Chapter Twenty-Seven: Laying The Plan

Celestia returned from making her announcement to the ponies of Equestria. Our eyes tracked her movements as she moved through the throne room to her position. Her expression was all buisness.

"I have an impression that we will have the volunteers that we need. I've sent messengers for Time Piece, Derpy, and Trixie, and those wishing to volunteer have been asked to arrive in the early evening. I invite you all to make full use of the castle's facilities in the meantime."

The ponies acknowledged the Princess and left the room. Celestia's gaze was now on me alone. Luna wasn't in the room, probably doing something important.

"Zach, see what you can find out about the other universes, and try to find Elise, if possible."

I nodded. "Yes, Princess." I'd taken rather quickly to the idea of being commanded by Celestia, even though she had never specifically told me that I was or was not to follow her orders. It was no problem for me, of course, since our goals were one and the same at this point.

I opened my portal, and stepped into it. Like before, it led directly to my room in my house. I booted up my computer, dialed Elise's phone number, and waited for her to pick up. No answer. Well, that was going to be harder without her, but there was no time to waste. I had to get researching.

*****

My research went on without interruption. It was fortunate that nobody else was home, as my responsibilities and frequent disappearances were going to catch up sooner or later, crisis or no crisis. It had been about three hours, and I had, with quite a large degree of certainty, identified all of the universes, and learned about some rather intriguing games and television series I'd be watching when this was over. The initial outlook could have been worse. Some were really dark, inhospitable ones, others were light, fluffy universes. The rest were... somewhere in-between. I divided them into five categories, by general risk. Low, low-medium, medium, medium-high, and high. The spread was rather even, almost as if Discord had selected them with some sort of scale in mind, as part of this oh-so-wonderful high-stakes game of his. I had printed off materials pertaining to those universes- mostly copied and pasted from Wikia articles- for the teams to look over, and had placed them in a binder. Along with some supplies, I stuffed it into my backpack. Some of these would be quite vague to the ponies and to myself, but that's what we'd have to go by.

I opened my portal to Equestria, and found it to lead directly to Canterlot Castle. I took the now-familiar path to the throne room. Celestia was talking to Shining Armor about something.

"...If he doesn't make it, there won't be any way to stop this."

"A valid point, Captain Armor. Zach, you've returned, I see. Where is Elise? Could you not find her?"

"No, I couldn't. I did find out what all the universes were, though. What's going on here?"

"Captain Shining Armor would like to be part of your team."

I turned to face the unicorn stallion. "Wouldn't you rather be with Twilight's team, though?"

"Twily can handle herself, I'm sure of it." I remained silent. Was he implying that I couldn't? In his place I'd probably feel the same way, trying to make sure that the mission does not fail as much as I could. And, he was entirely correct; my own abilities did not grant me significant survivability in a combat situation. In such situations I'd only been saved by magic or by not being a target in the past. If not for those two things, I might have died in my very first battle, the one against the corrupted Elements of Harmony about a month ago. It felt like such a long time had passed.

"I don't mean that-"

"You want to come with me because if I die on this mission it'll be a complete failure. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Well, I agree with you on that one. I'd be glad to have you on my team."

"I won't let you down."

"I'm pretty sure you won't."

"The rest of the team leaders have arrived, and are waiting in the dining hall for you," Celestia said. "We have an hour to discuss our plans."

The three of us went through the castle into the dining hall. The six ponies that would be leading teams, Spike, Blitzle, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony were in attendance. The ponies were chatting away until they noticed us enter. Celestia took her place at the head of the table, and Shining took a spot as well. I opened my backpack and pulled out the materials I'd gathered, setting the binder down in the center of the table.

"Derpy, Trixie, and Time Piece, are you filled in on what's going on?"

The three ponies nodded.

"Good. Let's begin. Well, everypony, these universes are the ones we will be going to. I've identified them all, and assigned each of them a level of danger. Since there are eight of us, six of the teams will have to take on three universes, the other two taking on two of them. Take a look at all of these." I took the pieces about each universe from the binder and placed them in groups according to my threat assessment. Each universe only had about ten pages of material, if that. The ponies became mobile, shifting about to examine the materials gathered.

"How are these organized?" Twilight asked.

"By danger. I've divided them into five different danger levels, ranging from low to high. I was thinking that some teams would take more dangerous ones while others would take less dangerous ones, because, y'know, some of us are less suited to fighting than others. You should assign yourselves, I don't know fully what all of your strengths are."

"How are we going to pick our teams from the volunteers?" Rainbow asked. She was looking at the most dangerous of the lot. Of course, these universes would require handling with extreme caution.

"Well, the team leaders will choose them, I guess."

"What about the rest of us?" Applejack asked, gesturing to Rarity and Pinkie Pie. "Certainly we can help."

"I don't know, I'm sure all of you will find a place in a team."

"What does each team need, personnel-wise?" Twilight asked. "Should each team be of a leader, at least one unicorn and at least one pegasus for versatility?" Twilight was focused on the medium-high group. Like Rainbow, she knew more about human universes compared to the others and was very capable in battle, as she must have become aware of over the last few weeks. She must have determined that someone had to go through these universes, and if that had to be her, she would do it.

"Yes, that sounds right. Though, I think that every unicorn involved should know shield spells, we know how useful those are against human weapons. The pegasi and earth ponies should be picked for individual talents, I think."

"Um, just how dangerous are the less-dangerous ones?" Fluttershy asked, flipping through the low category.

"Hardly at all. The potential locations Discord could bring anyone going there to would not be very dangerous. The ratings are not entirely accurate, though, as I can't anticipate everything from a few hours of research."

"Gee, this whole thing sure looks like a doozy," Derpy said. She was examining the medium-low range with Spike.

"Sure does, but we don't have much of a choice on whether or not to go through on it, and the entire universe is depending on us," Time Piece said. He and Trixie were looking through the medium areas. "I, for one, am happy to be a part of this."

Everything was going rather smoothly. Each catagory was being looked into, and a few universes had been claimed already. I approached Shining, who was looking at the high-risk category.

"Rainbow Dash can't handle all of these," he said. There were four in this category. I figured Rainbow would take one or two of them, just to prove she was ready for anything. The way I was putting them into danger like this weighed heavily on me. The stakes were way too high. A slip, a hop, a jump, and you're dead in these places. I was having difficulty deciding whether or not to leave the most dangerous of missions to the- to put it bluntly- more expendable individuals. I was the only one absolutely necessary to complete this task, though loss of more than one team could definitely spell disaster, that is, if we could afford to lose a team. We had eight leaders, and losing one would mean another team would have to go in after them to complete the mission, which could obviously complicate things.

"No, she can't. These ones are quite a bit different from the others, with the chance of injury or death being quite high. These universes are about grim, dark places with hostile entities ranging from demons to monsters to robots. These ones are not to be taken lightly. If there is no other way, our team can take one of these on. I know some about two of these." I pointed to two of the universes' stacks, ones pertaining to games I'd played.

"No way, that's too risky. You know what happens if you don't make it back." That made me turn my thoughts to how the ponies were going to get back. I probably couldn't keep seven portals open all the time, which meant that I had to be back in Canterlot to conjure my portals for each and every team so they could come back. This could lead to problems related to the extraction of these teams. I was getting the feeling that I was a sort of general in this situation, and this was some special operation. The thought both slightly disturbed and amused me.

"What's going on?" Rainbow asked. She was only a meter or two away, and was listening in over the productive chatter of the other ponies.

"Shining is part of my team, we're discussing whether or not our team should go to a high-risk universe," I explained.

"You? No way! You should stick to the medium areas, we kind of need you to live through this."

"What about you?"

"What about me? I've survived in the universes you took me to!"

"I don't want any of us to die, Rainbow. These four universes are by far the most likely to make you end up as a corpse."

Rainbow was about to deliver a rebuttal when another voice came from behind. "Not if I have anything to say about it." We all spun around. Standing there was a unicorn, dark gray in coloration. Her cutie mark was a silhouette of a pony, outlined with some sort of glow.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with the rest of the volunteers?" I said quickly.

"No, I am on the Magicians' Council, the group that has uncovered these universes for you. We stay in the castle at times like these. I've been told that you may have some challenging days ahead. I am an enchanter of ponies, the only one of my kind in Equestria to anypony's knowledge. As such, my magical experiments are the only ones in the field, which makes me kind of... important, I suppose."

"Enchanter of ponies?" Rainbow asked. I was just as confused as she was.

"I can cast spells that improve various aspects of a pony's body, but not mind. I can make ponies non-corporeal, so they walk as ghosts or I can conjure magical armor, stronger than any other, for example. Though, the use of these spells requires me to be very close to whoever I might be using them on, which is why I am a perfect candidate to be part of one of your high-risk expeditions! The problem is, I can only use basic spells outside of these ones." She smiled, clearly excited to have a use for her unique and not entirely practical skills.

"What's your name?"

"Call me Shimmer."

"Okay, Shimmer. Rainbow, are you okay with Shimmer joining up with you?"

"I guess so. You're the one in charge, right?"

"I'm not the boss, I'm the... coordinator."

"Okay, Rainbow Dash, was it? I'm sure we'll make a great team. Now, let's look over these pages," Shimmer said to Rainbow. I turned back to Shining.

"Couldn't we just pick out the universes one at a time, going through them in order instead of all over the place?" he asked me.

"Yeah, that's a great idea."

"Everypony!" The room quieted. "Shining Armor here has given me an idea. We will simply take these universes on in sequence, from low risk to high risk. Pile up all of the materials, I'll sort them into groups."

The ponies complied, and I gathered the piles, arranging them in three sets of eight, with two missing spaces in the third set.

"Okay, leaders, select a universe from the first set. When we come back, we'll pick for the second set, and so on."

The ponies huddled around the piles, chatting amongst themselves. I walked over to Celestia. She had been sitting at the end of the table, observing the scene.

"How much time until the volunteers are supposed to arrive?" I asked.

"Forty-five minutes. I will explain to them in detail what is going on, then I'll leave it to you and your fellow leaders to explain the plan from there. Are they nearly ready?"

I looked back at the others. They'd mostly made their decisions and were now discussing their choices. "Almost."

I headed back to the group. "Okay, everyone but me has made their decision, right?" The ponies nodded. "Okay, good. Now we should discuss how we're going to spend our time in these universes, and how we're going to get back. I think two days should be enough to complete this first set, so, after two days' time after we leave Equestria, you'll have to be ready at where the portal brought you in, and I'll open my portals to bring you all home."

"What if a team doesn't make it back in time?" Twilight raised a valid point. I scratched my head for a moment.

"Hmm. I'll open a portal to the universe every thirty minutes for three hours, then a team will be sent to search for the lost one. Sound good?"

The ponies looked at one another, and nodded at me.

"Excellent." Our newly-made, rough-and-ready plans were nearly complete. It was only a matter of getting the team members and departing now. We'd go through the universes in order from least dangerous to most dangerous, in three sets, returning two days after we left Equestria.

"Will we be able to communicate in case of emergency?" Time Piece asked.

"I don't know, but I think I have an idea. Twilight, you remember the bottle of dragonfire you gave me a few weeks ago?"

"Yes... yes, that could work! If the barrier between your universe and this one is more stable than these universes', then letters could be sent between them like they could there."

"Am I going to have to prepare that many bottles?" Spike groaned.

"There are plenty in storage, that will not be necessary, Spike," Shining answered, to the relief of the small dragon. "In fact, I should speak with somepony about expedition supplies. I won't be gone too long." Shining left the meeting.

I walked over to Celestia again. "I think we're ready."

"Excellent news. When the volunteers arrive, I will explain to them the situation in detail, and you and your friends will explain the rest of the plan. Does that sound all right to you?"

"Yes, it does."

Now all there was left to do was wait for the volunteers. I mulled over in my head what I'd say to the undoubtedly large number of ponies that would arrive. What would I say?