Friends like these

by Istaran

Rating: teen
Tags: Tirek, Drama, Science Fiction, King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, Random, Flim and Flam, Discord, Sex, Human, Gore, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 54158

Twelve humans came to Equestria, and seven survived to return to Earth. Their game is complete, but a new game begins, as they return home to find those who have been charged with making friends with them. But with friends like these...

Twelve humans came to Equestria and were thrust into a deadly 'survival game' by the mysterious Text. Seven survived to return to Earth. Their game is complete, but a new game begins, as they return home to find those who have been charged with making friends with them. But with friends like these...

Meanwhile, Equestria is still reeling from the effects of the Humans' War, and all of the changes they left behind after using the ponies' nation as a battlefield.

Published 2015-04-28 23:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-31 23:49:26 UTC

Prelude: Limping home

Twelve humans came to Equestria.

One brought war to the changelings, followed by the ponies. He was driven from safety by Celestia's sun, and killed by a changeling, avenging their fallen. One brought clothing, shared the joy of fashion with the ponies, and fell to the warmonger's senseless assault.

One died protecting his daughter. One died of a broken heart, believing her son to have perished.

And one stood against a dragon, and died for his own hubris.

The seven who remained gathered outside the Golden Oaks Library on a bright and cheerful day, surrounded by the ponies and others they had befriended along the way. The six that still had them drew out their smart phones, devices that had been augmented with a handful of magical powers. It was time to use the last one. One by one, they pressed the buttons corresponding to the elements of harmony, until all six had been pressed and a swirling vortex of magic burst into reality between them. The path home was finally opened.

Frank, whose Loyalty to his family had been enough to kill for, was first to rush in, eager to return home.

Relena, whose Honesty could be a bit disturbing at times, called out to the mechanical companion that had aided her in her time alone in Gryphonia, and kissed him goodbye. "We shouldn't bring our Cheat Codes with us to the real world," she said, coining the term that would be left behind with the humans' dangerous artifacts.

Angelica, whose Laughter remained pure and untainted by the war, reached out a hand to drag Zeke, the only human to master even a shred of Magic, into the portal with her.

Scott, with Generosity born from a lifetime's experience with poverty, handed over his magic soup can to his long time partner, the unicorn restaurateur Welcome Smile, with an admonition to always serve the poor for free. Welcome tearfully agreed as they parted ways.

Robert, who had destroyed his own phone in a desperate gamble to change the course of time, shook his head, even as he shook hands with Daniel, whose Kindness held back a dangerous darkness in his own heart. "We won! It was hard earned, and costly, but after all these tries. I can still barely believe it. We won!" Wind Chaser, the changeling disguised as a pegasus that had been Daniel's loyal partner, held out her hoof and accepted his Cheat Code, the powerful Ocarina of Time that had made it possible to try again and again until the humans succeeded in finding a way home. "Come on, it's time to go home."

Daniel started to follow after him, pausing a moment before entering the portal. He looked back at Wind Chaser with that disturbing smile that belonged to his dark side, an unspoken command receiving a determined nod from the changeling before he turned back and vanished from the world.

As the changeling took flight, the vortex collapsed in upon itself and disappeared.

The Elements of Harmony began discussing plans to carry the dangerous human artifacts that had been left with them back to Canterlot to be kept under lock and key. Twilight Sparkle got out her checklist going over the list.

Player 1: Daniel Holden. Artifact: Fractal spiders. Location: Contained within the blood of Daniel himself, the changeling Wind Chaser, the gryphon Bardrick and Princess Celestia. Cannot be safely removed. All other loose spiders have been destroyed.

That one was a problem that demanded a research solution. If the spiders were removed, the host would have no immune system and would soon get sick and perish, even from something as minor as the common cold. Surely a spell could be devised to correct that problem and rescue Celestia from the horrid things. Bardrick and Wind Chaser seemed uninterested in a cure themselves, but maybe they could be convinced to at least help as test subjects.

Player 2: Rebecca Redcliff. Artifact: Video player loaded with fictionalized account of Twilight Sparkle's life. Location: Unknown.

It was creepy to think about having her recent past on display, along with what could have been her future. According to Robert, the humans' intervention will have changed how things play out, especially with Luna gone, but looking ahead could still give her some warnings of dangers yet to come. If only anyone knew where the thing had gotten to.

Player 3: Robert Redcliff. Artifact: Ocarina of Time. Location:

Twilight looked around. It had been here with the humans a moment ago, she didn't think they had taken it with them. That was a bit concerning. That item could not be checked off yet either. Grrr.

Player 4: Scott Jones. Artifact: Infinite Soup Can. Location: Gifted to Welcome Smile.

That one was probably harmless to leave with a civilian. CHECK.

Player 5: Frank Cobbler. Artifact: Swiss Army Knife. Location: Canterlot vaults.

Already secured as evidence from a trial, even though it seemed pretty innocuous. They knew it had some kind of magic, but no one was sure what it did, so better safe than sorry. CHECK.

Player 6: Monique Ashland. Artifact: Infinite wardrobe. Location: Destroyed.

You couldn't get any more secured than that. CHECK.

Player 7: Angelica Ericson. Artifact: Working Internet connection. Location: Present and accounted for.

Twilight slipped it into one of her saddle bags. This would be another interesting research project. The ponies didn't have any devices that could connect to the wifi signal. Yet. The possibility of a long term channel of communication between their worlds was just incredibly exciting. Especially since Angelica had claimed they had millions of books in electronic format that could be downloaded and read. Millions. SQUEE! Also, CHECK!

Player 8: Joshua Swift. Artifact: Skull Talisman. Location: Bottom of the ocean.

The bottom of the ocean was pretty secure, right? And anyways, no one would want an artifact that merely lets you receive harm in place of a specific little girl, at least not now that her father had used it to give his life in place of hers. Relena was a nice enough girl, but the only one willing to go that far for her was gone now. So it was harmless now, right? Unless.. someone managed to alter its target, or reverse engineer it.. dang. No check for you!

Player 9: Relena Swift. Artifact: Toodles. Location: Present and accounted for.

The mouse-eared automaton could not be easily contained, but it happily floated around her and would follow her.. good enough. It seemed mean to lock it up, but she wasn't sure what else to do with it. The Princess would know. CHECK.

Player 10: Benjamin Coleman. Artifact: Omnitrix. Location: A dragon's lair in the smokey mountains.

There was ongoing negotiations with the dragon, but it seemed unlikely that it's price could be met. Fortunately, it was too small to fit on the dragon's own wrist, and a dragon's lair was generally a pretty dang secure location for something to be housed. CHECK.

Player 11: Zeke Goldstein. Artifact: Magic cards. Location: Present and accounted for.

Twilight lifted the cards in her own magic, flipping through them briefly before slipping them into a saddle bag. Another interesting research project, perhaps, or maybe it was best to simply lock them up. The cards had a few other possible uses, but they were designed for combat, Zeke had been clear about that. CHECK.

Player 12: Ryan Smith. Artifact: Magic MCV. Location: Destroyed.

The MCV itself had been destroyed, along with the bulk of the forces it had produced, but there were still a number of rogue soldiers and war machines lying about, endangering anypony unfortunate enough to encounter them. Twilight vacillated a moment before deciding to mark it with a CHECK. The MCV itself was gone, and without it so was the ability to control the units it had produced. The remained forces were just a hazard left behind: dangerous, to be sure, but they couldn't be wielded against the realm proactively.

Twilight looked back at the top of the list with a frown before rolling up the scroll and stowing it. Only eight checkmarks out of twelve, already beating out the humans' own score. She was saddened by the thought for a moment until she reminded herself that at least she could look forward to checking off the other items.

She looked at where the portal had been, wondering what awaited the humans when they returned home, before gathering her friends and beginning her own journey.

Unnoticed at the time, others departed Equestria at the same moment as the humans, leaving voids in their wakes.

A vacuum of power among a hungry and dangerous race.

A half-built contraption left by the side of the road, its owners mysteriously absent.

A trio of dangerous predators, already banned from Equestria, find themselves displaced once more.

A statue in a garden goes missing, leaving a blank and boring gap.

A rolling stage is left to roll unguided, crashing and destroying itself upon a tree, letting loose uncontrolled magics from its destroyed contents.

A cell deep within Tartarus is left empty, the door still uselessly locked.

And in the frozen north, a shadowy threat simply never emerges, leaving a peaceful reprieve in the newly returned seat of power.

The human heart must once more be broken, this time by the power of friendship.
When he cannot bear for you to leave, only then will you be returned to your home.
-The Text

Chapter 1: The absence of ponies

"Don't miss your stop," the bus driver said. When he did, the passengers shook their heads, as if coming out of a hypnotic trance. They looked around, taking in their surroundings in a bit of a daze. Aside from some new memories and a bit of confusion, they were exactly as they had been. Externally, at least. Well, seven of them. Five of the passengers were simply gone, almost without a trace. Robert quickly grabbed his mother's purse and strung it over his shoulder with the slightest blush, while Relena grabbed her father's wallet and keys, lying on the seat where he should have been. Ryan, Monique, and Benjamin were simply gone, leaving nothing but a somber reminder of the reality the survivors had just escaped.

Thinking fast, Daniel called out, let's all get off at the McDonald's ahead. "We should trade contact info, and keep in touch," he said. "I know it's not the best, but I'll buy."

"I'm going straight home," Frank countered. "I'll give you my info, but I'm not waiting any longer to see my wife and children."

And so, six passengers got off a few stops later, leaving Frank alone with the bus driver who seemed oblivious to the supernatural events that had occurred on his ride.

It didn't take them long to order, nor to receive their food. Robert had to check with Relena as to how much to order; his body had reverted to the ten year old he had been when he first crossed to Equestria, the fifteen years of time loops erased from his physical form but not his mind. A happy meal was a simple enough suggestion to solve the problem.

They were an odd assortment who sat down to eat. Daniel, the young man who had taken charge, a software engineer who had just experienced life as a magically enhanced cyborg of sorts. Robert, a young boy who had just experienced fifteen years of alternate timelines, only to have the physical signs of it wiped away in an instant. Zeke, a teenaged boy who had used a deck of cards to play with real magic, and managed to learn a small bit himself. Relena, an eight year old girl whose father gave his life to protect her, leaving her to face life alone. Scott, a welfare dependent who had enjoyed a brief stint as a magically empowered restaurateur. And Angelica, a teenage girl who had managed to avoid the war and drama, spending a few weeks exposing the ponies of Vanhoover to the wonders of Earth's Internet.

"So," Zeke began awkwardly. "That happened." Everyone nodded solemnly, eating quietly for a bit.

Scott looked to the youngest two, "are you two going to be okay? I mean, without your parents.."

Robert looked thoughtful. "I know how to take care of myself in a place like Equestria, with a bow and sword I no longer have.. here in the modern world? As terribly awkward as it's all going to be for me, I think my best shot, honestly is to deal with whatever the foster system has in mind for orphans.. at least I've already 'grown up' once.. should help some. If nothing else I'd like to hope it gave me.. perspective."

Relena shook her head. "You can go play orphan if you want to. I'm going to my dad's cabin. I actually have a bow there and know how to use it. Actually.. maybe you should come with me. We could do quite well together."

Angelica laughed a bit. "Are you for real? How are you going to, like, pay the bills?"

Relena huffed. "I've been paying the bills for over a year. I have.. had more free time than daddy, and getting the paperwork out of the way meant more time together. Besides, he always wanted me to be prepared to take care of myself.. we just.. thought it would be another decade before it happened."

"Do you have good internet access from that cabin of yours?" Angelica asked.

Relena nodded. "It's not the fastest, but it's good enough. Daddy tried to keep himself away from it when he was out there, but it wasn't practical to cut himself off entirely."

"Speaking of internet", Daniel interjected, finally looking up from his phone, "I've sent all of the contact details you guys gave me to the email addresses you gave me. We should keep in touch. After all that.. I think, we may need someone who can relate to the, well, unrelatable. I know all of our experiences there were pretty different, but at least we won't just write each other off as crazy. And it sounds like at least some of us are going to need a bit of help here on this side from time to time."

"We should come up with a name for ourselves. Something we can use to refer to our group without sounding too weird to outsiders who might overhear," Zeke suggested.

They all thought for a moment before Relena offered, "how about the Eastside Equestrian Club?"

This got a mixed bag of reactions, but eventually they settled on it. The ambiguity of the term masked its meaning enough to use it freely, letting outsiders come to their own incorrect assumptions. It even brought up an obvious reason to mention 'ponies'.

"It's decided then. I hearby adjourn the inaugural meeting of the Eastside Equestrian Club," Daniel said. "It's about time for the next bus to come by, so let's all get where we're going. I'll be in touch."

"Dibs on making the website!" Angelica said cheerily as they made their exit.

When Frank arrived home, he could already hear his son crying through the door. That was a bit unusual. Usually, little Georgie didn't start crying until he heard his father approaching, too impatient to wait for him to take off his shoes and coat. It was unusual, but not really suspicious. Babies cried, sometimes for no discernable reason, or over little things like being unable to reach something they shouldn't be playing with anyways. So Frank opened the door, put away his coat and shoes, and proceeded to greet his son with a loud, excited "George!"

The one year old, just starting to toddle, lit up with happy laughter and began crawling toward him eagerly, soon to be scooped up. He smothered the child in kisses before meeting his wife, Eliza, in an uncommonly passionate kiss. If he had had a normal day, he might have asked her why she was in such a forward mood, but instead he savored it for all it was worth, simply glad to be home at last after so long. There was something a bit more pleasurable than usual in the exchange, unsurprising after such a long and stressful absence.

When they finally broke contact, Frank inquired "is dinner almost ready? I'm really hungry."

Eliza seemed a bit surprised at this, quickly covering. "I thought perhaps we could go out to eat tonight. Your choice."

Frank thought a moment, "I don't really feel like going back out again tonight.. why don't we have something delivered?"

Oddly, Eliza seemed surprised by that option as well. "Sure, why don't you order something for us, then?"

And so he ordered some Chinese food, and stepped up to feed their hungry son while they waited. It was kind of odd, like somehow his stay at home wife had forgotten all of her responsibilities. It seemed more like forgetfulness than laziness, as every little thing seemed like a small surprise to her. On the other hand, she was awfully affectionate the whole time.

George was unusually fussy and tired, so Frank put him to bed early, finishing just in time to answer the door when their food arrived. Eliza barely ate anything.. which was not all that unusual at this stage of her pregnancy. The internal organs moving around tended to limit how much she could eat at once, even if bouts of hunger throughout the day left her eating more altogether. But she was very forward and affectionate today. Most days the pregnancy sapped too much of her energy to get up to much of anything, but today she seemed full of energy, and intent on catching up on missed opportunities.

Something in the back of Frank's brain insisted that all was not quite right. But a louder part insisted that he not miss this opportunity, especially since it had been so much longer for him than she realized. And so, Frank took his wife back to the master bedroom. By the time he finally fell asleep, he was thoroughly exhausted, in a much deeper and more complete way than he had ever experienced. He slept deeply, for once, even sleeping through their son's cries in the night, but woke up still feeling drained.

Still.. it was so good to finally be home.

Dopple sat unsteadily upon the throne. It was meant for a changeling more than twice his height, and he wasn't about to change his form just to fit. Maybe later, when he was more established, but for now, he had to be openly recognized as himself. Dopple. Dopple the human slayer. Dopple the war hero.

It had all been dumb luck, in a way. He had been at his Queen's side when she confronted the princesses and their human allies, only for one of the humans to somehow magically banish him back to his home. Normally, going home from a fight wasn't all that bad, but in this case his home was full of hostile murder-dogs. But the murder-dogs had a weakness, and with nothing better to do he had been able to find it. If you attacked from far enough away, you could take them out before they closed, and if you kept airborne they basically ignored you as you picked them off at your leisure.

The human had had a weakness too. The dogs could see through a changeling's disguise like it wasn't even there, but the human could not. He didn't even think to be suspicious of a dog wielding a crossbow. Or if he had, he was too distracted by the world's worst case of sunburn to care. Honestly, Celestia probably deserved more credit for ending the human than he did, but he wasn't in a position to argue.

Literally.

Their queen had been missing for less than an hour, and already fighting factions had broken out amongst his changeling brethren, arguing about who should be in charge. As a war hero, no one could object to him openly, and he had been more or less installed by a coalition of opposing factions in order to keep each others' choices out of the throne. Arguing his way out of the job would just make the fighting start again, and maybe it wouldn't be bloodless this time.

He was a little nervous about their queen suddenly showing up and demanding his head for sitting in her seat, but he hoped his war hero status would give him enough leniency to survive stepping down. He didn't really want to be the queen. Or king. Or whatever he was. Leader. Fearless leader. That was a lie, but it would serve.

"The first order of business, I, your fearless leader, have for you is to secure food for us," he began. "All of our feeding pods were destroyed by the brutal and cruel human, not even sparing the ponies locked inside. You have an hour to prepare plans for me for how each of you think we should restore our supplies, and I will chose which of those plans, if any, are enacted. Understood?"

He had to keep repeating 'Fearless leader, fearless leader, fearless leader' in his mind to keep himself from acting timid before the group of would-be leaders standing fearlessly before him. But they all bought it, or at least saw no reason to undermine him, so he sat back into the throne and waited for their suggestions.

[Oh Crysalis, where are you?!] he thought.

Chapter 2: The absence of money

When the bus dropped him off at his stop, Scott strolled slowly toward his apartment complex with no particular desire to arrive. Equestria wasn't necessarily a dream come true for Scott, per se, but at least he had had a role there. Value that other people appreciated, even if it was just tilting a magic can all day long. He could probably get a comparable job here on Earth, but his past experiences working in fast food showed it would be far from the same. Here, no one appreciated the burger flippers, not the customers, not the bosses. And handing out freebies by the back door would just get you fired. Plus, the government clawed back a good portion of his welfare money if he earned anything for himself, so for all practical purposes he'd be earning only a small fraction of minimum wage for his troubles.

Though, maybe volunteering at a charity soup kitchen wouldn't be so bad.

He finally arrived at his front door. He thought he heard something within as his keys jangled in his hand. He paused, listening, but heard nothing. So he inserted the key, turned the lock, turned the knob and opened the door to...

A sparklingly clean model home of an apartment.

This was not the deplorable mess he had left behind. And yet, looking around, he could see much of his stuff, neatly filed away onto shelves and other storage spots. Clearly, he had been the victim of home invasion cleaners. Since no human would ever do such a thing, they had to be alien home invasion cleaners. The endless mysteries of the universe continued to boggle the mind.

Scott entered cautiously, closing the door behind him and locking it for good measure. He walked slowly, quietly, out into the middle of the room, tensely watching for any surprise ambush. He had no idea what to expect. He thought he was doing a proper job of expecting the unexpected. And yet.

"Hi! You must be the fine proprietor of this here domicile!" said a yellow unicorn, walking in on his hind legs from the kitchen. He had a red and white striped mane, a blue and white striped vest over a white shirt, and a broad straw hat.

"Indeed you must, I do hope you enjoy our complimentary cleaning service! It's the least we could do," said a second yellow unicorn, walking in on his hind legs from the bathroom. He looked very similar to the first, aside from a slightly different hairstyle and a distinctly absurd moustache. "He's Flim," the pony said, pointing out his brother.

"And he's Flam," said the first, pointing out his mustachioed sibling. "And we're the world famous Flim Flam Brothers. Soon to be worlds famous, if I'm not mistaken."

"And you never are, brother," Flam concurred. "And this is your chance to come along for the ride of a lifetime!"

"A ride to the very top, guaranteed," Flim concluded. "So what do you say, partner?"

Scott took a moment to reboot his brain. Flim and Flam would have been outlandish enough in Equestria, here in a dingy (strike that.. lemony fresh) little apartment they were positively unbelievable. "Sure, why not." Scott said, completely unclear on what he was agreeing to. He would probably regret it later, but he didn't have any other plans. Well, maybe catch up on something on Netflix. But that would wait until whatever was going on here played out.

"I most be on some pretty serious drugs," Scott concluded as they walked down the street.

"Why do you say that, my good man?" Flim, or possibly Flam asked. He tipped his had briefly as a woman passed. "Ma'am," he said politely, as did his brother.

"No one else is noticing the talking yellow unicorns. They would have noticed something like that, I'm sure," Scott explained.

"Sir," Flam, or possibly Flim, acknowledged politely as a male jogger passed them, his brother following suit. "Oh, nopony pays much mind to a properly polite gentleman, at least not until he wants their attention," he countered glibly.

That made a certain kind of sense, to Scott. The exact kind of sense a drug-addled brain would come up with, he was certain. Whatever he was on, it must be some real primo stuff.

"Where might somepony acquire some of these 'drugs'," Flim asked. At least Scott decided that one was Flim, until he lost track again. "If somepony were inclined to do so. Perhaps in bulk?"

"I don't know.. and if I did, how would you pay for them? I certainly don't have that kind of money, and no one on Earth would accept bits as payment." Something started to stir in the back of Scott's brain.

"That nopony would accept the finest and most stable of currencies is a baffling thought indeed! What manner of currency do we need here, my good man?" Flam inquired.

"Actually.. what are bits made of? I think maybe.." Scott knew this would be a bad idea. A horrible idea. Not what they were about to do, but what the brothers would surely do next.

It turns out, real gold Equestrian bits were quite successful at separating wealthy bronies, pegasisters, and just plain collectors from their more common and boring American dollars. And that was despite the buyers' absolute certainty that Equestria was nothing but a fictional setting from a children's cartoon show. With the brilliant addition of carefully carving a different tiny number into the soft gold of each coin, they had probably at least doubled their already ridiculous profits. Even after Uncle Sam's cut, they could probably outright buy a nice house on a sunny beach and enjoy a bit of luxury for the rest of their lives.

Or as Flim and Flam put it, they now had 'seed money'.

But Scott finally put his foot down, deciding it was time to give the smooth talking brothers a reality check before they bit off more than they could chew.

So they settled in for a nice long weekend together, and watched all four seasons of Breaking Bad.

Welcome Smile was doing surprisingly badly, financially, on account of a promise. His former human companion, Scott, had left him with a magic soup can that could fill a bowl with any manner of soup the pourer could think of, piping hot and ready to eat. It didn't seem to have any clear limits to its use, and amazingly it continued to work in the low magic zone that was Canterlot, even while pegasi were grounded, unicorn's horns became useless bone protrusions and earth ponies like himself stumbled under the strain of suddenly being as weak as everypony else. The other tribes could be lacking in sympathy on that last bit, but earth pony magic was every bit a part of their daily lives that the other tribes' horns and wings were. In some ways more, as they used it unconsciously in every little thing they did. Without it, even the mass of their own muscular frames felt suddenly oppressive.

But with everypony losing their magic here, many were very rapidly becoming destitute. Those with money mostly fled the city. Those with ties to the court, specifically, mostly followed Celestia's northward migration. There was rumors of a new hoofball league forming that would play exclusively in the low magic zone, levelling the playing field in an exciting new way... but they had yet to have their first official game, and so the crowds were not coming in yet.

Welcome Smile had promised Scott, when he was given sole ownership of the magic can, to use it to feed the poor for free. And now it was becoming harder and harder to get any paying customers into the overcrowded shop. At first, he had held to Scott's policy of seeing the nonpaying ponies in the back alley, so at least only the paying customers had the advantage of the comfy seats, but when the line had gotten long enough to loop around into the seating area, and tempt the freeloaders to sit down for a spell while they waited, Welcome had given up.

But now, his rent was due, and he wasn't sure how to explain to his landlord that he had the busiest restaurant in all of Canterlot, no employees, wares that didn't cost him anything, and even free food for himself... and still couldn't afford his rent. He only had two possible hopes to rely on. One was that ponies would start to pony up, or at least leave him tips. The second was that the sheer wall of waiting ponies would physically block his landlady's entrance so that she couldn't get close enough to evict him.

Both hopes were dashed in his mind when he saw her there, third from the front of the line.

His nervousness mounted as the line made it's way closer, one customer at a time. When she finally sat down, he made himself scarce for a few minutes with necessary tasks.. washing the used bowls, using the washroom for his own suddenly critical needs, every stall tactic he could come up with before he was forced to admit to himself that he was simply avoiding her, and that it wouldn't end well for him to do so.

Finally, he strolled up to her, set a glass of water before her and gave her his attention, pretending nervously that she was just anypony else. "What kind of soup would you like today?"

His landlady, Silver Ladle, was a unicorn mare, pink like Princess Cadance, and at least as cute. She was an heiress, getting along well simply managing her late mother's income properties. Must be nice. She was cute, and had always treated him well enough, but she her position of power over him had always been reason enough for him to keep his distance from her, and keep things strictly professional.

"What would you recommend, Welcome? You know your wares better than I," she said with a warm smile.

"The minestrone, perhaps?" he suggested.

"That sounds excellent. And do you mind if I stay here until closing. I believe you and I have some business to discuss," she smiled again, before busying herself drawing ledgers from her saddlebags and making some notes.

"That will be fine. I'll have your soup out right away," he said with a trembling voice before heading back to the kitchen.

The rest of the shift passed with a mix of terror and despair.

Chapter 3: The absence of humility

"Mom, I'm home!" Angelica announced as she opened her front door. The stop at McDonald's had made her a bit late, but nothing outside her normal range. The teenager was prone to staying out later some days, or rushing home first thing on others, depending on how her homework and social calendar happened to sync up, and her mom had long since given up on keeping track of it.

"Alright dear! Your friends are waiting for you in your room. Don't stay up too late!" her mom replied.

'Friends?' It was hard to be sure after the whirlwind of weirdness that was the bus ride home. Taking a detour through another world that took nearly a month on that side but seemingly no time at all on Earth made it a bit hard to remember little details like this, but she was pretty sure the only one she had invited over was Monique.

Monique. One of the ones who hadn't made it. She trembled to think about it, about how her friend had been killed by some idiot teenage boy who apparently thought the whole thing was some sick twisted game. But.. she had no idea how to even begin to explain all that to someone who hadn't been there. No one would believe her. Except the ones who had been there.. at least that guy had been smart enough to get a mailing list together.

Angelica breathed slowly to calm herself, to mask the turmoil, until she was ready to step into her room and face her friends. Whichever ones it was. She opened the door and strode in with a mask of confidence on her face. "Hi guys, sorry I'm.. late?"

The three teenage girls that looked up at her from their seat on her bed with smiles as faked as her own were definitely no friends of hers. Nor enemies, or even the loosest of acquaintances. She would definitely remember. For one, their skin tones were more fitting for pony colors on Equestria than humans here on earth. The one in the middle was an unhealthy, cartoonish yellow, perhaps a bit pale for a Simpsons character, but otherwise utterly unreal. Her curly orange hair with bright yellow highlights was obviously unnatural, but could pass as modern teen fashion. She was the normal looking one by comparison. The one on the left had blue skin with a two tone straight blue hair in a single, long ponytail, while the one on the right had decisively pink skin, and purple hair with cyan highlights in a pair of pig tails. Each had a simple black leather necklace with a red gemstone around their neck.

"Hi, you must be Angelica," the yellow one said as she stood up to greet her, the other two following in tow. It was clear who was the leader of the little band. "I'm Adagio Dazzle, and we're going to be your new best friends!"

"Aria Blaze," the pink one introduced with a bored sounding voice.

"And I'm Sonata Dusk!" the blue one added cheerfully, "and I'm so glad we're going to be friends and then go home and it will be awesome! Oh! Are you angry? Are you angry at someone? Need us to help you beat them up?"

Angelica was a bit shocked by that last bit. She thought she was doing well hiding her feelings, to say nothing of how the sudden intrusion of these strangers into her life was so distracting. "No, um. Well, I mean I am kind of angry at someone, but no you can't beat them up."

"I got you," said Aria, "delicate situation. Needs something with a bit more finesse. We can do finesse, can't we girls?"

"No, I mean he's already been beat up," Angelica clarified.

"That doesn't mean he can't be beat up again. You're still angry, right?" Adagio suggested.

Apparently she needed to spell it out completely. "I mean, he's dead. Changeling got to him," she said before clamming up. Did these freaky alien looking girls know about changelings?

"Killstealers," Aria said in annoyance, crossing her arms. From her reaction, it was unclear if she was familiar with them, or just rolling with it.

"So.. other than beating people up.. is there anything you.. girls.. like to do for fun?" Angelica asked.

"Oh, oh! We love to sing!" Sonata volunteered.

"Okay, let's hear what you've got!"

The girls conferred amongst themselves for a moment, before launching into a loud and glorious rocking song about how great of friends they can be. It.. wasn't quite the usual fare for such a song. It emphasized a lot more pushing fools into being doing stuff for Angelica, beating up her enemies, and otherwise being sort of.. the most evil friends one could hope for? But there was something about it that was just.. magical.

For one, they took on a sort of visible shift as they got into the song, fin like translucent wings shimmering into view behind them, while the gems on their necklaces glowed with a visible red light. For another thing, it was literally entrancing and Angelica couldn't help but get swept up in it. When the song was done she was left with the strong sense that the song was awesome and so were her new friends, but any of the other details were hard to keep in her mind, vanishing quickly like a fog in the morning sun.

"Wow, you girls really are something! Do you have a name for your band? A YouTube channel?" Angelica gushed.

"We're the Dazzlings, of course," Adagio said. "And.. what's a YouTube channel?"

Angelica's mom didn't seem to have any complaints about letting the Dazzlings stay over as long as they liked, at least not after a bit of musical intervention. Over the weekend, they got the garage set up into a makeshift recording studio and started putting together a series of music videos to showcase the Dazzling's talents, and Angelica spent all her time out of school working with them and her trusty laptop to get things ready to wow and amaze the world. All her time in school was spent thinking about exactly how she would make every little shot truly pop with fun special effects. Surely grades wouldn't matter much once she was part of a super rich world famous band!

While Angelica was in school, the Dazzlings went out to play. They found a bunch of protesters in a park, and mingled with the crowd, easily getting them to talk about what was bothering them, some drivel about Wall Street and the '1%'. After an hour they had plenty to string some lyrics together and found a platform to use as a stage. When their song was done, the crowd's feelings came to a boil and the three girls disappeared into the crowd as it quickly became a riot. They slipped out and went home before the police could mobilize, feeling pleased with themselves and quite sated. For now.

Perhaps luckily for them, Angelica wasn't one to watch the news.

Finally, their content came together on the little screen, and Angelica uploaded the videos, sharing with the world the amazing talents of her new friends.

"Are you sure this will work?" Twilight asked, looking skeptically at the device before her.

"Of course! Do I ask you if you're sure your magic will work? This is my talent, give me a little faith!" Silver Spanner replied. The brown furred unicorn, finally withdrew her silver wrench, matching the one depicted on her flank, from the device.

The device's interface consisted of a large glass pane on the front, a dozen hoof sized buttons that each bore a dozen symbols laid out in the same pattern as the buttons themselves, and a ball set into a round groove next to a couple more buttons. And finally, a giant metal throw switch, complementing the mad science look of all of the electronic parts behind the interface. Perhaps the creepiest thing about it, particularly for those who knew a bit about what they were looking at, was the giant metal spider, nearly twice the length of a pony in each dimension, sitting on the top of the device, looking down at them facelessly. Dozens of wires were clipped to its legs with little alligator clips. Celestia had somehow produced it from her own blood, using the technology that had been foisted upon her by one of the humans near the end of the war. Now this spider served as the 'brain' for this infernal contraption.

"Ready, Twilight?" Silver Spanner asked, as she grabbed the giant metal throw switch. Lightning struck in the background, ominously, followed by a faint and distant "sorry" in Rainbow Dash's voice.

"Let's do it!" Twilight nodded. The switch was thrown. The glass pain lit up with a giant swirly icon.

"That mean's it's busy.. hold on."

The spider connected to the magical wifi router and began downloading information from Earth's internet. The spider was indescribably intelligent, but lacked a lot of the information that it needed. Fortunately, Celestia had seeded it with a few basic URLs and enough understanding of ASCII to start interpreting what it found, and to guide it to the websites of the organizations in charge of defining Internet communication standards. In about a minute, it had read through and understood the entire HTML specifications and several related standards, and was ready to begin interacting with its users. A web page appeared on the screen, bearing a single, baffling word, in a strange, highly artistic script:

"Google," Twilight Sparkle read. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Silver Spanner rolled the wheel, causing an arrow to pop up and move to the box under the strange word. "Celestia said it was human for 'to search the Internet'. Here, we just type what we want to look for.. " She began hitting the hoof keys. Each symbol required a two-key sequence, so that a mere dozen buttons could represent over a hundred possible options. She quickly typed in 'Twilight Sparkle' and they began going through the results.

"There's that show that Frank mentioned. 'My Little Ponies'. That sounds unfair. We aren't that small, humans are just so unreasonably tall. I'm not sure I want to watch my life play out before my eyes though." Taking over the controls, Twilight began looking around, delving into random forums. Then she ran into something she completely failed to expect.

"Twilight Sparkle is gay." Someone had said. That was just not true, though it was easy to see how someone could come to that mistake. She didn't have much time for a dating life, and she was honestly a bit shy, and she had several great marefriends she liked to spend a lot of time with. But it wasn't like that!

"Dear Anon4314667432: I am not gay. I am just still looking for a good stallion friend, at least when I have the time to do so. I have a very busy life as it is, and barely enough time to hang out with my great marefriends. I love them all to pieces, but we just aren't interested in each other in that way. Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle."

"There.." she said aloud, "now.. I hope nopony else made that same mistake. Oh, we should google it!"

Silver Spanner returned to the makeshift computer terminal to check on Twilight. "Twilight.. I really think you should go get some sleep. You've been at this for almost a week.."

"Can't rest yet.. someone is wrong on the Internet!" the frazzled unicorn replied, turning on Silver Spanner with blood shot eyes. Silver Spanner just backed away until she felt she was far enough to run.

Chapter 4: The absence of ties

Walking home alone from the bus stop gave Robert a weird sort of nervousness. After having lived in Equestria as a 25 year old man, towering over ponies and ducking under doorways, being back on Earth as a ten year old boy made everything look absolutely huge. But beyond that was the fact that he was a small, seemingly defenseless little boy, walking alone, carrying a woman's purse. He wasn't sure if he was more afraid that people would try to rob him or mock him.

But he needn't have been afraid of anything so mundane. Anyone who spotted him pointedly didn't stare, as if they were afraid to acknowledge what they saw. No, he had something much less ordinary to deal with, something that probably should have scared him but was actually a great comfort to him. When he used his mother's keys to unlock the door to their apartment and enter the living room, he found a statue standing in the middle of the room, looking entirely out of place. The statue was of an all too familiar draconequus. A decidedly asymmetric being made up of parts of a dozen or more different creatures. Any other Equestrian probably would have been a surprise to him, but ironically, Discord being there just made sense.

"Hey Discord. Nice of you to visit. Why don't you unpetrify yourself and we can play a game or something?" He took a few moments to lock the front door and put the purse away. He opened the fridge, looking over the contents for a moment before realizing there was no response from the statue.

He went over to the statue and looked it over. Normally, Discord was freed shortly after the Survival Game began, but every now and then the events that led to his release were thrown off track. It looked like this was one of those times. He needed to be exposed to something sufficiently unharmonic to allow him to free himself. It was impossible for one person to do it alone, but he didn't want to invite someone in just to have an argument or whatever, and let them see the Avatar of Chaos sitting in his living room. Looking around he found something worth trying.

Turning CNN on was enough to earn a couple small cracks as the Republicans and Democrats yelled at each other, impugned each other's motives, talked past one another, and just generally acted like politicians. Getting NPR going on the radio while the family computer streamed the Rush Limbaugh show was enough to tip it over the edge. Soon the stone shattered and fell away, making a terrible mess in the living room, but the living, breathing, avatar of chaos was finally free!

"So.. what brings you here, Discord?" Robert asked. "I'm honestly less surprised to see you than to see you were apparently not here under your own power."

"I seem to have been statuenapped by a being who was so rude as to merely write to me rather than converse like a proper gentlestallion," Discord began, "I'm not sure what he said though, so don't ask. I don't like doing direct quotes much anyways." The draconequus wrapped himself around the small boy. "Now who are you, and how do you know me?"

"My name is Robert, and I've been looping through time for years now. I've met you hundreds of times by now. Sometimes you somehow remember me, sometimes you don't. Obviously this is one of the times you don't. And yes, I remember, you're illiterate. Possibly dyslexic. At a guess, I'd say the same Text that brought me and the other humans to your world also brought you here. So.. now what?"

"Now I go home. This place is discordant enough it has no need for me, and frankly.. it's kind of boring. So long, and thanks for setting me free!" he sing-songed the last before swirling in on himself and disappearing.

Well... that was anticlimactic. Discord had been in such a rush to leave he hadn't even really caused any chaos here, the dust and stone shards from his shattered statue the only sign he had been there at all.. and one that Robert was now left to clean up on his own. He had to agree with Discord's point though. After all those years traipsing about a truly magical land, being back on Earth just kind of felt boring.

In the morning, Robert meditated a bit, focusing on the loss of his mother, still fresh in his mind, dragging his emotions to the surface, casting aside his calm. And then he called 911. Mommy is missing, where's my mommy?! The emotions were sincere even if the words themselves were carefully crafted lies. They would never believe the truth, but he could give them just enough to get the ball rolling, and get him into the care of someone who could at least keep him fed. He figured he didn't need much more. He had already grown up once.. now it was more a matter of learning the skills for a modern world instead of a fantastic one.

The Princess of the Sun sat alone on the Crystal Throne. Deep black bags pooled under her eyes: she allowed the spiders swarming in her blood to remove the need for sleep so she could cover her sisters' duty as well as her own, but she did not allow them to repair this cosmetic sign. Let the world know she was tired. It would make it easier for them to guess she was cranky, and discourage them from trying her patience.

And for an immortal, she had a lot less patience these days. For one, the damned spiders made time seem to crawl. Her mind was just too damned fast. Celestia had always had the ability to dream prophetically, but now the damned spiders had figured out how to use that power at will, constantly, so that when somepony opened their mouth to request something, she already knew how the whole conversation was going to go, and had to experience the hell of waiting the endless seconds while the words slowly meandered their way out of the pony's mouth. And worse yet, she had to slowly and carefully form her own response, taking entire seconds to spell it out so that their pathetically slow ears and brains could make sense of her words.

She made things more bearable by writing missives. Constantly. Her 'solar perspective', and now the 'lunar perspective' she had taken over from her sister allowed her to see whatever happened under sun and moon. In some sense, there was never anything new under the sun. But in another sense, her newfound abilities included picking out much more detail, and focusing on many locations at once. And so she micromanaged. Everypony. Every damned pony. Not because they needed it. Some did, actually, and those got priority, but there weren't enough of them so she sent seemingly arbitrary orders to everypony else.

Sometimes they were pranks. Not usually on the one receiving the letter, but those happened too to mix things up. Everypony needed to laugh sometimes, and damn did she need to laugh. But the damned prophetic spiders ruined every joke by showing her the results even before the letter was sent. She still sent them, half out of spite, but the mirth was let out of it.

Worse yet, she hadn't seen her favorite student in days. She had gone into that shack and never come out. Spike assured her she was still alive, and being forcefed as needed, but she was caught up in some fools quest relating to her recent exposure to Earth's Internet. She was ignoring Celestia's letters, failing to give the required reports on her activities and findings. Also, apparently not sleeping. That wouldn't last forever though. Celestia could stay up forever now, but Twilight was still an ordinary mortal unicorn.

How long would she have to wait to hear from her again? One day, seven hours, twenty three minutes, twelve seconds, 11 milliseconds, 984 microseconds and 56 nanoseconds, the infernal machines helpfully predicted, rounding off to their usual level of precision.

And so the ruler of sun and moon sat upon her lonely throne, ticking off the nanoseconds of loneliness in her own personal hell, along with her tormenters. Her tormenters who insisted on helping her so damned viciously.

She felt like Eeyore, and privately damned the spiders for having that reference be a thing that existed in her brain. It had no place there. But it was fitting. Especially now that she had her own personal rain cloud. Wait. She hadn't predicted that. Much less that it would be chocolate milk raining down on her.

Ponies throughout the palace fell over with shock and surprise as their ruler's laughs echoed out through the halls, with the force of the Royal Canterlot Voice and the manic insanity of the Joker.

Chapter 5: The absence of neighbors

It was well after midnight when the cab finally pulled up to the cabin and let Relena out. She paid in cash, and tipped generously when the driver finished unloading her recent purchases. He was probably quite suspicious of her; an eight year old girl didn't typically have that much cash, much less in such a manly wallet. But he didn't get paid to ask questions. He got paid to drive people where they wanted to go, and this drive had been a rather lucrative one.

Relena was pragmatic. Her father had done everything in his power to prepare her to stand on her own two feet, knowing some day she would be an adult and have to carry on without him. They had both expected to have another decade or more together before that day came, but they hadn't squandered the time they had. The biggest obstacle she was going to face was dealing with the outside world that thought they knew better than her. So the second thing she needed to do was convince the outside world that her father had gone into early retirement rather than died on an alien world. Mr Swift had hid nothing from his daughter: she had his passwords, and knew his daytrading and investment business well enough to divest anything temporary from his portfolio and set up a stable income stream that should cover the taxes on their cabin indefinitely, along with the few supplies she couldn't gather, grow or hunt for herself. Arranging to end their lease on the apartment in the city, transport what she needed and sell what she didn't would be a long and somewhat difficult process without an adult.. maybe that mailing list of Daniel's would come in handy after all. Scott was an adult, and probably had plenty of free time...

The first thing to do was get herself situated with enough supplies to get started. The cab driver had picked her up from the supermarket with a trunkload of the top things she knew she would need, everything from spare drinking water, food, and vegetable seeds to first aid supplies and spare bedding. She slipped her key into the lock, started to turn it, and then froze. There was a sound from within the cabin.

She slipped away quietly, and let herself into the locked shed, where she pulled up the loose floorboard and unlocked the hidden gun safe. The pistol with the bright pink grip was her favorite, of course. People could laugh if they wanted, but the business end of a handgun was the business end of a handgun no matter what color the hand grip was. She loaded the gun, made sure the safety was on, and returned to the front.

There was that sound again. Was it.. snoring? She peeked in through the window, and fell on her butt in surprise. Good thing the safety was on. 'Safety first!'

There, on the rug in her living room slept a light blue unicorn, covered with a star-studded cloak and pointy hat. What the hell was the 'Great and Powerful' Trixie Lulamoon doing in her living room!? Whatever the reason, it probably didn't warrant an armed response, so she slipped her gun into her bedazzled holster and resumed unlocking the front door. She opened it with a loud creak, letting it crash noisily into the wall. No response. She stomped a bit loudly as she walked. No response. She brought her supplies in and put them away. No response. She locked the front door and walked over to Trixie. No response. She poked Trixie with a booted foot.

"Who dares sneak up on the great and ever watchful Trixie?!" she demanded of the eight year old now levitating upside down in her magic. The gun fell to the floor and bounced. 'Safety first!' This was exactly why you never turn off the safety until there's something you want dead in your sights.

"First! Be careful, that's a gun, you don't want it going off on accident! You almost got one of us killed. Second, I'm Relena Swift and this is my home you are trespassing in, Miss Lulamoon, so show some respect," she replied in a sharp but measured tone. As Trixie set her down she continued, "and third, I did my best to wake you from a distance but you were sleeping harder than a hibernating bear in winter. What are you doing here, anyways? Do you even know where here is?"

"Or course Trixie knows where here is! Trixie does not go anywhere Trixie does not mean to be! Trixie just did not know you lived here.." she sputtered.

"Alright, well, you're welcome to stay here with me. It was going to get lonely since daddy didn't.. make it back from Equestria," Relena said sadly. "I wasn't counting on having anyone stay here with me, least of all a unicorn, so we'll need to sort out food and such. And I would suggest you might be more comfortable sleeping on a bed than the floor. Though I could be wrong about that. I'm not a unicorn."

"The great and powerful Trixie will consider this bed you have to offer," Trixie offered generously.

A few minutes later Trixie was sleeping soundly in Relena's dad's old bed, while Relena slipped into her own. An hour after that, Relena slipped sleepily from her own bed and slipped in beside Trixie, snuggling tightly.

Cherry Blossom woke from her nightmare with a start. Her fur was matted with sweat, so she must have been in it for a while. The pink earth pony filly panted on her bare bed as her eyes slowly came back into focus. She slowly became aware of the absence of her pillow and covers, as her awareness of a giant mangled pile of corpses climbing out of a pit faded away.

The light of the sun was starting to stream in through her window between the shutters, so she got out of bed anyways.

"Morning, Blossom!" her mom called out to her, before seeing the state her daughter was in. "The shower's all yours. But don't take too long. We can talk about it on the way."

Blossom nodded, and went to wash herself off, doing her best to be presentable. As a filly of a family of seasonal workers, she was never all that skilled in the matter, but she could at least wash off all the dirt and sweat and brush herself thoroughly, using a bit of their scented oils for special occasions. After all, she was going to see a Princess. Sort of. And despite any caveats, now was a time to look her best. With some skillful maneuvers, she soon had a nice pink bow in her mane to complete the look.

The Cherries checked out of the inn and got on the road, joining in with the dozens of others setting out at first light. There was a buffalo with them, and she was glad to see that at least one of them had survived. He looked lonely though, surrounded by ponies. She recognized some of the other ponies from her years of farmwork, both itinerants like themselves and those who lived on the farms. She knew some of them were homeless now, or were in the process of rebuilding.

Despite all the horrors of the war, the orchards themselves were largely intact. The enemy forces killed ponies indiscriminately and razed buildings readily but rarely harmed a tree. It was strange, but it was hardly the only strange thing about them. In their wake, that left the farming ponies with more work to do, rather than less, as there were fewer hooves to buck the fruits free, on top of the urgent need to rebuild shelter.

But still.. this was a day when all of that would be set aside.

Wherever the little procession reached a fork in the road, more ponies joined them from other farms, towns, villages. The little back roads were expanded by countless hooves pushed out to the fringes, tromping down grass and bush, though nature would recover soon enough. It was long weary hours on the road before they arrived at their destination.

Booths were set up all around the area, serving food and drink. No bits were exchange; instead the itinerants and farm ponies deposited what fresh fruit they had been able to carry with them, and everypony enjoyed refreshments of fresh squeezed juice and freshly prepared dishes. Everypony's contribution was a labor of love, tinged in somber reflection.

Once they had been refreshed, the Cherries waited their turn in the much longer line. Groups of a few dozen were admitted at a time, so the line moved in large lurches, leaving them to rest and wait, making small talk with their neighbors. Cherry Blossom was avoiding such conversations, until a little colt sat next to her, and looking vaguely into the distance with her simple said, "nightmares, huh? Yeah, me too." That was all either of them said, all that needed to be said.

Finally, they entered the massive archway into the ruined fortress. While there was no dead bodies to be seen, there was still stains of blood, scorched rock, and churned earth; plenty of concrete signs of the battle that had taken place here. A scholar droned on at length about everything they had learned about the epic struggle, but Cherry couldn't focus on it. Instead, she nudged the little colt and they broke off ahead of schedule, heading for the chalk outline in Luna's shape. Within was a few dozen unlit candles. They each took one and headed back out into the crowd.

The two foals found a place to settle where they could watch other children play. The day passed slowly but it did ultimately pass.

Celestia controlled the moon now, and the stars as well, in her sisters' absence. She set the moon in its place in the sky, looking like a pony's eye, as the brightest stars in the sky arranged themselves into the shape of an alicorn. Looking down from the lunar perspective, a tear was brought to her eye as she the Alamare lit up with thousands of little winking stars, matching her own display in love if not in lumens.

Nightmare Night would never be the same again.

Chapter 6: The absence of magic

"Mom, I'm home!" Zeke said as he stepped into his family's apartment, before retrieving his key from the lock. There was no answer. There often wasn't when he came in this late, but it was the rule. Sometimes she'd hear him and roll over and go back to sleep, or sometimes she'd sleep through it, or sometimes she was still up, worrying. at least he could tell this wasn't one of the times she was still up watching TV.

Though it was one of the rare times she left the TV on when she left the living room. That was weird. He went forward to investigate, only to find blood splotches and other signs of a struggle. He reached deep into himself and began to draw on the tiny bit of magic he still had within him, hoping it would be enough of a surprise to tip any dangerous situation in his favor, buying enough time for fight or flight.

He opened the door to his mom's room, and sure enough found her lying there. She was laying face down on the bed, in an awkward pose, looking like a rag doll that had been casually tossed there. The blood on her clothing and lack of movement told Zeke exactly what he didn't want to be told, so he moved in closer and tried checking her pulse just to be sure. He didn't actually know what he was doing in that regards, but he expected.. something. Not the cold still of a body that had been dead for some time.

Wasteful as it might be, he tried focusing his magic into a healing spell, hoping against hope that he could somehow pull her back from the brink. It was an act of desperation, and quickly proved itself as futile as he had expected.

His thoughts were interrupted by an ominous low chuckle followed by a sucking sound from behind him. He felt the mana ripped out of his body, leaving him powerless and a little dizzy but otherwise fine. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a red skinned centaur creature with blood on its hands and horns, and a vicious grin on his face standing in the doorway.

Zeke decided that jumping dramatically through the window was the right thing to do right now. It turned out that it was a lot harder to actually do in real life than it looked in the action movies. So in a panicked rush he threw the window open and jumped through the screen instead, half surprised he managed to pull that off before the centaur caught him. It seemed like it was trying to say something to him, but the sound of his own pulse drowned out the words.

Zeke was in the park a block away before he started thinking things through again. He pulled out his phone and called 911. "Hello?! Yes! Someone killed my mom! I don't know! I just got home, and found the blood on the carpet, then I found her lying dead on the bed. I heard someone coming up behind me so I fled out the window. I didn't get a good look.. I think maybe they were wearing red?"

He continued on with the call, giving details to the dispatcher, like his address, while he kept a paranoid look around him. He tried his best to draw out the mana again, but it wasn't coming. He had gone from the ability to perform neat parlor tricks to the ability to be a perfectly mundane teenager: overall not that big a setback, but that meant he had literally nothing to try against his mother's apparent murderer.

The centaur found him again fairly quickly, approaching with a wicked looking grin. So Zeke did the only practical thing he could do. He took off running for dear life.

But Zeke had never been that great at track and field. And Tirek's hooves were quite a bit faster. The last thing Zeke heard before those hooves caught up to him was a deep and malicious laugh.

Rainbow Dash had thought she was great at track and field. Or rather the airborne equivalents. Now she was huffing and wheezing, barely able to stay on her hooves as she neared the end of the final lap. To her credit, she was a solid third out of a dozen competitors rounding the final bend. And though her muscles felt like they were on fire, she actually managed to keep up her pace to the very end, making a final lunge to get her snout out into second as she fell past the finish line.

A few seconds later, Applejack caught up to her, placing sixth but looking a lot less worn out. She dragged her friend out of the way for the remaining ponies to catch up. While years of hard labor on the farm had left Applejack with great endurance, she was feeling the strain herself from this weird environment.

A wild cloud blew gently into place above them, granting them some much appreciated shade. It was high, but not quite high enough for the weather pegasi to reach it safely, so it was left to go wherever the wind blew it. At least it wasn't another unscheduled rain cloud. Those were the most unsettling part of Canterlot's now uncontrollable weather system, and promised to be one of the interesting challenges of the new sports leagues forming.

"You doing alright, Dashie?" Applejack asked, as she tossed her a nice cold glass of apple cider from the supplies on the sideline before taking one for herself.

"I'll.. be.. fine" Rainbow Dash managed between gasps. "It's just.. hard.. racing in.. slow.. motion. No wings.."

"Ah reckon it's more of ah change for you," Applejack acknowledged. "But even ah'm feelin' it here, runnin' all out like that." Dash merely nodded.

When Celestia had focused the power of the sun to end the Human War, she had drawn into her all of the natural magical energies from all of Canterlot, and a fair bit of its surroundings. The result had been a low magic zone that covered the entire city, as well as the air space above it. In this zone, pegasi were unable to fly or manage the weather, unicorns' horns were merely bony protrusions, and even earth ponies struggled with a reduced strength and endurance that put them more on par with the other tribes.

Losing their strengths meant losing much of what made pony culture function, and made the site no longer suitable for a normal city, much less the capital of Equestria. But it made for some unique opportunities, including the new Unity Games League. They were commissioned to develop sports competitions specifically for play within such a low magic zone, where members of the three tribes could face off on even hoofing. And when they put out word that they were planning to include hoof racing, Rainbow Dash couldn't resist the challenge of competing.

Now with every muscle in her body except her wings screaming at her in pain, she was beginning to regret her brash decision. On the other hand, she was all the more appreciative of her friend Applejack joining the competition with her.

"You did really well back there," Rainbow said when she could speak clearly again. "But why weren't you exhausted?"

"Ah'm used to givin' it my all every day," Applejack explained, "and on my hooves at that. Ah figured yer hooves might be outta shape, but how come you were so out of breath? Ah'd reckon with all yer racing you'd have great lungs at least.."

"Hey! I have awesome lungs! It's just, they work better at high speeds, and running around on the ground like that is way too slow!" Rainbow Dash explained. Applejack just furrowed her brow, not quite understanding. "Anyways, how'd you place? Are you going to be in the big race next week?"

"Ah'm not sure. Ah was sixth in our set, but there's another set about ta run. Only the twelve fastest can be in the big race, so I reckon it depends on them," she said, nodding to the batch of runners lining up as they spoke.

Rainbow nodded, and grabbed them each another cider. That meant Applejack was near the cut-off, and would be struggling to avoid last place in the big race. But still, it would be a historic honor for anypony to be good enough to make it into the first ever Unity Games Hoof Race. And there were going to be some big names in the audience. International diplomats, in particular, were expected to come out in droves.

"If ah don't make it, ah'll still come out to watch you, Dash. And ah'll be right there at the finish line with a fresh glass a cider."

They traded smiles before turning back to the race.

Chapter 7: The absence of light

Daniel took his time getting the rest of the way home, walking straight from McDonald's rather than taking the bus the rest of the way. The walk was nice and refreshing in the night air. While the others had left their magical items behind in Equestria at his suggestion, the nanospiders in his blood could not be safely removed. They had removed his body's natural immune system in order to stop it from fighting the foreign invasion, and taken over its duties. But that meant if he had them deconstruct themselves he would have no immune system remaining.

So he remained subtly cybernetic. As he strolled home, he pondered what to do with that fact. His job would get easier, to the point of being boring. Heck, he figured he could arrange to 'work from home', and get his duties done remotely while being free to live a whole other life. Or maybe it was time to start his own company and publish something of his own.

And with the ability to handle that remotely, maybe he should become a superhero or something. Wouldn't that be fun? Well, maybe not actually fun. He had gotten a taste of war and real violence in the other world, and knew full well that living such a life would be much less glorious than stories made it out to be. But he suspected he'd end up doing something along those lines eventually. He didn't really feel like he could avoid the urge to use his new powers to do something unique eventually.

Finally, he arrived at his front door. He drew his key from his pocket, turned it in the lock, opened the door, and stared at the pony before him. It was grey in fur, an unusually dull coloration for an Equestrian, but the sharp black and red unicorn horn made it seem likely he was some sort of Equestrian pony. His glowing red eyes, and armored hooves seemed decidedly more ominous than was common for the cute Technicolor equines though, and the fact that he was a stallion wearing a royal red cloak seemed strange for a society he understood to be ruled entirely by Princesses.

"I am King Sombra," the unicorn announced forcefully, "and you will be my friend!" Black energy erupted from his horn and enveloped Daniel, causing black crystals to sprout painfully from his arms and legs.

But he reacted to the pain only for a few moments before he started to ignore it, bringing up an arm to examine it curiously as the crystals started to dissolve into him. "Curious," Istaran said, as Daniel's consciousness was forcibly suppressed under his alter ego. "I dare say this particular technique for making friends would be rather counterproductive in most cases. What made you think it would serve you well in this one?"

Sombra was a bit taken aback by Istaran's nonchalance, but recovered quickly. "I figured that by enslaving you, I could simply order you to be my friend and be done with this foal's errand. I see it won't be that simple, though you don't seem angered."

Istaran strolled into the apartment, closing the door behind him, and beginning to experiment. A dull black 'glow' showing through his skin highlighted the converted remnants of the black crystals in his body, as his own shadow drew up from the floor, reshaping into bladed fingers and cutting experimentally into the paint of the wall. "You have freed me from my other half, possibly forever if the dark crystals in my blood are enough to keep him at bay. I see no reason to hold that against you. However.. while I am not known for my moral constraints, I do have one sin that I hold unforgiveable. I will never betray a valid trust, and neither must you. If someday you wish to be enemies, announce it openly, and it will be so, but if you betray me.. I will find ways to make you wish yourself capable of dying. Do you understand."

Sombra grit his teeth, not liking being threatened, but he nodded. Istaran brightened immediately, and took a seat. "Great! Perhaps we shall become friends after all. You called yourself King, though I doubt your Kingdom is of this particular world. Are you cut off from your subjects then?"

"I was driven from my realm a thousand years ago by Celestia and Luna, meddlesome Princesses from a neighboring Kingdom who dared assault me in my home. I was able to pull my whole Kingdom and I out of time for a millennium, but just as I reappeared, something pulled me alone into a black void, spelled out a riddle of sorts, and then dumped me in this hovel. It said, in short, that I must befriend you to go home," Sombra explained.

"I was just thinking, with the new powers I got in your world, that I should get into supervillainy. Let's do something fun together! We can conquer this city! We'll be partners in crime. Perhaps start with a bank robbery? It's the most classic of things, and a good chance to test our battle readiness," Istaran suggested with an excited glint in his eyes.

"A bank robbery? What need do we have of money? We should have slaves who do everything we ask of them without any recompense except an easing off of the whip. Unless you think my dark crystals will affect the other humans as they did you? I might need to rethink my strategy if so," Sombra considered.

"A good point, we can really mess with their heads by giving away the money afterwards, or something. We'll have to think this through just right. As for making slaves.. my nanospiders can enslave people if I wish to use them that way. You'll love this bit: I even wrested Celestia's will for a time with them!" Istaran boasted.

"The Celestia? Massive mare with a sun on each flank?" Sombra asked, dubiously. He knew she was an alicorn, and may well still be alive, so it was possible.

"The very same! I made her focus the light of her sun into a giant death ray, a laser big enough to melt an entire desert, and turn our enemy's encampment into a giant bowl of glass! You should have seen it. You could have seen it from a thousand miles away, a blinding pillar of light, while the rest of the sky was dark as night in the middle of the afternoon! It was simply glorious!" Istaran continued, grinning from ear to ear.

Sombra laughed openly, "I wish I could have seen it. I wish I could have seen the look on her face! Was it priceless? I hope it was priceless. And not one of those dull looks of a pony completely disconnected from what they've done."

Istaran nodded, "it was priceless. She was well aware of what she was doing, just unable to stop herself. I could actually show you the look, if you like. I can give you some of my nanospiders, and grant you the ability to share memories with me, and vice versa. They have oh so many other uses as well." He offered Sombra a hand, "give me your hoof, and we shall become blood brothers, even closer than twins. I'll teach you how to use every power I know, and you'll help me master this shadow magic of yours, and we will become unstoppable, together!"

Sombra hesitated only a moment before meeting Istaran's grasp with a hoof. He felt a strange crawling sensation on his hoof as the nanospiders worked their way from Istaran's palm into Sombra's hoof in a steady, crawling flow. He started to get a bit woozy after a minute, and made a slight attempt to pull his hoof back, but Istaran held fast. "Am I supposed to get light headed and numb?"

"Yes, it's temporary, but you should recover shortly. I've had a few opportunities to refine my technique," Istaran answered as the nanospiders integrated into Sombra's body and mind. He barely had time to get feverish before the invasion was successful, and the new presence awakened in his mind.

"Sombra, meet your new subnet. I'll call him.. Umbra. If you have any questions, Umbra should fill in the blanks in your thoughts promptly.

Sombra worked his mouth a few times, nearly asking questions but instantly knowing the answers. Finally he settled in to play back Istaran's memories of Celestia's reaction to being used as a superweapon. He laughed out loud until he could barely stand. "Perhaps we will soon be friends after all!" the unicorn king said.

"You've got mail!" announced a voice from the screen.

"Who, what, spike?! Where? Derpy?" Twilight said as she was roused suddenly from her puddle of drool, looking around the room for the promised letter.

After several minutes, she realized nopony was in the room with her, aside from the terminal that allowed her access to Earth's internet. She stared at it blankly for a few more minutes while the massive mechanical spider on the back of the machine wordlessly brewed her a pot of coffee. Finally, she noticed the little scroll icon on the screen with a 2 next to it. She waited until she had managed to ingest the first cup of coffee and felt its effects setting in before she actually clicked on the icon and went to start reading her very first email.

Twilight? Is this really -the- Twilight Sparkle? Of course it is. No one else, sorry I mean -nopony- else, would be so diligent with trying to correct the Internet. I'm really impressed! I guess this means you figured out how to get my wifi router working somehow.
Oh! This is Angelica, by the way, you remember me?
The other people who visited your world with me all made it home safely, more or less, and we started a little club. The 'Eastside Equestrian Club', wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more. (You don't say that last part out loud!) Here, I'll forward you our little mail thread once I finish writing this one.
We've got visitors of our own! Mostly from your world, but there's a few we're not so sure about. Maybe you know? I think I remember you being really good at researching or something? Anyways, I've attached photos of the three that ended up with me. They look human, but they're kind of colored more like ponies? Anyways, they're great singers and a lot of fun and I love them to pieces but I'm starting to notice they don't take criticism very well. Don't know if that helps. Anyways, can't wait to hear from you. Ciao!

Just looking at the length of the other message, the forwarded thread, made it clear to Twilight that she needed more coffee first. And maybe some real food. She also wanted to finish correcting the Internet, but she realized that she had to prioritize.
She put together a quick prioritized checklist just to make sure.

Coffee.

Bathroom.

Breakfast.

Read and reply to email thread.

Correct the Internet.

Feed spike.

It was only after putting ink to parchment that she realized it had been a full week since she had even seen her baby dragon, and she broke into a panicked rush to make sure he was still alive.

Interlude 1

From: Daniel Holden
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: New Mailing List
As promised, I've created a mailing list for all of us to keep in contact. You should be able to save the address to your contacts, or just reply to this mail to reach all of us. Feel free to talk about whatever, whether it's specifically Equestria related or not.
For example, I made a new friend tonight when I got home! His name is Sombra, and he helped me become myself again. By the way, I suggest avoiding downtown for the foreseeable future.
-Istaran

From: Robert Redcliff
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Sombra? He's bad news. And I'm not too keen on you calling yourself Istaran. Does that mean your 'dark half' is active? Scary stuff.
Discord made a cameo appearance in my apartment. I broke him out of his stony prison and he just vanished, heading back to Equestria I believe. That was just kind of odd. It sounded like the same text thing that sent us there sent him here. What about Sombra? Anyone else have an unexpected guest?
-Robert

From: Daniel Holden
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Yep, with the dark magic Sombra's been teaching me, I shouldn't have to go back to dreaming ever again. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha. It feels so good. Anyways, I checked with my new bro, and he said it was the same thing. Some magic glowing text in the darkness challenged him to make friends with me to go home. We seem to be hitting it off famously so far, but I guess it's not enough yet. So we're going to start villaining together in the big city. Should be a real blast! I'd offer you guys a chance to join us, but none of you are evil or have super powers, so I don't think it would work out.
-Istaran

From: Relena Swift
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Is Daniel for real? I mean, not about Sombra. Trixie was waiting for me at the cabin. You all remember Trixie, real sweetheart of a unicorn mare. She's been helping me around the house, though she still gets a bit queezy about my hunting. I'd mock her for never having skinned a buck before, but I'd guess that's true of the rest of you as well. I haven't asked Trixie about the Text yet, but I'm thinking I won't. If she's really being forced to make friends with me, I don't want to make it any harder for her by letting her know I know, you know? She's a bit of a showoff, but otherwise a good pony as far as I can tell.
-Relena

From: Robert Redcliff
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
I'm afraid he is for real. I've had dealings with his alter ego in some of the other timelines. He sufferers from "chronic honesty", which results in him going on about things he has good reason not to want you to know, and requires a concerted effort to lie, usually poorly. I'd suggest staying east of the bridges from here on, and hoping he's nice to us if he succeeds at conquering the world.
Thank Trixie for me, again, for speaking at my mother's funeral. It really meant a lot to me, and it means even more now that I'm facing life alone. Well, sort of. You can only be so alone in an overcrowded orphanage. I'll check back when I can but expect slow replies. The internet time is pretty strictly rationed here.
-Robert
P.S. Don't tell the ponies but I learned to hunt in Equestria, and had to skin my share of.. well rabbits anyways. Plus birds and fish. The bucks there are every bit as sentient as the ponies, so they were certainly off the menu.

From: Scott Jones
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
That sucks about the orphanage, man. Maybe we can bail you out later if everything goes well. A couple of unicorns named Flim and Flam are here with me. We just finished watching all of Breaking Bad, and I'm a bit worried it might have given them ideas. I'll try to keep things from going off the rails until they can get home, but if we are able to make some decent moolah maybe I can adopt you or something. Just a thought. Any idea what we should watch while we wait for the next season to come out?
-Scott

From: Relena Swift
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
I'd suggest watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Here, have a link. Probably while the ponies are out and about, or asleep or whatever. Here, Scott, watch this and this. Good to get a bit of perspective about the unicorns in your house.
I'm glad my cabin is way out here in the woods. I just hope the fallout when they decide to nuke Sombra and Istaran doesn't reach this far.
-Relena

From: Angelica Ericson
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
I found three house guests waiting for me too, but they're not ponies. They look like humans except kind of.. pony-colored. They're great fun, and we're putting together some awesome music videos, want to watch? linkie~ I just put them up on our new YouTube channel. What do you guys think? Drop us a comment and a like if you would! Thanks!
Ciao!

From: Relena Swift
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Okay, yeah, stop what you're doing and watch Equestria Girls. Here, link. DO SO NOW. To the rest of you, she's got Sirens in her apartment and she's making music videos with them. She's probably a lost cause. Istaran, can you be a dear and go murder her house guests? Make sure to like, turn off your ears while you do. Is that one of your evil super powers?
-Relena

From: Frank Cobbler
To Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Am I the only one who doesn't have a random pony living with me? There was no one waiting for me but my wife and son when I got home. And let me tell you I sure was glad to see them! I'm just glad to be done with all the ponies. Maybe mine found a way to send himself home before I even got there, like your Discord. That'd be just fine by me.
-Frank

From: Robert Redcliff
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Who knows? but umm, not to alarm you unnecessarily but has your wife been acting strangely since you came back? More amorous than normal, perhaps forgetting important things that she shouldn't have any trouble remembering?
-Robert

From: Frank Cobbler
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Okay, that's kind of freaky. But why wouldn't she be extra amorous after we've been gone for over a month? It just makes sense. Though, I don't know why she's doing so poorly with our baby. I'm guessing maybe she was getting depressed from my absence..
-Frank

From: Robert Redcliff
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Uh Frank? What absence? Weren't you paying attention? We reappeared on the same bus on the same day as we disappeared. It's like some serious Narnia-style bullshit. No time passed here on Earth while we were gone, or maybe a couple minutes at most. Other than your own reaction, she shouldn't have known to miss you. I'm worried you might have a changeling on your hands. Though, honestly I'm not sure what to recommend doing about it.
-Robert

From: Zeke Goldstein
To: Eastside Equestrian Club, Detective John Miller
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Hi, this is Detective John Miller with the police department. I'm sorry to barge in on your private conversation, but I am investigating several missing persons incidents, primarily that of Zeke Goldstein. I got access to his email accounts as part of the investigation, and found this rather.. cryptic thread. I find it particularly notable that you all swiped your bus passes on the ride where several of the persons went missing. If any of you can spare the time to come down to the station and clear some things up for me, I'd really appreciate it. This is a very serious matter and while I'd prefer being polite about it, I can and will get subpoena's ordered if I have to. At least one person is dead, and six missing. I need answers.
-Detective John Miller

From: Daniel Holden
To: Eastside Equestrian Club, Detective John Miller
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Welcome, Detective. I'm happy to give you what answers I can, though you won't believe the truth. Everyone on that bus, except perhaps the driver, took a little detour through another world, fought a little war, played a little game, and earned our way back. Only five of us died in the process! The rest of us returned to more or less the same moment in time and space, and then carried on from there.
You mentioned a death. Other than those who did not return, who died? Is Zeke dead? I rather liked him.
-Istaran

From: Detective John Miller
To: Eastside Equestrian Club
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Well you're right that it's pretty unbelievable. Do you have any proof? I mean, other than the disappearances? Because there's a lot easier to swallow explanations, like that you're a criminal conspiracy of some kind who decided to off the others for some reason.
I shouldn't really talk about who died in an open investigation like this, but I can tell you it's related. Do any of you know where Zeke might go to hide? We know he made it home, before calling 911.
-Detective John Miller

From: Angelica Ericson
To: Eastside Equestrian Club, Detective John Miller, Twilight Sparkle
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Hi guys, looping in Twilight Sparkle. Haven't had a chance to read the last few emails yet. I found her trying to correct everyone on the Internet with her first hand knowledge of Equestria. lol! Silly Twitwi. There's always going to be people being wrong on the Internet. You can't fix them all!
Anyways, I got to go. The girls are getting kind of upset.
Ciao!

From: Twilight Sparkle
To: Eastside Equestrian Club, Detective John Miller
Subject: Re: New Mailing List
Hi humans! I finally got my coffee down and managed to read through all this mail. Quite a lot to take in. I'll be looking into the names you've mentioned, but Trixie is the only one I've run into before. I don't know if I'd call her a sweetheart, but she doesn't seem like that bad of a pony to me. I'm not sure what more I can do from this end other than advise you though. If we find a way to open a stable portal or something, you'll be the first to know.
-Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic

Act 2 - Chapter 1: With and without disguises

Queen Chrysalis climbed onto the couch and sat down, exhausted. All of the curtains were drawn, which would have to be good enough, because she didn't have the energy or will to maintain her disguise right now. Especially not with how disorienting it was trying to be a biped. She could feel the woman beside her smirking mentally, even if she was careful enough to keep it from her physical features.

"I hope you're not expecting too much of a break," Eliza said. She was bound in place on the couch by her wrists and ankles, held fast by some weird green goo the changeling had secreted. But Eliza had gotten over the grossness of it all after about the first day. Being stuck in place most of the day other than brief bathroom breaks, under strict watch that left no privacy was something she didn't think she would actually get used to. She could already feel the atrophy beginning to affect her, and took more frequent bathroom breaks as the only acceptable excuse for moving around. Sleeping in the weird cocoon thing Chrysalis shoved her in every evening before her husband got home was.. actually vaguely pleasant, surprisingly, but it was always soured by the knowledge that the changeling queen was sleeping with her husband. But Eliza did have one, small pleasure left to her in life.

"Oh! There he goes! He's pooping," she sang out, not even bothering to hide her amusement.

"Ugh, how do you humans even get through a day without servants to help with all this... excrement?!" Chrysalis lifted little Georgie, Frank and Eliza's toddler, into the air with the glow of her horn and carried him back to the changing table.

"Don't forget to sing to him!" Eliza reminded.

"I know, I know," Chrysalis snapped, making Georgie cry before she started singing in a fairly beautiful, almost hypnotic voice.

"Don't forget to wipe his butt!" Eliza reminded, interrupting the song.

"I know~" Chrysalis sang, working it into her song melodiously, if not logically.

"Make sure the snaps are good and tight!" Eliza reminded, interrupting again.

"I know!" Chrysalis snapped, breaking the song and eliciting fresh cries.

"You don't want him to leak through again!" Eliza reminded.

Chrysalis didn't even respond this time, too busy trying to rock and sing and get Georgie settled down again. Somehow he managed to squirm out of her telekinetic grasp and start to fall, but she caught him just in time and set him down on his feet, tiredly following as he toddled down the hall with alarming speed.

"You really should be practicing doing this with your hands, not your horn. You won't be able to use your horn when you're in disguise. My husband would notice," she said.

"I'll do it just fine without my horn, when I have to," Chrysalis countered.

"You didn't last time," Eliza reminded in a taunting sing-song.

Chrysalis snorted, deploying a few more toys to distract the toddler as she sat back on the couch.

Eliza admitted to being a little impressed at how far Chrysalis had been willing to go for her charade. She would have expected the alien bug-horse thing to have made Eliza do all of the work, at least while her husband was away during the day. Especially after she used some kind of mind control to do just that for the first two days. But she had insisted on taking on all of Eliza's responsibilities, letting Eliza boss her around enough to get everything done. And Eliza had abused the privilege as much as she could get away with, making the changeling clean twice as often as she would have, added extra steps to things to make them more difficult, and gotten her to take over the chores that Eliza herself had previously made her husband do.

Chrysalis scooched over on the couch and lay her head in Eliza's lap, looking defeated as she stared blankly at the energetic toddler, now making a huge mess in the living room with his toys. Eliza savored a vague sense of victory for a moment. Defeated by the rigors of being a housewife? Hah! Take that you alien bug!

"I don't get it... the thing that sent me here said I could go home as soon as he couldn't stand to lose me. I cook, I clean, I wipe his baby's butt. We have so much fun together, in and out of the bedroom. I can taste his love for me..." Eliza didn't like being reminded of that. Chrysalis had gone from protruding ribs to a bit on the plump side since arriving, though she still had those weird swiss-cheese style holes everywhere. "His devotion to his loved ones is legendary. I even know he tried to murder someone just to get back home to you two. So why?! Why am I still here?" she sobbed into Eliza's lap.

Eliza really wanted to smugly gloat, but she couldn't help but feel sympathetic for the moment. If her wrists were free, she'd probably be petting her right now, trying to comfort her. And she definitely was all in favor of the bug queen going home forever and ever. "Did you ever think maybe it's because it isn't you he thinks he can't live without?"

Chrysalis didn't have an answer.

It was the biggest, boldest, bravest invasion plan ever conceived by changeling-kind. And it. Was. Brilliant. There was a million individual moving parts that would have to be sorted out individually, improvised as needed, but the gist of it was simple.

1) Take on a unique, new identity each. All of them stallions. Equestria had a distinct gender imbalance, and lately monogamy had been in vogue, so stallions were far more sought after.

2) Scatter throughout Equestria. With their Queen gone, there wasn't much reason to hang out around the caves in the badlands. Besides, they needed to have small numbers in every town for the next step.

3) Woo the ladies like nostallion else. Most of the stallions that knew how to treat a lady right were already married, and with herding mostly being a thing of the past, it meant the changelings would only have to compete with the schlubs and the lesbians. And honestly, most mares wanted a stallion. There would be enough to go around, he was sure.

Dopple just had one little problem with this plan. Convincing his generals it could be done. And to do prove that, he had been challenged to woo at least one of the Elements of Harmony. If he could do that, they said, they'd believe the rest of the plan could work, and would get right on it.

And so Dopple had put on his best unicorn form, a shiny white coat, with navy mane and a black tie cutie mark, complete with a spiffy suit top to really class it up, and strolled into Ponyville.

The first thing that struck him, as he entered the small town, was a mare. And one of the Elements no less! Off to a great start!

"Hi I'm Pinkie Pie and you're new here I know because I know everypony in town and I'm going to throw you the bestest of best welcome to Ponyville parties and there will be cake and balloons and cake and party favors and cake and then I'm going to get you out of that disguise of yours and dance the night away and it will be so much fun!" the overly energetic pink earth mare rambled.

"Wait, what? Disguise?" he said nervously.

"Oh, wait, you're not Doomie! Wrong fanfic. Sorry! Just be there at eight o'clock sharp for your party, silly, Billy, gilly!" Pinkie said.

"Black Tie," Dopple offered his pseudonym.

"Oh! Fancy~ You got it! Gotta go see Rarity!" she bounced off happily, disappearing behind one building only to emerge from behind a distant building crossing the street.

Dopple licked his lips, enjoying the odd, sugary taste of affection he had gotten from the mare from even such a brief interaction, and seriously wondering whether his sanity could handle pursuing that particular pink pony.

He spent the afternoon making arrangements for himself around town; a temporary place to stay, a temporary job, etc. Enough to begin to establish himself until hopefully his new marefriend would make some of the more permanent arrangements unnecessary. Meanwhile, he subtly inquired about town, confirming some of his people's intelligence on the Elements and their neighbors and dispelling a bit of misinformation.

When the time was approaching, Dopple spotted the flow of ponies and quickly identified the location of the event. The nicest restaurant in town had been rented out as a venue for the gathering, the tables laden with delicious looking treats, while a clearing had been made in the center for a dance floor. A DJ was playing some nice, smooth, slow dance songs. By the look of her, they weren't her favorite style, but she was a professional and would play what needed to be played. Everyone was wearing their best formal wear, making Doppel feel a bit underdressed.

The giant banner saying "Welcome to Ponyville, Dopple!" was a bit terrifying, as he had never given the pink pony his real name, but since nobody seemed poised to ambush him with anything other than confetti and balloons, he trotted on in, bracing mentally for the party cannon's blast.

"Hi Dopple! I hope you like this black tie welcome party! I've never thrown such a formal welcome before, but I've done black tie parties and I've done welcome parties, and if anypony can mash them together and stick them to each other with a sweet layer of frosting it's me, so I said Pinkie, let's do this! And then Pinkie said 'okie dokie Loki', and then we worked together and put this party together before I even remembered there's only one of me!" she managed to get out before the last piece of confetti finished drifting to the ground around Dopple.

"How did you, umm.. know what to write on the banner?" he asked as discreetly as he could.

"Oh! Well I always write Welcome to Ponyville for a Welcome to Ponyville party, silly. But I couldn't remember your name, which is weird because I never forget a name, so I had to go back and look it up in the script. Which is good because I remembered I didn't know how to spell your name right otherwise," she confusingly explained. Nope. Dopple would be lucky to retain his sanity dating one of her friends, actually courting the pink one was out of the question.

"Oh! You must be Dopple! Who does your wardrobe?" Rarity asked as she approached, looking him over with a critical eye.

"I, umm.. I made it myself," he admitted, nervously.

"Oh! Well, that's not bad for the work of an amateur, then," she offered, trying to smile. "When you have some spare bits you should stop by my boutique for something with a bit finer craftsmareship."

Dopple nodded to Rarity, and told Pinkie "nice party, thanks for getting it together," before pulling away. He grabbed a couple of glasses of punch and strolled over to the wall off to the side. With a sigh, he slumped down a bit, setting the glasses down and nudging one of them over to the nervous wallflower next to him.

"Oh! You didn't have to..." Fluttershy began objecting, before slaking her thirst.

"I know. But I saw the cutest mare in the room was looking thirsty, and nervous, and lonely. And I was getting a bit lonely out there, surrounded by too many ponies," he took a sip of his own drink. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yeah..." she confirmed quietly, blushing as they sat together, watching the party goers carry on. "I'm going to go get some air, if that's alright with you..." she said very quietly after several minutes. It was almost impossible to hear over the din of the party, easily ignored by anyone who wasn't actively focusing on the timid pegasus.

"I'll go with you," Dopple immediately offered. "And I'll bring a few slices of cake for us to enjoy while we're at it. They're very tasty, and it'd be an insult to the party planner to not at least try a bit, wouldn't it?"

Fluttershy smiled, pleasantly surprised to have been heard the first time. They strolled out of the party together, a couple of cake-filled plates hovering through the air behind them. Only one other pony noticed them leave. A rainbow color streak took to the sky to observe them from a distance.

Act 2 - Chapter 2: With and without storefronts

"I'm really not sure this is a good idea," Scott had said when he'd first seen the pills coming out of Flim and Flam's latest invention. For one thing, the device looked like it was built by Wile E. Coyote, which never boded well. For another, the pills themselves were probably highly illegal, or ought to be.

"No need to doubt us. Here, try a free sample. You'll see that they are perfectly harmless," Flim had said. Scott was finally able to keep them straight.

"Better than harmless, your health will improve quite a bit. No more back pain for you, my friend. And you'll see how great this idea really is!" Flam had said.

And when Scott had taken the pill, sure enough his back pain quickly faded, he was able to walk about more easily, and the greatness of the idea burned brightly in his consciousness. Why had he ever doubted them? "What do you call this miracle drug?"

"'Pirin' seems a most suitable name, don't you think? While we work on this batch, old chum, we need you to pick up some more materials for us. Nothing harmful of course! Just some more aspirin tablets," Flim had suggested.

"And some more snakes," Flam added. "And some mice to feed the snakes. And can you bring us back some more of those delicious 'French fries' from McDonald's? They're no hay fries, to be sure, but there's something about them. Mmm..."

The brothers supplied him with some bills, more than enough for what they were asking for, but they'd made quite clear they meant to take good care of their new 'friend', financially if nothing else. He'd probably spend a couple bucks on a hamburger for himself and give the rest back, as he tended to do. No need to be greedy about it.

Now, weeks later, the machine was in full production all day every day. After that one accident, he hadn't needed to get any more new snakes, though they still needed to be fed regularly of course. Scott spent much of the day tending the machine and making sure the snakes remained in good health. The machine would somehow extract some kind of oil from the snakes and use it to encapsulate ground up aspirin pills. When the physical manufacturing was done, the brothers did something to the pills with their horns, and then they were ready for sale.

Scott decided it was best he knew as little as possible about how exactly the Flim Flam brothers were marketing their snake oil pills. He'd gotten permission to take 'as many as he needed', so he took one whenever his brain started overthinking things and doubting the brothers' scheme. And poof! His doubts simply vanished. They also worked great for all his aches and pains. They healed that nasty snake bite he'd gotten surprisingly fast. (Poor Betsy had just gotten extra jumpy after laying her first clutch of eggs, Scott had realized afterwards. He'd let her skip the rounds in the machine after that until the little ones hatched.) The pills even cleared up his gassiness from all the junk food, once the brothers had suggest he tried taking it for that... funny how they hadn't solved that particular problem before the suggestion.

So he always kept a small bag of them on his person, both for his own use and to help out anyone in need.

Apparently that was why he was in the back of a squad car now.

"Do you mind if I have one of those pills? My back ache is coming back something fierce," Scott asked one of the officers. Also, his doubts about the brothers' plan were coming back. He really needed a pill for that. The officer gave him a pitying look but otherwise didn't respond.

The rest of the ride was quiet. At the station house they treated him sternly but not too badly as they processed his paperwork and got him into an interrogation room. He had to wait several minutes, staring at the one-way mirror and growing visibly more uncomfortable as his back pains continued to return. Finally, an officer came in and sat down across from him.

"Scott Jones. I'm John Capelli. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind?" the officer introduced himself.

"That's fine, but can I have one of my pills? My back ache is coming back," Scott answered.

"You mean these pills?" the officer said, setting the baggy on the table with a gloved hand, leaving it out of Scott's reach. "Do you know what's in these?"

"Snake oil and aspirin," Scott said matter of factly.

The officer's expression brightened. "And where did you get these pills from?" he questioned.

"A couple of unicorns gave them to me," Scott replied equally matter of factly.

The officer's expression darkened at that. "Unicorns?" he asked derisively.

"About a month ago, I took a bus ride to their magical land, where all the unicorns and pegasi and brightly colored talking ponies live. And I fed them soup from my bottomless soup can, and made some friends, and found the magic QR Code of Generosity, and used it to get back on the bus. But when I got home, there was a couple unicorns in my apartment, and we watched Breaking Bad together, and then they made this machine, and made me buy them some snakes to get the fresh oil to make these great pills. They're pretty great guys, but they make me handle all the snakes," Scott explained.

When all of the drug tests came back negative, they decided to lock Scott up for observation. But they never did return his pills. And so, his back ached horribly all night long. And he was starting to really, really question Flim and Flam's plan.

Welcome Smile laid in bed, looking up at the pointed tent of silky cloth above him, extending out to the four ornate posters in the corners and draping down. The whole thing was much too girly for his taste, but it was hard to complain. Especially since he didn't want to wake the mare lying on his right forehoof, pressed tightly against his side. So instead, he simply let his mind drift back to the night things had changed for him, so much for the better.

He remembered he had been so nervous, taking every opportunity to avoid speaking to her. She was his landlady, and he was flat broke, driven to poverty by strict adherence to a promise to help those who were already mired in it. He had been so certain the heiress would have harsh words for him at the very least, or at worst would repossess the shop that doubled as his home.

Silver Ladle had made him close down the shop, after they had both eaten, but it had only been for the night. She had taken him away, without proper explanation, to the upper reaches of Canterlot. Her neighborhood had been quite a bit worse for where... it didn't take too long to realize that the homes of many of her former neighbors had been broken into and occupied by squatters who took far less care of their new homes than the elites who had abandoned them, leaving them as mansions of squalor, a bizarre mashup of upper and lower Canterlot styles. Her own home was guarded now, and she had had a quick word with the guard on the way in, apparently about him.

The top floor office she had brought him too had intimidated him, especially with the paperwork laid out including a map with his shop circled. But they hadn't stopped in the office. She had led him out onto a balcony, and from there... the stars.

You couldn't see them properly from lower Canterlot. But from up here... he had seen the night sky before, of course, but he hadn't realized how different it was here in the low magic zone. It was... stunning. Normally, the night sky had so many stars it seemed a foals errand to try to count them, but you always thought maybe you could if you tried. It was easy to believe Luna arranged each one by hoof. But here... behind the larger, familiar constellations was an endless sea of tiny twinkling sparkles.

He had completely lost track of time, staring at the wondrous sight before he noticed Silver Ladle was pressed gently against his side. 'She smells nice' he had thought idly before he started to get an inkling of where things were going. "Why did you call me here?" he went ahead and asked.

"You're a very kind hearted and generous stallion," she had begun. "And I believe if you could do even more for the people of this city, you would. So.. I have an offer for you. I have some ideas on how to expand your restaurant so you can serve even more ponies, and I'm willing to put up the bits so that you can stay in business even with nopony paying. This is something Canterlot needs desperately right now, and you're the pony to lead up the effort... but not do it alone. But I do want something in return."

"I'd love to hear your ideas, of course. But what could I possible offer in return?" he had answered.

"I want you to let me court you. That means you'll have to take some time apart from your kitchen to spend with me, every single day. Is that too greedy of me?" she had asked. "I want to marry a stallion with a heart of gold, not one whose heart craves gold."

She had insisted there was no rush to be wed, but it had only taken them a few dates to change their minds on that. A month later, and here they were, with their wedding attire tossed on the ground beside her bed. He seemed funny to him now that he had ever feared her. Her father.. he had been a fearsome stallion, and he didn't know if he would have been able to dare to even ask his approval. Even now, the paintings in the halls of the late Iron Ladle, master chef turned restaurant tycoon, stared down at him as if to demand that he never hurt that dear beloved daughter, or let any harm befall her. Not that he needed the reminders. She was as precious to him now as she had been to her father.

Though he did worry about her sense when it came to bits. The overhaul to the soup kitchen was well thought out but expensive. They had several large pots now that they filled with soup from the magic can and kept hot with good old-fashioned fire, so it could simply be ladled out to customers, while one pony refilled whichever pot was getting lowest. She had bought the neighboring building to expand the seating area, and now had plans to retrofit the upstairs to more seating once he finished moving out his scant belongings. New employees served the increased number of customers, while a couple of lunar pegasi worked the night shift, cleaning out and then refilling the pots for the next day. The collection of bits had been streamlined to a simple donation box, though it had been designed to clink quite loudly when any bits were added, allowing her benefactors to bask in the appreciation of their neighbors, and the employees had led the way to establishing a tradition of cheering for any donation, even a single bit. But even still, the bits going out outpaced the bits coming in.

He hadn't objected when she had had the sign repainted, renaming the restaurant to 'Silver Ladle's Soup Kitchen'. He noted with a gentle smile that he heard her name randomly about town as he passed from work to his new home, ponies often simply referring to the place as 'Silver Ladle's'. It took him weeks before it dawned on him that that was what she was buying with her bits. Nopony knew the landladies of most of the businesses in town, but now everypony had some idea who Silver Ladle was. Everypony knew she was responsible for keeping more and more of the population well fed. With that much good will and recognition, she could easily run for a political office, but she wouldn't need to. If Silver Ladle told the mayor something needed to be done, her voice would carry the weight of all of her newfound clout.

He knew her well enough now to know that she was that devious. But he also knew her well enough to know she was only greedy about one thing. And as her eyes slowly opened, and locked onto his with a lustful grin, he decided it was just fine for her to be greedy about that.

Act 2 - Chapter 3: With and without an audience

Angelica was worried. She tried to hide it, but this time she failed. Adagio caught her frown as she entered the garage where there band did their music videos, before the teenager could hide it with a sheepish grin. Adagio also noticed her mouse moving toward something.

"Angelica~ You wouldn't be trying to hide something from me would you?" She asked with a threatening tone of fake sweetness. "Come on, let me see. Is it a porno? You don't have to hide that kind of stuff from your friends, you know. We won't tell your parents."

"Umm, yeah, that's all it is. You caught me!" she said with a blush, but Adagio was a bit too good at reading people to fall for that easy of a misdirection.

"Come on, let me see," she said pushing Angelica out of the way, as the other Dazzlings strolled into the room, still finishing off a couple beverages.

"What's going on?" Sonata asked innocently.

"Our friend, Angelica, is hiding something from us," Adagio complained, as she took the mouse and reopened the minimized window. Faced with an image of her own face, along with her friends, she was really confused for a moment. This was their latest music video, why would Angelica try to hide it from them? Then she looked down. She frowned as she started scrolling down. Then she trembled, rage visible in her eyes. Then she clicked over to some of the previous uploads. Tears formed in her eyes, making it harder to read but she didn't need to see the actual words. Blood trickled down her cheek from biting her lip.

By now, Sonata and Aria were at her sides. Aria's look managed to get even blanker than usual, as if her emotions had simply decided to retire and move to Florida, leaving an empty husk behind, reading the comments mechanically. Sonata leaned in and gave Adagio a comforting hug, that didn't seem to actually be working.

"That one doesn't seem too bad," Sonata suggested, pointing out one of the comments.

"The one that suggests we do our videos naked while making out? Ugh. Even if I was gay, I wouldn't let these pervy wankers have a peek at what I've got," Aria said, her voice dripping with disgust.

Sonata sighed. She wasn't overly interested in the sexual aspects herself, but sadly that was the only comment that had actually been favorable to them. They had gotten a few likes, but no positive comments and even more dislikes.

"I'm so sorry, you guys," Angelica began. "I didn't want you guys to see this. Your music is so good, it must be my editing job, or the special effects or something. Or maybe we need better recording equipment? I could get a part time job to be able to buy some better microphones maybe..."

Adagio sighed, sharing a glance with her fellow sirens. From their looks, she felt certain Aria knew what she was thinking and Sonata didn't. Typical. Their magic probably couldn't carry through the Internet. Certainly not without some special tweaking of some kind, they had no idea how to even attempt. It was still a bit soul-crushing to have such a purely negative reaction from their audience. They thought their voices were fairly good even without the magical compulsions backing them, the lyrics were strong and the music rocked. But the best they got beyond a few silent thumbs-ups was accusations of being wannabe ripoffs of other singers and a suggestion to make a porno.

"It's alright, Angelica," Adagio finally said, giving the girl a reaffirming hug, mirrored more sincerely by Sonata. "You did the best you could with what you could afford. I think what we really need to do is find a way to do some gigs in person, where there's no issues about equipment. What do you think about that? We could hit the road, do a tour?"

"Right.. in person," Aria confirmed, nodding.

"Road trip!" Sonata declared excitedly, throwing her hands up and giggling. "I'll go pack!"

When Angelica and Sonata heading inside to start packing, Adagio turned to her coconspirator. "Aria, my dear. We are going to find all these wankers and turn them into geldings. You catch my drift? HaremJutsu13754, we're coming for you."

"I'll pack my rusty spork," Aria confirmed with an evil grin.

Unfortunately, Angelica wasn't the only one able to find Twilight Sparkle's new email address. She had, after all, used it openly on countless public forums.

Twilight!
OMG, I'm like ur #1 fan!
Plz tak me too Equestria and b my waifu!
XOXO, lololo,
-Josh

Dear Josh,
- Thank you for your support! I had to look up what waifu meant, and I am very flattered, but I don't think I am interested in dating a human right now. For one, I understand long distance relationships can be really hard, and it doesn't get much more long distance than interplanetary. Also, I don't currently have the means to travel to your world in person or bring someone from there to here. If that changes, I will include you in the collection of potential suitors I reconsider, but I can't promise to even notify each and every one of you personally if that happens. There's just so many of you! And I can't exactly date everypony all at once.

-In the meantime, I hope you find a special somepony all your own. Sorry, special somehuman! Don't stop looking!

-Best wishes,
--Twilight Sparkle

Dear 'Twilight Sparkle',
I know the Internet is often a place for farces, but I feel yours has gone on quite too long already. If you really believe you are a Technicolor pony with a magic appendage extending from your forehead, I urge you to seek immediate psychiatric help for the sanity of yourself and other around you.
Or as our peers so succinctly put it: 'pics or it didn't happen'.

Pics attached. Enjoy. The first one is me, the second is me with some of my best friends.
-And before you ask, no you can't see a pic from the other end. We ponies might not have a nudity taboo, but I am aware that you humans do.
-Twilight

Dear 'Twilight'
I admit to being impressed by your photoshopping and/or 3d modelling skills. While I am sure it is not too hard to change the colors on a photograph of a pony, your attention to detail and workmanship deserves a kudos. As for your other comment, I was not going to ask and I am offended that you would even suggest it. I am not some pervert, much less one who is into bestiality. That you would even think of such a thing speaks much more about your own sickness than about me.

Hey Twilight!
How was your brother's wedding? I so wish I could have been there. That would have been incredible! Though I guess the changelings must have been scary? Though I bet they could be a lot of fun if they were nicer. You know like fun. Am I sick for thinking that? Maybe. I dunno, lol. I wish I was a changeling, but I'd be a nice one and not an evil one, and I'd be super nice to you, especially if you were up for some fun.

My brother's wedding was lovely and beautiful and quite formal, but not all that exciting when you get down to it. I had trouble understanding what you were talking about until I looked up the 'episode' to which you were referring. While the first season is.. rather creepy in terms of how accurately they portray my life, the entire Human War seem to have been neglected in your depictions, and quite a lot diverged after that. The changelings were our allies in our time of greatest need, but there was a falling out toward the end that lead to them being banished. As far as I know, none of them showed up at the wedding.

And while Shiny did marry Princess Cadance, they didn't take control of the returned Crystal Empire, Celestia claimed that for herself. Princess Cadance is now serving effectively as the mayor of Canterlot, and general ambassador to the other nations who send representatives there. Though as an alicorn and a unicorn, they spend as little time in the city as they can get away with. It's just too stifling for one with a horn to stay in a city where nopony can use magic!

For a while, I thought maybe changelings could be nice, but when they turned on us, all of them sided with their queen and that makes it harder to trust any of them. Even if they wanted to be good ponies, would they have the choice? I don't know. I'm glad you would try to be a good one if you were one, but maybe it's better to just be yourself?

If you want to have some fun, though, I have a great game I've been playing with some other people. The way it works is we each recommend a book to the other, then report back with our comments when we've finished reading. For our purposes, it has to be something available on the Internet, though I've been able to transcribe a bit of pony literature for emailing. I've attached one of my favorites. When we both finish, we can exchange another set of recommendations. I'm a pretty fast reader, but with so many playmates to keep up with, it makes things more fair, don't you think? And to be fair, I'll warn you if you pic something I've already read.

Sound like fun to you? It sounds like fun to me!
-Twilight Sparkle

Before Twilight could start the next email, the spider reached down a spindly limb and tapped on an icon, reminding her that it was nearly time for her big appointment. Alarmed, she took off in a panic, quickly taking the time to prepare herself in the bathroom in every way possible. When she was bathed, brushed, dry, and otherwise ready to go, she stopped to consider her wardrobe. Unfortunately, her clothing options were rather sparse. She had some very fancy clothing and some winter wear, but nothing that really fit the situation. She finally settled on the black dress she had worn during Mrs Redcliff's funeral, minus the veil. It was functional and professional, covering most of her front half in a nod to human sensabilities, and she would simply not turn her bottom half where he could see anything beyond the cutie mark. While the humans who had visited her world had been quite permissive of the nudity thing, they were surrounded with ponies and their own constantly clothed bodies were clearly the outlier. On the Internet, dealing with humans in their own environment, she had already learned that expectations were very different.

Finally, she started the client, and made the connection. Shortly, a window appeared on screen, with a placeholder while she waited for the human to accept the call on the other side. It was a few minutes before a scruffy looking police officer in his uniform appeared on screen. "Miss Twilight Sparkle?" he asked, dubiously.

"In the fur. It's good to finally talk to you, Detective. Miller, was it? Welcome to both our worlds' first interplanetary video call! I only wish it was regarding a more pleasant topic," Twilight Sparkle greeted.

"Is there a reason you don't have video show- Aaaah! eheh, sorry, it just. Wow. Okay, umm. wow. You weren't kidding, huh? Sorry, that's.. probably the most unprofessional greeting ever in the history of first contacts.." Detective Miller responded.

Twilight couldn't help but giggle, hiding her mouth behind her hoof for a moment. "That's alright, Detective, I knew you didn't believe me, so I expected a bit of shock. After all, that's why I wanted to talk to you this way instead of just by email. Is everything coming through clearly? Is the translation all making sense?"

"Translation? Of course, sorry, I guess it makes sense you don't speak English natively. And that explains why your lips look a bit out of sync. Yes. Okay. Oh! I need to let you know, we're recording this on our end, for the investigation. And, history I guess. No pressure.." A part of his mind was still hoping this was some elaborate hoax involving very sophisticated CGI. But with every frame of the call, that idea became less and less plausible, and Occam's razor fell more on the side of suggesting that 'I'm talking to a purple unicorn on another planet over Skype' was the simplest explanation. What a day.

"Right. Though I imagine you're under a lot of pressure to get your job done, so why don't we get started? You had questions for me regarding the missing persons," Twilight prompted.

"Right, so you said you knew specifically what happened to each of the people who did not come home, right? Let's start with that," the officer suggested, trying to be professional.

"Right. So first off, Mrs. Redcliff died here in Ponyville. I was.. asked to help decontaminate the site. She apparently dranking a distressingly large number of assorted potions in a very short period of time, resulting in out of control magical interference, and ultimately death. That's why we normally advise against drinking more than one potion in a day, and consider drinking more than three to be unacceptable under even extraordinary circumstances. We believe it was suicide, prompted by the destruction of her son's phone. While they were here, they had a link between their cell phones that sent them all a message when one of them was 'eliminated', either by dying or by the destruction of their phone, with no distinction on the message between the two," Twilight began.

"Did anyone witness her drinking it? Did she leave a note?" the detective inquired.

"There were no witnesses, no, at least none came forward. She died in Trixie Lulamoon's mobile home, where she had been picked up as a hitchhiker, but Trixie claims to have been absent when it happened," Twilight answered.

"Can you arrange for me to speak to Ms. Lulamoon?" he followed up.

"Maybe? I understand she showed up on your world, at the home of one Relena Swift. I don't have her address, but you have her email address now, right? I can confirm she is absent from our world, but not the means. Her mobile home was found smashed into a tree at the bottom of a hill; it looks like she just vanished while pulling it up the road," Twilight offered.

"Relena.. okay, yes, I have her email address. I'll get in touch with her later. What about the others?" he continued.

"Each of the humans received a different magical artifact when they came here. Joshua Swift's artifact transferred any harm from his daughter to himself, and ultimately functioned to save her life from an otherwise lethal attack by bandits in a neighboring country. We have done what we could to pursue justice in that matter, but we have not been able to secure extradition. Relena was there for his funeral, and can possibly tell you more when you make arrangements to interview Trixie," Twilight offered.

"That's.. okay, I'm talking to a unicorn, I guess I'll accept your expertise on magical artifacts on faith for now. Did any of those artifacts come back to Earth with the humans?" he asked.

"Most were turned over to us for safe keeping. A few have been lost or destroyed, and a few are sadly unaccounted for. One in particular, Daniel Holden's, could not be safely removed from his body. So his is the only one we know went through with him," Twilight offered.

"Great.. I remember his emails..."

"As do I. If he really plans to become a villain, he can be incredibly dangerous. Take him seriously!" Twilight urged.

"Can you explain what his artifact does?" he asked.

"Not really. It makes spiders? Like, spider machines that can make more spider machines, or grow bigger, and do all kinds of stuff? I'm really not clear on its limits. Like, the spider that is translating our Internet connection so I can talk to you was made with his power," she replied with a frown.

"Speaking of translation, it sounds like yours is glitching. I keep hearing 'spider'. You know, eight legged bug thing that makes webs?"

"That's right. That's what they look like, typically. They're like.. spiders made of smaller spiders. 'Fractal spiders' is what he called them," Twilight confirmed.

"Any idea how to stop them?" he asked.

"No idea, really. Ryan Smith's item was very effective against them.. as well as us ponies, and the changelings, and anypony else who got within a few miles of his every expanding swath of destruction. But that was destroyed, so we couldn't use it to help you if we wanted to. Speaking of which. Ryan killed Monique Ashland with his item, and in turn was killed by an 'international military coalition'. That's the final official word on how it ended," Twilight offered.

"I'm sure I'll have some more follow up questions about that, though email should suffice. What about Benjamin Coleman?"

"He was killed by a dragon, shortly after arriving. He was unlucky enough to appear in her home, and was taken to be a thief. He apparently thought he could fight her off rather than apologizing or fleeing. It didn't work out so well for him. His item is still in her treasure hoard, which seems like a safe enough place for it. In any case, we can't get it back from her without a serious fight, which isn't worth the loss of life," she answered.

"Killed by a... " right, unicorn. "Killed by a dragon, got it. Alright, Miss Sparkle. If I have any other questions, I'll email them to you. Thank you so much for your cooperation," he finished.

"Thanks. I hope your investigation goes well, Detective. I especially hope you manage to find Zeke, alive and well," she said, frowning.

The detective nodded in agreement, and disconnected, before pushing away from his desk, staring at the ceiling and trying to make sense of the universe.

Act 2 - Chapter 4: With and without Discord

Robert sighed as he opened his backpack to get the textbook out, and a little Rainbow Dash figure fell out onto the classroom floor. It was seen instantly by several other children who started pointing and snickering, so he didn't even bother to pick it up. It wasn't his. One of his new 'siblings' at the foster home had snuck it into his backpack.

Robert liked Rainbow Dash. The real Rainbow Dash. And while he had never gotten intimate with her in all his iterations through time, she reminded him a lot of his first marefriend, Thunder Peal. Both were brave, loyal, athletic pegasus mares, around the same age. Robert had gone through adolescence in a world full of ponies, so it was only natural he had eventually tried dating one. The first time had been one of the times he ran away from the 'army man', Ryan, and his forces and just let the world fall apart for a while while he took a breather and just.. lived. He and Thunder Peal had spent over a year together. They had been tempted to marry, but it seemed.. pointless, knowing he would have to unwind time again soon.

After that, their relationship had gotten weird. She gave him a letter, one which wasn't for his eyes. It was an introduction he used several times when he met back up with her in other iterations. He'd introduce himself, give her the letter, give her time to read it, then soak up her sympathy for a bit before they started dating anew. It was always fresh for her, but it just got weirder and weirder for him, looping back to the start, trying not to push unfairly fast. She was a good sport about it when he did, but he could always sense it hurt her, underneath her smile.

So, one day he burned the letter. She caught him doing it, and he had to chase after her crying. He held her, soothed her, assured her it wasn't because he didn't like her. He ran from the world again that time, and they enjoyed a full year together, but he wasn't going to start over with her again.

From then on, he essentially slept around. At most once per iteration, he would find somepony interested enough in him to date, and enjoy what time they had together. He was tender and affectionate with them, but never loved them like he had loved Thunder Peal. How could he? He really tried, but it was just too hard. There wasn't enough time to let them into his heart.

Back in the present, he sniffled a bit, and everybody assumed it was because he was withering under the taunting looks of his so-called peers, embarrassed to be outted as a young brony. It was annoying to receive all this taunting, ultimately because he had accidently tipped his hand by answering one of his 'sisters' question about Twilight Sparkle to another, with all the confidence and accuracy of one who actually was familiar with the show. But the sniffles, and the watery eyes, were just a poorly controlled young body responding to the memories of his first and best love, made all the more difficult by the realization that it would be years yet before he was old enough to have a serious relationship again.

"Mr Redcliff, can you answer the question?" the teacher demanded, pulling him out of his reverie. It was a simple word problem, and his eyes roved over it quickly, before he answered simply "ten".

"Come up here and show your work. You can bring your little doll if it makes you feel better," he suggested sarcastically. How did this guy still have a job? You can't honestly work with ten year olds and get this offended if one gets distracted.

In an act of pure defiance, Robert set the Rainbow Dash doll carefully on top of his head, and pretended to be flying, even making wooshing noises with his mouth as he ran up to the board, grabbed a piece of chalk, and wrote up the equation and answer in seconds, before wooshing back. If people wanted to think he was weird, he'd give them weird. It was all far more mundane than the truth anyways. Besides, balancing the little plastic figure added a bit of challenge to what was otherwise a painfully easy assignment. Even with so little formal schooling in his weird loop through Equestria, he had picked up more than enough math to make fifth grade word problems far too easy.

English, was another issue, though. Many of the others had had the good fortune to appear in Equestria near a unicorn with the skills to cast a translation spell, and most of the others had simply had some magical effect placed on them by the Text to translate their speech for them. But Daniel and Robert had Items that made it plausible to learn Equestrian the hard way, so they had been left to do so. For Robert, that meant struggle through months of being a child who basically couldn't communicate with anypony verbally, until eventually the words started to take root in his mind. Now, he had spent the majority of his life immersed in Equestrian, and he actually thought mostly in Equestrian to this day. So he had, overnight from the perspective of this world, gone from being a native English speaker to essentially treating English as a second language. It was coming back to him, but he struggled. Not so much as to make a word problem hard, however. Mostly it just came out in him quietly taking a few extra seconds to translate everything back and forth in his head, making everybody think he was 'slow'.

His foster parents and case worker assumed it was emotional trauma, from his mother's disappearance. He tried not to contradict that. For one: he dearly missed his mother. And he was happy to have his therapist help him through that genuine grief. But beyond that, he really didn't want to try to explain his life in Equestria to any of them. Except his therapist. His therapist, of course, thought he was completely crazy and making this all up as he went along. Robert did his best not to cross the line with him, and do anything that would risk proving he was telling the truth. He just wanted someone to talk to about it all, and not tease him about it afterwards, and Dr Schrödinger was good for that at least. The good doctor would kindly hear him out on all of his fantastic tales, and then play this little game where he tried to ask questions to draw out the deep emotional meaning of these fantasies. Not once had Robert mentioned his travelling back in time to the doctor, which helped ensure that the doctor never believed him: too many of his stories contradicted each other by virtue of being from different iterations of the timeline.

As the school day wound down, Robert kept the plastic pegasus balanced on his head, so consistently that by the end of the day no one was even talking about it anymore. It did deter anyone from socializing with him, though, but that wasn't all that untypical for him even without RD. So at the end of the day, he wooshed out to the traffic loop, where Dr Schrödinger would be waiting to take him to his appointment. For some reason, the good doctor was standing by his car now, talking with a uniformed police officer. It didn't look confrontational, which was good if even more surprising.

As Robert approached cautiously, and the doctor responded with recognition, waving him closer, the officer turned to him. "You must be Robert Redcliff. I'm Detective John Miller."

"You're the one who was investigating Zeke's disappearance. I'm sorry I haven't written you back. My foster parents are very strict with my internet time, and I couldn't promise to meet with you anyways. Have you found him?" Robert asked, almost losing his passenger from looking up too steeply.

"That's right, I'm glad you remembered. Would you mind passing up your normal appointment today to come talk with me?" He added quietly "a certain somepony thought you would be more helpful than most may think."

Robert blinked, then nodded, quickly catching Rainbow as she fell from his head. "Purple?" he asked.

"Purple," the detective confirmed, before turning to the doctor. "Thank you for waiting with me. I'll take him from here, and get him back home tonight. Sound good?"

"Very well, zen, just remember zat his new parents are very ztrict with za curfew, ya," the doctor said with his typical thick accent.

"Alright, no problem. Thanks again for your help, doctor." They shook hands, and parted ways, and soon Robert was in the squad car on the way to their interview. Robert was thankfully able to sit in the front, with RD sitting on his lap.

"I wasn't really prepared to believe any of it," John confessed once the doors were closed and no one else could hear them, "until Ms Sparkle managed to arrange a video call. Now I have to either believe that someone has gone to incredible lengths to make a photorealistic animated or perhaps animatronic purple talking unicorn just to mess with my head, or that you and your friends did somehow travel to another planet, and left them with the means to connect to our internet."

Robert nodded, "I see your problem, there, Officer. I have some even harder to believe things to tell you, whenever you want to hear them. But maybe we should start with how much you know?"

John shook his head. "No, we start by getting to the interview room, and starting the recording equipment. I know no one else is going to have an easy time believing you, even after seeing the recording of Twilight's call, but I want it recorded anyways. And then you start from the beginning or what have you. It'll help all of us believe you both if you can confirm each other's stories independently without contradiction."

Robert sighed, nodding. "Alright, though my shrink will tell you I have a hard time not contradicting myself. But that's because I haven't told him yet what my 'Cheat code' did."

"Cheat code? No, save it for the interview room," John said.

When they arrived, Rainbow Dash drew a lot of looks from her position on Robert's head, even without any wooshing noises. Finally, they got into the interrogation room, and got the recording equipment started.

"Okay, so first off, can I have your full name, for the record?" John asked as he took his seat.

The chair was a bit low to the table for Robert, even with the help of a plastic booster seat they had gotten from somewhere, but he made do. "I am Robert Redcliff, son and only child of Garfield and Rebecca Redcliff, both now deceased."

"And, what can you tell me about the night of November 3, 2011?" John inquired.

"I can tell you a lot, though you will have a hard time believing it, even with what you know. But I'll just come out and say it. For the record. My mom, Rebecca Redcliff, and I boarded our usual bus home, along with ten other passengers. From front of the bus to back, they were Daniel Holden, my mom, myself, Scott Jones, Frank Cobbler, Monique Ashland, Angelica Ericson, Joshua and Relena Swift, Benjamin Coleman, Zeke Goldstein, and Ryan Smith," Robert began.

"That's.. very accurate, are you reading off my list? It's strange for a ten year old to have something like that memorized, don't you think?" John inquired.

Robert shook his head, "I'll make clear soon enough how and why I memorized that particular bit of information. Can I continue? Good. We were riding the bus, not expecting anything unusual to happen, when suddenly we were all plunged into darkness. We were each separated into our own dark void, where glowing text appeared to ask us a handful of questions. It asked us where we wanted to go... anywhere, real or fictional it said. We each gave a different answer, before being informed we were going to Equestria instead. No one had picked it, not even Relena, so I don't know why it was picked for us. I think that was meant as a clue, though. Then we were each asked to pick one item to bring with us. These are what Relena later dubbed our 'Cheat Codes'. We each picked something different, some of them obviously very powerful. I picked the Ocarina of Time, from the Legend of Zelda video games. I was a big Link fan back then, and I thought being able to roll back time would be really helpful."

"Did you get it? and did it work?" John cut in.

Robert nodded. "Yeah. It worked. I'll get back to it shortly. After picking our items, we were each told that our starting location would be chosen based on the power of our item, and then informed that we were to play in a 'survival game', with no clarification on what that meant and dumped into an alien world. At first, I was alone in a desert wasteland, with nothing but my clothes, backpack full of school supplies and the Ocarina in my hand. I knew the songs from the games, and very quickly learned that the Song of Time worked to reset everything back to the start of the game, except myself: I would be transported back to my starting location, but otherwise unchanged. Which is to say that I was the only thing changed by the time I experienced before resetting." Robert paused to give John a bit of time to think that through, or ask questions.

At length, John finally asked "how long did you spend, looping through time?"

"Fifteen years, give or take. I didn't have a good way to measure the time other than my own growth. I was a good way into adulthood when we finally succeeded at coming home, only to have my growth finally reversed upon my return," Robert replied.

"I've heard that since the incident you've struggled a bit with your schoolwork, aside from a few subjects like math. Shouldn't they be a lot easier having been an adult for some time?" he inquired.

Robert shook his head. "Most of the others had the benefits of magic to temporarily learn the local language. Since I had time travel powers, I wasn't given that advantage and had to learn Equestrian the hard way. Eventually I became more used to talking and even thinking in Equestrian, and now I have to translate my thoughts back to English. Also, learning a lot of Equestrian history, social conventions, and so forth makes it harder to keep Earth history straight, not easier. Math is the same though. But honestly, I didn't use it that much in day to day life as essentially an adventurer. That's part of why I don't mind going back to school.. I need to learn how to be a human in America, not a human in Equestria. Completely different skillsets. All my hard earned skills with a sword and bow don't do much good here."

"So, does that mean you can speak Equestrian for us?" John inquired.

Robert nodded and replied with "" in Equestrian. The sound of it came across as a bit ponyish, with a distinct neighing to parts of it, but otherwise roughly in the range of human speech.. but not matching any particular language John could recognize.

"Maybe something more specific.." he checked his notes, "how about 'That's alright, Detective, I knew you didn't believe me, so I expected a bit of shock. After all, that's why I wanted to talk to you this way instead of just by email. Is everything coming through clearly? Is the translation all making sense?'"

Robert shook his head. "I don't know the Equestrian word for email, I didn't know they even had the concept."

"Maybe try to guess how Twilight would word it?" John suggested. Robert nodded and tried using the Equestrian word for 'letters' in its place.

"Great, now how about 'Thanks. I hope your investigation goes well, Detective. I especially hope you manage to find Zeke, alive and well,'" he asked. Robert sounded that out as well. Notably, 'Zeke' was just 'Zeke'.

"What are you hoping to do with this translation?" Robert asked curiously.

"Well, the video call was being translated audibly, so Twilight Sparkle's lips didn't match the sound of her words. If they match the words you gave us, it will be an extra bit of evidence for the reality of this whole situation. If we want anyone to take us seriously, we need all the proof we can get," John answered.

"Well, the big proof is going to be Daniel Holden doing something 'villainous' any day now. Probably in downtown Seattle. I don't know what he's planning, but I know it's going to be really obvious, and probably obviously impossible for anyone else to pull off. When that happens, people are going to be open to a lot weirder of explanations than normal," Robert offered.

"Do you know what his 'Cheat Code' can do?" John asked.

"I'm guessing Twilight wasn't able to give you a good answer on that? His item was a single, self-replicating, nano-machine. I would suggest thinking them as a cross between the Borg nano-probes from Star Trek and the Replicators from Stargate. Basically, his blood is full of little machines that can make more of themselves, or make basically anything they understand. He can control them with his mind, and they make him smarter, like having a computer wired into his brain. Definitely not wiser, though. Normally the main limitation on what they can do is his own inhibitions, but from his last few emails it sounds like his 'dark side' is in complete control, which means he may well do anything, up to potentially destroying or conquering the world," Robert explained.

"Are they really that powerful? I mean, we have a pretty powerful military ourselves..." John asked.

"I think that if you were to drop a nuclear bomb on the city right now, you would probably eliminate the threat. If you don't, if you start by using cops with pistols and then slowly escalate, by the time you break out the nukes they won't be enough to stop him. Ryan was able to fight him effectively because the soldiers his item created forced a kind of 'video game' logic on the world, that allowed them to shoot and kill microscopic enemies with perfect accuracy. Even then, he had to bust out volleys of nuclear weapons, and that only worked in the timelines where Daniel hadn't started building up far enough in advance. But in the real world, a single nanospiders the size of a human cell is impossible to detect, much less shoot, and I'm not sure a bullet would really stop it anyways." Robert said, obviously getting nervous at the thought.

"Well, is there any way we could get a hold of Ryan's item?" John asked, swallowing. He was really hoping this was all BS right about now. A good old fashioned hoax, yep.

"No, it was destroyed. And Twilight mentioned to me that the Ocarina is missing, so we can't even unwind time now. You'll have to try to exploit his other weaknesses," Robert said.

"What other weaknesses? What do you know?" John asked.

"Daniel's dark side, 'Istaran', has something he calls 'chronic honesty'. He doesn't lie, and has a hard time even keeping his mouth shut, especially about things that are directly disadvantageous for him to reveal. He calls it a 'classic villain's weakness'. So, that's the biggest one there. If you email him, he'll probably answer your questions, and if he answers at all it will be honestly. And you can probably get him monologuing anytime you need to buy a little time. Beyond that, you need to figure out what motivates him and use it to your advantage. I know he is fiercely protective of his subordinates. I just wouldn't recommend trying something like taking one hostage though.. it tends to make him vengeful, and he likes to do vengeance with extreme overkill."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Should I just email him and ask him what he's planning to do?" John asked.

"You could try that. As I said, if he answers it will be honest. But don't mistake that for idiocy. If he tells you, he'll know you know and plan around that fact. His plans don't generally rely on secrecy, considering he is well aware of his own weakness," Robert answered.

"Let's try this..." John said, taking out his cell phone. He quickly sent out an email.

Daniel Holder, a.k.a. Istaran,
What villainous activity are you planning in the downtown area in the near future?
Thanks for your quick response,
-Detective John Miller

Within seconds, a response arrived in his inbox, causing the phone to vibrate before he could even slip it back in his pocket.

Detective Miller,
Thank you for your cordial inquiry! It's so nice to have a polite adversary, don't you think? Would you like to be my nemesis? It would be so much fun. You don't need to decide right now though.
Tomorrow afternoon, beginning at approximately 1pm, I am planning a record breaking bank robbery. Here is the address: (link). I've attached a map of the area with suggested deployment for the police barricade. As per standard policy, don't come rushing in or I'll have to kill the hostages, yada yada. Nobody wants that. Hope to see you there!
By the way, congrats on the historical first video call thing! Very nice! And Twilight even got all dressed up for you? They usual go about naked, you know.
Looking forward to ruling your city with my great pal, Sombra,
-Istaran

"Okay, how did he even type that fast?" John asked, "and how did he know about Twilight wearing a dress?"

Robert shrugged. "He probably has some kind of internet connection to his brain by now. Maybe he was able to hack into your call somehow?"

John shuddered. "Alright. So.. I think it's time I get you home for your curfew. Do you think you'll be up for more sessions with me?"

Robert nodded, "it's nice to talk to someone who will actually listen to what I have to say. Though, it's kind of depressing. I was hoping being 10 again meant I don't have to get involved in any more saving the world bullshit."

"More popcorn, sun-butt?" Discord asked as he finished off their shared snack.

"Surprise me," she requested with a smile, still engrossed by watching their little magical viewing portals into the human world. Earth was completely beyond her ability to reach in any way, but Discord had been able to set up a set of scrying screens for them to watch events unfolding there. Since even the spiders couldn't force her to foresee what would happen on that other world, everything held at least some degree of unpredictability for her, and she was hooked. Ironically, part of the appeal was trying to guess what would happen through simple analysis of the situation and characters involved, and then seeing how close she got.

Discord loved trying to be surprising, and could generally accomplish that. The new batch of popcorn looked like any other, but had the chewiness of taffy, and tasted like butternut squash. Celestia gave a delighted moan as she savored the first bite, nodding her approval. "Your friend is getting questioned by the police. Looks like he's going to get things heated up over there soon."

"Bah, he's no friend of mine. Hardly even an acquaintance! Though he is quite a curious one to watch," Discord replied.

"Well, he freed you, so he deserves some appreciation from both of us for that. And he is a timetraveller with over a decade of looping through time, so that seems like the kind of character you could appreciate," Celestia mentioned.

"Really? And I missed that. Well, some things I just won't stand for," he said, lying down.

"Go. You can come back to a few seconds from now," she suggested.

Discord snapped his fingers and vanished from the local space-time, only to reappear a few seconds later, covered with little square stickers saying 'Equestria' or other various countries around their world. "I'm back, did you miss me?"

Celestia pounced him and hugged him tight, panting heavily and dripping with sweat. "I did, I really did. Do you have any idea how many picoseconds that was?!"

Discord was shocked and surprised, looking at her wordlessly before she disentangled herself and gave him a playful grin and a wink. He laughed when he realized she was playing with him, or at least playing it up to comical proportions. "Anyways, I got to know little Robby a bit better. Did you know he had a serious marefriend for a few years? Not in the same timeline, mind you, but altogether. Now that's a love story I can appreciate."

"Oh? I did not see that coming," she said, though Discord had already clearly tired of her overuse of that line. She used it every chance she got these days. She started clopping her forehooves together slowly. "We should reunite them! I'll call Cadance, she'll want in on this!"

Act 2 - Chapter 5: With and without sleeping

The woods were dark this early in the morning, but not so dark as to hide the bright orange vests that both Relena and Trixie had shrugged on. It made stealthily sneaking up on prey, especially the smarter animals, quite a bit harder, but it was well worth it for the reduced likelihood they would get themselves shot by another hunter. Especially Trixie.

Trixie still wasn't really comfortable with hunting, even the way Relena did it, but she set aside her queasiness as she always did, in order to keep a protective eye over her new friend. Quickly they made the rounds, searching for rabbits and other small creatures that had gotten caught in their snares. The first hare was quickly dispatched with a knife and bagged, the rest gently set free. At least until Relena came back to reset the traps again. All of the traps that had had no luck she disabled, so as not to be wasteful. It was clean, efficient, and as painless as she could make it, which honestly set Trixie even more ill at ease. But she also accepted that humans generally did best with a bit of meat in their diets, and Relena needed to do as much as she could without tapping into her very limited funds.

The next part she wouldn't be able to watch. The part where fur was removed and added to her pile of raw materials, meat prepared for cooking, and the rest either used for various purposes or disposed of. Disassembling a recently living creature for parts was just.. ghoulish.

But before Relena would sequester herself in the shed and begin that process, literally butchering the slain rabbit, they had to get home. It was normally a simple walk home, filled with friendly conversation, their way lit by Trixie's horn. But this time something interrupted them. Something big, tall and red, with plenty of well toned abs at just above eye level.

Trixie was paralyzed with fear for just a moment, before she was paralyzed with another sensation, as the big red centaur began sucking the magic out of her. A loud bang ran out, deafening her but allowing her to run, and she immediately did, before she had enough wits about her to think of her ward.

Tirek roared out in pain. His front left knee was shattered, bleeding heavily, and burning with pain the likes of which he had rarely experienced. The little pink pistol was aimed at his face now, directly between his eyes, a thin trail of smoke wafting up from its barrel. From what he knew of firearms, it was an empty threat: she hadn't taken the time to reload yet, and he would surely cross the distance between them and kill her, even hobbling along on three legs, before she could do so. Nevertheless, he commited much of the infusion of magic he had just gathered to a transparent shield. Relena's eyes didn't look like those of someone bluffing, and he didn't feel like risking his life on calling her on it.

"That was a warning shot," she informed him. "Lie down on the ground, with your face in the mud and your hands on the back of your head."

He opted to charge her instead. The next bullet pinged off his shield directly before his eyes, and when the shield-flare had cleared, he saw her running away from him in three directions at once. Illusions. With a deep breath, he sucked the magic out of the two false humans, evaporating the spells, while the third escaped from sight.

He smelled for her, but burned gunpowder overwhelmed his sense of smell. He looked for her, but she was well hidden, amazing considering her bright orange- there it was. Discarded on a bush. The little girl was invisible to his sense of magic. Despite how clear this area was of even the usual background magic, the humans here lacked even the normal aura of something relatively mundane like an earth pony. Speaking of ponies, however, the unicorn stood out like a flame in the night, obvious enough for him to track her from miles away, which was why he was here in the first place.

He hobbled after her on three legs, burning a little more magic to keep the pain from slowing him too much. He faced the classic predator's paradox: he needed to make sure he didn't expend more energy pursuing his prey than he would gain from consuming it. But in this case, there were precious few other prey on this entire world. He was aware of each and every one of them, and this one was a relatively easy catch. Her magic would go a very long way toward consuming the others'.

A false Trixie tried to assail him with fireworks, but he consumed it. The real Trixie tried to blast him with her own magic, but he consumed that too. Thrice, shots rang out from the girl's little pink pistol, but thrice his shield deflected it. Trixie tried to run, but by now his magic was strong enough to catch her, hold her aloft, and drag her to within his reach.

And now he held her neck within his powerful hands. As her struggling faded, he drained every last bit of magic from her, even as ten more bullets pinged off of his shield. He was almost worried, but she finally stopped firing. He was impressed with the gun's capacity, but it was far from infinite, and surely it would take a long time to reload such a weapon. He was wrong in principle, as the handgun's clip was easy to replace with another, but right in practice. Relena had foreseen a remote possibility of needing her firearm for protection, but had not foreseen the eventuality of needing a second clip on her person.

Tirek tossed aside the drained unicorn, caring not that she was still alive, and began to walk away, deeper into the woods, chuckling to himself at his victory. It had been less flawless than he would have liked, but there was no sense wasting his time and effort pursuing the magicless human girl. He had other prey to seek.

When the big red beast was out of sight, Relena abandoned her cover and rushed out to her friend. Trixie was unable to move, her breathing labored and her pulse weak. She couldn't manage any words, just a tear-filled look of absolute defeat.

"Don't! Don't you dare leave me, Lulamoon! You're- you've got to be stronger than this. Come on! Don't give up! I need you.. Don't leave me alone..." Relena begged the unicorn.

But the heartfelt pleas were the magic words the Text had demanded. And so, Trixie's form evaporated into a flurry of glowing lights, drifting up into the sky and dissolving into nothingness. At last, Relena was left with nothing but a puddle of her own tears, and a puddle of Trixie's own.

Relena realized what she needed to do quickly, but it took time to muster the will, and additional time to run back to her home, or at least close enough to get a signal on her cell phone.

Twilight!
Trixie just disappeared right in front of me. I'm pretty sure she went back to Equestria, but she's been hurt badly. Find her! Save her! I beg of you. I think something ate her magic or something? She can barely breathe now. Help!
-Relena Swift, Trixie's BFF

The waiting was painful, but an hour later she was filled with fresh anxiety as an email arrived in return.

Dear Relena,
Trixie is so lucky to have such a dependable BFF. Thanks to your quick thinking, we were able to locate her in time and begin treatment immediately. It will be a while before she recovers enough to do any magic again, but she is stable now and safe.
Trixie told me a bit about that thing that was hunting her. Are you safe from it now? If so, I think you should contact Detective John Miller right away! He's been looking into Zeke's disappearance, and I think we may have found our perpetrator. I just hope Zeke is still alive.
Stay safe!
-Twilight Sparkle

Knowing her friend would survive was a big relief to Relena, but it didn't solve one very big problem for her. She was alone. Really alone. So very alone. She went up to her bed. The big master bed that had been her father's and more recently shared with Trixie. She curled up in it, bringing the covers to her face and breathing them in deeply. The bright blue furs that had woven themselves into it carried Trixie's scent strongly, while she imagined she could just barely make out hints of her father's own scent, the lingering traces of his aftershave and deodorant.

Her mind raced, largely in circles, while her body did nothing but tremble, sob, and dampen the cloth. She was alone now. Her father had spent her whole life preparing her for this day, but she felt so very, very unprepared to face the reality of it.

Alone.

Cherry Blossom, by contrast, wished she could be alone. More specifically, she wished she could be alone in her own dreams. Every night, and now every day as she collapsed into sleep from total exhaustion at least once, he mind was filled with visions of a multi-limbed, undead monstrosity. It spread out underground, and dug its rotting hooves up out of the ground anywhere and everywhere within the town that filled her dreams. It was Citrus Hills, she eventually recognized, after a week or so of nonstop nightmares. She had passed through it plenty of times in the past, enough to tell the subtle landmarks that distinguished it from all of the other tiny, rural towns that dotted the area.

She really didn't understand why. Why did she spend every sleeping moment in a small town with no real significance to her, running from the hooves of the damned? If Luna were still with them, surely the dream guardian would have dispelled this nightmare once and for all.

Now the earth filly was finally going to face her fears. And not alone. For some unfathomable reason, her increasingly unpredictable ruler had seen fit to send a detachment of no less than two dozen armed and trained lunar pegasi to join her on this little expedition. They were even joined by a unicorn with a royally sealed scroll poking out of his saddle bags. Cherry Blossom really wished somepony would explain this all to her, but they seemed more clueless than her.

"Alright, so where is the, uh, entrance?" one of the pegasi asked her.

"Entrance?" Cherry asked. She wracked her mind for an answer of any kind, and something sprung to mind, nearly making her fall over shuddering. "Come with me." She wasn't sure how she knew, but she knew the way. Deep into the woods, away from all the buildings, away from everypony. Away from everypony except a pair of thuggish looking ponies guarding an abandoned well in the middle of nowhere. "There," she pointed, somewhat unconfident. In her dreams, the hooves often clamored out of the well. But.. she had never seen it before in person. Strange that her memories of running away from this place in her dreams would prove so adequate for leading ponies to it now.

The thugs saw what was coming, and quickly abandoned their post, dropping down into the well itself. The unicorn broke the seal on his scroll, opened it, and cast the spell within on everypony in the group. Suddenly, Cherry Blossom felt her fears melt away completely. Nothing could scare her now, but she still had no desire to go down there. The lunar pegasi, by contrast, dropped down into the well in tight dives, spreading their wings and spreading out as they reached the relative open of the cavern below.

The unicorn stayed by her side, and they listened to the sounds of battle echoing up from below. It sounded so fierce! But it did not last long, and once it was gone, it was Cherry's turn to descend into the well, lowered in a grip of golden magic before the unicorn teleported down to join her.

The scene was grisly, but Cherry was unafraid. A bit nauseated, but she dealt with it and moved on. Nopony had actually died, she saw, the night guard's training allowing them to overwhelm the dozen ponies trying to kill them, without resorting to lethal attacks of their own. The black crystals everywhere down here, even jutting from the enemy combatants' snouts, seemed like they ought to scare her, but magically they did not.

The poor, half-dead ponies who had been forced to mine the crystals earned Cherry's sympathy, as the lunar pegasi aided them in their exit from the cave. Their eyes looked dead to her, though they still drew breath, and she hoped for a miracle to restore their hearts and minds in time.

She approached the large pit in the center of the cavern, one of the rescued ponies telling her in passing that it was where the dead were dropped. But she was unafraid. She got up to the edge and looked down. Sure enough, corpses lie rotting at the bottom. While she didn't know the science behind it, the lack of air flow had slowed decay to a crawl, leaving much more flesh on the older corpses than they had any right to have at this point. But none of it moved in any way, much less reaching up for her.

Behind her, the unicorn drew a second scroll, broke the royal seal, and began casting as directed. As the spell completed, Cherry Blossom lost consciousness and dropped to sleep. Unnecessarily, he grabbed her limp form in his magic, pulling her a little farther from the edge of the pit as a precaution. He wondered why the mad Princess could possible want him to knock out the little earth filly, much less precisely here under precisely these circumstances. The rescue mission made plenty of sense, and even the fearlessness spell had obvious application. But this? Oh well, best to follow her orders, however bizarre. They always seemed to work out in the end, even more reliably now that she had gone 'mad'.

In her dreams, Cherry Blossom appeared right where she had fallen asleep. Down here at the edge of the pit, there was nowhere to run from the dead limbs. They were everywhere, surrounding her. And she wasn't afraid.

A dead hoof touched her, and suddenly she was in a field of flowers, standing snout to snout with a nearly identical copy of herself. Something about the copy seemed slightly off, though Cherry couldn't immediately place what.

"Cherry Blossom! Finally! I've been trying so hard to reach you for so long," the fake said.

"Who are you? What are you?" Cherry asked, confused, looking around the beautiful flowerscape in confusion.

"Most ponies call me Cherry Blossom, but I call myself Nightmare Core. I guess that probably feels extra fitting to you. I am, well. I am what you became in another time. After you died," she said sadly.

"How, what. You're a ghost? Or.. I'm so confused," Cherry admitted.

"I'm.. hard to explain. I'm not dead, nor alive. I'm not really you, but I remember being you. When I felt you.. your mind.. I wanted to talk to you, most of all to warn you. To let you know about the bad ponies under Citrus Hills, the ones that murdered me. You need to get some guard ponies to take them out, the sooner the better," Nightmare told her.

"I just did, they're all being taken away now, and those poor ponies have been saved. I couldn't have done it without you.. showing me the way, through those freaky nightmares. I'm sorry I ran from you," Cherry apologized.

"It's okay, I would have run away if it had been me. But I didn't have any other way to try to reach you, until now. But now, I was able to bring you here. To my dream realm. Welcome to Elysium. Do you like it?" Nightmare asked.

"It's lovely, really. And I think I'll definitely spend some time here with you. I.. feel like I can finally rest easily. Thank you," Cherry answered.

Nightmare Core gave Cherry Blossom a deep hug, crying a bit onto her fur. "No. Thank you!"

Cherry didn't know what else to do but hug her doppelganger in return for a few minutes, before they broke apart and commenced a rousing game of tag.

Author's Note

And.. we have our first winner!
Why does winning feel so much like losing!?
Such bad game design!

Act 2 - Chapter 6: With and without a clue

Detective John Capelli and Detective John Miller sat together in the small, cramped room, watching the last of the tape of Capelli interviewing Scott Jones. Capelli stopped the tape at the point where he got up and left, and then turned to Miller.

"Well?" Capelli asked.

"I see why you dismissed him. I would have too under the circumstances," Miller confessed. "He seemed sincere and straight forward, like he believed what he was saying. Have you gotten any reports of those pills causing hallucinations? I mean, other than Scott?"

"You really believe him then, don't you?" Capelli asked, frowning.

"You saw my tapes. And Scott was one of the passengers on my mystery bus. I'm not currently willing to dismiss the possibility that a pair of talking unicorns are responsible for the drug with seemingly magical powers. Any clue just exactly what it does yet?" Miller replied.

"The lab coats are saying it's some kind of placebo effect booster. Like, you know that thing where if you take a medicine that you think will work, your brain somehow just makes you get better? It's like it turns that up to 11. So a lot of what it does is, basically, whatever someone tells you it's going to do. Some idiot got the idea of telling someone it was poisonous, and nearly got the poor S-O-B killed!" Capelli answered.

"Geeze! How'd they get him past it?" Miller asked.

Capelli grinned, "you'll love this. They put some food coloring on another one of those pills to make it look different, and told him it was the antidote. Instant cure."

Miller couldn't help but laugh. "That's hilarious, but also kind of scary. Just goes to show how dangerous these things can be out on the streets like this. It could be a murder weapon, date-rape drug, and miracle cure all wrapped into one."

The looked at each other, no longer laughing.

Finally, Miller broke the silence. "So, you ever check out his apartment, see if there's any signs of unicorns there?"

Capelli nodded, "we found the machine that was making the drugs, including a bunch of dead snakes. No unicorns, but the lab guys are analyzing some suspicious blond hairs. They were able to quickly verify they were equine in nature, but they're having trouble pinning down the breed, much less explaining why Scott would have horses in his apartment."

"Ponies," Miller corrected.

"Ponies, whatever. I figure either your pretty purple pony is legit and we have some kind of crazy unicorn invasion going on, or he was whacked out on drugs. And I'm not ruling out 'both'," Capelli said.

"I think we should head over to the Swift cabin, together. Relena Swift is apparently trying to live there with no parent, and only one of these unicorns to watch out for her. Not so great a plan for an eight year old girl. If the unicorn is for real, we'll see for ourselves and figure out what to do from there. If not, we take her to CPS and get her a new home," Miller suggested.

"Alright. Hey, what about that email you got from that Holden creep. Isn't he supposed to make his move today? in like, an hour?" Capelli asked.

"I passed it along to the chief, and I'm sure she's ignoring it as crazy talk. But I'm going to take the advise he sent our missing person, and his other friends and stay out of the city. If he's just a loon, he'll get himself shot and that'll be the end of it. Otherwise, I want to be very far away when shit goes down," Miller pointed out.

"Never took you for a pussy," Capelli muttered.

"I don't run from gunfights, but I'd rather stay out of the way of spider-themed crazy cyborgs," Miller countered.

"Alright, alright. A nice cabin in the woods is sounding rather pleasant to me too right about now," Capelli said with a grin, as they stood and grabbed their coats.

"So, ah, what's a pretty mare like you doing at a place like this?" Rainbow Dash asked, making an awkwardly flirtation grin at the earth mare just on the other side of the low barrier wall from her.

Applejack responded to the question by quirking an eyebrow at the pegasus mare. "Uh, Dashie, are ya feeling a'right? Here, have some cider..." AJ pulled a pitcher from her cooler in her box seat, and poured RD a nice tall glass, before passing to over the wall to the athlete. Applejack had barely fallen below the cutoff line to compete in the event, but had spared no expense to be there for her friend.

"Thanks babe," RD said with uncharacteristic nervousness, among other oddities. "What say you and I go get some hay fries after the race, and we can admire my new trophy together?"

"Is the race making you nervous? Ah know you only came in second in the qualifiers, but Ah've seen yer trainin, Dashie, and Ah think you can git first place this time," AJ encouraged, uncertainly.

"Psshaw. I've got this in the bag," RD waved dismissively.

"Then what's got ya flustered, sugarcube?" AJ asked pointedly. "Ya know you can be honest with me about anything, right?"

"Anything?" Rainbow asked.

It was AJ's turn to be nervous, but she nodded.

Rainbow leaned in and whispered into her ears, and soon both mares were blushed bright red. But there was no time to fully process it, as the announcers was calling all runners to their marks.

Applejack was left alone with her thoughts and her cider as she tried to process what her friend had just told her. 'I love you.' Those three little words were scary enough, but good friends like them could use them in a number of ways. The more, ahem, explicit parts of the message made clear, however, that the pegasus wanted out of the friend zone. And into much more intimate territory.

Applejack honestly hadn't thought much about romance, at least nothing involving herself, since she had fully grown into adulthood. Adolescent foalishness aside, she simply was too busy to think about those things without a specific special somepony to think about. Well, now she had one. And worse, she had just a few minutes to decide whether to accept an invitation on what was essentially her first date, well, ever.

She struggled to keep her eyes on the race. The results would play a big part in the tone of their date, whether it was celebrating Dash's athletic victory, or consoling her over her defeat. Either way could be a suitable pretext for a bit of cuddling, AJ realized, as she watched the seconds tick down toward the race's conclusion. And either way, she would be there with her friend, she decided. Going on this one date together wasn't a commitment to being anything more than her good friend, AJ decided, and she didn't want to dismiss RD's advance without even allowing her this one date. She was too good a pony to dismiss so casually. Too good a friend.

Friend. That was the problem. AJ had less problem with the idea of dating another mare, than being afraid of losing such a great friend if things soured between them. As she grit her teeth, getting into the excitement of watching Rainbow Dash give her all to pull ahead of the earth pony that had beaten her in the qualifiers, she steeled her heart for what was to come.

When Rainbow approached her, first place trophy firmly grasped in her mouth, Applejack sat up straight. Before Rainbow could start boasting, she raised a hoof, securing time to say her piece.

"Dashie, about what you said earlier. You know, ya will always be one of mah closest friends, right? No matter what," Applejack began.

Rainbow looked visibly defeated, like she had just come back with a consolation prize instead of the historic first place in the first major race of its kind.

"That's why ah've decided that I will go out with you tonight. Ah can't promise much more than that, yet, ah just don't know, sugarcube. But ah do know that whatever happens, we'll always be friends." Applejack continued.

"Ah, I underst-" Rainbow began replying before her brain caught up with what Applejack was saying, casting aside her baseless assumptions. Before AJ could even brace, she was over the dividing wall, tackling AJ and starting to make out already.

"Rainbow Dash!" AJ objected loudly. "There'll be time for that later," she continued more softly, before giving in to a few light kisses.

Act 2 - Chapter 7: With and without forewarning

Sombra and Istaran strolled down the street, heading deeper and deeper into downtown. Sombra still found it strange how humans seemed to reflexively ignore him unless he drew attention to himself. And even then, they didn't seem to be able to grasp that he was a unicorn unless someone pointed it out. They had experimented enough while training for this day that they had a vague idea of what was going on, but not why. Some kind of veil made it impossible for humans to perceive Sombra as what he truly was, and subconsciously explained him away as something ordinary and unimportant. Only when confronted head on with the truth did their minds allow them to perceive his poniness at all.

Istaran was actually getting more attention than him, as a result, simply for dressing oddly. he had loose fitting black clothing, including a billowing cape. It had a certain style and flair to it, that stood out in contrast to, well, everyone. However, while people looked at him, or occasionally detoured around him, they didn't take him to be anything more exotic than an out-of-season cosplayer. No one was quite sure what he was cosplaying as, but it seemed a safe assumption. There wasn't anything supernatural about the lack of attention to Istaran, it was simply natural for people to seek a nice, safe, easy explanation. The idea that they were dealing with a pair of supervillains about to make their debut was simply too unbelievable to even entertain.

One squadcar had entertained the idea, the pair of cops within enjoying their lunch and not really paying attention to their surroundings. They didn't notice Sombra at all, and traded joking remarks about Istaran as he strode into the exact bank he had told Detective John Miller he was going to rob, at approximately the exact time he had said he would be there. He was two minutes before 1pm, but he had said the time would be approximate.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Istaran announced loudly, getting a little bit of attention as he did, but not much. "Please do not panic, but I am here to rob this bank!"

Since he wasn't brandishing any obvious weapons, most of the people just gave him odd, uncertain looks, while one of the security guards calmly strolled toward him, unclipping his holster but not drawing his firearm yet. So, with a burst of magnetism, he rip the gun across the space to his own hand, flipped it right side up quickly, and fired, killing the guard instantly.

Now he had everyone's attention, but most of them were panicking, exactly as he told them not to. Several ran for the exits, only for a pair of massive wolf-like shapes, formed of shadows with glowing red eyes, to emerge at each exit, growling and drooling hungrily. One man thought to call the bluff, and his graphic demise shocked even the most panicked minds out of any thoughts of fleeing past them.

The other guards took cover, and when they thought they had clear shots, took them. Istaran let them hit him, bleeding but otherwise unphased as he quickly closed the gaps to them. They dropped their guns as he pointed the first guard's gun at them point blank, demoralized as they saw his wounds closing over before their eyes.

"Now then! Does anyone still doubt me that I am, in fact, robbing the bank?" Everyone gestured clearly, some adding their voices to the cacophony insuring Istaran that, in fact, he had them convinced.

"Good! Now, I need everyone over here on the left side of the room," he gestured, making sure everyone knew which 'left' he meant. "My associate, here, will keep an eye on you, and send you one by one into this room here," he gestured to the men's room. "Where I will have a nice, little, chat with you. And then you'll come out and stay on the right side of the room. Understood?"

Everyone was quite confused, and wasn't sure what this had to do with the robbery, but they nodded anyways. The instructions were simple enough, and the giant shadow wolves were quite motivational. They could see more and more police cars finally lining up outside, giving some sense of hope.

The first hostage brought into the room gave Istaran a weird look. It was a woman in her late twenties, in business casual clothing. "Please don't tell me this is some ridiculously elaborate scheme to rape us," she said.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's a far longer game than that. Here are two pills," he opened his hands, showing a silvery red one and a blue gel cap. "If you take the blue pill, you'll lose the ability to convert your short term memory to long term for about an hour, including forgetting this conversation. If you take the red pill, you'll get superpowers, a subset of my own, and be forever in my service. Take one, and leave, and Sombra will send the next person in. If you don't take either, I'll kill you. You may have up to one minute to decide."

Istaran made the same offer to each and every hostage. None of them chose death, though most chose the blue pills. All of them acted about the same when they returned, their minds fogging and being unable to recall what had happened in there, making it impossible to judge who had taken the red pills.

When every hostage had had their turn, Istaran strolled out.

"The police are getting restless," Sombra informed him. "They say we have only another minute or so before they come in guns blazing, if we don't send out at least one hostage as a sign of good will."

"That's fine, we're done with them anyways. Ahem! Ladies and Gentlemen, please climb to your feet and stretch a bit. Great! Okay. So, here's what you're going to do. You are all going to run out the front door, waving your arms and screaming. If I catch any of you not waving your arms, or not screaming, BAM! Am I clear? On my mark... get set.... go!"

The police quickly captured every hostage as they ran from the building, screaming and waving their arms as directed. No one wanted to die over defying such an easy demand. The police detained them all, thinking to check them and make sure the perpetrators hadn't tried some crazy switcheroo, like in the movies. But it had all been rather straightforward, aside from the strange memory loss and whatever had gone on in the men's room. Rape kits were brought out, to take the necessary samples, but there was no samples to collect, no signs of sexual assault at all.

They were devising their next move, preparing to send in SWAT teams and other armed forces to retake the building, when eight massive robotic, spiderlike legs burst from the ground, spraying gravel everywhere. The police barricade had kept everyone out of the blast range, so that the squad cars themselves were the only casualties, but things didn't stop there. The legs dug into neighboring buildings in all eight directions, and began lifting the skyscraper the bank was built into away from the ground. Somehow, they had managed to install giant robot legs into the building without anyone noticing. The idea of it broke many a brain.

In minutes, the skyscraper had clambered up a few dozen floors, before settling into place. The other buildings, collectively, bore the weight admirably, but they were nevertheless evacuated as quickly as possible. That brought attention to the fact that the upper floors of the bank's own building were still full of people, office workers employed not only by the bank but by many other, unrelated, companies as well.

However, one by one those hostages were shoved out the front door, screaming in fear as they fell toward the ground below, only to be caught and slowed to a gentle stop by a strange, black energy. As with the bank hostages, these two had memory loss, but recalled others being taken aside one by one. Eventually, everyone in the building was accounted for, leaving only the two perpetrators in their now suspended building.

"Well, this is certainly one for the record books," an officer said, next to the police chief. The chief face-palmed, remembering that part of the warning she had been forwarded by one of her officers. "What do you figure the actual bank building is worth to steal? To say nothing of the whole vault still being up there for them to crack at their leisure."

"I don't know, Brady, but we're passing this on to the military. Pretty sure giant robots is their jurisdiction."

Meanwhile, Istaran and Sombra sat at the edge of the open front door, Istaran's legs kicking out freely over the void. "So, Sombra my man. Do you have a marefriend? Or, I guess former marefriend?"

Sombra was a bit taken aback by the random topic choice, but quickly settled down and decided to answer. "There was a special somepony in my life, once, very long ago. She was kind to me, when other ponies were cruel, and did what she could to ease the pain the Crystal Heart caused me. But in the end, she chose to be my enemy rather than my bride. Why do you ask?"

Istaran avoided the question for the moment, asking more of his own. "Would you want one, if you could have one? A loyal devoted Queen, somepony to rule by your side?"

"I long ago gave up such dreams," Sombra declared, shaking his mane. But after some hesitation he added. "I would want one, but I can't believe anypony would take that place, at least not unless they were as cruel and heartless and I.. and how much could I really trust such a pony? You were right to question my wisdom, when I filled you with darkness. It worked out so well, I think, but you are a strange outlier. You still haven't answered my question."

"I have a surprise for you. I've hidden it in your nanospiders' memory, and it will unpack itself when the time is right, when you finally do leave me, and return to your world. To your throne. A parting gift I hope you will truly enjoy," Istaran said, looking a bit unhappy as he looked down at the oncoming tank columns.

"Are you going to be alright without me?" Sombra had, more genuine concern creeping into his voice than he had known himself capable of.

"No, of course not. That was the condition, right? You won't leave until I can't bear to lose you? We're not there yet. But the tanks, by contrast, are here already. Let us take our leave. The bank has served our purpose."

Sombra nodded, wrapping shadowy magics around them both and causing them to disappear.

The hostages all went home, though many of them got fevers that night. And in the morning, they got a new sense of purpose, a new sense of family, and a new sense of power.

Author's note: in direct contrast to other stories in the series, I will be using <> to indicate words in Equestrian.

"" a voice said in fluent Equestrian from behind Robert, as a pair of small hooves clamped into place over his eyes. The hooves narrowed the possibilities down to.. aproximately zero possibilities. So it was time to start considering impossibilities. It was female, a filly judging by both hoof size and voice, but he couldn't think of any fillies it could be. Had the Text sent him a second 'friend' because Discord ditched him without playing the game properly?

Robert had been sitting in his foster family's dining room, enjoying a snack of sliced apples and cheese, simple fair that never quite held up to the standards of its Equestrian equivalents, but Robert didn't like to complain. A lot about living on Earth didn't live up to living in Equestria from Robert's point of view, but he was here now, and with Discord's departure, he more or less figured he would never be able to go back.

"Wow! A pegasus!?" Shelly cried out in pleased surprise. Shelly was Robert's 13 year old foster-sister, adopted in, much as he someday hoped to be. Her own original parents had died in a fatal car accident, leaving her a persistent nervousness during travel, but otherwise fairly well adjusted.

"" Robert said with barely restrained excitement. As her hooves pulled back he turned to see her. ""

" Rob, " Thunder Peal answered, smiling back at him with a massive grin of her own.

"Robbie, you speak pegasus?!" Shelly asked, adding new layers of amazement. "And you know each other? What's her name?"

"Yeah, Shelly, this is , or in English I guess it would be Thunder Peal. She and I go way back. " Robert answered them each.

"" Thunder Peal began. "" Robert supplied helpfully. ""

""

"What are you talking about? Don't leave me out!" Shelly interrupted, frustrated. "Robert! Don't leave your sister out!" our foster father, Matt, called from the other room, obviously oblivious to what was actually going on.

"Sorry, Shelly, but Thunder Peal doesn't actually speak English yet. Well, almost none. " Robert said, trying to pacify her.

"Hello, Shelly," Thunder Peal said haltingly, struggling with a heavy accent. "Can I have an apple?"

Robert chuckled, and Shelly ran off in a hurry to raid the refrigerator, grabbing an apple and tossing it into the filly's mouth, where it disappeared in a couple of quick crunches. "Thank you," the filly said once her mouth was empty, earning another fit of giggling.

"Holy shit, why is there a blue pony with wings in my living room?!" Matt exclaimed as he walked out of his office, suddenly aware of the situation developing in his own home.

"Dad, this is my girlfriend, Thunder Peal. She just got sent here from another world, can she stay with me?" Robert asked, before adding to Thunder Peal, ""

Thunder Peal pounced Robert and nibbled his ear as an initial answer before whispering to him. "" Robert blushed bright red, choking a bit.

"Girlfriend!?" Shelly squee'd. "Oh man, you have to tell me all about it! How did you two meet?!" Shelly begged, but Thunder Peal's confused expression made it clear she wasn't able to track the English questions, much less answer.

"I, umm, what?" Matt stammered meanwhile. "Okay, can you start over from the beginning?"

"Well, now that she's here, maybe you'll be ready to hear me out? I've only told Dr Schrödinger so far, and I've left out the most important parts so that he never really understood, much less believed me," Robert began.

"No! Wait. You should wait until your mom gets here too.. maybe we should call Dr Schrödinger over as well? Did this.. have anything to do with why that police officer was talking with you?" Matt asked.

"Detective John Miller? Yes. He's investigating some related issues, including my mother's disappearance. He's seen enough now that he's beginning to believe. If he meets Thunder Peal, that will probably erase any doubt, so call them both over if you could," Robert answered, digging out the Officer's business card.

"Alright, alright. I'll call them after I call your mom. In the meantime, I guess she can stay for now. We'll discuss arrangements tonight," Matt conceded.

"If you don't mind, Thunder Peal and I have some catching up to do of our own. We'll be in my room, call me when everyone's here, okay?" Robert excused himself.

With Matt's permission, and Shelly's reluctant concession, the pair made their way back to his bedroom.

""

Interlude 2

"... The ominous tower appeared overnight in the middle of downtown, occupying the nine city block area previously occupied by the abandoned skyscrapers. Early attempts at assaulting it have proven ineffectual, as it demonstrated an ability to immediately repair itself from the impacts of even tank shells. No doors or windows have been located on the surface, giving the massive obelisk an alien appearance. The top of the building, shown here, appears to be made of glass or a glass like substance, dozens of meters thick, with what appears to be some kind of rotating mirror within its depths. Scientists can only speculate as to its function, perhaps as some kind of 'eye', while local videogame enthusiast, Kevin Jackson, declared 'Oh my God, it's a [bleep]ing Obelisk of Light!' Electronic Arts could not be reached for comment regarding the possibility of a copyright infringement lawsuit against the tower's creators, presumed to be the same individuals who orchestrated the recent so-called bank heist."

-kzzzt-

"... known as the 'Flim Flam brothers' are still at large. Police say that eyewitness accounts claiming the brothers to be a pair of 'unicorns' are currently being reconsidered as 'possibly true' based on other recent events. These 'unicorns' are said to have some kind of strange, some would say 'magical', ability to deceive the senses. In particular, anyone not aware of the existence of unicorns seems to be unable to recognize them as such, and takes them to be perfectly normal people. So, I know I never thought I would say this on any newscast other than the first of April but, please be on the lookout for a pair of white unicorns, male, possibly wearing striped shirts and straw hats. Again, they are wanted in connection with the recent distribution of the potentially dangerous 'pirin' tablets..."

-kzzzt-

"... Junior High School just welcomed its newest and most unusual student: a winged, talking, green pony. This little filly, known as 'Thunder Peal', is being entered into their English as a Second Language program, along with a little boy who apparently serves as her translator. Both are living at the home of a local foster family, who took the boy in after his mother's recent mysterious disappearance. While the filly is believed to be an alien from the same world as the more dangerous unicorns, she is currently considered to be nonthreatening, and some hope this gesture of goodwill will ultimately help establish a more peaceful relationship with the mysterious equine invaders. Here's Thunder Peal, giving her first public interview to comment on the situation:"

"Hi. My name is Thunder Peal. Thank you for welcoming me to your school. I hope we can all be friends."

"What are your thoughts on the unicorn invasion?"

"Most unicorns are nice. Bad ponies should be punished, but not good ponies."

"Are there more ponies coming? How many should we expect? Thousands? Billions?"

"I do not know. Probably not many? Why would a lot of ponies want to come here?"

"Why indeed? Why did you want to come here?"

"True love!"

*bell rings loudly*

"... and.. there you have it folks. The cutest invasion in history, spurred on by true love?"

-kzzt-

"... I for one welcome our new pony overlords. As you can see from my shirt here..." *takes off shirt, revealing a white shirt with Celestia's cutie mark emblazoned on it..* "I'm already ready to show my loyalty. Clearly, sun-butt is best pony. Although, you can't see it, of course, but on my underwear you can see I have Princess Luna's mark in the appropriate place as well, in case I needed to, you know, 'moon' someone. So.. pony invasion... great alien invasion, or greatest alien invasion?"

-kzzt-

"... debating already the President's nominee for diplomat to the Equestrians. Since the only ongoing contact between their world and ours appears to be a singular internet terminal on their world, and no further transit between the worlds is anticipated, it is unclear how significant such a posting will be in practice. However, the possibility that our worlds could, someday, achieve stable interplanetary transportation between them makes this a job that could very rapidly rise in significance, practically overnight."

Finally, the creature wearing Eliza's form turned the TV off, and got off the couch. Little Frank was looking ready for a nap, and then it would be time to retrieve his mother, and begin the next act.

Act 3 Chapter 1: The presence of wrath

When Frank returned home after work, the first sign that something was wrong was that his front door was open. That didn't prove anything was wrong, but it was certainly out of the ordinary. When he got closer to his front door, he started to get a bit shaky, light headed, with sweat beading on his forehead. It was a reaction he normally got to the smell of blood, even when it was too subtle to notice it consciously. With a few more steps he was all too aware of it.

Despite his body's poor reaction, he stumbled forward quickly, shouting out his wife's name in growing concern. No voice answered him from within the apartment, and he hurried forward. Rounding a corner, he saw where the smell was coming from: a massive puddle of blood in the main hallway, with smaller bloodstains leaving a trail toward the back porch, and right up to the railing. His wife and son were nowhere to be found, their car missing from the parking space outside. He tried dialing his wife's cell phone number, but no one answered, so he dialed the police instead.

He told the officers what little he knew when they arrived, quietly suffering the indignity of being held under guard off to the side, under the implicit rationale that he was a natural suspect. The officers who initially arrived did their job diligently, cordoning off the area and beginning to document everything for their investigation, but before too long another squad car pulled up, and an officer headed straight toward Frank with an unexpected glint of recognition in his eyes.

"Frank Cobbler? I'm detective John Miller. You might have seen some of my emails a while back to your 'Eastside Equestrian Club'? I never saw any response from you, so I don't know if you read them," John began as he sat down beside the man, gesturing for the other officer to find something else to be doing.

"Oh. No, I didn't really notice. I've been busy with wife and work, and not really keeping up on the emails. To be honest, I kind of just wanted to leave that whole part of my life behind me. I don't know how much you know about all of that..." Frank answered, glancing at the other officers to see if they were listening in.

"Well, I've had a video chat with, uh, the librarian you met. The one with the purple hair? You know who I mean. So, let's just say I'm more inclined to believe you than most. So you really don't know what happened here?" John asked.

"No idea. Well, ideas, but all of them are just wild fears. My wife and son are missing, and so is the car, so my best hope is that she fought someone off and then drove away with George safely," Frank answered.

They sat in silence for a minute, unsure what to say next, when one of the officers, an Officer Sam Barbosa came around the side of the building and called out. "Detective Miller? You'd better come take a look at this."

John stood up, gesturing for Frank to follow, and followed Sam around to the back of the building. "I noticed the blood doesn't seem to go off anywhere after the edge of the deck, so I looked around down here, and noticed this crawlspace. It seemed like it had been entered and exited an awful lot... see the ruts here in the dirt? Most crawlspaces in places like this pile up dirt in front of them because they're never accessed. But look what there is to see inside there." He opened the access door, and shined his flashlight in, staying out of the way as much as he could.

John looked around for a bit before getting an odd look on his face, a mix of thoughtfulness and disgust. Frank looked in as well and cryptically remarked: "fuck, Robert was right."

Within the crawlspace were a massive, empty greenish pod, big enough to hold a full grown woman, and dozens of large eggs. The eggs looked like insect eggs that had held insects the size of large dogs before their hatching. There were also a few odds and ends, such as his wife's cell phone, easily recognizable by its decorative case.

"Please tell me this is part of that alien invasion bullshit," Sam requested.

"Probably. That makes you feel better?" John responded.

"Yeah. Compared to that crazy tower in downtown, this is nothing. So we got some freaky alien bugs on the loose, on top of the unicorns and whatever else? Sure. Why the fuck not. But I don't even want to think about bugs that big just being a thing that was already here on Earth. For one thing, that probably would mean there are a hell of a lot more of them."

"Dozens of them aren't enough?" Frank asked. He was staring at the eggs in the crawlspace, but his eyes were out of focus, his mind replaying what he knew and putting things together. With every passing moment he looked paler, his face contorting with nausea.

"What's wrong?" John asked.

"Robert was right!" Frank repeated more emphatically, his eyes turning to John and begging him not to make him spell it out.

John scrunched up his face a bit as he thought, trying to remember. He brought up his emails on his smart phone, looking up the forwarded messages from the Eastside Equestrian Club from his earlier investigation into Zeke's disappearance. In a minute he pieced it together. Frank had mentioned his wife being extra affectionate and Robert had warned she might have been replaced by a changeling. Frank had been sleeping with a shapeshifter, who then went on to produce all these eggs. Where they somehow Frank's bastard hybrid children? Did it matter.

"Hey, the trail of blood goes deeper into there. Should one of us, you know, go in there?" Sam asked. He sounded a bit nervous about the prospect.

"I'll go," John answered with a sigh of resignation. He got out his own flashlight, and started into the crawlspace cautiously, looking around. He was nervous as well, not wanting to meet one of those insects in here. It would be difficult to draw his weapon and bring it to bear if he needed to in the tight spaces, or to fight effectively with his bare hands. Fortunately, what he found was in no shape to put up a fight.

"Find anything?" Frank asked at length.

"Yeah, a dead one. Looks like the source of the blood. It's got a meat cleaver stuck in its skull. It looks.. humanoid, like some kind of, I don't know, bug person?" John replied.

"Humanoid? Not, you know, pony shaped?" Frank asked with a frown.

"Definitely humanoid. About five-six or so. I'm guessing that means the Queen, or whatever, is pony-shaped?" John asked back.

"Yeah, at least normally," Frank answered.

"So.. humanoid alien bug monsters?" Sam inquired, "or half-human alien bug monsters?" he asked, suddenly guessing at what Frank and John had been trying to hide from him. When Frank blushed and didn't answer, Sam smirked and chided him a bit. "I didn't know you were into alien pony bug monsters. What was she like?"

"What? No! It's. She's a shapeshifter. I think she was impersonating my wife. I'm guessing Eliza must have gotten out of there somehow and killed one of them to escape," Frank answered, flustered.

"And then hid the body down here? No, that was probably the others. But that could only have been.. what, a month or two? Since that bus ride, right? So how is this one five foot six already? No way they can go from conception to full grown that fast," John inquired as he extracted himself from the crawlspace.

"Magic? I don't know. The shapeshifter pretending to be my wife didn't explain any of the alien things she was doing behind my back," Frank pointed out.

"Alright, so we need to get some, I don't know, who do you even call to study alien bug monster biology? We need to figure that out. Put out an APB for your wife's car, try to find her and your son, make sure they're alright. Meanwhile, you should probably stay at a hotel. This is now well beyond your ordinary crime scene.. you won't be able to come back here anytime soon. Sorry," John said.

Frank just sighed and hung his head. "Would it be okay if I packed a suitcase at least?"

3 hours earlier

Scapegoat was depressed. She was perfectly capable of keeping an affable appearance, even smiling, while being depressed, but that didn't really lift her mood. Being named Scapegoat didn't help. The fact that she knew her name was accurate made it worse.

Scapegoat hadn't had a childhood. She hatched a mere week ago, and then her mother promptly began force-feeding her as much of daddy's love as she could handle, using it to accelerate her growth, along with a couple of her siblings. The other two, the aptly named Caretaker and Protector, had a long future ahead of them, if all went well. Though perhaps not too long. Scapegoat had plenty of aches and pains from the rapid growth that she suspected would prove to be major health problems in time, possibly even fatal. And she knew Caretaker and Protector had the same pains. That was certainly one reason the other dozens of siblings were being allowed to grow naturally, at their own pace.

Scapegoat suppressed a yawn as she dragged the human woman, her step mother, out of the pod beneath their home. After a quick check to make sure no one was looking, she took flight, gossamer wings carrying them both up to the porch and in through the back door, before she set Eliza down on the couch. She leaned over the unconscious woman, spitting a bit of stimulants into her mouth to counteract the drugs from the pod. Finally, a wave of green flames replaced her chitinous exterior with a perfect replica of Eliza's own form, and she sat down on the couch beside her, turning on the TV.

Her mother, in the form of a third copy of Eliza, came down the hall to greet her. "Scapegoat, dear. George is down for his nap, so I'm going to take my leave now, with the others. You know your part, dear. Don't be nervous, you'll be great. Remember that I love you, and that what you're doing now will help give your siblings a safer future."

"I know mom. I love you too," Scapegoat replied, unable to meet her mother's eyes. The queen left, in much the way Scapegoat had entered, and promptly began the migration into the woods beyond the back fence.

It was quiet for a good hour after they left, aside from the television, before the stimulants finally did their job and Eliza awoke. Scapegoat was nervous. She'd only met the human a few times before, and thought she had done a passing job of posing as her mother posing as Eliza, but this time she really had to sell it. This was what she was born to do, and she only had one shot.

"Good, you're finally up. Listen.. about what you said the other day. You're right. Frank doesn't love me, he loves you." The line was very painful for Scapegoat to say, but she didn't let it show. It wasn't just the knowledge that Frank loved this human woman and not the powerful, beautiful queen who had actually been slaving away in his home all month, caring for all of his children, and giving him a sex life for porn stars to envy. It was that Frank didn't love any of his children except for his first born, his human child. It wasn't Frank's fault. He had been deceived from the beginning, and never knew he had a daughter who longed for his love living under his nose.. or at least under his home.

Scapegoat continued, while Eliza was still trying to focus on what was happening. "I thought I could get him to love me by taking your place, but it just made him love you all the more. And meanwhile I made you suffer needlessly. So. I'm sorry. I really am. I wish that we could be friends, maybe even share Frank between us, but I know that is a lot to ask from you."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Eliza looking at Scapegoat with an unreadable expression. But Scapegoat wasn't limited to reading expressions. She could feel the hatred boiling inside the woman. An apology wouldn't be enough. Of course not. Only one thing would be.

"George is waking up," Eliza said. "Can you go change him?"

Scapegoat nodded, and started walking toward the back room slowly. She didn't really want to reach it, didn't want her half brother to see what was going to happen. Her hearing was better than Eliza gave her credit for. She heard the footsteps. She heard the sound of metal slide across wood as the knife was drawn. She heard the final rush of footsteps closing in on her. She could have dodged, parried, fought back. Instead she accepted her fate. This was the role she was born for, the role of a lifetime.

She didn't cry out, lest George hear it, and perhaps suffer nightmares.

Dopple woke up with a yawn, stretching his limbs as he looked up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Where was he? The bed he was in was nice. It smelled nice. And there was a warm indentation beside him, suggesting he hadn't been alone even a short time before. There was also a bunny at the end of the bed, glaring terrifyingly at the disguised changeling.

The glaring bunny made it all that much harder for the changeling to gather his thoughts, and think back to the night before. Fluttershy. He had just finished his third date with the shy pony and walked her home. They had shared the sweetest, most filling kiss he could remember and then... Dopple's face burned a bright crimson as he remembered being invited inside.

The shower stopped, the white noise it produced only registering in his conscious mind when it stopped, as his mind raced ahead, trying desperately to remember how much they had done. He wasn't sure what to feel when he realized they had slept together, only in the literal sense. Fluttershy was a precious and delicate flower; there was no need to rush her into a physical relationship. Sleeping while spooning was more than enough, especially with her love practically radiating from her even as she slept. Dopple desperately wanted to drop his disguise to check the state of his holes, and see just how well-fed he was, but he wouldn't do so in front of Angel bunny, much less with Fluttershy on her way out of the shower.

"Oh! Did I wake you?" Fluttershy asked as she came back into the room carrying a brush and sat in front of her vanity.

"No, I woke on my own. Here, would you like me to brush your mane?" he offered.

"No thank you, but thanks for offering," she said, as she got to work styling her hair. She smiled at him in the mirror. "Did you sleep well? You look.. flushed?"

Dopple flushed harder at the comment. "Sorry, I was just thinking back to... our kiss last night. You're a really good kisser. I mean, I think so. Not that I've kissed that many ponies... I mean. I liked it." Dopple exaggerated his shyness a bit, as he found it worked well with Fluttershy, though it wasn't all an act.

The mare in question blushed in response, quietly working on her main as she struggled to regain control of herself. "Thank you, Dopple. I really liked it too," she answered, before almost inaudibly adding, "it was my first kiss."

Dopple barely heard her, but he had made a habit of focusing on her whenever she was nearby to hear every peep out of her mouth, and rarely missed a thing. "You have a natural talent for it, I think from all the kindness in your heart," he said as he approached her, laying a hoof gently on her back and smiling at her reflection warmly.

She turned to face him, and almost looked like she might kiss him again right there, but instead she blushed brightly, wavered, and turned away again. He caught himself about the sigh and stopped himself. Fluttershy was going to be his, already was, he was sure of it. He just had to continue to be patient. She was worth it, especially since he could already feel her love for him even now. He basked in it, absorbing it easily, careful not to draw heavily from her lest she grow weak from the drain.

He was hungry still. If he tried, he could probably knock her unconscious just drawing the love from her to fill himself completely. But that would surely end their relationship, and possibly his life given how protective her friends were. So he patiently took only what was freely offered, which was more than enough for his needs.

"Why don't you take a shower?" Fluttershy suggested as she finished styling her mane. "I'll go downstairs and make us breakfast," she offered.

"That sounds lovely, like the mare who suggested it," he said with a smile, lightly kissing her cheek before heading off to do as she suggested, leaving her to blush.

The privacy of the shower allowed him to finally cast off his disguise, letting the water run over his chitin as he scrubbed himself clean. There were only a few small holes remaining, he noted with pride and happiness. There had been quite a lot more when he had checked himself last night, while preparing for his date with the shy pony. If he managed to get rid of the last of these soon, he could show himself off to the changeling generals, prove how successful he had been, and then...

And then, what? Leave Fluttershy behind and go back to run the hive? No, he wouldn't do that to his precious little wallflower. He couldn't. He didn't even want to rule in the first place. Heck, that was the part that was so brilliant about his plan to begin with. It scattered the hive so that there was no effective leadership, no coordination on a large scale. At most the changelings in any given town would support each other, but for the most part that would be nothing much more than pony friends would do for one another anyways. They would melt away into pony society completely, and he wouldn't have to worry about ruling over anypony.

It was tempting to not even check in with the generals, in fact. To just let them think what they wanted, even assume him a failure, so long as they left him alone with his beautiful butter pony. But he did worry a bit about what plans they might try to enact if he did. Some of their plans were just awful in terms of being poorly thought out, others awful in terms of what they planned to do to the ponies. Weren't they allies just a few months back, when they fought together against the deadly human invasion? And while the alliance had been broken at the end, Dopple knew full well that it was their own queen's doing, not any treachery from the ponies.

The muffled sound of voices from downstairs broke his train of thought, and Dopple turned off the shower, beginning to dry off and make himself presentable. He was back in his disguise when he headed down the stairs to the main room to join Fluttershy and her guests. When he started down the staircase, he took note of the guests, even as one of them took note of him. He recognized the element bearers, of course, Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and worried a bit that AJ was frowning at him from under her Stetson. What element was she again? RD was still preoccupied regaling Fluttershy with tails of her athletic triumph.

"Hey, Fluttershy. Would you mind introducing me to your friends?" Dopple asked as he descended the stairs. "I'm Dopple. I'm sure you were both at my Welcome to Ponyville Party, but I don't think we properly met," he offered, sparing Fluttershy a bit of effort.

"I'm Rainbow Dash, and this stunning mare is Applejack," Rainbow introduced, likewise sparing her shy friend the need to speak up, "I'm Fluttershy's BFF forever, and AJ here is my bride to be."

AJ blushed a bit, "so we're just announcing it to strangers now?" she said, drowned out by an excited squee from Fluttershy, well above her normal volume.

"Wait, what were you doing upstairs in Fluttershy's bedroom?" Rainbow asked, derailing the conversation again. "Are you... Fluttershy's special somepony?!"

Fluttershy and Dopple both blushed, the pegasus seemingly trying to disappear into her pink mane, while Dopple managed to speak. "Well, she probably wouldn't admit it openly, and I think it's a bit soon to claim as much, but we've had several wonderful dates now. So..." Dopple blushed harder, working up the nerve. "I'll just go ahead and say that she's my special somepony."

AJ looked at him thoughtfully, then sighed looking away.

"Hey, what's eating you, AJ?" Rainbow asked, concerned.

"It's just... that last thing he just said... I don't know," she said uncertainly.

"You think he was lying?" RD questioned, looking at Dopple skeptically.

"Well, actually, I think that was the most sincere thing he's said since we met him. There's something off about him, but I can't place what," Applejack said.

Dopple thought it kind of rude and super awkward for them to discuss their suspicions about him right in front of him like he wasn't even there, but before he could figure out a way to protest his back slammed into a wall, trapping him between it and the multicolored streak of light that resolved itself into the athletic pegasus.

"Alright, spill it mister! If you want to date one of my friends, no more lies!" RD said, threateningly.

Dopple blinked at her, his mouth working soundlessly a moment while he tried to think of anything to say that wouldn't involve him getting pummeled viciously and bucked out of Fluttershy's life forever. Fluttershy tried to intervene on his behalf, quietly, "umm... Rainbow Dash, if you don't mind, could you let him go? He's been nothing but a perfect gentlecolt ever since I met him, and I'm sure whatever it is there's a good reason for it. Like maybe he's a secret agent or something?"

Dopple glanced at AJ, half tempted to go with the secret agent line, but had a feeling he wouldn't get anything but the truth past that pony. Honesty. That's right. She was the element of honesty. And the pegasus holding him was the element of loyalty, who would surely protect her friends with her life. Dopple might have been a war hero, but that wasn't from being a great fighter. It was from being magically whisked away and ending up in just the right place at just the right time to put down a helpless, practically defeated foe with a cheap shot. He didn't even have a crossbow with him this time. And if he did, it would only get him in more trouble.

"Fluttershy, I..." he took a moment of introspection, understanding the truth about himself before daring to try to express it before the pony who seemed to see through every lie. "I do love you. I really do, but I have been untruthful to you, and everypony else, since I got here. You see, I'm not really a unicorn..." Green flames washed over his body and his true, changeling body was revealed. "My name is Dopple, and I'm really a changeling."

Everpony was stunned into silence for a moment. Then Rainbow drew back a forehoof, ready to strike Dopple in the face, before she felt her elbow caught in a desperate embrace. "Don't!" Fluttershy insisted, louder than she usually managed.

"But, he's been lying to you to get close to you. He hurt you, and I-" Rainbow objected.

"He hasn't hurt me! Or anypony else! I told you, he's been a perfect gentlecolt, and I meant it. And even AJ said he was being honest about loving me. Can't you see? He's still my..." Fluttershy looked Dopple over quietly for a moment, before squeezing in next to him, facing Rainbow Dash defiantly. "He's my special somepony," she said barely over a whisper. But despite the volume, everypony heard her just fine.

RD dropped to all fours, looking embarrassed but not letting Dopple out of her sight.

"Why Fluttershy?" Applejack suddenly asked, confronting the unmasked changeling. "She's a great mare, but shy as she is, she couldn't have been easy to get close to. She couldn't have been the most obvious chose out of all of Ponyville, so why her of all ponies?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story, but it had to be one of the element bearers. You're all lovely mares, but Fluttershy seemed like the best to me. Her shyness is cute and endearing, and reminds me of myself. And her heart is practically overflowing with love and kindness," Dopple explained. Fluttershy seemed a bit bothered by the mention of the elements, but then beamed a bit as she thought of the competition she had overcome, especially realizing that she had seen him talk to Rarity during the party where they met, only to blow her off and head straight for Fluttershy herself.

"I think ya better take the time to give the whole story," Applejack insisted. "And I think maybe the other elements better be here to hear it. RD, go get the others. I'll keep an eye on this one and buck him to next week if he even thinks of doing anythin' wrong."

RD nodded and zipped out the front door, while AJ settled in to her stint on guard duty.

Silence reigned for several uncomfortable seconds before Dopple broke it by asking AJ, "so... wedding plans?"

Act 3 - Chapter 2: The presence of gluttony

"I said, we're out!", the human exclaimed, "I ain't doing any more business with you horny headed fuckers!"

"Do you have any idea how racist you sound?" Flim chided.

"And how ungrateful? Wasn't pirin your fasted moving product just a few days ago? And now you're going to drop it, just like that?" Flam added.

"Shit, man, haven't you heard? Carrying that stuff is like walkin' around with a target on your back! There's some crazy red monster hunting down anyone who has it on them, and gobbling it like candy. If they don't hand it over, like, without even being asked he just up and fucking kills them! They even say he's fucking bulletproof! I ain't up for that shit, man. I've got enough money, I'm thinking now's a good time to live long enough to spend it, you know what I'm saying?"

The unicorn twins were just about to reply when a loud crash echoed out from the far side of the warehouse, followed by a clatter. It was only a few seconds before the closest door was opened and their human companion was out the door, sprinting. That left Flim and Flam to consider their options. Their pirin manufacturing device was here, and they normally would be quite put out to lose another one. With no distributers on board anymore, though, it might not really be a serious loss. They had enough of the human currency now to start up another venture easily, or even just enjoy the good life for some time.

They spent too long thinking about it, however, and looked up when they heard the hoofsteps of the six foot tall tauroid figure approaching them. Tirek towered over the Flim Flam brothers, grinning viciously at them as he swiftly approached. Remembering what their former distributer had said, Flim bucked the output tray from the Pirin making machine, spilling the pills out in front of the centaur.

"Take them, they're all yours!" Flam said.

"Oh, they will be," Tirek noted with a cruel laugh, as he opened his mouth. Chains of energy struck the unicorns, swiftly ripping the power out of them both. They tried to struggle, to fight back, but they could barely even manage cries of pain before they collapsed to the ground. Similar chains of energy, much smaller but countless in number licked across the spilled Pirin pills, draining them of their enchantments before Tirek, slightly taller than before, strolled back through the warehouse to move on.

"Can you hear me?" a voice said, reaching from beyond the edge of consciousness. Flam struggled to open his eyes even the tiniest bit, and was rewarded with a blurry sight, a vaguely bluish humanoid figure with a shiny glint on its chest. He tried to nod and lost sight of the man, before just giving up and closing his eyes again. The man started talking, but Flam didn't think it was to him.

He faded in again briefly in a moving vehicle. He was strapped down to something, and there was a very loud ongoing noise, though it sounded muffled, and the humans around him seemed a bit excited to see him for some reason, but it was all too much to make sense of, so he closed his eyes again.

Being rolled around on whatever he was strapped too, around various corners and down hallways was disorienting enough to warrant opening his eyes again, though he shut them with a wince at the bright lights overhead. Where was he? And where was Flim?

When he finally opened his eyes again, there was a strange tube stuffed down his throat. It made him want to gag, but he couldn't. Looking around the brightly lit room, he quickly spotted Scott, who perked up to see him moving. He tried to sit up, but couldn't, even though he didn't feel the pressure of the straps anymore. He tried to speak but couldn't. He tried using his horn, but there was nothing. No magic. Not the slightest inkling of power to push into that organ. He did manage to shed a few tears in frustration.

Scott hugged him awkwardly before sitting down again, his own face streaked with the signs of his own tears over the past hours. He said something about Flim, but Flam couldn't make it out.

[We were doing it all for you,] Flam thought to Scott, though the human was oblivious. [We thought we could buy your friendship, if we were just rich enough. But we just managed to pull ourselves away from you, bury ourselves in our work, and get ourselves attacked. Is it too late?]

A hand placed gently on his hoof was the only answer for now.

With the sun down and the moon high, a lone pony stood on the rooftops of lower Canterlot, surveying the comings and goings below. Nopony ever looked up, especially now that pegasi were incapable of flying in this cursed place. But that suited a clever earth pony like her just fine. There were ways to fly for those born without wings, and they worked just fine here. Better, with no pegasi to mock her or disrupt her passage with their wings' turbulence.

Tugging on the bit in her mouth, she spread the cloth wings behind her and angled them to grant her a smooth and silent descent into the back alley behind her target. This would be easy, she was sure. She just had to be patient. Waiting by the back door, she listened attentively, knowing her moment would come soon.

Her patience was demanded of her, but it was eventually rewarded. Somepony opened the door from inside, stepping out into the back alley to get some fresh air. Stretching, the stallion look up into the night sky, not noticing the door behind him taking a little longer than usual to close.

She would have to act fast, before the stallion returned. She hadn't been able to case the kitchen properly without drawing suspicion to herself, but luckily it was a fairly obvious setup. There were a dozen large vats of soup on burners being kept warm, and on a counter nearby, the artifact. The legendary endless soup can. She grabbed it swiftly but silently before diving over the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room.

Her instincts had been correct: the stallion returned from his brief break before she would have even reached the door. Had she tried straight for it, she would have been face to face with him, caught red handed. She didn't want to hurt anypony, if she didn't have to. As it was, he quickly noticed the artifact missing, and began searching high and low for it.

The quiet whir of her grappling hook went unnoticed, but the clatter of a chair across the room when she hooked it and retracted her hook got the stallions attention. He came to look over the counter, looking back and forth for any sign of the source of the disturbance, but failing to spot the mare tucked tightly against the counter he was looking over. When that failed, he made his way through the doors on the far side. She was silently over the counter as she heard the doors swinging shut.

When she opened the back door to let herself out, he turned just in time to see the flutter of black cloth before she was gone. And even when he followed her into the alleyway he still didn't think to look up.

"Be patient, I just need to finish tightening this so it doesn't fall out," the mare told her client. The metal rigging that would hold the can in place was simple enough, but she hadn't had the exact dimensions of the can when she had first built it, and now it needed some adjustment. Which was a bit hard with the materials she had to work with, as softer metals would not have been reliable in the hot environment her invention would be functioning in.

"Hunger and patience do not go well together, Clockwork Wing," his voice rumbled in return. "I've spared you and your village this long, don't make me wait any longer!"

"Alright, alright. Here it is," Clockwork said as she approached the dragon's maw. The fact that he really could snap her up in a single bite was not lost on her. She still had scars from the time he had. And now she was reaching into it intentionally. She grit her teeth against the fear, as she slipped her forehooves inside.

With a few final adjustments, the soup can was in place, secured upside down to the dragon's tooth by bands of metal.

"It's not working," the dragon immediately complained. "Make it work, now!"

"You have to make it work! Think of what kind of soup you want," she snapped back. The dragon may be terrifying, but she didn't have to put up with it being an idiot.

"I don't know any kind of soups," he said after a moment.

"Minestrone!" she shouted back.

"What's that even lik- eech!" he said, trying to spit out the vegetable soup forming in his mouth. "Something with meat in it!" he said, apparently looking to Clockwork for a suggestion, but suddenly he was lapping at the inside of his mouth. "Better, but it'd be better with emera-mmm..."

With the dragon apparently figuring out how to fulfill his own desires, the mare scooped up her meager payment and headed for the exit. The bits weren't plentiful, but keeping the dragon's hunger sated was its own reward. The ache in her scars reminded her of that.

Act 3 - Chapter 3: The presence of pride

"We love you, Dazzlings!"

Words like that made it really hard to remember that this trip was supposed to be about revenge. Despite their talents, Angelica and the Dazzlings had only managed to secure a few hundred dollars and the use of a car from Angelica's mother, and had needed to turn to picking up gigs in small venues to pay for their gas and food as they tried to hunt down their naysayers. But their quest had become a victim of their success in that endeavor. While the internet couldn't do them justice, their musical magic seemed to work shockingly well on humans in person, and they even had a number of literal followers now, chasing them around the state in their own used cars, and cheering them on at every dive they sang in.

"Marry me, Sonata Dusk!" one of their roadies called out as they made their way back to their car. The siren stopped and turned, and seemed about to say something affirmative when Adagio grabbed her wrist and dragged her along, causing her to simply wave goodbye and smile instead.

"I don't mind you having a bit of fun with him, but you are not marrying that loser, Sonata," Adagio said with a huff. While she had no interest in marriage herself, it annoyed her that Sonata managed to get all the marriage proposals. Good thing they were all from losers, or she might actually lose her temper about it.

"Do you mind if I have dinner with him? You know he'll be at the diner anyways," Sonata questioned as they got into the car, and Angelica got the engine started.

"And abandon us? And poor, sweet, Angelica? Maybe next time, but not tonight," Adagio said.

"I don't mind," Angelica pointed out. "He seemed sweet, you should get to know him."

"I said, 'maybe next time'," Adagio reiterated.

"Next time..." Sonata said sadly, watching her would be suitor hurriedly climb into his own car to follow them. She kind of wished Adagio would simply be honest about it. There was never a next time, just more 'maybes', until the guy couldn't follow anymore. And then Adagio would deflect the next one the same way. At least if she was honest, Adagio would have to explain... "Hey, Adagio? Why don't you want me dating anyone?"

"This should be good," Aria snarked, amused to see her leader called out, finally.

"What?! It's nothing like that, we're just busy tonight, okay?" Adagio answered defensively.

"We're not that busy... not any more so than he is. We're just going to go eat at the same diner, and then drive to the same motel to spend the night, and then go get breakfast at the same place... What's the harm if I just did all those things with him instead of you three, just this once? We'd get to the next gig just as fast," Sonata inquired.

"Oooo~. Staying in the same motel room with him?" Angelica teased. "I didn't think you had it in you.~"

Sonata seemed confused and flustered. "What? Why not? It'd give us more time to talk and get to know one another..."

"Sure, talk... right," Aria said dismissively. "Wait, are you serious?"

Angelica coughed a bit, blushing. "Sonata, are you a... are you a virgin?"

Sonata just looked even more confused. "What's a virgin?" Everyone else in the car groaned.

"And... that's why I don't want you dating anyone," Adagio answered.

They took quite a bit longer than usual before picking a diner to stop at, as Angelica lead the way to awkwardly try and explain the birds and the bees to her friend, constantly playing damage control as Aria tried to sabotage the effort. It helped that Sonata wasn't quite as naive as the others had assumed, though she was the only one who thought she could spend the night with her would-be husband without getting laid.

But, in the end, it was her risk to take, not her friends' and so she asked the waitress for a separate table, and waited for her suitor to arrive. She waved to him as he made his way in, earning a blushing grin as he reached her, and followed her to the table.

"I was serious," he began, even before picking up a menu. It was Denny's. They all knew what was on the menu anyways.

"Really?" Sonata said, pleased. "That's very sweet, umm, but I don't even know your name yet? How about we just get to know each other first?"

Angelica was quick to rise when she heard the knock on the door. She didn't notice what time the clock showed as she stumbled out of her motel room bed, but there was no sunlight streaming in from the windows yet. She opened the door even as she heard the creaking of the bed her two friends were sharing, indicating they were rising as well.

"Sonata! Come in," she greeted, holding the door open for the wayward siren, as she came in. Sonata was smiling, her usual perky self, so that was good. If she'd been crying, Angelica had a feeling she'd be an accomplice to murder by the time the sun rose. She pulled out a chair for the Dazzling to sit in, and took the other chair, while Adagio and Aria sat on the side of their bed, yawning. "So, what happened? Spill it!"

"Well, we ate, and we talked, and we laughed, and I even got him to try singing one of our songs," Sonata began, giggling sincerely. "His name is Mike, and he designs T-shirts for sale over the internet. He's even got a few with us on them he wanted to get our approval on before he starts selling them. They look really cute!"

"Yeah, yeah, skip to the good part," Aria whined. "You know, where he had his wicked way with you?"

"Had his..." Sonata began, confused, before their conversation the previous night returned to mind. "Oh, no! Mike was a perfect gentleman the whole time. We just talked the whole time, until it got too late, and then we snuggled and slept. Really!"

"Bullshit!" Adagio claimed. "Aria!"

Angelica tried futilely to intervene as the other two sirens physically dragged Sonata to the bed and went so far as to remove her clothing and check. But there was no mistaking it. Sonata was undeniably still a virgin. The surprise was enough to stun the other two long enough for Angelica to pull Sonata free and give her a chance to regain her dignity.

"That was totally uncalled for!" Angelica scolded Adagio. "You really trust your friend that little?!"

"It's not her, I don't trust," Adagio countered. "If he'd seduced her properly, that's one thing, but since he didn't..."

"Since he didn't what?" Angelica asked, before she realized what Adagio was insinuating. "You think he'd drug her or something?!"

"You don't know this guy. And neither do we. He could be some kind of weird stalker creep. I mean, he has been following us around from town to town," Aria pointed out.

"He's not a creep!" Sonata yelled, getting angry with her friends. "I just told you, he was a perfect gentleman the whole time! And I'm going to marry him!"

Everyone stared at Sonata in stunned silence as she blushed brightly and wilted a little under their looks.

"Well, maybe," she backpedaled. "I mean he did ask me, after the concert, and he is able to work on the road so he'd be able to follow us and he's super nice and he likes me... I don' t know! I haven't told him yet, but I am seriously considering it."

"You just met this creep, and you're already considering marriage?" Adagio asked in a scathing tone.

"Well, he did bring it up," Sonata answered defensively.

"So what, you're going to be hanging with him instead of us all the time now?" Aria asked, in a decidedly even tone, hiding her own emotions.

"Well, he could join us, at least at meals and such? I'm not leaving you three," Sonata suggested.

Angelica wrapped Sonata in a tight hug, crying a bit. "You better not, Sonata... I couldn't stand to lose you, not after all we've been through together."

"Angelica! What the hell did you do?!" Adagio screamed in alarm.

At the speaking of the magic words, Sonata had begun to glow brightly, her form tearing away into motes of light and vanishing as she returned Angelica's hug.

Aria sighed, realizing full well what had just happened. "What are we going to tell Mike?" she asked in a bored tone.

The answer, of course, was to skip breakfast and drive away before anyone noticed.

"Just what do you think you're doing?!" Twilight Sparkled asked the other unicorn.

She didn't stop what she was doing for even a moment, but she did at least deign to answer. "The great and powerful Trixie Lulamoon is hacking your internets, of course!"

"What, how? How did you even get through the authentication? Even if you had my password, the spider would have easily seen that you're not me," Twilight asked, thoroughly confused.

"Trixie has travelled to the human lands, and learned there that the greatest of egos can bend the internets to their wills! After all, there is no spoon!" Trixie said as she continued operating the device through a mix of the hoof-keyboard and doing something with her horn. Ultimately, though, she just seemed to be composing an email to Relena, despite all her big talk. After hitting the send button, she backed off, satisfied. "There! The great and powerful Trixie has completed her important business, and now the more simple folk may return to their pedestrian concerns."

Twilight hid her face in her hoof and sighed, shaking her mane as Trixie relinquished the terminal. She was brought out of her funk as the console switched contexts and declared "You've got mail!" Shockingly, the email was from Princess Celestia. As she read, her eyes got larger and larger.

Tears spilled down Sonata Dusk's face as she sat on the grass, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. They were gone, all of them. Or rather she was, but it was kind of the same thing. Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze, her lifelong friends, and the only ones who knew her true nature. Despite their unending bickering, Sonata felt she could always trust and count on them, but now they were left behind. Angelica, her first true human friend. Her return here, to Canterlot High School was proof of that friendship, she knew, but that just made it sincerely painful. And even Mike... she had just been getting to know him, but she liked everything she'd seen so far.

An arm slipped around her shoulders, the hand just coming into view. Her tears blurred her vision, but she could make out the skin tone. It wasn't like anyone here in this world, much more at home in the world she had just left. In fact, it was decidedly familiar. She looked up, away from the hand to see the face of the one who owned it. Mike smiled down at her nervously.

"Mikey!" Sonata cried out as she ensnared him in a crushing hug, getting tears all over the shoulder of his shirt. He simply returned the hug for now, letting her finish. "How... how did you even get here?!"

"I honestly was hoping you could tell me that," he shrugged, helplessly. "I barely managed to get dressed this morning in my motel room when I was suddenly whisked away to some kind of crystal throne room where a weird horse thing and a weird dragon thing were looking at me. The dragon thing opened its mouth, and John De Lancie's voice came out, and asked me what I would be willing to do to stay with you, and when I said 'anything', he said 'done!' and snapped his fingers... and then, I saw you here crying." Mike took a moment to catch his breath, but instead had the breath knocked out of him as Sonata tackled him to the ground and gave him a kiss. It was a chaste little peck on the lips, but still the most intimate physical contact they had had yet, and Mike beamed back at her.

They sat up and looked around for a bit, with Mike's arm once more wrapped around her shoulders, and Sonata leaning in close and just enjoying his presence as people came and went around them. After noticing the skin tones and catching some of the names flying around, he finally asked Sonata "so... is this where you're from then? This isn't Earth, is it?"

"Kinda..." Sonata began, but before she could finish a shadow came over them. They looked up to see a purple skinned teenage girl with a decided lack of balance reaching a hand down to them.

"Come with me, if you want to live..." Twilight began. "... in Equestria," she clarified. "Princess Celestia sent me to retrieve you two. Please don't make this any harder than it already is..."

"Equestria?" Mike asked, thoroughly confused. "Where's that, and why would we want to go there?"

"That's... that's where I'm actually from," Sonata explained. "But if we go there, won't I...? And what about Mikey...?" She hesitated, afraid to even explain her questions in front of Mike. "Mikey... you did say you'd do anything to be with me, right?"

Mike took a deep breath to steady himself. That was never a question that could possibly end without some kind of trouble. "That's right, Sonata. I'm here for you no matter what."

That settled, they followed the purple girl off the lawn, and to the back of a nearby statue. She pressed her hand into the stone beneath and it vanished for a moment, before she pulled it back. "Right, in you both go. There'll be time enough for explanations on the other side."

Sonata was the first through, her hand holding onto Mike's as she passed through the hidden portal. The universe spiraled and contorted around Mike as he passed from one world to another, the magic of the portal conforming him to his new destination. When he stepped out into the wooden floor of the library on the other side, it was on three hooves, rather than the two feet he had entered on. The fourth hoof was held now, but by the hoof of what seemed to be some kind of half pony, half sea mammal, with Sonata's skin tone for its fur color.

"Hi Mikey," Sonata began, "I know this is going to freak you out but, well... this is the real me." At least her voice was the same, that helped him dial his freak out down to a ten. As the unicorn stepped out of the portal behind them and powered it down, the brown earth pony that now answered to 'Mike' tripped and stumbled and fell flat on his belly in a poorly executed attempt to run around screaming.

"I realize this must be terribly confusing to you," Twilight began, reading off the script her teacher had provided for her. "However, the Princess has taken the liberty of arranging a house, a small stipend, and tutors to help you get on your hooves and begin your new lives together, and anxiously awaits invitations to your wedding. Congratulations on your new 'ship. Sincerely, Celestia's Shipping Service."

Mike slowly settled down with the help of a hug from Sonata, as Twilight checked the line off her list, and happily trotted away, content in a job well done.

Act 3 - Chapter 4: The presence of lust

"" Thunder Peal said in Equestrian with a wave of her hoof, before launching off from the playground quickly, eagerly soaring through the sky in the wrong direction. Not that she was lost, or disoriented, she simply liked taking the scenic route.

"I really wish she would try to keep it to English, even with you," responded Mister Gonzalez, her elementary school teacher, as he watched the pegasus slip farther into the distance.

"I know, and I try to keep her to it as much as I can, but some things she says aren't meant for any other ears," Robert replied, as he lowered his hand, farewell wave completed. "Don't tell me you've never switched to Spanish to keep the gringos from knowing what you're saying. Anyways, I think she's doing a lot better already, don't you?"

"Better, sure, but she's got a lot to work on in both English, and History. And that last one goes for you too, young man. A couple of A's in math aren't going to carry your whole GPAs," Mr. Gonzalez pointed out. "Now go, your ride's probably waiting for you."

"I'll study, I promise. And I'll make sure she does too," Robert insisted, waving once again as he headed out toward the pickup loop. When his psychiatrist, Dr. Schrödinger, let him into the car, he let out a tired sigh and settled in for the car ride. "No police this time?" he teased again.

"I don't observe any police, so they may or may not exist," the doctor joked, again. It was becoming a bit of a ritual between them. With a turn of the key, they were off, making their way to the psychiatrist's office.

"How are you and Thunder Peal getting along? Are you... you know?" Dr Schrödinger asked, as he flipped through his notebook, looking for the next blank page.

"What? No. Jeez. Yes, we used to be lovers, but we're both prepubescent again. How would that even work?" Robert said, squirming uncomfortably on the couch. "I mean, I still appreciate her looks, a lot more than anyone else at school I'm sure, and we're still, you know... a couple. Again. I'm hoping we can keep it together in the long run, and become lovers again when we're physically old enough again."

"I thought you said you were married now already, at least according to Equestrian law?" the doctor said, after flipping back to one of his earlier notes, as if he'd needed the reminder to be sure. It wasn't that forgettable. "By a 'Princess Cadance'. Using Twilight Sparkle's internet connection to officiate remotely."

"That's correct, but we're not in Equestria, and the United States doesn't recognize our marriage, or even our right to marry, for more reasons than one. I'm sure the matter of human/pony marriages being legalized is only a matter of time," Robert said with a dismissive wave, "but I still need to be recognized as legally competent to act as an adult in that sort of thing. I could try to push for it, but I kind of expect I'd be old enough by the time the matter is resolved that it won't matter anymore, and unlike the more general issue, that case wouldn't affect anyone else."

"Sure, sure. But we aren't really here to talk politics, are we?" the doctor asked. "How do you feel about all that waiting. And how do you think she feels?"

"I think... I doubt we'll make it through puberty celibate, honestly. But right now? I'm happy to keep things a bit simpler. We have so much to learn, to prepare ourselves for adulthood in this world. If we were going to live in Equestria, it'd be a different matter. I'd just be hitting the gym all day, or more likely a dojo, and getting my body back into fighting form, while she practiced to join a weather team. We'd just be worried about getting our bodies back to what our minds are ready for. But living here on Earth? It's completely different, and we both have a lot to learn to do it right," Robert said. "Though... honestly, I'm actually thinking of trying to put all that combat experience to some kind of use. Maybe I'll become a bounty hunter? Have you seen that one on TV? I feel like I could do that."

The doctor scribbled some more notes. "You haven't mentioned how Thunder Peal feels about it," he noted.

"No... I haven't," Robert said with a frown.

There were rose petals in his room. Robert could smell them even before he opened the door, so he hesitated, hand opened around the handle but not quite touching it yet.

Robert kept his window unlatched and the screen removed, so Thunder Peal could push the glass up and come inside anytime she pleased. She normally lived on a small cloud house she had managed to cobble together the floated up over the foster house. It kept getting hit by other clouds being blown into it, which promptly stuck to it and started acting more like Equestrian clouds, content to wait around for somepony to manage them. So she'd been forming a cloud fence in the sky to keep them away, but that just accumulated more stuck clouds along it. But now the gentle sounds of the wind made it clear that the window was open on the other side of Robert's closed door.

Robert steeled himself, emotionally. She was trying to seduce him, he was sure, but he still didn't feel ready. He was just a little boy! How was she even interested yet?! Intellectually, though, he knew such underage sex was possible, that it was a thing that happened, and with their history, if it could happen they could certainly figure out how.

With his heart hardened like he was about to fight a dragon, again, he gripped the knob and turned it, looking in on the scene laid out for him. Quickly he stepped inside, trampling a few of the scattered rose petals, before closing the door behind him. On his bed, Thunder Peal lay before him, naked. The nudity wasn't that odd, coming from an Equestrian pony, and ultimately just meant her saddlebags were dropped off at home. But the way she was laying, on her side facing toward him, with her upper hind leg extended past her lower, and her tail pulled into the way just so. It was meant to hide her marehood just enough to draw attention to it. It was a seductive pose, one they both knew quite well from experience with one another.

"Hey there, big boy,~" Thunder Peal began.

"Thunder, we talked about this already," Robert countered as he slipped into bed in front of her, leaving his backpack in his wake. "We talked about how mmmf!"

When she broke her sudden kiss, she placed a hoof on his mouth. "Shhh, no more talking. Let's just enjoy each other, as husband and wife should.~" Despite the aggressiveness, she didn't follow up with other body movements.

Robert was off guard a moment from the kiss, but... something felt... he blinked a few times and then thought things through before inquiring. "Do you remember that letter I gave you?"

"Remember? Of course! How could I forget?" Thunder Peal said. "It was the most romantic love-letter anypony has ever written me," she guessed confidently.

Robert sighed and sat up, scooting away a bit. "You might as well drop the disguise. I actually don't know what was written in that letter myself, but I seriously doubt the real Thunder Peal wrote a romantic love-letter to herself."

The pony in the bed sat up, matching his pose despite the unponilikeness of it. "Dang, you caught me that easily? It wasn't the letter though, that was just the confirmation... what gave me away?" Even as she spoke, a wave of green flames washed over her body, though they gave off no heat. When they had cleared, a chitin covered humanoid was revealed, a young girl sitting next to him. She had holes in her extremities, like any changeling, but also had a small crown-shaped growth jutting from her head, behind her jagged horn.

Robert couldn't completely hide his surprise, but after a bit of thought he changed the subject. "Frank's daughter?" he guessed.

The changeling nodded in confirmation, before introducing herself. "Princess Zelda. Mother thought it'd be fitting, as she says you used to dress like Link when you were tromping through Equestria."

"Your mother is terrible at naming things. And you're like... you couldn't be more than a month or two old, even counting from conception. How the hell are you talking, let alone trying to seduce boys like two hundred times your age?!" Robert demanded to know.

"Well, I happen to like my name. There's nothing wrong with Zelda as a name, and my mother is a queen, after all. Anyways, she used some of her magic on me and some of my siblings to age us quickly, so we can start on our jobs right away," Zelda countered. "It'll hurt our lifespan in the long run, but starving in childhood isn't any healthier."

"Oh, and what's your job? To harvest my love for your queen? You've kind of failed at that..." Robert said.

"Oh, no. It's the classic job of Princesses here on Earth." She turned her head to the side with a disturbing grin. "To be wed off to help forge alliances.~ And to bear lots of healthy children for their husbands."

"Alliances? I'm just some random kid, and besides I'm already married. And I'm certainly not leaving Thunder Peal for a cheap imitation," Robert objected.

"Don't underestimate your place in things to come. You're the only human who speaks fluent Equestrian. Don't you think you're pretty much destined to be a diplomat? Even with just the internet connecting us, Earth's first alien contact is always going to be a big deal. And as for the marriage..." Zelda grinned deeper. "In Equestrian law, marriages can add additional mares, at the first mare's invitation. Granted, I need the stallion's approval, so you could say no. If you really want to turn me out into the cold, and rob me of the one purpose I was born for, and leave me to slowly starve to death for the sole crime of wanting to love and be loved by you... But that'd all be on you, and your conscience. Thunder Peal already agreed."

"Jeez," Robert said with a sigh. "Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you? You're just as conniving as your mother," he complained. "Get out of here... if Thunder is really okay with you, you can sleep with her. I'll... I'll think about it. Changelings... "

The scurrying of doctor's feet brought Scott to jolt suddenly to consciousness, looking around suddenly. It took a moment to realize the doctors weren't rushing over to him, or his pony friend. That was a relief. But someone was strolling toward him, and somepony as well, clopping lightly on the tiles.

"Oh, hey Daniel!" Scott greeting, enthusiastically, despite his tiredness. "What brings you and your unicorn friend here? Oh! Do you have some kind of healing magic? That'd be great about now.

"Hmm? no, but i know where to find those who do," Istaran said, as he set his hand lightly on Flam's chest. It didn't take much contact to drop off a few fractal spiders, letting the nanomachines worm their way into the comatose unicorn. They didn't even have to enter his body properly, simply replicating within his fur. The pattern made for a decent antennae function, to transmit their message when they reached their destination. "And I know how you can send him there."

"You do?! That'd be great, man. He doesn't deserve to be like this, man. And his brother... I guess it's to late for him, but still," Scott muttered sadly.

"Here," Istaran said, as he reached out with a hand, placing it on Scott's forehead. "He just needs your friendship right now. Then he'll be able to go back home, and serve his purpose. And even his dead brother will serve a vital purpose, by staying here."

"What are you...?" Scott started to question, before his emotions started to be flooded. Every memory he had of the Flim Flam brothers was being dragged into his consciousness, and recolored with a new layer of nostalgia. Suddenly the idea of Flam leaving him, whether by death or by returning home, felt so oppressive to Scot. "Flam... I... Don't leave... stay with me, buddy. We'll get through all this, together. Just don't... I can't bear to see you leave."

He felt numb inside as he witnessed just that, the unicorn vanishing from before his very eyes, leaving a bank of alarming machines behind, their sensors failing to detect their patient anymore. But he was too numb to really notice all the noise. Nor the absence of the pony and human who had visited. Nor the questioning medical personnel. Nor, at first, the police who had finally made it to the scene.

Act 3 - Chapter 5: The presence of greed

Author's Note

Warning: This chapter is awfully dark, gory, and somewhat cloppy.

Act 3 - Chapter 5: The presence of greed

The bank of monitors surrounding them were completely superfluous, but they did help a bit with the ambiance. The nanotechnology living in their bloodstreams could, and did, instill knowledge of what was going on in all of the places pictured directly into their consciousness, including helping them filter all the data, and figure out what was actually relevant to them. But the place had to look like something, so it might as well be covered in monitors showing the city below them from a thousand angles.

"That one," Sombra suggested, pointing at a couple of thieves escaping from a jewelry store with a bag of stolen goods. "We can make an example of them, and enjoy the spoils ourselves," the unicorn suggested.

Istaran rolled his eyes, but stood up and started stretching. "Alright, looks like they're heading toward their house... here. If they're smart they won't go there, but we can always catch up with them elsewhere before they can skip town. Worst case, we have the spiders stop their car on the freeway before they can leave our territory." He placed a hand on Sombra's withers, and gave his manic grin, the one Sombra had learned to associate with anticipation of battle.

"Let's go," the unicorn said unnecessarily before dragging them both into the shadows, leaving their tower behind. When they emerged back into the physical world, he immediately regretted his timeliness. The thieves' home reeked of garbage, dirty laundry, and probably mold. Ugh. So disgusting. Just one more reason to remove them from his city.

They waited in one of the bedrooms, while they mentally watched the getaway vehicle wind through their feeds. People still had no idea how much surveillance the pair had at their disposal, but perhaps they would start to get a clue after enough incidents like this. The tower was essentially a massive supercomputer the size of skyscraper, and could easily spare the clock cycles to brute force its way through most forms of encryption, gaining access to all kinds of feeds from around the city... but it also coordinated trillions of small spy bots scattered throughout the city, most resembling perfectly ordinary spiders. Quite a few of those had gotten eaten by the local fauna, only to infect those birds and other wildlife, and convert them into cybernetic spies, granting them quite a few literal birds-eye views.

Most were oblivious. The organized criminals, however, were not. They had equipment to detect 'bugs' by their radio transmissions, and that equipment had started to go haywire, convinced that more or less the entire city was infested with bugs, and they had wisely decided to find another place to ply their trade. They didn't know if the police had gone to unbelievable new heights, or if this new face in town was spying on everyone and everything, but they did know it wasn't worth it. The ominous new tower in downtown was reason enough to take his threat seriously.

The organized criminals were gone. Many of the other smart ones were as well. But a lot criminals weren't smart. They were neither well equipped nor well prepared, and honestly if Istaran and Sombra didn't get involved, they probably would get themselves caught before long. The good thing about that is that it wouldn't take too long for the cops to find the aftermath.

It seemed like it took forever, but eventually they did arrive at their house, and slipped inside, closing all the blinds before settling into the living room to start dividing out their haul. They had beers in hand and were celebrating among themselves when Sombra stepped out in front of them.

"Gentlemen! Is this your tribute? So nice of you to bring me all this finery!" the King suggested, grinning at them. He watched as a half dozen gun barrels raised to point at him. There were only four thieves, but two imagined that wielding a gun in each hand would work better for them. Perhaps under other circumstances.

It was a simple trick, hardening a bit of darkness into a solid form. Istaran's enhancements made it easy to do it several times over all at once, and to easily track everywhere it was needed.

Five guns went off as Sombra approached. Five bullets got trapped in their respective chambers, the energy ripping their handles apart and the hands that held them. One thief had been too smart, or too cowardly, or too hesitant, and managed to get through the exchange without firing.

"Oh? You mean to say you thought to steal from our city without our permission?" Istaran asked with a condescending grin of his own as he strode up beside Sombra. "How well did you think that would end for you?"

The thief who hadn't fired his gun now thought to use it as an improvised projectile, hurling it at Istaran's head. He swatted it aside easily, but allowed it to serve as distraction enough for the thief to bust through the front door and flee. After all, someone had to serve as the witness. The other thieves were in too much shock from the loss of their hands to be nearly as proactive. Not that there was much they could have done.

By the time the police arrived, Sombra and Istaran were long gone, along with the jewels. The remains of the thieves were barely recognizable, and some of it had been used to write on the walls. The handwriting itself was illegible, but the message was clear: this is our territory, and we will defend it.

"That was a lot of fun," Sombra said from the shower, as he cleaned the blood from his mane. "But I do worry we're sending the wrong message. If we only attack criminals, won't people start to mistakenly think we're some kind of heroes? Or at the least, vigilantes?"

Istaran leaned against the wall outside, patiently waiting his turn. He hadn't gotten nearly as messy, preferring to strike from a distance with his shadow magic, focusing on those who tried to escape Sombra's vicious hoof work. "I'm not too worried about that. We've done plenty to disabuse anyone who might come to such a mistaken conclusion. Besides, we wish to rule here, do we not? You cannot rule if you cannot convince people of your ability to enforce your rules, and I feel we have been very convincing in that regards."

"Still..." Sombra said, trailing off as he got to thinking. He wanted something more, and with a bit of thought he realized how to get it. He tapped into the surveillance network again as he finished cleaning himself. "Are you up for another one? I have another target in mind."

"Of course. Who next?" Istaran replied, raising an eyebrow curiously.

Ashley paused as she parked her car, eyeing her rear view mirror nervously. The car that had been following her seemed to be going awfully slowly, but then it sped up a bit, and soon it had turned the corner. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and finally opened the car door, heading for the front door of her townhome. She stumbled a bit in her high heels just before reaching the door.

She had just finished her shift at a local strip club, and hadn't liked the look of one of the customers. She'd seen him eyeing her while she was on stage and something in his leer had unnerved her, nearly caused her to mess up her routine. It wasn't just a normal lustful look: those were what she was being paid to elicit. It was darker, more predatory. When she'd seen him heading for his car at the same time she did, it made things worse, and she wasn't quite certain if he had followed her home or if that'd just been paranoia.

Either way, he wasn't here now. She hurried to unlock her door, taking longer from being in a rush as the key didn't want to quite go in right. But she got in, turning the deadbolt and latching the chain behind her. She took the time to check all the windows and doors were secured, before heading upstairs and starting the shower.

As the layers of makeup washed off her ebony skin, and the stress of the day slowly flowed away, the sound of the shower drowned out the quiet sounds of the lock picks working on her back door. As she toweled off, the creek of a stair was the first warning she had that she was not alone. As she peeked around the corner, the barrel of a gun pointed at her head was the next.

She raised her hands, begging for mercy, letting the towel fall away, tears streaming from her eyes. It was the man from the strip club. Her instincts about him had been right, but her precautions had been inadequate. He directed her into her bedroom, made her kneel across the end of her bed. She could hear him working on his belt, and thought she knew what was coming next. As much as she didn't want it, though, she was even more afraid of what would come after.

Her mind reeled, trying to come up with a plan to escape, to figure out how to get the gun away from him without getting her brains splattered in the process, but soon she was distracted by movement coming from the shadows. More specifically, a unicorn. The glowing green eyes and razor sharp horn, along with his sudden appearance in her bedroom, would normally have been quite terrifying to Ashley, but under the circumstances, her mind latched onto it as a ray of hope. She rolled onto her back, even as her assailant moved to point his gun at the new target. A sharp, desperate kick to his hand left a bullet striking her wall instead of her savior, and the gun clattering to the ground. The disruption left him wide open for that horn to thrust straight into his gut, tearing organs as Sombra dug it up under the man's ribcage, before pulling out, letting the man fall to the ground.

Istaran followed sedately afterwards, lightly kicking the gun farther away, lest the would be rapist got any ideas. He tsk'd lightly at the man, squatting to look him in the eyes. "You didn't really think you could get away with shit like this in our city without our permission did you?"

"You saved me!" Ashley exclaimed, wrapping her arms Sombra suddenly, and pulling the unicorn a bit off balance.

"You are mistaken," he replied with a cruel grin as he shoved her back onto the bed, pinning her under his weight. A satisfying wave of fear flowed out of her as she realized what she was in for. Istaran realized it almost as quickly, shaking his head and sighing. He took the dying intruder by the ankle and began to drag him off, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Sombra was frustrated. Not sexually... Ashley had seen to that. But the King of Shadows had wanted to feast on her fear, but it had evaporated all too quickly. He had taken her roughly, but she had expected that, and though she obviously didn't appreciate it, she came to accept it. He had tried to lash out at her, to strike her with his hooves, bite her, even sear her with pain with his magic... but he found he couldn't bring himself to do so. He could think about it, but the moment he tried to put those thoughts into action, they evaporated from his mind.

'She trusts you,' the little voice in the back of his head told him. 'You can't betray that trust.' The voice wasn't his conscience. He had one of those, ill used though it was, and he was quite adept at ignoring it. This was different. For one, it was much more matter-of-fact in its statements. For another, he couldn't ignore it. For a third, he was fairly certain it was Istaran's doing.

When he had tired of abusing her, and lay himself on her bed for a bit of rest, she had had the audacity to initiate a third round with him. He had been too surprised to stop her, and truthfully he enjoyed it, though not as much as she apparently had. Now she was lying snuggled atop him, sleeping peacefully while his emotions warred within him. No mare he had been with had ever treated him like this. They had wailed, trembled, screamed in pain and fear, and he had gorged himself on their terror. But this?

Radiant Hope might have treated him like this, if things had ended differently between them. A twinge of regret made itself known. Ah, now there was his conscience. He squashed it easily, as always. She had had her chance, even the offer to join him as his queen.

The mare, no- woman, on top of him stirred lightly, and that stirred Sombra to action. He gently pushed her off of him, leaving her to sleep atop her bed without him as he headed downstairs to confront his partner. The human was enjoying a stolen beverage out of Ashley's refrigerator. The trail of blood from the intruder let out the front door, and across the street, to where Sombra could see him hanging from a wall by his wrists, struggling to lift himself for another breath. The sound of sirens and flashing of lights approaching suggested he may be set free before he perished, but it was also visible from here that he had been very crudely rendered a gelding, ensuring he would not repeat be a repeat offender, at least not in this sort of crime.

"You're back, just in time. We should take our leave," Istaran commented, before taking one final swig, and then littering for good measure.

"We need to talk. What you've done to me, to my head. It's not acceptable," Sombra began, ignoring the approaching cops for now.

"It saved your life," Istaran said, matter of factly. His tone reminded Sombra of the voice in his head, but it was noticeably more aggravating.

"Saved my life?! From what? What possible danger could I have been in from teaching that whore to respect and fear me?" Sombra demanded.

"She trusted you. And not blindly, it was a valid trust. She was yours for you to claim, and you did, but she surrendered to you. And in so doing she had a right to trust you not to harm her unnecessarily. She never defied you once, or withheld anything from you," Istaran explained patiently.

"So?" Sombra demanded.

"If you had betrayed her, I would have killed you. I don't let betrayers live. Also, strictly speaking, she's a stripper, not a whore," Istaran pointed out.

Outside, the cops had begun to gather, and looked ready to actually make a move, so the pair finally slipped into the shadows and disappeared, returning to their tower to continue their argument in private.

He had called to her. Or, more specifically, the fractal spiders infecting him had called to those infecting her. They had new orders for her, and she had no choice but to obey. Istaran had found a way to command her, even from another world. It was infuriating, but the Princess of the Sun had no choice but to obey.

Her guards were not so slavishly bound by the orders she passed on to them, but they were dutiful and obedient, and so they did as she commanded, taking the unicorn Flam prisoner as soon as his condition had been stabilized at the hospital, and taking him out into the middle of the woods in Apple Vale. Another pair of guards retrieved her old mirror, the portal mirror, much to Twilight Sparkle's concern. But she was a model citizen, even to a fault, and would let her ruler do as she would, despite her concerns. The other guards carved out the patterns she proscribed, though it was long, grueling work, marking out a region 20 miles across. They could have refused her orders, or even silently failed to carry them out, but they failed to live up to that hope, and far too soon all of the pieces were in place.

Act 3 - Chapter 6: The presence of sloth

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Act 3 - Chapter 7: The presence of envy

Tirek's hoofsteps reverberated on the concrete with every step he took. He had grown larger and more powerful with his meals, but a sizeable portion of the noise was, in truth, using a bit of magic to play himself up. This world was very lacking in magic, so there hadn't been all that much for him to steal. But the world was very sensitive to magic, he had noticed, so a little bit went a long way.

There were a couple of modest magical presences to the south, moving farther and farther away, detectible only because this world was so barren, like a couple stars in another galaxy, visible only because of the stark blackness around them. He would hunt them down later, but for now their erratic path was annoyance enough to overcome the temptation they represented. Much closer, there were another pair of presences. One steady and strong, black as the night. A dark magic user, unmistakably. But Tirek had no qualms about absorbing dark magic. The other surged and flared with power on occasion, somehow hiding his power from Tirek's senses the rest of the time. But they travelled together, that much was true, and they had one very obvious place they liked to return to, especially during the day.

They were proud, he was sure of that, since they had built the tallest tower in the city to live in, a structure that was probably more ostentatious monument to themselves than functionally useful. A structure that was straight ahead, blocking the street he now walked and forcing traffic to divert around it. But he had no reason to divert.

Crowds had begun to gather, wisely remaining off the street he tread. That was emptying, in both directions, including the sidewalks. Good. They'd help ensure the egos of those two morsels he sought was under threat. News crews, both professional and opportunistic cell phone owners, began to video tape him. Police didn't bother engaging him, despite likely knowing of some of his crimes, but instead simply kept the crowds out of the way. Wise. A few helicopters joined the fray, some aiming cameras at him, others mounted machineguns. Both merely watched.

The tower transformed itself, slightly. A large, flat platform emerged from the side, about a story up, with massive stairs leading up to it from nearly a block away from the main tower.

This will be mine, he thought. Just as soon as I take care of its pathetic, doomed owners. He grinned to himself as he climbed the stairs. They would never know what hit them. "Come out and face me! You said that you were the only villains who could operate in this town. Prove it, cow-"

As he reached the top, he saw them before him, just outside of the side of the tower where no door was visible. Had they teleported? Used a secret door? It didn't matter. He'd sort out the tower's secrets at his leisure. The taller one, the human, whose power was so hard to feel most of the time, held up a hand.

"A moment, if you will," Istaran requested. Tirek accented only in so much as he didn't immediately attack, instead tensing internally, preparing to steal their magic in an instant, perhaps when they were most distracted.

"Why wait, he's here now, let's show him the terror of crossing King Sombra," the unicorn said, preparing his own magic.

"I need to fight him alone, though you've been so good to me. I'm going to miss you so much when you're gone," Istaran said, tears welling in his eyes. "I can't bear to lose you," he added, as much invocation as anything else. "Be good to your new bride," he added as the unicorn began to glow, peeling off into beads of light.

"Wait, what? Istaran?! What have you done? What are you do-" Sombra failed to complete his interrogation, as he vanished.

One of Tirek's chains passed through the space Sombra had been, a second latching onto Istaran's arm, draining him instantly of all magic. It wasn't much... less than a pirin tablet, in fact. The chain held fast, for the moment. "Clever of you to send him away, he'd have only made me stronger. But now you are powerless, and I am simply going to kill you."

"This is a bad matchup for you. But you've been so elusive, I had to appeal to your pride as well as your appetite to draw you into this fight," Istaran explained. "But let our abilities prove it. To the death, it is." Before Tirek could finish the first syllable of the laugh that was his intended reply, the human had vanished, teleporting behind the centaur in a surge of magic he shouldn't have had, and landing a powerful kick against the centaur's magical shield, making it flicker into visibility for a moment.

"How did you?" Tirek asked, even as he brought his own fist to bare in an easily parried punch.

"You'll figure it out," Istaran said confidently, as he battered Tirek's magical defenses with magically boosted strength. Tirek could sense the magic, even taste it when he got his chains around the human again, but there was so little there to eat when he did, and the human frustratingly teleported again to get free.

The human didn't leave it to strength boosts, either. Tirek's more powerful retaliations, blasts of magic that ripped holes in their battlefield, he dodged with magical boosts of speed. When Tirek drove him back, he attacked with magically animated shadows. Tirek's shield held, still, but his power was being drained by the attacks, wearing him down, where even the injuries the centaur managed to inflict seemed to do nothing to slow his adversary.

"How?!" Tirek finally demanded again, looking up at the taller human.

"How tall are you?" Istaran asked back with an obnoxiously condescending grin.

Tirek took a moment to look at himself, distracted for just a second, before seeing a fist plunged into his heart, the shatter of his shield not reaching his consciousness in time to react. Strange... he'd used some of his magic to boost his own reflexes and awareness, it should have kept his mind clearer and more responsive than this.

"Your power works by stealing all the magic in a target and storing it in yourself," Istaran explained. "Then you can use it later, whenever you need it. And your victim no longer has it. My power works by stealing the nearest available magic, and using it up instantly to power my spells. With no ambient magic here, that means I'm stealing it from the nearest magical creature. A bad matchup, as I said. You would have done great against Sombra. But with both of us burning through your magic as fast as we could... in the end, I was in a better position to fight without magic than you."

Enraged, Tirek grabbed Istaran around the throat with both hands, trying in one last desperate gambit to choke the life out of him, but he was so small and so weak now. Like one of his own victims, he slumped to the ground, bleeding out through the wound in his chest.

"Good thing that's taken care of. And just in time," Istaran said, loud enough for the cameras to hear him. "People of Seattle, for my next big crime, I shall abscond with this entire city! In..." he made like he was checking his watch, though he wore none. "47 seconds!" Announcement made, he turned to stroll back into his tower, through a door that conveniently materialized for him to maximize nonchalantness.

Those present, and those actively watching one of the live video feeds had time to be concerned, while the rest of the city continued their lives undisturbed until it happened. For most, the first sign was a sudden loss of communications, as the internet all but disappeared, along with the satellite feeds that supplied most of their television channels. Those outside and some near windows noticed a sudden shift in the lighting, the cloud-obscured sun suddenly jumping thirty degrees in the sky and growing brighter, if still blocked by clouds.

The most dramatic shift hit those on the main roads heading East beyond the nearby suburbs, where paved six-lane highways suddenly transitioned to barely cleared dirt roads among the trees. Most of the drivers managed to react in a nonfatal way, but there was soon a wall of crashed cars blocking off the end of the road. From there it was quite easy to see the break in the sky, where the layer of clouds ended and cartoonishly bright blue skies began.

Appearing suddenly surrounded by ice and snow was only mildly disorienting to Sombra. He had 'won' the little contest, and he knew what that meant, and it was not at all surprising that it had sent him to the spot he had disappeared from all those centuries ago. From here, he could see the capital of the Crystal Empire spread out before him, awaiting his return.

The trek to the gates was a mild nuisance, but one that did not trouble him for very long. The massive plates of crystal were closed, but he had long since enchanted them to react easily to his magic, so they swung open dramatically with but a slight charge from his horn.

He expected the crystal ponies on the other side to reek of fear of him, indeed he reveled in it, though he did not expect them to be lined up along the streets, armed with baskets of flower pedals, nor to toss those pedals into his path. It worried him, but he didn't dare show it. His facade of confidence was quite important, not just for his ego but to maintain the fear of his subjects. Besides, the flowers were harmless. If the ponies wielding them had any genuine love for him in their hearts, perhaps it could hurt him. If they had even been focusing on their love of somepony else, they might discomfort him. But as it was, there was naught but fear in their hearts, and bewilderment. Somepony had put them up to this without much explanation. But who? Sombra remembered Istaran's final words to him, and did his best not to show any outward signs of his growing concern.

Nopony moved to stop him, not even the armed guards who were placed periodically. Those merely raised spears into arches for him to pass under, despite the undisguised loathing in their eyes. So he marched straight up to the castle, his castle, and headed straight for the throne room. Before he could enter somepony finally stood up to him. A pink pony, with a determined look in her eye, an utter lack of fear, and an alarming grin.

"Wait! You can't go in there looking like that!" Pinkie Pie declared, before bodily assaulting him. Before the King could make enough sense of her movements to try to fend the mare off, she had stripped him entirely of the warn, tarnished, and snowcovered garb and replaced it with fresh gear. Silver boots for all four hooves, etched with stark patterns of inlaid gold, impressively ornate while still playing to his severe motif. A fresh, regal cloak adorned his back, and his own crown was quickly replaced, somehow buffed to a gleaming perfection in the midst of the chaos. "There you go! See you at the reception!" the mare said before pronking off, promptly disappearing from view down a side hallway.

Sombra was quite ruffled by this, mentally, but his fur had somehow come out of it immaculate. Try as he might, he couldn't find a valid excuse to be angry at the pink pony for simply making him look more impressive as he returned to the throne, so he put it aside and resumed his march. Reaching the closed double doors, he reached out with his magic, threw them open, and collapsed onto his rump with shock at what he beheld.

A few hundred ponies waited within, lining the court benches in their best attire. To the left, crystal ponies, every one doing their best not to show their fear. To the right, other tribes of ponies, including the mysterious pink one who had managed to get in ahead of him despite leaving in a completely other direction. These ponies were lacking in fear, but filled with interest and intrigue. Dead center, standing before his throne but far enough away that it was clear he made no claim to it was an elderly stallion with a phenomenally ornate hat and gilded robes, waiting patiently. And just to his right awaited the absolute last pony he expected to see here, least of all like this.

They had met before, something he couldn't say of any of the other non-crystal ponies here. She looked at him not with the fury he had once witnessed, the unbreakable determination that she had earned the reputation for, nor even the smug confidence she showed when she had an adversary dead to rights. No, it was resignation in her eyes. Somepony had broken her will, and he knew exactly who. The spiders crawling in his brain acknowledged the presence of more of their kind.

He didn't realize he was walking down the aisle, much less the presence of musical accompaniment, until he was climbing onto the dais, opposite his apparent bride to be. His mind reeled with the implications. She didn't love him, he was quite sure of that, and doubted she'd be capable of it, so he was probably safe there. He didn't know what had happened in the last thousand years, but suspected her own empire was much stronger than his at this moment, so this political marriage would practically hand him a massive jumpstart to his conquests. To say nothing of the 'conquest' she represented... The human stripper he had availed himself of recently was enjoyable enough, but King Sombra much preferred mares to women anyday.

"Mawwiage," the priest began, addressing the gathering loudly. "Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wove, twue wove, wiww fowwow you fowevah and evah… So tweasuwe youw wove-"

"Skip ahead a bit, Impressive Clergy. Nopony wants to wait all day," Celestia said, through a strained smile from under her veil. [So you're the one he picked for me? I'll have to admit, it is quite the surprise.]

[I'm surprised you're going along with this, you must know what I'm going to do once this is all done, don't you?] Sombra responded.

"Do you, King Sombwa, accept this mawwe as youww wegawwy wedded wife, in sick-" Impressive began to ask.

"I do!" the King announced, triumphantly.

[From your reaction, I'd guess I know better than you do,] Celestia told him, a bit of an almost cruel smirk crossing her face for a moment.

"And do you, Pwwincess Cewestia, take this stawwion to be youww wegawwy wedded husband," Impressive asked of the taller mare.

"I do," Celestia said. "And in so doing, bind our two nations as one. Everypony in the Crystal Empire, you are now full citizens of Equestria. And everypony of Equestria, you are now King Sombra's subjects as well as my own." The look she gave Sombra gave the impression of a cat who had a bird firmly grasped in its claws, and it made the unicorn think a moment before realizing the problem.

Their kiss was rather chaste by wedding standards, if not quite as underplayed as he had expected. The ongoing fear of his long time subjects was quite pleasant and filling, especially as it spiked when Celestia gave him the Crystal Heart as a wedding present, and he was able to smash it to the ground in what was, for him, the high point of the reception. And when they did retire to their royal bedchambers, everything was enjoyable enough he felt no need to complain, even in his own mind, about her lack of fear.

But as the days stretched into weeks and months, his ponies slowly lost their fear of him. And why not? The random acts of violence, cruel domination, and abject slavery were all things of the past. Oh, he wanted to reinstate them, wanted to so badly. They few ponies foalish enough to commit true crimes in his empire were made to absorb his wrath in abundance, effectively deterring others from following their paths. But try as he might, the damned spiders ripped the thoughts of cruelty from his mind as quickly as he could think of them, and as his empire flourished he himself sunk into despair.

"I understand," said Celestia one evening, wrapping a foreleg around him as they snuggled atop their bed before a roaring fire. There hadn't been any context, and it hadn't been needed.

He looked at her, dubiously, but he couldn't help it. He opened his mouth and the words began to flow, telling her of his experiences in the human world, of the human 'friend' that had so betrayed him, and now left him here, a 'king' in title but a slave in truth. She answered with her own tale, of being made into a living weapon by the same so-called ally, being plagued with overactive premonitions, and then dragged into doing Istaran's bidding, even in matters so personal as marriage.

It was a strange thing to bond over, perhaps, but the painful hint of affection he felt from his queen resonated painfully with something resembling it in his own heart, searing him from within. If he weren't what he was, perhaps they could have grown together from this. As it was, it was actually tempting even though he knew it would surely kill him. But one thing he did know: ~~Istaran must die~~ Clan is Clan.

Epilogue

Nathaniel King strode slowly toward the sign bearing his name, dragging his roller suitcase behind him. His three piece suit fit snuggly, helping him look the part of the big shot ambassador he liked to think he was. It was still a little hard for him to take seriously, something he'd need to remedy someday soon, even after spending time video conferencing with Element of Magic. Part of his brain refused to think of her as anything but CGI. But apparently there was some kind of portal, now, so contact with the other world had grown beyond mere bits.

"You my chauffeur?" he asked the man with the sign.

"Only if you're Nathaniel King," the man replied, his own uniform well pressed, his hat on nice and straight. His bearing was rigid, like a soldier, perhaps an ex-soldier. "Gregory Smith," he introduced. "If you'll follow me to the car?"

"You have got to be joking," Nathaniel said, when they reached the jeep convertible that was waiting for him. It even had its top down. "I thought it rains all the time here?" He wasn't that surprised it wasn't a limo, knowing the country didn't necessarily consider him that big of a big shot just yet, but this was kind of insulting.

"No, sir," Greg replied. "The roads in Equestria are mostly unpaved, and besides... you're going to want the top down for this."

Talking was impossible as they started driving, the wind whipping through the vehicle simply too much, but once they rounded the first corner, getting past the obstruction of the parking structure, Nate was too stunned for words anyways.

A brilliant blue dome of sky dominated the view before him, with impossibly white clouds distributed into a giant word 'welcome'. Even as he watched, a few smaller figures were flying among them, pushing bits back into place to maintain the fragile signage. They merged onto the freeway, driving straight towards it, or so he thought at first. As the miles rolled by, the impossibly large dome became impossibly larger, while revealing a smaller opening, an archway through which normal, overcast Seattle sky could be seen, complete with their iconic skyline. The Space Needle was instantly recognizable, as was the 'Doom Tower' as it had been dubbed. Approaching that arch gave the impression of driving toward a tunnel, as though that impossibly blue sky were but a painted mountainside. It was something else though, he knew. Oh boy, was it something else.

"Get off there," he shouted to his driver, pointing at the last exit before the 'tunnel' entrance. A military blockade greeted him, confirming his identity before allowing him through. They parked the jeep on this side of the break, and he got out, approaching.

He got out and strode forward. He could smell it already. The other world smelled like sunshine and flowers and sickening sweetness. Washington's trees were vibrant, but looked dull and lifeless compared to what was just on the other side. He stepped across the line, hesitantly, surprised a little when he didn't turn into some cartoon caricature of himself when he did.

Pony guards stood on the other side, guarding a construction project around a railway that seemed to exactly parallel the main freeway here. They were adding a new platform? The ponies' spears seemed woefully inadequate compared to the human soldiers' firearms, but they would probably still prove deadly to an unarmed ambassador if he somehow provoked their usage. He strolled toward them, fearlessly though, trusting the allegedly friendly ponies not to start an international... no, interplanetary incident in such a bloodthirsty fashion.

"Nathaniel King?" the nearest guard said as he approached. "Queen Celestia has bid me greet you and bring you on to Canterlot, where you'll be able to meet the other diplomats. Welcome to Equestria." A hoof met a hand in an awkward hoof/hand shake, before the somewhat dazed ambassador began to follow him.

Whatever doubts he had had before were gone now. Magic was definitely a real thing.

"Ladies and Gentlecolts... excuse me, GentleMen of the United Nations, thank you so much for accepting my wife and I here, among your number," began ambassador Shining Armor. "I know that things have already been tense and complicated among your people, and that our sudden presence here, the tying of our two worlds together, has made things far more complex. I assure you, we come seeking only peace and friendship with all of your people. Our peoples have so much to learn from one another, and so many ways we can benefit from our mutual friendship, respect, and cooperation. I only hope that by being here we can help all nations on both worlds to move forward together, in peace."

Princess Cadance smiled nervously, waving at them all before the pair trotted off to the seating that had been specially prepared for them, hastily. "Not a single, strong thread of love in the room," she whispered to her husband. "Not just between them, I mean leading out as well. These men barely love their own parents."

"Be strong, my love," Shining answered in a whisper as they sat down. "Perhaps you can change that, bit by bit, while we're here?"

Trotting up to the break in reality, Twilight paused, her friends coming to a stop after her. "Alright, everypony, this is it. Our first hoofstep onto an alien world. One small step for pony, one giant le- Pinkie!?"

The pink pony finally landed on the far side of the pavement from her balloon-assisted leap. "What? You said a giant leap, right?"

Seeing that the earth pony had suffered no ill effects, the unicorn shook her head and sighed as she followed after, along with the other elements, and Dopple, Fluttershy's coltfriend, if that was even quite the right word.

The door of the house straight ahead of them opened, and Thunder Peal trotted out. "About time you guys got here. Come on in, Robert and Relena are waiting for you."

"Wait, is that... Thunder Peal?" Rainbow Dash asked, before breaking out in happy laughter, darting forward to approach the smaller mare. "I haven't seen you since flight school. Wow, you haven't changed a bit... which is kind of amazing, considering how long ago that was. How are you still a filly?! Or are you like, her little sister or something?"

"It's a long story, involving Discord," Robert called out from within, before the element bearers could enter the building. "Come on in... welcome to Relena's house. I guess it's lucky we didn't get cut in half by the portal. Now... you brought the elements with you, right? Because there's something very important that only you six can deal with..."

"Apple... jack, right?" John Capelli said as the door closed behind them. When Relena confirmed, he did a little celebratory fist pump before excusing himself. "Sorry, I've just taken so long getting your names straight... I'll leave you to your little meeting now..."

"We're really going to just drive to Equestria from here in an old white van?" Angelica asked skeptically.

"We are getting. Sonata. Back," Adagio stated, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly enough for her yellow knuckles to turn white.

"Okay, I get that, but aren't there, like, a bunch of armed soldiers with tanks and stuff in the way?" Angelica questioned.

"We are getting. Sonata. Back," Adagio stated.

"We can avoid the obvious spots like the freeway, and take some of the side roads out toward the big edge. The military can't have gotten everything cordoned off yet," Aria suggested.

Adagio nodded. "We are getting. Sonata. Back."

"What if she doesn't want to come back? She really seemed to like that guy," Angelica pointed out.

Adagio simply growled.

"How'd you get in here," Frank asked the woman that looked like his wife. Now that he knew to look for it, the difference in posture was enough to tell them apart, even before anything else. "The police..."

"I have my ways... feminine wiles, and so forth," Chrysalis answered, gesturing vaguely. "Suffice to say they won't interfere."

Frank stiffened, afraid of her. "What do you want?"

"Why, simply your love, of course," she said. "I've cooked for you, cleaned for you, taken care of your children... yes, plural, including the one that wasn't mine. I've seen the joy on your face, especially at our most intimate of times... tell me. Do you have any love in your heart for me?"

She knew the answer, of course, before he even said it. But sometimes... sometimes forcing someone to confront the possibility drew something out that hadn't been fully formed. "No. Not at all," he answered. "Now get out of here before I-"

"I thought as much," she said, a bit sadly. "I don't need you anymore, not to get home. And as for love... well, let's just say I've found someone better, anyways. But for our childrens' sake, I thought I'd give you one last chance. Goodbye."

Frank was a bit put off guard by that, not sure what to make of the sudden twist. "W-wait. My wife, our son. What have you done with them? Where are they?"

"Done with them?" Chrysalis asked with a laugh. "My dear Frank, why she murdered one of our children, and fled with your firstborn. What do you think I did to her?"

Frank gulped, unable to answer.

"I let them go, of course. I bet she's still convinced I'm right on her heels, that every other trucker she meets at a rest stop is secretly one of my children stalking her," she laughed cruelly. "Good luck finding her again." And with that she turned to take her leave, enjoying her villainous triumph.

She had to enjoy it while she could. Her new boyfriend was already starting to be a good influence on her, she could feel it. But he wasn't here right now, so for now she could still revel in a good gloat.

I never once got you to love me, she thought as she walked away, but you did help me train to be lovable. And now that I have a fresh start? Two worlds are going to feed my unstoppable hive.

"So you're finally going to give it to me straight, hmm?" Dr Schrodinger asked Robert.

"That's right, doc. It's going to take a while... I just hope you have enough tape to record it all," the boy said, as he settled onto the couch. "It took fifteen years to live through, so you won't get every single moment, but I'll start with the really important bits. Maybe if you really know what I've had to really deal with, you can actually be more of real help to me."

"Let us, as they say, keep it real, then," the psychiatrist said with a chuckle, getting out his digital recorder and pushing the record button.

Istaran sat on the top of his tower, overlooking his city, and the bright, colorful world beyond. Even at night, the difference in brightness was stark, the line separating the two worlds clearly visible from here, even miles away.

"Are you planning to conquer it?" the griffon next to him asked, gesturing broadly with a wing. Bardrick... that was his name.

"Nope! I might need to do some things here or there to make them suspect I will, just to keep it lively," the human said, grinning as he looked down at it all. "What I've done already is enough to send shockwaves across both worlds, and make an indelible mark for all time. I've started a new epoch. They might as well start the calendars over. This is year zero. Or one, if they prefer. They'll need to synchronize calendars across two worlds now, anyways, so why not? I am the wind, and I have blown their minds. Besides... I have enough to do with just the one city."

Bardrick snorted in amusement. "If you do too much here, the people will just flee. And then what?"

"Some will. Some have," Istaran admitted. "The more that leave, the more room is open for new things. Room for me to invent. And not everyone will leave. Some will come. This is the border of two worlds. This is where change happens. Some will flee, but some will come. And some will simply be stubborn."

"You're insane," Bardrick replied at length, not sounding too bothered about it.

"I am the wind," Istaran said, sounding like agreement.