At last! After months of waiting, it was finally here. Today was the opening day of UmWhatCon, the very first fan convention for people who are into things that they don't really get. Best of all, I had a VIP pass!
Me? I'm John D. Blankslate. (The D stands for "Doe".) My eye color, hair color and other physical attributes are surprisingly variable, so just imagine that I look like an idealized version of you. (If you're a dude, I mean. If you're a chick, imagine a dude you really wanna do the horizontal bop with.) I would tell you more about myself, but characterization is something that happens to other people.
Between the day I bought my pass and today, I had worked really hard on my costume. This was going to blow everyone away. Why limit your cosplay to just one character? I had the revolutionary idea of going to a con dressed as fandom itself. And after ages of preparation, I was ready.
On my right hand was the Infinity Gauntlet with all six Infinity Stones. (Or Gems, if you prefer the comics.) On my left hand was the full "emotional spectrum" of Green Lantern-style power rings, including the white one of Life and the black one of Death. (One was on my thumb, and the rest were doubled up on my fingers.) On my left wrist was an Arisian Lens, a distant relative of the rings. Strapped to my left forearm was the Elder Wand in its quick-draw sheath; on my right forearm was the Runestaff.
In the center of my chest was a Tron identity disc (in the original Frisbee-like style, not the ring style). Normally that would be on the back, but it was easier to grab this way; also, I had on my back a portable particle accelerator that was good for laying the smackdown on ghosts and other undead. Slung next to that contraption was a phaser rifle with a detachable lightsaber in the bayonet position, as well as a top-mounted Xeelee starbreaker.
I bought the phaser from the same place I got the copy of Geordi LaForge's VISOR across my eyes. On the back of my ear was Star-Lord's earpiece that could expand into his signature mask/helmet. On my head was that useless kid's magic hat from the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.
My sword was deceptive; it looked incredibly generic except for the little rectangular window in the crossguard. Behind the window was a ribbon of names that I could scroll by turning the knob at the end of the pommel. At the time it was set to "Excalibur", but I also had options such as Stormbringer, Glamdring, Blackwand, Masamune, the Sword of Gryffindor, and Dreadstar's sword.
The sword hung off my left hip; on my right hip was the five-bladed Glaive of Krull. Between them was a fully-stocked Batman utility belt. My pocket-laden cargo pants carried an Omni from the short-lived TV show Voyagers!, my copy of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and all sorts of other goodies that I as an unreliable narrator couldn't think of at the moment. There was every possibility that they might become useful later in the story, though.
Sure, it was early Friday evening and the costume contest wasn't until Saturday night, but that didn't matter; I wanted to show off. No, the only problem I had was that there wasn't anything on the schedule just yet that I was interested in. Later on, there was going to be a set by DJ Topp 4T that I was looking forward to. (He was perfect for this convention, because he said he really loved music, but he only listened to and played things that were already popular.) But until then, not much going on. Nothing for it but to hit the dealers' room.
Most of it looked like the usual. Keychains and other trinkets decorated with characters and quotes, plushies that had to include gold dust in the stuffing for the prices they were charging, pirate copies of DVDs, borderline pornographic art prints, and more. I shoplifted a shot glass that had my favorite hentai vixen on it, but hadn't yet found anything I wanted to spend money on. That changed when a strange voice called out to me.
"Hey, kid."
I couldn't tell where the voice was coming from at first. I looked around, and when it still wasn't obvious, I decided to be clever.
"Who, me?" I asked.
"Yeah, you." For some reason, it reminded me of Mugsy the mobster from those vintage Bugs Bunny cartoons. "C'mere."
Finally I spotted the source of the voice. Just a few feet away, there was a set of tables and displays that were deep in shadow. This was especially odd because not only was the convention center brightly lit, but the booths on either side of it were perfectly visible. Sinister cobwebs were all over it, despite both the cleanliness of the center and the fact that merch set-up had been just that morning. The banner hanging off the front of the table said “For Shits and Giggles, LLC”.
I was intrigued, so I shuffled closer. “Yeah?”
At last I got a look at the man speaking to me. He looked like a “Faces of Meth” PSA poster where the “before” picture was Steve Buscemi. I felt I could trust him instantly. “You kind of a jerk, kid?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“You like to break stuff?”
“Yeah.” Who doesn't?
“You a borderline sociopath?”
I frowned. “This is the one where I'm supposed to say 'no', right? I don't really understand what feelings are, but normal people tell me they get bad ones when I say yes.”
He smiled. It was horrible. “Great. Last question, kid. Do you like doing to canon what Catholic priests do to altar boys?”
“Boy, do I!” Was there anything better?
“Perfect. I got something you might like.” He reached under the table and dug into a box. He came back up with two shiny black and red objects in his hands. Each one had the letters “MDSCM” written along one side in gold.
“Is that… that is!” I certainly hadn't been expecting to see this: footwear just like my favorite comic book character had. He was holding up boots just like the ones worn by Mister Doctor Super Captain Man, the All-Purpose Superhero. And they were my size! I could barely speak. “H-how much?”
He set down the boots and put a hand to his chin. His eyes went to the boots, to me, to up at the ceiling. After a moment he said, “Sixty-three cents.”
“Sixty-three cents?!”
“Okay, kid, you drive a hard bargain. A quarter.”
I stared at him for a while, I'm not sure how long. Eventually I pulled off the Infinity Gauntlet and set it on the table so I could dig into my pocket for some change. “Two dimes and a nickel okay?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, kid. That's how math works.”
I handed over the coins and he handed over the boots. I kicked off my crappy old sneakers right then and there, then skimmed off my power rings so I could get the boots laced up more easily. The guy running the booth pulled a trash can out from under the table, and I pitched my old shoes in. He set it back down again as I was putting the rings and the gauntlet back on, and then went digging in another box.
Once I had everything back in place, he held out a small, white rectangle to me. “Read this,” he said.
“Why?”
“Triggers the dimensional expulsion.”
“The what now?”
“Just read it, kid.”
It turned out to be an ordinary three-by-five index card, but the writing on it was in weird, glowing purple runes. The marks on the card started writhing around as I looked at them, and as soon as they formed into words that made sense, I read off each one.
“Just… Because.”
There was a bright flash of white light, and suddenly I felt like I was falling. The last thing I remember before passing out was some sort of vision. I saw the remains of what had once been a horse sprawled across a pile of computer keyboards. Just past it was an endless line of angry children, all of them carrying baseball bats. As each one got to the front of the line, he or she would give the corpse a good whack and then run off, giggling. What did it mean?
What's the opposite of passing out? Passing in? The next thing I remember was slowly passing in, I guess – sprawled on my stomach, my head turned to my right and all my limbs splayed out. I couldn't understand why I was so exhausted. I felt something strange under my left hand and pawed weakly at it. It turned out to be grass, which was weird because I didn't remember any growing on the floor of the convention center, and I was at least eighty-five percent sure I would have noticed something like that.
I opened my eyes and regretted it right away. What I saw was like a dozen movies being shown on the same screen all at once, and it didn't take long for me to feel the start of a headache coming on. I closed my eyes again. Maybe I was just dizzy. I started slowly working my way into a sitting position while still keeping my eyes shut.
Still no go when I opened them again. My vision was just as messed up as before, and the headache was coming on even quicker this time. I brought my hands up to rub my temples, found the VISOR, and pulled it off. Without it I could see normally again. I didn't understand, because I had never had any problems with it before. I threw the stupid, useless thing away from me.
Now that I could see straight, I looked around. I was confused. (More so than usual, I mean.) I was in a clearing in some forest, which was odd because I didn't remember one on the convention map. I was at least ninety-five percent sure I would have noticed that. Well, at least I could get something out of my surroundings. I crawled over to the nearest tree and used it to help me stand up. “Probably the first time in history a tree has ever been useful for anything,” I muttered.
The VISOR was nearby. Good. Pissed me off the way it suddenly stopped working like that. And it didn't even do anything before, so it didn't even make sense that it would stop working! I walked over to stomp on it, and when I looked down to make sure it would be centered under my foot, I saw that my Mister Doctor Super Captain Man boots were glowing. That definitely hadn't been the case before – my day was just getting weirder and weirder.
I was still feeling a little wobbly, so I took a really deep breath and started trying to figure things out. I didn't have long to think about it, though. Suddenly, some kind of weird lion jumped from behind some bushes right into the clearing! I think it had some kind of disease, because its tail looked all weird. Plus it had wings, so I guess it was some kind of rare, endangered species. It looked like it wanted to eat me.
I gasped out the deep breath, only it came out as that freaky blood/acid/napalm combo that Red Lanterns spew all over the place, and that flew right towards the lion. It roared in rage as the stuff started hurting it, and it jumped forward to slice me with its claws. Before it could connect, though, its paw was blocked by nine different force fields in colors matching my power rings. I looked down; my rings were all glowing, and so was my Tron disc. Things were finally starting to make sense… maybe.
The lion kept trying to get through the force fields, but it was getting weaker as the Red Lantern liquid rage did a number on it. I had an idea – if the rings were working, and maybe the disc was working, what else was? I quickly set my sword to “Stormbringer” and pulled it free. I finished off the lion with it, and as the sword took its life force, I felt a surge like chugging a whole case of energy drinks at once. I was feeling a hell of a lot better, and I congratulated myself on being right about something for once.
My costume gear was doing stuff like it was real! Things were starting to look pretty cool for me, and I had barely even scratched the surface of what I was wearing and packing. I couldn't wait for the chance to test drive more of this stuff, and I hoped I had the chance soon. As if in answer to a prayer that I hadn't even said yet, another monster came charging into the clearing.
This one looked like a giant version of one of those big dog breeds, like a Siberian Husky or something, but made out of wood. As soon as I saw it I remembered that oh, yeah, trees might be good for something after all. (I also wondered if maybe I pissed them off when I said that, 'cause this thing didn't look happy.) I didn't really know what it was so I decided to call it a dogwood. (It was like a dog, and it was made of wood, and a dogwood is a kind of tree. I thought it was pretty good.)
I pulled the Glaive off my hip and let the blades pop out. I missed the monster when I threw it, but just like it did for the prince in that movie, it moved around in response to my hand motions. I basically had a remote control flying buzzsaw that didn't even need a remote control! And it worked so well that soon I also had a nice pile of firewood where a monster had been just a few moments ago.
The next dogwood was disintegrated by a high power phaser blast. The one after that got de-rezzed by my identity disc, which is like disintegration but with grid lines. After that was some sort of chicken-snake that I cut to pieces with Gryffindor's sword. Then there was another dogwood that I vaporized with an energy blast from Dreadstar's sword. The last dogwood got blown up by a bazooka that I pulled out of the magic hat. (I guess these wooden dogs travel in groups or something.)
That was about when I realized that maybe I should leave that clearing. I looked around to figure out where I should go, and I was lucky enough to find a map hanging on a tree with a “You Are Here” note and everything. It showed me how to get to a trail that I could follow to some nearby town called Ponyville. (With that kind of name, I guess they really like betting at the racetrack a lot or something.)
It's always tough to tell with maps how far away something really is, and it took me a lot longer to get out of the forest than I thought it would. Along the way, I took down a tiger-goat-snake, did in a four-headed Godzilla monster, took care of another chicken-snake, offed some kind of big, glowing bear, and wiped out a whole cloud of electric bugs. I also spotted a pretty ordinary-looking zebra while I was walking through the forest, but I killed it as soon as I saw it just to be on the safe side. Everybody knows that even if an animal seems harmless, if it's from Australia then it's probably pretty dangerous anyway. I'm no dummy.
Just past the edge of the forest, I found even more wild animals – but these weren't outdoors. It was weird. When I got out of the trees I saw a cute little house, and I thought maybe I could find out where I was, figure out how to get back home, ask if my three-day pass was still good, check on a refund if it wasn't, that kind of thing. But when I knocked on the door, it was answered by a mean-looking bunny rabbit. A rabbit with friends. Lots of friends, and they were all looking at me. There was even a bear in there! Plus I didn't see a collar on a single one of them!
It freaked me out, so I backed away. Then I called down a meteor from the sky to drop onto the house and I felt a lot better.
Remembering about my con pass and the money I spent on it got me wondering – really wondering for the first time – just where I was and how I got here. I put out the fire on a chunk of wreckage and sat down on it to think. After a few minutes, I realized I didn't care. Back home, all the stuff I was wearing was just props and costume pieces. Here, though, it actually did everything that it did in all the stories. And it just so happens that I like having awesome, godlike power without having to have any thought of consequences.
Okay, I more than just liked it. As I sat there and thought about all the slaughtering I had done, I started to feel a stirring in a certain area. In a region south of the bat-shaped belt buckle. Well, more than just a stirring, honestly. It turns out that senseless violence got me more excited than the time I walked in on my mother sharing the shower with my sister, and random killing made me feel like a real man for the very first time in my life. Who knew?
Then I remembered that I was pretty close to a town. Probably just outside of it, based on what the strangely convenient map said. A town would give me even more opportunities for murder and mayhem, so why was I just sticking around here? Enough sitting around and thinking! (It's not like thinking was ever my strong point anyway.) It was time to get moving again.
I hadn't gone very far down the road into town before I ran across another unfamiliar thing – this one was mostly purple and a little green, sort of looked like some kind of reptile, and was the size of a grade school kid. It was sitting on a fallen log by the side of the road, hunched over with its head in its… I don't know, “hands”, I guess. It hadn't seen me, so I decided this was the perfect time to test out another piece of equipment. I circled around behind it and drew out the badass ultimate wand that that stupid Harry Potter was dumb enough to give up.
Now, how did that spell go? “Abracadabra,” I said. A flat cardboard square popped out of the front and dropped to the ground. I picked up and looked it over; it had a freaky, mostly black picture that sort of looked like an eye on the front, plus the word “Abracadabra” and a name on it. Who the hell was Steve Miller? After I felt a gap in one of the edges, I found a black circle inside and figured out that it was one of those old vinyl albums. That didn't help.
Okay, that wasn't the spell, but I knew I was close. “Abacab!” That got me more old people music, something from some band called Genesis. I tried even harder to bring the spell to mind, but all I could remember was that it actually had more of a V sound instead of a B sound in it. I was bound to get it right after a couple more tries, so I gave it another shot. “Avocado!” Oh, gross – I hate guacamole.
A stream of nasty green stuff shot from the wand just like it came out of a squirt gun, hitting the little monster on the back of the head. It jerked upright and reached around to wipe off the back of its head; I stuck the wand back in the sheath as quick as I could and tried not to look guilty. I was still trying to figure out what to do with my hands by the time it stood up and turned around to look at me.
It didn't look even a tiny bit human, except for general shape stuff like where the arms, legs and head were. Still, there was something about it. It was short, dumpy, strange, kind of scaly – it sort of reminded me of me, in a way. I guess that's why I stopped trying to kill it.
“Great,” it said. “Assaulted by a deformed minotaur. That's just perfect. That's exactly the way my day is running. If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone. There's a good chance I might start crying.”
I was fascinated. Most of the time, I forgot that people other than me were capable of being sad. (Sometimes they even say when they are, which is helpful because I can never tell.) So to find out that something like this could feel sad, too… well, it just blew my mind.
After a few moments, I got enough of a grip on myself to ask a detailed question. “Why?”
There was a second of hesitation, and then he struck a dramatic pose, including throwing his forearm across his eyes. "Woe is me. I am bereft and forlorn! Sorrow and suffering are my lot! I am Spike, a dragon most wretched, and my life is lived as the lowest of the low!”
I gave what he said some careful consideration, and then I probed him for more details like I was a legendary reporter. “Why?”
Spike lowered his arm and peeked at me over the top of it. “Really? You're willing to listen? I don't get listened to a lot. Except when I talk to Twilight, or Fluttershy, or Rarity, or Pinkie Pie, or...” He continued on like that for lots more names, but I just sort of tuned it out.
Eventually I cut him off. “Sure, I'll listen to you. I guess. What's up?”
He sat down again, facing me this time, and sighed. “Well, it's like this: I've got a sort of complicated relationship dynamic with a pony I think of as sort of my mom and my big sister and my boss and my best friend all rolled into one. And she makes me do stuff.”
“Wow. Bad stuff?”
His mouth sort of twisted up and his eyes went to one side. “Wellll… no, not really. Mostly chores.”
“That sucks.” I could relate. “And she what, beats you if you don't do them?”
“Uh, no. No, not exactly. Mostly she just looks disappointed at me.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I mean, yeah, I like to help out, and wanting to be needed is one of the core elements of my identity, and she's the reason I'm actually alive, and in a way it's sort of like me earning my keep, and we love each other like family. But for the purposes of our discussion, let's ignore all of that. Sometimes I have to clean up after myself.”
I was horrified. “That… that's just like abuse.”
“Exactly,” he said, before dropping his head back down into his hands and crying.
“I bet sometimes you wish you could just get rid of her, don't you?”
He got control of himself, at least a little bit, and looked up at me with teary eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, I'd like to give her a piece of my mind. Where do you live?”
He waved down the road I had been following. “Library, center of town. Big tree with doors and windows. You can't miss it.” With that, he collapsed onto the ground, rolled into a ball, and cried even harder.
Once I got to town, it hit me that he said “pony” and not “person” – mostly when I saw lots of small horses in really bright colors running away from me. All of the ponies I ever saw pictures of were brown or other boring colors like that, so I figured these had to be like tropical ponies or something. Lots of animals – like frogs, lizards, snakes, and birds – were really colorful in jungles or on islands even when they were really dull in other places. I didn't know that was also the case with horses, but it just made sense.
Anyway, the exotic hot-climate ponies were all running away from me, scrambling into buildings and locking doors behind them. The ones who were already in houses or whatever were also closing windows and shutters. I guess they don't see humans very often or something. Or maybe they were just confused – I heard one or two of them yelling about a monster, even though I knew there weren't any behind me. I killed 'em all.
Speaking of killing, I guess I could have started my spree right there. I wanted to start with the lunatic child-abuser, though, so I could also feel like a hero, not just an uncaring force of nature.
As promised, the library was pretty easy to find. I knocked on the door and when the little purple pony inside it answered, I turned the Infinity Stones on her before she could get a word out. Given what I pulled off, I think the Power Stone did most of the work: not only did I dissolve her into atoms, but I even broke the atoms themselves apart! It was cool.
Then there was the issue of what to do with the library itself. Since it was a tree, I figured it had to be pretty easy to burn. Plus I remembered that Mister Doctor Super Captain Man had heat vision when he wanted it, so that pretty much decided it for me. I hadn't yet tried any powers that were “built-in”, so to speak, and it was time to give it a shot. I stared at the tree, imagined energy building up in my eyes, and cut loose.
The next thing I knew, there was a bright light and a sound like I had just been swatted by the world's largest pillow. I fell over like I had been smacked by a giant pillow, too. When my vision cleared, I saw that like half the tree was gone, and everything that was left was either really badly charred or still on fire. I was completely unharmed, of course, but still a little dazed. “What the hell just happened?” I asked.
My Green Lantern ring spoke up. “After the sapient was discorporated, the free protons and free electrons combined into hydrogen. The following localized thermal spike resulted in combustion.”
Oh, wow -- I forgot these rings basically had computers in them. I had no idea how that would be helpful to me, though. “Um, thanks, I guess?”
The GL ring didn't have anything else to say right then, and neither did any of my other rings. I did hear another voice, though. It was mostly a long, drawn-out scream, but I think what it was saying was “No!”
I turned around and saw Spike running down the street towards me. He stopped just a few feet away and held his hands out to me, palms up, like he was asking for something. But then he aimed his hands towards the library like he was passing something from me to it, and then pointed back to me. He swivled back and forth several times, sputtering all the while. I was baffled. (More so than usual, I mean.)
Finally I worked it out: he was bothered by something. I couldn't imagine what, though. “What?” I asked. No reply. “What is it?”
He actually yelled at me for some reason. "This isn't what I wanted! Not for real!"
"It's what you said to me," I told Spike. "So it's what you must have wanted. For real."
"I'm a sulky adolescent!" wailed Spike. "What do I know about what I want? Or reality, for that matter?"
He started pounding on me with his little fists. When that didn't work, he opened his hands again and started trying to use some claws that I didn't realize he had. He burped some green fire in my face, too. This was getting old pretty fast. I pushed him away, stepped back, and reached over my shoulder.
“Hey, Spike,” I said once my hand found what I was looking for. I popped the lightsaber off the front of my phaser rifle and thumbed it on as I swung it around. “Heads up.” (I thought it was funny.)
Then I got hit again. Unlike that last time with the fireball, though, I saw this impact coming. First there was more yelling that I couldn't really make out, this time coming from the sky. When I looked up, I spotted this rainbow-colored streak coming right at me. I braced myself, the hit happened, and then the rainbow bounced off me and turned into a blue pony. Guess she had a pretty good turn of speed going on, because she plowed up a pretty long stretch of dirt after her rebound.
After a few seconds, she got back on her feet, shook herself off, and climbed out of the far end of the ditch she had just made. Then she was actually dumb enough to fly at me again! What a stupid pony. I could tell she was going to be a nuisance, though, so I called on the Gauntlet again. I had the Space Gem (or Stone, whatever) send her as close as possible to the center of the galaxy. I once heard there was a really big black hole there, but even if I missed she'd be dead anyway.
There was some more fighting after that, but all of it was just as one-sided – which is how I like my fights. Mostly there was running and hiding. Not that it did any good. It was absolutely essential that I kill and destroy as much as possible, and maybe after I did enough of it I would even think of a reason why.
Less than half an hour later, after levelling most of the town, I found the train station. The maps and schedules showed me that there were lots – and I mean lots – of other places to visit. The thing is, there wasn't anyone left to sell me a ticket, plus I wasn't sure if they'd let me on their train anyway. (Also, I actually found the tracks first and I had turned long sections of rail into giant metal pretzels just because I could.)
Finally, something struck me that I wish I would have thought of earlier – I could fly. If I had remembered that, it would have saved me a lot of walking. Finally having it come to mind would save me tons of travel time on the train, but it would still take a while to reduce all these towns to rubble and kill everyone inside them. It was a lot of fun, but trashing everything in sight was really time-consuming.
Flying gave me other options, though, and the one I was thinking of right then involved a piece of equipment that I hadn't tested yet. Before I could do that, I needed to get off the ground… really, really far off the ground. The yellow Sinestro Corps ring seemed pretty powerful right then, probably because of all the fear I had caused, so I let it take me straight up and all the way into space.
Once I got far enough above the planet, I got one of my questions answered: this wasn't the world I was from. Hang on – hadn't the guy at the con said something about dimensional something-or-other? That explained things, sort of. That also gave me ideas, but first I had some business to finish.
I pulled the phaser rifle off my back and dismounted the Xeelee starbreaker. I learned about starbreakers from a guy on the Fandweeb.dork forums, and he said that they “do to gravity waves what a laser does to light waves”. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but it sounded impressive. Not to mention that even though the books they were in described them as pistol-sized, they actually were used to break apart stars… and planets.
I pointed the starbreaker at the center of the blue-green circle below me and pulled the trigger. A brilliant red beam shot out and connected with the planet. I held it for a few seconds before cutting it off. I couldn't really see any effects until I used Mister Doctor Super Captain Man's Extremo-Vision to zoom in. There was a hole in the world where I had aimed, and ground was continuing to crumble around it. When I zoomed in even more, I could see stars from the other side of the planet shining through the hole. Beautiful.
I activated the starbreaker beam again and waved it all across the planet. I moved my hand in circles, I wrote my name, I drew body parts, I even pretended I was Zorro. Things were really starting to fall apart by that time, and the crumbling continued even when I let go of the trigger. After a while I got bored, but by the time I looked away, the globe was just a rough ball of rubble about half the size it had been before.
So I'm in another dimension, huh? I thought. Well, if that was the case, that meant there were more out there. And why should I have to stick around this one? Between the Infinity Gauntlet, the different Lantern Corps power rings, and gear in my pocket like the oscillation overthruster, I was pretty sure I could go just about anywhere I could think of. And since nothing made me happier than wiping out cute, friendly things that made other people smile, I knew exactly what I wanted to do next.
I was going to go eliminate every single character, setting, and thing ever created by Disney.
Celestia woke up. "Thank you, Luna."
Luna was sitting on her haunches on the opposite side of the room, just inside the open double doors to the balcony, staring off into the distance. Now that her connection to the magic of their world had been restored, she was regaining her former stature. Also, her mane was looking less like hair and starting to once again resemble a dark nebula swirling in the heart of the night sky.
She responded wordlessly. "Hmm?"
Celestia got out of her bed. Her own mane looked the same as it had every day since receiving her cutie mark so many centuries ago: like the auroras on display in the sky in the polar regions of their world, and many other Earths besides. The eldest of Equestria's three princesses hadn't experienced bed-head since childhood.
She walked over to Luna and placed a hoof on her sister's shoulder, a hoof that was not at that time clad in her royal golden shoes. "Thank you for showing me that creature's dreams, sister. It confirms everything I've suspected, and validates what I've been doing for many years now."
Tears were making their way down Luna's cheek, but she refused to acknowledge them. "So much anger... at everything, and at nothing. So much hate." She tilted her head back and would have been looking at the ceiling if she hadn't closed her eyes. "He is as we were within the Nightmare. Nay, worse." She moved her head to the opposite extreme and opened her eyes, looking down at the floor. "I was. He is as I was within the Nightmare."
Celestia's hoof moved up and began rubbing the back of her neck. "That was Nightmare Moon. She became part of you, but she wasn't you. This is my sweet sister; this is the Luna I love, and who loves me."
Luna nodded and wiped her face with the back of one hoof before leaning against her big sister. "But how didst thou..." She trailed off, shook her head, and started over. "How did you know? Without dream-walking to tell you what is truly within them, how could you learn what was in their hearts?"
"They showed us," Celestia said quietly. "Whoever sends these beings here robs them of energy to power the transfer, so they always arrive unconscious. The first ones to come here were always unnoticed when they arrived, but when they awoke, they would always head for the nearest city, town, or village. Once there, they always did their best to terrorize our little ponies, not realizing that they were just as powerless as before."
"So they waved about their mummers' props, thinking they had been imbued with vast magical power for no reason save satisfying their deranged wishes? What did they whence it was discovered otherwise?"
"Some broke mentally and went catatonic. Others tried violence without the benefit of these imagined abilities, but they were always quickly subdued by earth pony strength, pegasus swiftness, or unicorn magic. Others tried to kill themselves but were also restrained."
Luna pulled away from her sister and turned to face her. "Thou -- nay, you -- said 'the first ones'. And after? When more of these things arrived?"
"Sister, try to recall your connection to the Element of Kindness. These are beings, not things." Celestia spoke gently but firmly. "From what we learned by interviewing the initial subjects, most of the trouble with them is from them seeing other beings as things. Some of them, not many, have shallow conenctions with others and call them friends, but none of them truly understand the magic of friendship." She looked out the balcony doors herself, taking in the beauty of the night sky before continuing. "Honestly, I think that's why they're sent here. Not to learn, because they've shown they can't do that. I think they're sent here so that other worlds can simply get rid of them."
"I consider myself corrected, sister. That answers not my question. The other beings who arrived after the initial attempted rampages?"
Celestia looked back at her sister. "After I learned to recognize the magical signature of the planar breaches, I began teaching the more promising students of my school how to detect it, as well as many alumni who volunteered to return for one more class. Unicorns all over Equestria now know how to tell when these beings have crossed over, and where to find them. We simply locate them, make certain they remain asleep, and take them to one of the care facilities that have been established."
Luna's eyes widened. "'Facilities', plural? How many of these creatures have been exiled here?"
"Hundreds."
"And... you never thought of simply... killing them?"
"Of course I thought about it, Luna. I think about all sorts of things. Remember when we were little and you accused me of thinking about things too much?"
Luna eyes lost their focus as she looked into the memories of their distant past. One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "I do. There is something of you in your young protégé Twilight Sparkle, I think."
Celestia smiled broadly, a playful gleam in her eyes. "How do you think I knew she was special?"
Luna reached out a hoof and lightly smacked her sister on the shoulder in the universal sign for "Oh, you!"
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. In addition to two of Celestia's guards flanking the door, there was a member of the newly reinstated Night Guard standing between them and looking expectant. He bowed low, saluted with both a hoof and one bat-like wing, gave appropriate greetings, and declined the offer to enter the royal chambers. Protocol satisfied, he gave the royal sisters a brief verbal summary, then retrieved a sheaf of documents from his saddle bag. He left after Celestia took the report in her magical grip and Luna formally dismissed him.
The stack of papers detailed how the latest human intruder had been found, magically sedated, and was at that very moment being transported to a comfortable, caring place where he would spend the rest of his life. On top of them was a picture, a close-up image of the once-troubled human's sleeping face.
Celestia levitated the photo, holding it up between herself and her sister. "Anyway, Luna, look how happy he is."
"True. And judging by his dreams, possibly for the first time in his life."
"Exactly. And he's young; based on our best estimates, he'll live for decades until our doctors can do no more for him, and he'll be this happy his entire life. The perpetual dream is everything he wants."
Luna looked thoughtful. "You not only protect our ponies, but you give these disturbed creatures a great gift as well."
"I like to think so, sister. The first exiles, the ones who remained coherent, spoke at length about their twisted desires for endless death and destruction. This one's dreams told us all that and more. But anypony -- any being -- can kill. That's not difficult at all. Showing compassion? That's much harder."
There was silence for several long moments.
"I feel sorry for them," said Luna softly.
Celestia sighed. "As do I, sister. As do I."
