Even among the gods themselves, the level of free will their creations receive is a matter of contention. Of course, the mere question of whether the creations can even have free will in the first place is a matter of debate. Some gods do not even believe that their creations have the same level of sapience as their creator.
Chapter 7: Searching for What Isn't There.
Log #4
May 25th
Today, Chisame is finally going to teach me how to use the Internet! She was going to do it a few days ago, but after Fluttershy and that other girl showed up, everyone got a bit distracted by everything that's going on. I've still been mostly stuck in Negi's room, but it hasn't been too bad now with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy here. Fluttershy was freaking out a bit at first, but I think she's doing quite well. Negi introduced her to Chamo, and he's been keeping her more or less occupied. I think he reminds her a bit of Angel; they're both a bit mischievous. At the very least he'll keep her mind off of worrying about where we are, or what happened to our other friends.
Rainbow Dash has spent most of her time either complaining about how she can't fly or she's in Haruna's room watching those movie thingamajigs. She got me to watch a few of them, and they look really cool, but I couldn't really tell what was going on. Something about a robot coming from the future and then another robot trying to blow up the first robot or something. Haruna says that she has another one of these movies that she thinks I'd like more; something about "the thinking man's action movie". I'm not quite sure what she meant, but I suppose if I have the time, I could watch it.
I've been pretty busy, though. I finally got around to reading through my astronomy books to see if I can figure out what happened, but most of them haven't been helpful. The only one that has a section on odd magical events is the Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to All Things Astronomy. Well, at least the version I have. It's a two-volume work that has the Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to Astronomical Anomalies appended to the end of it. I haven't gotten a chance to look at it in detail yet. I wish I had looked through this book first; it seems to be the only one that will help.
There was a rather odd note on the inside of the back cover: "A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof." I'm not entirely sure who wrote it in there. At first I thought it might be the Princess, as the book is from her library (she graciously allowed me to borrow her copy after Spike accidentally destroyed mine), but the writing doesn't really resemble hers. It's strange, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the book.
Anyway, Negi and I have been comparing the respective magical systems of our worlds in an attempt to explain how myself and the other ponies ended up here. We haven't really gotten to examining the interaction of the different types of magic yet. Apparently there aren't any noticeable differences in magical affinity for different human races. Since humans don't have cutie marks, the magic they learn is limited only to what they choose to study. In regard to human magic, there don't seem to be any spells unique to individuals; everyone theoretically learns each spell as easily as anyone else. In turn, Negi seemed to be surprised by the fact that the vast majority of unicorns are limited in the scope of their spells.
I wonder if that means that earth ponies and pegasi could learn magic here. Once Fluttershy adjusts a bit more, maybe I'll try to teach her something. Rainbow Dash is probably settled enough; she took the whole thing in stride, but I think it might be a bad idea to teach her the kind of spells that Negi is describing.
I think the reason for that might be that the way the different magic systems focus the magic. In Equestria, magical energy normally accumulates in a unicorn's-
Twilight looked up from her journal as she heard a sudden rush in the hallway. It was just about time for the students to come back to the dorms. It felt odd that she was already acclimating to this new pattern of life. In fact, all of the newcomers seemed to be dealing unreasonably well. Rainbow Dash was perfectly content; and even though Fluttershy was still a bit jittery, she seemed to be mostly stable. She didn't know any of the other people who had apparently appeared along with herself and the ponies, but they all seemed to be taking the circumstances in stride.
The doorknob rattled for a few seconds before Asuna burst into the room.
"Hey, Twilight." She paused for a moment as her brain tried to reject the fact that greeting the purple unicorn was becoming something of a regular occurrence. She shook her head. Stranger things had happened, after all.
"Good afternoon, Asuna!" Twilight closed the journal. "Where are Negi and Konoka?"
"Negi is in the offices trying to catch up on his paperwork. He's kinda fell behind when everybody suddenly showed up," she answered as she tossed her backpack onto the couch. "Konoka is with Nodoka, Yue, and Haruna over at Library Island. Now that things have settled a bit, the Library Club is back in-"
"Library club!-?" Twilight perked up as she repeated the words. "There's a library club? And they have their own island?"
"Uh...yes, there's a library club," Asuna said, taken slightly aback by the unicorn's unexpected enthusiasm. "And yeah, Library Island is sort of the main library that most of the school uses. It's...big. You should probably ask Nodoka or Yue about it. I'm sure they'd give you a tour."
"How big is it?"
"Big enough that if you don't have a guide who knows their way around, you aren't coming back out. And having rock climbing gear doesn't hurt either."
"Wow, really? Back when I lived in Canterlot my room was right down the hall from the royal library! I got lost in there a few times before I learned my way around."
"That's...nice," Asuna mumbled. She had just finished one of those days where every single teacher seemed to hand pick all the questions that she didn't know the answers to, and was in no mood to keep continue the trend. Twilight had only been around for a few days, but Asuna already knew her well enough to tell that the questions weren't going to stop unless her attention was directed elsewhere. "Chisame said she was going to teach you how to use computers, right?"
"Yes, she's been rather busy lately, so I haven't had a chance to go over there yet."
"She's not busy, she's just putting it off." Asuna rolled her eyes. Twilight obviously wasn't good at picking up the subtleties of Chisame's personality. "She's in her room now and she's not doing anything important. If you head over there now, you should be able to catch her."
"Really?"
"Yeah, better bring your journal along so you can take notes."
"Cool! If this Internet thing is half as informative as she described it, this will be incredibly helpful." She floated her journal and a few of her books into her saddlebags and draped the whole thing across her back. "Is there anyone in the hallway?"
"There's shouldn't be at the moment. Most of the class are still doing club activities."
"Okay." Twilight stuck her head into the hallway, confirming Asuna's statement. "I'll be back in an hour or so."
"Alright, see you later." Asuna waved as Twilight disappeared into the hallway. "Ugghhh!" She flopped onto the couch. "We really need to get those ponies their own rooms. This room is crowded enough with just the three of us."
jackassTranscendance messaged temporalJellyfish on May 23 at 8:04 PM.
JT: I realize you aren't going to read this until after it's too late to be useful, but at least this way I can say that I tried.
JT: Don't waste your time trying to use the Cassiopeia to travel back in time.
JT: It's not going to work.
temporalJellyfish has gone idle at 8:05 PM.
JT: What did I tell you?
JT: I'll be waiting when you get back in...
JT: Let's say four and a half hours.
JT: It'll probably take about that long to realize that this isn't just a bug that needs to be ironed out. See you then.
temporalJellyfish is now active at 12:34 AM.
JT: Right on schedule.
TJ: What do you want?
JT: Just leaving some friendly advice, which you ignored, unfortunately enough.
TJ: What, pray tell, are you talking about?
JT: I suggest you scroll up a bit and read the messages I left you earlier.
TJ: And once again you live up to your screenname.
JT: That's unnecessarily harsh.
JT: Although I did choose it primarily because I figured you'd react that way.
TJ: Given that you have circumvented my every attempt to block you or otherwise prevent you from sending me these messages, I find it difficult to believe that you couldn't have contacted me somehow if you really wanted to be helpful.
TJ: As opposed to sending me a few messages that you were fully aware that I would ignore.
JT: I figured I'd give you the choice of whether or not to listen to what I have to say. The reason I left you a message was so that you would have that choice.
JT: It's entirely true that I could have sent you a message that you couldn't possibly have ignored, but I prefer to leave the ball in your court.
TJ: I fail to see how you left me any choice at all if you knew I would ignore your message.
TJ: You might as well have not sent it.
JT: As I said in my very first message to you, I sent it so that you can't complain about how I withheld the information.
JT: It's entirely your fault that you ignored it. I had no part in it; it was entirely of your own volition.
JT: Just because I know what you'll choose doesn't mean I determine your choice.
TJ: Then how, exactly, did you know what I would choose.
JT: I know you well enough to tell.
TJ: I assume that you are self-aware enough to realize that your statement could be taken as rather inappropriate and somewhat sinister?
TJ: You should be glad that I am intelligent enough to realize that is not what you are trying to say.
JT: If you weren't intelligent enough for that, I wouldn't have said it.
JT: Suffice to say, I've hardly been spying on you or anything of that nature.
JT: To put it in a less questionable way, I have quite a bit of insight into your character. I merely understand you very well.
JT: Which is how I can tell that there are more pressing matters on your mind at the moment.
TJ: I suppose that is my cue to ask you how you knew that all my attempts at traveling into the past would prove futile.
TJ: So, how exactly did you come by that piece of information.
JT: I'm afraid I can't answer that.
JT: If I told you the truth you wouldn't believe me.
JT: Cliché, I know.
TJ: If it was not for the fact that you were right about the Cassiopeia not working in reverse, I would assume that you only send me these messages to annoy me.
TJ: If you want to give me a choice in the matter, then why did you leave me alone after I blocked your account?
JT: Because it's more important that we have this conversation.
JT: Although if you tell me now that you don't want anything to do with me I can guarantee that you won't receive any more messages.
JT: But we both know that you aren't going to say that.
TJ: And why am I not going to say that. Do tell.
JT: Because if there's one thing you can't stand, it's not knowing what's going on.
JT: You've always been on top of everything, and any unexpected obstacles were minor setbacks at worst.
JT: But now you've run up against something that you know you have no chance of explaining, and I don't think I'm too far off the mark when I say that it scares you.
JT: It scares you because for all your life everything has always fallen into place. Everything could be explained by science. Either that, or by magic. But magic is basically a science to you anyway.
JT: But there are things that no amount of scientific examination will ever explain.
JT: Like why the Cassiopeia no longer works like it should.
JT: You can examine it and run diagnostics on it for as long as you like, but you'll never find the problem because according to your theories, everything is in perfect working order.
JT: You've found a question that science doesn't know the answer to.
JT: But I know the answer.
JT: Just like I know exactly where all that energy that drained out of the World Tree disappeared to.
JT: Of course, I can't explain that either, but the mere fact that I'm even aware of it at all should be enough to convince you that I'm aware of things that have eluded you.
JT: In the back of your mind, you know that I'm the only one with the answers you want, and you're not going to cut yourself off from that information.
JT: Are you?
TJ: Even if you do know this information, it seems that you are dead set against giving any of it to me, so I fail to see why maintaining this line of communication is worth my time.
JT: You're bluffing, but that's beside the point. And of course, it's completely understandable that you're rather reluctant to bother with me, given my own reluctance to part with any information.
JT: So I'll give you a few pointers as a goodwill offering. If you find them helpful, we can maintain our interactions.
JT: If not, say the word and I'll leave you alone.
TJ: Very well. What is this advice of yours?
JT: Stop bothering with the Cassiopeia, or at least stop bothering trying to get it to go back in time. For the time being, travel into the past is impossible.
TJ: I am not going to abandon the past two years of work solely because you tell me to.
JT: Like I said, you can take or leave my advice. I can tell you now, that avenue of research is going to be fruitless.
JT: Which is why I'm giving you a new direction.
JT: Recently, there has been a bit of an...incident on the campus. You'd do well to pay more attention to that.
JT: Particularly, any new arrivals at Mahora.
JT: Even more particularly, the specific group of new arrivals that happen to be staying at the Tatsumiya Shrine.
JT: Mana has more information about the goings on. You know as well as I do that she'll part with that information if you meet her price.
JT: I'm sure that you could gather the information on your own, but it'll be a lot quicker if you pony up the cash to get it from her.
TJ: Is there anything else?
JT: You should probably forget everything you know about equine biology. It's not going to help you.
TJ: …
TJ: What does that have to do with anything?
JT: You'll see.
JT: Talk to you later.
jackassTranscendance is offline at 12:44 AM.
TJ: Wait.
TJ: Why do I even bother?
temporalJellyfish is offline at 12:45 AM.
Chao's eye twitched as she finished re-reading the chatlog for the half-dozenth time that afternoon. The longer she stared at it, the more frustrated she grew. He had been right. Despite both herself and Hakase pressing stubbornly on for another day and a half, all attempts to repair the Cassiopeia or otherwise diagnose the problem ended with a dead end. She wasn't planning to give up on it, of course. Too much of her plan depended on it being in working order, which was why Hakase was running currently yet another test on it.
The email that she had just received from Mana wasn't exactly helping her mood, either. A wire transfer of 300,000 yen to the mercenary's account had yielded a confirmation that there were, in fact, three visitors staying in the shrine. American government agents. Mana had dealt with them before, and their style was rather distinctive. One of them was an old pro, the other two were younger. Of the junior agents, one seemed fairly competent. The other one was apparently so inept that even Mana was baffled as to how he managed to ever get approved.
The odd thing was that one of them, the competent young agent, apparently derived his competence from some sort of device known as "the Intersect". Luckily enough for Mana, it had taken them a day or two to realize that the walls of the shrine were paper thin, and about as capable of muffling noises as a screen door. From what little Mana had heard, it seemed that some kind of information had been directly implanted into his head, a rather impressive feat for mundanes.
And that was as much as Mana knew. Or at least as much as she was willing to part with unless Chao forked over some more cash. The only subsequent info Chao could wring out of her without paying extra was that the two younger agents had apparently worked in tech support before starting government work. In all likelihood, the only reason Mana was willing to part with that was that it was utterly irrelevant. Of course, it didn't stop Mana from hinting that there was far more to the story. She was hardly above withholding the most useful bits and pieces if she thought she could get more out of it. Fortunately, that jackass guy was also right about the fact that Chao had her own ways of finding things out.
"Hakase, come in here please."
The whirring from the next room ground to a halt and a moment later Hakase stuck her head through the doorway.
"Yes? I just finished the analysis of the power supply-"
"Let me guess," Chao interrupted, for once in her life hoping that she was wrong. "You still have no idea what the problem is."
"Unfortunately, no." Hakase shook her head. "Everything seems to be in working order. Shall I recompile the retrogression program to ensure we didn't install a corrupted version?"
"No, that won't be necessary. There's something else I need you to do," Chao said as she spun her chair around. "I know it's a bit out of your typical duties, but I need you to sort through the recordings from the bug outside the headmaster's office."
"What for?"
"Anything involving visitors from off-campus. I have reason to believe that they might be involved in the irregularities of magic accretion and the problems with the time machine."
"And what would that reason be?" Hakase asked, raising her eyebrow inquisitively.
"Call it a hunch."
"That is hardly suitable basis to act upon."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Chao grumbled, waving her hand dismissively. "But you need a break from tinkering with the Cassiopeia. Just humor me, okay?"
"Very well." Hakase rolled her eyes and retreated back into the other room, mumbling to herself about how it wasn't like scientifically sound to make decisions without any factual basis.
Chao turned back to the screen. The chatlog was still there, taunting her. She closed the window with a snort. The fact that she had redirected Hakase made her feel like she was acknowledging the accuracy of her mysterious source. She wasn't, of course. She preferred to think of it as fact checking. If this didn't pan out, she could stop worrying about it and move on to more important things. And it was hardly as if she was letting that jackass order her around. Sure, she was looking into the areas he had suggested, but she'd be a fool not to. Oh no, she was going to dig even deeper than he was expecting. She was going to find out who he was.
All she knew at the moment was that he was apparently something of a hacker. He had circumvented her every attempt to block him, even the custom firewalls she had designed herself. Tracking his location would prove difficult. She had no doubt that she could do it, but she was rather stretched for time as it was. Fortunately, she knew a shortcut. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled up her contact list.
temporalJellyfish messaged eternalSeptember on May 25 at 4:04 PM.
TJ: I know you are in your room right now, so do not bother pretending that you are not.
TJ: I have a job for you.
TJ: I will meet you in your room shortly.
temporalJellyfish is offline at 4:06 PM.
"Okay, let's try this again..." Chisame groaned as she massaged her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. Explaining the Internet to someone who was bad with computers was annoying. Explaining the Internet to someone who didn't even know what a computer was was a pain in the behind. Explaining the Internet to someone who didn't know what a computer was and also happened to be a magical unicorn was a test of her sanity. A test that she she was failing. "You like books, right?"
"Of course! I live in a library, after all."
"Okay, so imagine that you have this magic book."
"Do you mean a spellbook? Because I have a few of those already."
"Of course you do..." Chisame grumbled. "No, I mean like a blank book, but the book itself has some sort of magical properties. Like it has different spells on it that let it do different things. Like you can write math problem in the right part of it and it'll solve it for you."
"That could be pretty useful."
"Yeah. Okay, now imagine that there are a bunch of these magical books, and that each of your friends have one. Then imagine that when you write stuff into the book, you can set it up so your friends can see some of it. That's what the internet is like. People put stuff on their computers that other people can look at. Of course, there are like millions and millions of them, and some of them are dedicated just to holding information that other people put there, but you get the idea. You do get the idea, right?" She eyed the unicorn nervously, hoping that she had finally hit on an analogy that actually worked.
"Yes, of course," Twilight answered.
"Good. Well, the Internet is just like that, except people use it for all sorts of stuff other than just writing. They can post pictures, videos like those things that Haruna was making you watch, games, whatever. And you can take stuff from other people's books and move it into your own books, or whatever. There's so much random crap on there that it's tough to actually find the relevant stuff. Some somebody put together a program – spell, if we're gonna stick with the magic book thing – that lets you find stuff."
"I see," Twilight said, nodding. She had really understood about half of Chisame's networking lecture, but she believed she had a fairly good grip on the basic nature of the thing. It would certainly make much more sense when Chisame finally let her actually use the computer. "So computers can send information to other computers, and some of them are used to host information where other computers can get to it?"
"Exactly," Chisame said with a sigh of relief. "I'm guessing you want to try it out for yourself now?"
"Yes!" Twilight's eyes widened.
"Okay, then," Chisame said, opening her laptop with mock solemnity. "Here's the thing that lets you find other stuff. We call it Google."
"Ooooh!" Twilight spoke with a sense of awe that one would usually reserve for the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. She stared for a moment at the page. "Um...what do I do?"
"Type in whatever you want to search for."
Twilight looked at Chisame inquisitively.
"Type?"
Chisame's head very nearly simultaneously exploded and imploded from the effort of keeping her frustrated scream inside of her mouth. She settled for tearing out several handfuls of hair and allowing the rage to leak gradually from her lips, making a sound not unlike air escaping from a balloon. Her entire body trembled with frustration for a moment before she let out the rest of the disgruntlement escape in an exasperated sigh.
"Okay..." She took a deep breath. Under normal circumstances, the little voice in her head would tell her to strangle the pony and be done with it, but that was absurd. As ornery as that voice could be, it wouldn't dare suggest slaughtering something so adorable, even if that something's very existence was too ridiculous to be actual. "Typing is how you put information into the computer. Instead of writing letters, you use your fingers to hit the buttons for the letters that you want."
"Fingers?"
Chisame resisted the urge to slam her head against the wall as she noted the absence of hands at the ends of the pony's limbs. This was going to be problematic.
"Okay, we'll have to rig something up so you can hit the keys with your hoofs without looking like you type with your elbows..." She grumbled, half to Twilight, half to herself. "Maybe if we taped pencils onto your hooves-"
"I'll use my telekinesis!"
"Your what?"
"Telekinesis. I can move objects with my magic," Twilight said, tapping her horn with her hoof. "I shouldn't have any trouble using it to press these keys."
"You have- okay. Yeah. Fine," Chisame said, waving her hand dismissively as if to shoo away the thoughts about how telekinesis wasn't really a thing. "Use that. Just type something into that box, and then hit the button using the mouse."
Twilight cocked her head to the side, and opened her mouth to ask a question. Before she managed to get any words out, Chisame interrupted with the answer.
"The mouse is that thing there." She pointed to it. "You use it to move around the cursor, which is that arrow on the screen. Move the mouse around to move the arrow, and then press the button on the mouse to select something."
"Okay." A purple glow surrounded the mouse, which began to slide back and forth across the mousepad. Chisame had to fight to keep her eye from twitching. "Okay, I see how it works now. What should I search for?" Twilight pensively tapped her hoof on the desk. "People view ponies a lot differently in this world, don't they?"
"You could say that..." Chisame grumbled, mentally noting that she was speaking the understatement of the century.
"Well, I want to be able to get along with everyone better, so I should probably look up something about what people think ponies are like here. Haruna mentioned that people get a lot of information from that thing where you can watch those different shows..."
"You mean a television?"
"Yeah, that!" Twilight clapped her hooves together excitedly. "I should look up something about what ponies are like in your television shows."
"Sure, go with that."
"Okay. Let's see, where's the 'P' on here..." She scanned the keyboard for a few moments before magically pressing down the key. "'O'...'N'..." She paused. "This layout sure isn't very intuitive. Wouldn't it make more sense to put them in alphabetical order, or maybe group them by ease of use?"
"Yeah, you'd think that. There's a reason why, but it's kinda stupid, and I don't want to waste your time explaining it now."
"...'O'...'W'." Twilight said as she finished pecking at the keys. She nodded with satisfaction at the words "pony show" sitting on the search bar. "All I have to do is click that 'Google search' button?"
"Yep."
"Here goes!" Twilight rubbed her hooves together in anticipation as she pressed the button. She frowned. Rather than anything interesting happening, another small box had appeared on the screen, containing a few sentences that were totally unrelated to what she had entered. "What's this thing?"
"Huh?" Chisame leaned in. "Oh, that's just my messaging program. You won't have to worry about that." She punched a few keys and the message vanished. "Okay, try it again."
"Here goes!" Twilight said again. Her smile widened as the images and links popped up. "What do I do now?
"Use the mouse to click on one of the links." Chisame pointed at one of the lines of text. "They're usually blue, like that. It'll take you to a website. Some of them are useful, some aren't. That Wikipedia one is usually pretty useful. Not exactly scholarly, but it's useful enough."
"Hmmm...interesting." Twilight furrowed her brow as she examined the screen. "What's this 'related searches' thing?"
"Oh, that's just Google telling you about stuff you can look up that's similar to what you searched for."
"Cool! Let's see how it works. I'm kinda curious what this 'Donkey Show' thing is. There aren't a lot of donkeys in Equestria."
"You do that," Chisame muttered. "I'm sure you'll find something- wait."
Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head as she watched the cursor float over to the offending link and select it. The page began to load. Chisame lurched forward. No way was she going to be the one responsible for ruining the pony's innocence. Everyone would think she was a pervert if they found out about this. With an emphatic roar, she gave Twilight's chair a massive shove. It squealed loudly as it slid across the floor before coming to a stop just shy of the wall.
"W-what was that for?" Twilight sputtered in a voice partway between scared, angry, and confused.
"Forgot the most important rule about Google."
"What's that?"
"Any term, no matter how innocuous it sounds, can result in Very Bad Things coming up when you Google it."
"What things are you talking about?"
"You don't want to know." Chisame shook her head. She should have known that this was going to come up. "Let's just say that some people don't have much of a sense of decency when it comes to putting stuff on the Internet. You see that little box there?"
"The one that says 'safe search'?"
"Yes. Always always always make sure that has a check mark on it. It won't keep everything out, but it definitely helps. And just remember that the Internet is by no means representative of the human race as a whole, okay? Most of us have more class than that."
"What exactly do you mean by that?" Twilight asked.
Chisame groaned. The unicorn had lost interest in her original goal in favor of pressing the issue of the last thing Chisame wanted to talk to her about. She should've known this was a bad idea. What she would give for something to change the topic of conversation-
Both Chisame and Twilight jumped in shock as a head popped in the door of Chisame's room. All Twilight knew was that it didn't belong to anyone that she was currently familiar with. Chisame, on the other hand, recognized the face. It went with the name that had popped up on her chat a few minutes earlier. Before either Chisame or Twilight could respond, Chao was already sitting on the couch.
"Listen, Chisame. I know you're rather reluctant to involve yourself in my plans, but I have a request to make of - what is that?"
She extended her index finger in Twilight's direction, trying her level best to hide any signs of surprise. Her effort succeeded, though due mostly to Chisame being too distracted by her sudden appearance to care much. Not that she didn't have to put forth an effort. Equine biology wasn't her strong point, but she could identify at least a dozen biological anomalies. Her eye twitched as some unwelcome words popped into her head. Forget everything you know about equine biology.
"Oh, that's...uh... You know what? I have no idea." Chisame threw up her hands and flopped onto the couch. "If you want to know, you should probably ask Negi."
"I don't think that will be necessary." Chao shook her head, trying to focus on the reason that she had come in the first place.
"Is this one of your friends, Chisame?" Twilight asked, oblivious to Chisame's frustration.
"She's one of my classmates..." the girl mumbled. "I'll let her introduce herself."
"Lingshen Chao." She bowed slightly.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle. I know this is probably kinda weird, with me being a pony and everything. I'm not really sure how I ended up here either. Some weird magic thing. Negi and I have been working on figuring it out."
"Weird magic thing?" Chao said, raising a suspicious eyebrow. "Well, with Negi working on it, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before you get it figured out." She turned back to Chisame. "I have a job for you."
"Awesome," Chisame grumbled, with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
"Rainbow Dash, do we really have to keep watching all these movies about exploding things? It's very loud..."
"Huh?" Rainbow Dash withdrew her head from the large plastic barrel of cheese balls. "What did you say?"
"I was just wondering if I could pick the next movie..." Fluttershy mumbled. "If that's okay...I mean, you got to pick the last few movies."
"Sure, I guess." Rainbow Dash answered with a shrug. "What do you want to watch? We got..." She shuffled through the pile of DVDs that Haruna had left on the couch. "We have.. Die Hard, Die Hard II: Die Harder, Die Hard with a Vengeance-"
"Um, are there any that aren't about dying?"
"Uh...First Blood, Predator, Conan the Barbarian..."
"Aren't there any that aren't so...violent?"
"Well, what did you have in mind?" Rainbow Dash shoved the movies back onto the stack.
"I was talking to Nodoka before about how I like animals and everything, so she brought a few movies back from the library that she thought I might like."
"Okay, we could watch one of those, I guess. I mean, I kinda have had the room to myself for a while."
"Okay!" Fluttershy perked up. "How about this one?" She pointed at the topmost case on the neat little stack of DVDs that Nodoka had left on the corner of the coffee table.
"Dumbo? That just sounds...awesome..." Rainbow Dash said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "Give it to me. I'll put it in."
She grasped the case between her hooves and hovered over to the massive entertainment system that Haruna had put together. How on earth a middle school student had managed to acquire such a complicated and expensive setup was a rather unanswerable question. Not that it ever crossed either of the ponies' minds, as circumstantial mystery was blotted out by the larger sense of wonder that such a thing even existed. The closest thing to the mass of wires and screens and blinking lights that Haruna had set up was the mass of wires and screens and blinking lights that Twilight left lying around the basement of the library.
The disc clicked awkwardly into place as Rainbow Dash somehow, against all odds, managed to transfer it from the case to player despite her lack of fingers.
"Okay, let's see if this thing is as stupid as the name makes it sound," she grumbled as she fluttered back to the sofa.
An hour later, the two ponies found themselves surrounded by piles of tear-soaked tissues. Rainbow Dash waved her forelegs in triumph, her eyes glued to the screen.
"That was AWESOME!"
"Because we naturally can't have you mooching off of the administration, I've convinced the headmaster to allow you to work as campus security officers." Mana paced back and forth authoritatively in front of Chuck, Morgan, and Casey, who were standing more or less at attention. "Given that you have claim to have prior experience as government agents, I am assuming that you are in fact quite overqualified for this job, although in some cases..."she cast a suspicious eye in Morgan's direction, "...I am rather skeptical. As such, I intend to test your abilities."
She brought her fist down on the table in front of her, where three handguns were neatly laid out.
"These will be your weapons. An M9 Beretta. I trust that you are all familiar with it." She picked up one of the guns and spun it around her finger before placing it back on the table. "What you probably aren't familiar with is this." She held up a single bullet. It looked fairly nondescript on first glance, but if one squinted at it, it would be possible to make out a pattern of finely carved lines across its surface. "This is a magical bullet. Entirely nonlethal. It has a binding spell embedded in it. Hit someone with this, and unless they've prepared the appropriate countermeasures they'll be effectively paralyzed. For the time being, these are the only weapons and ammunition you will be equipped with."
Casey groaned.
"Not satisfied?" Mana glared at him. She could tell that the task of standing at attention for a middle school girl was demanding more or less all of his composure.
"I prefer something with a little more kick."
"Well, if you stay on your best behavior maybe we can upgrade you to a USP. But for now, you get the Beretta. You probably won't need anything more anyway. But for now, let's see if you guys are really as professional as you claim. It's simple." She pointed at a human-shaped target pasted to a tree roughly 25 paces away. "Hit the target. Simple as that." She held up one of the guns and a clip of ammunition. "You're up first, big guy."
Casey grunted as he snatched the weapon out of her hand and shoved the clip into it. He sighed in exasperation before leveling the gun at the tree. All of the bullets were embedded in the head of the target before the first shell casings hit the ground.
"Did I pass?"
"With flying colors," Mana mumbled. She didn't want to admit it, but she was impressed. Maybe they really were spies after all.
Casey snorted and returned to his place, satisfied that he had proved his ability.
"You're next." Mana pointed at Chuck.
"Okay, let's do this." Chuck cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. Sure, he had been to the shooting range plenty of times, but there was bit more at stake here. It probably would have helped if he was actually in the midst of a mission; he wouldn't have time to overthink it. Nothing would mess up his accuracy more than thinking about how important it was to be accurate. If someone else was shooting at you, you were thinking about their guns, not your own. Of course, as long as the trans-dimensional weirdness hadn't messed with his head too much, it might very well be a non-issue.
"Aim for the chest," Mana directed.
Chuck slowly raised the gun, and squinted along the barrel. He was still for a moment. Then he twitched. Mana could see his eyes cross for a second. As they straightened out, he squeezed the trigger. It was a bit slower than Casey, but much more precise. The cluster of holes in the heart of the target was so tight that it was more like one big hole.
"Whoo! Still got it."
"I suppose you pass as well," Mana said. She had been quietly hoping that her little test would have given her an excuse to get them off her hands. "Alright, next."
"Oh yeah, I got this." Morgan started to jog in place, throwing a few decidedly fakey looking punches. "Okay, gimme the gun." He grabbed the final firearm off the table and with a flick of his wrist, started spinning it around his finger. It looked appropriately badass for approximately a third of a second before it slipped off his finger and spun into the air, where Casey snatched it away.
"I'm going to assume that you fail the test," Casey said, "...seeing as you can't even manage basic gun safety."
"You assume correctly," Mana said, taking the gun from Casey. Morgan seemed to shrink a little bit as she glared at him. "For obvious reasons, I'm not giving you a weapon, even a nonlethal one. Casey, Chuck; I'll assign you two a security route. Nothing fancy, just your standard security presence. I'll give you a more detailed set of instructions this afternoon. Morgan..." She glared at him, trying to think of anything she could use to occupy him. "...You can monitor the closed circuit security cameras."
"Awesome," he said, resigned to his fate. "So I get to sit in front the screen. Great. Got plenty of experience doing that."
Ako didn't do well when meeting new people. Makie knew that perfectly well, but it hadn't stopped her from simply showing up at the room with a girl Ako had never seen before, giving a hasty introduction, seating the mysterious girl on the couch and disappearing back into the hallway, and leaving Ako to take care of the rest.
"Um...hello. I'm Ako Izumi." She bowed slightly and waited for a response. The black-haired girl raised her head for a moment and regarded Ako silently with her deep, violet eyes. She returned the bow, but the movement of her head was so slight that Ako wasn't entirely sure that she had bowed at all. The girl resumed her blank stare straight ahead, sitting unusually straight, her hands resting on her knees as if she was waiting for something else to happen.
"I don't think I got your name..." Ako continued, wishing that Makie would come back from wherever she had vanished to.
"Homura," the girl answered without even looking up.
"So what brings you to campus?" Ako figured that she didn't really have anything else to say. Might as well try to figure out what was going on. "Are you a friend of Makie's?"
"I am just visiting the campus," Homura said. "Your teacher determined that I would stay in this room for the time being."
"Oh...really? That seems rather sudden-"
"I'm back!"
Ako sighed in relief as Makie burst through the door, a bag of microwave popcorn clamped in her hands.
"I thought you might be hungry so I brought you a snack!" She dropped the popcorn on unceremoniously on Homura's lap. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Uh...sure..." She began to fumble with the bag, attempting to open it. Ako observed her quietly. It was almost like she was looking at a different person; most of the coldness in Homura's face had vanished, replaced with the giddy nervousness one would expect of a middle school girl in a new place meeting new people.
"What do you want to drink?" Makie asked, as she began rummaging through the mini-fridge. "Crap, we need to refill this. All that's left in here is Red Bull. Oh wait, there's a diet Coke in the back here." She held up the can. "Do you want it?"
"Uh, sure."
"Here you go." Makie tossed the can. Homura bobbled it for a few seconds before latching onto it. "So I guess we should figure out where you're going to sleep."
"I can just sleep on the couch..." Homura mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn.
"Nah, I can't make the visitor do that," Makie said. "I'll sleep on the couch and you can have my bed."
"Your bed!-?" Homura gasped and immediately began to cough, as she had come dangerously close to inhaling some of her snack. "I, uh, I wouldn't want you to have to give up your place or anything..."
"Nah, it's fine," Makie answered, with a wave of her hand. "Half the time I end up falling asleep on the couch anyway while I watch TV. And I'm flexible enough that it won't kill my back. Don't have any clean sheets for you at the moment, but I just changed them like 2 days ago, so they're pretty much clean. I'll get a clean set tomorrow. Is that okay?"
"S-sure..." Homura stuttered.
Ako tilted her head slightly as she observed Homura, who was now staring rather intently at the popcorn bag. Her composure had inexplicably been obliterated, and her face had a decidedly flushed look to it. Whether it was the result of the popcorn caught in her throat or the prospect of having to sleep in Makie's bed was anyone's guess. Ako suspected the former. She couldn't really see any reason why sleeping in somebody's bed would merit any reaction other than maybe a mild disgust if the person in question wasn't very hygienic. Unless Homura was...nah.
Twilight stared blankly at the computer screen. Chisame had given her a brief list of pointers about surfing the web, sent her back to Negi's room, and told her to come back tomorrow. Apparently whatever that Chao girl needed was a more pressing matter. Not that it mattered. Negi had a computer as well, and all that Twilight really wanted to do was to spend some time absorbing information about humans. She had not been disappointed. Chisame's first piece of advice had been "Stick to Wikipedia until you learn a bit more about the Internet", and as things turned out, it was more than sufficient to keep her occupied.
"Twilight, time for dinner!" Asuna called. The unicorn failed to respond. "Come on, I'm hungry, get over here." Still no response. The girl groaned, stood up, and looked over Twilight's shoulder. "List of Power Rangers episodes?"
"Huh?" Twilight snapped back to reality.
"Look like your visit with Chisame went well. Now get over here and get some food before you turn into a geek like her. You can't spend all your time staring at that screen. What all did you do over there anyway?"
"Oh, not much," Twilight answered. "She showed me how to use the computer and search for stuff on the Internet. Nothing that you don't know already. I would have been over there longer, but she had other work to do, so I'm going to go over there again tomorrow."
"Shoulda figured. I bet she's working on that 'Net Idol' site of hers that she thinks I don't know about."
Twilight sighed in relief as she took her seat at the table. Chao had kindly requested that she not inform Negi of her visit, as she didn't want him to have to go through the trouble of yet another student finding out about what was going on. She already knew all about magic anyway. No point in forcing her teacher to go through the explanation when she was already in the loop. Besides, Negi was stretched thin enough as it was, dealing with all the random appearances while still trying to keep up with his teaching job. No reason to put anything else on his mind.
"What's a net idol?" She asked.
"Promise you won't tell Chisame that I told you?"
"Um, okay..."
"Well..." Asuna grinned evilly. "Chisame has this rather interesting hobby..."
Chisame gently massaged her temples as she glared at the computer screen. After dealing with the technologically impaired unicorn, the last thing she wanted to do was go to the trouble of tracking down some troll's location. But still, the cash that Chao was promising would pay her web-hosting fees for the next decade or so, and the scientist had offered to toss in an entire bulk case of Goobers as an extra bonus. She reminded herself of how much she liked Goobers, and logged herself into Chao's account. Immediately, a box popped up.
jackassTranscendance messaged temporalJellyfish on May 25 at 6:38 PM.
JT: Good luck.
jackassTranscendance is offline at 6:39 PM.
Chisame's eye twiched.
"Man, he really is a jackass."
.
Bleeeeaaaahhhh. Apologies for taking like a year to get this posted. I got laid low for a week by a stomach bug. -_- I think I got around to giving all the relevant characters some focus while moving the plot forward a bit, although I had originally planned to have a bit more. I'm going to try to introduce more ponies soon. Once I get the main MLP characters in there I'll have a bit more freedom to get things moving a little quicker. Still trying to come up with an ideal balance between character interaction and plot development.
Obviously, the whole "chatlog" thing is something of an experiment on my part. Yes, the format is quite obviously thiefed from Homestuck. Doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be inserting any Homestuck characters, though; I don't have any plans to do that at the moment.
And for the record, the quote that Twilight finds in her book was said by Rene Char.
Anyway, thanks for reading thus far. Reviews are always welcome.