopony out of the ordinary. Maybe Pinkie's sense isn't a warning about anypony on the train, she thought. Maybe...

"Twilight! Come say hello to my new friend!"

He had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Twilight was sure she'd spotted and mentally documented every single passenger on the train that afternoon, but the figure of an unfamiliar stallion standing next to Pinkie proved her wrong.

"Hello..." Twilight began, her voice edged with suspicion.

The stallion nodded. Twilight narrowed her eyes at him. At the back of her mind, a niggling little voice told her to remember her studies on friendship and be nice, but there was something off about this guy. His mane was a deep crimson, and his coat a dark, dark blue. His irises were a dark grey, almost to the point of being black. She had never seen anypony with colours quite like his.

"His name's Lo- uh... Lot" – Pinkie snapped her head around to face the stallion – "what was your name again?"

"Lothlorium."

"I'm gonna call you you Lotty! Spotty Lotty! ...Except you don't have spots... Ooh, ooh! Not-Spotty Lotty!"

The stallion said nothing. His face stayed perfectly still, keeping its blank, bored expression. Twilight noticed that his cutie mark was a spread-out purple fan.

Oblivious to her new friend's cold demeanour, Pinkie continued speaking. "I think Not-Spotty Lotty – wow that's a mouthful – is the pony my Pinkie Sense was telling me about! He says he's new in Ponyville, and – get this! – new in Equestria!"

Twilight raised her eyebrows at this. "You're from outside of Equestria? Where exactly?"

Lothlorium blinked at her. "A faraway land. We call it Yggsuyobghajkwlr... you've probably never heard of it."

Now it was Twilight's turn to blink. Several times. In surprise. She had previously been unaware that the equine throat was capable of creating such horribly guttural noises.

"No... I can't say I have..." she answered.

***

Lothlorium was shown to Ponyville's inn by Twilight and Pinkie. When questioned on how long he would be in town, or what his intentions in coming there had been, he replied with vague mutterings, so the girls soon stopped badgering him about it.

After saying goodbye to their new acquaintance, each with a different degrees of enthusiasm, Twilight and Pinkie headed away from the inn and walked through the town together for a little while, watching the sunset.

"Lothlorium... what a strange name..." Twilight thought aloud. "I wonder what the naming customs are in that place he said he was from."

"Hehe!" Pinkie laughed. "Did you see the funny faces he made when he was saying that! What if that's how they name their kids! Then, whenever they need to say their name, they get to make a special face! Oh! That must be the best!"

"An interesting hypothesis, Pinkie Pie," Twilight replied, smiling amusedly.

Pinkie looked over at Twilight and scrunched her face between her hooves, pulling her mouth into a crooked position. "PPAINKAYE PLEEAGE!"

Before she could react, Pinkie grabbed Twilight's face between her forehooves in much the same way. "TWWWILLAAAA SPRAKREL!" she shouted.

Normally, Twilight might have been less amused by such antics, but spending so much time with Pinkie was wearing her down, and the girl's giggles were infectious. Soon, both ponies were chuckling and chortling heartily, only stopping once it was time to part ways.

***

Light streamed in through the window next to Twilight's bed, disturbing her rest.

"Uurgh, just five more minutes..." she groaned, burying her head in her pillow.

"Nope! The time to get up is now! Seize the day! The early pony catches the alfalfa!" said a deep, masculine voice.

Twilight's eyes shot open. In a flash, she jumped out of bed and swivelled around to face the intruder. Her horn lit up as she lowered herself into a defensive stance. "Who let you in?"

Lothlorium, who was looking far more at ease than he had been the previous morning, casually said, "Uh... Spike did. Just met him this morning. He's a cool little dude."

"And why are you waking me up?"

"Spike said he can never wake you up after late-night study sessions, and he didn't want you to miss breakfast. He's made some eggs! They look delicious!"

Twilight eyed Lothlorium suspiciously. He smiled and awkwardly rubbed a forehoof against the back of his neck in response. Surely this wasn't the same sullen, silent pony from the night before? How could it be?

A rumbling from the pit of her stomach forced Twilight to shelve her thoughts for the moment and head down to get some of Spike's breakfast. Lothlorium ambled along after her, casually mentioning that Spike had invited him to eat with them.

Maybe I misjudged him, thought Twilight. Like with Zecora. Maybe I can learn something from this...

***

"...And so the donkey says to the mule, 'No, that's my wife!'" Lothlorium finished proudly, beaming at his two new friends from across the table before digging into his helping of oats.

"Hahahaha! Good one, Loth!" laughed Spike.

"Hehe, yeah," Twilight added nervously, floating a bit of egg. She didn't get it.

"That one's always a winner!" said Loth.

"It reminds me of some of Pinkie's jokes..." Spike began. "You have met Pinkie, right?"

A big grin jumped onto Loth's face, stretching it in a way that eerily reminded Twilight of Pinkie's smile. "Oh yes! She and Twilight were kind enough to meet me at the station when I came in! You guys are so friendly! And so humble, too!"

"Humble?" enquired Twilight.

"Don't you know how famous you guys are?!" shouted Loth, his eyes widening in glee. "I mean, you single-six-hoofedly saved the world from Discord! You're like- like celebrities!"

"Oh, that was nothing, really..." Twilight said, futilely attempting to douse the flames of fanboyism.

The stars in Lothlorium's eyes said otherwise. He quickly produced an open notebook and pen, seemingly out of nowhere, and hoofed them across the table to where Twilight was sitting.

"This is my autograph book! Can I get your autograph?" he asked. "Can I? Huh? Please!"

Twilight was a little put out by the idea of somepony wanting her autograph, but smiled sweetly at Loth, not wanting to cause a problem. He was being nice now, but Twilight knew from experience that this guy was unpredictable. Or maybe he was just tired from the long trip yesterday, said a little voice at the back of her head. Maybe you're being too quick to judge.

Lighting up her horn, Twilight scribbled down a signature on the notebook, just underneath what looked like a series of ponyglyphics. Loth was delighted, and gleefully snatched the autograph book back when she was done, drinking in her signature with his eyes and burying her under a barrage of thank-yous.

"...Oh, and thank you for the great breakfast, Spike!" he concluded, suddenly getting up from the table. "It's been a pleasure, you guys – it really has! Sadly, I've gotta go now! Places to do, stuff to see, people to be!"

Twilight managed to spit out a hasty goodbye before Loth disappeared out of the front door in an energetic blur of red and blue. She rubbed her head with a hoof. Hanging out with this guy reminded her a little too much of hanging out a similarly-exhausting friend.

***

Rarity was hanging some wet clothing on the washing line when she heard the tell-tale ring of her customer-bell. Her boutique was technically open at this time of the morning, but she hadn't expected any customers until much later, as it was a Saturday.

"Coooooming!" she sang, hastily pegging the last of her dresses to the line.

Catching a quick glimpse of herself in a mirror and gushying up her hair with a forehoof, Rarity trotted to the front of her shop, and politely caught herself before screaming at the unco-ordinated stain of red and blue colour that had then just decided to blemish her beautiful boutique.

Now, now, Rarity. That's no way to think about a customer, she mentally chided herself. He could be one of those eccentric rich types. Or one of those colour-blind rich types.

"Good morning, sir!" she greeted cheerily, composing herself in an instant. "What brings you to my humble establishment at this early hour? Are you perhaps looking for a dye job? To... bring out those lovely eyes?"

"No, ma'am," replied the stranger, "but perhaps I should consider taking you up on that offer, in addition to my primary purpose for being here."

The two stood in silence for a few seconds.

"Which is?" Rarity nudged.

"Right, yes," said the stallion matter-of-factly. "My name is Lothlorium. I am a scholar from the faraway and often-overlooked land of" – Rarity held in her giggles as Loth's face spasmed – "and I simply could not come to Ponyville without making a point of visiting the famous Carousel Boutique, and meeting Rarity the unicorn."

"Such a charmer!" Rarity replied, lifting a forehoof to her chest.

Loth shrugged and nodded. "Now, what exquisite designs do you have in the way of stallionswear? I have an important dinner tonight, and it is imperative that I look my best."

Stallionswear! Rarity hadn't sold any of her stallionswear in ages! It would be so nice to actually get somepony to look at her few designs for males.

"Follow me, dear," she said. "I believe I have just the thing!"

***

An hour later, a dapper earthpony gentlecolt standing in front of the mirror gazed in awe at his coiffed light-grey mane and expertly-tailored black suit. Rarity stood a few steps behind him, feeling pleased with her work.

"You'll certainly be fit to attend that dinner tonight now, sir!" she told him as he paid her at the counter.

A sly smile crossed Loth's face. "Well... there is one other thing you could do to help me out at Le Petite Fancy tonight."

"And that would be?" asked Rarity, confident that she already knew the answer.

"Lady Rarity," asked Loth, clearing his throat and doing his best to sound charming. "Would you accompany me tonight? Your presence is worth yet more than the miracles you have worked on my appearance."

"Hmmm..." Rarity pondered aloud, giving Loth a once-over with her eyes. Now that she'd fixed him up a bit, he looked quite dashing – a perfectly suitable pony for one to be seen with at Le Petite Fancy (which she'd been meaning to eat at sooner or later anyway).

"Yes, alright," she replied at last, gazing at her hoof and sounding nonchalant. "When will you pick me up?"

"Around eight, if that would suit you, madam."

"Yes, that would be... perfect."

Loth smiled at her, and she smiled back. He really is quite an agreeable sort, she thought.

***

"You had WHAT with Lothlorium?!"

Twilight and Rarity were sitting on a checkered blanket the park, waiting for their friends to show up to that day's picnic. The former was deeply regretting starting their conversation with "What did you do yesterday, Rarity?"

Rarity was quite taken aback by her friend's outburst. "Just dinner, darling. He was the perfect gentlecolt, and quite intelligent and witty besides. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea of a second date. Although it was odd that the business associate he was supposed to be meeting never showed up..."

Burying her face in her hooves, Twilight sighed heavily. "Lothlorium isn't the kind of stallion you should be going on dates with, Rarity! He's unpredictable! And dangerous!"

"How do you know that?" asked Rarity, staring Twilight down.

"I met him when he came in on the train and then again yesterday morning! Rarity, it was like talking to two different ponies. That pony is crazy!"

Rarity hrumphed, raising a sceptical eyebrow. "Really Twilight, judging ponies you hardly know. Surely a friendship scholar should know better than to do things like that! Why, speaking of scholars, Loth is one too! I'm sure you two would get along quite well if you just took the time to get to know the poor boy."

"Him. A scholar. Right."

"O'course Ah'm a scholar!" A loud, accented voice interrupted Twilight and Rarity's conversation as the pony in question trotted onto the scene. His mane was still the same, sensible colour Rarity had died it, but had a closer resemblance to a bird's nest than the style she had painstakingly copied from a magazine.

"Strange... I don't remember him having quite such an... accent," said Rarity, scratching her head with a forehoof.

"Oh, I'm quite certain he didn't have one until very recently." Twilight got up from her seat on the blanket and marched over to Lothlorium, looking him straight in the eye the entire time. "Care to explain?"

"Ah've jus' bin doin' some applebuckin' wid yer old friend 'n mah new one: Applejack!" Loth exclaimed, backing his statement up by kicking the air with one of his hindlegs. "Nothin' qui' loike it!"

"'Loike'? Now you're just overdoing it."

Just then, Applejack cantered into view, stopping to wave at her friends and Lothlorium. "Hey girls! I met ya new friend! He's quite the applebucker: saved me 'n Mac a whole lotta effort this Applebuck Season. I'm plum grateful, by the way, Lothy."

"Yew sayed as moich."

Twilight groaned heavily, and Rarity collapsed onto the blanket in a melodramatic faint.

Before Loth could descend further into incomprehensibility, a rainbow streak flashed across the sky, whipping the leaves of the park's trees up in its wake. The streak tightened itself into a series of loops in the air before plummeting down to earth. Rainbow Dash came to a hovering stop just half-an-inch above the checkered blanket, flashing a winning smile.

"Hi girls," she greeted, looking around. "What's" – she suddenly noticed Loth – "hey! You're that guy! That guy Pinkie told me about! But you have different hair."

Recovering from her faint, Rarity leaned over to Rainbow. "Yes, well, I took care of that. Trust me, it's an improvement."

"Well whatever, I guess," continued Rainbow, extending a hoof. "I'm Rainbow Dash."

"Winner of the Best Young Fliers Competition!" Loth exclaimed, losing his accent as suddenly as it had appeared. "I'm a huge fan!"

Rainbow's face brightened up, and she cast smug glances at her friends – one for each of them. "I like this guy."

"I was the winner of the Iron Pony contest in Appleloosa, you know," said Loth to Rainbow Dash, meeting her extended hoof. "I know a thing or two about being awesome, as I'm sure you do."

"That so..."

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. Loth's eyes narrowed. With one mind, their hooves slid into hoofwrestling position. Pinkie, who had just bounced onto the scene, was quick to shove her picnic basket between the two.

"Go Dashie!" she shouted. "Go Not-Spotty Lotty! Go Dashie! Go Lotty-Dotty! Yeah! Beat him! Beat her!"

Rarity, Applejack and Twilight each took a step back as Pinkie hopped between Dash and Loth, cheering for both of them.

"Hello everypony," came a soft, sweet voice from behind Applejack. "Who's that stallion wrestling with Rainbow Dash?"

Fluttershy had announced her arrival in a tone of voice just above a whisper, but Lothlorium noticed her presence immediately, snapping his head towards where she was hiding behind her friends.

Loth's momentary lapse in concentration was just what Dash needed to get the upper hoof. Almost ashamed about cheating, she gritted her teeth into a determined grin and slammed Loth's hoof down on the wicker basket, almost bursting it open.

"Ha! I win!" she exclaimed, releasing Loth's hoof and hovering up into the air to do an impromptu victory dance. "And since you're Appleloosa's Iron Pony, and I beat you... that makes me the new Appleloosan Iron Pony, in addition to being Ponyville's one! Maybe I should... guys?"

Having completely lost interest in Dash, Lothlorium slowly ambled towards Fluttershy, stopping a respectful distance away from her. Fluttershy didn't turn tail and run away, so he assumed she appreciated this.

"Hello Miss Fluttershy," he whispered, his voice coming out only slightly louder than her own had. "I admire the work you do with animals. In my country, you are well-known, and well-respected" – Fluttershy paled at this – "but not excessively! Uh, for example, we don't like your work in the fashion industry, because you looked so sad and scared in all of those photos!"

Fluttershy nodded slightly, saying nothing. Lothlorium's adoring stare intensified. Fluttershy shrank back a bit.

"Well I never!" exclaimed Rarity, breaking up the tension in the air. "Although it is very true that Fluttershy did not enjoy her brief fashion career, I still believe that there is some artistic merit to Photo Finish's Demure: The Fluttershy Collection. I would expect a scholar like yourself to recognise that, Loth."

Dash elbowed Twilight. "I think there's some artistic merit to Rarity being jealous!"

Twilight smiled. Rarity frowned. Twilight's grin faded.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy shrank even further back as Loth continued to stare at her, opening and closing his mouth as if he kept coming up with something to say to her and then deciding against it.

"Well it's mighty fine that y'all are a fan of us, Mister Loth, but I think you're scaring Fluttershy," Applejack said diplomatically, stepping between the two ponies. "Don't take it personal: she's always like this 'round folk she doesn't know."

"I know!" Loth replied, his words coming out louder than intended. "It's part of what makes her so adorable!"

Fluttershy blushed. Rarity hrumphed. Rainbow giggled.

"Just like you and your honesty and steadfastness, Applejack. And your enthusiasm and cheerfulness, Pinkie Pie. And Twilight's well-intentioned social awkwardness, and Rarity's dedication to her art, and Rainbow's inner vulnerability, covered by a thin layer of boastfulness. You're all so amazing! I love you guys!"

Everypony (except Loth) took a step back. Loth closed his eyes and outstretched his forelegs, offering a group hug. Everypony else took another step back.

A minute passed.

Loth opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by a very wide circle of his six pony idols, all of whom were giving him very concerned looks, in between shooting each other worried glances. Their silence was unbearable.

"What is wrong with you?!" blurted Rainbow, immediately making Loth wish for the unbearable silence's swift return. "Being a fan or an admirer is one thing, but this is just creepy!"

Mimicing Fluttershy's behaviour a few minutes before, Loth shrank back and averted his eyes from Dash's hard glare.

Applejack sighed and gave Rainbow a deadpan stare."Simmer down, sally. Now, I agree with you that this is a mite unsettlin', but Loth here obviously has good intentions. He just needs to learn to control his enthusiasm, is all."

The other ponies nodded at Applejack's reasonable-sounding suggestion, until Twilight suddenly froze in mid-nod. "Wait... something still doesn't fit. Remember that day at the train station, when Pinkie and I met you?"

Loth nodded.

"How come you were all cool and aloof then?" Twilight asked. "Why weren't you gushing about your admiration of me or Pinkie?"

Lothlorium sighed, raising his head to look Twilight in the eye. She could see a great sadness in his eyes: a feature that she had not noticed before.

"I guess it's time I just told you ponies the truth," he said. "It would've come out sooner or later."

"The... truth?" asked Rarity, raising a perplexed eyebrow. "The truth about what?"

"About me."

Lothlorium took a couple of deep breaths before beginning. "You may want to sit down. This could come as quite a shock."

The six promptly lowered themselves to the ground, some of them sitting on the grass, and others resting on the checkered blanket. When they were all seated, Lothlorium began his story.

"I was telling the truth when I said I came from Yggsuyobghajkwlr, and my claim that even Twilight would not have heard of it was well-founded. However, I was not overly specific about the relationship of Yggsuyobghajkwlr to Ponyville, or to Equestria, for that matter.

"To make a long story short, I'm not from your universe."

"What in the hay is that supposed to mean?" asked Applejack.

"...I don't think I quite understand either, Lothlorium," seconded Twilight. "I do know a thing or two about multiverse theory and causality, but I didn't know it was possible for anything to travel between universes."

"Well it wasn't easy!" Loth said. "It wasn't easy, and Ah c'n only do it once! The guy who helped me called it a 'one-way ticket' kinda deal."

"So you can't ever ever ever ever never go back to your home?!" screeched Pinkie. "That's so sad! I'm sooooo sorrry, Lotty!"

"Oh, Pinkie, don't worry about it! I love it here! I've just remembered! This place is, like, a SQUINTILLION times nicer than where I come from! And there's you guys! I love you guys! You know I wasn't lying when I said you guys are kind of celebrities where I come from?! They make these little figurines of you – they're great!"

"Okay..." Rainbow Dash held her forehoof up to the side of her head and made circular motions. "That's... real nice, dude."

Loth's eyes narrowed as his gaze turned to Rainbow. He pawed at the ground aggressively. "What's more, I was telling the truth about being the Appleloosan Iron Pony. I've been in Equestria awhile, and have had some time to be awesome. Heck, if I hadn't been distracted and you had been a better sport, I woulda beaten you in hoofwrestling!"

"Oh yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

Rainbow and Loth glared at each other.

Fluttershy hummed a few bars of a song.

"Umm, if you wouldn't mind being beaten, that is," Loth continued, speaking barely above a whisper.

An idea flashed in Twilight's eyes and she leaned over to Rarity. "Say something. Anything. I want to test a theory."

Rarity shrugged. "Well, Loth, that's a very strange story, and I still don't entirely understand it. How could we be famous in, um, 'another universe' if Twilight says there's not supposed to be a way of transporting things between such places."

"Very astute, Rarity," Twilight said quickly.

Meanwhile, Loth had spun around to face Rarity, and was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Oh no no no no no no no! I simply cannot tell you that. For you all to know would be THE. Worst. Possible. Thing!"

Twilight nudged Applejack. "I'm shore it's not so bad, sugarcube."

Loth's right eye twitched. "Y'all are fictional! Fictional characters in a tellyvision series in mah reality! Ah'm not even really a pony!"

Everypony stopped talking. Silence washed over the group, broken only by the occasional gust of wind and chirping of birds.

It was Twilight who spoke first, horn glowing. "Mister Lothlorium–"

"Lothlorium ain't even mah real name! Ah jus' thought it sounded cool!"

"It doesn't," Rainbow snarked.

"Ahem!" Twilight's horn brightened for an instant, signalling that it was time for everypony but her to shut it. "It looks like you've got a whole host of psychological problems, uh, sir. Please, take this card for Ponyville's most accomplished psychiatrist and go see her as soon as possible."

Loth glanced down at the card as it floated between his forehooves.

"No!" he protested. "I'm completely sane! This world is made-up, and I can prove it! Somehow! I'll– hey!"

Seeing no further reason to hang around their mentally-unstable obsessed fan, the six ponies had swept up their picnic preparations and trotted off, sending out a chorus of good-byes that Loth had been too busy ranting to hear.

"Bye-bye!" came the last farewell, a shrill cry from Pinkie Pie.

"Bye... bye..." Loth whispered.

The sounds of hooves and voices slowly disappeared, and eventually Loth grabbed the psychiatrist’s card and forlornly bounced away, head hanging low.

***

Thousands upon thousands of stacked crates of various sizes rose up to the ceiling of the cold, dark warehouse like trees in a great wooden forest. Wood scrapped wood as a new crate was added to the collection.

"That the last one?" asked one of the workers.

"Yeah, I think so," replied his colleague. "Last one we found, at any rate."

The two looked up at the pile of crates they had just finished stacking.

"Crazy how much of an effect this 'human entertainment material' can have on those dumb enough to watch it."

"Yeah, Uhsdfgfjsa, it's unbelievable how dangerous a bunch of shiny discs can be. I've never heard of anything that could make a fellow jogolfen like that!"

"Crazy humans. At least they won't be hurting anyone else from in here."

"Shogflooben to that!"

The two workers clapped each other on the back with their middle tentacles and slimed away from the crates and out of the warehouse, into the green daylight beyond.

***

WARNING: Jogolfenetic material within. Extended interaction with the media materials with this box could cause obsession and compulsive imitation of the characters depicted. Do not watch.
> Interlude: Bonus Stories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Appledash


"On your marks!"

Blades of grass came loose from the earth as Applejack scraped a determined forehoof across it. Twin puffs of breath blasted from her nostrils, and her green eyes narrowed.

"Get set!"

The apple was dead ahead of her, its red skin shining in the sunlight. She imagined what it would be like to take a juicy bite and had to stop herself from salivating.

"Go!"

And then no sex was had ever.






LUS Quest


Once upon a time, it was a beautiful in Equestria and Twilight Sparkle was a purple unicorn. She was very good at magic, but like all of us, she sometimes made mistakes.

On this particular day, Twilight was very tired from having stayed up all night reading Princess Celestia's very long reply to her latest friendship letter. She was to be subjected to a test on the particulars of her mentor's ennui and angst re: the white alicorn's immortality.

"Hey Twilight Sparkle, my name's Rainbow Dash and I am a cyan pegasus who says 'awesome' way too much!" said the speedster who had just crashed through Twilight's window.

"No," Twilight replied. "You are a type of superhero whose special power is to be fast!"

The speedster was very sad about not being able to trick Princess Celestia's personal protege. It took its vaguely defined self and committed sudoku, which is to say it played some really boring game with numbers until the speedster died.

Twilight left her library to go buy some apples at the market. The magically inclined mare walked down the street thinking about maths and science.

"Hey!" said the purple-maned mare. "Who are you?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" replied the magician. "Why do you look like me?"

"Why are there two more of me?" asked Ponyville's librarian. "I don't remember using the mirror pool! How can this be happening?!"

Just then, Pinkie Pie bounced up behind Shining Armour's sister. Ponyville's premiere party pony, wearing her usual enormous grin, said, "You're a murderer, Twilight Sparkle! We're all the Pinkie clones you killed last week, back from the dead! Thanks to trace amounts of your magic and some ridiculous technobabble, we've even made a bunch of clones of you!"

"That's not how magic works!" Twilight shouted.

"Oh, silly Twilight, did you learn nothing from that time you failed to rationalise my Pinkie Sense?"

"We called discontinuity on that episode... of our lives! Its message was too easily interpreted as pro-religion, and you know how much neckbeards hate religion!"

and then flamewar
> Editor for Hire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it." Someone incredibly wise and badass once said that. I think it was me, trying to impress some dame. I hate myself for it, because it's exactly not what I'm thinking when I'm actually doing the job, and, say, facing down an overpowered character in a back alley that's practically labelled "A Good Place to Kill People".

"prepair to meat your doom!!" Shouted the red maned black coated alicorn king of the multiverse, bits of his proud and beutifull spit glistening as they escape his muzzle and made a mess of my jacket.

I winced, half from the way the wall rubbed the bruise on my back, and half from the sloppy and unappealing aura that stopped just inches from my face. "'Prepair'? 'Meat'? I can appreciate some good pun-based villain dialogue, but 'food' is a bit broad, don't you think? Now, fruit or meat, I can get behind, but --"

"Silince!" a black hoof with a fancy shoe like princes celestias except a hardcore metal color and with pentagrams carved into it _SMASHED_ the wall jsut above da puny hoomans head.

I glanced up at the foreleg. Had it hit the wall a few millimetres lower, I would've been prematurely balding. Gulping, I shrunk down a bit and tensed up. The alicorn was focused on the stupid thing on the end of its hoof -- now was my chance. Eyes on the prize, I sprung forward.

My right hand sailed into the aura and,, gripped the metul necklace around King Razorblood teh Savyer ov EQUESTRIA and I puled at teh 7th element of harmuny until i herd it's chain snap, sending me rolling backwards. My head hit the wall; that was gonna leave bruise.

But I couldn't feel the aura anymore.

"NO!" shouted the alicorn, his horn and wings melting from his frame. "I was so close! You were -- you were --"

As his horn and wings melted, so did his bright red mane and pitch black coat. It was pretty disgusting, but soon even the melted remnants of his form evaporated, leaving behind a diminutive, balding earth stallion with blank flank.

"My flank!" he cried. "It's... my super special..."

I got up with a groan, rubbing my head. "You never learn, do you? First time your hair didn't come back, second time it gave you that squint, and now your cutie mark's gone, along with your talent, I wouldn't be surprised."

The stallion looked up at me with pathetic, pleading eyes, as if I somehow had the power to fix his mistakes. Or, more accurately, he looked at the amulet in my right hand with pathetic pleading eyes, still not having learnt his lesson that it definitely couldn't fix his mistakes.

"Nope, not happening," I told him. "The Element of" -- I glanced at the text imprinted along the edges of the amulet -- "'Auesomenes' is not to be trifled with."

The pleading gaze continued. It was starting to annoy me -- well, really annoy me.

"Get!" I yelled at the stallion, making a kicking motion in his direction. "Go find something else to do before this thing makes you even uglier."

The stallion whimpered and trotted away with his tail between his legs. I watched him till he was out of sight, and then put the amulet away in my trenchcoat pocket. A damn shame, it was: for the first few weeks, he almost made a decent partner.








EDITOR FOR HIRE
Episode One:
"Looking For Fics (In All the Wrong Places)"
by Ezn







My office was a mess. The pen I'd left in the exact centre of my desk, sitting exactly parallel to its edge, had somehow tilted a whole fifteen degrees to the right. Oh, and there were crumpled pages and about a gallon of red ink mixed with half a gallon of blood on the floor, but I was really more worried about the pen.

I collapsed into my large, cushy office chair and quickly righted it, before fishing the Element of Auesomeness out of my pocket and tossing it in my "Seventh Elements of Harmony" drawer. It was getting full in there, but I managed to close the drawer with a bit of elbow grease.

Just then, the phone started ringing. I let it ring three times, already feeling a headache coming on, and then snatched it up.

"Eddy Kilgore, editor for hire," I said. "How may I help?"

I always regret asking people to dump their problems on me, but I always do it anyway. It's a tough job, you know.
> Rule the Third
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rule the Third
by Ezn


Spike sat under an apple tree, deep in thought, rubbing his chin with one of Twilight's old quills. A sheet of parchment curled over his knees. Written near the top of the sheet, in flowing calligraphy, were the words "Spike the Dragon's Code of Honour".

"Hmm," Spike mumbled, thinking over the events of the past few days. He glanced at another piece of parchment, which sat by his side and was headed -- in slightly less immaculate calligraphy -- "Spike's Dragon Code". That heading had made him cringe since he'd woken up that morning and realised that he didn't actually know if any dragons other than himself actually had dragon codes. It was a little dubious to hold oneself to a code that may not even really exist, he'd thought, and seeing as he was revising his code anyway, it seemed like a good time to retitle it in a more truthful and specific manner.

Getting an idea, Spike dipped his quill in the inkpot on his other side and put it to the parchment. His well-practiced right claws glided the quill over the paper, being careful not to shake or commit a false stroke. Twilight only had so much spare parchment for him to use, after all.

Spike lifted his quill from the page and looked over what he had written.


Rule the First: Any party whosoever rescues Spike the Dragon from mortal peril shall be entitled to a debt of favours to be determined by negotiation, unless that party is a personal friend of Spike the Dragon.


He read it through three times, and decided he was satisfied. He was especially happy with his use of "party" and "whosoever" -- he'd seen words used like that in some legal documents Twilight had had him dictate to her recently. They added a very necessary seriousness to his code, he thought.

Spike looked back at the parchment next to him and quickly set to work copying the still-reasonable second rule to the one on his knees.


Rule the Second: Spike the Dragon will not lose control of himself to greed.


He only reread this rule once, being eager not to dwell on what had caused him to make it. His head snapped back to the parchment beside him and he surveyed his third rule.

The parchment was blank beneath the second rule. Spike felt a twinge of annoyance at himself, and then a bit of shame.

Surely no code of honour worth the parchment it was written on was so short as to only have two rules? The Royal Guardponies' Code of Chivalry had more than twenty rules -- Twilight had spent many an exasperating evening coaching Shining Armour in memorising them all word for word.

The more he thought about it, the more Spike realised how embarrassingly little he actually knew about honour codes. It had seemed like a great idea to come up with one after he'd had such a bad time on his quest on self-discovery, but he'd only done it based on a conversation with Rainbow Dash about some character in a Daring Do book who had one.

Spike sighed. How was he supposed to be a noble dragon, beholden to a code of honour, if he didn't even know enough about codes to come up with more than two rules? If he couldn't even think of a third standard to hold himself to, could he even really call himself noble.

Just then, something above him groaned and made the leaves of the tree rustle, knocking Spike out of his contemplation. He looked up, and suddenly the world went blue.

"Oh, hey Spike!" called a voice from above.

Spike removed the pillow from his face and looked up at Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow!" he cried, forgetting to chide her for dropping her pillow. "Just the pony I needed to talk to."

Leaving her blue blanket lying on the tree branch she'd been sleeping on, Rainbow Dash glided downwards and touched down softly in front of Spike, grinning proudly. "Funny, everypony's always saying that about me. What's on your mind, squirt?"

"I was just wondering something about a Daring Do book," he replied. "You were telling me about a guy in one of them a few weeks ago. The zebra warrior with the code of honour?"

Rainbow's face brightened. "Oh yeah! That was Reseph, a good friend of Daring's. He was in book seven, 'Daring Do and the Perilous Pyramid'. That guy was really cool, and noble too. He saved Daring from --"

"What were the rules in his honour code?" Spike asked, dodging a blow-by-blow retelling of the entire book.

"Oh, well, the first one was --" Rainbow frowned and got a far-off look in her eyes. "Um, the second... there was one that... huh."

Spike quirked a worried eyebrow. "What do you mean 'huh'?"

"Exactly that, Spike," Rainbow said, shrugging. "I just realised that Reseph didn't actually say what any of the rules of his honour code were. He just 'swore by it' and said stuff like 'my code would never allow that!'"

"Oh." Forlorn, Spike looked down at his remarkably short code of honour. "Well, that's... disappointing."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with that 'dragon code' thing that got you and Applejack into all that trouble the other day, would it?" Rainbow Dash pointed at the crinkled parchment beside Spike, prompting him to snatch it up protectively, blushing.

"N-no, nothing like that at all!"

Rainbow gave him a severe look.

He wilted.

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "I knew that's what this was about!"

"P-please don't be mad! I'm trying to fix my code, so that I can avoid stuff like what happened with Applejack and still be noble! I've even added a clause to the first rule!"

Dash zipped into position above Spike and looked down at his parchment, nodding slowly as she read his first rule. "Hmm... that looks kinda okay, actually."

Spike tilted his head up. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." Rainbow reached down to ruffle his spines. "Don't get to feeling like having a code is a bad thing, Spike. There's got to be awesomeness potential in it if a cool guy like Reseph had one. Hay, you could even say I live by a code."

"You do?"

"Absolutely! But there's only one rule: be awesome! I know that's all I need."

Spike frowned thoughtfully. "Well, maybe that works for a pegasus pony like you, Rainbow Dash, but a noble dragon needs a more substantial code if he is to truly, uh... be really really noble. Problem is, I can't think of anymore rules to put down."

Rainbow flew away from her hovering position above Spike and spun in circles, as she often liked to when she thought. A few moments later, it paid off.

"I've got it!"

"Yeah?"

"In 'Daring Do and the Perilous Pyramid', Reseph never did say what any of the rules of his personal honour code were, but he did have a lot to say about the many adventures he'd been on to develop it. I'll bet he had the same problem as you, Spike, and just needed some inspiration to get over it."

Spike rubbed his chin with the feather of his quill and stared into Rainbow Dash's widely grinning face. "So what you're saying is I need to have some really awesome adventures if I want to learn what my code should be. Is that it?"

"Totally!"

"And they should be dangerous, treacherous, and life-threatening..."

"The more reckless the better!"

Spike's eyes narrowed and his mouth scrunched up into a pensive pucker. He thought for a moment, before saying, "Cool!" and his face snapped into a wide-eyed stare of excitement. "I'll start right away!"

The two pieces of parchment were engulfed in green flame and the inkwell and quill forgotten as Spike hurriedly got up and head off towards adventure. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash!"

Rainbow smiled proudly, watching Spike rush off as she imagined a mother might watch her recently full-grown foal. "My work here is done," she said, folding her forelegs over her chest.


***

> Only Immortal (a summary)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Only Immortal


It has been six hundred years since Nightmare Moon's imprisonment. In that time, Celestia has consistently been met with failure when trying to restore her sister. After a miscalculation leads to the insanity and slaughter of a valued subject of the Dragon King, Celestia finds herself at a loss.

Chapter One

Queen Celestia visits the site of a great dragon's attack on one of her villages. Houses are scorched, casualties were had, and the body of the dragon lies dead in the town square.

It is her own fault: in attempting to use the dragon's magic to make contact with Queen Luna/Nightmare Moon, she let the dragon get corrupted and lose itself in a rampage. She knows this will put a strain on relations between her and the dragon nation (and Dragon King Kasdar). Especially since she had to kill the dragon herself.

Kasdar is none-too-pleased, and relations are strained between between the monarchs. Between that and the renewed hatred towards dragons, Celestia's plans for co-operation and integration will have to be put on hold for centuries.

This is, of course, just the latest in a long string of failures.

Chapter Two

Ponykind has long forgotten it ever had two monarchs, largely because of Celestia's emotion-fueled destruction of Luna's property in the early years of her banishment. She now regrets this greatly, as she misses her sister terribly.

When trade negotiations with the emerging nation of Zebrica fall through because of the dragon issue, Celestia is stressed and angry with herself. Without the products of Zebrican mining, her beloved academics – both in the School for Gifted Unicorns and other, general institutions – are unable to bring their exciting innovations into public use, and ponykind cannot advance. Her greatest desire is to see her people learn and grow, and this lack of resources stifles them.

When Celestia is at her lowest, dark thoughts of powerlust and warmongering creep into the corners of her mind. Bitter about her constant failures, tempted by an incessant nagging in her mind, she thinks to turn to the power of the stars.

Chapter Three

Celestia remembers the old days: her upbringing in a modest pegasus household, in the dark days of Discord's reign; her idle fantasies about what her horn and wings meant; her call to action at a young age, by a shadowy resistance movement (heavily reliant on prophecies from the stars); the day she met Luna (of unicorn stock) and Nova (born to earth ponies; the most unusual of alicorns), the only other alicorns in all the world.

She remembers their battles, their wins, their losses, their bonding and Nova's eventual temptation and betrayal. She was the oldest; their leader, but had displayed a rebellious streak from the start – her birth name was Earthsong. Tempted by visions of power, she joined Discord's side and curb stomped her sisters. The stars had said nothing about such treachery – they were quite plain that she would be the one to defeat Discord. And so, when she was about to strike Discord from behind and claim his power for her own, he used his magic to fling her into the heavens in the form of stars, thoroughly gumming up the prophecy and laughing about fatalism all the way.

Celestia and Luna did eventually defeat Discord, but it would not be for many years after that – until they found the Elements of Harmony.

Slipping further into evil thinking, Celestia considers using the Elements to wipe out those nations who would dare oppose her. She travels to the old castle in the depths of the Everfree Forest, but is unable to make them work, which drives her further towards despair.

Then she looks up at the stars.

Chapter Four

Celestia visits her foremost astrologers to ask about prophecy. They don't have anything of use to say, but Celly, feeling suddenly a good deal more powerful, uses a combination of that, Discord's magic (learnt from reversing some his lasting enchantments) and dragon telepathy to contact her other sister, the stars, and make a few destiny-changing requests. "Equestria's enemies shall fall before the might of its Queen."

That night, she dreams about the immediate aftermath of Discord's defeat, when the Elements made her and her sister immortal. Everything goes as it did then, until the Elements suddenly get angry and admonish Celestia for her recent behaviour. They tell her that if Equestria's queen is going to do something like that, Equestria should not have a queen.

For now, they sever Celestia's tie to the Elements, and she snaps. She stands up to the disembodied voice of the Elements and complains of her troubles and the fates of her sisters. They were meant to rule together, and now there is only her.

The Elements are silent to her plight, and the dream ends.

Chapter Five

Celestia knows her time is short. Her mane billows almost limply, and yet she feels a great power inside of her. Frightened by the prospect of death, she returns to the observatory and enlists her sister to further alter destiny. In the thousandth year, the stars will aid in Nightmare Moon's escape.

In the midst of her work with destiny, she is caught up in a conversation with NMM herself, where the latter congratulates her sister on her growing darkness and promises that they shall rule together forever. Noticing her sister's concern about her mortality, NMM encourages Celestia to let the darkness in, for it shall take the place of the Elements and keep her immortal, all for no cost at all. Celestia almost does.

Chapter Six

Nightmare Moon is not Luna. This realisation stops Celestia. She snaps out of it and realises what awful, horrible things she's been doing. She tries to plead with the stars to change destiny back, but they will have nothing of it.

…

Celestia demotes herself to a Princess, citing the evil nature of Queens. And then she waits, disgraced but making amends.

> Nyx and Friends!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


NYX AND FRIENDS!



PILOT EPISODE: NYX’S BIRTHDAY



by Ezn

thanks to Pen Stroke and Batty Gloom
additional thanks to the /fic/ MST crew


EXT. Clearing in the Everfree Forest

SPELL NEXUS, a male unicorn dressed like Nightmare Moon sits on the edge of an utterly placid lake, basking in utter peace. Behind him, STONEWALL, a red earth pony, stands guard.


SPELL NEXUS
*limply waves a hoof* Oh my! What a truly fabulous ensemble this is! Stonewall, darling, you must remind me to compliment the tailor... personally...



STONEWALL
The tailor is Miss Rarity, sir.



SPELL NEXUS
(dejected) Oh, well, never mind then. The stitching on the cape is a little slipshod anyway.



STONEWALL
A heinous blasphemy against our dark and terrible queen, sir.



SPELL NEXUS
Oh, you flatter me! *beat* You... mean Nightmare Moon, don’t you?


STONEWALL nods.


SPELL NEXUS
No matter. *sigh*


SPELL NEXUS straightens up and clears his throat.


SPELL NEXUS
(authoritative)
Bring out the prisoner!


TWILIGHT SPARKLE, a purple unicorn, walks into view. She is visibly irritated.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Will this take long? Books don’t read themselves, you know. And stop calling me “the prisoner”! It’s starting to creep me out...



SPELL NEXUS
Sorry, dear, just got a little too into character there. Now, give me your hoof...


TWILIGHT SPARKLE reluctantly raises a hoof.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Are you absolutely sure you need to be dressed up as Nightmare Moon to take my blood?



SPELL NEXU
(whiny)
Don’t you question my lifestyle choices!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Sheesh, no need to get so touchy about it. Just lift that helmet so that you can see what you’re doing. I don’t want to donate all of my blood to underprivileged earth pony children.


STONEWALL steps behind SPELL NEXUS and lifts the Nightmare Moon helmet off the latter’s head. SPELL NEXUS tosses his head as his luxurious black mane is released. It flits around before settling into place behind his head.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
(whispering)
I’ve got to ask what products he uses...



SPELL NEXUS
Time to suck your blood, darling! *makes hissing noises*



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
(deadpan)
Please stop.



SPELL NEXUS
*sigh* Fine, we’ll do this the boring way.


SPELL NEXUS’s horn lights up with a dark grey glow. A syringe is levitated into view.


SPELL NEXUS
*brings the syringe to Twilight’s outstretched foreleg* This won’t hurt... much...


SPELL NEXUS bites his lower lip and jams the syringe into TWILIGHT SPARKLE’s foreleg. A drop of red blood appears next to the needle. STONEWALL faints.


SPELL NEXUS
*sigh* What a big sissy...


SPELL NEXUS removes the syringe from TWILIGHT SPARKLE’s foreleg after taking a satisfactory amount of blood.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
I get paid for this, right?


SPELL NEXUS is silent for a moment, and then breaks out into a huge grin.


SPELL NEXUS
Neigh! You foal, this was all a ruse! I am not a mild-mannered vampire pony! I am SPELL NEXUS, Harbinger of the Night!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
What? Never heard of you.



SPELL NEXUS
Did you not see the signs? Did you not heed the warnings?



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
You mean the ones you put up around Ponyville about “Nitemarr Mon’s revengance”? I thought that was an advert for a play about a Jamaican pirate.



SPELL NEXUS
You thought wrong! *speaking lower* But, erm, that’s a pretty cool idea; Stonewall, write that down.



STONEWALL
*regains consciousness* Yes sir.



SPELL NEXUS
So, as I saying... *clears throat* Through your unwitting donation of precious, magical blood, Nightmare Moon shall be reborn in her own body, and THE NIGHT! SHALL LAST! FOREVER!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
I’m sorry, but you really can’t do that line justice.



SPELL NEXUS
*glances at his curly tail* It’s the perm, isn’t it? My hairdresser said it would make me look fun and approachable, but I guess it doesn’t quite scream “evil overlord”. I was thinking of growing one of those curly moustaches, though, but then I wondered if...


SPELL NEXUS continues to ramble, while Twilight covertly levitates a pink cellphone out of her saddlebag.


SPELL NEXUS
... and then I said “Sapphire, are you crazy?” You see, she’d forgotten to- *notices cellphone* Hey! What’re you doing?!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Contacting the Princess.



SPELL NEXUS
Oh, well that’s alright then, I’m sure she’ll be delighted to- WHAT?!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
She’ll be here any second.


SPELL NEXUS drops the syringe he was levitating into a wooden bowl on the ground next to him. A giant cloud of purple smoke erupts from it.


SPELL NEXUS
(coughing)
Stonewall! Cheese it!


A scuffle and whinnying are heard. When the smoke clears, SPELL NEXUS and STONEWALL are nowhere in sight.

TWILIGHT SPARKLE levitates her cellphone in front of her face. A close-up of the cellphone reveals it to be nothing more than a painted block of wood.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
(smiling)
I wonder why they were so scared of this old thing. Oh well, guess I can finally get back to my-


TWILIGHT SPARKLE stops midsentence and looks down. Pan to NYX, a black alicorn filly with turquois eyes like those of a dragon.


NYX
Hey lady! My name’s Nyx!


TWILIGHT SPARKLE gives the camera a blank stare.

Fade to black.


OPENING THEME



When the world thinks you’re a monster...
And says you can’t be anything more...
You’ve gotta grit your teeth and prove ‘em wrong
You’ve gotta show them your heart’s core!



Young Nyx was an abomination; a blight that should never have been born
But she has the heart of an angel; a cuteness oath she’s sworn!
With the help and love of all her dear friends, she can overcome the evil
But the Princesses can’t find out, or there’ll be a royal upheaval!


EXT. Twilight’s Library


ANNOUNCER
Nyx and Friends is recorded in front of a live studio audience.


INT. Twilight’s Library (downstairs)

NYX is walking around the room, looking up at all the books around her. TWILIGHT SPARKLE sits on a cushion to the right of the frame, skimming through a book.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
(exasperated)
Tell me again why I have to look after you.



NYX
(still looking at shelves)
Because I was made with your blood, which makes you my only blood relative, which basically makes you my mother. And because if you don’t, I’ll tell the Princess you’re part of an evil cult that’s trying to resurrect Nightmare Moon.



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
*sighs* How do you know all of this? You didn’t exist until an hour ago!



NYX
What can I say? I’m a smart kid. *smiles sweetly* I take after my mother...



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
D’aww... *snaps out of it* No! You’re filly Nightmare Moon!


NYX raises a hoof to her face and turns towards TWILIGHT SPARKLE.


NYX
Forget what I said about taking after you. Sheesh, Twilight, don’t you know anything about demonic rituals? The bad guys left before they could add the final ingredient. I’m not Nightmare Moon.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE puts a hoof to her chin, thinks for a moment, and then grins in comprehension.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
(giggling)
So they added sugar, spice, everything nice, and some of my blood... but they forgot to add Potion X? This is just like that one what-if episode of Powerpuff Fillies!



NYX
*facing the camera* She watches children’s cartoons as well. Really, of all the mothers in the world...


TWILIGHT SPARKLE continues to chatter excitedly, and NYX shakes her head slowly.

Scene transition.

Int. Twilight’s kitchen

TWILIGHT SPARKLE and NYX are sitting at the kitchen table. TWILIGHT SPARKLE is reading a book, and NYX is playing with the salt cellar.

Enter SPIKE from the door on stage right.


SPIKE
Hey Twilight, hey filly Nightmare Mo- whaa? Twilight! What’s filly Nightmare Moon doing in our house?! Don’t tell me she’s another new assistant!



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Don’t worry, she’s n- well, actually, now that I think about it... Nyx, do you have a copy of your CV?



NYX
(deadpan)
Nope, sorry. I must have forgotten to draw one up in all the excitement of being born.



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Well that’s a shame. But I guess you must have experience in, uh, bringing about eternal night? Sending princesses to the sun? Animating trees? I’m sure those skills will come in handy for a Junior Junior Research Assistant!



SPIKE
(grumbling)
I’ll get the ketchup... probably need something bigger than a mouse toy this time, though... maybe a rocking horse...?


SPIKE exits out of the door he came in.

TWILIGHT looks over her book at NYX, who stops playing with the salt cellar.


TWILIGHT SPARKLE
I’m serious, Nyx. If you want me to keep you around and not tell Princess Celestia to send you to the moon, you’re going to have to earn your keep. You’re just lucky that Spike and that owl are so incompetent; else you’d already be stuffing your face with bananas.



NYX
Bananas?



TWILIGHT SPARKLE
Private joke: don’t worry about it.


Scene transition.
> My Little Brony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash looked down at the thing in the cardboard box in a mixture of disgust and fascination. The pink hairless ape-baby looked up at her in a mixture of baby-emotions and other baby-emotions, but Rainbow wasn't a foal psychologist or whatever so she didn't know what to make of them.

Well, degree in foal psychology or no, Rainbow knew she couldn't just leave the creature out in the cold to get eaten by manticores, so she reached into the box with her forehooves and scooped it up, blankets and all.

"WAHH!"

Rainbow winced, thoroughly unprepared for the thing's ear-piercing wail. "Shh, shh," she said, rubbing a hoof on its forehead, "everything's fine. I won't hurt you, really!"

"W-wah?" The creature's crying stopped abruptly.

Rainbow smiled gently down at the child. "Yeah, you'll be just fine with me, you'll see. Now let's go get you something to eat."

The thing's mouth widened into a toothless grin.

"Maybe something to drink instead. You like milk, right?"

It nodded its pink, fleshy head vigorously.

"Hmm," said Rainbow, as she gently coasted through the clouds, the creature clasped to her chest. "You're a pretty smart kid. You have a family?"

The creature shook its head and seemed to pout.

"Well, maybe..." Rainbow's grin faltered slightly and she glanced worriedly behind her. "Hmm, I dunno. You got a name, kid?"

The creature opened its mouth a gurgled something unintelligible.

"Well, I don't think I know how to spell that... How about I just call you Stevie?"

'Stevie' made more unintelligible gurgling sounds, but Rainbow thought they sounded pretty happy.

"Stevie it is then!"


***


"But Mah-ahm! I don't wanna go back to school! All the other kids make fun of me..." Steven folded his arms across his chest and made a sullen expression.