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Inevitabilities

by Sharp Quill

Chapter 17: 17. Pop Quiz

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Meg scanned the list of temporal experiments Twilight had come up with. The first one was simple enough. “Go back to the middle of the previous night and try to wake myself up.” She looked up at Twilight. “I assume you’re referring to yourself.”

The alicorn was hovering in the middle of her private library. “The protocols require that you stay here. That way, I can observe what effect my attempts at altering the past have on your present memories.”

Assuming you can alter the past, of course. Nothing would make Meg happier. Then she could forget the whole business of breaking Tirek out of Tartarus, and Equestria would be spared the ensuing rampage. The battle between Twilight and Sunset Shimmer would still have happened, so far as she could see, so her life as a part-time pony would persist, if perhaps somewhat altered.

“I’m sure Steve already knew that, but I’ll do the best I can on such short notice. Whenever you’re ready.” Not that Meg really minded filling in for her stuck-in-a-late-meeting-at-work husband; she had a quite personal, if secret, stake in the outcome of these experiments.

Twilight’s horn flashed—and nothing. “The spell failed.”

As it would to prevent a paradox. Twilight had not been awoken by her future self the previous night. It was not a promising start for the mutable past hypothesis.

“The protocols require that I make three attempts,” Twilight explained. “There’s an inherent probabilistic component to a time loop’s quantum mechanical wave function. The spell could fail even in the absence of a paradox, though that’s supposed to be unlikely. But we haven’t enough data to know just how unlikely it is.”

Twilight closed her eyes and cast the spell again. Nothing. The third try also failed. “A direct attempt to cause a paradox has failed,” she concluded.

Meg made a notation on the first item on the list. “The next experiment is to take a book off a shelf, move it back in time a few days, and place it on the table here.”

“I’ll pick a book that I have no recollection of having been on that table at any point in the last few days.” She drifted over to a bookshelf and picked one out: Daring Do and the Calamitous Catacombs.

Meg had received her own, autographed copy. It was only fair, considering that the story featured an orchid pegasus—who absolutely was not named “Meg”—and an exotic magical device that could “see” underground structures. What had the explorer once told her? Based on actual events, just awesomely embellished. Also thoroughly redacted; it possessed not a hint of humans.

Twilight resumed her hover in the middle of the library, the book in her magical grasp. Her horn flashed—and she vanished.

She should return within seconds. Meg focused on the table, not sure what to expect. The spell succeeded, so there’s no paradox—theoretically. But the book hadn’t suddenly appeared on the table either. Would Twilight still have it when she returned?

The table was still book-free when seconds later Twilight returned, book-free.

They both went to the table and stared at its surface, still uncluttered by a Daring Do book. Twilight lifted what books were there in her magic, double checking.

“So where is it?” Meg asked.

“I don’t know. I left it right there.” She pointed to an empty spot on the table.

“Wasn’t that an autographed copy too?”

Twilight grimaced. “Yeah. Maybe it’s stuck in an alternate timeline or something. I better go back again and retrieve it.”

“Wait. Don’t. Isn’t it obvious?”

Her horn fizzled out. “Huh?”

“I mean, the reason it’s not here now is because you went back and retrieved it.”

“Oh.” She thought it over. “Okay, say I don’t retrieve it. It’s still not here.”

Meg smirked. “Yeah, but do you Pinkie Promise to never, ever retrieve it?”

Twilight glared at her, then relented with a sigh. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

The book persisted in not being there, not on the table and not amongst the other books still levitating above the table.

Twilight let those floating books fall, producing a succession of thuds. “Now what.”

Meg didn’t know what to say, nor did Twilight seem to be in the mood to move on to the next experiment.

Spike trundled through the door, carrying a bag of groceries. “Hey, guys. Why so glum?”

Twilight frowned at her number one assistant. “It would appear I have lost my new Daring Do book.”

He set the bag down on the table. “Funny you should say that. I found an extra copy on this table a few days ago. I knew it wasn’t yours, because that one was on the shelf over there.” He pointed to the gap where the book used to be. “I still don’t know who it belongs to or how it got here. You’ve been so busy these past few days, I didn’t want to bother you about it.”

Meg’s ears drooped. Nope, no paradox here. She made an appropriate note on the list. “Next experiment?” she asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No, I need to rethink that list. I’m not taking all possibilities into account.” She followed Spike up the stairs to the upper level. “Maybe I should let Rainbow Dash knock on her own door and see what stops her from doing it.”

Meg grunted. “Isn’t it obvious what stopped her the last time?”

Twilight looked through the bannister at her, her climbing paused. “What do you mean? She didn’t even try.”

“Exactly,” Meg said. “Because you stopped her, by pointing out it wasn’t the time for temporal experiments.”

Twilight trudged up the stairs, lost in thought. She did not speak again until she had reached the top. “If nothing else, this is making me look forward to Tartarus.”


“This isn’t a social visit, Tirek.”

“It never is, with you,” the centaur said, adding a sardonic chuckle. He looked down his nose at Twilight. “Then you, Princess, shall refer to me by my proper title, Lord Tirek.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “And that’s why I don’t bother visiting you.”

“You are the Princess of Friendship,” he countered, “not I.”

Of all the items on her to-do list for today, this was the one she had looked forward to the least. “Can we skip this game, for once? Remember your desire to be released back to the human realm? I have a response from the leader of one of their countries, the same one those other human prisoners were from.”

He got up off the bed and strolled up to the bars. “You have my attention.”

It was a promising start. We’ll see how long it lasts.

“They will grant your request, contingent on two conditions being met.”

“And what about you? Assuming their conditions are met, will you release me?”

Twilight found it hard to meet his eyes. “You’ll be sacrificing your immortality, you know, becoming human again.”

Tirek waved an arm around his cell. “I should instead rot for eternity in this place? Better to live mere decades as a free man.”

“The human world has changed, since you left, in ways you cannot imagine. You cannot go ‘home’; it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“So I’ve gathered. I have, as you know, talked with those human prisoners you so thoughtfully put here.”

Twilight sighed. Was this really about his future well-being, or was she avoiding a decision? “Yes, I shall release you upon their conditions being met—and you reveal how you crossed over to our realm.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He grasped the bars of his cell as if the means to pry them apart was at hoof. “What are these conditions?”

“First, you must prove your claim of being the son of King Minos. According to their mythology, Androgeos was murdered in Athens.” Twilight awaited his response.

Tirek broke out in laughter. “Mythology indeed! Athens I had indeed journeyed to, but I did not die there, as you can plainly see.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “I may have made a few enemies during my time there. Who took credit for my ‘death?’”

“There are conflicting accounts, but this is all beside the point. They need something more substantial than your word.”

The centaur shrugged. “How did those humans put it? I left my wallet in my other toga.”

Twilight retrieved a folder from her saddlebag. “Not a problem,” she said as she pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up to him.

Tirek’s eyes went wide. “Never had I thought I’d see the writing of my people again.”

There hadn’t been much text on that sheet, just enough for it to register as Linear A; it wasn’t strictly speaking a part of the test.

As Twilight returned the sheet to her saddlebag—he would not have access to it for the test—Tirek said, “Thirty amphora of olive oil.”

She looked up. “Huh?”

“That’s what it says: thirty amphora of olive oil. I’m guessing it’s part of a shipping manifest.” He looked at her expectantly, evidently guessing this had been a test.

He was not to know that knowledge of his native tongue had been lost. It was dangerous to even pretend that had been a correct translation. What if he’d deliberately mistranslated? Unlikely as that was, it was one of the possibilities the humans had considered.

Twilight levitated the folder through the bars. “This is the first of two parts,” she said, not addressing the translation’s correctness. Regardless, she mentally added a new item to today’s to-do list: pass on to Serrell the first alleged translation of Linear A.

Tirek took hold of the folder and opened it.

“They want you to translate that into the Minoan language. There are blank sheets of paper in there, and that’s one of their writing devices clipped onto the folder—a ball-point pen, they call it.”

He slid the pen off the folder and inspected it.

“Press the button on the end.”

He did so. “Fascinating. So precisely crafted.” He pressed the button repeatedly.

“I’ll be back tomorrow with part two—but this isn’t a timed test. If you need more time, you may have it.”

“What of the second condition?” he quickly asked.

“The decision to accept you is not up to the leader of that country,” Twilight said. “Like I said, much has changed. The few kings that still exist have little power, and this country has no king at all. You’ll need to persuade over a hundred million humans.”

Tirek stared at her, incredulous. “No king? Over a hundred million with no sovereign? How could that possibly work?”

“It appears to work well enough, if not flawlessly. Once the first condition has been met, they’ll send some people to interview you. They call it a ‘press conference.’ It will be recorded and made available for everypony to watch. You’ll do well to remember that the power lies with the people, not with royals such as yourself. Your title will be of historical interest only.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled. “It is what it is, I suppose. There’s no choice but to adapt, as I did when I arrived in your realm.” A smile broke out. “While I may have no title, I’ll still have fame, and that is itself a source of power.”

Twilight suppressed a groan. That will be their problem, not mine.

“Like I said, I’ll be back tomorrow with part two, but I won’t give it to you unless you have completed part one.” That was part of the instructions. It was supposed to make it harder for him to fake the translation.

“For once, I look forward to it.” He turned away, dismissing her.

Twilight headed towards the exit. That was another task she could cross of her to-do list. She walked past the other cells, now empty.

After signing out at the guard station, she took her time navigating the tunnels back to the Gates of Tartarus. Upon reaching Cerberus, she spent a few minutes playing with the three-headed guard dog. Then she was off to complete the next task on the list.

As the Gates came into view, she saw the human prisoners loitering on the other side, once more under the watch of the Royal Guards. Boxes full of their possessions lay on the ground near them, taped shut. The Zephyr was docked against the ledge, but the ship was not for them—not that they would know that.

Twilight walked through the gate. A guard dutifully scanned her, verifying her identity, and let her pass. She trotted over to the ship, ignoring the five prisoners, and went inside. She retrieved a plaid pill and left the ship, heading back towards the prisoners.

They were standing close enough to each other, so she swallowed the pill and without warning took them back to their realm, to the facility used to study Equestrian monsters. They all appeared inside the large and locked cage. She teleported to the other side of the bars.

“Where the hell are we?” Jackson asked.

“Bethesda, Maryland,” Twilight answered.

Several federal agents approached the cage. “They’re all yours,” she told them. “I’ll be back with their possessions in a minute.”

Jackson grabbed the bars. “I told you!” he shouted. “You would have no choice but to release us.”

She ignored him and invoked the return spell. It wouldn’t be long before she could move on to the next task: picking up Meg and Elaine.


Elaine watched the origami birds lazily flap their wings as they drifted about the room. A pony-sized teapot walked into the room, and with a smile it poured tea into the four teacups that encircled a platter of cucumber sandwiches.

Fluttershy gave the human a gentle smile. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

“Perhaps you could show Discord the contract?” Meg said to get her attention. The home of the draconequus was rather… distracting.

The Head of PR and Marketing snapped out of it. “Uh, sure.” She took off her backpack and removed from it a novella-length legal document. “This is what the winner will have to sign,” she said, handing it off to Discord. “You won’t have to sign it yourself. There’d be no point, really. I mean, you’re completely outside the reach of our legal system.”

With a paw he took the binder and with a talon he put on a pair of half frame reading glasses.

“I bet that drives the lawyers crazy,” Meg said.

Elaine shrugged. “They really, really, really think this is a bad idea.”

Discord leafed through the pages. “They certainly seem to think that I’m crazy.” He turned another page. “Or into sadistic torture.”

“I’m sure they don’t really think that,” Fluttershy assured him.

“They’re just covering every conceivable contingency they can think of,” Meg offered. “It’s to protect the convention from lawsuits, not to impugn your character.”

A dust bunny poked its nose out from under a sofa. After testing the air, it hopped across the floor over to Meg and rubbed its dusty face against her fetlock.

Elaine stared at the creature. “A literal dust bunny,” she said.

The bunny had hopped over to Fluttershy, who gently nuzzled it. “It’s all the chaos magic,” the pegasus said. “Every visit is a unique experience.”

“Yes…” the human said, quickly checking her appendages. “I have to confess I was just a teensy bit worried about coming here, but I haven’t changed color or anything.”

“See? I’m really quite safe, now that I’m on my best behavior.”

A bush sprouted from the area carpet, catching Elaine’s attention. It was comprised of the same fibers as the carpet itself. One of the origami birds perched on it. “Well, I’m not the one you have to convince.”

The walking teapot came over and filled Meg’s teacup. “As the ones who need convincing are not here, perhaps we could change the subject?”

Discord jumped at the opportunity. “The human prisoners in Tartarus,” he began. “They’ve been released, have they not?”

Twilight had mentioned leaving them in that large cage in Bethesda, but their ultimate fate was unclear.

“If my brother had been set free, all I can say is that no one has seen fit to inform me.”


Trixie’s eyes were glued to the TV. A human stage magician was performing his act with the help of six other humans randomly selected from the audience. Twilight assumed it was random. The magician had tossed six inflated balls, five white and one red, into the audience and instructed them to keep them in the air until he told them to stop; the ones who had caught a ball were then brought up onto the stage, still carrying the balls they had caught.

Steve came in, bearing snacks. “Got some nachos for you. The, uh, cheesy stuff is normally poured over the nachos, but… you know.”

In a huff, Twilight poured the bowl of cheese goop onto the nachos. “Really, Steve. You should know better than to take anything in the current season at face value. I have nothing against cheese. I hadn’t even heard of quesadillas until a few days ago!”

“Quiet,” Trixie hissed.

Each volunteer was asked, in turn, for a number between one and fifty six. The magician wrote that number on the ball held by the volunteer. Five. Thirty-six. Ten. Forty. Twenty-two. And on the red ball, seven. It still wasn’t clear what the trick was supposed to be. Did it have something to do with that lotto ticket allegedly in a box, on a stool to the side, under constant observation by a camera?

Twilight helped herself to a cheese-laden nacho and made a show of putting it in her mouth. She smiled at Steve.

All the balls had a number written on them. The magician contemplated the line of balls held by the volunteers. He re-arranged the volunteers so that their numbers were in increasing order, with the exception of the red one. That he moved to the end of the line.

“Consider the impossibility of this situation,” the magician began. “Six random people, providing six random numbers. One lotto ticket I bought a month ago, secure in a box under the watchful eye of a camera the whole time.”

He lifted the box. He opened the box. “Here’s the lotto ticket.” The TV showed a close-up of it. The numbers were a perfect match to the ones on the balls. He took it out of the box. “As I read out the numbers, if it matches your ball please hold it up.

“Five.”

The first human raised her ball.

“Ten.”

As did the next in line.

“Twenty-two.”

And so on down the line, each ball being raised in turn. It was rather anti-climatic. They had already seen the numbers on the ticket.

“I have no idea how he did that.” Twilight helped herself to another nacho. She had to assume the box was untouched the whole time, naturally. While it wasn’t shown on TV most of the time, the audience would have noticed if somepony had messed with it. Right?

Unless… the entire theater audience was in on it… Would they do that?

“Don’t look at me,” Steve mumbled through a nacho-filled mouth.

They both looked at Trixie.

“I can think of several ways of pulling that off, but they all require the use of one or more spells.” She looked towards Twilight. “But without any magic at all? Not a clue.”

“Are there minotaur magicians?” Steve asked.

“I suppose,” Trixie replied, “but I’ve never heard of one performing in Equestria.”

“Nor have I,” Twilight said.

The alicorn got up. “I’m afraid I must be on my way. I have an appointment to keep.”

And the final task on her to-do list.


Arcane Scroll put aside a paper he was grading. “I’m glad you finally found some time to see me.”

Twilight came through the open door, finding it surprisingly difficult to do so. It had been many years since she had been in this office, not since she attended one of the professor’s classes at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. It looked much the same. Bookshelves lined every wall, floor to ceiling, stuffed with modern books and not-so-modern codexes and scrolls, and stacks of numerous research papers and homework assignments.

“I’m really sorry I couldn’t see you sooner, but so much has been going on lately.”

He gave her an appraising look. “You truly have come a long way since you were my student.” The elderly professor waved her inside. “Come inside and close the door. We have much to discuss. And to be fair, getting some of Princess Celestia’s time would have been even harder.”

That sounded so odd, that one of the most respected, accomplished, and connected members of the faculty would find that so difficult. Even as a filly, Twilight had frequent contact with the princess—but then again that was to be expected. She had been her personal student, after all. Even so, Meg had regular contact with Celestia.

Having done as instructed, Twilight stood in front of his desk.

“No, no, no, no. This won’t do at all.” Arcane Scroll got up and walked over to a pile of seating cushions, and levitated two of them onto the floor. “You are not my student anymore, princess.”

He sat on one of the cushions, and waited for his ex-student to sit on the other.

Twilight looked at it with skepticism. “We are to sit as equals?”

Not that she cared, but he was the one to have made the point.

He gave her a smirk. “You lack the power to fire me.”

She sat down. “An oversight that’s easily corrected,” she said, smirking in return.

“Maybe you will manage this school one day,” he said, dropping the frivolity. “The princess has had scarce time to devote to it these last few decades, her name on the building notwithstanding. But enough banter. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

Twilight wasn’t sure how she’d feel about running the school. Celestia had never broached the subject. It was something she could afford to think about later—much later. “What’s on your mind?” she asked.

“The lectures by the human physicist, Steve,” he began. “I assume you’re aware of their contents?”

“Not specifically, but I have studied their physics and how they arrived at their understanding of the laws of their realm. It’s why I authorized this series of lectures.”

“I have no opinion on the correctness of that understanding, as it applies to their own realm, but its applicability to ours? That I’m not so sure of.”

Twilight had been afraid of that attitude, and the reports of declining attendance only confirmed her fears. She used her best counterargument. “Their technology depends on that understanding of their physics. That technology works in our realm, implying the same physics—at least in the absence of active spells.”

“Yes… that is an excellent point. I cannot deny that. Even so, I’d feel better if some of the crucial experiments, the ones performed by the humans to understand their realm, could be reproduced here.”

“Some of them could, I’m sure, but many require machines beyond our comprehension. One such machine is a gigantic ring about seventeen miles in diameter—and it has to be that large. That ring contains a nearly perfect vacuum and is surrounded by unbelievably powerful electromagnets that must be cooled hundreds of degrees below zero to even operate. That’s what it takes to explore the fundamental building blocks of matter.”

Arcane Scroll shook his head. “Incredible.”

“Granted, that’s what it takes in the absence of magic. But it’s not obvious how to do it with magic.”

“What about General Relativity? That seems the most incompatible with this realm. Do they have technology dependent on that?”

Twilight took a moment to think of some. “Not… directly. There’s a device that can tell you exactly where you are on the surface of their planet. The calculations it performs must take into account the time dilation effects of gravity. It doesn’t work here, but only because we don’t have the infrastructure it needs, satellites in orbit above the planet.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Wait.” Something else came to mind. “They have what they call ‘atomic clocks,’ clocks so precise that they can measure time flowing faster here, in Canterlot, than it would flow down below in Ponyville.”

“Because gravity is slightly—very slightly—weaker here.” He didn’t look convinced. “Surely that’s too small an effect to measure.”

Twilight smiled. “But they have! It’s incredibly small, true, on the order of billionths of a second per day, I think, but these clocks can measure that.”

“Would these clocks also be the size of a city?”

She recalled what she knew about them. “They’re definitely mobile, I know that much. They can also measure time dilation due to moving quickly.”

“Which would be a test of their ‘special’ relativity,” he noted. “By all means, try to acquire some of these devices. Regardless, it doesn’t alter the facts. The size of our realm is unchanging, something that according to their physics is essentially impossible. It must either collapse to a point or expand to infinity. Their realm, they believe, is doing the latter.”

“But there must be a point in-between, where expansion and contraction cancel out, leaving the size unchanged. Yes, such a condition must be unbelievably unlikely, but obviously we’re the existence proof.”

The old stallion shook his head. “Only by being balanced on a knife’s edge. The slightest deviation will tip it one way or the other. To prevent that would require active compensation.”

“A spell could do that, right?” Not that anypony knew anything about such a spell.

Arcane Scroll fixed disapproving eyes on her. “You’re not seeing the problem, Twilight. This active compensation would have been needed for as long as this realm has existed.”

“Oh.”

“Precisely. ‘Oh.’ Princess Celestia has not—how shall I put it—encouraged research into the origin of our realm.” He looked at her expectantly.

The conversation had gotten uncomfortable. “The Discordian Era destroyed any relevant evidence.” That made it a waste of resources that could be put to better uses. That was the justification trotted out whenever the subject came up. A justification that seemed suddenly hollow.

“Perhaps you could persuade her to see differently?”

Next Chapter: 18. Into the Lions' Den Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 51 Minutes
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