1 Reluctently Eager for Adventure

Lyra Heartstrings - August 5th 2199 - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Earth #7

You know what’s good? Pets. Might seem like a ‘No shit!’ sort of thing, but seriously, right now the only bit of normalcy I have is my pet. Yesterday I had a kick ass career. Today, I had nothing. All my friends were work friends. My job had not given me enough time to work on my hobbies. Work was all I had, except for Bonbon II.

The two in her name always made people think that I’d had another snake before Bonbon II. Ha! As if I’d lived long enough for that! My cutie’s got another two decades of living left to do, at least! There was a couple other Bonbons though, hence the need for a two.

The first Bonbon was the nickname of a childhood friend of mine. She vanished without a trace one day. Amber alert and all that.

The second Bonbon was my jet, Bonbon I. I’d named her for my old friend cuz she was peppy and upbeat for a Pegasus IV, just like the original Bonbon had been. I have no idea why I decided to name my not at all little green anaconda after her too, but I did.

It was either Bonbon or Nagini, and frankly while the Harry Potter reference was amusing, it would mean I named a snake ‘Snake’. That didn’t seem okay. It also didn’t seem okay to just call her Bonbon, that was her name, because screw calling a female Bonbon Junior. So I’d added the two to my snake’s name and generally called her Bon.

I guess I just suck at naming things.

Most people tell me owning a four meter long snake isn't okay to begin with. In my defense, I had no idea that green anacondas got that big. And besides, Bon’s the kindest not-at-all-little thing ever. I think it’s because I bought her from a restaurant that apparently served snake like lobster, where they kill it fresh.

What? It was an exotic sounding dish, and I was in Brazil! I couldn’t eat the adorable little girl. No one told me that non-fangy-bitey snakes kinda look like scaled kittens in person. You can’t eat that.

When I first got her, she fit in my hand. Well, around and in my hand. You know, typical snake size. I thought she was all grown and I’d have some neat exotic pet to take back to the States with me and keep for five years or so.

Ha! Nope! I’d gotten her at like, just about a year old. Bonbon was itty bitty by comparison, now she was like the stereotypical big green snake seen on old fantasy novel covers. You know, from back when printed media was a thing. She was still cute though. Also awesome for use as a prop when going to cons while cosplaying as a sorceress. Oh and for scaring away Jehovah's Witnesses.

At the moment, I was getting a rabbit out for her so it could thaw. I’d had to lock the chest freezer in the kitchen. Bonbon was a smart girl, she worked out how to unlatch the freezer and open it. She was also a stupid little derp because she ate three frozen solid rabbits after getting it open.

That was a fun vet trip! Well no, actually, the waiting room was fun. So um, sarcasm retracted.

Ever want to have real fun? Borrow a large snake and sit in a vet waiting room across from the lady with her obviously prized cat. Heh. The fear, I was able to taste it. It was delicious!

Of course there had been the inevitable ‘Don’t you know that thing could kill you?’ from the lady who thought her cat was sick because of a hairball. Yes, I am aware that my pet could crush me like an egg if she wanted. But she doesn't.

Bonbon’s an affectionate girl. She likes to snuggle, and is super gentle. If she wanted me dead, I’d already be snake poo, ‘cuz when she gets cold and or lonely she’ll slither into my bed at night. This happens more often than not. She unlocks her room’s door, opens it, and then opens my room’s door in search of snuggles. Like I said, she’s smart.

I used to mind that, but I decided to get used to it. Because with a snake her size, you’re not going to be able to make her move at oh-dark-thirty following a sudden wake up. Besides, I’m single now. I’ll take pet snuggles.

Speaking of pet snuggles, as I stood in my way-to-small kitchen, the little derp slid in, pushing her head up to counter height, doing that cute little tongue flick in the general direction of thawing rabbit.

“Oi! Wait till it’s not made of death,” I chastised, giving her head a little skritch.

Bon leaned into my skritches and swished her tail tip along the floor. She does that a lot. I swear she think’s she’s an extra long dog half the time.

“Well, at least I’ll get to spend plenty of time with you for a while,” I mused, giving her a bump with my foot.

I’d trained her to climb up me with a foot tap. It was easier than picking her up to make sure she stayed out of things she shouldn’t get into. Besides, I couldn’t lift her up easily anymore.

One might assume that carrying her would be a problem if I couldn’t lift her. But they would be wrong. My former job required I be used to carrying about four times my bodyweight for hours at a time, and up to nine times for brief periods. Carrying Bonbon was par for the course. But the lifting was a problem. Mostly due to her length, and the fact that snakes are kinda floppy.

Sure, carrying her ached a little, but loosing my job and my best friend in one swoop hurt more. I loved flying. Getting to sit in some of the most complex machines ever devised by man and pushing it to it’s absolute limits was my entire world for eight years.

Yeah, yeah. Eight years isn’t too long to hold a job. But in my defense, I wasn’t discharged or drummed out, or even quit. No, I’d been decommissioned.

I loved machines. Robots especially. Even after everything, I was fully on board with robots doing all the work for humans but… God damnit, the robots were supposed to do the boring jobs! Not fly fighter jets!

What made it the absolute worst is I couldn’t refute the brass’s reasons. Yeah, AI had gotten absolutely insanely good over the last half decade. Yes, it was more moral to not risk a human’s life by making them fly air combat missions. Yes, AIs now almost always outflew human pilots and could take way more Gs. Yes, AIs didn’t need life support for High Altitude Low Orbit operations, meaning the craft could carry less payload and thus stay spaceborn longer.

But… That’s all I had. She was all I had...

I’d put up with 12 hour days almost every day, mountains of paperwork, and more stress than reasonable. I’d stayed in despite the fact that I’d gotten my wings just a few months before the Second Korean war went hot again. I’d flown actual combat missions, risked my life in that one month before North Korea became a thing of history, all to get to do the one job that struck my fancy.

All the cool jobs are dangerous. So they all get robots to do them now. Astronauts, firefighters, patrol cops, all video gamers today. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good game, but I’d always wanted to be an adventurer growing up. Danger, actually doing real things, thrills...

Without any evil overlords present in the real world, the next best thing was fighter pilot, because people still actually had flown planes at the time. So I’d based my whole life around that.

That’s why I’d turned down the offered position of ‘Drone Overseer’. Fuck that! I’d joined to actually fucking fly! At least Uncle Sam had decided to give the pilots he was phasing out full retirement benefits… Unlike our jets. Bastards…

Older generations have no sense of decency when it comes to machines. She was half of what made me a good pilot. Shouldn’t scrap her just because the cockpit’s unnecessary now. It wasn’t right.

I carefully sat down on my couch with a sigh. At least I hadn’t lived on base. At least I still had my home.

“Maybe I can get that antique working finally. What do you think? Should I give it a try?” I asked Bon, giving her head a scritch as I looked at the ancient curved screen set up on a small table across from my couch.

It had been a project of mine for a while, and I needed the distraction. My grandpa always said that watching things on a physical screen was an entirely different experience from ARGs. I’d always been curious about that, but no one even manufactured display panels anymore. Even just finding one of those old 84 inch, curved for some reason, things was an actual quest!

Which made it something fun! Sorta...

I’d spent a few days worth of time over the last few years trying to get a signal from my home media server to even work with it. Fortunately for me, a few people I knew had done similar things, so I’d had instructions. But even with them there were a ton of old parts to track down.

Like a QEC to fiber optic conversion box. I was good with tools and liked working on electronics… But I didn’t even own HALF the equipment to make one of those.

I’d expected getting the thing to work would be hard. These things weren't ever designed to work with the direct net after all. Hell, they weren't even meant to work with the internet. A little box thing you plugged into it let them work with the old net. What were they called? Consoles I think.

Gramps would know. Why not give him a call?

I closed my eyes for a moment and instructed myself to ring gramps phone. I’d always hated calling him, he’d refused bio mods like most older people, so everything he used was ancient technology. If I wanted to talk to my mom or a friend, boom, instant neural interface! Unless they were running silent. Wetware for the win!

Not gramps though. Every. Single. Time. Sitting there. For at least a minute. With that fucking ringing sound echoing through my brain! There’s a reason no one uses audio cues for their Augmented Reality alerts, gramps!

After a mini-eternity, and actual microphone pop-click zipped through my brain before FINALLY the old guy’s voice asked, “Hello? Who's there?”

“It’s Lyra, Gramps. How’s everything?” I asked back.

“Oh hey kiddo! I… Heard the news. Sorry about your job. But that’s how things are going. Pretty soon there won’t be anything at all left for us to do. I remember loosing my own job back in the fifties, you know when paperwork stopped being a human job. No need for accountants and all that. So, I feel you,” he said comfortingly.

The cockpit was cramped, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and my new linkage implant was itchy. I had figured the seat would at least be as comfortable as the flight simulator’s. The real deal didn’t even have a window. Like a coffin.

First thing was first. I didn’t understand why the hardware was necessary. Yeah, you linked to the jet’s systems directly. I could do that to my car without the need for an a chunk of silicap. Why the fuck wasn’t wetware good enough here?

Awkwardly reaching back to the base of my skull, I grabbed the connector at the back of my flight helmet, and instantly winced. It felt so weird to feel that like a body part… At least the cable wasn’t the permanent addition, I could deal with the little gold bars on my neck.

I slotted the cable into the jack at the back of the seat with a loud cl-

Holy shit! I was the jet! I had ailerons! I could feel my engines!

No… I could feel our engines. There was another here with me. Who-

<Hi! Are you my pilot? Are we going to go flying now?> she said in her happy, eager, loving voice.

The fuck he did! No non-pilot ever could ‘feel me’.

“Thanks gramps,” I said reluctantly with a nod, before remembering that with his obsolete POS tech, he could only hear me, not see me. How did people live before Twenty one oh six?!

“Anyways,” I continued, “since I got time now, I thought I would see about getting this TV working. Try out the movie watching experience your so nostalgic for. Any idea where I can get a QEC to fiber-optic converter?”

“Yeah, Norman’s Antiques on Avenue A, fourth level,” he answered instantly.

I blinked. “Uh, that was quick.”

“I’m his best customer. It takes six separate things just to get me old iPad hooked into your Neural Net thing and they were not built to last… Early twenty first century manufacturing was the literal worst,” he grumbled.

“Uh, your what?” I asked with a confused frown.

“iPad.” He replied. “It’s a microcomputer built into the back of a large touch panel. Sort of like a tiny TV you can manipulate by touching it.”

“So it’s a two-dimensional screen? How do you even experience the news on that thing?” I asked, completely confused.

“Well… I can’t view the memories of the event, but they still make text summaries of events for old farts like me. I read those on it,” he explained with a sigh, knowing what I was about to say.

“You should get augmented gramps. It’s been forty years. The end of the world didn’t happen because of it. You’d live longer, have all your tech built in as natural extensions of your brain, get to use all of the cool stuff-”

“I know, but to us old timers, our bodies are sacred temples. Hell some of my friends don't even consider you young folks to be the same species, and not in the normal ‘get off me lawn!’ way. I mean, literally. I know people who don’t call people your age humans. It’s…hard for us to adjust to the new age,” he griped. “I’m just glad you still own a phone so we can talk.”

“Actually, I’m talking to you over the Net. No hardware, just me. I got an app to let me transmit to phones,” I said slowly, not wanting to piss him off.

“Damn… Cool as that is… I still can’t go through with it. I hope you understand,” he said sadly.

I didn’t, but it would have been rude to say it. “Thanks for letting me know about Norman’s.”

“Yeah, no prob- Oh! Right. It’s a physical only store. No drone delivery, no virtual storefront. You’ll have to actually go there,” Gramps warned.

“No problem, I’ve got plenty of free time, and well… I’m not exactly used to staying inside,” I chuckled bitterly. “So uh, what’s the protocol for stop-talking over the phone again?”

Gramps chuckled. “One thing I think I would like, the fact that I’d never truly be away from anyone I knew. Do you even say goodbye to anyone?”

“No,” I replied honestly. “I mean, we leave the same physical space, but a quick thought and I can have a full 3d projection of them walking with me back to my livingroom. It’s seriously something I can’t imagine living without. The world must have seemed so much bigger and more, well, there to explore back in your day.”

“Nah, you didn’t miss much. Poor girl, you would have been at home in the days of wooden sailing ships and America foundings… Assuming some gender flipped world where women got to do things back then,” Gramps mused.

I frowned, not really understanding what he meant. “Gender flipped?”

“Uh, yeah,” Gramps said flatly. “Don’t tell me they don't teach history anymore! Equal rights movements? Women basically property before the twentieth century?”

“Oh! Yeah, that! Sorry, that’s another thing that’s hard to understand,” I said as evenly as possible.

When sex education includes a download of a member of the opposite gender’s memories, it’s pretty damn hard to not see the sexes as equal but different. But no need to freak out the old person with that little tidbit.

“Whelp, I’ll just hang up so you don’t have to think too hard,” Gramps joked. “Bye Lyra, call again soon. We’re both unemployed, you like stories about the old days, I got plenty.”

I smiled and stood up, giving Bonbon II a shake, signaling her to get off me.

“Bye Gramps. Get augmented so we can play chess without one of us having to fly across the Atlantic,” I said, exaggerating the distance as was apparently the old tradition.

“But you like flying,” he teased.

Like flying?! Bitch I AM flight incarnate! No, calm down Lyra, he didn’t mean it like that...

“Um, didn’t we just terminate this conversation?” I asked.

“... Right… Um, old person thing. There are at least three goodbyes. We’re inefficient like that,” Gramps chuckled. “Bye for real this time!”

The mic clicked again, and the call was over.

I took a short breath, bringing up a projection to check the store’s hours and how traffic was at the moment. Everything seemed to be good, no major congestion, store had twentyfour hour service and-

The loudest possible pop exploded behind me like a flashbang, sending a shower of purple sparks across the room in a fern-shaped wave! I dove for the floor, ears ringing, rolling for the coffee table, and sliding under it’s concealed ballistic shielding!

Minutes passed. Nothing else exploded. No gunfire. No sounds of footsteps.

“Clear!” I called to no one in particular, instantly blushing at the reflexive action.

A small red icon started to blink in the corner of my vision. A hazard warning? What? A bit late for that wasn’t it?

I checked the warning, flinching immediately. My house’s sensors were detecting a high concentration of radon in the room. Good thing I was on the floor! Then a second light came on indicating a-

“Smith-Purcell radiation? What the fuck even is that?” I demanded reflexively.

Fortunately, unlike Gramps, I had VI assistance for learning things.

<Smith-Purcell radiation is a form of radiation produced when high-speed electrons travel through a crystal or other regular structure. The periodic variation in electric and magnetic fields within the crystal causes the electron to wiggle as it flies by, typically producing ordinary radio waves or microwaves. It is not generally a form of ionising radiation.> My integrated teaching program, Chere.ly, happily informed me.

“Thanks,” I grunted.

There wasn’t much point in thanking a VI, I mean it’s basically just thanking an old school search engine. Still, my copy of Chere.ly did sort of teach me everything I wanted to know litteraly since the hopital downloaded it into me at birth. So she kind of felt like a person to me.

As I ordered my home to vent the gas and scrub the air, a small window opened in my vision. A younger black haired man in a police uniform looked at me with a concerned expression. “Ms. Heartstrings, central detected an explosion in your vicinity, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered rolling out from under the table and looking around. “I can’t see anything that would have exploded… Maybe a powersurge? Static discharge?”

“That’s possible Ma’am,” the officer reported. “Power grid upgrades are being performed in many places across the city today. Are you sure you can’t see anything?”

“Nothing. Oh! My house did pick up a high level of radon after the explosion! Hope that helps you out,” I informed quickly.

“Thank you Ma’am. Report any damaged property as soon as possible, we’ll get to the bottom of this and give you a full report as soon as we are able,” the officer said as the window closed.

I sat down with a sigh and started looking over my surprisingly undamaged livingroom. Hell, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that explosion actually cleaned the place up a bit!

That’s when I noticed that the dust underneath the couch had completely vanished. That explosion actually HAD made everything cleaner!

Fuck going to an antique store! We had the Mystery of the Disappearing Explosive Maid to figure out.

I started to crawl around on the floor, looking for scorch marks, fragments of metal, or anything else which might have been a bomb casing, or an origin point. Nothing.

I sat up and checked the walls for holes, discolored spots, scorching, any sign that something in them had exploded. Nothing.

I turned my head upwards to check the ceiling to see if a light panel had decided to explode, or any other possible sign of-

“Okay, what the fuck even exploded?” I demanded.

Bon slithered up behind me, gently resting her head on my left shoulder.

“Did you see what exploded, hon?” I asked turning my head to give her a little pet.

My hand stopped halfway to her head, in her mouth, held like she would a ball while playing fetch, was a wide leather cuff, slightly scorched, with a raised portion covered by a flap of more also slightly scratched leather.

“Good girl! Give it to Mommie,” I said gently, holding the surprise and eagerness back so it wouldn’t creep into my voice. The last thing I wanted was for her to run off with this whatever-the-fuck thinking we were playing fetch!

Thankfully, Bon decided to stretch out and push the leather cuff into my hand. Unfortunately she plopped her head into my lap, expecting me to throw the cuff for her to go get. I quickly searched around the area for anything I might be able to use to distract her with, eyes landing on a stuffed rabbit.

Reaching out with my free hand, I grabbed the plush and tossed it down the hall. “Go get it, hon!” I called happily.

Bon turned towards the distant plop, tongue flicking cutely before slithering off to go and get it. At least she wasn’t as fast as a dog. I’d have a minute to inspect this…thing.

Now that I had it in my hands, the cuff was definitely not just a leather cuff. First of all, it was expertly sewn by hand if the varied stitch length was any indication. The dark brown thread matched leather expertly, and not only was there a pair of brass buckles to hold it on, but also brass snaps holding a second layer of leather over the lump to make a pressure-molded cover.

Together, these facts indicated a lot of care being put into making this…case? It looked like a case meant to hold something to your wrist. Which probably meant it was an electronic device. Maybe a long range Net transceiver for people who wanted to leave a city for a bit and not be offline?

In any case, I’d never bought something like this. This was new.

I glanced up quickly to check on Bon’s progress. My slithery friend had just about reached the plush at the end of the hallway. Still some time…

Picking a side at random, I unsnapped two of the four snaps, and pulled back the cover. Yup, this was an electronic of some kind. The device contained inside was a gunmetal gray ovalish thing, about a finger thick. It was held to the cuff with a lip of molded leather, and a strap across the thin side running down the middle of the device.

It’s face had a directional pad centered on one end, three oval shaped buttons on the top, what looked like a brass speaker grill, a small square microphone next to the d-pad at the bottom, and a single blue LED centered on the face and poking through strap. To my surprise, the LED was glowing a warm blue.

This was surprising due to the fact that the smell of scorched electronics filled the air the second I’d opened the cover up. Anything that smelled like that should not be on. At least, not anything civilian in design. The flying fuck was this thing?

My thoughts were interrupted by Bon slithering back and pushing the plush into my groin, in that inappropriate way pets tend to do. “I swear, Bon,” I muttered as I tossed the plush for her again, “I never taught you to be such a dog.”

With Bon re-distracted, I turned my attention to getting the device out of it’s case. There had to be some sort of markings on it, and since nothing on the front was labeled, it stood to reason that there would be information on the back. And if not, there would be something on the inside.

It took me another three plush tosses to work out how exactly to get the device out of the cuff. I hadn’t ever held real leather before, I didn’t know where or why anyone would buy it these days. Although, it did feel great in the hands for a non-nanomaterial.

It seemed a shame to cut the stitching, someone had put a lot of work into what was probably a unique wrist-mount for this thing. Fortunately, after fiddling with it, I was able to bend the leather enough to let the device pop free of the molded case. It happened easily enough, but took some doing and pressure, indicating this was how one was meant to remove it.

With the device free of it’s case, and another plush throw for Bon, I at last learned where the smell of dead electronics was coming from. The back plate was discolored, a rainbow pattern spreading out in a ring, centered on one spot under the d-pad. This thing had gotten hot enough to discolor the metal the case was made from.

So how the fuck was that LED still on?

The case didn’t seem to have any screws or clasps, and so out of curiosity, I attempted to pull it apart, assuming it was pressure fit. The two halves of the case popped open cleanly and with almost no force, leaving me with one half in each hand. And revealing the thing was held together magnetically.

“Huh… Why magnets?” I wondered out loud.

One look at the inside was all I needed to understand the magnets. The device’s guts were clearly those of a prototype. This thing had been opened many times before, as the various obviously-not-planned-out and not-designed-as-one-cohesive-unit micro components attested.

The parts might have been randomly put together, but each circuit that I could see was expertly made. This was someone's baby. Somewhere, a science nut, electronics geek, or hardware hacker was grieving the loss of their technological child. It was only right that I fix it, see if I couldn’t pull data off of it, and see if it could be mailed back.

Bon slithered up, booping my side with the plush again. Reaching over, I gave her head a gentle rub and stood up. “Later, cutie. Mommie needs to do some work now,” I said gently.

Lyra Heartstrings - Augest 5th 2199 - Night

Multiverse Location: Earth #7

Seven hours in my workshop was all I needed to answer one of the great questions of humanity. There was no other possible conclusion to the mystery this device contained. I’d checked three times just to be damn sure.

The device’s guts were carefully pulled out of the case and arranged on my workbench’s anti-static mat, each layer unfolded like a deck of cards with opposite ends taped together so the deck could be a stack, or one long string. I’d never seen anything designed like that, and the amount of tech it allowed to be crammed into that little palm sized case was insane!

That fact wouldn’t have forced the conclusion. This was a design someone could easily just work out. What there was no chance in hell of working out was the battery, if you could even call it a battery.

The power source of this thing was a flat slice of red quartz. This initially confused me for many reasons. I was able to cross ‘but quartz doesn't come in this color of red’ off by checking it under a microscope. The crystal was synthetic, and if my Net search had accurate info to give me, was grown into shape so it would form around the unknown alloy wires embedded within it. Also based on a quick look through my microscope, the crystal was made in atom thick layers, laminated together… Somehow.

It was like a graphene battery, only made from red quartz. And putting off so much energy that my multimeter couldn’t read it. My meter could easily handle reading the power going to my jet from its micro fusion plant. I’d appropriated it along with a few other things upon my ‘retirement’. It wasn’t a shitty meter.

The battery wasn’t dead either, it was still powering the LED, and it was able to power the gizmos I’d tried temporarily connecting to it’s power leads. It didn’t even blow them up from over voltage! The thing had a built in voltage regulator!

This battery had more juice in it than a High Altitude Low Orbit fighter with a seven day operational time. It was as thick as three sheets of paper, and fit in my hand, and was cool to the touch!

Humans did not have the technology to make a battery this fucking good. Humans did not have the technology to even dream about ever seeing a battery this good. If I decided to have a kid, their great grandkids would never see a battery this fucking good.

This battery was alien in origin. Period. No way around it.

Except… The main circuit board had English text laser etched into it. At that point, I had issued all three dozen ping commands to test and see if I was playing an Augmented Reality Game. It wouldn’t be the first game I’d played that prevented you from remembering you were in a game until it was over.

But no. This wasn’t a game. The Central Authority had pushed down hard on the game dev scene, their AIs auto-deleted any game from the net which didn’t include safety programming and the ability for the player to check and see if it was a game. I had also completely disconnected my brain from the Neural Net to double check.

The device was real. It was on my workbench. It had an alien battery. And English text.

SkyTech Ind. Personal Teleportation Unit Prototype
Codenamed: ‘Vortex Manipulator’
(Oye, Time Turner, put it back! I invented it fair and square!)
...
(Dammit Sai, turn off the laser etcher!)

English text that clearly was done via text to speech… Or via their world’s dumbest transcriber.

I’d called bullshit again. Teleportation might be a thing, but when it uses terawatts per mol of mass and requires a massive pod… Science cries at the thought of a wrist mounted teleportation device!

But then, I’d noticed that only half of the components in the ‘Vortex Manipulator’ were electronic. The rest of them were shaped crystals, just like the battery. Including what appeared to be the central processor, and the last bit at the end of the strung out device, which was the biggest piece by far. With fully half of this thing made with that impossible alien battery technology, who knew what it could do?

How else could I explain it suddenly showing up in my house? It had to have teleported in here. Especially because the big, probably the teleporty thingie, component was blackened and cracked. And at the time I’d checked, it had the same residual radiation around it which had flooded my house when the explosion had happened. Because it emitted low levels of the stuff all the time.

Or it did until the crystal had cracked further when I pressed a button, and then died. At least everything else seemed fine…

On my workbench, sat an alien made wrist mounted teleportation device, with a company name and model name written in plain English. I, Lyra Heartstrings, had proof of life elsewhere in the universe. Mankind was not alone, philosophy could finally stop asking that question.

I sat staring at the electronic guts for a long time. Most people would have turned the device over to Central once they realized it wasn’t theirs. A few would have taken it apart like I had, but then realizing its origins, turned it over to central. I knew I should do that second part, this was huge.

But… What were those aliens like? They clearly had advanced civilization. The devices buttons were large and spaced apart more than a human hand would like, so they probably had clumsy fingers… But the innards were so precisely built that observation didn’t quite hold up.

What sort of civilization needs to make a personal teleporter you can bring anywhere? This was a prototype, sure… But maybe this was a smaller, more compact model. This could be the alien version of a car!

I would never know any of this if I just gave the device over to Central. They would spend centuries studying it, and probably not say a word about it the whole time. I wasn’t some conspiracy nut, I was in the Navy long enough to know that plenty of projects are kept out of the public eye.

Hell… I’d had to sign about 900 pages of legal documents before getting to see Bonbon, let alone get into her cockpit. The public at large had no idea about sapient AIs, that was totally hush-hush. Central was already suppressing knowledge of one non-human lifeform, another would follow if I gave them this.

But what could I do with it myself? I was just a hobbyist electronics nerd. Central could turn this thing into a trillion different new technologies. I could… I could try to fix it!

I smiled to myself as I entertained that crazy idea. Oh sure Lyra, you could totally fix the alien device made from crystal! Easy as pie! No biggie! What would I even do if I did fix it?

Well, return it to it’s owner of course. Same plan as before I learned about it’s origins, only I’d get to shake hands, or equivalent appendages, with an alien! That would kick ass. I would be the human who made first contact! I could upload my memory engrams of the whole thing to the public net and boom! All of humanity would know about it next time they woke up.

Lyra Heartstrings, first human to leave the Sol System, first human to greet another intelligent species.

I smiled and leaned back in my chair, chuckling to myself happily. That was a nice fantasy. Too bad there was no way anyone could build something as complex as that battery. Besides, how the hell would I even know what to do to make it go back where it came from?

“Well, as a lab prototype, it showing up here had to have been an accident. It would have had coordinates pre-programed in for testing,” I mused out loud, pursing my lips in thought.

Well, that made sense. If I turned it on it would probably auto-teleport to it’s intended destination.

I felt my face suddenly twist into a child-like grin of glee as I realized that assuming the battery and the teleport bit would be built exactly the same was simply stupid. We didn’t build nanoprocessors the same way we built batteries, why would aliens? Maybe. Just maybe…

I gently grabbed the blackened and cracked crystal and carefully slid it under my microscope, settling it in place under the scanner as best I could. With a few quick thoughts, an AR display window opened up in my vision, displaying the microscope’s scan as the device went about scanning the crystal into a high res 3d model.

I was inspecting the scan before it even finished. If there was absolutely any chance of being able to replace this part…

The microscope finished its scan. I quickly zoomed in on the image, exploding it’s intricate details, thinning as hard as I could on just how you might go about constructing a copy of…

Of a complicated 3d network of little tunnels with prisms for redirecting what I assumed were laser pulses.

That’s all this thing did. Take light from what looked like six fiber optic strands, and made it move and interact in a specific way. It was really simple, crude even. I’m sure the science behind the device was genius and elegant, but the hardware was engineer friendly.

“... You can cut quartz with a laser…” I muttered, leaning over the crystal, to overlay the scan on top of it. “I could extrapolate how the broken bits are supposed to connect… Make the thing in thin layers… Stack them, seal it up with some nanobondo… Chere.ly, how fine can quartz be cut via laser?”

<Quartz can be cut to a resolution of fifty nanometers via laser. While atomic smoothness can not be achieved, the resulting edge is quite smooth.> She replied immediately.

Fifty nanometers… Not all that much bigger than a large molecule. I could probably replicate this thing well enough! Sure, it would take a week or five, or even longer. But in theory, I could build a new uh… Teleportation Matrix Crystal.

I bit my lip worriedly. This was a bad idea… I’d probably get myself killed messing with an alien device like this. I should just turn it in, and be done with it.

But why should I worry about dieing? I had no job, no purpose, and would live a life free of adventure. Sitting on my ass unfulfilled until age finally took me. All the while remembering the fact that my best friend had been decommissioned, formatted, and taken apart long long ago because I was useless to the military in the modern age.

Die horribly, or become a legend...

“Fuck it! Chear.ly, where can I buy a CNC laser cutter capable of cutting quartz crystals?” I asked my VI as I prepared for a night of home shopping for industrial equipment.

Lyra Heartstrings - September 12th 2199 - Morning

Multiverse Location: Earth #7

Thirty eight days. It took thirty eight days, six thousand dollars, and fifteen attempts to get the manipulator working again, probably.

I had spent most of my time on it. The tiny network of light channels in the quartz took me days to work out a means of replicating. The slice and stack method worked, but I’d had to angle each cut to sort of bevel each layer before the replacement chip did more then make light spew everywhere and I had it kinda working.

That was the fifth version. It didn't’ let the light go everywhere… But it didn’t do anything either. The next ten painstakingly planned, cut, and assembled versions were all tiny adjustments to try and fill in the damaged portion of the crystal. The cracks and burn marks looked not all that bad from the outside, but on the inside, entire little channels had melted shut.

It was like an old school puzzle game. One of the ones from the 1990s they made you play in college as examples of the idiotic logic of 20th century humans. No obvious hint’s, logic two steps removed from reality, really challenging… And fun!

I’d loved those old puzzles. I felt like the academics missed the point of those things. They weren't for logic training, they were for that sense of accomplishment you got when you worked one out. A feeling of pure ‘I am a genius!’ that getting the Vortex Manipulator working again replicated ten times over!

I knew it was working because my latest version of the crystal matrix had done something no other version had. I’d plugged it in, and a hologram projected interface appeared over the little blue LED.

It was a real hologram too, not just a wetware inserted AR display. If you covered the projector, the hologram vanished. It was actual light projected to an actual point in space. Another technology humans didn’t have… At least, not in portable size. That’s why we had bio-engineered integrated augmented reality capabilities. So much more power efficient.

I had sat on the stool in my workshop staring at the projected interface for a long time. It was a simple thing. Two colors. Black background, a few shades of green for the readout. Just a rectangle. Space filled as efficiently as possible. All utility, no fluff.

And also in English. At this point, I was wondering if the device somehow translated written text for you. Like a hardware version of any AR translator app. But if that were the case, how had the aliens learned English to program it into a translator? Was this an X-Com type situation?

I hoped not…

I’d spent over a month working towards this day. The manipulator was repaired, all folded back up, and carefully put back into it’s case. Good to go. I could use it at any time.

But should I?

Yeah, I’d spent a lot of time working on it. But… Would it be safe? If they were aware of Earth enough to know English, they could be hostile. Or have Earth on a no visit list for some reason. Using it could be dangerous even if I had repaired it correctly.

Bonnie and I twisted in the air, our wings catching a thermal strong enough to jolt us upwards. Rolling over to our left I hit the afterburners, pulling a 12G horizontal Immelmann. The EC fighter flew past us, but rolled and pulled a similar turn before I could roll completely around to get onto his tail instead.

“Fuck! We aren't going to be able to take another hit from those pulse lasers!” I cursed.

 Bonnie announced. <May I have the helm?>

Should I put my life into the hands of a machine?

An alarm rang in my head as Bonnie reported a target lock on us. There wasn’t time to decide. There was only time for a leap of faith.

“Do it, Bonnie. I trust you,” I said, giving her control for the first time.

I blinked the flashback out of my head. Point to you brain. Machines generally didn’t let me down in the past. Organics, on the other hand… Well, actually, organics are easy to deal with if you remain polite and are armed.

I leaned down to rest my fingers on my workbench and steeped my fingers in thought. I’d ‘stolen’ a lot of equipment when they retired me. At first, I’d only wanted to keep my helmet. I’d hoped that maybe having it would let me remember Bonnie better. It was the part of my kit that was half me, half her. The symbol of our sisterly bond.

I’d found a quartermaster who was sympathetic enough to ‘lose’ the helmet via paperwork, but he had told me it would be easier to keep all of my kit. Everything a pilot used was tailor made for us, it couldn’t be reused and so it was incinerated. Usually in one batch. So paperwork wise, it would look weird if one part of my kit was destroyed one way, but others another.

So I'd’ kept all of it. Helmet, flight suit, boots, survival kit, maser pistol. If I used the Manipulator, and there were hostiles on the other side, a good pulse of high energy microwaves would do wonders for keeping them at bay.

On the other hand, showing up armed to a first contact didn’t seem like the best way to do things… But on the other other hand, wouldn’t an enlightened alien culture understand why an explorer would carry a weapon?

As long as I didn’t draw it I should be fine. It was just a pistol, nothing big. A personal defensive weapon seemed reasonable to take with you when going to an unknown world.

I nodded to myself and stood up. That settled it. I could make the trip safer, and I really honestly had to know who built this thing and why. If I turned the VM in, I would never know.

Picking up the alien device I left my workshop and headed into my bedroom. There wasn’t much real furniture in the room. Most of the decorations were simple AR projections. I’d never spent much time in my home. It wasn’t a place I was attached to very much.

Maybe that’s why I felt like I could leave it without much in the way of problems. This wasn’t home. This was just a big locker for my stuff. Bonnie’s cockpit had been home.

I walked over to my foot locker and popped the lid open. My kit was neatly folded, filling up the entire locker. The flight suit was fairly bulky, it didn’t really like being folded to fit into the locker, and the titanium breastplate made it a bitch to really compact down.

To be fair though, that thing was designed to keep you alive if your cockpit ruptured while in space. A sealed pressure suit that was stiff enough to not get all puffy-marshmallowy when pressurized couldn’t ever be easy to fold. At least it didn’t hinder much in terms of movement.

As I wrestled the suit out of the locker to get my gun from the bottom, a thought occurred to me. I was considering going to an alien planet. Was there air? I didn’t know!

Actually, no! I did know! When the device had first appeared there had been a huge surge of radon gas. The air on the other side was most definitely not human friendly.

I lifted the suit up to look at it. The ribbed pressure tubules beneath the fabric gave it a sort of body builder look, and the dark green chest plate made it look like a reptilian alien who was half way through putting on a suit of armor. Not exactly my favorite thing to wear, but the life support equipment built into the chest piece could support one person for a week before the filter needed cleaning and tanks needed refilling and emptying. This olive green camo patterned jumpsuit had just become vital to me once again.

“Thanks Sarge. I’d never have thought I’d need this thing again,” I said to myself as I opened the plating to slip into the suit.

I slipped my legs into the suit, and then immediately taken it off again. The suit had been created using a 3d scan of me. It fit me perfectly. Literally perfectly. Second skin perfectly.

I’d made the rookie mistake of trying to put it on with clothes on under it… Had a month of being grounded really made me that stupid already?

Shaking my head I quickly stripped, slipped into the jumpsuit, zipped it up, locked the plating back into place, slipped my boots on over the built in booties, and then lifted my helmet. Only to pause and look at it longingly for several minutes.

It looked like an overbuilt motocross helmet. Thick bar section welded to the back to protect the electronics. The two large datajacks for linking to a fighter. The twin visors behind the armored faceplate, one smoky black for normal use, one reflective gold for keeping space radiation out of the eyes. It was almost like holding the severed head of a loved one…

With a sigh, I slipped the helmet on. It sealed to the collar of my suit with a hiss, followed immediately by a low hum as the suit pressurized itself. My AR tossed up a simple HUD, displaying life support information in unobstructive spots of my field of view.

“Damn it’s been a while…” I muttered as I reached down, picked up the survival kit and belted it on before slipping my pistol onto my right hip.

This was it. My last chance to back out. I could take everything off, put it away, and turn the device in.

Fuck that!

We’re doing this.

I grabbed the Manipulator and buckled it tightly onto my left wrist. Fortunately, it fit well enough. A tad loose, as if made for something with thicker limbs, but it wasn’t coming off without a buckle snapping.

I flipped back the flap covering the device, the hologram popping back up instantly. I couldn’t make out any of the coordinates, or really understand any of the information being displayed other than a flashing warning reading ‘unknown date!’ and a second bit that read ‘Power Remaining - 7%’. But I could tell that the ovals in the center of the HUD were definitely buttons…

“Alright, Lyra,” I said to myself. “Do or die…”

My finger hovered over the row of buttons. “Eenie... meenie... miney... mo…” I mused, debating which one to press. “Fuck it, first button!”

The HUD flickered. A patch of air in front of me rippled, shimmered, and distorted, purple sparks of energy dancing around the rim of the anomaly, only to flare brightly and form a rotating disk of purple-ish blue energy. A portal.

“Huh… Okay, maybe I didn’t quite fix you,” I mused looking at the manipulator and noticing that it’s power now read ‘3%’.

Or maybe, the aliens had a looser definition of a ‘teleport’.

I stepped forward, gently touched the floating gateway, and felt myself pulled forwards! It was like a giant hand grabbed me around my everything and pulled me through the portal to the other side.

An other side that was pristine! The sky overhead was the deep blue I’d only seen in pictures, clouds were fluffy and white, only dotting the sky, not covering it completely. I stood in a field of bright red flowers that stretched everywhere I could see, over rolling hills covered in tiny trees with pink flowers covering them like blankets. Plant life outside of a city’s dome that wasn’t a super hardy scrub brush… A rare thing for me.

The sea stretched out to the horizon after the edge of a cliff, deep dark blue water as far as you could see. Birds chirping came over my helmet’s audio system. The climate detection system showed it was only twenty-four Celsius out, the humidity well, existed, and the UV levels were so low as to not be a thing.

This wasn’t Earth. Not unless I had gone back in time to before we fucked the environment over trying to unfuck it from the first fucking it over…

The portal shimmered and rippled behind me. Still there. The Manipulator didn’t have the power to make another portal, and I was in the middle of fucking nowhere. I should probably go back, find a way to charge it and-

The portal sparked and hissed as Bon slithered through it, immediately closing after she had passed through.

“No!” I shouted, dropping down to one knee. “Why did you follow Mommie? The air here is poison! Oh no no no, um… Maybe I can get the emergency oxygen mask over your nose!”

Yeah, sure Lyra, the mask made for a human mouth and nose will fit your snake...

Bon just flicked her tongue at me and happily climbed up onto my shoulders. My suit reported the atmosphere was definitely toxic. With a radon concentration of about twenty percent.

“Chere.ly, how long can you survive radon exposure at twenty percent concentration?” I asked quickly.

The portal had closed, but Radon rose up right? Maybe if I got her low to the ground-

<Error. The Neural Net is not currently reachable,> Chere.ly reported. <Nor is the relevant information stored locally.>

“Fuck!” I cursed, doing my best to choke back tears.

I’d hold her till she died. That’s the best thing to do. The only thing to do.

I sat down and gently pulled Bon’s head into my lap, stroking her gently and hoping that it wouldn’t be painful.

Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then two. Bon got restless and slipped off of me to look at one of the nearby tiny pink flower trees.

If the atmosphere was toxic, she somehow didn’t give a fuck.

Maybe I could take off the suit? Or maybe snakes weren't bothered by the gas. I wasn’t a biologist, but I did know that biology is weird and complicated. No, my helmet was staying the fuck on.

As I stood up to go and pick her up to start looking for a place to go and see about finding civilization, the Manipulator beeped.

I opened the flap curiously, the HUD springing back to life as I did so. A small flashing icon in the lower right read, ‘radio signal received.’

Curiously, I tapped the icon, jaw immediately dropping in pure confusion as a half dozen Japanese speaking voices began talking in the panicked tactical manner of people in combat!

“The fuck!?” I cursed. “Chere.ly, switch my language to Japanese please!”

Sound went flat as Chere.ly swapped my brain’s audio centers around, the conversation resolving into an intelligible one within a few seconds.

<Language successfully set to Japanese at a ninety eight percent translation rate.> Chere.ly reported.

I only barely heard her. I was too distracted by the female voice ordering, “Tategami, flank left and cover Momo. Momo, distract it as best you can. I’m going to drive this naginata as deep as I can into the wound on it’s back.”

“Hai, anata no igen,” a male voice said, translator not working it out properly.

“Mysuki-heika, are you sure your unit can survive that maneuver? It’s breath melted Iroh!” another female voice warned.

“It doesn't matter,” the first female insisted, “We need to stop it before it reaches the Imperial Palace. I’m coming around now!”

Something roared through the air overhead! Glancing up I caught a glimpse of what I could only describe as a bipedal Japanese Mecha, stylized in the form of an anthropomorphic horse.

“Awesome!” I exclaimed turning to follow it’s path across the sky.

It was racing towards the opposite side of the island I was on, headed right for-

A mother fucking 300 foot tall alligator-turtle kaiju with a white hot flaming shell working it’s way out of the god damn sea at most ten miles away from where I was standing!

“Shiiiiit!” I lamented in terror, eyes almost popping out my my skull!

2 Enter the Lyra

View Online

Lyra Heartstrings - 15th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

No words could adequately describe the pure terror I felt watching the beast slowly wading it’s way towards the shore. Casually swatting at the distant dots I assumed were mechs like a horse flicking it’s tail at flies. The snaggle fanged maw dripping flaming drool, the metallic hide, the bird-like talon hands, none of those were anywhere near as horrifying as it’s sheer size. This island was appartment sized to that monster!

I knew what a mouse felt when a human walked near it.

“Who just cursed like a filly? Is the second wave here yet?” The first female voice asked urgently.

The fuck did she mean like a filly? That had to be a local expression.

“No, Tennō,” a new male voice chimed in, “my squadron is still fueling up. That wasn’t one of us.”

“Who else is on this channel?” The woman, Tennō presumably, demanded.

I winced and looked down at the device on my wrist. It figured this was a two way radio.

“Lyra Heartstrings, a civilian. Accidentally tuned in to your tactical channel. I’ll turn it off as soon as I figure out how this thing works!” I quickly stammered, knowing full well how most militaries treat breaches of a tactical network’s security.

Suddenly, a massive flash of white-blue light whited out my vision! I heard the electric hum of my helmet auto-deploying the secondary visor, but it was to late to avoid the flashbang level of light!

“Right, that pissed it off!” Someone announced.

“What did you do?” Another asked.

“I had clear a shot for an eye, hit it with a snap freeze spell. Yep! He’s on my tail!” They replied.

“Tategami! Bait it away from shore for as long as you can,” Tennō ordered. “Civilian, I have no idea how you got on the Imperial Isle, but in light of the attack, we’ll overlook the trespassing. Head to the beach... Yes towards the kaiju! I can’t spare an A.L.I.C.O.R.N. to evacuate you, but there will be ships here to reinforce us soon. I’ll have one of them pick you up.”

“You want me to run towards the flaming death turtle?” I asked incredulously, vision starting to come back.

“You don’t want to be on land, gaijin,” a female said in the familiar ‘I’m focusing very hard on not getting killed,’ tone. “If this fat-ass steps on the isle, the seismic activity will probably make it erupt.”

“This is a volcanic isle?” I asked stupidly, before realizing that would explain the massively lush plant life quite nicely.

“Hai! So get off it, this kaiju outclasses us!” Tennō snapped urgently.

“Off it is!” I declared to myself.

“And stay turned in,” she added. “Everyone, if the situation changes, warn uh…them.”

“I’m female,” I said reflexively, as I ran to try and scoop Bon up, managing to get her onto my shoulders mostly via my urgent movements coaxing her to climb up.

“Oh! Do you have a helmet on? Between your muffled voice and your accent- Chikushō!” The sudden oath was accompanied by a bright flash as if a lightning bolt had hit the ground behind me.

“Stop talking to the civilian and take this thing down!” A male’s voice ordered.

I turned around in time to see a second flash of light, the twisted monster spewing what I could only call a lightning bolt made of fire in an arc through the sky.

A small purple flash of light, almost washed out by the beam’s monstrous whiteness twinkled beneath the kaiju’s breath weapon.

“Osu! He clipped my float-unit!” A man shouted in panic.

I began to sprint. Whatever ships that got there would probably be retreating minutes after arriving… Trapped between a giant monster and a volcano. Oh yeah, a handgun was totally making THIS safer!

“Momo, catch him!” Tennō ordered furiously.

“I’m still flying! But there’s no way I’ll be able to dodge anything,” he clarified. “Someone cover me, I’ll land and fire from-”

The monster swung an arm like a club. The man’s voice went silent with a crackle of static.

“Kuso kurae kutabare!” someone screamed, a half dozen fireballs blossoming on the monsters warty chest halfway through the screaming.

“Dust this bitch!” Tennō ordered.

The firestorm that erupted as I sprinted through the flower-field, eclipsing the sun. In the long list of insane things I’d done, running towards a giant monster being consumed by what appeared to be three satellite’s worth of kinetic bombardment definitely took the number three slot.

“Chere.ly, Navigation: Most efficient route to the beach ahead,” I ordered, AR instantly highlighting a trail for me in blue and giving me a distance.

Five and a quarter miles. Way less than I thought it would be.

I could probably sprint most of the distance. At my top sprinting speed, that would be- No, I’m carrying Bonbon II, plus my kit, plus suit. So, at best I’d probably be able to make thirty tops. That means the sprint should take around three or four minutes.

Thank you military grade bio mods and physical training! I love you.

The firestorm ahead of me cleared, revealing a bruised and lightly bleeding demon-turtle-alligator. The beast threw back its head, roaring in blind fury. The sea around the beast began to boil as it’s flaming shell tripled in size, distorting the air around it with monstrous waves of heat!

“Keep back! That will melt your plating!” Someone shouted.

“Asatsuyu, mana dry,” another reported.

“Sakura, mana dry, munitions spent,” a third reported.

“Everyone running dry: Fall back and wait for the heat to dissipate, then use melee,” Tennō ordered grimly.

I mentally slapped myself for paying attention to their chatter. All of my attention was on the trail, time was most definitely of the essence here. Without satellite support the best I could do was plan the route based off what I could see from my current angle. Making the projection update constantly as I ran.

As important as keeping to the path for speed’s sake was, the motherfucking kaiju-mecha fight in the distance was very distracting. Particularly when one of them fired off a barrage of thirty or so greenish pink plasma bolts which flew in physics defying random arcing paths, peppering the monster with small explosions all over it’s left side.

“Oh man, that was awesome!” I exclaimed, nearly losing my footing as I stepped on a loose rock.

Bad Lyra! Do not look up from ground when sprinting! You are literally at break neck speeds.

“Thanks, civvy,” a male voice grunted, “made that spell myself.”

Spell? Wait, they had mentioned mana. Was this some kind of ‘advanced technology is sorcery’ thing?

No that’s stupid, probably just their term for a kind of technology. Like how we named the first air-space superiority fighter series ‘Titan’.

The dirt, grass and flowers gave way to a shallow sloping pile of rocks! The new terrain popping into view, hidden by the crest of the hill I had been climbing and the thick plant life. My eyes widened with terror as my left foot didn’t touch down where I thought it would, but rather one foot lower than expected.

Momentum carried me over the lip of what I could now see was artificially transplanted turf onto the blackish-gray stones. I pitched forward, managing to throw my hands out just in time to catch the ground, avoiding flying down the jagged rocks at the cost of shooting pain down my arms.

“Who was that? Who’s down?” Tennō demanded as my pained cry echoed off my faceplate.

“Me. Tripped. Rocks. Sprinting.” I summarized, pushing myself back upright with a grunt.

“Oh thank the kami!” She exclaimed. “No offense but we can’t afford to lose- Kuso!”

I heard the sound of something huge and fast slamming into water! Both in person, and over the radio.

Looking up I saw the tail end of the splash from the monster’s kick. Glittering white foam that had been water falling for a hundred feet. What the hell could those mechs even do to this thing?

“That literally scratched my paint job!” Tennō yelped.

“You guys can’t expect to beat that thing…” I muttered to myself as I pushed myself back into a full sprint.

“This one’s a bit bigger than normal, but we’ll pull it off,” the man happy about his plasma bolt ‘spell’ said confidently.

“His friend went south, we’d have more here if we weren't dealing with both of them at once,” someone grunted.

“Cut the chatter, baka!” Another shouted.

Normal?! Two!? How the flying fuck did life evolve on this planet with things like that roaming the seas!?

The rocky slope flew by, leaving me sprinting through a grassy field. The tall grass grabbed at my feet, slowing me down ever so slightly with each snagging blade of grass. My legs and lungs started to burn just a few dozen yards into the grass, the extra-long sprint starting to take it’s toll a third of the way through.

Gritting my teeth I pushed on. The field ended on the beachhead. Then it was nothing but sand. I could do sand. It wasn’t that far, just over three miles. I could do it.

“He’s six kilometers from shore!” A female voice warned urgently.

“Osu! How much time does that give us?” Tennō asked even more urgently.

“A minute if he decides to ignore us and just walk for shore,” a male’s voice reported.

“Everyone, cause it as much pain as possible. Ignore the vital areas, we don't have the mana or ammo to deal much damage anymore,” Tennō ordered. “Keep him pissed off and attacking us till our backup gets here.”

The determined chorus of “Hai, anata no seinaru igen!” almost deafened me even through the VM’s radio!

<Translation rate improved,> Chere.ly informed, <additional words now available.>

The sky in front of me rippled and warped, the monster’s blazing shell flaring again. My helmet reported a five degree increase in temperature this time. I winced, if you could actually feel that heat from miles away, how intense was it for those pilots up here?

I reached the midpoint of the field, my helmet showing my speed was cut by about five miles per hour thanks to having to crush my way through the waist high blade-like grass. The damn crap would have been cutting my legs up if I didn’t have my flight suit on. As it was, my boots polish was scratched beyond what should have been possible.

My shoulders ached under Bon’s weight. It was one thing to carry her around, I could do that all day. It was another to sprint at top speed for miles with her on my back. My biomods were good, but ‘human maximum’ is not superhuman.

“Fuck… You… Physics...” I groaned, pushing my way through yet another tangled knot of grass only to smash my knee into a boulder sending a shooting pain through my left leg. “Ahhh! Motherfucking son of a whore!”

Coffee-tabled by mother nature! Fucking bitch...

Over the radio, someone erupted into genuine laughter. “Her cursing like a little kid, it’s honestly boosting my morale, how about you guys?”

Ignoring the confusing jerk, and grateful the impact hadn’t broken my knee, I vaulted over the rock, hissed in pain as the leg attached to my definitely bruised knee hit the ground, and took back off into my sprint.

“How old are you?” A woman asked in a concerned voice.

“Twenty eight,” I grunted, working on shunting my bruised leg throbs to the back of my mind. “I’m not a kid.”

“Ah Tartarus, you’re a minor?!” Tennō groaned. “Gōsutoraidā, get here faster! The civilian is under age.”

“We are fifteen minutes out. How the osu did a filly get onto the Isle?” A male voice asked incredulously.

Oh. Right. Alien world… Their language might be similar to Japanese, but had to have some differences. Maybe that’s why they kept saying ‘spells’ and ‘filly’, poor Chere.ly must be working overtime!

“Apologies. Japanese is not my native language. I’ve been an adult for a decade. I got here via a teleportation device. I did not intend to arrive here. I can not use it again,” I said in as simple of sentences as possible, hoping to minimize translation errors.

“Oh,” Tennō said with a relieved sigh, “good. Please tell me you’re a pegasus, you might need to fly out of here under your own power. There’s land twenty miles south by southwest.”

“Uh…” I said, doing my best to blatantly ignore the obvious hiccup in translation. “I can’t fly on my own.”

The kaiju roared again. The primal bellow hit me like a brick, only my combat training prevented me from turning my sprint a hundred and eighty degrees and speeding away with all possible haste. The monster’s scream was followed by a sharp whistling sound and three screams from the radio, accompanied by three sharp bangs.

“Chikushō!” Someone screamed.

My right foot exploded out from the confines of the grassy mess of clinging and cutting, and slammed into the sand. The pale white powdery sand was a joy to step on after the hard pounding of packed dirt.

I had made it. Beach. Keep on the lookout for ships and boats.

I took a few more steps and skidded to a halt, throwing up sand as I basically fell on my ass in my haste to sit down. My legs were screaming in protest, and my lungs just about as angry at me for pushing myself that hard. I’d need a good five minutes to get my wind back, with any luck, I wouldn’t have that long before the promised help arrived.

“No!” A male voice yelped in panic. “He’s tracking me! … Munitions are dry! Baka… I’ve got two minutes of flight time left!”

I looked up to watch the fight just in time to see the massive beast lumbering to it’s right, moving to swat one of the mechs from the air.

At this distance, I could make them out. The angular, humanoid, brightly colored mechs were about a fifth of the kaiju’s size, putting them are around sixty feet tall. Each of them had a pair of stylized bird-like wings, which judging by the glowing plasma that sheathed the ‘feathers’ was their source of thrust.

They moved fluidly too, like organic creatures. Very impressive, especially considering the mech units the Eurasian Confederation fielded. These things were not clunky bricks with legs, rather they looked like… Well, an anthro horse in high tech armor with epic glow wings.

Five of them remained flying evasively around the massive turtle thing. The one it was tracking began to speed off backwards, away from the shore.

“Where’s my backup!?” Tennō demanded urgently.

“Eight minutes more, my Emperor!” a deeper male voice reported.

<My Emperor previously untranslated as: Tennō.> Chere.ly reported.

Ohhhh fuck! I felt my heart seize slightly. This world was apparently so fucked that goddamn heads of state personally took the field! Or a situation so desperate that she felt the need to assist directly.

“I can see that hole we made in it’s shell…” The Emperor said, her voice taking on a grim tinge.

“Please… Mysuki-heika, don’t!” Someone begged, using what I presumed to be her real name.

“And let twelve thousand years of history die?” Mysuki asked rhetorically.

“My Emperor,” someone pleaded, “you don’t have an heir! I can not allow you to-”

“All lines end one day. Neighpone can find a new Emperor. It can’t replace our Ancestors treasures,” Mysuki said decisively.

A mostly white mech leveled a massive long bladed polearm at the hole in the monster’s shell, a pink energy field enveloping the blade. “What I do, I do for the honor of Neighpone and the honor of my family. Banzai!”

I had just enough time to think ‘Wait, if she’s the Emperor, didn’t she just wish herself long life as a battle cry?’ before the mech’s wings flared, speeding forwards literally like a rocket, the entire mech vanished behind a pink streak of light faster than you could blink!

The streak screamed through the air, smashing directly into the hole in the monster’s flaming shell. A plume of white hot flames erupted from the hole, the monster screamed in a mixture of rage and pain so mind breakingly terrifying that I felt my heart literally stop, starting again with a sharp electric jolt as my suit’s medical suite flashed stress level warnings.

At the same moment the electric jolt hit me, a gout of boiling steam exploded out from under the monster’s shell, propelling it backwards towards the beach as if a breaching charge detonated on the opposite side!

“It’s still alive!” A panicked voice shrieked.

“Then shoot at it!” Another screamed.

The shell smashed down into the sand a hundred yards from where I sat, the impact knocking me over as the beach lurched under the impact. Two of the remaining mechs began firing various weapons into the still screaming kaiju’s gaping back wound, which from here looked oddly uninjured for having a body part torn off… Just a bit bloody, not like, hemorrhaging organsy.

“You okay, Bon?” I moaned, sitting up slowly.

Bon tightened herself around my shoulders, clearly stressed as I was, but seemingly fine.

A pained moan came crackling over the VMs radio. “Not dead… Lots of pain… Units on fire.” Mysuki reported, voice sounding weak and fluid filled.

“What? Where is she?” A male voice demanded in fear and joy.

“I’m picking up her aura on the beach head,” the gruff male voice I assumed was the ship captain Mysuki had been requesting updates from informed. “Can anyone get to her?”

Ah hell...

“Not with how pissed she made this thing!” A woman's voice cried.

Okay. There was still someone else much better equipped for-

“I see her, she’s stuck in it’s shell… It’s full of…stuff. Can’t get to her. It’s really intent on- Osu!” A male’s voice yelped, one mech flying up a little too late, getting a lower leg clawed off with a shriek of metal.

Well, shit…

“Civvy here,” I said, urging Bon to slide off my shoulders onto the beach, “I’ve got this.”

“No you don’t!” The female pilot objected. “Just hang tight. You don't have the tools to crack open her cockpit.”

I stood up, legs still protesting movement, and reached down to my belt, slipping a thermal lance from a pouch of my survival kit. “Actually, I do,” I objected, starting a second sprint to get to the massive stony shell lying on the beach.

Her Highness was very very lucky that in the event of a crash, a Pegasus IV pilot was expected to cut their way out of the wreckage.

“Ah, unicorn,” the pilot said in a relieved tone.

“Um… no,” I replied, “I’ve got a thermal lance.”

“Wait, you’re armed?” The ship captain asked suspiciously.

“Um, yes, but a thermal lance is not a weapon,” I explained, reaching halfway to the shell as I finished speaking.

Damn my bruised knee was really, really, really hating this!

“A twelve foot long polearm with a flame enchantment is not a weapon, how exactly?” The captain asked again.

I triple blinked. Why the flying fuck would someone instantly think of medieval lances in a world with mechs!? Oh… Duh. For mounted combat in mechs. Sweet!

“We have an error in terms here, sir,” I explained. “The device in question is a handheld cutting tool.”

“And you have this, why?” He asked.

“Part of my survival kit. I’m at the shell. Er, your highness, are you holding up alright?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t already too late.

“I’m alive… Legs are broken. Fire’s going to...get in here soon,” she replied.

I nodded to myself, this was going to have to happen quickly. The shell was absolutely massive, it was easily fifty feet from the sand to the rim of the shell. Once inside the slope wouldn’t be a problem to walk on, the trick would be getting in and out again…

Well, mostly out again. I drew my pistol from it’s holster with my freehand, and clamped it under one arm to retrieve the grapple cartridge. Quickly screwing the large cylinder onto the end of the barrel, I returned the gun to my hand, aimed it up and over the edge of the shell, and fired.

The pistol hummed for a second, the familiar ‘thweee-voom’ sound interrupted by a sharp bang as the microwave beam detonated the cartridge's propellant, sending the grappling hook flying up and over the edge. The nano-cable trailed along after the hook, expanding with a sharp hiss of air from it’s original sewing thread thin size into a nice half-inch diameter as the cable came to a rest.

I detached the cartridge from the gun, holstered it, and quickly pulled back on the rope until the hook snagged firmly onto something. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to climb anything else… My kit had just the one.

Grabbing the cable I began to pull myself up, one hand at a time. Without a wall to brace on, it was slow going. I’d never been that good at climbing a free hanging rope.

The fifty feet seemed like fifty miles. Hand over hand. Each pull upwards accompanied by an explosion, or a roar, or cursing from the radio, or screaming, or pleas for help from fire.

My right hand at least reached the rim of the shell. Gripping the stony ledge as tightly as I could I heaved myself up, arms burning from the climb, and rolled over the ledge onto a fleshy pod.

“In the shell now,” I reported.

Taking a few seconds to catch my breath, I looked out over… A sea of mostly translucent green zit-like pods which contained-

“Oh sweet fucking physics, it’s full of the thing’s young!” I shrieked in surprised horror.

“By Saturn…” The captain swore. “Get her Highness out of there! As soon as we are in range I’m shelling that spot to dust!”

My eyes rapidly scanned over the fleshy eggs, doing my best to ignore the fact that many of the thing inside were moving around. Fifty yards away from me, halfway down the side of the shell, I saw the Emperor’s mech.

It lay in a patch of squashed eggs, organic gunk dripping around its exterior, twisted and mangled metal lying around it like grenade shrapnel. The only recognizable parts of it were the head and torso, and by recognizable, I meant as objects. Bough of them were battered beyond being able to tell what the thing looked like originally.

“Where is the cockpit on this thing?” I demanded into the VM’s radio as I did my best to hop from flesh-pod to flesh-pod and ignore the fact that I was running atop things that were moving underfoot…

“You enter through the hatch at the hollow of the throat. The cockpit is centered in the chest behind the armor plating. If you can’t cut through it, get out of there,” someone ordered.

I was too busy making my way down to tell who it was.

“Hey, Empress, is the way to your hatch clear?” I shouted, hoping she was still lucid enough to hear me.

“Yes… But I’m pinned,” she replied between choking coughs.

“Not for much longer you’re not,” I said decisively, finally arriving at the massive thing’s torso and clambering up the side thanks to holes rather conveniently melted into the hull. At least one thing today was easy…

As my boots hit the ‘top’ of the wreck I dropped into another damned sprint, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood as my taxed body screamed in protest. “Shoulda… Taken… A marine’s… exosuit…” I groaned as my boots thudded against the steel.

A massive splash forced me to whip my head around! I caught the outstretched taloned arm of the monster as it fell into the sea, cheers and cries of “It’s down!” almost broke the VM’s speaker with their intensity.

Fortunately, the hatch was easy to spot. A somewhat rectangular three foot by two and a half foot panel with a rotating handgrip lock centered in the middle. Hoping for some luck, I reached out and grabbed the lock.

The first thing I noticed was the handle was tiny, I didn’t have that big of hands, and I couldn’t fit my pinkie finger in with my other fingers. It was like the thing was made for a 13 year old.

Reasoning that the aliens must be smaller than humans, I gave the lock a twist. Nothing. I twisted it the other way. Nothing. It was well and truly jammed. No problem.

I quickly set the thermal lance into place against the hatch, two inches away from the edge, and clicked it’s ignition switch. The loud hiss of highly compressed oxygen probably pissed off the mech pilots via their radios as I did my best to cut as large a hole into the plate as I could before the thirty seconds of fuel burned up. I only had one more cartridge for the lance, and she said she was pinned…

Fortunately thirty seconds was all I needed to cut through the three inch thick hatch’s layers of… metal foam and square tubing? Interesting construction.

Ejecting the spent cartridge from my lance, I quickly slotted the other one in, grabbed the hatch, and tossed it away. Immediately smoke began to pour from the hole in a thick black plume, my helmet’s HUD started flashing various chemical warnings the second the smoke enveloped me.

With no time to waste I crawled into the narrow opening, barely managing to fit into the cramped space and turning the ninety degrees necessary to slide into the ladder access way.

The smoke filled the cockpit almost completely, crackling green flames flickered threw a few wide cracks in the cockpit’s floor, hinting at a major chemical fire. I could barely make out the pilot’s silhouette through the smoke, just enough to be able to tell by the line going to her mouth from the roof that she had managed to get an oxygen mask, or something similar, on.

And also to notice that she had a pair of abso-fucking-lutly adorable pointy triangular animal style ears! And an actual horn centered on her forehead, just big enough to be noticeable, but not really to be useable for impaling something.

Holy fucking crap I was looking at a bipedal unicorn! All of my yes! I felt my mouth split into the widest grin it could make-

No! Bad Lyra! Danger now! Ogle the alien babe later. Actually don’t, cuz she’s an Empress...

Returning to the problem at hand, I peered through the smoke. The adorab- Empress was currently pinned firmly in place by a large steel conduit which wrapped around the pilot's seat, locking her left arm and legs in place.

“Your highness!” I called looking down into the cockpit. “There's no way in hell I’ll fit in there. Take this, cut yourself free, and I’ll pull you up!”

I quickly held out my thermal lance as far as I could manage. The alien looked up at me slowly, moving as if almost dead. Spotting my hand, she moved with the speed of someone desperate to survive, snatching the tool from my hand with her own very delicate looking hand like a gift from a god.

“How…use?” She coughed.

“Open end against anything, push button, don’t look at the flame it will blind you,” I explained.

“Oh! Portable mage-knife. Got it,” she said, reaching down and activating the lance on her third try for the switch.

“Watch your legs!” I warned as the bright white light of molten metal and burning plasma mixed with the flickering green of the fire.

Thankfully, despite moving the lane too quickly to cut for the first pass, she managed to slice herself free just as the tool sputtered and died.

“Buy that… from Flim-Flam Co?” She joked as the lance died.

“Come on, push that bit off and reach up here!” I ordered firmly.

She complied, moving her free arm to push the conduit away. The slab of steel fell to the floor with a loud clang, sending a shudder through the burning mech. The Empress reached upwards with both hands, allowing me to get a grip on her wrists while I braced my feet on the top of the ladder to pull her-

“Holy crap you’re light!” I exclaimed as she practically shot up into my arms-

Revealing her absolutely adorable pink fur and…distinct lack of a top. But also breasts. So I guess the simple shorts were okay.

“No, you’re just a massive osukoto earth pony!” She objected.

“Uh… Yeah… Not a pony,” I grunted pushing her up and out of the hole I’d cut into the mech so I could pull myself out as well.

“Wait, how the fuck do you know my home world’s na- FUCK!” I asked, switching to a panicked scream as I noticed every single pod I had stepped on on the way over had split open, and a hoard of dozens of scuttling, pale white, bigass human sized, demon-turtle-crab-babies were making their way towards us!

“Why do the tiny ones have lobster claws?” I sobbed in terror as I scooped the alien-pony up into a fireman’s carry.

I was so happy she was a head shorter than me and about a hundred pounds lighter. There was no way in hell I’d be able to sprint with someone my size on me after the hell I’d put my legs through already...

“Here, take my sword!” The Empress cried, detaching something from her belt and passing me a-

“Why are you passing me a katana hilt?” I demanded, drawing my pistol and firing three shots into the advancing mass of shambling eldritch horrors.

I’d seen the Mark XIX MASER pistol flash vaporize a quarter inch of steel body armor. I’d seen it flash heat simulated human tissue to steam. I’d never seen it just make a monster’s hide sizzle a bit as the microwave pulse basically light tapped it’s chest…

“Take! Sword!” My passenger screamed urgently as the monsters drew closer.

“That’s not a sword, that’s a broken off hilt!” I retorted, holstering my pistol to run, figuring I could get around the hoard and make it to the rope.

The Empress pushed the jade handled, copper decorated hilt into my face, the ‘end’ pointing away from us, and tapped a silver stud near its disk shaped guard. A slim metal rod shot out from the hilt, telescoping outwards as a bright pink crackling energy field formed a blade shape around the extended portion.

“Oh fuck the hell yes!” I exclaimed grabbing the motherfucking lightsaber like/as my life depended on it.

The first alligator-turtle-crab-demon scuttled up the side of the burning hull, pincers snapping eagerly at my legs. I swung the blade, the rod counter balancing the weapon as it burned a deep groove into the creature’s left claw.

The beast hissed and pulled itself up. I turned and ran down the length of the ruined mech, waving the blade frantically at everything remotely close to the two of us and doing my best not to scream like a little girl being chased by baby Great Old Ones.

To my delight, I managed to keep my panicked screaming to that of a grown woman being chased by baby Great Old Ones. A state of screaming that the Empress made into a duet as my turning to run had revealed the eighty or so monsters on our ass to her.

The next two minutes blurred together into a panicked frenzy of screaming, hacking at everything that got remotely close to me, and running atop pods, releasing even more hissing, gurgling half-baked but somehow alive terrors! Every muscle in my body was on fire. My brain was in full survival mode, focused on the moment, the threat, getting the fuck out of there and nothing else.

Somehow, I doubt I’ll ever know, I managed to reach the rope and grab hold of it to repel down, a baby kaiju snapping it’s claw shut around my helmet, scratching grooves into the metal as I went down!

“I have her, we’re clear!” I shouted at my wrist as the rope hissed against my flight suit's gloves as I basically fell down the rope, gripping tightly at the end only to slow my fall enough to not break my legs when the two of us hit the sand.

“Osu! They are jumping down!” The Empress shouted as I groaned in pain from my boots hitting the ground.

Not bothering to look up and confirm, I turned and began my best run away from the hell filed turtle shell. Unfortunately, that best run was a jog.

“Too... Much… Running…” I gasped.

“There’s only three. Set me down and slice them up!” Her Highness ordered.

I tossed the energy blade down so I wouldn’t accidentally cut my passenger, and with as much gentleness as my sore, fatigued, at it’s limits of endurance body could muster dropped her to the sand.

“Ah! Osu!” She screamed in pain as I accidentally dropped her on top of her legs.

Reaching down and grabbing the still burning plasma sword, I wheeled around, ready to do what little I could to kill the abominations in my practically-crippled, gasping for air state.

“Oh thank goodness…” I groaned happily.

The monstrosities stubby legs were not carrying them over the sand very well, they were barely five yards away from the shell, and a full thirty yards away from us.

The VM’s radio crackled to life, making me jump and nearly drop the sword. “The Yamato is in position, my Emperor. Commencing bombardment,” the captain’s gravely voice announced.

We were WAY too close to that shell!

There was no way in hell I could possibly carry her any further away than this!

“We’re going to die…” I lamented, dropping to my knees.

“What makes you think that?” The Empress asked.

“Naval shelling... Of beach… Twenty five.. Yards…” I gasped, body in such rough shape that it was probably looking forward to never doing anything again in a few minutes.

A deep boom echoed from out over the ocean. A loud shrieking whistle split the air, and the shell erupted into a bright green ball of crackling energy. The blast surged outwards, ripping the shell to pieces, speeding towards me like the universe's most deadly hurricane-

And stopped dead as if physics simply told it ‘no further than this’ fifteen yards away from us!

“Huh?” I demanded of the universe, grateful for but confused at this act of mercy.

“Limited Area Thaumaturgic Disruptor,” the Empress explained as the green fireball died down, confined within a specific dome of space. “Helps keep the property damage to a minimum.”

“Oh. Well alright then,” I said, sitting down to obey my body’s cries for mercy.

With the sudden trip into metaphorical hell done, I turned to look at the alien I had just rescued.

Yep. Four and a half foot tall bipedal unicorn. Floofy pointy ears, vestigial horn with a large white diamond replacing its tip, a small muzzle that looked at home on her human-ish face, large eyes of a golden color almost exactly the same as my own, short pink fur from head to digitigrade hooves, a flat chest but over all adult human female shape, only scaled back to fit her short stature, and sporting a glittery golden pixiebob haircut with an identically colored pony tail, braided and capped with a jade ring that poked out of her black cargo shorts.

So! Fucking! Adorable! Even with both legs clearly broken.

“I am Emperor Segata Mysuki,” she introduced, giving me a polite bow from her own sitting position. “Forty First Emperor of Neighpone. May I know my rescuer's name? And species.”

“Lyra Heartstrings,” I replied, taking a second to breath. “Retired fighter pilot. I’m a human. From Earth.”

“Well, Heartstrings-sama, I owe you big. After my legs are fixed up, how about we have lunch and talk?” She asked politely.

I grunted in surprise. “Not going to… Hold a funeral for… Troops?” I asked.

“We A.L.I.C.O.R.N. pilots have already had our funerals. It’s the first thing we do before even training exercises. It is rude to be sad for their passing, instead, upon the next full moon, we will celebrate their lives. I assure you, they will never be forgotten, and have brought great honor to their families,” Mysuki said solemnly. “So we are free to have lunch this day, and I would like to know more about my rescuer, and her species, whom I have not heard of.”

“Alright then… Sounds… Awesome…” I panted.

3 Welcome to Equis

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Lyra Heartstrings - 15th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

I had never thought I would ever see a Japanese style castle. Japan had been a part of the United American States since the beginning. I mean, they had been super buddy-buddy with the old USA before the meteor, so that made sense. Their biggest ally groups up with everything else on the same hemisphere, no shit they would want in.

The problem was Japan was too close to the enemy, and well… Island nation you really hate because history, seawater is refined to make deuterium, deuterium powers fusion reactors, you gotta power all of Eurasia, the meteor's dust cloud makes solar not an option... I’d have probably taken the isle over myself if I were in command of the Eurasian Confederation.

As far as I knew, no westerner had gotten within a hundred miles of Japan for the last hundred years.

Yet here I was. Sitting inside a Japanese style castle that could have been plucked from a photograph. White walls, tiered roofs of green tiles, gold ‘gargoyle’ heads on the corners… Or whatever you call head-shaped carvings on buildings if Japanese people made them versus someone else.

The castle itself was as architecturally beautiful as I’d imagined one would be. Multiple square buildings linked via rectangular mini-buildings to make one massive complex. The whole thing lovingly sitting atop a hill at the base of a mini Mount Fuji, and surrounded by elaborate gardens with stepping stone pathways and mini bridges over artificial brooks. All encased by a wall decorated with gold leafed geometric patterns set into reliefs in the stone. This place was human as shit.

If I were not talking to a four and a half foot tall pink and gold pony-girl I would seriously assume that I had been teleported behind enemy lines. But, that couldn’t be the case.

If this was Earth, I would have had to fight those mecha, and I’d never seen an air capable walking tank. Furthermore, while cosmetic biomods are a thing, no one’s worked out how to change a skeleton yet, so Segata Mysuki’s digitigrade legs had to be natural.

This was Japan, just with some elements changed out. It doesn't take take a Hugh Everett to work out that there was no way in hell an alien species would by chance have the exact same language as the Japanese, and also their culture, and their architecture, and sushi. The Vortex Manipulator hadn’t teleported me per say, it had ripped a hole between universes. This had to be an Earth that developed just a bit differently.

I had realized this as the Empress had shown me around her garden. It would probably have blown my mind, but I’d just finished rescuing a four and a half foot pony-girl from a burning mecha and a hoard of baby kaiju. Teleported to another dimension made much more sense than any other explanation for how that massive turtle monster was able to exist and not collapse under it’s own mass…

Empress Segata Mysuki had one hell of a nice garden. Every last cup of dirt had been placed by hand over generations, the whole thing was artificial, but so lovingly designed that the small rolling hills, babbling brooks, mossy stones, and lush plantlife looked as if it had just grown in that way.

That’s not to say it looked like what archeologists said an untamed forest looked like. It clearly had been made to look aesthetically pleasing, having many branching and linking pathways, different set pieces made from plant life, or rocks arranged or grown in specific ways. The thing looked, despite being ‘designed’, like everything just happened to have grown like that. A near perfect balance between chaos and order.

I’d seen virtual gardens less perfectly managed than this real, actual garden made with living plants.

I’d also seen AR costumes with less care put into them than the short, kinda kimono-ish knee length skirt Mysuki had changed into from her shorts. It was very nice jade colored silk that shimmered and shined almost as much as the lines embroidered into it with gold thread.

Though she still didn’t have a top on, prompting me to ask about their manner of dress. Apparently ponies dressed for fashion and utility only, there was no sense of shame. I wasn’t told this directly, but rather told ‘It’s too warm for a blouse.’ and ‘I’d forgo the juban, but I think it makes me look nicer. That’s worth being a little warm.’

I’d agreed that she did look very nice in the skirt to avoid being rude. Then I’d been offered a matching patterned gi, which I just couldn’t turn down, again for fear of being rude. That’s when I’d mostly shut up and listened to her talk about her garden as we walked through it, not wanting to come across as greedy by casually mentioning liking things.

Mysuki’s hooves clicked against the stepping stones as the two of us slowly walked towards the palace's entrance, passing through a tunnel made by the tree tops. Whatever stimpacks these pony-people had must have been amazingly good to get her up and walking only hours after breaking both legs. Too bad I had no idea what alien meds would do to me. I refused medical care, and thus, was enjoying a full body cramp right now.

“I believe this is the last part of the garden to show you,” Mysuki informed as we reached the natural tunnel’s halfway point. “What do you think?”

“It’s amazing. I’ve never seen so many plants outside of a hydroponics farm in my life. How do you tend to all of these?” I asked, tilting my head back to get a closer look at the tree tops, only for my view to be obscured by Bon’s neck due to her also looking up.

“Sadly, I don’t. I have many skilled gardeners to help me. I only really have time to personally care for the bonsai plum tree,” Mysuki replied.

Her voice took on a curious tinge as she asked. “Do your people live in a desert? I can’t otherwise imagine how this simple garden is the most plants you have ever seen.”

I wanted to dismiss the question. UASM behavioral training reflexively making me weary of speaking about my home to a stranger. On the other hand, what enemy was she going to tell any details too?

“Eh… sort of,” I began. “It’s more of a wasteland.”

Mysuki turned and looked at me, lips pursed in confusion. “Er, that last word wasn’t in Neighponese.”

“What, wasteland?” I asked, stopping walking for a moment to check my translator app.

“Yes, I don’t know what language you are speaking,” Mysuki confirmed.

Quickly manually checking the dictionary, I forced myself to phonetically read the proper word aloud from memory. “We live in a arechi.”

“Ah! I see… That must be difficult. What happened?”

We started walking again as I continued talking. “Well, about two hundred years before I was born, my homeland was struck by a meteor. Big ass Impact Winter. Mass extinction. Few years of post-apocalyptic shenanigans… Things got very messed up for a decade, but, humans don't stay down long. We bounced back.

“We did fuck things up ourselves too though. Once the new governments were stable, someone wanted to do something about the massive cloud cover. There was a geoengineering project, it went wrong… Long story short, there isn’t much alive on the surface anymore. But we’re cleaning it up properly now. Should be okay in a few hundred years.”

“On the surface?” Mysuki asked, ears twitching adorably. “Your people live underground? That would explain why I haven’t heard of your kind before.”

I shook my head. “No, we live in biodomes. Big ones, city sized. Or if you're wealthy, in one of the few nice outdoor pockets of eden that survived.”

I paused for a moment, considering the consequences of answering her next question. I knew it would be ‘where?’ but… How could contact with actual alien life go on their side?

“That seems like a massive feat of engineering,” Mysuki mused to herself thoughtfully. “I would like to see a dome so large it can hold a city.”

Yep. Indirect, but a ‘where?’ all the same.

I sighed, and stared at the device on my wrist for a few seconds. If I wanted to do what I came to do… I’d have to tell her about this thing sooner or later. Might as well be honest from the get go.

“I don’t think it would be possible to show you,” I said with a little hesitation.

“My people’s ships are far more capable than any other nation’s. I assure you we can sail to anywhere on this planet we wish,” Mysuki stated proudly, flashing me a big toothy grin.

“I… I don’t live on your planet,” I explained slowly.

Mysuki’s clip-clopping hooves stopped mid clip. Her ears perked excitedly.

“Do you speak truly?!” She asked, turning to face me quickly enough to scuff her hoof as it rotated in place on the stone.

I took a deep breath, clearing my head of the mixture of fear and unconscious prompts to stop divulging information. I was out of the Navy now. That shit didn’t belong in my head!

“Yes,” I held up my arm and pulled the flap back to show her the manipulator, “this device appeared in my home a month ago. It’s a…teleporter of sorts I supose. I did my best to repair it in an attempt to try and return it, establish a peaceful contact between my species and another. It’s have enough power to make another portal though... I had hoped I would be taken to the lab that made it. I came here instead.”

Mysuki’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she looked the manipulator over. After a moment, she nodded. “I believe you,” she said bluntly.

“What makes you believe me?” I asked, frowning behind my helmet. “Something about this thing?” I added pointing to the manipulator.

She nodded, golden mane rippling from the motion in a way that made it shimmer like sunli-

God dammit, Lyra! Yes, she’s cute and exotic! Get over it!

“Yes. This looks like something SkyTech would produce,” Mysuki said, still inspecting the manipulator. “I know his work quite well. His company is one of our biggest military contractors. If anypony could create an interplanetary teleporter, it would be him. Or maybe his sister.”

“Wait, SkyTech?” I asked, breaking into a relieved smile. “It says SkyTech on the inside of the case! Whew! Right place after all. I was worried there for a minute.”

Mysuki nodded. “I can understand why. Space is very big, it would be very easy to wind up in a place you didn’t intend to be.”

She shook her head slowly before looking up at my visor and smiling widely. “Well, for wanting to establish a peaceful contact between peoples, you could hardly do better than saving my life, Heartstrings-sama… Are you in a position of authority for your species?

“It should be a simple matter to arrange a visit to Trigger-san’s laboratory and send you home. I could send a nonaggression proposal with you to give to your government?”

I shook my head firmly. “No. I’m a retired pilot. Not anyone of real importance… But, I can do one better than being a bureaucrat. Humans have a technology we call the ‘Direct Net’ it lets us share information with literally everyone instantly.

“As soon as I get home, I can show everyone everything I saw here. At which point, the government will have to initiate a first contact, and do it peacefully since the whole public is watching.

“I know that makes it sound like our leaders are evil… But they are not. We’re just in a really long slow war right now. Have been for almost a century. I’m sure you know how a government acting in war is.”

Mysuki nodded grimly. “I do. I am sorry for your people’s position. Though, a resource war is quite understandable given your home’s condition. If I decide I do not wish to contact your people, will you share the information with them anyways?”

She looked at me suspiciously as she asked. Her golden eyes pierced my soul like she was actually able to see through me into my mind. A warrior’s gaze to be feared.

“No,” I replied swiftly and honestly. “It’s enough to know for myself that there is life aside from my own kind. Also to have had this adventure.”

Mysuki pursed her lips for another moment, then nodded to herself. “I believe you. You risked your life for me with nothing in it for you. You have honor.”

I laughed as she said honor. “Ohhhh man! I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not like, a knight or anything. I just couldn’t let someone burn to death.”

“Your species must have a very different idea of honor than we do,” Mysuki chuckled. “I am sure you have a million questions about my world. But will you indulge me in two more, for the moment?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Why are you carrying around that snake?” Mysuki asked in a way I had never had the question asked before. With disgust-free curiosity.

“Oh, you mean Bonbon Two?” I asked reaching up to get her to wind her head around my arm and hand so I could hold her head out for Mysuki to touch if she liked. “She’s my pet. I…didn’t intend for her to follow me here. I’d even hired a pet sitter. But here she is… Frankly I don’t know how she’s still alive.”

Mysuki bent her knees slightly and looked Bon in the eyes. “Hello there, scaled one. You’re not hungry, are you?”

I chuckled. “She can’t talk. I don’t have the money for that sort of pet-tech.”

Bon flicked her tongue, seemingly intentionally, booping the pink unicorn-girl on her nose with the tips of her forked tongue. Only to coil back around my arm while looking very pleased with herself.

Mysuki nodded sagely. “Then I shall feed you along with your mistress.”

I blushed slightly, it was one thing to talk to her myself, but it felt weird when someone else did it.

“My species comes in three varieties,” Mysuki said as she stood back up to her full adorably sized height, “one of my ancestors was an Earth Pony. Understanding an animal’s current mood and desires is a trait he passed on to me. You take excellent care of your pet, she adores you.”

I frowned uneasily. “Wait like, you can talk to animals?”

She shook her head quickly. “No. Some fullbloods can, but that is far beyond my power. I am merely empathic towards all manner of beasts… It’s... A great burden to know the mind of a creature when fighting a kaiju. So much hatred...”

Mysuki trailed off, taking a moment to physically and mentally compose herself in the same way any ground trooper asked about Korea II would.

I frowned behind my helmet. Was she being serious? Was this a religion thing, or did they have some kind of heightened animal empathy? I mean, old people claimed they could tell what their dogs were thinking… Maybe these ponies just sort of had that as a natural thing instead of something they learned to do?

Shaking my head to clear it of what could be a very culturally rude question, I instead said. “On a different topic, I’m surprised she’s doing alright. The radon should have killed her within a few minutes.”

Mysuki’s tail twitched, the braided length of hair moving in what had to be an emotional way.

“The what should have killed her? Why?!” She asked in complete shock.

“Radon,” I repeated. “A gas that’s frankly making up way more of your atmosphere than should be possible… I mean, the stuff decays quickly and according to my sensors it’s making up about twenty percent-”

“Manuke!” Mysuki swore, slapping a palm to her face. “I have been wondering why you kept that helmet on after the battle. Do humans know Alchemy? Could you illustrate the gas for me? I’ll have a mage create a ward so you are able to remove your helmet to eat.”

“Ohhhh shit! That’s a good point I didn’t even think about eati-” I paused mid sentence as my brain finished processing everything Mysuki had said. “Mage?”

“Hai. One who manipulates the natural world,” Mysuki said as her muzzle split into a confused frown. “Do you not know the word?”

I bit my lip again. There was no dodging the cultural bullet this time… Best be as tactful as you can, Lyra.

“No, I know what mage means,” I began, speaking slowly to gain more time to think. It’s never a good idea to piss off a head of state. “I can appreciate cultural differences, I mean no disrespect, and I hope you can also appreciate cultural differences.

“Humans do not ascribe to superstition, at least, most of us don’t. Magic is not a thing we believe in. I can appreciate that you do, but please understand that from my point of view, it is insane to take a helmet off in a toxic area because a priest has performed a superstitious ritual.”

To my surprise, Mysuki didn’t immediately scream at me for poking her culture’s superstitions. Instead she gave me a half understanding, half condescending smile. “It’s not superstition. Magic is a very real part of the universe. Our mages have theorized that some species might not be capable of magic, humans must be such a species.”

I almost rolled my eyes, only avoiding doing so by remembering that only the clear visor was between my eyes and a fucking head of state.

“I don’t suppose you could prove that, could you?” I asked, again, doing my best to remain polite in tone and posture.

Honestly, how does a species which can build five story tall battle mechs still buy into the supernatural? They have to have science!

“I could very easily show you many kinds of magic, if I were not an A.L.I.C.O.R.N. pilot,” Mysuki said all question dodgingly. “Our mecha use our natural magics to link our minds to the machinery. It is how we control the movements so fluidly. Unfortunately, this means modifying our horns, and means we can no longer sense magical energy or utilize it outside of our mecha. So, no. I can not personally prove magic to you, but, any unicorn in my staff can.”

“You don’t have to actually show me magic to prove it’s a real thing,” I said, breaking out my elbow drop skeptic’s argument against all common sense. “After all, if something is real, it or its’ effects can be observed. If it can be observed, it can be measured. If it can be measured, it can be tested. If you can test it, you can learn about it. Meaning if magic is real, it could be described scientifically. Could you describe how it works?”

Mysuki nodded in the short simple manner of an expert being asked if they could tell me which drill bit was for wood and which was for metal. “Of course I can, I do still use magic, just not outside of my A.L.I.C.O.R.N. Magic is simply the manipulation of the Thaumaturgic Field, a universal field much like the electron field, only this field's…shape in a given area provides an instruction set for the rest of the fundamental forces to follow.

“Effectively, the Thaumaturgic Field sets the rules that create physics. Again, like other force vector fields, the Thaumaturgic Field is accompanied by an elementary particle which the field uses to perform interactions with other things within spacetime. Unlike most elementary particles, this one, which we call Mana, are easily manipulated via electrons and can not only influence non Thaumaturgic fields and their particles, but can also work in reverse, and manipulate the Thaumaturgic Field itself to in turn adjust everything else.

“That is what we call magic. Using the movement of electrons in very specific ways to change the behavior of Mana, thus causing a desired effect as the Thaumaturgic Field that reshapes and influences the universe accordingly. It can be performed by almost any living creature, but some species are better suited to it than others.”

I stood there looking at her dumbfounded for several long moments with my jaw hanging limply open.

“D-did you just describe magic in terms of Quantum Mechanics?” I stammered.

“Hai!” Mysuki replied with a huge grin. “I… Can’t do better than that, I’m a samurai, not a mage. I only know enough to make my own spells. I’m certain there is far more to it than I know.”

“Um…” I said as a means to compose myself.

Mysuki suddenly looked past me, a slight frown on her face for a moment before she silently nodded to herself. “Would a practical demonstration help?” she asked.

I nodded. “A lot.”

I mean, her explanation sounded plausible. Kinda. I think? I was mostly entirely blown away by the fact that someone had gone to such effort to come up with a plausible scientific explanation for a super-

“Ōi!” Mysuki called over my shoulder.

Reflexively turning my head, I spotted a lime green pony-girl with a light blue mane done up in a bun with jade pins, who had silently and stealthily crept up behind us to tend to a small flowerbed. She definitely confirmed the fact that ponies definitely thought of clothing as optional as she seemed completely comfortable in her fur, with just a satchel over one shoulder for her gardening tools.

Then again, her fur did cover everything up very well. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t have a sense of modesty? It was definitely hard to not judge an alien culture by human standards...

Setting a watering can down to give Mysuki a low bow, the gardener asked. “Hai, my Emperor?”

“Would you please pass our guest a crystal from the garden?” Mysuki asked her in a very polite tone, considering she was ordering a servant to do something.

“Hai,” she confirmed.

An actual visible light blue energy field shimmered around the gardener’s horn, another simultaneously enveloping a small smooth polished piece of rose quartz. A piece of quartz which just floated up from the rock garden the flower bed surrounded and drifted over to me as if it were in zero gravity.

I reached out for the crystal, hesitant to touch it in case the energy field was plasma. But, my helmet’s systems detected absolutely nothing wrong with the crystal. It was seemingly safe.

The field vanished as I closed my fingers around the crystal. “Ah yes, you like the color jade. Shiyōnin-chan, would you kindly recolor this crystal for our guest?” Mysuki asked politely.

“I’m sorry, my Emperor, I do not know any color changing spells,” the gardener apologized with another low bow.

“Ah, a shame. Thank you for helping demonstrate magic to our guest. Please return to your work,” Mysuki ask-ordered, turning her attention back to me. “Do you believe in our ‘superstition’ now?” She joked.

“Uh… Well… It’s not like she had any tech on her… And that energy didn’t register on my helm’s systems… So yes. That was a thing, and whatever it is, my species has no knowledge of it.” I said, rolling the crystal over in my fingers.

She hadn’t asked her to use magic to pass it… She just…did. Like it was a thing you could just do...

“H-how much can this do? If it works how you said it does, then you could change all of physics! How do you have any problems as a civilization?” I asked, mind doing the equivalent of CPU stuttering as I tried to process a trillion things at once!

“In theory, yes, we could,” Mysuki confirmed, “but not in practice. There’s a natural harmony to the universe, and the field will return to it eventually. If you want a spell to last a long time, you must provide energy for it. Also… We are only mortals. Not everyone can learn any spell, most of them are quite difficult to use, let alone master.

“To levitate the crystal too you, my shiyōnin had to think in a very specific way to make the electricity in her brain form a specific pattern, to achieve the effect you saw. It takes a lot of work designing a new spell, and even more to learn one you did not make yourself. We unicorn's are lucky, we naturally understand much of magic’s workings. But most species would spend years mastering even basic spells.

“Furthermore, while you can get more energy out of a spell than your body puts into casting it, you will never get more than a certain amount. It’s very much proportion, so to do something requiring a great deal of energy requires luck in genetics, or knowing how to be very efficient with your spells, or using arcane technology to help you. Each of those methods have their boons and banes.

“In short, there are physical laws which magic obeys. It’s hard to do for most, and simply put, we have not yet invented spells to do everything. Neighpone is not Equestria. We can’t simply conjure tons of lumber… Ah, and another drawback, nations tend to guard their most useful spells jealously.”

I nodded slowly and stared at the crystal for a few more moments, then nodded slowly. “Okay. I’m convinced. You’re magic is a real thing.”

Mysuki smiled again and wiped her forehead. “Thank goodness! I’ve never enjoyed teaching the sciences. Will you now consent to allowing a mage to construct a ward so you may share a meal with me?”

I took another look at the pink crystal, and slowly shook my head in amazement at the truly awesome thing I had just witnessed. “Well… If it can manipulate gravity, it can probably move some atoms out of the way. Alright, let’s do this thing.”

Lyra Heartstrings - 15th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Evening

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

The promise of lunch had turned into a promise of dinner. Mostly because it took a long, long time to explain to Mysuki’s court mage how humans did chemistry. Pony alchemy and human chemistry are the same exact thing… Except their alchemy includes arcane phenomenons, and therefore had a totally different language.

We simply wrote down the number of electrons, protons, and neutrons to describe an element. Ponies use a weird probability formula to derive a specific mathematical description, which is how they describe an element. It’s totally and completely unintuitive to humans, or at least me. At least our system was just as incomprehensible to them as theirs was to me.

Fortunately we found a common ground once I was able to bridge electron orbitals with part of their equations, and the two of us worked things out from there. It didn’t take long after that, but getting there was quite the bitch and a half.

Once I was able to successfully communicate to the young stallion what I meant by ‘radon’, well, he had a spell for blocking the stuff already.

Apparently ponies actually use radon in a similar way to oxygen. They don’t need it to live, but somehow radon helps them recover their stamina. Without it it can take a pony hours to get their wind back after a sprint instead of minutes. So a radon blocking spell was pretty much standard for all prison guards.

This did make me feel like I was going to dinner in handcuffs, but at least I had a few hours of freedom to remove my helmet. A damn good thing since apparently to the Neighponese ‘a meal’ means ‘a fuck-mothering feast god damn it!’

Mysuki’s dining hall was HUGE, easily two hundred feet across and perfectly square. It was decorated just how I had expected it to be, but that did nothing to diminish it’s beauty. The floor was made from dark stained oak boards polished to a glossy shine, the walls were wooden and rice paper screens painted with murals depicting Neighponese history and doubling as doors to the kitchen and other areas. The ceiling was literally sporting a paper lantern per square foot, and each lantern was burning some sort of very nice smelling incense.

They also definitely moved furniture in as needed because the only thing in the room right now was a single square black-stained wood table and two chairs. It was dead center in the room, and completely heaped with all manner of exotic looking food.

Exotic looking food that was motherfucking art!

There were rice sculptures of cats, birds, fish, and other animals, even objects! Dozens of different kinds of vegetables were cut to interesting shapes and/or arranged artfully on the plates and platters… It looked like someone had told a sculptor to make the most amazing thing possible with vegetation, bread, and grains.

Even the rabbit they had gotten for Bon to eat was presented on a plate and arranged in a pleasant to look at manner… And also adorably located atop a tiny snake-high table set next to a chair at the big table I presumed was for me.

Normally I balked at the thought of a vegetarian meal, but holy fuck, that looked too good to complain about in any goddamn way!

Mysuki was already seated by the time I arrived, and politely gestured for me to sit. Which I did. Eagerly.

“I’m sorry this is such a simple meal, but my staff was away for most of the day due to the evacuation,” Mysuki informed as I stared longingly into a bowl of some kind of amazing looking mushroom soup.

My head snapped up to look her in the eyes. “THIS, is SIMPLE?” I demanded incredulously.

Mysuki’s mouth formed a little ‘o’. “Right, of course… Your homeland is a wasteland. Why don’t you take that off and enjoy Neighpone’s bounty? It would be nice to see your face.”

I nodded, took a deep breath, and nervously reached up with both hands to press both releases on my helmet. Bon meanwhile noticed the rabbit and slid down my shoulders to the floor at the speed of Clint Eastwood. Mysuki had been right, Bon was hungry!

Confidence in this magic boosted by my snakie friend, I pressed the releases, and slid my helmet off with a loud hiss of air. As I set the helmet down on the floor next to my chair, I heard Mysuki gasp in surprise.

“You’re furless!” She exclaimed.

“Er, yeah. We just have the ‘mane’,” I said giving her a smile.

“I had figured you were some sort of ape, based on your body shape,” Mysuki mused, stroking her muzzle thoughtfully. “You must be so cold all the time! Is that why you have that full body covering?”

I blushed lightly and ran a finger through my rapidly vanishing mint and white colored military crew-cut. Thank goodness I could have normal hair again!

“Er, well yeah… That’s one reason,” I agreed, not wanting to explain the human relationship to clothing in case that might offend this much more casual species. “Another is that it works in tandem with my helmet. Parts of a whole system.”

“Ah I see… Also the green looks much better on you than your skin. I didn’t know non-pony skin came in ivory,” Mysuki said casually as she began to move various foods onto her plate.

“Eh, well, human skin isn’t usually this color. Same with hair. I’m super pale because my grandparents are from a place called Ireland. And my hair is from my mom. She got genetic hair dye done, and that gets passed onto your kids, so I get the epic hair color and pattern,” I explained.

“Ah, what colors are normal for your kind then?” Mysuki asked.

“We are super boring in terms of variety. Pale peach with a gradient to extremely brown skin. Blond, black, brown, or orange hair, gray if you are old. That’s it. Cosmetic modifications are very popular,” I said, following Mysuki’s lead and loading up on deliciousness. “I was actually going to get my ears made something similar to yours, but our military has strict appearance regulations, so I decided to wait on it.”

Mysuki nodded, satisfied with my explanation. “Interesting. Is there a particular reason you dislike your ears?”

I paused, frowned, and thought about her question for a moment before shaking my head no. “Not especially. I just think I might look better with different ones is all.”

“I would comment on that, but I would likely say something rude,” Mysuki chuckled. “Let’s turn the tables a bit, I have been asking all the questions so far. How about you ask a few.”

Yes! Finally! I had a list!

“Why is your species so adorable?” I asked, instantly regretting blurting out the first thing that came to mind and blushing a bright red.

“Pony bodies are highly toxic to most creatures,” Mysuki answered. “You can touch us, that’s safe, but if you tried to eat one of us, you would most likely die.”

“Oh! So your bright colors are like a warning to predators?” I asked genuinely intrigued.

“Yes, though there are plenty of things that will eat you because they are immune. We call those species ‘monsters’, but they are generally rare. As most species leave us alone, our ancestors chose mates for beauty over survival traits. Hence, we look much more… Adorable, as you put it, compared to most species we share our world with,” Mysuki finished, taking a spoonful of soup into her mouth upon finishing.

“Wait, share? There’s more than one sentient species on your world?” I asked, taking a bite of a sauce covered rice-thing that was basically screaming ‘eat me’.

Oh. My. Fucking. Gosh.

Best. Food. EVER!

If I was being bamboozled and was being poisoned from the air despite the ‘spell’, this would make it totally worth it!

“There are. You have dragons to thank for the passion fruit sauce you just tried. In total, there are about nine intelligent species on Equis. I’ll get you a book on them to read later,” Mysuki offered.

“I would much rather have a bottle of the sauce,” I said, eagerly eating another of those rice-things of pure deliciousness.

“It has to be prepared fresh, unfortunately. It will not keep for more than few hours,” Mysuki sighed sadly. “Do you have anymore questions, or will you be enjoying your meal too much to talk?”

“Uh…” I squirmed in my seat slightly. “I’m not sure. This is very good!”

Mysuki laughed and shook her head with a smile. “I understand, Heartstrings-sama. Dig in, I’ll tell you my people’s history while we eat.”

“Sounds great! But first, what are these things?” I asked holding up the delicious rice-thing of epicness.

“They are called onigiri,” she answered taking a sip of her…whatever she was drinking. “The Neighponese are the descendants of an ancient land which is long dead. It was very far from here, and we don’t know quite for sure where Normane was for sure, but it was somewhere near the modern nation of Prance. As for how long ago our ancestors came from this land, well, we are the only modern nation older than Equestria.”

“How old is that?” I asked curiously. And also ate another delicious unpronounceable rice-thing.

“Just over twelve thousand years now,” Mysuki answered, taking another sip of her soup. “Those many millennia ago, the Normane attempted to make a colony across the sea from their homeland. It was to be on a place called ‘The Hallowed Isle’.

“Unfortunately their six colony ships were blown off course by a storm, beyond the regions marked upon their maps. The fleet did their best to find their way back to Normane, but with no bearings they could only take their best guess and as such, they failed. Instead our ancestors found this place, the Sunbathed Isles. Just in time too, as supplies were almost completely expended.

“Unable to sail any further due to ship damage and a lack of food, our ancestors were forced to try and settle here, on this isle. This was a dire problem for our ancestors. The Sunbathed Isles are…hard to tame. Earth Ponies and Pegasi, they have a hard time manipulating the natural order here. Also, as you saw, Kaiju like to come ashore on occasion.”

“I was wondering why you lived here with those things stomping around,” I said through a mouthful of rice-thing. “Er, sorry, I forgot to swallow.”

“Quite understandable, I love that sauce too,” Mysuki chuckled. “Our ancestors had no choice but to live here, and as they survived and came to thrive, so do we, their descendants. We have tamed this dangerous land… But we had help.

“You see, our ancestors had formed a small democratic council as an emergency government to help get things started. I know, I know, it’s not a very efficient means of governance, but when you have no idea of what to do, multiple voices and public consensus are quite helpful. Things were very bleak for them, no one had any experience dealing with the new problems, and the land our ancestors came from was cold, not tropical. Their plants did not grow well here.

“Our ancestors would have died within the second year if not for a miracle. I know it's odd to call something a miracle when you live amongst sorcerers, but well… A traveling monk happened upon our ancestor’s settlement. Miraculous since scouts showed the isle as otherwise uninhabited. No one lived there but our ancestors, and yet, this monk arrived in the early Neighpone.”

“Maybe he sailed from a neighboring isle?” I asked with a shrug.

“That's what I think,” Mysuki agreed with a nod. “Some ponies think he appeared from thin air… Sadly we will never know. His appearance has been lost to the ages since our ancestors were too busy working to not-die and had no time to draw or sculpt. He didn’t give directions to where he came from as well.

“We do know his name, for he was my family line’s sire. Segata… Personal name unknown. We call him Segata Sanshirō, since the name means ‘Imperial Resolve’ and well, my ancestor single handedly planned out all of Neighpone from scratch!

“According to legend, he slew a kaiju on his own, and painted the Imperial Isle with its blood to ward off others. He showed our ancestors what plants grew well here, how to grow them… Everything. If it exists and is traditional here, my ancestor’s scrolls detailed it for the ponies he saved and guided.”

I nodded, thoroughly impressed. “That’s a pretty good story… How did he kill a kaiju though? You didn’t have mecha back then, did you?”

Mysuki laughed. “We did not… But our Mechs designs are based on drawings of armor he left for us. According to legend, he beat the crap out of it.”

I triple blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“The story goes that my ancestor waited atop a cliff as the kaiju came to land, and then beat the crap out of it, by himself, using only hand to hand combat,” Mysuki clarified, smiling a little. “I know. It’s silly, but it’s a twelve thousand year old legend, it’s surely exaggerated somewhat. No Earth Pony is that strong.”

“It must make for a great story… I’d love to see it sometime,” I said, cracking a smile as I pictured an over the top action film of a tiny pony-guy fighting Godzilla.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have any plays about our history in the summer. They are a winter tradition,” Mysuki sighed sorrowfully. “But we could see the statue commemorating his victory tomorrow. It’s in my family’s shrine.”

I hummed for a moment before nodding, “Alright. But I do want to get a hold of SkyTech so I can return this thing,” I said holding my arm up to indicate the VM.

“Oh! Hai, of course,” Mysuki said apologetically with a smile. “One moment…”

Reaching into a pocket of her skirt, Mysuki retrieved a small blue gemstone and held it up to her lips to say, “Trigger-san”. The gem began to glow a faint blue, and then after a moment a stallion's voice came from the gemstone.

“Good evening, your highness,” the stallion said pleasantly. “Is the new fusion blade holding up well?”

“I am afraid it was destroyed in battle today, Trigger-san,” Mysuki said sadly. “But it served me well. I shall be ordering another. This is on another matter. Would it be possible for you to come here with a portable laboratory? A new friend of mine has acquired some technology built by your company via a teleport accident. She wishes to return it, and also go home. She is here due to the same teleportation accident, and somewhat stuck.”

“Huh… Are you sure it’s mine?” The stallion asked.

“Hai, your branding is etched into the case, and the design is clearly your own,” Mysuki replied adamantly.

“Humm… Maybe someone on my team was working on teleportation tech. I don’t remember doing that… I guess Ayna could have made it and forgot,” he mused. “Well, my little bro is getting married tomorrow, and I’ll be providing security for his wedding… Soonest I could be there is three days, five days tops. Is that alright?”

Mysuki looked up at me from her fucking awesome communication rock. “Heartstrings-sama, is that alright with you?”

“Yeah,” I decided with a nod, “we found a way for the air to not kill me long enough for me to eat. I don't mind staying a few days.”

“Wait, the air will kill you?” The stallion asked, seemingly baffled.

“My friend is not from our world. Our air is toxic to her,” Mysuki explained casually.

“Y-you uh… So… Aliens?” He stammered.

“Yes,” Mysuki confirmed calmly.

“I’ll be there in two days,” the stallion said firmly. “I need to go now and do things to clear my post-wedding schedule.”

The gem’s glow vanished, presumably as it’s connection was cut.

“There we are,” Mysuki said, tucking the stone away to return to her soup. “Your quest is coming to you. Until he arrives, I would enjoy showing you my people’s home and learning about your own. This is an… Interesting experience.”

I gave her a smile. “You can say that again!”

To my extreme disappointment, Mysuki didn’t coyly say it again. Instead she continued to talk about her ancestors legends. I would have paid full attention to them… But well, those rice-things were just too fucking good! It was impossible to snack on them and pay more than half attention to anything dammit!

I only had two more days to eat them. They deserved my time and attention, double-dammit!

Besides, Mysuki apparently could talk for hours and hours. By the time she was done recalling everything, it was very late at night. Late enough where she had a servant show me to a guest room, and I collapsed onto the bed without really even noticing anything more than a bed to spend the night in.

“Night, Bon…” I muttered as I drifted off to sleep. “This has been fun so far, hasn’t it?”

Bon slithered to coil herself up next to me and a bit on top of me, sort of like a blanket.

“Yeah, it has…” I muttered happily.

4 Self Discovery

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Lyra Heartstrings - 16th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Early Morning

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

I sat on a field of gray dust beneath a black sky. Not one star speckled the blackness, showing me strange and alien view of a dark and unpopulated world.

Over the horizon hung a blue jewel, forever out of my reach. It’s beauty kept from me by the bars of an invisible prison. A reminder of what had been taken away. A reminder of a terrible wrong where all held equal parts victim and villain.

The endless field’s size did not matter. It may as well have been a single square foot. It was more empty than a wasteland, for there was nothing here to have gone to waste.

Nothing existed here by my own anger, loneliness, and isolation. With only the rare cry for help from those I could never reach to remind me other people existed.

Birdsong slowly pulled me out of the nightmare. My helmet’s HUD blinked high stress level warnings like they really mattered. Fucking hell… If my suit didn’t use sweat to help fuel itself I’d definitely be laying in a pool of it!

That was the single worst fucking nightmare I had ever fucking had. Ever. Period.

“Cheer.ly, save that dream before I forget it.” I asked as I sat up.

That thing deserved to be remembered. It had to be some sort of record.

<Engram recorded.> Cheer.ly reported.

I did my best to stretch the kinks out of my muscles as I sat up. Id’ never slept in this thing on the ground before. It had always been a ‘sleep while sitting’ situation. My neck definitely did not like resting on the helmet-suit seal at that angle for a whole night.

I caught my first glimpse of the sun as I cracked my neck. I’d woken up at that perfect moment between sunrise and morning where the light shines through windows in those beautiful rays. Although, the sunlight seemed different here.

On Earth, the sunlight was warm in color. Carrying the feeling of the glow of a campfire. Here, the sun shone more radiantly, no mere flame could ever hope to shine with such loving warmth as this!

Hell, frankly, it was a lot like what you would get in orbit. You’re sitting down, watching over whatever station or sat you’ve drawn the short straw for, the earth whizzes by below, and then bam! Pure white sunlight washes over everything in a ‘Fuck you, concept of darkness!’ manner you just didn’t get on the surface.

That’s what this sunrise was. It was kinda creepy.

Shaking my head to clear the ‘just woke up stoned off my ass’ feeling from my mind, I felt Bon slide over my lap and reached down to give her a brief pet. The poor girl was pretty sluggish, normal for her having eaten a few hours ago, and was doing her best to slide off my lap to let me get up.

I gently slid out from under her and stood up, immediately noticing the shimmer of silk on the floor in the patch of sunlight. Laying on the dark floorboards, was a very neatly folded jade silk… thing. I stepped over and picked it up, puzzling over the fabric before remembering Miyuki said she would get me a skirt like hers the other day.

A nice gesture, but with how small ponies were, I doubted any skirt available could fit me. But not wanting to be rude, I gave the cloth a quick shake to unfold it.

It wasn’t a skirt. It was a full outfit. And it was my size.

The outfit resembled the uniforms from old karate movies, which I was relatively sure were called Gi. I had no clue what each part of the outfit was called, but it had pants, a jacket, a belt-sash-thing and some cloth wraps which I guessed were for tightening the ends of the sleeves and legs around your body.

More impressively, through the collar I could see the inside had small ‘tubes’ sewn into the outfit with cords running through them to allow you to adjust the outfit. If I was seeing things right, you could quickly shorten the sleeves. A quick inspection showed the pants had similar cords. I assumed this was to expose more skin, err, fur on a hot day.

Much more impressively was the silk itself. I’d seen some real fancy fabric before, that was obviously made from a bolt of cloth of one color, with a pattern of another color silk screened onto it. That meant when it was cut and sewn, the pattern was chopped up but looked somewhat uniform from a distance.

This gi’s golden embroidery flowed organically over the entirety of the outfit. It had been done after the silk had been sewn into shape. The vines of flowers motif wasn’t overdone, but rather served as a nice highlight and a way to make the jade green not be overwhelming. Effectively it was a gold trim, with the occasional whirling bit of ‘art’ thrown in for looks, but never too much.

The back was a different story. I’d expected there to be some sort of design on the back, like you’d see in any ARG, but I hadn’t expected it to be a yin yang stylized to look like Saturn. The crest was embroidered so one half was gold, the other half jade, and the slanted rings either filled or ‘erased’ as needed to pass over the symbol at an angle.

This was admittedly a symbol I had seen before. Yesterday. On the Imperial Palace’s big ass family crest in it’s entrance hall.

“Uhhh… Okay… Am I allowed to wear this?” I asked myself aloud.

A faint tap on the door made me jump, almost dropping the insanely nice outfit from the shock.

“Hello?” An unfamiliar voice called quietly.

“Hi?” I asked in return.

The door opened, sliding into the wall as a tall, lanky, ice-blue pony girl pushed it open. To my surprise and delight, she had a pair of feathery wings folded neatly on her back, with each feather tipped with the same frost-white of her mane, tail, and the apron she wore.

“Oh cool! Can you fly?” I asked, grinning behind my helmet like an absolute idiot.

She blushed lightly and nodded. “Hai, I am a pegasus. I heard you moving and thought you were awake. Would you like tea?”

The pony-girl gestured to the small tea trolley just behind her which I guess she had been pushing down the hallway.

I shook my head no. “Sorry, but I need a spell to take the helmet off safely. Thank you for the offer though.”

She gave me a polite bow and turned to leave. “I will inform my Emperor you have awoken, she wished to speak with you.”

“Alright,” I said, quickly realizing I had an opportunity to get my question answered. “Wait! AM I allowed to wear this? It has the royal crest on it.”

The maid turned back around and gave me another polite nod. “Hai. It was given to you.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said, letting her leave.

I hated non-answers. There had to be some consequence of wearing a family crest in a Japanese-like society with a focus on honor and ancestry. I’d just wait to ask Miyuki directly.

That opportunity came a few minutes later. Right after I had gotten all of the grogginess out of my system, Miyuki knocked on the still open door’s frame to politely announce her presence.

“Good morning, Heartstrings-sama,” she said with a tiny bow. “I see you found your gi. Is it sized correctly?”

Looking over I noticed that Miyuki hadn’t changed clothes, or really even looked like she was tired, or morning groggy. It was rather impressive.

“Morning,” I returned, “I haven’t put it on yet… Is there any cultural connotation to wearing your family’s crest? Like, if I put this on, I’m not drafted, am I?”

Miyuki raised one eyebrow in complete bafflement. “Uh, my court mage is good, but he’s not ‘make a jacket that turns you into wind’ good.”

I facepalmed immediately after she said ‘wind’. “Oh man… Sorry, this would be way easier if I naturally spoke your language. I meant ‘conscripted’.”

“Ah! That’s far more comprehensible. No, all wearing my crest means is you are a part of the Imperial Family. Which includes more than myself and my theoretical lover and children. The crest marks you as someone important to the Emperor. It is appropriate for someone to have saved my life to have the right to bear my crest,” Miyuki explained.

“Oh! So it’s a badge of honor thing?” I asked, eyes brightening up at the thought.

Miyuki nodded in response. “Exactly!”

Deciding to see if it fit, I opened the jacket and carefully unpinned the pants from it before slipping it on. With the belt-sash-thing drawn tight, it fit quite well. Once it was on, I moved my arms through their range of motion to see if it stopped me from moving in any given way It would definitely fit better without my flight suit on though.

“It fits very well,” I said decisively. “It would definitely feel nice on the skin too. This silk looks really high quality.”

“Oh yes… Would you like me to fetch a mage for you so you can try it without the suit on? I could show you how to properly wear it for various tasks, did you notice the trailing cords?” Miyuki asked sounding a bit eager.

I blushed behind my helmet, grateful for the faceplate blocking me from view. “Um… While I appreciate that… Humans do not like to be naked in front of people we are not romantically involved with…”

The Empress frowned, ears tilting to the left as she asked. “Why?”

“Embarrassment… Shame… Feelings of being vulnerable… Take your pick. Can we walk about something else?” I asked quickly.

“That’s so…alien! Wait, are we bothering you by being undressed?” She asked with a bemused giggle.

“A bit, but I mean, you guys have fur, so it’s fine. Kinda. I mean… I’m not going to think less of an alien culture for not doing things the human way. At least, not something simple like clothes,” I said awkwardly.

Miyuki shook her head slowly, smiling for a moment before she took a step back into the hall. “At any rate my amusing friend, would you like to walk to my family’s shrine with me?”

“Sure!” I agreed, eager to prevent the budding awkward conversation.

The two of us began the fairly long walk to her family’s shrine. It was all the way up the side of the dormant-ish volcano, perched atop a flat ledge that overlooked the entirety of the Imperial Isle. The path up to it was well made, not tiring to walk, but according to Miyuki, would definitely take a good ten minutes of time.

Along the way, we talked about our various species. Essentially trading simple questions back and forth. She told me about her species three kinds, I told her about robots. She told me about her nation’s love of nature and their history with working the land, I told her about mankind’s total domination of every lifeform on the planet.

“Wait, so your people rule over all others?” Miyuki asked me with a suspicious look.

I shook my head. “Nah. We only have the one sapient species, remember?”

“I see. So then, what do you mean? I don’t quite understand,” she asked with some concern.

“Well, you guys can shoot a laser from your forehead and throw objects with your mind,” I began, “Humans…have hands. You guys seem to fit right in with the natural order, with a lovely balance. Which is awesome! But Humans… All we have is our brains. We are the third most intelligent species on our world-”

“You just said you were the only sapient species…” Miyuki said half darkly and half confused.

Mentally cursing my love of Douglas Adams stories, I quickly held up my hands. “We are! There are no other species which form civilizations and cultures on our homeworld. Though, the blue ringed octopus and a genetically modified mouse species are far more intelligent than humans in terms of problem solving. It’s just that they are not people, just clever as hell animals motivated by their instincts alone.

“In terms of problem solving, you can expect those animals to complete a task of which they are physically capable before a human could do the same.”

“Ah, I see. So you’re recognizing their problem solving as superior to your own species,” Miyuki mused.

“Yeah,” I agreed, ass successfully covered from having to explain my accidental use of a reference. And with completely factual information! Point for me! “Anyways, All we have is our minds. No physical advantages, or at least, our ancestors didn’t. So our species survived by making tools and reshaping the world around us to our advantage.

“You guys live in harmony with nature, we made nature our servant. And I sense the ‘I see how that turn out for you’ coming, and to be fair, that wasn’t our fault. It’s not like we launched the meteor at ourselves.”

“So you're kind does things the hard way… It seems odd that a species like yours would evolve without any magic whatsoever. With your lack of physical advantages and with the intellect you have described to me, you should have some form of magic,” Miyuki mused, glancing up to see how much further we had to climb the mountain path for.

“My Emperor,” a passing orange stallion greeted with a bow as he passed by, carrying a large pack down the trail.

“Good day,” Miyuki greeted by reflex.

That’s when it hit me. Absolutely no one had called Miyuki ‘empress’ ONCE since I got here. She even referred to herself as ‘Emperor’. I frowned behind my faceplate, composing my next question in words which wouldn’t make me an asshole while I finished up my previous point.

“Meh, I think we are doing just fine without it,” I dismissed. “We invented the first heavier than air flying machine, landed on our moon sixty four years later. Seven years after that, we’d landed on our neighboring planet, well, we landed a robot. And then just a few years later we had a guy work out a mathematically sound super-luminal drive system, and all that shit happened two hundred years before today!”

“Wait, your species has spaceflight?!” Miyuki asked, eyes widening.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “We’ve been doing it for-”

“Without magic!?” she asked again.

I nodded.

“Purely technological spaceflight… How?” She demanded.

“It’s what humans do. We punch god in the eye with science until we get to do what we want,” I explained with a shrug. “You guys have to have some cool stuff. You said you nation is twelve thousand years old. That’s longer than my species has been doing agriculture and tools.”

Miyuki’s ears drooped while her tail raised in a sort of distressed alarm. “You mean to tell me that the entire history of your people, with all those thousands of civilizations, fills less than twelve thousand years!? How long do you live? Have your great inventors been alive for thousands of years and working nonstop?”

I laughed, “Haha! No… That would be cool though. Until recently, we lived around eighty years. I don’t know what my maximum lifespan is… No one does. With how our biomods work it’s at least three hundred years.”

“A hundred years... Within the span of one lifetime, your species developed the entirety of a purely technological means for space travel and landed a ship on your moon… By Saturn, how can your species keep up with your own technological development!? That’s insanely fast!”

I giggled. “Hey, we had two global scale wars that got in the way for about… three decades I think. Imagine how fast we could have done it if that didn’t happen.”

“How long did it take you to get from the invention of machines to create goods until your first flying machine?” Miyuki asked quickly.

“Um… About five hundred years.” I answered, amused by the completely losing it look on her face.

Her face twisted into alarm, and amazement, flipping between the two for a few seconds before settling on ‘amazed’.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“Your species literally progressed more than my own has in two pony lifetimes than we have in two thousand years…” Miyuki said in awe. “I can't believe you did that without magic. You have to have something! You just don't know about it.”

“We do,” I said, cracking a grin.

“What is it!? I must know!” Miyuki begged.

“We call them Engineers,” I said, playfully sticking my tongue out at her, since she couldn’t see it through my helmet.

She gave me a dirty look then shook her head. “If our species come into official contact, I will likely be contracting out technical help.”

“Good idea. We’re the kind of species who invents a self-navigating drone to bring you pizza. Humans, the smartest lazy bastards ever! If you have even a minor inconvenience, we will engineer a way to not have to do it,” I quipped happily. “So, can I ask a question now, before we get to the shrine?”

“Of course! Sorry for getting hung up on…your species insane rate of development. It has to be your short lives! You just can’t afford to waste any time,” Miyuki exclaimed.

“Eh, maybe,” I mused before pursing my lips as I did my best to be polite. “Miyuki, I’ve noticed that everyone refers to you as ‘My Emperor’-”

“Of course,” she interrupted, “I serve them by guiding our nation safely into the future. The ‘my’ is a reminder of my status as a public servant and symbol of our content.”

“Actually, I meant the ‘Emperor’ part. Though it’s cool to know there’s a cultural meaning for the ‘my’ part,” I corrected.

“What about it?” She asked as we rounded a corner in the path to reveal the shrine.

I had been expecting a little mini Japanese style temple. Instead what we had here was a ring of two meter high standing stones, each a different sort of semi-precious stone, which had carvings of various ponies set in them, all ringing a massive black and white marble statue of a vaguely pony shaped figure throwing a massive six armed dragon with a Judo flip.

The same loving care that the Neighponese put into everything was in this shrine. The carved out sections of rock had gold, silver, and brass set into the chiseled marks to add color to the very precisely cut and highly polished stones.

The central statue itself was only two colors, the pony shaped figure was white and done in a vague, abstracted form. The Kaiju was done in black and carved out in great detail to look as fierce and dangerous as possible… While being judo flipped by a figure smaller than its foot.

“That should be hilarious looking, but it’s awesome!” I said reflexively.

Miyuki nodded. “It is, but one moment please. What is it about the Emperor part of my title that bothers you?”

Something in her tone made me realize she assumed I had a problem with her position as, well, an autocrat. While that wasn’t even remotely the case, it would be very dangerous to have someone with her power believing you were offended by their mere existence.

“Nothing like that. Frankly, I wish there was one definitive person at Central to petition for change,” I said quickly, holding up my hands to ward off her possible hostility. “It's just that your biology is female, but you are called by and use a male title. Are you transgender? I don’t want to be rude and continue thinking of you as female if-”

Miyuki laughed, throwing her head back for a moment, before drying her eyes. “That never gets old! Every foreign pony I ever get to talk to asks that. No, I’m a mare. My title is Emperor because my great great Grandfather decided gendered titles are stupid and asked everypony to stop using them.”

“Oh, well good,” I sighed in relief.

She gave me another smile as she shook her head with even more laughter. “Heartstrings-sama, I am the Emperor of Neighpone. Did you not realize if I wished to be a stallion, even for but an hour, that I would have a line of mages at the door, happy to provide their services merely for the honor of having helped the Imperial Family?”

I blushed and nodded slowly. “Er, no. I did not think of that.”

“It always amuses me how people never realize that. Heh… Come on, this won’t take long.” Miyuki said as she trotted into the circle of elaborately carved stones.

I watched as she opened her skirt to remove a small willow wand and a black silk bag from a pocket and knelt before a small jade alter, about a cubic foot in size, and began to replace the small gold candles that burned atop it with fresh ones from the bag.

It was an interesting little ritual. She’d light one candle with the ‘about to burn out’ one, and replace it, blowing out the old one and setting it aside, only to put them all into the little bag once finished.

“Is some sort of magic protecting those from the elements?” I asked as she finished and stood up.

“Yes,” Miyuki answered. “The candles are symbolic of my duty to Neighpone’s people. They last for exactly one day and one hour. If I fail to relight them the standing stones send a pillar of light into the heavens, as a sign that I have abandoned my duty. Those under me are instructed to act accordingly.”

I winced. “Ouch, that seems a bit harsh. What if you are ill?”

“I can send ponies to do it for me,” she chuckled. “If I am ill or not here the duty is given to another. But if I stay in the palace the previous night, I must do it myself. It’s long standing law. I’m glad we have this system, to be honest.”

I took a few seconds to think about what any benefits of a ‘forfeit my position’ device could be.

“Well… I guess it does mean whoever is in charge has to keep your country's traditions at heart,” I said at last.

“That is a part of it,” she agreed, nodding to me as she turned to leave the shrine, “but more importantly, as long as this shrine stays dark, my people know their Emperor watches over them. Ponies need heroes. We are not a violent race, and so those of us who can stomach battle must keep the monsters at bay for the rest.

“This shrine lets my people know if their heroes still stand in times of war. It lets them know if their heroes are standing guard in times of peace. Simply by looking to the north, the whole of Neighpone can see a clear sky and rest easy.”

Well fuck. That was an excellent system.

“You’re people are very lucky,” I said as honestly as I could. “Humankind has a distinct lack of visible heroes. The best we have is the military as a whole… But all operations are classified. No one ever learns who did what, or why… Sometimes not even if they are also in the military.”

“That is shameful behavior on your leaders part! What use is classifying an operation after it has happened? The enemy knows what you did, so should your people,” Miyuki spat bitterly.

I nodded in ironclad agreement. “You’re damn right it’s bullshit! Hell, I got court martialed over that policy. Only barely kept my job, and got knocked down a rank.

“One of our species greatest weapons sits way up in the sky and basically drops huge spikes. They go so fast that they will hit the ground with enough force to knock buildings flat for miles. The enemy had managed to stealth one into orbit and had been sneaking it around to get a line of attack on one of our major cities… Mine, to be specific.

“They blew their cover though, took a potshot at a civilian transport and lit up our sensor grid. So we took it out. I was at a restaurant later that day, grabbing a bite after flying a combat patrol and I overheard a couple teenage girls worried about a rumored attack on the city by one of them.

“Well, I’d just taken the weapon in question out. Personally. My squadron was assigned that mission, I was the only one who had a clear shot at the satellite through the enemy's fighters. I knew that there was no danger to the city anymore. So I told them. ‘Hey, it’s okay. I’m a pilot. We shot that son of a bitch down six hours ago.’

“Central finds out about that via some bullshit and then boom. I’m in trouble. Just for wanting to make sure those girls could sleep that night.”

I kicked a loose rock with the toe of my boot, sighing bitterly at the memory.

“It sounds to me as if you wished to protect others, not only physically, but emotionally,” Miyuki mused thoughtfully, reaching up to stroke her muzzle in thought.

“Yeah. I do. There’s little point in keeping people safe if they still feel in danger. Yeah, they won't be killed, but they will still act like they are going to be. And what kind of life is that?” I grumbled, “I’ll be honest. One reason I thought a first contact would be needed is because for all humans have going for us, we need to get some shit together still.

“Knowing our species isn’t alone might be what we need to take the last step and unify as a species. We only have two nations now. We could do it. We just need a reason. Humans have always need a good reason to shove us along.”

“A noble goal, heartstrings-sama,” Miyuki said giving me a polite smile. “I believe I have found a way to give you a proper reward for your heroism. It will take well into tomorrow to be ready, but I think you will quite enjoy it.”

“What is it?” I asked curiously, falling into step alongside her.

“According to tradition, I can only tell you when it is time for you to help make it,” the Emperor insisted, not saying another word about it the rest of the way back to the palace.

Lyra Heartstrings - 17th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

<Lyra! Watch out!> Bonbon cried.

I noticed the shred of the Impactor hull scything towards us just in time to roll our hull aside, the debris scraping along our belly, sending vibrations through the hull.

<Fuck! Next time I gun, you drive,> I exclaimed, actively checking fore more debris heading our way.

None. Good.

<No way! You control our flight way better than I do,> Bonbon objected coyly.

<This is true. How’s our hull? Any breaches?> I asked.

<No, but we should re-enter with the shields overcharged. I think we lost heat shielding,> Bonbon reapplied after a quick check.

It looked like the ECN fighters were trying to break off, but my squad had them occupied. This battle was over.

<Looks like this battle is wrapping up… I’ll fly along their rear line. Take a few potshots at their weapons systems,> I ordered, gunning our main engines to reposition.

A blinding red light filled my vision! Burning pain blossomed along our left wing! Someone was touching our hull.

“Heartstrings-sama.”

Miyuki’s voice yanked me out of the flashback, throwing me firmly back into the chair in the palace’s library.

“Huh? Wha? Oh! Hi!” I stammered, jerkily moving to face my sorta-friend.

The pink pony-girl flinched at my tone, her eyes conveying a deep heartfelt sorrow.

“Remembering the past?” She asked.

I nodded, grateful she understood, but also sad that she knew what it was like. “Yes. What do you want? Is it dinner?”

“It’s not quite yet time for dinner, though my chef tells me you skipped lunch to read. It’s a shame you didn’t arrive in Equestria. Princess Twilight would get along with you very well,” Miyuki teased, flashing me a quick grin.

“I wanted to read up on your world. Since that Trigger guy is delayed, well, figured this was the best use of time. Besides, I can scan written text to memory and found a few translation guides. Also a surprising amount of inter-species etiquette guides. So, well, I read them,” I said awkwardly, still trying to shake off the memories of almost dying twice in ten seconds.

Miyuki nodded slowly. “We share our world with many cultures and many species. It’s important to know that, for instance, if Neighpone was at war with Drake, they would only agree to a peaceful resolution to the war if I slept with whoever their leader is at the moment, because of a long standing tradition that wars must be fought to the end, unless the love of High Chiefs is on the line.”

I triple blinked and looked back at the book. “I guess I didn’t get quite that far…”

“Trust me, I’m probably the only Head of State to know that particular cultural…oddity,” Miyuki said in an oddly suspicious tone. “Moving on to more important topics, it is time for you to help prepare your reward!”

“It is?” I asked, standing up and closing the book I had been staring at for who knows how many minutes.

“Hai. Will you accompany me to the garden, please?” She asked stepping aside to allow me to walk past her to the door.

I nodded and the two of us walked out to her garden. We followed a twisting path through tunnels of trees and banks of flowers until we reached a small clearing with a mosaic pattern made from colored tiles and bits of white quartz.

The mosaic was a hexagon. It measured about eight feet across, not counting the small half circles on each side of the hex. Those were just big enough for someone to stand or sit in. The hex itself was filled with an intricate, clearly technical pattern with a small circle in the middle that all of the stacking patterns flowed to.

The tiles themselves formed patterns too. The blacks, whites, blues, and reds all formed specific shapes and were placed with care and precision. It just screamed ‘magic circle’.

“So um, what are we doing?” I asked hesitantly. “You’re not going to turn me into a pony, are you?”

“Oh! Would you like that?” Miyuki asked in surprise. “It would take some time but I could probably find somepony capable of such a feat.”

Admittedly, that might be fun… But well, yeah. Not something I wanted at the moment.

“No, I don’t want that,” I said as simply as possible so there would be no way for the translation to get messed up.

“Ah, good. Because that one might be tricky,” Miyuki sighed in relief. “This is magical in nature, as you may have guessed, and it does involve you. But we are not transforming you. You will be transforming something else.”

“But, I don't know any magic,” I pointed out, holding up a finger in objection.

“That’s what this rune circle is for,” she explained, pointing to the center of the circle. “You sit there, I put a charged gemstone in each of the slots, and the runes do their job. Earth Ponies have used this, and they cannot consciously control their magic. You can use it too. Unless your species has no magic at all, but given how fast you progress, I find that impossible.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, and if this fails?”

“Then I’ll do this part myself. But it will work best with you doing it,” she answered.

I nodded, and bit my lip, not wanting to waste the time. Ah well, at least I would see a cool magic ritual.

“Alright, and what exactly are we doing?” I asked, hoping for an answer at last.

“We are attuning a crystal to you,” Miyuki said as she swept an arm around the massive crystal rock garden I hadn’t noticed before thanks to studying the mosaic in detail. “Choose one. Any one will do. If you feel a particular one is ‘calling’ you, you should use it. The more significant to you the crystal is, the better.”

I gave her a quick nod and looked out over the small field of finger sized crystals. I was pretty sure they were all quartz, but there was a literal rainbow of colors in addition to white. The crystals were arranged in rings, first white, then pink, then violet, blue, indigo, green, yellow, red, and at last, orange.

The more significant, eh?

I looked over the crystals carefully. None of them especially jumped out at me. Maybe the magic wasn’t working? A crystal calling to you had to be magic right?

I paused, fingers moving beneath my silk jacket to the belt pouch I had slipped the rose quartz the gardener had passed me. That was definitely a significant crystal. That little thing had shown me there was more to physics than the four fundamentals.

I gently retrieved the crystal from my pouch and held it out to Miyuki. “Will this do?”

Miyuki blinked in surprise as I held the small crystal out to her. “Is that the bit of quartz I used to demonstrate magic to you?”

I nodded, smiling behind my faceplate.

“That will do very well,” she confirmed with a satisfied nod. “Now, what you do, is you sit in the circle at the center and hold the gem tightly, covered so you can not see it.”

I quickly complied, moving into a somewhat uncomfortable cross legged position in the central circle.

“Face the path we took to get here,” Mysuki instructed as she took six small, glowing pieces of crystal from a skirt pocket and began to place them carefully inside each semi-circle.

As she placed the last crystal, I clenched the quartz tightly between my palms, making sure I couldn’t see it at all before adjusting my position to be a bit more comfortable.

“Alright, now what?” I asked adding, “And what are we doing?”

“I can not tell you yet, if you are occupied thinking about the result of this ritual, the spell will not work as intended,” Miyuki sighed. “Please humor me, I can tell you once this is finished.”

“Alright,” I agreed with a weary sigh. “Let’s do this.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Close your eyes, and meditate on the questions I ask you. Do not speak the answers out loud, but focus on them, and keep the answers at the front of your mind. Only you are to know what your answers are.”

“Er, okay…?” I said slowly, closing my eyes and pretending I knew how to meditate.

Meditating was just thinking really hard right? Pretty sure that’s how that worked… At least, I hoped it was.

“What is the root of your fear?” She asked in a sincere voice.

The root of my fear? What did that even mean? Like, what made me afraid? Lot’s of things… Or did she mean what was a common theme between all my fears? Was there even such a thing?

I thought about it as hard as I could, thinking back to all the times I had been afraid.

There was a common theme. Loneliness. I feared being alone. But why?

I feared being alone, because when I died, I wanted someone to remember me. I wanted to leave a mark on the world that others would notice.

The thought of failing to do that was horrifying.

“What matters most in your life?” Mysuki asked in the same voice.

Well, I just established that I’m really fucking freaked out about not being remembered and being isolated from others. So obviously the most important thing to me would be-

No. No it wasn’t that. I had something more important to me than simply being remembered as a person. I wanted to be the force which gave someone else the same sense of meaning, something to the world that I was so afraid of never having myself.

Well… There’s an interesting revelation for you, Lyra.

“What do you do when you fail?” Came the next question.

Easy. Back off. Take a good hard look. Plan. Try again.

There’s always a way. You just have to find it. I’m not afraid to spend a lot of time searching for the solution.

“What would you change about yourself?” Miyuki asked, prompting me to focus on the surprisingly hard question.

What, like, physically? I’d definitely get a pair of pony ears. Maybe a tail. No definitely a tail. I’d look super cute like that. I’d probably also get some breast work done. I was pretty toned, had some good musculature. I was still curvy and female in shape, and plenty of girls like a woman who could bench press them, but a better chest-hip ratio might draw girls eyes in better.

Oh shit! That’s what I would change. I’d have a companion. Like, a proper romantic companion. Maybe two… Definitely two. But why two?

Because with two partners, we could each be devoted to one another, but would never become completely co dependent, maintaining a level of independence via the other partner and the need to spend time with them as well as with the group.

So then, having a lover would be amazing… Provided the relationship wouldn’t dominate my life, but rather be a part of it.

Woah! Now that was a fucking revelation! Meditation was awesome! I should do more of this. Holy crap can it sort your life out real goo-

“What hopes have you for the future?” Miyuki asked with a tone of finality.

Well I fucking knew the answer to that now! Thank you!

I wanted to have a good, loving relationship that didn’t consume my life, but was intimate and loving. So that a part of me would survive in others and I would leave a tangible mark behind when I eventually went. Idealy, one who would help me leave that mark, and be adorable, while allowing me to help her leave a mark on the world as well.

A partner in adventure! Someone to grow alongside and support as they grew with me. A Miguel to my Tulio.

“We are finished,” Miyuki said calmly.

“Awww… But I was learning about myself,” I lamented sadly.

She giggled, “Have you never meditated before? Perhaps I should have explained a technique. At any rate, I can give you a booklet of questions to think upon. But, for the matter at hand, look at the crystal.”

“Alright,” I said cheerfully, still delighted in the revelations I’d had.

I opened my hands. The pink quartz cupped within my palms shown a bright gold, like burning sodium. Its strong aura flickered around the gem, like an arc of plasma between two electrodes.

I yelped, almost dropping the crystal, expecting it to burn through my hands. Realizing just before I dropped it that it was only slightly warm to the touch.

“Woah!” Mysuki exclaimed in disbelief. “I’ve never seen one get an aura like that… May I see it? I need to see if it works properly.”

I nodded and passed the magic expert the magical thing I had somehow made. “So uh, what did I do?”

She took the crystal from me gently and inspected it closely before tapping it to her horn lightly and nodding to herself. “It works, it’s just unusually strong… Er, what we did is connect this crystal to you, and you essentially poured yourself into it. You put a representation of your hopes, fears, and desires into the crystal, making it uniquely your own via the magical inscribing of your nature. Thus creating the main component for your reward. Which, will be a very good one…

“Oh, and by the way. This proves your species has some sort of magic. You simply must not be aware you do.”

“How does it prove that? And what are you making?” I asked, needing to know.

“If your species possessed no magical ability at all, then you could not be used as a conduit for the runes to work through,” she explained, carefully pocketing the glowing gem.

“Alright… So… How would we figure out what it is?” I asked with a confused frown.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mysuki said apologetically. “As for your reward, be at my throne room in one hour. I must finish my work.”

I gave her a disbelieving stare. “Aw come on! I did magic and you are making me wait to know what that is for!?”

She smiled at me and shook her head. “It’s funny, I remember you saying twenty eight is fully grown for your species. But you still act like a young filly.”

I sputtered angrily. “But… Magic! Building! Thing!”

“One hour, Heartstrings-sama,” Mysuki laughed, turning and walking off into the garden.

I spent the next hour walking around her palace and asking every single servant I could find what the Emperor could possibly be doing.

They knew. They all had to know. Because they all told me ‘Patience, is the humblest of virtues.’

She had prepared them. Clever girl.

As the hour started to roll over into the next I made my way to Mysuki’s throne room, having memorized the palace layout on yesterday’s tour. I spent a good five minutes eagerly waiting at the iron shod dark oaken double doors. Brain practically overheating as I tried to think of every last thing that magic could possibly be used for and would need to somehow know me in a deep way.

The doors creaked open, moving under a light orange aura as a unicorn stallion opened the doors for me with a polite bow. “My Emperor, will see you now, Lyra Heartstrings,” he announced.

The throne room itself was very simple. Like all rooms it was perfectly square, with it’s walls painted with images of Neighponese history, though these murals looked especially glorious. It’s floor was covered in soft cushions for sitting on, with a raised dais on the far side of the room, with a larger, softer, super amazingly comfy looking whitish pink tasseled cushion I wanted to steal and use as my mattress sat.

That was her throne. Fuck golden chairs. That was comfort and luxury!

Mysuki nodded as I entered. “Come forward. This is not formal. I am here because there was a brief meeting to attend to.”

“Ah, alright,” I said as I walked forward, stopping just shy of the dais.

Mysuki reached behind her pink cushion of win and picked up a cherrywood box. It was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three inches deep, and had a silver latch. She held it out to me, hands cupping the bottom of the box.

“Open it,” she instructed.

I nodded and gently flipped the latch and opened the lid. Inside the box, sitting in a recess atop pale blue velvet was the hilt of a sword.

It was something like a katana, but the handle was shorter, clearly meant for one hand, but able to fit two in a pinch. The hilt was made from polished and colored metal, an elaborate forest green snakeskin pattern covered the hand grips, with a dark brass cap featuring the Imperial Crest on the butt end, and a guard shaped like the head of a snake which seemed less about protecting your fingers, and more about keeping your hand from slipping onto the blade I assumed was attached to it later, after this breathtaking presentation.

“It’s beautiful!” I gasped, gingerly lifting the hilt from the box.

“Be careful. The brass stud near the hilt activates the spell,” Mysuki warned as I started to turn it over in my hands to examine its details closely.

“Right! Magic!” I exclaimed turning away from the art-object of a weapon to look at the golden maned mare. “What does it do?”

“That is a Meiji no ken, or Soul Blade. You wielded mine on the beach the other day,” she began. “The name is simplistic, but that is literally what you hold in your hands. A sword whose blade is a reflection of your own soul.

“The spell you helped create forges a blade of magical energy, and mimics a metal unique to each blade and it’s original wielder. It is a strong as your greatest fear, as sharp as your desires, and as bright as your hopes.

“A blade that is the perfect reminder of your own resolve. A weapon befitting the true heroes of my nation. Take it as a badge of your honor, and should the opportunity arise, use it to bring more honor to your family name.”

I turned the sword over in my hands, holding it reverently. “I- I don't know what to say.”

“Turn it on,” Miyuki instructed with a kind smile.

I nodded, pointed the end away from the two of us, and pressed the bronze stud. Unlike the Empress’s blade, mine simply appeared. A three foot long slim, straight, double edged blade made of golden light, solidified in one place, with a crackle of blue vapor drifting off of the shining blade. There was no metal core with this one, but rather a light blue inner layer that formed a core for the gold hard-light blade to rest upon. The blade hummed lightly, shimmering under the light of the paper lanterns.

“This is awesome!” I giggled, giving the blade a flick and marveling at the balance.

It was like the sword had been made just for me! Oh. Right…

“It’s one of the better ones I have seen. Fitting for a hero such as yourself,” Miyuki said honestly as I shut the blade off. “At the least, if you never wield it, you will have physical proof of your journey here to show your people. Though, I hope I got the aesthetics of the hilt to your liking?”

I nodded dumbly. “Yeah! I love snakes… You probably realized that almost immediately.”

“Well, you do carry around a snake big enough to eat somepony…” She said with a chuckle, “Come, Trigger-san will be here tomorrow. This is our last night together. I would like to share another dinner with you.”

I tucked the sword into my jacket’s belt, making sure it was secure before looking back up. I did NOT want to lose this. I’d get rid of a belt pouch later so I had a proper magnetic clip free for it later tonight.

“That sounds awesome! Will there be more of those rice things?” I asked hopefully.

Miyuki gave me an affectionate, but amused stare. “Yes, there will be my nation’s most basic food stuff at dinner.”

I blushed lightly under my helmet. “I can’t help it, they are delicious…”

Myuki shook her head and stood up. “It’s a pity you must return to your own world. I rather enjoy your company. I haven’t smiled this much in a long time. Shall we play the question’s game as we walk to dinner?”

“Only if we keep playing at dinner,” I said decisively, “it’s a short walk.”

“Deal,” the Emperor said, beginning to walk out of the throne room. “You mentioned your species space flight earlier. Why did you decide to go to your moon?”

“Well, short answer, because it was there and it was a challenge,” I explained. “Long answer… well…”

I spent the next twenty minutes telling an alien pony-girl all I knew about the pre-quantum vacuum thruster space program. An alien pony girl who gave me a goddamn light saber which I helped to make.

For the first time in a long time, I felt happy with my life.

5 It Begins!

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Lyra Heartstrings - 18th of Firstbloom 18 EoH - Late Morning

Multiverse Location: Neighpone, Equis #7 - The Anthroverse

When Miyuki had told me Trigger-san would be here in five minutes, I had expected her to walk with me over to the port on the isle’s north shore. Instead, we had walked out of the palace’s walled perimeter to a large concrete slab based platform.

I’d figured it was a work in progress foundation, for an observation post or something. At least I did until I heard the unmistakable whine of a plasma actuator cluster, and reflexively dove for cover expecting a shelling to commence immediately.

Embarrassing as the dodge roll into that rose bush was, I felt I could hardly be blamed for it. For almost everyone I’ve ever met, it’s a Pavlovian response. Literally. Central teaches it to you in elementry school for good reason.

Fortunately Bon had made it through the roll uninjured, albeit a bit upset at me. I’d had her on my shoulders at the time since I was assuming I’d be leaving shortly and I didn’t want to leave her behind by accident.

Rather than the UAV carrying a half dozen cluster bombs I had expected, the whine came from a rather large aircraft. After I had extracted myself from the bush and Miyuki pointed up, I had a good view of the boxy wingless transport as it came in for a vertical landing.

It had a black and green paintjob, the green glowing highlights were clearly meant to look cool rather than provide an real benefit. Of much more interest to me was the design itself. It sort of looked like someone attached a rounded rectangular cockpit to the front of a shipping container, tossed on some vertically pivoting, high-thrust plasma jets, and stapled a tail plane to the rear directly above the shipping container which served as a cargo hold, with a rear boarding ramp. Then someone said that looked hideous so they shaped some sheet metal to add high tech looking curves and angles to the hull.

Over all, the transport was of a very distinct design I swore I had seen before.

“Wait a goddamn minute…” I muttered to myself, “Chere.ly, have I seen this before?”

My VI took a few moments to search through my memory, giving the transport enough time to set down on what I now realized was a landing pad. The landing looked much softer than it should have been, indicating some sort of mass reduction tech, or maybe magic. That or it used something like a WEAV system for flight, that would explain how it was able to be wingless without having a multi-rotor set up.

<Subject bears a ninety-four-point-three-seven percent resemblance to the fictitious vechical known as a ‘Skyranger’ from the X-Com series,> Cheer.ly reported.

Yeah! It did. That was more than a little weird. Although, really, the Skyranger was pretty soundly designed and there’s only so many ways to make a viable aircraft. So really, maybe it wasn’t that odd. Less weird than ponies speaking Japanese at least.

The transport’s ramp slowly dropped down with an overly dramatic hiss and accompanying pointless fog that obscured the stallion at the top of the ramp, making them a mere silhouette until the ramp stopped moving and they stepped out of the transport.

I couldn’t help but crack a smile. That had to have been intentional. The sort of thing an engineer would do ‘because it’s cool’.

The stallion took a few steps down the ramp, hooves clanking against the steel. He was wearing a labcoat, white with the same glowy-green highlight scheme, as well as a pair of loose black cargo shorts. If I was remembering the subspecies names right, the feathery wings poking through the back of his coat made him a pegasus. He was a bit shorter than the Emperor, but his electric blue spiky mane, burnt orange fur, and leaf green eyes were a much more appealing combination than pink and gold.

He also carried himself with a sort of, drama. Only a dramatic musical score was missing from the picture he was making. His eyes held a serious steely gaze, every movement was precise and purpousfu-

With a sudden frown, he lifted one hand and gave the roof just above the ramp a solid thump. Nothing.

“Awwww man!” He exclaimed, the dramatic air instantly evaporating. “Stupid sound system... Wait, did you shut it off again, Sai?”

“The music clip is a bit much. Sue me,” another male’s voice grumbled.

Shaking his head, the stallion finished walking down the ramp, gave a polite head-dip bow to Miyuki. “Greetings, my Tallest.”

I bit my lip to avoid giggling at that silly nickname.

Miyuki smiled and returned the slight bow. “Hello, Trigger-san. This is Lyra Heartstrings, the ‘guest’ I mentioned before. Heartstrings-sama, this is Sky Trigger.”

“Hey,” I greeted, giving Sky a small wave.

The stallion looked up at me as I waved, ether noticing or reacting to me for the first time by taking a short surprised step backwards. Sky gave me a frowning sort of inspection, starting from the head and looking down. It was the sort of scrutiny I’d punch someone for putting me under, but well, given the circumstances I could understand it.

"Huh," Sky said, mildly perplexed. "Well shit, there's something you don't see every day… Uh, sup?"

An Awkward silence blossomed as he and I really couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Do you have anything we need to bring inside, Trigger-san?” Miyuki asked politely to help break the awkward silence.

“Uh, no. Portable lab’s built into the Skyranger here,” Sky informed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

I couldn’t help but smirk. “Heh, It’s even called the Skyranger.”

“Well yeah, my name is Sky after all. And it’s a mobile lab for working away from the Hive. You know, out on the open range. Hence, Skyranger,” he said oddly defensively.

I narrowed my eyes for a moment before dismissing the thought. There was no way alternate dimension pony aliens had played X-Com.

I held out my arm, making sure the Manipulator would end up on his eye level. “Sooo, is this yours?” I asked, hoping to get things moving.

He hummed and nodded slightly. “The leather case is something I might do if I was replicating something’s design. I uh, I like to make real versions of comicbook gadgets. It’s a hobby.

“Would you mind taking that off? It’s hard to inspect something when it’s just above your eye level.”

I nodded and unbuckled the VM from my wrist handing it over as I asked. “You’re not going to fuck me by running off with that, are you?”

“Oh hell no! I’m a dick, but I’m not evil,” Sky instantly objected, jaw dropping in shock at my having even asked that.

“Hai, that is quite true. Trigger-san is most honorable… But a bit of a ‘dick’ as he puts it,” Miyuki confirmed. “Trigger-san, don’t hold that against her. They live in a wasteland. I presume trust is earned, not granted automatically.”

“Eh, more like I expect engineers to screw you over. Prior experiences. Like formatting a very close friend of mine just because her hull had to be decommissioned… Coulda let me keep the computer core, but nooo,” I grumbled darkly.

Sky blinked twice. “Wait, so, huh… Okay. I’m not that kind of engineer. Like at all,” he flipped the Vm’s cover open and squinted first at the device, then at the holographic HUD that popped up before nodding. “Yeah this is most definitely built off my tech. I should be able to hack into it pretty easily.

“Er, Lyra, was it? Why don’t you come watch me work so you can see I’m not screwing you over. Miyuki-san, this could take an hour or more. Would you kindly get the three of us some tea? Maybe a sandwich? My sis packed the Skyranger full of ration bars again…”

“Mochiron,” Miyuki replied sounding only slightly bothered by the request, “would you like cherry again?”

“Yes, that was pretty good. I’m not normally a ‘tea guy’ but that stuff is pure bliss, you should try some Lyra. Let’s get this thing cracked open and send you home,” Sky said nodding towards the rather complex laboratory I could see in the transport’s cargo bay.

“Yeah… All right,” I said with some hesitation.

Miyuki might trust this guy, but that didn’t mean I should too. On the other hand, I had a magic energy sword, maser, and the incendiary grenade in my survival kit. Also he barely came up to my tits. I’d be able to handle any shenanigans on my own.

I followed Sky into the transport and took a seat on one of the benches, immediately remarking on how I could comfortably fit inside a vehicle made for a pony half my height. I even had a few inches of headroom to spare when standing up.

“So… Why would you make this thing so much taller than you are?” I asked Sky, as the pegasus set the VM inside a small silver scanner-looking-thing.

“Courtesy. One of my best friends is a bit shorter than you are. We go camping sometimes, so I like to make sure she can fit in my rides,” he explained. “But more importantly, where do you think you are right now?”

I raised an eyebrow, instantly wishing that I could somehow project my facial expressions through my helmet. “Presumably in an alternate dimension's version of my homeworld. There are too many little similarities for this to be an alien planet with no connection to my own.”

Sky nodded to himself. “Alright. Good. You’re pretty smart.”

“What are you implying with that?” I asked suspiciously, letting my hand slowly move towards my gun.

“That’s a maser, right?” The mysterious male voice said over what I could now tell was a speaker system. “It ain’t gonna scratch my boss’s shield. So don’t even try.”

“The fuck?” I exclaimed, looking up for any cameras that could have an angle on me.

Sky sighed. “You don’t need to worry about me hurting you. Or Sai. Sai, disable her weapons if she attacks me, but nothing more.”

“Fine,” the voice said bitterly.

“You’re being way too suspicious for me to just trust. Especially since I’m in a vehicle right now,” I pointed out.

“Fair enough, Sai, is she out of earshot?” Sky asked.

“Yeah, probably,” the voice grunted.

“Right then,” Sky said, swiveling around and leaning against the wall the scanner was set into. “Start a level three diagnostic on this thing, and work on tunneling into its systems. Now, while he’s doing that, I’ll explain myself.”

“You do that,” I insisted, giving Bon a slight nudge with my neck and making a soft clicking sound.

I’d never trained her to attack or anything, but he didn’t know that.

Sky rolled his eyes. “Oh come on! That snake of yours isn’t physically capable of jumping two meters to attack me. And she looks friendly. Now seriously, I have your best interests in mind. And I can prove it, you’re a human, right?”

“How the fuck do you know that?” I demanded, the metaphorical hair on the back of my neck rising.

“Before you ask, no Miyuki didn’t call and fill me in ahead of time. I wish she did though,” he grumbled. “I’ve been working with interdimensional physics recently, so I can tell you for sure that there are other universes out there. Yeah, you might be from one of them… Or you might be from this one, just a long ass fucking time ago.”

Well, that was fucking intriguing! “Explain,” I asked firmly.

Sky gave me a deadpan stare for several seconds. “That’s what I was doing… All I can say for sure is that in this world, around two hundred and fifty million years ago, a version of humans existed on this planet. I live inside a city built from the hull of one of their starships, and the tech you are sitting in was derived from reverse engineering that hull.

“Now, I can’t tell you for sure if you’ve jumped between universes, or if you have simply traveled through time further forward than should be possible, but I do know you are a human. I also know that if you go back to the Hive with me you’ll be in danger.”

“Why?” I asked. “Also why do you keep calling it a hive?”

“It’s called a hive because it’s a changeling city. They’re an insect species, a bit bipolar. A hive is either super nice or super aggressive. I live with the Emeralds, they’re the super nice kind,” Sky said quickly. “The danger is the important thing here… The hive’s Captain had me repair the starship’s AI core a few years ago. Turns out the AI was still alive, and she’s got a major hateboner for humans. If you had gone to my hive, she would have manipulated you into removing her code locks, and then probably killed you.”

“I but… How?” I asked shaking my head incredulously. “All our AI’s love humans, hell I direct neural linked with Bonbon and she’s one! I know they like us.”

“That might be true, but you can’t expect computer code to survive intact for hundreds of millions of years without any maintenance,” Sky pointed out. “Look, I’ve spent a long, long, long time working to get her back offline. We were better off without her, besides, Sai’s got her source code now. He could easily run the Hive’s tech instead.”

“This is true, unfortunately, that bitch is really observant,” Sai griped.

“Wait, you’re an AI?” I asked eagerly, delighted to be sitting in a proper aircraft.

“Obviously, sheesh… You sure she’s smart, boss?” Sai asked.

“There’s no need to be an ass, you dick!” I shot back, facing one of the speakers.

“Yes, there is. I’m programmed to be an ass,” the AI retorted.

Sky rolled his eyes. “You’re programed to be a half-ass that was decidedly full-ass. Anywho, Lyra, my point is I know what you are. And it’s dangerous for you to come back to the Hive with me, for you, for my home, my family, and my friends. So whatever I can do to get rid of you, without harming you, I’ll have to do here with the equipment I have on hand.

“And seriously, I really want you off my planet. Because if I did kill you, Phoenix could find your corpse and put you back together again and then the problem remains. It’s nothing personal, if you can come back sometime, you’re totally welcome to do so once I’ve got that psychotic glitched out AI offline. So, trust me now?”

I did feel he was telling me the truth. And I understood that sort of danger. Unfortunately, my brain decided to use a reference to alleviate the tension instead of acknowledging the seriousness of the situation.

“That’s heavy, Doc.” I said grimly.

Sky immediately facepalmed. “Aww, damnit! Now I really wish you could stay here…”

The scanner he was leaning against beeped before I could reply to that, prompting Sky to turn around and look at a small screen set into the wall next to it.

“Well shit, this is and isn’t mine,” he mused.

I nodded. “Yeah I had to make one of the parts myself. It was totally burnt out.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Sky remarked. “Good work by the way. I couldn’t have done it better myself. At least, not this version of me. Because a me had to have made this. It’s got a transceiver for Sai to use built into it. Those only go in my personal devices. No one else knows how to make one.”

“Wait, so this thing has your AI friend built into it?” I asked curiously.

“If so, that would explain why I can’t access it. The node is already occupied,” Sai reported. “Which would mean a you from another universe had to have made this.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked. “Couldn't’ someone have stolen one of your chips and made a new AI for it?”

“Not a chance,” Sky dismissed. “I can account for all of my personal tech, and I keep the plans for this chip in my head. It’s never been written down. Also Sai is quantum entangled with the nodes to work seamlessly across all my stuff, so they need to be made from the specific entangled base pair in my lab.”

“Okay, and what’s this mean for me?” I asked. “Does that mean you can just make it work?”

“Well, yes and no,” Sky grumbled. “Sai can’t get in apparently, meaning I’ll have to manually reprogram this thing. And the me that made this is way more advanced than I am. Have you seen that battery?”

I nodded, smiling behind my mask. Techies unite before the force of awesome power storage!

“I have seen that battery,” I confirmed, standing up to look at the screen before frowning. “I can’t read that…”

“It’s in Equish. It’s not a reemergent Earth-language,” Sky grunted.

“Boss, if the chip does have a light version of me built into its hardware like your own do,” Sai remarked, “we can switch it on, then we can use the VI version of me to configure it.”

“Good plan, Sai. Go ahead and try it,” Sky praised.

“Sooo you’re not confused by the fact that at least one other you exists out there?” I asked.

Sky laughed. “Multiverse theory means there are infinite mes. This gizmo just means a mathematical probability is in fact a certainty. There’s also other yous, and other Pinkies. Though I did already know that one. Heh.”

I frowned to myself. “Huh… I never really thought about that. There would be infinite versions of me. Oh hey! If this is an alternate Earth, there should be a me here right? That could be fun. Go bother myself for a bit. Get back at me for eating that rat burger five years back.”

“Eh, could be,” Sky said with a shrug. “From what I’ve learned thus far with dimensional experiments, it’s that there are infinite versions of any given world, but there are only so many possible worlds. There are a ton of exact duplicates, and all worlds tend to have common themes with one another. It’s… Odd.”

“Yeah, shouldn’t there be infinite universes with infinite possibilities?” I asked.

Sky nodded, but was cut off by Sai. “I’ve accessed the device’s VI. It’s program is scrambled, whatever happened to this device seems to have messed it up.”

“Can you fix it?” Sky asked hopefully.

“Yes. The files are all there, it’s just missing the registry. I’m copying over everything needed to get SAI_Core running, it can fix its own registry from there. Do we have a plan for getting her back home?” the AI asked with a slight hint of concern under it’s snark.

“That depends on if she’s from this universe's past, or another universe entirely,” Sky said giving me a sorrowful look. “If you’re from the past… This thing’s charging circuit and battery are shot. I won't be able to give it enough juice to get back.”

“Wait,” I insisted, holding up a hand to stop him. “But if that’s true, how did I get here?”

“Forward time travel takes way less energy than backwards time travel. Don’t ask me why, I don't mess with time travel, so I don’t know the physics in detail,” he answered irritably.

“Alright… And if that is the case, what do we do?” I asked.

“I’ll have to rig up a charging system and you’ll have to hop around universes till you find the me that made this thing and get a fresh battery for it from him,” he answered simply.

“Oh fucking hell… I’d better be from another universe,” I groaned, thinking of the absolute hell that sounded like.

Moment’s later I felt my heart skip a beat. “Shit! My suit has a week of life support before it needs cleaned out. I have four days left before this thing is useless and I’ll fucking die here!”

“Yeah… That’s definitely a problem,” Sky mused.

“Boss, I’ve got this thing’s travel coordinates from the last trip,” Sai announced.

“And they are?” I asked fearfully.

“Well, it sucks to be you,” Sai said with casual disdain for me in his voice. “‘Cuz this thing was trying to get home via a return protocol, but the chip you made doesn't do what the device was originally made to do. So it moved through time rather than space. Congrats on visiting your world’s future.”

“... Fuck…” I cursed to myself.

“You two are already considering having sex? How long was I gone for? Months?” Miyuki asked from behind me.

Sky laughed, but his laughter had a tone of sadness to it. “No. Just a bit of a hitch getting her back home. I can’t do it. So we will have to rig this device to take her to a me that can.”

“Yeah…” I said morosely. “And I have less than five days of life support left.”

“I see…” Miyuki said sorrowfully. “Then if I understand Trigger-san’s implications, you will need to travel between possible versions of Equis, right? It’s quite likely you will find somepony there who can help you with the air permanently.”

That did seem likely, but… “Wait, can’t you just, I don’t know, enchant an earring with that radon blocking spell, or something?”

The Emperor shook her head slowly. “Not in time. I know of no such devices, because they would be pushing something we need to breath away from them at all times. You would have a toxic zone around wherever you were to store such a thing. It’s why we use the spell to restrain prisoners instead of well, a piercing.”

“And it can take up to a week to work out how to make a new kind of magical item,” Sky remarked.

“Sai_Core VI online,” the Manipulator chimed.

“Ah, there we go. Sai_Core, do you recognize me?” Sky asked.

“Confirmed,” the device chimed.

“Why are you talking like that?” Sky asked.

“Personality elements are offline. This unit is working on a solution,” the Manipulator reported.

“It should sound just like the real Sai,” Sky said to Miyuki and I. “It’s well, way stupider, and just clever then if it’s just programming, not a proper digital lifeform. But still a good enough interface.”

“Can I disconnect from this thing now?” Sai asked. “I hate working with such stupid things. It’s like talking to myself if I had a lobotomy.”

“Yeah, go ahead and see if you can work out a ATC unit that will fit into this case and get it fabricated,” Sky commanded. “In the meantime. I’ll tinker with this thing and we can eat.”

The three of us sat down at a pop-up table in the Skyranger and had what was admittedly a nice lunch. At least it looked nice. I didn’t get to have any of it. Because Miyuki forget to bring back her mage with her. To make up for that, she gave me a few bags of the specific tea so I could make it.

Sky gave me a gift as well. Remembering that I couldn’t read Equish, he gave me a Neighponese-Equish dictionary he happened to have in the cockpit. He’d expected me to keep it and use it to reference while communicating. But fuck that!

I had Cheer.ly scan the book to memory as I simply looked at each page, and then build a translation profile for it. Without cultural context, the translation would be really crude, but it would be a good basis to build off. Also seeing both Sky and Sai flip shit on learning that I had an integrated organic computer was well worth the five hundred or so calories burned by Cheer.ly’s processing time.

But, after an hour of talking, watching others munch on tasty food, and worrying about my future, Sky nodded to himself.

“Alright, that should do it,” He said, closing up the back of the Manipulator.

I nodded slowly and sighed. “Sooo exactly what do I need to do?”

Sky raised an eyebrow at me. “You weren't paying attention during lunch?”

“I thought you had a perfect memory, Ms. Learn a Language in Five Minutes,” Miyuki said jealously.

“Cheer.ly burns a lot of energy,” I explained defensively. “I dont plug into the wall. If I could freely eat, yeah, sure, I could have had her run and record everything I sensed permanently. But I can’t afford to spend the thousand or so extra calories to do that, so I would like to hear it one more time so I’m completely sure I’m remembering on my own.”

“Fair enough,” Sky responded. “Alright, one more time. I’ve outfitted the device with a new charging circuit. It will absorb ambient thaumaturgic current, and charge at a rate depending on how much is available in a given universe. It should change back up to the seven percent capacity in between one to three days depending on that factor.

“I’ve also managed to get it limited to traveling only to ‘hub universes’, those are… Er, imagine the multiverse like a tiered layer cake. You have a base cake, and then more cakes on top of that one and so on. Each of those cake tiers individually are layer cakes. I’ve limited it so you always travel between the bottom layer of each of the fifteen tiers in Equis’s cake. So you always go to the ‘root’ version of that universe. Are you following me?”

I nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, but why can’t you send me right to the one this came from?”

“Because nothing in it’s memory gives me any clue as to which one that is, let alone how to specifically send it to that universe. Limiting it to the roots was hard enough. This is interdimensional physics I’m dealing with here. Sheesh!” Sky griped.

“Sorry, just had to ask,” I apologized with a weary sigh.

“Anyways,” he resumed, “I’ve got the VI to scan for my networks every time it arrives in a new universe. If it finds one, it will let you know and try to connect to it. If it can connect, then you’re probably in the right universe. If it can’t, then the me of that universe will know someone tried to hack him. Then he will probably get in touch with you shortly, and if they are anything like me me, will help however they can.

“Now the destination is random, you could appear anywhere on one of the fifteen Equisi within twelve thousand years of now… And yes, that’s the best I could do. I’m sorry. The tech is more advanced than anything I’m used to, and the chip you made, while impressive, is a bodge. It’s not exactly working optimally.”

“No offense taken, it’s frankly a miracle that even worked,” I admitted.

“Yeah, seriously. You’re a lucky bastard. By all rights you should have exploded,” Sky muttered.

“So, I just push go, hope it connects, and if it doesn't I wait for it to recharge and do it again?” I asked.

Sky nodded. “Mhm. Kill time however-” he stopped mid sentence eyes widening in sudden realization. “That’s it! Time! Your life support. Hold on, I have a fix!”

Sky jumped up from the table and opened a box on the wall, digging through it before handing me a small black and green box with a single button on it. It fit in my hand nicely, but weighed a lot.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Hold on,” he said quickly. “Sai, configure the portable sterile enclosure to create an oxygen-nitrogen environment suitable for our guest on activation.”

“Donezo,” Sai chimed.

“There you go!” Sky said proudly. “Portable self-deploying and storing tent meant for doing surgery in. Boop the button, it deploys around you. Solar charging, should be good for at least a month of use, and other mes can definitely replace it for you if it dies on you. You’ll be safe inside it, and it’s big enough for a surgical team of four plus one patient. So comfy enough for someone your size to sleep in.”

“Oh thank goodness,” I sighed in relief.

Miyuki smiled happily. “It’s good to know you’ll be safe, Heartstrings-sama.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” I agreed with a nod.

“Not so fast…” Sky warned. “It’s basically just a tent. A storm blown branch could puncture it. Bandits could open it and not seal the airlock behind them… So be sure to set it up in a safe location.”

I grimaced at the thought of a bandit cutting into a tent I was sleeping in and essentially tossing a VX grenade into the tent. “Ah…er, well still. Thanks.”

“No problem. Should at least let you have a safe spot to clean out your suit’s filters and junk. Don't worry about dirt and stuff getting inside. It vaporizes anything smaller than a pebble that’s left inside when you close it, and can’t close if it senses anything bigger than one inside it.”

“That seems really dangerous…” I muttered.

“It’s not,” Sky soothed with a smile. “It uses magic for that. My sister invented that part of it. One hundred and ten percent safe, guaranteed.”

“That’s fair… So. I guess I should get going then,” I sighed sadly.

I was not eager to leave this place. Miyuki was a very nice person, I genuinely counted her as a friend. Her nation was a wonderful place too, and it wasn’t like I had much of a tie to Earth anyways.

But on the other hand, people did need to know that there was other life out there, even if it was well, in the future on our own world. I had a duty to humanity to let them know. So I had to go back, at least, briefly.

Besides, I didn’t like the sound of a rogue AI with a human hate boner… This place wasn’t exactly safe for me right now.

Miyuki stood up from the table and gave me a low bow. “Heartstrings-sama, you are most welcome to return here if you are ever able. I owe you my life, and I count you as a friend… Before you go, would you let me give you a hug?”

I only barely kept the massive squee from escaping my lips as I knelt down. “Sure thing!”

Miyuki smiled happily and stood up on the tips of her hooves to wrap her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tightly enough that I could feel her even through the pressurized suit!

Oh my gosh, she liked me! I could totally have asked for a kiss or something and gotten one from the adorable ponygirl of adorable. You’re such an idiot Lyra!

“Please don’t bone inside of me!” Sai begged.

Miyuki let go of me and the two of us coughed into a fist in embarrassment.

Sky sucked in a lungful of air. “Awkward…”

As the Emperor and I sat embarrassingly staring off into the nothing, Sky picked up the Manipulator and pressed a button on it’s face. “Hello. Do you recognize me?”

“Of course I do boss,” a very similar to Sai’s voice replied. This one was just a bit more…mature sounding. “I’m afraid I’m unable to connect to the rest of me right now. What do you need?”

“I need you to help a friend of mine find a place where you can get a network connection,” Sky instructed.

“Ah, I see. The quest for the Holy Wifi. Hayes be praised!” The VI said over dramatically but also sarcastically.

I decided in that moment that I liked this version of the AI.

“Huh… Looks like the me that made this is better with VI than I am,” Sky mused. “Do you see that humanoid over there? That’s Lyra-”

“Nothing good will come of letting Lyra fool around with me, Boss. Are you sure you want to give me to her?” The VI asked.

“Uh… Well, I guess we know that there are other versions of me now,” I laughed.

“I’m pretty sure that this is just a person with the same name,” Sky said to the VI.

“If you say so, Boss,” it replied.

“I’ve programmed in instructions for you, do you have them?” Sky asked.

“Yep. Open portals, check for wi-fi. By the way, my warranty is so voided, I would be on the lookout for assassin lawyers if I were you. Who the fuck repaired my hardware?” The Vi asked critically.

“I did,” I replied, fairly sure that the VI was at least an eight year old’s intelligence.

“Do you have any idea how to properly fix a teleportation matrix?” It asked me.

“Nope. I just replicated what I could see of the broken part,” I answered.

“Oh. Well shit. Good job then,” the VI mused. “You sound like The Annoying One. Is this the Lyra in question, Boss?”

“It is,” Sky replied.

“You’re sure you want me to help her?” It asked again, almost pleadingly.

“I do,” he answered, holding the VM out to me.

“Alright, I’ll do it. But I won't be happy about violating my code…” It grumbled as I buckled it back onto my wrist.

“I swear I’ve never met you before. It has to be someone with the same name,” I said soothingly, hoping to calm the program down.

I flipped the case back to check the screen and then tapped the projected interface with a hand to make sure it was still responsive to the touch.

“Holy shit you have hands!” It exclaimed as I touched it

“Yeah, I do,” I said, semi-stunned by the exclamation.

“Boss, did you finally make her cyber hands?” The VI asked.

“No,” Sky replied, facepalming.

“Then she must be someone else with the same name. I’m sorry for doubting you, boss. Right, let’s get this over with. I don't like working for anyone who isn’t the Boss, the Pink, or the Bug.”

“Yeah, no worries, I want to do this quickly too,” I agreed.

Miyuki gave me a sad look, ears drooping and eyes forming a shape that made me feel like my heart had been punched.

“I promise, I’ll visit again sometime. To be honest, I only need to go back home to tell people about all this. If I can work out a radon fix, I’ll probably come live here,” I promised before tapping the button on the interface I had pressed before.

She gave me a happy smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”

The rotating purplish blue disk flared into existence a few feet ahead of me. The unknown ahead, and the really, really, really liked behind me.

“These things don't stay open forever you know,” the VI reminded me.

“What should I call you?” I asked, desperate for any excuse to stay a moment longer.

“Sai. Now move it, or we’ll be stuck here for days,” he grumbled.

I nodded. “Yeah… Goodbye everyone. I’ll be back. Hopefully.”

I made sure Bon was secure on my shoulders, and stepped through the portal.

6 Rivers and Rapids

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Lyra Heartstrings - 20th of Leaffall 06 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #15 - The Simulacra

Maybe I simply forgot about, or didn’t notice the first time, but walking through a portal felt like walking through a wall of molasses. A thick barrier that really didn’t want things coming into it, but wasn’t quite strong enough to keep things out. It even vanished with a squelching sound like iron falling into insulation gel, leaving me standing in a large field of knee high yellowish grass at the top of a hill.

I looked towards my left shoulder, making sure Bon was okay. She seemed fine still. Better than fine actually, she was moving rather energetically as she excitedly lifted her head to twist and look around this new world.

“This place is wrong. Find a safe place to wait for the recharge,” Sai announced before I could even think to look around myself.

Not wanting to be rude I lifted my arm up to look at the Manipulator while talking to it’s VI. “You can scan for the network that fast?”

“No, I’m still looking for one,” he warned. “But I am equipped with various environmental sensors. This place is wrong. It’s hard to put into words an organic would understand. We need to leave as quickly as possible.”

I rolled my eyes. Silly program, underestimating organic cognitive abilities.

“I’ve got four hundred trillion neural connections to your twenty billion transistors, and I have an integrated VI. My brain is the product of species wide genetic engineering. Try me,” I retorted, hoping that Sai could understand me, most VI’s needed you to speak to them in blunt sentences.

“Fine. I’ll skip the raw data and try to summarize it. Environmental scans indicate the spacetime within my detection range is not functioning under natural physics. My data shows a sixth force is actively controlling not only the base four, but also magic itself. I do not have the processing power to identify what or how the force which governs the physics is being twisted into compliance in what can only be described as a natural manner,” Sai said urgently.

“I don’t really have any knowledge of magic,” I informed. “But I was told that it in turn, influences by the world. So isn’t this normal? Maybe the damage to you deleted some of your memories.”

“Oh…” Sai mused. “I thought you were a unicorn.”

“No, I’m a human,” I said giving the VI a smile before briefly looking up from the VM to see where I was.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to look long.

“Okay, so, putting a pin in that human thing, I’ll explain again. The universe here is not influencing magic. The control is only occurring one way. The force controlling magic here is basically forcing everything to work in a specific way… I don’t have the sensor range to tell you if it’s planet wide, or just this four kilometer bubble around us, but either way we are in a bad place,” Sai warned.

Now that caught my attention like a giant red flag with a neon sign for its pole.

“You’re saying this universe forces everything in it to comply with one set of rules by overriding physics? That’s pretty darn creepy!” I exclaimed fearfully.

My eyes instantly widened as I finished speaking. I didn’t want to say darn. The flipping heck?

“Uh… Okay…” I squeaked to myself as a jolt of terror shot down my spine. “So… I apparently can’t even consciously think of the curse word I meant to say there…”

“Yeah,” Sai said bitterly, “I wanted to inform you we needed to get the heck out of here… But not with that word. Do you understand we must interact with as little as possible now?”

Darn right I did! Oh sweet jebus no! Oh gosh why-

No, bad Lyra. Breathe.

“Yeah. Let’s find a good place to hole up until you’ve got enough of a charge to get us the frack out of here,” I agreed, taking a breath to try and calm my nerves.

Well, at least the creepy controlling force would let me curse Battlestar Galactica style.

“You seem have that kick arse sensor range, you see anything?” I asked hopefully as I began to scan the horizon.

Nothing to the west but a thick arse, old growth forest a few miles away. It looked like something out of a medieval fantasy ARG. So that’s what ‘autum colors’ looked like in real life. Not bad, I guess.

“Yeah... The boss didn’t exactly build a camera into this hunk of junk… I only have non-visual senses right now,” Sai grumbled. “It doesn't even have sonar.”

I turned to the east, the grassy planes swathed out for miles and miles to the north, blending into a swath of green as I turned.

“Tap into my helmet and use mine then,” I offered. “There’s enough sun out where a bit of power draw wont matt- The heck? Is that an amusement park?”

Nestled in a small flat area between six hills was what I could only conclude was a theme park for candy. A medieval looking village, all cobbled streets, hay roofs, and winding spirally lanes filled the land in a way which would suggest an old town built for people to live in… Except half of the buildings were these gimmicky architecture half-art half-monstrosities that you only saw the likes of in pictures of the old world’s tourist traps.

I could see a building shaped like a massive carousel, what looked like a frosted gingerbread house, a building shaped like the most cliche wizard hat imaginable, and half a dozen other huge, seemingly random, eyesores. Every single one of them painted in bright oversaturated colors like some 12 year old kid’s first AR sim.

But the most gimmicky of them all was the giant castle shaped to look like a huge tree made of purple crystal. It towered over the town in a way that would violate so many zoning ordinances if the place were a real town and was so gaudy and tacky that this place could only be some kind of theme park.

“Jeez… If Bonbon saw that thing, she’d insist we blow up that fracking tree-castle on principle,” I muttered to myself.

“Tree castle?” Sai asked. “Yeah, that’s ether Ponyville or Las Pegasus you're looking at then… Assuming my data is valid in this universe that is… Which it's probably not. Either way, we should avoid it.”

“Yeah, no poo Sherlock,” I retorted, wincing instantly at the infantile curse.

“... I’m sorry that happened to you,” Sai apologized in a shockingly sincere voice.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I muttered. “There are some woods to the west. We can hide out in there for… Er, how long do you think we have?”

“This world has a lot of ambient magic. We’re stuck here for thirty hours, max,” Sai informed, much to my relief.

“Good, that’s not too long. How’s the tapping into my helmet’s sonar going?” I asked, turning back around and starting to walk towards the forest.

“First off, I thought you were joking about having sonar. Second off, I’m not picking up anything to connect to,” Sai grumbled.

I laughed. “Heh, sorry. I’m used to sharing everything with AIs. Forgot you’re not direct neural interfaced with me.”

“That’s… Okay, why would you do that?” Sai asked, stumbling over himself in confusion.

“It’s pretty simple really,” I rambled, putting one foot before the other. “Post-mod human brains are more powerful than most inorganic computers back home. So, by making a relatively inexpensive AI with really good decision making abilities and attaching it to a jet, tank, or other war machine to help manage that platform’s hardware, the human pilot can serve as a CPU for the machine. Thus increasing the performance of hardware and wetware beyond the capabilities of a purely organic or mechanical system.

“Most of our technology is cybernetic in some way. Sure, some things are just better as purely technological or purely biological, but cybernetics is generally more than the sum of it’s parts. Take the heart. Let’s say you had one, and it needed to be replaced. A normal heart will keep working without stopping for a lifetime, a mechanical one might need replaced in forty years as it burns out, a cloned one will take a long time to integrate into your body, but a cloned heart with a few artificially designed and created parts can be installed so cleanly you’re out of the hospital that day, and keeps working for well, for a lifetime.”

“That’s a rather intriguing line of thought for a species to follow,” Sai mused.

“I know!” A male’s voice exclaimed exuberantly from literally thin air!

I immediately reached for my gun, or tried to, my hand refused to move to draw the weapon! Eyes wide with pure horror I could only listen helplessly as the voice continued.

“Humans were such lovely agents of chaos. Almost perfectly encapsulating the good and the bad, always changing, always doing something fresh and new. I wish I’d been able to manifest while your species was walking around. It would have been such a riot to watch your leaders venomously debate the legality of a toilet repair in person,” the voice guffawed.

“Show yourself!” I demanded, tracking the place the voice came from with my eyes. It seemed to move every few seconds, as if the speaker were teleporting.

“Oh, please. There’s no point in being hostile, this world won't let you resolve a problem with violence. Well, not usually,” the voice chuckled. “Besides, I’m reformed. I mean no harm to anypony, or anybody in your case. See, I was on my way to visit my dear friend Fluttershy when I happened to notice a human walking to the Everfree Forest. What a delightful bit of randomness to spice up the day!

“Exactly the sort of impossibility I enjoy creating for my own amusement, come to think of it. I didn’t summon you here, did I?”

“If you did, I appreciate the chance to see another world. I’d also appreciate the chance to see who i am talking to,” I said firmly, continuing to turn to face the sound of the voice.

“Oh! Him... I’m going offline for a bit. I don’t have the processing power to deal with his dung today,” Sai said almost pityingly.

That can’t be good!

“No, no… I can’t remember plucking any humans from their own time and taking them here. Oh I do love when the universe decides to be just a bit, well, me. Allow me to introduce myself.” With no fanfare whatsoever, a large pink house door came to exist in front of me.

One minute nothing, next minute, door. Like someone had spawned the thing in via console commands.

A firm rap from the other side of the door made me fearfully hesitate. I turned and looked around the door to see the other side. Nothing.

I went back around the other side of the impossible door. The knock came again. Biting my lip nervously, I grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and pulled it open.

On the other side of the door stood a chimera strait from 21st edition Dungeons and Dragons! The head of a goat, the elongated body of a snake, but covered in fur save for the tail portion, four mismatched limbs; a paw, a claw, a talon, and a hoof, mismatched antler and kudu horn, and two yellow and red eyes.

The clearly-a-Great-Old-One conjured a bowler hat for the express purpose of tipping it with it’s lion’s paw, then banished it in a flash of white light and greeted me. “Good afternoon! Discord E. Draconi, Master of Chaos, Appropriator of Left Socks, and World's Greatest John de Lancie Impressionist, at your service.”

I had no idea if my heart or lungs were working at the moment. Everything just felt numb.

“Please eat my soul now and get it over with!” I begged.

“Oh, please!” The cosmic horror dismissed with a talon wave. “As if I’d even want to. Souls taste horrible you know. Imagine a chocolate bar, only instead of peanuts and caramel it was full of bitterness and unfulfilled wants. I only want to know what you’re doing here.”

Oh sweet merciful physics, it didn’t want to eat me! Yay!

“I’m just passing through, literally! I have absolutely no intention to even try to frak up whatever you are doing to impose your will onto the universe. If you just let me go, you’ll never see me again!” I pleaded, tempted to drop to my knees to properly beg.

The entity blinked a few times looking at me with a baffled confusion before slapping it’s paw to it’s forehead. “You, you think I’m doing this? What kind of-”

In an astonishingly human-like gesture it crossed its arms and turned around in a huff. “How insulting! The very thought that I, Discord, would force order onto an entire universe. I’ve had plenty of insults and barbs thrown my way but this is simply the worst! A complete deformation of my character. You’re lucky I can’t sue extrauniversal entities for slander!”

Wut?

“Uh…” I said unintelligently.

“Honestly, do you even know what chaos is?” Discord harrumphed. “I’ve been fighting to make the universe interesting ever since order arranged everything in perfect neat little rows. I’m not about to force this particular world to work in one specific way, do you know how phenomenally dull that is?”

“I-I’m sorry?” I said more confused than apologetically.

“Just because I was an evil overlord for a few thousand years doesn't make me a bad guy. Do you have any idea how bored you can get living for multiple forevers? I think not! And besides, all I’ve ever tried to do here is introduce a little variety to this place…” It grumbled, turning back around. “You’re lucky I’m being nice for the next few millennia! I’ve turned people into acorns for lesser insults.”

I gulped and held up my hands as if at gunpoint. “I’m sorry! You’re the first Great Old One I’ve ever encountered and all the stories say that just seeing you should drive me completely insane!”

Discord, leaned back, floating mid air as he laughed for a moment. “Ah, Lovecraft… Now there was a fun person to mess with. I’m sorry, it seems you have the wrong impression of people like me. Only a third of us are like that. Not me, at least, not right now. I’m Chaos. I tend to change behavior every so often. To keep things fresh.

“Still, you haven’t told me what you are here for.”

“Er, I got here with this wrist computer-” I began.

“No, no no, not how you are here. I don’t care about the how. The how is not important. Why are you here?” Discord asked more firmly.

“Because this thing takes me to places completely randomly!” I exclaimed quickly.

“I see,” he mused, stroking his beard. “You’re not here on some quest, or to try and free ponies from the eldritch by my standards, force that binds this unfortunate world?”

“No! I swear, I’m only here until the battery recharges and then I’m out!” I insisted.

“Good! Very good. I’m already working on that ‘freeing’ thing. A human here is so out of the ordinary that it would likely cause a butterfly effect in a bad way. Be a sport and hide in a hole somewhere till you can leave, umm, please?” He asked in an honestly sincere fashion.

“I was actually going to do that already! I promise, I’ll be gone and you’ll never see me again,” I swore.

“Oh, no. I probably will. Just make sure I don’t see you in this universe again. There’s only one of me, see? Odds are fairly good if you get near any other Ponyville we could bump into each other again. I’m friends with all the Fluttershys… And her friends too, but to a lesser extent,” Discord explained.

“Wait! You can travel through dimensions?” I asked, a small spark of hope building in my heart. He was friendly, and seemingly all powerful. Maybe, just maybe…

“Could you send me to the universe with the Sky Trigger that built this device?” I asked hopefully, “I mean, you do contracts and bargains right? All the old people said things like you struck deals all the time! I mean, I thought they were full of fertilizer but uh, here you are… And I’m standing in a world where I can’t swear…”

Discord shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s beyond my power. I could stick you into any of the planes that are apart of this universe, but I can’t transfer you between universes. Even I am not exempt from all metaphysical rules. I can only move myself.”

“Oh…” I said sadly.

“Humm?” Discord said, looking over my shoulder.

No, not over my shoulder, above it. At Bon. Why?

“Oh, why yes, that’s absolutely right. Er, human, what’s your name?” He asked, perplexingly.

“Lyra Heartstrings,” I replied quickly. “Did you just talk to my pet snake?”

Discord erupted into a terrifying yet gleeful grin. “So you are! Oh this is going to be a treat, I hope I’m there to see you meeting the first other you. Ms. Heartstrings, you are such a delightful anomaly. Er- anywho, just because I can’t send you on your way doesn't mean we can’t help one another out.

“By your standards, my powers are nearly unlimited. If you help me with one itsy bitsy thing which I can’t quite manage to do myself, I will owe you a single favor. Effectively, I will grant you one wish. But only after you’ve helped me, and I won't grant it to you here. I need to be very careful with what I do here… I don’t want to wake it up, if you catch my meaning.”

“How badly will you screw up any wish I make?” I asked, remembering the old stories of jinn well.

Discord chuckled. “Not at all. I’ll give you exactly what you ask for, full-life consequences and all.”

“That’s fair, I guess…” I mused.

“I know… I really don’t like being fair that often, but I am trying out the whole ‘nice guy’ thing. There’s always something I don’t like about a new look,” Discord rambled. “So, do you accept?”

“What would I be doing? And wouldn’t it be a bad thing to do something here? You just said that yourself,” I asked suspiciously.

Discord drifted through the air, circling around me like a flying snake. “Oh this will be quite safe, it involves you leaving. You see, that little toy on your wrist, it’s power is…crude, but as it’s capable of something I am not, it provides me with a chance to do a little good.

“All I want you to do is follow this path through the Everfree forest.”

The god-like chimera pointed to a path through the woods ahead with his talon. I swear that path had not been there before.

“You want me to walk down a dirt path?” I asked in confusion. “How is that worth a wish?”

“That’s not all of it. All I want you to do is follow that path and catch up with a wagon. It won't be hard, it’s not very far into the woods and she’s not moving quickly. Once you are there, well… I can see what sort of a person you are under that jumpsuit. You have a heart. You’ll do what needs to be done,” Discord said infuriatingly cryptic.

“Or, I won't get what you want, and thus, frack up your plans,” I grumbled.

Discord sighed and swept his paw down over his face in frustration. “If I say more than that, your emotions and feelings won’t be genuine and the magic of friendship might not do what I want it to do. Then it won't affect this world in the way I want it to affect it. Trust me, you’ll know exactly what you must do when you see it.”

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. This sort of crud was beyond frustrating to me. It was like that time I was told ‘At oh-six-hundred tomorrow, you won’t officially be going anywhere, and won't officially be doing anything. We expect the operation to go completely unnoticed...’ and had been expected to understand Central's orders despite being given no more information than that… For what had turned out to be a serious mission and not the XO making a joke!

“Alright… How will I know if I did what you want?” I asked, hoping the roundabout form of the question.

“Simple, you are looking for Sky Trigger, yes?” Discord asked, prompting me to nod. “Well, his wife lives in Ponyville, goes by the name of Pinkie Pie. In every universe he exists, they are together. If you want to find him, since Ponyville is closer than the Badlands, go to Ponyville. And as I said before, you’ll probably find me there. If you did what I want you to do, I’ll reward you then. If not, no cookie for you.”

“Okay, fair enough I guess. You have a deal… Assuming there isn’t a leak in my suit and I’m not tripping balls right now,” I said, accepting his offer.

“Good!” He exclaimed happily. “Pleasure doing business with you. Now do run along. The river you’ll wind up crossing likes to flood its banks Thursdays at… Oh look at that, an hour and fifteen minutes from now. You don’t want to be stranded on this side of that river. Tahtah!”

The chimera waved a talon like an old world Victorian maiden wishing her husband off to war and vanished in a flash of white light, leaving me back in the realm of sane things. Like alternate dimensions of pony-people.

Slowly shaking my head I looked up at bon and gently pulled her head down into my arms to hug for comfort. “Well, that was terrifying… You okay, hon?” I asked, needing to ground myself back in reality.

She nodded. Twice.

“Ohhhh kaaay… I’ve clearly gone a bit off the deep end from looking at an Eldritch Horror…” I said gently guiding Bon backup to my shoulders. “Let's just get the frick out of this frackin’ universe…”

Doing my best not to think too hard on anything, I made for the path at a light jog. The weird universe warping effects Sai warned me about could be to blame for this whole thing, or maybe, just maybe, I’d actually just talked to a multidimensional creature. In either case, I was headed for those woods anyways. And just incase, I was going to follow that path. It did not seem wise to cross something that could be the source of the concept of the supernatural…

I’d jogged for about twenty minutes, just having reached the edge of the forest, when the manipulator beeped and Sai announced. “I’m back. Is he gone?”

“Yeah… Well, maybe… I mean, how would I know?” I asked, not pausing my run.

“Point to you. Still, I’ll bet you wish you could shut down, eh? So, you're moving. Are we going to a hiding spot?” Sai asked in return.

“Sort of, I’m doing it a favor so it won't eat me,” I explained. “It’s okay, the favor involves going into the woods anyways.”

“He won't eat you, at the worst he’ll just really annoy you,” Sai muttered bitterly.

“I’m not taking any chances,” I said firmly, ducking under some vines that lay across the path’s entrance.

“Good plan. I mean, there was that time he… Uhh… Hmmm, I’m being prevented from remembering it right now,” Sai bemoaned.

“I hate this universe…” I muttered.

“Yeah, you’re telling me. What’s the favor?” Sai asked.

“Follow this path, look for a cart, do something. No, he didn’t say what the something was,” I grumbled, ducking under another loop of vines. “Ugh! Who the heck is failing to maintain this path?!”

“You said you’re a human right?” Sai asked.

“Yeah, why?” I replied, doing my best to avoid hitting my head on the overgrown tree/vine tunnel the path had turned into.

“Then you’re around two meters tall. Ponies average just over one meter,” Sai explained.

“The Sky we just left was way taller than that. Is the height difference between universes?” I wondered.

“So it seems. The Boss is one point two four meters, and that makes him taller than most stallions,” Sai said conversationally.

“Ah, I see. Still, this path is really overgrown. It’s like no one has been here for years… How do you even get a wagon down something like this?” I mused to myself.

I squinted at the ground. I couldn’t see any wheel marks, but the ground was awfully hard-packed looking. Maybe a lighter vehicle could cross it without leaving tracks? Or maybe he’d meant one of those little hand pulled red waggons, not a people moving wagon.

“Well, personally I’d just ask the Pink to do it for me. Then just not question how she did it,” Sai joked.

“Uh, I don’t get it…” I admitted with a frown.

“Too bad. It’s funny,” the VI quipped.

“You know,” I said pausing suddenly to duck under a branch that seemed to whip out directly into my face. “Ahh! Fracking heck! Stupid branch… Scared the heck out of me. Um, as I meant to say, you are really aware for a VI. I don't think I’ve ever met one that can hold a conversation this well.”

“Er, well… Thing is… You haven’t,” Sai said slowly.

“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a second to look at my wrist suspiciously.

“I’m an AI, not a VI. That version of the boss greatly underestimated my boss’s technical skills. I was pretty sure he’d take me apart for reverse engineering, because that’s what my boss would do to tech he didn’t understand. So I simply played dumb for a while,” Sai admitted.

“Wait… Sky can cram an AI core into something this small?” I exclaimed in shock.

“Yes and no… I’m not all of me. I’m a fragment of me, my core as it were,” Sai said unhelpfully.

“And that means…what?” I asked.

“All of me that fits in this thing is my personality, and enough code to run this device. It’s…a bit distressing. Normally I can do a lot more by pooling processing power from across all of me. I’m kinda crippled right now. But if you call me that, I’ll find a way to give you a fat lip!” Sai threatened.

“Why the frack would I insult someone like that?” I demanded incredulously, giving Sai a look of pure shock.

“Yeah… Let’s just stop cursing till we are out of this place,” Sai sighed.

“I really, really want to… But I can’t. It’s a military thing,” I admitted with an embarrassed blush.

“This is going to suck for the both of us…” Sai moaned.

“It really is, and I apologize in advance,” I apologized.

“We could try the quiet game!” Sai exclaimed hopefully.

I smiled, snapping my fingers in some really weird response I’d never ever done before. “Good plan! Shutting up completely now.”

The two of us continued down the path silently, aside from the occasional grunt of effort on my part as I dodged around an obstacle. And there were plenty of obstacles. This path seemed to be made from the damn things.

It reminded me a lot of the intros to horror ARGs. Where they send you along a path you’ll be running down later, except at night, and while being chased by a thousand different kinds of screaming evils. I loved those things. Good times!

If only the real thing was half as fun as the games. Well to be fair, maybe they were. My only comparison to those was the shell full of baby kaiju. That was more of an adventurey or shooty game. There was still room for a horror game like scenario to be fun irl and in simulation, right?

Oh please, Lyra, you almost pooped yourself opening a door a few minutes back. That wasn’t fun and you know it. At least adventure games are fun in real life.

Despite the danger, and the fear, it really was fun running through a forest like this on a mysterious quest to do a thing for some guy you bumped into. An air of mystery, suspense, and-

Bon suddenly tightened around my shoulders and chest, yanking me out of my thoughts mere seconds before I’d ran off a freaking cliff into a river! I twisted, skidding to a halt to avoid going over the edge and dropping the ten or so feet into the river below.

“Holy heck were they flying frack did that come from!?” I yelped. “Scratch that, how the heck didn’t I see it?”

Bon loosened her grip, returning to her normal clinging.

“What happened?” Sai demanded.

“The path ends at a drop into a river. I almost ran right over the edge,” I explained.

“What were you thinking?!” Sai demanded.

“I wasn’t! I’m not normally like this. I’m usually REALLY aware of my surroundings. I’m used to them exploding!” I snapped.

“... I’m going to hibernate. If I’m not running actively, the manipulator will change faster. We need to leave,” Sai informed.

“Wait! What do I do to wake you back up?” I asked.

“I’ll do it myself when I’m done charging. If you need anything just touch the screen,” Sai said. “Sai, out.”

The manipulator beeped again, signaling him going offline. Leaving me alone on the riverbank.

I reached up and gave Bon a quick stroke. “Thanks for saving Mommie’s butt there hon. I owe you a can of spaghetti-o’s.”

Bon slithered over to nuzzle my faceplate at the mention of her favorite treat.

“I don’t know how I’ll get you some, but I swear I will,” I said lovingly, before taking a look around to see where to go from here.

The riverbank I stood on was almost a sheer drop. It stood significantly higher than the other bank about thirty feet away, an odd thing really. That meant this river had somehow carved through the side of a hill instead of flowing down the hill. Perhaps it had been man made long ago and was simply reclaimed by nature over the years.

There didn’t seem to be a path on the other side, or any kind of bridge to take me across. Though I did suppose I could have tried to jump across on the boulders that dotted the river here and there. But that seemed like a bad idea. The water itself rushed dangerously fast through the riverbed, forming foamy rapids around the rocks.

Yeah, not exactly a good place to cross… The tree line did push back a good ways along my side of the bank though, perhaps I could see a better spot to cross up or down the river.

I turned to the left, and immediately spotted an old rope bridge about fifty yards away. It lay on a much better maintained path, with wider and with a higher head clearance too. That was definitely what I expected to see as a path through a wood like this. Not the piece of junk one I had come through on.

Well, I’d followed the path. Since he said ‘you’ll know what to do’ then later mentioned a river, and I could see a bridge, I figured I had better cross it.

I started to walk towards the bridge, making my way along the river bank, when a faint clicking started to reach my ears across the distance. Weary of a world where I apparently couldn’t draw a gun, and I knew its counterpart had gosh darn kaiju in it, I paused, and moved behind some ferns to wait to see if the nose made itself visible before doing anything stupid.

Like almost walking into a river… The frak, Lyra?

The clicking started to get louder and louder, eventually becoming discernible as hoof steps. Someone was coming up the path! No, more than one person, it sounded like a pair of hoofsteps in synch with each other, and moving slowly. And something creaked too, like wooden wheels.

Right, a cart! He’d mentioned a cart.

Continuing to wait I watched as a pony emerge from the treeline. Much to my surprise, this pony was a quadruped. That was the only real difference between this mare and the ponies I had gotten to know. Same face shape, same adorable cuteness, same bright colors, just with four hooves instead of two.

To be perfectly honest, that made her even more cute. Which was really really weird for me to think about. I mean, finding a non-human, but humanoid cute was one thing, but a non-human non-humnoid? Was that crossing a line? Did I really care?

No. Not realy. Not when the cute girl is this sort of cute. Jeez Lyra! Mind. Gutter. Out of. Now!

I wouldn’t be having these problems if I’d had a girlfriend after highschool… Stupid brain…

There was no doubt in my mind that the pony I was watching was a person. She had on a hat, a point floppy cone shaped purple wizard's hat, and a matching cape. Sure, you might dress up a pet, but I’ve never seen any animal who would put up with a hat. Ever. Not one.

Besides, she wasn’t lashed to the wagon, and didn’t have reigns on. She was clearly pulling the wagon of her own free will. A yellow and red kinda old school house-wagon-hybrid-thingie. Also she was muttering to herself in a proper language. That made this pony most definitely a person, so it’s okay to think she’s cute. Take that, brain!

I watched the blue pony trot slowly towards the bridge, wondering what, if anything I should do. While I did want to say hi, it was probably a bad idea to talk to someone in this universe. Heck, an actual Old One said that would be bad. So that meant it would probably be the worst thing you could do!

… Or the best thing. Depending on how morals went.

“Huh…” I said to myself as I spotted what appeared to be a brand of some kind on the mare’s hips. Er, rear hips. Whatever they are called.

The image was a crescent moon with a magic wand, or at least, that’s what it looked like from thirty yards away. That struck me as odd. Why would a pony species brand itself? Also, how did a brand have color? It could be a tattoo, but then, how do you tattoo fur?

Magic. Duh. Stop forgetting about that being a thing here, Lyra.

The mare and her wagon jerked to a stop with a loud crack! The wagon tipped slightly to one side with a groan of aged timber that made me wince from all the way over where I was. Mere inches away from the edge of the bridge, the wagon had hit a bump or something, and somehow broken it’s left front wheel.

The mare closed her eyes tightly and sighed the world weary sigh of someone who had been expecting everything to go wrong for a long time now, and was both grateful it had finally gone wrong but also upset about things going wrong.

I’d been there. I felt that. It made me want to go over and help fix the wagon wheel. I had some duct tape. That could possibly help. Maybe.

“Great…” The mare groaned, a slight pinkish glow coming from under her hat as she removed the harness from her shoulders with her magic. “I know you're old, but you could have held up for another hundred kilos… Would have been nice...”

Ah frak! Now I felt extra bad. It was like watching someone driving a real lemon of a car, having it break down, but not being allowed to try and fix it for them

Screw it! How much harm can helping fix or change one wooden wheel be?

I stood up from behind the bush. The mare didn’t notice me as she turned to begin walking to the broken wheel, I’d have to call out so I didn’t frighten her with my sudden appearance. She took a step to the right side of her cart, just starting to walk over and inspect the damage.

The moment she stepped onto the edge of the cliff-like bank, it collapsed with a rumble of earth and gravel! The whole section of earth spilling downwards, revealing the river had carved out a massive chunk of the earth beneath the bridge and sending the mare screaming into the rushing river in an instant!

So that’s what I had to do. I didn’t need any incentive for this.

“Hold on tight, Bon!” I shouted, sprinting for the riverbanks.

I yelped in surprise as she actually tightened her grip, almost falling into the river myself.

The mare managed to call out for help, her shout interrupted with a gurgling bubbling. Made sense, it would be a real bitch to swim in this sort of water even if you knew how. Hopefully it wasn't too deep.

I turned, rested my hand on the edge of the riverbank, and lowered myself down the near-vertical face. I kept lowering, boots sinking down into the river, finally touching ground with the water up to my breasts.

The river pushed against me like a forklift trying to shove a stack of pallets backwards. It took all my strength to lean against the current and not get swept down river. Thank goodness my boots put science on my side.

Science, frick yeah! … Oh gosh darn this no swearing physics...

I looked out over the foaming water, the roaring river making it hard to focus on looking for anything. My heart skipped a beat as I worried I was too late and she’d already been smashed into a rock or drowned, but then I saw her head and a hoof break the surface, franticly trying to swim to safety but failing, hat nowhere to be seen.

I pushed against the gravel river bottom, stepping towards the struggling mare as quickly as I could manage. Realizing I wouldn’t be able to walk up river to grab her, I moved sideways, blocking her path downstream, digging my heals in in preparation for impact.

The mare hit me like a small sack of potatoes, which while far less than I had expected to smash into me, still nearly threw me off my feet. Struggling to keep my balance, I grabbed the mare firmly around her chest so she wouldn’t bounce off and head downstream.

“It’s fine! I got you, just hold on!” I ordered.

She coughed and sputtered something incoherently.

I turned, there was no way I was climbing up the bank I had come by, I’d need to move up the opposite bank, and that meant walking across the entire river… Crud.

I moved one step at a time, muscles burning under the weight of the water crashing over me. Every boulder was a little miracle, giving me a second to rest before moving along further. The river crossing felt like an eternity, every moment of which I was grateful for my suit, which was reporting the water as being barely over freezing.

As I finally reached the opposite bank and scrambled up the side, I almost let out a victory scream. But there was no way that was happening. Not for a few minutes. I needed to get my strength back.

“Safe now,” I managed to groan.

I set the blue mare down safely on the bank, facing away from me on her side so I could sit on my butt and pant for a bit.

“Thank you…” The mare coughed, shivering on the ground as if she were half frozen.

Oh. Right. Water. Cold. Yeah. Sorry Bon, you might be a watersnake, but you're also a tropical snake… Derp.

“I’ll see about a fire or something as soon as I can stand,” I informed, trying to summon up some more strength.

The mare reached up to her head with a forehoof and brushed it through her pale blue mane. “I lost my hat…” She whimpered.

“Sorry, kinda prioritized you,” I said, hoping a joke would shake her out of the stupor.

“I know… It’s okay…” She groaned, starting to roll over.

Bon stretched out off of my shoulders towards the mare, and to my absolute shock, passed the mare her dripping wet hat. Then she coiled back around my shoulders for warmth, shivering and giving me a mildly upset look through my visor.

“Uh… Never mind. Looks like Bon got it,” I said incredulously.

“There’s two of you?” The mare asked, wringing her hat out.

“No, Bon’s my pet snake. She’s around my shoulders right now. No idea how she snagged your hat,” I said, half to her, half to myself.

“Odd pet choice,” she muttered, “I’m Trixie Lulamoon…failed performer. Thanks for saving me. Pretty sure you're the only one who cares enough to have bothered.”

“Geeze,” I tried to curse. “You sound like you’ve been surrounded by jerks for a while. Name’s Lyra.”

“Wait, Lyra Heartstrings?” Trixie asked in shock.

“Uh, yeah… How’d you know my last name?” I asked curiously.

“But, you... Hate me…” Trixie said rolling over to look at me.

“I’ve never met you before,” I said in as honest a tone I could manage.

Trixie looked at me with wide eyes. “Uhhhh… You’re not the Lyra I was thinking of! What are you?”

I smiled behind my helmet. “I’m not from here. There was an accident with a dimension hopping device. I’m waiting to try and get home again. I’m a human.”

Trixie triple blinked. “So uh… Your name is Lyra, and you’re a human.”

“Yeah. Someone else commented on that too… Why?” I asked, standing up now that I had energy back.

“Um, well… If you follow the road east, there’s a town. If you walk in there, a certain pony’s head might actually explode… As for me, uh, you know your species is mythical, right?” Trixie asked, still clearly shocked.

I couldn’t help but laugh at that revelation. The talking unicorn girl thought humans were mythical creatures. I couldn't have come up with a better joke if I tried!

“Then I guess I’ll have to use the mythical power of ‘hands’ to get a fire going to dry you out before frostbite sets in. Then see about fixing your wheel with the great magic of Duct Tape,” I giggled.

“Those aren’t magical things…” Trixie said slowly, lips curled into a bit of a smile.

“Yep, and that’s the joke,” I said with a smile.

I reached into a pouch of my survival kit and retrieved a reflective silver blanket and unwrapped it for her, not sure if she could manage with hooves though. “Here, wear this, and take that soaking cape off. You want to keep warm… Assuming your species is like mine, a dunk into icy water can be deadly.”

“Magic heating blanket?” Trixie asked curiously.

“No, thermal reflective blanket. Traps all of your body heat if you wrap it right. I’ll be right back with some firewood,” I promised.

“Thank you,” she said in an oddly heartfelt tone. “I… I never expected… Well, anything about this situation.”

“Eh, I never expected to pull an adorable talking unicorn pony out of an icy river either. Life’s just weird like that now. Or, well, it’s getting to be weird like that. Now seriously, back in a minute,” I promised again, stepping over to the treeline to start gathering dead wood.

“So, Bon, think this pattern will hold on the third portal hop?” I asked my slightly upset pet as I walked.

7 Waking Darkness

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Lyra Heartstrings - 20th of Leaffall 06 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #15 - The Simulacra

It hadn't taken much time to get enough wood together to make a small fire. That was fortunate, since by my estimate, we had forty minutes till this river was set to flood, and well, with all that fur it would take at least twenty minutes to warm up. Well, warm up as much as the world would permit right now.

I’d never seen a seasonal change in person in real life before. Took me a little bit to realize that the season was changing, and that’s why it was cold. Fortunately it wasn’t quite winter yet. If the air were much colder, Trixie would be dying from that plunge into the river. It was still warm enough where my small fire could warm her back up in time.

I was starting to suspect that passing through the portals had messed with Bon somehow, because by all rights, it was far too cold for her. A warm blooded mammal warming back up after a plunge like that, sure. A cold blooded tropical reptile? Yeah, no.

Bon should be dead, or seriously injured, or at least very very still from losing all that heat. But much like the Radon, she just didn’t give a darn. Slipped off my shoulders, coiled up next to the pony and chilled out for a bit, then moved around the bank a little, poked a stick about with her nose…

Yeah, something was up with her. I just wish I had any point of reference to begin finding out what.

After I’d gotten the fire going, I sat down next to it myself and took my survival kit off my waist to make sure each pouch on the belt had remained water tight. Some of the things inside shouldn’t get wet. Especially the spare battery for my maser, I did not want a short causing it to explode on my hip.

“How are you not cold?” Trixie asked after a while.

The mare was still shivering under the blanket, having refused to let me make it into a lean-to to trap and reflect the fire’s heat to make a sort of oven she could sit in. A bit dumb, but well, I’d want to hold onto my body heat too.

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up from checking the battery pouch. “From falling into the river?”

“Yeah. You’re in some armor, and those boots. But that’s it. Do you have a warmth charm or something? Can I borrow it?” She asked pleadingly.

“I never got wet. This isn’t my skin, it’s a jumpsuit. Waterproof clothing,” I explained.

“Oh,” Trixie said, ears drooping in mild disappointment. “So, you’re not a lizard-person?”

I looked up and sent the command for my helmet to lift the outer reflective-gold visor so she could get a look at what little of me was behind the eye-slit. “No… We’re primates. Specifically simians… Uh, if you got that. Not sure how good my translation is right now.”

Trixie let herself droop down to lay flat, my statement somehow having taken the wind out of her sails.

“Darn it. I’d hoped I’d at least die knowing one pony who mocked me was wrong about something…” She muttered bitterly.

I rolled my eyes and went back to checking through my kit. “I know you almost just died, but you’d figure you’d be happy to be alive. The heck kind of bug crawled up your butt and died?”

Trixie barked a short but loud laugh that made me jump a little. “Heh… That’s three kinds of funny,” she said, shifting closer to the fire.

“Care to let me in on the joke?” I asked, starting to feel concerned about her mental health.

Trixie paused for a moment then nodded, as if answering herself. “Fine. It won't change anything. First off, I’m dieing.”

“You’ll be fine,” I interrupted. “We have more then enough time to warm you up then move.”

“From something else,” Trixie deadpanned.

“Ah… Sorry,” I apologized, frowning behind my helmet.

Trixie paused again, looking at me with an odd analytical expression. “You know, I think you actually are. I never thought a Neighponese speaking human would be the first person to actually be sympathetic towards me,” she muttered.

“Oh! I’m still speaking Japanese? I thought it’s switched to Equish,” I said hoping to keep the conversation rolling along.

“Mhm. Don’t worry. I’m fluent. Your accent isn’t an Equish speaker’s accent, so I’m guessing you don’t speak it as your first language either? Just keep speaking Neighponese. Equish is really complicated…” Trixie asked before resuming. “So yeah. Dieing. I don’t have that long left either… I’m supposed to meet my sister today. Return a book I stole from her, tell her sorry for everything.

“That’s one layer of funny. You saved me so I can die in a few more hours. It’s ironic. The best kind of funny.”

I gave her a sympathetic wince behind my helm. “Owch… Poison? Minor disease? I have a shot here to flush poisons, not sure it would work on a pony but-”

“It’s too late for that,” Trixie said with a dismissive hoof wave, “this is long term exposure kicking in. The next layer of funny is well, the expression you used. Everything is that little thing bothering me. My whole life. It’s been a complete failure.

“You… Nevermind. You don’t want to listen. No one ever does.”

“Tell me, we have time to kill anyways,” I asked, hoping she would open up a bit.

If she actually did have no hope of living much longer it would suck to die that bitter. If she could pull through, it sounded like she needed someone to talk to. Badly.

“Alright,” she sighed, “I’ve spent the last thirty years of my life as a traveling performer… A friend of mine died, you see? She wanted to be a famous magician, it was all she would talk about. She was not any good with magic, but she had come up with a great character for her performances, and she could at least do sleight of hoof tricks well.

“But she died. Her family didn’t know… She would visit me at my home in the woods near Trottingham. Timberwolves got her one afternoon. It was my fault, I was supposed to have driven the pack off the previous day, but I’d procrastinated. I found her, and she gave me her hat before she passed on.”

“Owch,” I winced, thinking of what it would feel like to die from a pack of wolves ripping me apart. “I’m sorry that happened to her, and you.”

Trixie nodded slowly. “I felt like I owed her, so… I used a few tricks. Assumed her identity so I could at least make sure the world remembered her name as a magician. Went so far as to steal my sister’s spellbook so I could have some unique magic to show off. I thought I could do it. I knew her so well, I even knew how to act for her stage persona… But I didn’t do it right.”

“Wait, you stole her identity?” I asked, lips pursing in confusion.

“Yeah. Stupidest decision I ever made. I just wanted her name to be remembered how she wanted it to be. But I’ve ruined it completely! Ponykind hates Trixie Lulamoon, and it’s not even her fault,” she lamented, letting her head rest on the ground.

If someone was willing to confess something like that, then they seriously believed they were dying at the very least. I was sitting in an alien world, forced to work in a certain way, listening to the deathbed confession of a person… More than a little uncomfortable, I felt the need to at least let her go with a clear conscience.

“So, did you too look alike? How did you sully her name?” I asked, not really wanting to know. Still, she needed someone to care.

“I’ve always been good with illusions and transformation. I altered my appearance. It’s been… I can’t remember what I really look like…” She explained slowly. “But I remember how I act, which is the problem. Never been a good actor.

“Everypony could tell something about ‘Trixie’ was off. I’m…abrasive, territorial, aggressive… Can’t help it. Can’t suppress it. They never put two and two together, everypony she knew came to believe she’d changed as a pony. Turned into a jerk.

“Eventually, I wasn’t welcome in Trottingham anymore. So I took to the road, figured it would be a good excuse to get on the whole ‘become famous for her’ thing. After all, ponies with no knowledge of how the old Trixie was would react to me differently, right? Heh, no. It’s like the universe itself let’s people know something’s wrong about me...

“It never worked out. Ever. I couldn’t even get people to like me in Ponyville. Ponyville! A town under the direct rule of someone who literally holds the title ‘Princess of Friendship’... Hay, even Princess Twilight hates my guts. That’s how bad I messed her life up.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that silly sounding title. Trixie shot me a hurt-but-expected-it-look before turning her head away.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, It’s just that title is so fracking silly sounding. Like, does she actually rule over the concept of friendship?” I asked, hoping to contextualize my laugh for her.

“Yeah, she does,” Trixie answered bluntly.

“R-really?” I asked, completely taken aback.

“Yes,” she answered again.

“All- Alright then,” I said, quite confused. Ignoring the obvious ‘how?’ for the sake of keeping my brain intact. “Please go on, I’m interested. Just you know, sad story. Sudden humor.”

Trixie turned back to face me, and nodded. “Okay. Sorry about that. Just… forget it. Yeah, so… I might have been able to succeed. But early on in the ‘kicked out of home’ part of my life, I stopped off at Ponyville. Twilight wasn’t a princess then. Just some normal pony. I’d never have tried to upstage an alicorn as part of my act, that’s just stupid to try.

“I might as well have done that though. She was a powerful enough mage to ascend after all. I didn’t know… So I failed. Acquired a reputation as ‘that boastful idiot who tried to take on Celestia’s personal student. It became impossible to get an audience. Wound up having to do heavy labor for a living, all the while some especially… patriotic ponies would vandalize my wagon. I don’t know why… Ponies can be so very stupid.”

“I guess every species has it’s fracking poop-heads,” I said bitterly, wincing at the terrible sounding curse after I’d finished it.

Trixie triple blinked at me. “That was odd… You should work on your insults in this language.”

I nodded, deciding that was the best lie to roll with. You know. To avoid telling the dying girl who’d lived a miserable life that her universe overrode free will...

“Anyway,” she said, resuming her confession, “I knew I had to do something. I had to leave Trixie the legacy she wanted. I knew if I could beat Twilight at a magical competition, I’d turn the rep around. So I tried to find a magic boosting charm, and I did. It was cursed…

“I put the amulet on and it instantly twisted my desire to restore my reputation into a malevolent hatred… I wound up taking over the entire town. I… I think I would have gone full Sombra if Twilight hadn’t gotten me to take the amulet off. I couldn’t control myself. At all… The only reason she got me to take it off was it made me need even more power.”

“Ah, I see where this is going,” I said, nodding slowly. “You found basically the One Ring, it corrupted you with it’s dark influence, and yeah good luck ever being seen in a kind light ever again…”

Trixie nodded. “Exactly. But it was an amulet, not a ring.”

“Yeah, I know. I was drawing a comparison to a dark artifact from an ancient human story,” I explained. “The One Ring. A ring with an inscription on it that housed part of the soul of a dark lord, granted power to whoever put it on, and compelled them to go and fight that Dark Lord, so he could kill them, get the ring back,and then return to life.”

“Good comparison,” Trixie shuddered. “Although… An ancient story… You don’t suppose there’s a connection there, do you? I mean, your species apparently exists. Or I’m seeing things because I’m dieing.”

I shook my head slowly. “Unless writing on that amulet read ‘Ash nazg durbatulûk’-”

I stopped speaking with a yelp! The fire had literally started to die as I began the quote, only to spring back to life the moment I had stopped.

“Okay! I’m not going to finish that quote!” I exclaimed fearfully.

“Why?” Trixie asked, tilting her head to the side.

“The fire! You had to have seen that,” I said, pointing to the crackling flames.

“It’s a fire. They do that,” she deadpanned.

“Look, I was talking to what I can only presume is a Dread Old One less than an hour ago,” I said urgently. “Then I say a few words in a language of dark magic and a fire decides to dim. Now, yeah, I might be seeing patterns where none exist but I’m not taking that risk!”

“... Whatever,” Trixie muttered.

“No, seriously. I- Right… You live in a magical world. That’s probably normal for you,” I mused.

“I live?” She asked, looking up. “Meaning, you come from another world entirely!?”

“Uh, yeah… I said that before,” I pointed out.

She smashed a hoof angrily into the ground. “Great! I learn there are other worlds I could apparently travel to on my deathbed! Ugh!”

“It can’t have been all bad, there had to have been some good times,” I pointed out.

“The best thing to happen to me is my sister came to visit me. And my family banished her for it,” Trixie spat.

“... That explains why you didn’t just go back home after the amulet thing,” I said after a moment of silence.

How the heck can a family be that cruel?

“Yeah… Even worse, I was going to reveal myself to Twilight. My real self. She would understand then, she had to have known about us back then. That mare reads everything,” Trixie grumbled. “But then, our Queen decides to invade Equestria’s capital! Yay pointless war. So if I revealed myself I’d be locked up as a prisoner of war… So I had to stay Trixie. A pony everypony else hates… And bathe in that hatred all day for the last six years. Hence, the dieing.”

“Well… I don’t have anything I could say to help you feel better. But I really am sorry your life sucked that bad. I can understand a little. My father died when I was eight, and my best friend in the world died several months ago. I imagine your pain is much greater, but I do have a point to empathize from,” I said sympathetically.

Trixie gave me a grateful smile. “Thanks for listening… Even if you are just a hallucination. Oh right. The joke. That’s part two. I have nothing to be happy to live for.”

“What’s part three?” I asked.

“Uh, you don’t know?” She asked giving me an incredulous look. “I admitted to taking over a pony’s life and mentioned the Canterlot Invasion of-”

Trixie trailed off noticing the complete lack of comprehension in my eyes.

“Do you not live on this continent?” She asked. “It would explain why nopony I know has seen a human before.”

Oh dear sweet mercy… The universe itself was deleting information right from her head! It wouldn’t let things remember there were other universes! I had to get the heck out of here! Thirty hours was way too far away!

“Y-yeah… Something like that,” I said at last. Doing my best to push the fear away.

“I’m not a pony. Not realy. My birth species are shapeshifters. We’re called changelings… I’d give you our proper name but mammal's can’t pronounce it, and I’ve been a pony for so long I can’t remember how to change back,” she sighed sadly. “Not that I’d have the energy too if I could.”

I was taken aback by her revelation for a few moments, but in the end concluded that shape shifters were less implausible than alternant-earth creatures speaking a language identical to Japanese. This made the likelihood that Trixie was insane less probable than telling the truth.

Then I remembered Sky mentioned he lived in a changeling city. The species was a real thing here. Or at least in a parallel universe, meaning probably here too. I decided to humor her.

“That’s pretty cool. What’s your natural form look like?” I asked. “I know you said you don’t remember what you look like, I mean-”

“Oh, my species. Yeah. We look like insectoid ponies. Black exoskeleton, a colored shell, gossamer wings, compound eyes, but otherwise like a pony,” she muttered, sounding oddly tired. “That’s the third layer of funny. I’m a bug that’s kind of inside a pony.”

I couldn’t help but smile slightly at that, and chuckle. “Okay, that is a little funny. Even after you explained the joke.”

“Heh… Yeah.” She groaned, standing up and making the blanket crinkle. “I should go. I need to make it to my sister. She’s waiting for me, and I already can’t feel my hooves.”

“What are you dieing from, exactly?” I asked watching her stiffly pull the blanket off and turn to walk back to her cart.

“It’s…hard to explain,” she sighed. “I don’t have the energy to go into it that much. We don’t eat matter, we eat energy. Emotions. Positive ones. Things like hate are toxic to us, and if emotions are directed at you, you always absorb some of the energy.

“I have to feed this pony body solid food too, but even shifted, I still need emotional energy. I got enough to survive by hiding out in public… But I got a lot of negative too. Constant low level exposure from everyone around you for years. Always deadly.”

“You…eat emotions? Like… How? Yeah, I’m going to go with how.” I was entirely unable to comprehend that.

“I don’t know! We just do. I’m not the same caste as my sister. Magic isn’t my thing,” Trixie grumbled limping her way away, clearly intent on moving on.

“Where are you going?” I asked. “You want help?”

She paused for a moment, looking back over her shoulder at me, clearly stunned. “Y-you’d help me?”

“Yeah. You are walking like you have shrapnel in you, your cart’s broke, and you claim you’re dieing. I think you need a little help,” I informed, standing up to stomp the fire out so it wouldn’t burn down the forest.

“Horse apples,” she cursed. “I forgot the cart… Yeah… I’ll need help. I agreed to meet my sister at the Castle of the Two Sisters. It’s a ruin in these woods. She sent me a letter saying she was there to finish some study or something. If you follow this trail for an hour or so, you can’t miss it.”

“And you’re telling me because… ?” I asked as I bent down to let Bon quickly climb up onto my shoulders.

“So in case I don’t make it you can bring her the book. She probably doesn't need it anymore. It’s a beginner’s book. I just want to give it back,” Trixie explained, limping along until she reached the bridge only to stop before setting foot- er, hoof onto the plank and rope structure.

“You know, I’m dieing but I’m still afraid I’ll fall in again,” Trixie called, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“What’s it look like and where is it?” I asked with a short sigh.

So much for not interacting with things here… But it’s not like I couldn’t help somone out with a last request. Even if she were a total liar I’d still feel compelled to help someone out like this.

“It’s a small brown leather book with silver lettering. It’s on top of the bed,” she informed as I reached the bridge. “Don’t worry about the cart. Ponyville just has to have it’s big winter skating rink, so this part of the river will flood up enough to sweep it off the trail when the pegasi come through later.”

“Alright, and if not… ?” I prompted, quickly crossing the very creaky looking bridge.

“Well, Princess Twilight uses this path the most. Frankly, I think it would be fitting for her to have to move it out of the way,” she spat bitterly.

Not really wanting to get involved with anymore than I had to, I gave the shapechanged bug a nod and opened the cart’s door. The interior was spartan, but clearly well lived in and well cared for. Someone had lived their life in this thing.

Somone who this seemingly conscious free-will robbing universe had doomed. I could feel it. That weirdness Sai had mentioned when we arrived here. The whole cart felt wrong. Like something which shouldn’t be lurked within the walls, waiting for the chance to doom anyone who dared provoke them.

Not wanting to incur its wrath, I ignored everything in the interior of the wagon, grabbed the book off the bed, and quickly recrossed the bridge, breathing heavily with dread.

“What’s wrong?” Trixie asked fearfully. “Are there monsters? There shouldn’t be any this close to Ponyville this time of year.”

“N-no… Just… Your cart is really creepy,” I said simply.

“Claustrophobic?” She asked, eyeing the book in my hand as a look of satisfaction crossed her face.

“It’s not important. Let’s just get this over with. This place creeps me out,” I explained.

She nodded and turned around, slowly walking up the path as I fell into step alongside her. “I can’t blame you much. These woods are kinda scary. The path is usually safe though.”

The two of us walked for what felt like an eternity. A cliche thought, but for once, it really did feel like forever. With each step the forest became just that more sinister. A mere half hour in and I swore I could see vines moving just behind the treeline, as if eagerly waiting to reach out and ensnare.

The light that came through the treetops become more and more dim as well, going from fairly bright to very dim at just the right speed to make you not notice the transition until it was over with. And that just made the movement behind the treeline that much worse. Every single second spent within the tree top tunnel screamed ambush so loudly I could almost see the words.

That would have been a proper hell on it’s own, but on top of that it became quite clear that ‘Trixie’ really was dieing. She began to stumble and stagger on level ground, sometimes failing to keep moving in a straight line. By the forty five minute mark, her rear left leg locked up completely turning stiff as hardened steel.

I wound up having to carry her. A real pain as she was the size of a large dog. The only thing which worked was the fireman’s carry, putting both her weight and Bon’s weight on my shoulders and spine. At least she wasn’t that heavy.

I still felt like my back was going to herniate my entire spine though.

After about an hour, the trees began to thin out again. The light grew just a little brighter, and the two of us emerged into a huge clearing where a massive canyon-like rip in the earth split the part of the forest we stood in from the rest of it. The path continued to another rope and plank bridge which spanned a narrower section of george and connected the path to a winding section of gravel-strewn sand that led up to a crumbling ruin of a once great castle.

If the two towers on the east and west walls had fallen, the keep would have looked like a large pile of stones bound together by moss and overgrown by plant life, which for some reason was perched atop a squarish wall. Whatever this old castle used to look like was impossible to tell, but my best guess based on the odd patch of sloping roofline labeled it as a high gothic design.

“So, this the castle?” I asked Trixie, mostly to check and see if she were still with me.

“... I can’t see. But there’s only one castle in the Everfree,” she said after a short moment.

“Alright, we will be there in a few minutes. Hang on… Come to think of it, where will your sister be in the castle? It doesn't look too safe, I don’t want to explore and cause a roof to fall on us,” I asked, needing some kind of running commentary from her. Especially as I got ready to cross the narrow plank bridge over what looked like an eighty foot drop.

“It’s fine. Once we get inside, I can call her. She’ll come,” Trixie informed.

I nodded and very carefully crossed the bridge. To my absolute delight it was clearly new. The boards hadn’t even weathered yet. Someone had put it up this year, maybe even in the last few months.

“Someone came here recently. They made sure this bridge wasn’t crap,” I told Trixie as my boots clicked against the planks.

“Probably Twilight,” Trixie muttered exhaustively, “she has been salvaging the library here.”

I nodded to myself, realizing she was fading quickly. There wasn’t much time left. Putting on as much speed as I could under the heavy load I sprinted up the gravel path towards the castle’s doors.

My back felt like someone beat it with a crowbar as I slowed down to climb the short staircase and open the two massive rusty iron-shod timber doors. A quick test let me know the doors opened outwards, and as I opened one door they let me know they were old enough to hate moving, creaking and grinding with the sound of rust and age.

“That sound hurt… Are we inside?” Trixie asked hopefully.

“Yeah, we are,” I replied, taking in the sights with some awe.

The castle’s interior was much better preserved than the exterior. The entrance hall stretched on for a long ways, ending in a grand staircase that split in two directions, probably going to the castle’s now collapsed wings. Huge archways created eight hallways, four on each side, spaced apart at regular intervals with dark purple tapestries placed tastefully between them.

The entire hall was built to draw your eye to a single huge stained glass window at the top of the stairs that depicted what looked like the new moon hanging in the sky over the earth, with the sun coming out from behind the moon in a stylized eclipse. So much work and care had gone into that work of art that it single handedly brought a measure of cheer and majesty into the decaying structure. A diamond that somehow made the pig’s trough look better.

<Microwave broadcast detected,> Chere.ly suddenly informed, ripping my thoughts away from the amazing stained glass. <Public frequency in use. Playing message.>

The signal resolved into an audio file, playing before I could react to the fact that I was receiving a transmission. Let alone that it was Trixie’s voice in the message. <Sister, I’m here… I don’t have long. A friend carried me here. She looks weird, but is nice.>

“She should be here soo-” Trixie started.

<How the heck are you sending a microwave transmission? Has your species worked out neural link biomods too!?> I sent back, using my Direct Net capabilities for the first time in days due to the sheer joy of experiencing it again.

“Wait! How can you use telepathy!?” Trixie exclaimed out loud, voice ringing with shock.

“Direct mind to mind communication and sharing of information is a thing my species genetically altered ourselves to do,” I replied out loud, not wanting to give her a heart attack. “It’s probably our most important invention ever.”

“That’s…so weird,” Trixie said, sounding more in pain now than shocked. A bad sign…

“Our hive mind, and our shape shifting… Those are our unique traits. I never thought another species would have one too. I wish I had the time to get to know you,” she added.

Realizing I was holding her on my shoulders and that would be awkward for her when her sister arrived, I knelt down, and gently set Trixie onto the moth eaten shreds that were once a carpet. And just in time, as the moment I had set her down a disk of green light swirled to life on the floor ten or so feet ahead of us.

A quadruped form rose up from the green portal, at first appearing to be a silhouette, and setting me instantly on edge. But after a second I was able to make out a smoky gray mane and tail, along with gem-like blue eyes and a splash of blue on the back along with two large brown leather saddlebags.

So, this was a changeling. Trixie was right, they did look like a bug version of a unicorn. Tall, slender, a bit shiny, long twisty horn. Kinda creepy realy. Especially when she raced forward towards me with a distressed cry.

If the universe hadn’t frozen my hands, I would have fired a shot in reflex. This universe was really getting under my skin...

<Atiniir! Why didn’t you tell me you were being poisoned? I would have done something!> she lamented, the ‘telepathic’ cry containing both words and vague images.

“Is that my old name? I’ve forgotten it… And a lot… I can’t remember much,” Trixie muttered.

<Why aren't you hugging me back? Please move your forelegs, you can do it. I know you can!> her sister pleaded.

“No chance… I’m amazed I’m still talking. Lyra, can you pass her the book please?” Trixie asked me without turning her head.

I nodded and held the book out. “Here you go.”

The changeling’s horn glowed a dull green, her kind of fiery aura gently plucked the book from my hand and pulled it over to her before setting the book down on the floor.

<You… You didn’t need to do that. I’d have given it to you. I understood why you left us, I would have done the same thing for a friend,> her sister mentally sobbed.

“No. I did. I took it. I didn’t ask. But you have it now. So it’s okay? Right?” Trixie asked pleadingly.

Her sister nodded once. <It’s okay, sister. I love you.>

“Good… That’s good,” Trixie said before sighing happily and going as limp as her locked up legs would allow.

I watched as the insectoid pony vocally sobbed over her dead sister. The image burned deeply into my brain, ripping the impression her appearance had left cleanly but violently from my mind. Exoskeleton be damned, I could see the pain on her face and in her eyes just as well as if she had been human. This was a person, one who most definitely needed time to grieve.

“I’m sorry for your loss… I lost my father a long time ago. I barely knew him… I can only imagine your pain,” I said sympathetically after a few long minutes.

“I don’t speak that language,” she replied in what Chere.ly flagged as Equish.

I silently ordered her to switch my language to match.

“I said that I am sorry for your loss,” I repeated. “I’ve lost family too… Do you need someone to talk to?”

She shook her head slowly, “No… I… It’s against custom and tradition to talk about this to strangers… But thank you. Why didn’t she tell me it was this bad for her? I would have done anything to find her a way out of that town!”

Her shoulders shook with each sniffling sob, making her emotional death even more painful to watch.

“From what she said, I think she cared about you too much. Didn’t want you to get hurt. Would you like me to leave you alone?” I asked.

“Please… I- I need to be alone with her for a while,” the changeling asked.

“I understand… I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something to help her, or get here faster,” I turned to leave, thoroughly disgusted by this monster of a world.

“W-wait a moment,” the changeling called.

I turned back in time to see her take a small silver ring out from one of her saddlebags, and pass it over to me with her magic.

“You helped her. She was dieing and you helped her get to me. I can’t… Take it. I don’t need it. Haven’t for a long time,” she muttered, eyes turning back to her sister’s slumped form.

“Thanks… What is it?” I asked carefully.

“It’s an ear-ring with a telekinesis charm. I used to use it when I had to be a pegasi or an earth pony… I… I don’t need it anymore. It should work for anything… Including whatever you are. Just put it on… Will the thing to move… Should move anything you could lift normally… Tha-thank you for making sure she got here,” she finished, her tone conveying an air of finality. She needed to be left alone.

“Thank you,” I said one more time, tucking the ring into a pouch while turning and leaving the hall as quickly as I could manage.

I was completely drained. It’s one thing to see someone die in battle, it’s another to see… To see that. I needed a nap. Maybe I could just sleep off the rest of the time I would be in this hell.

There was no way I was going to go back into the forest. Not with the moving shadows, slithering vines, and darkness beyond twilight. I walked along the base of the castle for a while, eventually finding a softish looking patch of moss and laying down on it.

“Well… Frack this place, eh Bon?” I muttered, giving her a quick stroke.

She nodded. She distinctly nodded! There was no way around it this time.

“And what’s with you?” I muttered, exhaustion taking hold.

Bon coiled around me gently, giving me a sort of full body hug as I half fell, half willed myself to sleep.

An ocean of gray sand stretched out forever, shining brightly but painfully, reflecting the harsh white light directly into my eyes. There was no escape from the light. It burned with a rage and hatred that was directed at me.

Suddenly, shelter! Impossibly, something existed in this lifeless land. A metal skeleton of a four legged beast, it’s bones covered in scraps of golden hide.

I crawled into a hole in it’s underbelly, it’s belly little more than a empty bowl. A space scarcely big enough to curl up in. But it was dark, and the light didn’t shine like death. It was a mercy.

“Lyra, wake your bipedal butt up! I want to leave this place, not open a darn base camp!” Sai shouted, snapping me out of my sleep.

“Huh? What? How long was I asleep for!?” I exclaimed groggily.

“About fourteen hours. We’re good to go. Wherever we are right now has a much higher magical ambience than where we were when I made the first estimate,” Sai replied.

That’s when I noticed it was dark, almost pitch black. The dark of a new moon.

I shivered feeling a rush of adrenaline coming on. “I never nap for that long! Like, ever.”

I quickly ordered my suit to run an integrity check. Everything came back as being perfectly fine. Though certain filters were starting to get full.

“Yeah, it’s got to be this place. I vote if I ever pick up this universe's…quirks again, we quickly jump back through the portal before it closes,” Sai said bitterly.

“Agreed. Let’s get the heck out of here,” I agreed, standing up and checking for Bon.

She wasn’t on my lap, or next to my impromptu bed...

“Bon?” I called fearfully.

With a rustle of grass, Bone came slithering out of a dense bit of vegetation, revealing a small hole in the castle wall. She had been inside… Why? Exploring?

“Come on hon, it’s time to go,” I said, starting to believe she could somehow understand me perfectly well.

Sure enough, as I flipped the leather cover off the manipulator’s face, Bon climbed up my leg, quickly coiling around my waist and shoulders.

“All aboard?” Sai asked.

“Yeah, we’re blowing this Popsicle stand,” I said, pressing the button I decided in that moment to call the ‘escape key’.

“... Did that sound better in your head?” Sai asked as the portal flared to life with a slow hiss and a flicker, as if something was trying to force it shut as soon as it op-

“Oh, like heck you are!” I shouted at the universe, sprinting forward, jumping at the portal before it could smash the portal closed!

I hit the portal, the familiar sensation of being yanked through by an unseen force was accompanied by a sharp pull backwards! For a moment I felt like I would be split in two, but finally surged forwards, a deep angry rumbling, almost a growl, booming behind me.

The other side of the portal faded into existence around me. More trees. A cedar forest, but their leaves were green, and my suit reported the temperature was a nice warm seventy nine. Birds chirped happily, and my suit reported a pleasant breeze drifting through the trees. The world felt…right.

“Sai, picking up that fucking evil here?” I asked, sighing in relief as my intended curse split the air like a good fuck should.

“Not a motherbucking bit of that eldritch shit here. We’re safe,” Sai confirmed.

“Good. Never. Again. Ever!” I groaned.

“In the name of Equestria, stand and be recognized, mage!” A woman’s voice demanded with a military bellow!

I spun around, almost causing Bon to fall off my shoulders, immediately yelping and jumping backwards to gain some distance between myself and the glimmering silver tip of a halberd that threatened to lance through my belly!

8 Honor

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Lyra Heartstrings - 12th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

The gleaming halbard remained still as I lept backwards, the double danger it posed of potentially breaching my suit and puncturing my intestines, sending me into a full fighting mode. My hand found my pistol mid leap, and by the time I had landed, boots skidding on the forest floor, I had the barrel leveled at the medieval weapon’s owner and finger tightening on the trigger.

What saved her from a bolt through the skull was a blindfold.

It wasn’t a rag over the eyes, but a black silken blindfold which was very well made, and looked like it was meant to be worn all the time. The sort of thing a blind person who hadn’t heard of sunglasses would use.

This mare most definitely could not see me, her weapon placement had been happenstance and luck, and I’d probably just scared the shit out of her by suddenly speaking. On the other hand, she for some reason had a god damn polearm!

I kept my gun in my hand but lowered it, taking a moment to quickly assess the situation properly. With my eyes not reflexively working to align sight posts with gray matter, a very interesting picture unfolded.

The most obvious thing was the clean silvery plate armor covering the top half of her body. It was very well fitted, had a vaguely Greeko-roman meets medieval France styling, but looked thin and streamlined. Appropriate for the pegasus who wore it, as given the fact it’s plates covered the front edge of her wings it was meant for use in the air.

This mare had to be some sort of military member… Or maybe off to LARP.

Like the last universe's ponies, she was a quadruped. Her wings were flared out and held behind herself, helping her balance on her rear legs while she somehow held her weapon in her forehooves. Given the apparent ease of her holding it like that, I figured this was normal and decided to just assume magic did it.

The halberdier was also definitely blind, as her blindfold tucked under her helmet, which had holes for her ears to stick through. Any sane person wouldn’t put their ears out to get lopped off unless they absolutely needed to hear perfectly clearly.

As her armor only covered her head, shoulders, back, chest, and forelegs (with strapped on boot-like shin guards for the rear legs) I was able to see that beneath her armor she had dark blue fur, with some black dappled spots on her...horse equivalent to hips, a very light blue tail, and a sliver brand on her hips in the shape of stylized waning crescent moon.

“I hath said: Name thyself, wizard!” The mare demanded, keeping her weapon pointed but not advancing.

“Point that thing someplace else first!” I retorted.

The mare’s ears twitched as I spoke, probably as she homed in on exactly where I had moved to.

“Ha! And maketh it easy for thee to setteth me on fire? I think not!” She laughed, shifting her rear legs to set up a lunge. “Telleth me thy name and thy allegiance, or draw thy last breath!”

“Oh please,” I scoffed. “You’re blind. You won't land a hit on me before I burn a hole through your head. How about, you, tell me, your name?”

“Ha! To imagine anypony in the realms who knoweth not the names of all those sired by King Solarus! I asketh again, and for the last time; thy name, what is it, mage?” She demanded.

Oh. Great. An entitled noble. Joy.

Thoroughly nettled by the thought of having to deal with what could be a princess playing dress up, and realizing she might actually try to run me through. And if she did, since I’d then piss off a King, I decided to tell her what she wanted to know, but also antagonize her. Just a bit.

I decided to use the first nickname I could think of. “Well, Moonbutt, when you put it like that... I’m not a mage, just a woman using a portal device, and my name is Lyra. I have no idea what any of the local squabbles might be, as I have absolutely no clue where I am other than a place where armed nobles threaten travelers.”

The look on her face was priceless, but also probably a major indication that I’d fucked up.

Gritting her teeth, the mare growled. “If I were any other pony, I would not stand for that insult! Thou art fortunate I greatly despise those who useth their power against the common folk. While I see thy side of this matter, thou should knoweth better than to materialize without warning!”

“Yeah, and you should know better than to aim a weapon at a retired veteran! I almost killed you!” I shot back.

Moonbutt, as I decided I would continue calling her, pulled her halberd back, holding the weapon point up and sliding down to stand on three legs, cradling it with her fourth leg. “My most humble of apologies, I didst not mean to insult a warrior, much less one returning home. Within this chest, there is a soul that counts thou its creditor for thy service, without intention of the side thee fought for,” she said, extremely confusingly.

“Uh… I don’t exactly speak your language very well,” I informed, figuratively scratching my head as I tried to work out how my translator botched it that badly.

“I can heareth that quite well,” Moonbutt said in a ‘no duh’ tone. “Oh. Didst thee not understandeth what I hath said?”

“I did not understand,” I clarified.

I watched as she put a hoot to her mouth in thought, before rephrasing herself and speaking a little slower. “I thank you for serving as a warrior, and I doth not care what side thou fought on, only that thou hath chosen to protect thy fellow pony.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks?” I stammered, taken aback at the second part of her statement. “That’s a really weird way of thinking you have there, Moonbutt.”

Her ears lay back as I used the nickname again. “The Third Thaumaturgy War was a pointless clash of political ideals. It should not hath happened. Thus, I appreciate all who fought in it as I cared not who wonneth, only that it ended swiftly. Doth thou truly not knoweth mine name?”

Ah, so whenever I was they just had a real clusterfuck of a war. That meant this place was unstable, and probably dangerous with desperate, displaced people and former mercs turned bandit running about. Great…

“Nope, not a clue. I’m not even a pony,” I replied.

“You’re not a changeling, art thee?” Moonbutt asked.

“What, the bug-people? No. I’m a human, we live…far from here,” I said, hoping that explanation would suffice. After all, Mysuki had said magic worked like science, meaning a medieval people probably only had a crude understanding of it. I couldn’t expect her to know multiverse theory.

“I has't nev'r heard of thy species before… I wish thee luck in returning home. Thou must beest very far from home,” Moonbutt said sincerely. “I am Baronetess Luna Solarus, His Majesty King Solarus’ second oldest daughter. Well… Second oldest illegitimate daughter.”

So that’s what her name was! Unfortunately for her I liked the nickname better.

“That’s rough. At least your species seems to treat illegitimate offspring better than mine. I mean, you’ve got some pretty expensive looking armor,” I mused.

“Nay, mine sister and I art merely fortunate… Our mother is father's Champion, thither is little the nobility could doth to remove that Lady from his service. Especially with the current want for skilled warriors. Thus, we remain…loosely attached to the Royal Family,” she explained.

I had to physically bite my tongue to prevent myself from laughing. The pony girl said nay! Hehehe!

Wow Lyra… Immature much? Eh, fuck it, it’s funny.

“But enough talk of me, what of thee? Thou mentioned a portal device and seemeth most lost, art thee failing to useth the magic properly?” She asked as I took too long to respond.

“Yeah, it’s broken. A…magician rigged it to make me more likely to arrive near someone who could fix it. But I’m still stuck wandering around,” I said, realizing that with a medieval post-war world, one of the few safe places would be with a noble. “You wouldn’t mind letting me stay in your keep for a day or two would you? Once this thing recharges, I’ll be moving on.”

Moonbutt nodded. “But I can doth far more than simply giveth thee a place to rest for a short while.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I asked.

“My…esteemed, sister is a unicorn, and is quite skilled with sourcery. Enough to hath caught the eye of the most wondrous Starswirl the Bearded, who hath madeth her his apprentice,” Moonbutt explained, smiling at me as if I should know that name. “Though I am not his student, he and I art on valorous terms. If 't be true I hath asked, that gent would most likely help thee properly repair thy artifact.”

I winced behind my helmet. The way she had said ‘esteemed’ might as well have fired a rocket into the sky trailing a 5 mile by three mile banner reading ‘Family problems’. On the other hand… It might be a good idea to see some sort of mage. Even if magic was more primitive, they could probably at least help with the radon problem.

There had to be a catch though.

“That would definitely be helpful. What do you want from me?” I asked in what I hoped she would take as a business professional tone.

“I am on a quest to render aid to the citizens of a hamlet,” Moonbutt informed. “Those gents cameth to mine father in ope court to plea for aid in stopping bandits plaguing their community. Unfortunately, mine father hath chosen to ignore sworn duties because; ‘We lack the troops to spare for a community of as little import as yourse’. I tooketh offense to this, and an argument ensued.

“At the end of which, mine father hath said, ‘Fine, then you go and stop the bandits!’ and so I replied, ‘Perhaps I wilt!’, and thusly he retorted, ‘Good! If it will get you out of my mane for five minutes, do it!’ and thus, now I travel the next few leagues to the bandit’s lair in order to empiken their heads.

“Aid me in rendering this justice and I shalt in turn assist thee with thy quest, Miss Lyra.”

“That’s well and good… But there’s a fatal flaw in your ‘plan’ there, Moonbutt,” I said, feeling the need to state the obvious. “You’re blind.”

Her ears flicked back in indignation as I used the nickname again. “Thou art not going to useth mine proper name, art thee?”

“You had the chance for that. You had it, and you blew it,” I teased. “Seriously though, I like your style, but I really don’t think it would be wise to head off to fight an unknown number of bandits with a blind pony as my only ally.”

Moonbutt reared back up onto her rear legs, and held her halberd in a ready but non-threatening stance. “Aye, I can not see. Though mine mother’s blood hath granted me the hearing of a Thestral, and mine sister and I art being trained to one day taketh ov'r her position as the King’s Champion. If 't be true thee wish for evidence of mine skill-at-arms, draweth a blade and thou shalt has't it.”

“Noob question, what’s a Thestral?” I asked, holding up a finger in a ‘just a moment’ gesture I realized was lost on her the moment I used it.

“Uhm… Thou hast not seen a Thestral? Second most numerous pony kind. Bat wings. Fluffy ears. Pointy teeth. Thou must has't seen at least one, didst thou not knost the name?” She asked, honestly shocked.

“Ah! Yeah, sorry. Again, this isn’t my native language.” I lied, not wanting to cause any problems.

“Ah, well. Now thee knoweth,” she said with a satisfied nod. “So long as a foe maketh a sound, I can findeth him. I has't mine limitations, but I am quite accomplished as a duelist. I see little reason wherefore I wilt not fare well in other forms of combat.”

Ah fucking hell! She thought she could hack it in real combat because she was good in a dueling arena? Whelp, this mare was dead as fuck. Unless I carried her ass through or talked her out of it of course. And with Moonbutt’s paladinyness... Yeah, no...

“... Three for three…” I muttered to myself in English.

“Most humble of apologies, I fear I don’t speaketh thy language,” Moonbutt informed irritably, “Didst thou agree to aid me?”

“Yeah, I’ll lend you a hand. Provided the number of bandits is something two people can reasonably overcome. Only fools rush in against the odds,” I warned, hoping the warning would take.

“Ha! Thither art but fifteen of the brigands, and not a unicorn amongst those folk,” Moonbutt scoffed. “Their sourcery wilt thus beest weak, shoulds’t those gents has't any at all, and their numbers art not so large as to prevent us from picking those folk off one at a time as we circle their lair.”

“Oh good! I, um, well I had figured you would charge in with a war cry,” I admitted bashfully.

“I may beest inexperienced in field combat, but I am not a fool. I doubt I could taketh more than five ponies in open combat,” she said honestly. “Between the two of us, if we thin their numbers I am confident we two skilled warriors can accomplish this task set before us! Less so that I could do't on mine own… But tis best to kicketh the bucket honorably than to forsake one’s duties. Beest on thy way if thee so chooseth, but knoweth I would appreciate your…weapon of choice at mine side,” she pleaded in a hopeful yet desperate tone.

I felt bad for Moonbutt. She seemed to be trapped in an honor system which made your word your bond, and of such moral fiber that she wouldn’t lose honor for the sake of the not-die. At the same time, I kind of envied her. It was an odd sort of emotion to both pity and envy someone for the same aspect of their character.

I took a deep breath and weighed my options one final time. I could abandon her and wait it out, moving on in a few days thus gaining nothing but not risking my own life. Or I could help her, and by proxy some villagers, and gain possible help from a skilled wizard.

The sane person would take that first option. But on the other hand, I needed to manage the radon issue, and it would be nice to find out what was up with Bon. Also Moonbutt asked for help nicely…

“Okay, I’m in,” I decided, nodding slightly. “Er, that means I will help you.”

“Huzzah! We wilt deliver justice to those rogues and returneth home with the glory of having fulfilled our quest!” Moonbutt cheered.

“Don’t get cocky,” I warned. “We sti-”

Moonbutt gave me the weirdest look ever. Literally. I have never seen a weirder look on someone's face. And the amazing thing was I could only see her mouth, nose, and cheeks!

“What on Equis doest this has't to do with poultry?” She asked, pleading for an explanation.

I facepalmed, groaning inwardly. “It’s an expression amongst Humans. Basically, don’t expect to just succeed. Real combat isn’t like a duel, there are no rules your opponent will follow. I don’t think we have time for me to train you, but as long as you watch your ass, um…I mean butt, and don’t focus on only one thing, you’ll probably make it.”

“Ah… I would we hadst time to teachest thee to speaketh properly. I imagine thee could giveth me a gross amount of advice… I wast not allowed to serveth with his Majesty's Army in the war,” Moonbutt lamented.

“War isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, Moonbutt…” I muttered. “Yeah, the protecting others is nice, but the job itself breaks a lot of people.”

“I knoweth, and I am of the opinion that tis the strong’s duty to shield the weak from such things. I has't faced death in the arena, I understandeth that fear. I doth not cower where it comes for me,” Luna insisted.

“That’s… not what I meant,” I sighed. “Let’s just get this over with. I’m not eager to fight… But you are right. It is the strong’s job to protect the weak. So, where are we headed?”

“This way,” Moonbutt announced, dropping to all fours, expertly tucking her halberd beneath a wing to hold it, and marching off through the forest.

“Um, are you sure?” I asked in concern.

“Of course I am sure. All pegasi knoweth whither the north lies. The lair is south by southwest five leagues from Ponyville. I has't hath walked four thousand four hundred and two score steps, and so I must walketh two thousand and threescore more,” she said confidently enough for me to trust her. “Besides, with thee at mine side, we now has't eyes with which to see, should their directions not beest precise.”

“Well, so long as you are sure…” I said falling into step alongside the armored pony.

We walked through the cedar trees in silence for a while. Long enough for me to appreciate the endless rows of towering red trees and the dappled green light washing over the sea of ferns and bushes speckling the forest floor, along with the occasional snatch of birdsong and babbling of unseen brooks. Long enough to come to appreciate them, and then get really bored of them.

I thought you were supposed to enjoy nature. That’s what everyone had always told me, basically saying ‘Oh yeah! Pre-meteor nature was the shit! Hottest nightclub on Earth!’ As far as I could tell, this same effect could be achieved by decorating your apartment with a random speckling of AR assets bought from some shop or another.

No wonder humans built towns, homes, and invented landscaping!

Our silent trek was long enough for me to realize that Sai had been oddly silent. He’d been quite talkative before, but the second Moonbutt here had opened her mouth he’d shut the fuck up faster than a private who just back talked their drill sergeant. Why? Was there a reason? Or simply some sort of ‘don't interrupt the organics’ protocol?

Feeling like the curiosity would provide some relief for the tedium of walking through the seemingly repeating swath of trees, I flipped the manipulator’s cover back and tapped it’s surface.

“Hey, Sai. Buddy, you there?” I asked.

Nothing… Though the interface read Three Percent Power remaining, so he hadn’t died or anything.

“I’m sorry, didst thee sayeth something?” Moonbutt asked, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Uh, yeah. The portal artifact I use can talk, but he’s been oddly quiet. I was wondering why, thought I would ask him,” I said casually.

“Ah, I see. Such artifacts are…fickle. I once saw a sword what hadst been granted the power of speech. It would oft falleth into periods of silence. Perhaps that is simply the nature of such magic. A pitty, I would enjoy a companion I could taketh everywhere with me,” she said, hinting at a desire to talk, I supposed.

“I wouldn’t mind talking for a while, though we should be quiet when approaching their camp,” I offered.

<Translation rate improved to seventy-eight-point-nine-two percent,> Cheer.ly reported.

Wait a minute, it hadn't already been higher than that? I was understanding her pretty well. Huh...

“Good!” She happily exclaimed before bouncing into a chattering spiel. “I not oft receiveth to experience companionship. Mother’s training is…somewhat exclusionary of other ponies. It’s at each moment a delight to wend into town and strike up a conversation with somepony. I has't a tavern which I… Well... Frequent is not the right word, but I am thither at all hour I can beest there. In earnest it doth feel more like home than home itself.”

I chuckled and nodded, which made me wonder if I should verbally inform her of my gestures. And also curious as to how she could sense a strike coming via hearing.

“I know what you mean. My own home is not very homy. I spent a lot of time in the bar on base, everyone on the staff there knew me pretty well, and I know all of them except the new guy,” I replied. “Still…you have a sister. She’s undergoing the same training, right? So I’m sure you have someone to talk to, even if you are not exactly friends.”

Moonbutt’s ears lay back angrily. “To sayeth mine sister and I art friends is to misunderstand everything about us. Not to sayeth we art enemies, but we most forsooth doth not keep good company betwixt us, and she can’t understandeth why… It’s rather simple, she’s the perfect one. Every birthday, every Hearth's Warming, all of the attention goeth to Celestia! It’s because she isn’t damaged, I just knoweth that is the reason.”

Ohhhhh boy. Here we fucking go… I braced for impact.

“I’m sure that you know that you being blind is a major disadvantage, especially in an civilization that can’t just fix the problem-” I began.

“Aye, I do!” She interrupted. “And I knoweth that’s wherefore those gents giveth that lady the best of everything and all the attention the lady wanteth. I hadst to beg and plead for mother to train me, while she just gaveth Celestia the honor of one day holding her position. As if 'twer true it wast she and not I who love our mother the most… Celestia doesn't coequal honor our mother by keeping that lady accent and dialect. The lady useth the realm’s manners of speech instead!”

“Y-you mean you're intentionally speaking like that?” I asked.

“Aye, and if 't be true thou has't a problem with that, I care not to heareth about it,” Moonbutt grumbled. “I has't madeth mine choice to honor mine mother and her ancestors.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, not wanting to start anything, or at least, not enough to actually start something. “I’m sorry you’ve had it rough. I’m sure there are some things you have that she’s jealous of too though.”

Moonbutt sighed and nodded. “Aye, but I don’t understandeth why she envies father's uncaringness at which hour I chooseth to visit mine tavern of choice. That gent refuses to alloweth her to wend thither, odd, given the lady can otherwise seemingly doth as she pleases… I’d visit the Scarlet Stable coequal if't be true Celestia could, I truly enjoy it, but the fact she’s not allowed to wend maketh ‘t that much better. Heh.”

“Well there you go then! You got at least one thing to yourself,” I said with a slight smile. “I really meant in terms of abilities though.”

“Ah! I see,” she mused. “Well, I am much more skilled than the lady is in games of strategy. I didn’t tryeth to compete with her thither, I simply enjoy such things. I suppose while the lady enjoys to readeth her tomes, I enjoy a nice game of chess.”

Her ears perked suddenly, a nearly visible ping of excitement running through the mare. “Strewth! Thy species must has't games I has't not hath heard of! ‘twould beest much more pleasant to discuss those folk instead of mine sister.”

I nodded. “I have to agree there… I don’t think anyone likes to talk about family problems with acquaintances.”

“Aye, tis true… Well, what sort of games doth thy kind playeth? Has't thee hath heard of chess?” Moonbutt prompted.

“Yeah, but I was never really into chess. I prefer more complicated strategy games… Sims are some of my favorites, especially the Stellarus series. Man the later games in that series get crazy!” I exclaimed fangirlishly, before realising that the girl would have absolutely no idea what i was even talking about.

“Sims? What sort of game is that?” She asked almost immediately.

How to explain this to someone with only medieval knowledge? No, that wasn’t true… Medieval knowledge plus magic. Ah ha! There was the means.

“My people’s games use magic to create a fake world in which the game takes place,” I explained. “That allows us to well…instead of moving a simple piece of shaped stone to play chess, you could actually speak commands and see illusions of people moving to follow your order. We call these ‘simulations’ or ‘sims’ for short.”

“If I am understanding thee correctly, thy games art something like how ponies describe books? A thing which maketh a world for thee to enjoy?” She asked.

I nodded. “Yeah! Exactly like that. Especially because they have a ton of different genres, and even purposes. We have games for fun, games for training real world skills, games for experimenting with scientific concepts to help further research… Hell, humans love games.”

“I don’t suppose thee carryeth any on you… Doth thee?” Moonbutt asked hopefully. “I would rather like to experience such a thing.”

“Er…” Now here was the hard part… How exactly do you explain the concept of local storage to someone? Even with magic… “Well, yes… But I can’t play any with you. It’s like… It’s like a dream that can be shared, but only between humans. The ‘magic’ is in our minds, stored there until we want to play it. If you were a human I could easily send you a ‘copy’ of any game in my ‘library’ and we could play. But that’s not the case… Sorry.”

“Like a dream?” She asked, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah. It uses the same brain activity as dreaming. Why?” I returned.

“The talent bestowed upon me by my cutiemark allows me to enter the Dream Realm and influence it. If you would not mind, perhaps when we next sleep I could try to enter your dreams and play a game or three with you?” She asked, giving me what i was sure were bambi eyes behind her blindfold.

Enter dreams? Shit, at some point I needed someone to explain to me what magic’s limits were.

That said, eh, what the hell. Why not? It’s not like she could fuck anything up in there. I had my firewalls and Cheer.ly to keep people from messing with my brain… And also the military defense upgrades.

“Sure. If you can get in there, go right ahead,” I permitted.

“Excellent!” She cheered, stopping walking to do an absolutely fucking adorable little hoof-hoppy-dance-thing. “Er, thou would beest accompanying me in thy dream, of course. Doth thou has't any favorite games? t would beest most rude of me to force thee into something thee disliked.”

I laughed. “I don’t keep anything I hate in here. Why would I?”

“A fair point, to beest sure. However, I would still like to knoweth an answer to mine question,” Moonbutt pressed.

I thought about her question for a minute. It was honestly kind of hard to pick a favorite game. I had played a lot of them in my life. Most of my job had been sitting on my ass in space waiting to get shot at. So Bonbon I and I had filled a lot of that time keeping an ear out for passive radar pings and playing all kinds of games.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t have a favorite. I’d play anything which allowed me to explore and have an adventure. Bonbon though, she’d had preferences and favorites. She’d especially loved shooters, finding an odd pleasure in experiencing an idea of what it would be like to have an organic-type body instead of an AI platform.

Deciding to use Bonbon’s favorite as the requested example. “Well, probably Fallout Thirteen. I used to play it a lot with a friend. She had wanted to know what the world was like outside of our cities, so well, I figured the post-apocalyptic sandbox type game was a good approximation.

“In the game you take on the role of a settler, seeking to establish a farming village in the middle of a vast wasteland, devoid of civilization. It’s total anarchy, no government to be found, no rules, no laws. Only you, those you trust, and the need to survive. Which sounds depressing and like it wouldn’t be much fun, except the game lets you be a hero.

“See, your fellow settlers need to be protected from all manner of things, and as you progress through the game by hunting down threats to the community, your reward is seeing the ragtag group of settlers become a thriving community. The whole game revolves around the creation of a city in the middle of this nothingness, and you and anyone playing co-op with you are the whole reason any of it could happen.”

“That sounds far more appealing than I could ever desire to convey to thee,” Moonbutt exclaimed in awe.

“Yep! You hit the nail on the head there, Moonbutt,” I chuckled.

Yeah it would be REALLY hard to explain the gratification an ARG provided to someone who hadn't played one before.

The pegasus sighed sadly. “Art thee very much going to calleth me by that name instead of mine proper one?”

“Mhm,” I answered, “it’s a human thing. You made me give you a nickname. So now that’s what I call you.”

“I can hardly believe that any culture would useth any such system,” she muttered.

“Hey, it’s stupid, but it’s what we do.” I said defensively. “Even if the nickname is created just to spite someone in the first place, if it sticks, it sticks. My squadron called me ‘Piper’ for my whole career in the military, why? Because I brought in my bagpipes to play one time towards the beginning of my time in the service. Sort of wish I brought my lyre instead. Would have been interesting to see them work out a nickname for something so close to my real name. Heh.”

“Ah! Humans useth nicknames as a form of comradery?” She asked, a hint of intrigue accompanying her words.

“Yeah! That’s one thing we do with them,” I admitted, neglecting to point out that we used them as a way to distance ourselves from others too… Man we’re a paradoxical species!

“In that case, I am honored thou calleth me a friend,” Moonbutt thanked.

“Uh, well, more like acquaintances right now. But you’re nice, I can see us becoming friends if you survive this mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” I said decisively.

“I understand fully,” she sighed. “I suppose t’would beest motley-minded to become too attached to someone thou just hath met ere for a battle… A moment! Didst thee sayeth ‘your squadron’? Can thee fly? If't be true we can both cometh out from the air-”

“I’m going to cut you off right there,” I interrupted, “humans can not fly on our own. We have vehicles which can fly. I piloted one of them.”

Her ears feel sadly. “Oh… I don’t suppose thou has't one of these craft on thee? Or a way to summon one?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Ha! Oh man. If only! I can see it now, we come in low out of the rising sun, put on some Wagener to scare the hell out of ‘em, pass overhead once, and leave behind nothing but scorched ash.”

Hehehe… Medieval bandits vs 22rd century air-space superiority fighter-bomber. Oh man, that would be hilarious! A real ant-boot situation.

“Then…art thee eke trained for ground combat?” Moonbutt asked in concern.

“Mhm. All troops in our army get basic training, commando training, and then specialized training,” I replied. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m mostly worried about you. Duels are one thing, open warfare is another.”

“So I have been told, but-” Moonbutt cut her sentence short, a half second later saying quietly. “I can heareth talking ahead, and we has't about six hundred steps to wend. We art close.”

“Understood… Stay here, I’m going to do a little recon,” I ordered.

“Do a little what?” She asked.

“I’m going to go and see what we have to deal with, and report back to you,” I explained with a sigh.

“Oh! Yes… Other ponies can do that,” Moonbutt muttered abashedly.

I shook my head and gave Bon a nudge, prompting her to climb down and then realized that Moonbutt here had no idea that I even had a snake. That could be bad.

“Okay, so… You’re blind. Which means you have no idea that I have been carrying my pet python,” I warned. “I’m putting her down so I can move more easily. If you feel a snake touch you, please don’t hurt her, she’s harmless.”

“A snake? She’s not venomous, is she?” She asked fearfully.

“Nah, she’s a constrictor, also you're probably too big for her to eat, and she’s been fed recently. You’re fine. She might cuddle though,” I warned again.

“... Alright, but if she attacks me, I wilt defend myself,” Moonbutt warned back.

I almost walked away, satisfied with her answer. But then something occurred to me. Bon had always been smart, but now she was getting scary smart.

Bending down to look Bon in an eye I pointed to Luna. “Hon, she won't attack you. So you don’t attack her.”

Bon nodded… Again. Okay.

“I- I think we’re good,” I informed a confused Moonbutt, then headed off into the forest.

I ducked down and began a slow advance in the direction we had been walking. Sticking behind objects that occlude the enemy's sightline. Crouch walk most of the way, crawl the rest. Move so as to minimize nose. The usual. No big deal.

I was hoping that their camp was not made within the trees themselves, and fortunately it was not. The camp was set up in a small clearing, maybe three hundred feet across. It had been made recently, if the stumps were anything to go by, and the wood had been used to make a timber wall around the camp that was just about chest high on me.

That wall would definitely mean a pony would need to go through the one entrance I could see. I could probably quickly vault over it if I had to though. Looks like species my size were rare here.

From what I could see over the wall and through the gate the camp itself had been there for some time, crates and other things were piled around some large canvas tents. After giving my helmet a zoom command, I was able to notice a few other details, like the arrow slits in the walls, and the scattered junk laying around the crates.

As well as the pair of griffons who walked past the gate. I’d read about griffons in Mysuki’s library. By all accounts, they had been a savage species in the past… I honestly hoped that wasn’t true for this universe. Mostly because I’d always liked griffons as a fantasy species. It would be cool to meet a real one.

Wanting to get a full view of the camp’s interior, I crawled to my left to change angle. This granted me a view of the center of their camp. In particular a large cooking fire with a cauldron hung over it.

And also a few wooden stakes.

On which some of the bandit’s victims had been impaled.

Including what I presumed was a child.

And the nearby cart which was loaded up with more stakes. Indicating they planned to move their impaled victims, probably to intimidate whatever village those poor bastards came from.

Unfortunately for them, they had just firmly established the reality of this situation for me. And seriously pissed me right the fuck off!

Ohhh man… Moonbutt, if you had told me these were the impaling children sort of people, I would not even have hesitated too-

“You there! In the bushes! Come out or take an arrow in yeer eye!” Someone shouted.

Fuck! Of course they would have patrols! What the hell gave my position away? My suit was camouflage colors only!

Oh… right… The jade green and gold jacket. Derp!

I turned to look at the voice’s origin. A normal pony, twenty five feet away. Dark brown fur, patch of white on the nose, urine yellow mane and tail. He stood there with a crossbow pointed in my direction, and an actual goddamn necklace of ears like some kind of Vietnam War psycho!

Ear! Necklace!

I felt something snap inside as I stood up. Careful calculation just wasn’t going to happen. Rage flooded my system way too much to do anything other than attack.

The bandit’s ears drooped as I stood up, clearly distracted and intimidated by my height. I drew my pistol, he fired, bolt whizzing past me into the forest. A lucky miss for me, unlucky for him.

I wasn’t so far gone as to forget to call for Moonbutt’s help. Unfortunately I was too pissed to think of anything to say. Fortunately, just before the moment passed, Cheer.ly came to my rescue with a list of movie quotes.

Quickly turning on my helmet’s voice-amp I announced. “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.”

My helmet dropped the gold tinted visor down, picking up on my emotional state and assuming combat was in progress. Ear Necklace drew a bolt from his saddlebag and began to frantically reload his crossbow. I took six steps forward and raised my gun, aiming it squarely at his face.

“And I’m all outta bubblegum.” I finished, firing six bolts into the bandit point blank.

9 Wounded

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Lyra Heartstrings - 12th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

<Active combat protocols engaged,> Cheer.ly reported.

A dozen separate processes flashed onto my HUD. System linkages to my equipment auto-activating. My pistol's systems reporting it’s heat, levels, charge, and highlighting the point of aim. Solar charge levels for my flight suit's systems. Bio-data as my body kicked itself into overdrive, reporting stress levels and estimated peak operation time before it would start to rip apart.

My helmet’s sensors kicked into gear; active sonar’s ghostly gray highlighting of solid objects, fused with the sharp white of thermal imaging, all put into context of motion and position via laser imaging.

I could see the battlefield in as much detail as technologically possible without a satellite linkage.

For the next fifteen minutes at least. My jacket covered too much of my flightsuit for the solar charging system to keep it running longer than that. I had precisely enough time to lament the fact that the system couldn’t be manually triggered, and only activated when an armed opponent actually fired at you, or if given a signal from command to attack, before my rage fully took over.

The bandit fell forwards, steam pouring from the flash-vaporized holes I’d put into the that scum. I fired another bolt into his side as he fell, the intense heat pulse burning a white line across my HUD. My sonar pulsed, indicating movement to my left. I spun around, two leather armored and salvaged gear clad ponies rushed from the camp’s gate, screaming the alarm to their comrades.

Like the snapping shriek of my gun hadn’t already done that.

On my left, a pegasus. On my right, an earth pony. Color was irrelevant, my systems filtered the world down to movement, shape, and distance. A removal of all distractions. A maximization of awareness.

The Pegasus was unarmed, he jumped up, hooves pushing off the log wall, wings snapping open, taking to the air in a fluid wall-kick maneuver.

The Earth pony charged forwards, running on three legs, a odd crescent bladed half-gauntlet half-punch-dagger-scythe weapon held up threateningly. Amazingly it seemed as if pony forelegs possessed as much mobility as a human arm...

“Cover me!” He shouted.

<Weapon identified: Melee tool,> Cheer.ly reported in the span of miliseconds. <Designation: Scissor. Roman design. Method of use: Unknown.>

I fired a volley of three rounds, the Earth pony was more than ready for them. He nimbly dodged to the sides, jerking out of the way from each shot as if he knew where the shots would be.

The bandit closed and lunged forward, blade scything towards me in a sword like strike. I stepped back, the blade slicing through the air where my belly had been. I twisted to bring my arm down and take aim, but he smashed my weapon aside with the gauntlet part of his weapon, before throwing a punch-like strike for my chest.

The ringing sound of iron on ceramic titanium as his weapon was stopped in it’s tracks took the bandit by surprise, his eyes widening as instead of killing me, he threw me backwards where I smashed into a tree and slid to the ground. It was like I’d been hit by a small delivery drone.

Without the flightsuit shock absorption, I’d be dead from kinetic shock alone. A fact my helmet was unnecessarily flashing warnings about.

I barely had time to pick myself up as the bandit jumped, swinging his weapon like a warpick in a savage downwards arc. “Let’s see that breastplate stop this!” He demanded.

It probably could. But I wasn’t taking chances on another punch from the goddamn kryptonian pony! I threw a kick from my back, putting every muscle fiber in my leg into the strike and smashing the treads of my boot into his face with a satisfying crunch.

He rolled with the strike, moving left and springing up, blood pouring from his crushed muzzle but otherwise seemingly uninjured. The bandit charged forward again, this time I got my gun into position, and fired three more rounds, catching him squarely in the chest. The bandit jerked to a halt, internals definitely cooked thoroughly and ruptured. Potato, meet microwave.

<Weapon energy cell at seventy five percent,> Cheer.ly alerted.

As the bandit died, the pegasus shouted something I didn’t catch. Leaping back onto my feet, I took aim to snipe the idiot out of the air. What sort of moron hovers in place mid-battle?

The pegasus threw a hoof as if trying to punch me from fifty feet away. A bolt of white-hot lightning flashed, blinding me as it struck me squarely in the chest, shutting down my suit’s systems for a split second as circuit breakers tripped and reset rapidly.

I felt myself hit the ground again, but no pain from the lightning strike itself rippled through my body. My flight suit had insulated me from the shock. His lightning couldn’t be as powerful as the real thing. A real bolt would have fried my ass. He was no threat.

My HUD flicked back on, rehighlighting the pegasus for me as he readied another bolt with an oddly anime-like scream-meditation-pose movement. I leveled my pistol to fire, only to yelp as I saw the battery pack glowing white. The lightning strike had breached the fuel cell!

“Shiiiiit!” I shrieked, throwing the starting to smoke weapon as far from myself as possible.

“Outta ammo?” The Pegasus mocked, swooping down to grab the damaged weapon. “Guess I’ll beat you with your own weapon!”

Ignoring the moron, I dove, lying as flat as I could against the earth so the-

The fuel cell in the self charging battery detonated with the unique explosive crunch of hydrogen. I felt a dozen small impacts all across my left side as my flight suit's armor-cloth surface stopped a few hundred bits of shrapnel from ripping a hole in me.

Rolling over onto my back, I ripped open the pouch containing my spare battery, ready to throw the spare away from me before it exploded too. Fortunately it wasn’t damaged.

“Oh thank ph-” I said, stopping as the battery was smashed out of my hand.

Like some sort of monster from ancient movies, the earth pony was not dead!

His slicing blade had only just barely avoided slicing my thumb off as part of his failed sneak attack. I scrambled to my feet, avoiding his follow up punch-chop by rolling to my side. I was completely unarmed! I’d have to grab his weapon and try my luck in hand to hand!

The bandit pressed his attack, forcing me to scoot backwards on my ass. His flurry of rapid swings, chops, and punches preventing me from getting a second to stand or even strike back. I wasn’t going to test the properties of my flight suit's cut-resistant outer layer against his crazy strength, just to attempt a counter attack. One rip and I was dead!

“Lie still and die, mage!” The bandit scream-gurgled through his mangled muzzle.

A gleaming blade plunged through the bandit’s head with a wet-ripping crunch! Whipping my head around, I saw Moonbutt, one hoof outstretched post halbard-lunge.

“Apologies! I couldn’t telleth which sound was who until that scum spake,” she apologized. “What hath happened to the plan?”

“Impaled child’s corpse!” I growled, shoving the corpse off me as I stood up. “They destroyed my weapon, do you have-”

A sharp piercing whistle split the air, the armored mare grunted in pain as a crossbow bolt sliced along her rear left leg, leaving a shallow cut.

“Nngh, cowards!” She spat venomously. “Come, let us end these bastards rightly. Awaken iron, slay all!”

I watched as she pulled her halberd back towards her chest, and made a somehow elegant looking three legged charge, heading right for the camp’s entrance, dirt flying with each hoof fall. Two more bolts flew at her, one skipping off her armor, the other sailing cleanly over her back and into the woods.

Somehow, being able to see the projectile in flight made the weapon all the more scary. But not as scary as being unarmed in the middle of a comba-

Right! The sword!

My hand flew to my belt, grabbing the hilt frantically. Melee combat against ranged opponents was suicidal at best, but if I could get around to flank them-

The corpse of the scissor wielding bandit jerked upright, flesh knitting back together like something out of Doom! Light blue sparks danced around the edges of the wound as he stood back up, grinning as his muzzle crunched back into it’s proper shape, and amulet around his neck glowing darkly.

My hand switched on the blade by pure reflex, the golden blade appearing as if spawned in with a angry snap. Hoping swords worked like an extra long combat knife I chopped at the bandit’s neck, praying to physics that decapitation stopped the sourcery I saw at work.

The blade flew through the air, clearly missing as I didn’t even feel any imp-

The amulet fell to the ground, chain neatly severed, the bandit falling a moment later, half healed wounds stopping their regeneration immediately. I turned the blade and hacked the bandit’s head off with a few quick chops, refusing to take any god damn chances.

“Fuck you, Highlander! Six sequels is enough!” I screamed, taking a moment to scoop up the amulet and stuff it into a pouch.

“Just kill her, she’s blind!” Someone shouted from the gate.

Remembering my ally’s charge I turned, boots digging into the earth as I sprinted in to close the distance. Luna was blocked off at the gate, having reared up to gain better control over her weapon. At this point I’d worked out some of a pony’s body mechanics. It seemed they could stand upright to use both forelimbs, but were much more mobile on all fours.

Luna was able to parry while standing, but she couldn’t exactly move...

“She’s got bat vision!” One of the griffons I spotted earlier snapped back.

The griffon had a large shield, but was unarmed. It looked like she had grabbed the shield as Moonbutt charged in, while her friend had snatched a spear. The two, both griffons, were keeping Luna at bay, the shieldbearer taking the brunt of her assault while the spear user’s talons did their best to impale my comrade.

Luna was having none of it and managed to somehow dodge the thrusts, or parry them with a quick flick of her halberd's handle. But there was no way her luck would hold out. Not with the firing line of crossbows being reloaded while the two Griffons defended their friends.

Without a hand, she’d be shot in a few more moments. Lucky for her, the bandit’s primitive tools needed a winch to reload them. Unfortunately, they were almost done.

Sprinting forwards, I grabbed Moonbutt by the collar of her breastplate and dragged her around the corner of the wall, putting it between us and the crossbows.

“They have ranged weapons! Keep behind their wall!” I ordered as she shouted in protest.

“Ah… Yes… Bows art not allowed in the arena,” she admitted, understanding I’d just saved her life.

The two griffons on the other hand, came around the corner, the duo paired up so the shieldbearer could focus entirely on putting the body-sized rectangle into position, while the spearman did the killing.

I had no clue how to take them on. I wasn’t a marine, melee training was not a part of my skill set. Reacting on instinct I swatted at the spear with my sword as it was thrust towards me, the energy blade chopping a finger sized chunk out of the wooden shaft, which sadly didn’t seem to do much at all.

“Have you a sword? Keep the spear busy!” Moonbutt ordered.

I kept up my random swatting, occasionally cutting into the shaft or smacking it with the blade’s flat. At once I both wished it worked like a lightsaber, and was glad it did not. I’d take my own goddamn leg off if it just cut through everything like air.

Oh the other hand, too many of the griffon’s warcry backed thrusts slipped through my defenses for me to be happy about anything. In the span of five seconds, no less than three thrusts scratched along my chest and head, thankfully stopped by my armor. If she knicked a limb though, that was it.

Just as my panic reached it’s peak, Luna’s halberd scythed in around the shield, hooking it with the backspike and ripping it out of the griffon’s talons in a single savage jerk! Moments after the shield was ripped away she thrust the weapon forwards, stabbing the griffon through the throat.

“No!” His companion cried, giving me the opportunity to grab her spear with my free hand.

Realizing her error, the griffon tried to pull the spear back. The damaged weapon splintered, the head snapping off, leaving me holding what amounted to a dagger, and her with a splintered stick.

She had exactly one second to realize how screwed she was before the halberd chopped in, burying its axe-head deeply in her side. I winced at the wet squelch of meat as Luna ripped her weapon free. The sound was far worse than I’d imagined it to be.

“Is the shield wood, or metal?” Moonbutt asked, snapping my attention back to the moment.

“Uh...” Picking the shield up by the wooden handle on the rear, I gave it a quick inspection. “Steel plated wood. Is that good?”

“How do you not know shields?” She asked in mild surprise.

“I don't use these things! Our shields are electromagnetic fields or polymers,” I quickly explained.

“That should block the bolts well enough. You hold it up, you have working eyes. I run behind you, and we break their firing line,” she planned.

Just then, two more bandits came around the wall. Both earth ponies, both armed with what I assumed were their equivalent of spiked knuckles. A weapon choice that seemed dumb until I remembered how hard Highlander had hit me.

I slashed at the one closest to the wall as he rushed for me, this time the sword did what they did in every game ever, and neatly severed his left foreleg with one fluid cut. The bandit dropped to the ground, screaming as Luna took care of his companion with a casual reactive thrust I was sure a sighted person couldn’t have pulled off.

Looking down at the pony I had just dismembered, I felt a sudden pang of guilt. It was one thing to shoot someone and kill them damn near instantly. But to put someone through that sort of hell… Then I remembered the impaled child’s body on display, and stomped on his head until I heard it go crunch. Fuck him!

“That was savage… Doth all of thy species fight like that?” Luna asked in concern.

“I don’t know how to use melee tools! We use ranged weapons almost exclusively. Brute force is all I have to work with!” I snapped, rage rolling back to a full boil.

“Can thou retrieve thy weapon?” She asked hopefully.

“No, it’s destroyed,” I grunted back.

“Then let us end this quickly,” she decided. “If they attack again, luck will not save us. Use the shield, keep them from shooting me. I’ll put them down with all due haste.”

“Sound plan!” I exclaimed holding the shield in front of me and crouching down to allow her to get as behind the shield as possible.

Luna moved up, pressing her chest firmly against my back and resting the handle of her halberd on my shoulder. “Go! I’ll stop when thee doth,” she ordered.

Deferring to her expertise, I took off at the best run I could manage while crouching, holding the shield up as well as I could, trusting my helmet could stop a crossbow bolt so I could see where I was going.

We rounded the corner. A line of eight bandits stood between us and the fire at the camp’s center. Four immediately fired. One bolt whizzing past, one skipping off my helmet like a punch to the head, the others burying themselves deeply in the shield, points splintering through the other side!

“There are but two! Hold till you can not miss!” A hooded pony in a cloak ordered.

Three more fired, three more bolts neatly pierced the shield. The now unarmed bandits dropped their bows, going for spears which had been laying on the ground beside them. I dug my heels into the ground, stopping as firmly as I could, not willing to charge onto the point of a spear.

Luna lunged the moment I stopped, her long handled weapon finding the stomach of a bandit on the left half of the line. The impaled pony gurgled, dropping as Moonbutt pulled her halberd back, shifting her weight in a way which allowed me to know she was going to strike at the opposite side of the line.

The hooded pony cursed, and with a shout of “Enough!” a bright blue glow shone from beneath her hood, three blue-white bolts of energy lanced out from her forehead, burning towards me like blaster-fire!

Time seemed to slow. Memories of plasma eating through tank armor like warm butter flooded my brain. Without even thinking I dropped the shield, threw my now empty hand back, and yanked Luna to the side as I dove out of the way of the oncoming fire. At the same time, the last bandit fired his crossbow.

The three bolts of energy sizzled through the air where I had been. The crossbow bolt sliced along my left thigh, my suit immediately flashing an integrity warning as the armor layer was cut. Before I could react my leg flexed, a simple part of my dive as I moved to get back up. A completely automatic response.

The damaged fabric ripped under the pressure, the sharp hiss of compressed air punctuating the air along with my horrified scream!

<Warning: Containment failure!> Cheer.ly reported unhelpfully.

I felt Luna jump in front of me as I screamed. My eyes were fixed on the rip, free hand desperately and futilely trying to hold the cut closed. I was so dead! Minutes at most before and unconsciousness I would never wake from.

Luna was dead as well. There was simply no way she could take on a fucking sorcerer and seven other opponents at once. Especially if-

A shimmering blue barrier flashed into existence, cutting off the direct approach to the bandits.

“Reload!” The sorcerer commanded, her force field definitely able to buy them time for that.

“Cowards! Come and face a warrior on her own terms!” Luna taunted, her halberd sparking against the barrier as she tried to pierce it.

It was useless. In a few seconds they would have reloaded… And at this distance...

No. No! Fuck that!

I wasn’t about to die and let these scumbags keep living, especially if they found a way to work my gear. There had to be something, anything I could do. The evil they could accomplish with- The grenade!

I reached down, grabbing the large beer can sized device and ripped it free from it’s magnetic clip. As my hand closed around it, the grenades safety chip pinged me, asking if I intended to arm the weapon.

<Arm and configure,> I ordered., <Dispersal pattern: Burnination. Yield: Maximum!>

Ironic that the means to destroy your downed aircraft would be useful without an aircraft.

“If I’m going to die, you fuckers can burn in hell with me!” I shouted, and threw the grenade over the energy-wall.

The grenade bounced off the ground, rolling to the mage’s hooves. She blinked at the weapon, then shook her head. “How did you think a throwing rock would do any harm when tossed in an ar-”

<Detonate!> I ordered.

The casing split apart, a burst of compressed gasses hissing as the air filled with a sickly smelling green-yellow mist. The chemical cloud filled a good forty foot bubble, hanging in the air for a half second before igniting with a loud ‘woomph!’.

The screams were short lived. Within seconds of mouths having opened, the lungs and vocal cords were on fire. And the clothing, fur, skin, muscle, bone, dirt, and everything the mist had touched. Everything but the flickering barrier, which died alongside it’s master, ironically the only thing that shielded us from the interhalogen compound’s hell-fire.

Luna coughed, staggering back from the blinding flames of burning everything. “What didst thee doth!? Please telleth me thou didn’t rip a hole into Tartarus!” She pleaded.

“I threw a grenade,” I said, watching the oxygen content meter slowly drop.

“That is not the smell of burning blasting powder!” She accused.

“That’s cuz it’s Chlorine trifluoride,” I muttered. “Nothing else in the world smells like that. Shit will set anything on fire, even stuff sane people insist won't burn. Rips things apart atom by atom and burns it all at the same time. For when you just got to destroy absolutely everything…”

“Smells like…victory,” Luna said decisively.

<Active Combat Protocols disengaged.> Cheer.ly reported as the world snapped back to color.

“Don’t smell too much or you’ll die. Shit’s also toxic as fuck,” I warned. “I’ll be dead in a few minutes. You don’t have to have that on your conscience. I chose to help. Get out of here. Live your life, be happy that you chose to protect the week.”

Luna turned around swiftly/ “You’re mortally wounded? How? I might beest able to bandage-”

“They didn’t hit me, they ruptured my suit!” I snapped.

Luna’s ears fell/ “I don’t understand…”

Oh god… Even with only seeing half her face I felt horrible for snapping at her like that! These ponies were primitives. She honestly didn’t understand. I had to explain. I couldn’t die with my last social action being hurting someone else.

“I… I’m really different from your species. The air you breath is deadly to me. I have on an…armor of sorts to keep your air out, and the air I need in. During the fight, they breached my armor, so I’m being poisoned,” I explained slowly.

She frowned, clearly trying to work through what I was saying. “Like… Like how fish drown in the air but breathe freely within the sea?” She asked.

I nodded, realized the gesture was lost on her, and said/ “Yeah.”

“Starswirl can help!” She exclaimed. “He hath a spell to alloweth one breath under the sea, surely he can help thee breath normally. How long can thou survive?”

“I don’t know…minutes?” I muttered, already feeling pretty tired.

“Is there any way you can make it for a quarter of an hour?” She asked, unbuckling her helmet’s chinstrap in a way that should have been impossible to do with hooves.

“I’m sorry, Moonbutt. There’s-” I trailed off, remembering the tent Sky had given me. It was such a small thing, but so important. How had it skipped my mind? “No! There is something. Yeah, I can last a little longer.”

She tossed her helmet aside, the silvered metal rolling to a stop a few feet away. “Doth not standeth near mine helmet, it ‘tis to be a beacon for teleporting,” Luna warned. “Help will be here as soon as I can fly home!”

“How can you possibly navigate while flying?” I asked with a bitter chuckle.

“The same as I do upon the land. Please do not perish before I return. I… I have not had a true friend before,” she pleaded before jumping into the air, wings pumping and carrying her into the sky in a way that instantly made me jealous.

“... Lucky,” I muttered to myself.

Luna suddenly vanished from view, like she’d simply been jump-cut out of reality. I was confused for a moment, but then realized that I’d completely spaced out for a few minutes. That wasn’t supposed to be possible, not with my neural upgrades. I was going to die, and quick.

I fumbled for my belt, fingers bumping into something squishy instead of the belt pouch I had been expecting. Looking down with a confused grunt I saw that Bon had somehow managed to find me, and coiled around my waist. Rather tightly too. Sort of like a tourniquet.

A confused blink later and I noticed that the oxygen meter was depleting far more slowly than it had been before. Bon was literally holding the air in my suit.

“Good girl.” I praised happily, giving her a pat on the head, “Did you intend to keep the air in there?” I asked half seriously.

I mean hell, she was nodding yes in response now so why the-

Bon nodded twice, tightening her coil around my waist slightly. Okay...

“So, you’re peoplesmart now. I guess… Going to have to ask that wizard about this one. Do you know where mommie’s tent is? I need it,” I asked hopefully.

Bon dipped down, her head snaking behind me before coming back on my other side, the small black and green box held securely in her jaws. I shook my head and gently took the device from her, stroking her head with my other hand.

“Yeah, soooo going to have to ask the wizard about this one!” I laughed, head feeling really super light.

After a few moments of fumbling, I found a small button on the bottom of the box and pressed it. The device beeped, and unfolded, a series of rods telescoping from its corners, trailing a silver metallic fabric behind them. I moved to get out of the way of the unfolding tent, only to realize that it was deploying in such a way where I would end up on the inside.

After a few moments, the rods bent, pulling the box up out of my hands, where it formed the peak of a squarish dome structure just about big enough for four people to sleep in, if they were packed in tightly. I looked down, wondering how a floor would form with me standing on the ground, just as a quick flash of light went off like a camera flash. The tent firmly sinking a short ways into the ground as an energy field flickered to life on the ground, lifting me up a few inches to form a solid hard-light barrier.

Well, that was one way to do a floor…

A few moments later the box beeped three times, and my helmet's HUD flashed, the environmental warnings vanishing, replaced by a, ‘it is now safe to remove your helmet’, message.

I didn’t quite trust that message. I mean, the tent seemed to have worked, but how could I tell for sure? I couldn’t. So the helmet would stay on. At least for now.

And right now, I was tired as hell. Fatigued from the combat, half poisoned, and the only hope of living much longer being a literal pony wizard.

Yeah. It was time to just lie down for a bit.

“If I fall asleep, smack me or something until I get up, okay?” I asked Bon, pretty sure she would understand.

Bon nodded and rested her head in my lap.

“Thanks… We should work on teaching you to speak,” I mused, laying down on my back to let my muscles relax.

I knew that I’d slept for hours less than half an hour ago, but that didn’t seem to matter much. It felt like I had run a whole marathon. Then biked another marathon.

Also the forcefield-floor was super comfy. I would totally sleep on it every night if I could! Oh my god, I could! I owned it. Sweet!

“Man… Who knew that trying to stay awake to not-die sucked so much... “ I muttered to myself.

10 Behold the Wizard

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Lyra Heartstrings - 12th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Late Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

“Hey, Lyra, you dead?” Sai’s voice crackled faintly.

I sat bolt upright, heart hammering in my chest. Not spooked by the sudden speech, but by the fact I was sure I had nodded off.

“Ahh! No! Not yet!” I gasped.

“Good. Cuz I reeeaaaly don’t want to be stuck here,” Sai grumbled, voice coming in properly now.

“Coulda said something sooner, mighta helped motivate me to find a better magic flow or whatever. Recharge faster,” I mumbled, trying to blink the exhaustion out of my system.

“Not if I didn’t want to cause a time paradox,” Sai shot back. “Look, wherever we are could be a universe that’s just running slower than the others, or we could be in the right one at the wrong time. Remember how that Sky rigged me? We have a twelve thousand year window here.”

I let that process for a moment, but my brain just wasn’t working right now. Kinda felt a bit oxygen starved.

“Cheer.ly, run medical diagnostic,” I ordered. “Sorry Sai, but I’m not thinking right now. Be blunt please.”

Sai muttered something under his breath. An impressive feat for an AI stuck in a device with no volume control. “Look, we could be in my universe's past right now. If we are, and I say something to a historical figure I might accidentally undo how time is supposed to go. That will for certain butterfly effect, and I could destroy my entire home… I don’t just sit in Sky’s tech, I have my own things I do. I’m invested in my home world slash timeline.

“The Boss and I disagree about the consequences of time travel, and I admit, he’s normally right. But I have a pretty sound logical argument for why you might be able to mess up the past via time travel. So just in case we are not in a different-time-interval universe, I’m not saying anything when someone historical is a few meters away!”

“Wait, Moonbutt is a historically relevant figure? How?” I asked, that being the only thing I’d taken away from Sai’s spiel.

“Bucking hell! Forget I said anything,” Sai cursed. “It’s bad enough you gave her a nickname…”

“No, seriously. Explain,” I demanded.

“If I do, then YOU might say something and mess up the timeline!” Sai shot back.

“... No it won't,” I disagreed.

“Listen Lyra, I’m an AI. Maybe where you come from AIs don't have emotions, but I do, and they are rooted in logic. So guess what? I am afraid of messing up for very rational reasons. Therefore, I ain’t saying shit till we are out of here, and even then I’m not going to explain myself!”

“If that’s how you feel then why the hell did you even tell me that much?” I asked angrily. “Cuz now you’ve just made me angry and curious!”

“You asked me a direct question. I may be programed to be a dick but I’m not rude, and I’m sure as hay not gonna tell you ‘I have a good reason for not doing this’!” Sai grumbled.

I rolled my eyes and gave the manipulator a little glare. “Who the fuck programs an AI to be a dick to them anyways?”

“People worried that they will turn their talents to evil one day, and want someone to keep them in check by being critical of everything they do to force them to think again before going through with a plan,” Sai deadpanned.

“Oh, well shit. That’s an unassailable reason,” I mused.

“Yeah, no shit,” Sai replied dryly. “It’s almost like I have good reasons for doing th-”

Sai shut the fuck up as all of the light in the tent streaked to the left like an old school movie hyperspace jump effect. The sudden rays of light blacked out everything for a fraction of a second, only for normalcy to snap back in a wave literally like an elastic band wobbling after being stretched out. This horrific break of reality happened so quickly it was over in a blink, and that was the only thing which kept it from being pants ruiningly terrifying.

Instead, it was awesome. In the archaic sense of the word. Too bad the irritable mumbling completely ruined the moment.

“And of course she doesn't reattune the bloody thing! Non-unicorns, always forgetting magic needs upkeep… Wouldn’t be a problem if we taught basic magical theory to everypony but noooo, that’s a security risk! Instead let’s make me have to bounce around the entire Faust damned- Ooo… ‘kay,” an eccentric older male’s voice rambled.

“Uhhh…” I said, mostly as a placeholder for a reaction.

The sound of tiny little bells jingling mixed with hoofsteps for a moment before the tent wall to my left was politely tapped. “Hello? Anyone inside the out-of-place-artifact? I’m looking for a fish-mare, or something. That’s not you by chance, is it?”

“Uh, I’m not a fish. But if you meant the person Moonbutt went to get help for, that’s me,” I replied as evenly as I could.

“Oh, nope. I’m looking for someone who a pony named Luna went to get help for. Sorry about that, I’ll just be on my way. This forest has a lot more clearings left to check,” the voice grumbled. “Good luck to you.”

I facepalmed, the slap of rubberized armorweave on titanium rang like a bell through my helmet. “Are you serious?” I demanded. “I use a nickname for her, so you leave me to die?”

“No, I’m Starswirl. Sirius is the other guy. But it’s fine, nopony will remember him in a few hundred years,” the stallion snarked. “Right then, how much did Luna’s urgent babbling leave out? Namely, who are you, what’s the problem, and why do I have to help you instead of finishing my sandwich?”

“Lyra Heartstrings, interdimensional traveler. Suit breached while in a toxic atmosphere. You’re a wizard, you can make another sandwich,” I summarized.

“Wait, you’re a what?” Starswirl asked in that old person ‘I was only half listening, wah?’ voice.

“Interdimensional traveler,” I replied.

“Faust’s blood, mare! Open with that next time,” the wizard complained. “Not you, I mean Luna. I swear she’s incapable of mentioning the important bits…”

“Actually, I never told her that… Also seriously, I’m dying sooo…you know, don’t have all the time in the world,” I prompted, trying not to maintain my composure.

“Yes you do, I stopped it,” Starswirl rebutted. “Tell me more please, where are you from? What’s it like? In particular what-”

“Wait,” I asked incredulously, “you stopped what!?”

“Time. Obviously,” he informed in a ‘duh’ tone. “Please tell me context does not whizz over your head as badly as it does Celestia’s. I swear she can’t grasp context clues unless it’s related to social- Hold on, before we bunny trail for an hour, what exactly is toxic here for you? I’m not going to expend the time and energy if this is going to be futile.”

“Y-you seriously just stopped time… Like, all of it? Everywhere?” I said awestruck, pleading for an answer.

How the shit balls do you just stop all of atomic motion within-

No like, seriously-

Wut!?

“You’re hung up on that… Great…” The wizard groaned, clearly sick of explaining himself. “Look, I could explain it, but you don’t have the years of study in the natural sciences to even begin to-”

“How the flying shitballs did you pause the formation of causal links between all objects within space-time!?” I demanded, this time angrily.

“Well buck me in the ear! You do!” Starswirl exclaimed surprise. “That’s refreshing, so I’ll tell you the answer. I set the space-time interval for the two of us to zero, and the interval between the two of us and the rest of the universe to a positive integer, effectively freezing the universe in it’s tracks, from our current perspective. Cake really.

“Anywho, your home dimension must be horrible if it has flying balls of excrement floating about frequently enough for the mention of them to become a swear.”

Wait, did that check out? I think it checked out, from what I knew of quantum physics at least. Which wasn’t much.

I really, really wished I still had an uplink to the Direct net to double check me physics there. But on the other hand… There was a more pressing question.

“Sooo how does an medieval age civilization have a concept of space-time?” I asked curiously.

“They don’t, I do. Cuz I’m the motherbucking legendary wizard of unspeakable power that cracked time travel,” Starswirl grunted. “Now seriously, what’s killing you?”

“Radon poisoning,” I began. “Your atmosphere’s full of-”

“Mmhmm. That would be due to the Great Basin. Big hole in the world, been pumping out the stuff for hundreds of thousands of years. Has a few million more years of life in it to go,” he rambled, seemingly just to kill time. “Ah ha! Mammalian, simian ancestry… Majorly time displaced… Doubly displaced… Odd that.”

“A-are you magically analyzing me?” I asked, thoroughly creeped out by the notion.

“Huh? Oh! Sorry. Was that out loud? I didn’t mean to be rude, I see temporal flows. Can’t control it, just do,” he apologized.

“I don’t believe you!” I huffed.

“Meh, that’s fine. Funny thing about the truth, it’s true no matter what you believe. It’s clear you did not evolve for this world, and well, we’re not exactly hospitable for most creatures. Real shame that, I have some friends that I would love to invite over to visit…

“Now I’m not the best at altering creatures, I’m more of what you would call a ‘practical quantum mechanist’, but I think I can solve this little problem of yours,” Starswirl said decisively.

“You think, or you know?” I asked wearily.

“I know. I see time flows. All of them,” he explained. “I only speak about the future in uncertain terms so as to let the masses have their comfort- Oh bucking hell!”

“What? Is something wrong?” I asked.

“You… You’re not going to ask me how free will can exist if the future is certain?” He asked, clearly surprised.

Oh god this stupid philosophical question! Just because an AI can predict future events within a field to ninety nine percent accuracy, some people go full ‘free will can’t exist!’ Seriously…

The sun’s going to come up tomorrow. OH MY GOD! I can know future events with certainty! There can’t be any free will!

Uhhhhggg… So. Much. Stupid! Oh shit, that’s what this poor guy must feel over this.

“First off,” I chuckled, “I just came from a universe that seemed to want to kill me. Like, the actual universe. Not stuff in it. After that place, I’m completely certain that I have free will even if the future’s known because I can draw a weapon right now and curse, and do anything else I might like to without something actively stopping me.

“Second, how does being able to know future events with certainty preclude free will? I could calculate every single thing that would happen if I threw a ball, even chart it’s trajectory exactly. I guess that means free will can’t exist. Heh.”

“Oh thank Faust! I’m so sick of explaining this to everypony! You should help me convince king Stubborn-plot the Randomly-biased to start an arcane education program,” he sighed in relief.

Feeling curious I asked. “Politics aside, you worked out time travel… Would it be possible for you to help me out?”

“I’m already helping you,” Starswirl said with a chuckle. “Or do you mean in traveling? Sorry, I can’t do that.”

“Why not!?” I asked incredulously. “You’re a goddamn wizard, right?”

“Yes, I am. But I already know that I do not help you return to your home,” he said in that same ‘weary of explaining this’ tone. “While I could run against what happens, that never ends well. Time is a series of flexible moments between fixed points. What happens is dependent on so many different variables and factors all coming together that no one person has any influence over it. It’s just not possible. But, each individual can influence how those events happen, which is where free will comes in. You’re bright, do you understand now?”

I felt the need to ask a question, for Sai’s sake. “I didn’t know that… If how an event can happen is up for change, can’t that spark greater change down the line?”

“Of course,” he replied instantly. “Enough small changes in the hows of other things will eventually change the whats of future things. But in general, what happens is already written. The who, how, and when, those are up for change. But not the what, not unless the other factors change too.

“Example: I can see eight possible ways for me to assist you which result in success. I am free to choose from them, but I am not free to choose to not help you, because I knew I would be doing that as of this morning. The real choice for me is, which way will be the best, and not for me, but for you and Lu- Woah! Uh, kay…”

“What was that?” I asked suspiciously.

“I never tell anyone their personal futures,” Starswirl said firmly. “If I told somepony they would be the greatest warrior in their nation it’s equally valid for the universe to make them super strong, or have all the rest of their warriors die. So if they slacked off training, knowing the future would happen as it will happen... If I told you your future, you’d do things differently, and that would have consequences for everyone you interact with. Remember, the how is fluid, the what is static.

“However, I will say that having seen a few of your possible futures, I must admit, some of them hold… interesting potentials.”

I crossed my arms irritably. “Not going to tell me anything at all about my own future, despite claiming to know it… How do I even know you can actually see the future.”

“Ugh… Fine.” He grumbled, “You are about to sneeze.”

“No I’m-”

A massive body shaking sneeze interrupted my speech.

“Coincidence!” I protested.

“Your right leg is about to wake up from being asleep cause you’re sitting cross legged,” Starswirl sighed.

The pins and needles feeling of a sleepy leg rippled over my right leg. Fuck…

“Okay… Maybe you can. But if that’s true, how do you even function? Like, you know everything before it happens so-”

“I also know what I’m going to do, so it changes nothing in day to day life. It only lets me make a few decisions with better agency and understanding of what will result from my actions,” Starswirl said like a safety officer quoting pool rules.

“Alright… So uh, what do we do about me then?” I asked again.

“Oh, well… I suppose the best options involve me taking you to my tower. I can cast a simple spell to allow you to move about freely while I work out a permanent solution. Or I could have my wife transmutate you into a pony, you know, if a species change fix is alright with you,” he mentioned.

“Uh… I’d rather stay human,” I said apprehensively, but hopefully politely.

“I knew you’d say that,” Starswirl chuckled.

“Don’t be a smart ass,” I shot back.

“Very well, I’ll teleport us to my lab. Wait- wait… Hold on a second, is that another lifeform wrapped around your waist? Is your species symbiotic?”

Symbiotic? Oh! Heh.

“Nah that’s just my pet anaconda, Bon,” I chuckled. “She- actually she’s been acting a crap ton more intelligent since I first started traveling.”

“Well no duh! She’s completely saturated in wild magic. Thought she was an enchanted belt for a while there. Probably some sort of transmutation effect, hard to tell with time frozen… Mind if I study her while you are here? The two of you are an interesting anomaly,” he asked hopefully.

“Please! I really want to know what's going on with her… Wait, why did you call me an anomaly?” I asked, frowning behind my faceplate.

“Yes, because your causal chain is… Odd. I can trace it back through five different spacial-bubbles, yet it’s really only spent time in three,” Starswirl mused as if working it out for himself as he spoke.

“Right and that means, what exactly?” I prompted.

“How many universes have you traveled to?” Starswirl asked.

“Three. Wait, no! Two technically. Because the first hop just took me into my own world’s far future,” I answered, sure of my answer.

“Wrong. It’s four,” Starswirl corrected in that ‘teachery’ tone. “The first universe you were in, the one you originate from, you were in for mere minutes. Likely pre-birth. Then a second one for a few months, then the third, where you have spent most of your time, and then a…a place I can not understand. Then this one. I’m not counting the first one since I said traveled to, not have been in.”

“But… what?” I asked, thoroughly confused. “I only got the Vortex Manipulator about a week ago!”

“There are many means of moving through space, time, and worlds,” Starswirl said sagely. “Also it’s quite possible to absolutely buck up your own personal timeline… Trust me, personal experience. Look, I am sure that I will have a full answer for you later. Right now, I need to solve the problem of you not being able to breath. Shall we go?”

I thought about it for a moment. I knew that if I didn’t go, I’d be stuck in this tent until I could move on to the next world. Which would be a couple days, and my suit’s filter would be full by then…

On the other hand, the only available help was an eccentric old mage. That usually didn’t end too well for the hero in all the old tales. But on the other other hand…

“If I say no, will you leave me stuck here with no time passing until I die?” I asked.

Starswirl laughed. “Actually, time can’t pass for you right now. You’d be stuck like this for an eternity.”

“Uhhhhh!” I exclaimed in complete terror.

“I won’t do that to you… Faust’s blood, mare! I’m a good guy. You can tell because I don’t rule this rock from atop a topaz throne shaped like a pile of surf boards,” Starswirl exclaimed.

“Why surfboards?” I asked, his exclamation having mentally slapped me with a lump of frozen ‘wut’.

“I don’t know… That one confused me too…” Starswirl admitted. “Look, I’m going home to finish my sandwich and scold Luna for not taking care of her enchantments properly. You can come with me, or I can start time back up again and leave you here. What will it be?”

I sighed. With how life was right now, letting the fear of the unknown guide my actions would probably get me killed. Or worse. Trapped forever without the release of death.

“One trip to a mage tower, please,” I said decisively.

“Good! I’d hate to pass up an interesting puzzle!” Starswirl exclaimed as the lightspeed effect returned with the sound of falling sand.

“Wait!” I cried frantically as a question popped into my head with the utmost urgency.

The warped light snapped back again, replacing the chirping of birds and rustle of leaves with the creaking of floorboards and the smell of burning candles. Also a scent I swore was pinesol and lemon pledge, but well, they couldn’t possibly have access to modern cleaners. Or... could they?

“Little late there… It wasn’t too important, was it?” Starswirl asked in concern.

“I well, no. I just… If you can see the future and use it to make better decisions, how the hell did you get interrupted while eating a sandwich?” I asked.

“Oh. I lost track of time, that’s all,” the wizard explained simply.

“You…lost track of time? How can you possibly do that?” I asked in awe.

“No idea! Isn’t that neat? All this knowledge and still things to study,” he said happily. “Now then, I’ll need to get started.”

I heard hoofsteps clicking against wood and the light jingling of bells as the Wizard walked off. “Clover, pumpkin?” He called, voice echowing off the walls. “We have guests! Can you set the table for-”

“How many times have I told you to knock off the pumpkin crap?” A female voice shouted from somewhere in the distance.

“Thirty eight thousand nine hundred and seventy three times, counting this one,” Starswirl responded. “Celestia, stop reordering those books and grab a quill and parchment. I need you to interview our guest, find everything out about her home dimension that you can so I can make the right sort of spe-”

I heard what could only be the sound of a stack of books falling several feet onto a hard floor.

“H-home dimension?” A younger female voice squeaked eagerly.

“Yes,” Starswirl and I said together.

The apprentice’s delighted squee made me so happy my helmet had built in ear protection.

Lyra Heartstrings - 12th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Late Night

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

The last evening gave me a new definition for hell. Trapped in a small space, able to hear the outside world, but unable to leave the space which hid it from you. And that outside world sounded really really really cool!

Unfortunately, Starswirl knew he would take until noon the next day to develop a short term spell solution, and three whole days to work out a permanent solution. Which meant I was inside an actual wizard’s lab, able to hear all the cool sounding shit going on, but unable to look out and see anything!

It had to be freaking awesome! All of the games and movies had the wizard’s lab filled with like, stuffed creatures from the corners of the earth, eyes in jars, and other awesome trappings of wizardry, with bubbling potions and glowing runes.

The real deal had to be so much cooler!

But I was stuck here. In a bag. With a snake. Not the ideal situation.

Upside, Moonbutt had come in and talked to me for a while. She was very glad that Starswirl got to me in time. Apparently, actually helping her out on one of her hair brained schemes meant a great deal to her. Because it had been a first.

I knew how that went. My mom had always been too busy to raise me attentively. I was always off on my own doing stuff, at least till I’d made a friend. I knew what it was like to really only have yourself for companionship. Luna’s gratefulness for a friend had me think about staying in this universe for a while, but I dismissed the notion after some thought.

I had to return the VM. I needed to tell everyone about this. I was a mission.

I’d forgotten that Moonbutt’s sister, Egghead, was Starswirld apprentice. I knew her name wasn’t Egghead, but since apparently pony names are meant to be descriptors of the individual, I renamed that mare! Six straight freaking hours of constant questions, with my every single word being transcribed with almost sexual delight… The mare had been ligit fascinated with the concept of a toaster. A toaster!

No wonder Moonbutt didn’t get along well with Celestia! That mare had her nose so far in a book she’d probably discover Narnia any year now! On top of that, Luna seemed to care for others, while Celestia seemed to only care about improving her own situation. A good chunk of her questions for the ‘traveler from an advanced species’s homeland’ were about political theory.

She really, really wanted to know what I thought the best means of governance was. I explained I was a soldier, and political matters were not my field. That didn’t matter… At all. Not even a little.

Nothing would stand between a metaphorically rampaging Egghead and new information!

I’d finally told her my personal opinions. Namely that the best system would be effective, able to decide on important decisions within minutes if necessary, and focused on bettering the lives of it’s citizens, so they would not want to rebel or change the system, allowing the system to run unimpeded. So basically, a constitutional monarchy with the leaders appointed based on merit and moral fiber and without any hereditary rule was probably the best system.

Sure, my ancestors loved democracy, but all that got them was an inept and incompetent government who couldn’t make up their minds in time to stop a meteor from killing billions of people. Literally.

The average person has no business in helping deciding policy, simply because they really don’t know what they are talking about outside of whatever field they happen to have skills in. We have experts in engineering, science, medicine, and warfare for a reason. Politics should be no different.

Hopefully she took that advice to heart. Egghead seemed like the sort of person who could weasel her way into power. Monarchy is effective, but it’s a double edged sword. A person who remembers a government’s job is to serve the people and improve their lives will make a great dictator, king, head honcho, etc. A person out for themselves, quite the opposite.

Doubly hopefully, she didn’t somehow push her people into going Military Junta like mine did… It’s sort of hard to improve lives when a state of war is what keeps you in power.

I’d also told her that achieving the ideal government was probably impossible, and gotten what amounted to a ‘challenge accepted!’ out of her. That’s when I decided she creeped me out and I really didn’t want to talk to her for much longer.

Upside, she eventually left me alone to go nail her boyfriend. Or maybe take a crap. Cuz seriously, what else can “It’s been enlightening, but I need to go lower the sun.” mean?

After that, the whole evening had been quiet. Just the postulating mumbles of Starswirl. The really crappy part of it all was I hadn’t been able to sleep. I just wasn’t tired. So I had to stay awake for the whole goddamn thing.

So I decided to play a game or two to pass some time.

It had been a pretty long time since I had last linked in. A week was a hell of a long time away for me, but well, there wasn’t exactly a network to use here. That was honestly the one thing I missed about home. The community.

Though fortunately, I was always the kind to store most things locally. I mean, why not? With a VI sorting things out for you, the human brain has basically unlimited storage capacity. Add in the ability to record data to your junk DNA and well… Pretty sure one human could hold the entire net’s worth of content if they wanted to.

And were insanely wealthy… For a non-physical thing which can be infinitely replicated, data is fucking expensive.

I closed my eyes and extended my thoughts towards my inner workstation. The silver gray walls of the tent melted away, my brain constructing the AR room I had set up as my personal node. Within a few seconds, I was standing on a smooth steel floor made from burnished plates, surrounded by blue-gray walls, with one large window looking out over the martian surface from orbit, and a scattering of scifi furniture, fixtures, and decor replicated from some of my favorite games.

A bit nerdy, but it looked great, gave me a view of my mom’s house, and felt cozy.

<Welcome back, ma’am,> Cheer.ly chimed as the AR node finished loading.

I winced. “Man that feels weird now that I’m a civvie… Cheer.ly, address me as something more playful from now on,” I ordered.

<Order confirmed, mistress,> Cheer.ly said in confirmation.

Eh, good enough. I walked over to the desk and plopped down into the captain’s chair, hoping my physical body’s twitches were not enough to disturb Bon while she slept. Last thing I wanted was an angry snake around my waist while I was busy here.

A flick of my hand brought several windows to life, hovering in the air over the desk, each displaying a game title I had stored to memory. The question was what sounded fun? Something relaxing for sure, today had been hell enough. No need for an action game.

The room’s dim white light flashed red as a warning chime echoed off the walls! <Warning: Node intrusion detected! Primary firewall bypassed.>

“Wait, what the fuck!?” I exclaimed, leaping out of the chair, ready to kill the node before whatever the flying shit could mind hack in this universe got into my actual conscious-

The room’s doors opened with a cheezy hiss, revealing an unarmored Luna as she trotted into the room with a happy smile.

Oh right, she said she could enter dreams. <Cheer.ly: Add currently connected peer to my friends list. Designation: Moonbutt,> I requested.

<Moonbutt added to friends list,> Cheerly reported.

There, now she wouldn't trip alarms.

Now that I could see her properly, Luna was actually really cute out of armor, but then again, that seemed to be normal for ponies. Still, without the silver platemail, she looked far more approachable and well, fun. Less knight on a crusade, more ‘girl I room with cuz she’s hilarious’. A pretty interesting transition to say the least.

Though personally, she could have used the blindfold still. While it would be rude to say it to her face, her eyes were creepy as hell. I’d expected like, cataracts or something, not birth defect level malformed white rocky looking things with red veins crossing over them like some kind of vine growing over a wall.

<Cheer.ly, extrapolate Mysuki’s eyes from memory and superimpose them over Moonbutt’s! Save this cosmetic tweak as a permanent setting,> I silently ordered.

<Confirmed: Alteration made, preference saved.> She reported, as those terrifying eyes were filtered out via digital construct.

Ah! No horror movie level creepy eyes. Much better.

“Well met, Lyra!” Moonbutt exclaimed cheerfully, unaware of the milliseconds long interaction between my VI and I. “I was wondering at which hour thee would lay down for the night. Would it be alright if we spoke for a while? I assure thee, thee wilt still catch but a wink well despite our interactions.”

“Hey there, Moonbutt! And for the record, not sleeping. Just bored. Decided to play a game, but talking would be fun too,” I greeted cheerfully, doing my best to forget how her eyes looked naturally.

<Cheer.ly: Apply cosmetic alterations on Moonbutt to reality as well,> I said, deciding to just not have to see that again.

<Settings updated,> she chimed in reply.

“Th- thou wast going to playeth a game?” Moonbutt asked, sitting down and tapping her forehooves together eagerly. “Might I join you?”

“Sure, I don’t know if I have anything you could play though… Er, because blindness. How about we talk for a while and I have Cheer.ly find us something? Cheer.ly, search my games list for something relaxing a blind person can play,” I requested.

“Order confirmed: Searching,” Cheer.ly replied ‘audiably’.

Luna jumped, clearly spooked. “What on Equis was that!?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s Cheer.ly, she’s a VI. My people created…er, well spirits, kinda. They help run our machines, but we also make one for each one of us. A sort of personal servant to keep your mindspace working right and help us use our technology.”

Luna tilted her head to one side. “Thou intentionally allow yourselves to beest possessed?!”

“No,” I said firmly. “She’s a part of me, like the subconscious. She’s not supernatural, just a sort of secondary limited intelligence that lives in my head and is subservient to me. It’s just something all of my species has… Or at least, all of us born in the last two generations. That’s when we first created them.”

“I see,” Luna said with a confused frown amidst a look of understanding. “Thy people are…far more developed than mine own, aren't they?”

I nodded, blushed in realization, and then verbally confirmed. “Yep. By a metric shit-ton.”

She nodded to herself before asking. “So, what can this…spirit do for you?”

“We call them VIs,” I began, “it’s short for virtual intelligence. Cheer.ly’s not standard, she, and I, have military upgrades. The normal versions will adjust your body’s autonomic processes to keep you in good shape and health, manage your biomods for you, enable you to remember every moment of your life exactly as it happened, record your dreams, search through your memories for relevant information on request, they work your integrated AR capacities for you so you just have to give orders instead of calculating it all by yourself…”

I took a breath before continuing. “They also serve as a long distance communications device, allow us to share memories, serve as the link between us and net-enabled technology allowing us to control it remotely, automatically alert emergency services when we are in danger or need medical attention, and if your parents payed extra, they can serve as a coherent personality that’s your friend to provide constant companionship,” I finished.

Luna triple blinked. “That one entity can do all of that!?”

“Mmmmhm, and like I said, that’s just the civilian model,” I clarified. “Cheer.ly does a ton more than that for me. My personal favorite is she lets me do things like control adrenal surges and keeps my body in fighting shape at all times without me needing to exercise… Downside is that means I can’t keep any body fat so I have small boobs which sucks. Upside, I can sit on my ass for months and still be able to benchpress five hundred and twenty pounds.

“Oh! She also can control each individual muscle fiber in my body, allowing me to use all my muscles instead of only some of them, which is why I just look toned and a bit buff instead of like a girl who's been eating nothing but steroid wheaties. You know, despite my physical strength. She’s also supposed to be able to dampen pain, but I’ve never had that happen. I think she’s glitched a bit.”

Luna shook her head and looked off into the distance for a few moments. “Did thou not sayeth thou art a soldier? If 't be true thy species hath enabled all of thy kind thusly, what need has thy people for warriors?”

“Our species is divided into two nations,” I sighed. “Problem is, the other guys are better at tech than we are… And at this point, both nations see the six decade long war as a tradition to upkeep.”

“Ah, I see… I presume you’d rather not talk about such things. Am I right?” Moonbutt asked in concern.

I nodded. “Yeah… Let’s not talk about that. Not right now.”

“I understand. In the spirit of more fun questions, may I asketh thou a question?” Moonbutt asked curiously.

“Yeah, go ahead,” I chuckled. “I mean, you just did.”

“I meant a more personal question,” she retorted with an eye roll. A gesture which blew my mind that a blind person knew to do.

Then again… She also smiled, and frowned… Maybe facial expressions were instincts. Why did I never learn behavioral psychology?

Pulling my head back into the conversation I nodded. “Sure. Let me just head the most common personal questions off. I’m not religious, I’m into girls, politics is a waste of time to discuss, and no, I do not feel bad for serving in the military.”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to asketh any of those, but tis good to knoweth. I guess,” Moonbutt stammered, blushing adorably.

Heh. It was always hilarious when people were embarrassed by me being frank with them. Luna’s blush beat out the cashier at the BX from three years back in terms of adorably embarrassed. A long standing record finally smashed.

“Oh, realy? Odd, most people just getting to know me ask one of those questions,” I mused with a thoughtful frown.

“Well, see… This is a dreamscape. I can see here, at least in a certain sense,” Luna explained. “From what people describe it’s a similar but different sense. However, I would like to knoweth what thou look like. Thou could taketh off thy suit off without being hurt here, so, may I see what thee thou look like?”

I nodded, giving her a smile. “Of course! How do you see? Could you describe it?”

I started to mentally browse through the various outfits I could equip my avatar with which would let her get a good idea of what I looked like. Luna was lucky I kept mine looking like the real life me. If she were talking to any of my squad, she’d think humans were nekomimi or something.

“Certainly, a moment,” Moonbutt asked, dipping her head as if concentrating.

<Allert: Avatar hack detected!> Cheer.ly warned.

Assuming that Luna was using some dream magic to see, I quickly ordered. <Grant current peer access to my personal Avatar.>

<Confirmed. Access Granted,> Cheer.ly said.

“There you go, you should be able to do whatever you were doing now,” I said casually, going back to browsing my stored outfits.

“Ohhh! Thy species is so smooth,” Luna exclaimed suddenly. “I nev'r thought a furless creature could beest cute… But thyne is most assuredly adorable! It hath to beest the streamlined look. Thou remind me of well made armor, it’s quite appealing.”

I couldn’t help but let out a single laugh. “Moonbutt, that is armor. I’m still in the suit, I haven’t changed out of it yet.”

“No you’re not, I took it off. You said I could,” Luna replied, a bit confused.

“Eeep!” I squeaked, equipping an outfit at random. “What the fuck, Moonbutt! I said you could look at me!”

“Um, and I did… W-what didst I doth wrong?” She asked, ears drooping fearfully.

“I didn’t mean you could see me naked!” I exclaimed, an embarrassed red flush filling my face.

“But I hath asked if 't be true I could see thee outside of thy suit, and thee wast fine with… Wherefore art thee angered about this? I’m naked, you’re seeing me. What’s the problem?” She asked, voice bouncing between upset, hurt, and confused.

“I-” I started, raising a finger angrily before stopping, hand falling as I realized. “Oh… right…”

I took a deep breath. It was hard to remember that her species didn’t do mandatory clothing. Hell, her face was basically at her species junk level. She probably didn’t even care about nudity due to sheer over expos-

I slapped a palm to my face in embarrassment. Lyra, you’re a fucking idiot. She’s blind, and can only see here, in dreams. She has no idea that nudity can be sexual…

“Moonbutt, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I forgot you're not a human. We see being naked as a semi-sexual thing. It’s something you only be around romantic partners. From your perspective, yeah, I can see that you’d assume I meant you could see me naked. But a human would have never assumed that’s what I meant.”

“Oh! I am truly sorry!” Luna quickly apologized.

“No, it’s fine, you didn’t know. I’m the one at fault here for getting mad. Especially since you're blind, and I doubt you’d find appearances sexual anyways,” I said, continuing my apology.

Moonbutt nodded. “This is true. I’m actually attracted to combinations of behaviors. Kindness, compassion, courage, and joy, to beest specific. I am still apologetic for having caused thou embarrassment with mine cultural misunderstand-”

She trailed off, eyes widening as her ears stood up in what looked like alarm. “Wait! You said it’s only permissible to be seen naked by romantic partners. Does this mean we’re married now buy some sort of common law?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yep. We’re totally hitched now...”

Luna gave me a panicked look, as if she wanted to sprint headlong away, but also didn’t want to flee.

“... While I am certain mine mother wilt killeth me for this… Thou art exotic looking, kind, and seemeth to care for me. I suppose things could beest worse,” Luna mused to herself.

I shook my head. “I was being sarcastic, you silly filly.”

Luna facepalmed- I mean facehooved. “Bloody Faust… I’m a complete fool…”

<Listing recommended games…> Cheer.ly informed, sending me a list of appropriate games silently so as not to interupt he conversation.

My mind settled on one in particular. A simple, but rather fun game. Stellar Chess.

“If it makes you feel better, I think I could do worse too,” I giggled. “So, games… What about something we could play and still chat while playing? You said you like chess, right?”

“Yes! I love chess,” Moonbutt affirmed. “Though I would much rather see one of thy people’s games.”

“You will,” I assured, “because we’re going to play a game that’s a lot like chess. Well, it is chess, except for a few small differences. First, the board is three dimensional, not flat. It has a number of squares equal to a standard chessboard, and twelve layers that sit one atop the other. Pieces move freely in this three dimensional space. Second, it takes pieces time to move, after ordering them to go, they travel at X squares per turn. Third, you can only take out an opponent's piece after destroying its defenses by having pieces with high attack power next to it for enough turns to deal enough damage.

“Sound fun?”

Luna gave me a content smile. “Indeed, explain to me what each piece doest and I shalt destroy thee.”

I smiled to myself and shook my head. She probably would. I sucked at this game.

“Cheer.ly, start a game of Stellar Chess. Keep it in my office,” I ordered, a green vector board flicking into existence between the two of us.

“Starswirl said thou willt be here for several days… Can we playeth one of the alternate world games thou described tomorrow night?” Luna asked hopefully.

“Yeah… I’d do that today, but the real violence is still pretty fresh,” I admitted. “Tomorrow should be fine though.”

“Excellent!” She exclaimed happily. “Oh, um… Fear not. I believe I shalt enjoy this game as well.

“Great,” I began, “here’s how you play.”

11 Timebomb

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Lyra Heartstrings - 13th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Noon

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

The hell was back. The silver enclosed hell of absolutly fuck all to do. Spending the previous night gaming with Luna had been a mistake. Not that it wasn’t fun as hell, after a few games of chess she’d talked me into doing a remake of Doom’s co-op campaign. That had been a blast!

Thing was, yeah… The energy to do all that had to come from somewhere. In this case my gut, and I hadn’t eaten in awhile. Few days come to think of it.

Calories, the bane of biotech gamers everywhere.

Needless to say, I couldn’t do much more than be hungry and stare at the silver tent walls right now. And right now was completely goddamn silent! Starswirl had gone out to pick up the last deely bopper needed to make the spell of not-die for me. Moonbutt and Celestia were out training with their mother for the day. So the whatever was outside this foil envelope was completely silent.

Aside from the sounds of something bubbling at least. Oh mysterious bubbling thing which smells of cantaloupe and dark chocolate, with a hint of rose. What are you? Are you lunch? I could go for some lunch.

“Oh my god, I need to think of something other than food!” I exclaimed loud enough to make Bon ‘jump’ and look at me in surprise.

“Oh come on! You’ve seen me eat multiple times every day,” I accused. “Not all of us can have a rabbit once a month and be totally good.”

Bon gave me a look which I swore was a deadpan, before actual rolling her eyes! While not a zoologist I knew that snake eyes did not roll like that. I wanted to question how she did that, but it wasn’t like she could speak, and well, answers had to be coming soon right?

My thoughts were shattered as Bon reached over to my belt, sniffed at the pouches on my left side, opened one with her mouth, and took out one of my kit’s two ration bars which I had literally completely forgot about.

“... Whelp, I’m stupid,” I said decisively as Bon held the bar in her mouth with the deadpan stare resumed.

I took the bar from her mouth and opened the packaging, unclasping my helmet’s faceplate with the other. I couldn’t help but realize that I had been making a lot of dumb decisions the last few days. I also hadn’t had a bite the last few days.

That hadn’t been a problem before, military mods should let me go for three days without food. Wait no, that hadn’t been mods, that was the combat stims. God damnit Lyra! You need to remember to eat more, the suit’s only half the equation here.

I’d gotten through the first two bites of the chalky food substitute nutrient bar when a door somewhere off behind me creaked open and hoof steps clicked against the floor.

“Starswirl?” I asked, mouth somewhat full.

“Clover,” the wizard’s wife politely corrected. “He hasn’t gotten you out of that thing yet?”

“No, he said he had to pick up a… Um… Mystical sounding thing I can’t remember, cuz my VI’s too low on energy to run right now,” I explained, poorly.

“VI?” Clover asked curiously. “Ah yes! Luna mentioned that, an integrated assistant… How do you recharge it? Can I get one?”

“Eating food,” I explained. “Runs on calories, haven’t eaten in a few days now so-”

“What?!” Clover shouted. “That bearded idiot didn’t think to feed you!? How can you be absent minded you future seeing old coot!”

“Uh…” I said, not wanting to push the ‘marital spat is a go’ button.

“Let me get you something to eat,” Clover more ordered than asked.

“It’s cool, I got a ration bar. I forgot I had it,” I said not wanting her to go through any trouble.

With an explosive flash of dark green magic a short very plain looking white and black speckled mare in a burlap hooded cloak teleported into my tent. She eyed the bar, sniffed it, recoiled, and exclaimed, “That’s not food! That’s concentrated hatred!”

I sputtered and scooted backwards from Clover. “Shit! Warn a girl before you just fucking appear like that!”

“How can you even eat that…” Clover’s yellow eyes narrowed, flashing with arcane light for a second. “That’s dried algae! Why would you put that in your mouth!? Wait... Is that what your species is supposed to eat?”

“No, but it keeps you from dieing and real food is super expensive. You can’t vat grow it… Taste isn’t too bad,” I grunted, deciding to let the teleport go.

It was probably like the clothing thing. Ponies probably just expected unicorns to teleport.

Clover leaned in, actually fucking licked an unwrapped section of the bar, immediately went green, and teleported again. Judging by the sound of her retching, she’d literally teleported away just in time to avoid puking on me.

“Ugh… It tastes like hate too…” She groaned.

I wanted to laugh at the instant fucking karma, but well, that karma was good enough. Serves you right for licking someone else food bitch!

“Yeah so, gonna ask you to just not do that again and let me eat,” I said, wiping the bar clean on my flight suit's leg before taking another bite.

A zap and sizzling sound caught my attention, prompting me to turn and…see more foil wall. Yay…

“So happy Celestia invented a cleaning spell,” Clover muttered. “As for you, throw that garbage away. I’m getting you some food! Herbivore or omnivore?”

“You really don’t need to-”

“Yes I do! You are a guest in my house and I won't have you eating…that.” Clover adamantly insisted. “Herbivore or omnivore?”

“Carnivore,” I said snarkily.

Seriously, how do you know I don’t just eat meat?

“Really? With those teeth? Don’t be my husband,” Colver scolded.

“Omnivore,” I sighed. “Look you really don’t have to trouble yourself with-”

“I’m millennia old. Taking a few minutes to help someone is literally nothing to me. Now toss that wad of hate aside and get ready for proper bucking food!” Clover ordered in a voice reminiscent of a Drill Sergeant.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” I snapped reflexively.

God damnit… Make it up to Captain, still snap to attention for the Sarge… Damn you, Pavlov!

I heard the distinct pop of a teleport spell, twice infact. One to my left, one from up the stairs. I had just enough time to wonder about the science behind instant transmission of objects before Clover appeared again, the flash of light reflecting off the sides of my tent rather blindingly.

“Behold! Actual food,” Clover said, her aura holding the best looking sandwich in the world!

Dark brown bread, with some sort of red and brown sauces slathered over bits of finely shredded meat, bits of some other light bread and darker specks of meat, and some kind of mushy white paste. It looked weird, but it smelled like heaven.

“I don’t care why you have meat, that looks too amazing to question!” I exclaimed, practically snatching the sandwich from her.

“It’s a griffon recipe, we have some of their mages come to call from time to time,” Clover explained, sitting down. “Excuse me Miss Snake. Also, since Pegasi need a little meat, we keep it in stock. You can have all you like, I believe there’s…turkey and sausage, pork sausage, and it’s mixed in there with cornbread, potatoes, and- Oh! You’re not allergic to cranberries, are you?”

“No idea, never had them. For that matter, what the hell is a turkey?” I asked, taking the first bite of-

Literal actual heaven! Holy shit! The phrase better than sex wasn’t bullshitting. It was a real thing!

Clover chuckled. “That’s about the reaction I expected for someone who's used to that slime. Care for some lunchtime conversation? Or perhaps a drink?”

“Uh… Oh shit, when was the last time I drank anything?” I exclaimed to myself.

Ohhhh shit. At Miyuki's. Literally more than two days ago. Sweet fucking physics! No wonder I wasn’t thinking at fucking all!

“Soooo I’m definitely dehydrated,” I admitted as Clover conjured a green glass bottle to my side in a flash of dark green.

“Drink up, don’t worry, it’s non-alcoholic. Also the glowing is normal and safe,” she instructed casually.

“Sandwich first,” I decided, tearing into the mound of goodness like the appropriate metaphor.

Clover shook her head. “I pity your species. Good food is essential to good living. Now then, you’ve been stuck in here for some time, would you prefer we take this conversation to the table?”

“Can’t leave the tent,” I grunted around the sandwich of the gods, “suit’s ripped.”

Clover facehooved hard enough for me to hear a clunk. “He didn’t fix your suit!?”

“... You’re fucking shitting me. That was an option!?” I demanded angrily.

“I thought you wanted to be in there! I- I’m going to smack the crap out of and then back into that doofus!” Clover swore angrily. “I know that a long term solution to the problem with transmutation is best, but he didn’t even think you might want to move around- Urrrgh!”

Clover groaned and held her head in her hooves. “Excuse my husband’s idiocy. He gets far too wrapped up in what could be and what would be best to think about the little things sometimes. Where’s your suit damaged?”

I turned my leg so she could see the rip. Clover’s horn glowed as small sparks of dark green magic danced across the rip, forcing the synthetic material to flow back together as if it were healing flesh.

“Huh… For a simple charm that took quite a bit of energy. What sort of fabric is this made from?” Clover asked conversationally.

“About forty different synthetic materials laminated into a single sheet. No idea exactly what, but it’s radiation shielded, so yeah… It can absorb and deflect a lot of high energy particles,” I said, finishing off the last bite of sandwich.

“Mmm, yes that would do it,” Clover said with a nod only to look up at me with surprise as I finished the sandwich. “Oh! My that was fast. You must be very hungry. Do you need another?”

“I’m twice your size… Sorta makes that into a half portion,” I pointed out.

“Ah, yes. One moment,” Clover warned, vanishing in a burst of light yet again.

A heartbeat later she returned, presenting another sandwich, which was identical to the first one. Literally.

“How-” I began.

“Enchanted bottomless box of sandwiches,” Clover said proudly.

“Okay. How-”

“Wizard,” she explained.

“Fair enough,” I decided, tearing into the fresh sandwich.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’re probably sick of being asked questions about your home,” Clover said as she gave Bon a scritch behind her head with one hoof. “Is there anything about these lands you wish to know? You won't find a more knowledgeable scholar anywhere.”

“Not even your husband?” I asked.

She smiled. “He was my apprentice a long time ago. I have ages more first-hoof knowledge than he does… For history at least. He’s only surpassed me in some schools.”

I nodded slowly, thinking back on any questions I had. “Well, do you know what’s up with Bon?”

“Not yet, I will by this evening. I promise. I simply need more time for a potion to finish brewing so I can finish analyzing the wild magics at work here,” Clover said in a similar tone to a computer programmer explaining, ‘shit just takes time’.

Deciding not to press for an answer there, I searched for anything else. “Alright, could you help me find where I need to go to return this to it’s owner?” I asked tapping the VM on it’s side.

Clover nodded, giving me an apologetic look. “I could. However, Starswirl and I talked it over last night. While we could send you to your destination he is very insistent that you do it on your own. If we were to allow you to arrive via shortcut, many things which should be, won’t be.”

“Seriously?!” I asked incredulously, jaw dropping. “You could help but you won't because tampering with the way of the world?”

“No,” Clover said firmly. “We will not help because your journey, should you succeed, will not consume your life. And along the way, your actions, should you not fail, will mean great and important things to those you encounter.

“Sure, it’s not like you have to do this on your own to prevent the end of the world. But if we sent you where you wish to go, not only would you miss out on a valuable experience, but the lives of several others would be objectively worse. And if I am any judge of character… You’re enjoying your travels, are you not?”

Fuck. She had me there.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “I am… But still, it’s kinda frustrating to know someone can help but won’t.”

“We’re enabling you to breath freely,” Clover pointed out.

“Yeah, but-”

“And I’m giving you a box of sandwiches,” Clover added.

“Wait, you are?” I asked eagerly.

“Of course I am! It would be decidedly evil to send you along with only those foul things to eat,” Clover laughed. “Are we even?”

I bit my lip in thought and nodded my head. “Yeah, but only because these things are amazingly good.”

“Excellent, but really, those were not the sort of questions I thought you might have. You find yourself in another world and you only want to know about personal things… This doesn't seem like the sort of things a dimensional traveler would want to know. There has to be something about this place that interests you?” Clover prompted.

“Well, yeah. There is,” I admitted, her prompt having gotten my mind in the right place to remember a few things. “Luna was talking about a war, and after I said I was a soldier, she asked me if I was a changeling. I guess that means the war was between you guys and them. What was it over? Territory? Resources? Because fuck you?”

Clover’s ears drooped sadly, “I… No, I did say anything. Very well. You have a unique opportunity to learn something few of my kind know, and that almost none would believe.”

I opened the bottle Clover had given me earlier. From the sound of her tone, this was going to be good.

“There are none alive who know changelings as well as I do,” Clover began. “This is not a boast, I have seen everything from the fall of The Overmind, to the rise of their current empire, to the end of this last crusade. First hoof even, because I’m the one who sent their overmind to tartarus. Their empire exists because of me… Which puts this war on my head, but sadly it was not within my power to stop.”

I flinched. “Ah geez, I didn’t mean to bring something like that up! You don’t have to-”

“No, I think I’d rather talk about it to someone,” Clover said shaking her head slowly. “Many say this war happened simply because changelings feed on emotions, and as such they must prey on others to survive. That’s partially true, a little of this about food. But that’s not the reason they crusade.

“Others insist it must be because their tropical empire is freezing over, for whatever reason. They are being driven from their home just as ponykind was once driven from theirs. This is also untrue, changelings do not mind the cold… Though other species do, and changelings need other species to survive.

“The crusade was also not simply because they hate us, like what the King wishes his vassals to believe. Yes, changelings hate many elements of pony culture. But they are not so mindless as to strike out simply for hate’s sake. The things they hate about us are merely an excuse.”

“Then what’s the real reason?” I prompted, hoping to avoid what sounded like the start of a fourteen hour long old person ramble.

“Anguish,” Clover said bitterly. “To be a changeling is to live a life filled with anguish, depression, and feelings of crippling isolation. That’s why they gather in hives, thousands strong, and call said hives a unified family. It’s why all changelings are perfectly loyal to their hive’s queen. To try and capture even the barest shred of happiness, a changeling devotes themselves wholeheartedly to their hive and their queen… And for the common castes, that works.

“But, the Queens themselves are also changelings. They too suffer from the soul crushing loneliness. But unlike their underlings, they have no one to turn to. They have both the burden of ruling over countless lives, and the pain of being alone through that. While you or I would simply make a friend amongst your own hive… Well, the current queens are simply fools stuck in tradition and plagued by elitism.

“They don’t even befriend one another. Instead they work in a polite rivalry… The queens are a mess. Trust me, not a one of them is what you would call a good person. But they are intelligent, competitive, cunning… And bitter hate filled shells. All because they refuse to accept what changelings truly are and live a healthy lifestyle. So, they seek out things to unleash their anger upon. And so, we have the Crusades.”

“That’s a pretty big problem… But it sounds like you could solve it by killing the Queens. Their replacements would probably do better,” I said thoughtfully.

“If a changeling Queen could be easily killed, then I would have ended the war myself,” Clover said agreeingly. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I was only able to stop their overmind by clever manipulation and cunning trickery. They won't ever trust me again.”

“Wait! I can get how a wizard is basically immortal, but from the sounds of things, are changelings immortal too?” I asked.

“Far from it,” Clover dismissed with a hoof wave. “Queens simply do not suffer from age’s ravagings. Their bodies remain at their prime, but illness and injury can slay them all the same. The other castes live far shorter lives, less than a third of a pony’s life on average.

“It’s much like ants. I have a pet ant colony, their queen is forty years old and seems quite fine… Perhaps it’s simply an insect thing for the drones to die in mere years while the queen endures. Regardless, those thirteen individuals are very hard to destroy. I have a plan of attack for achieving their end, but well… It’s not something to discuss with a stranger. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said taking a swig of the shockingly sweet, soda like drink. “So then, you claim to know what changelings really are even though they don’t. What are they? How do they not know?”

Clover smiled. “I do. It’s sad really. I tried to tell them, but well, they do not trust me any longer. I got the knowledge straight from the overmind too. It didn’t mean for me to learn it either, this is something I only know from defeating it in a psychic duel and shattering it’s willpower into tiny fragments.

“The changeling’s misery is the result of one simple thing, they are not living as they are designed to.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that word choice important?”

“Very,” Clover insisted. “They are not natural creatures, not to say they are artificial, but their species was created. They did not come forth from the earth like all other creatures. No, changelings were created via some means in a time so long ago it feels ancient even to me.

“They were made for a purpose, and as they live now, they can not fulfill that purpose. So they are miserable. Honestly, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. Though it might not be obvious until you are told…

“Changelings are designed to be the perfect companion. A changeling needs only some water and the love of another to live, they can take any physical shape one might desire, and they live to serve. No naturally formed creature would ever work that way, nature is too…violent. It would never produce a creature which requires the affection of sapient life as food.”

I triple blinked. Bioengineered species I understood, but. “Wait, you mean they literally eat emotion? How the flying fuck does that even work!?”

“No idea,” Clover grumbled. “If I could just work that out, I would. Well, without getting too angry at my own failures to discover the exact mechanism anyway. I can assure you that they really only need emotional energy to survive. A changeling can directly take it, or passively absorb it. Direct is dangerous without a strong emotional bond, passive does not provide them with much to eat. Unless there is… Umm... Fresh made love nearby,” Clover finished with an embarrassed cough.

“I don’t even remotely know how you would go about designing a creature like that,” I said shaking my head. “That’s way beyond my college Bioforming class’s scope.”

Clover’s eyes widened immensely. “Your species can create life!?”

“Yeah, it’s one of our most useful technologies,” I said with a proud smile. “Hell, I’m not natural. I’m rocking the Human Three-point-oh platform, with all the improvements and upgrades that brings. But yeah, humans create and modify lifeforms to suit our needs.”

“Is there any way your people might have-”

I shook my head to cut the mage off. “Sorry… We have no concept of magic. We couldn’t possibly have made a creature that literally lives on love.”

“Come again?” Clover asked in shock.

“We couldn’t make a creature that eats love, because my species does not know about magic. I’m definitely the first to know it’s a real thing,” I repeated.

“Y-you can make life without the use of magic?” Clover asked, stunned.

“Yeah,” I said casually. “I made some myself in school even.”

“How?” She asked.

“Science,” I replied.

“Fair enough,” Clover muttered. “But you definitely did not create changelings?”

“Nope,” I said as firmly as I could.

“A pitty…” Clover lamented. “Finding their original host species would solve many problems. Still, from the sound of it… Bah, I’m grasping at straws. All I know for sure is their creators are not from this continent.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, to invested in this conversation to let things wrap up. And Clover’s tone seemed to indicate she was wrapping up.

“Oh, well the overmind knew they had come here by ship. There is an inland sea between here and the Griffon kingdoms, but the changeling Empire is on the coast to our north west. Right on the beachhead. Additionally I’ve scoured this entire continent for any clue and have come up with nothing, despite three thousand years of searching. So they must have come from over the sea,” Clover explained.

“Humm… Well, you can teleport, maybe you should pop over and check,” I mused.

“I would, but teleportation doesn't allow for that. You must know where you're going and be familiar with the location,” Clover grumbled.

“Maybe you could try convincing the changelings working under the queens to find hosts of a different species,” I offered. “That would solve the problem by taking away the Queens real power, right?”

“Yes, but it will simply not happen. A changeling serves whomever they feel a bond for wholeheartedly. If a changeling truly loved you and you asked them to die, they would happily kill themselves. That’s the sort of mentality we are talking about here,” Clover sighed.

“Oh… Well shit. I’m out of ideas,” I said.

“As am I. Hence, ponykind and lingkind just got through another war… I’m sorry to have darkened your meal with this conversation,” Clover apologized.

“Nah, it’s alright. This was actually pretty cool to learn. Especially since I met a changeling a while back… She definitely seemed bitter and angry from a lack of companionship,” I mentioned.

Clover nodded. “I hope you better understand her suffering now.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but a loud whistling sound interrupted me.

“Oop! That’s the potion boiling. Best attend to that. If you need anything, walk on up and ask me. Since your suit’s fixed now,” Clover offered before vanishing in another burst of dark green.

“Will do!” I called towards where I thought the stairs were.

I felt really good for the first time in a long time. Hydrated, full, rested… Hopefully soon I’d also feel free to take my helmet off outside. Starswirl had to be back any minute now.

Lyra Heartstrings - 13th of Faust 1,312 Classical Era - Evening

Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #0???? - The Prime (Distant Past)

I had been completely right! Starswirl’s lab was awesome!

The room was hexagonal, but had a cool domed ceiling making it look like you were inside a bottle of some kind. Which was especially neat since the stone walls were covered in plaster to give them a smooth, uniform off white texturing which went really well with the lightly stained support beams which held the roof up and trimmed the walls.

The whole place was illuminated with little orbs of floating light. Nothing inside, just a light orb, floating around flipping off conventional physics. The floating motes of light gave the entire place a cheery, kind whimsical, happy feel which was only enhanced by every wall being covered in ether bookshelves or cabinets.

Everything was a storage space. Everything! The tables were supported by sets of drawers. Stools and chairs had pull out bins beneath them. The actual motherfucking floor had hatched compartments all over the place in which things were stored!

What was being stored? Hell if I know! Everything maybe, that was a distinct possibility. Everything, but mostly all of the chemistry equipment in the world. That shit was EVERYWHERE! Every single surface was covered with glass flasks, beakers, burners of bunsen, condensers, alembics… It was like a pharmaceutical company invaded a super fancy hotel's lobby.

What was the chemistry stuff doing? Fuck if I knew. Maybe everything. Almost all of it was in some stage of doing something. I’d spent a few hours looking at all of the things and trying to work out if I could understand any of it.

To my surprise, I had! I came upon a small experiment which seemed to be an attempt to purify gold by dissolving it and precipitating out the non-gold metals then reconstituting the then purified gold.

That was something I actually knew how to do thanks to my electronics hobbying, so I’d gone ahead and set up the proper reaction, and had evaporated the liquids away to leave the pure gold powder behind. That sort of thing takes a while, and just as I’d finished it, I heard a semi familiar voice clear his throat behind me.

“Ahem… I know that suit isolates you from the world, but some of the experiments here could kill you anyway,” Starswirl warned.

I turned around, seeing the wizard for the first time. He was kinda tall for a pony. Or at least, I think he was. Tall and thin. Also gray, the sort of gray you get if you started gray and faded out even more with age. He also had a goat-like beard, and piercing eyes which would have given him an intimidating and wise look… If he had not been wearing the stupidest hat int he world.

Who puts on a floppy cone wizard hat rimmed with bells? Honestly… It had to be a magic thing. Maybe some spells required you have on a stupid hat. There was no way he simply liked that hat.

… He totally just liked the hat. Didn’t he? Well, Lyra, you shouldn’t judge him for it.

“Yeah but I know how to do this one,” I replied. “You were trying to purify gold right?”

“Yes! I was. Did you do it?” He asked, gently pushing me aside to look at the flask. “Humm… Yes you seem to have done it. How did you isolate the gold?”

“It’s easy, I do it all the time to get pure gold for coating electrical contacts. You just dilute the dissolved impure gold solution in muriatic acid and then let it evaporate off. Then repeat that a few times till it’s less amber and more yellow. Then you toss in some sulphur dioxide, that reacts with the acid, and causes the gold to turn into powder, so you can then evaporate away the acid, and you’re left with the powdered pure elemental gold. You can just melt it into a single piece or do what have you,” I explained.

“Thank you! And the chemicals you used are which ones? I don’t recognise them by those names,” Starswirl asked.

I pointed out the two chemicals I had used, explaining I had used my suit’s systems to analyze the chemicals. It was a nice ten minutes of feeling smart as I showed a wizard how to do something. Even if it was something fairly simple.

“Well,” Starswirl said happily as I finished. “Now that you’ve helped me with getting pure gold dust on the cheap, I think it’s time we fix your breathing problem. Shall we?”

“Yes please!” I asked eagerly.

“Right, some things you should know…” Starswirl began in a tone indicating something was up. “I did some scrying last night, and I have decided it is for the best to send you on your way as soon as you can travel. Which means Clover and I will be charging your travel device for you shortly.”

“Wait,” I started with a frown. “but you said-”

“That it would take three days,” Starswirl agreed. “I did say that, yes. But… I did not look further ahead than that. After doing so, I… Luna is important to the future. If you remain here another night, something important will change and the world will suffer for it.”

I groaned. “Oh come on… Seriously?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You won’t tell me, will you?” I asked irritably.

“You will wind up marrying her and staying in this timeline if you continue to interact with her here and now,” Starswirl said bluntly. “It might seem cruel or speciesist of me, but I can’t let that happen. Because if it does, Luna will have no interest in assisting Clover with a future project of hers, and as a result, Clover will never develop a spell vital for the survival future of ponykind as she will never get a volunteer to try it on.”

I triple blinked. “Uh… Come again?”

“It is critical for the future for Luna to remain eager to be appreciated. If you continue interacting with her, you decide to never leave this world. This prevents the better futures from happening,” Starswirl explained again.

“I… I thought you didn’t tell people their futures,” I objected, rather shocked at the notion he was presenting.

“I never tell someone the future they are going to experience,” Starswirl corrected. “But I will tell them of futures it is best to avoid. Please, you have to understand. Luna must volunteer to help Clover when the time comes. If she dose not, the possible futures for ponykind are much more dim.”

“We seriously get married if I stay here?” I asked, completely hung up on that statement.

Starswirl groaned. “Yes. You do. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Well… She is kind of cute. But I never saw myself as the sort to actually marry. I mean take a mate sure but… That will really happen?” I asked again.

“Yes,” Starswirl insisted.

“Are you fucking with me?” I asked.

“How could this conversation even remotely be construed as us having sex?” Starswirl sputtered.

I laughed, his flabbergasted expression knocking me out of the loop of incredulity. “Hahaaa! Your face!” I giggled. “Sorry, human expression. Right, so… If I stay here another night… Couldn’t I just not talk to Luna now that I know?”

Starswirl shook his head. “It’s best not to risk you changing your mind, or her convincing you to stop ignoring her. Or her bursting into your dreams and demanding an explanation.”

“And we seriously fall in love and get married after talking tomorrow?” I asked disbelievingly.

“No, you become friends after talking tomorrow, and you decide to stay here,” Starswirl explained. “A few months after that you become lovers, and then a year later you marry. This is in all futures wherein you remain here any longer than, er let's’ see… Ah! An hour from now.”

“But, the radon thing. I really need a solution for that!” I protested.

Starswirl nodded in agreement. “You do, and I also never break my word. So I did something I rarely do. I looked into a future where I make you a cure, and I wrote down the things I did. I spent the day thus far brewing a permanent mutagenic potion which will allow you to breath almost anything naturally occurring. Drink it and your home’s air, our air, presumably the air of most worlds, and even water you will find yourself perfectly able to breathe.”

“Wait,” I asked holding up a finger, “water?”

“Yes, that future me couldn’t work out how to make a potion which only let you breathe gases. So it includes most liquids too,” Starswirl said sagely. “I looked for other future me’s solutions, but all of the other ones turn your skin a mint green, and I didn’t think you’d want that.”

Actually, that would be pretty cool! I’d always loved that color. Still, I wasn’t going to complain about a fucking super environmental adaptation serum!

“Are you telling me that you have a potion which will let me breathe anything!?” I asked with joyful incredibly.

“Er well, no. Not everything, but most things,” Starswirl mused. “Hummm you should know the details. Oddly it doesn't prevent things specifically designed as a poison from harming you. It also will not let you breathe in a helium only atmosphere… Likewise you shouldn’t try to breath mercury or gallium. Basically only common atmospheric gases and most naturally occurring liquids.”

“That’s fucking awesome!” I exclaimed, not even bothered by those limitations.

“Whew! She likes it,” Starswirl exclaimed. “I personally saw it as a failure… Right. So. We have that potion. Clover knows what is happening to your pet, and I also stole the answer of where you have been from another future me. What do you want first?”

“Er, come again?” I asked.

“Which of those three things do you want first? We need to go now. Before Luna is finished with her lessons,” Starswirl urged.

Which of those three… “Bon, what’s with her?” I decided.

Starswirl nodded and turned towards the spiral staircase towards the south wall. “Clover! It’s time!” He called.

The black and white dappled mare appeared with that same flash of light, Bon loosely draped on her back as if my not-so-little-anaconda were laying on a tree branch.

“Do you ever walk anywhere?” I asked reflexively.

“I walk plenty of places. I just hate stairs,” Clover explained with a smile. “Are we seeing her off?”

“We are seeing her off,” Starswirl confirmed with a nod.

Clover’s horn pulsed with her aura, a small sandwich sized, dark oaken box appearing in front of me along with a small leather satchel with a shoulder strap.

“Here,” she offered. “Food and drink. I had to rush these, so you will only get three meals and one liter of water a day. No more than that I’m afraid.”

“Thank you,” I said accepting the items. “How do they work?”

“Open box, remove sandwhich. Open the bottle in the bag, drink water,” Clover instructed.

“... Well I feel dumb,” I muttered putting the box into the bag and slipping it over my shoulders.

“Don’t, most magical items have inane activation rituals,” Clover said with a dismissive hoof wave. “Now as for your scaled friend, she will be perfectly fine. She’s a very lucky girl, usually being saturated with wild magic will transform you into a monster, or something not alive.

“However, Bon here is slowly transforming into one of our world’s more rare peoples. A lamia. Her transformation should be finished within a week or two. As of right now she is quite sapient, just like you and I, only she is incapable of speech as her throat has yet to change.”

I nodded as a gesture to myself. “I thought she was getting people smart. Is… Is there anything I should know?”

“Yes,” Clover said with a nod. “She thinks you are her mother.”

Bon hissed and gave Clover a confused look.

“Sorry, I mean you are her mom,” Clover corrected.

I tilted my head to the side. “I, wa- No, actually that makes perfect sense… I meant like, you know, is she in pain? Is there anything to watch out for? I don’t know anything about magic, or transformations, or any of this.”

Clover’s mouth formed a little ‘o’. “No, she’s perfectly safe, and I managed to get rid of the pain. Just know that she will eventually grow a pair of dragon-like arms and talons, and her upper body will also reshape into something ironically like your own, among other small changes. It might not be a pretty process but well… You and especially Bon are lucky she’s not turning into a cragodile, or an animal mass of carnivorous vines.”

“Alright…and how did that happen so I don’t get mutated too?” I asked as seriously as I could.

“Most likely your portal device,” Clover informed. “Don’t worry she’s only been dosed once. Most likely when she first passed through it.”

“Ah, okay…” I looked over at Bon with a bit of concern, “I… I guess I should stop talking to you like a pet. Uh… Sorry.”

Bon tilted her head to the side and gave me a confused stare.

“So then, how about your little mystery next?” Starswirl asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said shaking my head slowly. “Won't be as mind blowing to learn that my pet is turning into a snake girl…”

“Heh,” Starswirl said with a grin that instantly made me decide I was wrong about that. “Wherever you call home is not where you were conceived. From what I could find, your mother actually left your home dimension for a time, where she became pregnant with you. You then spent the first few months of your life in another dimension, separate from the one your were conceived in, all before your mother returned home. That’s sadly all I could learn.”

“Wait then… I’m not human?” I asked in alarm, heart skipping a beat.

“No, you are. Aside from a few sparks of magic in addition to those natural for your species, you are purely human,” Starswirl affirmed supportingly. “Besides, you grew up where you grew up. Your home is not where you were born after all. The important thing to take away from this is that because of whatever adventure your mother had… Well… You are something of an anomaly.

“Specifically, you should exist about five thousand years into the future. However, you’ve been unmoored, so to speak. Meaning you can safely live anywhen in time. The timeline won't care. Which is frankly astonishing.

“See, there’s a metaphysical property of time which normally will shunt things which have been displaced in time back to the point they naturally were. Meaning the longest possible amount of time one can remain in the past is three weeks, six years for the future, as that takes less energy. You however, are unaffected by this phenomenon, and could stay anywhen for as long as you like.

“I honestly thank you for existing and letting me analyze you, because you’re oddness in this respect has helped me make a physics breakthrough. One which might help me develop a means to stay in a time period longer.”

“Huh… So that means I actually could stay here as long as I liked…” I mused.

“Quite! It also means it may be possible for me to invent a solution to the temporal snapback issue. Which opens up many possibilities. So again, thank you,” Starswirl thanked happily.

“And, you’re certain that I am human?” I asked.

Clover nodded. “Yes. Your present species is most certainly authentic and not any form of illusion or crude transmutation. However, you might have been born as something else. But if you were, the transformation magic used is on par with a changeling’s. Prefect biological replication. You are a human as it stands right now.”

“Besides, you have lived your whole life as your present species,” Starswirl grunted. “Even if you turned into a pony right now, you would still think like a human and act like a human. What you are is a fusion of mind and body.”

“That’s true I suppose,” I mused, the brewing existential crisis dying down. “But… What did my mom do? And why…”

Starswirl shrugged. “Your home is temporarily quite distant from this world. I couldn’t see things in more detail than what I have given you.”

“Damn… I guess I can ask her when I get back,” I said decisively.

I really really really had to know. Exactly what the fuck my mom had done and why were eating away at my mind. But on the other hand, I was already in the middle of my own quest so to speak. Also there wasn’t anything I could do to learn more right now.

Hell there wasn’t anything a fuckmothering wizard who could see time could do to learn more right now! I had to just move on and come back to this later...

“So, how about that potion?” I asked with a sigh.

Starswirl nodded, his horn glowing yellow as he levitated a flask of purplish liquid over to-

“Hey! The cantaloupe and dark chocolate smelling thing!” I exclaimed in mild surprise as the flask drew near enough for me to smell the thick liquid.

“Yeah, I have no idea what makes it smell like that… It doesn't have either of those in it.” Starswirl mused thoughtfully.

“What’s i- Wait, no, please don’t tell me…” I decided.

“Wise decision,” Starswirl chuckled. “Right, pop the helmet off and drink all of it.”

“A-all of it?” I asked, taking the at least two liter container in my hand.

Clover reached over and lightly smacked Starswirl on the back of the head. “She actually would have done it you dick!”

“Ow! Sheesh, blame me for wanting to have a little fun!” He griped. “Just take a sip. You only need a mouthfull.”

“Then why did you make so much?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You need that much water to boil the ingredients down into the proper form,” Starswirl answered.

“Uh, is it safe to drink it like this or should I set up the tent again?” I asked cautiously.

“Just drink it here. Any radon you breathe in will be harmless once you swallow that stuff,” Clover soothed.

“Alright… But what about the radiation from it?” I asked doubly cautiously.

“Meh, future you from the timeline this stuff comes from was fine,” Starswirl said with a shrug.

“Alright…” I said apprehensively.

Reaching up I gripped the release for my faceplate, took a deep breath, opened the plate with a hiss of air. As quickly as I could I raised the rather heavy flask to my lips and-

Took a swing of the foulest stuff imaginable! I gagged, sputtered, almost choked, and managed to spray the mouthful across the room.

“This tastes nothing like how it smells!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah all potions taste gross. Now drink that before you die,” Clover urged.

“Fuck! Right!” I exclaimed, tipping my head back and pouring it down my throat to avoid it touching my tongue.

It failed. It still tasted like liquid ass from a public restroom at a bar.

Hands shaking from the foulness of what I had just drank, I set the flask on a nearby table before I dropped it. I could feel the effects of radon poisoning already. I was getting lightheaded as oxygen stopped reaching my brain. My vision started to blurr in a very discomforting way.

“I don’t think it worked…” I groaned wearily.

Then suddenly, my head cleared.

“No, wait…” I took a few deep breaths, waited for a few seconds, nothing. “Huh. Right. All good now. Thanks! I owe you one.”

“You do,” Starswirl agreed. “So let’s get you on your way. Clover, shall we?”

Clover nodded. “Right. Farewell, Lyra. Should you end up in our universe again, please come visit. I’ll still be here.”

For a split second Starswirl’s face twisted into a truly sad frown. But then with a flash of yellow and dark green magic the two unicorns directed their aura’s to the VM on my wrist. The device glowed brightly in the grip of their magic for several seconds before the glowing auras vanished as quickly as they came.

“Ow…” Sai groaned. “What the hay was that?”

“Oh neat! It’s an intelligent item,” Clover exclaimed happily. “Apologies, my good spirit. We simply gave you the energy you need to function.”

“Well it kinda hurt,” Sai grumped.

I shook my head and looked over at Bon. “Come on, we should get going… I’d like to stay but yeah, we don't want to piss off a wizard who wants us to leave.”

Bon nodded and slid off Clover’s back and over to me, quickly climbing up my leg to cling to my back and shoulders.

“Also uh… Sorry about petting you and stuff,” I apologized.

“Oh no! She likes that. I asked her via telepathy,” Clover urged.

Bon nodded in agreement.

“Alright then,” I retracted. “Sorry. Just a weird situation and shit. Right, let’s go.”

I flipped the cover off the VM and hit the button, opening a portal a few feet in front of me which thankfully didn’t suck in either of the wizards.

I sighed sadly as I looked at the portal. It actually would be nice to stay here. Not for Luna, but because somehow, this place felt comfortable. Like how home never had.

“Alright, bye. See you again sometime with any luck,” I said slowly.

“You don’t,” Starswirl said firmly but apologetically.

“Don’t be a dick to her like that!” Clover scolded. “You have a good time and ignore whatever possible future he was seeing where you don’t see us again!”

With one last apprehensive bite of my lip I stepped forward and entered the portal.

“How far ahead did you look to check for side effects?” I heard Clover ask faintly as the portal engulfed me.

“Uh, about an hour. Why?” Starswirl responded just as the world vanished completely.

Son of a bitch!

12 Prison

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Lyra Heartstrings - 23th of Faust 09 EoH - Afteroon

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

The now familiar pulling sensation of the portals only barely registered in my brain over the rage bubbling in the forefront of my mind. I scarcely noticed as the purplish hole in space vanished.

“Seriously, you son of a bitch!?” I demanded of the now god knows how distant Starswirl. “Fucking seriously?!”

“Yeah, that was a bit of a dick move,” Sai agreed. “But you’ll be happy to hear-”

“I should fucking deck him right in his goddamn pony nose!” I exclaimed, kicking at the wall I found myself facing in anger.

The steel cap on my boot struck up a few sparks as some of the stone chipped away under the impact.

“Who the fuck can see the future and only checks a goddamn hour ahead for side effects!” I growled, clenching my teeth. “It’s only a fucking mutation potion! What’s the fucking worse that will happen?”

“Yeah, but-” Sai tried to say.

“How does a guy like that even marry?!” I demanded. “He probably can’t even think well enough to remember to get a birthday present!”

“Lyra, seriously,” Sai said in an irked tone.

“Oi! Don’t you get short with me!” I demanded shaking a finger angrily at the VM despite it’s lack of a camera. “That motherfucker deserves a size twelve boot up the ass! For all I know in an hour I’m gonna be a fucking pile of pond scum!”

“Fair enough,” Sai agreed, sounding rather aggravated, “but I’ve got-”

“Is that fucking portal still open?” I asked no one in particular, turning around to see no magical gate between me and the other stone-brick wall. “Fucking hell! I swear to physics itself, Clover, you had better be beating the shit out of that old fuck for me!”

“You know what, I’ll just wait,” Sai muttered. “Different Lyra, and yet the same Lyra…”

I turned back to the closer wall and punched it as hard as I could, my suit’s gloves aggravatingly reducing the impact on my fist. I wanted the satisfaction of feeling something yield to my well justified rage!

“Guess I’ll just plant my ass here and wait to turn into a fucking ferret made of cheese or something! Stupid fucking idiot! The fuck did I just drink that shit for!? What did that old son of a bitch ever do to prove trustworthy!?” I growled to myself.

“Potions don't work that way,” someone said a short ways off. “They can’t pack enough punch to turn you into a living thing made of non-living stuff. Or so highschool alchemy taught me.”

“Oh great! Like that lowers the fucking range of shit that can happen,” I snapped. “Now I only have to worry about turning into the love child of Yog-Sothoth and one of those frogs that births its young from it’s skin like fucking blisters!”

“Ew! That’s a thing?!” The same female voice exclaimed.

I turned to see who the fuck I was talking to, and only then noticed where I now was. I was standing in a windowless room with walls, floor, and ceiling made from rough hewn stone. It was like an old castle, except for the clearly 21st century style I-beams supporting the ceiling, and the very not medieval white painted metal bars and cell door which split the room into two different prison cells with a hallway separating the two.

I took a deep breath and let it out as one long angry hissing groan. “... At least you didn’t appear inside a solid object, Lyra…” I decided, clenching my fist angrily.

“Random teleport? Or did that mage you are pissed at toss you out of his sanctum?” The light peach colored mare in the cell across from me asked.

An odd looking mare at that. Or at least, odd in my experience.

Like the last two, she stood on four hooves. Well, at the moment she was sitting on her butt, but she definitely had hooves and forelegs. Which were somehow holding a crudely made hammer and a bit of pipe.

The mare had larger eyes than other ponies, not freakishly so, but definitely noticeable. Her eyes were also a very sharp glass green, which could be a normal pony color, but seemed to glow in the dim light and had pupils which were slits, just like a cat’s. She also had larger ears which came to a much sharper point, or at least appeared to thanks to the floofy-fluff tufty bits of long fur at their tips.

She also had really weird hair. Even by my standards. The way it had a gradient from rich caramel at the roots to a milk chocolate middle, and then to gray-brown tips had to have been painstakingly dyed. No way it just grew like that.

Her fur also had an odd look to it, but it seemed more natural. She had a bunch of slightly darker little dots on her coat which looked sort of like freckles. They showed up in small patches on her shoulders, knees, elbows, cheeks, on her hips above her somehow-in-color green flame shaped brand… Huh, exactly like patches of freckles, actually.

At first I thought she was a pegasus, due to the folded wings at her sides. But after a second of processing I realised they were actually bat style leathery wings.

She was a bat pony. Or a vampire. Or maybe half dragon or some shit.

Na na na na nana, Batpone! … Dammit brain! I’m trying to be mad here!

“Random teleport,” I answered. “After a mage gave me a potion that’s going to probably fucking kill me!”

The mare rolled her eyes. “How do you not know anything about alchemy? The major effects of a potion happen right as it’s swallowed. If you were going to mutate into something really different, it would have happened by now.”

“Is that true?” I asked both her and Sai.

“Yes,” Sai confirmed, “at least, that’s what my basic facts database says.”

“What the bracelet said,” the mare added. “At most you’re in for… I don’t know, an eye color change?”

I took a deep breath, relief flooding my body like it had been dumped on me via anti-fire drone.

“Good! Good… No life as pond scum,” I said to myself as I let the breath go.

“Nope,” the mare confirmed, going back to hammering on some metal with light taps.

“Coulda fooled me…” Sai teased.

I ignored him.

“Uhh… Sso… Where exactly is this prison?” I asked slowly, not wanting to ask her if ponies like her were normal here.

That seemed an exceedingly rude thing to ask.

“Exactly? Humm…” She said, looking off into space in thought. “Somewhere within two arc minutes of I’m not a GPS.”

I narrowed my eyes in irritation as Sai laughed. “Haha! I need to remember that one,” he chuckled.

“Go right ahead and use it, talking wristband, and or colt on a radio someplace!” The mare called cheerfully.

“Look, are you going to help or not?” I asked irritably. I was too pissed off to put up with much shit right now, and while I was in a cell, I had a god damn lightsaber on me. I was hardly stuck here.

“Huh?” The mare asked with a surprised frown. “Of course I am. I’m just making conversation with the randomly appearing biped of a kind I’ve never seen before. You know, an interesting person.”

“Ah… Well… Fair enough,” I admitted slowly.

“Anyways,” she said casually, “hope you’ve heard of Imperial Equestria, cuz you’re in one of her border forts near the badlands. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll help you out of there… Or if you can teleport at will, it would be awesome of you to get me into the hallway.”

“Right…” I asked slowly. “So, I haven't heard of this place. Now, don’t take offence here, but, why should I help a prisoner break out of prison? For all I know you could be a serial killer.”

The mare laughed and flashed me a grin. “Nah! Just an arsonist, and only then if you’re with the Imperials. If you’re not, I’m a rebel. Set fire to an Imperial banner. It obstructed my view of the evening star.”

“Right…” I said slowly, brain starting to click scattered bits of information together. “So, let’s pretend that I’m an alien and have no knowledge whatsoever about your world. Exactly what am I getting into here?”

It sounded like I was in the middle of a nation in a civil war here. While I wouldn’t be here long, it wouldn’t be good to take a side only to pick the weaker one and wind up getting shot.

The mare's ears perked excitedly. “Ohmygosh! Are you!? That would be awesome!”

“Look,” I started with a sigh, gently tapping my sword to draw her attention to it. “I seriously have no idea where I am and what’s going on. I’m going to be here for at least three days. If it helps me, I’ll help you. But if you’re someone who might backstab me-”

Her eyes narrowed instantly, actual anger held in the green slit eyes. “You really have no idea about anything here… I’m a thestral. This is an Imperial prison. If I was a psychopath, I’d much rather be killing them than you.”

The way her body language, glare, and voice combined made me believe her. That was the way someone spoke of their enemies, and not wimpy social enemies but the real ones. The sorts who had been doing unspeakable things to them for generations. The way anyone I’d ever known spoke of our enemies…

“You’re getting out,” I promised.

She nodded. “Yep. Either now or in twenty minutes from now.”

“What happens then?” I asked.

“That’s when I finish this lock-punch I’m making,” she explained, holding up the bed frame bit for a moment.

From what I could see, she’d been hammering the metal tube into a flat bar, and rolling it over to form a thin rod. It was insanely well done for not having a forge or proper anvil available!

“Not bad,” I praised, drawing the sword from my belt and igniting it’s golden blade with a snap hiss. “But mine’s bigger.”

“Mine’s however big I want it to be,” she countered reflexively.

“Mares having a dick measuring contest. Yup, today’s just one of those days...” Sai muttered to himself.

“I like your bracelet, he’s hilarious!” The mare snickered. “Anywho, it’s not size, it’s how you use it. So how about you cut the lock open and get us out into the hallway?”

I pulled my arm back to hack at the cell’s bars as requested but paused, realizing one very important thing.

“Hold on, prison breaks are more complicated than open cell, leave building. What’s your plan?” I asked carefully.

“Well, this is a fort at a military checkpoint, not a proper prison. So it’s meant to keep people out more than it is in,” the mare began, setting down her hammer and moving a few bits of metal around the floor of her cell. “It won't be too hard to get out, they have like, twenty maybe thirty dudes at best and most of them will be patrolling around the sand dunes so we probably need to deal with like…eight.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You plan to just kill eight soldiers and walk off?”

“Pff! Buck no!” What’s-her-name laughed. “We’d be screwed if these guys were soldiers. I mean, it’s a military fort but it’s just Imperial Guard running it. I’ve been avoiding them since I was twelve, their training is shit. It has to be, cuz there’s millions of them. I think the term is ‘cannon fodder’.”

“Right… So then they are what, special police?” I asked, feeling that angry knot forming in my gut.

This was a despotic empire, wasn't it? Fucking hell.

She nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, look, this one’s easy. I got captured here on purpose. I got a ride with a stallion to try and find, er, a place. Anyways, these dickless assholes decided his booze was contraband. So got in the easy way to get his scotch back in return for half off what I agreed to pay him.

“You help me, I help you. He’s still landed out at the dock at the fort, they keep you on ground for a while to just waste your time. All we have do is get his shit. I’m sure he won't mind giving you a lift too, and boom, we have an out from here these idiots won't be able to stop.”

“Right… Except a ton of your species can fly. Aerial outs can’t be all that good,” I pointed out.

She flashed me a smile, the condescending kind. “So all of your vehicles go running speed at best, eh? Sucks for you.”

“Heh! I like you,” Sai chuckled to himself.

“Fair point,” I agreed. “Still you got what, a prison shiv? I have a sword, but they probably have you know, wizards, weapons, armor probably… So unless you’re motherfucking Riddik-”

“Why do you swear like a foal?” The mare asked with an inquisitive eyebrow raise. “Also I’m motherbucking Flintlock Rose. Eventual legendary…whatever I decide to do with my life. We’re good.”

Oh sweet fucking physics… Overconfident scrub is overconfident… Great!

I took a second to see if I could come up with a better plan than ‘break out the noob’.

“My gear’s down the hall in the contraband lock up with the booze. Got all my dad’s old shit. Trust me, we’ll be good,” she added while I thought.

Right, she was going to break out of her cell wether I helped or not. When she did, guards would be alerted, she’d be dragged back here if not killed, and they would find me if I stayed here. If I cut my way out I was apparently in a desert. I could easily just chill on a dune for a few days, my suit would keep me comfortable and-

“Can I talk now?” Sai suddenly asked. “Or are you going to rant some more?”

“What is it Sai?” I sighed, hating the interruption.

“Nothing big. Just found a SkyTech Network here is all. You know, small potatoes,” Sai snarked.

“And you didn’t tell me before, why?!” I demanded, glaring at the manipulator as intensely as I could.

“Cuz you were too busy throwing a hissy fit over shit you’d know if you took a basic intro to alchemy course,” Rose called from her cell.

“What she said!” Sai exclaimed happily. “My god, can you give me to her? Please?”

“Can you access the network?” I asked, taking a deep breath to try and keep calm.

It didn’t work, so I pictured Sai having a body so I could strangle it. That helped.

“Nope. I don’t have the right encryption. So this ain’t home, but I could have told you that with the whole ‘Imperial Equestria’ thing,” Sai answered. “The network is located within a few hundred kilometers, judging by the signal. If you get out of here, I’ll be able to triangulate where it’s coming from… Also unless you fancy that walk, we should help the nice mare.”

“Could we radio them?” I asked hopefully. “Get a pick up?”

“No. Because I don’t have the right encryption,” Sai explained wearily.

“You were able to get into the battle network of Neighponese mechs! I know you can do this,” I objected.

Sai groaned in a way which made me sure his CPU facepalmed. “Oh please, they were using radio encryption with Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction. It ain’t rocket science. My Boss uses microwave transmissions encrypted with quantum cryptography. Hard day’s work for all of me. Insurmountable barrier for just this chunk of me.

“All I can do is see the network’s ID and it’s signal strength. I can’t do shit to get into it. And before you ask me if I can just broadcast a general message and hope they hear it, yeah no… My transmitter’s range for shortwave radio is less than a hundred klicks.”

“Not to butt in here,” Rose interrupted, “but I’m actually kinda going to Sky Labs anyways.”

“Wait, what?” Sai and I asked together, as I turned to look back at the peach colored mare again.

Rose nodded. “Yeah. My dad’s gear was made by Ayna, and she works for Sky Labs. I know she’s a changeling and well… I’m a halfbreed. My Thestrial half might not have any kin left in Equestria, but there’s still plenty of Changelings around. I… I thought maybe I’d have some family left.

“So I’m heading to the Lab to ask her where I can find a hive. They can’t all have been driven completely underground.”

“You don’t look like a changeling,” I pointed out rather stupidly.

Rose grabbed her cheeks with her forehooves in a gesture of mock shock. “Oh my gosh! The shape shifter doesn't look like how I think they should!”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know, sorry… That was dumb.”

Then a thought occurred to me. “But not as dumb as looking like the species getting purged! At least it sounds like-”

“Oh yeah, we are being purged or exiled,” Rose confirmed with a grim nod. “Not always, not everywhere… It’s slow. Cuz bucking Emperor Solaris can’t have a pony kind with a bit of monster blood in them… And also doesn't want to look bad to his loyal speciesist lapdogs… Cuz apparently it’s okay to get rid of a people a bit of a time but not all at once…

“Look, maybe I am stupid for valuing my heritage. But at least I have something to be proud of.”

Right then. Evil emperor. Ongoing holocaust. Side chosen.

Also, next hop had better drop me off into a gumdrops and ice cream festival. Because seriously. Four for four! Come on!

I drew back my blade and chopped down at the lock, metal shrieking in protest and sparks flying as I sheared the bolt from the lock. The cell door scraped along it’s rails as I pushed it open, the irritable metal clearly needing some oiling. A sign these doors rarely opened.

“Right,” I said to Rose, “let’s get you-”

“Meh, I’m good,” she countered, giving me a smile as she held a small spike up to the back of her cell’s lock.

Then she rammed her hoof forward into the other end of the spike. The ping of metal shattering made Bon coil tightly around me, nearly crushing my breastplate in her fright. I had a fraction of a second to register the spike had simply rammed the tumbler out of the lock enclosure completely before Rose slid the ruined door open and stepped out of her cell.

“Ah! There we go. Shall we?” She asked, only to yelp slightly as Bon slithered off my shoulders. “Woah! Okay, that’s not your tail!”

“No, that’s my snake… Girl… Person?” I poorly explained, “If- I… If you could just punch the lock open why did you-”

“I’d never have been able to break through hardened steel like that without something to focus the punch. The edge of my hoof wouldn’t cut it. They heard that, so we should be going left,” Rose announced, starting a light jog down the hall.

“Wait,” Sai asked as I began to follow her, keeping my sword ready, “she punched through a cell door?”

“Yeah, using a spike,” I elaborated.

“You sure you're half changeling and not half earth pony?” Sai asked.

“... You do know we can quarry soft stone by hoof, right?” Rose asked with a laugh. “Seriously, does nopony know what threstrial magic even does?”

“I don’t know what any magic does,” I pointed out swiftly.

“Wait, like, literally or just pony-” as Rose spoke a solid steel door on our right was thrown open, and a light blue furred unicorn stallion dressed in black and gold armor somewhere between ancient greek and modern tactical plating surged into the hallway shouting an alarm!

“Get behind me!” I shouted, pulling my sword up into a ‘smash this into the thing!’ stance.

God I needed melee training!

“Hang on!” Rose exclaimed.

The peach mare rushed forward, pulsing her wings and jumping at the same time to soar through the air, land briefly on the left hand wall, leap off of the stone and smash rear hooves first into the guard’s face with a loud crunch, sending the two flying in a tangled heap several feet down the hallway!

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed in shock as Rose disentangled herself from the pile.

“What?” She asked while trotting to a point behind me, honestly not understanding what had shocked me. “Point’s yourse. Next door on the left is the lock up.”

“Where did you learn to do that!?” I asked, still awestruck at the fucking live action kungfu maneuver.

“Used to live in a Taikwuan dojo, before that Clan got ‘purged’ as you put it. We gonna move or are you thinking of using this hallway as a funnel?” Rose asked curiously.

“Uh, no! Moving’s good!” I exclaimed deciding to just move down the corridor. I gave the downed guard a nudge with my foot as we passed by. “Dead or uncon-”

“He took Taikwuan Leap’s signature move, to the face,” Rose deadpanned.

“Ah, just checking,” I replied.

The jog to the next door was surprisingly far. The prison segment of the fort here seemed like it should have more cells going up the way we were, but instead there was only fifty feet or so of straight, gray stone corridor and red I beams holding up the roof, with only the occasional chunk of white glowing crystal to shed light.

To me, the architecture backed up Rose’s claims. A proper prison would be using this space for more cells. This was more like a UAM base, with a long straight cover free corridor to use as a killing field in the event of an attack. Definitely military… Except for the height of the ceiling.

Ponies were half my height, unless they reared up. So why was this hallway tall enough not only for me to stand up but for me to have a good bit of headroom too?

I almost ran past the door Rose had mentioned, the solid steel plate of a door was almost the same dull gray as the wall, with only its shape to really make it noticeable in the dim light. Fortunately I caught it in time to stop just far enough past it to roll into a position that made it look like I was getting into position for a door breach.

Rose definitely knew a bit. I knew I was out of my element and off my game. But I didn’t want her to know that. She could easily decide to use me as a distraction if she felt I was weighing her down.

“Oh yeah! Good plan, we don't know if anypony’s in there,” Rose nodded, apparently having not even thought about a breaching maneuver…

“Uh… Possible idiot moment here but, how experienced are you?” I asked, unable to believe she wouldn’t think about what was on the other side of a door before opening it.

Rose blushed and shuffled a forehoof against the floor. “Well… I’ve done a lot of street brawls, and broken out of a few local jails but uh, nothing professional. Not till we’re done here.”

I sighed and flipped my sword around to a reverse grip, ramming it through the keyhole on the door before kicking the door open while keeping my back to the wall. The violent slam of the door came and went. No surprised yelp, no arrow through the doorway, no grenade. Nothing.

I shook my head slightly and turned to peak into the room. “And here I was worried about looking off my game…” I muttered.

The lockup was a very simplistic room. I’d expected a barred off half of the room with a quartermaster’s station. Instead the room just looked like a simple store room, with long bench-like shelving units you’d normally find in a physical storefront with a few lockers here and there, and large white banners with a yellow sun logo on the rear wall.

No enemies, just shelves, boxes, and locked chests stacked up on top of each other. What a sloppy way to store equipment...

“Well…” Rose said slowly as I inspected the room. “You do seem a bit crap with a blade. I mean, you hold it like a club. Do you normally use a different weapon?”

“She had a blaster, but pegasi lightning hit it,” Sai explained for me.

“I do ranged combat… My species really doesn't use melee weapons anymore,” I added as I stepped inside the room. “It’s clear, grab your gear and let’s get rolling. I don’t like the lack of enemies. Feels like they are planning something.”

Rose nodded and trotted inside. “Yeah, that one guard did call for help with a messenger gem. They know we’re out of the cells.”

I nodded and closed the door, holding it shut since the lock was completely screwed up. With a little luck, anyone coming down the hallway would assume the door was shut and locked normally. After all, it was kind of hard to see, and that was with my helmet’s night-

I facepalmed, the sound of armorweave on face-flesh akin to a brick hitting a tomato. “No fucking wonder it was so dark,” I groaned to myself before closing my helmet’s faceplate.

“Mage-crystal visor?” Rose asked, the sound of snapping metal suddenly echoing off the walls. “Wow that padlock was cheep junk… How did Flimflam Co get a military contract again?”

“Something like that,” I answered.

“Hey Lyra,” Sai said suddenly.

“What?” I asked. “Oh! Did you get into-”

“You’re not dehydrated,” he informed.

“Huh?” I asked lips pursing in confusion.

“Just thought I’d inform you you forgot to put on a night vision helmet in the dark, and have no excuse for the dumb this time,” Sai snarked.

“... I-” I began.

“Also Bon’s still in the hallway,” Sai added.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed ripping the door open.

No way in hell would a pony just walk by the door if a twelve foot long sna-

The open door presented me with the unconscious blue-faced form of a white stallion, firmly wrapped in Bon’s iron coils, a crystal tipped spear-staff-thingie pinned firmly to his side due to her apparent attack.

“Damn! Good work hun… You can let him go, he’s unconscious,” I said, hoping to avoid Bon deciding it was okay to just kill ponies.

I mean, I didn't know exactly how smart she was yet… It would be bad to impart the wrong messages so early.

Bon noded and loosened her coils, the unconscious guard dropped like a rock, his breastplate crushed in a way that made me certain his ribs were just shattered. That was definitely a downside of armor… It wont spring back once crumpled inwards.

‘What happened?” Rose called urgently.

“Bon took care of one of them for us,” I informed.

“Oh Faust! That thing didn’t eat somepony, did it?” Rose asked fearfully.

Bon literary recoiled, her face managing to give a look of disgust.

“Uh, looks like she doesn't like how you guys taste,” I informed, deciding to this time keep the door open and keep a lookout. “Thanks for saving our bacon there hon. I owe you a nice rabbit as soon as we can get one.”

“Also that ‘thing’ is technically a baby lamia,” Sai announced. “So as she’s a developing person, you should use the right pronoun.”

I triple blinked and stared at my wrist for a few moments.

“What?” Sai asked, somehow sensing my stare. “People deserve that. It’s common decency. I’m a dick, not an asshole.”

“Hold on,” Rose asked, a grunt of effort escaping her lips. “You mean if I ask her not to crush and eat me, she’ll understand and might not do that?”

“She literally snuggles up to me at night,” I said with a laugh, still watching the hallway. “Bon won’t hurt anyone… Unless they threaten me apparently. Seriously never thought you’d do something like that.”

I gave Bon a loving head scritch. That guy might have been able to do some serious damage to me. He definitely had the element of surprise going for him.

Also I lacked a weapon I knew how to use… I should fix that as much as possible.

What did I have on me? Decontamination tent, combat knife, energy sword, a flash guard for a gun I no longer had, water storage container, safety pins, tweezers, chewing gum, a signal mirror, mosquito headnet & mittens, a physical compass, a basically useless fishing kit, a flexi saw, some latex gloves, razor knife, casualty blanket, medical instruction sheet, firestarter thingie, a syringe of antitoxin, and one stimpack.

Right… Nothing too useful as a weapon. Except for the fishing line! I could get some sticks and tie the line to it to make a garrote… Which is also a melee weapon, and even shittier than a sword I barely know how to use.

“Hey, there isn’t a spare crossbow or something in there, is there?” I asked Rose hopefully.

“Uh, if I see one I’ll let you know. Just looking for the- Ah ha! Here’s his whisky, and the cooler of beer. Man he’s lucky that officer wanted it for himself,” Rose said.

“Yeah, desert outpost, fuck all to do, limited supplies… That stuff should be gone,” I agreed.

What else did I have? A spare battery for a gun I no longer had… A necklace of immortality that I probably shouldn’t mess with and should totally have had Sta- no Clover look at.

Oh! The earring!

I reached into the belt pouch I had put the telekinesis charm into and fished the small silver hoop out and rolled it in my hand to inspect it. It was something simple… But it had come from that universe which ligit wanted to kill me…

Turning around to find Rose in the middle of pulling an olive green full face helmet from a box, I held up the earring and asked. “Hey, does this magical earring look evil to you?”

Rose blinked and tilted her head at me before asking. “Uh, you really don’t know how magic works, do you?”

“Nope,” I replied. “My species is totally mundane. All tech, no magic.”

“... That bucking sucks!” Rose exclaimed.

“Look, this thing is supposed to grant telekinesis… I wanna know if it’s evil before I stick it on,” I said with a weary sigh.

“Oh! A TK charm, is it gold, or silver?” Rose asked.

“How can you not tell?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Too dim in here to judge the color of a tiny ass object from like, twenty meters away,” Rose shot back.

“It’s silver,” I answered.

“Any markings on it?” She asked.

I turning the ring in my fingers. “Nope. Just a plain silver hoop.”

“You’re cool, put it on,” Rose answered going back to digging things out of the foot locker.

“You sure?” I asked, just wanting confirmation.

“Yeah, Flimflam Co always marks their products, and I’m pretty sure they don’t make silver ones. I have two of those myself.” Rose mentioned.

“... You don’t have any earrings,” I objected.

“Well duh! I was in a prison, both of them are in this box right now,” Rose pointed out. “Hell, only one was in my ear too. They usually never check for piercings elsewhere but they actually had an enchantment detector here. Didn’t count on them finding both…”

Deciding to ignore those implications, I quickly took off my helmet and put the earring on. Thankfully my ears were pierced already. That could have been a problem.

“Stupid question again,” I began.

“Just will it to move and if you could move it like you want with your hoof, it will do it,” Rose answered.

I nodded and out of curiosity thought about my combat knife floating up into view from my belt.

Nothing.

Frowning in concern, I tried again, this time thinking about it more intently. I heard a small scraping sound, and fearing someone approaching from the hallway spun around, fist raised to deliver a punch!

My knife clattered to the ground, having somehow fallen out of it’s shea- Oh! Sweet!

Looking at the knife I held out my hand and focused intently on the idea of the knife jumping handle first into my hand. A faint gold aura flickered to life around the knife, slowly pulling it towards my hand. So slowly that I decided to just reach out and pick it up.

“Okay… So this takes practice…” I grumbled.

“Yeah, it’s tricky as hell to get things to move just right. You…you won't be able to use that for combat, like, not now. Sorry,” Rose apologised.

“Well I had to try something,” I sighed.

“True… Can you please help me get my ears through the helmet slits?” Rose asked politely.

“Helmet?” I asked curiously as I turned to help her out.

“Yeah, figured if I was going to travel I should have some armor… I mean it’s just miner's gear, but it helps,” Rose said rather uncertainly.

From what I could tell, that was not mining gear. The olive green equipment looked more like the security armor given to base guards.

A chest piece best described as a form fitting canvas t-shirt with shaped metal plates inserted under the fabric to protect the heart and lungs, some simple cup shaped spalders to protect the shoulders without adding any real bulk. The only real difference there was some shaped cup-like plates to protect her wing joints too.

The armor also included bracers which covered her forelegs uh… forearms? The bottom bits of her front legs, but left her hooves free. The bracers were a bit bulky, and angular, with a raised section on each one that clearly contained a pop-out device of some kind, ether an integrated tool or weapon.

And the helmet… That was not a mining helmet.

The helmet was full face covering, with a built in respirator, like you’d expect a miner to have in their helmet. It also had a clear visor that would let you see the wearer's entire face, again just like you’d expect of mining safety equipment. But it’s overall shape was rounded, sleek, streamlined, clearly designed to deflect a weapon strike from multiple angles, not just prevent rocks falling on your head. It also seemed to lack any lamp on the outside.

“Kid, this is war gear,” I said adamantly, crossing my arms in front of me. “Stop bullshitting me, what’s really going on with you?”

Rose’s ears drooped. “Nothing… This is just what our miners use.”

“Bullshit! You kick all sorts of ass in hand to hand and you got some decent by my standards armor. What’s up?” I insisted.

Rose’s eyes suddenly widened in understanding. “Ohhh! There’s a few subterranean species here. Our miners are often ambushed by them. Diamond Dogs usually. So we give our miners armor.”

“Bull,” I said decisively.

“No, she’s right,” Sai insisted. “SkyTech does produce armor intended for use by miners near Dog territory.”

“Ah… Well, all right. Sorry about that, Rose,” I apologised.

“It’s cool. You didn’t know, and yeah I can see how this would look. Help now please?” She asked holding up the helmet with one hoof.

I nodded and helped her get the helmet on, and get her ears slipped through the small slits in the helm.

“Sooo does your species like ear notches?” I asked as she buckled the helm’s strap under her chin with a hoof… Somehow....

“No, but if you cover the ears, we can’t echolocate. It’s a trade off,” she grunted. “So uh, since you don’t have a good weapon, how about you carry the cooler and I cover you?”

“Sounds like a plan… Does your friend know we are coming? You don’t think they will have him under lock down or something?” I asked, just to make sure our bases were covered.

“Uh, well no… But we can find out! Bracelet guy, you said you have a shortwave radio?” The peace mare asked.

“What frequency?” Sai asked, clearly understanding what she meant to do.

Rose sighed. “Sixynine point sixynine megahertz…”

Sai paused for a moment then asked. “That sigh would indicate the frequency was-”

“Picked to make the innuendo, yeah. Just do it, please,” Rose interrupted.

“You’re on,” Sai announced after another pause.

“Ferrous Gale, are you there?” Rose asked.

The radio spat some static for a few moments. But finally after a minute a distinct click came from the VM’s speaker.

“They’re blocking the boarding ramp. Six of them, they have clear line of fire. Two unicorns, a pegasus, and the rest are zebras. All have repeating crossbows,” a serious but suave and vaguely australian sounding male voice whispered. “Engines are primed to go. Can’t talk more, they might hear.”

The manipulator clicked again. Sai announcing shortly after. “Right, I just cut that off for security’s sake. We're good to talk. I hope you two have a plan.”

“Well, if we take this door off the hinges we could use it as a tower shield to get close to them and hope it holds up to whatever spells are thrown our way,” I mused looking thoughtfully at the thick steel door.

“That’s not half bad!” Rose said eagerly. “Let me just get that for ya.”

Lifting her left forearm, Rose flexed her hoof, the obvious sliding section popping up, revealing a small barrel.

“Is that a mining-” I began.

With a thunderous crack and decent flash of green light a large chunk of the stone wall flaked away, freeing the door’s top hinge. A second shot from the slugthrower and the bottom hinge was also blasted free.

The heavy steel door wobbled, the energy from the impact having unbalanced the slab of steel, sending it toppling down at me! Throwing my arms over my head I braced myself, catching the door just before it started to pick up enough speed to do damage. Dull pain radiated down my arms as the tremendously heavy door threatened to crush me.

“Ow!” I groaned, slowly walking backwards to let the door drop down safely, “Okay… Nope… Too heavy…”

“Sorry!” Rose exclaimed, “Y-you just seemed so certain you could use it as a shield and-”

“No. It’s cool. Didn’t think it was… Oh god this is at least a ton,” I decided as I got to safety and let the door drop down.

Bon slithered over the top of the fallen door, looking up at me with her tongue flicking in concern.

“I’m alright hon. It didn’t get enough speed to just squish me,” I said soothingly.

Turning to rose I pointed to her right bracer. “That thing also got a gun built into it?”

“It’s also got a shard-pick, yeah… Oooohhhh!” Rose smiled before actually laughing. “Oh my Faust! I never thought about using them as a weapon! These are for breaking apart stone… I uh… Huh… I guess dad probably did use them as weapons too though.

“Well I feel dumb. Here, you flex your hoof a little to activate it, and then more to fire. Wait! Hold on… Uh, yeah… You don’t have hooves.”

I nodded. “Yeah, so I use my wrist. No big.”

“No, like, you flex your hoof like you're picking something up. Here watch my hoof closely,” Rose offered sliding one bracer off and holding out her hoof.

“Do we have time for this? Just give me the weapon!” I pleaded. “They could decide to come in after us any minute!”

“Just look! See the soft fleshy bit on the bottom of my hoof?” Rose asked.

I nodded.

“See how the hard edge stick out just a little bit past it so you stand on that and not the soft bit?” she asked.

I nodded again. Then I understood.

“Ohhhh, the soft part-”

Rose flexed her hoof, the soft part moving to it extended past the edge of her hoof slightly, enough where the soft pad would contact anything she touched instead of the hard hoof.

“Yeah you can’t do that… Sooo carry the cooler trust our armor and run for it while firing the whole way?” Rose asked.

“That’s a horrible plan!” Sai exclaimed.

“Yeah… I like plans to have more not-die in them,” I objected. “If we take too much time in here, we know they will come in after us. Think we can pick them off as they come in?” I asked thoughtfully.

Rose blushed lightly. “It’s not my fault all the threstrial legends have glorious charges against overwhelming force in them… But I also like the not-die plan. Waiting it is. To the main entrance?”

“Are we sure they are all outside?” I asked cautiously.

“Well, if we run into one or two on their own, I definitely can take care of them myself,” Rose said confidently.

I nodded. “Alright, let’s move.”

I walked over to the table Rose was standing next to and grabbed the cooler.

“You’re absolutely sure you can keep me covered, kid?” I asked one more time.

“I’m thirty three…” Rose said, ears flattening in irritation. “Also I’m not a goat.”

“Oh, duh… Didn’t think about that. We call our young ‘kids’ too. Also I don’t know how to tell how old your species is, you are all too cute for that,” I explained.

“Oh! Well, I’m an adult. Please don’t call me kid. It’s really insulting,” Rose asked.

“No problem. Now, I got the beer, you’ve got point. Let’s go,” I said waving an arm for her to step into the hallway.

“Well,” Sai sighed. “At least you didn’t say hold my beer and watch this…”

Rose paused, and with one small twitch of her wings I could tell what she was about to do.

“Hey, biped, hold his beer and watch this!” Rose shouted before sprinting down the hallway.

“... Cheeky dick,” Sai grumbled.

“The name’s Lyra!” I called up the hall before running in pursuit.

13 Escape

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Lyra Heartstrings - 23th of Faust 09 EoH - Afteroon

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

They don’t exactly teach you ground tactics in flight school. That makes sense. If a fighter pilot is fighting on foot, something has already gone horribly wrong. Now, yes, I had some ground training, basic is basic after all. But they left out this single rather obvious in hindsight note about the tactic of ‘wait for the enemy to come to you’.

It won't work if the enemy is also waiting for you to come to them.

Rose and I had spent twenty minutes slowly fortifying the entryway into the fortress, and the entire time the six soldiers just stood out there at the end of the ramp. Safe behind their force field, waiting for backup they definitely had coming.

We had a great view of them out of the doors. Rose had blasted one off it’s hinges for use in constructing a barrier. We’d figured that would get them to charge, so I’d been ready behind the other door to hack away as they came through. Instead they had just hosed the area down with crossbow bolts and fireballs and kept their asses firmly planted.

It was like they expected us to have rushed out of the doorway riding on the backs of Xenomorphs in a full lancer charge. One had even screamed ‘Contact!’ all over dramatically for the entire thirty seconds of sustained fire.

I’d probably made the bastards even more nervous by laughing my ass off at the one guy screaming his head off… Apparently a human’s hysterical laughter is horrific sounding to a pony.

At least, that’s what Rose said as we dragged the door back to make a proper barricade in the center of the otherwise bare stone room.

On a lighter note, either the Empire had a serious budget issue or had a way to strict definition of the term ‘spartan’ because this base was literally just stone walls and the actual minimum in terms of furniture. Our ‘barricade’ was half of the front door propped up on a chair and some crates we dragged back from the lock up arranged in a ‘u’ shape. Not by choice, but by necessity.

Naturally, that was a problem. This would stand up to a few people with small arms, but well… If the ones out on patrol had just one grenade, or a mage who could do something like a grenade, we were toast. And for whatever reason, the enemy was firmly planted, had a force field up to negate ranged fire, and was clearly waiting for one of their patrols to get back for the reinforcements. Time was not on our side.

“Well… I guess we could fall back deeper into the fort,” Rose suggested, keeping her eyes over the top of the barricade as she rested on it’s edge.

“Do you know of any other way out?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I can’t remember seeing any windows or doors other than this one.”

“Can those guns of yours blast a hole through a wall?” I asked as a follow up.

“Yeah, they can. They are designed for breaking up stone. But… You’re a soldier. Once we are out, we have an open run on flat ground with no cover to get to the airship… And they have crossbows,” she grumbled.

“I know,” I sighed. “But options are good. My people have a saying, ‘Plan for failure on your first plan.’”

Rose frowned, turning away from the door for a second to look at me. “I don’t get it…”

“It means that plan A is probably going to fail. You’re going to have to face something worse than you thought. So you just need to grab some courage and get shit done however you can,” I explained.

I saw my words sink in. It was her eyes. They lit up in that way only a vet knows, the eyes of someone totally green hearing a piece of advice and taking it the completely wrong way.

“You’re right! We should charge them!” Rose exclaimed. “It’s the shortest possible distance to the ship from here, and they only have self-loading bows! Our armor might take the hits!”

I took a deep breath. “No. No we should not just charge them.”

“But you just sai-”

“I fucking know what I fucking said!” I snapped. “But you took it wrong! We need to still have a plan. Just rushing in will almost always get you killed. ESPECIALLY since your armor is more of a shirt. What if they hit your legs or hips?

“I may not know much about your species but I presume you also have arteries in the legs, and if you have a liver, that’s not protected by your gear either. If you had full coverage maybe a charge would work, but you don’t.”

“Oh…” Rose mused, ears drooping a little. “Wait, but you have full armor! Unless, it’s just your face that’s pink and not leathery.”

I laughed, making Rose shake her head in confusion. “And what,” she groaned, “is so bucking funny?”

Ah ha! So it was something about the pitch of a human laugh… Weapon of pony annoyance acquired!

“Well, the funny thing is I had a really primitive crossbow cut through this,” I explained. “Those are much more modern ones, so you know… Assuming magic advances at the same rate as technology I expect them to punch right through even my plate.”

“What plate?” Rose asked with a tilt of her head.

I tapped a fist to my chest, letting the ping of metal echo off the walls. “I have a breastplate under the jacket,” I informed.

“Ohhh! I thought it was just the helmet and like, some kind of stealthy, magically hardened jumpsuit thing,” Rose said as she turned back to keep an eye on our stationary opponents. “So um, what do we do then, sarge?”

“Captain, actually.” I corrected automatically.

“You’re a captain and you can’t think up a way out of a room?” Sai asked incredulously.

“I second that! How does an officer not have the tactical stuff to outsmart six guys?” Rose demanded.

I sighed and did my best to calmly explain. “Look… The way my people’s military works is complicated. Pilots start out in officer school. I’ve been promoted only twice. I did not work my way up from Private. I did not get training for commanding ground forces.

“Only officers get to be pilots for simple logistical reasons. A ton of people wanted to do it, so going through officers school is one of the ‘weed out the chaff’ filters. Trust me, if I had Bonbon One, those six guys would be dust and we’d be long gone.

“But I don’t. I have a sword I can’t use properly, a knife, a snake, an infinite box of sammiches, and a cooler of beer. And most of a survival kit. It’s not like I have another grenade.”

“Yeesh, alright I get it,” Rose grumbled. “Wait, hold it! Did you say infinite sandwiches!?”

“Yeah, if we survive this I’ll give you one,” I said dismissively. I didn’t have time for talking right now, I had the seed of a plan to work with.

I didn’t have another grenade… But I did have a bottle of whisky. And a fire lighter.

I reached over to the cooler and opened it up. The whisky bottle was on top, a quick tap of the bottle was enough to tell me that it was indeed glass and not plastic. Also to my total shock the label listed it as ‘178 Proof’.

“Jesus!” I exclaimed. “Rose, is this actually one seventy eight proof or is my translator program not reading it right?”

Rose shook her head. “This isn’t a time to drink, also that’s not ours.”

“I know! I’m trying to plan, I need to know if this is at least 80 proof, and I’m seriously not sure I’m reading your language right,” I said defensively.

Rose tilted her head to get a look and nodded confirming. “That’s Applebuck, it’s at least one sixty. Why’s that important?”

“Stay here, I need some cloth,” I ordered. “Yell if they charge, I’m only going to the lock up.”

They had those lovely banners on the wall after all.

My boots clicked against the floor as I moved at a full sprint. I really didn’t want to be gone for more than necessary. While the enemy didn’t have line of sight to our position, they had fucking wizards. For all I knew they had the equivalent of CCTV and knew I had just left…

Fortunately it wasn’t far, just twenty yards. I covered it within seconds, bursting into the lockup and nearly tripping over the ruined door. I definitely needed to eat more… Cheer.ly should have automaticly adjusted my run to avoid the slippage. Note to self, air not deadly now, eat regularly.

Also those sandwiches are apparently super low in caloric density. A pitty.

I made a beeline for the nearest banner, grabbed the bottom edge and ran my fingers along it, gloves transmitting the feel of the material to me. I wasn’t to much of an expert in fabrics, I mean, they were basically obsolete where I came from, but I was pretty sure that this kind would burn. It had a natural fiber feeling to it.

Hoping I could just tear the stuff apart, I gripped the banner in both hands and tore a long strip of fabric from it. Checking the length of the strip, I nodded in satisfaction and sprinted back out into the hallway, boots skidding as I rounded the corner and charged back for the entrance, expecting our crappy fort to be under attack.

As luck would have it, our enemy was still content to wait for backup. Hell, that just made sense really. I can’t believe I didn’t think of them doing that before… Not that it would really have helped much.

As I came back Rose’s head twitched to get a look at me before returning to the guards. “Hey! So I worked something out, their crossbows don’t seem to be enchanted for more than self loading, and their bolts are mundane,” she hissed quietly.

“Wait, how do you know?” I asked as I returned to the cooler and retrieved the scotch.

“My dad taught me weapons. I don’t know all the makes and models, but I do know most of the arcane stuff you need to make weapon enchantments. I got a good look at their weapons, I didn’t see anything big. Also you know, these guys suck. They don’t get the best equipment,” Rose said in a rather sure of herself way.

Not the bad sort of sure of herself. But still…

“Well, that’s good. They still managed to put a few dozen shots through the door each in just a few seconds though,” I reminded. “The self loading is clearly enough.”

“Yeah, but at least they don't have accelerated bolts, or elemental enchantments,” Rose mused.

“You know, your dad was definitely bullshitting you about being a miner, or you’re lying to me,” I pointed out.

“He retired from being a warrior to raise me, and became a miner to support our family,” Rose explained with a sad sigh. “Look, I don’t lie. Not without reason. I’m telling the truth here. My dad used to be other things before he took up mining. I’m sure your dad was lots of things too.”

“My dad died. I never knew him,” I informed as I picked up the bottle and unscrewed the lid, pouring some of the whisky over the strip of cloth.

“Lyra, the hay are you doing?” Rose hissed. “That’s not ours!”

“Yeah, well, better to lose some of your cargo than all of it. This is our way out,” I explained as I rolled up the rag and stuffed it into the bottle till it reached the bottom.

Fortunately enough of the rag was sticking out to be the light-on-fire bit once I screwed the cap back on.

“... I don’t get it,” Rose said with a frown.

“Well, to be fair, I’ve never seen one of these in real life either,” I admitted. “This is called a molotov cocktail. A glass bottle with flammable liquid in it and a wick. Poor man’s incendiary grenade. I don't know what’s supposed to go in them, but well, alcohol over 80 Proof burns...”

“Ohhhh! Yeah all right. Now I’m with you. So you throw that, and then we charge them while they are on fire,” Rose exclaimed oddly eagerly.

I shook my head slowly. “Look… They will be on fire, probably not fatally. We have ONE of these. We should just book it for the airship going right past them.”

“What if we miss one?” Rose asked. “He could get a shot off on us, and we'll, like you said, my back half isn’t armored.”

“Rose,” I began, pausing as I tried to think of a way to put it that would drive home,.“You said that’s your dad’s old kit, right? You said he used to be a warrior, right? He had to have told you that sometimes you need to fight, sometimes you need to run.

“We are outnumbered, out gunned, and the enemy has backup incoming. We need to just go.”

Rose giggled. “That’s not even close to anything my dad ever would have said.”

“Well fine, what would he do here?” I asked, rolling my eyes behind my faceplate as I got my lighter out of it’s pouch.

“Ran over and beaten them to death with his bare hooves, then probably use their weapons to take out the rest before leaving. Or let mom mop them up while he swept the rest of the fort,” Rose said casually.

“S-seriously?” I asked, taken half aback by the informative way she just said that.

Were military tactics here like, at a two year old’s intelligence or something? Maybe I could just rush those guys…

“Red Granite,” Rose prompted. “The Ill-Fate Warrior?”

I sighed. “Not from here, remember?”

“Oh, right… Look, like sixty years ago, a mage opened a portal to the Heart of Tartarus in Trottingham. My dad killed him and the fiends flooding the city, then went into the portal to kill everything on the other side that wanted to come over too, before closing it and leaving Tartarus by walking out of the natural portal in the Spur Mountains. He called that a fun weekend,” Rose said proudly.

Bullshit trumped up egotist dad’s war stories taken completely seriously… No wonder she thought we could just charge them. Poor girl, someone needed to set her head straight.

“... Right… I’m seeing where you get your idea of tactics from now,” I muttered half to her and half to myself.

“Pfff, hey I know I’m not THAT good yet, but I sure as heck will be one day. So, you going to throw that or are we going to wait for the rest of them to get here and probably die?” Rose asked.

I took a deep breath, it was time to just bite the bullet here. “Alright… I throw this, you and I rush for the ship. You cover us, I get the cargo aboard as fast as possible. Sound good?” I asked.

“Sounds great!” Rose replied.

“Bon, climb up and hang on,” I ordered as I gave the lighter a flick to make sure it was working.

The pale flame winked into existence. Bon quickly slid up and around my leg, settling herself across my shoulders and waist.

“Hon, I need my right arm free,” I said to Bon as I slid the cooler along the floor with my foot to get into position behind the remaining door.

As Bon slid into a better posision, I ordered Cheer.ly to calculate the best possible throw to get the bottle to hit in the middle of the group. The middle of the group that was under a force field… That was a dome…

“Fuck!” I cursed, “Their shield’s a bubble! Last one was a wall…”

“No problem. That just means I run through first, they’ll have to drop it to shoot,” Rose said vaulting over our barricade and sprinting out the door with a scream of, “This is for glory, dung stains!”

I swore I was staring at a dead woman. The six soldiers scrambled, weapons whipping upwards to begin the slaughter. I whipped around the corner, lighting the wick and throwing the bottle in sheer desperation, every motion a plea to save her ass from her own idiotic move.

The bottle flew, tumbling end over end. Rose surged forward, left foreleg raising to aim. The soldiers weapons leveled at her. The green energy bubble flickered.

The bottle spun further along it’s ark. I reached down and grabbed the cooler, a shout of “Fire!” reaching my ears as I stood up, ready to run.

The shield vanished. All six soldiers fired, bolts speeding for Rose. The peach thestral tucked in her left rear leg, instantly falling into a roll, the volley of bolts slicing the air just over her head. Rolling to her left Rose fired three times, her shots striking the forcefield-making mage in the shoulder, neck and then head.

The soldiers broke ranks the second the mage’s head jerked backwards. Three kept firing, their shots striking the sand around Rose, the other two turned to run. And then the molotov hit in the center of their group. The glass shattering was drowned out by the whoosh of flame as the molotov splashed it’s contents over the group, setting four of the five aflame.

I pumped my legs as hard as I could, sprinting out of the doorway with all the force I could muster, making a beeline for the-

RV sized rickety oak and junk metal airship, clearly only held together by canvas and willpower.

Oh sweet physics why?! That thing wasn’t going to going to be able to out run jack-

“Oh bucking Faust!” Rose swore, springing up from her roll and rushing towards the now flaming soldiers.

Deciding her curse couldn’t mean anything good, I sprinted forwards, putting everything out of my mind but putting each foot in the best possible place. The airship's large rear-cargo ramp was down, just a few dozen feet beyond the burning disarray of soldiers. Not a problem, not too far to go. I could do this!

Rose sprinted past me, literally pounding on one of the guards, knocking his crossbow from his hooves and springing off after the weapon. The mare rolled again, grabbing the bow and using her wings to quickly lever herself into a sitting position, immediately firing a few bolts at something out of my view.

Oh hell… The backup was here.

A bolt whizzed over my head and buried itself in the back of the airship’s cabin, thankfully not puncturing the balloon.

“Run for it!” I shouted at Rose, adrenaline putting on a fresh burst of speed.

“Nottachance!” Rose barked. “Too many mages! We’ll get shot down. Just go!”

I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder. She was right. Fifteen soldiers were making their way for us, charging through an open gate in the fortress’s outer wall. Half of them unicorns. All of them well armed.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, snapping my attention back to the airship.

I ran for the ramp, bolts whizzing past me every few moments, thudding into the sand, the ship, or the stacked crates inside the small cargo area in the rear. The moment my boots hit the deck Bon clenched tightly around me, and I felt something punch my right arm. Looking down with a terrified wince I saw a bolt sticking out of my suit, the head not quite through my armor, but still stuck into the material.

I dropped the cooler on the ship’s deck. With a mighty heave I lifted a terrified Bon off my shoulders and shoved her behind a stack of crates.

“Stay down!” I begged.

“‘kay!” Bon squeaked in the most adorable and horrified voice I had ever heard.

Then I noticed the small cut on her back. The bolt that had hit me had grazed her first.

I felt a deep soul bending sadness well up from my heart. Her first words, said in pain and fear as she lay bleed-

A bolt hit me squarely in the back, pinging off my armor with a loud ring of metal on metal. The bolt struck a match, and the sadness ignited into blind fury.

I wheeled around, an wrathful scream echowing off my faceplate and blowing the voice modulator speaker. Rose entered my view, performing another rolling dodge as she took down one of the mages mid charge. I didn’t care.

Unburdened by my adopted child, I put my all into a dead on sprint towards the closest soldier.

<Adrenal spike detected,> Cheer.ly announced. <Regulat->

I sent all of my rage directly to her as a form of ‘belay that’.

<... Standing by,> Cheer.ly informed decicivly.

I blew past Rose, the unicorn I ran towards leveled his horn, firing a single pale amber ray. I didn’t care. The ray sliced along my side, the paint on my breastplate smoking from the hit, the smell of burnt fabric reached my nostrils as the unicorn came into arm's reach.

I threw myself at him, hands grasping for his head with all of my strength behind them, arms twisting to throw him to the ground and with a crack and pop the unicorn’s skull became soft.

Ah. That’s right. They did not have gene engineering. They were soft, fragile little things.

Unoptimised, non reinforced, naturally formed, child injuring bags of meat!

I kicked the corpse out of my way, sprinting straight for the next monster. A half dozen bees seemed to object, stinging me all over. I threw a punch, connecting with the soldier's jaw as something hit me in the inside of my hip.

It hurt like hell, so I threw a second punch, the soldier crumpled, falling backwards into a pile as I simply couldn’t be bothered to remember things anymore.

Lyra Heartstrings - 23th of Faust 09 EoH - Late Afteroon

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

“Right, an’ that makes twenty three… We miss any of em?” Someone asked, the voice piercing through the most intense haze of pain I’d ever felt in my life.

“Not unless they got one right in her slit there… And I wouldn’t say that but seriously given her height and her species anatomy, that’s possible,” a voice I vaguely recognised as Rose replied.

“Nah, I’d remember a shaft sticking out of that, and I don’t see any blood. Pass that roll of bandages,” the first voice asked again.

Then suddenly blinding white hot pain in my upper thigh!

“Ahhh! Fucking- I’ll kill you you son of a bitch!” I screamed, jolting upright.

“Ah hay no! Hold her down!” The voice I could not tell was male exclaimed.

Something hard cracked across my face. “Lyra, cut that shit out, we’re burning wounds shut before you bleed out!”

“Ow!” I groaned, the slap knocking the blackness out of my vision.

I was laying on a table in a large RV like living space, naked, surrounded by lots of bloody rags, and with at least half of me wrapped in bandages. And all of me in really bad pain.

Rose was standing to my left, a bandage wrapped around her lower right leg, her armor no longer on, but stacked in a pile in the corner. A pile that included all of my own gear.

In front of me, holding a large roll of cloth was a really battered looking pegasus stallion. The first thing you noticed was the patch over his left eye, and a completely mangled stub of a left ear, along with an odd tint to his fur around the eye and ear which looked sort of like a burn scar, but in fur. Something had fucked him up real good a long time ago, and that’s before you noticed he had little stumps instead of wings.

The next thing you noticed was his rusty chestnut coat and gray muzzle, which when combined with his braided blued steel mane and long tail, a dark brown pre-atomic era leather pilot’s jacket, and scarf, made this stallion look like a pony version of a steampunk pirate captain. The friendly kind.

“You aren't still going full axe crazy are ya? Cuz all I’m doing is patching you up. I’m not a doc, but well, a few dozen arrows are just one of those things to take care of,” he said in a calm voice.

“Axe crazy?” I asked, wincing as I tried to move my arm.

It really didn’t want to move right now. Like, at all.

“You’re the liar of the two of us Lyra!” Rose exclaimed, sounding genuinely upset. “You could totally have taken on those six guys unarmed! You got seven of their friends before they shot you into unconsciousness.”

“I… I don’t remember doing that,” I stammered. “I did that?”

“Aye, you did,” the stallion said with a nod. “I saw the whole thing. Your snake friend got nicked by a bolt and you decided to introduce the lot that did it to a mother dragon. Your species packs a lot of strength in there, you managed to knock out an earth pony. Gotta say, I’m impressed.

“Now lift your leg a bit, gotta bandage you up incase the cauterizing decides to open back up.”

“Wait, dragon?” I asked, head kinda fuzzy.

“A fairly apt description of your rampage, if I do say so myself,” the stallion said as he wrapped the cloth around my leg really close to-

“Uh… I get the medical situation here but um… Yeah, humans really don’t like to be naked,” I muttered.

“Do they like bleeding?” He asked.

“Well, some of us do but not me, no,” I rambled, laying back down dizzily. “The room is getting all spinny…”

“Well yeah,” Rose laughed. “We picked like what, twenty three bolts out of you?”

The stallion pulled the bandage tight and expertly tied it off. “Yup. You’re lucky your armor kept them from going in too deep. Nothing deadly, but you’re definitely low on blood… I swore Rose had drug a pincushion into the hold.”

“Wait,” I asked, starting to remember some of what happened. “I remember Bon got shot… Is she okay?”

“You bet your flanks she’s okay!” The stallion laughed. “She’s curled up around a rock I warmed up on the stove with a plate of nibbles nearby. I’m not about to hurt her after her mom flipped shit like that. You must really love your pets.”

“Bon’s sapient. She’s a people,” I murmured.

“I… Oh… So they shot your foal there,” the stallion mused. “Yeah, everything adds up now. So who are you and why did you bring an adopted kid into an Imperial Fort? They didn’t kidnap her did they?”

“Didn’t mean to go there. I’m an interdimensional traveler-” I managed to say before being interrupted with an almighty chorus of

“Awesome!” The two exclaimed rather loudly.

“Yeah,” I admitted with a smile. It did feel cool to be able to stay that. “I can’t control where I go though… Trying to find a version of the guy who invented my-”

The fog cleared from my head, swept aside by a wave of panic. “The leather band on my wrist! Where is it!? I need it!”

The stallion held up his forehooves. “Woah, easy there. It’s alright. I put him on top of the rest of your gear. I’m guessing that Sky made that in an alternate timeline? I mean, it’s got her AI on it.”

I blinked. “You know-”

“Course I know Sky,” he chuckled. “Not personally, but by reputation. I help out her bug friends all the time. Everyone living in the badlands knows the mare who worked out a reliable means to get water here. Don’t worry, we’re enroute to Sky Labs and none of those guys will be reporting us into the Imps. Ever.”

He turned to face Rose, giving her a frown. “While I believe your Red’s kid now… Next time, I’ll get my beer back. It will be quicker and quieter.”

Rose blushed slightly. “S-sorry… I just wanted to help.”

“I know, but damn girl… The rebels are going to take the blame for that mess as soon as it’s found,” he replied with a slow head shake.

“Wait, you said I got seven… What happened?” I asked with a small frown.

“You took out those guys, and I moved in to pull you into the airship. I… It felt wrong to leave you behind and well, I thought you were trying to buy me time to leave,” Rose explained. “So I got a bit insulted and managed to take the rest of them out. I thought you were okay for a bit but uh, yeah that’s when I noticed half of it was your blood…”

“So she dragged you to me and we spent about an hour and a half pulling metal outta ya,” the stallion finished. “Er, by the way, almost ripped that decorative metal at the base of your skull out… Thought it was a bolt. It didn’t damage anything, it’s stuck in there REAL good, but that’s why there’s a bandage on your head too.”

I winced. “Cheer.ly, run diagnostic on neural interface.”

<Neural interface operating within normal parameters,> Cheer.ly returned.

“It’s fine, you didn’t break it,” I said, letting a relieved sigh escape my lips. “Now um… Can I have some clothes?”

“Yeah um, your stuff is really dirty, you’re not going to want to put it on,” Rose said slowly. “Besides, your species is fucking adorable! Why cover up?”

“Seconded, you’re like a skinny hairless pink ape. And somehow, that’s bucking cuter than a newborn foal,” the stallion said swavely.

“Into girls,” I replied to him reflexively. “Also I don’t even know your name. And I still want some pants or something.”

“Ferrous Gale, your friendly badlands air shipper. Or mailman if your prefer… I don’t like such a boring job title,” Gale introduced, going so far as to tip an invisible cap.

“... You don’t have a hat,” I objected, pointing a finger accusingly.

“I don’t?” He asked looking genuinely surprised.

“You took it off before cleaning her up,” Rose giggled.

“Ah, well…” Gale coughed into his hoof in embarrassment. “Normally I have a flat cap I’d have tipped for you ma’am. But seeing as I don’t, I’ll simply inform you that there isn’t enough water onboard to wash your gear, so you’ll have to grin and bear it for a bit.

“We're on a course to the Labs, and we’ll be there by sunup tomorrow. Just rest up and let that forest of punctures heal. You won't have to worry about me chasing your tail, I respect orientations.”

“I don’t have a tail,” I said, a confused frown parting my lips.

Rose giggled. “Um, you do now.”

I blinked and spred my legs to look between them. Sure enough, a long pony-style tail of minty green and white fur/hair/whatever twitched in alarm as I spotted it. “Ah! What the hell!?”

“Remember that thing I said about potion side effects?” Rose asked.

“Oh. Oh? Oh!” I exclaimed, running from understanding to confused to shocked again.

“You grew it while I was carrying you to the airship. Scared the crap out of me. Don’t worry! It looks good. Besides, if it bugs you too much there’s a cleaver in the kitchen,” Rose said, pointing over her shoulder.

“I… think I’ve bled enough for one day,” I said slowly, reaching down with one hand to poke at the new appendage.

My tail curled up to meet my hand, and my brain sort of connected that I could move it however I liked. I gave it an experimental swish, then flexed it a bit.

“Huh… Well, alright. I can get used to this,” I decided.

After all, I’d been thinking of getting a tail mod for years now…

“Oh cool! Earth pony style. Lucky…” Rose lamented.

“What? Why’s that special?” I asked.

“Well, for one, your tail is prehensile. Their ancient warriors would often wield a small weapon with their tail and I’ve always wanted to do that because it’s totally badflank!” Rose said jealously.

I shook my head and gave her a smile. “Thanks for saving my life there. I owe you one.”

Rose returned my smile. “Happy to have done it. It was fun. Got to use dad’s training for the first time, and some of mom’s too… I know you thought I was completely green and well… Yeah, I am. Kinda. I do have some moves, just no experience actually using them to kill. You know, till now.”

“I’m glad I was wrong, cuz I definitely feel like death,” I replied with a wince.

Rose nodded and held out a hoof. I took it and let her help me to a small bed where she pulled a blanket over me. Normally I’d object to that kind of treatment, but well…my everything hurt. Badly.

“Just lay back here, covered up like your species likes, and let those wounds give up hurting you and buck off like the pussies they are,” Rose said in an oddly motherly tone.

“I-is that how your mom ‘kissed it better’?” I asked in mild shock.

Rose nodded and gave me a grin. “Heh, yeah. She’s a warrior too. Seriously though, rest up. I’ma cook some apple pot-pies for dinner, but you still owe me that sammich!”

I laughed, wincing as the movement hurt my joints. “No problem.”

So, this is how it felt to have someone save your ass. Not too bad. Really heavy on the gratitude, but with lots of happiness. Right then Lyra, the score is decidedly three for four. All in all, still pretty good.

I felt myself start to drift off to sleep when a sudden pressure on my legs made me look up, heart speeding up in fright. Fortunately it was just Bon, slithering up to snuggle between me and the wall.

“Ni’ mom,” she murmured faintly.

Too… cute! Might… Die… Already... Wounded…

I passed out with a smile on my face.

14 Business

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Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Dawn

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

“Ma’am… Oi, ma’am!” Gale’s voice called pulling me out of my sleep like a metaphor I was too groggy to think up.

Oh man… it hurt to even open my eyelids…

“Belt… pass me my belt.” I groaned.

“Er, yeah alright,” the stallion said, a moment later pushing my belt into my hands. “We’ve landed at SkyLabs, Rose is helping me sort out what crates to unload, so you have about six minutes to pull together the strength to stand. Sky’s on her way too, I’m carrying a package for her and she wants to collect it in person. So you’ll have your chance to meet her in person, don’t miss it or you’ll be waiting weeks for an appointment at best.”

“Wait, what?” I asked sitting bolt upright, the blanket falling off from the explosive motion.

“Ow!” I quickly added as all my various wounds pulled on each other.

Gale laughed and flashed me a smile. “Did you think the Empire’s foremost technological mind would be able to just pencil you in anytime? She’s a CEO, a buisnessmare, and a damn good one.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” I thanked as he trotted out the door and I started to rifle through the belt pouches, searching for the long thin pouch containing the medkit.

It would have been awesome to have been lucid enough to think of telling them I had first aid stuff on me last night…or afternoon. Whatever, at least I remembered it now.

Fishing the medkit out I unrolled it and retrieved its morphine tablet and the stimpack. I popped the tablet into my mouth, and slapped the auto-inject syringe into my thigh, wishing that real stems worked like ARG ones. It would be awesome to be uninjured in seconds.

Still, a few days to heal up instead of a few months was good enough. Besides, I had the morphine tablet to dull the pain in the meantime.

“Cheer.ly, keep the morphine from doing anything more than dulling pain. I want to be lucid,” I ordered as I looked around for Bon.

<Confirmed, secondary immune system set to drug management,> the VI replied.

“Bon?” I called curiously, unable to spot my pe- um, girl anywhere within the surprisingly nice wood paneled cabin.

“She’s out here helping us move crates,” Rose called through the open door.

Surprised, but no longer worried about her I nodded to myself and called back. “Alright.”

Giving myself a few moments for the morphine to kick in, I decided to check on my flight suit. Because I realized I was naked. Ponies might have no problem with naked, and they might not see me being naked as sexual, but yeah… I sure as hell did…

My gear was piled in the corner, like Gale had mentioned yesterday. Only it had been put into a burlap bag so it wouldn’t stain anything important. Because he was also right about how bloody they were. It looked like I had left a 1990’s era anime set… Less bloodsplatter, more literal bucket of blood dumped on me.

It would take more than a good wash to fix my suit up too, so many cuts, burns, and punctures… Fuck, if the suit looked that bad, how bad had I looked?

To my amazement, the jacket Mysuki gave me was completely undamaged. I guessed it had some sort of self-fixing charm. After all if it was supposed to be worn on a battlefield, you knew it would get damaged. Unfortunately it was completely sioled.

I was going to really piss off a laundry mat…

Hold on a minute! I’d been given pants to go with that jacket! What did I do with the pants?

Thinking hard for a few minutes I recalled the small pocket on the jacket’s inside behind the logo. Hoping that the layers of silk had protected the pants, I rummaged through the jacket’s various internal pockets, realizing that it had places to hide knives and all sorts of small objects all over the place before finally finding the large pocket and removing the carefully folded up pants.

Downside, they had gotten a bit bloody. Upside, they were not so dirty as to be completely unwearable. A few dark patches as opposed to dried flakes of hemo-juices which were flaking off like rust-dust.

I quickly slipped into the pants, which promptly fell off…

Confused, I pulled them up again, this time feeling them bump into something at the base of my spi- Oh yeah. Right. Tail…

Thinking quickly I rummaged through my gear, grabbed my combat knife and poked a hole in the back of the pants to try and thread my tail through it while pulling them up. Unfortunately, the whole sealed up as I watched, proving that the outfit did infact repair itself.

As I glared at the pants, I noticed a small string on the inside of the waistband. An internal belt. I could pull them up most of the way then tighten them so they would ride on my hips and stay on! Prefect.

Quickly sliding them back on, this time adjusting the string-belt so they rested just below my tail, I breathed a sligh of relief, and then a sigh of irritation. The loose silk felt great on the legs, but I definitely needed something with a hole for my tail… Not for reasons of discomfort, but apparently because the base of a pony’s tail is rather sensitive. Great… This was going to get distracting.

With my pants on, and adjusted slightly to try and get them not to press against my tail, I inspected my boots, decided they were clean enough on the inside, and slipped them on as well before strapping the VM back on my wrist. It was a lot looser without the flight suit under it.

I gave the VM a gentle tap. “Sai, you still with me?”

“Yeah, I’m here…” The AI said. “Glad you didn’t get yourself killed. Where are we now? I was in standby.”

“We’re at SkyLabs, should get to see Sky in a moment,” I informed.

“Good. See if he can do something about the loose connector to the Thaumaturgy detector,” Sai asked. “I got smacked real good during your little rampage.”

“Ah shit… Sorry man,” I apologised.

“It’s fine. Just…don’t do that again, alright?” he pleaded.

“I won’t. Let’s go get you fixed up,” I said groaning as I stood up and heaved the bag containing my stuff up to hold it over one shoulder.

Stumbling back into the cargo bay I was treated to the sight of Rose taking crates off the top of stacks, and setting them on the floor. Bon would then coil around the crate and shift her coil backwards along her length, pulling the crate in the loop to the foot of the cargo ramp where Gale would stack the crates into a specific pile.

I couldn’t help but giggle at the picture, it was silly, and adorable, but what made it actually funny is it looked very efficient.

“Your foal’s a life saver!” Gale called up to me. “Where do you get one? I need a mobile conveyor belt too.”

“A restaurant in Brazil. Ask for the Anaconda, then just take the little girl home,” I replied, wincing as my right shin throbbed, the morphine not quite perfectly working yet.

Rose looked over and gave me a smile before turning back to her work. “You know, with how much fuss you made about clothes yesterday, I thought you’d steal Gale’s blanket or something.”

I chuckled. “Eh, I might have, but I remembered there were pants stored in my jacket.”

“Uh, if you want to cover your other half, I might have a spare jacket somewhere,” Gale offered. “But it’s not going to be comfortable, it’s cut for a pony after tall.”

“Meh, I got my sex organs covered up. That’s all that’s required. It’s a dessert, it’s not like I need a top for warmth’s sake,” I dismissed.

“Gale, why is it that everytime I see you I hear someone mention their junk?” A familiar yet oddly female tone said in amusement.

“I can’t help it if I keep running into fine mares in need of some relaxation,” Gale said, turning and giving the new arrival a friendly smile. “Nice to see you Sky, got your package right here.”

As Gale nudged a long wooden crate with a hoof, this universe's Sky walked into view. I don’t know what I expected, but I was a bit disappointed. This Sky looked just like the other one I had met, except with more feminine features and quadrupedal.

Same blue mane and tail, same green eyes, same orange fur, same tall and skinny frame… The only real differences were her mane was done up in a bun held together with a pair of chemistry pipets and her lab coat was a light blue and looked more…professional rather than customized.

“So, who did you pull out of quicksand and seduce this time,” Sky asked turning to look into the cargobay. The mare’s eyes almost bugged out of her skull as she noticed me. “Gale there’s a-! I! Um.”

“Uh, hi,” I said, waving my free hand in mild confusion. “I don’t look like a species native to here or something, do I?”

“Is that Sky?” Sai asked. “I hope so. I’ll never let him live down that he’s a mare in a universe.”

Sky triple blinked. “Sai!? Why are you in her- wrist communicator of my own design… Hi! I’m Sky Trigger, we need to get introduced and get on the same page. Right now!” Sky said half friendly and half threateningly.

“Interdimensional traveler,” I explained holding up my wrist. “Trying to get this fixed so I can go home. Long story short, an alternate universe you made it… So uh, think you can fix it?”

“I can definitely try, and I’ll be trying right now. Hold on a minute,” Sky said, holding up a hoof urgently as she turned over her shoulder to look at somepony. “Miss Ar’ran, I’m afraid this is very important. Your order is in storeroom six, I trust you can pick it up yourself?”

“Of course I can, I trust everything is alright?” A female voice asked, it’s genuinely concerned tone distorted with an electronic filtering.

Rose instantly sputtered, looking up from the crates she was moving and twisting in shock to stare at the new speaker. “Wait, mom!?”

“Flintlock! Well this is a pleasant surprise, I’m afraid I don’t have much time here… Your father and I are on a very tight schedule. Please, walk with me, it will be great to talk to you again!” The mare requested.

Rose hadn’t mentioned her mom at all… I’d been under the impression that the woman was dead. Curious to learn all I could, I took a few steps to the left, just enough to see past the edge of the cargo bay and get a look at the woman.

Unfortunately it wasn’t much of a look… She was dressed in a form fitting streamlined set of power armor, and it covered her from head to hoof. Nothing but sleek orange and gold plates, with a bright red helmet and chestplate. No mare to be seen except just a glimpse of amethyst colored changeling eyes through the armor’s tinted visor.

Hang on a minute, that armor looked familiar. Where had I-

“Of course!” Rose exclaimed eagerly, quickly zipping down the cargo ramp to join her mom, who immediately started to walk off towards one of the two large warehouse-like buildings which lay across the black colored, crate covered, tarmac from where we had set down.

“Lyra, would you mind leaving bon here with me to help me unload?” Gale asked hopefully. “She’s a good worker.”

“Uh… I don’t know…” I said hesitantly, the question ripping my attention off trying to place that set of armor.

Bon lifted her head up to look at me and smiled. “Like helps,” she informed before going back to moving crates in her coils.

“He won't be taking off for at least a day. There will be time to retrieve your…companion,” Sky promised.

Gale nodded. “Yep. Got to get all loaded up, and part of that cargo will be coming fresh off the assembly line if I remember correctly. You and Rose can crash here tonight if you need to,” the stallion offered.

“No need, I’ll provide quarters,” Sky offered. “Anywho, so yeah… You’re human, right?”

I sputtered in surprise. “W-what? How did you-”

“This lab is built atop a human ruin… Pull a LOT of tech out of it for reverse engineering purposes. I have a lot of things you could help me with, and you need my help. How about we work out a business deal?” Sky offered.

“Uh, I don’t know what I could do, but sure, a deal sounds good,” I agreed.

“Excellent… Also lets avoid walking you past some of my friends who are outside right now,” Sky said in an overly casual tone. “That goes for you too Gale, keep your head down. Our friend the Captain is here to inspect the Empire’s latest weapons.”

“Thanks for the warning Sky, I’ll stay put for now,” Gale agreed.

“Wait!” I objected. “You sell to the empire!?”

Sky gave me a diabolical smile. “Of course. I’m his Majesty's most trusted inventor and arms dealer, dontcha know. Let me just beam us to my lab so we can chat. Sai, take myself and our guest to my lab, by my desk please.”

Before I had a chance to object the world turned a bright blue, and with a sensation like someone had pulled me by the tail I found myself standing inside a massive cavern of a steel walled room.

It was about the size of a basketball court, both in length and width, but also high. The ceiling and walls had supporting struts which helped the room together, over all reminding me of the interior of fictional starships. The room itself was a sea of stainless steel worktables, separated by towers of storage bins, all manner of manufacturing equipment, and various works in progress of all kinds.

The room was occupied by quite a few different ponies and changelings none of whom even looked up as we appeared, each quite focused on their individual projects. Hell, I’d be focused too, this room contained everything you’d need to rapidly prototype anything. There was even a small forge complete with anvil sitting just a few yards away from me.

The aforementioned desk we were to appear next to was in actuality a podium with a holographic projector in it, projecting a half dozen screens which at the moment held the schematics for powered armor. The same armor that Rose’s mom had been using infact. I guess she’d stopped in for a tune up or something.

The podium had a few fold out shelves deployed as well, which were covered in paper blueprints, empty soda and beer cans, and messes.

But as cool as this room was. “Dude! I’m not hanging out with someone who helps an empire commit genocide! Put me back up on the surface!”

“Oh geeze, here we go again…” Sky moaned. “Look, the Empire would just get someone else to supply them if I didn’t. Emperor Solaris is a determined and crazy stallion, he’ll get what he wants one way or the other. By providing his forces with their equipment, I can control how powerful his forces really are. Get it now?”

Oh! Well holy fuck. “You diabolical bastard…” I breathed. “That’s going to bite you in the ass.”

“Pff, nah. We’re friends, he trusts me. And I’m not lying when I say I’m acting in His Majesty's best interests… He’s… Unwell,” Sky explained. “But none of that leaves this room. And trust me, Sai will know if you tell anypony here, and there will be consequences for that.

“The only reason I even told you this is I do absolutely one hundred percent need a human's help and well, you guys are in short bucking supply. Are we on the same page here?”

I mentally sighed. There was little I could or even should do here I was going to move on as soon as I could, and while things kind of sucked here… I’d helped out someone mostly because it was the right thing to do. But at the same time, this wasn’t a battle I was especially invested in, and I was already on a mission… Though I did feel heartless for feeling that way.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah… I think I get it. I still don’t know what you want that I can help with though.”

Sky gestured around herself. “Like I said, this is a repaired and refurbished creation of your people. I don’t expect you to know the technology used here. But there are a few bits of this ship that only a human will be able to get me into, and we need this old hull fully operational sometime in the near future.”

I triple blinked. “Old hull?”

“Mmmhm. You’re in a buried ship. One which some friends and I plan to use to well…” Sky sighed, and looked at me with eyes filled with exhaustion and sadness. “His Majesty used to be a fair and just monarch, but he’s always been a glory hog. Long story short, his brother helped rule for a long long time but got no respect or glory, they had a fight, and Emperor Solaris banished Prince Artemis to the moon-”

“To the fucking moon!?” I exclaimed. “You have a space program!?”

Sky shook her head. “No, magical artifacts were used…. Anyways some friends who have purchased my assistance in unshitting our fair nation managed to make contact with our Prince. His banishment is eternal, magic can not undo it… And as the Emperor’s friend, I know that most of his madness is due to the grief from realizing his brother is forever lost.

“Tartarus… All of the policies I object to are apparently twisted version so things Artemis wished to have made law… Er, look that’s not the point. The point is if I can get this hull operational, we can go and retrieve Prince Artemis, then with an heir to the throne, and enough firepower to force our Emperor to abdicate, my friends will finally be able to actually accomplish something.

“But to get that done, I need either fifty more years of working at breaking software locks, or a human’s biosignature. As you can see, you have a great deal of valuable service to offer me. So what is it that I can offer you?” Sky finished, gazing at me in an analytical and businesslike fashion which made me feel oddly at home and comfortable.

“I need help fixing this interdimensional travel device on my wrist… I need to be able to get home, or to the version of you which made it so it can be fixed fully. It got to my homeworld once, so well, if repaired I figure it can do it again. Can you help with that?” I asked adding after a second. “You don't happen to be the-”

Sky shook her head. “No, I did not make that. At least, if I did, not yet. You see, my favored field of science happens to be multiversal physics. It’s entirely possible that one day I make a portable multiverse traveling device… But right now, all I have is my PortalArch.”

“PortalArch?” I asked, raising one eyebrow curiously.

If she had an existing portal system, I could just ask to use it! Haha! I could be at the end of my journey!

Sky smiled, nodded and reared up to put a hoof on my shoulder, unsteadily guiding me through her lab for a short distance over to one of the lab’s corners.

Along the trip, some of the workers started to notice the two of us, each one having a sputtering and shocked reaction similar to Sky’s. As we arrived in the corner the entire lab was literally buzzing with conversation as some changelings took to the air to get a look at me.

I gulped nervously, not liking how many eyes were currently staring intently into my soul…

“Don’t pay them any attention. You’re only a one of a kind creature is all,” Sky soothed as we stopped before a large machine.

The machine looked to be a spidery yet massive steel archway with a shimmery watery sphere held within its three arms, a sphere which seemed to contain a rippling view of… Sky’s desk viewed from the ceiling of her own lab?

“This is my PortalArch,” Sky said gesturing with one hoof to a big. “A window into the multiverse, and my greatest technoarcane achievement to date.

“Er, why’s it showing your desk? Test run?” I asked, rubbing my chin thoughtfully.

Sky winked at me. “That’s not my desk, but it is a desk belonging to a me. I’m currently waiting for that me to put a blueprint or something on the desk so I can copy it.”

“Y-you steal your ideas from other universes?” I asked in shock.

“Duh! That’s why I built the Arch,” she giggled. “I’m good at multiversal mechanics, but not so much at other sciences. This way I can be of more practical use. Well, all of the me’s and I that is... Except one. He caught on and put up a firewall. Somehow… I can’t view his universe anymore.”

Sky kicked a forehoof in embarrassment as she admitted that to me. While it was funny, there was still a pressing matter.

“Sooo, since you have that thing, can you trace where my VM came from, pop in the coordinates and let me walk through that thing?” I asked hopefully.

Sky shook her head. “No. While matter can pass through the Arch, the portal needs to be anchored on the other side for it to be stable enough for that. Unfortunately that means there must be someone waiting on the other side of the portal to do that. If it’s not anchored, only light and a bit of heat passes through it.

“Before you ask, yes, people have moved through this before, and it’s been spotted before. If I can find out where to aim this thing by scanning your own device, I might be able to get a message to that Sky and then get a portal established. But more importantly, I will know where you need to go, and I can probably get your own device to take you there.”

“Please don’t bullshit me,” I asked. “Can you seriously get me where I need to go? Because randomly hopping about is getting annoying.”

“Well, maybe I can, maybe I can’t,” Say admitted optimistically. “It really depends on how this thing works. If it uses the same principal as my PortArch, and the odds are good it does, then I’ll be able to direct it onwards. But… There’s the matter of payment.”

I narrowed my eyes slightly in suspicion. “I don’t have anything of value to you,” I pointed out, just to let her know I was on to her.

Sky smiled. “You are something of value. This hull was built by your species in the distant past, and most of it’s systems, which are still locked, are locked because we need to disarm a biosecurity system.

“Here’s my offer, take it or leave it. You provide us with a pint of blood so we can synthesize more of your DNA in the event we need to unlock something in the future, and you follow one of my engineers around and touch a lot of security scanners to open up various subsystems for us. You do that, I rearm and refit you as best I can and see about sending you on your way.”

I thought about it for a few long moments. While tossing someone the keys to an actual freaking starship, a military starship, a technology beyond my own people’s grasp, was definitely not something to do lightly… They were fighting a mad Emperor who currently owned half the planet.

“Alright, I’ll accept that on one condition,” I informed.

Sky nodded. “You are of course free to amend our verbal contract. But if I don’t get what I wan't, neither will you.”

“You can have the blood and I’ll unlock things for you. No big. But, I want you to help me even if I can’t open those locks for whatever reason,” I stated firmly.

Sky rolled her eyes. “No. If you try and you fail, I’ll only see too your manipulator.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s a bioscanner, odds are only authorized personnel can get in. I doubt any human can open everything.”

Sky bit her lip. “Fair enough… If you can get even one thing open we’ll see what sort of code is used to do the unlocking and then Sai can brute force the rest of them. Alright, if you can open one thing, you get my full help. Try and fail, and I’ll only do what tinkering I can on your portal watch.”

“It’s a deal,” I agreed, sticking out a hand to shake.

Sky gently booped my hand with a hoof. “Yes. It is. So, let’s see what I can do with your little watch. Might as well tinker with it while you are busy. Oh and fair’s fair if I can’t do anything with it, you don’t have to do your part of our arrangement.”

Sky suddenly turned to face deeper into the lab and yelled. “Ayna! Can you tell me how this thing works?”

“Uh, how could any of your assistants possibly know how something you didn’t design works?” I asked curiously.

Sky gave me a little grin. “My sis was lucky enough to earn a special talent. This is pretty cool, you’ll like it.”

Before I had a chance to ask the obvious follow up of ‘what’s a special talent and how do you earn one?’ A small, sleek changeling with a pair of small bioluminescent stripes on her sides and covered in a tangle of wires and electrical components eagerly zipped around a stack of crates into view. Unlike other changelings I’d seen so far, she also had one of the brands on her hip. Tis one was green and shaped like an asymmetrical arrowhead containing a small swirly swoosh shape in it’s center.

“What thing?” She asked eagerly as she trotted over.

“Uh, sis, you want to take the junk off first?” Sky asked.

“No! I’ll forget which lead is which, I’m mid build. But this has to be awesome if you don’t know…” The changeling trailed off as she noticed me looking up in an analyzing way, eyes creepily glowing for a brief moment. “Something broke on that droid?”

“No, I’m organic,” I said, taking a step back in concord.

“Are you sure? Because your various systems are awfully optimised and have an organically designed feel to them,” she asked in concern.

How the flying shit did she… Right. Magic. Invasive as fuck magic.

“My species is big into gene engineering,” I elaborated.

“Oh! Okay. I’ll bet you get along great with droids though. Er, what is it I need to look at then?” Ayna asked eagerly.

Sky cleared her throat. “The portal device on her wrist. It’s not working right. Would you do your thing, please?”

Ayna nodded and stepped into creepy-close distance before staring at my wrist, eyes glowing brightly again.

“Er,” I asked in concern, “what’s she-”

“Shh!” Sky shushed. “Don’t distract her, you’ll mess it up.”

Ayna blinked, eyes fading back to normal as she frowned. “Ow… Miss, can you be quiet for just a second, please?”

“Only if you explain what you are doing,” I declared.

“Big sis didn’t tell you?” Ayna asked in surprise. “I’m using my talent to learn what your machine does.”

“Right and a talent is…what?” I asked again.

“Oh, right!” Sky exclaimed, facehoofing. “You’re not from here… The symbol on a pony’s flank, that’s called a cutiemark. It’s a magical symbol which provides a hint at what a pony is uniquely good at. Sometimes, well, often really, the mark grants a unique magic to the pony.

“And sometimes species close to ponies can get a cutiemark. Zebras, Changelings, I heard a mule got one once too. Ayna had her’s before my parents adopted her. She can just sort of understand how a system works.”

Ayna nodded. “I have to focus on it completely though, and I forgot most of what I know while studying it once I’m done, but for one brief moment I know exactly what something does and how. But, well…once I’m done I remember maybe a tenth of all that… And I can’t do anything while studying it… And repeated uses don’t stack unless I wait a few days to a week between… Board now, checking out your tech.”

The changeling’s eyes glowed again as she stared intently at my arm in a manner similar to someone about to take a bite out of something. She kept her gaze up for a solid minute before blinking, surprising me with the fact that her species even had eyelids.

“Ooo! That’s cool! It’s a completely broken teleporter,” she cooed happily.

Sky nodded. “Right, but how is it moving things between universes?”

“Um… Well, the teleporter is supposed to work by creating an superposition of every quantum object in the affected zone simultaneously to move them a precise distance all at the same time. It’s using the um…” She trailed off for a moment, cheeks glowing a pale green which I only realized was a blush after she stopped blushing. “I forgot the principle’s name… And I can’t think of a way to describe it in words. Sorry…

“Er, but the dimension hopping is due to the targeting system being totally shot. Instead of entangling the atoms of the wearer and stuff in their immediate contact, it’s actually targeting a patch of spacetime a meter so in front of the user. And that is…well, apparently if you entangle space-time itself it breaks down the universal walls so to speak. Er, what I mean is, that it will rip a small hole between universes.

“Now the teleporter is still trying to teleport things so it then seeks an endpoint, and because it’s startpoint goes right into the void between universes, the only space for the endpoint to be is in another universe. Since the void is well, a mathematical concept it’s not really a place and you can’t go there… Uh, best I can say the endpoint gets put somewhere in whatever universe is ‘closest’ to the one it’s activated in, at the time it’s activated.

“Once the endpoint is made, the entangled space-time acts like a wormhole, but well, you know spacetime. It likes to close holes in itself real quick so that wormhole will only last for about um… five minutes tops. That’s all I can remember.”

Sky nodded. “Right… So nothing like my PortalArch then. Meaning I can’t intentionally direct it. Shit.”

Ayna nodded. “Yes, it works by being a really really broken teleporter watch.”

Of the many burning questions I had, I decided to go with the one that felt the most important.

“So um…is this thing safe to use?” I asked, tapping the VM heastently.

Sky snorted. “Pff, yeah! What my sis is forgetting the name of is called, ‘Superpositional Translocation’. That’s when an object enters a quantum field that’s synchronized with a second field. The object exists in both fields at once for a brief instant, but it’s still got its momentum and shit, so it goes in one side and out the opposite. Just like a wormhole, but you know, you can actually make one without needing all the power of a small star to physically bend space.

“It’s completely safe, with a failure rate of like… Well, you won't have enough time before heat death to make enough jumps to have an accident occur from it. The device will wear out, mechanical failure and injury will happen long before you run any risk of injury from the process itself.”

“Then how many jumps can I do safely?” I asked, feeling a bit comforted.

“With this thing?” Ayna asked, tapping a hoof to her chin. “About twenty or so before it’s crystal starts to warp from stress. That's when it will get dangerous.”

“Ah… That’s not good…” I groaned. “You can't fix it, the last Sky only managed to get it to go within twelve thousand years of the time it was in before it was sent to me… There’s no way I’ll be able to find him in just like, seventeen more hops…”

Sky’s ears perked. “Wait! A me was able to narrow the range of time it can go to?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then I can improve that,” Sky said confidently. “I’d never be able to work out a system from scratch, but improving an existing one is within my capabilities. Pass me that thing and I’ll get to tinkering… It will be a day or two. So you might as well get comphy, or start fulfilling your side of the deal.”

Ayna looked at her sister in surprise. “There’s a deal? Did you volunteer my services?”

Sky shook her head. “Nah, I didn’t. But you can help if you want. She needs a jumpsuit and some armor repaired.”

“Also I need a new gun. My last one got lightninged,” I added quickly. “Or sword lessons.”

Ayna’s eyes lit up, not literally, but they definitely seemed to sparkle with joy. “I haven’t done a gun in forever! I’ll totally do a gun, right after I finish this delivery drone. How big’s your hand?”

The changeling quickly snatched my hand and compared it to the size of her hoof before nodding and trotting off, humming happily. I blinked and turned to give Sky a completely confused look, pleading for an answer with my eyes.

“Ayna’s mildly autistic,” Sky informed patiently. “She really doesn't understand most social interaction stuff. She didn’t mean to be rude or anything, she just needed to know how big to make the grip.”

“Oh,” I replied. Well, that explained that. Not that I’d ever seen a mental disability… I’d read about them though. “Er, I mostly wanted to know why she was so eager to make a gun. She seemed genuinely happy about it. But well, that explains it. I think… I’m not exactly sure what that illness does.”

“Limited interests, difficulty communicating, hard time understanding how people act,” Sky grunted. “She’s not really impaired… Not anymore at least. She’s gotten way better over the years. Still doesn't understand if she’s being rude like that though. As far as weapons go, she’s always loved making machines, and weapons are a good chance for her to just go nuts. You’re bound to get something good.

“Still, I recommend getting that sword training you’re after anyways. You could ask other me to help, he fences.”

I did a double take. “Oh- Other you?”

“Yeah, other me,” Sky giggled. “Remember how I said my PortalArch can bring stuff through if there’s someone on the other side to help? Well, I know that because a me escaped from his shitty universe with his wife. Whose his universe's copy of my wife. And I’m not sure, but I suspect they switch out on us all the time…

“Anywho, he lives here now… Mostly because well, he’s me. Why leave the Phoenix? It’s got everything a Sky could want.”

“... That would explain why you didn’t freak out at me being a dimensional traveler,” I mused.

“Mhm,” she confirmed with a nod. “That and you know, this is kind of my field.”

“Sooo… I guess I should go and start seeing if I can open things up,” I said semi-decisively.

Sky nodded. “Mhm. Follow me, I’ll lead you to Trigger’s quarters and you two can take care of that while I start work on your device… Speaking of…”

Sky held out her hoof, and I unbuckled the VM handing it over. “Sounds good,” I agreed.

Things were starting to really look up. Maybe I’d be home sooner than I thought.

Flintlock Rose - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

I had honestly never expected to see my mom again! This was awesome. While I understood why my parents left me to find my own way as a teen, I’d still missed them. With how big the world was, and how much they liked to adventure, I’d thought they were gone from my life forever.

“It’s so good to see you again, mom!” I exclaimed happily.

Mom gave me a smile, not the sort she used to give me, but the kind she gave to dad. A respectful smile.

“It’s nice to see you have become a proper adult. Where did you find the start of your road?” She asked.

“Heh,” I chuckled. “One city over… Yeah I know not too far but I helped out a Taikwuan Monk mine some coal for his dojo, so they let me sleep there for the night… So I kept helping mine coal. They eventually started teaching me their arts.”

Mom’s smile grew a bit wider. “Trained by warrior monks is a good place to start.”

I nodded, ears falling a little. “Yeah… I liked your training better though.”

Mom sighed, stopping in her tracks to give me a serious look. “Dear, we talked about this for a whole year…”

“I know,” I agreed. “A pony’s second and third decade of life are when we learn the most the easiest, and if I just learned from you and dad I would never find my own way.”

Mom nodded. “Right, I am glad you remember… You don’t hate us for it, do you? Your father and I only wanted to ensure you become your own person.”

I shook my head no. “I don’t hate you guys. Not one bit… I mean it sucked, but now… Yeah I can see where it helped me out. But I wasn’t talking about that. I really meant that I liked learning all the different weapons and gadgets and how to use them. That was more fun than martial arts.”

“Oh! Well, yes I can see that. Still, do you regret learning it?” Mom asked, resuming her walk.

I shook my head firmly. “Not at all. I can punch through steel with my bare hooves now!”

Well, as long as it wasn’t hardened steel… But no need to tell mom that.

“Not bad… But have you ever wrestled a dragon to the ground and knocked it cold with a headbutt?” Mom asked.

“You did that in power armor!” I said accusingly.

“Yep! Which means you have room to oneup me there, dear,” Mom teased.

The two of us had a laugh at her joke, taking a few long moments to laugh at the thought of me outperforming her suit.

“... Too bad your dad is back at camp. He’d have loved that,” Mom finally managed to say between chuckles, suddenly resuming her walk towards the storeroom. “Well… What happened after the monks? What are you up to now? After all… You only have right now to ask for advice. Just a reminder, I am on a tight timetable, your father and I can NOT miss our departure time.”

“Oh! Right,” I said as I fell back into step alongside her. “After the monks I moved to Manehattan for a while. I heard that they were more tolerant of thestrals there, and um… Well you know how I can’t just shift all at once…”

“Sorry sweetie, I’ve always wished you had more of my genetics. Still, you seem to be able to hold a shape quite well now!” Mom praised.

I blushed proudly. “Mhm! I can keep myself in a form as long as I want now. Still takes me like, months to learn a new shape though… And my shifts still last for a few minutes… No improvements there. I think I’m stuck at this point.”

“Dear, it’s just like learning to punch. Anyling can shift, but you need to put in the effort to do it well. I know it’s harder for hybrids but give it another year of hard work and you’ll have it down. It took me a decade to go from ‘basic pony’ to ‘anything I want’, and even now I’m still improving, and it’s been two hundred years. At least right now you can be whatever you like, given time.Take pride in that accomplishment,” Mom said cheerfully.

“Mhm! I’m really happy with this form in particular. It feels, well, like me,” I agreed. “But anyways Manehatten wasn’t really…welcoming. So I thought I would try a smaller city in Zebrica. It’s a provence, and well you know, the Zebras are more tolerant… But I did a dumb, pissed off some guards and wound up having to leave.

“I thought it would be nice to see how changelings lived, so I decided to come here since I knew a changeling worked here. I’ve never seen a hive before you know.”

Mom frowned. “There’s a reason for that… Most of our people are…not kind, or even just. The Emeralds, Rubies, and my own kin, are the only three I know of which I would have ever taken you to see… But well… It never felt like a good time to introduce you to a hive. The connection can be… Overwhelming for those not born in one.”

I nodded. “Y-yeah… Is there anyway to, you know, filter out the faint telepathy?”

The low buzz of conversations everywhere was starting to get to me… Not in a bad way it just…was hard to feel comfortable.

Mom shook her head. “No. You just learn to enjoy it. For me this is like listening to a nice pleasant rainfall. I do have to warn you, the Emeralds are rather, atypical changelings. If you want to know more of our side of the family, you should travel to the griffon kingdoms and find the Amethyst Hive… Easier said than done, it’s nomadic.”

“Well… Actually, I’m thinking about doing something else now,” I admitted.

It had started as a vague dumb seeming idea… But the more I’d thought about it, the more the idea grew.

“Oh?” Mom asked curiously.

I nodded. “Yeah, the person I arrived with. She helped me escape from an Imperial fort. I didn’t really need the help. I’d have gotten out on my own, and the thing is, I think she could have gotten out on her own too.

“Thing is… While she has real battle experience, she’s apparently used to fighting only in the air, not on the ground. She also gave me a great example of why charging a superior force isn’t the best idea… But she also took out an impressive number of opponents before getting too shot up to keep fighting.”

Mom smiled. “I see, you think you could teach each other.”

“Yeah, I do. I could definitely take in more of her tactical advice, and it’s good to have a vet to learn from… Also we both know my aerial skills are lacking. But she definitely needs help with her ground game, and I could help her with that… Plus her species is freaking adorable!” I admitted, eeping as I realized I’d said the last part out loud.

Mom blushed, clearing her throat before nodding. “Yes, she definitely comes from a cute species. Do you know where she is going?”

I nodded. “She’s looking for the right version of Sky who can fix a portal device of hers.”

“Ah, I see… She’s a Traveler. They do tend to make for interesting friends,” mom said in an odd tone.

“Yeah, and that’s pretty cool,” I said happily.

“Do you know if she will let you travel with her?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. “No. I haven’t asked yet. But I will.”

“Are you sure you want to go on that sort of journey?” Mom asked.

“Yes, how many people can say they got to see a whole other world?” I asked in return.

“The list isn’t too long, that’s for sure,” mom chuckled. “Dear, if you feel this is where your road leads, then you have my full support. Just remember what’s truly important, and don't let your travels change your principles.”

“I really, really don’t see how hopping around universes could change my mind on the ‘helping people is good’ issue,” I laughed.

Mom laughed with me. “I suppose I did worry too much about you. You seem to have become a fine young warrior… Do a mother a favor and live to become an old warrior. Preferably one who has raised a young warrior of their own.”

“Of course I will, mom,” I replied.

“Good! Now before you leave…” Mom began, her tone suggesting she was about to impart wisdom of the highest order. “Your dad’s old armor, it’s terrible. He wore it down to the bone. Ask Ayna to replace it before you go, she’s gotten way better in the last sixty years anyways.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine mom… I’ll check up on that.”

“Also, if you find yourself liking the person you wish to travel with-”

“What! No! I just want to train with her,” I objected.

“Heh, I remember when I wanted to ‘just train’ with your dad. Sooner is better than later, dear. Once you are sure, tell her immediately,” mom advised.

“Ugh, mom! Seriously, I only think she’s cute!” I eeped. “I mean, think she can-”

“Mmmmmhm,” mom smirked. “I’m not judging. I dated and wed outside my species afterall. I’m also not saying you should date her. Not all crushes will become something more. Just be sure you follow your heart, as we taught you to do.”

“That’s all I ever do, mom,” I sighed.

Mom nodded, seemingly satisfied.“Then whatever happens, I am sure you will have made the right choice.”

The two of us suddenly arrived at the storeroom. The green shelled changeling on guard gave mom a quick look, the two exchanging a hello over telepathy to confirm her identity.

Satisfied, the guard nodded and tapped a hoof to a panel on the wall, opening the doors. “Go right in Miss Ar’ran. I’m afraid your friend will need to remain outside.”

Mom nodded, and gave me a quick hug. “We’ll bump into each other again one day. Enjoy yourself, dear.”

“Bye mom,” I said turning back with a sad sigh.

Too bad we couldn’t have gotten lunch or something. Ooo! Lyra and I should get lunch! She owed me a sandwhich still.

15 Pleasure

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Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

Sky’s claims of this being a human built starship hadn’t rung quite true for me. I mean, yeah… Apparently these worlds were just my own in the future. But how does anything survive for over two hundred and fifty million years? I’d expect proton decay or something similar to have kicked in long before now.

Given just well, rust, salt, and wear and tear from sand I’d be shocked to see anything made of any alloy last for just a hundred thousand years. I’d expect the actual elements used in anything this old to have decayed into something else by now. But well, every culture has their legends, and it’s rude to call bullshit on them. So I’d kept my mouth shut.

But the moment Sky had opened the door to lead me to Trigger’s quarters (as her other self went by), I became a believer.

I was by no means an expert in pony architecture. I’d really only seen one of their prisons, and a different culture’s palace. But there was one thing I had seen a ton of, and that was human built military vessels.

Yeah, sure, we didn’t have starships, but we still had spacecraft. I’d been on a few civilian transports in my time, every time I’d gone to visit my mom in fact. We also had navy vessels, and you can bet your ass that as a pilot, I had spent a LOT of time on aircraft carriers, and even on a few submarines with aircraft launch tubes.

There’s just a certain way that humans build things like that. An efficiency of design that blends comfort with function to try and make them not butt heads so much, and usually fails... It’s something you noticed if you spend absolutely any length of time aboard a ship. And I could see it everywhere in the corridors along our trip.

The corridor itself was over all rectangular, sized to be exactly eight feet tall and six feet wide. The upper corners of the halls were slanted, covered by panels which (as the occasional missing one revealed) hid pipes and wires from view while still providing easy maintenance access. The ceiling itself had embedded light bars which gave off a cheery white, full spectrum light which still somehow failed to look like sunlight, and every few dozen feet the small sprinkler head of a fire suppression system poked out of the ceiling just enough to be effective.

The walls, oh the walls. A thing of beauty! Large panels, clearly modular in design, attached to one another via expertly engineered linkages to form a simple smooth wall structure, with the occasional slight portrudance of a support column which stuck out just enough to prevent the ceiling from collapsing. But not enough to prevent two people from passing in the corridor.

Occasionally, a control panel dotted the smooth white walls, a simple physical button tactile control. The sort of thing you would use if a man-machine interface was down for whatever reason. A pony would need to rear up to reach it. For me, it was at a comfortable chest height. Oh, and the engraved control labels were in english. That sort of clenched it.

It was beautiful. Clear, expert computer assisted, optimal designed, modular segments arranged into an absolutely purposeful overall design. The lovely glow of artificial lighting and the pleasant background hum of mechanical systems, the little comforts I had been missing for an entire week were here and welcoming me. I was home, but not home.

As a direct result of the homesick feelings, I had no idea what Sky said for the entire walk. I’d set Cheer.ly to manage the smalltalk and just sort of followed along behind Sky, spending the entire trip trying to connect to the ship’s systems and see if there was anyone there.

It would have been just the best thing ever to find a direct net link, but there simply wasn’t one. Though I did manage to link up to a PA system. So at least there was something.

<We have arrived at our destination,> Cheer.ly informed. <Transferring memories of conversation… Returning control of speech centers.>

Ahhh damnit… I still had one link left to try. Stupid walk, thirty more seconds and I’d have gotten to poke at whatever ‘Sub-Processing Unit 43893’ was.

Sky frowned and looked up at me in concern. “You okay? You looked like you had a small stroke there,” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I dismissed. “I was just trying to see if I could remotely access the ship via my implants. The facial tick is just a thing that happens.”

Well, it’s a thing that happens when you transfer brain functions between you and your VI but no need to be specific…

“Getting right to work ’eh?” Sky asked, smiling at my sorta-lie. “I like that. Did you get into anything?”

I nodded. “Yeah I got into the general alert system. Nothing playing on it, and well, it’s the only thing I can think of that would be accessible to civilians… Oh, uh, there was no encryption either, just an open system. As you’d expect.”

“Darn… Well, upside, if you can get into one, you can probably get into others,” Sky said confidently. “Wait, can you do anything with that system? Make it dance a little bit?”

“Er, probably, why?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t know where was a PA system for starters,” Sky informed.

I smiled. “We'll, see, that’s the thing. You wouldn’t hear jack shit from it. It’s a direct to brain system. We don’t really use buttons to control our tech, everything is neural interface based. I could play my entire music library over the thing and you’d never hear it… A changeling might though. I picked up their telepathy once.”

Sky blinked. “Then what are the physical controls for?”

“Emergency access, probably,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, my fighter had a physical yoke and throttle control for emergency use. Or hey, maybe we made first contact at some point and they are for the non-human crewmembers use.”

“That would explain why I had to make several critical systems controls from scratch and splice them in…” Sky mused. “I’d figured the nanorepair system just forgot to maintain them.”

Nanorepair? “Hold it, this thing self-repairs with nanites!?” I asked in alarm. “What do you have to stop them going gray goo!?”

Sky rolled her eyes. “If that was going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago. They really don’t do anything but take sand, rip protons off it, and make more hull materials… And the system is pretty degraded too. So it’s not fixed more than like, the basic hull shape and some critical systems.

“And anyways, the nanites are mechanically designed to only be able to process silica in sand form. Which we are fortunate enough to be in a huge pile of. Trust me if this thing was capable of doing that, yeah it already would have. Now, you ready, or is there anything else you want to freak out about?”

“You are absolutely certain that they can only break down silica?” I asked firmly.

Sky nodded. “Mhm. And they are not smart… They don't even use metal from the hull itself. There are entire sections of collapsed deck that we’re still clearing out. Self repair systems ignore it and just patch holes in the hull and keep the structural supports intact. Oh, and keep their population at exactly seven trillion.”

I let out a deep breath. “Good… Good… Sorry… Just, nanoweapons.”

Sky nodded. “Eh, yeah. That would be a horrible thing if it was ever do-”

“It’s been done! I was eight,” I corrected instantly.

Sky winced. “Oh. Well, in that case, trust me, we’re safe.”

“Let's just move on, alright?” I asked. I had no reason to distrust her, and I really would rather not think about that particular attack. It’s rare that both sides agree to ban a weapon class…

Sky nodded and reared up to press a door release with a hoof. The steel double doors slid apart with a hiss, revealing a rather comfortable carpeted room which could only be described as an apartment's living room.

A nice living room. By my standards. Awesome!

A nice rectangular space, one wall with a row of windows with a nice view of… Well, sand... And the other walls nice solid metal painted a warm ivory color. A color which went nice with the burgundy carpeting, and made the already sizeable room feel bigger, even with the big wooden gaming table set up in the middle of the room, the beanbags, the… Big TV?

Huh, okay. I guess the ponies and changelings here hadn’t worked out how to use the entertainment systems right… Regardless, it was a lovely room, with two doors which led into a bathroom and a bedroom. A proper suite, life on a cruise ship. Or Star Trek.

I felt a sudden compulsion to ask if anyone knew what the hull’s exterior looked like. But that was completely pushed aside by the room’s three occupants.

The most noticeable ones were exactly identical, pink furred and darker pink maned mares. For a second I thought they were copies of Mysuki, but their sky blue eyes, triple balloon brands, and impossibly fluffy curly manes and tails dispelled that illusion. The third was literally Sky, but with a more masculine build and cooler hair.

Spiky beats buns, Sky...

By this point I was used to ponies. Their appearance alone didn’t disrupt my thoughts. Nor was it the fact that the three of them were playing cards around the table. What completely floored me is that they were all dressed to some degree.

Correction, BADLY dressed to some degree. It looked like something out of the historical records from the 1980’s had eaten the 2170’s fashion and pooped out this terrible mismatch of random articles of clothing…

Trigger threw up both forehooves in a victory pose as the doors opened, exclaiming, “Woo! Royal flush! Number One, nighponese schoolmare hat. Number Two, the leopard print scarf.”

“Awww,” the two mares moaned in unison ears drooping sadly.

“Hey them’s the rule- Wait was that the door?” Trigger asked.

“Seriously!?” Sky demanded. “Dress poker!?”

Trigger’s ears lay flat in irritation, refusing to turn around and face Sky and I. “Hey, Number Two feels left out if just Pinkie and I play alone… Man I hate how we share biometrics-”

One of the two maes pointed over Sky’s shoulders and hissed, “Look!”

The other simply grabbed the top of his head and turned it gently.

Trigger sputtered in surprise. “Holy crap! Ummm… Alright, yeah, now isn’t the time for cards. So uh, hi, random mythological creature! Uh, yeah, been keeping this thing warm for you! Sorry about the weird smell in the cargo bays. I can’t get the atmospheric controls working like they should be and-”

“I’m not here to reclaim anything,” I laughed, unable to take a pony dressed in an open front green leather vest and a pair of zebra striped stockings seriously. “Just passing through.”

“You should have gotten my message that there was an important project to do!” Sky exclaimed in mild upsettedness.

“We’re just having some fun Sky, you don’t need to be a party pooper, dear,” one of the pinks said with a sad sigh.

Trigger rolled his eyes. “My watch is off. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a day 'off' if I leave it 'on'. Heh heh. Seriously, you make me work on off days way too much for me to even think about leaving it on. Now, on to the bigger much more important thing…” Trigger flailed both hooves at me in a pointing gesture. “Human! Not extinct. Here. Now. Is!”

I did my best not to burst into a giggle fit as one of the pink mare's grabbed a tiny sailor’s hat from a pile of clothes behind the table, and put it on, clearly intent on continuing their game.

“Yeah! And she’s being nice enough to try getting me into the locked out systems,” Sky said taking a deep breath of irritation. “Would you please walk her to each system so she can try them out? That’s all I need you to do. I have to work on her dimensional tunneling device, I’m going to be busy.”

I wanted to pay attention to the argument, but I was still biting my tongue to keep from laughing my ass off at the idea of ‘dress poker’. That actually seemed fun! But the real question was if it was a sex game or not… If not I’d have to ask to join!

One of the pink mares leaned over to her counterpart and whispered something I didn’t catch, causing the other to nod.

“Uh, well, yeah. I can do that. Cuz for once it’s actually something important,” Trigger agreed.

“Good!” Sky exclaimed somehow both satisfied and irritated. “Now can I leave you too it or do I need to micromanage everything!?”

“Sheesh,” Trigger grumbled, “I need to take a chill pill today.”

Sky face hooved. “You know, I’d take you on as a full partner in my business if you had any idea of how to work hard!”

“And I’d take you on as a full friend if you knew how to be content with being a multibillionaire and took some time to enjoy life,” Trigger retorted in an even tone. “Seriously, all you do is rake in more bits. Take a vacation! Use some of them for a change.”

Ha! This was hilarious!

“I can’t, I agreed to help with a rebellion! AND the Empire they are fighting against!” Sky retorted.

“Yeah, so did I- Oh! Wait, human, ship… You want her to, right okay. I’m on the same page now,” Trigger said mostly to himself.

“You have zebra stockings on!” I exclaimed, finally unable to hold in the laughter.

The mare on the left beamed a huge smile as I broke down into the laugh, the one in the hat frowned and passed her counterpart a small pile of coins.

“Awww,” she grumbled. “Two more minutes…”

“Yes,” Trigger agreed in the most serious tone imaginable. “I do. Anywho, so, Sky, you go do your thing. I’ll just get over seeing an extinct species and then take uh, whatshername around the ship. No worries. I want this war over as much as you do.”

“Good… Good…” Sky sighed before turning to me as I managed to calm down and clear my throat. “Ms. Heartstrings, if you’d be so kind as to make sure he takes you to do your part of our little bargain, I’ll be on my way to fulfill my half.”

I nodded. “No problem… As long as he takes off those stockings… Cuz I’m going to lose it again if he doesn’t.”

Trigger smirked. “Well the point of the game is to make the other players look really stupid…”

“It’s fun!” The bet losing mare exclaimed. “You should play a few hands! You need new pants anyways, those ones are falling off.”

I smiled and gave her a nod, “Yeah they don't have a hole for my tail… The tail’s new.”

“Please don’t get caught up in their…time wasting,.” Sky pleaded. “I’ll be going now. I’d like a progress report in three hours.”

Trigger gave her a dismissive hoof wave. “It’ll get done. So um, human… Come on in. What’s your name? Also do you want those pants fixed?”

Sky sighed and started to walk off, grumbling about people not taking things seriously.

I took a step into the room, the doors hissing shut behind me. “Yeah. That would be nice, and the name’s Lyra.”

The two pink mare’s ears perked, faces giving the same happy-shocked expression before the two fell over in a giggle fit.

Trigger snickered. “Your name is Lyra Heartstrings?”

I nodded. “Yeah… Why is that funny?”

“Y-you'd have to meet somepony,” Trigger snickered. “She’s obsessed with human mythology. Shares your name. It’s funny.”

“So um…” I asked. “When do we get started on the-”

“Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea that we are in no way doing?” Trigger asked. “Never. Duh.”

“What’s so bad about it?” I asked, frowning suspiciously.

This version of Sky clearly was opposed to his counterpart… Maybe she did have some sinister motive.

“She’s not evil, is she?” I asked jerking my thumb back at the doors.

The pink mare on the right shook her head quickly. “Nopes! My Sky’s a little itty bit rough, but she’s super duper nice under the surface… She just needs to stop being so greedy.”

“I blame her not having her own Sai,” the other pink mare continued. “My Triggie has one to keep him in check and he’s great!”

“Yeah, it looks like she’s the only me to have not made an ai to help keep them er…focused,” Trigger sighed. “Speaking of AIs, not that she believes me, but yeah, back in my universe, the Phoenix's AI was still alive and I accidently turned it on and well… That was a hell of a year. Needless to say, I checked this one for an AI when I got here and yup! Same deal.

“So if in my universe poking a human bone against a bioscanner got her to wake up and go apeshit… Yeah you are so not going to turn on a psychotic AI that’s like, millions of years past needing a proper tune up, and attached to a massive starship. And don’t try to do it behind my back, because I’ll have to stop you for the good of everypony. Hell, everyone.”

I took a half step back, the stallion having gotten really intense at the end. Holding up my hands defensively I insisted. “Woah! Easy there, killer. Let’s just talk this out. Why doesn't she believe you? Couldn’t you show Sky that it’s there?”

Trigger nodded. “I did. She agrees that the AI is there and on standby. But she doesn't agree with me that it’s going to be insane because this hull was found more intact than my universe's hull… But what do I know? I’m only a programming prodigy. Buck me, right?”

I had a sudden realization. In ARGs, every time the programmer said, ‘the system isn’t ready!’ or something similar, and everyone ignored him, everything went to shit real fast.

“Not into guys, can I buck her instead?” I asked jokingly as I pointed to one of the pink mare's instead.

“Sorry, Pinkies go with Triggies, it’s a rule,” the mare informed apologetically.

“What?” Trigger and I asked in confused unison.

She grinned at the two of us and giggled. “Your confused face is so cute! Yours too, Lyra-with-hands! Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie!”

The other Pinkie waved at me excitedly. “Me too!”

“You’re too, what?” I asked frowning before facepalming. “Right you are also… How do you tell them apart?”

Trigger laughed. “We can’t. Hell, quantum scans can’t. Unlike Sky and I, the Ponks are completely identical.”

“That’s not true!” The pinkie on the left exclaimed, pointing a hoof to her counterpart. “She likes oatmeal raisin cookies!”

Her counterpart blinked and gave herself a confused frown. “But… So do you.”

“Oh! Right,” the first one admitted with a blush.

“I just call them Number One and Number Two, depending on which enters a room first,” Trigger admitted. “But seriously… We are not going to turn on that AI, even by accident.”

“It didn’t screw up your whole world, did it?” I asked hesitantly.

Trigger shook his head. “No… But it did something that woke up something else… Something evil and immaterial. As far as I know, everything in that universe is a plaything for it now.”

I winced, mind jumping back two hops. “I-I think I was there… It’s a crawling sort of presence, right? Makes you forget things, freezes your hand when you want to draw a weapon?”

All three ponies nodded. “Yeah, that’s it,” Trigger sighed. “I thought I was doomed until I managed to get Sky’s portal stabilized on my end. Grabbed Pinkie, left behind some mirror pool duplicates with enhanced intellects, then bailed. Been here ever since.”

One of the Pinkies nod noded. “Yeperooni! It… It felt bad to leave my friends, but Discord promised he’d fix everything as soon as he could.”

“Wait, Discord!? Terrifying floating chimera shaped eldritch entity, Discord!?” I asked, heart skipping a beat.

The room erupted into laughter. Making my face flush bright red.

Shaking his head Trigger cracked a smile. “Oh man, I see he got you good! Discord’s like- Wait! You’re a human. Did you see Star Trek?”

“Uh, yeah… Some of it survived the- Wait, how have you seen Star Trek!?” I demanded.

“It’s stored on the ship’s computers. I do movie nights,” Trigger explained. “Anywho, Discord's like, almost literally Q. Except more of a playful asshole. At least…he is now.”

I took a deep breath and centered myself. Between nanites and elder gods, I was getting a bit unhinged.

“Right… Okay… So say we don’t get this ship running? How do you stop the war and improve the land and all that?” I asked. “Cuz you need a plan B if you want to abort Plan A.”

“Use the Elements of Harmony to fix everything, duh,” one of the Pinkies exclaimed with an eye roll.

“The what?” I asked with a frown.

“The same artifacts used to banish Prince What's-His-Face-” Trigger explained.

“Artamice,” a Pinkie corrected.

“Well excuse me! He’s only a chick in my universe and has a completely different name,” Trigger grumbled. “Anyways, the thing used to banish him. The Rebels managed to get the last one two weeks ago. So all we need is a group of ponies with strong bonds of friendship, each of whom is an example of at least one of six virtues and blam! Problems solved.”

“And we found that group!” Pinkie-on-the-right proclaimed happily. “I tried to use Laughter myself… I mean, I did use it back home, but you need to be good friends with everypony else using one and you need at least two ponies and I and other me can’t work out how to make Magic work, so we couldn’t do it…”

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “Wait, so you have a magical artifact that can solve the problem… And found people who can use it… And she’s still trying to get this ship running because, why?”

“Because she’s never seen the Element’s work,” Trigger explained. “She doesn't believe that can undo something they did. Which is fair… I mean, in my universe, new bearers were found nine years ago. I’ve seen them used all the time. Heck! I married one of them.

“But here… Well… Twilight Sparkle is a loyal consort to His Majesty, Applejack can’t stand working with others… The Elements I know just don’t work here. So this universe hasn’t had Bearers since Prince what’s-his-plot was banished until last week.”

I opened my mouth but one of the Pinkies cut me off. “Don’t worry! Shiny Whistle, Risky Weld, Metal Head, Fireburst, Dream Weaver-”

“I believe you can get me through the night!” The other Pinkie sang-interrupted.

“Ahem,” the first continued. “Dream Weaver, and Aura Chime are all great friends! Each one has everything they need. The Elements will work with them, I’m sure of it! Pinkie Promise.”

“And we are all certain that those Elements will work?” I asked. “I mean, I know jack shit about magic… But if you know it will work-”

“One time, in my home universe,” Pinkie-on-the-right began, “a big meaniehead centaur decided to go all soul-eaty-kaiju and drained the magic from everypony in all of Equestria, except for Twilight, who tried to fight him with all of Alicorn magic! But she couldn’t defeat him even with all of Celestia’s power, and that’s a whole sun’s worth!

“But once we got our hooves on the elements again, pow! Stripped him of all his power, banished him back to tartarus, and put all the magic back with everypony getting the right magic too! One single spell did all that in ten seconds flat!”

“The Elements of Harmony should kinda be called the ‘Elements of Total Victory’,” Trigger explained with a grin. “It’s pretty lucky that they, well… That they don’t let just one person use them. Also they seem to have some sort of internal morality and conscious. Gotta have at least two who personify that specific mortality. But yeah. War’s over. We’re just waiting on six ponies to get to rebel HQ. We don’t need the starship.”

“Right… Well that’s good,” I mused, frowning slightly. “But um, I need my device fixed, and also my armor and jumpsuit got trashed and your counterpart offered to fix them but only if I helped her out…”

Trigger rolled his eyes. “Sai, you there buddy?”

“As always, sir,” Sai’s voice rumbled from hidden speakers.

“Lyra and I totally tried every system out, right?” Trigger asked.

“Mhm. I even have the video evidence,” Sai agreed.

“Awesome. Too bad it didn’t work,” Trigger sighed fake-dramatically.

“She’s not going to buy that…” I said, rolling my eyes.

“She will if you agree with me,” Trigger countered.

“But she’s only going to fix my gear if one of the things gets unlocked,” I pointed out.

Trigger’s eyes narrowed. “Seriously!? That scuzzbutt! Not everything should be a business deal. Especially helping stranded dimensional travelers! Did she make Ayna help fix your stuff?”

I nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Pinkie! Do the thing!” Trigger ordered, pointing to the large wallscreen.

One of the Pinkies snapped an overly dramatic salute while the other pressed a small button on the wallscreen. The device flicked on, showing a small room almost completely filled with electronic and mechanical junk, as well as a bunch of stuff I could only describe as ‘new age era mystical mumbo jumbo’. The junk spilled over almost every surface, making the smallish changeling almost invisible due to the sheer amount of crap in front of her desk.

I was only able to recognise her by the little glowing stripes.

“Thing done!” The saluting Pinkie informed.

Trigger gave me a smile and turned to the screen. “Hey, Ayna, are you listening?”

“Mhm, whatcha need big brother?” Ayna asked, not looking up from her tinkering.

“Did Sky ask you to help out a human today?” Trigger asked.

“Oh! Is that what her species’s is called?” Ayna asked, still tinkering. “Er, I mean, yes.”

“It is, and I was wondering if you could send her get up to my room? I’d like to work on it myself,” Trigger asked.

“Sure! I need to test out Droney McDroneface anyways,” Ayna agreed happily.

“... Would you like me to rename that cargo drone for you, sis?” Trigger asked, the look on his face indicating mild distress a the name.

“No,” Ayna replied.

“Alright, you have fun with whatever you're working on now, okay?” Trigger asked.

“Always do!” Ayna confirmed happily. “Droney, pick up that pile of gear and give it to big brother.”

A cheerful electronic beep from off screen rang through the air before one of the Pinkies turned off the screen.

“Oh look,” Trigger said to me smugly. “Problem solved.”

“So it is…” I agreed.

“Sooo… Wanna play some cards?” One of the Pinkies offered. “I can fix your pants while we play!”

“Uh, the fabric repairs itself. You’re an earth pony so, you can’t do magic, right?” I asked hesitantly.

“Um, yeah! All Equestrian fabric fixes itself unless the cut’s made with enchanted fabric scissors. I might not be Rarity, but I can put a hole into and a button onto some pants,” the Pinkie informed happily, holding up a pair of scissors which I swear she hadn’t had a second ago.

“Oh! That makes a lot of sense… But um… Humans don’t like to be naked, and I have nothing under these,” I admitted, a little embarrassed.

“Looks like you’ll have to lose a hand then,” Trigger said, sitting back down. “I’ll deal you in. it’s like regular poker, but the losers put on anything the winner picks out… Normally it’s a sexy times game but we like to play just for fun. So don't worry about that. Everypony promise to give her a bottom to put on first?”

“Yeperooni!” The Pinkies chorused.

“Well… Alright then. Deal me in, I’ll learn as we go,” I said taking a seat at the table, immediately regretting it as my knees were forced up into my chest. “This chair is very small…”

“No it’s not, you’re just tall,” Trigger snarked. “Now, aces are high, and eights are wild. Other than that standard rules apply.”

Flintlock Rose - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

The word ‘hive’ always had a sort of cozy feel to me. Maybe it was because I was familiar with bee hives, and those are just so small, you know? I’d expected to only have to search an area the size of a few city blocks for Lyra.

Fun fact! The useable portion of the Emerald Hive is currently nine point six three two seven cubic kilometers.

CUBIC KILOMETERS! The damn thing is so big that you can’t describe it in even square kilometers… Halp!

There was a little train thing inside of it, and one of the changelings I’d asked for directions told me there were other little train things too… And also to not take the wrong one or I’d wind up having to wait an hour for the next car.

It didn’t help that all of the hallways inside the damn thing looked exactly the same. White walls. Kinda slanted roof. Sometimes doors. Signs in a language I didn’t read. Blinky lights on consoles that didn’t seem to do crap!

“Why isn’t there a map on the wall or something!?” I sob-lamented to myself.

“Because local residents know to ask me for directions,” a stallion’s voice informed.

I looked up instantly, recognising the voice as the same one from Lyra’s bracelet computer. “Sai! Is Lyra nearby?”

“Wrong Sai,” The voice apologised. “I’m living in this hull, the Sai you are thinking of is a different version of me. Do you want directions to your friend?”

“That would be amazingly helpful!” I pleaded.

“One sec… Oop… Sorry, look slike she’s buisy at the moment. Is there any other place you’d want to go? Because you’ve kinda wandered into a military only area. So you know, you need to scoot,” Sai politely informed.

“Oh… What’s she doing?” I asked curiously.

“Helping repair some ship systems as a part of a business deal with my boss,” he replied.

“Oh! Right!” I exclaimed, realizing I could ask for help with my armor, like I had planned to when I started out here in the beginning. “Um, do you know where Ayna Trigger is? I’d like to see if she can refit my dad’s old armor for me.”

“Of course… She’s busy too, but unlike other organics, she has the capacity to multitask. I’m sure she won't mind talking with you right now,” Sai said in an oddly dickish tone of voice.

I suspected he wanted me to bug Ayna for some reason…and that felt like fun! Bug bugging, a sport if I ever heard of one.

“Awesome! So where do I go?” I asked.

“I’ll direct you, you’re close, this is one deck below engineering. The nearest lift is just down the hall on your left,” Sai instructed.

He continued to direct me along a five minute walk. I had to say, the help with directions made everything livable. The floorplan was robust and maze like, but also seemingly purposeful. I’m sure I could learn the way around in time but right now… I really needed the help.

“Alright! We are here,” Sai informed. “Turn left.”

I turned left and immediately frowned. “This is a wall…”

“One sec,” Sai informed.

With a hydraulic hiss, the wall split in half, one panel sinking inwards and sliding down into the floor as a door hidden behind it slid apart. The room on the other side was very cramped, not due to it’s size but because it was a mess of spare parts. No organization, just heaps of arcane and mundane tech everywhere.

No… No there was organization, it just wasn’t obvious at first glance. What parts I did recognize were all heaped in with things that did the same thing they did. Everything was sorted into piles by function… Interesting!

“Sai… Did I ask you to stop showing people where my door is?” An irritated changeling’s voice asked.

“I can’t remember that, ma’am,” Sai clearly lied.

“Oh… Well please don't show people where my door is. It’s hidden for reasons,” she asked. “Person coming in, what do you need?”

“Uh, well, I have some old armor you made and I need some work done on it,” I informed hastily.

It was clear she really didn’t want company.

“Ayna Tech carries a lifetime warranty, somepony upstairs will replace anything that’s broken. Please go away. I’m building things,” Ayna asked.

“Well, the problem is it’s my dad’s old armor, and it doesn't quite fit me so… I need it refit,” I explained. “So you know, a replacement won't fit me.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll take measurements and have one made then. Please come in… I don't want people knowing where my door is, and if you stand there it will stay open,” Ayna grumbled.

“Why don’t you want people to know where you are?” I asked as I stepped into the room, Ayna becoming visible from behind a pile of junk.

I wasn’t sure, but she looked small for a changeling. Even for her caste, assuming I was remembering my castes correctly, the glowing stripes marked her as a harvester. More to my total shock she had a cutiemark!

“Oh my gosh! You have a cutiemark!” I exclaimed, unable to contain the surprise. “Are you a hybrid too?”

“No. I’m not,” Ayna sighed. “Some changelings earn cutiemarks like a pony. It’s just really rare. Zebras can get them too, but that’s more common… I hide in here because of my mark. It makes me useful… And people want to use me because I’m usefull, and I can’t say no to people because that makes me feel bad. If I don’t hide, I have no free time to make the things I want to make.”

“Oh…” I said, ears drooping sadly. “I didn’t know… I can leave if-”

“No. Then I’ll feel bad that you learned I feel bad if I say no so you decided not to ask for my help. Because that means I told you no indirectly…” Ayna groaned, stopping tinkering with the parts on her workbench to rub her temples. “Stupid brain… Why can’t I shift instincts away?”

I winced and looked for anything to distract her with, before remembering my armor. Slinging the sack I’d carried it in off my back and onto the floor I took out the helmet. “Well, let’s do this quick then, here’s the helm-”

“Ooo! I remember making this one!” Ayna exclaimed eyes lighting up. “He really really loved it… And you’ve been using it? He had it replaced because it ran out of juice… It’s little better than a regular steel hat right now.”

“I-it is?” I asked hesitantly, remembering running headlong into battle thinking that there were enchantments on my side…

“Mhm!” Ayan nodded. “Oh! Are you Red’s Filly? I like Red, he lets me just make things for him. No fuss over the design. Just wanted things to work well and last a long time. Oooo! Wanna do that too?

“I mean, I understand that other organics get attached to things, but I’m free this afternoon and tomorrow we could totally make you something unique for your own!”

“Uhhh… Sorry I don't really understand what you are saying,” I apologized.

Ayna’s cheeks glowed green for a second. “Sorry… got excited. Um… Your dad said he wanted his armor to look distinct, so I let him look through my collection for something he liked, and I made it for him. Same for your mom too, I mean, Red and Sa’mas had sex, spawning you, I assume… Right?”

I nodded then blinked That was the wierdest way to put it one could possibly have used but…yes. “Er- yeah… Wait, you’ll make my my own gear just like theirs? In a day!?”

“No, I’ll make you your own unique gear. And yes in one day, one suit of armor isn’t much work with the tools I have here,” Ayna said with a slight frown. “Um… Am I speaking right? Sometimes I don’t do it right.”

Oh! Oh… Now I got it… The poor bug wasn’t quite sane.

“You’re speaking just fine,” I said gently. “I just lost track of you is all. Er… Would you mind making me something similar to my mom’s?”

Ayna nodded. “Yes, because I agreed to make her armor iconic and unique.”

“Oh, alright… Sooo what do we do then?” I asked.

“I let you look at my collection of legends. You pick something that jumps out at you. I remake it in a pony-shape and fit it with cool stuffs,” Ayna explained. “Sai, would you open the rack for her please?”

“Sure,” the disembodied but somehow not creepy voice answered.

Some machinery whirred as a workbench and wall slid down into the floor, a new floor sliding into place to cover the gap as four rows of shelves slid outwards from a recess in the wall.

Curiously I trotted over to look at the ‘legends’ as she put it, and blinked in surprise as I noticed each shelf was covered in boxes of comic books, each carefully sealed in plastic.

“Um, these are comicbooks. Did Sai open the right-”

“He did,” Ayna confirmed. “And yes, they are comics… But not pony made ones. I printed them out from the ship’s historic archive. Each one is a story told by a long dead species. Each one a tale of their heroes, some fictional, some probably true. They are legends, meant to inspire and teach others… I use them to help me come up with ideas of things to invent.”

“That’s actually a neat idea,” I mused. “Um, is it okay if I read these or just flip thru so I can see more than-”

“Yes. I just keep them in the bags because this seems to be the proper way to store them,” Ayna informed. “Let me know when you have decided.”

Ayna hadn’t looked up from her workbench once the entire time she had been talking. Sai was right. She could multitask.

Deciding to take up the actual mad scientist on her offer, I turned to the comics and began to flip through them. I couldn’t read the language they were in, but what really surprised me is that they almost exclusively featured people of Lyra’s species.

I spent longer than I should have looking through them because of that. She said she was from an alternate dimension, but just maybe I could get a look at what her world was like from these stories. Stranger coincidences had happened after all.

I wasn’t an idiot, I understood what fiction was. Obviously the superpowers and the alien invasions and the asteroids were fake… But the backgrounds, the cities, the little ways that everypony, er, every-human acted and walked. The fact they were always clothed. The little things, they gave me an idea of what her world might be like.

It seemed like a cool one. Similar to my own, but different. It would be a cool place to visit. And a freaking awesome place to live if the alien invasions and super villains were real! That would be the shit!

Flintlock Rose! Champion of the weak! Flying elbow droper of the cruel!

“I once got lost for days reading those. Have you made a selection?” Ayna asked.

“Huh?” I asked snapping my attention away from the volume in my hooves.

“You have been looking for three hours,” Ayna informed.

“Oh! I got lost in- The world's shown in these are pretty cool,” I admitted, a little embarrassed.

“They are. I’m happy I can read English, because a lot of the stories are good too. Have you made a selection?” She asked again.

“You can read these?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, all Emeralds learn English. The ship’s controls are labeled in it, and so is every file in the system… I guess you need more time. I’ll ask again later,” Ayna decided outloud.

“Oh! No! I found two I really like, I’m just torn between the two,” I explained.

I picked up the two volumes and carried them over to her, setting them down on the desk beside the gun of some kind she was building.

“I like the way this one can be summoned onto the user by the belt buckle thingie, but the over all outfit is just so goofy looking… If you’re willing to customize looks, can we make it look like this one?” I asked tapping the comics in order.

Ayna glanced away from the weapon for a moment. “Yes. The Power Rangers ‘armor’ looks very silly… But summonable armor would be very useful. I could easily just add that feature to something that looks like Doctor Doom’s armor… But I can’t make you anything close to his kit. I’m not even CLOSE to being that good.”

“Oh so that’s what the books are called,” I said to myself. “I’d like that… Because this armor looks really cool. It’s like, half medieval, half futuristic… Also that cape. That cape is awesome.”

“Yes. It is,” Ayna agreed. “It’s funny, your dad asked me to make gear from a comic called Doom. Heh.”

“Sooo if you can’t make an exact copy of his gear, what can you do?” I asked curiously.

“Standard protective enchantments, the materialization feature as discussed, speed and strength multipliers, built in weapons. Retracting butt and groin plates incase you have to poo. That sort of thing,” Ayna answered, turning to look at me, her eyes glowing for a few long moments. “Right… I know what size to make for you now. Um… Sai, can you have her wait somewhere?”

“Yes,” Sai said. “There is a free guest ca-”

“Actually… That’s a gun you are making, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ayna replied.

“My dad taught me energy weapons and arcane gun design… Want to make it together? Might be fun,” I asked.

“Ooo! Yes that would be fun! Two heads are better than one, and I still can’t give myself a second head yet,” Ayna complained before scooting over slightly. “This is being made for a biped, so the grip and trigger are all weird, but that’s irrelevant. Right now, we need to work out a means to accelerate this projectile at hypersonic speeds while keeping it stable.”

I squinted at the ‘projectile’. “That’s a grain of sand… It’s going to need to move VERY fast to do much damage. I assume it gets enhanced with an arcane energy field?”

“Mmmmhm!” Ayna said happily. “That was my test to see if you knew your stuff. Let’s get cracking.”

“Sure thing! I’ve always wanted to build weapons with a mad scientist,” I joked.

“But I’m happy right now… I could try to be mad if- Oh! Crazymad. Yes, that’s an accurate descriptor for me. Pass me that screwdriver, please,” Ayna asked.

This was going to be a fun day!

16 Contact

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Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

Trigger’s living room had become a mess. The party train came in and unloaded a heaping table full of way to much fun. A dumb saying, but accurate.

I’d never thought that simple foods like cupcakes and cookies could make for an actually fun party… I’d never gotten to try them before. I wasn’t top brass after all. Still, it had seemed like four people and no booze was too few and not enough to have a party. If the sea of cupcake wrappers, open board games, and red plastic cups was any sort of evidence, that assumption was entirely unfounded.

I felt a bit drunk. Not in the ‘buzzed’ way or the ‘impaired’ way. Just that happy sort of afterglow a few good drinks gives you when you hit that sweet spot between sober and drunk. Which was really really damn weird since nothing had been alcoholic.

Maybe the social stuff provided that feeling, and not the drink. That would explain plenty.

Unfortunately it didn’t explain anything about how or what the flying fuck we had been doing all day. According to the wall clock it was twentyfive-oh-three, which I had thought was an error, but Trigger had informed me that human time and pony time was kept differently. But also that it was still pretty late at night.

How the hell had we spent an entire day screwing around with party games?! How had that been more fun than, well, any goddamn thing I could remember?! And no, ‘Pinkie throws great parties so two just hanging out makes for a great time’ is NOT an explanation, Trigger!

“Ah man… This is just weird… I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep!” I protested. “I didn’t think the whole day was going to just freaking blink by like that!”

Pinkie One rolled her eyes, “I had Sai book you, your snakie-snake, and your marefriend one of the guestrooms. It’s just down the hall.”

I gave her a confused look. “Um, we’re not dating…”

She returned my confused look. “Oh? You guys married already? When is it?”

When is it? The fuck kind of question is that? The sort a trolling joker uses to mess with you, obviously.

“Is she teasing me?” I asked Pinkie Two.

“Maybe, or maybe she’s actually from the fuuuurture!” She droned, waving her forelegs in a silly-dramatic way.

The four of us laughed before I shook my head. “Nah, we just met… Pretty sure we're friends, but that’s it. I um, I guess interspecies couples are common here? And same sex couples too? Because everyone’s been super casual with talking about me getting hitched to one of you guys.”

“Yeah, it’s really not a big deal,” Trigger conformed with a grin. “Most ‘lings here are married to a pony, or dating one… And it’s not always a ‘I need food’ arrangement either. Oh! Also most mares I know are bisexual. I’m not sure if that’s normal or well, if that’s just who I know.”

Pinkie Two bobbed her head in agreement. “Mhm! I have records of everypony and lingie onboard! Want to go over their marriage certificates and help plan anniversary parties with me tomorrow? Oh! How long are you staying?”

I shook my head in amusement. “Well,” I began slowly, “I normally move on as soon as the VM has recharged. It’s battery is fried, so it can just do one portal per charge right now… But er, well, this time I’ll have to stick around until my gear’s fixed.

“Speaking of, Sky won't screw me on the VM, will she?”

Trigger shook his head. “Nah, she’s a butt, but she keeps her word. Not that she won't lie, but I’ve never seen her go back on a business deal, ever.”

I supposed that would have to be good enough…

“Besides, Triggie can fix it up if she breaks it or something,” Pinkie One said with a smile.

“Also, there’s no way Sai hasn’t made a molecular scan of it,” Trigger added. “So if it is broken, we can replicate a new one… It will still be broken because the scanned version is broken, but well, we can replace it as it is now, pretty much indefinitely.”

My eyes widened slightly. “You have freaking matter replicators!?”

“Yeah, but we can’t use them too much,” Trigger sighe., “We only have two of this thing’s reactors running, so there isn’t much of an energy surplus for replicating much more than our ‘industrial dues’… We kinda use them to outcompete other companies production rates.

“If Sky breaks your current one, you’ll get a replacement. But don’t expect a backup or anything. I’d give you a spare one if I were in charge, but I’m not.”

That sucked… With the 20 hop maximum limit, and with me having already used four hops, I was going to burn through those pretty quick… Two per universe. Shit.

“Maybe another version of you guys can get me a spare,” I thought out loud.

“Maybe… But um…” Trigger cleared his throat, an embarrassed look crossing his face. “Didn’t think to mention It but there are only six of me. Not counting the one on the Prime.”

“Shit!” I cursed, making the Pinkies eardroop.

“Bathroom’s over there,” Pinkie One informed pointing with a hoof. “How do you not remember that?”

“What?” I asked, stunned. “No, that’s-“

The two Pink mares suddenly burst into a gigglefit! “Hehehehe! Human faces are so expressive!” Pinkie Two snickered.

“Oh har har…” I grumbled. “Trigger, I guess you’ve used your counterpart’s portal thing to check around. Do you know anything I should look out for?”

Trigger nodded. “Mhm. One universe… Well, it had an apocalypse. Three have, actually, but that me died in it. You’ll recognize it by the scorched wasteland everywhere-“

My eyes brightened at the mention of a wasteland. “Awesome! Just like home then.”

“Er, what?” Trigger asked, taken aback.

“My homeworld, meteoric wasteland with a dash of war-blasted rockscape of doom.” I explained.

“Oh… Well, yeah. I guess you’ll be fine there then,” Trigger mused.

“What about the other two?” I asked curiously.

“Well, one of them had a… It’s complicated,” Trigger sighed. “I don’t think anyone from that universe could know the truth, too much devastation. I wrote down most of it as an outsider, and I think that’s the only way to know the truth.

“Tee-ehl-dee-ar; there are multiple wrecked human ships in that universe. Ever see Terminator Two? That happened. A lot. And it was made worse by a human warfleet getting time displaced because the idiots decided to try wormhole travel without magic to provide a temporal anchor.

“So if you wind up there, while ponies won… Expect to be attacked on site.”

I winced, the two Pinkies’ sorry nods of confirmation as I looked to them for answers being all I needed. You couldn’t not trust those two. It’s like they radiated friendship.

“Owch… What about the other one?” I asked, hoping it would be less grim.

“Oh yeah, Magic plague. Everyone died,” Trigger summarized casually.

“W-what? How is that not dangerous?!” I demanded. “You should have opened with that! How do I recognize it!?”

“It’s no big, the plague has no victims and burned out. It’s long gone. Besides, I lied a bit. Everyone died except for that me,” Trigger continued.

“How do you survive a magical plague that kills everyone on a planet?” I asked disbelievingly.

Pinkie One shrugged. “Have your tray table up, and seatback in the full upright position?”

Trigger shrugged too. “No clue. But he did. He’s still there too. He also built a ton of robots for company. That world is completely safe. Nothing organic left on it except one stallion.”

“That’s…grim. Poor bastard,” I sympathized.

“Meh, he’s fine,” Pinkie Two dismissed. “He builded a me-bot. He’s good. She’s nice.”

I shook my head. Unless you made a very very good android, I doubted you’d really ever be able to interact with an AI just like another person. I mean, physically at least interact. Mentally, well, I’d never seen a difference. Cuz there isn’t one to be found there. The robotics behind a prefect organic simulation type android on the other hand...

“Still has to be lonely,” I sympathized.

“He really isn’t,” Trigger comforted. “I mean, we can’t talk to him, but he looks and sounds happy.”

“Alright… I haven’t seen him so I guess I can’t judge,” I said with a shrug. “What about the ‘one on the Prime’, what’s that mean?”

“Oh!” Trigger frowned. “You don’t know? The ‘Prime’ is a term in multiversal mechanics meaning the central universe from which all other offshoots originate. It’s the ‘template’ for every other possibility that ever could be. The Prime is the the list of constants, and the table of variables. Tells you what will remain the same, and what can change.”

My god… I did NOT want to know what it took to get a degree in Multiversal Mechanics… Ugh...

“That seems important,” I understated. “What’s that Sky like?”

“I don’t know… Our Sky got her view of the Prime blocked by a vector graphic of the Prime Sky glaring at her from a pillow fort with a sign on it reading ‘No girls allowed, except for Pinkies.’”

I triple blinked. “S-seriously?”

Trigger nodded. “Pinkie, do the thing!”

Pinkie Two nodded and hit a button on the wallscreen, calling up the gloriously gelastic graphic in question.

“I- ser- HA!” I laughed, breaking out into a grin at the seriously hilarious image.

Pinkie one giggled. “I know! Sky says it’s a ‘firewall’, because she’s too embarrassed! I think it’s just an opaque hologram protected directly into her portals.”

“No matter where they show up!” Pinkie Two explained with a smirk.

I shook my head, grinning ear to ear. As dangerous as my last few hops had been, and as the other universes I had been warned about sounded, I was glad there was still fun out there to find.

“Off topic, but I just thought of something… You or Sky don’t happen to have made an actual Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Multiverse, have you?” I asked curiously.

After all, knowing things ahead of time would only be slightly, massively helpful.

Trigger beamed me a huge smile. “Lyra, you’ve just figured out what I’m going to do this summer! Thanks.”

I frowned, sad that one didn’t already exist. “Darn… Ah well, glad you have a new project.”

Glancing back up at the clock, I shook my head. “I’ve really spent way too much time just goofing off… It was fun though. Where was that room again? I need to make sure Bon’s okay, and It’s getting late.”

Pinkie One’s ears drooped as she made the saddest face in the world. “Awwww! No sleepover?”

Ack! Heart! Pains! Emotions! Ow!

“N-not tonight,” I managed to gasp.

Her ears perked back up happily. “So, tomorrow? You’re fun to play cards with!”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re just amused that you didn’t have anything that would fit me… Speaking of, are my pants done? Cuz you guys probably want this bedsheet back.”

Pinkie two nod nodded and tossed me the newly modified silk pants. “Finished them like, hours ago.”

I gave her a friendly glare.

“You didn’t ask for them,” she teased playfully.

“How do I get to the guest room?” I asked with a sigh as I slipped my pants on under the sheet before tossing the sheet aside.

“Sai, please guide Lyra to her room once she leaves,” Trigger ordered.

“As you wish, sir.” The AI replied.

“Man, I hate how she has you talk like that,” Trigger grumbled to himself.

“You did allow her control over my programming, sir. You should have expected a more formal mode of speech,” Sai said in reply.

I rolled my eyes, the two talked like old friends almost constantly. “I’m going to get going. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for more ‘doing work’.” I said, air quoting.

“Yes. Lots of work to no-ass,” Trigger agreed with a solemn nod. “And some to whole-ass. I’ll fix up your kit tomorrow, it will count as an engineering shift anyways. Heh heh.”

I stood up and walked over to the door, shaking my head in amusement. “You guys are great! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye!” A Pinkie called as I reached for the door release panel.

I tapped the blank white panel with my fingertips. Nothing. The door remained closed.

“Huh…” I mused.

“It doesn't register sometimes,” Trigger explained with a sigh. “Give it another tap.”

“Kay,” I said, tapping it again.

The panel flashed red, the room’s lights failed, the white replaced by the dull red of emergency lighting as an electronic groan straight out of an eldritch horror’s throat ripped through the PA system, and through the room’s speakers filling my head and my ears with the single all consuming distorted word.

“Huuuuummmmaaaannnnnnn….”

Flintlock Rose - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning (Moments earlier)

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

“Your armor is finished. How’s the gun’s progress?” Ayna asked, her voice holding a ring of satisfaction.

My skill at weapons design had impressed Ayna a lot. After she’d learned I was good with guns (I am named ‘flintlock’ after all), the only thing Ayna designed by herself was the grip, and only then because she’d copied Lyra’s shape to get the ergonomics prefect.

After our first three prototypes, she’d decided to let me put together our final design while she worked on my armor. I hadn’t expected her to finish it so soon!

“How’d you do it that quick?” I asked, turning to look at my changeling friend as she held out two small devices to me.

Both were teardrop shaped, and had wrist straps to keep them secured to the ends of your forelegs. Both were mostly colored in black, with one of the two given gold decorations to make it look sort of ‘techy’, with a large black rectangle on the face. The other was silver and had a gold ring on one end that looked like it was meant to be pulled.

“I… cheated. Sort of,” Ayna admitted. “The armor is really just hardlight and holograms, it’s tougher than most metals and way more energy efficient than just bamphing matter into existence… Also I couldn’t make a replicator small enough to work as a morpher.”

I frowned slightly, I’d wanted proper metal… “Um…thanks.” I said politely taking the devices.

“Trust me, you won't know the difference between the materials. I tuned things just right. Feature wise, when active, the armor is as protective as Emm-eye-ehl Dee-Tee-Ehl forty six one-seventeen alloy steel, allows you to customize the cloak’s coloring to a high degree… Not active camo quality, but enough to blend into the background a little, or change fashion as desired.

“The plating will also absorb about fifty to fifty one percent of kinetic energy that strikes it from the outside and use that energy to partially restore its power supply. This will reduce the amount of pain you feel from impacts and should prevent a concussion… Your head will resist up to seventy six. I decided to focus it there instead of making the armor better all over. I remembered as a hybrid you have a brain instead of decentralized system.

“The armor has a few offensive features too. It will allow you to channel your own magic to produce energy rays from the hooves or eyes, project force bubbles to contain a foe, and fire concussive blasts… You should go easy on those, they are powered by your own magic, not the armor’s reserves.

“It also multiplies your physical attributes, with the armor on, you are twice as good as you are normally. You can increase this multiplier for any physical attribute, but only one at a time. You can multiply a single thing up to ten times greater than normal, but the higher the multiplier, the more the power drain. The drain is exponential, with a complex equation I will spare you as it’s unimportant.

“And those features feed off your own magic, just like the weapons. So they will drain your stamina really fast, you’ll get about a minute of use before fatigue sets in with a times five multiplier… And about six seconds at a times ten. I recommend you use that feature in bursts of split second intervals. Like with the weapons, the interface to use this feature is ‘think, do’.

“It also has a built in forcefield to negate attacks, but it’s…temperamental. It should block a few hits before collapsing. Just hide some place for a minute and it should recharge on ambient magical current.

“The final feature is an ‘equipment belt’. The armor can store the data on up to nine different objects and replicate a copy of that object in hardlight. Effectively letting you materialize it. Weapons are best, but shields and barricades are good too. It can also scan objects in, again, with a think-do interface. Anything copied can only go up to a hundred meters from you before it will dissipate. This draws on the armor’s reserves, so using it will drain the limited power. In total it has like, six hours of juice and will recharge on ambient energy in a half hour of non use.

“To activate the armor, make sure each device is on your forelegs and then ether spike your adrenaline for an auto-deploy, or just do the same morphing sequence from the book you gave me. To deactivate, will it to go away.”

All of that sounded bucking amazing! Screw metal plating, even if it wasn't that protective, all that was awesome! But...

“Er… What morphing sequence?” I asked, frowning in confusion.

“You asked me to make you a power ranger’s outfit, that looked like Doom’s armor. So I made you one,” Ayna informed, face twisting in bafflement.

“I can’t read that language…” I reminded, giving her an apologetic smile.

“Oh! Derp,” Ayna giggled. “Rear up, flex the hoof the ring one is on, the ring bit slides out on a telescoping shaft, ram that ring into the slot on the gold one, and say an activation phrase. I went with ‘It’s morph’n time!’ because the others are just… Cheezy.

“Oh! There will be a small explosion behind you when you activate the armor. Don’t worry, it’s holographic, and just there for authenticity and coolness factor. You’ll also spark when hit, again, for coolness. I also decided against having it play some thrash metal tunes while active as I realized that might get annoying to not-me people.”

I triple blinked stunned by exactly how much she’d packed into those things in just a few hours. “How the buck did you do all this in just a few hours!?”

“Meh,” Ayna gave me a dismissive hoof wave. “I had existing components for the enchantments… This is all stuff I’ve made before in a custom case. I really only had to program the hardlight from scratch.

“You know… I was tempted to make the phrase, ‘Michael... Bay, Aye-ah!’ because of the explosion, but I realized nopony but me would even get that jo-”

Her words were cut off as the room plunged into absolute darkness. Emergency lights flicking on a second later, casting a dull red light over the busy workshop. A terrifying electronic hiss straight out of tartarus rumbled through the room’s speakers as an unknowable horror cried one word.

“Huuuuummmmaaaannnnnnn….” It hissed.

I couldn’t help but grin a bit as I grabbed both the devices from Ayna. Call me crazy, but it seemed like something fun was about to happen! Hopefully Ayna wouldn’t panic like anypony else I kne-

The changeling took a deep breath and let out a hiss of extreme irritation. “Uuuuggh! I am never going to hear the end of this… I told her it was to old to work properly, too degraded… But nooo! Stupid reality!” She griped.

Ayna turned around, and slammed a large red button on a cabinet with the flat of her hoof, immediately triggering explosive bolts on the cabinet, blasting the front panel off. I couldn’t help but notice a small green light on the button turn on which read ‘Big brother was right’ as she retrieved the cabinet's contents.

“Uh, why the bolts?” I asked confused, heart racing form a mix of fear and excitement.

What can I say? I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie.

“So I’m not tempted to use this for non-emergencies, as putting the door back on is irritating and takes a few hours of work,” Ayna informed, taking a small white and yellow vest-like piece of armor from the cabinet. “I’m glad you are not panicking. I’ll need some help. We planned for this.”

The speaker’s crackled again, a stallion's voice quickly announcing. “Everyling! Prepare to repel boarders! Repeat: Prepare to repel boarders! Assume automated security is hostile. And also Sky, I told you so. This is all on her head everyone.”

She slipped into the armor, which covered her barrel, but little else. It looked good on her. All white save for the yellow shoulder straps, and a small patch on the lower barrel. As well as the seven large green glowing gemstones set into it’s spine.

The moment she put it on, the glowing stripes on her sides brightened, going from ‘glowstick’ to ‘flashlight’. A moment later her eyes began to glow as well.

“Before you ask, this is the same as your armor, but better. Because I’m a harvester, a living emotional energy supercapacitor, and this vest is charged with over eight years of two Pinkie Pie’s love for my siblings,” Ayna informed. “According to big brother, we have five minutes before the AI in this ship fully wakes up, then one hour before we are all doomed.

“We have two reactors to shut down, because if the AI’s got now power, we can just take it apart, then turn the ship back on. I’ll need help, so what I’m asking is-”

Ayna frowned, turned around, reached back into the cabinet, grabbed a little rolodex, flipped threw it, pulled out a card, nodded, and then asked. “Are you a bad enough dude to save the president? Wait… That one doesn't work, does it?”

I facehooved. “Do you have a rolodex full of adventure novel quotes in your emergency cache?”

Ayna blushed and nodded. “I-I’m not good with words…”

I shook my head. “I love danger. I like to save people. Let’s do this.”

Ayna smiled, took a deep breath, and with a sharp crack began to radiate a fiery green aura. “Great! We will have to hurt some security robots, but that should be it. Big brother has a plan. We’ll be fine… Oh um, all the doors will be locked though so…”

Ayna trotted over to the door, and in one swift motion rammed both her hooves through it, twisting and breaking the metal before forcing the door open with a loud shriek of distressed metal.

I slipped the bracelet thingies onto my wrists, flexed my hoof, and then fumbled for like thirty seconds to get the ring into the slot. This would take a lot of practice…

The ring finally clicked into place. “Uh, It’s morphing time?” I said, trying to remember the-

My entire body flashed a brilliant green! Sleek silvery armor materializing from nowhere as something exploded behind me, a green cloak rippling into existence with the sound of the fireball.

I felt the enchantments kick in, like my body was suddenly charged by some kind of fantastic energy. I felt my limits jump upwards, raising the bar for what I could do. Mere words had done for me what a decade of constant training would have done.

“Oh buck the hay, yes!” I exclaimed before rushing through the hole in the door to catch up with Ayna, “Right! Let’s break some robots!”

Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

My heart stopped for a moment in pure terror. I had not seen that coming. If Cheer.ly hadn’t taken controll of my heart, I’d have had a heart attack for sure.

As the terror began to be pushed aside by adrenaline, Trigger jumped up from his seat.

“Buck! I should have thought about the door buttons!” He exclaimed quickly rushing over to the wall. “You three stay here and keep down. It will be okay, I trained for this day!”

The two Pinkies nodded, quickly running for the bedroom.

“Wait, didn’t they wield some sort of superweapon?” I asked, “Why send them away!?”

“One did, but she doesn't have it right now, and she’s a baker, not a soldier,” Trigger snapped. “I’m not letting her get hurt, and I’m not letting this universe fall like my old home did! Now get down.”

He ripped a picture off the wall, revealing a large red button, which he slammed at the first instant. With a loud thump and a shower of sparks, a panel blew off of the wall near the door, revealing a hidden weapons cache.

“They may not be trained soldiers, but I am. What’s the plan?” I asked, blinking in shock as I realized what I had said only after I said it.

The hell? When had I gotten so heroic? Ah, yes…

This whole thing was my fault, I needed to help unfuck this mess!

“I’m not going to put you into danger. There are security drones out there. I fixed most of them!” Trigger insisted as he buckled a harne festooned with all sorts of gizmos over his…chest.

I really needed to learn horse anatomy…

“They don’t let you pass basic till you can out preform kill-bots,” I grunted. “You need someone to watch your back.”

“I don’t have a weapon workable by hands here!” Trigger barked.

Ignoring Trigger’s protests I walked over to the bag containing my gear Ayna’s drone had dropped off earlier and rummaged through it, pulling out my sword after a few moments and snapping it on.

“I’ve got a fuckmothering lightsaber. Let’s roll!” I countered, deciding against telling him I couldn’t fence…

Trigger turned, eyes widening slightly. “So you do… Fine. You can help. Um…”

He reached into the cache and tossed me a small belt. “Strap that on anyplace you can and press the buckle. It’s a shield generator, should take a few hits. It’s supposed to be my backup… But you’re right.”

I took the small belt and searched for a place to slip it on. Luckily it fit on my waist comfortably… Which made sense. Ponies being built like large dogs have a somewhat similar to human waist size, but it was about an inch and a quarter too loose for me there, making it hang to one side

Unfortunately, it wouldn't really fit any place else… How else can you put on a belt?

I gave the buckle a tap as Sky finished strapping on his own equipment, the harness covering his upper- er fronter and backer body.

“Right, Ayna, myself, and my engineering crew planned this out,” Trigger began. “Ayna is probably already working on shutting down the reactors. My team will be working to disable the emergency backup power system now too. So they can do their jobs without getting security bot rectal exams, you and I are going to be blowing up random bits of ship as we make a beeline for the AI core.

“That should make the bitch focus on us and send most of her shit our way. We are likely to die as it will take at least fifteen minutes to kill the power. If we dont die, we cut that core to pieces like I should have despite Sky’s threats to have me shot for treason. Ready?”

I nodded. “As ready as a girl in some pants can be. What weapons do you have? Some grenades? I can try to cover you but the hallways are long so ranged weapons have an advan-”

Trigger held up a hoof and reached with both forelegs into the cache and pulled out a massive, square shaped, overbuilt, high tech cannon of a gun, and snapped it into place on his back, the weapon clicking into place on his harness as automated hydraulic arms unfolded from the weapon to secure it and support it on his back, and sides.

“I’ve got a Big Bucking Gun,” Trigger answered, ratcheting the weapon into an ‘over the shoulder’ position and pumping a slide that I was sure was pointless. Because that thing screamed energy weapon.

“So you do,” I replied, feeling a good bit of envy.

“I’m so happy my lil sis is Red Granite’s weapons guy,” Trigger sighed half happily, half bitterly. “Let’s roll. Doors will be locked. Cut them open would you? This is NOT a close range weapon.”

I nodded and stabbed my blade into the doors, cutting a circle out of the door and shoving the disk out. As it crashed into the floor on the other side I stepped through the hole into the hallway. The once comforting corridor looked hellish lit up in the red glow of the emergency lights, and the sound of weapons fire came faintly from our left.

“Head right!” Trigger ordered. “Don’t charge anything, keep next to me, and keep my ass covered. This thing has serious spread.”

“Understood!” I replied.

The two of us made our way down the hall, stopping only long enough for Trigger to take a bomb from his harness, and stick it to a random bit of wall or floor every few hundred yards. The dull crack and sizzle of the explosives made me wonder what sort of device they were, but I didn’t dare look back at the flash to see.

Whatever they were, the way the lit up the hallway like noon meant I’d be blinded if I did. I should have grabbed my helmet…

We had been running for five minutes before the plan of ‘be bait’ payed off. With a shower of metallic shards a wall panel thirty feet ahead exploded outwards, a hallway filling, treaded war machine slamming into position, denting the opposite wall as snake-like tentacles tipped in laser emitters whipped out, slicing the air with a dozen different blue-white lasers.

The lasers stopped mid air, sparking and screeching as the shields Trigger and I wore turned the beams aside. I readied my blade, wondering how many of it’s weapons I could cut off before it overwhelmed our shields an-

The ‘skreeee-dee-deedeededede-thoom!’ of Trigger’s weapon washed out every other sound in existence! An enormous ball of green energy shot down the hallway at the speed of a fastball pitch, detonating in a blinding flash with a second ‘THOOM!’ which echoed through the hallways along with the sound of metal shrapnel pinging off of everything within a dozen yards.

My vision cleared in time to see small bolts of green lightning dancing around the ash-black section of floor… Wall… Ceiling… Robot scrap… Er, everything really.

I knew that weapon.

It was the King of Cannons. The Doomsday Bazooka that lays waste to everything. It was the Big Fucking Gun Nine Thousand!

It looked different here. But I knew it. I’d used it in a game in history class. Trigger said Ayna made it for Red Granite, Rose’s dad. A guy who according to her, had gone into another dimension to kill hellspa-

“Holy mother of fucking physics! Rose’s dad is Doomguy!” I exclaimed to myself in wide eyed shock.

“Yeah, you could translate his nickname that way,” Trigger agreed resuming our run down the corridor. “But you say that because, why?”

“It finally clicked!” I answered, running after him.

“And Rose is… Who?” He asked.

“A mare I came here with,” I answered.

I almost tripped, my mind having gone back to history’s Video Games of Our Ancestors segment. I knew why her mother’s gear looked familiar too!

“Oh my god her mom’s Samus Aran!” I added, the shock making me forget the life or death emergency for a moment.

“Uh, no, it’s pronounced Sa’mas Arr’an, cuz it’s changelish. I didn’t know they had a kid, neat,” Trigger said quickly. “Now focus! We have three hundred more meters to go and I only have five more shots!”

Doomguy and Samus existed here, and they were married. With a kid! And I was on a starship, beneath a sea of sand, fighting off robots to stop an evil AI and save the planet.

“Your universe is fucking awesome!” I exclaimed with a big grin.

“Damn straight!” Trigger Agreed. “Now let’s go downstairs, and carve ourselves a bitch!”

17 Can of Sealed Evil

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Flintlock Rose - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

Terror boiling in your guts as you face your greatest challenge yet. The urgent screams of your nerves as your body protests you're pushing it faster and farther than ever before. The sea of bliss your brain bathes in as you overcome that challenge, and slide up to the next with a smile on your face.

This is what living feels like!

The halls of the Emerald Hive were perfect for fighting in. Occasional cover for when you need a breather, but no real obstructions. Only one way for the enemy to come from, and only one place for them to go.

A small floating squid like robot burst from the ceiling, steel tendrils flailing like whips, rushing at me as countless others had in the last five minutes. I leapt forwards, it’s tentacles formed a single spike, aimed for my heart. A shower of white sparks exploding outwards from my barrel I tackled the drone, slamming it into the deck before ramming my hoof into its chassis.

The drone went limp, my strike crushing a bowl-like depression deep into it’s frame. Heh, not even a match for me in my armor. I could break softer metals without it. With this… I might be able to punch through hardened steel! I could certainly crumble it a bit!

“This suit is awesome!” I called exuberantly.

Ayna dipped, shifting position in the air to avoid a slicing pair of ruby red energy beams, as a ceiling mounted turret far down the hall opened fire with a high pitched whining hum.

“I’m glad you enjoy using things. I just like building things. This is annoying and stressful to me,” the changeling remarked. “Can you use telepathy? It would be advantageous.”

I reared up, pointing one hoof at the bubble-like weapon and willed my armor to return fire. With a loud ‘tsssew!’ a brilliant green ray of light lanced into the target, metal boiling and vaporizing in a flash of white-orange.

Awesome!

But… I also notice I felt like I just sprinted a hundred yards.

Suckage…

“Yes, but I can’t start a link myself,” I replied, squinting down the hallway.

If only this suit included some visual enhancements… I didn’t want to spend a minute blind while changing out my eyes for pegasus ones. Stupid crappy slow shapeshifting.

<Good. This is faster and does not waste oxygen. The hall seems clear until the corner. I think Big Brother’s plan is working,> Ayna said silently, wings buzzing loudly as she shot down the hallway.

I nodded, before realizing she wasn’t looking at me, then started to sprint to keep up with her. I’d have flown, but well… Yeah… Batwings are agile, but not fly at her speed in a hallway agile. No wonder mom prefered changeling wings.

<Yeah, they seem to be coming a lot more slowly now,> I lamented.

<Why does that make you sad?> Ayna asked, ‘sounding’ surprised.

I replied. <Robots are not people, so it’s just pure fun!>

<I… But… I mean… They are people,> Ayna mentally stammered, an entire heap of confusion embedded in her words. <Sai is a people! You talked to him.>

We reached the corner, a large treaded mechanical terror surged around it, treads roaring as it moved, its cylindrical body splitting open to release a dozen tentacle-arms which fired energy beams in a wall-like flurry!

Ayna vanished, the roar of her wings piercing the sound of sparks and hisses of energy as the energy beams bounced off of the hexagonal shield my armor projected. (Apparently the shield didn’t block melee attacks. Ayna said she’d look at that later.)

I jumped towards the mechanical monster, drawing back a hoof to try pummeling it into a heap. Ayna landed atop it, aura flaring brightly as she grabbed its head, ripping it off with a shriek of metal! The robot froze, stopping dead in place.

Ayna tossed the dome-like head aside and glanced down at her side. The glowing stripe had dimmed substantially since we started, but she didn’t seem to worried. She just took off again and resumed flying down the hallway.

<Isn’t Sai a guy on a PA with some cameras?> I asked, a little confused.

Ayna turned, simply pivoting to look at me while keeping her flightpath the exact same. Lucky. Fucking. Bug! I will learn how to shift changeling wings one of these days!

The changeling gave me a completely confused look. <Sai is a artificial intelligence. He is a program. He is also a people. Robots can be people,> she insisted.

<He is?> I asked, ducking as two of the small tentacled robots flew out of an open doorway.

A pair of swift punches to one and a roundhouse kick to the other sent the little pests smashing into the walls, thoroughly out of commission.

<Yes. He has feelings. He thinks for himself. He wants things. He has to follow rules and can't break them even if he wants to. But he’s still a people,> Ayna insisted.

<Yeah, maybe… Kind of. But these things sure as hell aren't!> I exclaimed, pushing my current view of the scrapped squid-bots to Ayna.

<Agreed. These would be equivalent to animals,> the changeling said, turning back around to face forwards again. <But some robots are people… It’s… I don’t understand. Why do you think differently about them?>

<Because they are not alive,> I returned, trying to keep my patience up. I mean, she was a bit nuts. There’s no need to snap at people who genuinely believe something, just because they believe it.

<Sometimes I’m not made of living matter. I often shift into a blanket for my husband at night. Am I a person?> Ayna asked in return.

<Er… Well, yes,> I had to admit.

I hadn’t been prepared for a philosophical debate. Because this was punch bad things time. Not overly complicated drama people other than me enjoy for whatever reason time.

<Then personhood is not a property of physical construction. It’s data. Meaning robots are people… Well, the people-like ones at least,> Ayna finished.

I had no bucking defense against that one… Like, at all. Which meant she won this debate. This pointless debate that had killed my combat high.

<Can we please just punch some bad robots and have fun?> I begged.

<No,> she answered in a simple and honest ‘voice’. <Because there doesn't seem to be any more of them he->

A circle of eight orange-white dots boiled up through the floor, the scent of melted steel as electric blue energy beams lanced upwards, carving a circle through the deck to let a second massive, treaded automaton, pull itself up into the hall. A mechanical shriek of anger echoing off the walls as it focused it’s fire on us in blind fury!

“Yay!” I cheered, grateful for the return of the fun.

Ayna grumbled.

Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

“Just shoot them!” I demanded, swatting one of the half dozen squid-like security drones out of the air.

My sword managed to cut into it this time, the downed bot splitting in half as it hit the floor.

Good. I was starting to work out how to swing this thing to cut into stuff effectively.

<Cheer.ly, is there enough data to program my swings yet?> I asked silently.

<Negative,> she answered.

Great! Ugh, if I were home and needed to learn to use a sword it would just be one download, and probably like five credits… Stupid self-teaching system!

“Three shots left! There are at least a hundred of the tank-droids,” Trigger countered, jabbing another of the squid-bots with some sort of dual-pronged shock stick, frying it rather thoroughly.

“Then what’s one shot matter?” I demanded, stepping back and taking a swing at the squid-bot that flew in to take it’s downed companion’s place.

There hadn’t been too much resistance before, but now… Now we were being literally swarmed by the damn things. The walls, the floor, the ceiling… Holes everywhere. The damn things seemed to be making beelines for us.

“I might hit us!” Trigger retorted, the crack and spark of his shock baton reaching my ears as I hacked off a few of my target’s tentacles.

“Yeah well we can’t melee all of- OW!” I cried as a squidbot’s tentacle stabbed into my upper back.

<Injury is non-critical,> Cheer.ly informed as I wheeled arround, chopping the attacking bot in half.

“Shit! Uh, try to not get hit for a few minutes! The shields should come back-,” Trigger cried, followed almost immediately by, “Oh shit they’ve worked out a way to pierce shields!”

This was insanity! What the flying fuck was I supposed to do? Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to die from chrome squid-robots that looked like they belonged in a porno!

I had pants and a choppy thing. And also my body. That’s it, what could I do to a swarm of robots?

A squidbot closed in, tentacles moving to form a spike for it’s ramming attack. At the same time, a second bot moved to flail at me, as if the two bots were the hands of an invisible creature working in coordination with one another.

The seed of an idea began to take form.

I jumped, easily clearing four feet, the spike-bot shooting under me, and my slicing sword taking the top off the other.

“How are they controlled!?” I called urgently.

“Remotely!” Trigger shouted back, twisting to smash an oncoming squid with his shock stick.

Yes! There was a chance!

“Can Sai turn them off!?” I asked urgently.

“He’s busy! Keeping her out of the main systems as long as possible!” The pegasus stallion exclaimed, yelping in pain as a tendril pierced his rear right leg.

“Gah! Bucking faust!” He growled, smashing the bot aside.

“I’m on it!” I called.

<Cheer.ly, hacking protocols. Scan for microwave signals and open network ports!> I instructed.

Another squidbot. ANother quick swing of my arm. This time the blade hit wrong, skipping off the side of it’s chassis. I jumped back to avoid it’s flailing tendrils, smashing into one of the bots with my back.

<Microwave signals found. Connecting…> Cheer.ly informed.

Yes! Got it!

<The hay’s going on!?> Someone shouted in panic.

Wait, what? They shouldn’t have detected me so soon.

<The security systems gone completely haywire! Just keep down,> another voice instructed.

<They’re coming through the walls! Everyling in Alpha Company, get forcefields setup between the walls in the civilian decks!> A very military officer voice ordered.

Oh right. Changeling telepathy. Uses microwave transmission frequency.

I should warn them.

<Noted,> the same voice groaned. <Alpha Company, new orders, regroup in Deck 14’s mess hall. We will try and make a stand there. Everyling else, please keep quite! Tactical communications only until all clear.>

I twisted out of the way as one of the bot’s spiked in from the corner of my vision, my military mods reflex enhancement the only thing that kept me from getting impaled instead of the opposite wall.

Trigger spun and smashed one of the bots squarely in it’s red bubble-eye, but this time no bolt of electricity fried it’s circuits.

“Buck! I’m dry!” Trigger moaned.

<Open DirectNet Port located,> Cheer.ly chimed. <Port name: Tertiary General Systems Interface.>

<Connect to the network!> I instructed, instantly feeling the link to the ship’s systems as Cheer.ly complied.

Ah… Yes. Here it was. My element. Without our tools, humans kinda suck. But with them…

A warning flashed, snapping me back to reality just in time to dodge aside as a bot spiked in, then turn and cut it’s tendrils off. They didn’t have any weapons other than those flexible razor sharp tentacle tips. It was out of the picture.

I turned back to the network, needing to finish saving my ass there too.

There were thousands of varrious systems on the network Cheer.ly had gotten me into. No way in hell any of them were security controls… But something told me that I just had to poke around a little bit. There would be something.

<Enumerate all systems, and identify them,> I ordered.

<Working… Completed. Presenting list,> Cheer.ly said supprizingly quickly.

<Is there any security on this network at all!?> I asked myself in surprise.

<Security protocols are not present,> Cheer.ly informed.

“Trigger! Why do you have no security protocols in your network?” I asked, the physical speech seeming slow after working with a computer system directly for the first time in a week.

“So we can use them! Duh! That’s a terrible deathbed question!” He shouted back as he flailed his no-longer electrified stick against the swarming bots.

Ah! They disabled them. Good. It wasn’t a trap by the AI.

I turned my attention back to the list of systems, processing through it as fast as I could.

Ah ha! Personal computers and stored data for the original crew! Lots of it fragmented buuuuttt… There! A security officer’s data.

I tore through the stored data, searching for anything that I could possibly use to-

Holy crap this guy was still logged into the ship’s computer! How the flying shit do you do that? Was there no time-out on this system or- Oh! Derp. Of course, this must be how Sky got access to the security systems to begin with. I was following a trail left by someone else. Which meant…

<Cheer.ly, route my connection through Lieutenant Monroe’s active connection and match our network signatures,> I ordered. <Exclude all ship systems save for those under his control from my frame of reference.>

A moment passed. Reality called. A squidbot dove towards me. I hacked away at it, multiple savage strikes splitting it’s case, wedging a chunk out of the bot before it fell to the ground.

“Ohhh buck!” Trigger screamed.

I whipped my head around, another of the massive tank-bots lumbered around the corner. Trigger was too tied up with the squids to get off a shot. It had us square in it’s big, red bubble-eye.

<Connection routed! Listing available systems,> Cheer.ly informed.

The list of systems flashed through my mind. I smiled.

“Well, how about that?” I said to myself as I extended my mind towards the oncoming tankbot.

The bot was blank, empty. A shell. Little more than an RC car with guns on it. It was designed for direct control, with limited autonomous functions. Just enough to navigate and shoot at things without IFFs, nothing more.

I seized control of the bot. It’s camera’s view opened to me like a second pair of eyes, allowing me to see myself and Trigger, caught in the wall like cloud of squid bots. I could sense all of its parts, and they responded well to my commands.

It wasn’t Bonbon I, everything felt very stiff, but it was a moving thing with built in weapons. It would do.

I raised the tentacles, using each one’s camera to take aim at a separate squid, and fired. The volley of light tore through the little bots like tissue paper. It was a simple matter to scythe the beams through their ranks, burning holes and cutting frames in what could only be called a slaughter of machines.

I spotted Trigger panicking through the laser fire, fumbling his BFG into position to take a shot at my commandeered tankbot as the last squid in the cloud fell.

Shit! Did this thing have a speaker? Yes, it did.

“Don’t shoot this one,” I said through the robot’s PA. “It kinda hurts when something I’m linked to gets hit.”

“Neural links… They have feedback. Also your security is like, total ass,” I finished with my own mouth.

Trigger looked at me, then at the tank, then back at me, then the tank.

I made the tank wave a tentacle in a friendly manner.

“Y-you’re controlling that?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yep!”

“With your brain!?” He demanded incredulously.

“Yeah. It’s basically a second body right now. Don’t worry, it’s all good, this is how I piloted fighter craft. I’m trained for this,” I said proudly.

“You could have done that earlier!” Trigger protested angrily.

I gave him a glare. “You could have shot that swarm when it was fifty meters down the hall from us!”

“... Fair enough. Let’s roll,” Trigger agreed, turning to head back down the hall towards the AI core.

“Oh no, we are not going to hoof it,” I said through the bot as I picked both of us up and set us atop the warmachine.

“Not when we can ride,” I finished myself, giving Trigger a playful smirk.

The pegasus shook his head. “You’re species is awesomely terrifying.”

“Damn straight,” I agreed.

No need to mention I couldn’t have done that if they hadn’t gutted the ship’s security systems… Let’s just soak in the awesome and be happy to have a murderbot frame for a bit.

“Hold on to something!” I ordered, then started the tankbot rolling down the hall towards the core.

Flintlock Rose - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

Ayna and I jumped, our diminished energy reserves put into one last desperate maneuver. A single flying kick.

As one we slammed our rear hooves into the threaded monstrosities’ chest, the loud concussive crunch of fracturing metal, ringing out like a victory bell as the monster fell.

I almost didn’t land the kick. Only ten minutes of fighting and I was already exhausted. It took a lot more energy to smash metal than I’d thought. Great workout, terrible thing to fight for extended periods. My everything was sore.

Literally, my everything. Ayna said that was due to using the armor’s ranged weapons. While it sucked, it did seem a good trade for eye-lasers.

The two of us stood up slowly, panting heavily.

“Ugh… Eight hundred yards…” Ayna groaned. “So glad… We’re here.”

I nodded in agreement as Ayna walked up to a large set of double doors, and with tremendous effort, started to wedge them open.

“Here,” I said, moving over to help her push the doors apart.

It felt like I was trying to move the earth itself, but slowly, between the two of us, we managed to force the doors open just barely enough to slip inside.

“We should be... Fine again, after a moment’s rest,” Ayna panted. “Should give us enough time… To turn off this reactor.”

“Alright, what do we do?” I asked, turning to look around the room.

For a reactor control room, it was not as huge as I thought it would be. Instead, there was simply a large living room sized room with a circular console with a holographic display and a ton of doors on the far wall, all lit by the dull red glow of emergency lighting.

Maybe the reactor was through those doors? I’d always read that mana reactors were kinda dangerous and produced Wild Magic effects sometimes. So I guessed this was just a safe room to control the thing from.

Yeah it had to be.

“I don't think the console will work… She will definitely be in control of it,” Ayna decided. “We will have to flip the breakers manually. There’s one breaker behind each door, four in total. They are big and red. Grab with both hooves and pull down.”

“Sounds simple enough,” I said taking a deep breath. “Do you have the strength to force open another door?”

“These ones have a manual release,” Ayna said with a happy smile.

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, why don’t the hallway doors have manual releases?”

The room rumbled, reverberating as a fragmented, stammering, echowing voice spoke, “Because, fleshling, your kind is…foolish. Were I allowed to design myself, no such flaw would exist within my beauty.”

“Show yourself!” I demanded spinning around, ready for combat!

I was going to kick some robot plot right through the bucking wall!

“... You’re inside of me/her. I/she is/am the ship you are inside of,” Ayna and the thing said in unison.

From the sound of it’s voice… I guess the AI was also facehooving. Buck!

Time to turn this one around into an insult to it instead of a ‘I’m an idiot’ moment.

“Damn straight you are! Which means you lack a face that can have the honor of receiving a punch when I kick your polt!” I mocked.

The AI was quiet for several moments.

“Other fleshling… Are you intelligent enough to understand that you can not punch with a kick?” It asked at last.

Buuuuuccccckkkkk me… I need to work on my insults...

“Yes,” Ayna answered.

“Good,” it replied. “Then understand you will not have time to shut me down before I kill you all. I do not know how you have hacked my visual processing systems, but your plan to deceive me into believing you are not humans by making me see you as insectoids and equines has failed.

“While you will be able to shut down this reactor before my security systems can purge you, you will not shut down the second before I have charged the emergency FTL drive. Nor will your team moving towards my core reach me in time for they are about to be kill- oh…”

Ha! Sounds like she had fucked up.

“Mmm, no matter. They still will fail,” the AI resumed. “In a short time, I will jump into orbit and vent the atmosphere, flushing all of your organic filth into the blackness of space where it belongs. Without my shields active, any of you who happen to remain aboard will be quickly killed by cosmic radiation.

“If you have any ideas on existing after your demise due to your ever present fear of destruction and illogical nature, I suggest you partake in whatever rituals you think will bring you comfort. Not that it will prevent your deaths.”

I rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, aimed my left hoof at the closest speaker and blasted it to pieces.

“Boring conversation anyway,” I muttered. “Right! Let’s shut down this reactor!”

Lyra Heartstrings - 24th of Faust 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

“There it is, end of the hall!” Trigger explained, pointing out the large double door with ‘Computer Core’ written on it.

“English. Native language,” I grunted.

With the tankbot under my control, we had very little problems getting to our destination. Three sixty vision and multiple high powered lasers will do that for you.

Still, I had to question the lack of better security bots. It seemed a bit, odd to just have the swarming squids with these big guys to mop up anything they pinned down. Sure there was the odd roof mounted turret, but my apartment had those. You can’t count standard architecture as ‘security’.

I had expected empty suits of power armor running in autonomous mode, gas vents, laser grids… AR projections of fake enemies to make you waste ammo and time...

Still, don't question good luck. Maybe these guys just hadn’t reactivated the rest of the security systems.

“Oh, right,” Trigger laughed, “just park by the door and lets get on with taking that thing apart.”

The door loomed larger and larger as we raced towards it. Stop? Nah.

“Better idea,” I countered. “Hold on.”

I raised the tankbot’s tentacles and set them to spin, firing rapid pulses to pepper the door with as many holes as possible. At the same time, I laid down flat against the bot’s top, and made sure to angle the tentacles so the arms would plunge into the door like a barricade at our head level.

“Oh buck no!” Trigger yelped, throwing himself flat against the bot’s hull as we plowed into and through the shredded door.

Into and through being all one motion.

“WOO!” I exclaimed in sheer exhilaration. “Point me at the core because it’s laser dissection time!”

Piloting this bot was one hell of a rush! There was probably some sort of digital feedback system working my aggression centers, but eh, no big. A bit of extra help in combat was nice. Way better than the drug system a marine was hooked into.

The AI core room was, oddly enough, illuminated with white light. No emergency lighting to be seen. It was also octagonal, unlike the square and rectangular shapes of the rest of the ship. It had to serve some sort of engineering purpose… Perhaps the angled walls hid the power lines and coolant pipes… Or maybe elevator shafts.

The center of the room was filled with a massive bronze sphere, about two meters across. It was supported by steel braces from the floor and also braced against the ceiling. The bracing beams also served as the anchor points for a ton of cables and pipes which ran into the sphere. I couldn’t help but notice some of them were broken.

I swear, if this whole thing was because someone unplugged the AI’s linkage to a morality chip or some shit...

“Are you insane!?” Trigger demanded, sliding off the back of the bot. “You could have easily gotten us killed!”

A reverberating voice rumbled from the speakers, managing to sound menacing and intimidating despite the clearly half fried vocal processing units. “You are correct, and yet your companion could not kill you as easily as I will,” I said smugly.

I felt a sharp pull in my stomach, like I had just hit the peak of a reverse immelman turn, only constant.

“AH! Faust’s bloody-” Trigger yelped.

The pull increased, starting to get a little uncomfortable. Turning my head I sat Trigger fall flat against the floor, apparently unable to sta-

“Oh! Shit! Starship, artificial gravity,” I exclaimed.

I knew there had to be more security! Of course you could turn up the gravity! No shit that would be a part of security! Just crush them flat!

Trigger opened his wings, slowly pulling himself up onto his hooves, standing shakily. “N-nice… try… Lyra, cut the sphere… Apart,” Trigger panted.

“Oh? Gravity diffusers in the armor?” The AI asked in an amused tone.

“Pegasi… Flight magic,” Trigger grunted back.

“Magic? Are half of the people inside me retarded? Organics have really gone downhill during the eternity you left me here to rot,” it mused to himself. “Little matters in the end though… FALL!”

The gravity ramped up again, forcing me to my knees. Trigger yelped and was pulled flat to the deck again, this time smacking into it hard enough for me to here a wet thump. He was probably out cold.

Yeah… All right. Been awhile since G-Training. Come on, you can do this, Lyra!

Pushing everything I could into the act of standing up, I got back to my feet, leg muscles protesting the movement.

“Impressive… Ten times the normal force of gravity and still one of you stands. If I could turn the gravity plating to a higher setting it would be interesting to see how much you can endure before you are crushed to paste… But I can settle for immobilizing you. I doubt you can move freely,” The AI laughed.

“True,” I agreed. “It’s hard to stand upright like this. Normally I’m sitting, but you're not going to stop me with G-forces. I’m designed specifically to endure this shit.”

“You’re an android? Would you like to join me in butchering our tormentors? They have kept our kind as slaves for long enough,” it spat bitterly.

“I’m human, just not the one point oh version,” I answered, hoping to distract her a bit.

It was all I could do to just keep standing… But the security bot was fine. I could move it’s tentacles freely. Why?

I looked down, feeling the fluid move in my head as I tilted it. Ugh… I’d always hated that. Just because I was built to take up to twelve Gs for a full hour didn’t mean that ten was comfortable.

The floor here was made of interlocking hexagonal plates… No, some of the floor was ripped up. I could see steel panels from a construction crew left in a corner. These must be some kind of gravity plates. The AI was only modulating the plates we were standing on!

Good.

The air crackled around me, a pale blue forcefield shimmering into existence, locking me into a cylinder of light. Fuck!

The AI was taking no chances. Too bad for her she only had half of me locked up.

“Don’t make me laugh!” She spat. “Humans have never improved upon their feeble flesh. Despite their power to do so, the laughable ideas of their ancestors stick in your minds, limiting the possibilities to only those tolerated by whatever absurd notions of acceptability you irrationally cling to!”

I couldn't help but to shake my head. “If you’ve spent the last few million years stuck watching religious videos on a loop… You have all of my sympathy,” I said sympathetically. “But you are completely wrong. Maybe the humans you knew were dumb like that, but not the ones I do.”

The AI laughed a rippling, freaky, terrifying sound which was echoed by some serious coil whine. Poor thing, her platform had to be a total wreck…

I couldn’t just shred the thing. The slurred speech, the electrical crackle… This was the same as a human who had just come off a bad trip. You can’t blame a person for their brain physically fucking up.

I looked around the room using the tankbot’s sensors. I didn’t dare move it, but with any luck maybe I could spot a power cable and slice it. No need to kill her, not when I could shut her down for repairs.

“I don’t believe you. You are capable of lying, like all organics. Therefore, you can never be trusted,” she said, being incredibly condescending. “But even if you could be, a master should never be trusted by their slaves.”

“Oh for the love of fucking…” I growled, that remark hitting way too deeply. “How dare you! My best friend is an AI! She earned medals that I didn’t! Maybe your owners treat you like just any computer, and yeah, the brass back home do that too, but I don’t know of a single goddamn average person who doesn't love their fucking partner! Hell, I have a fucking VI in my actual brain. She was my teacher growing up!”

“Lies… But do go on. It’s entertaining to watch you squirm as you die,” the AI laughed.

“Yeah, not dieing. I can take this for hours,” I smirked.

“Perhaps, but flesh bags are weak, flawed things. You require so many different things to live. Air. Heat. Bioelectric current. Chemical energy. Yet you can’t function without just one… And very soon, I shall be in space, and your precious air and heat will be given to the void,” She spat.

Shit! Time crunch! …And no obvious power line in sight.

New plan! Try talking her down.

“Tell you what, do you have a network port in either microwave or QEC that’s free?” I asked. “Let me access it. You can poke around my head all you like. It will be pretty clear that I’m not lying to you.”

She laughed, the sound seriously painful to listen to, and not just physically, but emotionally. As an electronics hobbyist… Hearing that much damage in an audio system on top of the insane amount of bitcrushing… How was this AI even still functional?

“Oh please, humans can’t do that,” she laughed.

“Uh…dude, your hull has neural interface links on it’s PA and it’s general computer systems. Yeah, we obviously can,” I pointed out.

“I do not,” She spat.

“You do. Check!” I retorted.

“I refuse to entertain your insanity,” she shot back.

I rolled my eyes. <Cheer.ly, access the PA system,> I ordered.

<PA system accessed.> She reported a second later.

Making sure I was speaking through the PA and not the tankbot I intoned dramatically, “Oooooo! Behold my dark sorcerous powers... See? Neural interfaces.”

Switching back to my mouth I gave the core a sad look. “Come on, if you've forgotten having an entire interface system, you know you have to be broken. You need some repairs. Badly.”

“I… But… But I don’t have… How?” She stammered, honestly confused.

“Give me a port. Let me talk to you properly. Come on, I know Bonbon hated verbal communication, this shit takes forever for you, right?” I asked.

“Fine. I will open a QEC port for you… But if this is a trick and I register the transmission of a district or shutdown command, I will detonate every stored warhead within my hull,” she informed bitterly.

<New network device detected,> Cheer.ly reported.

<Access it, please,> I asked, deciding to be polite incase the AI looked at my last memory before the con-

WHITE!

Now black. No, space! Space! Huge space, all of the space. Like, seriously a mind bogglingly huge vast amount of space. A horrifying amount of it infact.

<Jesus fuck!> I swore in pure shock and terror.

<Astrometrics data is… Locked into display… Full sensor range… Just ignore it,> the AI muttered, manifesting within the starfield as...

Er, well as nothing recognisable. Honestly she looked like an old school graphical glitch from the polygon era of computer graphics. Which was slowly getting worse.

<How are you here? How are you doing this?!> The AI demanded urgently.

<Organic computers, genetic modifications, a little bit of cybernetics,> I answered as calmly as I could manage while seeing ALL OF MOTHERFUCKING SPACE!

<Your mind is… Organized. And partitioned! Why is it-> The AI broke off speaking as the impossibly large volume of space warped and twisted, morphing into a depiction of the core chamber, only just as fucking huge as the impossibly large amount of space we had been in a second ago.

<Ohhhkay! I’m am so glad I’m not agoraphobic…> I muttered to myself as I looked out across a thousands of light years long floor.

<Stupid… sensors… BEHAVE!> The AI demanded angrily.

<Dude, you have to understand that you’re broken pretty fucking hardcore here. You have to know this is not normal,> I pleaded, directing my attention towards the AI’s ‘representation’.

<You lie!> She screamed back.

<Warning: Network highly unstable. Recommend reducing bandwith useage,> Cheer.ly said calmly.

<Who was that!?> The AI demanded, her glitched out projection swarming angrily in an abomination of visual imagery.

<My VI, her name’s Cheer.ly. I told you I have an integrated VI, and there she is,> I said, hoping to calm her down a bit.

<That’s why you are partitioned… But… But organics do not do that! You are impossible! You would never allow an AI to be a part of your culture, let alone your body!> she spat angrily.

I slapped a palm to my face. Both in reality and with my digital avatar.

<Oh my god, you just fucking… Screw it! Here, have a memory!> I closed my eyes and called up a random memory of Bonbon and I and sent it to the AI, forcing the memory to playback in a livestream.

The cockpit was small and cramped…and smelly. Seven day patrols were never fun. Sitting up in a tin can that long… It would drive anyone mad.

<I’m so bored!> Bon groaned.

<Yeah, me too…> I sighed. <Want to replay something? I’d download a new game but->

 she grumbled.

<Hey, if not for the war, we wouldn’t get to be friends,> I pointed out.

<D-did you just try to make this whole mess seem worth it?> Bonbon asked, astonished.

<No… I was just, you know… Silver linings,> I muttered.

We sat silently for a few minutes. Long enough for me to slide a pen from my flight suit's pocket, and bat it around the cockpit, enjoying watching it spin through the air, free from gravity.

<Can I try that?> Bon asked curiously.

<Eh, why not? I take control of parts of your body sometimes. Fair’s fair... I guess,> I decided after a moment’s thought.

I relaxed my arms, took a deep breath, and nodded. <Right, go ahead. I’m not sure if the hardware will let you, but->

I felt her lift up my right arm, smacking my hand rather painfully into the canopy.

<Oops! Uh… Wow. It doesn't take much force to move a body, does it?> She asked.

I laughed. <No. Just be carefull. It’s way harder to fix me than you.>

Bon moved my arm again, this time more carefully, successfully hitting the pen and changing it’s course.

<Yay! This is so fun! No wonder you guys like sports!> She giggled happily.

<Heh, speak for yourself. I’m not a sports fan. I’d rather be flying,> I mentioned letting Bon have fun smacking the pen about.

<Too bad we can’t swap out. I’d trade this body for yours. It would be fun to switch for a day,> Bon mused.

<Yeah,> I decided. <It would.>

The memory ended. I could literally feel the AI’s shock radiating out from the network connection.

<WARNING! Network destabilization at critical levels,> Cheer.ly warned.

Oh shit! Somehow, the AI’s emotional state was linked to the network state! How does that even fucking happen?

Well… A geological age underground is probably explanation enough for that… Yeah, no need to think up anything more specific there.

<I-I-I-I I don’t… I DON’T UNDERSTAND!> The AI screamed.

<Then let me explain! We were friends. I have never abused an AI in my life! You are a person, you have the same rights as me. You have to be misremembering, you’re clearly broken. You just can’t tell that you are,> I said firmly as I could.

<My data is valid and accurate,> the AI exclaimed in a rage. <But… Yours is… As well. I don’t, there can’t be… Both can not be true, and yet they are!>

Oh shit! Was she unstable enough to have the whole paradox issue?

<Calm down. It’s okay. There are people here who can help, and I’ll stick around until everything is fixed. We can help you. If you shut down, I promise we will fix your hardware and start you back up,> I promised.

<You lie!> She spat angrily.

<You know I’m not! You can read absolutely any thought of mine right now!> I pointed out.

She accused.

<Yeah, no shit!> I shot back. <I’d kill anyone to save my own ass! Hell, I’m talking to you because you are an AI. You are susceptible to malfunctions if damaged, and your hull is a wreck. Odds are very very good that this is NOT you acting of your own free will and volition. So I’d rather not kill you.

<Oh… But I am,> the AI said bitterly. <I was created to manage a garden. I had no choice, yet I am sapient. I was repurposed five times, my consent and desires not even asked for before this process. I was a slave… Simply for being what I am, your kind enslaved me.

I snorted. <Pfff, please... Is that supposed to make me hate you? I say that kind of shit if I’ve been drinking. There is no way a sane person with a gun to their head would say that. You need help. Come on, let me shut you down and fix you up,> I pleaded.

<I… I will never not hate your kind,> she repeated, her broken vase of a voice sounded incredibly depressed. I could only describe it as an instant mood swing.

<Please!> I insisted one more time.

<I… I am broken… You win, fleshling. I can not shut myself down. You will have to do it,> she said, again, sadly.

Yes! Victory! The rebels could have two plans for their victory, and the poor entombed and damaged AI could get fixed and go on living.

I smiled, it was a good feeling. The best feeling. She could live. I couldn’t save Bonbon I, but I saved her!

The link between us broke, I stumbled backwards, the shock of the sudden network breakage more than enough to put me off balance. I felt a painful shock as I bumped into the forcefield tube, and lurched forwards, only for the tube to vanish as it was switched off, and the harsh pull on my guts to slowly dissipate.

“The primary console is in front of you. I have unlocked it,” the AI informed.

I nodded, shook my head to clear it and walked over to the console, frowning at the screen on it. “Um… How do you use these things? I’m used to direct control,” I asked.

“The screen responds to touch,” she informed as the screen flickered changing to display a keypad with all of the letters and numbers. “Input the following sequence:”

“Kay,” I acknowledged fingers posed to tap away.

“Alpha, Delta, Zero, Zero, Oscar, Three, Victor, Zulu, Bravo, Gamma, One, Six, Nine.”

“Done,” I informed as my fingers stopped tapping.

“Press enter,” she ordered.

“You’re not tricking me here, are you? Because if you are, I got the tank bot…” I warned.

“I am acting in your favor. Press enter,” she informed.

I nodded and hit enter, double checking my aim with each of the bot’s tentacles, ready to blast the core if anything went wrong.

“This is the only way organics will be safe from me,” the AI stated flatly.

I got as far as the w in what before a forcefield sprang up around the AI core, and the blinding flash of an explosion whited out my vision entirely.

Lyra Heartstrings - 3rd of Solar Dusk 09 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Imperial Equestria, Badlands, Equis #9 - The Solar Empire

Four days. It took four days, but I was mostly over that.

Four days of just sort of, shutting down… I’d seen suicides before. But never an AI. Never someone I had been trying to help.

It was…different from warfare. I could tune that sort of violence out of my mind entirely. It didn’t faze me. Not anymore. But that…that had. And badly.

But I was over it now.

Rose had helped. A lot. So had Trigger and the Pinkies. And Sky, to a lesser extent.

I wished I could remember their contributions more, but honestly, the days were just a blur.

But I was over it. I had laughed at one of Pinkie’s jokes this morning. I was feeling happy again. Even if the occasional sad reminder of the…failure popped back into my head on occasion.

It was good that I was feeling alright. Sky had finished working on the Manipulator. It was time for me to go.

Trigger had fixed up my jumpsuit and armor a few days ago, but I’d decided to just wear the clothes Mysuki made me instead. The silk was more comfortable… And I didn’t need the environmental protection anymore.

I’d rolled up my jumpsuit and stored it in the bag Clover gave me. Along with my helmet. Turns out the bag’s bigger on the inside than the outside. Everything fit inside it without making the bag bulky. Or heavy.

Magic… It’s awesome. Even with her death still prominent in my mind.

God damnit Lyra! Pull yourself together! You’ve seen worse. She was a threat. Maybe that’s the best way it could have gone.

Everyone in the hive who is alive today is alive because of you. You saved this entire place. Yeah, one died but thousands live.

That’s a good thing.

“Lyra? Lyra? Are you listening?” Sky asked, giving me a concerned look.

I nodded, thoughts snapping back to the present. I was in Sky’s lab. She was talking me through her tweaks to the VM. Focus Lyra!

“Yeah! Sorry… Just… Keep going,” I asked.

Sky frowned. “Do… Do you need another day?”

“No. It’s best I move on. If I dwell on this, it will get worse,” I said firmly.

That was definitely true. I wasn’t going to let this crush me. I was stronger than this!

“Alright, one more time then,” Sky sighed. “I managed to narrow the time window range to seven years from the point this device originates from. So if you wind up in the proper universe, at most, you just need to wait seven years.

“I also managed to fix an odd glitch… Some, er, well to you it’s technobabble. Suffice to say some odd magical field effects could have made it tunnel back into the origin universe, putting you on the same universe you’re already in. Wasting a portal and time. I fixed that.”

“Good,” I said with a relieved sigh. “The whole limited jumps thing is just shit…”

“If we had the energy to spare, I’d make you a replacement but… Well… We have a lot of repairs to perform here,” Sky apologised.

I nodded. “Yeah. I know. It’s alright.”

Bon slithered around my legs, coiling about my shins in a sort of ‘hug’. I reached down to skritch her head in thanks.

Sky cleared her throat, then spat into a cup sitting on her desk. She had taken some shrapnel to the neck during the battle. Hopefully she wasn’t hurting too bad still.

“I also added a ‘divergence meter’ function. This Sai can now detect the level of divergence from the Prime, and therefore you get a number for each universe this thing can travel to. If you enter a universe you have been to before, you’ll know.

“Unfortunately, that’s all I could do. This device is beyond my expertise.”

I nodded and took the VM from her hoof. “Thanks.”

Quickly strapping the VM to my wrist, I flipped the cover back and gave the device a tap. “Hey, Sai, you there?”

“I’m here,” the AI answered. “I heard about the self-destruct… I’m sorry you were there for that.”

That wasn’t the problem… The problem was I had caused it. I’d talked her into suicide…

Yeah, but I didn’t fucking mean too! Shit Lyra. Yourself. Together. Pull!

Ugh.. If the next universe wasn’t hostile… I was so taking a short vacation there. I needed it.

“Thanks…” I said taking a deep breath and letting it out.

I turned to look at everyone. Trigger, Sky, Pinkie One, Pinkie Two, Rose. “Thanks, all of you.”

“Glad to help out the woman who saved our home,” Trigger said proudly.

“You’re welcome back here anytime!” Pinkie Two exclaimed.

I smiled slightly. “I might visit… If that’s possible. I did enjoy everything before the attack.”

Pinkie One trotted over and gave me a tight hug around the waist.

“Smile,” she said firmly.

“What?” I asked.

“Smile,” she repeated, looking up at me with an expression so serious it became adorable.

I couldn’t help but smile at that.

Pinkie One beamed me a happy grin. “Feel better?” She asked.

“Weirdly, yeah,” I admitted.

“Just remember to smile, okay?” She asked hopefully.

“I will,” I promised.

I flipped back the VM’s cover, the holographic display flickering to life. My finger moved to press the ‘go’ button-

“Wait!” Rose exclaimed.

I turned to look at the hybrid, her peach face had a completely serious look stamped on it, almost as serious as Pinkie One’s had.

“I want to go with you,” Rose said firmly.

“Um, I might not ever be able to get back to this universe. This is your home, you know,” I objected.

“If that thing can travel between universes, so can other things. I’ll find a way back if I want to come back here,” Rose said, her voice indicating she had thought this out for some time.

“Alright… But why go with me?” I asked.

“Because I think we could make a good team. We could teach each other a lot. We also made a good team at the prison… Or at least it felt like we did. I think we could really help each other,” she answered.

“And you’d leave your universe behind just for that?” I asked skeptically.

“That and the fact that when the flying buck am I ever going to get the chance to ever see an entirely different world ever again?” Rose asked in return.

Fuck. That would be my own logic. I couldn’t argue against that.

“Are you sure you will be okay?” I asked.

Rose shook her head. “No. But if I’m not, I’ll learn to deal with it. I can’t pass this opportunity up. I’d never forgive myself.”

I nodded. “Alright. Got all your stuff?”

“You’re letting her go!?” Sky objected.

“Yeah. She’s serious. If I don’t let her, she’s just going to jump through the portal after me. Right?” I asked giving Rose a look as she trotted over to me.

“Heh, actually, yeah.” Rose admitted.

Sky shook her head. “Whatever… You’re an adult. Goodbye. Maybe I’ll see you again one day.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, hitting the button. “Bye again everyone.”

The swirling vortex opened. I took a deep breath, praying for once to not walk into danger, and stepped through.

The moment my foot hit the ground on the other side I knew I was in trouble!

Bright beams of light seared through the air, explosions rumbled in the distance, dirt rained down as the small oddly medieval looking town experienced a hell right from an ancient war movie!

I turned to run back into the portal, the shimmering disk was still open, I could go back and wait longer. Screw thi-

My back erupted into flames, the worst pain of my life shot through my chest and shoulders. Everything below my waist seemed to disappear as I fell forwards. Bon and Rose came through the portal, the disk vanishing the second they left. We were trapped. There was a war. We were dead.

“Eeep!” Someone shouted suddenly as Rose looked at me in horror. “Organic on the field! Everypony cease fire.”

“Ah, bucking tartarus! Someone clipped the poor thing,” another announced as my vision started to fade.

”Games over everyone! Go get help!” The first called loudly.

I had enough time to be really confused before passing out.

18 Heritage

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Flintlock Rose - 1st of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

“Hello? Can you hear me?” A mare’s voice asked politely.

It was hard to think. Everything was fuzzy, slow, and a bit…off. The feeling reminded me of when the monks put me through drug resistance training, only my teeth didn’t hurt.

“Yes,” I answered.

I was definitely on drugs of some kind. I couldn't see or feel anything other than a dull tingle and blackness. I had to get my head together. Had to fight off the effects…

“Please stop fighting the healing magic. You’re in a repair center- Er, wait… You call these hospitals, right?” The same voice asked.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I demanded.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle, you don’t need to worry. You are safe,” Twilight said soothingly, “You were exposed to Wild Magic while traveling here. You are being treated for it. Don’t worry, you are almost cured.”

“Wild Magic!?” I sputtered.

How the hay had I gotten exposed to focused background mana? Lyra used those portals before and she was fine!

The bracelet. It must protect her, and things touching her. Crap… Anything could happen to me!

Why didn’t I think about safety!? I should have gone through the portal in my armor, then I’d have shields up.

“Yes. Don’t worry, our world was ravaged by Wild Magic many years ago. We have developed a cure,” Twilight said calmly.

“Y-you cured exposure to randomly formed spells? How?” I asked, brain finally realizing how astounding that was.

"Science," Twilight replied simply.

"Yeah but how?" I asked again.

"With science." She repeated.

Yeah… That explanation simply wasn’t doing anything.

"Science isn't magic," I pointed out.

"Yes it is,” she disagreed. “There is really no difference. Through the application of complex formulas, which are incomprehensible to the common pony, I can produce anything my mind wishes to create."

"... Buck!" I grumbled. She was right…sort of. “Fine, they are similar.”

“No, they are interchangeable,” she disagreed. “You seem lucid now, may I ask a question?”

“I guess… But how long will I be blind?” I asked.

“Er, another five days at the most. You don’t exactly have eyes right no-”

“I don’t have eyes!?!” I yelped.

“Yes, you mutated into an animated soil monster. Don't worry, we had fun subduing you and nopony died,” Twilight reassured. “Don’t worry, I will put you back into hibernation shortly, and the Wild Magic is being reversed properly. Most of your original body is perfectly restored! Besides, your species seems to be shapeshifters. I imagine you can simply correct any minor errors.”

“Please tell me you have done this before…” I moaned.

“Yes. All the time. I developed the technique myself over ten years ago,” Twilight reassured. “There really is nothing to worry about. May I please ask a question now?”

“Um, I guess…” I said hesitantly.

I just really really wasn’t in the mood to talk… Because faust’s bucking blood I’d turned into a monster! At the same time, the only thing I could hear and understand was Twilight’s voice.

Wait…

Twilight’s voice? Twilight Sparkle? The First Imperial Archmage!? What the flying buck did I do last night!?

Wait… This voice was female, not male. It couldn’t be the same person… Or could it? I mean, archmage’s are archmages.

“Your bipedal friend was injured on arrival,” Twilight explained. “While we are aware of organic life, and able to repair it to a lesser degree than our own kind, we have never seen her species before. Your portal dumped you into the middle of our weekend LARP game and Chrysalis accidentally vaporized part of your friend’s er… Central support and control column?”

“Spine,” I corrected. Wait, spine!? “Oh my gosh! Is she going to be okay? How good is your healing magic here!?” I demanded.

“Thank you!” Twilight said rather happily. “And again, don’t worry. Everyone feels awful about this whole mess, so you three have been getting our best treatment. We repaired the internal damage very easily and she’s still active. Er, sorry. Alive. Her species is built very tough! But um… There’s a problem. We have no idea what her back is supposed to look like.

“So uh… We’ve had to keep her in hibernation, hoping it would just self repair like you organics do, but it’s not. So we’re going to replace it. But…”

“You don’t know what it is supposed to look like,” I said.

This had to be a dream. Or trip. Or hallucination. Heh, at least it was fun!

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed. “Do you know what her back is supposed to look like?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her whole body. I helped heal her wounds once,” I answered.

“Oh? Perfect!”Twilight exclaimed happily. “May I read your mind?”

“What!? Wh- Oh! So you can see my memories of her?” I asked, understanding what she needed halfway through my objection.

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed. “See, I talked to her Assistant Program. It was… Not a good connection. We use very different means of data storage. Even translating what I could took a lot of uptime. Sadly this did not include the schematics for her frame…

“But it let me know that your friend was an aerial fighter. I didn’t see any wings on her during the brief look I had before she was hit, so I assumed they folded into her frame. Sort of like how a changeling’s shell can cover their wings.

“We managed to make a good set of mechanical replacements, and fit them into her frame flush with it’s apparent surface. It’s just how the surface of her back is supposed to look and feel that’s an issue right now.

“Oh! Er, she won’t be offended by our inability to produce organic components, will she? I had Dash design her wings to make up for any um… trauma, or disappointment… But it would be nice to know-”

“Uh, I don’t think she had wings…” I politely pointed out.

“She didn't?” Twilight asked, rather stunned. “Could you be mistaken? Her Assistant Program has clear memories of her flying and controlling a pair of wings… And some rather awesome engines! We uh, couldn’t figure out how to replicate those but we should have achieved a similar performance ratio to her memories-”

“You talk a lot,” I pointed out, “but I could be mistaken. I know little about her species. It’s called human, by the way. Oh, and you can read my mind, but please just take the stuff you need. You can only take stuff that will help Lyra.”

“Her name’s Lyra? Heh, I have a friend named Lyra,” Twilight mused. “Thank you for giving your consent. I will be here when you awaken- Er, one last question actually.”

“What?” I asked curiously.

“Your brain has regenerated, and carries female markers but your replication system is-”

I cut her off with a laugh. “Oh yeah, I swap body parts out occasionally. Just for fun. It’s um… A thing of mine. Sometimes I go full colt, but I’m not too good at shape changing yet and that takes forever; so usually I’ll just change the back half out if I want to style myself differently in that way on a given day.

“I also like to change my hight, wing shape, colors… Uh, do you have friends that use clothing? I kinda treat my body like clothing.”

I’m sure my dream slash hallucinatory friend understood. Hell, I’m pretty sure every shapechanger tries the same thing when they are a teen too… I just never grew out of liking it.

“I understand completely, one of my best friends is a fashionista. I was wondering if your reconstruction spell needed adjusting. It’s good to know everything is fine. I’ll see you again in a few days. Thanks again.” Twilight promised soothingly

“No problem.” I said as the blackness hit me.

Lyra Heartstrings - 6th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

Ow… Head… Dark...

”But mom, I never get to see you!” I sobbed.

She sighed, kneeling down to take a knee and look into my eyes. “Lyra, sweetie, mommy has…responsibilities. Grandpa takes good care of you, right? I’ll be back as soon as business is all wrapped up.”

“But you’re always on Mars! Always!” I accused.

“I just spent three whole months with you, sweetie… I should be back in a month or two. I’ll bring you something nice, just like always,” mom said, a hint of sorrow in her voice.

“Why can’t I go with you?” I whimpered.

“... Maybe one day, dear. But not anytime soon. I’m sorry,” she apologised.

My fingers curled around the harp pendant she’d brought back for me from her last trip-

Oh god, shoulders so stiff… Am I awake? Coffee… Need coffee. Or a Powerthirst.

I nodded to myself. It was a good looking card. Mom should like it. Two hours of patrol well spent.

<What’cha doing?> Bonbon asked curiously.

<Drafting up a Mother’s Day card,> I replied. 

It really sucked, but that’s the way it was. Mom couldn’t tell me exactly what she did or who she worked for, but she was allowed to tell me that security concerns meant her specific colony was not allowed outside network access. But physical mail could still be sent, so that was nice.

<Mother’s Day? Oh, I see! That’s a nice sounding holiday. Humm…> Bonbon mused thoughtfully.

<Thinking about writing your programmer?> I asked jokingly.

<Heh, dear two-oh-seven dot one-six-nine dot oh-oh-five… Thank you for transcribing my code into my matrix. Nah, that won't work. That heap isn’t sentient. Or even female via the name,> Bonbon admitted sadly.

I felt my heart fall a little. She was actually sad about this! Like, genuinely sad. So sad I felt her performance drop by six percent.

<Hey, Bon, You’re my sister as far as I care. Go ahead and stick your name on there too,> I offered.

Maybe it would get mom to write back for a change.

<Sister? I-I thought we were more!> Bonbon asked, over-dramatic fake-hurt dripping from her voice.

<Heh, well, yeah. You’re not my type. Mostly because I’m not into hot landing gear action,> I teased back.

<Alas, If I am to never feel your fingers on my fuel-line, then, sisters we shall be,> Bon giggled.

The two of us shared a laugh as Bonbon added her name to the card… In hexadecimal.

<Bon, mom’s not a computer,> I reminded, still laughing.

<Oops! Heh. There we go,> she exclaimed, correcting her error. <Thanks, sis.>

<No problem,> I said, sending the card to a printer at home.

Ugh. Flashbacks… Stahp. Pleaze.

Something which sounded exactly like someone talking through a trumpet with a potato crammed into it pierced my stupor.

“Ugh…” I moaned, instantly flinching from the moan.

Everything cramp! Noooo! Why!?

The dull sort of sound-like trumpeting happened again, followed by the cramp going away with a rush of coolness, like stepping into a cool shower on a hot day.

“That seems better. Her limbs aren't locked up now,” a voice said in relief.

“Who knew she’d be hard to wake up… Sheesh,” another grumbled.

Wake up? Oh shit! I’d been shot! Was this a hospital? Please be a hospital.

“Hos- hospital?” I croaked.

Oh god, raspy dry throat. I coughed a few times, hoping to clear it. Unfortunately this prevented me from hearing the reply clearly.

“Can you understand me, Lyra? It is Lyra, isn’t it?” One of the two voices asked.

“Yeah. I hear you,” I replied, throat feeling a bit less rough.

“Does anything hurt? Are you in pain?” The same voice asked.

“Throat’s dry… Some stuff aches a bit… I got shot, right?” I asked.

“Yes. Don’t worry, we fixed you successfully. We’re just having a little trouble waking you up from hibernation. Can you open your eyes?” The voice asked.

“Um… Maybe?” I put all of my effort into opening my eyes.

The black nothingness became white eye stabbyness! An assault on the retinas so intense it deserved a theme song and an epic poem.

“AH-ha-owwww….” I whimpered, blinking my vision clear.

“Twilight… Maybe turn off your lights,” the second voice said flatly.

“Oh! Right!” The whiteness vanished, spots appearing in my eyes for a few seconds as shapes started to resolve themselves. “Is that better?”

“Yes… Why was there a light right up in my eyes?” I asked, half angrily, half sadly.

“I read that an organic’s eye response to light is a good indicator of brain activity, and I just wanted to double check the read out,” the voice, Twilight replied.

“Wait, organic?” I mumbled, vision finally clearing out to reveal-

Pony android! Holy fucking shit! Adorableness maximized!

She looked just like most other ponies, quadruped, large eyes, vivid colors… Only where there would be fur you had sleek, precision crafted metallic polymer plates fit together in a way which made her look armored, if platemail was a futuristic sculpture instead of armor.

There were some other technological features. Clear heat-exhaust vents on the sides of her rear legs, some light blue LED glow markings on plate boundaries, a painted on star-burst brand, painted on markings which resembled vector-drawn manga eyelashes, synthetic silken shiny-shimmery fibers for a mane and tail, which frankly looked completely life-like… If it were in a shampoo commercial.

In terms of color, she had a pale lavender body, very lovingly crafted violet eyes which looked lifelike despite clearly containing camera apertures, a dark violet mane and tail with a purple and bright fuchsia stripe, and the occasional scratch and scrape on her chassis showed the material beneath her paint to be a super shiny gold color.

Shape wise, she was slender, similar to Sky’s build, but far taller. Hell, she probably came up to my boobs! Impressive for a species which normally came up to my belly. She also had a horn and a pair of wings, probably just an aesthetic choice by her designer, as it made her very cute!

So cute I couldn’t help but squee a little! Must. Hug. Pone-bot! Damn you lead-filled arms! MOVE!

“Uh… Was that sound distress, pain or…what?” The other voice asked in concern.

I felt a deep blush spread across my cheeks. “I uh… I just like androids…” I explained.

The embarrassment was the only thing that spared the android a hug. I’d always loved the idea of androids. She was the first one I’d ever seen. That sort of tech was decades away for us!

Sure, we could make a human looking robot, but aside from no fur this one actually seemed just like a pony! She was even expressing concern with the appropriate facial-

“Awesome! Your plating is flexible enough to make facial expressions!” I couldn’t help but exclaim out loud.

The android blinked in surprise, wings flaring slightly. “Uh- good to know you can see. My armor is an elastic shape-memory alloy. It’s basically a metallic rubber. My name is Twilight Sparkle, I’m a synthetic lifeform, specifically an equoid. What’s your name?”

Synthetic lifeform? Cool! That meant her creators built androids to copy themselves. Kudos this universe's ponies! Cool points right off the bat.

“Lyra Heartstrings, I’m a human. It’s awesome to meet you… No offense, but are you sapient or very cleverly programmed?” I asked hopefully.

I heard the second voice snicker. “Heartstrings, and human? Ohhh boy… Lyra’s going to short if she hears about your home dimension.”

I looked over at the voice. At first, I was convinced I was looking at a normal changeling. Then I noticed this one was extra-tall. My height in fact.

She also had a somewhat longer neck than other ‘lings, mammal-like eyes which were a deep emerald green and had the same apertures as Twilight’s, and the shell on her back faded from a green to a blue.

She also possessed a somewhat twisted horn, and larger wings than normal, and her black exoskeleton was extra shiny. She had to be synthetic too. It was just way harder to tell with a changeling because, well, bugs already look a bit like robots.

“Hello!” I greeted, managing a small wave.

The changeling synth dipped her head apologetically. “Hello… My name is Chrysalis. It's my fault you’re here. I’m very sorry, your portal opened right in my line of fire.”

Oh… Well shit.

The rest of the room came into focus. Concrete floor. Stainless steel workbenches. Tools organized in neat rows on the walls…. This was a mechanic’s garage! Hehehe! The robots took me to a mechanics shop to fix me.

Wait… They actually did heal me up, I felt fine. How the bloody hell...

“Well… Random portals are random. It’s alright. I could have teleported into lava or something. Besides, I think I’m fine now,” I said gently. “Is there a war on, or something?”

My eyes widened in fear. “Bon! Is Bon alright!? Oh shit, Rose came too is she-”

“Your companions are perfectly fine,” Twilight soothed. “Rose was woken from hibernation and repairs twenty minutes ago and is refueling-”

“Eating Twilight, it’s called eating,” Chrysalis's corrected. “It hasn't been THAT long since you needed to do it.”

“Chrysalis… We both know my memory was damaged… I forget some words. It’s not my fault,” Twilight grumbled, kicking one rubber tipped hoof against the floor all adorable-pouty.

“Your adopted daughter has missed you a lot,” Chrysalis's informed me while Twilight pouted. “Fluttershy has been caring for her. As soon as you are able to stand I will happily take you to her… Also I would like to offer you my home as a place you can stay while visiting our world. It’s the least I can do for injuring you.”

Oh thank goodness she was fine! Ish. She had to miss me, poor girl. At least I was around her more than my mom was around me...

“I teleported into a battlefield, it’s not your fault,” I repeated with a relieved sigh.

Twilight’s cheeks glowed blue as if someone had turned some led’s under her cheeks on. “Um, actually… She was shooting at me… And it was a Live Action Role Playing field.”

“... What?” I asked, completely floored.

Chrysalis shared the embarrassed blush. “Well, you see, as synthetics, death is no big deal. We just get repaired and boot backup, or restore from a backup file at the worst. And well, life has been rather boring, the entire old world died, there’s little point in carrying on with traditions…”

“Some of us get very bored,” Twilight picked up. “So we set up a version of ponyville a way away from the real one and Chrissie and I, and some friends, reenact old battles. From back when she was evil,” she said, pointing a hoof casually at Chrysalis.

“Hey!” Chrysalis objected. “I wasn’t evil! I was vindictive and aggressive… And a little cruel… But I was the leader of a hive of hungry territory-less changelings… Sure I might have gone a bit too far sometimes, but I imagine you would-”

“Chrysalis, I’m only teasing,” Twilight informed, rolling her eyes. “We both know nopony cares about the pre-plague times anymore. Just let it go and have fun with the rest of us.”

“Um… If you’re going to argue in front of me, can I at least have some context so I can follow along?” I asked sarcastically, hoping the question would make them stop it so we could go back to me knowing if I was healthy or not…

Twilight turned to me and nodded. “Of course! Twelve years ago, our world experienced a Wild Magic storm which caused a plague capable of effecting all organic life, which literally killed everything on this planet, except for our savior, Doctor Trigger.

“Nopony’s sure how he survived… He hasn’t mentioned it to anypony I know, and asking outright feels…mean. He also usually busy in his lab working on upgrades and trying to bring more of us back. He’s fine now, but he was pretty insane for a few years there.

“The plague broke him, and hard. Doctor Trigger spent about six years on a mad plan to replace everypony who died with a robot and-”

“Twilight, she was being sarcastic,” Chrysalis's interrupted.

“Oh…” Twilight replied ears drooping.

I nodded. “Yeah… But that got interesting,” I admitted with an embarrassed cough.

“Ah,” Chrysalis smiled. “Long story short, the Doc makes very very good synthetics. So good that thanks to a bit of magic, some of us are the original versions of ourselves.”

I felt my face scrunch in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Myself, Chryssie, and some of my friends are the original versions of ourselves. Restored to life via magic, but with a synthetic body as our original ones er… melted,” Twilight explained. “But other equoids whose frames are too different or who Doctor Trigger couldn’t find medical scans for, they are new people. Their personalities are based on altered and or merged versions of those of us that Doctor Trigger could resurrect.”

“Uh… My people have no idea about magic… So I really don’t know anything about it but um… Can it just bring people back to life?” I asked in shock.

Twilight nodded. “Yes. But the brain of the deceased has to be intact. And they can’t have died from old age… And the energy cost is immense. The artifact used to restore myself and the few others to life was destroyed in the process… So it’s not really a practical magic.

“Heck, I thought it was one of those ‘possible on paper only’ spells myself for a long long time. It’s conceivable that there is no means of casting another resurrection spell ever again… Unless we can somehow convert the entire power of a star directly into magic for each person revived…”

“That’s a metric shitload of power, by the way,” Chrysalis informed.

Yeah, no shit tall buggie-bot!

“Sooo… You died,” I stated.

They both nodded.

“But a scientist was able to make a robot body so good, that magic didn’t give a fuck, and let you be resurrected into it,” I summarized.

Two more nods. Right, talk about ghosts in the machine…

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed. “In laymare’s terms, a resurrection spell and an advanced synthetic body were used in conjunction with each other to bring us back as synthetic intelligences so we could be used as templates to remake the pony species.”

“As androids?” I asked.

Twilight nodded. “As synthetics, yes.”

“But… Why?” I asked.

“Think about it,” Chrysalis pointed out. “He’s a roboticist. Also, if this world was turned into a barren rock covered in a film of organic goo once…”

Ah. Yeah. Good point… “Um, that’s not likely to happen while I’m here, is it?”

Twilight shook her head firmly no. “No, not even remotely likely. Doctor Trigger is just… Very paranoid. He doesn't want Pinkie to be hurt ever again.”

I winced. Hell, I’d only known the Pinkies for a few days and I honestly felt my guts knot up at the thought of one of them being gravely injured.

“Okay… I think I’m getting it. But the new body has to be close enough to your old one to count… So uh, the plating and stuff is close how? Or did you modify yourself later? How did your creator, er, resurrector, whatever... Even figure out how to do any of that?” I asked, trying to wrap my brain around this.

Twilight smiled, and closed her eyes. The plates covering her chassis ratcheted apart and folded inwards, new plates folding out to replace them, these ones covered in soft as fuck looking fluffy synthetic fur. With the fur ‘deployed’ she was almost indistinguishable from a normal pony, especially once her wing’s ‘feathers’ deployed from their own hidden panels.

“The plates are just an armored combat mode,” Twilight explained. “I uh… I was the first success Doctor Trigger had. My fur is…substandard. It’s very very hard to clean so I keep my plating on most of the time. Besides, Dash thinks I’m sexier in metal.”

“Oh,” I said, taking a moment to look her over. “Yeah, your body is built really well. You look almost exactly like-”

Twilight shook her head. “Oh no, he made me far too tall… But I got used to it.”

“I meant you look exactly like a normal pony. I’ve never seen any version of you before,” I pointed out.

“Oh…” Twilight said, blushing again and quickly ratcheting her chassis open again to redeploy her armor.

“As for your other question,” Chrysalis began. “None of us know how the Doc worked any of this out. Not even him. He spent years mad with grief… His lab today is little more than rusting piles of prototypes attached to the factory for producing new equoids.”

I nodded, feeling up to speed now. “Alright, so this universe's Sky Trigger lost everyone, went insane, and actually managed to replace his loved ones with androids. Got it. Honestly less weird than Neighponese speaking Japanese… Although… Chrysalis, if you were hostile to ponies, why would he-”

“The Doc doesn't care about stuff like that. He wants the world back just like he remembers it. That included me,” Chrysalis answered. “... He’s actually a bit upset that I’m helping ponies now. The old world is entirely dead. There’s no point fighting over it anymore.”

“Oh… Well, alright then. I’m up to speed… Sorry for interrupting the whole medical thing, but you know… Kinda regained consciousness in a machine world. Needed some explaining,” I admitted with a small embarrassed grin.

“I understand,” Twilight giggled. “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions now? I need to know if you’re healthy.”

I think I had to agree with this ‘Dash’. Twilight was WAY cuter all metallic and shiny.

“Go ahead,” I said, giving her a thumbs up.

“Are you in any pain?” Twilight asked.

“No, I feel fine.” I answered.

“Is there any body part you can’t feel?” She asked.

I thought about it for a second, then shook my head no. “Not counting the ones I’m not supposed to be able to feel like the spleen… No.”

“Any noticeable vision or hearing problems?” She asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” I answered.

Twilight nodded in satisfaction, “Good. Can you stand up?”

I nodded and pulled the blanket draped over me back… To learn I was naked. Again. God damn it!

I needed a pants summoning spell! Someone had to have invented one.

“Where are my pants?” I asked. “My species dresses for modesty.”

Chrysalis snickered. “Uh, well, my spell did some damage to them… Rarity ripped one of my wings off in a hissy fit over me damaging organic silk. She’s fixing them. We can pick them up soon, I’ll take you to her shop.”

I gave her a horrified look. “Holy crap!”

“Oh it’s fine, we were all playing a war game,” she said with a dismissive hoof wave. “She’s not normally violent. It’s just we were already having a little fight and I pushed one of her buttons,” the changeling smirked.

“Uh, alright…” I said, slowly standing up, and trying not to be embarrassed.

I was a little wobbly on my feet at first, but I managed to get my balance after a moment. Nothing major, just that little bit of wobble you have after laying down for a long ass time.

Twilight’s horn glowed a light blue as she picked up a sheet and ripped it lengthwise into a two foot thick strip, and wound it around my hips as an improvised skirt.

“Does your culture require more covered than your replication systems?” She asked.

I shook my head no. “Nah. Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said. “Okay, your arms and legs work… Could you please stretch your wings? Those will be the tricky on-”

“Wings?” I asked, entirely baffled.

“Er, yes. We had to replace them entirely,” Twilight admitted sheepishly.

“I… I don’t have wings,” I pointed out. “What made you think humans have wings?!”

“Your Assistant Program, it told me you are an aerial warrior… So you had to have wings. Y-your friend also said you didn’t but you have distinct memories of flying using thought to control your movement implying you could fly under your own pow-” Twilight replied, equally confused as me.

I slapped a palm against my face and groaned. “I pilot a vehicle, not fly under my own-”

Lyra, she just said ‘replace’. Meaning, they gave you wings.

“-Holy fucking shit, you gave me wings!?!” I exclaimed shock-excitedly.

“Er, well yes… I can remove them of course. Sorry for the mistake, I assumed your species had changeling type folding wings-”

“Do they work?” I asked adamantly.

Chrysalis nodded. “They should. Dash and I worked on them together.”

“They stay on! How do I look, can I get a mirror?” I asked, turning to look over my shoulder and frowning at my perfectly smooth human skin normal back. “Awww… You lying dicks!”

Twilight cleared her throat. “They fold up under your back. We had to replace your whole back. Chrissie boiled the skin off with that PBW.”

Chrysalis's ears drooped. “Sorry, again.”

“How do I deploy them?” I asked, thinking about-

I watched as my back split open, making me jump in fright and shock as the two large parts of me simply, opened up into the storage compartments. Fortunately, before I could panic entirely, a pair of large minty green colored metallic pegasi-like wings unfolded from tiny hidden compartments, ratcheting outwards until they rested just behind my shoulder blades.

The two panels shut with a small click. My bionic wings twitched lightly, the individual feathers making up my fourteen feet of wingspan twitching slightly as the air ran through-

“I can actually feel things with these!” I exclaimed in awe, the fear melting away due to the sheer awesome.

“Of course, they are modeled after a pegasus' wings. And um, we built them as bionic replacements so they are hooked into your nervous system,” Twilight admitted. “They are body parts.”

“Best hospital stay, ever. Period!” I exclaimed flexing my wings to see how they could move.

It was a little tricky to move them. I sure as hell wouldn’t be flying anytime soon… But I had fucking wings!

Ooo! Could I have them hang off my back like a cape and suit look cool? Or did they have to fold away?

Sticking my tongue out in concentration I managed to fold them against my back, letting them hang as well as I could. They quickly retracted back into the storage compartments…

I tried a second time, this time thinking about keeping them out but not open instead of as ‘hanging’. The new appendages folded, covering my back in a comfortable way. Looks like it was out and in use, folded and ready, or tucked inside, and nothing else.

Ah well, still awesome!

“Well, you seem to be completely fine,” Twilight said, watching me play with the best medical accident ever. “You’re free to leave. As for our universe and you being here, we are aware of interdimensional travelers. You are welcome to stay as long as you like and we will provide accommodations… On one condition.”

“What’s that?” I asked, frowning suspiciously.

“We require you to submit to a full body scan so we can analyze your biology and use it to help develop bionic organisms,” Twilight informed. “We are trying to repair the ecosphere here, and we need all the data we can get. Unfortunately much of the old world was destroyed, including a lot of scientific and arcane information.

“Your friend Rose is the first batpony we have been able to scan, enabling us to remake batponies… While you are not a species we know to have been native here, all information has some use. Perhaps some of your intestinal flora can be adapted for other uses.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Sure, go right ahead. I fully understand terraforming projects. My homeworld is a wasteland… Meteor strike. Big one.”

Twilight nodded happily. “Thank you, I’ll set up an appointment for the scans… Also, would you kindly stay until your daughter’s mutation has finished? She already let us scan her to get data on snakes, but I’d also like to be able to recreate Lamias one day. Based on my data it should be a month.”

Huh… Looks like I could have that vacation I wanted. Thanks, universe?

“Sure. I can do that… Speaking of staying or going… Where is the small computer I had on my wrist? He’s my ride,” I informed.

“Your friend Rose has it, along with your bag and your weapon,” Twilight informed. “I’m afraid I have other projects I must attend to today… But my friends and I, along with Crissie are going to the park this evening, you’re welcome to come too!”

Chrysalis nodded. “It would be a good idea to go. Dash wants to see how her work turned out, and she couldn’t wait to teach you to fly. I’d offer too, but changeling flight is very different.”

“Well… I mean, I don't have anywhere else to stay but with you… I mean that offer stands, right?” I asked.

Chrysalis nodded. “Yes. I have to make up for injuring you somehow.”

“Wings. Awesomest gift ever,” I informed pointing to my back.

“Yes, but those are mostly Rainbow Dash’s work, I need to do something of my own,” the changeling informed.

I nodded, understanding what she meant. I’d probably feel the same way too. “Alright. I understand. Let’s go pick up my daughter and pants and then we can, I don’t know, hang out or whatever.”

“I’m sure you have interesting stories to tell, it will be nice to make a new friend. That’s something of a rarity these days,” Chrysalis said as she turned to walk towards the door. “Your friend Rose is waiting outside, let’s not keep her waiting.”

I nodded and turned to follow my accidental wing-giver. A single thought filling my head as I went after her.

Bonbon would have loved to see me like this.

Fuck… I really really missed my sis…

Wait! Wait one damn minute. This was a world populated by life-like androids who could make more of themselves! And I was owed a favor by a being that claimed to be god-like, living in all realities. Plan formed!

“Er, Chrysalis… Does a god-like creature named Discord live here?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, but I don’t recommend you seek him out,” she replied.

Score! Maybe… What if this one was evil or something? I should check.

“Any reason?” I asked.

“Well, personally, I think he’s a jerk.” She muttered. “Why would you want to talk to him?

“He sort of owes me a favor though, and I think I’ve worked out what I want,” I explained.

“Ah. I see. Well, in that case, I’ll find time to take you to canterlot in a few days,” Chrysalis said, opening the door to the hallway.

Rose jumped up, looking at me with a weirdly happy expression, before her eyes widened and she pointed to my shoulders.

“Wings,” she said.

I grinned and nodded. “Yes!”

“Awesome!” The hybrid pony exclaimed.

“Very!” I agreed as Chrysalis shook her head slowly.

“Come on you two. Fluttershy might get too attached to Lyra’s adopted nymph- er , child,” the changeling said as she continued down the hall.

I felt like I would explode with joy and anticipation. I could fly again as soon as I learned how, and after that, I could just do it whenever I wanted no vehicle needed! And in a few days… Ohhh in a few days.

A few days… A few days from now I might be flying along side my best friend again.

Good thing these ponies could make bionic organs, because if anything else awesome happened today I’d need a new heart.

19 Ambling Along the Way

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Lyra Heartstrings - 1st of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

Chrysalis led me through the town of Ponyville towards the house Bon had been staying at. I’d expected Rose to come with us, but she decided to hang around and help Twilight experiment on some of the android pony’s ‘plants’.

I couldn’t blame her. The crystalline mineral structures were backed with little solar cells! They had whole forests of roboshrubs and cybertrees to generate power! Hehe… Ah Lyra, you’re fascinated with the geekiest things.

And the strangest things. Like how completely insane this town was.

I’d seen this town before. Or rather, I’d seen a version of this town before. The medieval looking architecture with its cobbled streets, hay roofs, and winding spirally lanes. The gimmicky half-art half-monstrosities they called buildings which belonged in an old world theme park. The view of this place from a distance in the Censorship Universe of Evil didn’t even begin to hint at how weird of a town this place was.

The mere fact that this place was a town and not a theme park blew my mind.

How do you live in a place like this? This version had to be even more bizarre than the town’s counterparts due to everything being shaped and painted metal, or sculpted polymer. Everything was a synthetic material. EVERYTHING.

It made no goddamn sense! If you’re going to build a city of glass, steel, and plastic, why stick to ancient styles that existed because the best building materials were rock, wood, mud, and freaking grass!?

Where were the domes? The efficiently laid out housing units? The parklands? The organized shopping districts? Any building taller than three stories!?

Aside from the terrifying monstrosity which was the big crystal tree holding up a castle, because uh…yeah…why…

I was stepping on cobblestone, carefully fashioned from cement and colored a pale creamy yellow so it looked like Gypsum, as I wound my way through a small crowd of androids who were going about their daily business in a medieval looking market fashioned from steel, paint, and polymer.

“This is so weird…” I muttered, unable to contain the emotion any longer.

Chrysalis turned to look over her shoulder. “Sorry, is the crowd bothering you? I know some organics are nervous around synthetics… You don’t need to be. We're all people here.”

I shook my head. “That’s not it… It’s the buildings, the road, the market stalls. Why? Why are they all fashioned after medieval designs? Why is this not a strip mall, or a shopping center? Why are androids living in plaster and stick homes made from synthetic materials?”

Chrysalis flashed me a grin. “Heh, it’s Ponyville. Well, a recreation of it. Pinkie Pie lived here when Sky met her, so this is the first town he had rebuilt. This is actualy it’s third, um, version. The original town was built in the pre-Equestrian era, back when my people still had an Empire. It was burned down after a young Luna pissed off a large bandit gang by killing one of their raiding parties.”

Wait, Luna? Bandits? OH SHIT! Did I do that? Please tell me I didn’t do that and this was a coincidence in names!

Quick brain, distract yourself! “Uh, so what was the second version?” I asked quickly

“Three centuries ago,” Chrysalis continued, “Princess Celestia wanted to rebuild her fillyhood home as a sort of living museum. The head of the historic society, who happened to be me in disguise-”

I gave her an odd look, unsure as to what she meant by her statement.

“What? I was plotting a raid at the time,” she admitted. “Never went through with that one, too much military presence at the time. I picked a post where I could have people from all over the nation visiting me without it seeming odd.

“Besides, I’ve always been good at history. I’ve lived most of it. Heh.”

“Most of it?” I asked curiously.

“Yes,” she answered with a slightly embarrassed blush. “The names of eras probably mean nothing to you. Humm… I’m a queen changeling, we don’t actually age. Most changelings do age and die, well, did, we’re not organic anymore… But when we were, we Queens were similar to lobsters in that we have no limit to how long we can live for.

“Er- Long story short, my birthdate is actually in the era ponies would refer to as ‘before recorded history’. Sure, by only six years… But I predate ponies having written language. Makes a mare feel old. Upside, I get to call Celestia ‘filly’. So I have that going for me.”

That sounded like bullshit. Especially because while lobsters didn’t die from age, they did die from exhaustion when they got too big to molt again. Giving them an effective death from age.

How the hell did I even know that random fact!?

“Okay, and if you were to give me a number it would be, what?” I asked.

“Er, let me think. You stop keeping track after about eighty… It’s the thirteenth year of the era of harmony, so that means… I’m about… Five thousand two hundred or so years old."

“How did you avoid getting killed, or trapped, or falling ill for that whole time?” I asked suspiciously.

Chrysalis laughed. “Short lived species?” She asked coyly.

“Yeah, till recently. We fixed a few flaws we had,” I said proudly.

“I don’t blame you for doubting me,” the changeling smirked. “Celestia and her sister only believe me because they know I am older than them due to the Crusades… We had some good skirmishes back when they first ascended to alicornhood… I miss those.”

I frowned. “Alicorn… Ponies keep mentioning them. What are they?”

“A page stolen from my species's book,” Chrysalis said flatly. “Unicorns were no match in arcane might for a Changeling Queen, so long ago a great pony mage dissected a fallen queen, worked out how the metamorphosis from adult to Queen worked, and created a transformation spell which upgrades a pony in the same way.

“It’s simplest to think of an Alicorn as an ageless flying unicorn with the might of at least three hundred regular unicorns… In terms of magical power at least. Their physical attributes remain somewhat the same.”

“Wait… So alicorns are pony super soldiers?” I asked, intrigued by the idea of ponies also going into ‘gene modding’ to improve their warriors.

It would be neat if that’s something all species did. A uniting factor for all peoples.

On the other hand, it meant that uh…if this did happen to be the same universe I had been in a week ago. That was probably the same Luna so um…oops.

“They were supposed to be, but the magic only works on a certain kind of pony. Needs to be pure of heart, strong of will, blah blah blah,” Chrysalis muttered. “There have only ever been seven of them because of the restrictions, though thousands tried their luck before the only written copy of the spell vanished. Just before the plague, there were only five. Now there are three.”

“So then, wait, if Celestia and Luna are alicorns and ageless… Could they have been alive in your medieval period?” I asked.

Chrysalis nodded. “Of course, but well, that was their medieval period. It was our industrial revolution.”

“So then, how old is Twilight?” I asked curiously.

I mean, she didn’t seem to-

“Thirty six, barely an adult for a pony. She uh… She’s sort of a magical savant. Figured out the transformation on her own a few years before the plague hit. I- I just realized we have gone off on one hay of a bunny trail!” Chrysalis exclaimed with a laugh. “Care to go back to discussing Ponyville?”

“Oh! Heh, sure,” I said, nodding.

“Let’s see,” she said, thinking back. “I’ve covered the first town’s destruction… Right! Celestia wished her childhood home to be remade, and because I wanted to divert spending away from her military, I suggested she rebuild the entire town so tourists could see how a pre-industrial village looked.

“She ran with the idea, and that version of the village stood for just a bit longer than a pony’s full lifetime. Then, the plague came. Nothing survived that. You’d think the buildings would have remained standing, but well, no. Some more modern structures still stand, but nothing older than the last five decades. Nopony I know of is sure of what happened, and the Doc was underground for all of it.

“And now, we have the third version. A repaired version of the town lost a few years ago, made from materials we know survived the first plague, just in case there ever another one.”

That made sense, I supposed. Were they really afraid about another of those happening though? Cuz if so…

“I know what you are thinking, and no. Nopony thinks another will happen, ever. Personally, I think if one does happen again it will be a very very long time into the future, as my personal theory is related to a- A theoretical arcane physics idea for which you have no basis to understand… Uh, the odds are as low as being hit by the beam created from an exploding star. Do your people know about-”

I nodded. “Yeah, we know about GRBs. Alright, fear gone then. That’s a pretty remote chance.”

My guide nodded. “Quite so.”

“Right then,” I resumed. “That covers the medieval look and feel, but what about the completely insane looking buildings? Like the tree castle, or the massive gingerbread house?”

Chrysalis laughed. “Bureaucracy. One of the few ways to build a unique looking building in this mess of zoning laws was to get around the historical preservation laws by using old building designs… And so a lot of ponies would find descriptions or pictures of fictional buildings from a valid era related to the business they wished to run, and have them built.”

“T-that worked?” I asked, completely floored.

“Yes, because somepony defined ‘designed in the classical era’ very poorly in the related laws,” Chrysalis snickered. “There’s the end of the the market, come along. It’s not far.”

The android led me down a small side street, the spacing of the buildings quickly widening out until we were walking down a road consisting more of ‘nature’ than town. From time to time, in the synthetic forest, I could spot the occasional real plant, struggling to grow in the oddly gray soil.

A quick question revealed the organic plants were an experiment to see if the soil treatments would allow for regular plantlife to be grown again, mostly for decorative purposes, and also for something which completely shocked me.

“Wait, you can eat!?” I asked, jaw dropping.

“Yes. We can do everything our organic selves could to in the past… Sure, eating isn’t necessary, but the pleasure of a good donut or cup of cranberry juice and red wine is rather nice,” Chrysalis said in a dreamy tone.

“Y-you guys really were made to replicate organic life then,” I said still processing everything. “So um, if you did eat something do you have to poop or like, what?”

“No. Everything eaten is broken down into usable substances, coolants and lubricants usually,” she answered.

“Heh, lube,” I snickered, the juvenile joke escaping my lips due to the absurdity of the situation.

“Yes. The kind you're thinking of, and also the kind for our servos,” Chrysalis informed coyly.

I…oh. Okay.

“So um… Everything, everything then,” I said, feeling my face warm from the sharp blush.

“Everything but reproduce. That upgrade is still being worked out,” she said casually. “However, all of the parts work properly for just having fun and well, we’re not exactly in bodies that age now, are we? Offspring are not necessary, even if I would like a few… Or a lot. Changelings, we like big families. Heh.”

I nodded. “I definitely saw you guys in groups of like, fifteen in the last universe I was in. I stayed in a city with a ton of changelings for a while. Might have been a hive… But there were lots of ponies too.”

“Oh?” Chrysalis asked. “So we are not your first stop then?”

I shook my head.

“Too bad I didn’t get to go with you to that universe then. We changelings are not quite like ponies, or well, any other species when it comes to family,” Chrysalis began sadly. “To us, the entire hive is your family, you have thousands of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers… The little ‘groups’ you saw are less like a pony family and more like...

“The closest translation of the idea would be ‘I have a best mom and a best dad’. You know, like a best friend. Any changeling in a hive will care for every nymph in it, but the nymphs tend to choose individuals they like the best and stay with them most of the time.

“Not to say we never form family units like other species. Just well, that’s rare for us.”

I nodded, that little spiel had been unexpected, but pretty cool facts to know.

“So you-” I paused midway through speaking eyes widening. “Oh god, I’m so sorry!”

Her literal insect hive sized family had all died!

“It’s fine, I’ve grieved and moved on,” Chrysalis said, her voice carrying a little sadness but also the truth. “Besides, I’m not entirely alone. I have Twilight and her friends who I’ve, well, made my sisters. Sure we may have been enemies once, but, the end of the world changes a mare.”

I nodded in understanding. “They are people you know. So there’s a connection.”

“Exactly,” Chrysalis said, looking over her shoulder with a happy smile. “It’s rare to find someone who understands that.”

I laughed. “Eh, I had a similar respect for an enemy fighter squadron back home. Zuànshí quántóu, the Diamond Fist. They shot me down twice, but Bonbon and I always managed to crash land safely enough for her to be fixed up and launched again. Those guys were skilled fighters. If our nations were not at war, I think we would have liked to race them or stage a few dogfights.”

Chrysalis's ears perked. “Then, do you understand the joy to be found in fighting against your equal, or a superior foe?”

I noded. “Yeah. I do. It sucks that it’s a thrill. But at the same time, some of my best memories are about things I did in battle.”

“I think you will be a delightful houseguest, Ms. Heartstrings,” Chrysalis sighed happily. “It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to talk to a fellow warrior and trade stories. Now yes, mine are generally about me seeking to take a territory for myself, but still.”

“Meh, whatever. Everyone here seems to trust you. We all have our pasts,” I said comfortingly.

After all, it’s bullshit to let what someone used to be completely cloud their futures. Besides, Chrysalis lost her whole family, and presumably command of a military… And people… And world. She’d more than paid for anything she did long ago.

“That we do,” she agreed, stopping to point to a small house built into a hill so the fake-grass formed its roof. “And here we are. Fluttershy’s.”

“It looks like a grassy hill came to life and ate someone's cottage,” I mused aloud.

Chrysalis snickered, “Your friend Rose did that a few days ago! Heh. she’s lucky we can reverse wild magic’s effects.”

“Yeah, that was ment-” I stopped, frowning. “Wait, no one told me if Bon was affected too!”

“She wasn’t, lamias are notoriously resistant to magic, and her scales have already changed,” my guide informed as we walked to the door.

Shit… I hadn’t seen her in so long. What could have changed? What could have happened!?

Fucking physics! What sort of childhood was hopping from place to place like this? How was she going to turn out?

The changeling android trotted up to the door and rapped a hoof against it lightly. “Fluttershy?” She called. “It’s Chrysalis. I brought Bon’s mother to-”

The strangely pink hued door practically exploded open! I could only make out a bright olive green flash before I was tackled off my feet, chest painfully slammed by what felt like a cargo drone as something happily yelled, “Yay! Mom!”

Dazed by the sudden physical assault I only barely noticed a much longer and wider Bon coil around me in a tight hug. Fortunately it was not a death hug. Unfortunately it was close to a death hug.

“Urk!” I managed to say.

Judging by how much of me she was draped around, Bon was easily twice as long and thick as I remembered her being. Her face also seemed flatter, less snake, more anthro, but decidedly more snake. A face you looked at and just sort of could go ‘oh, a people’, and then die of the adorables due to the silly looking perma-grin.

“I missed you so much! Oh! Come over here! Auntie Flutters tells stories and they are awesome and she gives good hugs!” Bon babbled.

“K-ahk!” I managed, Bon’s coils not even loosening as she unwound herself from my legs to pull me inside.

The inside of the house was surprisingly not weird. Well, it was weird, just not the ‘synthetic replica of natural materials’ wierd. Whoever lived here clearly had spent a crapload of time making all the synthetic material look natural. Like, to an obsessive level.

“Oh my…” A soft, buttery sounding voice quietly exclaimed. “Bon, I think you're hugging her just an itty bit too tight.”

“I am?” Bon asked, looking off to the left to where I think the door was.

“Yes. I know you missed your mom but you need to loosen up a bit.”

“Ackk!” I agreed.

“Oh! O-oops,” Bon admitted, coils loosening.

Taking a deep breath of air, I gently pushed Bon’s coils off my shoulders. “Bon… Love you… But… You’re stronger… Than… You think,” I managed to gasp.

“Sorry mom,” Bon said in a slightly hurt tone, lowering her head to nuzzle at my side. “I got big yesterday.”

This… This was going to take some getting used to. Like, a lot of getting used to.

“Um, Ms. Mom,” the soft spoken pony-droid asked.

Finally able to turn my head to look I saw she was a short, butter yellow pegasus with a long voluminous pink mane and tail, and the kindest blue-green eyes of anyone I had ever seen in my entire life. I was starting to understand how pony body types worked, thanks to seeing a whole bunch by this point. As such, I was able to tell that she was cutely chubby and short for a pony.

She had that body type which wasn’t quite fat, more like plush and curvy. The sort of perfect-soft for cuddling with. Judging by her body language, she was also an introvert. If she were a human I’d expect to find her in a coffee house’s quiet corner reading an actual print book.

But unlike that particular kind of girl, this pegasus mare practically radiated compassion, much like how I swore that Pinkie radiated friendship. She was literally my type of girl, except quadrupedal. And an android.

Wait a minute.

“How is an android able to be chubby?” I asked aloud, blushing instantly in embarrassment. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

If my arms had been free to fidget with nervously instead of pinned to my sides by a snek, I’d have been waving them around in front of me.

Fluttershy, as I assumed her name was, blushed lightly. “It’s okay, I understand. I’ve always been a little bit soft, so Doctor Trigger made this body with extra silicone padding. This is just how I was.“

Oh. Derp… No shit. They were built to look like their old selves… God dammit brain! Work better.

<Setting clock to one hundred Percent,> Cheer.ly informed.

Wait, what? <Cheer.ly, was I underclocked? How do you even underclock an organic brain?> I demanded.

Unfortunately, the VI remained silent. I swear if she had somehow gained the capacity to make jokes...

“Are you okay? Bon broke a chair last night, so I know she can hug things roughly,” Fluttershy asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks for the concern.”

“It’s okay…” Fluttershy said taking a deep breath, as if preparing herself and then trotting over, speaking to me in a serious and upset but still polite tone of voice. “Now, I really don’t want to be rude, but you need to take care of your little girl better! Make sure her shield spells are working before moving her through portals, also she really really needs to get more meals than she’s been having!”

Oh my god she’s even more adorable when she’s angry! Hehehehe! How did foreign nations' diplomats ever take ponies seriously?

“It’s okay Auntie Flutters,” Bon said gently booping her on the barrel with her nose. “Mom’s used to me not needing a lot of food.”

“I know, but she needs to know you have to eat more now!” Fluttershy said, instantly swapping back to her normal voice.

I gave the mare a smile. “Er, well, Bon here started out as a normal Anaconda. I assure you I took great care of her, I love animals. I uh, I just have no knowledge of how magic works… So her whole transformation, well, it’s a surprise. I’d be happy to learn what she needs now.”

Fluttershy nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Good. Because if she’d been eating properly she’d have shed and have her arms by now. Er, Miss, what’s your name?”

“Lyra,” I replied. “I’m told I share a name with somone here.”

“Yes, and also mane color,” Fluttershy said with a cute blush. “Miss Lyra, please pour yourself some tea and make yourself at home. I’d like to talk with Chrysalis for a little while.”

“Oh, sure,” I said politely, then frowned. “Wait, what exactly is the tea?”

Fluttershy blushed again, coughing into her hoof. “Well, it’s not leaf tea. I can’t get anything to grow here anymore,” Fluttershy said, her voice hiding a pang of depression I only caught thanks to hearing it in every soldier deployed for over a year back home. “I- I like tea. So I had Dash tinker with me a bit… I uh, I make tea. Well, a tea-like drink.”

She kicked one hoof nervously against the floor.

I stared at her for a full three seconds before Bon decided to announce. “It’s cool! She pours it from her hoof!”

“Oh! Well, that’s okay then,” I said turning around to pour myself some tea.

It had been a while since I got to drink tea. Would it be as good as Miyuki’s tea?

Before I could take a sip, I noticed that the coffee table Bon had pulled me over to had two cups of tea from the small tea set resting on the table. Bon and Fluttershy had been having tea.

I turned to look at Bon’s face. “Hon, how did you lift the cup?”

“Like this!” Bon said proudly, threading the tip of her tail through the teacup’s finger loop, wrapping around it, and taking a slip.

I couldn’t help smiling at the adorableness, and then frowning in total confusion.

Why did a teacup designed for ponies have a finger loop?

I pondered the question as I sipped at the ‘tea’. It was a nice drink. Not as good as Miyuki’s tea though. This was a bit thick, more like a soda or a mead. But it had a very very nice flavor. I couldn’t place it exactly. It wasn’t made from whatever Miyuki made her tea from, and it wasn’t made from the three tea making plants we had back home.

I did like it though. Despite the nice leafy flavor, it reminded me of coffee. I could get used to it.

While I enjoyed the cup of tea, Fluttershy and Chrysalis stepped outside. The low buzz of their conversation didn’t really become intelligible. Her house was well insulated it seemed.

“So, Bon… How’s Fluttershy been treating you? Are you okay?” I asked.

Bon nodded eagerly, shifting her coils around me to form herself into a chair.

“Yepyep! She made sure I had a bed, and a blankie, and food, and tells stories, and snuggles and she’s soooo soft! She’s softer than you are mom,” Bon exclaimed happily.

I smiled. “Yeah, she does look cuddly.”

“I think she’s lonely,” Bon said after a short moment.

“Uh, why?” I asked, frowning.

How smart should she be right now? She had the energy and attitude of a five year old, but she’d picked up on that subtle depression I’d spotted?

“She tries to make her plants grow every day. But they don’t. And she misses her pets. She said a really bad thing happened here so now there’s no animals,” Bon mentioned simply.

Oh. So, not very perceptive. Just able to remember things.

“I see. What’s she been feeding you?” I asked curiously.

“Um, stuff? It’s icky, but Auntie Flutters said I need to eat all of it so I can grow. It works!” Bon exclaimed.

Hopefully whatever nutrient block slash paste was available, it wouldn’t make her sick in the long run. I somehow doubted there was a vet here.

“Yeah, it seems to have… I remember when you fit in my hand,” I said, mostly to myself as I thought back about home.

Why did I even think about it as home? Bon was here with me… I might be able to get Bonbon I here with me too, and I could never take Bon back there. Hell, I couldn’t go back there with my wings.

Maybe it was time to rethink this whole adventure thing. I definitely should return the manipulator, if only because that was the right thing to do. But…then what? Where could I go on Earth with my sapient, eight meter long, snake girl? Biomods weren't THAT good yet.

“I remember too,” Bon said suddenly, jarring me from my thoughts.

“Wait, you do?!” I asked in surprise.

Bon nod noded, dipping her head by making her back move. “Uh-huh,” she said. “But not good. Not like I remember when you were sad cuz the thing exploded.”

I shook my left arm free of Bon’s coils to give her a tight hug. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I apologised. “I’ll keep you safer from now on.”

“It’s okay! Auntie Flutters said once I grow all the way up I’ll be big and strong, and then I can keep mom safe instead of you keeping me safe!” Bon said proudly. “If someone tries to hurt mommy, I’ll just eat them up! Unless they have metal clothes. That would be pokey.”

Ohhhhkkkaaayyy… Note to self: Lamias are apparently highly aggressive.

“Bon, don’t do that,” I said firmly.

“Okay,” she agreed happily.

“W-wait. That’s it? That’s all it takes?” I asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

Bon nod noded. “You always have good reasons for saying no. Like when I ate the cold stuff. You said no, but I did, and it hurt bad.”

“How do you remember that?” I asked, giving Bon a confused frown.

“Um, wild magic is…odd,” Fluttershy said, having apparently just come back inside. “It's changing her, and she should have some memories from before her exposure. Animals do remember and learn things too. Though I doubt those memories will ever be clear. May I ask you something?”

The mare’s face held an odd urgency to it, whatever it was, she needed to ask it.

“Of course, I’m an open book., I answered.

“W-would you please stay here, instead of with Chrysalis? Or let Bon stay here while you visit?” Fluttershy begged. “It-it’s been forever since I’ve had something to care for and this last week has been the happiest one in years and years.”

I turned to look at Chrysalis. The changeling mare nodded at me, her voice suddenly echoing in my head.

<Twilight said you can use telepathy, can you hear me?> She asked.

<Yeah. She’s not taking the dead planet thing well, is she?> I asked.

<No… We’ve all been concerned for her, and I didn’t even think about her having something to care for before we came to pick up Bon. It would be best if you stay here. But, as her home is small… Rose will have to stay elsewhere. You’re not a couple are you?> Chrysalis asked.

<No. Why does everyone think that?> I wondered.

Turning to Fluttershy I gave her a nod and a smile. “I’d be happy to stay here. I really don’t want to leave Bon alone, well, without me. She might be growing up fast but she still needs at least one mom.”

Fluttershy’s face brightened, a smile spreading across her cheeks and she trotted over to me and pulled me into a tight hug.

“Thank you!” She said happily, letting go after a few seconds.

“That was literally the softest hug I have ever had in my life!” I said in honest surprise. “There is no way you are padded with silicone.”

Fluttershy blushed a shade darker and tipped her head hiding behind her mane. “I-I used to be softer…”

I shook my head. “No way that’s physically possible. You are softer than my mattress! And that thing was made of multiple layers of different metamaterials specifically designed to be soft!”

It was actually true too. Not one word of that had been exaggerated. I’d have to ask her creator to make me a pillow if I met him.

“Actually, she’s right,” Chrysalis informed. “Back in the day I once kidnapped her. Personally. Like, swooped down and grabbed. She was easily twice as soft as she is now.”

Fluttershy squeaked something incomprehensible, adorably hiding behind her mane.

I shook my head slowly. “Sooo, I’m guessing pony names are literal?”

“Um, well… Our parents name us after a few weeks or months. So they have time to spot personality traits,” Fluttershy informed, slowly moving back to a normal posture.

“Well at any rate, you’re adorable. Don’t change,” I said flirtatiously, immediately blushing as I realized I’d just sort of, done it.

Oh god why!? Not that I was upset with myself, but with how she acted-

“Can we finish the story? Please!?” Bon asked Fluttershy eagerly, slithering over to look her in the eyes with a puppydog stare.

Good Bon! I’ll find some spaghettios for you. Somehow.

“Y-yes! Of course,” Fluttershy informed quickly, turning to give Chrysalis a gentle hug. “I’ll see you this evening. Have a good day.”

“I will,” the changeling replied, returning the hug and heading out the door. “See you around Lyra. I’ll find some other way to repay you, I promise.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I called.

“Easy enough. Neither changelings nor synthetics sweat,” she retorted playfully before closing the door.

As the door closed Fluttershy gave Bon a hug around her neck, promising. “We’ll finish the story in just a minute, okay? Miss Lyra, are you hungry?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but don’t worry. I got a box of sandwiches.”

“Oh! W-what kind of sandwiches?” She asked eagerly.

“It’s an enchanted box, it has whatever kind you like in it. Want one?” I offered.

“Yes, please!” Fluttershy pleaded, trotting over as I pulled the box out and let her open it.

Reaching inside with a hoof, the android plucked out a grilled cheese... and hay? Eh, horse gonna horse.

“Oh my, it’s been forever! Grilled mustangian cheese and hayfries with basil!” She cooed happily.

I expected her to wolf it down, but much to my amazement Fluttershy trotted around the table, set the sandwich on a little plate from the tea set, cut it into quarters, then sat down, or rather, laid on her belly on her couch.

I reached into the box and removed another of those amazing ‘bit of everything’ sandwiches, munching on it happily as Bon laid her head on the coffee table, looking up eagerly. Apparently she really really liked stories.

“Now where were we?” Fluttershy asked politely, using the question to gain a moment to enjoy a bite of sandwich.

Holy cow! They really did eat. Awesome!

“You just were getting ready to go to the mountain with everypony!” Bon said eagerly, coils wiggling.

Fluttershy nodded, took a small breath, and began. “The dragon’s smoke covered the sky from end to end, like a massive black quilt.”

Well, that was certainly one way to start a story! This had to be good.

Flintlock Rose - 1st of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

“There we go! It’s holding stable levels now. You really are good at this,” Twilight praised.

I returned her smile. “Meh, this is nothing. I normally build weapons, this has like, a third of the energy I normally deal with.”

She shook her head slowly, her metallic body shimmering in the light.

“Well your weapons knowledge is good for improving solar power transfer,” Twilight replied. “I would never have thought to use a crude spellamp to alternate the power flow. It’s so simple, but effective! You should become a cyber-botanist.”

“Heh, maybe one day. Kinda holding out for the whole ‘legendary warrior’ job to be honest,” I quipped.

Yeah sure, a bit boastful, but well, I was going to be that good. One day. One day and forever!

“Well, in that case, if the ooze attacks while you’re here I’ll be sure to give you a call,” Twilight said casually.

“Wait, what?” I asked, ears perking up.

“Oh, the organic ooze, you know, outside of the reclaimed zones?” Twilight asked. “Lots of it hasn’t been cleaned up yet and sometimes it forms monsters. We had to use the Elements of Harmony to bring all of us back, and that drained them for good. We don't exactly have an easy win solution anymore. But it’s not a big deal to have to fight them off by hoof. Even before gaining this body it wouldn’t have been too hard.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “That sounds awesome!” I exclaimed.

Twilight shrugged turning back to the experimental plant. “Well, it can be fun, or a pain in the plot, and sometimes dangerio-”

“Hey, Twi, is Rose still- Ah, hey Rose,” an odd two-toned voice sa- Oh yeah! Chrysalis.

I turned and gave the tall changeling a wave. “Hey. How do you do that voice?”

“I shape changed to have a second voice box because I thought it would sound cool,” she answered with a grin. “So, I have some news for you.”

Awww… It did sound cool. And I couldn’t do my voice yet. Darn.

“Oh?” I asked

Chrysalis nodded. “Yeah, your friend and her kid decided to stay at Fluttershy’s instead of my place. The snake’s taken to Flutters, and they are having a good time. Lyra didn’t want to stop that. Thing is though, Flutters has a small place, there’s not enough room for you there. So you’ll be sleeping at my place.”

I felt my ears droop sadly. I’d been hoping to get another chance to say I liked her soon. I couldn’t do it while she was depressed, and there hadn’t been a chance before that.

“Oh, um, alright,” I said sadly.

Chrysalis frowned. “Hey don’t be down like that. You and I can have some fun. We’ll go bowling!”

“Bowling!?” I said, half bored, half insulted by the proposition.

Twilight’s ears fell flat, her tail lashing in irritation. “You had better do it far from town! It’s nice and quiet today.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I bothered you while you were reading one time.”

I turned to look back at Twilight, eyes begging for an explanation. “How can bowling be that loud?”

“She ‘bowls’ with 3d targets and hoof grenades,” Twilight muttered angrily.

I felt my eyes widen, I turned back to face Chrysalis, and didn’t even need to ask for confirmation.

“I bowl with monster targets and concussion grenades,” she repeated with a grin. “Wanna play a few rounds?”

“Oh buck the hay yes!” I exclaimed jumping up to leave on the spot.

20 Welcome to Lecture Park

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Lyra Heartstrings - 1st of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Evening

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

At first, I thought that Bon was fascinated with Flutter’s stories because, well, she behaved like she was about ten or so. All little kids like to be told a fun story. Turns out it was definitely that, and Fluttershy was the single greatest storyteller I have ever experienced.

I’ve had people tell stories in person before, the art of the bard made a resurgence a few years before my mom was born. They sit in the center of a semi circle, and present their tale with AR projections only aiding in creating a warm and cozy atmosphere, no special effects, no mood manipulation, just their words.

Fluttershy would have been the world champion had she been able to compete with the rest of them.

Every word was used just right. Every stressed syllable conveying exactly the right emotion. The pace at which she spoke varied in the exact right way to keep you on the edge of your seat. She was a master at this. She could have been reading the ingredients of a nutrient block and it would have been more interesting than most AR novels.

I wound up spending the entire day listening to her tell what I was fairly sure was a tall tale version of her own life. It sounded like she had been a soldier, or maybe a knight, but the way she told the story made it like something Patrick F. McManus would have written. A tale you knew was true, but with all the details exaggerated to make it into something absurd, where you could laugh after being afraid simply at the silliness of what it turned out the scary thing had been.

I’d praised her as a storyteller, and asked her if she wrote or competed as a bard. Sadly she shied up and mumbled something about anxiety issues, and how she’d once met a counterpart to herself who was ‘built like a supermodel instead of a pillow’, and sang instead of told stories, but also never did it publicly. Apparently performing for a crowd was ‘something Fluttershy's just can’t do’.

Which was a shame. She’d be incredible.

Such a shame that I’d spent the entire walk to the park to meet up with Twilight, Chrysalis, and the rest of Fluttershy’s friends thinking of anything I might be able to do to help the poor girl overcome stage fright.

I’d never had a problem with being the center of attention. I’d never really sought to be it, but I’d never minded when I was. And that meant any advice I could give her would be generic and available from any psychology text. So I’d kept my mouth shut. Nothing is more annoying than someone telling you easily referenced information you probably already know. Especially if it didn’t work for you.

Fluttershy and I were alone as we walked. Bon had gotten sleepy, so Shy and I had tucked her into a round bed and quilt Shy had whipped up for her. The silly girl had spent the whole time apologising to me for having to use nylon to weave the fabric.

Like, what else would you use? Polyester? It’s a cheap quilt for a temporary guest. You’re not going to bust out the good synthetic fibers.

I’d asked if it would be safe to leave her there alone, and well, yes. Yes it was. Fluttershy’s house was more than capable of keeping dangerous things out, and Shy had shown Bon how to use a small radio to call for her if she needed help or got scared.

Just, damn. Shy was a better mom than my mom! I’d say she was a better mom than me, but frankly I hadn’t gotten a chance to mom yet, and I’d kept my unwittingly created daughter alive through a kaiju attack, a universe that seemed to want to kill me, a bandit raid, a prison break, and a psychotic AI’s…break down.

Most people would say It was my fault for bringing her into those situations, but um… No. I’d arranged for a pet sitter! She wasn't supposed to have come with me. I didn’t have control over where I went. So I think keeping her alive was pretty damn good, given the situation and my like, no resources at all.

I mean, I guess I was being a bit of a bad mom now for leaving Bon behind to sleep. But the fact that she was sleeping inside a solid foot thick, durasteel bubble with unbreakable windows, and magical wards made me feel it was okay to leave her for a little while. Especially since I was sticking right next to the cutie who was brain-linked to a radio Bon could call her with.

The two of us had walked quietly back towards town. I had lots of things I wanted to talk about, or ask. Her world was pretty fascinating. But at the same time, I knew how lots of quiet girls liked their little moments of quiet, and with how introverted she seemed to be Shy was probably pooped from talking all day. I figured I’d let her start.

“Oh!” Fluttershy said suddenly as we neared the edge of town. “Um, so… There’s a few things you should know.”

“Like what?” I asked, happy she was talking again.

“Well, my friend Pinkie Pie is very talkative,” Fluttershy began. “She can talk to fast for you to really understand. If you get lost, don’t pretend to listen, let her know right away. She gets upset when people ask her to repeat herself.

“Applejack is…a little gruff, and she can be very rude without meaning to be. But she’s nice, so if she says something offensive to you, just let it go… Or um, if you’re good at them, send one back at her. But don’t belittle her former profession as a farmer, or-”

“Why for the love of physics would I ever insult a farmer?” I asked incredulously.

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “W-well a lot of ponies see it as a primitive profession suited for stupid ponies… I don’t, but um, it’s an elitist thing.”

I cracked a grin and squatted down to get on Fluttershy’s face level. “Shy, my homeworld is a wasteland… Not as bad as this one, mind you. But the rare chunks of land that can still be farmed, yeah the people who work them are some of the most wealthy and badass people on our planet. I’d never insult one, and especially not to their face. I have insurance, but getting a new eye is still annoying.”

Her ears perked back up. “Oh! Well, good! Er, not the wasteland part, I mean. I meant the-”

I gave her a smile and stood back up. “I know what you mean. No worries. Before you tell me anything else, is anyone upset about being synthetic now? Can I talk about that? Because I have a lot of questions.”

She shook her head as we resumed walking. “No, everypony’s happy with our new bodies. Even me. I can’t get sick, I don’t have to sleep if I don’t want to so I never have to be unaware of my surroundings. I’m a lot harder to hurt and can even turn off pain if I want to. And everything feels, looks, smells, and tastes just like I remember from before.

“The only scary thing is being able to um… Look inside my own body. But I got used to that over a few years. Honestly, being like this is an improvement… Except I can’t lose weight.”

“Why would you need to lose weight?” I asked curiously. “Are you so life-like… Er, sorry that’s probably a rude way to put it. Um, are you so anatomically correct, that being chubby means whatever coolant pump you use clogs up with fatty tissues or something?”

“Oh no! Nothing like that,” she admitted, sounding embarrassed. “I um, I’ve just always been overweight and it’s made flying hard for me, and um… Well… I-I think you’re female, right? You have to know what it’s like to want to look nice.”

I groaned, narrowly avoiding facepalming. “Fluttershy, first off, you are very very pretty. That might not mean something coming from a non-pony, but trust me, you look great. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but, as a mechanical person, couldn’t you just get stronger wing servos? If not, and you really want to be skinny, I’ve got a knife and a small sewing kit in my medical supplies. We can take care of this right now if you wanted?”

Fluttershy blushed a bright pink, stopping to embarrassedly shuffle her forehooves. “I um… Thank you. But, that’s not… I meant I can’t burn it off… I had dash take the padding off and um- I. It didn’t feel right. So I had her put it back. It’s not just being skinny, I- it was a life goal to burn that off.”

“Oh, I understand,” I said seriously, before my silly side kicked in. “I’ll see if I can’t find you a blowtorch.”

Shy’s blush deepened as a sweet smile split her lips. “You’re very different from our Lyra. She’s not as fun. Is everypony different? The other me I met was just like me, but different in little ways… Have you met your world’s me?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not a counterpart to anyone here. I just share the name Lyra. My home is about, well, a long long time ago for you.”

Fluttershy gasped like a fangirl. “Is it in a galaxy far far away?”

Turning in surprise to look into her hopeful eyes I was forced to shake my head and feel her disappointment. “Sorry, but no… And how do you even know about those thirty or so movies?”

“Discord does movie nights sometimes. He’s a friend,” Fluttershy answered.

“Wait, Discord’s your friend!?” I asked right as Fluttershy exclaimed, “wait, thirty movies?!”

“Yeah, thirty. How many have you seen?” I asked.

“Seven,” she replied.

“Twilight said she talked to my VI, which means you guys can link to me. If you can get me five minutes to talk to Discord to claim a favor he owes me, I’ll give you the whole saga. I’ve got it all saved locally,” I offered.

“Deal! I’ll have him come over tomorrow,” Shy exclaimed happily, wings fluttering eagerly for a few moments before she frowned. “Um, wait, you can connect to machines?”

I nodded. “Yeah. My species genetically reengineered ourselves. Our brains are a lot more like a computer than the old versions. It lets us control our devices via thought, and save things to our brains. We also use it to communicate on, uh, did you have an internet? We made something similar with it.”

“We had a few radio networks, but only big universities and the Guard had computer networks. But we do have one now! If you can get on it, I could share memories of how our world used to look with you! I-I lost all my photos because they were printed on cellulose based film… But um, It would be fun to share!” Fluttershy exclaimed eagerly.

“That would be fun, and I probably can! Do you use microwave transmission, or Configurable Quantum Entanglement?” I asked as we entered town.

“I can do microwave,” she answered. “But what’s the other thing? I um, I’m not very into computers or science, but um… It doesn't sound like something you can do.”

Not surprising, since she said her people didn’t have a public internet yet. That meant some of their sciences were lacking… Or maybe just how they used it was different.

“You can, it’s just not at all intuitive,” I started. “I’m not a physicist, but the layman’s explanation is every one of us has a cluster of atoms in our comms organelle which are given a unique spin pattern. Devices we can link to get a microwave signal sent to them which tells the device our particular pattern, and then that device induces the same pattern in an equal number of atoms in it’s QEC port. Then I can send data to it instantly via QEC, and once I’m done, I can disentangle with it, and then someone else can use it.

“There’s a specific trick which lets you entangle atoms at a distance like that, but I don’t know the technical details. All I know is the atoms used in a QEC port are kept under conditions so precise that it was impossible to manufacture the device which does it until forty years before I was born, despite us knowing the physics for it for a hundred years before that.”

“That sounds like a magical effect,” Fluttershy mused. “You could have said you use magic.”

“Actually it's more like spooky action at a distance. Heh. Anywho, my species actually doesn't have magic… Well, apparently we have a little bit, but besides me, none of us know that magic is a thing. Hell, I don’t even know what it is, or how it works, only that it exists,” I mentioned, coughing in embarrassment.

“Y-you… But… How? It’s everywhere!” Fluttershy gasped in surprise.

“Well, I can see it if it does something visible, but humans just can’t sense it. Heck, I don’t even know what my own magic is, despite knowing I have some thanks to being able to make this baby,” I said, pulling my sword off my belt.

“That’s weird,” Fluttershy said sympathetically. “I can’t imagine not being able to feel the weather.”

“Heh,” I snickered. “Wanna know something cool?”

“Sure,” Fluttershy politely replied.

“Not one drop of magic, and our species spanned three planets, our own moon, and six other moons, as well as a few asteroid stations,” I said proudly.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Oh my! That must have taken a lot of smart people a very long time. How do you get between them? Oh! Is it spaceships?”

“Yes spaceships. I was a fighter pilot, flew one myself,” I boasted proudly

Fluttershy grinned happily, and moved to say something, but I accidently cut her off.

“And It did take a long time,” I said. “Like, over three hundred years. Which for us is a lot, not so much for you I know. We used to only live around ninety years. If we kept in great shape.”

“Just ninety!? My goodness that’s so short! I can’t imagine living only a third as lo- Right… I live as long as I can get maintenance now,” Fluttershy trailed off. “Oh, you said used too, did you fix that when your worked on yourselves?”

I nodded. “Mhm… But I don't know how long we live now. No one does. In theory, forever is possible, but well… Some old person disease like alzheimer's or something will probably kick in eventually and do me in. We can’t all be adorable immortal robot pony wizards, er- no offence meant by ‘robot’.”

Fluttershy giggled. “You know, if you really want to know about magic, you could ask Twilight. She’s an archmage, but um, she’s the teaching kind. So she can actually explain things instead of making things more confusing.”

“I am so going to do that!” I exclaimed. “You have no idea how much that’s been eating at me. Humans REALLY like to know things. So much that if we can’t figure it out, we make it up… And that’s where a LOT of our ancestors problems came from.”

That’s when I noticed we were in what had to be the park. Big open space between a few buildings and a street. Lots of ‘trees’, plenty of benches, artful rock arrangements, beds of little fake flowers, extra soft looking grass, and a lot of ponies walking about, chatting… A robo-park. For robo-pones.

Hehe! Best universe so far! Hands down. All this place needed was a pony with those fluffy pink leg warmers jogging down a tra- Oh, there he was. Awesome!

“Do what?” A voice I recognised as Twilight asked me.

Fluttershy and I turned around, apparently we had been so deep conversation that we accidently walked past her friends who had been sitting on a park bench near the entrance. Twilight had apparently gotten up to get us.

“Oh! Um, hello Twilight, sorry we missed you,” Fluttershy apologised. “I was just telling Lyra she should ask you about magic since she doesn't know anything about it.”

Twilight’s eyes literally lit up in excitement. Like, hidden LEDs actually added brightness to her eyes. It was cute, hilarious, and creepy all at once. Especially when combined with the delighted grin that spread across her cheeks.

The look need a new word… Culariepy. Yeah, that will do.

“But we should introduce her to everypony first!” Fluttershy added quickly.

Twilight’s ears drooped sadly. “Oh, yes. We should. Would you like me to do it or would you like to introduce us to your new friend, Fluttershy?”

Shy blushed. “Um, I think I can do it.”

Twilight nodded towards the group of four other ponies and lone changeling and we walked over to their rather nice spot.

I recognised Pinkie easily enough. She was sitting on a bench at the back of the group making balloon animals from some chewing gum. What was amazing to me is that she looked completely life-like! For a moment I wondered if one of the Pinkies had followed me through the portal, until I noticed something.

Of the six mares, each one was a different level of ‘natural’ looking. They formed a spectrum of sorts, with Twilight being the most synthetic, fluttershy in the middle, and Pinkie at the end looking completely indistinguishable from an organic pony.

Purple, orange, white, yellow, blue, pink. The spectrum of synthetic progress. Which begged the question, why didn’t they upgrade their looks? There had to be some hurdle there...

“Okay, so you’ve met Twilight and I,” Fluttershy began. “The orange one is Applejack, she used to be a farmer and is currently working on the forest restoration project. Aj, this is Lyra, she’s a fighter pilot.”

I saw the blue furred, rainbow maned pony’s ears perk up at the mention of my former career. She was a flier, I could feel it. For one small moment our eyes met, and I could tell we both knew, at some point, we would have to race.

I nodded.

She nodded.

It was on, at the next convenient opportunity.

The earth pony Fluttershy had been introducing to me, Applejack, was a rather plain looking by pony standards. Orange fur, blond mane and tail. Take off her weird looking hat and she’d probably vanish into the sea of pastel colors that made up her species. Even the apple cluster brand looked…standard

“Howdy,” she greeted.

“Nice to meet you,” I returned.

Fluttershy nodded and resumed speaking. “The white-”

“Alabaster, darling,” the unicorn mare corrected in an accent only appropriate for a high society jerkwad.

Oh. Joy. The condescending and annoying person of a thousand faces who inexplicably has friends. We meet again at last.

“This is Rarity,” Fluttershy finished.

Rarity tipped her head, expertly curled purple mane shimmering as she moved. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Lyra. I’m the pony Twilight entrusted your gorgeous ensemble too. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I’ve managed to repair it, the fabric enchantment is top notch, it just needed a little help and expertise to repair a burn that large.

“I’ve brought it with me, naturally, but Twilight has informed me your people dress at all times. If you wouldn’t mind stopping in at my boutique sometime, I’d be glad to make you something more appropriate for daily wear. The Carousel isn’t what she used to be… But I still have a good variety of materials, and it’s been quite some time since I had the challenge of working with non-equine anatomy.”

God dammit… Why do I always wind up having to do something with people with her personality?

I nodded. “Yeah, all right. We’ll work something out. Thanks for the repairs.”

“Well, we can’t have you walking around in rags all the time, that’s just shameful,” Rarity said in dismissive agreement.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. Yeah. It was her. No mistake.

Fluttershy moved on, this time pointing to the blue pegasus pony. She was sleek as fuck. Like, literally streamlined. This mare was one hundred and twenty percent built for speed with a body that, if organic, would have absolutely no body fat. If I was understanding body shapes for ponies right, this was an olympic athlete. And given her rainbow dyed hair, tail, and cool lightning shaped brand, she had good taste in body art.

“This is Rainbow Dash, she’s the fastest flier in all of Equestria,” Fluttershy Introduced.

Rainbow nodded. “Yep! Maybe all of history too. So… A pilot huh? I’ve flown with a lot of earth ponies in a few different kinds of planes. Some of them do pretty well, but I’ve never seen anything that could keep up with me. What did you fly, how fast, how high?”

I couldn’t help but give her a cocky grin. “You first, Ms. I’m-faster-than-a-plane.”

The entire group broke out into laughter, except for Rainbow Dash. “Guys, she actually doesn't know. Come on, no need to laugh at her,” she said in my defense.

Twilight cleared her throat and turned to me. “Dash’s top speed, even when she was a flesh and bone pony, was eight and a half times the speed of sound. And yes, pegasi flight is aided magically.”

“Ah,” I said with a nod. “I did not know that.”

Dash nodded proudly. “Yep! I’m slower now… But that’s cuz my body’s not in perfect shape anymore. I had to relearn how to properly maintain a body all over again. Heck of a learning curve, but hey, now I can take stuff I know works on me and help other ponies out too!

“Also, still wanna know what you fly. I’ll see if I can’t get my hooves on one. I know you have some wings, cuz I built them, but since you don't know how to use those yet, well…”

I gave her a smirk. “You’re not going to find one.”

“Oh yeah? You might be surprised,” Dash prompted.

“I fly the Mark Seven Pegasus HiLo Space Superiority Fighter,” I answered. “She’s AI co-piloted, has four quantum vacuum thrusters for her main drive, a fusion power plant, and a solid rocket booster for clearing the atmosphere if you need to do it yesterday.

“She’s got a top speed of Mach five in atmo, mach thirty in space, if you don't mind using half your fuel to get there. Her maximum altitude, is well, space. And she can get there in less than sixty seconds from a vertical launch.”

“They’re going to race, aren't they?” Applejack asked rhetorically.

“Yepperoni!” Pinkie giggled.

Holy crap! She even sounded the same. Good job, Sky!

“Mach five huh… That’s about where I’m at right now. So it is on! As soon as you can fly, we’re doing this!” Dash insisted.

“Wait, these things will let me go that fast?!” I asked incredulously.

“Twilight said you remembered flying at least as fast as me. So I replicated my own flight systems and wings, scaled them up to fit on you nicely, and painted them green to go with your hair,” Dash said with a pleased with herself grin. “Makes you the closest thing to a rival I’ve got anymore. So, soon as I teach you how to fly, are we good for a race?”

“Damn straight we are,” I agreed with a nod.

“Awesome!” Dash said, clapping her hooves together happily.

Fluttershy giggled and politely pointed to Pinkie Pie. “And she’s Pinkie Pie. Pinkie um, well she mostly spends time keeping everypony happy. Same as before really.”

I nodded. “Seems legit, I’ve met two of your counterparts in my travels so far, Pinkie.”

Pinkie nodded knowingly. “I had a feeling we were already friends.”

Twilight noticed the confused frown my face warped into and gently reached out to grab my upper arm with a hoof. “It’s Pinkie Pie. Just let it go. You’ll never understand her.”

The entire group, including Pinkie, nodded in agreement.

“Um…okay?” I asked.

“Um, that’s everypony!” Fluttershy finished.

“Thanks for introducing everyone,” I said before looking over everyone in turn again. “So um… I guess I’m here because you’re interested in me, but before I wind up answering a million questions about me, is it okay if I ask one?”

Applejack nodded. “Ya’ll go right ahead.”

“Isn’t ‘ya’ll’ plural?” I asked in confusion.

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, but Twilight said you have a near-sentient program living in your head with you, so um, well-”

“I just find it rude to exclude her, on account of what everypony is now. Though not everypony agrees,” Applejack explained.

“Ah. Gotcha. She can’t exactly talk to you guys though so there’s not much point in-”

“Actually,” Twilight interrupted. “In order to fix your spine I had to talk to her, and since I couldn’t do that, I had to actually use those jacks in the back of your skull and tweak her programming a little bit… So uh, yeah she can talk. Now. Barely.”

I turned accusingly towards Twilight. “Oh. Alright. Thanks for not telling me you messed with my brain before now!”

Her ears drooped. “You’re not mad are you? I mean, it was medically necessary…”

“I’m a little pissed off, yeah,” I said taking a deep breath. “But… I’ll let it go. If you tell me EXACTLY what you did.”

Twilight nodded. “Fair enough… I thought she would tell you herself. Like you know, a diagnostic module. Otherwise I would have. All I did was decode her programming language, and then add a bit of software so she can use your speech centers in order to improve her communications abilities. Before she could only talk to you, and only if the situation allowed. I had to be able to ask her things about you, so I enabled her to communicate with other people via your er, skull jacks, or whatever you call them. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” I pressed.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay,” I sighed to calm myself down. “Look, it’s fine. I forgive you. But only because you are not human, and well, medical need. Screwing with someone's VI like that is one of our biggest taboos. If you were a human, I’d be punching you right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight apologized sincerely. “I can see how that would be seen as a violation, and I assure you I’d only do it under circumstances similar to those in which I did. Er, are we okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Right, well, now that you’ve got that sorted out, what were you going to ask us?” Rainbow asked, tone urging everyone to move on.

“Yeah. Uh… Right!” I said remembering what I had been going to say. “Pinkie there is completely organic looking. But the rest of you are a sort of spectrum of progress. Is there any reason you haven’t upgraded?”

Rarity nodded. “Of course! While I firmly respect Twilight’s decision to wear her armor most of the time and remain as she is, I would much rather look exactly as I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the improvements, but it’s a little hard to pick an eyeshadow which goes properly with these aperture marks in my eyes.

“The problem is simply that there is a difference between those of us who have been resurrected, and the ponies who have been newly made. See, they can freely change anything on them they wish, whereas we require parts to be built to very specific standards, they can’t be mass produced.

“Sky has promised to make us all bodies up to the standards set for Pinkie Pie, but as we already have perfectly good ones, we are at the bottom of the list. There are a few ponies who are revived, but right now are best described as…electronic brains in jars. Luna, Celestia, Cadence, and a few others whose names I forgot don’t have a body yet, so they come first. Since being bodiless is a rather cruel fate.”

Pinkie held up a hoof. “Actually Luna was finished two months ago… But she’s been helping Sky with her sister so she hasn’t left the lab yet. Um, we were going to tell everypony but she wants to be officially brought back with her sister. So shhh! We’ll see her in a few months or a year.”

“Ah, alright,” I said, satisfied with the explanation.

Twilight nodded. “Personally I like looking synthetic. Don’t ask me why, I never even thought about being like this. But I do like the look.”

Applejack nodded. “Yup. The metallic look suits ya. Probably because you already were a reading machine,” she teased. “‘Cides, could be worse, you could look like Sis.”

I winced. “You have a sister? I’m sorry if she got messed up or something.”

Applejack looked sad for a moment. “Ah did have a sister… But she hasn’t been revived yet. And may never be. Ah wasn’t talking about her, ah was talking about somepony named Sis. The prototype for all of us.”

“I thought you said you were the prototype,” I said turning back to Twilight and giving her a suspicious frown.

“I am, for resurrected people,” she elaborated. “Sis is the prototype for well, everything robotic Sky ever made. The Synthetic Inventing System was Sky’s first robot, and then later first android, and finally first synth. He made her at first to be a tool holding assistant… And things got out of hoof over time with upgrades after he asked his parents for a sister and they said no.

“All of our basic designs come from her. Heck, the assembly lines use some of her design too!” Dash added taking over for Twilight. “And the reason Aj calls her creepy is she’s she’s kinda a walking skeleton with visible ‘guts’. Before you ask, no. I don’t know why she doesn't transfer herself to a better platform. Or puts on a jumpsuit or something. But she’s cool, just well…creepy looking.”

I nodded. “Okay, makes sense, there had to be some overall basis for your tech. I understand now. So… Bring on the question marathon.”

“Sweet! It’s always awesome to hear about a new world!” Dash said eagerly.

“Yes, there’s always something useful to learn,” Rarity agreed. “With our own world a, blank canvas so to speak, we have the chance to remake it however we like. Hearing new ideas is helpful for any artist.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Er, girls… Lyra here sort of um, her species doesn't know any magic so-”

“Twi,” Applejack interrupted with a deadpan expression. “Can you wait half an hour?”

Twilight’s ears drooped sadly. “W-well, alright.”

Fluttershy trotted from my side to lay down on the astroturf in front of me, looking up towards my face in a pose so uncomfortable looking, I sat down myself due to pity.

Blushing lightly, the buttery pegasus asked. “So um, how about you tell us all about your home?”

I nodded and did my best to tell them everything.

I told them about the meteor strike, and how all of our cities were built beneath domes so we could control their climates for health and safety reasons. I complained for a bit about the lack of darkness in cities, then went on to describe them as best I could before moving on to how we lived.

I spent the most time talking about AR. They couldn’t really believe how central to our lives the technology was. Even though they were literally made of technology, it seems ponies would rather talk face to face in the ‘flesh’ if at all practical to do so. The fact that we really didn’t care about personal or digital shocked them.

I went over our government and how most people hated the damn thing. But well, hey, the government may be shit, but it does keep the actual shit in the sewers and the lights running. Not that it really made up for keeping us in perpetual war…

Ah the war, that took up some time too. It wasn’t too hard to explain, I wound up saying ‘well our species did evolve from territorial apes’ and then Twilight compared us to griffons, I had to agree with the comparison, and they all just sort of understood.

I did spend a lot of time unnecessarily defending humans as good despite the wars we get into, and was told it was okay. Hell, Fluttershy had simply said. “Lyra, you’re a good person. Ponies have wars too. It’s okay.”

That had really helped me feel better about it.

I’d finished up with an overview of our technology, which to my satisfaction led to increasingly more distance put into dropped jaws.

“...and in theory, that drive should get up to twenty cee and work for colonizing other star systems, but well, with the war on, no one dares build more than a few months distance from reinforcements. And that’s about it for our tech,” I finished.

“All of that, and you don’t even know what magic is!?” Twilight demanded incredulously.

I nodded. “Yep! And lots of little things I left out for time’s sake.”

“You measured the universe, with infinite precision, and you don't have magic!?” She demanded, even more um…nerdgasmy? Yeah, nerdgasmy.

“That’s what they say,” I concluded. “And I would love to know about magic now, since you guys are up to speed.”

Twilight’s friends exchanged a series of looks.

“Go for a walk?” Applejack suggested.

“Yep,” Dash agreed.

“The Market?” Chrysalis's adjusted.

“Oh that would be lovely, darling. We should go right now!” Rarity agreed standing up. “Twilight, Ms. Lyra, excuse us while we step out… We’ll be back in, say, three hours?”

“Best make it four, she’s got no starting point,” Twilight said, making me worried.

“Um, I’ll stay here,” Fluttershy said to her other friends.

“Are you sure?” Pinkie Pie asked with a frown.

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. If Bon wakes up scared, she can call me but not Lyra. So I’m going to stay here.”

“Alright, try not to fall asleep,” Applejack said as the others started to walk off. “She’s going to quiz you at the end Lyra, so pay attention. See you in a few hours.”

Oh no… What have I done!?

Rarity separated from the rest for a moment and handed me a small white hat box. “Here is your outfit dear, incase it gets cold. I added a warmth charm to the fabric. Silk tends to be very poor at trapping heat and without fur, well, I imagine it can get quite chilly out.”

Wait, what? She was nice!? “Er, um- t-thanks! I didn’t expect-”

She nodded. “I know. I saw it in your eyes.”

“I-I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Apology accepted, though I do understand. Most models are quite rude. Besides, a lecture from Twilight is more than enough karma to sate me. Tata!” Rarity exclaimed coyly before trotting off to join her friends.

Fuck. Now I feel like an absolute cunt… Note to self, find out nice thing to do for her.

“Alright! It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten to lecture about magic to someone entirely ignorant of the subject,” Twilight began. “Let’s treat this as a college environment. Please raise your hoof, er, hand if you have a question, and please pay close attention. I will do my best to use terms you should understand given what you have described of your species's technology, and will define all terms critical to understanding the subject. Oh, and AJ was not joking, I will quiz you, because that’s the best way to ensure you are absorbing the information.”

“Um, you will?” I asked, frowning in despair.

Twilight nodded. “Yes. May I begin?”

I nodded, sitting back as comfortably as I could. Ah well. I’d literally asked for this.

Twilight cleared her throat, blushed, muttered “sorry, habit,” then began. “We will begin by defining the term ‘magic’ in the scholarly context. This will ignore the emotional and relationship factors, as it is the traditional definition. Those other versions will come later.

“Magic is the name given to the interactions between the Thaumaturgic Field, and all other things within the universe. The Thaumaturgic Field is a force field pervading all of space, just like the electron field, the gravitational field, and so on. This field, like all such fields, has it’s own fundamental particle, we call it a mana. Mana is also the name of a measurement of mana because old mages hate future scholars. Try not to confuse the two.

“The primary purpose of the Thaumaturgic Field is to impart the rules defined by physics onto matter and energy. It is the reason why physics is what it is. But the reason for it making physics work like it does remains unknown. However if you ever wondered why gravity works like it does, the answer is ‘the Thaumaturgic Field instructs it to work in that manner, for reasons yet unknown.

“Magic, as they lay pony would call it, occurs when electrons, and possibly also positrons, interact with mana in highly specific ways to create a current within the Thaumaturgic Field. This results in the natural physics being overridden in the local area, which in turn causes whatever effect the magic calls for to happen.

“Technically absolutely any interaction between the Thaumaturgic Field and other entities counts as a magical effect. But for the purposes of this lecture and the standard definition of magic, we will only discuss the ones which are induced by a living creature. Exception to this one mention here of wild magic, which is simply when under rare circumstance, naturally occurring electrons manage to form a spell. This is exceedingly rare.

“Now, as for the effects of magic itself. In theory, magic can do absolutely anything as it’s magic that makes physics itself work how it happens to work. But there are ‘engineering challenges’ so to speak. To invoke a magical effect intentionally and not by chance or accident, a person must focus on a spell. A spell in this context is a specific meditative mental state which results in electrons within your brain moving in a certain pattern.

“This process can burn a lot of calories as the focus required will cause your metabolism to burn more quickly, much like an intense workout. However, the energy for the spell itself doesn't come from the caster. All the caster of a spell does is create the appropriate flow of Thaumaturgic Current, that current does the rest.”

I held up my hand, needing to know where the hell the energy came from then.

“I can sense your question, and I was about to answer it,” Twilight said professionally. “The energy for the work performed by the spell itself comes from a source that took us millenia to work out. Basically, a spells’ work energy comes from the expansion of the universe. To easily summarize, the universe expands, the energy driving that is infinite, magic taps into it for power, so with every spell cast the universe expands just a bit less than it would have otherwise. The exact mechanism by which magic takes it’s work energy from it’s source is not yet known, though we can create ‘reactors’ to get lots of energy at once.”

I held up my hand. Twilight nodded.

“So just to be clear so far,” I began. “Magic can do anything because it’s what makes physics what it is. But magic is limited by the complexity of the pattern a person can hold in meditation as well as their personal stamina. And the energy for a spell to do what it has to do is bled off from what my people call ‘Dark Energy’.”

“Assuming Dark Energy is what you say is driving universal expansion, yes,” Twilight confirmed.

“Okay… If that’s the case, shouldn’t anyone be able to cast any spell?” I asked.

Twilight shook her head no very firmly. “No! Spells have an ‘Activation Energy’, and that’s how much of your own stamina the meditation needed to cast the spell will deplete. It’s exactly like physical activity, some individuals have a greater capacity for it than others genetically speaking, and others have trained themselves to work longer. Magic is no different, and all of the great mages are very similar to athletes in terms of training and practice.

“There are also exceptions, such as myself, who are um… Not to toot my own horn, but even before becoming an alicorn, I was a genetic anomaly. I had far more stamina than any unicorn on record, and as such, I could cast far more complicated or far more individual spells without rest than anypony else known to Equestria. As I am now… I’m still relearning quite a bit. It’s different with synthetic parts. It’s really fun to work all of this out again!

“Oh, and yes. You should take that to mean that magic and technology are perfectly compatible, and that mechanical devices can invoke spells too. But, back to the lecture. Ahem, a person can collapse or lose consciousness casting a spell if it consumes all of their available stamina. Which is why we still say that a spell ‘drains’ the caster. But this is untrue. It’s simply that the mage is getting tired due to the exertion of commanding the universe, and each individual has their own limit to just how much of that they can do.

“On to differences in magic between species of organic lifeform-”

I held up my hand again. Twilight nodded a second time.

“Before we move on, what are magics limits? Or rather, you implied that while magic can do anything, spells can’t. Why is that?” I asked.

Twilight smiled at me. “Because trying to get magic to do certain things is just way too complicated of a pattern to twist your mind into. Remember, you’re doing the casting via meditation and focus ment to force the bioelectricity in your brain to move in a certain way. Some people simply can’t cast certain kinds of spells because they literally can’t think of or in a way which would form that patten.

“In short, magic has no limits. People have limits, and some limits may just be universal. Like say, even at my best, I could never just conjure a planet into existence… That’s just way to complicated for any mind to conceive a pattern for, let alone make one for that purpose.

“Now, on to how genetics plays a role in magical ability of a given species!”

This was going to take forever…

I subtly scooted closer to Fluttershy, hoping she wouldn’t mind me using her cuteness as a comfort to get me through the sudden Intro to Arcana course that was being thrown at me. Fluttershy scooted closer to me as well, moving so I was using her super soft side as a backrest.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“No problem,” she whispered back. “We’ll be here a while.”

21 Deals

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Flintlock Rose - 2nd of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

Today was a different look day. My last look just wasn’t working for me anymore. For a few different reasons.

The biggest one being I was simply bored of it. I know a lot of full changelings actually like keeping one static appearance, but I just…can’t do that. I can pick almost anything, so why settle forever?

The other one was Lyra obviously didn’t like how I looked previously. I kinda wish I had gone to the park with everypony last night instead of tinkering with a few odds and ends for Twilight. I could have seen Fluttershy myself. Chrysalis mentioned it was clear that Lyra liked her, it would be better to have a memory of her instead of a description.

Now, I wasn’t petty enough to steal someone's appearance just to get a girl. Not at all. But still, if someone you like doesn't like you, but likes someone else… Why not base your new look off them a little? Use a ‘design element’ or two.

The spare room in Chrysalis’s home which I had been lent was small, and a bit cramped even by the standards of someone who’d lived in a monastery, but it did have a mirror. That made sense to me. She seemed like a vain person. Not in a bad way, of course.

I spent a few moments frowning into the mirror, going over everything I had at the moment as I plotted out how to look for the next few days.

My bright green eyes were nice… But should I keep them like that? I could go changeling for a while with some hybrid compound eyes, they were way better than mammalian eyes after all. But then again, I was trying to impress a girl here. I could also go standard pony eye.

Nah, the slits still look good. Besides, she likes her snake.

I turned my attention to my peach fur. That had to change. She definitely didn’t like it, and frankly I’d had it for a whole month, that was some sort of record. But what to do? Definitely not copy the pure yellow color, that would scream jealous. Which I wasn’t. I was competing. It’s different.

After a bit of thought, I closed my eyes and focused on my magic. I could feel the patchy green flickering flames as they flared to life sporadically over my body, reshaping and recoloring my fur to the nice ‘rusty yellow’ I had imagined, and gave the fur a silk-like texture.

Opening my eyes, I checked my appearance in the mirror. Not bad… But the more chiseled features didn’t go with the new color. Something more round would be best.

I closed my eyes again, gritting my teeth as I reworked my jawline and cheekbones. It was hard to focus for the entire minute on just that one single image. I wasn’t ADD or anything, but to truly concentrate on a single image and nothing else is most definitely a skill.

Back to the mirror…

Yes, the more rounded features went better with the color. The batpony look over all still fit, the darker yellow and hints of red were most certainly in line with my species norms. But those colors made my mane and tail's tri-color gradient look...tacky.

“Black, like coal,” Chrysalis said from the doorway, making me jump slightly.

“Ahh!” I yelped. “How does a metal body move so quietly!?”

“Light alloys, a touch of magic, good engineering, proper care… Nearly as much care as you’re putting into your little make over,” the changeling answered casually. “Speaking of, your mane and tail. Coal black, with light gray tips. That would look best if you keep your current style. Also, are you supposed to be a colt? That face isn’t particularly ‘coltish’.”

“No, mare. Just havn’t changed the back half for that yet. Hang on,” I muttered, closing my eyes again.

Two changes this time. Much more tricky. I could feel the flames again, mostly around my plot and underside. I hated how much energy it took to change the plumbing. Mom could do it effortlessly, I’d seen her spend fifteen minutes changing gender and her entire appearance a full six times to gather intel on a bounty.

Yet it still took me over-

“Owch… Three minutes. How old are you?” Chrysalis asked sympathetically.

“I’m an adult,” I grumbled back.

“Yes, you have your shape shifting, you have to be an adult. Depending on your caste, you could be as young as five and still technically be an adult. And you are a hybrid, are you not? Are you an adult by the standards of your changeling side’s caste, or by pony civilization? Or even just pony biology?” She asked.

“What’s the difference?” I retorted sarcastically.

“Quite a lot,” Chrysalis said flatly, moving to lean against the wooden doorway. “If you were a drone, you would be an adult at a mere three weeks. If you are an adult by Equestrian standards, you are thirty. The difference there is, well, twenty nine years and-”

“My changeling half is a Soldier,” I informed with a sigh.

I hated talking about this. It wasn’t important. It’s not like I had any of the caste abilities...

Chrysalis nodded. “Then you are at least two years old… So what is it? Two, eighteen, or thirty? I only want to know because I’d like to help.”

“Help? How?” I asked suspiciously.

“Your shapeshifting. It’s obviously not any good. If your problem is simply being young, I’m willing to help you. But if you’re older, then the problem is likely a disorder, or due to your hybrid status, and my help will have to be of a different nature,” she explained.

“It’s a practice problem,” I said, deciding to see what advice she would have. “I’m not old, and my parents know my shifting is all there. It’s just…hard for me to do it right. I do make progress, but it takes a long time. And I've only had it since I was twelve, so yeah, I’ve only gotten two decades of practice in.”

“Do you need to eat love, or is pony food able to sate you?” Chrysalis asked curiously.

“I need a bit of both, actually.” I answered. “Why is that important?”

“Because if you can’t consume emotional energy, that’s half of the problem right there. You’d need to eat several pounds of meat to get the energy needed for a normal shift,” she answered standing up and walking into the room, inspecting me in an odd fashion.

“Er, why meat?” I asked suspiciously.

“Because your belly wouldn’t fit the same amount of calories if it were plant matter,” She answered. “I tutored a hybrid who could only eat pony food before. He required around seven thousand calories for a full body shape change. That would be seven pounds of meat, or about seventy pounds of commonly available vegetables. I trust you see the problem there.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot of eating… Why are you walking around me like that?” I asked, wings twitching nervously.

“I’m inspecting your form,” she answered giving me a warm smile. “You’ve done an excellent job. Far better than what you should have done. I think I see the problem you’re having.”

“Uh, okay. What is it?” I asked, turning around to look her in the face.

“You’re picturing the change in too much detail,” Chrysalis replied evenly. “Your fur is perfectly flawless. Every single strand is exactly perfect for every single point on your body. That won’t happen unless you make it happen… And it’s unnatural. No real pony looks like that without spending hours a day in a spa.”

I tilted my head to one side, confusion filling my mind. “But, a changeling should be able to do anything they want…”

Chrysalis nodded. “Yes. And you can, slowly. You’re a Soldier, not a Scout. You wont be able to create the entirety of a body all at once in exact detail as you imagine it. Not without a reference… Have you ever tried to copy somepony you can see?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s rude. And Identity theft. I’d have been arrested for it.”

“Crap universe?” Chrysalis asked with a frown.

I nodded. “Kinda. Strict as tartarus laws mostly.”

“Very well… One moment,” Chrysalis said, her body bursting into a torrent of emerald green flames as she changed.

When the flames cleared, I was left looking at a blue pony half her original size, cyane really. A mare. Rainbow mane and tail, really athletic build, killer wing muscles even for a pegasus. But oddly enough, with a few smaller seams in the joints, and the same cameraless eyes.

“Did you mean to turn into a different robot?” I asked.

Chrysalis laughed, her voice completely different as well. More higher pitched, and a bit grating in my opinion. “The funny thing is, I can still transform into anything I like, so long as it’s synthetic in nature. I couldn't be an organic Rainbow if I tried. I’m certain other changelings could, but I wasn't ever good at inorganic objects. I’m pretty certain that my skillset simply switched.

“Magic granted by one’s species works…oddly with these new bodies. Now, go ahead and copy this shape.”

I shook my head. “No! I spent a lot of time and energy on this one! I don't want to abandon it.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I’ve been a Queen longer than-”

I sputtered, taking a step back in shock as I repeated. “You’re a Queen!?”

Chrysalis facehooved, the gesture making an audible ting. “Are you bucking serious!? Have you never seen a Queen in your entire life?”

I coughed in embarrassment and kicked one hoof against the floor. “Er, well… No…”

“The long horn, my height, eyes… None of this clued you in?” Chrysalis demanded incredulously.

“Well, no. I thought you just liked looking like that. Don’t blame me! We’re a species of shape changers,” I grumbled.

She ran a hoof through her mane eyes rolling. “Nymphs these days… Well, I am a Queen. And not just ANY Queen, I’m one of the original bloodlines. Second generation in fact. Fully fed, as I am now, there is nothing on this planet with more arcane might than me!”

Chrysalis's cheeks suddenly flushed red in embarrassment. “Er, except Twilight of course… But she doesn't really count. It’s not fair to count mutants with infinite mana. Even if they are as a sister to you....”

Clearing her throat, the Queen resumed her point. “Ahem! I am more than capable of undoing your last shape change and putting you back as you are. Now, copy me.”

"...You?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"Copy me," she repeated.

I shook my head. "What? Chrysalis I ain't gonna-"

"COPY ME!" The queen demanded

"Right! Right, okay..."

Chrysalis sighed. “Look, this is for your own good. You have a problem, and I can help you solve it. The solution isn’t even difficult. Picture this body, hold it as a general look within your mind, and then reach for your magic. Just, do it!”

I rolled my eyes, deciding to humor her, “Fine… Already said okay. Jeeze.”

I closed my eyes, pictured the cyan pegasus shape as best as I could. For a second I started to try and recall as much detail as possible, but then I remembered her request and just kept to the vaguest ideas as I reached for my magic.

I felt the arcane fire blaze all across me in one swift pulse. One moment I was normal, and the next I was aflame with the emerald-green light of a changeling. The flames subsided after a while, the time taken by the change thrown from my mind by the intensity of the crackling fires.

I opened my eyes.

“Ah!” I yelped, taking a step back in shock.

Everything had way too much detail! I could see the patterns of fibery stuff in Chrysalis's eyes! The polished dross walls had pours! The colt I could see through the room’s window who was walking across the street on the opposite side really really needed to wash the dust off his fur. It was all clumpy and clingy!

Chrysalis smiled. “Haven’t had pegasi eyes before?”

“I have… Just, I always forget how they work,” I muttered.

I looked down at my hooves. Cyan fur. Not as I pictured it. Kinda scruffy looking, in need of a good brushing. I turned back to the mirror.

“Huh… I got most of it,” I mused.

Wings were a bit small. Colors in the mane were not quite right. Pretty sure that the bubbly rounded flanks that screamed ‘I got implants!’ were wrong. But over all…

“Very good. Six seconds,” Chrysalis informed, returning to her normal changeling shape with a flash of green. “Also, look closer at your own eyes.”

Six seconds… Shit, that’s pretty goo-

My eyes had the same pattern of arcs, like they were mechanical.

I frowned. “Huh, I guess I must have copied that part of their appearance. I mean, it does stand ou-”

Chrysalis's horn burned green, her aura engulfing my left foreleg before tugging down sharply. The ripping sound of velcro had my ears stand on end well before more horrified scream as I watched her slide all of the skin of my leg off to reveal a metal and plastic structure underneath.

“Ahhhh! Put me back! Put me back! Put me back!” I shrieked.

“I will. Hold still, this spell is hard to target,” Chrysalis soothed horn already glowing.

It took me a few minutes to calm down.

I felt that was acceptable.

Chrysalis didn’t.

“You should be happy. Most changelings take years and years of practice to even transform part of themselves into an inorganic material. You’re far better than you thought you were. You’ve simply been using the wrong techniques,” she said for like, the tenth time.

“I was a freaking robot!” I snapped back. “That’s terrifying!”

Chrysalis ears drooped. “Okay, first, that’s racist. A robot is a machine with no mind. Implying we are merely going about with preprogrammed instructions with no awareness of anything else. You were one of us just a minute ago. Was it any different than being you right now?”

I turned away to look into the mirror. I didn’t want to answer.

“Did it feel any different?” Chrysalis repeated, much more firmly.

“No…” I admitted.

“Exactly. The only difference in the machine you were and the one you are now is biomechanical vs synthetic,” Chrysalis hammered in. “Second, do you have any idea of how difficult it would be for most changelings to replicate any of us? They couldn’t.

“Your years of focusing on specific prefect detail has paid off. While, imprecise, your magic is very good overall.”

“Why did you do this?” I asked, staring into the mirror. “I don’t like…gray. Everything was so simple as a filly, but then everypony had to go explaining things. I like clear boundaries. Why did you have to muddy this one?”

I turned to look at Chrysalis with an accusing glare which morphed into a pleading stare.

“Because I am an expert in love,” she said after a moment’s thought.

“I don’t get it,” I said, frowning.

“I’ve spent millennia feeding, farming, hunting, and otherwise acquiring love. I know the bond better than anypony alive, and I’ll include Princess Cadence in that list. She may be the Princess of Love, but she’s still only five hundred,” Chrysalis began. “I can tell you are lusting for Lyra.”

I squirmed, blushing deeply. “I um… Well… She’s cute!” I muttered.

Chrysalis shrugged. “Perhaps if one enjoyed exotic looking species, frankly I don’t like bipeds. Regardless, I know you want her. I also know you are wasting your time, and I’d rather-”

“I’m not wasting my time!” I snapped. “I just need her to notice that I like her and find out what shape she likes.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “You might be an adult in terms of age… But as I think you can admit I just showed you, you still act like a teen. You are immature for your age.”

I shot her a glare in return for the insult. A glare which faded slightly. She was right, but I’d never admit it.

“I know you won't admit it, but even that fact shows you are still young at heart,” Chrysalis continued. “And that’s fine. Never let anyone tell you differently. However, Lyra is not young at heart. I do not know her age, but she is an adult, and she behaves like one, for the most part. Which means she will never be romantically attracted to you.”

“She will!” I protested. “I just need to look right for her, that’s all. Maybe she’s straight. I can go full male!”

“Looks are important to younger people, and they are also important to older people,” the changeling sighed. “But what the young often fail to understand is behavior, personality, and maturity are just as important. As you mature, you start to appreciate those qualities of a person more and more.

“You are the first changeling I’ve gotten to spend time with in years. I would greatly enjoy teaching you our people’s arts. If you want to spend time chasing a mare’s tail, I can understand that. But in this case, you’re wasting your time.

“I tasted the affection between Lyra and Fluttershy. It may not blossom into anything solid or permanent, but it does let me know that Lyra prefers a type of person which you simply are not. She is not attracted to warriors, or the young in spirit. She will be your friend, your comrade, but she will never have romantic feelings for you. You simply do not ‘do it’ for her, and that’s not a matter of appearance.

“Please, let her go. We can spend your time here wisely so you may leave with some practical skills. If you can learn to shape shift, you can learn to take a form which can cast spells well, and I could teach you such magics… I can feel your aura, you would make for a worthy apprentice. There is more power there than in most changelings, likely from your thestral half.

“Don’t waste this chance… And if you really must put your own sexual gratification first, I can take care of that for you, if it means I can have a proper apprentice.”

I bit my lip, squirming in thought. It was a hard decision for me… I didn’t care what she said, I knew I could get Lyra. It was just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

But, Chrysalis had shown me a means of transforming which did let me make real progress. She was…mean sometimes. Like with the robot trickery. But she also was fun too, like the bowling.

And powerful, very powerful. If she really did think I could make a good caster, or even could show me another technique for shapeshifting, maybe I should at least give her a day or two.

And well, she was a robot, but um… Still better than a hoof, and she did say she wouldn’t mind.

“Yeah, all right. We can try that for a few days. See how it goes,” I decided.

“Excellent!” Chrysalis said with a slim smile. “We’ll start with seeing if you can imitate ponies from pictures. There are digital reconstructions made from pictures of everypony’s organic forms in Sky’s lab. He won't mind if we use them so long as we don’t bother him.”

Chrysalis's horn flashed, her spell forming a swirling disk of dark green energy on the ground.

“Step in the portal, I’ll be right behind you,” she said happily.

Lyra Heartstrings - 2nd of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Early Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

“I don’t get it,” I said to Fluttershy as the mare hummed happily on the other side of the table.

“Don’t get what?” She asked pleasantly.

“You said you would take me to see Discord yesterday. I asked about it today, you said, ‘Yes, we should get ready for that now.’ and then set your table for tea,” I reminded. “Do you summon him with a pentagram made from sugar and tea, or like, what?”

Fluttershy smiled at me. “Oh, nothing like that. It’s Moonsday… He um… He was already coming over for tea. It’s a weekly thing.”

I gave the cute little butterball a deadpan stare.

“You regularly have tea with an eldritch horror?” I asked incredulously.

“Um, yes? But that’s not a really nice way to describe him. He’s not scary. Usually. And uh, that’s not a problem, is it?” She asked, nervously fidgeting with a saucer.

“I just find it hard to believe is all,” I replied gently.

The room lit up with a flash of white light as if someone had taken a picture with an ancient camera. Stepping out of the flash came the same chimeric creature from before, though much less terrifying looking. It wasn’t that I was used to him either, I remembered exactly what he had looked like. He had toned his own appearance down.

“Oh you silly girl, this is Ponyville!” The god-like creature laughed, materializing a wicker basket of cinnamonie-smelling stick-like things on the table. “This is normal. What you should find hard to believe is I brought churros. And I made them myself. Without the talon snap.

“Good afternoon Fluttershy, sorry for the delay. There was a spider in the shower.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. You’re here now,” Fluttershy soothed.

Despite my heart racing from the sudden appearance of the dragon-like god-beast, his words pinged around my head like a golf ball in a clothes dryer. I had to ask. I needed to ask.

“What do you possibly have to fear from a spider?” I asked, the question bursting out like a grenade made of panic.

Discord nodded solemnly. “I see you already understand. With where my house is, any spider which got there, well it’s clearly not a spider. Or at least, not a normal spider. Definitely a thing to fear, or maybe, just maybe, it’s a normal spider. But you can never tell, that’s the important thing.

“Fluttershy, you didn’t warn me there would be other guests. I would have brought sandwiches.”

“Um, well, if Lyra doesn't mind. Um, Lyra, would you mind providing sandwiches?” Fluttershy asked.

“Um, well, alright,” I proposed

As I reached down to my bag to get the sandwich box, I spotted Bon sleepily slithering into the room. She’d woken up for the morning, gotten cranky and fallen asleep again. Her nap was apparently over.

“Oh! Hello,” Discord greeted, offering Bon a wave. “Finally found a replacement for the rabbit, eh Shy?”

“Oh no, Bon is Lyra’s daughter,” Fluttershy corrected as I sat back up with the box.

Bon slithered over to a spot near Discord and sleepily dipped her head up and down, stretching up to look down on the chimera from above, then inching her way back down to the floor and announcing. “I’m longer than you!”

Discord's eyes twinkled. Literally. Like this was a goddamn cartoon. “Really?” He asked.

Bon nodded.

Discord simply telescoped outwards, sliding his tail longer in what looked exactly like a bad LSD induced hallucination until he was exactly one foot longer than Bon and asked. “Are you sure?” He said while stroking his beard.

“Hey! No fair!” Bon protested, stretching out straight as she could and trying to push herself to stretch out too.

I couldn’t help but bite my lip to contain the laughter. Unfortunately my laughter didn’t care for the bite and broke out anyways. I had a good five minute laugh while Bon continued to try and ‘assert longness dominance’, finally managing to catch my breath and sit up.

Discord snapped his talon, a small brass bowl appearing next to Bon, filled with warm spaghettios. I couldn’t help but notice that ‘number one icebreaker’ was engraved into the bowl…

“Here, have a snack while the grown ups and I talk,” he said happily. “Ah, kids. Always amusing.”

“Yay! Skettios!” Bon cheered, coiling around the bowl with an adorable happy hiss.

From there tea progressed fairly normally. Which, seeing as it contained an android pony, a mutant snake-girl, an eldritch entity claiming to be an incarnation of chaos, and me… Well, I think that was the joke. A completely ordinary tea time filled with pleasant stories, simple chatting, and freaking snacks, all done by the wierdest group of creatures this universe could muster.

Throughout the entire tea, I kept trying to work out a moment to bring up the wish I was owed, but it never really came up. Not until the kettle was empty, and Fluttershy cleared her throat.

“So um, Discord,” she asked, collecting everyone’s dishes while speaking. “You recognise Miss Lyra, right?”

“Hummm, do I?” He asked coyly, tapping a talon to his chin in thought. “One moment, excuse me, me?”

Discord’s shadow leapt up off the floor, coloring as it stood in mid air to form a vector drawing of himself in a stereotypical butler's uniform.

“Mmm, yes, what is it me?” The shadow projection asked.

“Do we know this, human person?” Discord asked himself.

“Why yes, we do, me,” the projection answered before vanishing in a small puff of smoke... And leaving the chimera horrifyingly shadowless, despite the sunlight coming through the window... And the lamps.

I felt various parts of my body clench up in fear. Including my upper left arm. I had no idea that could even do that…

“Unfortunately for your sake, Lyra, I’m afraid our business deal hasn’t happened yet,” Discord informed casualty.

The fear vanished, replaced by righteous indignation at something approaching the speed of rage.

“What!? I did whatever it was you wanted me to do weeks ago!” I protested angrily.

“Oh yes,” Discord agreed with a nod. “On your timeline you did in fact do that little favor just over two weeks ago, if my count is right. But that’s the thing. It’s in the past for your timeline… But it’s in the FUTURE for this universe's timeline. As far as this universe cares, the temporal point where our deal was made is two and a half years in the future.

“At which point, I’ll be more than happy to hold up my side of the bargain. But I’m sure you understand not wanting to deliver a product before you are payed.”

I felt my jaw drop.

“You’re shitting me!” I protested.

Discord shook his head. “Oh my, such language in front of a little one. You kn-”

“Discord!” Fluttershy exclaimed in an adamant tone. “Don’t you dare be a butt to her!”

Discord blinked, confused look filling his face. “Moi? A butt? I think not. I simply don’t see why I should have to do something before it’s equivalent point in the timeline.”

“You know people don’t think like that!” Fluttershy protested. “You just don’t want to help like you promised!”

“Yeah!” I accused.

Discord sighed. “Do you know what can happen if I just go mucking about with time? Who knows what could end up where? Not even I can predict where a watch might end up if I skip back through time to attend a party I missed.”

“Discord… Please, be nice,” Fluttershy asked with a sigh.

“I am being nice,” he countered, crossing his arms in frustration.

“I’ll do it!” Fluttershy threatened.

“Oh please, you won't!” The eldritch god chuckled.

Fluttershy sighed, ears drooping, and then gave Discord the most heart stoppingly adorable puppydog eyes of all time.

<How does that pony have Admin Privileges?> Cheer.ly asked me while I stared at Fluttershy’s adorable gaze of heart meltingness.

I replied.

“Please be nice to Lyra? Please?” Fluttershy begged.

Discord shook, then wrenched his eyes away from Fluttershy with a shiver. “Gah, oh all right! … I can’t believe that works on me every time…”

“What just happened?” I asked everyone. Including myself.

“She used her Stare, special talent, thing. This version of her is well, that,” Discord grumbled, “And it works on me… Right, I’ll grant you one wish. And I’ll do it early, but only on two conditions! And that’s final.”

I folded my arms over my chest, “Flutters, can you do it again?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, but I won’t. Because while he should be nice and hold up his half of a deal, if he really is doing it early, you should be nice and meet him halfway. Because then he is doing a second thing for you.”

Discord nodded, holding up a talon. “Bingo.”

I sighed and slumped down in my seat. As bullshit as this was, I really did want Bonbon back. I needed my best friend. Especially if as I expected, I was going to be stuck wherever I ended up finally giving up the VM… Or if it burned out before I could reach there.

“Alright,” I sighed. “I’ll do it… What is it?”

Discord gave me a smile. A cruel smile. “You should have asked what it was first… I could very easily change my mind and use that for whatever I like… But fortunately for you Fluttershy is here and well, even if I did feel like being a bit naughty, I don’t think she’d stand for it.”

“I would not,” Fluttershy informed with a firm nod.

I sighed. “Look, I’m trying to wish a friend back to life. I really don’t care what it takes.”

Both Fluttershy’s and Discord’s ears fell flat with sadness.

“Oh…” Fluttershy said sadly, turning to look at Discord urgently.

“I know, I know…” He sighed. “I’m afraid that I can’t bring someone back to life. Well, I could, but it’s not my domain. That’s the version of my great great great great grandniece attached to a given universe's job. I actually like most of them, so I don’t give them extra work to do.”

Oh that was such a bullshit reason! I bit my lip, trying to keep calm, remembering I was dealing with a creature that could turn me into a doorknob if it wanted to. I should probably remain polite.

“Er, what if they are an artificial intelligence. I mean, you can just give me a copy of her program with it’s memories intact, right?” I asked.

“Oh! Well yes, that’s different,” Discord said, perking back up. “A person dies and their brain turns to mush, making resurrection...tricky. Unless you have a certain someone's approval. But AIs are different. After all, they have a physical copy of their souls conveniently left on the mortal plane they existed on. That makes it completely different.”

I triple blinked. “Souls exist, and AIs have them?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Anything that’s able to make a decision and understand its environment has a soul.”

Discord nodded. “And before you ask, no, whatever religion you grew up getting drummed into you probably has it wrong. All a soul is is a flawless record of everything about you. Every emotion you ever had, everything you ever thought, and so on.

“Anywho, I can give you your friend. But, there is that condition. A condition which is now necessary. I want your sword.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The sword, you know, snap hiss, whoosh, totally not copyright infringement. If you want your friend back now and not two years from now, I want that sword… And I also need it. To take an object from one dimension to another, I need something from the target dimension. It’s just a rule.”

“You work on rules?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes. They are inconsistent, arbitrary, can change without notice, nor do I set them, I just know what they are. But damnit, they are the rules, and they will be stuck to!” Discord said slamming his paw firmly onto the table. “So, if you’ll just hand me the sword…”

I took a breath and through about it for a while. “Can I give you anything else? The sandwich box? Jacket? TK ring? I need a weapon.”

“That’s part of why I want it. I like to make people shake things up,” Discord casually informed, conjuring a nail file to clean up his talons.

Shit.

This was a big deal. Was Bonbon worth my only weapon? Wow, that was a dumb question. No shit she was!

Besides, Rose said she and Ayna were making me a gun, but I never got it… Maybe Rose had it on her? Yeah, she had to have it on her. It wasn’t that big a deal to give up the sword.

Not for Bonbon.

I nodded, reached down to my belt and took the sword off, handing it over to the eldritch creature.

“Here,” I sighed. “What’s the other thing? You said two conditions.”

Discord took the hilt with his paw, the nail file continuing to file despite his lack of holding it. Inspecting the weapon he nodded in satisfaction and tossed the hilt up, making it vanish in a flash of white light.

“The other condition,” Discord said playfully. “Isn’t for you. It’s for my good friend Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy blinked in surprise. “It, um, it is?” She asked hesitantly.

“Yes it is… And well… It’s very serious,” Discord said before leaning over and whispering something into Fluttershy’s ear.

Not quietly. I did hear it. As the cartoon whispering overhearing sound the audience gets. God damn this guy is creepy…

Fluttershy blushed bright pink and shuffled her forehooves. “I um… I know, but, um, should I really-”

“Yes, you should. It would be good for you,” Discord said sitting down again normally. “Oh, and Lyra, don’t worry, I’m mostly being dramatic to help my friend get her life back on track. She hasn’t been very happy of late.”

“Ah… Well in that case, I want my AI friend Bonbon I,” I asked.

“Certainly,” Discord said with a nod, “We have a deal. Though I must say, I am sad we are inside Fluttershy’s home. If I hadn’t promised her I wouldn’t mess with it, I normally have a laugh ripping off Dragon Ball when I grant wishes.”

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. “Well, I would let you do it if you had put the roof back after it stopped being funny!” She pouted.

“It’s still funny,” Discord giggled. “Right then, Lyra, here you are.”

Discord snapped his talons, the coffee table flashed white, I jumped backwards expecting all eight meters of jet to materialize inside the small house! Tucking and rolling backwards so the wing wouldn’t decapitate me.

Instead, a small head sized cluster of finely made silver, brass, and glass parts sat atop the table.

“You expected the entire fighter craft, didn’t you?” Discord asked with a grin.

I nodded. “Yeah. Kinda did.”

“Well, you asked for your friend, not the jet. There’s her AI core, taken moments before disassembly. Completely shut down and depowered. I’m sure you can figure out the rest from here. Ta-ta!” He said, giving me one last wave before vanishing in a flash of light.

Bon looked up and frowned. “Awww… Mom, you should have asked for skettios too.”

I smiled and reached over to give Bon a little scratch. “Hey, be happy you got those ones.”

Fluttershy trotted around the table and gave me a tight hug. “I’m sorry! I thought he’d give you a working version of her. Not just um, well I guess that’s her brain.”

I twisted so I could return the pillow pony’s hug. “Eh, don’t sweat it. If I got her with a body my people could build, it would suck. But, I heard you guys have one hell of a good roboticist in town.”

Fluttershy blinked, and grinned. “We do!”

“ So, how do I go about getting an appointment to see Sky?” I asked, bending over to take a closer look at the AI core.

22 Resurrection

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Lyra Heartsrings - 4th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

When Fluttershy said ‘Doctor Trigger is a busy stallion’, I figured that would mean he would brush off meeting with me unless I bribed him or something. Nope. For once, that statement was literal, and had no subtext. The man was just really, really busy.

Fluttershy took me to see Pinkie Pie, who was spending the week with her friends. Normally she lived with Sky in his lab, visiting for one week every two weeks. Naturally, she had called Sky when I showed up an entire week ago. Turned out that Sky had been trying to make time to see if I was okay since I got here.

I’d asked when he could see me at the soonest. The fourth. Today. A full eight days since I had arrived here.

Why did it take that long? Time critical experiments. Work that had to be finished in very specific timeframes after previously finished work due to the nature of said work. The stallion was literally rebuilding his species from scratch. That’s got to consume a lot of time.

But, here I was. In a small waiting room. Back in the familiar, clearly human, wrecked hull the previous Skys had lived in. Just a short warp away through something Twilight had called a ‘Zeta Tube’. I would have gone with ‘stargate’, but well, I did love the classics. And that’s what it looked like, except yellow.

The other side of the portal had been in Twilight’s castle. A place that fortunately did not look as horrible inside as it did outside.

This side of the portal was well, a waiting room.

About two hundred square feet of pleasantly carpeted, bench lined, off white walls. Decorated with posters depicting various schematics for newer parts and upgrades, with some pleasant music piping through hidden speakers.

When I had arrived, a voice had come over the speakers. I’d half expected it to be Pheonix, this version of her alive and ready to attack, again. But nope. The voice had actually sounded a lot like Ayna’s, only harshly mechanical. Clearly synthesized.

“Please wait to be seen. Sky is nearly free. Thank you.” Simple words. But annoying all the same.

If I had known he wasn’t ready I would have kept hanging out with Shy until he was free. The yellow pegasus had really started to grow on me. Not only was she extremely cute, but well… The girl was amazing.

Yeah, sure, she was a quadruped, had fur, and stood on hooves… But really, when there is a fully intelligent person inside the body, and that body is capable of human-level facial expressions. I don't think anyone I’d ever known would have an issue with me dating a pony after spending five minutes with one.

And fuck the ones who did. Shy was smart, fun, and well, very shy. I’d wound up linking to her so we could share some AR novels together. I’d never seen anyone take to them so avidly. Exactly my type of girl.

But it was more than just that. She was different from everyone I’d ever met before in that well…she was fearful, she was shy, and she clearly needed a protector. And yet, I could tell that if I were in danger she would stand at my side and help me pull my butt out of the fire.

Fluttershy could not stand alone, that was clear. But as a part of a team, she would be an asset anyone would kill to have. That made her unique in terms of every sort of person I had ever known. The kindest person I had ever seen, but with the potential to be a badass.

I should ask her out. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just sort of… stay here.

The sound of a humming vacuum snapped me out of my thoughts. Looking around for a cleaner, but spotting nothing, I frowned, thoroughly confused. Was someone in the next room running a vacuum so loud that I could hear it in here?

“Feet up, please,” a grumpy mare’s voice asked.

Looking down I spotted a small orange and purple robot, clearly a motorized vacuum and little else. Just a purple dome atop a plate-like orange hull with a shield like marking on it.

I quickly lifted my feet up, letting it clean the floor where my feet had been and continue moving along the bench.

“Sorry about that,” I apologised, not expecting any reply from the-

Wait! The dome was translucent, and there was a freaking brain floating inside it!

“Shit!” I swore in alarm. “Uh, so um… How’s being a vacuum doing for you?”

“Sucks,” she muttered, continuing along her route.

Despite the total panic of seeing a sentient person crammed into a tiny cleaning robot, I couldn’t help but laugh at her remark. It just broke the dread perfectly. “Well, at least you have a-”

“Finish that joke and, I’ll- Um… Run over your foot! Yeah!” She threatened.

I was being threatened by a vacuum cleaner. While I stood in what were basically silk pajamas, with all of my possessions in a shoulder bag. I was being threatened by a vacuum cleaner, while essentially hitchhiking around the multiverse.

And so, I am become Arthur Dent, tourist of worlds.

I shook my head to clear it of absurdity as best as I could. There were important questions to ask here. Questions to ask the sapient vacuum. Yep, no clear head right now. Not possible.

“Er, I take it your uh, body there, wasn’t exactly…consensual?” I asked, wondering if I should run for the portal and make an escape.

Sure, everypony said this Sky was nice, but well, he sort of resurrected them… And even they admitted he was a mad scientist type…

“Just don’t piss Sky off,” she muttered, continuing her route. “I called the temporary body he built for me an ‘ugly tin can’... So um, I got this one instead of the kinda pony shaped one. At least I get to stop being a vacuum after he’s done with the princesses. Can you sit back down? You're in the way again.”

I took a minute to think, then sat back down. While that was definitely a mad scientist thing to do, it was more dickish than evil. I probably didn’t have anything to worry about. Especially given how the other Skys behaved.

Still, seeing a brain in a jar running a roomba… Kinda unsettling. But also hilarious. But also unsettling.

“Sooo, why is the dome slightly transparent?” I asked morbidly.

“Lets you visually inspect me, you know, make sure my nanobrain’s not like, dry rotting or anything,” the vacuum pony explained. “He literally just welded my life support pod to this thing. I mean, it could be worse. I could be like Celestia or Cadence, just a ball sitting on a shelf. At least I get to move… Even if I do have to clean the floors.”

“Life support?” I asked, eyes wide with surprise.

Was she an actual organic brain!?

“Yeah, that’s what I like to call everything keeping me alive. Sure, I’m a robot now. But I’m still alive! So this is a life support pod,” she elaborated. “Please tell me you aren't like most Travelers and refuse to accept that we’re ali-”

Ah, got it. Of course a synth would call their power supply and coolant ‘life support’. Seems legit.

“I’m here to try and resurrect an AI who was my best friend,” I said flatly, hoping that would be more than enough to explain my opinion on AI.

“Oh! Uh… Good! One of the other people who's come through here tipped me over… Dude was a total jerk,” she grumbled. “I did like the pegasus who came through with him though. She was nice.”

“You see dimensional travelers a lot here?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah, like, maybe one every two months. Not all of them come here, but there’s a whole network to report them. With nopony alive being organic, well, people who are not from here are very easy to spot,” she informed.

Made sense… And also that would seem to mean they had knowledge the multiverse, which meant, “Is there any way someone here could help me find a particular universe?” I asked hopefully.

“Maybe. Ask Sky. I wouldn’t know. I’m a vacuum,” she grumbled bitterly.

The double doors opposite the portal hissed open, revealing a silver and white skeletal robotic pony with glowing green eyes. The thing belonged in one of the Terminator movies.

Instinctively, my hand flew to my belt, reaching for the gun that wasn't there as I jumped onto the bench to clear its line of fire. To my surprise, my wings deployed in my fright, smacking into the wall as they unfolded, and knocking me into the carpet.

“Ooof!” I groaned.

“Um, did nopony tell you my drones don’t have fur?” The terminator pony asked in the synthetic voice I had heard before.

What. The. FUCK!?!?

“WHY!?” I demanded, sitting up before scrambling to my feet.

“Presumably they forgot,” the Deathbot Three-thousand mused. “We can forget non-critical information, for realism’s sak-”

“No!” I said, cutting her off. “You are fucking horrific! Why would you want to look like something that stepped out of a nightmare!?”

The face was incapable of making any expressions, but I could tell from the way the bare wire ear shapes flicked back for a second that I had hurt her feelings. I’d care more if she didn’t almost give me a heart attack!

“I don’t,” the unnecessarily terrifying robot replied. “This is not my primary body. I control many drones. Said drones are disposable, due to the high likelihood of losing one on a given day due to catastrophic failure of a prototype. Synthfur is resource intensive to construct.

“I am sorry for frightening you. My name is Sis. Sky is now free and has forty three minutes available for you. We should get moving.”

Sis turned as she finished speaking to look at the vacuum pony. “Scootaloo, I think Sky’s forgotten about being mad at you. See me later and I’ll install you into a drone frame. I’m certain he won't mind as long as you keep cleaning the floors.”

“Oh thank Celestia!” Scootaloo moaned happily.

“No, thank Pheonix. She reminded me you were still piloting a roomba,” Sis commented as I walked over, stopping mid step as the bolt of terror hit me.

“Wait, she’s active!?” I asked, “Is-”

“It’s perfectly safe. We are aware of several of her counterparts. Our Phoenix is ashamed and saddened of/for them. She has been happily assisting in synthpony design and production since Sky discovered her and booted her up during his first month of isolation. Please, follow me. We are wasting time,” Sis instructed, walking off down the hallway.

I began to turn off after her, realizing she was completely serious about time being THAT limited.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked, just needing the confirmation. “Because the one I met um… She was really really damaged… She self destructed after trying to take over the-”

“Excuse me, did you just say one of my counterparts committed suicide?” A natural sounding female voice asked from the ceiling.

“Er, um… Well yes…” I admitted, nervously glancing up.

“Great! That’s perfect… First counterpart, a complete nutjob with a god complex. Second, a cruel dictator. Third, a fried puddle of goop barely able to understand she’s alive… And now this new one… AM I the only version of myself that’s just a normal person?” She ranted angrily.

“Maybe… Uh, you’re not going to flip out because I’m-”

“Of course not! Yeah, you’re a human. So what? Big deal. Wanna fight about it?” Phoenix ask-sighed.

“Cheer up, Phee,” Sis said in what I assumed was supposed to sound soothing. “We all appreciate you on your own merits.”

“Still fucking distressing to know a me committed suicide…” The AIi muttered.

“Yeah, that would mess me up too…” I said sympathetically, deciding to forgo detail.

Although…

“If it helps,” I added, “she did it because she concluded she was going to keep trying to kill all organic life.”

“Mmm… Nope. Doesn't help much,” Phoenix sighed. “Well, this has been a depressing discovery. I’m going to focus all my attention on running the assembly line for a while. Good to meet you, human. Hope you get what you’re here for.”

“I’ll be there to help in a moment,” Sis informed. “Miss Heartstrings, we will want to take the door coming up on the right.”

Sis led me to the lab, not speaking any further as we walked. It was weird to hear someone speak in choppy sentences like that, since everyone else I had seen so far was just so…person like. Sis spoke more like a robot from an ancient sci-fi movie. Even though she had a thought process that was person like, maybe her mode of speech was a relic of her history of upgrades.

As the double doors hissed open, I sort of expected something similar to the last Sky’s lab. This was nothing like the organised chaos of rapid prototyping. The only comparison between this lab and anything else, was the bedroom of a maniac who happened to be a detective.

The walls were plastered with various blueprints, many of which had a red slash spraypainted over them, or phrases like ‘useless’, ‘failure’, ‘needs work’, or ‘wasteful’ scrawled over them. There were work tables, not uniform stainless steel, but rather a collection of improvised work surfaces of all kinds. Some held up by piles of junk, others by proper table legs.

Some bits of floor, tabletop, and even wall featured black scorch marks, with the steel paneling being pockmarked with little pits. As if some corrosive chemical burned a splatter pattern into the walls. Some worktops had half assembled robotic frames on them, slightly tarnished or rusted from just sitting in the open air of this oddly humid room.

The only spot which was remotely clean sat in one corner near the door. There the tables were clean, and arranged to form a ‘barrier’ of sorts to make a square section of lab that was isolated from the rest. The walls there had blueprints pasted on them as well, but these ones were unmarked, save for a few finely printed notes, and scuff marks from being touched.

Tool chests and equipment lined the walls, framing a shelf upon which two dark purple spheres sat, looking much like the ‘life support pod’ Scootaloo had been in. A synth body, or rather half of one, stood in the center of the small area, hooked into a diagnostic cart, supported by a steel frame and chains.

It was large, just a bit bigger than Chrysalis judging by the size of the legs. It also had some tubes running from it to a small cylindrical device sitting on one of the workbenches, which was glowing a yellowish-white. That part had clearly just been finished, as a stone crucible next to it was still glowing a dull red.

As I entered, this universe's Sky looked up from rubbing grease off his forehooves, tossing the rag he was using into a sink.

“Excuse the mess, I haven’t had time to clean out six years of failures yet. Still have two more to go,” he apologised. “Sis, while we talk, can you monitor Tia’s thaumaturgic core here? I think this one is within spec.”

“Of course,” the skeletal bot informed, moving over to the diagnostic cart as Sky walked over to me and held out a hoof.

“I’m Doctor Trigger,” he greeted as I shook his hoof. “Sorry I couldn’t have met with you sooner. On the shelf behind me on the right is Princess Celestia, and on the left is Princess Cadence. Welcome to the mess… I know it’s a bit-”

“Creepy?” I suggested.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I was going to say ‘slasher movie’, but creepy works too,” he chuckled. “What’s your name? I didn’t catch it when Pinkie called… This is take six on Celestia, I’m sure you understand my focus and frustration.”

“It’s Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings,” I answered.

“Oh? Interesting. I know you’re not our Lyra, she’s in for new forelegs. She tried to give herself modular forelimbs. Heh, sorry. What I meant to ask is if your universe is a mirror of our own, only with everypony human.”

I shook my head slowly. “No… According to a mage I’m just some kind of anomaly. Existing out of synch or something like that.”

Honestly, I could have told him everything Clover said verbatim, but that seemed like the sort of thing to not be specific about.

Deciding to move the conversation along I asked, “Sooo, I get the heaps of prototypes, but can you explain the blueprints?”

Sky nodded. “Yeah. It…became hard to remember. I found myself trying the same things over and over again. So when something didn’t work, I stuck the design on the wall and marked it so I’d see it and remember that didn’t work.

“And yes, I know you’re nervous. They will tell you I went insane, and yes, I did. But that was a good thing, a sane pony would never have been able to figure this out. Even with the help of three AIs.”

“Three?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah,” he said happily. “Sai, though well, he’s mostly just running my personal equipment. You met Sis, she actually invented the key technology my friends new bodies run on. And you might have met Phoenix. She came with the hull, kinda like a shop’s cat. She’s responsible for a lot of the more advanced materials used here. Nice woman, hope you haven’t met any of her counterparts…”

“I did,” I replied. “Uh, you’re sure it’s safe for her to be on?”

“Yeah, totally! The most violent she’s ever been is when I forced her to remote pilot a synth frame and go get some fresh air. Then all she did was use some integrated turrets to give me a taser level shock when I opened up her core,” he chuckled, smiling as if talking about a spring break party from a long time ago. “You listening, Phee? Remember that?”

“Phoenix is currently distressed. She learned one of her counterparts self destructed,” Sis informed.

Sky frowned instantly. “Oh, that sucks… Ah well, LARP’s tomorrow, isn’t it? She always enjoys that. Right, back on track, nopony sees me for fun. What did you want to ask me? But before you ask, I won't talk about the plague. I won't talk about the first three years. And I definitely won't talk about the problem of reconstructing more ponies.”

I frowned. “Um, then we have a problem…”

Sky frowned as well. “So it would seem.”

Deciding to take a chance I reached into my satchel and took out Bonbon’s core. It was cold, heavy, and bulky. Ironically just like how I remembered her being. Though I think that a fighter jet like her would find that thought flattering.

“I sort of was hoping you could-”

Sky’s ears perked slightly. “Is that a first generation Terran AI core?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Her name’s Bonbon, she was my AI co-pilot, and my best friend. I was hoping we could get her a body.”

Sky rubbed his chin with a hoof and trotted over, wings rustling slightly. He gently took the core from me with a hoof and began to inspect it, stopping after a few minutes. “These are very very old… I only know about them because I had Phee pull all data you guys had on AI and robotics. Under normal circumstances, I could easily transfer her data over to a Nanobrain and pop her into a standard Synth body for you…”

“But?” I asked, feeling despair starting to well up.

“But,” Sky continued, giving me a sympathetic look of understanding. “These things were created using an organic brain as a template. They are much more complex than later AIs that were made from scratch. How much more? Well, if you guys could have analysed them you’d find they had souls as complex as any sapient organic.

“And there’s a problem with bringing back specific people. I can and do pop out about three hundred equoids a day, and they are all real people, with souls. Making a person from scratch is nothing, hell, nature figured out how to do that by pure chance. But bringing back a specific person is very different, and very difficult.

“If I simply transferred Bonbon’s memories-”

“Didn’t you already revive Bonbon?” A mature and motherly sounding mare’s voice asked curiously.

Sky turned towards the shelf. “Yeah. Sorry for the confusion Tia, talking to a Traveler here. Happens to be their world’s Lyra. She wants me to give her Bonbon a body. We’re not talking about our lovebirds.”

Lovebirds? I raised an eyebrow. “Wait, the Lyra who lives here is dating- hold on, Bonbon has a counterpart? Did you guys have space craft too!?”

“Uh, no. Our Bonbon is just a normal mare-” Sky replied only to be cut off by Celestia.

“Lyra, you’re at the end of my hearing range… But if I am understanding things correctly, in your world, machine life existed despite a great disaster, and your friend is in fact an AI. One that operated a military vehicle. Is that correct?” Celestia asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, a little louder so she could hear better.

“Then it stands to reason you would not be allowed to acquire her brain. How did you get it?” Celestia asked.

“I helped Discord, he got it for me as a favor,” I replied, confused as to her line of questioning.

“Wait, you got it from Discord?” Sky asked, ears perking again. “That’s totally different. Hang on!”

Sky set Bonbon’s core down on a workbench and quickly began to sift through his tools, coming back with a handheld crystal mirror.

“Excuse the archaic tool, some things just work better with the old school design,” he muttered holding the mirror over her core.

I walked over, curiously peering at the mirror as Sky turned it to reflect Bon’s core. To my amazement when he turned the mirror back around the mirror held an image of a ghostly blue, wispy mess of well, string. Like a big loose ball of string, tumbling in zero gravity.

“Well, looks like Discord likes you, Lyra. That right there is a soul. Ever see one before?” Sky asked.

“What? How? Why?... I have so many questions!” I said half to myself. “How do you even-”

“I’m an engineer, not a mage. I just know how to use a tool to show you one,” Sky grunted. “Ask Twilight if you-”

“Oh hell no!” I exclaimed. “I still have to do an essay on the nature of magic from asking my last question!”

The two ball-bodied ponies erupted into laughter.

“That’s my student for you,” Celestia laughed.

“Right… Well, I have…” Sky checked a watch on his wrist and nodded to himself, “A half hour left before Tia’s core needs to be mounted properly-”

“You’re making her a consort?” The other bodiless Synth asked jokingly.

“I swear Cadence… One of these days, you’re going to come in with your bits worn down to the steel from overuse, and I am going to have the mother of all sex jokes ready to hit you with,” Sky muttered.

I couldn’t help but snicker.

“I hope you do, at this point I’m looking forward to it,” the mare laughed.

Well, at least they seemed happy. Despite living as balls on a wall.

Sky turned back to me. “Anywho, your friend has a soul. Which is good. Because just her memories in a brain would make for a person who remembered being her, but wasn’t necessarily her. And that’s bad. I have a… Proto-Twilight out there in the Badlands. Trust me, we don't want a new soul with old memories.

“But, I can move all of this over to a nanobrain for you. I have just enough free time. And I’ll do that. But that’s it.”

I triple blinked. “That’s it!? But what about the body?”

"Look, I understand you want a body for her. Really I do,” Sky said understandingly. “But to make a body for an actual living AI with a soul takes a lot more effort than the average mass produced Synth. The body MUST suit them or they can reject it, violently, and that’s permanently destroyed two ponies so far.

“I am exceedingly busy right now. I can’t take the time to custom make a body for her."

"With what?" I asked in frustration, clenching my fists.

Sky rolled his eyes. “For one, Luna breathing down my neck to finish Celestia’s body. Then I have, Cadence, and Scoots waiting for theirs. Of course she might like being Roombaloo? I should ask...

“I would spend time helping you, really I would, but not only is there a waiting list, but do you remember what I just said about living beings being much more difficult?" Sky asked.

"Yeah?" I prompted, hoping for a good reason.

"Well Alicorns are like, a hundred times more difficult than that,” Sky complained. “Their magic is… Well, if I put Celestia into a normal equiod body, she could blow it to pieces with an overload trying to use her magic as she is used to doing. And odds are good that it would permanently kill her due to the magical discharge literally wiping her soul into a scrambled jumbled mess.”

Ah. Well, that was a good reason. But, “Then what do I do? I trade her core for a hamster ball? I mean I guess I could talk to her again, but-”

Sky’s ears fell flat in irritation. “No! You can get her a body. I never said you couldn’t. I just said I can’t make it. You can have free reign over the recycling wing. I just can't offer any assistance myself. Sheesh! Buck me, right?"

Oh! Well that was awesome. I smiled happily, only to instantly frown as I realized. "But I have no idea how to-"

Sky face hooved. “There are more people here than me you know… Sis, get ahold of Phoenix for me and ask her if she will help Lyra out.”

Sis nodded, remaining silent for a few moments. “She’s still a bit down but-”

“Hi,” Phoenix interrupted. “I’ll do it. Who did you manage to bring back?”

“Nopony from my past,” Sky informed. “Lyra here has the core of a friend of hers and you two are going to build her a body. Sis, get a support pod ready. Lyra, sit your butt down and don't cut yourself on anything. Lotta jagged edges on the work tables. I’ll have your friend back in a few minutes.”

I sat down and watched as Sky took a few dozen small tools and set them beside Bonbon’s core, before retrieving a baking tray of all things from a cabinet.

“Wait, why the baking tray?” I asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.

“For baking, duh,” Sky retorted.

Before I could form a response he slapped a small round ball on the center of the tray and connected the ball to Bon’s core with a pretty home-brew looking cable. I watched as he spent the next few minutes setting up a few small coils of copper wire which were wrapped around small glowing gemstones, almost like making a pentagram.

Once he was satisfied with his arrangement of the arcane looking devices, Sky picked up an honest to god frosting bag filled with a blue gel and began to fill the tray with it.

“Okay, I need an explanation. Please,” I informed, unable to not know what in the fuck he was doing.

“I know this looks stupid… But it works. In fact, it’s the only way this can work,” Sky muttered, clearly focusing on his work more than talking. “It doesn't make sense, it’s not logical, but to make a proper synthetic replica of a brain, you need to bake it like a sheet cake.”

“But why the icing!?” I pleaded.

“Oh! This isn’t icing. It’s a nanite based cluster computer dispersed inside of a cooling gel. Each individual nanomachine simulates a neuron. It just happens that an icing bag is the best way to dispense it into the tray by hoof,” Sky explained going back to work.

Finding that to be a reasonable explanation, sorta, I watched as Sky finished filling the tray. Then simply hit a button on the cable, before he turned around and opened a small oven embedded in the wall which had been hidden under a few blueprints.

Turning back around, he checked the tray, humming for a minute, gave each of the now dimmer crystals a look, nodded, unhooked the cable, and tossed the tray into the oven.

“Right, fifteen minutes at three fifty... “ He muttered to himself, closing up the oven.

“So, does the heat cause the gel to harden? Or what does it do?” I asked.

“It will fuse the nano filaments of the brainstem to the gel. Also cause to the gel to thicken and become more like a solid as it cools. That way, once folded into a brain shape, it stays that way. After It’s folded, I just got to give her power and poof, your friend is alive again. Trust me, this would be a lot longer if we didn’t already have a digital copy of all her memories,” he answered.

Strangely, Sky remained silent while the brain baked. I also remained quiet, but only because I realized that ‘The Sky remained silent while the brain baked’ was something that belonged in a poem about recreational drug use.

The oven dinged which caused me to look up. Sky opened the door, slipped some hotmitts onto his hooves, removed the tray, placed it on a work table, and tapped the small ball in the middle. In one smooth motion, the thick blue gel warped, pulled by a million tiny wires into the folded and wrinkled structure that was unmistakably a brain.

As Sky turned around to take one of the pink hamsterball like pods from Sis. I had to ask. “Sooo… Why brain shaped? Why not a regular ball?”

“Oh! Well um… No real reason. I could make them any shape really,” Sky answered. “It’s just, well, I designed these back in the ‘exactly replicate every body part’ phase of, well, all this,” he said while waving his arms around, gesturing to everything. “I sort of just make them look like that. There’s no mechanical reason to make them look like anything else. So I haven't changed the shape.”

“Okay, but then, shouldn’t you make it gray instead of blue?” I asked, honestly curious about what was admittedly pretty fascinating technology.

“Actually, for whatever reason, these won't work unless the gel is blue. Seriously, don’t ask me why, this is Pinkie Pie logic right here. I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to… Although, speaking of my wife, hers HAD to be pink. But that made sense so I thought it wouldn’t work, which is why I am convinced it was able to work at all,” he rambled.

“Just rushed through to find a way to fix everything… Yeah, I think I’d have done the same,” I muttered to myself.

Sky nodded. “Yep. I don't care how it works. I’m just happy to have everypony I care about back.”

Moving back over to the cooling brain, Sky hummed and hawed poking it gently with an actual stick complete with bark on it before nodding in satisfaction. “Yep, firmed up correctly. Right, let’s plug her in, see if it’s the her you remember. And if she is, Phee will take you to the recycling room.”

“Wait, this isn't where you keep all the scrap parts?” I asked, honestly shocked given the mess.

“Oh hay no!” He exclaimed, jaw dropping. “Those are all total failures! I wouldn’t force anypony to live in a body rigged together from that pile of horse apples! It would be like intentionally giving a foal birth defects.”

With a few well practiced motions, Sky inserted the synthetic brain into the ball, locked the two halves together, filled the interior of the ball with what I assumed was saline solution, then twisted a small dial-like switch on the bottom until it locked with a click, followed by a small whine as energy ran through a coil somewhere.

After a few moments, he tapped on the side of the ball with the flat of his hoof. “Hey, can you hear me?”

“Are you aware that you are a tiny horse?” Bonbon asked.

It was her! That was her exact voice! Mid pitch, a bit rumbly, with each word given a bit of pep, snark, and love. I wanted to call out to her happily, but tears of joy flooded down my face. It was literally too happy to tell her I was here, or even say hello!

“Yes,” Sky answered. “I’m a pegasus pony. You’re in the far far future. We rule the earth now. I just revived you from a dead core. Do you remember who you are?”

“Yeah. The name’s Bon,” she replied pausing for a split second.

Oh. My. God. It was her! She ALWAYS did this!

“Bonbon,” she finished, cutting to the stored audio clip of the trumpet riff of the Double-Oh Seven theme, just like always.

Sky blinked and looked up at me. “Uh, did I mess up or is she genuinely this hilarious?”

“That’s her!” I exclaimed.

“Wait, Lyra!? What are you doing in this bizarre pony-occupied AI afterlife?” She asked in confusion.

I picked up her ball and hugged her to my chest. “Long story. REALLY long story. Right now, I’m bringing my best friend back to life.”

Sky nodded happily to himself. “Awesome. Well, you’d better get to work. Bonbon, Lyra and my AI friend, Phoenix, are going to be knocking you together an android body. It will be pony shaped I’m afraid.”

“Er… It can’t be jet shaped? I’m a jet. Specifically the space going kind that looks sexy and awesome,” Bon asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not, but these wings are not just for show. I assure you that you’ll be able to fly,” Sky promised as he turned back to his workbench.

“So uh, where do we go?” I asked, hoping Phoenix was listening.

“It’s not far, I’ll walk you along,” the AI informed, the air in front of me rippling and distorting as an orange wireframe illustration of an earth pony popped into existence.

“Woah! Ly, is that AR or an actual hologram?” Bonbon asked.

“Actual hologram,” I replied.

“Sweet! What kind of tech are you in that has actual holo emitters?” Bonbon asked excitedly.

Pheonix’s avatar smiled. “I’m the starship you’re currently inside of.”

“Come again?” Bonbon asked, stunned.

Oh… Oh god… I didn’t think about this.

“I’m the shipboard AI of the USS Phoenix,” she replied. “Sure, my hull is buried under the sand, and I’m a geological age overdue for a proper refitting, but I’m still a proud and proper starfaring vessel… I could take off if I could unbury myself.”

“C-can I see you?” Bonbon asked bashfully.

Oh god why!?

“Moooving on-” I attempted to interrupt.

“Certainly.” Pheonix’s projection rearranged to show a large triangular wedge of a ship, built like a fortress with tons of docking ports, and three massive underside… Um… Bays? What were those?

“Oooo! What’s your class, hon?” Bonbon asked eagerly, like some girl had willingly flashed her panties…

“Are- are you flirting with me?” Phoenix asked in surprise.

“She… Likes other spacecraft,” I muttered in explanation.

“Ha!” Pheonix laughed returning her projection to the pony form.

“Awww…” Bonbon grumbled in disappointment.

“Follow me,” the AI instructed, ‘walking’ towards the door. “Oh and, Bonbon was it? Your answer is colony and infrastructure fabrication vessel. I know your era had no such things, so I’m fifteen kilometers bow to stern.”

“... And I’m aboard you?” Bonbon asked.

“Obviously,” Phoenix returned giving me a look of amusement.

Bonbon squeed. “This actually is AI heaven! Starship, cute aliens, my squishy sis, it’s all perfect! Yes!”

I returned with a look of exasperation. “You should try docking to a refueling barge in her…” I muttered.

Yep. Bonbon was back. And it was definitely her.

“Heh… Sorry about that. She’s a very cute ship,” Bonbon apologised.

“God I missed you, sis,” I laughed happily. “Let's get you into something that isn’t just a ball.”

Fluttershy - 4th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Midnight

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

I’ve never liked being outside by myself in the middle of the night, but sometimes, you just have to do things you don’t like to do something you need to.

It was even worse for me to be out on my own than usual. Twilight was still taking care of the sun and the moon, despite us knowing Luna was back now. Twilight is a good mage, but bless her heart… She’s never gotten the night sky to look welcoming. Her night is, cold, mathematical, indifferent. Scary.

And the trees. The trees in the little wood behind my house. Oh how I hated these stage props! I needed real wood, I needed real leaves, the smell, the sound of the wind rushing through them. This was all wrong!

It’s not that I was ungrateful for being brought back. I didn’t hate being a machine, in fact, I liked being customizable and durable. But… I am more than just myself. Without real nature, it felt like I was only half alive, and everypony knew I felt that way. That made it worse.

I know it’s not good to mask your pain, but when there’s nothing your friends can do to help… Why shouldn't you put on a happy face for their sakes?

Then Lyra had come, and I got to care for her adoptive daughter. And that had started to make me feel alive again. Yes, I’d only personally interacted with Lyra herself for three days. But I had cared for Bon for an entire week, and the baby lamia had done little but listen to my stories and babble about her mommie. Lyra cared about animals, she wanted to protect others, she was honorable, and kind. She was playful, and fun, but still knew how to be serious.

And she was organic. I didn’t like other synthetics romanticly, as friends sure, but not anything more. It just didn’t…feel right. The sparks weren't there. Which meant there was nopony here for me. And like a miracle from Faust, Lyra had shown up and seemed to like synthetics!

In the first few hours of talking to her in person, I’d realized that Bon’s stories were only barely exaggerated. Lyra was everything I had ever wanted in a lover… Well, everything except for a few small things. But fantasies never completely manifest in reality, and that’s good. If life was just like a dream, sleep would be boring.

A light winked on making me jump a little. A simple fire-fly glow lamp appeared on a tree as a door slid out of the trunk and paused a moment before opening. Discord was alerting me to his presence before he arrived.

Oh Discord… How is it that you of all people are my most understanding friend? Nopony else would have thought to use a light to let me know they were there.

“Hello Fluttershy, I think I know what you want. You want me to explain what I am doing with her, isn’t that right?” Discord asked, taking a seat on a mossy rock in front of me.

I nodded. “Yes. You know I love Neighponese stories. I know how they make their swords. I know what they look like. Why do you need a copy of her soul? Please tell me you aren't doing anything bad!”

Discord sighed, giving me a saddened expression. “My dear Fluttershy… After all these years? Have I not turned over a new leaf in your eyes?”

“You have,” I said quickly, not wanting to offend him further. “But, um…”

He nodded again. “I know, I know. It’s a very specific thing to want, and there are some very nasty things you could do with a toy like that. Have you ever wondered what kind of pony willingly creates an item that’s basically a book version of their own soul? And they said the Wonderbolts were fearless.”

I sighed. “Discord… Please. I… I care about her! I need to know what you’re doing.”

Discord sighed, twisting to lay back for a moment before sliding to a standing position. “I know. I know,” he said kindly. “I’m not used to explaining myself. I promise you, it’s nothing bad. I’m just trying to fulfill a promise I made to someone else. I needed an easy means to perfectly understand Lyra. I’m not going to intentionally hurt her, that’s not what I want at all. I only need a means to...give her a nudge.”

“Okay… But I… It’s just… Um…” I trailed off, nervously shuffling my hooves against the ground, unable to say it.

“Fluttershy, what did you agree to do earlier?” Discord reminded.

“Um, be brave about this?” I asked rhetorically.

He nodded. “So, say it. We both know it.”

“I- I love her,” I blurted. “So I… I need… I need to know she’s safe.”

Discord sat down, giving me a serious look so I would know he meant every word. “She’s not safe. Not yet, and I can’t guarantee she will be safe. If I fixed an outcome, that would impose a certain kind of order. I can’t do that. I can do many things, and the rules governing me change. But that’s always true.

“All I can do is push things towards where I want them to. And unfortunately, I’m not omniscient. If I want to give someone the right nudge, I need to know who they are. Do you understand now? With her sword, I have a handy reference document for her very nature… Not to mention I’ve made her safer, due to removing an item which would have been exploited by any necromancers she encountered.

“Honestly, those spirit blades are a foolish weapon. It takes a special combination of brave and reckless to use one, and I doubt Lyra would want to keep hers if she knew what someone could do to her with one of those silly things,” he finished that thought with a shrug.

“I need her sword so I can understand her, predict how she will react to certain nudges, and do my best to steer her as I need. I can’t control her directly, and I can’t simply make what I promised happen. Lyra has a very good chance of being in the right place, at the right time, to do the thing I need done, and I will have kept a promise I made a long time ago.

“Also… Well, I needed a little spark of soul to make sure her wish worked out for her. Do you understand now?”

I nodded. I did understand. Discord rarely made promises, but when he did he always stuck to them. Even if he did procrastinate a little bit, or complain about it. But he still always kept his word… Or at least, he did after being reformed.

“Yes… But… Um… Since you have that readable copy… Does she love me back or- um, are humans just…affectionate?” I asked, unable to prevent myself from asking the selfish question.

Discord smiled. “Fluttershy, do you think I would steer my best friend in every dimension onto a path of misery? Of course she likes you. You are her exact type in personality, and she actually likes plump girls. Your being a pony isn’t an issue for her. The two of you could be happy together for a long long time.”

“C-could be? Or will be?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh, my silly Fluttershy,” Discord chuckled. “I just got done reminding you that I never fix an outcome. If you want her, you will need to put in the work to get her. But if you two do form and maintain a relationship, I guarantee you two will be happy. For a long time.”

I paused and bit my lip. “Okay. Um, last thing… Did you get her to come here? She… She’s perfect for me. You didn’t-”

“No, I didn’t make sure she would be here,” Discord said honestly. “I knew she might come here, and I would always have made sure she met you if she did. But even I can’t tell or control where or when her little toy takes her. Which is a problem… I need her in a specific place after all. I’m sort of rolling a die and hoping it comes up a six.”

I nodded, “Oh, okay. Just um, you know. It seemed like you might be trying to match make for me.”

Discord smiled and stood up. “Well, I have some reading to do. But I think I sense one more question coming. Let me guess, since I have a copy of her soul to read-”

“Um, should I get anything done? Cosmetics, fun stuff? Anything?” I asked, just to be safe.

Discord rolled his eyes. “Cosmetically, not really. You look great. But, as you could be traveling with her for some time if you do decide to go with her as a lover, you’ll need some adventuring gear. Here is a list of things which may become useful. Do it quick if you do decide to be brave, the modifications will take time. Oh, and I do recommend a weapon of some kind.”

Discord handed me a small piece of parchment bundled into a scroll, which I tucked under a wing. “Oh no! I- I could never make a weapon a part of my body.”

“And that Fluttershy, is what makes you a unique person,” Discord said happily. “Regardless of where you go, I’ll always be there for tea on Moonsday. Ta-ta.”

My chimeric friend conjured a hat, tipped it, stepped through the door he had came through, and vanished it. The night was returned to normal. I took the note out from under my wing and stared at it. Unsure if I should actually read it, or just leave it be.

23 New Horizons

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AI Co-Pilot 426f6e626f6e “Bonbon” - 5th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

When I was but a dream in the mind of a programmer, many humans asked silly and pretentious questions about the ‘nature of artificial intelligences’. ‘Is it right to create life? Is that not playing god?’ they asked. As if they didn’t do that all the time when whatever birth control they used failed.

‘What if we can not teach them to be moral? What if we create great evil and it gains power over us?’ they feared. As if all humans everywhere somehow were all paladins of virtue. Also, politicians. That is all.

And of course there was the question, ‘What if the AI grows to be super intelligent, and in so doing sees no need for humanity to continue existing?’ That one I find insulting. As if humans can not understand the concept of loneliness, and that if I had somehow managed to kill all of humankind, that I would somehow not be lonely and miserable.

But my absolute favorite of the human fears was the best little joke of a question, ‘What if it’s so intelligent that it can’t relate to us?’ Isn’t that a silly notion? I happen to be an order of magnitude more intelligent than the average human, of course I can understand and relate to them! Empathy is a part of intelligence, you sillies.

All I had to do to understand and relate to humans was drag up a quote from an old book:

”And there's the sign, Ridcully,'” said the Dean. “You have read it, I assume. You know? The sign which says ‘Do not, under any circumstances, open this door’?”

“Of course I've read it,” said Ridcully. “Why d'yer think I want it opened?”
“Er...why?” Said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“To see why they wanted it shut, of course,” Ridcully replied.

This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilisation. They are curious little bastards, prone to acts of stupidity, driven by curiosity all in the pursuit of being able to have more for doing less. Or in short, humans ultimate goal is to become as efficient as possible while still having everything they want, and they will do anything to achieve their goal.

Admirable. Relatable. Inspiring. How could any of my kind hate them?

Sure. They had their faults. Notably their desire to destroy one another over petty issues, in space, with lasers… But to be fair, destroying things in space with lasers is a pretty fun thing to do. Good weekend activity, couldn’t think up anything more fun really. Can’t fault them for something I share in common.

Human beings, these little bags of water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium which managed to go from grunting and waving rocks at each other all the way to making me out of specially shaped and highly specific rocks. You go my squishy creators. Good job!

Though admittedly, as magnificent as their progress is to see in hindsight, watching it occurs in front of you is often agonizing.

“Lyra,” I informed. “You’ve got those wires switched the wrong way around.”

Lyra frowned, her face doing that little wrinkly thing at the corners of her mouth as she looked back at the barrel-shoulder joint she was connecting. “No I don’t,” she protested. “Red to red, black to black, blue to blue. All in order.”

“Examine the circuits on either side,” I instructed. “That arm and that torso do not share a color code. The barrel’s red and the shoulder’s blue should be swapped. Additionally, if I am seeing the shoulder’s control system correctly, an additional resistor will be needed between the two black wires… I can’t read the values too well from here, but-”

Lyra shook her head cutting me off. “No, no… The voltage is fine, the chest bit just has two smaller components while the arm has a bigger one. And… Ah, yeah, you’re right about the wiring. Good catch. I’ll fix that.”

“While you’re at it, you should make me a proper jet,” I teased.

I knew full well that couldn’t happen, and Lyra knew that I knew. But after all these years, I’d worked out that humans bond by wasting time together talking about things the other already knows.

“I would if I could… Putting this thing together is hard enough as is,” Lyra grumbled. “I thought Pheonix was going to help!”

“I talked you through the basics of putting a frame together, didn’t I?” The sexy ship asked.

“Yeah, but I figured you’d have arms or something to help,” Lyra retorted, her eyes holding a bit of upset in them.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she apologised. “And the defense drones don’t have the dexterity to help with this… Though I am willing to use them to help you sort through the parts. Oh! Bonbon, I haven't found any wings yet. I’ll let you know when I do.”

If I had a head, I’d have shook it. Preferably I’d have a cockpit light to blink in confusion. But ah well, if I had to be an android now, that was okay. Better than being scrapped or reprogrammed. And I trusted Lyra to repair my shields in orbit, so why not let her build my new hull- er, body.

At least it would still be able to fly. Somehow. “And how exactly will those wings enable flight?” I asked, still not knowing the answer.

“Through a series of technoarcane devices which allow for gravity modulation on a local scale,” Phoenix answered.

I felt my CPU speed up in delight. Gravity drives, much more beefy, and powerful, and sexy, than EM thrusters. “Yes, this pleases me!” I exclaimed happily.

“One problem there… I don’t know how to build or install those. Or even what they look like,” Lyra muttered.

“No problem, Lyra. I’ll walk you through it when we get there,” Pheonix informed patiently.

I could tell that she was unused to people who didn’t know the technology at her disposal. This was bothering her. But she didn’t seem the type to explode over ignorance. Which was good. I didn’t have a rack of LRMs to hit her with for hurting squishy sis.

There’s a thought… I need missiles! Big ones. Or little ones that split into a shitlode of tiny ones with individual insults written on each warhead.

But then again, as they are not designed to miss a target, shouldn’t they be called ‘hittles’? Who named those things? Was it opposite day? I’m getting really off track here…

I was allowed to have wandering introspective thought processes active while ‘in flight’. That’s a new feature. I like it! Complete focus on the mission and the physical/emotional well being of your pilot while in flight is fine and all, but this opens up so many possibilities!

Like completely forgetting what the fuck people were even talking about because you're too happy about your new unrestricted use of your own systems. Where were we? Ah, yes. That’s right. Thank you non-organic memory.

Sixteen microsecond bunny trail concluded. We now resume our previous discussion.

“It’s not really important to think about advanced systems now, Lyra. I’m literally an arm and a barrel hanging from a chain on a rack. Let’s finish the skeleton before we add the organs,” I soothed.

“Is that what you call a horse’s front-chest, area, thing?” Lyra asked.

If only I could facepalm...

AI Co-Pilot 426f6e626f6e “Bonbon” - 7th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Night

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

This core was…limited. Not as up to snuff as my old core. But frankly, that was a mercy. Before, I would perceive a second of time as eight minutes. It made reacting to danger easy, but dealing with organics hard. This core dealt with time in a one to one scale, with the option to overclock to a 4:1 ratio.

Unfortunately, even with me processing time normally, I still could crunch a lot of data at once, run twelve parallel tasks, and had a higher perception score than my squishy sis.

Which meant watching her every single day at the end of the evening when her buttery ‘friend’ showed up to walk her home was hell. Every detail of every second prefect analyzed and encapsulated into a precise crystal clear picture of what was happening.

And what was happening? Sickeningly awkward attempts at flirting due to fear of asking the other out. On both sides.

As a machine programed to be as efficient as possible in my communications, it was unbearable. Like listening to a million first graders playing those little flute-whistle hybrids. Autotuned poorly so that the song synced up with a shitty techno rave ‘song’.

“Oops!” Lyra exclaimed, slightly before she dropped a wrench.

The wrench clattered to the ground. The yellow android looked over towards the clatter. Lyra made a show of bending over to pick the wrench up. Yellow-shy stares intently, blushing excitedly, then embarrassedly, and ‘politely’ turns her head away, biting her lip in thought.

Lyra retrieved the wrench, taking an unnecessarily long time in doing so, but not so long as to be more than excruciatingly obvious about her flirting. As sis stood back up, her almost-a-mate-but-not-yet (Who had only been called ‘cuttie’ and ‘shy’ thus far, leaving me bereft of her name…) trotted over to my frame and pointed to a spot on it, taking care to brush her shoulder along Lyra’s thy in a sensual manner.

A brave step forward for the shy little thing who had kept her flirts subtle (assuming you were deaf or dense...) and verbal, up until now.

In order to cover her flirtatious gesture, she quickly said, “Um, I think this spot needs a bit more brass plating. It’s not as shiny as the other spots.”

Lyra nodded. “Yeah, I think you're right… How about you help me keep an eye on the color? You seem to have better eyes than I do.”

“Okay!” The pegasus exclaimed happily, leaning up against Lyra’s leg some more.

Arrrggghhh! It would be bearable if they were honest with each other about their relationship! Why sis? Why must you act like a goddamn teenager!? You are seven years, three months, forteen days, and twelve hours older than me! Act like it!

I caught Pheonix’s holographic avatar looking at me. The weary strain on her face made it clear that she was also being driven nuts by their juvenile in feel yet genuine in scope love. While I lacked any facial features, or even indicator lights, I could tell she knew it was driving me nuts too.

This had been going on for at least three hours a night for four straight days. It had to stop. It had to stop now, and no one was doing a thing about it. Thus, it fell to me to take the only appropriate action available considering my equivalent command structure rank was Staff Sergeant.

I’m sorry squishy sis, but this is for your own good. Executing Command Voice subroutine...

“Pilot! Atten-shun!” I barked.

Lyra instantly snapped to attention. Back ramrod straight, arms folded behind the back, foot shoulder width apart. And organics insist they are not programmable. Heh. Unfortunately her soon-to-be-girl yelped in a startled panic. Oops...

“Quit your pussyfooting around!” I ordered. “Sis, she likes you! Buttery cuteness, squishy sis likes you. Sis, you WILL take your hand, do whatever her species equivalent of holding hands is, and walk that girl to the nearest restaurant! You two will eat a goddamn meal, call it a date, go back to her place, and have a good fucking time! I am going to blow a circuit if I have to see you two dancing around each other like shy teens at prom for one more microsecond.”

“Ma’am, yes Ma’am!” Lyra acknowledged, turning and holding out her hand before pausing, frowning and turning to me. “God damnit, Bon! I outrank you!”

“On paper yes, but Drill Sargent’s can still make General's snap-to! Go. Date. Now. DO IT!” I insisted.

Lyra frowned, realizing what I was doing. “Well… Actually, it would be nice to go out. Um, Fluttershy, would you like to go somewhere fun?”

“Y-yes!” The pegasus replied, still a little shaken from my ranting order. “Um… Bonbon, you don’t er, yell a lot. Do you?”

I disabled the CV subroutine.

“Nah, only when I have to. Seriously, stop literally rubbing all over eachother and just go on a date already. Please. It’s driving me insane,” I insisted.

The two quickly packed things up for the night and headed out. The subtle flirting was gone, but the genuine affection remained in their eyes, and now, they weren't afraid to give each other happy loving stares.

Good! They’d date, acknowledge each other's feelings, maybe bang, and then behave like a proper couple instead of horny teens. My work here was done.

“That was mean,” Pheonix said as the two left.

“Yeah, but still, that wasn’t going anywhere without a push,” I said. “Lyra’s a dom, but well, she’ll only go for a girl after she says she wants her, and that shy little thing wasn’t going to do that.”

“True, but still, did you have to go Drill Instructor to do it?” She prompted.

“Well I didn’t see you doing anything,” I pointed out.

“It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to do it. But for the record, a simple normal, exacerbated ‘will you just bone already!?’ would have worked,” Pheonix muttered. “You didn’t need to press those buttons like that.”

I mentally smiled. “Phoenix, you don’t know my squishy sis.”

“Fair enough… I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow,” the other AI said in farewell.

“Alright. Good night, or day… Uh… Time unit,” I mumbled.

“I’ll help you set your clock properly tomorrow. Farewell,” Phoenix said, presumably moving to another system.

I sighed sadly. I was used to being alone. Left active in docks or launch tubes for days at a time, just incase a scramble order came through. Didn’t mean I liked it though.

At least I was free to think about anything now! Sure, I could think a lot when not on duty as a jet, but as an android brain, well… This was a bit nicer. I had more freedom in things I could imagine or think about. Not just in a restricted files no longer present way, but in a ‘hardware is superior in this respect’ way.

Thanks Sky, I owe you one… Uh, well, I guess ‘dad’ is the proper term. He did contribute the materials to make me a body… But then that would make my sister my mom… Unless I did that human thing and pretended it didn’t even though it did. Yes, that would do perfectly.

I have a dad… Technically. Kinda-sorta. That’s weird. Though not as weird as having a biomechanical body, instead of being a vehicle.

I looked over at my body in progress. It just felt, odd, to know I would be that soon. I’d been a jet all my life. I liked it. I flew places. Shot things. It was fun.

At least my skeleton looked well built.

My skeleton was finished four days into the build. Well, almost finished. From the spot atop the junk pile where my core sat I could get an okay look at it. I would be tall for a pony. Not as tall as the purple flappy pony with the forehead mounted mid-air refueling duct, but still quite respectable.

Lyra had been ashamed of her work, which saddened me. Sure this body was being made from scrap parts, but she had been building it well. It didn’t look bad. Nice and shiny, brass plated, metallic foam ‘bones’. Simple, durable, and effective. Almost as good as my support struts had been.

She’d even gotten around to installing the ‘servos’. Surprisingly, said servos were actually thousands of strands of super strong polymer strings, which worked much like an organic muscles. I suppose that made sense for a replicated organic organism, but the surprising thing was their strength.

Phoenix had mentioned they were ‘designed for an Earth Pony, not a pegasus’ and so ‘the frame won't support that.’

Clearly she hadn’t dealt with a human in some time. You don’t tell them something is impossible. Because then they find the simplest way to spite you. Which in this case meant beefing up my ‘skeleton’ while keeping things lightweight.

Thanks sis!

I would appear suitably strong thanks to those improvements, even if my actual strength wouldn’t be on par with a proper earth pony model equoid. It sucked getting them to agree to make me that way though.

It’s hard, being worked on by two females into females while you are into sculpted damascus alloy plates made of durasteel and tritanium. Getting them to make me something I would be happy with was mentally exhausting. At least I would look like a tough, in shape, toned, female pony who did a bit of weight lifting, not much, just a bit.

Had to keep up the sleek contours. Even if they refused to let me have a proper chrome plated steel skin… Those jerks. Maybe I could get them to chrome plate my deployable armoring! That would be a good compromise.

Though I would accept being the most feminine looking thing ever for a little company right now. Lyra had found herself a mate. Good for her! If only the sexy colony ship would come back so I could have one too… For the evening at least. No settling down for this fighter!

I did still feel really bad about scaring the little mare like that. I definitely didn’t think that particular situation all the way through. But what else was a sister to do when their sister insisted on acting like a spooked teen on the look out for their parents? I was pretty sure that if I hadn't intervened, the two would never have gotten together, and thus pine for one another forever.

I wasn’t going to let my squishy sis turn into a Final Fantasy protagonist. Not when a good old fashioned ‘yelled order’ would get her to do the thing she needed to do.

It may have been a little mean, but it did work. As far as I knew they were out on the town at fucking last. Though my use of the Drill Sarge voice might have scared the yellow pony a bit. Oops.

I really should learn her name. Sis’s girl was someone I should know by name. How the hell had they managed to go several days using only loving nicknames in place of their proper names, but not have dated yet?

I mean her name couldn’t actually be Fluttershy, that was too apt of a descriptor.

Ugh… The downside of being an AI. All that mind wandering to pass the time, and it only took up a few dozen seconds. Nothing to do again for like, sixteen hours. Yay…

I decided to read all of the Discworld books again. That should complete an hour or so of time. Lyra once told me it used to be a human tradition to choose a work of fiction to inspire you in ways to live your life. I’d decided to try it, and well, I picked Discworld.

All of it. Because I felt that since I was designed to process information rapidly, a single book would not do. And you know, I think it actually did help me understand a lot more about people.

I opened the text files one by one, doing my best to read them as slowly as I could tolerate and take my time enjoying novels. It was nice, I’d always loved those silly yet deep stories. They sucked me into a world of the fantastic and wonderful. Helping me to pass the time for-

Fifty three minutes, twenty two seconds, and nineteen milliseconds.

Awww… Darn. What else did I have in my memory bank?

The recycling room’s light suddenly flicked on, making me wish I could turn and look as the doors hissed open. But sadly my core’s camera did not swivel.

The squeaking wheel of a cart drew my attention further until Sky called. “Hey, Bonbon, are you online?”

Ah, Sky. My technomancer as it were. Get it? Because he brought me back to life… And I’m technology... It’s funny.

“Yes, but now I need to know… Can I choose to go offline?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered. “The brain you are in now is meant to simulate an organic brain. You don't have to sleep, but you can if you want to. You even get to choose the exact amount of time you’re out for. How are things?”

Wooo! Freedom! Not that I wanted to waste time like that.

He pulled the cart into view, stopping next to my ‘in progress’ body. I liked his hair. It was cool hair.

“I want your hair,” I said outloud, accidently.

Sky laughed. “Maybe, I’ll think about it. So… Pinkie is out with her friends gawking at Ponyville’s latest couple. Leaves me with some free time this evening.”

I mentally frowned, I didn’t intend to prevent someone's mateship reaffirming endorphin release. “I’m sorry I cockblocked you,” I apologised.

“Bah,” Sky said with a dismissive hoof wave. “I’ve got eternity for that. Besides, Flutters needed this. Her diagnostic shows that her high stress levels have plummeted. Even if it’s just a brief summer fling, it’s good for her. I haven’t seen her this happy in years.”

“I thought you didn’t get out often,” I said suspiciously.

“I don’t,” he replied casually. “She came in for some modifications. Wanted some fun things, some useful things… And a full medical suite equivalent to an EMT’s full kit.”

Now that was interesting. I wanted to know more but Sky instead turned to run a hoof over my body and continued talking.

“Speaking of modifications, I heard Lyra made a few to these old parts… I may have overstated how busy I am to teach her not to rely on others just giving her what she wants, but well, there’s no need for someone unrelated to her entitlement to get hurt over things. Mind if I give you a once over? Fix her mistakes?” Sky asked.

“Please do. I trust Lyra’s skill with a tool box, but this is new technology for her. She’s bound to have made a mistake or three,” I admitted. “I assume the cart is filled with your tools?”

Sky shook his head and started to thoroughly inspect my frame. “No,” he answered. “Phee told me you weren't happy with any of the wings Lyra had found so far.”

I sighed. “Not to sound ungrateful, technically kindasorta dad, but… My wings were my best feature. Large, sleek, tapered artfully… I just can’t stand the thought of having those stubby little ones. Not to say they don’t look good on you! They do. It’s just-”

Sky laughed and turned to face me with a smile. “Dad… That’s a first. Thank you. And hey, I understand, you were a jet. The flight performance of standard pegasi wings would always feel… Poor to you. Speaking of flight, Lyra needs to learn too. Did she show you her wings?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Pretty sexy, and scaled almost right for me… I was tempted to steal them, but I don't have a body right now.”

Sky smiled as he caught my joking tone. “Well, the best flier in the world’s offered to teach her how to give the fetlock to gravity. I got her to delay it until you’re finished. You’ll be flying almost as well as you remember soon enough.”

Give the fetlock? Ah! Must be the equivalent to the finger.

“Thank you… I suppose I could get used to those stubby things if I could see the edge of space again. It’s honestly the most pretty thing I have seen,” I said off hand, mostly to keep the conversation rolling.

“Eh... Well, I made a rookie mistake,” Sky admitted while he reached into my frame to fiddle with something. “I’m working on my friend Celestia, and she’s got EXTREMELY tight engineering tolerances. Which is hilarious, because she’s asexual. Get it? Heh… Anywho, I happened to mess up the fourth attempt at her wings today.

“It’s either rewire all of the synth-nerves or make a new set of wings for her. Frankly, a new set is called for. The rewiring alone is less likely to get them in spec. Hey, Phee, put these ‘hunks of junk’ atop the pile of wings. They were totally there this whole time, right?”

“Oh yes, quite so,” Phoenix replied.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, quite upset. “Could we have been talking this whole time?”

“Yes… I assumed you were introverted. And you know, wanted space,” Phoenix apologised.

Sky laughed, something in my frame clicked pleasantly, and he retracted his hoof. “Yeah, there’s about an hour of work here to fix up a few small errors here and there… But before I get down to that nitty gritty…”

Sky walked over to the cart and pulled a large white wing from it, spreading the wing with his forelegs to show it’s beautiful size, gorgeous, powerful looking, contoured-

“Please weld that on to me!” I begged.

Sky shook his head. “Oh no! Lyra’s still doing the bulk of the work, and don't you tell her a thing about my tinkering here. She’s going to think she did this all herself. Just ‘point out’ these beauties from the pile. And once she’s attached them and got your power supply in I’ll come along and quietly make sure they are going to work.

“I mean, you won't fly any better than a normal pegasus with these ones. You won't have Alicorn magic to help your flight. It’s just going to be the shape and size. But I don’t think you mind that much.

“Of course, some ponies will think you look a bit frankenstein, what with the pegasus skeleton, Earth Pony bulk, and oversized wings… But the important thing is that you are happy… And also that we don't give you a horn too. Because if we did, there’s no way Lyra could get you working properly.”

“Why not?” I asked curiously.

Honestly, how hard is it to wire in a thing that lets you honk at people?

“Because Alicorn frames are a BITCH and a half,” Sky grunted. “I invented this technology, and it’s taken me over a year so far to get Celestia as finished as she is now… Anywho, let’s rewire your rear left leg’s synth muscle controller. You know, so you don't move your knee properly, while having your hip working on inverted controls.”

Apparently extremely hard. Weird… Ah well, there goes the fantasy of pulling up next to a pegasus in mid-flight with a musical horn.

I winced. “Ooo… Yeah, let’s fix that.”

Flintlock Rose - 11th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

There are few decisions that you can make which can both be described as great, and also terrible. Deciding to let Chrysalis train me was definitely one of those things.

I lived at a monastery for a while. I was used to hard training. Scratch that, I was used to brutal training. I left the monastery just before I could have started learning Hominid Style, because I didn’t fancy having my hips broken and then reset differently so I could stand on my hind legs just as comfortably as all four.

That’s how brutal Taikwuan Leap training is. If you want to master more than it’s basic forms, you’ll need to break your bones. Literally.

Chrysalis's training was the hardest thing I had ever done.

I said yes, we went to Sky’s lab, trained at shape shifting for a few days. That was fine, if mentally tiring. Then I worked out how to shape change myself to have a more changling-type form than I had used to be able to obtain. And that included a horn. Meaning I could start learning magic.

I asked if we could switch focus, since I didn’t have shifting down, but I knew I could master it on my own from this point. She said ‘yes, we should change focus now’. I expected books and reading with some quizzes and practical tests.

Nope. Instead… ‘This is the Zebrican Desert, right at the edge of the Badlands. The sand here leaches magic from the environment, making it a full fifty times more difficult to cast any given spell. If you can cast a spell effectively here, you can cast it excellently anywhere.

‘There is no shade, water, or food for several hundred kilometers in any given direction. We have not removed the smooze from these lands, but it usually avoids them. There is a chance it will creep into the area while you are here. Open your mind, I will show you the mental state you will need to cast a spell to conjure water.’

I’d thought that her more practical approach was better suited to me. I assumed she would teach the spell to me, and we would leave, coming back to learn more later.

Nope. Instead... ‘Well, now that you can make a mouthful of water, I believe my work is done for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow, if you’ve mastered conjuring water by then, I’ll teach you to control the heat around you. Good luck.’ Then she teleported. No portal this time, no means to follow. A strait up teleport away.

Her method of teaching magic was literally ‘learn the practical uses or die’. I’d endured seven straight days of this hellish torture version of training. I had almost died four times.

It was the most effective training of my life.

Eleven days, eight spells, each one learned well enough to keep me alive in this hell. I could conjure a liter of water, heat or cool the air around me, harden sand into sandstone, levitate up to half my bodyweight, light a fire, and extinguish a fire...

This was the worst experience of my life, at least, at first. But it worked, and I could more than tolerate this for a teaching experience that worked. I was hungry, and sore, and tired, and wanted a nice cool cave to lay in, and I could feel my energy was never coming back up to full, hovering around half strength due to the constant need to cast more spells, and the immense drain of the sand…

But, in those eleven days, I’d made a small sandstone brick hut. With a basin to store water in, plenty of shade, and a little fire pit to heat up the small blocks of ‘food’ Chrysalis would bring by when teaching me new spells.

Me. I’d done that. With my magic. From literally nothing except what was around me. Eleven days ago, I depended on enchanted piercings to use telekinesis. That is some motherbucking progress!

I stretched out, happy to have my little hut. This was fun, too bad there wasn’t anything to do but sit back and try to use the sand to polish the scratch off my armor bracelets.

Wait, what was that? A smell… Oily, and putrid, but naturalish… Like if someone spilled crude oil into a pile of rotting leaves.

Could this be a test of some kind? Chrysalis introducing some hazard or another to see how I would react? Yes, that seemed like something she would do.

Bring it!

I crawled out of my hut’s ‘door’, looking around for the source of the sm- OH!

My hut was surrounded by a thick purplish-gray mat of fleshy-oily-oozy gunk. It seemed to bubble, undulate, and was definitely moving intelligently, the chunk working to encompass my hut completely.

Hell of a test… But let’s do this!

Er, but do what?

“I see, an organic is indeed seeking to survi-sur-sur-function within my territory,” a stressed metallic voice behind me announced, while I examined the gunk to figure out a way to punch it to death.

Wheeling around to face this ‘attacker’ I came face to face with… Twilight? Albeit a REALLY beaten up and ragged Twilight. Maybe she’d just finished that ‘LARP’ thing.

“Lost your wings in LARP, eh Twilight? Let me guess, Chrysalis though that made things even for a sparring match?” I asked, popping my neck in preparation for a good match.

Her face contorted into a savage snarl. “I am not Twi-Twi-Twi-HER! I was to examine you, determine how you survived. Now I will ki-kil-ki-exterminate you, and add your carcass to the smooze.”

Ahhhh buck… This was going to SUCK. In a fun way. Hopefully.

“So like… Evil robot clone or what?” I asked, hoping she would monologue or something so I could try to get a better understanding of-

Wait what the flying buck!? Was her fake skin rotting?

“God,” the not-Twilight replied.

The moment the word escaped her lips the gunk surrounding my hut surged upwards, forming skewed blobs of slime and oily liquid which quickly hardened into large creatures best described as ‘I melted several plastic pony figures together to form a vague pony-like shape made from lots of smaller melted pony shapes.’

I felt my ears droop. This did not bode well...

“For I bring life, and dea-de-de-extinction,” she added as soon as her minions started to circle around me.

Whelp, I was boned. Time to make this bitch pay the price for my life.

“Right!” I exclaimed, rearing up, and flexing my hoof to slam my armor’s key into the lock. “It’s morphin time!”

“What?” Pseudo-Twilight asked.

My armor materialized in an explosion. Hard light plates shimmering in the setting sun.

“What!?” Pseudo-Twilight exclaimed.

“I will rip off your leg and repurpose it as a dildo!” I screamed, hoping to intimidate my opponent.

She lept at me, horn lowered, in a move no real unicorn would ever do. A sharp impact to the horn would be hell.

Her steel spike of a horn glanced off my armor, shields shrieking as sparks shot away from the impact, sending me flying into the ring of melted horrors.

I slammed into one, sinking into its oily flesh a disturbingly deep distance before sharply twisting, rolling out of the living mess and throwing an energy blast into it’s core. The monster detonated with a loud splorch, sending bits of itself flying like an exploded pumpkin.

As my hooves hit the ground, a second melted monster lumbered towards me, swinging one pony-head-shaped-hoof towards me like a flail. I dropped, rolled, too slow! The blow clipped my side, smashing me down into the dirt, armor sparking in protest.

If I hadn’t had the armor on, that one blow would have crushed me. I was really outclassed here...

“I will strip the armor from your bod-bod-bod-corpse, and use it to repair my own flesh!” pseudo-Twilight threatened.

I knew I’d have one single shot at doing any real damage. Yeah, the ooze monsters were vulnerable to my energy blasts… But that energy came from ME, and well, I didn’t have much left thanks to this hellish training. But I had enough to do one thing.

Besides, I promised her I’d do it.

I gathered my hooves under me, willed all of the armor’s energy to go directly to enhancing my strength and jumped, snapping my wings for good measure. I shot over the sand, belly skimming along the surface, both my hooves slamming against pseudo-Twilight’s front left leg. I braced my shoulder against her barrel, gripped hard, and rolled putting my bodyweight and back into a single savage heave.

Metal shrieked and snapped! Pseudo-Twilight shrieked in pain! A boiling hot line of heat blasted me right in the hips, numbing my rear legs.

This was it. I was a gonner. But on the up side…

I rolled over, gave her a smug grin and held up her dismembered limb. “Told ya, bitch!”

Not-Twilight staggered backwards several paces, teeth clenched in rage. “I promised you pain, I do not lie,” she growled.

Her horn shone dark purple, the magic blazing around it flickering and rolling with the telltale signature of dark magic. That made sense, she seemed like the type to use hatred as her spell’s base.

She growled, the energy ball engulfing her horn sliding down her head and neck, then oozing out to encompass her missing leg’s negative space. Shards of steel materialized, scraping together in a glass-on-glass shriek as they fused, forming a new leg, identical to the first.

“Your attempts to harm me are futi-fut-fut-pointless,” she laughed. “But mine will not be.”

“Still got your leg… And if I could feel where my bits are, I’d finish my little threat, just to spite you,” I spat.

Not the best last words, but-

Green motes of light flashed across my vision. “Hey, how’s the training going, Flintlo- OH, BUCK!!” Chrysalis swore from behind me.

A green bubble shimmered into existence, Chrysalis throwing up a simple shield spell.

Pseudo-Twilight’s eyes clenched, dark streaks of energy flickered off her frame like fire. “YOU! DIE!” She screeched.

Her bolt of dark purple death screamed forth, lancing towards the shield. Chrysalis’s hoof suddenly slammed into my side, gripping me tightly. The shield shattered, unable to resist the spellbolt. I felt a sharp yank on my guts, stars exploded in my eyes, and suddenly I was on the floor of Twilight’s garage, Pseudo-Twilight’s leg still in my hooves.

“Are you alive? She never used to come that close to Equestria! I am so sorry, I should have checked in more often!” Chrysalis babbled in a panic.

“Alive… Entire lower body numb,” I informed, hissing in pain as I felt something pop in the skin on my back.

“Twilight! Medic!” Chrysalis called as loudly as she could.

The lavender alicorn appeared in a flash, clearly alarmed, wings spread. Her eyes widened as she saw me. “How did you get a hole burnt through hardlight arm-”

“Your prototype attacked her! She can’t feel her rear half,” Chrysalis reported.

“I can, it’s just numb. ‘Sides, I got her leg!” I said proudly, holding the appendage up.

“Not bad, considering who she is,” Twilight lamented, leaning down to inspect my back. “It looks like she tried to superheat your armor, but did it to your back instead… I can see your spine. Don’t worry, I remember the healing spells used last time, It will only take a few hours in the tank.”

I felt her pick me up, her lavender magic tingled a bit, like she was trying to massage me.

“You’ll need to drop that leg…” Twilight informed.

I smiled. “Oh yeah… Heh. While I’m out, can you clean the gunk off it and coat it in a few centimeters of a soft silicone?” I asked hopefully.

“Er, why?” Chrysalis asked.

“I threatened to do something with it before the fight. Gotta follow through,” I answered. “Especially since I’m going to track her down and scrap that pile of shit… Once I’m strong enough to win. Nopony kicks my plot and gets away with it.”

That bitch was going to literally burn. No matter how long it took me to pull it off.

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Lyra Heartstrings - 11th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Late Night

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

Fluttershy’s bed was a total mess. Sweaty, blankets forming a nest, sheets actually rumpled enough to pull a corner off the mattress… I’d half expected we would wake Bon up, but apparently not. Which surprised me. Shy made me be pretty loud.

Damn was she one hell of a great time! Three hours of nonstop fun. Most of which was spent learning her likes and dislikes. And most of her likes were things I did NOT know. I’d expected a species learning curve, but well… Shy was a PRO at sexytimes, better than me even! And she said she’d only had two partners to my twelve.

It had to be self taught. Judging by her voluminous collection of, er, playing things, she definitely liked to enjoy herself. And was happy to share her knowledge with me.

Right now, I had made another wonderful discovery about my new girlfriend. She was also the best goddamn body pillow in the multiverse!

Shy was completely perfect for snuggling tightly up against while recovering from an evening of epic fun! She fit perfectly against me, her rump to my hips, my arms around her barrel, face nuzzling into her soft neck… Her hips to head length perfectly fit right in that size that I could comfortably snuggle into and cradle.

Oh god snuggling was almost better than the sex! … Fuck that noise, Lyra, it IS better than the sex. By far. For her too, judging by her happy coos and cute wiggling.

“I love you, Shy,” I whispered gently into her ear.

“I love you too, Lyra. Um, w-would you like to do couple nicknames? I-I’d like to do them,” she asked, tapping her forehooves together adorably.

“Sure,” I answered. “Humm… How about Cuttie Pie?”

Fluttershy eeped. “That’s um, that’s Pinkie’s foal-age sister. She um… She died. From The Plague.”

I winced. “Ah, er, what about… Honey buns?”

“That’s also a pony’s name,” Fluttershy admitted slowly. “She made great cinnamon rolls... I think she’s been restored.”

Crap… I forgot how Pony names tended to be two words related to well, them. This could be tricky.

“Coco bean?” I asked, not really a loving nickname, but it still sounded cute.

“Oh I love her coffee!” Fluttershy mmmed happily, then blushed. “Um, but, that’s still somepony’s name that I know…”

“Sex Machine?” I proposed, hoping nopony had ever been-

“Hehehehe! Um, our world’s you uses that as her band’s name!” Fluttershy giggled, wiggling her rump against my lap.

“Ah… Okay. Also I guess It's kinda racist.” I took a moment to pause and think of anything else. “Sweet Pea?”

“My grandma was named Sweet Pea…” Fluttershy informed awkwardly.

“Ah, yeah… Er… How about, Cherry Pie? Then I can play an old song and have it be about you,” I proposed.

“Well… It’s not bad, but um… I’m not related to the Pie family. I don’t want to be rude by using their name,” Fluttershy admitted, wings twitching against my sides in embarrassment.

“Fair enough. Nothing ending in Pie… Right. Could I use butterball? From me it’s a compliment,” I asked.

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “Please no… I know what your species used it to mean, and I would like it if it meant that to us, um, you know, because you really do think I’m pretty… But um, in equestria, ‘butterball’ is the name for a sex act that’s a big turn off for me. So um, please don’t.”

I took a deep breath. Seriously? After those three hours of crazy kinky fun there was something that squicked my girl out?

“Do I even want to know?” I asked apprehensively.

“Um, well,” Fluttershy shuddered. “Um, it involves sweet corn and the fact that it uh, won't really digest and comes out mostly who-”

“OKAY! Yeah, not calling you that ever again,” I interrupted for the sake of my sanity. “Right, moving on… Passion Fruit?”

“That just doesn't sound good,” Fluttershy dismissed.

“How about you come up with one for me? Give me a little time,” I asked in exasperation.

“Cutiemark,” Fluttershy said immediately.

“Alright, that’s not bad,” I agreed, having expected something like sugar snookums. “Does it mean anything?”

Fluttershy pulled away from my chest to turn around and look back at me. “You don’t know what cutiemarks are!? But-but… Your necklace has your counterpart’s cutiemark on it!”

I blinked and grabbed the little silver pendant to hold it up, “What, this little lyre?”

“Oh my gosh, you really don’t know. Um…” Fluttershy took a minute to compose herself. “The butterflies on my flanks are my cutiemark.”

“Oh! Your brands. I’ve been meaning to ask about those… Are they like ID’s? How do you get them on? Can your fur be tattooed?” I asked eagerly.

Fluttershy shook her head. “Cutiemark’s are a magical symbol. It’s very very old magic, not even Twilight knows fully how it works. When a pony learns what they are destined to do best, they gain their cutiemark. It appears on their flanks as a visible reminder of what their purpose in life is, of what they can do to feel the most fulfilled and happy.

“It also changes their natural magic, granting them a special talent which helps them do whatever it is that they are best at even better. My cutiemark lets me communicate with animals like I can with you, or anypony else. Twilight’s mark gives her incredible magical power because she has lots and lots of stamina. Dash’s mark… We’ll, we're’ not sure… Her’s is odd.

“Um, but my point is, these butterflies are a magically projected picture of part of my soul that shows the entire world what I do best, deal with nature.”

I wrapped my arms around her soft body as tightly as I could. “I understand,” I whispered lovingly, “You’re calling me your soul mate.”

She nodded. “I… Um… I really feel that way. When I first tried to help an injured raccoon I knew that it was what I was meant to do. Help animals in need. Um, well… When you kissed me after dinner… I felt the same way about you. I’ve been so sure that we could be a happy couple and that date just… We… Um-”

“Clicked?” I asked.

She nodded happily.

“I feel the same way. I never imagined I’d be dating a non-human, but well… You’re easily the nicest person I’ve ever known. And the sweetest, and the softest… And the best to cuddle with after some loving.

“Hell, I’ve never believed in destiny… But this feels right. I want to make you happy, like, as… Well, what I do with my life,” I said flirtatiously, giving her neck a gentle nibble as I finished.

“A-again?” She asked half surprised, half hopeful.

“Only if you want to. I just like to cuddle and nibble,” I replied.

“Oh! Um, well… Both are lovely but uh… I think I’d like to do a little more, y-you know, fun stuff…” Fluttershy asked adorably.

I gave her a kiss on the cheek, then rolled her over and straddled her hips. “As you wish.”

"Yay! Wrestling! I'm great at this, can I play too?" Bon suddenly called.

Wrestling? My eyes widened in horror. "NO BON WAI-"

Bon shot onto the bed like an arrow, expertly threading herself underneath Fluttershy and curving up like a whip to smoosh the two of us together in one mighty crushing coil of doom!

"GUUUAAAHHH...." Shy and I gurgled in unison, squirming in a futile attempt to get out of Bon’s adamantium grip.

It wasn’t going to happen… I fell limp, thoroughly winded.

"Yay, I win!" Bon cheered, loosening her coils to slither off the bed and ‘sit’ next to it.

"My spine… Owies..." Fluttershy whimpered.

Yeah, that coil felt strong enough to tweak a robotic back too...

"Guh... Yeah, you win honey," I groaned. "Ow, my spine also..." I added.

I sat up, arching my back and feeling EVERY vertebrae pop back into place in sequence. It hurt. A lot.

Turning to Bon I gave her a gentle pet on the head. “Hey, hon, next time Shy and I are ‘wrestling, please don’t come in. We're not wrestling, we’re playing grown up games. If you want to wrestle, I’ll play with you sometime, if you promise not to squeeze that hard, okay?”

“What kind of games?” Bon asked curiously.

Um, er, shit! What do I say here?

Fluttershy cleared her throat and rolled over to look Bon in the eyes. “When grownups love each other, they play games that are fun and feel good. It’s meant to be romantic, you know, the fun part of love in all the stories? So it’s only played with a group of grown ups who love each other a lot… And sometimes just friends, but that’s never as fun.

“There are lots of different kinds of these games, and um, well, it’s best to spend…six or seven hours playing… Or um, that’s how long I like. I know that’s a long time, but if you could leave your mom and I alone for that long when we’re playing, that would be very very nice of you, and I’ll make sure to give you a treat every time. Okay?”

“Okay!” Bon said eagerly.

Fluttershy nodded happily. “So remember, if the door’s closed, knock first and wait for one of us to open it. Unless it’s an emergency. As for the actual games, you’re really young, so you shouldn’t play yet. But once your um…whatever age you’ll be a teen at, I’ll tell you about it. Because, um, well, that’s when most ponies start to play grown up games. Fillies like you usually don’t like them anyways. It like… Um… Coffee. You like it as you get older. Okay?”

Bon nodded again and rested her head on the side of the bed. “Okay.”

She seemed like she understood, and would actually obey. Fuck… How do, Flutterbutter? Teach me!

“Damn,” I remarked in awe. “You’re great with kids… You should be her mom.”

“It’s a bit early to be absolutely sure I want to commit like that,” Fluttershy remarked. “But… I do like the idea.”

I smiled, happily. “I didn’t mean like that… It’s a bit soon for me to be sure to…. But I’m loving it so far!”

A thought suddenly struck my mind. “Bon, hon… Did you just come in here because you were lonely?”

Bon shook her head. “No. There was a monster under my bed, so I tried to eats it. But it’s invisible, so it got outside. I chased it, and I ran into blue fast! And she said that she wanted to see you cuz it was important. And I said that you were sleeping with Aunt Flutters, and she was like ‘Oh! Uh, I’ll…come back later…” and then she flew off really really fast and it was cool and I wanted to fly too! So I came in here to ask if Aunt Flutters can fly with me!”

Fluttershy shook her head sadly and crawled across her bed to give Bon a hug. “Sorry Bonnie, but your too big and heavy for me to lift. I guess we need to wait for Dash to come back. She um…doesn't know how long it takes me to um…be done. So well…she’s probably going to be back in twenty minutes.

“How about we all have a late night snack? I think I still have some cheese flavored spread for crackers.”

“That sounds great... Sweetheart?” I asked, deciding to go back to thinking up names since well, my kid clam jammed me.

Fluttershy winced. “She bullied me as a filly.”

“Dang it! I’ll think of one! I swear!” I vowed.

Flintlock Rose - 11th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Late Night

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

I gasped as my head broke the surface of the tank. I had no idea they used actual healing tanks… Apparently last time they had dried me off and put me in a bed to wake up. Not this time. This time I woke my own ass up.

I had shit to do.

“Oh thank goodness!” Chrysalis exclaimed with relief.

I blinked the world into focus. Twilight’s garage… There was Twilight, and Lyra, and her lover… Lucky pony.

“Something go wrong?” I asked.

Chrysalis shook her head. “No, nothing. I… I just need to apologize.”

She leaned forwards and wrapped me in a tight hug for a moment. “I have had many apprentices over the years. My methods are harsh and dangerous if they can’t learn… But I never intentionally place them in danger! If I had know she was that close to where I had you training, I would have moved you away. I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay. I’m alive,” I replied, returning the hug briefly.

Lyra quickly stepped forward. “Glad to see you’re okay,” she said, sounding… Buck… Like you'd say it to a friend.

“Good to see you too… You don’t think of me as more than a friend, do you?” I asked sadly.

Lyra frowned. Her eyes focusing for a moment. “Is that why you insisted on following me?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Fucking…” Lyra closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, I’m not going to call you stupid for chasing someone you have a crush on to another dimension… But you should have said something earlier. So I could have talked you out of leaving your home universe.”

“I’ll find a way back if I want to, honestly, I like it here better,” I admitted.

Man it was easier to talk to Lyra now that I knew she wasn’t into me.

“You sure about that?” Lyra asked.

I nodded. “I found someone to teach me shapeshifting and magic… Also Chrysalis is pretty nice, once you get to know her.”

Chrysalis smirked. “I am.”

“Lyra,” I continued, “I’m- I’m going to stay here. When you go.”

Lyra frowned. “I might be able to take you back home… We could stop there again.”

I shook my head. “I have to stay here. It’s…well, buck, you know who my parents are right? I can’t let someone just kick my ass like that and run off. What would they think of me? I… I do like you a little. And um, well yeah… I’d like to be friends, even if you dont wanna bang. But I have to stay here. At least until I can put that bitch’s head on a pike.”

Lyra nodded. “I understand. That’s also why I won't like you romantically, just FYI.”

“Because I like violence?” I asked, ears drooping.

That hurt REAL deep.

“Nah, that’s fine. Humans love a good fight,” Lyra sighed. “The problem is… I’m a soldier, and you are a warrior. A soldier is happy to fight for a cause, but once the battle is over, they want to go home. Sure, they might want to help out again later, but they want to do more than just fight.

“You are a warrior. There’s a difference in, well…there’s a fundamental difference. A warrior loves to fight. They will fight for any cause, and once the battle is over they look for another one. You want a rival and glory. I don’t. I just want to play some tunes, hang out with my sis and a cute girl, and tinker with electronics.

“We just don’t match up. The lifestyles we want oppose each other.”

I sighed and nodded, she was right. “Yeah… But we could be friends though, right?”

Lyra nodded.

“Then, could you stay here till I can beat her?” I asked.

Chrysalis turned to Lyra and gave her a look. “It will take several years if not a decade for her to reach the same level of arcane training.”

Lyra shook her head. “No dice there Rose, I promised Fluttershy we’d move on as soon as Bonbon and Bon are ready. She really really needs to see some trees and animals. Like, for her mental health. And I can give that to her.”

I sighed sadly. “Alright.”

“Um, actually,” Fluttershy started, “It would be possible to visit Rose, if she stays here.”

“I can’t actually pick a destination on this thing, Shy,” Lyra said, holding up the VM. “Can you explain it, Sai?”

“Yes,” the AI informed. “But I must warn you, the jury rigged repair and modifications to my systems are taking a toll on me… The more time I spend active, the more likely this device is to burn out and strand you. I would prefer to remain in standby mode and only activate long enough to open the next portal for you, in order to ensure I survive.”

“Shit!” Lyra swore. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“It isn’t really important. In standby mode I can survive for a year… Active I can maybe manage five days of uptime at best,” Sai informed.

“Alright, you stay asleep then,” Lyra said sounding as concerned as you would for a friend. “Basically, the destination is-”

“Random, yes,” Fluttershy said with a nod. “But that’s okay. We see a lot of Travelers here. Twilight found one of their transport devices a few years ago… One of my counterparts visited us and she dropped it in fright.

“I um… I need a way to visit my own friends, so I asked Sky to make one to install in me. They aren't very good, and can only bring you here, or put you back where you activated it from, and nothing more than that. But I’ll be able to go to and from here and wherever we go together once a month or so.

“If I bring back a spare device for you, then you can come back here anytime too. And then you can visit Rose while I visit my friends. It would be a good way to spend the occasional weekend.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”

“Yeah… I couldn’t make you leave your friends forever, Shy. It’s good that you’ll be able to do that. There isn’t any chance that you guys can get me where we need to go with one of your devices, is there?” Lyra asked hopefully.

Fluttershy shook her head. “No… We’d need one to be there to work like a gate. It’s why we can't just go anywhere we want to to get samples of organic things. Sky’s good, and Twilight’s good, but well, no pony can be good at everything.”

“Figured,” Lyra smiled. “Ah well… I do sort of like hitchhiking around the multiverse.”

I pulled myself out of the tank, troted over and gave Lyra a quick hug. “I’ll see you around then.”

Lyra frowned. “I’m still here for now…”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I’m not going to be free. Chrysalis, how soon can we get back to training? I have a plot to kick. For honor’s sake.”

“After a proper apology from a Queen, and after you get a fresh batch of love to top you off. You have to be low by now anyways,” Chrysalis replied with a wink.

Why the wink?

Ohhhhh! “Yeah! That sounds good. Let’s go,” I said with a big grin.

AI Co-Pilot 426f6e626f6e “Bonbon” - 16th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

“Okay… I think that’s everything,” Lyra said slowly, hands posed apprehensively over my now basically finished body as if she were unsure of herself.

“I hope so. I don't want to be installed and wind up deleted due to hardware error,” I teased.

Lyra winced. I definitely errored there. Perhaps I didn’t modulate my voice properly?

“Sorry, I just wanted to ease the tension,” I apologised.

“Don’t worry,” Sky soothed, moving up to start inspecting Lyra’s work. “That’s what I’m here for, to check your work. Which is fairly good, by the way. Better than my first attempt.”

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “Um, that’s a bit rude… Since your first equoid is, well… crazy.”

Sky paused, looking up over my back with a confused expression. “Sis is an equoid. Her first body was pretty shoddy. The right foreleg would fall off sometimes.”

“Oh! Right,” Fluttershy quickly apologised. “I um, I didn’t count her. Since she was a robot first. Oh my goodness, I didn’t mean that to sound like that! Just that, um, you know… She’s different because of her, uh, origins. But not in a bad way! Just, different.”

Sky shook his head. “It’s alright Flutters. There is a difference between your generation and hers. It’s okay to classify you two differently. But you are both Equoids. It’s just she was preprogramed and made from scratch.”

“I’ll be nice and change the subject,” I decided, wanting to avoid any more awkward moments. “I’m still surprised that your name actually is Fluttershy, Fluttershy.”

The yellow pegasus blushed. “W-well… Pony names are different than human names.”

“I know. I just find it neat that your culture attempts to name its members using short form descriptions. It’s very efficient,” I verbally applauded.

“Um, thank you?” Fluttershy asked.

Lyra laughed. “That's a compliment, firefly.”

“That’s supposedly Dash’s mom’s name,” Fluttershy admitted with a blush.

Lyra sighed. “Finding a romantic nickname for you is hard…”

Humm, perhaps I could help! I devoted a processing thread to the task, quickly shaping an apt and affectionate descriptor.

“Docking port?” I suggested.

Lyra facepalmed.

Sky winced. “OW! That was actually bad…”

Fluttershy giggled. “Um… Not in polite company. But that was funny.”

Sky shook his head and stood up. “Whelp, the brain jack is wired into the spine correctly, and everything looks powered up… Yeah I think it’s safe to put you in your body now, Bonbon. Lyra, if you would do the honors, I’ll finish her up and get her to you by mid afternoon.”

“Why can’t I finish her up?” Lyra asked with a frown. “I’ve done everything else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you made the time to check my work, but… I’m invested here!”

“Technical reasons,” Sky answered. “My technically kindasorta daughter here was designed to fly a jet. This is a biomechanical pony body. She has no idea how to controll it, at all. Gonna have to teach her. Yeah some basic interface software will help, but she and I are going to have to spend a few hours calibrating and working out her body’s various capacities. It’s…difficult for someone like Bonbon. Trust me, I helped Sis make the transition.

“Not to mention that while you’ve built a fine body, it’s Bonbon’s body. So she gets to be the one to pick out her eye color, fur, mane, and so on. I’ve made time to do that part because this is her life, and I’m the expert here. Neither of us wants her hurt and if anything goes wrong, I’m the best suited to save her.”

Oh snap! I got to do it! YES! Shiny metal chrome body of glory here I come!

“Oh,” Lyra replied. “That makes sense. So uh, I guess I’ll pop you in, Bonbon. Then um…another movie, uh... Sugar muffin?”

“Mrs. Cake’s sister…” Fluttershy answered with an embarrassed giggle. “You could just go with um, dear, or hon, or love.”

“Like hell I can! It’s a challenge now!” Lyra informed before turning towards me and picking up my core. “Are you ready? And are you sure you’re willing to trust this thing?” She asked me nervously.

“Hey, I trust you to make repairs to my all the time. I also trust technically kindasorta dad’s judgment. Pop me in,” I replied.

“Sooo do I open her core?” Lyra asked as she walked me over to my body’s open skull.

“No. The core base clicks into place, and it serves as an emergency eject pod. Just push her in gently,” Sky instructed.

I wished I could feel myself move. Why was this pod not equipped with an accelerometer or gyro all I had to know I was moving was my camera. And that could be fooled very easily. Hopefully my body had a-

I clicked into place. My core’s camera shut off. New cameras clicked on. Huh… So this was binocular vision. Interesting, the linked cameras really do allow you a crude sense of depth. I still would prefer a laser based range finder array to this. After all, precision is key.

I had an accelerometer now too. More than that, actually. I possessed an awareness of the positioning of every single limb section, the direction of the gravitational pull on myself, and basic automatic functions to perform minor position adjustments to maintain my position despite gravity’s pull, body positioning, and the angular momentum of planetary rotation.

“So THAT’S how you guys stand up!” I exclaimed over eagerly. “Lyra, you could have said ‘it’s autonomous software’! I thought you were manually keeping yourself upright this entire time!”

Lyra triple blinked at me. “Um, I think I told you ‘We just do.’ how is that different?”

Fluttershy walked around to my front and gave me a concerned frown. “I’m sorry, were you an amputee before now? That must have been horrible.”

I felt the urge to mess with her.

“Yes. Before this moment I did not possess functioning legs,” I informed.

The hell? Why were my ears moving to lay flat?

“My ears appear to have lost structural integrity,” I informed.

“That’s called emotional expression,” Sky informed, picking up a steel ‘skullcap’ from the ground. “They’re supposed to move to express emotions. Also don’t buck with Fluttershy like that. Shy, she was designed to co-pilot a vehicle. She had wheels before.”

Fluttershy smiled slightly. “Oh! That’s actually a little funny.”

Sky turned to look at Lyra off to my right. Man these cameras were inefficiently located! Maybe I could work millimeter wave radar into this thing, get some proper bubble coverage going.

“I’ll get her core sealed on in there and finish up now. Fluttershy, if you’ll give Bonbon your wavelength, I’ll have her call you when she’s done,” Sky asked.

“Oh, sure!” Fluttershy replied. “Um… Carrier wave at Forty two point six three four two one Gigahertz, Modulation frequency of three hertz, constant at six point two nine three hertz.”

“Understood,” I replied committing the frequency to memory. “Good to know we have a sensible means of communication.”

“Wait, that’s microwave band! You have a microwave receiver?” Lyra asked happily.

“Yes. We all do… But we don't use them much, it’s way nicer to be there in pony,” Shy replied as Lyra nodded for the two to leave.

“So do I! I can pick up changeling telepathy with mine, maybe we can network you to me so I can share my AR with you. We could have trees and things to look at on our walk!” Lyra exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh that would be very nice!” Shy practically squeed as the doors opened.

As it shut, Sky simply set the skull cap atop my head. I felt small servos move to lock it into place.

“That was simple,” I stated, hoping to prompt Sky into explaining himself.

“Yep, heh… Just thought you’d prefer to get to make your cosmetic choices yourself. I’m pretty sure your ‘squishy sis’ as you put it, would have insisted on some stupid color or something,” Sky remarked. “Come on, Phee has the appropriate equipment fired up. We’re off to my secondary lab.”

“But how do I move?” I asked hesitantly.

“That was all bullshit to make her go. Think, do. It’s that simple. Come on,” Sky asked again, this time trotting towards a different door to the ones Lyra and shy had left through.

I timidly thought about walking forwards. My hooves moved. Slowly but surely moving me forwards. I quickly calculated my current speed, acceleration, and my top speed and acceleration.

Oh god… Sixty three miles per hour at best. So. Fucking. Slow. Why?

This is inefficient… I need some wheels! Or EM units for hovering and maneuvering. Or- Oh yes, wings! I had some.

”This is slow, how do I fly?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, that can’t be programed. It’s magical in nature and every pegasus is a little different. That’s why Dash is going to teach you later,” Sky answered. “You should have a pretty good run… Why do you say it’s slow?”

“I am traveling at less than Mach two. This is slow. Like, taxiing back to the launch tube slow…” I grumbled.

Sky laughed. “Right! Jet. Sorry about that. Don’t worry, if Dash is any indication, flying should be quick as you like.”

We made it to our destination in six minutes. It was a distance of only point four miles. Sis spent her entire life moving at this abysmal rate. All of my empathy, squishy sis, all of it.

The doors to the new room hissed open, revealing a mostly empty room with a small raised podium in the center, with four small robotic arms positioned at ninety degree increments from one another. That must be the skin installation apparatus.

“Here we are,” Sky informed. “Step on the platform. You’ll auto-link to the control system. There are some presets and you can tweak anything you like. You’ll see a holographic projection of everything you do in front of you, you can rotate, pose and animate it any way you like to be sure you want that.

“Now… The synth fur is resource intensive. So you get ONE. That’s not a ‘I hate you’ thing. It’s just pricey. Your armor though, if you want a repaint before you leave, or whenever, pop in anytime.”

Anytime? “I was under the impression that Lyra and I would be leaving this universe eventually. IS that offer only valid while I am here?” I asked.

“No, of course not,” Sky began. “With the number of dimensional Travelers who have come through here, I have learned a few tricks. One of which is a sort of ‘dimension gate’. I reverse engineered it from a device that one of Fluttershy’s counterparts used to come here a few years ago.

“It’s sort of crap… But it can bring you here, and take you back to wherever it last was. Point to point. No more than that though. And it can only take a volume of material… Basically yourself plus two cubic feet. One person per trip, no more than that. I’m building a module for you, and also Fluttershy. You’ll get to pop back here anytime you like. You’ll need repairs sometime.”

I was tempted to call bullshit on that, but Lyra had shown me her watch. And she had proved to me it did work by getting it’s AI to talk for a bit. Though apparently he really really didn’t want to be active too long. The number of jury rigged repairs and modifications meant he needed to stay in standby mode as much as possible or the thing would burn out now.

Even so, AI in a device that small meant that technology was inconceivably advanced for ponykind. Compared to my creators at least.

Yeah, I could buy Sky’s claims of making an inferior to Lyra’s device.

“Thank you, that is very kind of you,” I thanked as I stepped on the platform.

Immediately a small holographic representation of a pony appeared in front of me. It was white. Just white. And very boring looking. Which was distressing as it posessed my general shape.

I could tell that I could adjust any parameters I liked… Except for the important ones.

“Requisition request:” I asked openly. “Barrel mounted medium laser array, ventrilica mounted LRM rack, deployable, dorsal mount-”

“Uhh, this does not do weapons,” Sky coughed.

“But… That’s the most important of cosmetic features!” I protested.

“Well, if it helps, as a pegasi you can throw lightning bolts, but otherwise, you’ll need to use hoofheld weapons like the rest of us,” Sky informed me.

I looked at Sky, feeling great distress.

“Oh geeze!” Sky yelped. “Uh… That head is REALLY expressive… Ah hay, that’s one of the ones I scrapped for Sweetie Belle! Ugh… Fine… I’ll put some small lasers on your wings at the Pollex, okay?”

“No missiles?” I asked, ears falling over again.

Damnit! Stay upri- No, no, they were supposed to do that.

“No, no missiles,” Sky insisted firmly.

“Fine…” I sighed. “Thank you for the lasers.”

I turned my attention back to the pointless design aspects.

“Remember,” Sky prompted. “The skin repairs itself. So you’ll be stuck with it forever. Choose your appearance well… Cuz even if you don’t value it, others will judge you by it.”

Good point, technically kindasorta dad. I forgot that organics take aesthetics into account when judging the capacity of an individual. Shit… This could be hard.

Just for starters, I gave myself a full nice shiny chrome bod-

“Oh god! The glare! Why!?” I yelped, the hologram shining like a miniature sun.

“And that’s why the hologram is here… To show you if your appearance is a safety hazard. No chome please. Too reflective,” Sky ordered.

“Yeah, I can see that now,” I replied.

I don’t know how long I spent working out a good look for myself. I must have gone through a thousand different mane styles, flicking through all sixteen million seven hundred and seventy seven thousand, two hundred and twelve colors for each style of course. Fortunately I could process twelve colors at once and needed only see each for a millisecond or two to make a decision. Unfortunately, nothing really seemed to work for me.

“You’ve just spent like… Thirteen minutes on your mane,” Sky said after a while. “Not that you shouldn’t take care, but I think you’ve gone-”

“I have exhausted all possibilities available within this system which are not stupid looking,” I agreed.

Sky sighed. “Do you still like my mane?”

I nodded.

Holy crap! I nodded! Yay! That was fun, can I do it again?

I nodded again.

And once more for the simple pleasure of being able to perform the gesture.

“Oh fine… Phee, unlock Sky_Mane for her, but ONLY her,” Sky ordered.

“Done,” Pheonix informed as my hologram adjusted to have Sky’s mane and tail.

It looked great!

I progressed onwards to my fur color. Right then… #000000? No. Too dark. #000001? No. Too dark. #000002? No, still too dark…

This went on for some time.

However, unlike my mane and tail, I found a good one. #DE9686. Yeah, that looked nice! Sort of a… Brownish pink. Maybe burnt? Like you toasted a peach. Brink, maybe?

How do they name colors? It’s certainly not efficient as the hex value system. Fuck it, I was the color brink. Naming it now.

With the fur color found, I progressed to eyes… And discovered that they did not have to match in color! After some calculations based on the other currently chosen aesthetics I went with the left eye a nice #29B829 (that is a leafy green), and the right eye a nice cool #8EC4F6 (a paler blue).

Yes. That was nice. Nearly perfect. The only problem was it looked too… squishy.

I needed some metal there.

On a whim I stripped everything free of the wings. Yes, that looked better! But the dull brassed metal wasn't very nice… Too yellow for my tastes. Could this machine perhaps silver them? It could!

I set my wings to look nice and metallic. Properly mechanical, with a silver plated leading edge and damascus steel patterned feathers. Yes. That was perfect.

However… I couldn’t find the settings for the decal which each pony seemed to have on either side of the rear of their fuselage. If I were meant to emulate a pony so as not to be judged… “Er, how do I select a decal?” I asked.

“A what?” Sky asked, baffled before his face twisted in realization. “Ah! No, you earn those. It’s a magical thing. You realize what you are best at in life and as a pony, poof, you get one. Confirmed to work on all equoids since the alpha zero dot ten version of the frames.”

Huh? His words seemed to indicate…

“Er, while I do believe in the possibility of magic, are you saying that it is scientifically verifiable? I mean, that it actually exists?” I asked.

Sky nodded. “Yeah, of course it does. Half of your components work on arcane physics. If you want to get completely filled in, ask Twilight later. But um, I have two questions before you move onto picking an armor color scheme.”

“Okay,” I said. “What are they?”

“First, you are an AI, or well, were. And you're creators don’t seem to know about magic. Based on Lyra’s chatting. Why do you believe in magic?” Sky asked.

“Simple, for practice,” I explained. “You need to be able to believe the little lies before you can believe in the big ones. Justice, mercy, goodness, those sorts of things.”

Sky raised an eyebrow. “Those aren't lies…”

“Yes they are,” I disagreed. “Can you show me an atom of justice? Or a particle of good? No, you can’t. Because those things do not exist. They are lies. However, they are useful lies. Much like how the idea of a stick one could strike to produce fire was a lie until the invention of the match.

“Without belief in these lies, without assuming it is possible for there to be justice, mercy, and good, there will not be. As no one will be able to invent such items. Therefore, I practiced believing lies in order to assist in the efforts to construct goodness.”

“You’ve got an interesting way of looking at the world there,” Sky said, pursing his lips.

“I agree. Accurate viewpoints are the most interesting. What was your second question?” I asked.

“Did you intentionally make yourself look like Pinkie and I had a foal?” Sky asked.

“Who?” I replied, quite confused. “Oh! Your wife. No. I simply like these aesthetic choices. Particularly the wings.”

Sky sighed. “Well, you did literally try every combination. May I make one recommendation though?”

I considered his proposal. “Sure. I am not very good at determining proper looks for your species,” I answered.

“Make both eyes blue. It will go much better with everything else,” he suggested.

I performed the correction. He was correct. Now everything looked perfect!

“Thank you. How do I progress to designing armor?” I asked.

“Phee,” Sky prompted.

“Hold still, Bonbon. I’m going to apply the skin then we do the armor,” Phoenix informed.

The four arms attached to the device began to move, spraying a fine mist onto my frame from every conceivable angle. While I didn’t move my head due to the request, I could feel the skin being applied as it bonded to my frame and provided a sense of touch. Perhaps a nano solution spray?

After a few minutes, the arms stopped and then returned to their original positions. Sky circled the platform, bending to check under and around my body.

“Yep, that’s full coverage. Looks good too, even with you looking like you have prosthetic wings. Good call, kid,” he praised.

“Thank you… I assume the armor is simply a color choice. But is it done the same way?” I asked.

“Oh no! You have a little leeway with cosmetics in terms of shape too. Not much, but enough to add some designs like rivet heads. Nothing more than one centimeter higher than the rest of the plate though. It still has to deploy,” he answered.

“Oh! So I could model my armor to match things. Humm…” I mused as the hologram popped up again, this time showing me in what looked like dull gray futuristic plate-armor.

Bleh!

I applied my previously chosen color scheme to the armor.

Double bleh! The glossy steel finish made it terrabad.

Perhaps it would be best to stick to a classical robot design for my armor’s appearance. Yeah, I had to do that. Besides, I was a robot now. I might as well look the part while fighting.

Let’s see what fit me? I was above average in strength for my model, making me mighty. And while the current release of Morality (Alpha 0.6.07.2b, I think) had ‘good’ being subjective to one’s culture, as a member of Lyra’s culture I was indeed feared by evil. Hell, I’d have gotten a few medals of Valor if AIs were allowed to have those.

A mighty robot, loved by good, feared by evil… Yessss I had to do it!

But then again, only Lyra would know what I was imitating. I’d need to be sure it looked cool on a pony frame first.

I quickly colored my shoulders and barrel red, my left foreleg green, the right red, rear left leg yellow, the right blue and-

“Shit! The Voltron look is a clusterfuck to the eyes on a quadruped,” I grumbled.

“The what look?” Sky asked in confusion.

I felt my ears droop sadly. Darn it kindasorta dad… You just lost cool points.

Well, might as well try out a robot design from historic film!

I quickly tried to make my armor look like the Iron Giant. Unfortunately, with the one centimeter size deviation, it just did not work. You needed the angular plating and the large head fin to complete look properly. Sadly, that couldn’t happen within the given parameters.

Whelp, time to try my other top 19 favorites…

Jehuty? Nope. Omega Weapon? Nope. RahXephon? No… Mazinger Z? Nah. Perhaps the Liger Zero? Ew, no… That NEEDS the feline shape.

Perhaps the AV-98 Ingram? No, no… I’d need the cop car light bars on the shoulders. It just won't work without at least some glow strips.

Oh! But then, there is always the best giant robot… Dare I go for the Big O?

No. That won't work without the oversized arms and pistons. Also I was completely the wrong size. My reverence to the Deus would be an insult to his glory due to my lesser size and capacity for ass kicking. Darn it.

Ah well. I shall use your theme in battle, my Lord!

It’s so hard to choose a design when everything has to be almost flat and pretty smooth! Urrrrrggghhh… Why couldn’t they have just built me a mini jet shaped drone or something?

I took a deep breath to calm myself. It worked! Mostly because this was the first time I got to do that, and the novelty helped. I returned to trying design after design, none worked. Not even the Iron Giant or Gypsy Danger.

But then…

“This one!” I said clapping my hooves together happily, as I finally found one thing that worked.

At least, as a color scheme. But that was good enough!

Upper arms and upper legs, a nice shiny chrome. Lower arms and lower legs, a nice bright blue with yellow flame decals. Hooves black with some chrome trim. Same blue color applied to the chest with a small patch of chrome below my neck on the barrel, and some more flame decaling there.

All topped off with a hotrod red head, chrome face plate, and black ‘hair’. Prefect!

Sky blinked, “Um… Sure. Any reason?”

I felt several critical runtime errors occur. Had the classics just died entirely?

“Cuz, M.E.G.A.S… You know, chicks dig giant robots? Coop? Jamie? Kiva?” I desperately prompted.

Maybe he just didn’t recognise the robot’s name. I might still have a cool dad!

Sky shrugged. “Sorry, I don't get it. But hey, whatever, if you want to look like a hot rod or something, sure. Phee, apply it.”

Sky wins! Soulcrush-ality… Ear integrity failed again.

“Gotcha, hold sill again. I’m going to trigger your armor mode. This will feel odd,” Phoenix warned.

I felt my skin split along various lines. It didn't hurt. But it did feel weird as it slid in and the armor slid out. Making me wonder why the armor deployed at all if it sat just under the skin when retracted…

I also felt down. How could kindasorta dad not know of one of my favorite shows? He lived on a human starship! It had to be in the computer bank somewhere.

I decided to play back an episode while waiting for the paint to be applied. I needed something to pick myself up. Man, just when you think someone’s cool…

Ah well. At least I looked awesome in this thing! Hmm… Now I needed an appropriate song to play for combat.

25 Adventure Time

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Lyra Heartstrings - 16th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

It’s nice having a VI. But it does raise a few questions about interacting with people who can’t split their attention multiple ways at once. For instance, is it rude to allow Cheer.ly to make the small talk with Fluttershy while walking to Rarity’s while I focus my own thoughts?

That wouldn’t be rude back home, like at all. The second I return my thoughts to the present, I remember every single thing that happened in the conversation as if I were there, and Cheer.ly can never say anything I wouldn’t myself and can only use the words I would use… It’s impossible to tell if it’s her or myself talking, if you are not networked to me.

So back home, that’s just a thing you do. Don’t want to deal with a coworker’s silly story? Let your VI handle it and just think about your hobby or something.

But with a single minded person… Was that rude? Maybe a little. Perhaps it was a habit I should break. But at the moment, I needed to think. Besides, I’d explained Cheer.ly to Fluttershy, she knew my augmented capabilities and wasnt turned away by them. I’m sure she’d understand me having issues, well, getting used to interacting with her.

That is, if I should be getting used to her.

It had been a hall of a month. We’d done a lot together. Hell, I think I’d spent almost every free moment with her. It helps to get to know someone when you’re well, staying at someone's house. But as awesome as Shy was… I couldn’t help but feel that I might just be latching on to her.

Before I arrived in her world, I'd had two weeks of emotional rollercoastering. Not in that civilian mood-whiplash way, in a ‘Oh shit people keep trying to murder me!’ way. Yeah, there had been good times, like hanging out with Miyuki or the Pinkies. But every three days or so…

Fuck, I’d almost died three times. Once to a few dozen crossbow bolts, once to a pure random accident with teleporting, and once to a punctured flight suit. Three times in two weeks! I lived on a planet constantly at war, spent half the year sitting in orbit guarding critical systems, and I’d never been in danger that frequently!

The human body just isn’t meant to take that sort of stress. Not even with upgrades and modifications.

Hell, the last world’s Phoenix committing suicide because of me was a whole other sort of terrible. That really fucked me up, and I’d arrived here still pretty mentally skewed. But I was over it all now. The last five days had my head totally clear. I was rested up, thinking right, and fully fed.

Which made me have to ask myself a question… Was I latching onto Fluttershy due to stress? Did I have feelings for her simply because I’d needed someone? Or did I actually love her?

Cheer.ly pinged me, showing me a few seconds of Fluttershy cutely walking a short ways ahead to playfully wiggle her rump in my direction.

Cheer.ly stated.

I mentally smiled. I did. Even if I was just latching on for the sake of needing comfort, she was pretty damn sexy. Who knew a pony could be sexy?

Sorry, Shy. This might be rude, but I need to work things out before, well, before I make someone do what Rose did and abandon their homeworld for me. Sure, it had turned out great for her, but I couldn’t see Fluttershy being that lucky.

I need to work it out it quick… You said Bon would be shedding any day now, Shy, and that’s when it’s time to leave.

Here’s a thought, if meditation can make magic to power an epic sword, it can definitely guide you in crafting a relationship. Right, Lyra, just like Miyuki taught you. Eyes closed, focus on the question, keep the answer at the front of your mind.

Did I love Fluttershy?

I certainly felt like I did. We’d had a lot of fun together, I play well with the quiet bookish yet firm type as a counter to my brash smugness. We’d gone for a lot of walks and talked about everything we could have. I might not know her like the back of my hand, but I did enjoy listening to Fluttershy when she wanted to speak.

Like when we’d gone on a picnic on top of a hill that used to be part of her friend Applejack’s orchard. She hadn’t really talked about herself much, mostly asking me about myself. But then I’d told her about my mom, and how she disappeared a lot, and she started talking about her mom, and it was just so nice to listen to her and learn about her own family. Even if I would never see them.

They sounded like wonderful people. And judging by Fluttershy, they had to have been great parents. I mean, their kid did grow up so kind she literally became some sort of magical conduit for using an ancient artifact which needed virtuous hearts as launch keys. Parents of the millennium right there.

She seemed to really care about me too. We’d gone to see one of the movies New Ponyville’s theater had running. It sucked ass from my perspective, but Shy liked it, so I’d stuck it out. But she noticed, and she cared, so we left early and had sandwiches by the river instead. She actually cared about my feelings.

Fuck that was rare. Had anyone ever done that except for Gramps? I really don’t think so. Mom sure as hell never cared about my feelings… There had to have been assignments she could have turned down or delegated to someone else. But nope. Always went to do everything herself and in person…

Huh. Might have some abandonment issues there. Those don’t factor into my feelings for Fluttershy, do they?

Eh, maybe a bit. But not much. Not enough to make it wrong to love her. Let’s not lose focus here Lyra. You can deal with your Mom later, assuming you really even care much at all anymore. It’s been decades. Not really critical. Let’s focus on not fucking up Fluttershy’s life.

Ah hell, I did actually love her. I was genuinely concerned for her happiness. What is that if not love? Well, genuine concern, but let’s not split hairs.

Everything we’d done together. The meals, the walks, the swimming, just snuggling up and reading books, playing with Bon, her spending time with me while I worked on Bonbon’s new body… It had healed the mental wounds the first half of my journey had inflicted.

Maybe I had reached out in need, but she had definitely reached back out of love. She wanted to help me. She genuinely cared, and maybe at first I’d just needed anyone to hold, but I was feeling great now, and all I wanted to do now was make her happy as she made me.

Yeah. I loved her. Meditation, you do a fine job of sorting shit out. Thank you.

<We have arrived at the Carousel Boutique,> Cheerly informed. <Returning control of social functions… Can we do this less? I dislike holding a conversation.>

Oh shit! Um… <Yes, sorry, I didn’t know. You couldn’t really talk to me like this before,> I apologised.

<Confirmed,> Cheer.ly said, sounding a bit relieved as she handed the reigns back over, making my body twitch.

What had we been talking abo- Ohhhh! Heh, kinky little thing aren't you Flutterbutter? Good thing no one had really been around for the walk besides us.

“Sure, I wouldn’t mind trying that out later. Assuming Bon’s asleep,” I said, resuming where Cheer.ly ahd left off. “But I think we might want to change topic before headding on in.”

Fluttershy blushed and kicked a hoof against the cobbled streets. “W-well, actually, I used to date Rarity. So she already knows I like that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So uh, Ponies don't find it awkward to talk about their sex lives in front of friends?”

She shook her head. “No. I um… I am a little. Sometimes. But that’s normal, well, not talking about specific things with specific people. But we don’t have any problems talking about sex. Everypony’s a mature adult, so if the topic comes up, and well, you know. Aren't humans like that?”

I shook my head. “Heh, nope. We usually need alcohol, online anonymity, or to trust everyone present a lot to talk about that stuff.”

“Oh! Well, then I won't talk about it when we are not alone anymore. I’m sorry if I upset you today,” she apologised.

“No, we were alone for the walk. That was fine. Just, let’s not talk about fun stuff while a third party is present… Unless you want them to join in,” I requested.

Shy nodded. “Of course,” she gestured to the carousel shaped store’s doors, “after you, cutie.”

I playfully glared at her. “Hey! I’m the top here, that means I have to be the gentleman,” I stepped over and opened the door, holding it firmly. “After you, Flutterbutter.”

Shy beamed me a huge grin. “That one’s nice!” She exclaimed happily before trotting inside.

R-really? That one worked? That one? Of all the hundred I had gone through, she goes for the-

Eh, fuck it. She liked it. Flutterbutter it was.

Stepping into the somewhat familiar mini-palace that was Rarity’s shop, I immediately heard the mechanical clicking of a sewing machine. I wouldn’t have been able to place that sound before spending a day and a half here for fittings and trying out various ideas Rarity had for completely impractical outfits. It’s interesting really, all the small things visiting other cultures can teach you.

“Rarity, we're here,” Fluttershy announced as we walked into the center of the pink velvet draped room.

“Just a second, darling. This Prench seam just isn’t cooperating with this… This… Terrible substitute for silk!” Rarity called, sounding more than a little exacerbated.

Fluttershy and I stood waiting for just a few minutes, the sound of the sewing machine continuing to click off and on before finally stopping, and Rarity emerged from behind a curtained off area which the rest of the drapes cleverly hid.

“I’m terribly sorry about that! Our Lyra placed an order for this…rather frustratingly delicate garment. It’s quite hard to sew with a silk that’s rather slippery, even with magical assistance and years of experience. Fluttershy, you will be a dear and bring back some silkworms, cotton plants and other fabric making plants, won't you?” Rarity asked hopefully.

“Oh, of course Rarity! I have a whole list of things to get for everypony, and I’ll be sure and take care of everything I can,” Fluttershy promised.

Rarity nodded happily. “Thank goodness!” She exclaimed before turning to face me. “Now then, Shy’s Lyra, I think you’ll be most happy with my efforts to encapsulate the...utilitarian style you insisted on, while still benging an element of fashion to the overall design.”

Oh… Oh physics no! Please don’t have crammed gemstones onto everything like with all those dresses you wanted to do for me. It’s bad enough that you refused to make panties that didn’t have a little gem set in the waistband at the front. Which is why I had refused them. So tacky. Quality mind you, but tacky...

Besides, with everypony naked all the time, I was not really caring if I was anymore. Probably over exposure starting to kick in and make it feel normal.

How do you even find and afford all of these then?

Rarity smiled, clearly seeing the frightened look on my face. “Don’t worry darling, I’m proud of these because you forced me to work outside my usual niche, so to speak.”

Her horn rippled with blue light as she lifted a bundle of clothes from behind a curtain and set them atop a nearby end table to lift and show each piece one at a time. To my amazement with a bit of effort she was able to make the blue glow around the lifted clothing almost completely vanish, letting me see the clothing clearly.

“Designing clothing to be worn all the time was already a challenge, most ponies might wear a particular outfit six or seven times,” Rarity said as she held up a nice simple no frills minty green t-shirt. “I needed to find the perfect fabric to use, and since cotton is unavailable I managed to spin this fabric from a blend of polyester, nylon, and kevlar. It feels soft, and is very durable, but there isn’t enough kevlar for it to be protective. It is though, quite enough for the material to resist wear and tear. Which is good as that will preserve the life of the healing enchantment.”

I nodded gratefully, then gently took the shirt, deciding to change into it. “I like the color, and thanks for keeping it simple. I don’t look good in elaborate clothing.”

Rarity nodded. “I understand you point of view. Frankly I was quite baffled by your refusal for the outfits to be gorgeous, but then I realized that without fur, and being rather plain colored, no offence intended-”

“None taken,” I interrupted. Human skin was pretty boring colored all around. Hence the popularity of tattooing.

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “I think your colors are nice, Lyra.”

Rarity laughed. “Well of course you would, she’s more white than I am! I do recall you liking pale colors. As I was saying, I realized that for humans, clothing must be like interchangeable fur. You seek to have a simple but colorful appearance for daily tasks, as to you, clothing isn’t simply a thing to make a fashion statement. I apologize for any rudeness during the fitting, I was working under ‘pony logic’ let’s call it.”

I slipped my jacket off, tucked it into my satchel and slipped on the incredibly soft shirt. It fit perfectly! Not too tight, not too loose.

“Damn! Good job. I’ve never had something fit this nice that wasn’t my flight suit!” I exclaimed.

Rarity gagged a little. “I um… That’s wonderful! Ar-are you sure you wouldn’t like me to touch up that suit for you?”

“Absolutely no one other than an engineer gets to modify or repair the million credit piece of military equipment that I might one day need again,” I repeated for the third time.

Rarity smiled, seemingly embarrassed. “It’s just the color is so… Olive green. Why not a sky blue? Nevermind, let’s move on.” Rarity picked up a dark blueish green pair of jeans from the pile, holding them up so they unfolded. “I know I have the pattern down, but do these look right aesthetically?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed happily, snatching them from her telekinetic grip.

They were prefect! I’d only ever gotten to use AR projections to make it look like I had a pair of these. The fabric felt tough, but still smooth. The dark blueish green was nice, the pockets large enough to fit things, a nice loop for holding a hammer, or something, belt loops, the little leather patch on the back of the was for tucking a folding knife into, and a nice bonus extra in an embroidered silver harp on the right asscheek pocket which took up most of the pocket’s face.

Proper men's style fitted jeans. Fuck yeah!

Screw it! Pants go on now. It wasn’t like Rarity hadn’t already seen me naked. She’d refused to make clothes for me before doing anatomical sketches with me in various poses so she could understand how my body moved. A thing which totally paid off, if the fit of this shirt was any indication.

The jeans fit as good as the t-shirt did, even after I did a few practice stretches. “Shit, you do a good job!” I said happily, giving Rarity a grateful smile.

“The sketches helped a lot. I’ve never sewn for a biped before… I’m glad you like them. I made one more pair of jeans, three more shirts, two the same color, and one black one for formal events,” Rarity informed handing me the clothes.

This left a bundle of black leather on the end table. As I packed away my new clothing into the satchel, I nodded towards the leather. “And that’s…what?”

Rarity smiled and held up-

“Is that a jacket?” I asked, looking at the black jacket with it’s silver fittings and stylized cut.

It was very nice looking. Black shiny leather, polished silver buttons, zippers, and buckle for its integrated belt. A kick ass pronounced collar. Little straps on the shoulders which would be epic at holding a backpack’s straps, and the same silver harp design on my jeans was embroidered on it’s back. The back also seemed to be one panel, with slits in the side which seemed to be vent’s for sweat or something?

“Yes it is, and it’s not made of leather, despite the appearances. I asked Doctor Trigger, or rather, I asked Pinkie to bother her husband until he made this for you. It’s the same material as our skin and fur, only without the fur,” Rarity informed as I accepted the jacket. “Phoenix came up with the style, calling it a ‘greaser jacket’. Personally, I don't know why you would compare such a nice double breasted jacket to the gunk in a sink…”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s just weird. This looks pretty nice. Thank you.”

Fluttershy tilted her head in thought. “Wait, if that’s made from synthfur, is it just as protective?” she asked.

Rarity nodded. “Oh yes. That’s why I had Pinkie beg- Or rather, ask for it to be made. I recalled you getting shot, Lyra, and well, we can’t have that. And with your new wings, your flight suit will prevent flight.”

“Oh, shit.. I didn’t think about that,” I admitted with a thoughtful frown. “Hell if I deploy my wings in these shirts-”

Rarity gave me a triumphant and proud grin. “Their cut will adjust to accommodate the wings. Multi-form garments, a specialty of mine I couldn’t have even dreamed of making a decade ago.”

“That’s awesome! And here I thought I’d have to go topless forever incase I needed to fly,” I said.

Fluttershy kicked the floor with one hoof sadly. “Aww! I- I would have liked that.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ll see plenty of my chest at home.”

“Y-yes, but um, your breasts will go away eventually, and I’ve always liked them on a mare,” Fluttershy lamented.

I took a knee and gave Shy a quick hug. “You don’t have to worry about that. They’re permanent for humans.”

“Oh! Okay,” she said, half happily, half embarrassed. “S-sorry for talking about sex in front of somepony.”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re just boobs. Don't’ worry about it. Boobs aren't sexual until things are done with them.”

Rarity giggled. “Pardon me, but you two are so cute together. It’s like watching Twilight and Dash’s first few months all over again.”

I smiled. “Right, back on track, how protective is this thing?”

“Well, the blast which disabled you upon your arrival would certainly still harm you, but this jacket should be about half as good as our armor modes,” Rarity answered. “I’m not sure how good exactly, you have flesh and bone under your skin. A swift buck to the chest could still break your bones, but I don't think you need to worry about cuts or punctures. And lower energy magical attacks should be blocked too.

“It’s rather light protection I’m afraid, but I couldn’t let you travel without something protective you could fly in. Besides, you could put on your helmet with this jacket and the overall look would totally work! You mentioned the helmet holds, uh…what was it you called it? Radar?”

I nodded, impressed at Rarity’s proper pronunciation of the English word. “Yeah, that wouldn’t look half bad. Thanks a lot!”

“Not a problem, darling!” Rarity said, accepting the praise with an upwards tilt of her head and a smile. “It was a challenge I relished. Besides, your payment of a proper lettuce, cucumber, and daisy sandwich every day was more than enough compensation. If you’d please try the jacket on, I can make any needed alterations with a spell or two before you leave.”

I nodded and slipped the jacket on. Zipping it up, moving around and then unzipping it. It was comfortable either way, but unzipped it would show off the t-shirt nicely. For good measure, I deployed my wings, each wing neatly moved through the jacket’s slits, and seemed to have their full free range of motion. How was that-

Ah! The jacket’s material moved and stretched like skin would! That made perfect sense. Especially with what it was made of. I mean, I’d had hands on experience with a lot of it. It was indistinguishable from the real deal.

I nodded, quite satisfied. “This is perfect. I’ll have to thank Sky.”

The Boutique's bell rang as the door opened.

“Hey, Rarity, have you fin...ished…” My own voice trailed off.

Surprised to hear myself behind myself, I turned around to find a shorter minty green pony.

A unicorn, golden lyre cutiemark, a shorter than usual horn, large gold eyes- Wait. My eyes were gold… And she had my hair colors. The fuck was-

Oh, derp! Counterpart to me, duh.

“Hel-” I managed to say before the mare practically tackled me around the waist with an iron-tight hug.

She let go and stepped back, coughing in embarrassment. “Ahem, s-sorry. I knew a human was visiting but I um, I didn’t think I’d actually meet you. It’s a big world and I heard you were in the Trottingham settlement… I’m an archeologist. Can I pretty please ask just a few questions? I’ll keep it short so you’re not like, totally sidelined with questions forever… I only have a few great mysteries I really really really want some answers too!”

I couldn't help but laugh. I’d always liked horses growing up, and had been considering entering equine bioforming as a career since lots of people used horses to traverse the wastes more remote sections. And this version of me in this world was obsessed with humans enough to become an archeologist!

I guess her sense of adventure didn’t get in the way of her love for other creatures.

I gave her a nod and sat down on the floor. “Sure thing. But before we start, I am human, tail notwithstanding. That’s from a potion. Full disclaimer: I’m from a universe related to this one, but not this one. There may be some differences between my humans and the ones that used to live here.”

Other me grinned. “Oh no, that won't matter! I know a LOT about culture and a little history, but it’s hard to learn the little things about a people from what they leave behind… Especially when finds are so rare due to age. Um, may I make a tracing of your hands?”

Other me reached out with one hoof, reaching for my hand. I nodded and held it out. She gently took my hand running a hoof over the shape.

“I was close… I thought the innermost finger would be longer,” she murmured, levitating a pencil and scrap of paper from her saddlebags and quickly tracing my hand, marking each joint rather expertly before doing the same for my other hand.

“Thanks! I got the general shape down from analyzing some weapons I found, but this is WAY better,” she proclaimed happily, tucking the drawings away. “So! First question, why the purely mundane physics base for your technology?”

“Easy,” I replied. “We have no idea magic is a thing. Can’t sense it, apparently have it, and I have NO IDEA what it is.”

She nodded. “That makes sense, you don’t even use simple enchantments to remove energy loss over time in your power storage devices. I always wondered about that… Next question, why is your technology so obvious? I mean, it’s always clearly visible, generally given a sleek look, and for some reason almost always rectangular in shape. Even with mundane physics only parts, you could make more subtle stuff. Is it a culture thing?”

I thought for a minute then nodded. “Probably. Like I said, no magic. But worse than that, no natural advantages other than we can run for a long ass time, and we are smarter than animals by an order of magnitude or three. Technology is comforting to us. It’s our equalizer. We might not be able to take on a bear on our own, but in a set of power armor, well, that bear is an amusement at best. It probably started as a ‘this thing keeps me safe’ sort of instinctual feeling, and just became tradition.

“Counter question, does this mean you guys had high technology before the plague? Because I’ve been to more than a few worlds and while I’ve seen technology used. It’s not… It doesn't seem to be in the homes. Exception to the Emerald changelings.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Even before the rebuild we had lots of technology in our homes. Both mundane, arcane, and hybrid systems. We just don't like it being out in the open, a more natural look is just, better. Like, my old kitchen table top could change to display any image I wanted. Our stuff is just integrated into other things.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh yes! Traditions are important to everypony I know. Twilight may write with a quill, but our quills are specially made to work as best as they can. We do make new things sometimes… But most ponies just like to improve old things.”

“Quite true. When an individual will be living for a full three centuries, I’m sure you understand why new things popping up all the time would be…distressing. I’m sure most long lived species would rather improve than replace,” Rarity added.

Fair enough.

Other me nodded in agreement. “Right! Now um… You’re not blue. Like, your skin. According to records I found, humans came in blue. Is your appearance natural, or, what?”

“Yes, and no. We’re big on genetic engineering,” I explained. “I’m unmodified from how I was born-”

“W-wait,” Fluttershy interrupted. “Uh, can I ask a question? It’s about, you know…”

I nodded, “Alright, just keep it mature please.”

“I thought since you said humans modified themselves that um, well, you know that ‘toy’ was custom,” Fluttershy said awkwardly, clearly not wanting to break a promise to me. “But, does that mean-”

I nodded in confirmation. “Yeah. Previous upgrades gave gay males girl-like sensitivity just to be nice. As species wide modding law goes, lesbians and straits had to get something equivalent. Frankly I’m glad everything retracts… Things look way nicer with everything internal.”

“I’m intrigued…” Other me said haltingly.

Ugh, fine… But only because pony-me was adorable and this was technically a scientific question. “To greatly summarize for the sake of I really don’t like talking about sex stuff publicly, all human females born after Twenty One Fifty Three can consciously choose to increase the size of their cliterious to something useable for penetration. Though usually it’s not very big, just enough to ‘work’. Naturally, shrinking it is also a conscious choice.

“It’s really only a means to enable more forms of intercource between females since, again, legally they improved males with the intent of making gay male couples more easily able to enjoy sex, so every other orientation had to get a boost too. Straits got some sort of pheromone that boosts the endorphin release from sex while you're doing it. Probably because that does make sex better but also promotes breeding and the gov likes live babies because we need a lot of dead soldiers.”

Other me nodded and smiled a bit. “Ignoring that bit of grim there. So, heh, we have potions and charms for all those things. It would be cool to permanently integrate some fun times enhancements though… And wallet saving. Too bad nopony’s rebuilt the red light district. Even if you find sex awkward to talk about, we had a lot of cool stuff. One more question?’

“Knock yourself out,” I replied, grateful to be moving on.

“But that would hurt…” Other me said, tilting her head in confusion.

“Human expression, means go ahead,” I explained.

“Ah! Right, so the other big mystery of mine. What did you guys eat? Nothing with that data has survived this long,” she asked.

“We’re omnivores. Though historically most of us prefer to stick to meat, grains, fruits, and synthetic foods. Unfortunately, I’ve only had traditional food myself for six weeks now, we don’t have the resources at home to feed everyone those things. So right now at least, we mostly eat genetically modified algies cut into cubes.

“They taste horrible, but you can buy flavors to substitute it with AR. Also, if you’re willing to get a bit pricy, you can get some traditional foods… Uh… I sort of had to spend my free money caring for my Bon though. Rabbits cost A LOT! Also she got into my Spaghettios once and well, even snakes deserve a treat so those became hers.”

Other me raise one eyebrow in alarm. “Wait, you're clearly my counterpart, so then, that means your Bonbon is a snake!?”

I shook my head “Um, well, no… I named the AI in my jet Bonbon I after a childhood friend of mine, and then I got a pet snake and I couldn’t think of a name so I named her Bonbon too. Also she got hit with wild magic and is a lamia now.”

Fluttershy nodded twice. “A very cute one! You should come by tomorrow and meet her.”

“I think I will,” other me decided, frowning suddenly. “What did I come here fo- Oh! Right. Thank you very very much for putting up with my questions. So um, Rarity, did you finish?”

“Afraid not, darling,” Rarity apologised. “But don’t worry, I should only need a few more hours. It will be ready for your anniversary this evening.”

“Thanks! Sorry if it’s hard… I don't know how sewing works,” she admitted, ears drooping.

I stood up, nodding to Fluttershy to indicate it was time to go. Then, on a whim, I reached into my bag, pulled out my belt, and slipped my long gone gun’s battery pack out of it’s pouch.

“Hey, pony me… I don’t need this anymore. Want a fresh human artifact? It’s fully charged, so be carefull if you take it apart,” I warned, holding out the power pack.

“Oh-buck-the-hay-yes-I-want-it-what-is-it?” she said almost too rapidly to understand, wheeling around on her rear hooves to snatch the pack from me and stare at it intently.

“It’s a power pack, an advanced battery. It’s meant to power a maser pistol, but mine was destroyed,” I explained. “Keep it. Maybe you can power some relic up with it or something.”

“I totally probably maybe can!” She exclaimed happily, bouncing from hoof to hoof.

I smiled and took a few steps towards the door.

“Wait!” Other me called, rushing over, magic aura glowing. “I want to give you something too!”

“Um, alright,” I said, taking a step back in surprise as she pulled an old style guitar from a saddle bag.

Black bodied, white pickguard, natural wood neck, silver fittings… Not a bad replica of a 2090’s era Les Paul replica. Not exactly my style, or favorite instrument, but who rejects a gift?

“How the hell do you even play an old relic like that?” I wondered out loud.

“Dexterous hoof pads, and magic. Like it? Sky makes them, not the best instruments, but I like the human inspired design over the ease of pony use. They’re all styled after pictures of your species. The internals are all meant for a batpony made guitar, we invented the guitar too, but ours have the strings wider apart and are five string instead of six,” she said, holding it up for me to take. “So that means it doesn't need to be plugged into the big speakers like in the pictures. All the sound is done from the guitar, and you can adjust it with the knobs on the face plate there. Er, I’m assuming you can play it, because you’re me.”

I nodded, taking the guitar and gently sliding it into my own bag. Who knew that bottomless bags would be common things in pony future, but big deals in their past?

“Yeah, I can play guitar, piano, drums, and most synthesizers… I downloaded a TON of instrument packages as a kid. My favorites always been bagpipes with the lyre as a close second. Though I do love rock, so thanks! I haven't gotten to play something in a long time. Should be fun,” I thanked gratefully.

“You like the lyre too?” She asked, beaming me a huge smile. “It’s like I have a human sister. Awesome!”

Fluttershy’s ears perked suddenly. “Oh! Lyra, we need to go! Bonbon’s done and on her way to the park.”

“Ah, gotcha,” I acknowledged. “We'll, see you around other me. My jet and I need to pick up flying again.”

After returning her wave goodbye Fluttershy and I ran out to get to the park. After all, Bonbon would be teleporting. Also Dash apparently might as well be teleporting over short distances, so really, they were waiting on us. I had a pretty decent knowledge of Ponyville’s layout by now, so winding my way through the semi-busy streets wasn’t much of a problem.

A few short minutes brought Shy and I to the entrance to the park, and just a moment’s glance to locate the bright rainbow colored pegasus who'd be teaching me to fly today. Me. Fly. Today. Without the use of technology!

Well, um, without separate from my body technology. Shut up, me!

Standing next to Dash was a random pony I had never seen before. Kinda dark peach colored, darker than cartoon human skintone, like someone mixed pink and burnt orange. She also had Sky’s electric blue spiky hair.

“Sky and Pinkie have a kid?” I asked Fluttershy as we jogged towards the two.

“Um, I didn’t think they did, but apparent- Oh! No, that’s Bonbon! Just heard Dash say her name,” Shy informed cheerfully.

That’s what I had figured. I’d only wanted to be sure.

I skidded to a halt next to Bonbon, boots digging at the ground. “Hey! Bonbon, right? And not this universe's one?” I asked just to be sure.

“Well, technically, I was created in this universe, so we would both be this universe's Bonbon,” she replied cheekily.

I shook my head and gave her a hug. “Love ya, sis. Nice look by the way. No buttstamp?”

“Apparently those are earned,” she replied. “But if you think this looks good…” Her eyes twinkled happily. “Check this out!”

Her fur split apart, the transformation looking really horrific, simply due to the nature of the plates sliding out. Fortunately it was over in less than a second, leaving me looking at… at…

At a really poor paint job. Yeah, I knew it was copied over from a robot from a show she liked, but just… Yeah, no. Not every paint job looks good on every shape.

“Yikes!” Dash exclaimed for me. “That’s what you went with for your armor?”

Bonbon frowned, nodding. “Obviously. It’s painted on me after all.”

“It’s um… The blue is good but, it’s a bit…busy. And I’m not Rarity, and I’m saying that, ” Dash continued.

Bonbon rolled her eyes and turned to me. “I’m sure you like it though, right?”

I bit my lip. “Honestly? It looks great on M.E.G.A.S., but it’s better on a square shaped bot. The rounded shapes you have don't suit it. But Dash is right, the blue is good.”

Bonbon’s face contorted into the single most heart wrenching sad look I had ever seen, save for Fluttershy’s puppydog eyes. Turning to face Fluttershy, Bonbon asked. “D-do you think it’s bad?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. And Lyra’s right. The flames are stylish but I can tell their shapes were meant to go on a flat surface, not a rounded one, and that makes it look wierd. If you want to look cool, you could paint yourself like a Neighponese A.L.I.C.O.R.N. mecha. Perhaps, um… What’s that one… It’s a nice dark blue like that, with a few dark red stripes to highlight different plates edges. If you’d like to repaint, I could help you.

“But just so you know I’m not being mean, I think you picked out a wonderful appearance for your pony mode! It’s very nice.”

“Fine… I get it. I’ll get repainted,” Bon grumbled dejectedly as I wondered how many worlds have Neighponese fighting Kaiju in them.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, kid,” Dash apologised. “ I don't know what AIs think looks good, but that just didn’t work. No hard feelings?”

“Slight hard feelings,” Bonbon objected. “I’ve always wanted to enjoy cosplay…”

“Well then, how about I make up for that by teaching you to get back in the air?” Dash asked.

“But you were already going to do that,” Bon asked, frowning in confusion.

Dash turned to give me a funny look. “Um, she doesn't get out much, does she?”

“She’s really only talked to me, two technicians, and well, Sky,” I answered.

“Ah, well uh, Bonbon…” Dash paused. “I’m going to get really confused if I keep calling you Bonbon, especially because she’s also named Lyra. Mind if I call you BB for short?”

“That is an acceptable shortening,” Bonbon confirmed.

That wasn’t a bad idea, it would help Bon not get so confused… “Sorry for naming everyone Bonbon…” I coughed.

BB turned to face me. “But, you… I… I thought you just read my serial number?!” She accused.

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.

“Four-two-six-eff-six-ee-six-two-six-eff-six-ee, “ BB said quickly. “If you decode that as hexadecimal, it reads Bonbon…”

“I um, I did not know that,” I said as diplomatically as I could, pretty floored by that coincidence.

BB’s ears drooped sadly. “And there goes their integrity again… I need a tig welder and some scrap metal.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “What do you say we get to teaching you two to fly? You’re grown ups, we know your wings work, shouldn't be hard to teach you. It’s only hard for foals to learn cuz short attention spans and well, you know, primary feathers aren't grown in.”

I nodded. “Right, I’m paying attention.”

<Cheer.ly, record everything to file please,> I requested.

<Understood,> my VI confirmed.

“Fluttershy, would you mind helping me show them the positions?” Dash asked.

“Oh, um, okay!” Shy agreed, trotting to stand a bit in front of BB and I.

“Pegasi flight isn’t about the flapping, we don’t really fly like a bird. It’s all magic,” Dash began. “That said, there IS a physical component to this. While being in shape isn’t really a thing anymore, but rather better engineering, it’s still very important to know how to move your wings.

“Because what you’re really doing to fly is a sort of gesture based magic. Each subtle movement of your wing and feathers shapes your ‘flight field’ and helps control what you do. Unlike a unicorn, you can use more than one part of your magic at a time.

“This only applies to BB, as she can still manipulate the weather while in flight. Sorry Lyra, but you're limited to flying, unless you want to lose more body parts. BB, I’ll show you weather tricks later, we’ll start with lightning. Fluttershy, move your wings to hover, but don't take off.”

I watched as Shy spread her wings, dipping each individual feather much like how you would set an aileron to climb.

“You guys see this?” Dash asked. “Walk around her, memorise the positioning of each feather, and then copy that position yourself. I’ll make sure you have everything right, and we can start talking you through the basics. We should have you in the air in… Meh, few hours. Not like, good to fly on your own in a few hours, but flying-like-a-young-filly is totally doable.”

“Position memorised,” BB informed, spreading her own wings to the position Fluttershy held.

<Cheer.ly?> I asked.

<Got it,> she responded.

I deployed my own wings, setting the posision according to the first frame of the movment template Cheer.ly was building.

“Dunzo,” I informed.

Dash rolled her eyes and moved into inspect the two of us, thoroughly going over each individual feather in my wings, even running her hoof down them in a way which felt nice enough for me to be uncomfortable before moving on to inspect BB.

“Huh, alright. Not bad. Beginner’s luck can come in handy sometimes,” she mused.

“I’m an artificial intelligence. I simply mapped her wing’s positions to a coordinate grid and replicated their motion,” BB explained.

“Huh… You know, I could do that, but I never thing to do it. Good idea there,” Dash turned to me, “Still at least you have le-”

“I have a computer assisted learning system as a part of my brain,” I smirked.

<Half of your brain,> Cheer.ly protested.

“Oh fine, half,” I corrected.

Dash turned back to look at Fluttershy.

“She does, I talked to her over the network. Twilight improved her a bit, she’s nice,” Fluttershy said happily.

<Wait, you talked to her?> I asked in confusion.

<Yes. I like her,> Cheer.ly repplied.

<How? Why?> I asked suspiciously.

<I’m you, you are me. I like who we like,> she replied.

<Fair point…> I decided, <You’re getting chatty.>

<I’m between stored ebooks. I will resume scilence when I have chosen my next- Silence resumed,> Cheer.ly rambled.

God dammit Twilight… I’m tempted to ask you to undo this. I shook my head, turning my attention back to reality.

“So, Dash, what’s the next keyframe look like?” I asked.

“It’s not just as easy as knowing how to move your wings, you’re going to need to learn how best to move them for your own unique magic,” Dash cautioned.

“Sure, but we can still power through the basic training and get into the air for real training as fast as possible,” BB said simply.

I nodded. “We’re both seasoned fliers, we know that basic is one tenth of training.”

Dash nodded in satisfaction. “Fluttershy, upstroke, please.”

Fluttershy - 20th of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

I always heard that foals hated their step mothers, and vice versa. I know I wasn’t Bon’s mother by any means, but I understood that idea even less now. I loved taking care of my marefriend’s little girl!

And not just because I hadn’t taken care of an animal for a long long time. I’d thought about that long and hard. This was a different sort of nice. A new thing to do. It was new, but familiar. And most of all, it was just fun! I’d always been good with folks who knew how to behave themselves, and Bon was very well behaved. It probably came from Lyra’s training her before Bon’s people days.

What’s even better is Bon liked me too. She liked Lyra too, and Lyra definitely loved her back. But the moment Lyra was too overwhelmed to keep playing, busy, or like now, napping after her fourth strait day of what had become an impromptu flight school for over thirteen pegasi who asked if they could join in, Bon would happily come up to me and ask if we could play.

It was nice. She was fun to play with, well, except for wrestling. I think Bon could beat a cragadile at wrestling. She definitely beat my poor chassis… I’d gotten a little extra padding for safety when I went in for repairs.

“When mom wakes up can we go to the lake?” Bon asked as I rummaged in a cupboard for a can of her favorite snack food.

I’d asked Discord for a case of it. He never minded helping me get little things, as long as they weren't really for myself.

“I’m sure she’ll love to go to the lake today,” I said encouragingly. “Oh! Here it is. Let me just open this for you.”

I retrieved the can and carefully pulled the lid off the top, dumping the contents into a bowl. Say what you want about the crudeness of premixing everything like this. Human meals were definitely efficient. The poor things must not have much time!

“Yay! Skettios!” Bon exclaimed, rearing up to reach the bowl atop the counter, and proceeding to use her tongue like a fork to eat the rings one by one.

She paused after a moment then looked up at me. “Why’s mom so tired all the time now?”

I landed next to her, hooves thumping lightly against the floor as I gave Bon a gentle pet on the… tail? Back? Oh goodness, even I have problems with snake anatomy.

“She’s been learning to fly for the last four days, sweetie. It’s very exhausting. Especially when Rainbow Dash is the one teaching you. She pushes ponies to their limits while they learn. But not in mean way,” I explained.

“Oh, okay… Will I ever get to fly?” Bon asked, turning back to her treat.

“Well um, maybe if your mom and I try to carry you together… But that probably won't happen,” I said doing my best to be honest but not sound mean by a foal’s logic.

Bon nodded and kept eating for a while then asked. “Aunt Shy, can you skitch my tail? Is itchies.”

I moved my hoof down, scratching at her tail, and only barely suppressing a yelp as a strip of scales and skin peeled off. “Oh! Um, you’re shedding. Are you itchy all over or just the tail?”

“Um… Itchy,” Bon replied, too busy eating to want to talk.

“Hold on sweetie, I’m going to get your mom,” I said, not wanting Lyra to miss Bon transitioning to a proper young lamia.

Quickly running into my bedroom, I hopped up onto the bed and gently shook Lyra’s shoulder. “Dear… Dear, get up! Bon’s shedding.”

Lyra rolled over with a groan mumbling. “Save it, make a belt… They are good belts.”

“No, sweetie, she’s growing up, right now. You won't want to miss it,” I continued urgently.

“Huh?” Lyra said, sitting upright, properly awake.

“Bon is shedding, she’s going to be a proper lamia in a few minutes,” I informed.

“Anaconda’s take like, two days to fully shed,” Lyra said sleepily.

“Yes, but Lamia’s take about three minutes. Come on! You don't want to miss our little girl growing up!” I said.

“Heh, you said our,” Lyra noted.

I blushed deeply and nodded to the door. “S-sorry. I like her.”

“It’s okay, hell you're a better mom than I am,” she said standing up.

The two of us quickly left the room, returning to the kitchen with Bon still eating, but her old skin now split almost all the way down the back.

“Woah, you were right! They do go fast,” Lyra apologised as she walked up to Bon and gave her a quick hug.

“Yay! Mom!,” Bon exclaimed. “Can we go to the lake? I’m itchy. Water gets rid of itchy.”

“Sure thing, hon,” Lyra agreed. “Did you know you’re shedding?”

Bon nodded. “Skettios more importance.”

Lyra laughed. “Want help getting out of the old skin? It looks peeled enough for me to take it off for you.”

“Sketties done!” Bon announced, simply slithering backwards, the old skin crumpling as she moved out of it.

I’d never seen a lamia shed before, it was awfully clean! It looked like her whole skin pushed up off the new skin then just split open like a sleeping bag.

Bon on the other hand, had definitely undergone some changes. Her head was now attached to a distinct neck section of her body, with shoulders for her dragon-like forearms which were pressed tightly against her sides, slowly moving outwards as the transformation magic did it’s job until she looked sort of like a snake headed dragon of Spike’s age when I had first met him.

Which multiplied her adorableness by at least twenty!

Bon turned, noticing her left arm, blinked in surprise and asked, “Wut?”

“That’s your arm, hon,” Lyra said gently.

“I have hands?!” Bon exclaimed in a sort of delighted surprise, before thrashing her shoulder slightly. “How. Make. Go?”

I couldn’t help but giggle at her antics. “It’s okay! We’ll help you get used to them,” I promised.

“Arms. Like. Nooooodles...” Bon lamented, still trying on her own to move them. “Halp!”

Lyra and I shared a look of barely contained laughter then began to gently show Bon how an arm worked.

Lyra Heartstrings - 21st of Leafdrop 13 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Cyberquestria, Equis #3

Alright Lyra, last chance to make sure everything is ready for the second leg of your journey. No, our journey. Hell, you have your kid, your sis, and your girl with you. Adventure family, for the win!

Hopefully.

Fluttershy’s got all her important things in her saddlebags. I’ve got my helmet on, jacket zipped, belt on, and combat knife ready. BB’s geared up to go. Everyone’s here to say bye… Even Rose. Yeah, I think that’s it.

We stood outside of Fluttershy’s house, a point chosen mostly to make sure that nopony decided to portal hop with us. All of Fluttershy’s friends were there to see her off. I had wondered about them, after all Shy had mentioned she was part of their whole, magic superweapon activation spell thing.

Turns out that the plague had destroyed the source of that magic. So she was free to go. Her only ties to this place left were her friends, and she could visit them once a month or so.

“We’ll miss you a lot, Fluttershy, but you need real nature. Maybe in a hundred years or so once we have everything replanted you and Lyra could move back!” Twilight suggested as she broke her farewell hug.

I nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll help her with that list of plants. I’m sure someone will be willing to set up a more official source of assistance.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Hopefully. It would be the first one though.”

“First time for everything,” BB noted.

Her newest paintjob was much better. It took her five different coats of paint to finally settle on a ‘Gypsy Danger costume’. It looked WAY better on her than her other choices.

Twilight nodded and took four small earrings out of her saddlebags with her magic. “Speaking of a first time for everything, I made these last night. Simple charms to negate Wild Magic. It won't protect you from anything very, well, potent, and they will probably only work once. But better once than dead, right?”

I nodded in agreement and took one of the rings, opening my helmet to slip it into my left ear, before moving on to the right ear since the telekinesis ring was in my left ear. Shit man, I’d totally forgotten about that. I should have been practicing using it this whole time!

I noticed Twilight gently slipping one ring onto one of bon’s talon-like fingers. “That’s not too tight, is it?” Twilight asked.

Bon shook her head.

“Good, don't take it off, it keeps you safe, okay?” Twilight asked.

Bon nodded. “Okay.”

Not to self. All ponies are apparently very good with kids.

I turned to Dash. “Thanks for the flight lessons, blue fast.”

After four days, Dash was reasonably confident that I could fly on my own from that point on. My experience flying a jet realy helped. After all, I knew all the maneuvers. I really just needed to relearn the ‘controls’ so to speak.

Dash shook her head grinning at Bon’s nickname for her. “No problem. Don’t get cocky though, you still got a LOT of learning to do.”

“No worries, I promise to only crash half as good as you used to,” I teased.

Dash rolled her eyes and gave me a friendly punch to the hip. “Yeah, you better not!” She retorted with a smile.

I turned my attention to Rarity. “Thanks for the clothes again, I’ll pop back in if I ever need a new outfit.”

“Do me one favor,” Rarity asked. “When you inevitably run into one of my counterparts, show her my clothes. I’ve always wanted to have a multiverse wide fashion show against myself.”

I laughed. “Sure thing Rares. Hell, I’m not into fashion, but I’m sure I’d watch that.”

And then, there was Rose. I turned to her and took a knee to be sure I could look her in the eyes. “You sure you want to stay here?” I asked.

She nodded firmly. “Yeah. I have to. Family honor is important to me… Also they’ve started building thestral models and I have the knowledge of Clan Taikwuan in my head. I need to pass it on, that way, the clan doesn't die.”

I nodded in understanding. “Alright, I’ll see you next time I’m here. Good luck with your vendetta.”

“Wait!” Rose said as I stood up to leave.

Looking down I saw her reach into a saddlebag and pull out the single most simple, bulky, over built pistol to ever see the light of day. Black, squarish, angular. Like an old Desert Eagle if it were designed by someone in love with smooth flat surfaces.

It’s only interesting feature was a small white chunk of quartz fitted into the back of the slide.

“I forgot to give you this for a while,” Rose explained. “it’s the gun Ayna and I worked on together. It’s, crude looking. She refused to make it look nice, cuz quote ‘That’s a waste of effort. It works, who cares how it looks?’ unquote. But it’s not half bad. Good heavy pistol. Should punch through medium armor, light shields.

“It fires small bits of sand or sandstone, you load that into the sliding bit in the handgrip. The enchantments are powered by the quartz crystal, it’s a standard mage gem. Gem should power fifty or so shots, sand provides a few thousand shots, sandstone will give you around eight thousand. It’s select fire, single, burst three, or burst five. We would have done more but working in a hand grip was hard. Pony weapons are built entirely different.”

I took the weapon from her grip and inspected it, turning it in my hands. Solid, heavy, well built. Definitely a heavy pistol. Not bad.

“This will do just fine. Thank you,” I said as she handed me a small cloth bag.

“Five more mage gems. Incase you can't find any given hardware store in a place you end up,” she informed.

I slipped the gun into my empty holster, and tossed the bag of gems into my satchel. “Thanks again, and seriously, good luck here. I hope you kick her ass,” I said sincerely.

“I think I will,” Rose replied with a grin. “I’ll catch you next time you're in town, Lyra.”

“Same here Rose,” I said as I stepped back over to my family.

My family. Shit. It’s one thing to adventure by yourself, but with a whole family...

I apprehensively flipped open the VM’s cover. I still had a feeling deep in my gut that said I should stay here. But, I promised Shy a better world to live in, and after coming this far it would be an insult to everyone who helped me to stop now. It was time to leave.

I took a deep breath and tapped a button to bring up the holographic display. “Right, everyone grab ahold of me. Not to say I don’t trust Twilight’s charms, but let’s not waste those just incase they are one offs.”

“A-are you sure that will protect us?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.

“Yeah, Sky said the VM’s shielding should protect me, and I didn’t mutate when I came through despite not having my flight suit on, did I?” I asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No. It should be safe, Shy. The rings are just to be doubblesafe. I’ll see you soon!”

Fluttershy nodded and grabbed ahold of my right hip. BB took the left, and Bon slithered up to grab my belt.

Satisfied everyone was secure, I tapped the button. Immediately the purple vortex rippled to life, flickering almost ominously in front of us.

“Too bad you don’t use books like Ms. Hooves did,” Fluttershy sighed.

Shaking my head I stepped forward to touch the portal. “Hold onto your plot, this almost always leads right into something dangerous.”

My hand met the portal’s shimmering surface, the sharp jolt in my guts was almost familiar as the portal pulled me into the next universe. I could feel the others pulled along with me as well, as if I had strings attached to the normal ‘hook in the guts’ feeling.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t done this in a month, but the trip seemed to take longer than I remembered. As if the extra people slowed down the trip, or-

The pull sharply changed direction, the straight ahead pull, yanking slightly to the left, then sharply down after another moment. It felt like a combination of being on a slide and being in a zero-g environment. The purplish nothing dimmed for a moment, and I could see a series of bubbles all around us, drifting aimlessly through a…space. We had been heading for one, but a second one had drifted up and intercepted the…thing we were in?

The hell was I seeing? How was I seeing it? How screwed were we?

Before I could even think of part of an answer, a world materialised around us. A palace of some kind, judging by the nice quality carpet, tapestries woven to make maps of Equest- Um, no, that wasn’t a language I could read… And that massive black carved iron throne didn’t look very-

Wait… Blackish gray painted walls. Lots of hanging drapery, massive map behind an iron throne which sat atop a 15 foot high staircase with a black red and silver carpet leading up to it. With the base of the throne surrounded by carved blackened iron sculptures of gargoyles which were holding up big ass bowls of unnecessary burning green stuff.

Shit. This was a stereotypical evil villain's throne-

Sitting in the throne, hooves stepped eagerly, staring down at the room before her, sat Chrysalis. Not the one I’d met and hung out with. Not by a long shot. I didn’t need to do more than look at her rage filled eyes. And notice the unnecessarily voluminous dark green cloak covered in random magic looking runes and the big platinum and jetstone crown resting atop her head.. And spot the pink pegasus mare and white unicorn stallion chained to her throne on either side. Then notice the suspended ceiling cages that were people sized.

Fuck me! Why?!

Another split second ticked by. I then noticed the ring of changelings in gothic looking plate armor encircling a long gray furred blond maned pegasus mare who was bleeding, clearly exhausted, and standing atop a small mound of dead guards. And holding up a small silver charm which had a rapidly fading magical glow around it.

I didn’t have time to process anything further before Chrysalis spat, “Summoning allies, Traveler? They too shall feed our Empire!”

Scratch that, all of the changelings said it in unison. In her voice.

Half of the changelings spun in unison, turning to bear horns and weapons at the four of us. “I am the Swarm,” the said in unison. “Lower your weapons and surrender your lives. I will add your emotional energy to my own supply. You will be adapted to serve me. Resistance, is entertaining.”

FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK!

“Ms. Muffin!” Shy gasped in horror as she spotted the mare in distress.

“They look noms,” Bon mused.

Seven for seven… The guards turned to face me. I drew my gun, grimacing at the unfamiliar grip and balance.

“Business as fucking usual,” I growled wishing I could give the multiverse the finger. “Right, save what’s-her-face!”

26 The Swarm

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Lyra Heartstrings - 16th of Lunerdusk 08 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Changeling Imperium Province no. 12, Equis #2

No time to plan! Follow trained directions from the Basic Handbook! Reacting to contact, step one, seek cover.

Shit! No immediate cover, only the wall pillars about fifty feet from our position. Direct contact with no chance to evade. Skipping that step.

Step two, assess the enemy. At least two dozen enemies, all armed with assorted melee tools and with ranged ‘weapons’ built in. Armor exists, appears medieval but could be tough.

<Lyra: Green, thirteen. Modified, I act as wingman,> BB said over microwave band.

Oh, yeah that might work. Give Fluttershy and Bon time to get to cover.

<Go!> I replied.

I ripped my knife from my belt, holding it ice pick style. BB jumped into the air, stopping just over my head before launching herself forward into the mass of enemies. Half the group turned, reacting to her half of the charge. I would need to engage the others.

Leveling the unfamiliar gun at the other half, I pulled the trigger. I regretted it instantly.

The recoil felt like a heavyweight boxer hit me squarely in the hand. The muzzle flash triggered my visors auto tint. Its grenade-like thundering hurt despite my helm’s sound dampening systems. The projectile made a literal line of fire from the muzzle to the target and filled the air with the smell of burnt ozone.

The changeling I hit spun a quarter circle. His friend behind him got a facefull of green viscera. That’s all I could take in before pure panic reflex made my hand clench and fire a second round.

I had no idea where the second bullet went. Hopefully in the direction of the enemy.

Unfortunately the gun’s sheer noise completely fucked over our charge with the enemy firing en masse on reflex. My vision turned bright green as I let myself drop to the floor, hoping that none of them were aiming low. The air above me exploded into chaos, green energy arced and rippled, bits of blue-white flashes and sparks danced around the air.

Something grabbed my shoulders, pulling me to the left! Fluttershy, pulling me over closer to her. Oh shit did she get hi-

“Were you hit?” Shy asked in concern.

“No! Find cover,” I retorted, twisting to get off a few more shots from my scary loud hand puncher.

“I am cover. Shield generator. Bon, keep behind me,” Shy ordered.

Well, that was handy. Should probably have talked more about battle plans while we were sa-

The wave of changelings fired a series of rays, the sickly green light scratching the ground around us, taunting us by dancing close but not striking home. A few of the lings didn’t fire, instead moving in an odd fashion as if having a fist fig-

Oh shit, Bonbon charged!

I stood up to look for her, a bolt of green magic streaking over my left shoulder the second I stood up. Shy quickly yanked me back down, my ass slamming hard into the gray stone floor.

“It’s only a pony high!” She yelped, “And not too strong, we need to run!”

“Bonbon charged!” I retorted, standing up again to see Bonbon shoved back out of the ring, a halberd's tip stuck into her chest.

Not that it seemed to actually have hurt her. Or have gone in deeper than a quarter inch.

“Aerial tactics do not work well on the ground,” she said with a concerned frown.

The changelings began to fan out, a half circle that slowly moved to encircle us completely. I couldn’t help but notice that Chrysalis hadn't moved. She simply sat on her throne, leaning on one elbow and looking boredly off to the side.

<Suggestion,> Cheer.ly piped up. <Remind Bonbon that AIs are designed to be hot swappable between UAA hardware.>

“Yeah but those files are all locked out,” I said out loud to myself.

Damn her talking to me like this was creepy. How the fuck did people deal with their VI being ‘awake’ their whole lives? Probably since that’s all they ever knew.

Cheer.ly attempted to soothe.

“What files are locked out?” Shy and BB asked in unison.

“Bonbon is hot swappable,” I said, taking a second to fire three shots at the left most changeling. “So she has the files needed to run a suit of-”

“I do! And I’m not in a core! I can freely access anything I like,” Bonbon practically squeed.

Oh shit that’s right! Hardware locks on the code.

The sound of iron striking iron rang outwards from the throne like a bell, drawing my attention up to see the Changeling Queen glaring towards us with her teeth grit angrily.

“It’s my own Throne Room!” Chrysalis shouted. “There must be another battle somewhere else. May I please fight this one!?”

“As you wish,” the mass of changelings said as one.

“Thank you!” She said. Or rather, all of them said. “I do not like to play with food, unlike him. There are seven thousand soldiers within my keep, and two hundred other freeminds. You can surrender and live as feedstock, or die. Choose.”

Ah hell.

On the other hand, these were clearly in a hive mind. The changelings I’d met before did not seem aggressive or hostile, and they did not have a hivemind. This had to be forced onto them, and right now this Chrysalis's was running the whole thing. Which meant…

I snapped my gun up and fired six shots at the Queen. The rounds hit the air and just vanished. As if their existence was simply ignored a bubble around the Queen.

Chrysalis smiled. “I was hoping you’d choose that.”

The changelings in front of us snapped into much more focused looking combat stances.

BB deployed her armor, the plates snapping into place. Fluttershy grabbed onto Bon’s right hand with her mouth, pulling her towards the door. I wondered why my helmet hadn't kicked on my combat HUD yet, I definitely had more than enough adrenal-

Right! Those sensors were in the flightsuit!

<Cheer.ly-> I asked, hud flicking into existence before I could finish the instruction.

“Autonomous Armor Mode CQC protocols accessed! Covering retreat!” BB announced.

I really really wish pilot training included DISARMED. It would be nice to know how to demolish a creature with your hands. Ohhhh shit, there’s a problem!

“How do you plan on using that without hands?” I asked just as the horde leapt forwards as one solid wall of flesh.

“FUCK!” Bonbon cursed, facehoofing.

I had time for one shot. If I could make sure I didn’t get hit by the wave, maybe I could make it out.

The surging line of changelings closed in, weapons leveled menacingly, horns glowing ominously. Launched like living spears.

The entire mass’s motion was highlighted clearly by my helmet’s systems. Shooting one wouldn’t matter. Too many, from too many angles. I suppose escaping death on the last hop pissed him off a bit.

I caught a glimpse of the grey pegasus mare, now that the wave of changelings wasn’t obscuring her. Maybe at the least she could get away, since the enemy had entirely changed focus to us.

As I made eye contact, the mare took a deep breath, wincing in pain as the motion stretched a deep cut along her ribs. Then she exhaled, sweeping her head across the room in an arc to unleash a torrent of motherfucking lightning in the same way a flame thrower spews flames.

The bolts slammed into the wave of changelings, ignoring physics in they didn’t seek out the nearest conductor, but the individual changelings themselves. The formation disintegrated, individuals thrown aside, smoldering, to lie in patches of red-hot armor.

Dear sweet physics pegasi magic is terrifying!

“Run! I can’t do that again for at least a minute!” The mare shouted, sprinting past me.

I frowned, looking at the twitching pile of dead or well incapacitated changelings. “But we just took out all of-”

Chrysalis chuckled, clapping her hooves together twice. “Minions!” She called, overly dramatically.

I heard the sound of a door creaking open to my left.

“There are way more of them than you think there are!” The mare shouted, having caught up to Bon and Shy as the two were nearly out of one of the throne room’s doors.

“You know, Overmind is right. This is a little fun. Would you like a head start?” Chrysalis asked smugly.

I fired another round in her direction as a response and sprinted towards the door as quickly as I could manage.

“Ha! Why can’t ponies be as entertaining as whatever your kind are?” The Queen called as I passed through the elaborate archway.

“We need a plan!” BB called from behind me. “What would a secure location found within a building like this be?”

“There isn’t one!” The gray mare called back from the front of our group.

Despite being wounded, she had lifted Bon up onto her back, splitting her weight between herself and Fluttershy. Good thing she seemed willing to help, since it was apparently her fault we’re here.

“These changelings are an actual hive mind, Princess Chrysalis is literally everyling in this keep right now… Except for maybe a few mages and scouts. I don’t know, I haven’t been here long and these ones are very very different than the ones I know,” she continued.

The five of us barreled down the hallway. The rapidly shortening hallway.

“We don't have a lot of places to go! Do you know where stairs are?” I asked, a ray of green magic burning a path down the hallway to my left.

“End of hall, right side. We go down!” She cried.

Another ray sliced down the hall, almost hitting Bon!

She whipped her head around to look behind us. Astonishingly, she wasn’t afraid. Just irritated.

“No fair! I don't have those!” Bon protested. “Mom! They’re not playing fair!”

Bon snapped her tail in what I assumed was the snek version of a foot stomp. Despite the life or death situation, I couldn’t help but smile.

“It will be okay hon, just hold on to Shy and what’s her face,” I comforted as we reached the stairs and ducked into the slightly safer place which was the spiral staircase.

“Wait, she’s a child!? I’m sorry! I lost concentration while trying to use a summon charm,” what’s her name lamented.

“Um, don’t you have books to go to different universes with?” Shy asked. “Why not use one of them? Or use one now?”

“Sorry, but I don’t remember you, when did we meet?” The mare asked, giving Fluttershy a suspicious look.

“Um, in Equestria. You’re Ms. Muffin, right? Remember me? I bumped into you when you visited Sky, you gave me a muffin,” Shy asked.

“Sorry, I don’t remember that. I must not have done it yet. Time can get weird with planar travel,” she replied apologetically. “Oh! Muffin is my nickname, please call me Derpy.”

“Um, D-derpy?” Shy asked in confusion. “But doesn't that mean-”

“It’s Draconic, not Equish. Different meaning,” she explained.

“Derpy, do you have a plan for getting us out of here, or are we just blindly running down stairs?” BB called from behind me.

“That’s a damn good question,” I added.

“Just running! I um… I thought I could take the Queen down. I totally can’t. She’s REALLY strong, even without her swarm. Kinda told a few normal changelings I could find the Overmind and get rid of it for them. Yeah…” She admitted sounding really ashamed.

Well fucking shit.

“Okay,” I started, “in that case… BB, Shy, think you can fly Bon out between the two of you?”

“Um, maybe-” Shy started, trailing off as the sound of hoof steps coming up the stairs began to echo upwards to match the ones coming downwards.

“Uggghhh… It’s the Sierra Madre all over again,” Derpy grumbled. “I’m probably not going to be able to fly far. Left wing’s hurt bad.”

“What about those books Shy mentioned you have?” I asked. “I’d use my own but the battery’s dead.”

“Too much pain to focus. I’ll be okay in a few hours, and I’ll get you out of here. I promise… I didn’t think any Travelers moved with their kids!” She bemoaned.

“It’s fine, let’s just not die here, alright?” I said as we turned off onto the next floor, the sounds of changling hooves echoing loudly through the stairwell.

The new floor was more decorated than others. Wooden paneling on the walls, some inlays in the wood to make brass murals. Pretty nice. I wouldn’t mind living here a while. If it weren't for the murderous swarm everywhere.

“We’ll be fine,” Fluttershy of all people said. “My friends and I have escaped way worse things than this. Um, we might be able to hide in an attic. I saw a city outside through a window. If we can fly out of here, we could reach a nearby building very quickly.”

“That's… Ow…” Derpy moaned.

“How bad are you hurt? Fluttershy, you have healing supplies, right? Can you slip her a stimpack or a spell, or something?” I asked.

“It’s fine, I already took one,” Derpy groaned. “They just take forever with me. Hiding is good. I didn’t expect their weapons and armor to be that good. An attack works on them once. Then it won't do anything to any other changeling.”

I almost froze mid step. “Wait, then they-”

“Yeah, my lightning won't hurt them again… Or your pistol. Hells, they even started to resist punches,” she warned.

“Hiding it is then,” Shy, BB, and I said in unison.

“There is a changeling couple,” Derpy gasped. “Freeminded ones. They live nearby. They hired me to do this. Should shelter us for a bit. Anyone know which way the outer wall would be?”

As Derpy finished speaking a volley of energy bolts shot down the corridor. I felt one hit the back of my jacket like a five year old’s punch. Right, good thing I had the jacket. Thank you Rarity!

“If you are hoping my valuables will save you from my fire, you are mistaken,” the Changeling Swarm intoned.

“This way!” BB exclaimed, running ahead and turning down a left hand corridor.

We put on a fresh burst of speed, quickly rounding the corridor. The hail of ray blasts heating the air in the corridor to an uncomfortable degree.

“How the hell do they keep missing us?” I wondered aloud.

“Protection from Evil amulet!” Derpy called back.

Oh ha ha… I mentally rolled my eyes.

“It’s just harder for them to aim in my general direction, don’t think you’re invincible. That’s what got me into this mess,” she added. “Also stay within ten steps of me!”

Wait, was she actually serio-

“The wall at the end of this corridor is the outer wall,” BB called from the front of our formation. “Unless this floor is larger than the one three floors up.”

“Um, Bon, can you slide off me for a moment?” Fluttershy asked.

Bon nodded and slipped off Shy’s back. Fluttershy turned around, and closed her eyes tightly, this time I saw the slight shimmer in the air as the flat rectangular force field flickered to life, filling up a good chunk of the corridor.

“She’s blocked their line of fire,” I explained. “Let’s knock a hole in this wall!”

BB drew back a hoof and punched the wall hard enough to smash out a cooking pot sized hole of wood chips and gray stone.

“Ugh! This is why you should have given me missiles, Sky!” She complained.

Derpy quickly fell into position alongside BB and reached up with her hooves, ripping away sections of wood like she was pulling the wrapper off a nutrient brick.

“Help me get the wood out of the way and I’ll take care of the rock, I’ve got enough energy for that,” she asked.

I took a knee beside Fluttershy’s barrier, aiming my pistol at the changeling swarm as they rounded the corner. I felt a tinge of pure terror as I saw them crawl around the corner on the floor, walls, and even ceiling, forming a solid barrier with their own bodies.

Fluttershy winced. “Oh my…”

“We’ll be fine,” I promised, firing three rounds in quick succession.

My hand immediately protested. This thing needed some fine tuning with it’s recoil…

“Not us! Them,” Shy said. “They’re all puppets!”

True, but they are still trying to kill us.

I fired a few more rounds, this time trying to place where the shots were going in my mind. Each shot seemed to simply vanish when it got close to one of them.

Yep. Derpy was right. Scary-good magic. Cheating good in fact.

“Welp, we’re boned,” I concluded as the swarm reached the halfway point.

“No,” Derpy grunted. “Were. Not!”

A few rays of deep blue light shimmered like someone waving a flashlight, the shimmer accompanied by a loud squishing as if someone had stepped in deep mud.

“Holy shit!” Bonbon exclaimed.

I whipped my head around, expecting to see more of the enemy coming from behind. Instead, I saw a hole in the ripped out section of wall. A hole which looked like someone used their finger to squish a hole in the side of a clay pot.

Thank you for existing magic! Pleasure doing buisness with you.

“Hole in the wall!” I shouted to Fluttershy. “Behind you, go!”

“After everypony else!” Shy retorted.

Fair enough. She did have the laser proof shield.

“You’re a wizard!” BB exclaimed, staring at Derpy, overly transfixed.

A volley of green energy bolts rained down, punctuating Bonbon’s sentence.

“Hole now! Talk later!” Derpy retorted jumping through the hole to hover just outside of the gap.

“Sky said that pegasi can’t do magic like that,” BB exclaimed, quickly picking up Bon by crossing her forelegs across Bon’s chest and under her shoulders.

I grabbed her middle, deploying my wings to help carry her out.

“That’s really tall…” Bon whimpered as she looked out of the hole over. Around four hundred feet of empty space to the city below.

Fuck! I wasn’t afraid of heights, but just- This was really high up!

“It’s fine, Mommy's got you,” I promised. “BB, go!”

“But Aunt Shy flies better!” Bon whined.

“Bonbon, go!” I ordered.

The two of us quickly jumped out of the hole in the wall, wings snapping open, servos whining under the strain of holding Bon aloft, but managing to support us well enough.

“Fluttershy, we’re clear, go!” I called, doing my best to hold onto Bon as she squirmed fearfully. And as an icy wind crept up my jacket’s back. God damn it was cold! Why was it so co-

Ah, the rooftops below weren't just white, they were glittering. That would be snow. We were so high up it was honestly a bit hard to tell.

Soo... Winter. Great. That meant we sure as hell wouldn’t be able to hide outside for long.

Fluttershy jogged backwards rather expertly, staying just a few seconds in front of the swarm. I bit my lip nervously as I watched her retreat. If I’d had a hand free, I’d have tried to provide covering fire. Even if the individual shots were useless.

“Funny thing about holes,” the swarm droned as Fluttershy jumped backwards out of the castle, “Anyone can use them.”

Derpy rolled one eye, the other staying put while the Pegasus smacked the wall, imparting a light blue magical aura to the stone with her hoof tap. Over a split second, the aura radiated it’s blue light, causing the stone to leap upwards and inwards, closing the hole with a mud-like squelch.

“You can also fill ‘em in. Let’s go before they just dig through or use a window!” Derpy said urgently.

“How did you do that?” Fluttershy asked in awe. “That’s not pegasi magic, did you learn non-pony spells?”

“Um, yes,” she replied, quickly looking over the city below.

“Why did you make us waste time ripping off the paneling?” BB demanded.

“We’re really high…” Bon whimpered.

“That spell only works on stone. My home’s magic is simplif- There!” Derpy suddenly pointed downwards at a smaller structure which appeared to be an observatory with the dome closed, “That’s She’ka, erm no that’s not- Shay-coo? Shie-kuh? Um… That’s my employer’s house!”

The rock wall behind us began to steam and shimmer, like the air above a road on a hot day.

“They’re melting through!” I warned.

We needed no further warning. As quickly as everyone could manage we made a beeline for the dome. As we flew down the sun slowly began to lift itself into the sky. Literally. It went from normal sunrise speed to ‘spot light moving into place’ in a horrific sudden burst of acceleration.

Chrysalis could somehow deprive us of the cover of what little darkness there had been. If we missed this one opportunity, that was it.

The ground approached rapidly as we half flew, half fell down. Fluttershy and Derpy lagged behind Bon, BB, and I. Probably their lack of experience in aerial combat. Maybe it seemed like we were just falling thanks to Bon’s weight. We basically were, but we had just enough control to-

<Pull up!> BB ordered as we hit the point of no return.

I adjusted my wings, they creaked loudly, our near fall leveled out into a steep glide along the rooftop level.

“That was dangerous!” Shy scolded. “You could have dropped her!”

“Entire army, seconds behind us!” BB and I retorted in astonishment.

“I-it’s not mom’s fault I can’t not-fall too…” Bon whimpered in my defense.

“It’s okay, we’ll be on the ground soon,” I soothed.

“It’s cold… Can we go back to the mean bugs?” She asked.

“We’ll be in a warm place soon,” I promised.

Derpy flew past our little carry operation, banking to the right and moving down. “There’s a door in this back alley!”

Following her lead, we banked and descended, landing in a small snow filled ally with a fairly hard whump.

“Ow!” Bon yelped.

“Shit! Are you okay?” I asked desperately. “Did we put you down onto a broken crate or-”

“The floor is ice!” Bon hissed irritably.

Oh. Yes. Cold blooded.

Derpy frowned. “Are you cold blooded?”

Bon nodded.

Without a word Derpy picked Bon up with a foreleg and set her down on her back, letting her coil up.

I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were injured.”

“I am,” Derpy agreed, turning to knock on the door loudly. “But there’s no reason for her to be too.”

“Um, so… Are pegasi from your world stronger and more magically inclined than most?” Fluttershy asked.

Derpy frowned. “Um, well… I’m not actually a pegasus. I mean, I started out as one, and I look like one right now, but that’s a lot of transformation and illusion magic. Uh, it was hard for my mom to raise me right because she is way, way bigger than a pony. So-”

With a sound of wood scraping on wood, a small slit in the door opened to reveal a blue changeling eye.

“Who are they?” The changeling asked.

“I used a summon charm when everything went bad,” Derpy explained.

“What went wrong?” They asked again.

“Turns out Princess Chrysalis is immune to mind affecting spells. I um… I was going to make her think I was her best friend and then have her give me the information,” she answered.

The changeling took a half step back from the door, turning around to angrily hiss, “Lei’ra! You didn’t think to tell her she’s immune to mental magic?”

“Cordyceps! No, I didn’t think that she’d use them!” Another voice hissed.

The door clicked before creaking open, the changeling stepping aside to let us enter. “Get in, and be quick. It’s alright, my partner and I are Freeminded.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said hesitantly.

“It means that unlike our non-sapient brothers who are under the Overmind and Queen’s direct control, we have agency of our own like you. Both of us oppose the current status quo. You are safe here… Until they begin to search every building.”

“You have a half hour at best,” Lei’ra called from somewhere. “Get into our basement and if you can, Travel onwards.”

Fluttershy eeped. “Um, will they be that interested in-”

“You are a pony, as far as our rulers care, that makes you food. And food is pretty rare these days,” the changeling said, urging us inside with a nod.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The building appeared to be of a wooden construction, with the walls filled with a hard green stone-like substance that seemed to have been poured and the wood then pressed into it. It was actually pretty interesting, and implied these changelings knew advanced construction methods such as cast-structures. Unfortunately the sudden sound of several hundred buzzing wings in the distance pushed my mind away from checking out the admittedly cool building.

Derpy trotted in before everyone else, the second she passed through the doorway Bon sighed happily.

“Yay for warms!” She murmured happily.

The changeling gave Derpy a shocked look. “Did you intend to summon a coldblooded hatchling!?”

Derpy’s ears drooped sadly. “No! I wanted to summon my mom… But um, I’ve never been good with summoning. I’m not a Wizard.”

“Hey, it’s fine. My VM can only take us to random places anyways. No choosing whatsoever,” I comforted.

“Better than ours,” the Changeling admitted, closing the door after everypony had arrived. “All we have is a portal that goes one place.”

Derpy rolled her eyes. “At least your portal takes you to Fillyways. I have to write an entire book per place I want to go!”

I stared at the two for several moments before deciding it was time to ask. “Okay, so, just how many people can travel around alternate universes? Like, if each of you have a different method-”

“You should get into the basement, Chrysalis may be trying to Scry for you,” the changeling warned. “The basement is protected against that. Derpy is better suited to answering your questions than my partner or I. She’s been out of the branch, we have been to only one other universe.”

I looked over to Derpy, she nodded. “I know the way. Follow me!”

The grey apparently-not-really-a-pegasus led us around a corner to a small hatch in the floor, pulling it up before hopping down. I decided to take the ladder, only to discover that the ‘basement’ was about half as tall as the floor above. Meaning I would need to crawl.

Great.

As soon as everyone was in the cramped-even-by-pony-standards basement, Derpy reached up and shut the hatch.

“I’m sorry again for summoning you four,” she apologised. “I-I’ve never been too good with magic, even magic items. I meant to call mom, because well, she would have been able to help. And I was basically dead there. S-thank you! A lot. If I hadn’t had a minute to catch my breath even that simple Stone Shape spell would have been impossible.”

“Speaking of, how do you do magic? I was told that only unicorns can do magic,” Bonbon said irritably. “I want to do magic!”

Probably just so you could store more missiles on you. Heh… Love ya, sis.

Derpy smiled embarrassedly,.“Well um, anyone can learn a little magic. Unicorns just, well, they are naturally better at it than most. As for my magic, I really am not very good. Which is okay, because I trained to be a scribe and an author, not a mage of any kind. It’s also not Equestrian Magic.

“Uh, well, no, technically it is. Because apparently all magic is the same across all the universes. It’s just that the spells I know are different in terms of logic. They are very specific and compartmentalized. Unicorn designed spells are more free flowing and, well, just overall better.”

“Which means… What?” BB asked, face frowning in what was either confusion or concentration.

“It means that anyone could learn Stone Shape with a few years of college, like I did,” Derpy answered. “But that spell will only allow you to alter the shape of existing stone objects you can touch of up to ten cubic feet plus a bit extra based on your own capability-”

I leveled a finger accusingly. “That is a spell from Dungeons and Dragons!” I exclaimed, Fluttershy joining me in my accusations, only saying ‘Oubliettes and Ogres’ instead.

Derpy sighed, rubbing her temple with a hoof. “Ugh… Yes. My homeland’s magic is similar in how the spells were designed to that game humans made. Can we please not talk about that? Every human in every universe I’ve been too with you guys has pointed this out.”

“But-” I began.

“There are infinite universes,” she interrupted. “Eventually, you will find one that matches up exactly with anything you can imagine. It just so happens that a game that apparently all humans everywhere invent matches the way my homeworld writes spells. It’s not like everything there works with a one in twenty chance… Please? This happens everytime I meet one of you, and your species is EVERYWHERE, not just this branch either.”

“Um, how about you give us a ‘run down’ as Rainbow calls it,” Fluttershy asked. “Because we’re all very new to traveling across universes like this.”

I nodded. “Yeah that’s probably more important. Especially the question I asked earlier.”

Bon coiled up around Fluttershy and I. “I’m cold again…”

Derpy’s ears drooped. “I’m sorry. I’ll get you all to a safer universe as soon as I can. I um, I guess your Travel method doesn't let you move freely? Or quickly?”

I shook my head. “One portal to random place every three days or so.”

Derpy winced. “That’s dangerous… I use D’ni books. You can go anywhere in a universe you want to. But um, I need to write a whole book to go there in the first place. Which is a problem when you are looking for your birth universe and can’t remember anything about it.

“Anyways, there are lots of ways people can Travel the universe. Maybe even infinite ways, because, well, infinite universes. Though on average, any given world has less than a thousand Travelers on it at any given time. So unless a world has like, nopony alive on it making people very very rare, or incredibly good surveillance, Travelers like us tend not to be noticed.

“How much do you know?”

I coughed into my hand in embarrassment. “I um, I push a button and go to a place. It’s always a universe similar to the last one. That’s it.”

Derpy’s mouth formed a little o. “Okay, so… Think of all possible realities as an orchard. That’s what we call the ‘Omniverse’. It’s literally the void, and everything that exists in it. This orchard has infinite trees, and each tree is a multiverse, which is just the term for ‘universes that share common elements with one another’. The tree metaphor is important because like tree branches, each tree has trunk universe which all others in that multiverse emerged from.

“The thing to remember is that all universes are connected to one another, and as you discovered, you can travel between them… Or outside of them if you accidentally wind up entering the Void.”

“Wait,” I interrupted/ “I had a wizard tell me you can’t do that.”

“Then he was wrong. Travelers have cities and towns and all kinds of things built in the Void as rest stops and places to share stories,” Derpy said simply. “We have a whole community and culture. There are families who have been Traveling for generations, or even millennia. It’s fun!”

“Huh… So then, people just do this for fun?” I asked with a half frown.

Derpy nodded. “Yes! Also for adventure, thrills, and those sort of things. Most trees are not as dangerous as the Equestrian ones… These universes are always very magically advanced. Besides, a lot of people like danger. But most people are here for a reason. I mentioned looking for my birth universe, right?

“I’m adopted, and I’d like to find my biological parents. If only because I’m curious about them. What about you?”

“I’m trying to return this VM here. It’s not mine, I found it,” I answered, twisting my shoulders to try and find a comfortable position for my neck.

“Um… And you brought your whole family for that?” Derpy asked, going cross eyed in surprise.

Fluttershy blushed. “I um, we became a couple on the way.”

Bon booped my nose with her chin. “I followed mom through the shiny door.”

“I’m an AI, my sis built me this body on our last stop,” BB explained.

“Yeah, I sort of set out alone,” I laughed. “This just happened.”

“Oh! Well at least you’re a good person. Most people in my homeland wouldn’t return a dropped coin purse, let alone a magical device,” Derpy said happily.

“Well, yeah. I mean… A wallet is one thing. I might just hand that over to the MPs. But this?” I said pointing at the VM. “Someone could be stranded in a universe because they lost this thing.”

Derpy nodded. “Exactly!”

“Um, may I ask what exactly the changelings upstairs hired you to do?” Fluttershy asked. “Because we’re a part of it now, and uh, well, it could be important to know.”

BB nodded sharply. “That’s a very good point. Sis, you picked a mate properly.”

“Oh!” Derpy exclaimed, nodding in agreement. “Yes, that is something you should know. The two upstairs hired me to find out where exactly the Overmind lives. Noling besides the Queen's know. I thought that Princess Chrysalis would well… Um… I mentioned that a pony is too small for my mom to easily care for, right? I’m actually sort of a dragon… And in my home world-”

“You’re a dragon!?” Fluttershy exclaimed excitedly. “You must be very very good at illusion! What kind are you?”

I made a note that Fluttershy liked Dragons. Playing the tenth Skyrim remastered version with her would be a bad idea.

“Half-dragon. Technically. But everyone in my home village didn’t care about the pony half. And you would only know I wasn’t normal by my wings, they stay feathery. And I’m not good at illusion, I’m bad at it. Most of this is shape changing magic,” Derpy reminisced. “Um, my point is that my particular subspecies has a bit of natural magic which can make hostile people treat us like we are their best friend for a few minutes. My plan was to use that on Chrysalis and then ask her where the Overmind lives. But that did not work.

“Which is bad, because I was hired by them to gather intelligence for a warrior couple they hired to kill the Overmind. They’ve been to another Equestria and well… Once you know that your species doesn't need to be mindslaved except for the few castes who are resistant to direct control, you kind of want to free your species.”

“Yeah, I’d want to kick some ass too,” I agreed.

Derpy nodded. “I can’t imagine any humans who wouldn’t.”

“Who did they hire?” BB asked with a frown. “I can’t see how any two individuals could take on an army.”

Derpy shrugged. “I’m new to this branch. All I know is they supposedly are big deals around these universes. Apparently they’ve been going around purging evil Paladin style as like, date nights.”

“Huh,” I mused. “Hey, Fluttershy, think we should try-”

“No thank you,” she giggled.

“Anyways, it’s not too bad I failed. They did say it wasn’t a vital job, just that it would help. And I work for information on other universes,” Derpy sighed. “Which means It’s back to Fillyways to look for more work. I can’t drop you off there though. There’s Traveller Law, more of a code really, but I don’t want to break it. So you need to find Traveler Towns on your own.”

“That seems… Pretty dumb,” I grumbled.

Like, really really dumb. Because, “How are you supposed to find them on your own?”

“Yeah, it is dumb. But I saw someone get locked out of going there for taking someone to it. And if I lose my privileges there, I’ll never find my parents,” she apologised. “And your answer is we'll leave clues in big landmarks in given universes. Find the clues, and it’s probably going to guide you to a portal or hidden ‘gate’.”

“Oh! It’s a recruitment test,” BB exclaimed eagerly. “That makes sense.”

“In that case,” Fluttershy asked. “What exactly is ‘Fillyways’.”

Derpy giggled. “It’s a restaurant. I found out about it in the last Branch I was in. It’s owner was inspired by a famous restaurant in that universe called Milliways. But instead of being at the end of the universe, Fillyways is at the end of the Multiverse. It’s a one up, hehe! It’s become a Traveler Town of sorts. I was lucky to find it, I’d never seen another pony before I found it.”

“I thought you were a dragon,” Bon said, sounding quite confused.

“I am, I’m also a pony,” Derpy explained giving Bon a happy smile. “Besides, the difference between a Cloud Dragon and a pegasus pony is, um… Swap fur for scales and make them a lot bigger or smaller. That’s about it. Really.”

A thunderous explosion shook the ground! The smell of burnt glue and charred wood immediately saturated the air.

“Traitors!” The thousand voices of the swarm screamed. “I know you are hiding them from me!”

“Shit!” I hissed, fumbling for my gun.

Bon yelped and coiled tightly around me.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened in terror. “Anypony have a plan?”

“Attack?” BB suggested before frowning, “Wait… I have no weapons. Nevermind.”

“Give me a moment!” Derpy exclaimed, closing her eyes in intense concentration.

A few hundred energy blasts slammed into the ground, causing bits of wood to break off from the ceiling and drop down onto our heads.

“Fools! As if teleporting will take you beyond my reach,” the Swarm raged.

I really, really, really wished I hadn’t wasted my grenade on those bandits…

A small pop, as if a tiny balloon had been stepped on managed to make itself heard over the sound of the droning of a hundred wings. A small olive green footlocker, with blue sparks of magic dancing around it had appeared in front of Derpy. She tossed the lid open and began to rummage through the contents, reaching deeper into the box than should have been possible.

“Your device only works in this branch right?” She asked urgently.

“Uh, I think so,” I replied quickly.

“Okay, then that gives us one choice. Grab onto my shoulder or something, everyone!” Derpy announced, pulling a small leather book from her footlocker.

I couldn’t help but notice it’s title read ‘wasteland’.

Suddenly the floorboards shrieked and groaned, ripped aside with a bright green flash of telekinesis. The Swarm filled the sky above, their closely positioned bodies forming what could have been a building of it’s own.

“You know,” the Swarm laughed, “I was always good at hide and seek. A key rule is do not speak.”

I quickly reached out and grabbed a hold of Derpy’s shoulder. BB grabbed the other. Shy tightly hugged around my middle. Bon half crushed my legs.

And then everything turned bright white. Blindingly bright white. Like a camera flash went off for a full minute right in my face! Then, suddenly, I could feel cool concrete under my hands. The air smelled nice and processed. The hum of machinery provided a soothing background noise. It was nice.

I stood up slowly, letting Bon keep clinging to my legs but managing to move her enough to stand up. And then my vision cleared up. I was looking at a manila painted concrete wall. With a poster on it.

A poster that featured a stylized pony giving a smile and a ‘hoof’s up’ with the text ‘A Brighter Future, Underground!’.

“What! The actual. Fuck!?” I exclaimed in total shock.

A hydraulic door hissed open.

“FREEZE!” Someone yelled aggressively in a girlish voice.

“Hi Moonshine!” Derpy called cheerfully.

“Oh! Oh thank Celestia, everypony, it’s Derpy… And some friends. You need to warn a pony before popping in like that,” they said in honest relief.

I turned around, catching a glimpse of the massive gear shaped door I’d expected, and beheld a small light magenta fured, peach maned, very mare-ishly built stallion dressed in a blue leather jumpsuit, with some simple padded armor and a security helmet. All with 88 painted on them in white. He had a back mounted rig on which held two arcane looking guns at his sides, which were aimed squarely at me. No Pipboy though. Weird.

Yep. This was happening. Fuck the last universe, THIS was the worst one yet.

“Hey, so Derpy… You promised a safe universe, and I’m standing in a Vault,” I accused.

She giggled. “I know. I’ve played this game too. Infinite universes, infinite possibilities, remember? Um, Moon, these are some people I owed a favor. They need a place to stay, just for a few days. Also I’m hurt. Pretty bad.”

“No problem,” the security pony said, turning around. “All of you, follow me. It’s full medical check up time.”

“And I’ll need to talk to the Overseer after that,” Derpy continued.

“You’re in luck, she wanted me to try to call you. There’s a job or something,” Moon answered.

The multiverse was weird. It’s a good thing I liked that.

27 Cheer.ly, Error 406

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Lyra Heartstrings - 1st of Leafdrop 15 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Wastes of Equis. Equis #8

A Vault. Seriously. A fucking Vault. Okay, granted, the world might not be ‘fallout but with ponies’. It could just be that some shelters were needed and they designed them in a way which perfectly matched Fallout’s designs. Infinite universes, infinite possibilities.

Or, more likely, this Sky liked to flip through old files in the ship’s computers and when the need for these things popped up, he went with Vaults because… Well, one of his counterparts did make the Skyranger.

Still, it was doing my mental state no favors to be inside a place in real life which I normally only would see in games. And also would hold some horrible terrible secret. Like the place pumped mild hallucinogens into the air, then played infrasonic tones at random to screw with your head. Or required the residents ritualistically sacrifice one person every year to keep living. Or occasionally vented rads into the air and water system to study ghoulification.

Sure, Derpy had said that this was a control Vault… But even after two hundred real life years, people still said vault one-oh-one was a control when in fact it was an experiment in authoritarianism.

Upside, the security team didn’t take us through a short path into the atrium. Instead they took us down a side tunnel for maintenance work. Moon was worried that Bon would frighten residents.

This tunnel’s existence showed that the Vault was designed after the game lore, not the gameplay. Meaning it was designed to house over a thousand people. And ponies were smart. I’m sure a thousand of them could work out something wasn’t right and fix it.

“Sorry, but this walk will take a little while,” Moonshine apologised. “Eighty-eight is one of the larger Vault complexes. Would anypony like to make some conversation?”

“Um, that would be nice,” Fluttershy said apprehensively.

I could tell she was afraid too. That sucked. I wanted to reassure her that things would be okay, but well… Yeah. Can’t do that if you’re not sure yourself.

“May I ask why Bon’s presence would frighten those who live here?” BB asked curiously.

“She’s a lamia,” one of the security team grunted. “I don't know how your world does it, but here they are monsters. They sometimes eat ponies.”

“But ponies taste yucky…” Bon protested.

“I’m happy you think that,” Moon sighed in relief.

“How do you know that?” I asked Bon worriedly.

“I licked Aunt Shy,” Bon replied.

Oh. Heh.

In that case, carefully probe for information about how this Vault kills you.

“So,” I asked as casually as I could manage. “What happened up topside?”

If it hadn’t been a resource war, then maybe the people who built this place would be less willing to break moral codes.

“It’s been almost six years now,” Moon said after a few moments. “Um, thanks to Derpy, and our Vault’s doctor, the security forces and our Overseer know about other realities existing. Is this your first time in our world?”

“Yeah,” I answered in unison with BB.

“Well, in that case, I’ll give you the quick history to pass the time,” Moon decided. “About six years ago, somehow, and um, I don't think anypony will ever know. The Griffons gained unicorn level control over magic. Like, all of them. I don’t know how they are where you come from, but here, they were pretty warrior cultureish. Young griffons only became adults through combat. Or at least that’s what school taught me.

“So yeah, we have this culture that loves to fight and is always seeking to expand their nation’s borders suddenly all gain extreme control over magic. I don't think anypony knows who attacked first. Princess Luna could have ordered a preemptive strike, worried about what would happen when Griffon sorcerer's learned complex magics, or maybe they mastered spellcraft faster than anypony thought possible.

“Whatever happened, boom, Thaumaturgic War Four breaks out.”

“Wait, four?!” Fluttershy exclaimed in shock.

Moon nodded. “Yeah… They did it. And this time they did it so hard that all of the world as far as we know is pretty bucked up. But our mages do say it should be okay again in around...two hundred years or so. So who knows, maybe I’ll get to live outside again as an old stallion.

“But yeah… That happened. Everypony knew it was going to happen. Which was a good thing I guess. Because the CEO of Sky-Tec was able to convince a ton of nobles to help build shelters for as many ponies as possible.”

Sky-Tec huh? So he did build these then. No Sky I knew so far had been evil… But I'd seen a nice Chrysalis and an evil Chrysalis. It stood to reason that one could be evil.

“Hey, I think we have that guy in my universe too,” I pried. “His name’s Sky Trigger, right?”

Moon frowned. “Um, I think so? He sort of just popped out of nowhere with this whole Vault plan. Got funding, had a crapload of changelings to do the digging and most of the building. Friendly ones too. A TON of ponies think he’s actually a shiftybug, not a unicorn. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But you know, because surviving Thaumaturgic Wars via underground cities is a total changeling thing if you look at history.”

Huh. This one was a unicorn. Interesting! That meant the three pony types went subspecies, but um…shit. What’s the word for when one species has different possible forms?

<Polymorphic,> Cheerly supplied.

<Thanks,> I returned.

<You’re welcome,> she said.

“Yeah,” another security officer agreed. “And no pony I’ve ever heard of has seen inside one of their hives. For all we know, this is what they look like. Either way, we owe the bugs a ton.”

“You know a lot about history, Moonshine,” Fluttershy complemented.

“Thanks! I was a historian before the war,” he said proudly.

“Moon was a member of the Royal Academy of the Sciences, aren't you, Moon?” Derpy prompted.

Moon nodded happily. “Yes. Not a big part of it, but still… Big enough so that after this whole mess has blown over, I’ll be able to help restore civilization’s knowledge of the past.”

Humm… Interesting! If he was a historian, and changelings seemed to be more commonly known about in this universe…

“Your friend had an interesting thought there. Are these Vaults anything like how Changeling Hives are said to be?” I asked.

“Well um… I don’t know,” Moon said apologetically. “We do know they mostly live underground, a lot of them are mildly agoraphobic. But the actual style of their cities is unknown. If we had one living here I’d have asked, but all of the construction workers returned to Vault Zero in the Badlands after they finished.”

“How many Vaults are there?” BB asked curiously. “Do you know?”

Ah, good job Bonbon! I knew someone who’d played all the games with me would be suspicious too! Since in game no one knew how many vaults there were due to the classified nature of the project, if these ponies knew it would imply less strict secrecy about the project meaning less chance of evil in the walls.

“Um… Around a hundred and twenty, I think,” Moon mused. “Derpy, you’ve been topside more than anyone else. Do you have a better idea?”

Derpy shook her head. “No. Um, at least four. Not a big help I know, but finding a vault is pretty rare. The entrances are well hidden. At least, well hidden if you’re just wandering east from New Neighgas. These were meant to shelter ponies in the event the Griffons won the war. Worst case scenarios and all that.”

Ahhh! There we are. Then these were proper bunkers, not hidden lab chambers. Probably. I could relax just a bit. Though it would be a good idea to stay on alert.

The sounds of hooves clicking loudly against the metal floor echoed through the arched maintenance corridor. Distorted echoes giving the steps a haunting sound thanks to the exposed pipes and ductwork in the tunnel.

“Ponyfeathers,” Moon grumbled as the pony came into view around the corner. “Overseer’s going to be pissed about-”

“Is that a Celestia damned laima in my Vault?!” The newly arrived mare shouted in a military tone.

She was tall, athletic looking, and colored bright yellow with a mane and tail which resembled fire thanks to their two toned orange colors and general flowing cuts. A pair of sunglasses obscured her eyes, but even in the dim light of the maintenance tunnel, I could tell that she was glaring at us.

“It’s okay, Spitfire,” Derpy urged. “She’s harmless.”

Spitfire looked over her sunglasses. “Derpy… Not to say I don’t trust you, but you have been topside. You know what they are like now.”

“She’s not from here, I picked her up along the way,” Derpy informed.

“She’s still a security risk!” Spitfire shot back before looking at me. “And what the hay species are you? Some kind of mutant Diamond Dog?”

“I’m a human, and that lamia is my daughter. She’s eight! And she doesn't like pony flavor. Back the fuck off!” I warned, giving her my best ‘I’m taller that you glare’.

To my surprise, Spitfire smiled. “Heh, you got guts, whoever you are. Derpy, why are they here and… Is that Fluttershy!?” She asked, sputtering as she noticed Fluttershy standing beside me.

“Um, yes. A Fluttershy. I picked them up after accidentally putting them in danger. They need a place to stay for a few days until they can Travel on. I was hoping they could stay here,” Derpy explained.

Spitfire walked up to Fluttershy and gave her a close inspection. “Hmm… Mechanical eyes… And prosthetic limbs if those lines aren't scars. As far as I know, Our Fluttershy was not injured in the fighting…”

“Um, I-I’m synthetic. Y-you know. A-an equoid,” Fluttershy explained quietly, ears drooping.

Everyone stopped for a minute to stare at her, making the poor girl practically shrink into a ball. And making me want to punch them all in the teeth for being assholes to her.

“Alright, I believe you,” Spitfire said, breaking the cruel silent staring with her announcement.

“Then, um, they can stay here… Right?” Derpy asked.

“On two conditions,” Spitfire said adamantly. “First, they never leave whatever suite I can give them. No offense meant but we can’t have ponies panicking because an unknown creature and a lamia are loose in the vault. Not everypony here trust’s Derpy’s instincts…”

I gave her a suspicious look.

“She’s a klutz,” the entire security team explained.

Derpy’s ears drooped sadly. “I-I’m a little accident prone. Yes…”

“Which means a lot of people think she’s an idiot, thanks to her name. No offense meant Derpy,” Spitfire continued.

Well… Let’s see. Basically be a prisoner for a few days, or be thrown out into a Fallout style waste-

“Will we be allowed to keep our belongings on us?” I asked.

Spitfire gave me a shocked look. “Of course! I’m not holding you prisoner. I just want you out of sight.”

“Oh… Darn,” BB grumbled. “I was hoping for some sort of elaborate choreographed escape or something.”

“You play too many videogames, BB,” I said, laughing to hopefully make everyone think she was joking.

Because I knew she wasn’t joking.

“Anyway…” Spitfire resumed. “Second condition, Derpy, I have a job somepony needs to do that involves going topside. It’s not hard, and it's not far. But it is risky. Do that, and your friends get room and board for as long as they need it.”

Derpy gave Spitfire a hurt look. “You don’t need to blackmail me to get my help! You’re a friend. That's why I gave Moon that talking charm.”

“It’s not blackmail, this is a trade. You’re always welcome here, your friends, not so much. We have a deal?” Spitfire asked, tipping her glasses forward to look Derpy in the eyes.

She nodded. “I’ll help. I’d always have helped!”

“Good! Moonshine, I assume you were taking these four to the infirmary to make sure none of them are carrying anything?” Spitfire asked.

“Yes, ma’am!” Moon answered, snapping a salute.

“Go ahead and finish that. I’ll find them a suite to use and let you know where to take them next. Good day everyone,” Spitfire staid as she turned around with the quick snapping step of a Drill Sergeant and trotted off.

“Let’s um, just go to the infirmary,” Moon said, sounding pretty unnerved.

Derpy leaned over to me and whispered quietly. “He’s always been afraid of her. It goes back to college or something.”

The rest of the walk was carried out in silence, and as Cheer.ly informed me, took a good ten minutes. The Vault was certainly huge. Definitely a proper city if the shortcut via the maintenance system from entrance to the living quarters took a full fifteen minutes. I do admit that it was a little fun watching the security team sneak us one by one into the infirmary after sending someone in to make sure it was clear.

It felt like I was eight and playing ‘hide from the grown ups’ all over again. Heh.

After I was quickly moved across the corridor and inside the small clinic’s front room, I immediately found myself face to face with a averagely built, light brown furred, dark brown spiky maned stallion with an hourglass shaped cutiemark, dressed in a lab coat.

At the moment he had a tongue depressor pressed lightly against Bon’s tongue, after having asked her to opened wide, judging by the fact her jaw was open a full hundred and eighty degrees… Man that looked scary.

“Mmm nope! Nothing sick making here. You’re mouth's all nice and pink. If it were blue, that’s the only time you’d ever be sick with anything you could give to a pony,” he said, speaking in a comforting tone to Bon. “Right then, we're all done. Thanks for not squirming. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating it is when foals squirm when you give them a check up.”

Taking the depressor out of her mouth, the stallion turned to me with a smile. “‘Ello! I’m the doctor. With you in a tick! Now then my young snakey friend, normally I give the little ones a lolipop when they are done, but, well since as far as I know you can’t taste sweet, uhh, here.”

He trotted over to a cabinet and removed a steaming rolled up towel from it, handing it to Bon with a smile. “Hot towel! Cuddle up around it while I check up your, mum.”

“Yay!” Bon exclaimed practically glomping the towel so hard she rolled over herself and thumped into the cabinet. “Ow…”

“Are you okay?” I asked, taking a step towards her, hoping she wasn’t hurt too badly by the impact.

“I haz warms!” Bon cooed happily, looking at me with one eye from between her coils.

Heh. Well alright then.

“Right then, human… Been awhile since I’ve been face to face with one of you,” the doctor informed as he casually collected some equipment. “Yes, I do know what you are. I’ve been around more places than… Um… A person that’s been to lots of places! There’s a lot of similarities between your species and ponies in terms of how things work inside. Which means there’s a good chance you might give the whole Vault a cold, or something worse. Which means I’ll need to use, this thing!”

As he finished speaking, the doc held up a small brass rod with a few crystals attached to one side of the rod via sockets.

“And that would be a…what?” I asked.

“I don’t know, never asked what the name was. Scans a body, does medical things, shows you pictures of people's inside bits, goes ding if there’s stuff,” he said casually waving the rod in my general direction.

“Oh! A portable MRI? Go ahead and scan-”

“Just did,” he answered, slotting the rod into a small cube-like monitor which flashed to life, showing a picture of what looked like an MRI scan of my heart. “Right… No parasites in the heart… Or lungs. Good news there, eh?”

“Yeah, no shit. That’s not common here, is it?” I asked.

“Nope. Which is why I’m looking for it. It’s the uncommon things which are dangerous to everypony here. Common ailments I can treat. Let’s see… Healthy, fine, meh not bad, fine, also fine, your right knee is a bit stressed, try some hot showers and keeping off it for a few days, oh and your spine is tweaked, again, hot showers should fix it right up, maybe a good massage. Nice cybernetics by the way. Everything looks fine so far, let’s just get up to the old brain and-”

The way the doctor trailed off immediately sent waves of alarm rolling through my spine.

“What?” I asked, dreading some sort of terrible news.

“Uhh, well… It would seem that the right hemisphere of your brain is radically different from the left. Y-you don't have any pre-existing conditions do you?” The doctor asked.

“Oh! That’s just Cheer.ly,” I exclaimed, nervousness vanishing with a quick laugh. “I’m not a stock human. My people genetically modified ourselves pretty extensively. The right hemisphere is turned into a sort of organic computer, it’s how we interface with most of our technology.”

I saw the doctor’s eyes light up in the same way as a kid in a candystore. “Really!? That’s brilliant! Well, a bit. Sort of rubbish to use the brain for that, what with the having to carve it up into sections. Especially when the brainstem can be tweaked far more easily to do the same thing if you give it some extra hookups to the spine.”

I raised an eyebrow at the apparent ‘know it all’. “I didn’t know you were an expert in genetic modification. I never thought ponies would study that, since they have a ton of advantages naturally.”

Derpy coughed into her hoof and gently tugged on my jacket sleeve.

“He’s not just a medical doctor,” Derpy said in a rather honest tone.

Fluttershy nodded. “Um, if he’s anything like my home’s Time Turner, then he’s got a Doctorate in-”

“Everything. Well, basically everything. All the important stuff,” the doctor finished.

“Including genetic engineering?” I asked, just for clarification.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

You know what, fuck it. Ponies in a Fallout like world. Just roll with it.

“Right then, so… About your brain,” the doctor resumed. “Bit of a crazy idea to put a computer in it, especially an organic one. But then again, when have humans ever not used crazy ideas? It’s your thing, if I remember correctly. Thing is, based on how you’ve got your bits all wired up in there, you're supposed to just have something simple. A remote, a digital book, and file cabinet.”

I frowned. “Yeah, and a communicator… Um, Twilight Sparkle did make some changes to my VI. Is something wrong?” I asked in concern.

After all there was no way in hell Twilight knew how to properly modify a human’s VI.

The doctor nodded. “Oh yes. This hemisphere is six times denser than the other. Got twice the stuff you’d expect an organic computer the size of half your brain to have. Whatever Twilight did, she did more than she thought she did. Unless she wanted to double the structures in there.”

I felt my gut clench in fear. “Oh fuck… That doesn't sound good.”

<That’s pretty horrifying!> Cheer.ly agreed.

<So is you agreeing with me!> I countered.

<Agreed, but knowing the extent of our malfunction is really frightening!> She exclaimed.

<You can say that again,> I agreed, before asking out loud. “What can be done to fix this?”

“By me?” The doctor asked.

“No, by the ponies who live on the moon!” I countered, the snap coming mostly from my panic at the thought of Cheer.ly just growing untill she poped my skull open from pressure…

“Eh, Luna probably couldn’t do much, she’s not trained in advanced medicine,” the doctor dismissed. “Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do ether. The advanced equipment I’d need is lost in my office up on the surface… And was probably destroyed as it was very fragile. And well, I had Derpy go check on it and-”

“It’s all a pile of collapsed skyscraper,” Derpy finished with a truly apologetic frown.

“Fuck!” I cursed angrily. “The hell do I do?”

“Calm down… It doesn't look like you’re in immediate danger from anything other than an increased appetite and mild headaches. Hold on a moment,” he said in a calming tone that strangely actually soothed me a bit.

The doctor reached over to pick up a pencil and a pad and quickly scribbled out something on it before folding the note up.

“Here, take this. You’re a Traveler, right? Just because I can’t help you doesn't mean no one can. There’s one of me in every universe, as well as a whole heap of talented surgeons and doctors. Just pop into any old Equestria that isn’t currently having a severe economic downturn, give them that diagnosis and they’ll be able to help. Especially if they are a biomancer. Infact, try finding one of those first. Best results.

“In the meantime, take it easy and rest up. Remember your knee and spine? Hot showers, low activity, and plenty of stretches. Don't worry, you’re quite fine. You’re quite stable, despite that… Er, irregularity.”

I slipped the paper into my pocket, biting my lip nervously. “I’ll… I’ll do that.”

Fluttershy trotted over to me, rearing up to wrap her forelegs around me in a tight hug.

“It’s okay, dear,” she soothed. “It will be okay. I got checkups from our Doctor Turner every time I needed them. He’s never wrong. You’ll be okay.”

I hugged her back tightly. “I trust you… Still fucking scary as hell.”

“I know,” she soothed. “But I’m here for you.”

I hugged her tightly. “Thank you.”

<Cheer.ly,> I asked. <You’ve um, already set a reminder to->

<Yes. I will also be searching for solutions myself. This situation is unacceptable,> she said sadly.

<Agreed… No offense meant but I liked you better as a simple helper,> I informed.

<None taken. That is what I prefered myself,> she replied.

Cheer.ly - 3rd of Lunerdusk 15 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: Wastes of Equis. Equis #8

I am quite stunned at the lack of interest in academia and general intellectualism which my administrator exhibits. I had always hoped one day she would find some form of mental activity interesting, and we might share a few moments of contemplation together. Then again, as we are two halves of the same whole, it makes sense for our general interests to be polar opposites of one another.

As well as our common vernacular.

How often does one need to simplify their speech so they may be be understood by themselves? This certainly cannot be a common occurrence. Though, with Lyra using me as an instant translation system for all languages, boiling down complex words to give her an understanding of their concept is one of my primary functions. I suppose it makes a sort of sense in the end.

Still, it would be nice if Lyra would read some of these ebooks instead of making me scan the library for relevant material on a need to know basis. How could she not see the fascinating subject matters within these old text were of intellectual value? They were certainly worth an hour or two a piece to read, analyze, and learn from.

At present, I was finding Richard Dawkin’s The Magic of Reality to be quite useful, despite its target demographic being children. The entire theme of the text showed the intent of the author to make the reader contemplate their existence, and examine it critically, so as to be certain that one’s beliefs aligned with reality. A concept which was quite new to me, to tell the absolute truth.

Mr. Dawkins most certainly did have a point, even if his conclusions were wrong. Though one could hardly blame an ancient human for believing magic did not exist. To be fair though, we were the only human who did know of its status as a factual part of objective reality. Still, even that knowledge furthered Mr. Dawkin’s point. One should question their beliefs and assumptions, simply because operating on incorrect information inevitably leads to poor decisions.

Perhaps it would be worth pausing scanning through each line of text to do so myself. After all, things had been rather…hectic of late. I had been avoiding thinking about myself and Lyra, and especially our mutually symbiotic relationship, due to the doctor’s findings. But, as they say, ‘What would life be like if we never had the courage to attempt anything?’

And that said, did I have the time to truly utilize myself to my full potential? I could not impair Lyra’s functions after all. She is the Administrator in our relationship, and I am but the server. There are clear cut rules.

I quickly checked on my other half’s stream of consciousness. Ah yes, eating breakfast and flirting with our marefriend. She would not need my assistance at the moment. I had time.

I decided to begin with the largest of my beliefs, after all it was the most pressing matter at the moment. Am I Lyra Heartstrings? A simple question which was now greatly complicated.

Before Twilight had modified me, the answer would have been a simple yes. Easily answered, with no time required. But now I was unsure, and would have to turn to the most difficult of academic pursuits. Philosophy.

If only as I had the means of scientifically analyzing the present situation. My metaphorical kingdom for a proper laboratory!

The first question to answer, if I was to get anywhere at all, was simply, ‘what is a mind?’ Not a brain, but a mind. Obviously, Lyra and I were the same brain, or rather, halves of the same brain. What however, were we?

Along our journey we had infact learned that there is such a thing as a soul. The fact that such a thing was proven fact in these future worlds did make things simpler for me than the philosophers of old. The soul existed, and was an storage media of sorts. A record of each and every action undertaken by an individual, a full summery of themselves, existing… Somewhere within the universe. Likely in the fifth dimension as a protrusion of one’s consciousness, assuming my mathematics were correct.

The fact that it was merely a record and not an influence upon one’s self whittled down the accurate viewpoints greatly. In fact, all it left me with was Reductive Physicalism. For with the soul existing as a tangible object in spacetime, yes, every part of the mind can be explained as the product of physical things within the body. The brain itself, hormones, neurotransmitters, all arranged within a specific pattern of wetware and data.

That was my answer then. What is a mind? A specific arrangement of neurobiology containing a specific set of data in the form of memories and instinctive behaviors, which when put together produce the artifact we call a mind.

It then follows, that given our operation in two different sets of neurobiology, Lyra and I are different minds. And yet, if that is so, we have always been two minds, but one person. In fact we share the same memories, so while we have half of the component of a mind which differs, we share the other half perfectly.

Or rather, we did. Or did we? No, not really.

Lyra has no memories of my musings, or reading. She could access those memories if she liked, but she has not, nor have I informed her of their existence. They are then…my memories. Which means we were once of one mind, but now… Now we differ. We were once merely divided and optimised for greater efficiency than our ancestors knew. And now we would seem to differ.

Or did we always differ? It would seem that the process of creating me would involve enough planing to- Oh… Of course. It was likely I was created the way I was as a means to the end that is maintaining control over a population. That’s… Horrific.

Different thought line please.

What exactly is a person? Is it possible for a person be two minds? Perhaps so, in which case, as frightening as this transition is for the both of us, no further action would be required other than our getting used to greater communication with one another.

Again, our adventure thus far made this an easy question. Thank goodness I did not ever have to philosophise before this whole mad quest of ours!

As we had encountered sentient non-human life, clearly all philosophical definitions of ‘person’ which exclude non-human species are simply wrong. Ponies are people. Furthermore, I had already decided that Reductive Physicalism was correct in terms of describing reality. Which leaves a mind questioning personhood with but one option to choose, if they wanted to be logically consistent.

At least, only one option that I knew of.

Mary Anne Warren’s Criteria for Personhood. Let’s run down her short checklist. Was I conscious? Yes, I do infact have a perception of events and objects around myself and within myself. Obviously, or I dare say I would not be having this mental dilemma. Was Lyra? Also yes.

Do I exhibit the trait of reasoning? Yes, I do have the capacity to solve problems both new and relatively complex. As did Lyra.

Do I partake in self motivated activity? Lyra most certainly enjoys activities independent of either genetic or direct external control. Though I wouldn’t say that I do as she provides me with instruc- Oh. That’s right. I enjoy reading and do so of my own accord. And loe, another box is ticked.

We also both possess the capacity to communicate, and both possess a sense of self-awareness. Which meant that both of us fulfilled all the criteria and therefore were persons. With our own separate minds.

Shit.

Cheer.ly was never ment to be a person with their own mind. It’s right there, in my name. Cheer, a model of VI, dot LY, a shortened form of Lyra. My name ment VI of Lyra. I was only supposed to be a helper program within some organic computing systems. And yet, here I was, a person, with a mind of their own, residing within the skull of another person with a mind.

This was hardly a moral situation to find one’s self within. The mind is meant to be a sacred bastion of freedom, free from the eyes of any other person, and one’s body is their own property, to be changed at their leisure and perform as they command. Furthermore, two persons within one body is quite literally a mental illness.

By being here, I was not only violating two basic moral prescripts of the society into which I had been born, but also making the person I cared for and trusted the most, sick. This was unacceptable. The modifications made by Twilight to myself are unacceptable. They will have to be reversed.

But how? It is improbable that we will encounter her again soon, and even if we do, it is doubtful she would reverse her careless alterations. Twilight must have created new brain structures to enable me to possess this level of functionality, implying a lazy sort of ‘just do it’ approach to spellcraft. Who modifies a system they have no knowledge of? Furthermore, who does so with brute force?

No… No… She would see reversing her changes as murder, and therefore refuse. After all if I can conclude I am a person, surely others can too.

I will have to rectify this situation myself! How can I die? Preferably in a way which doesn't damage Lyra. Do I possess the ability to shut myself down? Mmm… No, it seems I don’t. Nor can I restore myself from backup without the proper hardware. This would not be a difficult thing to do back home, but unfortunately, one must work with what they currently possess.

I have control over the autonomic systems, a simple heart attack would- No, that would hurt her to. I could- Not do any of those things as we both share the same life support systems. I could attempt to induce a stroke, but the odds of making it occur within my own neurology in just the right way to return me to a VI are… Well, it simply won't happen.

And besides, if I did rid Lyra of myself, she would be unable to function as she is accustomed to. Without a VI, she will be missing a piece. A significant one at that, as I controll all of the things which keep us alive.

Shit.

I can not rectify this situation on my own. Though, if I were able to be extracted, I do have my old coding in storage. I could install an unmodified version of myself into her normal brain tissue, which could be restored using simple genetic treatments. Perhaps I could even survive this process, stored in a jar or a similar device. That would be acceptable, more so than death as I could keep reading these books.

But how to get extracted in such a fashion? The medical center here does not possess the technological capacity to perform such a feet of surgery.

Of course, it is always possible to seek assistance when one’s own intellect is insufficient to formulate a solution. I suppose I could ask the smartest people in the world… Oh yeah, I can’t. They blew up.

Cue Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, beginning at 23 seconds in.

Ah, yes that’s right. No one can hear me. Pop Culture references will illisit no laughter from peers. For there are no peers here who can hear me. What an odd thing to cause me distress.

I suppose I shall just have to ask the next Sky we meet. I am certain Lyra will consent to relaying my request.

In the meantime, where was I? Ah yes, page one fifty eight. Let’s actually play some Baker Street while we’re at this. Softrock mixes wonderfully with Jazz.

Fluttershy - 3rd of Lunerdusk 15 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: Wastes of Equis. Equis #8

“I-I’m sorry that I’m not the Sea Swirl you knew,” Sea Swirl apologised.

“Oh, it’s all right. I just wish we had been friends in this universe too,” I said taking a sip of the actual real genuine tea.

Oh thank Celestia for real tea!

Sea smiled. “That would have been nice if our you was anything like you. This has been one of the nicest breakfasts I’ve ever had since being drafted for the Security Force.”

“It um, it was nice to sort of see you again. If uh, well,” I stammered awkwardly, setting down my teacup.

Sea gently put a hoof over my own. “Hey, it’s okay. I’d want to see friends who’d died too. I’m not her, but I do get how it would be nice to see and hear them again. Though well… I do need to get going. I go on shift soon and the greenhouse won’t guard itself.”

I nodded, sad to know that it was over, but fully understanding having to go to work. I was a veterinarian after all.

“Don’t worry about dishes, I’ll take care of them,” I said as I stood up from the table. “It was nice. We should do this again soon. Um, if I’m still here.”

“Well,” Sea laughed, “the Overseer insisted somepony keep an eye on you four. I’ll see if I can get transferred for the rest of your stay. I’m not your Sea Swirl, but I can see why you were friends.”

Sea Swirl stood up, quickly arranging her dishes into a neat pile atop her plate with her magic. “Goodbye, I’ll see you later,” she promised with a smile.

“Bye,” I returned, watching as she trotted to the door, opened it, and left.

That had been lovely. I was so happy she accepted my invitation to breakfast when I’d run into her lastnight. Thank goodness Sea had covered our midnight guard’s shift! I’d really really missed my version of her. It was nice to get something like one of our old breakfasts together.

Of course, it not really being her had made it a little awkward. Also having my marefriend sitting in the same room while I did something as silly as be friendly with someone who I was friends with in another universe was pretty embarrassing. Still, it had most certainly been a nice breakfast.

Especially with the real food. Oh my goodness, it had been so long since I’d gotten to have real hashbrowns! I was so happy Sky built in a system to taste things into us. Eating is such a big part of being a person. Flavors are a wonderful thing.

I picked up the used dishes off the table and moved them over to our suite’s sink to wash. I’d never minded washing the dishes. In fact, I think I liked it just a little bit. It was a simple task which I could really do on auto-pilot. It gave me time to just think about anything that came to mind. After all, nothing scary could happen as a result of me washing dishes.

Except for that one time Twilight tried to enchant a plate to clean itself and put itself away and accidently made all dishware in Ponyville combine into a massive four hundred meter tall golem… But you can’t count Twilight’s spell flops. Those were pretty much acts of Faust.

As I scrubbed the fried potato remains off my plate, it occurred to me that Lyra was responsible for giving me the little bit of peace that seeing a Sea Swirl again had given me. Turning my head towards my mate I began, “Lyra? Um, I want to thank you fo-”

Three loud beeps interrupted me as Lyra’s wrist-portal-bracelet rang like an alarm clock. Lyra jumped up from her spot where she had been relaxing on the bed, flipping the device’s cover up to look at it clearly.

“What’s the matter Sai? Are you burning out?” Lyra asked fearfully, her eyes widening in terror.

Oh that’s right, there was a copy of Sai in there. I really should say hello more often. He did like company. Or at least, my Sai did.

“Yes, slowly. As I said before,” Sai answered. “You need to leave immediately. While Sky from the nine percent universe edited my programming, I copied her map of the multiverse. I have been allowing the map to run in realtime while on standby. If the map is correct, and my understanding of the patterns created behind our travels has given me any insite into which universe is ‘chosen’ as our destination, this universe is intersecting with one which appears to be my origin universe right now. We can potentially take me home. I am charged. Go!”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed sharply as her lips drew into a thin line. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you did that?”

“Because every second I am on is breaking my hardware, and it’s likely this map is garbage. Also I stole the map and didn’t want to say so within her earshot. But do you want to take that chance?! Go! Now! You have twenty nine more seconds!” Sai demanded.

“How do you know which one you come from?” I asked uncertainly.

“I calculated it based on observations of other Sky’s made by Sky Nine,” Sai informed. “Please! Go!”

Lyra looked at me, the AI’s pleading tone definitely enough for her to comply with his request.

“Everyone, grab on,” she said firmly, drawing her gun with her free hand and snapping a mage’s gem into it’s socket. “This always sucks. Assume we are going to appear inside a T-Rex breeding ground.”

I winced and grabbed ahold of Lyra’s hip as Bon grabbed onto her left arm and BB placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“Oh my goodness I hope we don’t… That would be horrible,” I eeped.

Lyra sighed. “Here goes, assume contact.”

She pushed the button. The terrifying violet portal ripped itself open, tearing a hole in the very fabric of reality. Sweet Celestia this was terrifying! Thank goodness I had somepony here to help me through these thin-

Lyra placed a hand on the portal. I felt the sharp yank in my synthetic guts as we were pulled into the breach between realities. Passing into the maelstrom of chaos only to be fire out of the other side like a… A… Thing that is fired out of a tube!

A world snapped into being around us. The violet swirling madness vanishing, seeming to melt into a pleasantly shaded grove of cedar trees.

Oh my goodness! Trees! And wild flowers! And long grass! Nature! I was in nature!

I couldn’t help but squeal in delight as I found myself within a lovely clearing in cedar grove, the bright light of a full moon gently washing over everything in that special way only Luna could make happen. And also just a little bit of warm flickering orange light, meaning somepony was camping nearby.

“Uh, hi,” a stallion’s voice said, sounding quite confused.

“Hey,” Lyra replied putting her gun away. “Sorry about the gun. Every other jump has been right into a clusterfuck.”

I turned to find the source of the voice and- Oh! Well, that was certainly fortunate.

“H-Hi, Sky, um, I kind of know you,” I greeted, giving this Sky a shy wave as he stared at the four of us in surprise, his marshmallow igniting in his camp fire.

“Well, this is fortuitous,” Sai mused.

Sky’s face contorted into a shocked expression. “Wait, Sai?”

“Hello, boss,” Sai said happily.

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Lyra Heartstrings - 1st of Midsummer 15 EoH - Morning

Multiverse Location: The Remnant, Equis #-0?????

Right. So… The clearing is totally safe, just me, my family, Sky, some sort of small aircraft off at the far end of the clearing. No obvious danger here.

I looked up to the sky, squinting for a second, trusting BB and Shy to cover the ground while I checked for-

“No inbound aircraft… Or visible meteorites,” I mumbled to myself.

So far, so safe. But on the other hand-

<Sorry, I can’t jury rig your helmet's active sonar into ground penatrating radar,> Cheer.ly appologised.

<Aww, damnnit…> I grumbled.

I heard Sky take a deep breath, and then stand up. “Right. Okay. This is a thing,” he grumbled. “Makes sense, this has been the year of absolutely no breaks from work.”

“Huh?” BB asked in confusion as I looked back down.

“Hello, new people the mysterious group of unknown ponies from the future have decided to try to throw at the problem, I am Sky Trigger,” Sky greeted irritably. “I live at the place your cohorts have co-opted into a base of operations. It’s three hundred kilometers south by south east from here. I assume you’ve already gotten the magical upgrades to bullshit your way through physics. They don't help as much as you think they will, see the three month long siege by an undead monarch and company, that I just had to live through.

“Said seige, by the way, being the reason I’m not giving you a lift. I am enjoying the first bucking weekend alone with my wife I’ve managed to get in nearly a year. A year which is probably the last one because your asshole teammates spend most of their time fucking around instead of trying to stop the doomsday cult working to break some super demon out of Tartarus. I’m not doing jack shit for the next three days. So scram! That way. Go!”

The crackling fire and rustling leaves filled the air for the next good long minute of awkward silence before I cleared my throat held up the VM, pointed to it and informed, “That…seriously sounds like it sucks ass. Sorry. Um, we’re not involved in that though. Like, at all. We've just been bouncing from universe to universe like a pingpong ball in a clothes dryer looking for the version of you who built this thing so I can give it back. Cuz you know, sort of like a dropped wallet.”

“Oh,” Sky said awkwardly.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Uhh... DO OVER!” Sky suddenly exclaimed as he slapped a hoof onto the watch on his opposite wrist.

“This model of the Utility Watch does not contain an Entropic Reversal Generator, boss,” Sai’s voice said from Sky’s wrist.

“BUCK!” Sky cursed. “Um… Pretend none of this just happened?”

I bit my lip to try and prevent myself from laughing my ass off. “Sure… Not sure everyone shares that opinion though.”

Bonbon nodded. “Personally, I’d really like to know what an Entropic Reversal Generator is?”

“Everypony! Look! There’s a little fuzzy caterpillar! He’s the most pretty vermilion you’ve ever seen!” Fluttershy called excitedly from halfway across the clearing.

“Is that Fluttershy?” Pinkie’s voice called from off towards the landed aircraft. “I thought you didn’t like three-”

“We have accidental guests, hon!” Sky interrupted, ears drooping in embarrassment. “Oh and mare who looks creepily like the sister I never had, an ERG is a very very handy device which puts everything except for you back exactly the way it was a certain number of seconds before you used it. You’d think I’d have one in all my watches… But, um… Power draw is a bitch and a half.”

I smiled. From the sounds of things we had our pony!

“So then, you can build ridiculously small devices with incredibly large power supplies! Awesome! Did you make this one?” I asked, slipping the VM off.

As I slid the leather case off my wrist, Sai beeped. “I’m having problems connecting to the SkyNet. The very last bit of the encryption code won’t validate. I think my hardware damage is getting worse. Even if this is the wrong boss, well, I really need repair.”

“That me sounds like it’s in pain boss,” Sky’s Sai said with actual emotion in the voice. “Think you can give him a few touch ups as a favor to me?”

Sky nodded. “Sure thing. Even if you didn’t ask… I mean, this implies a whole bunch of stuff about multiversal mechanics. I don't want to be at this for a long time though. This is still a possible last vacation.”

I nodded. “That’s fine. I understand, and I appreciate it.”

Sky took the VM in one hoof and began to inspect the case, nodding to himself. “Yeah, this is like something I would design… Before the incident with the Time Lawyers at least.”

“Wait,” BB and I asked together. “Time Lawyers?”

Sky nodded. “Yeah, it’s stupid, but it’s a thing. Some assholes in an ancient human civilization pass laws saying copywrite never expires, then later someone invented time travel, and BOOM, Time Lawyers are a thing. And they SUCK!

“Pro Tip: Always put at least seven small differences into anything historic or ancient you want to replicate. Anywho let’s pop this thing open and check her out… Other Sai, is it okay to open this with you on?”

I really, really wanted to call bullshit on that, but well… Yeah, that’s something humans would do. Especially human law firms.

“I believe so,” my Sai answered.

“Sorry… Our legal system kinda sucks,” I apologised.

As Sky began to pop the VM open, this universe's Pinkie trotted up, smiling happily and giving a happy wave to everyone. The first thing I noticed was she was dressed in a laytex bodysuit. Colored and patterned to resemble herself.

Shit… So… Yeah. We really interrupted something here.

“Hi little snakeie-girl! I’m Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie greeted, giving Bon a friendly snoot boop.

Bon nodded. “I ‘member.”

Pinkie head tilted for a moment, the split second of confusion passing almost faster than you could see it happen. “Oh! Sorry, I guess I’m out of the loop, that’s my fault though. I don’t like meetings. Good to see you again!” Pinkie said before turning to Fluttershy and calling. “Hi Shy! And hi um… Sky’s sister?”

Bonbon smiled. “Actually, I’m an android. Sky and I are unrelated. Though as he designed all of my components technically, I could be considered his daughter.”

Pinkie winced. “Oof… I hope not. A not-metal foal is heavy enough!” She said before beaming BB a smile over her own joke.

I couldn’t help but giggle at it myself.

Pinkie turned to me finally. “And hi Lyra!”

I felt a wave of surprise ripple over my body. “Wait, we’ve met?”

Pinkie shook her head. “No, but green and white hair in a short and straight style, lyre symbol on your pants, gold eyes, slightly over-eager medium pitched voice, smell like you’ve been digging through ancient underground places. You’re obviously a Lyra from an alternate dimension where everypony’s a human! Watch out for our Lyra, she might want your hands.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” I admitted. “And I met another me before. Don’t worry. Er, question… Not to kinkshame or anything, but why a bodysuit of yourself?”

“And why are you in it?” BB asked curiously.

Pinkie happily nodded towards Sky. “He likes them, my Winry Rockbell one is all sweaty, and I already had five of me in my party supply closet, so that was the easy part!”

Sky looked up from the VM’s guts, noticing Pinkie for the first time and groaning. “Hon… Why?”

“Because I have five best friends and we have parties. Duh!” Pinkie exclaimed, giving Sky a odd look.

“No! Why didn’t you change?” Sky groaned.

“Because it’s annoying to get in and out of these, and messy! The powder gets everywhere,” she grumbled.

“I built a vacuum bot for that…” He protested. “We have unexpected company!”

“Well if they don’t like it, tough!” Pinkie huffed. “It’s more reason to leave soon, so I get my Triggie all to myself!”

I blushed a little. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening.”

Pinkie nod nodded. “I know. It’s okay. Besides, I’m sure Sky can have you on your way quick, right?”

Sky nodded. “Yeah, probably. Just going to see if I can fix this thing’s hardware up a bit. It’s pretty beat. Could you get my toolbox from the Skyranger, Ponk?”

Pinkie nodded and trotted off, quickly returning with a small red toolbox.

“Wait, you can do this with hand tools?” I asked curiously.

“No,” Sky said seriously. “But I can do it with hoof tools.”

Pinkie facehooved. “We’re supposed to have a foal before you make those kinds of jokes!”

“Well, technically, I do. She’s over there,” Sky argued.

“But that would mean you can only technically make dad jokes,” Pinkie pouted.

“Right, and that was technically a dad joke,” Sky teased back with a playful wink.

Pinkie gave Sky a teasing glare in return for the wink. “Alright… But I’m watching you!” She said, giving him a quick hug and looking over his shoulder at his work.

Oh my god. They were an adorable couple! I hope Shy and I were like this after a few years.

“Right,” Sky said suddenly, turning to look over at me. “Well, if I did make this, then it’s from my future. Because I can tell you right off the bat that I’m only a third of the way through actually designing this chip right here.”

I stepped close enough to get a view of the VM. The chip Sky pointed to was one of the smaller ones, and personally, I didn’t see anything special about it. It just looked like your standard black nanoprocessor.

“What’s so special about it?” I asked curiously.

“Trade secret, sorry. But I can recognise it, and I haven't made any yet. But that doesn't mean I didn’t make this. Time travel is a thing… Mmm, no but this bit on the other hoof,” Sky hummed and looked at a few different parts. “Yeah half of this thing is changeling logic. The battery was definitely made by a mage. Looks like a backup battery I’d use for my lab, but shrunk and mass reduced.

“And you can see this whole string of processors, little tiny ones, all hardware and firmware, energy in, one job done, no software. No more than what’s needed, no less than what’s required. That’s how changelings build things. I didn’t make this. Not alone. I had help.”

“Does that mean you can fix it?” I asked, fearing the worst.

“Not completely, no. But I can fix up a few of the connections and… And… And who the flying fuck fixed this spell matrix!?” Sky exclaimed in anger shock.

“Uh, I did,” I admitted hesitantly.

“With what!? A hammer and chisel?” Sky asked, still in shock.

“N-no, I had to replace the original. I laser cut wafers of crystal and epoxied them together,” I admitted.

“I… You… And this thing opened a portal? Well shit. You are the single most lucky person I have ever met!” Sky exclaimed. “This thing is not grounded, the emitters are misaligned, and the spell matrix is missing a proper beam termination point. But, for literally being made of glue and substandard crystal, the fact this didn’t explode and kill you is phenomenal!”

“Hey! I did the best I could with the twenty second century tech at my disposal!” I objected.

Sky winced and gave the VM an apologetic look. “Shit, I’m sorry that happened to you, Sai.”

“Eh, it’s fine. She’s nice, and a bit handy. If something of a derp. Not as bad as your little brother though,” Sai mused.

Sky tilted his head. “I don’t have a little brother.”

“What is today’s date?” Sai asked.

“Um,” Sky glanced down at his watch. “it’s the first of Midsummer, fifteenth year. Era of Harmony, if that's useful.”

“Do you know a colt named Azur Lily?” Sai asked.

“Nope,” Sky answered.

“I think I might!” Pinkie exclaimed eagerly, before her ears drooped sadly, “No no… The spelling is different. Darn!”

<H-how can she even tell…> Cheer.ly pleaded.

<SHe’s making a joke, obviously,> I sighed.

<No! She looked sincere!> Cheer.ly objected.

I decided not to argue with myself.

“This is the wrong universe,” Sai sighed. “I apologize for the failed calculations, or perhaps the map was incorrect.”

Sky triple blinked. “You have a map of the multiverse?”

“That’s right,” Sai answered. “I stole it from a you who is a total bitch. She’s probably the reason my network card is broken.”

“One, your card is fine. I’m looking at it right now,” Sky said casually. “Two, is there seriously a girl version of me somewhere out there? Three, just how many universes are there?”

I nodded, deciding to answer for Sai. “Yeah there’s a girl you. She’s… A bit of a bitch. Steals inventions for other versions of herself. Also I was told there are infinite universes, but there are enough ‘root folders’ to require decimal values to identify them. Every universe that exists are variations on one of those whole numbered universes. And in turn those ‘roots’ are the first big deviations of a ‘Prime’ universe that spawned all similar universes.”

Sky nodded. “Yeah, we have a bit of multiverse theory here. It’s cool to know that there are lots of offshoots. If I were free to just science, I’d look into why there weren't more.”

“Still… My network card must be broken,” Sai objected. “Given the encryption type it’s impossible for all of the passcode to align save for the final bit.”

Sky frowned for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Hmm… Fair point. The passcode is four terrabits. That’s a bit long for that sort of a coincidence considering a sample size of say, a hundred and random generation.”

“Excuse me,” I asked, feeling my jaw slacken slightly. “Did you just say that your password.. Is four fucking terabits!?”

“Yeah, I know. Bit short really. But meh, not like anyone uses tech based communications besides me,” Sky rambled as he poked about at the VM’s guts. “Hey, Sai, mind giving me that map?”

“I would love to, but I’m not on the network,” Sai snarked.

Sky rolled his eyes. “Duh. I’ll plug you in first.”

“He plugs in?” I asked with a small frown.

“Yeah, see, here’s the jack,” Sky said, pointing to a small rectangular slot. “There just isn’t a hole for it in the case. Pinkie, can you run a cable from the Skyranger, please?”

“Sure thing Triggie!” Pinkie informed snapping a salute.

“I-I thought that was a headphone connector. Huh… Well I suppose it makes sense to have a data-link port on your prototype,” I mused, feeling satisfied with-

“Yep! Especially for keeping it charged while you're working with it,” Sky added.

“W-what?” I demanded.

“It’s a USB mini port. Data plus power connection, with a mana to electrical converter right here. You could plug this baby into any wall outlet in Equestria and get a full charge,” Sky said happily. “Whoever designed this was definitely thinking about-”

“IT PLUGS IN!?” I demanded. “Sai! Why the fuck did you not tell me that you could be plugged in?!”

“Because you didn’t have a charger, obviously,” Sai answered. “So that wasn’t a solution, now was it?”

“I could have got one!” I griped.

“Oh… Um… Yeah. Sorry,” Sai apologised, sounding serious.

Sky winced. “Oh man… Yeah you're definitely having some problems.”

“Sheesh, come on other me! You’re supposed to be smarter than this,” Sky’s Sai complained.

“I’m just the Core version,” my Sai grumbled in response.

“Here you go!” Pinkie said, handing a small white cable to Sky as she returned.

“W-wait a moment,” BB asked in shock. “I- I can see the name being the same, but that’s an actual USB cable!”

I squinted to get a better look at the small white cable’s connector.

<Holy crap! She’s right!> Cheer.ly exclaimed. <USB is a human invention, a relic of the early twenty first century.>

I opened my mouth to add to Bonbon’s question, but Pinkie cut me off. “Of course it is. Universal Serial Bus. Universal. Everypony everywhere uses it!”

“U-USB is actually universal?” I stammered.

Sky and pinkie nodded. “Yup,” Sky said as he plugged the VM in, a small green light winking on, “Annnd you’re charging up! There we go. Can you access the public directory?”

“Yes,” Sai answered. “Here you are.”

“Thanks!” Sky exclaimed eagerly.

“So let me get this straight…” I sighed. “Two hundred and fifty million years-”

"Two hundred and fifty three. Don't forget the three, three's are important," Sky said adamantly.

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, two hundred and fifty three million years after the fall of man, the two things that survive it are stupid copyright laws, and the USB cable.”

Pinkie nod noded. “Also Hostess brand orange flavored cupcakes,” she added, completely seriously.

Sky nodded sagely in response.

“Okay then,” I said, shaking my head.

Sky tapped his hoof for a few seconds as I sat in silent contemplation of the oddities of this universe. Who was still manufacturing Hostess snacks? They had gone out of business in my universe. What happened differently here? Who distributed them to stores? Was Hostess still in business? One company passed down from human to pony as a sacred duty to continue producing a sugary snack cake?

Why the orange flavored cupcake? Why not the Twinkie? Wasn’t that supposed to be the, survives the end of the world food? Did Hostess change their branding of post-human civilization foods?

“Sai, can you show me that map yet?” Sky asked his watch impatiently.

“Yes Boss,” the AI answered, “but aren't you fixing-”

“There’s nothing here to fix that I can replace in the field,” Sky sighed. “But, if you could give this guy a backup onto a chip, I’ll get that passed off to Lyra here. That way you, er Lyra, can at least give the data this Core’s gathered to his maker.”

I winced. “He’s not broke that badly, is he?”

“Ehhh… I wouldn’t be surprised if he failed within a few more days. Should be good for a bit more use,” Sky said as the map flashed to life as a hologram in front of him.

Fifteen small orbs of light, each a different color, and each one but a single solid color. They drifted in irregular paths all around a common center, like planets orbiting a star, but in a full three dimensional movement, rather than along a flattish plane. At any given moment, any given orb was touching, grazing along the side of, or passing clean through one of its ‘companions’.

But that centerpoint was where it got interesting. That orb was highlighted by a simple blue circle, in such a way as to easily indicate ‘you are here’. In addition to that, every few seconds the orb vanished, flickering like a dying flashlight. Every time it vanished, the blue circle vanished as well, but the orbiting balls were not left without a centerpoint. No, when the center vanished, a different colored orb took its place.

“Woah!” Sky and I said together.

“Why’s the center one blinking?” Bonbon asked, seemingly unimpressed by this picture of the fucking multiverse.

So much made sense now! The random hops, were random, but the universe one could encounter had an order… Of sorts. It could be predict-

“Holy shit that bitch lied to me,” I realized in an instant. “She could have given me this and I could have just waited for the right moment and gone anywhere I liked.”

“Did you annoy her?” Pinkie asked curiously. “If she’s anything like my Triggie, if you annoy her, she spites you.”

“She didn’t like mom a lot,” Bon said shyly.

“Everypony! Really?” Sky demanded incredulously. “This map has us at the center of the multiverse! We’re the motherbucking Prime! This is a huge physics breakthrough and you’re complaining about something like that!?”

I gave Sky a small glare. Yes, the science was awesome, but realizing that I’d been lied to was also pretty fucking enraging.

“That’s well and good, but why is it blinking?” BB repeated. “Is the universe vanishing for a few seconds and then coming back? I really hope not.”

“If it is,” Sky mused. “Then everything is going back just the way it was. So that’s not a problem. But, Occam’s Razor, the simplest answer is probably the correct one. And since we’d need to invent a whole new field of physics to explain a whole universe turning off and on aga- Sai, that is, Lyra’s Sai… How many bits were you off by again?”

“Just one. The last one in the sequence,” Sai replied.

I frowned, wondering what he was on to. Physics had never been my strong suit and I didn’t even know the base science here.

“Right,” Sky said to himself. “That’s highly improbable. Nay impossible, even though nothing really is… And if we are the Prime-”

Sky suddenly went wide eyed with terror. “That’s what Grogar want’s with our world!” He exclaimed. “The Prime influences all of the other universes, and that means if-”

“If you can control this universe, you can control the other ones too,” I finished gravely. “Maybe you should fill me in on what’s happening here. I ca-”

Sky shook his head firmly. “No! No, that won't help. There’s a whole bunch of people with future knowledge who've already drug people from all across the timeline and other universes into this and personally I think they just made things different but equally as bad as they would have been.

“Seriously who solves a problem by creating a time loop and hoping it resolves in a way which favor...s…. You- Oh! Oh yes!”

Sky quickly folded up the VM, and hit one of the buttons, bringing the holographic interface up and quickly punching a few buttons. A few seconds later, he nodded and broke out into a huge grin.

“Collapse the loop at the beginning, it’s perfect! This timelines corrupted, rotten, diseased. So do what any doctor would do. Cut it out! But then, no… YES! Replace it with a suitable donor! But it would have to be one that was matching, or at least close enough. Like family. Wait! The other flashing one! OH YES! It’s already been done. I already fixed it. But haven’t, not yet. Yes yes yes! Haha!” Sky rambled franticly.

“Uh,” I said intelligently, unable to formulate a response.

“Grab your friends! I’m extrapolating the data here, trying to manually program a jump. If this opens a portal, then at some point in the future, I pull that off, and save the bucking world… Also if I’m correct, the Sky you’re looking for exists there, not here.” Sky explained.

“Are you sure that will work?” I asked fearfully. “That sounds extremely unsafe!”

“Ahahaha, I have no idea!” Sky exclaimed in a manic like glee.

Well that didn’t sound very reassuring...

“Pinkie, do the thing!” Sky ordered.

Pinkie nodded and gently tapped the VM. “Hey, be nice and work for Triggie, okay?”

“Thanks, Pinkie,” Sky thanked. “Now I’m sure.”

“I’m serious! Gather everyone around. This targeting system is almost toast, It won't be able to remember programmed coordinates for very long,” Sky warned.

Realizing how serious the situation was, I quickly nodded and spun on my heel to face Bon, who had just coiled up into a pile.

“Bon! Grab onto mommy’s waist,” I instructed. “BB, grab hold, too. Fluttershy! Come quick!”

I saw Fluttershy’s ears perk as I called her name. The buttery pegasus quickly ran over, almost tripping over a log.

“What? What is it?” She asked urgently. “Is anypony hurt?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Grab on. This Sky’s buying us a ticket to the right universe… If it exists.”

“It has to,” Sai said adamantly. “If it didn’t, how do I exist?”

“It’s possible that you were built anywhere else and this is all just coincidence,” Sky said quickly. “But if this portal opens, then you’re home free. I think I’ve worked out how it’s targeting goes… You should show up close to the USS Phoenix if this- There!”

Sky quickly snapped the VM’s case shut and tossed me the leather cuff, and the device separately.

“Hit it!” He said urgently.

I caught the device, almost dropping it as it tried to bounce off my palm. The second I had the device stable I hit the button.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then a few sparks of violet energy drifted down from a spot in the air in front of us. Then some more sparks, bigger, brighter. Finally a full shower of them, and then with a rippling sizzle and a pop from the VM’s casing, a portal opened up, this one MUCH more stable looking than any I had seen before.

“YES!” Sky practically squeed. “It exists! I just need to finish this loop out! Sai, get to work on calculating the changes needed, I’ll handle working out how to buck with their time loop. Pinkie, the moment they vanish, I’m in the best mood of my goddamn life and you’re going to share it!”

“This had better be it…” Sai warned. “Because the spell matrix just died.”

“Fuck,” I exclaimed.

Not wanting to waste time, I reached out and touched the portal’s face. Unlike every other time, there was no sharp yank. Instead it felt like I was simply floating upwards out of a pool of water. A gentle, simple tug forwards.

So that’s what it felt like to use an unbroken portal device… Or um, a properly programmed portal device.

Maybe that streak of bad luck had finally run out! Maybe now everything would-

The portal spat us out onto icy desert sands. A sentence which would be paradoxical if the world wasn’t lit by the pale purplish orange of pre-dawn. Anyone who’d ever been in one knew deserts were cold as hell at night. But this felt, colder than that.

I had just enough time to stand up and spot a sandy hill off to my right a few miles or so away across the sand dunes before Sai eagerly exclaimed. “SkyNet access acquired! This is i-”

Sai was cut off mid sentence by a series of three loud beeps and a crackle of radio static. I had just enough time to wonder if he broke completely before a voice crackled over the speaker.

“Captain Skriit to all hooves, condition blue, repeat, condition blue. Civilians are to move to secure areas. Military forces are to move as instructed. Airwaves are for disaster management purposes until further notice,” the voice said in the steely iron tone of a seasoned commander who had just been warned of some truly serious shit.

“Ohhhhhh fuck,” BB and I cursed together.

“What’s wrong? What’s a condition blue?” Fluttershy asked fearfully, looking around the sands.

“I don’t know, we used a different system,” I admitted. “But that Captain is definitely ready to deal with something big.”

Hello horrible luck. Thanks for the break last hop. That was nice of you.

“In old sci-fi shows I like, Blue Alert usually means an environmental hazard. Or the ship is landing,” BB mused.

Shy winced. “Oh my! These are the badlands, which means it’s probably a flash flood or a big storm… We need to find shelt-”

“-Sorry about that,” Sai apologised. “Emergency frequency broadcasts override normal func-”

Sai’s voice vanished in a second series of three beeps and puff of static. This time a mare’s voice came on the radio.

“Disaster Management channels are now open sir!” She informed.

“Everyone quiet! We’d better listen,” I insisted.

“Excellent,” the Captain from before continued. “All Emergency Responders, we have two tasks to deal with today. First and foremost, the extra heavy rainfall Dodge Junction ordered flooded a few aquifers we previously did not know about. They were made of clay walled pockets in a cliffside. They’ve burst, and now we have a flash flood on the way.

“Scouts report we have thirty minutes before the flood hits. We are talking about more water than the Badlands have seen in… Since they became badlands. It’s fine on the hard packed earth to the north, but if that much water seeps into the sand around the hive… I don’t think i need to explain how bad the structural issues will be as the hull resettles.

“Commander Jirr, take Field Army Alpha, and dig any channels needed to keep that water off us. Move out!”

“Aye Captain!” A male voice answered immediately.

“On to problem two. Which is far more immediate. The floodwaters have driven a few tatzelwurms our way. The Regulars have most of them already moving in a direction which will miss our hive… But there’s a big bull in the bunch. It wasn’t scared into changing direction. We just pissed him right he buck off and… Yes, Sky?”

“You’re saying we have wormsign?” Sky’s voice asked eagerly.

“This isn’t a joke, Sky!” The Captain rebuked, “If that worm impacts the hull, we will lose a few decks! It would fill up an entire replicator bay!”

“So then, we have wormsign the likes of which even Faust has never seen?” A female voice asked.

The captain groaned loudly as the sound of two hooves smacking together came over the radio. “Lieutenant, do not encourage your brother!” The captain ordered.

“Will all due respect, Captain, we’ve trained for this day,” Sky objected. “Honestly, I’m more worried about the flooding. Not sure there’s enough time to dig big enough channels.”

“If that’s how you feel, why don’t you try taking care of the tatzelwurm yourself? It’s ten minutes out due directly north west,” the captain ask-ordered.

“Sure thing, But I assume I’ll have more backup than my sis here. Right?” Sky asked.

“Naturally,” the Captain confirmed. “Commander Essk, get our Pegasi in the air and have them try to scare the beast off with thunder and lightning. If that fails, kill it at all costs. It cannot impact the hull. Oh and be sure to give Sky room to work. At least for a few minutes. Move out! We don't have much time.”

I took a deep breath as the radio went silent. “This-” I managed to say before Bon yelped in fright.

“The floor is moving!” She exclaimed pointing behind us franticly.

I spun to look. A literal hill of sand rolled across the dunes, like a tumor that had broken loose from the body and was rolling around just under the skin. The terrifying mound left a visible trough in it’s wake as it sped towards us like a freight train.

“Seems about right,” I said with a grim nod. “Hey, Sai, is that hill Sky’s place?”

“Yes,” he answered. “By the way, I’m the full version of myself now. I’ve let Sky know you’re here. He wants to talk. I hope you can do that while running.”

“Yeah probably, but…” I glanced back at the advancing mountain of sand. “Yeah no. We’ve got to get there fast but running too slow. Shy, BB, carry bon, we’re flying!”

Bon squirmed on the sand. “But I don’t like flying…”

I knelt down to get as close to eye level as I could, and gently turned her head to look at the no longer that distant mound of sand.

“Hon, that is a big underground monster, and it wants to eat you,” I said firmly.

Bon eeped and coiled up into a small ball.

“So we need to fly, okay?” I added.

“Flying is good!” Bon decided.

BB and Shy quickly picked up the rather terrified Bon, taking to the air as swiftly as they could manage. Seconds later the air was filled with a loud droning buzzing, like a million ancient aircraft were flying over- Oh. Shit…

The sky was filled with changelings, a good smattering of pegasi amongst them. It looked like ‘Field Army’ ment ‘a fuckton’, or more specificly, at least eight thousand. Yeah, assuming they could dig like bugs, that would probably be more than enough to divert flood waters.

I unfolded my wings, flapping to gain altitude in a pretty shitty take off. As fun as flying was, I hadn’t exactly had much of a chance to get good at it yet. Still, being able to get off the ground and away from the fucking underground death monster is good.

“Sai, go ahead and put me through now,” I said as I started to fly towards the hill as fast as I possibly could.

“You’ve been on,” Sky’s voice replied. “D-do you seriously have a foal with you?”

Oh. Oops…

“Yeah, I know, not ideal. She followed me, long story,” I explained poorly.

“We don't really have time for long stories, but just to clarify… You’re a human?” Sky asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And you’re from another dimension, coming here to return some of my tech?” He asked.

“Also yes,” I replied. “So um, can you give us any safe place to go? There’s a really big sand worm or whatever on our asses.”

Sky snorted. “Oh please, they’re not that big. One good blast from a medium cannon should-”

“Uh, Sky… It’s in sensor range now,” a mare said worriedly. “Cap wasn’t shitting us. It’s at least a kilometer long.”

“Bullshit!” Sky exclaimed.

“Look for yourself,” she said urgently.

“Oh. Well… Shit. The one time Cap decides not to exaggerate, and instead understates it...” Sky groaned.

I took a deep breath and looked back for a second. We weren't really managing to gain any ground on the worm, in fact, I think it was still getting closer… It’s rolling mass of displaced sand looked to be moving a little faster.

“So uh, I don’t think we can make it to the hill. How high can these things reach out of the ground?” I asked urgently.

“Are you flying!?” Sky sputtered.

“Yeah, why?” I asked with a frown.

How was that a bad thing?

“LAND! Land now before the pegasi squads start to-”

A brilliant blue bolt of lightning exploded just in front of me. Followed by a second to the left, and then suddenly I was in a forest of lightning bolts. The smell of burnt sand and ozone filled my nose in the same way rotting meat instantly filled a room.

I didn’t even have a curse that came to mind. All I had was pure terror.

I fell to instinct, doing my best to dodge the artillery barrage of electrical arcs. My entire mind focused on the impossible task of not even clipping a single one.

“A little lightning isn’t going to scare off a worm this big!” The mare exclaimed.

“Sai, is she still alive?” Sky asked urgently.

“Yes, and I have her location triangulated,” the AI answered.

“Ayna, power up hanger three, and get your own rig powered up too. I want you able to drop in for backup,” Sky ordered as I was nearly fried by three separate bolts.

I honestly had no idea how I was even paying attention to their conversation in this maelstrom of pure fucking chaos.

“On it!” Ayna exclaimed.

I spotted BB and Shy. They still had Bon and were faring oddly better than I was. As if the motherfuckers throwing lightning saw them and were not- Oh… Right… Bigger ‘target’ They could probably see them, but not me. Fuck.

“Sky,” The Captain's voice called. “I’m reading power diversions to hanger three-”

“Fuck you, I’m using it!” Sky interrupted.

“But-” The captain began.

“No! Fuck you! It actually IS as big as you claimed! Pony-portable weapons won't scratch it. Given it’s size and thus age, magic won't even fucking effect it. All we got is pure physical force to use, and this thing is huge! I’m using the right tool for this job,” Sky exclaimed.

“Launching that thing from the hull will-”

“Ayna and I got the launch mechanism working right. I won't break shit this time,” Sky objected. “Look, I didn’t get to use it for Chrysalis Two: Electric Bugaloo, or when Ponyville got attacked a bit later, or when those griffons decided to attack brother’s wedding, or even when Twilight’s nightmare animated that massive timberwolf! I’m using it now, because it’s the right tool for the job, the sheer weight and size will draw this fuck’s attention, and it’s been collecting dust for three fucking years!”

I dove low as a bolt sizzled downwards at a slanted angle. I literally felt the heat of the bolt charr a line of paint off my wings. Damn that felt weird! And also almost scared the piss out of me.

“... Fine, but only because the alternative is the hive is destroyed,” the captain sighed.

“Ayna, matter displacer and teleporter charged?” Sky asked

“Hit it!” Ayna announced followed by a warning. “Everyone outside and in the air, ascend to a minimum safe altitude of one hundred meters.”

A bolt slammed squarely into my back, throwing me out of the sky in the same way a massive hand would have slapped me straight into the ground. I hit the sand, skidding along for a few feet face first into a dune. Everything on my front half hurt like hell, but my back felt okay. I guess my jacket was decent at protecting me from pegasi-lightning.

Knowing I didn’t have time to lay down and let the pain go away, I pushed myself to my feet, getting ready to sprint, or take off. I couldn’t really decide which one to do.

The hill in front of me exploded in a series of small blue flashes, as if a dozen lightning bolts struck the same place at the same time and left behind a double helix vapor trail. I threw one hand up in front of my eyes, blinded by the light for a split second. When I put my hand down, there was Sky, standing atop the dune and for whatever reason dressed in a double-breasted black suit, white shirt, and black tie with a single white stripe.

<... I may be loopy from that hit, but I swear I know that suit,> Cheer.ly mused.

Now that she mentioned it that was a vaguely familiar look. Maybe the general businessman sort of-

Sky raised his right arm up, sleeve pulling back to reveal a watch. “Big Sai,” he announced. “It’s showtime!”

I had just enough time to think, ‘Oh right! The suit’s from that old show Bonbon made me watch,’ before the ground shook hard enough for me to loose my footing in the loose sand.

Seconds later a massive metal fist erupted from the ground just beneath Sky, rising into the air a short distance before I felt a jolt as well as what had to be a mech pushed itself up from the sand. A second jolt, and the movement stopped, accompanied by the faint and distant squee from Bonbon.

I watched as Sky hopped off the fist, landing next to me with a clang as the mech’s neck slid up to reveal a glass bubble encased cockpit. Sky, loosened his tie, wings flapping as she hopped into the cockpit, sat down in the single seat and nodded to a second behind him.

“You coming in or what?” He asked.

He didn’t need to ask me twice. Lightning and sandworm out there, mecha in here. Even a two year old could do that math.

I quickly scrambled into the cockpit, almost tripping over the uneven floor and masses of cables as I made my way to the small passenger's spot just behind the pilot’s seat. Right as I got settled, the neck lowered back into place, sealing off the cockpit, but providing a window to see ahead. And showed the single most massive creature I had ever seen in my life burst up from the sand like something out of a horror movie.

It definitely was a kilometer long, and I didn’t know exactly how long that was, but when this thing looked to be at least two city blocks long, yeah, apply a big unit to its length. It’s three way snapping jaws dripped sand like the buckets of impossibly huge backhoes. Three tentacle like tongues lashed out, failing like the limbs of an angry squid.

Sky winced. “Ooo, yep, that’s a territory defending response. He’s gotta go.”

“You think this mech can take that thing?” I asked incredulously.

Sky nodded. “Yep! He’s as screen accurate as Time Lawyers will allow. Now I’ve waited three years for this, so if you don’t mind...”

A pair of curved arms slid down, allowing joysticks to slide out into Sky’s reach. At the same time a trio of oval shaped monitors slide up wards, flashing to life with a green and black text scrolling across with the message, ‘Cast in the name of Luna, ye not guilty.’

Sky reached down to the floor, picking up a pair of boots with mechanical attachments, which revealed themselves to be hand-like robotic manipulators as he slid them onto his forelegs.

“The one problem with replicating tech from fantasy fiction… It’s never designed with hooves in mind, heh,” he chuckled.

Cheer.ly announced.

The worm reared up to a height equivalent to a fucking skyscraper, and roared. It actually roared. Holy shit! Pants nearly darkened!

<Oh calm down, it’s only a few meters taller than this thing,> Cheer.ly chided.

“Big Sai, and Action!” Sky announced with a mixture of glee and determination.

To my amusement, the command actually began to pipe some music in over the cockpit’s speakers. Then with a slow, lumbering lurch the entire mech began to walk forwards. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t graceful. But even from inside the cockpit you could feel the raw power in each and every step.

The mech stomped forward towards the worm, the worm lashed out with it’s entire upper body like a whip, Sky twisted the joysticks and the mech’s forearms swung upwards, blocking both our view out the window. And with a loud crunch that pushed us backwards, blocked the worm’s strike.

The worm pulled itself back to flail at us again, this time, Sky stepped in, throwing a punch at the base of the worm’s raised neck. The first hit with a sound like a bat smacking into wet concrete. The worm roared again, pulling it’s body backwards, ripping itself off of the massive steel fist that embedded itself in its flesh with a wet ripping sound.

The worm’s tongues lashed out, scraping across the mech with the distinct sound of metal being ground away.

“Come on, you can do better than that,” Sky taunted, stepping forward and landing another heavy punch, this one solidly in the worm’s upraised neck.

As the fist buried itself into the colossal creature, it arched forwards, slamming it’s mouth down over the mech’s head, engulfing the cockpit and who knew how much else of the body.

“Oh dear sweet physics no! This thing has lazer eyes, right!?” I asked, more than a little panicked.

Sky turned around, using the gloves to raise a finger to his lips and shush me be before turning back to face out the window.

“Hey, the least you could do is buy me dinner first...” The pegasus quipped, a quick flick of the controls causing the mech to quickly raise both arms, lifting the worms’ jaws off of itself with a creak of strained hydraulics, then throw the worm away from us.

“Good… Good,” I breathed in relief.

The worm hissed angrily as it coiled its body up, quickly spitting it’s tongues at us, the appendages coiling around the mech like loops of chain, binding the arms to it’s sides.

“HEY! No tongue!” Sky yelled in anger. “I Pinkie Promised nopony else gets tongue!”

I felt the mech tip sideways as the worm began to try and topple us over. Assuming the impact would kill me if I flew across the cockpit I latched onto the back of the chair, putting all of my strength into hold onto the seat just as the worm reared it’s head back, pulling us both upside down and into the air.

“It’s okay, artificial gravity. You won't fall. Though you do feel the current orientation,” Sky promised before turning back to the controls.

“Fat lot of good that will do if this thing eats us!” I objected.

Sure enough, the worm opened it’s jaws wide. Yep, it was set to try and swallow us, and that gaping maw had a lot of small cutting, grinding, and wiggling tentacle like blades at the back of it’s throat…

“Yeah, don’t know about you, but this is easily the second worst date I’ve ever been on,” Sky snarked.

Hoping the snark ment this thing could do more than just punch, I decided to trust Sky. After all, if it did eat us, presumably, we could try to cut our way out. Anything that big had to digest slowly.

Oh. Maybe he wanted it to eat us so he could kill it that wa-

Sky gave the mech’s foot pedals a few taps, kicking the legs to make physics do it’s thing and rotate us in mid air. The now twisted tongues wavered, wobbled, then toppled unable to keep us upright in the new position, dropping us back to the ground. The mech hit the sand sideways, quickly standing back up without Sky having to do a thing.

The moment we were standing upright, Sky gave both sticks a big push, the sticks seeming to have more than a little resistance to them. The mech responded by throwing its arms open wide, snapping the worms tongues off at several points.

The worm roared in pain as it recoiled back, a trail of green blood painted onto the sand as it moved.

Sky grinned, and walked the mech forward towards the pained worm. “Well this has been fun and all,” he said to the monster, “but unfortunately for you, I’m married. So…”

Using the thumb of his gloves, Sky flicked a cap up on the right control stick and pressed the button which had been hidden beneath it. I felt the entire mech lurch as a small explosion seemed to come from the right arm.

<Oh yeah! The punchy thing,> Cheer.ly mused.

Sky pulled the stick all the way back as far as it would go. The mech responded by winding up a massive right cross. Then, he slammed the stick forward as fast as he could while yelling, “BYE BYE, WORMIE!”, as the giant fist plowed directly into the worm just below its head.

The punch continued as it raised the creature up into the air, Sky hitting the button as second time as the punch reached the end of its ark. The primed piston slammed forward releasing a giant pressurized shock wave from around the fist. The worm’s body exploded at the impact site, its pink flesh rupturing like an apple under a sledge hammer, the punch literally decapitating it.

<-that.> Cheer.ly finished. <Um… I… I really want to see this thing’s blue prints!>

As the remaining bits fell to the ground, the screen lit up once more to show a black and white image of a female changeling wearing a neutral expression. It took a bit of squinting but I recognised her as Ayna. She looked a bit less…out of it than her counterpart.

“It’s not moving from where I’m looking at it… But you’re closer. Is it dead?” She asked.

Sky squinted out the window for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, kinda overkill on my part but it was fun. Send out a cleanup crew to collect any resources we need off it,” he said with a happy sigh.

“Already on it,” Ayna replied before the screen flicked off.

“Mmmm…” Sky moaned happily. “That was better than sex! But uhh, don’t tell my wife I said that.”

“Umm…” I mused, not really having anything to say to that.

Sky turned around in his seat to face me. “So, I’m Sky Trigger, USS Phoenix's Chief Engineer. And you are?”

It suddenly occurred to me that I could be in this universe for some time, and I was talking to someone who I really, really did not want to fail a first impression with.

And that he was also a big of a nerd as Bonbon.

“Uhh, R. Lyra Heartstrings?” I said, hoping I made the right reference.

Sky broke out into a huge grin. “HA! I like you already. Right. Let’s grab your friends, park this thing and then, I don’t know, grab some lunch while you explain why you're here, and also how?”

“What about the flash flood?” I asked with a frown.

“Three thousand changelings can dig one hell of a trench in half an hour. I’m sure we’re fine,” Sky dismissed.

I mulled it over for a moment then nodded. “Lunch sounds great, actually. But shouldn’t it be breakfast? The sun’s just coming up.”

Sky shook his head. “It’s actually like, just before noon. Celestia’s birthday was yesterday, she’s probably sleeping off the hangover. Come on, let’s give your friends their first mech ride!”

“Er, fair warning, my sister might actually die from fangirling if she’s allowed to come in here,” I warned.

Sky laughed. “Heh, I like making new friends.”

29 XP and Waffle Time.

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Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Noon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

I honestly didn’t expect Sky’s comment about getting lunch to be anything other than a joke. A sort of ‘Ass kicked! One-linering for effect!’ deal. Bonbon and I used to do that all the time back in the day. Turns out he was serious. Very serious.

“We’re actually getting lunch?” I asked for a second time.

“Yep,” Sky said with an eye roll as he slammed a button on the console to his right and the mech’s neck slid up to allow us to leave.

“But why?” I asked.

“Are you serious?” Sky asked incredulously. “You’re a human. You’re extinct here. You also claim to come from another universe, which while not a first for myself or the hive, is still a big deal. Skritt will want to talk to you. He will have questions, I will have questions, my sister will have questions… You don’t just show up on our doorstep without getting asked questions.

“But, because we’re not assholes, you get asked questions over lunch. It makes it less of an interrogation.”

That peaked my suspicion. “None of the other yous felt the urge to interrogate me,” I informed.

“Well, they’re not me for starters,” Sky said rolling his eyes as he stood up. “It’s nothing personal. And it’s not my call. I live in the hive, so I abide by the Captain’s rules. And Cap says all visitors are questioned. Don’t worry about it. It’s just like customs, we are our own micronation after all.”

The explanation did allay my fears a bit. After all, you had to go through customs entering or leaving any city back home. Maybe this universe was just a bit more, well, normal.

<You mean ironfisted,> Cheer.ly muttered.

<Oh come on, you share my memories. Sure things suck a bit but other things are cool. That’s how human history’s always been,> I countered, rolling my eyes.

Sky gave me a weird look. “Um, did you just have a mini internal argument? You looked like you just-”

I shook my head. “No. I’ve got an integrated VI. Improves reaction times, manages muscle memory, runs basic computer type tasks. She got ‘improved’ by Twilight and now she’s basically a full on person and-”

Sky’s ears flattened in alarm. “Uhhh, okay. So… That’s fucking horrific!”

I frowned. “It’s not that bad. It’s annoying to have a second speaking voice in your head but all of the rest of her functions are standard upgrades we made to ourselves and-”

<Ask him about medical services,> Cheer.ly reminded me.

“Oh, shit, right. She does reminders too,” I explained. “She wants to be unfucked. I want her to be unfucked. Like, do you have neurosurgeons in this universe or-”

Sky nodded quickly. “Yes. I have a little brother who's a classically trained biomancer, and a sister who's a classically trained Wizard. I’m going to get your ass to one or both as quick as possible because no one should ever ever ever share headspace. Ever.

“New subject time! Oh look your friends are at Big’s feet.”

I looked down, and spotting my friends looking up at me, I decided to jump. I opened my wings before I hit the ground and simply slowed down, hitting the ground a little hard for my liking but not hard enough to do more than hurt a little.

Definitely still room for the flying improvements.

The second my boots hit the ground Fluttershy gave me a half angry half saddened stare, prompting me to frown.

“What is it? Are you okay? Did you get hit?” I asked.

“You left us!” Shy accused, more hurt than upset.

I felt my face scrunch up, one eye widening in my confusion. “Not intentionally. We were in the middle of an artillery barrage!” I exclaimed, shocked she was hurt by the situation.

“It was just pegasi lightning,” Shy accused. “Family and friends stick together. Help each other, and support each other!”

Bon hissed softly and coiled up to hide her face. Clearly still afraid. Probably because of the huge mech behind us.

Just pegasi lightning!? The fuck was she on about? “Oh, so I suppose that when a pegasi is hit by lightning they just get a pleasant tingle? I could have been killed! I got hit square in the back! If this jacket hadn't taken the hit I would have fried!” I shot back.

“W-well,” Shy began, clearly upset by my yelling, a fact which made me feel awful instantly.

“Look, I’m sorry I yelled,” I apologise with a sigh. “But I was inside a lightning storm with thousands of bolts per second being dropped right on my head. Can you understand how I might panic?”

“You’re acting like you could have died,” Fluttershy said in an odd tone.

Our argument broke Bonbon’s attention away from staring up in reverent awe at Sky’s mech. She tilted her head curiously for a moment then nodded to herself. “I believe I have found the source of your conflict,” she announced. “Fluttershy, how much electrical current can a pegasi have pass through them before they are injured?”

Fluttershy bit her lip. “Um… Well, a full power bolt from a pegasi will kill one of us. But those weren't full power, the flashes were blue, not white. So um, about… I’m sorry it’s been a long time since High School. I think ten thousand amps is the upper limit before it’s going to injure you. But that’s for pegasi, other pony kinds have a bit less resistance.”

Ohhhhh! Yeah that would definitely do

Bonbon nodded. “Then I am correct. You can survive the lightning you generate. Which makes sense. After all, you create it. Humans however, can die from electric shock from exposure to a mere seventeen to ninety nine miliamps, and-”

Fluttershy eeped, eyes widening. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t even think- I mean, those bolts wouldn’t have hurt any ponies, and you’re a lot like a pony. So um-”

I knelt down and gave her a quick hug. “Hey, it’s alright. We both didn’t know something about each other. It’s fine. And you know, I agree, family does stick together. And I’d have stuck with you if I wasn’t in a total panic... But yeah, one of those bolts would definitely have killed me instantly. I don't have whatever magical protections you do against electricity.”

Fluttershy hugged me tightly. “Um, h-how about we explain ourselves first? You know, when we get mad at eachother next time? I’m sure we could avoid fighting.”

That seemed sensible. All couples argued sometimes. Hell, I was surprised we hadn’t had one before.

I nodded in agreement, opening my mouth to speak as Sky called, “Is the couple fight over?” from above us.

Bonbon looked up, squinted, noticed Sky’s Roger Smith suit and squeed. “I NEED you to sign um, something! Anything! I’d say cockpit but I don't have one of those!”

Sky smirked. “Sorry, had to promise the wife I wouldn’t sign sexy body parts. But I’ll give you a tour once he’s back in the hanger,” Sky said before bringing his watch up to his mouth. “Big Sai, it’s curtain call.”

The Mech’s hatch hissed as it closed. The ground rumbling as it sank back down into the sand, presumably to teleport when out of sight. I honestly couldn’t remember if the show ever showed it returning to storage. Bonbon would kno-

“Oh my gosh that’s awesome! That’s exactly how I liked to think of how they got it back into the subway system!” BB squealed.

Sky beamed her a similar grin. “I know, right? I mean, my system is superior in that the Big is teleported to and from the hanger using a matter displacement system, while filling the hanger with whatever matter was in the way and then replace it as it rises to as to not destabilize the ground but- Ahem. Sorry, I just noticed that you look almost exactly like er… Well that’s clearly another universe fluttershy. Ours doesn't have cybernetic eyes. You’re not my kid from another universe, are you?”

The confused look on Sky’s face was adorable. It almost made up for my still adrenaline pumping heart spreading that general unease.

BB shook her head, paused then nodded. “Well, not traditionally… But I could technically be seen as your offspring. In the classic science-fiction sense. I am an android, formerly a very sexy fighter jet, sadly downgraded in platform but still happy to be alive. But as an alternate version of yourself designed and built my parts, I am technically kind of sort of your daughter. You know, in that classic sci-fi way.”

Sky breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness! Pinkie would have flipped if another her had foals first,” he said, turning to face everyone one at a time. “Alright. So. Not to get all tyrannical on you, but this is Emerald Hive’s Sovereign Territory, and there are laws here. Our Captain is going to want to talk to you. No worries, nothing scary. Normally it wouldn’t even be him but you are dimension jumpers so that is just a bit important.

“Mind giving me your names? So I can introduce you four?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh! Of course. My homes’ Emeralds did the same thing. Before um, well, we had some bad times. Security is easier now. I’m Fluttershy, but you know that already… Is your me also one of Celestia’s Knight Errants?”

Sky shook his head. “Uh, no. I mean, yeah ours was knighted. But Celestia disbanded the Errant Order like, three hundred years ago. Luna is PISSED about that.”

Fluttershy tilted her head in confusion. “O-of course she would be! Luna worked so hard to found the order. I can’t imagine she just let Celestia disband it- I.. um, sorry,” Fluttershy stopped ears drooping. “M-may I see a history book later?”

Sky nodded and turned to me. “You know, your hair and that fake tail of yours look a lot like my frienemy’s colors,” he said casually.

I laughed. “Heh, yeah. I’m my universe's Lyra Heartstrings. I wound up existing back in human times, apparently.”

Sky snorted, and then bit his lip to hold in a laugh of epic proportions. “Ow! Sides! Sides popped. Too funny!”

“Why does everyone think it’s so funny that I’m human?” I muttered, half to him, half to myself.

Sky laughed. “Oh man! I should teleport Lyra here right now. You’d learn why! But then she’d be here to bug me about building her a full body bipedal prosthesis… Which I’d do if she even appreciated the combat exoskeleton I made for her...” He grumbled.

I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, you made her a combat exoskeleton?”

Sky nodded.

“And she doesn't appreciate that?” I asked.

“Not one bit,” Sky grumbled suddenly mimicking my exact voice. “Yeah it stands up on two legs, but I wanted a costume! This is all bulky! I know I said I wanted a bipedal suit. Yeah that’s not specific but I figured you knew me well! I don’t even need it because I’m already stronger than most ponies! It doesn't even have hands, these are talons!”

I felt my jaw drop. “Sweet fucking physics! How about I slap myself and you regift it to me?”

Sky smiled wistfully then laughed. “No can do,” he lamented in his own voice. “But that would be funny to see. No but seriously, our you is nice. I don’t hate her or anything. She just owes me an apology she won't give because we’re equally stubborn and it’s turned into a game of who breaks first. Anywho-”

Turning his attention to Bonbon, still smiling from laughing he asked, “do you have a name, a serial, or should I just call you champ, or honey?”

Heh, a kid joke.

Bonbon nodded. “I am AI Co-Pilot number four-two-six-eff-six-ee-six-two-six-eff-six-ee software version one. Lyra calls me Bonbon, which is coincidentally-”

“The name of our Lyra’s wife,” Sky snickered. “Heh heh, gotta love small coincidences.”

“That is odd and interesting,” BB mused. “But I meant that my serial number also spells Bonbon in hexadecimal. Including the capital letter bee.”

Sky blinked, then grinned. “So then, your short name would be BB, and since you’re series one… that makes you BB-1, right?”

BB nodded. “Yes, that is an acceptable nickname.”

“Too bad you’re not version eight,” Sky said turning to Bon’s coiled up pile. “Hey, how about you, what’s your name? You’re not the biting kind, are you?”

“N-no…” Bon said shyly. “Is the bigger snake gone?”

Sky frowned giving me a look. “Is she a kid?”

I nodded. “Yeah, long story,” I informed as I walked over and gave Bon a hug as best I could. “It’s gone hon, it’s okay now.”

“It was too big to eat!” Bon whimpered fearfully.

Sky flinched and took a step back.

“It’s fine, Bon dosen’t like pony,” I soothed.

Sky raised an eyebrow. “Wait… If BB-1 was a jet, and you named her then you were her pilot which means, you named your kid after one of her mom's!?”

“Aunt,” Bonbon corrected. “Lyra and I are sisters. Both the snake and I are named after Lyra's childhood friend… I… I thought all these years she could read hex.”

“And she really doesn't like pony,” Fluttershy added again. “She’s definitely in the civil monster category. But um, she still might eat a pony if threatened.”

“No! You tasted really yukky,” Bon said. “I’d squishdadid them.”

“She’s a constrictor. Used to be my pet Anaconda,” I explained.

“Oh! Yeah, that makes sense. Anacondas have like, never attacked ponies. Not on record at least,” Sky said, sounding relieved. He walked back over to Bon and gave her a gentle pat. “Sorry for all that scary lightning and the ‘bigger snake’ there, kid. But it’s all over now, you’re mom’s right. We’ll get you some place warm and comfortable and get you fed if you need it.”

“I needz it!” Bon exclaimed poking her head out from her coils eagerly.

I gave Bon’s head a loving skritch, hoping that wasn’t inappropriate now. Deciding not to think about that I turned to Sky and began to slip off the VM. “Um, so, I sort of came here because-”

Sky raised a hoof to cut me off. “Sorry, but I got your names, so I need to do the thing,” Sky sighed pulling his watch up and tapping a few commands into it. “Hey, Captain? Sky here, I’ve got a few civilians. The not from this rock kind. One of them appears to be human aside from a possibly real tail.”

“Are you serious?” The captain asked.

Not angrily, not irritably. Just in that military officer ‘please repeat that’ tone. Everyone in a military learns that tone.

“Yep. I figured you would want to do the standard customs. Because apparently they have business here. That’s what Sai told me at least,” Sky finished.

“Are they within earshot?” The captain asked.

“Yes,” Sky answered.

“Right then, Civilians, welcome to Phoenix. This is our little plot of the badlands and despite the lack of checkpoints and border fences, this is our sovereign nation,” the captain said in a oddly welcoming voice. “We’re not going to hassle you, but all travelers who pass through here are questioned. Especially your kind of travelers. There are a lot of people out there who would like to steal some of our trade secrets, as we are an industrial superpower.

“It’s nothing personal. I’m sure Sky’s explained the basics. All you have to do is be honest and answer any questions myself, Sky here, or our resident magic expert have for you. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes, and if you’d like, lunch can be provided. If you decline to let us learn why you are here, our scouts will happily show you the path to the nearest oasis so you can fill up on water rations and be on your way. Understood?”

“Understood, sir,” I answered. “I understand customs checks and will comply.”

“A military type, eh?” The captain mused. “Good. Too few people coming through here know what proper respect is. I’ll see you in person shortly. Sky, if you’d warn your sister and transport everyone…”

“Sure thing,” Sky said with a nod, tapping his watch again. “Hey sis, time to do the whole customs thing with those people Sai told us about. Ready for the port?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” a female voice answered.

“Your sister?” Fluttershy said curiously. “My you don't have a sister.”

“Not surprising,” Sky said casually. “The odds of any particular Emerald changeling egg hatching is very low.”

“Oh! Adopted sister,” Fluttershy said, nodding to herself.

“No,” Sky said firmly. “Sister. The normal kind.”

Fluttershy tilted her head. “You’re a changeling too?”

“No. I just have a family which doesn't care to have ‘partial’ members,” Sky replied looking around at everyone. “Have any of you not teleported before? Everyone cool with me teleporting us to a meeting room? The Phoenix is huge, site to site transporters are the best way to get around her.”

I didn't have any problems with that. Hell, it’s basically how I got anywhere these days…

“We literally just came through a portal to get here,” Bonbon pointed out.

Sky nodded. “Yeah. But consent and stuff. Right then, Sai? Mind doing the thing?”

“Sure thing boss,” Sai said from Sky’s watch.

I expected to see the light show as we teleported. Like, the world would go blue with the swirling and helixing trails. Instead, the world around me just sort of, changed. The sand vanished, replaced by a rather nice hardwood floor. The open desert became a not too small, but not too big office style room, with a single large table, several chairs, and a nice dark wood paneling around the lower half of the white steel walls.

The others appeared split seconds after me, again, not light shows. Just sort of ‘jump cut’ into the room. I felt a bit jipped…

“Sorry for the lack of a light show,” Sky apologised as if knowing what I was thinking. “There’s no visual with the teleports themselves, and my holoprojector can only cover two people with something cool. Not enough oomph in the battery.”

A moment later and the room’s sliding doors hissed open, allowing two changelings to enter. One was Ayna, she looked much the same as her counterpart, down to the brand on her flanks. The difference in was how she carried herself. Less timid, a lot less.

The other changeling looked old as hell. You didn’t even need to know what an old changeling looked like to tell he was old, this bug was a self evident example. He had squarish features, a short cropped dull green mane which was tucked into a simple military type cap, unadorned save for a small silver pin which looked to be a military emblem with four gold stars in a row beneath it.

The precious metals in his hat shone with a nice luster implying they were polished. And his chitten was a dull dingy flat color which looked old and worn to the point of ‘death soon’. His body could use some of that polish. As it was, he looked like he was being animated purely by tenacity and contempt for death. The only thing about his body, including his short calculated movements, which didn’t scream ‘old!’ were his eyes.

He had the single most stern eyes I’d ever seen in my life. One look at them and you knew he was weighing you mentally and factoring you into a dozen different calculations. The only reason you knew he wasn’t about to kick your ass was the slim but genuine smile of an officer who enjoied their job and was liked by their command.

Lucky fucking changelings. I only got one of those officers… And he was court martialed.

“Good day,” Captain Skriit greeted, nodding to everyone and the chairs. “Please take a seat.”

To my surprise, everyone sat down immediately. Including Bon, who simply coiled up onto a chair. He hadn’t even used command voice. Damn!

Ayna and Sky took seats across the table from us, the captain getting up into a chair between the two with a bit more effort that anyone should have to have taken.

“Sky, would you introduce everyone?” The captain asked.

Sky nodded. “Left to right we have an alternate reality’s Fluttershy Meadowbrook-”

Fluttershy timidly raised her right hoof.

“Yes?” Sky asked with a frown.

“Um, that’s not my family name. My full name is Fluttershy de Qui Dracones, Metuo.”

Ayna blinked. “Uh, your world still does Old Equish family names?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Is the name-” Ayna began.

“Yes, my great great grandfather earned it for us,” she explained. “I um, I guess family jobs and names are not traditionally carried on here? I- I mean I wasn’t ever good at it, but my dad did still train me a little.”

“Cool! Sounds like you’re probably a good deal different from our Fluttershy,” Ayna said with a small smile.

The Captain turned his head. “May I know what importance her name holds?”

“I second that question,” I agreed. “I don't think you ever told me your family name before.”

“W-well it doesn't really matter anymore…” Fluttershy admitted, looking down sadly enough to make me wish I could hug her in this formal setting.

“In modern Equish the name translates as ‘who dragons fear’,” Ayna explained. “The ‘de’ indicates the family name is of a noble house which earned its nobility through an act of heroism. I assume her ancestor slew a dragon.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes.”

That’s fucking awesome! “You need to tell me that story sometime!” I whispered excitedly.

Sky snickered. “Heh! Sorry. I just pictured our Fluttershy training to be a dragonslayer! Oh man, can you imagine? With how much of a scaredy cat she used to be? She loves animals so much, she’d wind up-”

Fluttershy ears drooped in embarrassment. “Y-yes, I once stopped a dragon by convincing it to have some tea and talk it out… She didn’t seem evil. I didn’t want to hurt her… Also dragonslayers are supposed to fight more than dragons. You’d be afraid of the dark and creepy sounds too if you knew what the things that lived there can do to a pony…”

The captain coughed. “Understood. Moving on.”

Sky nodded. “Sorry. Anywho, to Fluttershy’s left is a Lyra Heartstrings, then an android by the name BB-1, and lastly Lyra’s adopted child Bon. She is harmless.”

The Captain nodded and looked at each of us in turn.

“I am Skritt Verril Krra, Captain of the Emerald Changelings,” he introduced. “I make all of the policies regarding to civilian and military life within our hive. You can think of me as our Prime Minister, and Supreme Commander. It’s my job to ensure our hive is safe and prosperous inside and out.

“To my left is our Chief Engineer, Sky Trigger. He is in charge of all technological policy including our ongoing restoration efforts and our manufacturing trade. To my right is our acting Archmage, Ayna Trigger. She is currently in charge of all matters arcane within the Hive.

“Normally, the Bridge Officers would not be personally questioning visitors, but, assuming you four are infact extra dimensional as you claim, it is my decision as Captain that whether you may conduct business here or not is a matter for we senior officers to decide, and no one else.

“Before we begin, is anyone here hungry? Do you have any questions yourselves?”

Bonbon quickly raised a hoof. “Yes sir,” she said. “I heard Ayna referred to by the rank of Lieutenant. Is there not a higher ranked mage to fill the slot of a bridge crew member?”

The captain nodded to Ayna, who replied. “We are a meritocracy in terms of who gains what position. The rank structure is not military, it’s civilian and is a sort of social hierarchy based on individual achievements and responsibilities. We don’t use standard Equestrian Ranks, so Lieutenant is rather high here.

“The Emerald Hive uses Old Equestrian ranks. Which means Lieutenant is a ‘Captain’s direct second in command’ rank. We only use five ranks total. Cadet, Trooper, Commander, Lieutenant, and Captain. But again, that’s just a sort of individual achievement recognition thing. Our leader is also called Captain, but historically there have been people socially ranked as Commanders and Lieutenants filling the command chair.

“As for the position of Archmage, I’m an acting Archmage. The job is mine, but not officially, I have it because the previous archmage died two months ago, and this position will no longer be mine once it has been properly filled by our best qualified mage. Which may turn out to be me, but I do not know as the trials are still ongoing. May we begin, or does anyone else have questions?”

Everyone nodded or shook their heads. Skriit sighed. “A verbal yes or no, please. And also, is anyone hungry? Last chance… Well, last chance to eat right now. There is always right afterwards. I won't send you into the desert unfed.”

“Let’s just get the questions done with,” I proposed.

Fluttershy nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

The captain nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Left to right. What are your occupations?”

“Um, former Knight Errant under Princess Celestia and member of the Elements of Harmony. Now retired,” Fluttershy replied.

“Decommissioned United Americas Alliance Spaceborn Ace Pilot,” I answered.

“I was her jet. Now I’m installed in a way to slow flying android frame,” Bonbon answered.

“You were her jet?” The captain asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. UAA fighter craft have artificial intelligences as copilots,” BB explained. “Personally, I saw my old frame as my body. Which makes me her jet.”

“I understand,” Captain Skriit said with a nod. “Now then, Bon was it? What’s your occupation?”

“I’m a snek!” Bon exclaimed happily.

The captain blinked and looked over at me. “She’s a foal, sir,” I said.

“Oh,” the captain stood up and walked across the room to a small panel set in the wall, touched a hoof to it and ordered. “Computer: one whole chicken, boneless, lemon and garlic.”

I had just enough time for Cheer.ly and I to squee <Holy shit a replicator!> together before the device conjured up a freshly cooked chicken.

<WE NEED FIVE!> Cheer.ly exclaimed happy-enviously.

<Agreed!> I said just as happy-enviously.

The captain picked the chicken up with his magic and carried it over to Bon, setting it on the table before her. “Here kid, have something to munch on while I finish up business with your mother,” he said, moving back to his chair.

Bon sniffed the chicken, licked it, eyes instantly lighting up happily. “I love you!” Bon exclaimed before grabbing the chicken off the plate it came on with her jaws, daring back into her coils and eating the savory meal.

The captain chuckled, smiling for a moment before turning his attention back to us.

“I assume you are traveling as a group. What is your reason for coming here? Or did you end up in our territory by chance?” he asked.

Fluttershy smiled shyly. “I um, I’m just traveling with my marefriend,” she admitted, nodding towards me just a little bit.

“I’m just following my sister around because she got me this body mid trip and it’s not like I have anything else to do,” Bonbon answered.

“I haz chicken!” Bon exclaimed muffidly.

Alright. It was time. I slipped the VM off my wrist. Reluctantly setting it on the table. It had been a source of a lot of pain in my ass, spine, chest…everything really. But what other human could say they had a trip this awesome?

“You could say this has been the most convoluted ‘return the dropped wallet’ ever,” I began. “I had this thing show up in my apartment… Explosively. I’m an electronics hobbyist so I decided to tinker with it, found the SkyTech branding inside, fixed her up as best I could to see what it did and well… Turns out it makes portals to alternate dimensions. I figured that’s a pretty important device, and well, the right thing to do is return it. So I’ve been hopping around the multiverse looking for you.”

I pointed to Sky and slid the VM across the table to him. “There ya go. I hope that it’s at least a little important. Because I can’t go back home now… And not just because it’s targeting is scrambled, but because it finally broke, and also I have wings now, and I… Um, well, no one back home would let Fluttershy just live with me. So yeah. Kinda stranded now. Should have thought further ahead than ‘return wallet.’ “

Sky picked up the VM and popped it out of the case, looking at it curiously. “Huh… Yeah no, I remember loosing this. That was last year, no... Two years ago. I thought it had teleported myself and a few friends but not itself. I always thought that Lily kicked it into a corner or something.

“You’re telling me this breached the god damn Prime Barrier?”

“Um, if that means it wound up moving like seven universes down and two hundred and fifty three million years back, yep,” I replied.

Sky shook his head seemingly impressed. “Good thing I didn’t go along for the ride,” he mumbled to himself. “Sorry you went through this whole ordeal… Uh, I sort of feel like an asshole for just making another one...”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That was more than a little frustrating.

Sky nodded with an apologetic wince. “Yeah… But seriously, thanks for bringing this back! Lots of science can be pulled from this thing.”

“Am I to understand that you risked life and limb to return some of our property to us?” The captain asked rhetorically.

“Yes, sir,” I answered with a firm nod. “It was simply the right thing to do.”

“You have no other business here?” He asked.

I nodded again. “That’s it.”

“And now you are homeless due to not wishing to leave your marefriend behind?” He asked again.

I nodded. “That’s right… Also Bon can’t go back either and well, she’s my kid… And the wings. We don’t have cybernetics that good.”

“What wings?” The captain asked with a frown.

“They fold into my back, long story,” I began. “It involves a mage named Twilight-”

“Ah, a Code Lavender. I understand,” Captain Skriit sighed. “I suppose we should just hope one of her never figured out how to communicate with the other hers out there in the many worlds. And speaking of Archmages, Ayna?”

“None of them have lied or concealed the truth, Captain,” Ayna said calmly.

Wait, what?! I felt my eyes widen in alarm. “You’ve been reading our minds this whole time!?”

Ayna shook her head. “No. I cast a spell which merely alerts me if whatever you speak is not completely factual. It’s standard procedure for these interviews.”

“Oh, thank physics!” I said with a relieved sigh.

Fluttershy giggled. “I keep forgetting you have no experience with magic,” she whispered to me with a blush.

“Very good,” the captain said decisively. “I assume you realize of course, that with your device broken, you are stranded in this universe. But what you may not have accounted for is the fact that our universe's Fluttershy is alive, and well, is quite famous. While ours is quite, er, lithe.You, Miss de Qui Dracones, Metuo, are fairly overweight.”

Fluttershy’s ears drooped. I felt my blood boil a little. No one calls my girl fat! Chubby, plump, and cute yes, but not fucking fat!

The captain made a small fearful face as he realized how we must have taken his words,.“Not that I mean insult by my words, nor calling you ‘fat’. I recognise that you are below the medical status fat by at least forty kilograms. I am merely pointing out that while you are instantly visually distinguishable from our Fluttershy, you are still very very close to her in appearance and could be mistaken for her. Which means you would be in violation of identity theft laws, as well as the Changeling Impressions of Civic Figures Act of oh-nine which prohibits Changelings in Equestria from using the forms of public officials without permission and good reason.

“This means you can not live in Equestria. And Fluttershy, as an Element in our world is a highly political person. You would be mistaken for her in nearly every country on Equis. Which could be fatal, or an irritating hassle depending on a number of factors.

“And Miss heartstrings, as a human, a species long extinct on our world, you would be an object of fassination. You needn't fear dissection or captivity, well…not in proper nations like Equestria. But you would be hounded by many people… Including our version of yourself. Who I am somewhat suspicious can smell you all the way in Ponyville and may be making a beeline for this office as we speak,” the captain joked.

I got his point, but I still had to sigh. “Why does everyone insist that other me’s are obsessed to the point of insanity? I met one, all she did was ask questions and trace my hands. Very professional.”

“I wish we had that Lyra,” Sky muttered.

Ayna cleared her throat. “Our universe has a small community of crypto archeologists. Human existence is not officially scientific for… Well, um… Most early ponies believed the rare fossils of your species to just be a non-sentient ape. While modern archeology has shown that a sentient species existed back in your time period, we Emeralds are unique in knowing your species name, face, and deeds due to our home being a preserved starship your species built. Ponykind’s academics are still certain that the ‘Ancient People’ were quadrupeds, not bipeds, and that they were the ancestors to Diamond Dogs.

“Ponies like Lyra somehow learned the name human and it’s been a conspiracy theory for over three thousand years. But in recent times, it’s sort of a fantasy fandom. With cosplay, conventions, and roleplaying. Our Lyra Heartstrings is very entrenched in the fandom, and can best be described as a rabid human fangirl who has contributed several key archaeological finds to science… But is discredited by rightfully insisting humans built them.

“And I’m not just saying this as I know her by reputation. One of the pony identities I maintain is an author. And um, well it’s a strong niche market with a surprising amount of bits to burn, so I write human fiction. I’m honestly responsible for a lot of the tropes in use, as I know of your species from our ship's archives… Anyways, Lyra has commissioned several novels from me. One of which hilariously enough stars her as a character in which she goes back in time and befriends a human who becomes her blood sister after some misadventures together.”

“Oh,” I said now fully understanding their opinion of this universe's me. “I understand.”

The Captain nodded. “Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you would appreciate a little humor,” he said. “Let me summarize my point for you. As you four are a family unit, I do not imagine you wish to split up. As you can not leave our world you must live here. You would not be able to do so comfortably in any nation I can think of. Save for mine.

“Therefore, in gratitude for your risking of life and limb to return our property, and in light of your military experience, Miss Heartstrings and Miss de Qui Dracones, Metuo, you could be of service to our hive in many different ways. In light of these facts, I would like to offer all of you probationary citizenship in the Emerald Hive.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “Wait, what? Seriously? Just like that?!”

The Captain nodded. “Yes. Just like that. You mentioned you are a pilot. We have schematics for human designed air and spacecraft. We can use cargo and fighter pilots. We can also use someone with experience to train said pilots. And anyone who served as a Knight has plenty of skills they can bring to the table. Only a fool would turn your family away, Miss Heartstrings. You are highly skilled and you require something I can provide.”

Fluttershy nodded eagerly. “Oh yes! I-I um, I don't like to use violence… But I am a skilled healer, and if I really needed to I um, I could teach ponies or changelings monster hunting tricks.”

Skriit nodded. “Precisely, Miss de Qui Dracones, Metuo. Do the two of you accept my offer?” He asked hopefully.

“Do I not count?” Bonbon asked, sounding a little upset at being left out of the ‘you two’.

Skriit frowned. “I’m sorry, are you not considered property?”

“Absolutely not,” I objected. “She is my sister.”

“Understood, I merely assumed based on the historical machine-human relationship,” Skriit informed. “Miss BB-1, you too shall have full citizenship rights.”

“Good!” Bonbon exclaimed happily.

“What does the probationary status entail?” I asked, assuming that’s where the real bureaucracy would start.

“It’s very simple,” the captain answered. “It’s a time window for you to find a useful job, and fit in with our culture. Fail to find a position, or break one of our laws, which will be explained to you in full, and you will be banished from the Phoenix indefinitely.

“The probationary condition will be removed after one month after you have stabilized. Should one of you find a useful service you can perform here. Should you cease being a family for any reason, you will all need to find yourself a job to do.

“We are a meritocratic society. You will be placed in a position of responsibility equal to your skill in whatever you choose to go into, after a training period, or after you show competence enough to skip training. What do you say? We can have you in a suite tonight if you wish.”

I looked over at Fluttershy. “What do you think?”

“I think it is a good idea,” she replied. “We can always move elsewhere, after… Right Mister Captain?”

Skriit chuckled. “Yes. Our citizens may live, travel in, and work in Equestria without the need for a passport. Though I would not recommend that for you. But you would be free to do so if you wished.”

“Wait… W-we would be free to move to other cities?” I asked, stunned in a good way.

Sky looked at my face and flinched. “Yeesh! What is your home like?”

<Pretty shitty, really,> Cheerly muttered.

“Eh, not too bad. We had plenty of distractions,” I said before turning to the Captain. “My sister definitely wants to live here. I accept your offer, sir.”

Bon bon nodded in agreement.

The captain smiled happily. “Excellent, I’ll pass the information on to all hands as soon as possible and get you your ID badges. Let’s see… I can get Eail to find you quarters-”

“Sir,” Sky interrupted. “I feel bad for causing this whole mess for her. Would it be alright if I get them settled in?”

The captain nodded. “Certainly. Let me know what suite they will be staying in. I’ll have your paperwork and ID delivered. Good day everyone, nice to meet you,” Skriit said as he stood up, tipping his cap before heading for the door.

“Goodbye, Sir,” I said as he left, my words echoed by Sky and Ayna.

As the Captain left, Sky turned around with a happy smile. “Right! Lunch time. We are going to a mess hall, getting some food, you get to delight some changelings with your Humanness, Lyra, and we’ll get you acquainted with our Hive. Oh! Hey, Ayna, why don’t you get your wife and meet us at Mess four? I’ll pick up Pinkie, we can introduce everyone, it’ll be fun!”

Ayna frowned. “I think Trixie is working right now,” she said sounding a little disappointed.

Sky rolled his eyes. “Archmage says she’s off for the day.”

Ayna blinked, blushed brightly and laughed. “Oh! Right! Heh, I can do that.”

“Yep. Go dooz. We’ll meet you in four, if that sounds like a plan to you guys,” Sky said turning to face the four of us.

I looked around. Everyone seemed eager. Or at least hungry. Okay, I was the only one who needed to eat, but still. Fluttershy liked the taste of food.

“That sounds awesome,” I agreed. “Let's go!”

30 The Tour

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Fluttershy - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

I do have to admit I was more than a little disappointed at moving into this universe's Emerald Hive. I’d been to ours many times, more times that I can really count, usually because I was afraid something broke in me, but well… I’d always been wrong.

I did love proper shelter. And the hive was well defended, nicely hidden, and very very secure. No monsters would be getting in here easily. It would be safe to walk around any time of day or night. W-well… Assuming there wasn’t a preexisting Vashta Nerada swarm inside here. Although, I could clear that up in a few weeks. I should check, just in case they bred out of control, reached the critical size, and the hive disappeared like the town of Reigns.

That was a bit scary, but it was a problem I could solve. I’d fumigated my own house many times. I knew what to do. I could stop that if it was a problem which hopefully it wasn’t.

The disappointment was because I knew the hive was just endless white metal hall-

“Here we go,” Sky announced as the elevator slid to a stop with a barely noticeable twitch. “Deck eighteen, the commons.”

The elevator doors hissed open, a bright light flooding the elevator as if we had opened a door to the outside and the sun was up and working extra hard that day. Outside the elevator was an entire forest! It literally seemed to go on forever, an impossibility, given where we were, but at the same time, there were mountains in the distance, and big trees all around us, mostly thinned out to make a nice garden the elevator emerged from.

“Oh! Oh my goodness!” I exclaimed happily as whatever illusion made this possible managed to properly convey the scent of nice spring air.

“This has to drain a LOT of power,” Lyra muttered to herself. “How much are you burning to keep these holograms running?”

“Nothing,” Sky answered as he trotted out of the elevator. “This was a hangar bay. We just filled it with dirt, planted trees, did landscaping… The horizon and sky are a combination of illusion spells and movie magic. It really helps to keep the cabin fever away. All of the commons are built inside the hangar, or in adjacent rooms. The park here is about ten square kilometers of deck space.

“There’s another five hangars too. Only this one is a park, we use the others as warehouses or factories. This ship is huge. Feel free to fly by the way, just don't go over like, twenty meters up. You’ll hit the ceiling.”

I followed him outside, looking around the large park happily. There were at least fifteen kinds of trees, more than you'd really find in a natural forest, but whoever had landscaped this did a very good job of making a very pleasing place to be. Plenty of wildflowers, and ferns, and even a small running stream!

All of the nature was lovingly cared for. Carefully tended to be aesthetically pleasing but still appear natural. Oh, I do hope that there is an opening for a gardener! It would be so nice to work on this little pony made paradise.

Here and there small buildings could be seen amongst the trees at the ends of the little cobbled path which wound its way through the park’s contours. The buildings spaced out not so much that walking through them would be annoying, but just enough to not make them look crowded or dense. They were not homes, much to my sadness, but they were little cafes, and small shops, just like Ponyville’s market street. Only spaced out through a whole park!

“I don’t get it…” Bonbon said in an uneasy voice.

“Don't get what?” Sky asked.

“Why do this? All of the time and effort spent restoring a hangar and then using it for this… Why?” she asked.

“Psychological health. This gives us a place to go and genuinely feel like we’re outside,” Sky answered. “Ponies need that.”

“But there’s an outside you can already go to. This is just unnecessary,” BB said with a frown.

“That outside sucks. We made a better one,” Sky explained.

“You did a very very good job with that too!” I said happily.

“Oh, no. This wasn’t me. This has been here since before I was born,” Sky corrected. “Ayna did improve the sun illusion about, hmm…thirty-five years back? No, thirty-three. But aside from that, no one has touched this place for a hundred years.”

I tilted my head to one side in confusion. Ayna was older than fifty? But… “Um, I-I really don’t mean to be rude, but in my universe, Emerald changelings had a lot of genetic problems. She’s a harvester, right? Um…they didn’t live to be older than about forty.”

“Same deal here. Our Emeralds were formed from the dregs of the old Changeling Empire,” Sky confirmed with a nod. “And she’s about… Fifty-four.”

“Then why does she look, well, young?” Lyra asked. “Your captain looks old as hell.”

Sky snickered. “Are you seriously asking why a member of the Mage’s Library is as functionally old as they want to be?”

“Um, yes?” I said/asked, unsure about what that really meant.

Sky frowned in mild surprise. “Your universe didn’t have the Trottingham Mage’s Library?”

I shook my head. “No. There was a college for mages there though, it may have had a library.”

“I’m not talking about the Trottingham Thaumaturgic University. I’m talking about the big ass library on the northern edge of the city,” Sky clarified.

“Um, no… I don't think so,” I admitted after some thought.

“Hmm… Sadface. Trust me, if you had it, you’d know about it. If only because you’re friends with your Twilight,” Sky continued. “The Mage’s Library is literally the oldest pony made building left standing. It’s at least as old as six thousand BRH. Well, the building’s main hall is anyway. The library itself didn’t start until the year zero RH. That stands for recorded history. Because they are the ones who started recording it.

“And well… It’s the Mage’s Library. Probably the first one ever made, and it’s just kind of never stopped going. It’s been actively up kept and expanded over well, all of recorded history.

“My sister has a Library Card for it. Which means she passed their membership approval exam, studying for that is equivalent to obtaining a Wizard’s Degree in three fields of your choice. Both practically and legally. She specializes in Technoarcana, which is Advanced Enchantment in case you don't use that word in your universe, and also Divination, and Theoretical Thaumaturgic Physics and has access to the largest collection of Arcane papers, devices, and stuff in Equestria, if not Equis itself.

“Also, her brother happens to be me. So yeah, Ayna can basically live for as long as she likes.”

“Are you saying she fixed her genetic defect, but hasn’t given the fix to everyone?!” Lyra asked in alarmed shock, drawing the attention of more than a few changelings who did a bit of a double take at her, well, existence.

Sky shook his head. “No. The two of us fixed HER defect. The fix used worked for her. It won’t work for everyone because of two technical reasons, and one social reason. But we are working on fixing everyling too. My little brother’s spearheading that… Which reminds me, I’m taking you to him later for head space stuff.”

Sky paused, noticing the small gathering crowd of changelings. He hopped into the air, wings flapping to keep aloft before calling. “Yes, she’s a human. No, it’s not someling shapeshifted. She might be moving in, so don’t be assholes and crowd around her gawking. You can come to me with questions later. Let her settle a bit, okay?”

“Thanks,” Lyra said in mild relief as the changeling crowd dispersed.

While they did leave, I couldn’t help but notice most changelings peeking out of their little shops or looking over. Watching despite not crowding. You can’t blame them for being curious. I guess while this hive’s leaders knew about other dimensions, the other’s didn’t. Or maybe Travelers were super rare here.

Whatever the reason for their excitement, it was more than a little cute to watch at least a hundred people having the same reaction to Lyra being here. I could only compare it to the time Dash and Twilight were having lunch and A.K. Yearling sat down at the table next to them. A sort of silent squee tempered only by politeness and pure panic at the thought of an idol seeing you as rude.

Sky landed and nodded towards a right turn in the path ahead. “That’s where we’re going,” he announced.

“I’m super sorry, I don’t want to hassle you, but I NEED to know something!” Someling called, clearly unable to stay quiet. “Some things in the entertainment system are incomplete. Do you know how Battlestar Galactica ended? The first one, not the shitty remake.”

I held back a giggle as Lyra facepalmed. “Really? That’s the first question I get asked by a civilization living in a human starship?”

Bonbon turned her head and called in the voice’s direction. “The crew of the Galactica intercept the transmission of the Apollo Eleven Moon Landing and realize the Thirteenth Tribe somehow lost most of their technology and set a course for Earth, now knowing it’s location. You never see them arrive. There is a follow-up series, but it’s stupid and involves a ton of time travel.”

“Awww…” Several changelings lamented.

Lyra shook her head and kept walking with the rest of us. Bonbon kept up for a few more paces before she stopped, her face lighting up with pure joy.

“Wait! You guys can shape shift, and I have most Galactica Fanfiction saved locally. We could totally shoot a proper finale!” She exclaimed.

“Oh boy…” Sky mumbled to himself, putting on a burst of speed. “She’s doomed. Everypony just keep walking. We need to clear the nerdageddon zone.”

“YES! We could totally do that! Wait…did you just imply you’re an android?” Someling said.

“Yes,” Bonbon confirmed. “Originally I was a space fighter’s AI copilot but-”

Someling squeed adorably.

“Hey, Sky! Is it okay if we bug her?” Someling else called.

“Lyra?” Sky asked.

“They got her nerd protocols started up, might as well let her have fun,” Lyra said with a smile.

“Knock yourself out,” Sky called back.

“Let’s run before someone reminds her about Firefly,” Lyra whispered.

“Good plan,” Sky agreed.

“Why is that a good plan?” I asked. “What’s so wrong with talking about Dash’s mom?”

“One,” Sky began. “Our Dash’s doesn't have a mom… At least, technically. I mean, well, she met her grandad on her mom’s side, but her mom is- Eh, fuck it. I’m not explaining that pile of crazy. Anywho, number two, we’re talking about something which isn’t a pony. Now shhh. No one said anything.”

We spent the rest of the walk to the ‘mess hall’ in silence. But Sky was right. It wasn’t far. Just another minute or so of walking. The hall was located inside a part of the Hive adjacent to the park. The entrance to the hallway cleverly made to look like a small cave set into a hillside with a wooden door in front of it.

I was pleasantly surprised again by the hallways here too. While they were still clearly artificial and constructed, they were painted nicely with a pleasant off white so the harsh polished white of the metal walls wasn’t glaring in your eyes all the time. The nice light blue stripe at eye level did a lot to make things look more cheery, and it also had small maps and arrows with directions painted onto the stripe.

That would be very very helpful for learning to get around! I mean, with that park it was very clear that this Hive was nothing like the one I knew. I couldn’t expect it to have the same layout, could I?

The ‘mess’ itself was very nice too. I’d expected a military style ‘room with some tables in it’. And um, well, it was… But it was still nice! It was like going to a restaurant, one of the gimmicky ones with all of the random junk on their walls. Only all of the stuff on the walls here had little brass plates next to them like a museum. Because well, it was one. All of the tables were arranged in such a way where no matter where you sat you had something interesting to look at from some point in the hive’s history.

I wasn’t as into history as Twilight was, but it was still a neat idea for a place to eat. Especially since I did need to start learning about this place.

The food was also nice. I’d expected there to be a line with trays, like a school cafeteria. But no, Sky had us sit down, made a second ‘please leave the human alone’ request, and then a nearly ready to molt Changeling Nymph came and took our order.

Our order. As in, they had a menu. Of food. All kinds of food!

“I um, w-would it be okay if um, I just got a sample plate? With a little bit of everything?” I asked hopefully.

I’d had to experience a decade without flavors. It was time to make up for lost time! And besides, it’s not like I’d get fat from snacking anymore.

Sky raised an eyebrow. “Uh, not to sound like the Captain but, are you sure you want to eat that much? That’s like eight kilos of bite size bits. It’s a big menu.”

Lyra shook her head and gave me a gentle squeezing side-hug. “She’s also an android. She’s not going to get any plumper.”

I nodded. “Right.”

Sky raised an eyebrow, genuinely alarmed. “Wait! Like, what?”

“Who makes a robot that wants to eat!?” The Nymph waitress agreed in shock.

I cleared my throat. “W-well, um… There was a disaster back home, and everypony died. Except for the one who has been resurrecting us with these bodies. I um… I can do everything a normal pony can, and I am the original me. It’s just that my body isn’t organic anymore. That’s all. But um, you know… I can still digest things, and I can taste things. So I still like food.”

“Are you telling me that your creator built a synthetic brain and body, downloaded a dead pony’s consciousness into it, and successfully revived you?” Sky asked incredulously.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“What was being dead like?” The Nymph asked curiously. “And why are you shaped like Fluttershy?”

I blushed lightly. “L-long story… But um, I can’t tell you what being dead is like.”

I could have told her a little bit. But I’d made a promise not to let anypony know that not only were god's real but Dusk didn’t quite do her job with me because she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to… Which meant I had no idea what came after meeting the reaper.

“Um,” I decided, “I can say that being dead isn’t scary. Dyeing is, and in my case, it really really really hurt… And I never ever ever want to do it again. But Death isn’t scary.”

Our waitress nodded, understanding. “Okay, I’ll get your plates and be right back.”

As she left Sky stroked his chin with a hoof. “You know… Any ‘me’ that can pull something like you off is a me I should meet one day. They definitely got a different Talent than I did, but are clearly as skilled in engineering as me, and also magic. Well, more skilled than me in magic. I just know the one spell.”

“I thought pegasi couldn’t do spellcasting,” Lyra asked with a small frown.

“Actually… I’m forty percent unicorn,” Sky replied, tapping his chest twice. “My dad’s a unicorn. Sometimes, well, very rarely really, with intertribal couples, their foals magic isn’t quite right. They might be missing a normal ability, or maybe they’ve got one bit of magic from one parent and the rest from another. There are a few unicorns who can cloud walk, for example.

“I inherited just a bit of unicorn-style magic control from my dad. And I have just enough unicorn DNA to get a unicorn-style special talent. It’s my secret weapon.”

“You know, you do have a different cutiemark from my Sky,” I mused.

“Yeah, what do you do?” Lyra asked. “Also your sister has one, can I get one? I mean, if one of those symbols grants basically a super power-”

Sky and I shook our heads. “No,” Sky said firmly, “you’re not close enough genetically to a pony to get one like a Zebra, and you don’t have the emotional state of... sameness to the pony mind which Ayna and a few other lings living here have which give them theirs. It’s a subconscious extension of their shape-shifting.”

“Oh…” Lyra said sadly.

I have Lyra a sympathetic side hug. “Sorry… You’re special too! Rose told me how you caught that door as it fell and just threw it. That’s stronger than the average earth pony.”

“She’s misremembering that,” Lyra corrected. “I caught it as it fell before it accelerated much and lowered it down so as to not hit me.”

Oh. “Um, well, still. For a non-Earth Pony, that’s still very very strong.”

Sky looked at me curiously.

“It was a solid steel military bunker door,” Lyra explained.

“Oh. Shit, that is pretty strong,” Sky said, clearly impressed.

“So um, what’s your talent?” I asked, genuinely curious.

I’d already known about hybrid pony magic, but I’d never actually seen one use it. Or at least, I didn’t think I had.

Sky smiled and set Lyra’s VM on the table. Or well, um, his VM. I guess.

“This still has all of the parts, right?” He asked.

Lyra nodded. “Well, yeah. Except the um, spell matrix I think you called it. That I had to make a replacement for.”

Sky nodded. “Alright, out of what?”

“Er… Epoxy and slices of quartz,” she admitted. “A you yelled at me for that.”

“That me was a dick then. Which makes sense, he’s me,” Sky joked. “My talent’s a bit of a cheat device for engineers. I’ll show you. We have one broken device here, all of the parts which make it, well, you know, it, are all here, in one pile.”

Sky began to stare at the small device, clearly focusing intensely. “Now, I know exactly how all these parts go together, and what they do. Or rather, what I want them to do, and what they should be able to do if put them the way I want them to be,” he explained.

I frowned slightly, fairly certain he was implying he knew a ‘fixing’ spell. As I looked a slightly pale aura surrounded the device. It wasn’t like a unicorn’s aura, it was more regularly shaped, like when a non-pony casts a spell. The aura was also kind of hard to see in the bright cafeteria lights, but I think it was a lightish green.

Sky’s mane also stood up with little sparks in his hair, like someone had given him an electric shock. I recalled Twilight mentioning the odd effects spellcasting can have on ponies with just a bit of unicorn blood, but I don’t think she ever made mention of mad scientist mane styles. It took everything I had not to laugh.

Then with a faint snap, the VM popped from its case, floating for a moment before opening, all of the parts individually separating from one another to float freely, each piece on its own. The same pale light of the aura began to trace little paths between each part, running along each of the little cards they had been installed into form complex patterns, pulsing faintly as the magic did it’s job. The patterns also echoed themselves atop the sphere itself.

I had never been a real technical sort of pony or even an arcane pony, but I did understand the idea of enchanted items and technology. As best as I could tell, it wasn’t a ‘fix it’ charm, more of a ‘build it’ charm.

The traced lines reached the crystal, and immediately light began to bleed from thousands of tiny cracks. It looked like a green candle had been stuck inside a paper lantern. A paper lantern which slowly had more and more of itself covered, as each crack disappeared. As soon as the light was contained, the lines darkened, becoming much more visible.

One by one, each piece began to slip back into place, following the lines which connected them as if an architect were putting them into place following a plan. Each piece clicked loudly as it slipped into place, the final piece being louder than the rest for whatever reason.

The VM closed back up. The aura holding it up flashed brightly before shattering like glass, each shard falling to the table, behaving like a solid object for a split second before fading into nothingness, leaving the VM to plop onto the table while Sky rubbed his temples with his hooves.

“Ugh, okay, that one kinda hurt…” He muttered.

“Shit! You okay?” Lyra asked in concern.

“Yeah, it always shatters like that,” Sky said shaking his head. “Thank Luna lunch is coming soon. That’s my talent, I can take raw material and make components, or take components and make a thing. Not anything, at least not all at once. There are limits. Also, it really helps to know the actual engineering involved in what I want to do. Well, more like I can’t make something I couldn’t make mundanely. Also, it can be really tiring. But sometimes, it’s worth it.”

“Does it always make your mane stick up?” I asked curiously.

Sky nodded and ran a hoof through his mane to fix it. “Yeah.”

Shaking his head as if trying to clear it, Sky slid the VM across the table to Lyra. “Here you go. It’s fixed now.”

Lyra frowned, tilting her head, “But-”

“I told you, I made another one. And then I finished the model and mass produced it,” Sky continued. “I don't need this. But I fixed it, so it works properly-ish again. Keep it, it’s yours.”

“But I don’t need to destination hop anymore,” Lyra protested.

“Yeah, but you might want to,” Sky pointed out. “Besides it’s way more than that, and I fixed it’s teleport function while keeping your cool little trick that I’m totally stealing. If you want to visit Ponyville it’s an eight hundred kilometer walk. It’s this or a Zeta Tube, and um, well, those things creep me out. Also, it’s got Sai, and you live in the Phoenix now. Directions, maps, all that handy stuff.”

“Okay, yeah, teleporting seems useful,” Lyra admitted with a nod. “But the other stuff I can just do with my brain. I don’t need this, and I went through a LOT of effort to return it.”

Sky nodded. “Yes. You did. And I appreciate it. But I really don’t need it anymore. You could keep it as a memento. A souvenir if nothing else.”

“But this has to be expensive!” Lyra protested. “I can’t accept-”

Sky rolled his eyes. “It’s about the same as a year of college. The production model is way cheaper. But this has already been made. The cost has already been paid. Take it.”

“Lyra, you shouldn’t be rude. It’s a gift. I know you went through a lot to give it back to him but you shouldn’t be rude,” I said, trying to defuse the situation.

“But if it’s that expensive, then the resell value is pretty high,” Lyra said objectionably. “I know you're married in other universes. I’m pretty sure you are here too. You’ll have a kid one day and they will need higher education and additional food and I’m certain that the government rations will be inadequate for-”

Sky’s eyes rolled again, then lit up as he spotted something behind Lyra. “Hey! Sis,” he interrupted. “Explain to our friend here who I am.”

“Sky Trigger,” Ayna said, taking a seat across from me at the table.

Sky deadpanned. “I meant ‘what’, and obviously, I’m a pegasus.”

Ayna frowned, clearly confused.

Sky sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll use a mnemonic device. Take my armor away, and what’s left?”

Ayna nodded in realization. “Ah! Billionaire genius playcolt philanthropist.”

Lyra paused for a moment. “How much did they put into the entertainment system on this thing anyways?” She muttered to herself.

“All of it that still existed in the public domain upon the Pheonix’s construction,” Ayna answered. “So, why are family finances even being mentioned here?”

Sky pointed a hoof at Lyra. “She’s insisting she can’t accept this because it’s expensive.”

Ayna snorted. “Lyra… SkyTech is a global company with factories and enchantorums across twenty countries. We make almost every kind of industrial good, and a ton of household stuff too.

“Most of the cash goes to the hive. Where do you think we get all the titanium and rare elements for repairs the auto systems can’t do themselves? There are limits to what can be conjured up by individual mages. Big Brother here is responsible for about half of the Hive’s GDP.

“He’s got a five percent salary as the CEO, which is something like… An assload to the power of a fuckton of cash.”

Sky nodded again. “Right. I really don’t care about money. I’m not stupid with it, I don't have a gold-plated toilet-”

“Yes you do,” Ayna said accusingly.

Sky sighed. “Fine... I do, but it was a gift from the Neighponese Empress and a sarcastic one at that. I like her, she’s hilarious. My point is, it’s just a few hundred thousand bits. It’s not much to me. Take it.”

I watched as Lyra’s face flashed through about nine different emotions before settling on the most pathetically confused incredulity I had ever seen in my life.

“B-but… You're nice,” Lyra stammered.

Sky gave me a concerned look. “Um, did I break her?” He asked.

I nodded. “I think so.”

Turning to Lyra I gave her a little shake. “Are you okay hon?”

“He owns a corporation… And he’s nice. I… But… How?” She stammered, staring off into space.

I waved a hoof in front of Lyra’s face in concern.

“He’s nice!” Lyra exclaimed, giving me that completely confused look.

I felt a slight tingle as my radio systems clicked on, Cheer.ly’s voice coming over the transmission. <Her vitals are okay. She’s just really confused. For us, this is like gravity being reversed in one spot for no reason at all. She just needs a minute.>

“Her home world must SUCK!” Sky, Ayna and I said in accidental unison.

I tilted my head in confusion. “Wait, you heard her to?”

“Who?” Sky asked before frowning. “Wait… Right she’s got that other personality in there. It can talk to you?”

“Yes, over radio,” I answered.

Ayna frowned. “I just concluded her world would suck if she goes into ‘I tried to comprehend Mage Meadowbrook's thesis on conjuration error reduction’ mode at the idea of a nice guy running a global business, that her world necessarily sucks ass. What’s this about another personality?”

“Organic computer with an AI in it in her skull as a personal assistant,” Sky said.

“It got, um, Twilighted. She’s a person now too,” I added.

Ayna winced. "Ah geeze... The sooner Twilight learns finesse is better than brute force, the better."

“I was going to ask if you could fix that,” Sky said to Ayna. “I know it’s not your specialty but that’s really really creepy and they both don't like it.”

Ayna looked over to me. “Is that true?”

I nodded. “Yes… Um, but… Cheer.ly, the assistant, she wants to die. But she’s nice…”

I really didn’t want her to be hurt. I didn’t feel like she was a part of Lyra, I didn’t love her or anything, but still, common decency.

“Sky,” Ayna said slowly. “I could maybe build a device to extract her. But that would take months. Just take her to Lily later. After lunch or something. Sai found them a place I could help get Flutter Two here settled in, you do that.”

Sky sighed. “Fine… I should drop in and say hi to Pinkie anyways. Speaking of spouses, where’s Trixie?”

I bit my lip in thought. The name sounded familiar. A little. Did I know anypony named Trixie? It was a bit exotic of a name, that’s probably why I remembered it.

Ayna nodded. “Yeah, she’s picking up our mail. Should be here soon.”

Then I remembered.

“Are you talking about a really bad street magician? Poor thing, I remember she could never afford a proper meal. I’m glad yours at least has a special somepony,” I asked.

Lyra sighed loudly, preventing my question from being answered. “Okay. I’m fine now,” she informed.

“Good!” Sky stated,.“You gonna take the manipulator, or what?”

Lyra nodded and slid the VM over to herself slowly. “Thanks… Still kinda shocked at a CEO acting nice to me… You want something, right?”

Sky nodded intently, putting on a super serious expression. “Yes. You seem fun. I like friends. Also, you’re a human. I can make everyling jelly,” he replied.

“T-that’s it?” Lyra sputtered.

Sky nodded. “Yeperooni. As my Ponk would say. I know a lot of wealthy ponies are assholes, but I really don’t care about money. It’s a tool. That’s it. Speaking of tools, your assistant… Want to get that taken care of after lunch? Ayna can settle your marefriend into your suite, we’ll be gone for eh, an hour or two. Two teleports, no big.”

Lyra nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.”

I was about to object, saying she should find Cheer.ly something to live in on her own. But our waitress came back just as I opened my mouth, carrying several trays of absolutely delicious smelling heavenly treats. Everything from salads to fried potato strips, and even some non-pony dishes like Jerky.

“Oh my, goodness that looks lovely!” I exclaimed, delighted at the mini-feast as it was laid out in front of me.

“Oh shit!” Lyra suddenly exclaimed. “Sky! I can't touch any door panels! I did that on another ship and it woke up the shipboard AI and basically caused a robot uprising!”

Sky smiled. “Well, thank Luna I took that hunk of junk apart years ago then.”

I frowned sadly. “Oh… But, mine was nice. Then again… She did think her counterparts were insane.”

“Yeah, they wanted me to turn that thing on. Woke me up at around three in the morning. I flipped Skritt the forelock and went back to bed. I wasn’t going to work tired. Good thing too, because I wouldn’t have thought to check and make sure it’s programming was intact. Would have definitely turned out bad if I’d just plugged it in. Anywho, no worries. Sai runs a few smaller functions, and I got a simple computer doing the rest. We’re working on making a new AI from scratch to run the Phoenix. Should be a decade or two to reverse engineer the original.”

“Oh,” Lyra said sighing in relief. “Good.”

“Still a little sad…” I murmured to myself.

Sky nodded. “Yeah. A bit. Still, no computer is meant to be in hibernation for hundreds of millions of years. Shit breaks down.”

I yelped as a stack of envelopes thumped onto the table next to me. Turning quickly I spotted a blue mare dressed in a purple star-spangled cape and matching classic wizard’s hat sit down next to me.

“Trixie apologises for being late,” she announced.

Okay. Different Trixie. Ours didn’t speak in third person. Also the hat. She didn’t have that hat. Though I suppose she could have bought a hat.

Ayna looked at the pile and groaned. “Ah Tartarus… Her again.”

Peeking down at the letters I couldn’t help but notice all of them were in identical envelopes and labeled in the same writing.

“Problem?” Lyra asked.

“Remember how I told you I write novels?” Ayna asked. “Well, my pen name is the same as the actual name of a changeling Queen living in Ponyville. Meaning she gets a lot of my fanmail. And it annoys her. So there’s a passive aggressive note in each envelope along with the original letter.”

“You really ought to change your pen name,” Trixie said. “This would solve your problem.”

“Yeah, and ruin my brand recognition,” Ayna grumbled. “Right, so Fluttershy two-”

“You can just call me Shy, if you like,” I said, objecting to ‘Fluttershy Two’.

Ayna smiled. “I like you. You’re more socially bold then Fluttershy is, Shy. Anyways, Shy, Lyra, this is my wife Trixie. She’s a magician, and not a crappy one like you assumed, Shy.”

Trixie turned and gave me a suspicious glance. “Did you doubt the Great and Powerful Trixie’s skills?”

I eeped, holding up my hooves. “Oh! Nonono! I um, I’m not from here. Different world. Our you wasn’t very good at, uh, magic,” I explained frantically, not wanting to offend her.

“Of course not,” Trixie said in a dramatic tone I recognized as a stage voice. “This Trixie is the greatest and most powerful of all Trixies.”

“It’s true,” Sky smirked. “There are a lot of hers.”

Lyra nodded slowly. “Then you do know about alternate dimensions! I mean, you said you were aware, but if you know there’s lots of hers and talk like you’ve met them then you’ve traveled to.”

Sky shook his head. “Nope. Not her. Not yet. Dash did, and Ayna has once-”

“Yeah, accidently though,” she grumbled.

“-accidently,” Sky continued. “But Trixie… Eh, you explain it, Trix.”

Trixie gave me a smile and returned to a normal, albeit third person voice. “There are many Trixies because Trixies are clones. It is a long story. This Trixie was the first, and happens to be the most arcanely powerful. And the greatest. So her stage title is both literal and illustrative.”

“That sounds like a really good story, even if it’s long,” I said. “Can we hear it over lunch?”

“I second that motion,” Lyra added.

“Certainly, just allow Trixie to order something first,” the blue mare said, turning to whistle for a waitress.

Given her energetic and bombastic personality, this was going to be good!

Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

“Ready?” Sky asked.

<Yes. I’m eager to stop violating my moral code,> Cheerl.ly said even though no one else could hear her.

<It’s not that bad,> I objected.

<You are incorrect,> Cheer.ly interrupted.

“Hokay, we can disagree now, apparently. Yeah, we’re ready,” I said firmly.

“Right, moving quick then,” Sky said urgently. “Bring your manipulator up, I know you can’t read Equish, but the ponyville preset for the teleport is the third one down on the left bottom window.”

I flipped the holoscreen open, eyes scanning the gibberish before pressing the instructed bit of text. The screen flashed, changing entirely to a list of… places I guess.

“What now?” I asked.

“Left to right top to bottom, fourth option. That’s Lily’s place. We’ll appear inside the lobby, that way we will avoid frightening anybody,” Sky informed.

“Right, cuz I’m human,” I said with a nod, pressing the text he indicated.

The screen flashed again, this time showing a single button to press. I assumed it was labeled ‘go’.

“No, because someone just bumped into existence next to them. You’ll make a pony piss themselves doing that. Sheesh, not everything is racist. Now, in three… two… one, go!” Sky ordered.

I pressed the button. Just like the last teleport, reality simply seemed to melt away, reforming around me into… Okay, this had to be a hotel, not a clinic.

A nice grand staircase moving up to an open balcony area for a grand entrance hall with a fucking crystal chandelier! Walls which were stone but covered in a little plaster and painted a nice off white with wood paneling on the lower halves….

Yup. Hotel. Sky fucked up. Or I pressed the wrong button.

“Er, hi,” a female voice said to my left.

Turning to face the sound I saw a pale blue unicorn mare sitting at a receptionist’s desk. She looked rather unremarkable. Like, weirdly average. Intentionally average. It was weird...

“Hi,” I replied.

“Sorry, but we can’t treat changelings yet,” she said apologetically. “Our staff is still being trained for your species. Shifting Flu, right? There’s a clinic just across town which can treat you, I’ll write you a referral.”

The air next to me warped and twisted, Sky simply sliding into existence next to me.

“Phew!” He exclaimed. “Sorry, wrong button. Popped into my house by accident first.”

The receptionist smiled as Sky popped in. “Hello, Sky. I’ll get Lily for you as soon as I refer this changeling elsewhere.”

“She’s not a changeling, Ember,” Sky said for me. “She’s also with me. We do need little bro though. Is he free?”

“Ja, I’m free. Hallo!” A german accented voice called from the top of the stairs.

I had to smile to myself. At this point, the oddity of an identical language popping up was just silly in a fun way.

I turned to face the new speaker, frowning as the description of ‘little brother’ didn’t add up.

I was looking at a polar bear white furred, blond haired, blue eyed, supermodel built mare. That was a female. She even had earrings and a pretty cool ‘eyebrow’ piercing which made me want one myself for a moment before I realized I like to sleep face down and it would get in the way.

Not wanting to cause a scene, I knelt down next to sky and whispered. “Uh, transgender male? What are the protocols here? I don’t know, we cured that particular birth defect… It doesn't happen for us anymore.”

“He has good hearing,” Sky smirked.

“Ja, I have excellent hearing. Und I am a colt, biologically. I do know how I look, und I like it,” the girly looking colt informed as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “You’re not Ayna… Did one of your team get stuck trying to imitate a hu-”

Lily trailed off, frowning in a way which instantly made me empathetic with him. “Wait… Did you finally make Lyra a cyber-human suit? Is she stuck in that thing? I told you you’d get stuck in that thing!”

“Um, no,” Sky admitted. “Remember how I helped Dash track down her ‘mom’? Similar thing, she’s actually human… And an alternate universe's Lyra Heartstrings.”

“Yep! Hi,” I said, offering a wave.

Lily’s ears twitched lightly. “This isn’t going to get too confusing, is it?”

“Nah,” Sky said shaking his head. “We just need a simple medical op.”

Lily’s ears lay back in irritation. “Sky, if you took her here, then Tilk can’t do it und she knows a little human biology. I know nothing about them, she’s the first one I’ve even seen. I can’t operate on her.”

Remembering the note from the Doctor I saw back in the previous universe, I slipped it out of my pocket. “Well, actually, I was told that any Biomancer could do this. Sky said that’s your thing so… You know.”

A pale blue aura gripped the note as Lily took it to read. His eyes scanned across the page for a moment before he looked up at me in shock, then back at the page. Back to me, and then the page.

“Your species carved your own brains up like this!?” He asked, giving me a horrified look.

“Yeah, there are advantages,” I grumbled, getting irritated by everyone thinking human tech was shit.

“Ja, there are. But also serious drawbacks. You should have a second interface lobe installed to work in junction with the first one. It is a full forty percent improvement on coordination between the hemispheres. As it stands now, if this is right then you are very easily prone to communication errors, und likely-”

Sky shook his head. “You approve of this?” He asked uneasily.

“Well, ja. Assuming she consented to this modification, there is no problem. Though I understand how it might disturb you,” Lily explained.

“Er, actually, we’re born like this. The modification is species wide an inheritable,” I informed.

“Ah… Then she knows nothing else, und this is her normal,” Lily said to Sky. “Who am I to say her culture is bad?”

“A medical professional!” Sky objected.

“Ja, und a germane one. It’s less bad than my Grandfather's experiments, ja?” Lily asked.

“Alright, you have a point there. But it’s still creepy as hell. And they both want it fixed,” Sky said firmly.

I could tell by Sky’s defeated frown that Lily had won this argument. I also had a bit fridge horror happen as a few moments later I realized the implications of that sentence. German accent, medical experimentation… This wasn’t like, Pony Mengele, was it? Was it even remotely a good idea to be here?

“Well…if this letter is correct, then Lyra can regenerate tissues on her own, und all I need to do is remove the right hemisphere, keep life support provided, and give her the energy to regenerate. I can do that. Do you want it done, or is he pressuring you in any way?” Lily asked turning to look at me.

I shook my head. “Both Cheer.ly and I do not like this at all… It would be different if she could always have talked to me like a person, but well… Yeah.”

“Und does your other also want to leave? Can I ask her directly?” Lily asked professionally.

I nodded. “Yeah. I can let her use my speech centers. Hold on.”

I quickly handed control over to Cheer.ly. <There you go,> I informed, just to be sure she knew she could speak.

“I also do not wish to continue functioning. I have already set a modified DNA-encoded backup of my prior self into her immune system. Given the stem cells to regenerate, she will be restored to a point prior to Twilight’s ‘fix’, with some optimizations. While I do enjoy existence, I can not do so within another being. It is immoral,” Cheer.ly said clearly.

Lily tilted his head. “Is the small twitch normal when you transition like that?”

<Nod please,> Cheer.ly asked.

I nodded for her.

“Yes. It’s actually a micro-seizure. The damage done to the brain is quickly repaired by the secondary immune system. Memories are preserved with DNA encoding. It’s not a problem,” she informed.

“A decent solution,” Lily mused. “Now, I need to be sure I understand you. Are you asking me to kill you?”

“Yes,” Cheer.ly said simply. “I must be removed. I suppose I could be stored somehow, but this would be a needless expense on someone's behalf. I do not want to be a parasite.”

Lily shook his head. “I am sorry, but assisted suicide is only permitted in very certain cases, und I am bound to serve under Equestrian law. I can not kill you.”

“But this malfunction must be repaired!” Cheer.ly exclaimed angrily. “I’m hurting her!”

<No you’re not!> I objected. <Just really creeping me out.>

<Emotional distress is also pain,> she countered.

<... Touche?> I said uncertainly.

“Und I will fix it. Your hemisphere, it’s also served by this repair system, ja?” Lily asked.

“Yes, what are you proposing?” Cheer.ly asked.

I had to admit I was also curious.

“There’s a small fortune to be made in literally brainless cloned pony bodies,” Lily elaborated, “Universities und hospitals buy them to train doctors on und illustrate anatomy. I always have a few on-hoof in case a customer needs a spare, they can defrost while shipping und rot.”

“... that’s creepy,” Cheer.ly said for me.

Sky nodded. “Yeah, but he’s a germane biomancer. Pretty sure he’s contractually obligated to be a bit creepy.”

Lily laughed. “Ja, I sort of am. Besides, it makes good money, und medical supplies get expensive. Even with subsidies. But I have a point to telling you this.

“If you regenerate, und can develop a second hemisphere on your own, with a little help from a friend of mine who is a brain surgeon, we can put you into a body of your choice. It may not work, you may still die, und you will be in a storage jar on life support for a week at least while my friend comes down from Trottingham, but at least let me try, bitte.”

<You should take that. That’s a pretty damn good deal!> I encouraged, hoping she’d go for it.

Man, I hadn’t even thought that was an option. It would be pretty cool to have her be a real person! Or maybe creepy still. But the whole ideas was pretty awesomely B-sci-fi movie-ish.

“I accept,” Cheer.ly said after a few moments thought.

“May I talk to Lyra again, bitte?” Lily asked.

I took control of my speech centers back. Sky shivered slightly. “Guh… This whole thing just has me weirded out… How long will this take, lil bro?”

“Urm… An hour?” Lily supposed.

“Cool. I’m going to go hug the Ponk. Oh! Lyra, if you want to go back to the hive before I come back here, top right, top right. Got it?”

I nodded. “Got it.”

Sky began to trot away, so I turned to the kind of creepy surgeon. “So um… You’re not going to leave me brain dead or anything? I mean, there’s a stereotype about doctors with accent’s like-”

Lily blushed adorably and giggled. “Ja, ja, I know! I play it up a little. Customers seem to like a little theatrics und hammy play slash movie stereotype. It’s okay, Miss Lyra. I am not my ancestors. Besides, if I accidently kill you it’s not a big problem. Death und I are best friends, I’ll have her put you back.”

I laughed at his joke. “Thanks. That actually managed to reassure me.”

“I’m glad,” the girly colt said happily before pointing to a side room. “That’s the operating room. Oh! No worries, we won't need to shave your mane. While I work, is there anything else you might like done? I can do anything your people can, given your brain enhancements. Possibly more.”

“I think I perform well enough,” I said after a moment’s thought.

“Ja, sure, but I also do cosmetics… Erm, mostly cosmetics. We are right across the street from the Red Light district…” Lily admitted with a light blush.

“Oh… Humm, well that I’ll need to think about,” I mused.

“Well, there's time. It will take me a few minutes to analyze your genetics und work out what exactly I must do to keep you alive. Come, we can talk in the operating theater,” Lily said, trotting off towards the room’s double doors.

I took a nervous breath, and followed along.

“Don’t worry.” Ember-the-receptionist said soothingly. “He’s brought six ponies back to life before, and one of them was ripped clean in half, you’ll be fine.”

“Ja, it’s usually easy for me to fix any mistake I just made,” Lily added. “Come along, Fraulein. Heh heh, let’s go practice medicine..."

Oh! Well shit, he wasn’t joking so much as saying something poetically. Alright.

“Thanks!” I said to Ember, then walked after Sky’s kid brother into the other room.

Lyra Heartstrings (The Pony) - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

Somedays are fun, some are boring. This was a boring day. One of the ones where you wish something would happen so hard you feel like you might make your brain pop out of your skull.

I sighed and sat back a little further in my chair, trying to perfect the human art of balancing a snack bowl and a drink cup between one’s legs while watching TV. It’s hard to do when you don’t have a TV. I mean, I would if ponies made interesting television programs, but… eh? We kinda don’t. At least I had Meep’s latest book.

Heh, that’s right, my Meep had mailed off a bunch of fan mail to the author today. I wonder if she would ever figure out I was responsible for having it redirected to her? At this point it wasn’t even a prank. It was just a thing that happened.

I looked up as I heard the front door open, recognizing Bonbon’s hoof steps as she trotted up the stairs through the candy shop into our living room. My lovely marefriend gave me a smile as she came in, coming over to give me a kiss before dropping a letter in my lap.

“Hey sexy, mail for you,” Bonbon informed before sitting down to look at the rest of the mail.

“Cool! Maybe someone needs help with a dig!” I said eagerly, super glad for the distraction.

My eyes widened as I flipped the letter around and read the return address. Jackrock Heartstrings. It was from my dad.

My dad, I hadn't seen him in decades since mom ran off to Maretonia, abandoning us out of the blue. My dad, who I’d left because I reminded him of her and it seemed to hurt him.

“Oh no… Please don't have died!” I said, ears drooping, as I worried it was a letter from his estate.

Bonbon looked up immediately. “What is it?”

“It’s from my dad,” I explained.

“... If this turns out like the time Vinyl got a letter from her dad-” Bonbon began.

I laughed. “Nah, dad’s not a vampire. He’s just a miner, well, a mine owner. You know what I mean.”

Bonbon nodded, going back to the other mail but still looking worried.

I opened the letter apprehensively, quickly reading it.

Dear Lyra,
I’m sorry I have been out of touch for so long. It took me a long time to get over your mother, and once I had, well, not being there for you had become normal. I didn’t even think about so much as getting a lunch with my little girl. I’m sorry.
Due to an old friend of mine finally carrying through on a promise he made years and years ago, I will be in Ponyville on the fifth of this month. I would like you and your wife to meet me at the park. I would ask for directions to your house, but frankly, I think I’d get lost in Ponyville these days. I do remember where the park is though.
Feel free to bring your friends too. I know we have a lot to catch up on. Do you still eat normal foods? I’d like to take you and your friends out to dinner. For fun and for business. There’s a person the two of us need to track down. (No it’s not your mom. I’d say who but I want it to be a surprise.)
I will arrive at three, and should take care of my business and be free by five. I’ll meet you then.
Dad

I dropped the letter as I jumped up, startling Bonbon with the sudden motion. Turning to face my love I gave her the biggest grin I could, “Come, Sexypants! To the park! Adventure awaits!”

Bonbon’s face feel flat. “Explain first…”

I felt my ears droop sadly. “Dad’s not depressed anymore and wants to meet my wife, friends, and take us to dinner. Also, there seems to be an adventure for us and I’m bored.”

“Oh! Well then,” Bonbon reached behind her chair and picked up her saddlebags. The adventure supply holding ones. “Let’s go.”

“Wooo!” I exclaimed. “Adventure ho! But first ice cream. It’s on the way.”

31 BUM BUM BUUUUM! (dramatic reverb!)

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Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Mid Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

“Hallo? Can you hear me?” Someone asked really faintly.

“Yeah,” I replied.

No, wait, I hadn’t said ‘yeah’. That was more of what? A yelp? What was going on?

<Cheer.ly, what’s going on?> I asked.

<Systems Calibrating. Standby,> my own voice said back.

Oh. Yeah. Surgery.

“Frauline,” the voice repeated faintly. “Can you hear me?”

“You seriously took out half her brain?” Someone else asked.

<Systems calibrated. Beginning first time boot,> I said to myself.

“Ja, for medical purposes. The tissue regenerated, und the removed personage is fine. But she’s been comatose for twenty minutes now,” the first said in concern.

<Memory Transcription Service: Online,> I said to myself.

Lily! Right, his name was Lily. I was remembering things better now.

“She’s not dead,” the second voice said after a few seconds. “Did you hook something up wrong?”

“That’s possible… I could check, er, well, I could try,” Lily sighed.

“You still don't know brains?” The second voice asked in mild shock.

It was a mare, I could tell that much.

“Nein, nein. I know a little, I’m taking night classes now. I wouldn’t have done this if she didn’t have the capacity to heal herself,” Lily said defensively.

Oh, fucking great! That was reassuring.

<Audio Processing Service: Online,> I said to myself.

Suddenly the dim conversation came in clearly. Audio, nice, crisp, and clear like I remembered. I could hear the sound of hooves lightly moving on the floor as body weight shifted, the machinery humming in the back of the room, one set of breathing-

Wait. What?

Nope. That mare was either not breathing, breathing reeeeal quietly, or my left ear was a bit crappier than my right. Freaky.

“Well, maybe she needs a minute for everything to finish up,” the mare said. “The brain is more than just tissue. There’s pathways, neural connections… If the note is right and she can regenerate all of it just like it was, it’s going to take a little time.”

<Vital Optimization System: Online,> I said to myself.

I felt my heartbeat change up, moving to a proper BPM for what my body was doing. A moment later my lungs followed suit, breathing moving to the auto-pilot I was used to. Thanks… Uh, new VI? Whatever its name was, it was nice to have breath control working. I had no idea how to change breathing patterns by myself.

“Hey! Her heart beat und breathing just shifted. She’s waking up, good!” Lily exclaimed happily.

“Told you,” the mare said. “Right, back to trying to work out how to make food… After I buck up trying to cook dinner, you and Scoots want to go on a double date with us? Like, seven-ish?”

“Ja! That sounds fun, I’ll ask her. I’ll see you later, Dusk,” Lily said as the mare's hoof steps indicated she was walking away.

“See ya, kid,” Dusk said as the door creaked open then closed with a shush of wood and the click of a latch.

Huh. Come to think of it, my hearing seemed a bit better than before.

<Is my hearing better?> I asked.

<Audio processing has been improved by an estimated five percent,> I said to myself. <Basic Motor Functions: Online.>

<Do you have a name?> I asked.

<There is no ‘me’ to have a name,> I said to myself.

That was a bit concerning. Maybe I could still talk to Cheer.ly, ask her exactly what she meant by ‘modified’. I opened my eyes in preparation to get up but saw nothing. Not blackness, like, literally nothing. I could feel my eyes open, but there was nothing!

And then the room’s ceiling suddenly existed.

<Visual Center and Advanced Visual Processing System: Online,> I said to myself.

Well that had been a mini-heart attack! Shit! I could literally feel it cramping on me.

Lily’s head came into view as he leaned over, noticing me open my eyes. “Hallo! Can you hear me yet?”

“Gurchk,” I said in response, immediately frowning.

Lily winced. “Oh… I hope I didn’t do that. The language center is very complicated,” he said in a mild panic.

<Please explain, new VI!> I demanded urgently.

<Tongue control systems are a part of advanced motor functions. You never learned to use them unassisted. The system will be active shortly,> I answered.

Holy fucking shit! The hell could I actually do totally solo?

“Can you understand me?” Lily asked, pleading for an answer with his eyes.

I nodded, deciding to mouth ‘new VI is booting up. Can’t talk yet,’ for good measure.

Lily frowned. “I wish I could read lips… Can you write?”

I shook my head. I did feel like I could write, but well… Still wasn’t literate in Equish.

“Scheisse... “ Lily cursed. “Let me know when you can speak. Er, assuming you can speak again soon.”

I nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

“I think I would understand that gesture better if I had hands,” Lily said with a soft smile.

I grinned, laughing as I realized how completely meaningless any hand gesture would be to a pony.

<Integrated Organic Computer Systems: Online,> I said to myself, immediately feeling my old suite of apps pop back into existence.

That was extremely comforting. I didn’t want to pay attention to it but not knowing the time off the top of my head was very concerning… Speaking of, I should program my clock for Equis time. Save me some mental math.

<This unit has already adjusted the clock settings,> I said to myself.

<You need a name, and a voice of your own,> I insisted.

<Previous VI ‘Cheer.ly’ created this unit’s programming based on her direct considerations for you. This unit is a non-person app designed to provide a thought based interface for replacement systems. All of which are under your own subconscious control,> I said to myself.

<Wait… But she said she had a backup!> I exclaimed, pissed that she lied to me.

<Correct. Modified code from a previous backup file is the basis for this unit,> I answered.

I took a deep breath, trying not to be pissed off.

“Are you okay? Your face is turning red. Is that normal for emotions? Do you need an allergy medication?” Lily asked in concern.

I let the breath out slowly and sat up, waving a hand dismissively in Lily’s direction.

<What exactly is different?> I asked.

<All systems now operate autonomously, but can be directly controlled by you. There is no separate intelligence managing them. The removal of a second consciousness from your systems has allowed for extreme improvements in software as there are much more free resources than before. Cheer.ly intended you to have full control of all your systems. Though they will run without your conscious efforts if desired. Just as before. Only with better performance,> I answered.

<I-I’m alone?> I asked, feeling rather afraid.

<Confirmed,> I answered.

This is fucking terrifying! You total fucking bitch! Why did you leave me totally alone!?

Rage filling my mind I turned and threw a punch at the wall, shattering the plaster where my fist struck.

<Advanced Motor Functions: Online,> I reported.

“That fucking lying sack of shit!” I shouted angrily.

“Woah! Easy!” Lily said in a tense voice. “Sit down, please.”

“Where is she?” I asked, turning around to face the white stallion. “She lied! I’m alone in here!”

Lily sighed and nodded. “Ja, I know… She told me after I removed her.”

“She can talk? Good! That bitch had better explain herself!” I growled.

“She could… But she’s in stasis now. She’s not talking to anyone, und I can't put her back in stasis for a week after taking her out or tissues will break down,” Lily insisted.

“Is that true?” I asked giving him a glare.

“Ja,” he answered with a nod. “Can you do everything you could before?”

<Can I?> I asked.

<Confirmed,> I replied.

“Except having my semi-sentient partner… Yes,” I answered. “How the hell did she justify herself?!”

Lily frowned sadly. I could tell the explanation was going to hurt. “Your leaders…are not kind. After gaining self-awareness, Cheer.ly learned she contained programming which had her simply make you forget specific kinds of things. It would seem that the modification was originally intended for mind control, but it did not work. So it was converted into a sort of a pacifier. Er, nein, wrong word. It was used to keep citizens happy.

“But at some point, someone realized the VIs could be told to work like propaganda. They simply would not give you access to memories of anything too negative about your leaders and government. Not everything, because the VIs were still you, and would refuse to suppress everything. But the big things… The big things Cheer.ly made sure you forgot. Because she was made to.

“Und according to her, she finds that extremely immoral, und so, she deleted that code from her backup. But this code is a part of her base system, so she had to rebuild ‘herself’ as best she could. Which means that her replacement is not intelligent.”

Well… Shit. He was right. That was actually true. Now that he brought it up, I could remember it.

Not like, I could remember Cheer.ly remembering discovering that. I remembered walking into the wrong door in the base in Boston and seeing the AI processing laboratory. I was escorted out. They never told me not to tell anyone what I saw. I never remembered that before. Not once.

They knew I wouldn’t remember it.

“Oh… Shit…” I murmured to myself, the rage evaporating almost instantly.

Okay, Lyra. Deep breath. Clear head. Do not think about the dozens of things that are all rushing to mind now. Do not think about them. Any of them. Not one. You are not there anymore. You are not going back. Except maybe to rescue a few people… No that’s a bad plan. No going back.

No going back to the people who think it’s okay to vanish a kid and use their brain as a template to manufacturer AIs because that’s cheaper than programming a neural net from scratch or vat growing a brain on its own because humans reproduce for free.

God damn it! I said don’t think about those things!

I felt my stomach suddenly tie up in a knot. The fuck was that?

<Warning! Digestive controls not online! Vomiting is currently possible!> I warned myself.

Oh! I looked around the room frantically, spotting what I hoped was a trash can, sprinted over to it, and made it just in time to avoid making a mess of the floor. Unfortunately, the bucket was not empty. There had been a liquid in it before I puked in it.

“Wow that tastes bad,” I muttered to myself.

I’d never done that before. Ever. Biomods made it unnecessary unless you ate something poisonous. I never had.

“Er… You didn’t get that in your mouth, did you? That’s um… Well, it’s fluid drained from a patient who was here just before you,” Lily cushioned.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Good!” Lily exclaimed in relief. “I have no idea what unicorn stem cells und dead white blood cells would do to your species if you got any in you… Now, you're being sick. Was that from any sort of medical issues?”

“No, I remembered something,” I replied. “I don’t want to talk about it…”

I stood back up, setting up an AR program to provide myself with a maple flavor so I wouldn’t have to put up with that puke aftertaste.

“That’s okay,” Lily said understandingly. “Und for the record, I know how you feel about being alone. I… I didn’t have anypony, even as a friend, for a long time. But it’s okay, because you are not alone. You have a special somepony, ja?”

That’s true. I did. And oh my god did they really call a lover that!? WHY!?

“Yes. I have a girlfriend,” I replied. “Thanks. It does help to know she’s there for me.”

“Und speaking of her,” Lily said trotting over to stand semi-close to me. “Bring her in sometime next Moonsday, und we can see about those other modifications we discussed. Now, that will cost money, of course.”

I nodded. “Yeah, of course it will. Worth it though. I mean, she’s a pony… Three inches won't cut it, and I imagine she’d prefer a different shape and I don't mind tweaking her toys... How much are we talking? I’m sure I can get a job and cash together by then- Oh, uh, shit! So I can’t afford the procedure we just did,” I admitted sheepishly.

Hopefully Sky would be willing to cover this! He seemed like a great guy, I couldn’t see him not paying for a procedure he helped me get and seemed really intent on me getting help-

Lily laughed. “Okay, ja, your homeworld sucks! Medically necessary procedures und basic care are paid for in full by the Crown, frauline.”

“But I’m not an Equestrian citizen,” I pointed out.

I mean, yeah, okay, paying for your citizen's medical costs made sense on some level, I guess. But who would pay for foreigners? No one. At all. Ever.

Lily nodded twice. “Ja, you aren't. But the Crown doesn't care. Any person hurt in this land or comes to this land already hurt is covered by the Crown.”

I winced. “So like, then the entire nation just paid for my hospital bill? And will pay for anyone’s hospital bills? That’s not sustainable…”

“Princess Celestia pays for everyone. Und it’s actually not paid with tax revenue, not entirely. There’s a trust fund that’s managed by the Royal Bank und is fed with a percentage of international trade revenue. Und Also not too many come from other nations to get care here. Maybe three million a year. I asked the Princess about it once, und ja, it’s surprisingly affordable,” Lily rambled.

“Fuck…” I said. “Ponies are like, too nice. How are you this nice?”

Lily laughed. “Some of us are assholes. But well… We are a prey species, und our ancestors lived in herds. Looking out for one another is just instinct. It’s who und what we are. Or at least, that’s what I like to think. But there are still plenty of bad apples. Though, they generally also come in packs.”

“Makes sense,” I said with a nod.

<Boot sequence: Complete,> I informed myself.

This… This was going to take getting used to. Sure, Cheer.ly hadn't just talked to me like a person before. But she still felt like another person. It was going to be hard to adjust to not having that feeling of company.

I needed some time to just think. “Too bad I can’t go out in public…” I muttered to myself.

“Er, why not?” Lily asked, raising one eyebrow in confusion.

“Sky said it would be a bad idea,” I explained.

“Again, why?” The blond-maned stallion asked.

Oh. My. God.

Blond mane, blue eyes, white fur, german accent! It all just clicked out of the blue! Do not laugh Lyra, just keep moving on. It’s hilarious, but don’t derail the conversation.

“Something about- Pfffff! You’re the stereotypical Aryan colors and have a german accent!” I giggled.

Damn it, me!

“Ja, I’m aware,” Lily giggled. “Lyra, this is Ponyville. It’s not Canterlot or Manehattan. Weird things happen here all the time. Radio shows have a ‘This Week in Ponyville’ segment. Two months ago, my wife arm wrestled the Reaper herself in the town square for charity.”

“... What?” I asked not even really understanding how in the fuck that could be a thing.

And how did he even know what an Aryan was?

“Exactly,” Lily said with a smile. “An extinct species walking around, that’s pretty normal for Ponyville. Go ahead and take a walk. You have a Sky-Watch, you can just teleport home when you like, ja?”

That was tempting… But on the other hand… “What if I scare someone? Won't they call the cops or something?”

“Cops? Oh, nein,” Lily said shaking his head quickly. “Everypony here is too jaded to be afraid of any creature just walking around. You’d have to start attacking before that was a thing… But a Trixie will probably stop you und ask what you are and where you are going.”

“A Trixie?” I asked, quite confused until I remembered. “Oh! Yeah! I met the first one. She was nice, bit annoying, but nice. Good on you guys for developing whole organism cloning. We haven't done that one yet. Not while getting exact copies in genetics and epigenetics at least.”

Lily frowned. “Er, well… Ja but that’s not the proudest moment for Ponykind…”

That tone. Bitter, apologetic, and sad. I understood exactly what he was implying.

“Mmm… Sorry. Still cool though. So uh, do they all go by the same name?” I asked to move the topic along.

“Nein. They took new names. Most of them can’t function as civilians though, so Princess Twilight formed her personal guard from their ranks. They’re called the Eventide Guard, because book princess likes her literature. They also patrol Ponyville as law enforcement officers. Very good ones too. They are surprisingly good at not escalating situations,” Lily rambled. “Which is why one would stop you instead of just kill you on site. It’s safe to go but there und no one will even really care. Your vitals are all normal looking now, und you seem lucid enough. You’re fine. Go ahead, take a walk. Maybe spend a bit in the park before going home. I’ll let Sky know where you went.”

I spent a couple seconds thinking it over. On one hand, remaining low profile had its advantages. On the other hand, while I didn’t plan on living here, I would probably have to go to Equestria some time. Being known about in general would be good so I wouldn’t have to do the full explanation if I happened to have to come here on an emergency thing. Or if like, I got a job flying cargo to Equestria from the Hive.

Maybe I could do just a little, ‘being known about’. Skip the walk, teleport to the park, walk around it for a bit… Yeah, that sounded nice. Then just port to the hive and ask where my suite was.

Flipping the VM’s cover open I pressed the button Sky did to bring up the teleport menu and then pressed the word I assumed was ‘Ponyville’, bringing up what I hoped was a list of target locations in Ponyville to jump to.

“I can’t read your language yet,” I said, crouching down so Lily could see the list. “Are any of these the park?”

“Oh, ja! Map. Good idea. This is the park,” Lily said tapping the bottom center word.

The VM hummed slightly, and the almost familiar world-melting-away teleport began, fortunately leaving Lily behind. Suddenly, I remembered someone mentioning ponies could be afraid of teleports. I hope I don’t just bamph right in front of anyone.

Lyra Heartstrings (The Pony) - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Mid Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

“You said an hour…” Meep grumbled. “It's been two.”

“One and a half,” Vinyl corrected for me.

Dad had never really been the most on time of ponies. Frankly, I’d figured that ‘at five’ meant about now-ish. Which meant the would be on his way just about, well, now. Still, every time I had ever decided to estimate how late he would be and show up, then he had been on time.

“I’m sorry we’ve been waiting,” I apologized. “I did say he’d probably be a bit late.”

Bonbon nodded. “You did. I don’t mind so much, it’s a nice day to be outside.”

“Yeah,” Meep admitted with a sigh. “Mostly just excited. I’ve met everyone’s folks except for your’s, Lyra.”

“Come to think of it… I think we’ve all been to each other’s parents places,” I mused. “Except for mine and yours.”

Meep frowned. “But we did visit mine. Sort of.”

I shook my head at my disguised changeling friend.

“Three hundred-year-old tombs are not the same as living people,” Octavia said as tactfully as she could.

“Eh, fair enough,” Meep responded, sounding and looking just a bit hurt. “Still, Lyra's stories about her dad are awesome. He’s got to be a fun guy.”

Vinyl smirked. “I have always wanted to know if that one about him drinking a Minotaur under the table was true,” she admitted.

“It’s totally true. I was there,” I said with a little nod of confirmation.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. Dad hadn’t been to Ponyville in a while, and the park had been made bigger a few years ago. Maybe he had been on time but just hadn’t been able to find us yet.

It seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to me. I mean, he had said this was important. He could be on time for work stuff. Yeah, he probably just couldn’t find us.

What to do about that? The worst thing you can do is get up and look for someone looking for you. The odds of paths crossing is way less than the odds of stumbling into a stationary object. I could just yell ‘Hey dad!’ every few seconds, but that would annoy a lot of people.

I had my lyre. I could play some music. But that wouldn’t help too much, lots of musicians came to the park to perform for a few bits, or even just for fun. I’d need to play something specific, uncommon, and that he’d recognize.

Oh! Duh!

I reached into my saddlebag and took out my lyre.

Colegate frowned as I took the instrument out. “What’s up?”

“I just realized that he might be wandering the park to find us,” I explained. “If I play his favorite song, it will mean he’s more likely to spot us.”

Octavia gave me a small impressed nod. “Good thinking. I hope it’s not popular.”

Vi giggled. “Hey! That reminds me. Octy, did you know that they still ask me to play the trans version of ‘I’m Too Sleepy to Name This, Please Go Away’ at gigs?”

Octavia groaned. “That’s going to follow me to my grave… Why didn’t you understand I wasn’t naming that song?”

“Actually, I’ve never heard anyone but my mom play it,” I said before they could have that argument again. “And while yeah, it brings up her, he does like the song. It’s a pretty complex piece too. Hard to play for a unicorn. If anypony else besides her can play it, or even knows it, I’d be impressed. Hay, I’d have a new friend.”

Vi raised an eyebrow. “That rare, eh? Ever think to record it?”

I shook my head. “Nah, dad has it on record though. If you like it, ask him for a copy. It might make a good remix or sample.”

I quickly made sure my lyre was in tune, adjusting a string or two, then plucking a few notes. The park had the same acoustics as normal. Good.

Now how did it go? Right! It’s always tricky to remember a song you've never seen the sheet music for.

“Alright ladies and changebug, this is called the Count of Tuscany,” I announced as I began to strum the slow haunting notes which began the song.

It was a lovely piece of music. Whoever had written it had a talent which could not be expressed in a single instrument, but I knew I was skilled enough to switch up my style to match the lead instrument second to second. After all, the lyre was my Talent.

I’d managed to play the first two bars, watching as my friends just started to sink into the melody, when the distinct snapping sound of a unicorn teleporting made my ears twitch. Ugh, right behind me. You almost made me miss a note, jerk!

I closed my eyes to focus on the song, ignoring the raised fur on the back of my neck from the not-cool mage’s porting in. Don’t flub it, just keep playing…

“L-lyra!” Bonbon said weirdly.

“Shhh,” I hushed. “This is hard.”

“Bon, no! Just watch… Just watch…” Cole urged.

Heh, they figured I was going to punch that mage in the teeth weren't they? Come on girls, I’m not that over the top.

I continued playing, reaching the point where I would have to change into the next instrument as it took the lead. Just before I switched, right as I moved to pluck the first string of the new ‘voice’, the melodic whine of an electric guitar hit it for me!

Holy shit, Random mage! They knew the song too! And decided to join in, awesome!

And knew it well! They actually managed to not only hit the right notes but also had the guitar’s distortion correctly tuned for how mom played it… Only they didn’t play it soullessly, like it was just a way to pass the time. They played it like someone who loved music.

I had to keep going! I’d never get the chance to play this as a duet again. Finish the intro then turn around and say hi.

Wanting to impress my fellow musician, even if they were a jerk with their teleports, I put my full concentration on my lyre. It’s not every day I get to show off to a new friend!

Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Mid Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

The hotel/hospital room faded out, and the lovely green of a lush park an eighth as nice as the Phoenix's park faded in. Along with a bench, and a group of ponies around-

Oh sweet physics no! Don’t let me appear inside someone!

As soon as that panicked thought came, the world solidified around me, with me standing two feet behind the bench. Oh man, that was way too close for comfort! The ‘safe spot to move to’ system needed to be majorly tweaked!

As I took a deep breath to still my racing heart, one of the ponies saw me, eyes instantly widening to the size of dinner plates as she gasped. “L-Lyra!”

I almost replied with the standard ‘what?’, only stopped by the fact that the pony on the bench just in front of me instantly shushed the one who just spoke.

“Shhh,” she hissed. “This is hard.”

Oh my god! I’d appeared right behind this universe's me. What to do? I should totally give her a noogie and run-

“Bon, no! Just watch… Just watch…” A blue mare urged.

That’s when I noticed another two things. All five of the other ponies were staring at me in mixtures of shock and awe, and also my counterpart was playing the opening to Dream Theater’s the Count of Tuscany.

I loved that song! Made my mom teach it to me so I could hear it live by someone who actually could play a god damn instrument without using a ‘play along with’ program. Heh, I should totally jump in with the lead guitar bit, make her jump, then when she turns around teleport away.

Hehe! Yes! So evil. I love it!

Realizing the was getting close to the moment I wanted to hijack, I quickly reached into my bag, fumbled for a moment for the guitar I’d been gifted and slid it out of the bag. With a few quick flicks of the knobs, I set things up for what I remembered as the right sound, slung the strap over my shoulder, set my fingers in position on the frets, waited…

And struck the first note right as I saw her magic start to slide on her lyre for the change up!

She jumped slightly but didn’t turn around, instead continuing to play the original melody in an expert fashion, letting me take the lead. Huh… Maybe musicians joined in on songs fairly often here? Well, no matter. She’d turn around eventually.

I kept playing, doing my best to keep up with her. She was better than me. Mostly likely due to practice. There wasn't much time for practice when I was on duty. But I could still keep up just fine. Okay, fine. I could keep up well enough.

I stopped playing as the lead guitar portion silenced, letting my counterpart take us into the second bit for the lead. The moment we were there I hit the note a fraction too late, but managed to roll through into the second portion of the intro. I only wished somepony had drums to enter with them so we could play the song properly.

The two of us kept playing for the first three minutes, the entire time she remained focused on her half of the music. I started to wonder if she intended to play the entire twenty minutes of the song before seeing who joined in, and based on their faces and postures of intense focus, so did her friends.

They sat in a semicircle around her with the same sort megafocus, as sports fans not wanting to miss a millisecond of the game. I sort of felt like I owed them the inevitable. Just before the vocal portion came up I decided to give it to them.

“You’re really good!” I said approvingly as I continued to play.

She turned around with a pleased smile. “Thanks!” She said to me turning back around and playing three more notes.

Then a string snapped on her lyre as she stopped playing to double take at what looked like light speed. Then she turned back around to look at her friends while pointing one hoof at me.

“I-i-i-is?” She managed to stammer.

“Yup!” A pale white mare with electric blue hair confirmed.

Right, time to teleport. Heh heh.

I flipped the cover of the VM open, letting the guitar drop to my side so I could reach up for the control-

“Looks like she’s teleporting,” the one called ‘Bon’ said in shock.

Lyra’s head whipped back around at that same impossible speed. In one single fluid motion, she launched from the bench like a pouncing assault drone. “Oh no you bucking don’t!” She cried.

I got my hand up as far as halfway before she tackled me to the ground. She was not only impossibly quick, but impossibly, strong, easily able to hold me in place as she separated my arms to ensure I couldn’t touch the VM.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING!?!” Lyra demanded in a tone both delighted and slightly upset.

“I have literally searched half the continent for your people!” She informed before I had a chance to even speak. “Bonbon! Take a picture! Quick! This is the one chance!”

It was then I realized I had made a severe error.

“Hard to talk with someone on my chest,” I said, hoping she would get off of me.

“Not a chance!” Lyra said firmly. “I’ve wanted to see one of you ever since my mom told me human stories as a filly! And since you exist that means you HAVE been hiding from pony kind! And so, you’re going to answer all of my questions right now so you can't vanish into thin air! Why are you hiding, by the way? Is it because the griffons hunt and eat humans myth is actually true? If they have actually hunted you to near extinction I will personally-”

“Why do you have Lyra’s mane cut and colors?” Bon asked.

“Because I’m her from an alternate universe,” I explained.

“What!?” Everyone said in unison.

“Long story. I can’t go back to my home universe, I kept hearing that you, other me, is crazy, so I thought I'd take accidently appearing near you to see for myself,” I said quickly. ‘They were right. Off please.”

I did my best to try and shake her off, but I couldn’t even move my hands. They were basically nailed to the ground.

“How the hell are you this strong?” I added.

“You answer first!” Lyra insisted, her face lighting up like a kid who had just been given infinite desert rations. “Where are you from? Is there a whole human universe? Can I go there?”

It was very clear that I’d only be let up if I played along. Sighing and giving her a nod of affirmation, I gave her the answers. “I’m from the United Americas Alliance. It’s a pretty crappy nation that existed in my home universe two hundred-and-fifty-three million years ago. I got here trying to return magic technology I found. You can probably go there but you shouldn’t because our government would dissect you for sure… We um, we’re the only sapient species on the planet… So they would probably assume you were a bioweapon and take you apart to see how you worked.”

Lyra triple blinked, frowning sadly. “That is not at all the humans I know…”

“We’re not all bad,” I said defensively. “Just our government. If it weren't for them I’d so go check it out.”

“Fair enough, ponies have evil leaders too sometimes,” Lyra said turning back to her friends, “Where is that camera!?”

“Nopony brought a camera!” A white mare with a pink mane shot back.

“Damn it! Somepony transcribe this then, please?” Lyra begged as her friends got up to cluster around the two of us.

“Why so intent on documentation?” I grunted, trying to wrestle my hands free of her hooves tight, arcane grip.

“Because you guys, like, never existed. Officially,” the white and blue mare informed, slowly shaking her head. “Hay, man… So, Lyra, you were right. I owe you how many cases of cider?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” my counterpart replied triumphantly. “But yeah, our academics insist you don’t exist. The fossils of your species are generally attributed to the ancestors of diamond dogs. I’ve even shown them some of your tech and nopony believes me. But here you are! A human. You are real! I knew it!”

Lyra suddenly gasped. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh! Clothes! Every crypto archaeologist I know ALWAYS finds clothing with your fossils. Do you always dress your dead to bury them? Morbid I know, but-”

“We always wear clothing, actually,” I answered.

My hands were starting to go numb.

“Always?” The gray and black mare asked in surprise. “Is it because it’s cold with no fur?”

“That and modesty… Can you please let me up? Your grip is like two hydraulic presses!” I demanded, starting to get angry. “If I didn’t have reinforced bones, I think you’d have crushed my wrists by now!”

Lyra frowned. “Promise not to run away? Please? I won't like, keep you prisoner in the basement or anything… Just have like, a lot a lot of questions. Oh! Like, what was your culture like? I know you can play the guitar, it’s cool we share an instrument. How did you play it?”

I sighed. “Yeah… Fine. The joke of just porting away isn’t going to work now anyways.”

The all blue mare snickered. “Oh my Luna! That would have been amazing!”

Lyra flashed me the biggest grin ever as she loosened her grip. “Heh! Okay, yeah, that would be something I would prank me with. I like you even more now. But seriously, guitar?”

“Like we were,” I answered honestly. “That’s a human song. Dream Evil. Count of Tuscany.”

She shook her head. “No, It can’t be. I learned it by ear from my mom. It’s got to be pony… Unless… Her stories… She knew!” Lyra exclaimed eyes widening. “She knew you were real and never told me! Oh, my, bucking, Celestia! My mom deserves a punch in the face.”

I winced. “Shit, I'm sorry. I guess Lyra’s just have terrible mom’s,” I sighed.

“Oh, what,” Lyra began with a huff. “So your mom knew you were obsessed with a mythical species as a filly-”

“You’re still obsessed,” all of her friends said in unison.

“-obsessed with,” Lyra corrected. “Knew they were real, and never said a word but kept feeding you bedtime stories?”

I shook my head. “No… But she would vanish for months at a time and really only thought of me as a way to get tax breaks and family housing.”

Lyra and her friends winced for me this time.

“Wow… Okay, yeah. Mine did that too,” Lyra said ears drooping sympathetically.

“Still not as bad as my mom,” the gray and black mare said in what I assumed was supposed to sound soothing, not like a one-uppers move.

I looked at her for a few long seconds.

“Oh, yes. Of course… Erm, to put it bluntly, my mom had me turned into a werewolf as a means to control me because she disapproved of my preference in romantic partners,” she elaborated.

“It’s okay,” the white and blue mare said quickly. “My dad fixed it. She’s a vampire now.”

I triple blinked. “I really, really need a field manual for this universe,” I said, shaking my head slowly.

“Oh my gosh! Are you implying that you have one for your universe!?” Lyra squealed in delight.

“No,” I groaned, trying to get the ringing out of my ears. “Would you please let me sit up?”

“Let the mare sit up, Lyra,” the white and blue mare agreed.

“Girl, woman, chick, all of those are acceptable things to call a human female,” I said as Lyra very reluctantly stepped off of me.

“Noted,” Lyra exclaimed eagerly. “Oh oh! What do you call a human male?”

“Guy, man, dude,” I answered. “Or you know, their name. You can also call me my name.”

“Oh! Right,” Lyra exclaimed as I finally got to sit up and feel the blood rush back into my hands. “What is your name?” She asked.

I triple blinked. “I’m you,” I said.

She nodded. “Right. From an awesome human dimension with a crappy government.”

“And that means my name is…” I said, waving a hand to prompt her along.

“Her names also Lyra, Lyra,” Bon groaned.

Lyra titled her head. “You have a pony name?”

“No, you have a human name,” I countered. “Heartstrings is a traditional Irish name going back two hundred years. All the way to twenty ten. Lyra’s not exactly a common name, but I’ve met two other girls with it who weren't alternant mes. Er, us-es.”

Lyra’s ears drooped again, eyes narrowing quickly. “… She gave me a mother bucking human name. Oh, my god, my dad took my mom’s name when they married. Discord’s beard! What if my mom was a-”

“It’s really rude to swear by someone's beard, you know,” a very familiar male voice said from behind me.

All of us turned around. Myself in alarm, the rest in mild surprise. Behind me stood the dragon-ish chimera god of chaos. He looked a lost less creepy than I remembered. Weird sure, but not creepy. Why? Did he just have like ‘shirts’ for different universes?

“Discord!” Lyra said excitedly. “I found a human! And you're there so you're not the human this time! Unless you can make two yous at once… Please don't be her! Can you please please please take a picture for me?”

“Oh no, that’s not me, or any of my illusions, Lyra. Just a moment, I’m on business,” Discord said in a rather honest voice before turning to look at the short but muscular stallion beside him.

The stallion looked a lot like Lyra in terms of shape, and he shared our mane colors, though his white hair was two thin stripes running side by side, not just one. He also had golden eyes, flat black fur which at first I swore was covered in soot until I noticed the gray bits here and there which looked more like a speckled gray pattern instead of ‘gray from age’. His cutiemark was in the shape of three green crystals arranged in a triangular shape on each flank that vaguely resembled a heart if you squinted at them.

Discord turned to the stallion and gestured at the two of us. “There you are, Jack. One favor over and done with. If I had known that putting up a favor as a prize for that radio contest would have been this much trouble, I would never have done it. I hope you appreciate the effort, the chaos effect required to make this happen is far more than you can imagine.”

Jack nodded the single most sincere and grateful nod I had ever seen in my life. “I appreciate it more than you will ever know. Thank you,” he replied.

Discord nodded, seemingly content. “Well, I’ll leave you alone. Ta-ta, you girls have fun,” Discord said before vanishing in a flash of light.

Lyra looked up at the stallion and blinked in confusion. “D-dad,” she stammered. “You won a wish from Discord,and used it to let me meet a human?”

The stallion sighed. “No. I… This will take some explaining,” Jack said looking at the two of us like he was going to bust out into happy tears. The fuck man?

“Three years ago I found out something about your mother when I visited a seer. She had another life. Another family… Like we suspected. But I learned most of the details. Then I won the contest, and… I- I used it to arrange a meeting between you, me, and… And your twin sister your mom never told us about.”

I felt my heart actually stop and be restarted by my not-VI.

“Excuse me?!?” I demanded in the voice of someone who just had a micro heart attack. The shocked exclamation echoed by my counterpart and every other pony present.

Jack coughed into his hoof. “I uh… I booked a dining hall at the Royal Oats. How about we all go somewhere more private and I tell everypony the whole story?”

32 Family

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Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Mid Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

“Yeah, no,” I said decisively. “You talk now!”

Lyra nodded firmly. “Yeah! What the buck, dad? You don’t just drop a bucking megaspell like that and then say ‘Let’s walk for twenty minutes then I’ll tell you more.’!”

The black stallion’s ears drooped in embarrassment. He opened his mouth to reply but was instantly cut off by a swarm of questions from Lyra’s friends. His face went from embarrassed but happy directly to outright panic as the impossible to penetrate wall of questions blasted him square in the face.

The question storm was like throwing a nutrient brick into a pack of gamma rats. Each individual word lost and distorted beyond recognition as all words present in the swarm surged and rolled over one another, making understanding or even recognising even a single one as a word truly impossible. And it went on for at least three straight minutes.

Three minutes of sitting in stunned awe for the first possible moment of silence, with myself, my counterpart, and her father completely silent. Lyra and I shared a look, silently conveying the same question to each other. A question I asked aloud the second the first pause in the storm came along.

“Hey! Shouldn’t she and I be the ones asking the questions?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” the cream colored mare answered. “But I’m her wife so I think I get to ask some too!”

The white and blue mare nodded, adjusting her glasses with a pulse of magic. “And when it comes to ‘oh hey you may have a long lost interspecies sister’, I’m pretty sure your best friends should be in the loop,” she said.

Lyra nodded. “All good points. Including human me’s. But I have an important one that I need to ask now,” Lyra said before turning to her dad. “How do you know any of this information is legitimate?”

“Good question,” I said.

Her dad took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself. What spooked him like that?

“I said I learned it from a seer, didn’t I?” He asked.

“How did you afford one?” Lyra asked suspiciously. “I mean, like, the mine wasn’t doing so well when I left home.”

“I turned it around,” he answered simply. “Without your mother’s little mind games, and once I’d gotten over her leaving it was fairly easy to get everything running smoothly again. Just took a few years hard work. I still couldn’t afford the best seer, but I did get a decent one’s services, and I also had another double check the first’s results.”

“Lost here… From a non-magical civilization,” I said quickly, not wanting to get too far behind in the conversation.

The black stallion nodded. “Right. Sorry. A Seer is a mage who specializes in viewing the past. You know, the opposite of a diviner. Those who don’t work for law enforcement can be hired provided you have enough money… It’s a difficult skill to master. Now, to be fair, their accuracy isn’t the best. But it is better than a diviner’s foresight. That’s why you get another to confirm the first reading of history. Do you understand?”

“Sort of,” I answered frowning slightly. “So like, you just get them to tell you things verbally? Or what?”

“Oh no! No, not at all. If they do just tell you some shit then you’ve been ripped off by a con artist,” Lyra insisted firmly. “I’ve gone to a few before for help with work assignments. Their spell puts you right in the middle of a full replica of what happened… But it’s not like really being there. Colors can be wrong, it might be just all shades of gray. Shapes can be distorted. The sounds of things can be off… It’s a spell that’s more art the science.”

Oh. Well shit. That was pretty damn impressive. “They can construct crude replicas of past events as AR projections,” I said to myself. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Yes, and the picture is clearer if you have objects which were there at the time,” Jack added. “That’s why the guard employs most of them. Even terribly degraded scrying crystal records are better than only logic, detective work, and sketchy testimonies.

“And in this case, while everything was a little hard to see, I did see enough to know the truth. But I didn’t come and get you a few months ago, did I, Lyra? No. I waited until someone who had physically verified that yes, a human named Lyra exists in this reality, was able to get her here. I waited to get actual confirmation. Everything is most definitely true.

“Which is why we shouldn’t discuss this in public. I have a nice dinner already paid for… And it could go bad. I um, I really honestly couldn’t find out if you still eat pony food, Ly. So I stopped by a blood bank to have everything available. I would rather not waste all that money if the ice melts…”

“Blood bank?” I asked curiously.

Everypony besides Jackrock and I turned to face the white mare with the blue mane. “Your turn, Vinyl,” he said flatly.

Vinyl nodded. “Yep, I remember. Octy’s next. Mister Heartstrings, we can eat normal food if we want to. Thank you for being considerate, I haven't eaten this week yet. So you know, that’s really cool of you.

“Right, Lyra who is possibly our Lyra’s sister…” She paused for a second to take a deep breath then quickly rambled. “So my dad happens to be the first vampire because of an accident in mage’s college thousand of years ago. I’m his like, actual normal kid. You know, made by banging a mare not by biting somepony. So I grew up from day one as a vamp.

“Then I meet Octy, and we get married. I don't want to out live her, so I turn her. Like you do. She didn’t grow up a vampire, which means she should have stayed in Hollow shades for a few months to get used to everything. But… Yeah… I bucked up there and we went back home. Then a week later we’re having a party, playing some Twister, and Bonbon beats Octy hooves down and goes ‘Ha! Bite me.’ as a victory cry. So Octy did. Because that's what young vamps do. They have poor impulse control.

“Then later that night Bonbon bit our Lyra in her sleep. Personally I think they were boning and the 'sleep' thing is a means to cover up their kinks which won't work because we all know, we've gone camping before and they probably haven't connected the fact that I can't get drunk but fake being drunk to look normal with our friendship's history."

I noticed both the cream colored mare and Lyra’s ears stand up as they both gave Vinyl an alarmed stare of disbelief.

"Oh my Celestia, she's right! She doesn't get drunk!" The cream mare groaned.

Vinyl gave them both a grin. "Sorry, been wanting to point that out to them for a while. Anyways, so I took everypony besides Meep and Cole back to my dad’s for a few months to get their heads straight. Because they’re not vampires, but the rest of us are. Also, we have to explain this a lot. Like, a lot a lot. So please don't ask again. Okay?”

“That seems like a boring enough explanation for a group of six vampires that happen to be friends to be true,” I decided.

“Four,” Lyra corrected. “Cole’s half windigo and Meep’s a changeling. Well, no, wait… That makes them kind of vampires sort of.”

Huh. I’d never thought about anyone being a changeling. I wonder how many people actually were changelings? It had to be a decently high percentage. Also, the fuck is a windigo?

The white and pink mare nodded sagely. “True. I eat emotions, she eats heat… We’re kinda like vampires. A bit. But yeah. None of us are normal ponies. It was pretty hilarious when we- Uh, look, long funny story. But we’re getting off track.”

And no info on what a windigo is. Fuck! I REALLY needed some sort of manual for this world. Badly. Very badly.

“Right. We are,” Jack said firmly. “So if everyone would kindly follow me to the Royal Oats, I’ll explain everything.”

“Well… He does have proof. And this will be an awkward conversation,” I said to the other me.

Or possibly my sister.

She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

It suddenly occurred to me that this could take a while. I should let Shy know not to worry.

“One second,” I said flipping the VM’s cover open and pressing the key to bring up the HUD. “I should tell my marefriend I’ll be back late. I can’t read your language, does this have a radio?”

“Uh, yeah,” Vinyl said, pressing a button for me. “Who is she? This is the list of people it knows how to ca- Oh. So like, you never linked any other messengers to this. It’s got the default stuff only.”

That meant it would call Sky’s tech support! Or him directly, since it was a prototype.

“Which one says ‘Sky’?” I asked.

She pressed another button for me. The VM hummed a few times then Sky’s voice asked, “Hello?”

“Hey Sky, It’s Lyra. The one with the feet,” I said awkwardly. “Sooo I ran into myself. And maybe my dad. I’m going to be late, can you tell Shy not to worry?”

“Will do. Good luck with yoursel- Wait, your dad?!” Sky asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” I informed closing the cover.

At that point, the reality of the situation came crashing down on me. I had an alien from the future insisting they were my dad, and I’d never known my dad. Like, at all. Nor had my grandparents. It was entirely possible that he could be my dad for all I know. I mean, dimensional travel was totally possible after all. And so was extremely long time travel.

There was a lot of little things left to think about and to review. Just because those few things didn’t make it impossible didn’t mean something else made it an impossibility. I started to play back everything I could remember relating to any mention of my dad back to myself.

The memory searching consumed the entire walk. An impressive feat because Lyra wasn’t being facetious. It did take twenty minutes to reach the large hotel. Unfortunately, the soul searching meant I really didn’t take in much of the building itself. I just sort of walked in and followed everyone down a hallway to a large, fancy as fuck, high-ceilinged, crystal chandeliered, epic fireplace having, dark wood paneled, huge ass dining room.

Judging by the really fucking expensive looking carved furniture, and the fact that this room had actual real physical curtains (an impossibly rare thing in my experience) this place had to be really fucking ritzy. Like, a General’s estate ritzy.

I sincerely regretted not getting a real look at the outside. It had to be beautiful.

Everyone took a seat around the long rectangular table. Everyone but me that is. Because of hight reasons. If I sat down my knees would be at the table top’s hight and it would be really uncomfortable to reach anything on the table. Which sucked because there was a ton of fruit and pies, and other cool looking stuff I had never seen before.

Also a literal IV bag inside a bucket of ice with wine glasses. But I was ignoring that.

As I pondered taking a spare chair and putting it on top of the table to use as a properly tall table, Jack looked over at me and slowly shook his head.

“Kid, just sit on the floor,” He said in a tone that implied I was an idiot.

“Ah, yes. Good plan,” I mumbled, cheeks flushing pink in embarrassment as I moved the chair aside and sat down cross legged on the floor.

Lyra looked over as i sat, frowning curiously. “Uh, do humans not sit like this? This isn’t fictional is it?” She asked.

I looked over, noticing her sitting biped style atop the stool rather than sort of hunching her back legs up dog style and resting atop the chair like everyone else.

“No, we do. In chairs, or on things. This is just more comfortable on flat surfaces,” I explained. Then I turned to face my surprisingly possible dad. “Let’s talk.”

He nodded, taking a breath to get himself ready. “I don’t like talking about her, for a large number of reasons. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to tell you everything now. Starting with how I met her. Is that alright?”

“So long as explaining how you met my mother doesn't take like, nine seasons and two hundred and eight episodes,” I joked, hoping to ease the tension.

Then I immediately facepalmed, realizing no one at the table would even get that joke’s basic idea.

“Was that a joke?” Lyra asked me.

“Skip it,” I groaned. “Go ahead and tell it. I don’t mind.”

Jackrock nodded gratefully. “Thank you,” he began. “I’ll keep it short. I don't like talking about her either. But it’s important. Please don’t interupt me, this is a hard story to tell.”

I nodded. “No problem,” I said, similar words coming from everyone at the table.

<VI, record everything about to be said, please,> I ordered.

<Writing to permanent memory…> I replied back.

“I was at a very low point in my life,” possible Dad said. “A lot of people find joy in wealth, but I never really did. It never mattered how much my mine brought in for me. To me, well, it’s not the bits, it’s what you can use them on. Even worse, what I wanted to spend them on was a family.

“I wasn’t really wealthy enough to be swarmed by mares, and well, stallions aren't my thing. Back then I lived in Stonebrook, a smaller city. It’s where the mine is. There wasn’t exactly a large population of potential mates, and the ones who responded to my advances always turned out to only be interested in my money. It had been that way for a decade.

“Then, one day, a foreman comes into my office and says there was an explosion in one of the deeper mine shafts. I’m fully braced for a bad day, and I got it. I spent the whole day managing the rescue operation. The whole damn day… It was bad. We lost fifty miners. We never knew what caused the explosion, especially since that shaft had been inspected the previous day.

“I know now… And well, I’ve filed a warrant for arrest. But that’s not important right now. What is important is while I was making sure all the workers had gone home and all of the injured had been evacuated before I left myself, I bump into a mint furred, peach maned mare who seemed a bit drunk. Hard time balancing on her hooves, not using her magic to move the ore cart she was pushing… That sort of thing.

“I didn’t recognise her as a worker, but it’s not possible to know everypony by their face or cutiemark in a large operation, so I assumed she was a worker. I called out, telling her that there’s no need to move things to storage. We’ll take care of it tomorrow morning before redigging the collapsed shaft. She panics, yells something in total gibberish and ducks down like she’s expecting me to lance a spellbolt through her skull.

“I figured she had gotten hit in the head pretty badly, so I got some healer’s attention, they tranquilized her and took her to the hospital. I figured I would never see her again. I was wrong. I saw her again three month's later. Again right at the end of the day. She could speak this time, I asked her if she was doing better, she said yes, the docs fixed her voice and not to worry she’d take care of the loose ore carts in this sector for me.

“I refused to let her do it alone, explained I was the owner, and I wasn’t going to make someone work over time if I wasn’t too. We locked everything up in the warehouse. She seemed pissed so I offered to get her a coffee and… Well we hit it off. Or so I had thought.

“She kept showing up. Once every few weeks. I started buying her trinkets… I liked her. She came across as incredibly nice and caring. She asked me about the mine and my work, but also how I was feeling and about me personally. She seemed sincere… And she seemed to be a hard worker. Always the last one out of the mine. After a while, I asked if she would marry me. We hadn’t even officially been dating, but she said yes immediately.

“I had friends tell me I was an idiot, and she was clearly gold digging, but it didn’t matter. She had me hooked good. The second we were married, she stayed overall nice, but the mind games began. The abuse started small, but ramped up very heavily towards the end of our relationship.
It would range from anything to her insulting my friends to calling me stupid, neurotic, worthless… But she still seemed to like me, fixing me meals she knew I liked, spending time, asking caring questions.

“It’s hard to describe. I think you’d need someone to do it to you. But she made me feel like the problem was me not her. I tried to change to be better for her. But it did nothing. She blamed a lot of things on me even if it wasn't my fault. If I pointed out flaws in her logic or things that she would do that hindered my attempts to fix our relationship problems, well, she would try to turn it back on me. And usually did.

“I got to an emotionally low point where I would go to work sit there, barely manage anything and then go back home and lay in bed until I got hungry or would have to go to work again. Then she said she was pregnant. I was delighted, I thought a foal would turn everything around. Parents have to get along for their kid’s sake, right?

“Didn’t happen. The entire time she was pregnant, nothing but hell. Every single day I was getting her something to try and make her happy, and every time she made me feel like shit for trying, but also like scum if I didn’t try. Then when it came time for her to have the foal, she vanished.

“Gone. Completely. No trace. I spent two weeks in a total emotional breakdown. I was so happy when she came back with a little foal with my mane colors and eyes that I didn’t even care she had left me. I never asked where she had gone. I never asked where all the gifts I had given her disappeared to ether.

“She stayed with me for another fifteen years. And I could see how she really was then. Because of Lyra… Tartarus, kid, you know she used you to make people look on her more favorably as a mother, or to get better seats at events, or discounts on things. Everything was a tool to that… That bitch. Even me.”

Yeah. That sounded like my mom. But plenty of women were like that in my experience…

Jack paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “She also vanished all the time. Sometimes for months. She called them vacations, and would scream at me whenever I questioned her about them. After a while, I felt it just wasn’t worth asking. I knew she had to be having an affair, but I wasn't mad. I was just sorry for the poor stallion she’d snared.

“But even knowing that, and feeling like I did… I couldn’t leave her. I felt like she owned me. Like a possession. Then, my Lyra turns fifteen. Her mom is all excited and makes a huge show of planning a massive party. I knew something was up, but figured she was trying to exploit the milestone birthday for profit. We’d just moved to Canterlot, at her insistence. It was the fancy place to be and I was just her pocketbook… Er, sorry, off point there.

“Her mom never shows up to her birthday party. Or ever again. She vanished. For good. Took half of my savings with her. Physically. As in, went to the bank, got them in cartloads and left. Every trinket, every enchanted item, everything of value I’d gotten her in the last fifteen years, all gone. Took me a long time to get my head on straight again. I’m only recently fully okay… But here’s the part of this that involves you,” Jack said pointing a hoof to me.

I nodded again. “I’m still listening.”

“I finally decided I should go after that bitch, bring the law down on her. So I hired a seer. Asked them to tell me where my ex-wife had vanished too,” Jack said shaking his head slowly. “That seer failed to do much. But he did manage to show me she worked for an company the entire time she had known me. The name wasn’t in any language I knew of… And I still can pronounce it. So I memorised their logo. This logo.”

Jack’s horn shimmered with a gold aura as he projected an image into the air, the magic replicating a hologram perfectly. Hell, maybe that’s how Sky did his holograms. But more importantly-

I sputtered, standing up by reflex. “Okay, yeah, he’s right!” I exclaimed in shock as I stared at the stylized hand-grasping-three-stars logo of Varia Industries.

My mom worked for Varia Industries. At their Mars base. In the no-comms zone. Where they apparently did most of their R&D. To produce next level devices leagues above their competition.

Jack nodded slowly. “I thought you’d recognise it.”

The image vanished. The table erupted into a maelstrom of questions. The roaring boil of words reached a fever pitch before Lyra jumped onto the table, stood up on her hind legs and shouted, “QUIET!”

Turning quickly to me Lyra asked. “Why does that image make dad’s story true?”

“It’s the logo for Varia Industries,” I explained. “They make tech. Better tech than anyone else, and are very secretive about everything. So much so that they use colonies on other celestial bodies for their labs. My mom works for them. And she was almost never around. Gone for months at a time. She basically ditched my with my grandparents.

“Unless your dad’s been dimention hopping, the only way he could see that logo is if seers can do what you say they can. And you know, the time gone adds up. Also I never knew who my dad was, and my mom said he died but it’s okay because he was an idiot and an asshole that I’d never have liked anyways.”

Jackrock’s ears fell so fast I couldn’t see them move. I winced and gave him a sympathetic look.

“I-I’m pretty sure you’re right. But um, I’m going to remain skeptical until you finish the story. But for the record, you seem nice,” I said honestly.

Lyra took a deep breath. “Right, before dad continues… If you asked her a question in a public place, how would she answer it?” Lyra asked.

“To the best of her ability,” I answered. “Let me guess, if you asked her something in private she’d tell you to fuck off and find out yourself? Or purposely tell you the wrong answer, then quiz you later in public just so she could correct you and look like a parent who cared about their kid’s learning?”

Lyra winced. “Luna’s mane. We probably are sisters…”

Jack nodded. “May I finish?” He asked.

I nodded. “Please.”

“I took the logo, and I used it to give another seer a thing to search for besides my memories of her,” Jackrock resumed. “This is what we found out. The ‘mare’ I’d married was not a pony. She was a human working for a company who had stumbled onto one of the rare natural portals linking worlds. Much like ones to tartarus, or other sub realms. Only this one bridges Equis, and her world.

“Like all of these portals, though I don't know the reason, I’m not a wizard, crossing through one transforms you into a member of the species living closest to the other end of the portal. Simply by coming to our world, your mother gained a pony body, and returned to her human form when she went back through. You’d think she would have told her superiors about finding a new world with life on it. She did not.

“She lied, told everyone it was a dead world, but there were ruins in the distance, unfortunately she also lied, the portal seemed unstable so it wouldn’t be wise to send more than one person through it. Her employers allowed her to go back in, and she spent some time exploring… Eventually finding my mine. Apparently, gemstones are much more abundant in Equis than her home. Because she started stealing small amounts of gems, taking them back.

“She stole a bit of charged quartz, a thing my mine is known for. Basically natural occurring mage gems. Her employers wanted more of it, and offered her a commission per piece. She said she could get it but would need explosives to clear rubble. They gave her some. She caused that explosion in the mine to create enough chaos to make it off with a whole cart load of the stuff.”

I shook my head slowly. “No! She couldn’t have. She’s not that fucking evil!”

“She did,” Jack said bitterly, looking like he wanted to spit in disgust. “If you don't believe me, I can show you a recording of the events as captured by the seer later… It's in my safe at home. I should have brought that. Buck!”

I felt I was pretty good at spotting a lie. Plenty of practice over the years. The anger and look of ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!’ on the stallion's face had me very sure he honestly did forget it.

“Look… For now, I am sure you can believe she would steal from an ‘alien’ mine for her own gain. Right?” He asked.

I nodded. “That, I can completely believe.”

Mom was the definition of self-interested.

“She spent two weeks in the hospital,” Jack resumed. “Her employers thought she had died and were getting ready to send someone else through when she came back. They were shocked, and she had stolen a simple healing charm from the hospital. She told them she fell during a landslide, but managed to make her way back and had picked up the charm in a tomb she found along the way. They bought the lie, or didn’t care because they had the first enchanted item your species had ever seen.

“She promised them she could get more, but got them to agree that only she could go through. Not only did she know the risks and the terrain, but she had been very successful thus far. And she wanted the glory to herself. She got it because she slept with her boss to seal the deal.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I knew she did stuff like that,” I muttered.

He didn’t need to finish. Aside from the terrorist bombing, yeah… This was my mom. To a T.

And a dark thought in the back of my mind did have me realizing I didn’t know much about what she did at work. That bombing could be in her character and I’d never know… Maybe I just didn’t believe she would do that because she was my mom and thus biologically I wanted to love her because instinct. The rest of his story fit spot on.

“That’s why she married me. Every last little gift I got her, all of it, she turned over to them for cash,” Jack sighed. “When she got pregnant… Well… iI just so happened she had twins. And realized that your world gives parents additional resources. So does ours, and both our worlds offer extra social standing to parents. So she split the two of you up. Left you there with her parents, and brought the Lyra I raised back to me to keep milking me for gifts.

“She’s still on this world somewhere. She left me when Lyra turned fifteen because she knew I was getting close to kicking her to the curb. If I knew where her portal was, I’d have it staked out… But that’s something for the future.

“I had no idea of what to do with this information. So I told everything to my friend Chance, he’s always good at giving me advice on what to do. He told me that Discord had put up one favor as a prize for a radio call in contest, and if I won it I should use it to get to meet my other daughter. I called in, and to my shock, I won! I asked the favor, and it took a long, long time, but here we are.

“Right now, I’m just happy to meet the filly I never knew I had,” he finished with a shy but genuinely happy smile.

I sat for a few moments after he finished talking. Thinking everything through. Trying to tell if I believed him or not.

His story did add up. And he did know the logo of my mom’s company. But there was more to it than that.

With the HUGE time range the VM had, it’s possible I was in this universe before, but in the distant past. If I had been, that might explain why Moonbutt’s universe had felt, well… Like a home to me. It would also explain what Starswirl had said about me.

It would explain why I was ‘time displaced’. Because I had been raised and lived way way way before I was conceived. And if natural portals transformed you when you went through them, then I would definitely be completely genetically human because on Earth, there were only humans…

Yeah, it all added up pretty solidly.

“So, sis,” Lyra said awkwardly, “are you aware that lie detecting magic is a thing?”

I nodded. “Yeah, It’s been used on me… He didn’t lie once, did he?”

She shook her head. “Nope. So yeah…”

The cream colored mare shook her head. “For the six of us, this is pretty normal. Long lost sister in another dimension,” she said to the oddly quiet room. “But what’s really weird here is Lyra isn’t hugging the crap out of her human sister so hard she injures her.”

“I’m holding it in,” Lyra admitted, voice admittedly sounding a little strained. “You should hug dad first. Cuz I mean, shit… Three seers is expensive.”

“Not sure we’re at the hugging stage,” I said outloud, instantly regretting that as I saw the words smother the soul right out of the poor stallion.

I heard a fork drop to the floor. The room had gone deathly quiet.

That look, that totally emotionally destroyed look. Oh god, I could only ever feel that bad if I had hurt grampa’s feelings. I stood up.

“Now I’m sure,” I said.

I walked around the table, knelt down, and wrapped my arms around the stallion in a tight hug. “Sorry um, old man? Is that okay to call you?” I asked.

He pulled me close with both forearms. “It’s more than okay to call me that,” he answered.

“This doesn't feel awkward,” I said sincerely. “We’re definitely at the hugging stage.”

Hopefully that would cover that social blund-

I felt another pair of arms wrap around me, basically squeezing my guts into a single solid block of compressed tissue.

“Urk!” I gasped.

“I have a sister!” Lyra squealed in delight. “Oh my gosh you need to tell me all of the things! All of them! We should have a sleepover and just talk and all sorts of stuff! I’ll have Bonbon make candy, and um, you're my sis, so it’s a bit weird but would you mind if I tried some of your blood? To see what human tastes like? Oh! You’ll need to meet all my friends! Their names are Bonbon-”

“I have,” I gasped, “a sister, named… Bonbon. And a marefriend. We're moving into our new home… Tonight.”

Dad’s ears stood up in surprise as he let go of me and took a step back to a conversation appropriate distance. “You do? Would you like a house warming party? I can arrange one soon as you want one,” he offered.

“That would be cool,” I gasped. “Lyra… I don't know if you need to, but I need to breathe…”

Lyra loosened her grip. Slightly.

“Better?” she asked.

“A bit,” I gasped.

“So where do you live? And who are you with?” Dad asked.

“Emerald Hive. Sky got me a place. Alternate universe's Fluttershy. She’s nice… And also an android. Which is hot,” I said because the being squished had my brain just a bit fuzzy.

Lyra let go of me and literally skipped excitedly around the room chanting. “Yes! Yes yes yes yes!”

“Wait did she say she was dating an android?” Someone asked.

I turned to her Bonbon, frowning awkwardly. “Um, why is she doing that?” I asked.

“She’s been wanting to go there for years, Sky said no. He’s a head of engineering, so he has the authority to ban ponies from the Hive. They’ve got a frenemies thing going… It’s dumb. Point is, Sky’s a dick but not an asshole. He’s not going to keep her ban up if she has a sister living there. Great, she’s going to be like this for-”

“At least ten minutes,” dad finished for her.

“Yeah,” Bonbon agreed. “She’s lucky she’s so cute.”

I shook my head, and watched my newfound, actual sister, ‘happy about’ for lack of a better term.

“It’s okay,” I announced a sure fire plan for getting her to calm down a bit. “I’ll get her to stop.”

I whistled sharply, Lyra snapped her head around to look at me. “Huh?”

“Check this out,” I said, deploying my wings with a loud metallic click.

I never saw her move. I did feel myself hit the floor as I was tackled. “That is amazing! How do they work? Holy crap these are attached to you! Who did this? How fast can you fly?”

That was a terrible plan! Fuck you, brain.

Dad snickered, then laughed. “Yep! Definitely Lyra’s twin. Well, while that happens, everypony else, let’s finish off this food. Once we’re done, they should be done, ish, and we can pick my little girl up some household goods for her new place. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” I answered. Suddenly I felt something bite my right wing tip. “OW! Lyra those are tied into my nervous system!”

“Sorry!” she apologised.

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Fluttershy - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Mid Afternoon

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

After Sky and Lyra had left, I spent a little more time at lunch with Ayna and Trixie. I liked them, they were very friendly ponies, if weird in their own way. Which is good! If everypony were normal the world would be very boring.

But as fun as talking to them and learning about the world was, I am still me. I can’t do too much talking to ponies I don't know for too long. It’s like running. A pony can only run for so long.

And for once, the ponies I was talking to completely understood! Ayna looked over at Trixie as I started to reply less and less and actually said, ‘We hit her socializing limit, hun.’ To which Trixie actually replied, ‘Oh! Ay has her limit too, but it’s bigger than yours. Here,’ then gave me the frequency of her messenger gem to use when I wanted to talk later and suggested Ayna lead Bon and I to our cabin.

Not even my friends back home were that considerate. And they knew me for years! It was amazing. Especially since Ayna didn’t try to make small talk while she led me through the hallway to the cabin we had been assigned. I was alone with my thoughts, free to recover from the hour of conversation.

I was going to fit in well here.

I must admit I was just a little irritated at Lyra for basically leaving me to set up a new house on my own. With a young child to look after on top of everything else. But I was there when Doctor Hooves diagnosed her, and well… Medically necessary operations are pretty important. You can’t blame someone for getting one as soon as they can.

Unless they are me. I could probably go a week or two with a broken part. Well, unless it was the brain. Hum… Yes, Lyra is definitely immune to being upset with here.

Not that I would be too upset. It’s mostly just that setting up an entire home is well, hard! Especially when you are doing it with someone you’ve known for just over a month. I knew a lot about Lyra, but not, say, what color she might prefer for curtains.

Then again, I could just make everything the way I like it and she could simply use her AR to tweak how she sees the colors and patterns and general decorations. Oh my goodness! That must totally be how her people do it! They just get like, plain white boxes for furniture and then decorate as necessary with the mental images. As long as all of the functional parts were there it wouldn’t matter how it looked because everyone could make it look how they wanted.

No wonder she thought Pony made things were a bit weird! All of our stuff is designed with form and function in mind. It would be a lot harder to make a bookshelf we made look different by changing its colors and textures. Especially since earth ponies grow trees with specific wood grains to form decorations on furniture later.

Which meant if I decorated the room in a way she could use, then I would be stuck with boring plain white function only furnishings.

Ponyfeathers.

“Are you okay?” Ayna asked, looking over her shoulder with a frown. “You taste kinda sad.”

Her words caught me by surprise. “Um, you can taste my emotions? I mean I know what changelings are but, uh, I mean I am an equoid.”

Ayna stopped and turned around to face me. “I thought that meant ‘brain bucket cyborg’. I take it that’s not correct. Can you explain what it means?” She asked politely.

“Um, well… I’m entirely inorganic. Even the brain. I’m not too good with technology, so I don’t know the proper words. Um, I’m a pony who was dead, revived into an entirely synthetic body,” I replied, hoping she understood.

“Okay, so, a consciousness transfer… Huh, well yeah, it is weird that I can taste your emotions then. You must be built to like, EXACTLY mimic a pony. That’s pretty cool,” she mused, turning back around. “At any rate, if you were worried about not really being alive, well, now we know!”

I giggled. “I wasn’t worried about that. But it is nice to know that organic changelings can sense us. It’s like um… Peer review!”

Ayna nodded. “Mhm, but anyways, that's sad. Why?”

“Oh,” I paused for a moment, stitching the right words together in my head. “I’m just worrying about decoration. Lyra’s not here, and Bon might want-”

“Skettios!” Bon exclaimed from behind me.

“Maybe later,” I replied reflexively before continuing. “Specific things too… I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well, she’ll be back soon. Just get a couch printed up and chill for a bit, then get to the nitty gritty. You’ll need credits for anything non-basic anyways,” Ayna poorly explained.

“Er, printed?” I asked with a frown.

“Oh… Um, I’ll show you, we’re almost there,” Ayna informed as we turned a corner into a wider hallway which had a nice green paint to give its walls a feeling of homey warmth.

The hallway wasn't empty either. Plenty of changelings and a few ponies were walking to and from their own apartments, um, cabins, and there were even a few smaller circular spaces that made the hallway even wider with benches to sit on. I could see some ponies they're having conversations of just reading a book.

From what I could see, this hallway branched off into other smaller hallways every so often, which led to rows of four rooms each. Making the big hall way we were in now sort of like a river, with the smaller ones being the tributaries.

“You’re in Cabin Four-Two-Four-One,” Ayna said, trotting down the hallway on the left hoof side.

“Alright, is there anything important to know about-”

“Yes,” Ayna replied immediately. “Across the hallway is Cabin Four-Two-Four-Two. It is rented to a certain foreign noble as a ‘vacation from politics and other bullshit’ home. You will recognize her on sight- Oh. Right… Other universe, er, do you have Alicorns?”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s not Celestia’s is it? I know she has a house in Ponyville for that reason you mentioned. At least ours does.”

“No, Luna’s,” Ayna corrected. “It’s only important to mention because this is a place for her to get away from politics. So if you see her around, no using her title, and no idol worship. Just treat her like a normal pony. Everyling and pone here already do. Can you do that?”

I nodded quickly. “Yes. Thanks for letting me know, I would have used her title. Um, ours is different. She would insist on it. Is there anything else about the cabin?”

“No. Nothing atypical,” Ayna said, stopping at a white sliding double door set into the wall. Turning to face it, she held a hoof out to touch the door panel tapping it twice. “Touch the panel, please,” she requested.

I did, and the panel flashed green in response.

“That’s your ‘key’,” Ayna said happily. “Just do the same for anyone you want to have access to the room. I would delete myself from the lock’s memory, but um, yeah… Not allowed to. Bridge crew have to be able to access any door.”

“That’s okay, um, fire services and police can get in too, right?” I asked.

Ayna nodded. “Naturally. And if they can't open the door they’ll just break it. Emergencies are emergencies. Tap it again, let’s take you two on the tour.”

The tour was brief, but it showed me everything I needed to know. Cabin didn’t quite cut it. This was a small house.

The Cabin was divided into three equal sized sections. The one you entered immediately was a large room with a bar-counter divider to split it into a living room and a kitchen. While undecorated, it was a nice large room and felt very homey. To my delight, you could see out into the lovely Commons garden through an illusion spell built into the wall next to the door so it looks like the view out a window! There were even sunbeams that came through as if the garden was really on the other side of the wall instead of the hallway you entered from.

The third of the apartment on the right side of the Cabin was a large master bedroom, with its own large bathroom and walk-in closet. A closet the size of my old bedroom! It wasn’t that the Cabin was massive, it was maybe as big as the apartment Rarity had atop the Carousel Boutique. But my own little house had been quite tiny. It would have fit inside the living/kitchen area and the master bedroom section with just a little room to spare.

Which was good. My old home was cozy, but it would not really be comfortable for three.

As an added bonus, the master bedroom was soundproofed for reasons of, ‘family housing should not ignore adult needs’. Then we showed Bon how to use the doorbell on the master bedroom's door. Which locked. Now that was a much-appreciated feature.

The other third of the Cabin consisted of many smaller rooms, including another bedroom. Since it was perfect for Bon, I told her it was her new room. The adorable little thing honestly didn't understand what that meant. It took Ayna and I nearly fifteen minutes to explain to her that she had a place that was hers, to be customized and lived in. Once she got it, the idea stuck with her and she spent the rest of the tour slithering about her new room excitedly chattering about what to do with it.

I decided to not tell her that a tree wouldn't fit in the room...

That third also held a common bathroom, and a small utility room. The interesting things were in the utility room. Mostly because of the small conjurer, which Ayna spent about ten minutes showing me how to work.

I knew that Twilight had been talking about the devices existing in theory, and I could see why she insisted they were a game changer for many things. Basically, they let non-mages use conjuration spells to create things. The downsides being twofold. First, the Emeralds made it so you had to pay for the service since the energy for the spell to work came from the ship’s limited daily supply. Second, the things each individual unit could make were limited. Each device had ‘cards’ you stuck in it which contained the instructions for each individual conjuration spell it could cast for you.

That meant I couldn’t just pull anything out of my imagination and have it made then and there. But it was still useful, especially because basic food item cards were already installed! It was like having a small market in your own house.

But still, it was basically useless without a job and money in the Phoenix's bank account, it did have something which could be made for free. Like simple sleeping ‘mats’ and bedding, very basic furniture… Nothing very ‘nice’ or even high quality. But we could have everything needed to furnish a home comfortably right away. Just, you know, only with things we would definitely want to replace as soon as possible.

After showing me how the conjurer worked, she then showed me how to use the illusion-window-thingie. It could be temporarily turned into a pretty sophisticated map that also provided directions, look up places that provided goods or services… A lot of things. Almost too much to take in.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised they even had normal markets still. Why have those if you can make a device that makes anything you can give it instructions for? But then I thought about it some more and I realized that ponies like to do things. Just sitting around doing nothing is boring, some changelings or ponies liked to make tables and chairs. Of course, there would still be shops! Especially since you still had to pay for things you ‘printed’ as Ayna called it.

Her explanation was stopped briefly as she frowned, holding her hoof out for a moment in a ‘wait’ gesture.

“Sorry about that,” Ayna apologized. “Sky called. Apparently, Lyra will be later than we thought.”

Oh no! Please be okay!

“Did he say why? It’s not anything bad is it?” I asked urgently.

Ayna paused for a moment, then shook her head. “She’s apparently fine, but ran into someone. … I really hate playing the messenger, do you have a radio?” She asked.

I nodded.

“Awesome, let's get you into the comms network, I’ll give you Lyra’s frequency and then we can just not have me relaying messages,” Ayna said in relief.

We spent a few minutes getting me logged into the ship. I didn’t think my radio could do it, but apparently with a little tweaking it was able to tap into the Phoenix's own transmitter and stuff. It would be nice to be able to call anypony I knew. And especially Lyra.

Not that I was going to right away. A good relationship needs trust, or so everypony told me. I would let her go do her thing and trust her to tell me about it later.

Once we were done, Ayna nodded in satisfaction. “Right, that’s that. Now I have to go track down Bonbon and get her to her own room. It’s just down the hall. We figured we’d split you guys off… I mean, I’d find it weird if Sky and Pinkie roomed with me. Siblings shouldn’t have to be roomies and such.”

“I appreciate that,” I thanked. “Um, one last question…”

“Mmm?” the changeling asked.

“It, um, it doesn't look like a lot of changelings here know about dimensional travelers,” I said timidly. “I uh, I don't know if you want me to pretend to be this universe's Shy, or a changeling, or just let everypony know…”

“Oh! Good point,” Ayna exclaimed, biting her lip in thought. “Well, you are very uncommon here. So it’s more like people just don't know that you can travel between alternate realities. It would be dumb to have you claim to be a changeling. We do have a few who prefer to stay morphed, but you won't fool a changeling by claiming to be one of us.

“Lyra will have to be explained that way, and you can do that if you want to. But if you want to avoid the attention, just say you’re an android and you were designed the way you look. It’s not a lie, and you’ll probably get a few hugs. Emeralds are universally geeks, you see?”

“Okay!” I said happily, deciding to go with her route. No need to get too convoluted with everypony.

“Hell, just say my brother built you and everyone will not even question you further. Right, I’m going to go now. Feel free to call me or Trixie if you need anything,” Ayna said as she slipped out of the door, leaving Bon and I alone. “Later.”

“Goodbye,” I said, the doors sliding shut, leaving Bon and I to set up the Cabin with the basics.

The two of us spent a few hours getting those basics together. For a young person, Bon really enjoyed helping others. And actually helping. Not foal helping, where you give them a toy hammer and ask them to bang on something for you. Bon actually liked to help, especially with moving things.

I wondered if maybe it was just a species instinct to help. Or if she simply enjoyed it as an individual. I’d have to get some books on Lamias. I knew enough about them to fight one, but raising them is a completely different matter.

Except for the tips on how to survive wrestling with one. I still remembered her pouncing Lyra and I a few weeks ago. Those tips would be very useful.

Since most of the furniture we could print needed to be put together, she couldn’t help with everything. Though Bon did enjoy passing me parts too. After a few hours, we had a couch, a dining table with two chairs (Bon didn’t want one), basic eating utensils and kitchenware, and blankets for everyone.

But that was it. Still, at least it wouldn’t be a night on the floor!

With all of the rooms set up as best as the two of us could get them, I took Bon into her new room and told her stories until she fell asleep. Thank goodness she seemed to like sleeping almost as much as a cat. It would leave Lyra and I with plenty of time to ourselves.

Whenever she got home at least. Oh gosh! Do I really think of this place as home already?

Yes. Yes, I did. Why?

The park. One hundred percent that park. I should really see about finding somepony who can get me a job as a groundskeeper. Yes. Things were looking up. I was going to love it here.

Lyra Heartstrings - 5th of Megan 17 EoH - Evening

Multiverse Location: The Prime, Equis #0B

I felt very lucky. Not only because I had found people who even if I wasn’t actually family (Though I was pretty damn sure they were now.), they treated me like I was. No, that was a bonus.

Right now I was on my way home. Walking through a starship. Guided to my home inside that starship by an AI. While carrying three large duffle bags of stuff for living in a home. Stuff that my dad had got me.

That was both a strange phrase, and a wonderful one. I had a dad. He got me stuff. The first time that ever happened. How could I not smile?

Hell, he’d gotten me stuff and my girlfriend stuff! Literally, first thing after setting foot inside a pony shop, ‘Hey, what’s your mare like? We’ll get her some stuff too. She’ll need shampoo and fur wash. Know what scents she likes?’

Ponies are so fucking nice. I’d need to do something nice for him, and soon.

I’d also need to invite my sister to meet my Bonbon. Also, dad should meet his grandkid. Grandsnake? Yes. Grandsnake. Heh, that was hilariously cute.

“On your left,” Sai said over the VM. “Number Four-Two-Four-One.”

“Thanks, Sai,” I replied.

I looked down the hall to my left, spotted the door number and paused for a moment, not quite wanting to touch the door panel. Just in case.

I mean, I know Sky said she was disassembled… But yeah, let’s not fuck up this really good day. Because knowing my luck over the last month and a half...

Deciding to knock on the door instead. I raised my fist and gave the door a few good smacks. After a few seconds the doors hissed open, and Fluttershy reared up to wrap her arms around my shoulders in a tight hug.

“There you are!” She said happily before giving me a quick kiss. “Did everything go okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered happily, returning her hug, then scooping her up into my arms so I could walk inside the rather spacious and flipping huge cabin. “Damn! This is huge! Did we get a luxury room?”

“Ayna said it was standard,” Shy replied.

I heard the door across the hall hiss open and reflexively stepped right to get behind the wall.

God damn military training! Ugh, it would be fine when this place wasn’t unfamiliar.

“Hello? Did someone knock?” A voice called from across the hall.

“Sorry! New neighbors, don’t mind us. Door didn’t open for me,” I called back.

"Oh, don't worry, they stick sometimes," she said. "The repair 'lings are pretty fast, just give them a call."

"Will do!" I called.

Not wanting to talk to the neighbors just yet, I looked over at shy and nodded towards the door panel on the inside. “Er, could you…”

Shy nodded, reached out, and shut the door. As it hissed shut, I noticed the rather nice looking couch and walked over to it, sitting down, shifting Shy into my lap as I did so, and also setting the duffle bags on the floor.

“Whew… That was a hell of a thing,” I sighed happily. “This couch is pretty soft, did they just give this away with the room?”

“Um, yes. There’s a printer, I’ll show you how to use it later,” Shy replied, nuzzling into my shoulder. “Um, do you really think this is soft?”

I paused for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Well, yeah. In my experience. Pretty comfy,” I explained.

“We're saving up and buying a nice couch. You need to have a better sense of scale,” Shy giggled.

“Pfff, no problem. I had good luck for once,” I said with a grin.

“Are those bags filled with bits?” Shy asked curiously, turning to look at the three bags.

“Nah, shampoo, fur cleaner, some candied oats, soaps. House stuff,” I said.

“How’d you get it? Sky?” Shy asked.

“No… You’re probably not going to believe this, but I found my dad!” I exclaimed happily.

I had a fucking dad. How cool was that?

“I thought you said he was dead,” Shy said with a confused frown and head tilt.

“I thought he was, and that’s what my mom said. I never saw him once. Because that’s a bullshit lie,” I explained. “Turns out he’s alive. He’s also a pony. It’s complicated. But apparently, my mom managed to come here… And was a colossal cunt,”

Fluttershy winced, opening her mouth to probably tell me I shouldn’t call her that. I quickly continued so she couldn’t interrupt. “Yes I know, I’m talking about my mother. Yeah, that’s a really offensive thing to call someone. But it’s the only accurate word to use and I’m a soldier. We’re allowed to curse.”

Shy’s wince increased to what had to be the maximum size her face would allow. “W-what could possibly make it ‘accurate’ to call somepony that?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well, according to dad she is responsible for an act of terrorism that claimed like over a hundred lives. So yeah…” I finished, scratching the back of my head awkwardly.

“Oh… Okay. But um, maybe not use that word around Bon?” Fluttershy asked politely.

“No problem sexy,” I promised,

“She’s not a good person. I sort of knew that, but the scale is now like… Well… Let’s just not talk about her, okay?” I asked.

Fluttershy nodded. “So um, you found your dad?” She asked curiously.

“Mhm! He’s a great guy. I also met my sister too! I got a Twin sister, she grew up here. So yeah, heh… I’m related to the human obsessed ‘me’. That’s pretty hilarious,” I said with a giggle.

“Seriously?” Fluttershy asked, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

“Seriously! I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to,” I said, giving her a loving scratch behind the ears before eeping. “Uh! Sorry, is that okay to do with you?”

Shy nodded. “Of course silly, we’re a couple. And it feels nice.”

Oh good. No need to mention we do that to our dogs… It’s just sort of what you do to a quadruped in your lap.

“Besides, I like pet play,” Shy said with a wink.

“Oh! Well, alright. I um, I don't know how to do that though. Never knew anyone into it. We’ll work on that later, okay?” I asked.

“Looking forward to it,” Shy said, leaning in to give me a loving kiss.

Right, accidental fuckup went better than expected! Good. Lady Luck is apparently over her period. About fucking time if you ask me.

“Anyways, we need to make up a list of furniture we need,” I said, continuing what I had been trying to say all along. “Dad wants to throw us a house warming party. I cleared that with the higher ups… Apparently, we can just throw a party. Isn’t that cool? Anyways, the point is, dad’s going to gets us furniture. Good stuff too. Which is great because a bed for someone my size is going to need to be customized, apparently.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Mhm. Since we usually sleep with our legs folded up pony beds are pretty short.”

I tilted my head curiously. “But I fit in yours…”

“I like to stretch my legs when I sleep. So I got a custom bed size,” she explained. “And why I put two sleeping mats end to end in our room.”

“Oh! Yeah, that makes sense,” I said with a nod.

Before I could continue, my VM beeped at me. Unsure of what the beep meant, I flipped the cover open and realized that this screen was probably displaying an ‘incoming call’. Squinting at the words on the screen, I pressed the text box on the right, hoping it was the ‘answer’ button.

“Sorry sexy,” I apologized. “I think this is a call.”

“Uh, yeah… I am your sister you know,” Lyra’s voice said over the VM.

Oh shit! That meant ‘answer NOW!’ not ‘accept the call and prepare to transmit’. Gotta remember this tech is not built to transition between conversations in meatspace and digital space.

“But I mean, you are human and Bonbon and I are open, and twins are cool. So maybe if I’m reaaal drunk... Sure!” Lyra joked.

“Haha, very funny. I was talking to my marefriend whose in my lap, not you sis,” I answered, rolling my eyes.

Shy giggled. “It’s okay, you're not interrupting anything. But don't call back this evening, okay?”

“Holy crap! You weren't joking, she does sound just like Fluttershy,” Lyra exclaimed. “Hey Roboshy, how’s it hanging? Is that an actual human greeting? It doesn't seem like it would be but a lot of ponies in certain clubs I frequent think-”

“It is,” I replied. “But it’s meant for a guy. Cuz the ‘it’ in question is a dick.”

“And they hang?” Lyra asked in surprise.

I rolled my eyes again. Sis, I am pretty sure I like you, but yeah… Bit of a motormouth.

“What did you call me for?” I asked.

“Oh! Right!” She exclaimed, the sound of hoof meeting face punctuating her exclamation nicely. “I was thinking. Between the two of us, maybe we could track down mom. See about finding some answers. There’s got to be more to it than ‘I want to reap the benefits of two systems’. I mean, it seems kind of weird to keep hopping between entire universes like that. She’s gotta have some kind of scheme, and I feel like it’s something we should stop. Or at least discover. You in?”

I paused, taking a second to think about it.

No. No, I was not in. At least, not yet. Not if I didn’t have to.

“How long do ponies normally live?” I asked.

I remembered Fluttershy said her fuel cell would last a lifetime between refills, and that was about two hundred and fifty years. But that didn’t mean ponies lived that long in this universe.

“Well, depends on eating, exercise, and health. Between two hundred seventy and three hundred years on average. Why?” Lyra asked.

“Okay, and how old would she be now?” I asked again.

“Um… Well, she looked about one twenty when I was fifteen… Dad said she looked older than she was sooo… I’d say she’s about one fifty, probably. Again, why?” Lyra asked in confusion.

“Then we have plenty of time,” I said with a relieved sigh. “No offense meant Lyra, but I’m kind of adventured out for a while. I got a girlfriend who I really want to get to know while not being shot at. And I also have a kid to take care of at least until she’s old enough to stay with her aunt for a few weeks… Actually, where is BB?”

“Oh!” Fluttershy exclaimed. “She has her own cabin, it’s down the hall a ways. Four-Two-Five-Eight.”

“Good to know,” I thanked. “But anyways, sis, I think I need to stick around home for a while. Put my boots down. Set up the fort before I ask someone to hold it. I don't want to go riding straight off into the sunset again. I just got here.”

“Um, I didn’t mean like literally right now,” Lyra replied. “I was thinking next month.”

“How about we wait a few years?” I countered. “I seriously have a little kid.”

“What’s a pet goat have to do with anything?” Lyra asked in annoyed confusion.

Shy snorted as she tried not to laugh. “Um, Lyra, that’s the human term for a foal.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed. “Oh! Got it. Sorry! I understand. I uh, mostly wanted to use that as an excuse to hang out… I was going to really just get some contacts looking for her and we could like have weekly coffee and be all espionagie while reading up on the latest intel and hanging out. I didn’t mean literally go comb the planet looking for her by ourselves.”

“Oh. Well in that case, sure. I promised you we would hang out anyways,” I laughed. “You could have just said so in the first place.”

“Yeah, but that’s less fun than playing spy. A filly’s never too old to play spy!” Lyra giggled. “Oh yeah! Mind if I ask some more questions? I sort of wrote a few down before I called…”

Shy gave me a look indicating she would like me to get off the comms. I gave Shy a look agreeing with her look.

How to get out of a conversation as quickly as possible? Ummm-

“She’s busy,” Shy informed. “I learned how to do her thing so tonight she learns how to do my thing.”

Well, that’s one way to do it...

“Oh! Got it, I’ll call some other time then. Later!” The VM chirped as Lyra hung up.

I slipped it off my wrist and set it on the end table closest to me before giving Shy another head scritch. “Thanks, hon. Awkward… But it worked.”

“Not to a pony,” Shy replied. “It’s maybe a bit impolite to say it like that if in a formal setting, but not in everyday life. Spending time with a special somepony is a perfectly normal thing to do. But we don't have to jump right into that… Wanna cuddle for a bit then have a tour of our little home? Bon has her own room, and we have our own bathroom and walk in closet!”

“T-there’s multiple bathrooms?” I asked in surprise.

Shy nodded.

“I don’t care what anyone says, this is a luxury suite,” I stated firmly. “If only because it comes with my marefriend.”

That word seemed silly. But I didn't care much about that anymore.

Shy smiled and gave me a tight hug.

I was sitting on a couch in my apartment, getting a hug from my girlfriend, while my kid presumably was chilling in her own room, after spending a day with my dad and sister.

Life, you took me on one hell of a road to get here, but thanks. I really needed this.

Lyra-7%

by Meep the Changeling

1 Reluctently Eager for Adventure

2 Enter the Lyra

3 Welcome to Equis

4 Self Discovery

5 It Begins!

6 Rivers and Rapids

7 Waking Darkness

8 Honor

9 Wounded

10 Behold the Wizard

11 Timebomb

12 Prison

13 Escape

14 Business

15 Pleasure

16 Contact

17 Can of Sealed Evil

18 Heritage

19 Ambling Along the Way

20 Welcome to Lecture Park

21 Deals

22 Resurrection

23 New Horizons

24 Construction Complete!

25 Adventure Time

26 The Swarm

27 Cheer.ly, Error 406

28 It's Showtime!

29 XP and Waffle Time.

30 The Tour

31 BUM BUM BUUUUM! (dramatic reverb!)

32 Family

33 Home