The Next Generation: Superheroes Continued

Chapters

Reminiscing
Character Selection
Welcome to Maretropolis
The Alarms
The Story Spell

Reminiscing

“Where did we get all this stuff?” Spike was somewhat muffled by the large boxes he was lifting over his shoulder. Being a dragon, Spike didn’t seem strained under the heavy load, but he was still leaning slightly to manage the weight.

“Kind of wondering the same thing,” Illusion added, levitating a similar load alongside himself as he descended from the Carousel Boutique’s attic. “I mean, I know you guys moved back to Ponyville eleven years ago, but even so, this is still a lot. Half of it isn’t even related to you work, Mrs. Rarity.”

Rarity answered him without looking up from her own box, the contents of which she was dividing into two piles. "It isn't just our belongings from those eleven years, darling, we took most of what we had in Canterlot too. I had actually meant to go through it all when we arrived, but between T's first year of school and getting the Boutique up and running again, I suppose it just fell by the wayside. Ah, Spike, darling, next box."

Spike obligingly laid the box in his claws in front of Rarity, then picked up the "keep" pile and moved to repack it as Rarity continued. “Thanks again for helping us, Prince Illusion. I know you probably had other things in mind when you came to Ponyville.”

“It’s fine.” Illusion waved dismissively, adding his own box to the pile of unopened ones on the Boutique’s floor. He continued as he moved back to the open attic. “Crys needed to experiment with some new designs anyway, and I couldn’t just leave you to sort through all this by yourselves.”

“Such a generous young gentlestallion.” Rarity smiled brightly as she opened the box in front of her. “I really must do something to thank– hmm. Spike, I didn’t know we still had any of these.”

“Any of what?” Spike asked as he padded over. When he looked into the box, his eyes lit up. “My old comics! I forgot about those!”

“You were a comic book fan?” Illusion moved over so he could also peer into the box. The cardboard was filled to the brim with brightly colored booklets, each proudly displaying a title and issue number in bold fonts. Various superheroes, villains, and objects of power could be found in a half-dozen art styles, and suitably inspiring or fearful subheadings accompanied each.

“Sure!” Spike responded enthusiastically. “Back when I was still Twilight’s assistant, I probably had the best collection in Ponyville! I had all of the Power Ponies ones, and I also followed Everlived, the Fantastic Fillies, Timeeye…” Spike continued reminiscing as Illusion pulled out a comic from the box. It was titled Power Ponies Issue 158, and showed the titular heroes in a desert, facing off against a mare dressed in a purple bodysuit with a toxic green mane splaying out from her head. Behind her, a small colt could be seen holding what looked like a bottle of bright red hair gel as he hid behind a rock.

“I remember that one!” Spike blurted as he leaned over Illusion’s shoulder, startling him into dropping the comic. Spike caught the book with his own claw without pausing for breath. “This was the big final battle between the Power Ponies and their arch-nemesis! Even Humdrum, he’s the little colt, even he helped out! The Power Ponies tracked Mane-iac through the desert so they could use the Hair Gel of Trueform to take away her powers. Took her out of their rogues gallery for a long time. I wonder if they ever brought her back–”

“Spike, dear,” Rarity interrupted as she playfully rolled her eyes. “I think you’re scaring the poor colt.” Illusion was, in fact, staring bemusedly as Spike rambled on about his old hobby, his yellow and red eyes accentuating his expression of bewilderment.

“Oh. Opps.” Spike smiled sheepishly and bent to return the comic he was holding to the box, then perked up and looked over at Rarity. “I’d like to keep some of these though. Some of the older issues might even be vintage, now. Or we could donate them to the Golden Oak Library.”

“Both fine ideas, darling,” Rarity replied as she shut the box with her magic. The same blue energy dragged another towards her. “But we can put that on hold for the moment. Right now, we really need to get through the rest of these.” Spike nodded, and he and Illusion returned to hauling boxes.

A minute later, Spike spoke up again. “Still, though, I really should look and see if any of my favorite characters are still around. I haven’t picked up a comic book in years. I actually – hey! I wonder if they ever made any more of those enchanted comics?”

At this, Illusion looked over. “Enchanted comics?”

“You mean like that one we all went through together in the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters?” Rarity replied to Spike. “The one about the, the Power Ponies, yes?”

“Wait, how can a comic be enchanted?” Illusion interjected.

“It pulled you into the story, literally.” Rarity motioned to herself and Spike. “All of the Elements – and Spike, of course – became superheroes. It was like a whole other world, and we had to fight the, the…”

“Mane-iac,” Spike supplied.

“Yes, the Mane-iac, in order to get out. We might not have made it if it weren’t for Spike, actually.” Here Rarity smiled at her husband, who blushed. “But wait, we could just show you, darling! Spike, where did you put that comic, once we were finished with it? Twilight didn’t confiscate it, did she? I remember her being rather upset about the whole incident.”

“Nah, she wasn’t that angry. The funny thing is, though, I never could find that book after we all went through it. I looked around in the old castle, when I remembered to go grab it, and it was like it had just vanished!” Spike huffed in consternation. “Actually, I remember I went to the store where I got it, the Canterlot House of Enchanted Comics, a few months after I bought that issue. The clerk was different guy than the one I bought it from, and when I asked about the enchanted comics, he just sort of looked at me weird. Said that the store ‘didn’t carry anything like what I was describing,’ or something.”

“Well, that does seem rather mysterious. Maybe they were just an experiment?”

Illusion now had a contemplative look in his eyes. He set down the box he was levitating to focus his full attention on Spike. “How did it look, in the comic? Actually wait, how did it look when you got sucked in there?”

“Hmm? Oh, it was a bright light. The comic just started glowing – like, a ton – and then it sort of… vacuumed us up, I guess? It pulled at us, maybe like a gravity spell? Actually, I don’t know how they would have found a unicorn good enough to cast a gravity spell for a comic…” Spike trailed off, looking thoughtful. Illusion, noticing, came out of his revere and clapped his hoof and paw together.

“Well, that does sound very interesting. It’s a shame they didn’t make more of those comics: they sound like something my mother would love. But, anyway, shouldn’t we get on with the cleaning? I love to hear about your adventures, Mrs. Rarity, Mr. Spike, but I would hate to keep you here all day.”

“Oh, you’re too kind, darling. You shouldn’t have hear us prattle on about our youths. Now, let’s continue. Spike, next box!” The group soon fell back into a rhythm.

...

Illusion entered the spacious bedchamber of Canterlot Castle through the window, scaling the twenty foot wall with levitation and picking the lock with his claw. It was not a particularly sensible method of entry– but if there was one thing Illusion knew his father couldn’t stomach, it was things making sense.

Discord, true to form, only smiled when his son snaked into the bedroom, looking up from his mahogany-and-French-Toast desk, where he had been snipping holes in some recent court petitions. He waved his scissors in greeting.

“Good to see you’re back, son! Anything interesting happen in Ponyville? Something chaotic, perhaps?” Discorded started snipping another hole in the petition, his scissors making faint train noises as they cut through the parchment.

“Nope. It was pretty quiet, actually,” Illusion replied easily. “I helped Spike and Rarity clean out their attic, while Crys worked on some of her new designs.”

“Hmph. That’s disappointing. I remember back in the good old days– couldn’t have quiet hour in Ponyville without somebody throwing a fit. And every week there was an army of clones or parasprites or animated gingerbread men coming through and tearing the place down. It’s hard to believe that place could ever have become so boring.” Discord finished snipping up the petition. He picked it up, peered through the buffalo-shaped hole that had been sliced into it, and laid it on a stack of other government documents, all of which had been alternatively burned, soaked, diced, or covered in sparkle glue.

“Yeah, it really has changed since you and the Elements used to have your adventures there.” Illusion slipped over to face his father, his body contorting impossibly in the air. “It’s funny, though. While I was there, Spike found some of his old comics, and he told me about one he had that was enchanted.”

Discord’s expression remained unchanged– but the handheld blender in his paw turned into a haddock, which was suspicious enough. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Illusion turned in midair so he looked down at Discord from slightly above him, horns pointed towards the floor. “It sounded like a pretty complicated enchantment. An entire comic book city to explore, and superpowers, and a very convincing villain. Sounds like something that would have taken a good unicorn years to enchant, and Spike said they didn’t charge extra! It’s a real shame that it vanished right after it was used.”

“Indeed,” Discord chimed in, fruitlessly attempting to mangle the next court petition with his fish.

“Yeah! Seems like something out of the ordinary, even for the Elements of Harmony. I mean, what’s the likelihood that a comic that rare wouldn’t be labelled, and would get into the claws of a dragon who just happens to be friends with a Master of Chaos who specializes in complicated, short-lasting reality alteration magic?”

Discord looked at his son’s mock-wondering expression for a moment, the haddock hanging limply in his paws. “Okay, fine, it was me. Are you happy now?”

“No!” Illusion’s face broke into a mile-wide grin. “I want to know how you did it! You never told me you could create a chaos spell that someone else could set off! How did you generate an entire comic city so fast! Or, wait, was it already there? How did you get the city to not change until Spike opened the book if it was already there? ”

“I didn’t.” Discord smiled smugly. “Spike got sucked into the book when he read my note, not when he opened it.”

Illusion glared at his father impotently. Discord snickered.

Illusion frowned, then closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his normally red and yellow pupils and slits were replaced with warm, baby blue puppy dog eyes that could have melted the heart of a Windigo.

Discord crumbled almost instantly. “Okay. Okay, stop!” He stepped back as if the faux-Fluttershy eyes physically burned him. “I’ll tell!” Illusion grinned and blinked. When he reopened his eyes they had returned to his usual red and yellow combination.

Discord rubbed his head with his eagle claw. “Stupid, adorable…Humph! Okay.” He cleared his throat and adopted a lecturing pose. With a snap of his paw, a white blackboard appeared behind him. “Well, for starters, Spike did not set off that particular spell, at least not in the way that you think. Spike–” Discord used a piece of neon purple chalk to draw the dragon onto his board. “–was just quietly reading his book until he got here.” An enlarged image of the final page of the comic joined Spike on the board, complete with indecipherable text. The Spike drawing frowned in confusion and pulled out a magnifying glass. “When dear Spike got to the cliffhanger, he found a teeny, tiny pocket dimension that moi had already arranged. The city, the villain, the rather tasty cream pies, all of that was already stuffed into the piece when he opened it.” As Spike continued to bemusedly eye the comic, a beautiful watercolor city started to leak out from its pages. The city spread across the blackboard, replete with towering skyscrapers, pie vendors, and a team of caped superheroes overlooking a bank.

“But how–” Illusion cut in, only to be silenced by Discord’s tail.

“Now,” Discord continued as if he hadn’t heard, “all of that would be somewhat useless if the entire city was my usual fair. Cotton candy clouds and dancing buffalo are quality chaos, but the problem with anything quality is that it soon becomes cliché. And it would have spoiled the magic of it, too, if they had known that I was responsible. So, to provide some, if you’ll pardon the language, order to the whole work, I used a base. Guess what it was.” On the blackboard, a large red arrow descended from the ceiling to point at the comic Spike was still examining.

“The comic?”

“The comic! And that, dear Illusion, is how you create an alternate universe.” Here Discord drew himself up proudly, as the comic abruptly expanded, twisted, and grabbed an exaggeratedly panicking Spike to throw him into the watercolor city. “Well, not an alternate universe, exactly. More a broom closet of folded space with a bunch of really good chaos making it seem like an alternate universe, but pretty much the same thing, until you add Pinkie Pie.”

“Okay, that’s great,” Illusion said, clearly impatient. “But that doesn’t explain how you kept the ponies and superheroes from all running around or wrecking the city while Spike hadn’t got to the ‘cliffhanger’. Actually, no, you’re entire explanation should be impossible! Even you can’t make things that can think. The Mane-iac and her henchponies, how did you get them to do what you wanted?”

“I can make things that can think.” Discord snapped his fingers and manifesting a frog in his claw. “I just can’t make things that think they can think. A frog isn’t about to carry on a conversation unless Fluttershy asks it to.”

Illusion blinked a little at this logic, but he soon returned to his questioning. “Okay, so then how did you get the Mane-iac to carry on a conversation? And seriously, why didn’t the whole dimension you made go to pieces the moment you made it? You aren’t very good at making things stay still, no offense.”

Discord grinned at his son. It was a grin Illusion had often seen before– the grin that promised something very chaotic was about to happen.

“Well, son, that little miracle came about through the magic–” Discord reached out with surprising speed, grabbing Illusion’s ear and pulling him towards the blackboard. “–of PLOT!” And with a burst of white, Discord and Illusion vanished into the blackboard, which spun over itself several times before revealing a blank, clean plane devoid of any drawings.

...

Powered Comics Fun Fact: The Fantastic Fillies were Powered Comics first team entirely composed of underage members. Instead of Humdrum, who many thought would become the leader of the group, the original Fantastic Fillies consisted of minor Mistress Marevelous ally Gravity Gal, the entirely new superheroine Vibratto, and the Black Scarf, a vigilante anti-hero whose youth belied a brutal and ruthless attitude towards criminals. The team proved a resounding success, doubly remarkable since its membership was so unexpected. Since their inception, the Fantastic Fillies has both added new members and continued to defy expectations, even refusing to join the Power Ponies when they came of age and splintering off to form their own group, the Justice Crusaders. The aftermath of this event lead to the formation of the Power Ponies’ current youth division, Young Harmony.

Author's Note

Thank's for reading! I have elected to take a page out of the book of Pen Stroke and would ask that spelling and grammatical errors be PM'd to me so I can fix them without taking up comment thread space. Comments or criticisms on my writing are of course welcome to as much space as they need.

Author's Notes

Character Selection

The doorbell of the Canterlot House of Enchanted Comics rung pleasantly as Illusion stepped into the establishment. The few other shoppers; a father and his son, a pair of teenaged colts, and a lone filly, paid him no mind. A salespony looked up from behind his counter when Illusion entered, but soon returned to reading one of the store’s merchandise.

Illusion’s black-furred face didn’t move, but inside he was smug. Coal disguise still works after sixteen years. He had been careful, but he figured somepony would have cottoned on to the fact that the black earth pony was a false identity. It was either a sign of just how powerful a good illusion was… or a sign of just how oblivious ordinary ponies were. Illusion figured he didn’t want or need to know the real reason.

As he approached the comics section of the store, Illusion shook himself out of his thoughts. He was here on a mission, after all. He needed some very specific comics, if he wanted his plans to succeed. A rousing adventure, a fun and lighthearted dalliance, and one that was terrifyingly tragic.

…

Illusion walked towards the Canterlot House of Enchanted Comics slowly, deep in thought. He had no real worries about practicing the Story Spell– if Discord could pull it off with a chalkboard, it stood to reason that Illusion could use a children’s book or a piece of chicken scratch to work the bugs out before he enchanted a proper comic. The real question was who, precisely, would be the recipient of his work.

I could use it on Crys. Illusion had pranked his fillyfriend on more occasions than he cared to count, but had always made up with her afterward. Moreover, a big adventure through a fantastic world would be a great break from her work, and Illusion could probably arrange the comic so he could join her, or she could bring along her family. Though, that might not work out so well. Turquoise, Crys’s brother, was a cool guy, but Illusion got the distinct sense that he had… mixed feelings about the Prince of Illusions going out with his sister. And Crys’s cousin, Pixel Bit… didn’t Crys and her not get along?

Actually, Illusion thought, Crys may be sort of freaked out about this. Anypony would be freaked out about this, but if I go in with her, then she’ll know it was me. Being trapped in a really rather tiny space with an aggravated dracony… was something Illusion had very little experience with, and he heartily wished it to stay that way.

I could just tell her about it from the beginning, give her the comic as a gift. Except then I won’t be able to prank anypony else! It was true– once he pranked his first victims, there wouldn’t be much shock value to any pranks he pulled afterward. The Story Spell was brilliant, but it wouldn’t have the same effect if you knew it was all just in your head.

Okay, so I need to find the perfect pony to prank with my first book. Not Crys, but then who… Illusion’s thoughts were interrupted when he realized he had nearly taken a wrong turn. Chuckling slightly, he corrected himself, before lapsing back into his introspection.

Starburst would be great. Yeah, actually she’s be perfect. She’s always wanted to join the guard, but how cool is being a guard compared with being a superhero! Besides, she’s way too serious; I’m sure a fun adventure would help her loosen up. Oh, and Cotton Candy, she also loves to have fun. She pranks almost as many ponies as me, too, so she won’t mind. I probably shouldn’t give her a scary story, though.

Illusion frowned. But I can’t give them both a comic… Or wait. Can’t I? Did Dad say anything about that? Illusion grinned abruptly, even as he realized he had now missed the path to the House of Enchanted Comics. Even as he backtracked, though, he was gleefully imagining the possibilities.

I don’t have to make just one comic. I could give everypony in Ponyville one! Except that would probably cause a national panic. Actually, it might cause a panic even if half a dozen ponies vanish. Illusion tried to remember how much time had passed when he and Discord had been in the blackboard. I think it was faster in the story, but not by very much. How long would going through a whole comic take? If it takes a few hours, even, that might make ponies nervous.

Okay, so only a few comics. I can definitely make one for Starburst and one for Candy. And one more. Maybe Del? Illusion considered for a moment. Nah, he’s just go through the entire thing all stoically and then scold me for taking time away from his chores. Illusion snickered slightly at the image of Del looking at the Mane-iac cackling and raising his eyebrow. That would be sort of funny, but no. Maybe Nidra? No, wait…

Illusion’s face split into an evil grin, transforming his expression so completely his malefic glee showed through the Coal disguise. The fires of Tartarus itself seemed to ignite behind his irises, and a unicorn who caught sight of the prince’s expression dropped his groceries and cowered back.

Prism Bolt, Illusion thought as he walked indifferently past the terrified unicorn. This is going to be fun.

…

Now that he was in the store, Illusion looked over the available comics. It wouldn’t do to give the wrong sort of story to the wrong sort of hero– or, in the case of Prism Bolt, victim.

Starburst first. Illusion figured the serious pegasus would want a sort of serious story, and so he first looked towards the darker hued covers. Pictures of terrifying monsters weren’t what he wanted, at least not yet, but for Starburst, maybe a detective comic?

After a few minutes of searching Illusion didn’t find anything he thought would suit his purposes. Maybe I’m thinking about this wrong. Starburst is serious, but the whole point of giving her a comic is to get her to lighten up. So maybe something a little less gritty, and something more like what Starburst wants to do. Really wants to do, not just train. Hmm… She wants to be a guard, but she also wants to be the Captain of the Guard. So maybe something where she gets to lead a team?

Illusion searched for another half-minute before he found it. The title was white text: Marvel Mare Issue 34. Underneath the heading, the comic depicted what Illusion assumed was the titular superheroine, an earth pony clad in a red and white-striped costume, standing beside another earth pony whose defining feature seemed to be his unnecessarily enormous greaves. What caught Illusion’s attention, though, was the subtitle: Marvel Mare and Earthshaker team up to face the terrifying Questing Beast! Will Marvel Mare lead her young sidekick to victory? Or will they both fall to the unrelenting hunter? It sounded almost like a leadership exercise– something that Illusion believed was lacking from Starburst’s usual training regimen.

Illusion nodded to himself, then picked up Marvel Mare Issue 34. That was Starburst taken care of. Now for Cotton Candy. Definitely a less serious personality than Star. She would probably prefer something cheerier.

Okay, what do I know about Candy? She’s fun-loving, definitely. And sociable, her mother is Pinkie Pie, after all. Illusion tapped his hoof on his mouth. Hmm… She’s a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, I think. And didn't she say something about not liking big crowds, last time we meet up?

Illusion mentally frowned again. What would Candy most like to do in an afternoon, if she had the entire world of comic adventures open to her?

Sort of a moot question, considering that Illusion knew next to nothing about the world of comic adventures. Okay, then what would she do if she could just do anything? Illusion thought. Maybe try out a new job, I guess, or spend the day with her friends. Hmmmm…

Just as there hadn’t been anything to prevent Illusion from making more than one comic, there wasn’t anything to say he couldn’t send two ponies into the same comic. The obvious problem would be getting the right two ponies to read the comic simultaneously, but surely Illusion could arrange it so Candy would be with at least one one of her friends when she reached the spell.

Okay then. Another team story, more lighthearted, and something outside of the norm, something Candy wouldn’t have tried before. Not a problem for a spirit of chaos. Illusion searched the shelves once again.

He found it rapidly. Only a few spots down from where he had picked the Marvel Mare issue, there was a comic depicting what appeared to be… the world’s evilest baker.

The comic, Illusion noted as he picked it up, showed a laughing griffin feeding a tincture into a high-tech oven, which was in the midst of spitting out huge, beige-colored blobs of goo. More blobs of goo, having congealed into approximately equine forms with the vaguest impressions of faces, were menacing a pair of mares, an earth pony and a unicorn, with pink and purple costumes. The comic was titled Young Harmony Issue 117, subtitled Monsieur Maladie strikes back!

… Monsieur Maladie? Oh. Right. The blobs were virus-ponies or something. Not cake batter. Silly of Illusion to think so. Still, he thought as he looked over the comic, it does look like something Candy might like. The villain, in particular, looked slightly ridiculous, with a massive mustache and an apron stained with the virus-pony-batter. He was also rather fat, a condition Illusion hadn’t seen in a griffin before.

Illusion looked at the heroines. The earth pony reminded Illusion of Candy immediately. She was wearing a clown mask, except it was pink instead of the usual white, matching the mare’s mane. She also had a speech bubble attached to her, containing what Illusion assumed was a quip for the villain. “Alas, the Gloopy Fiends of Aeon-Spanning Sluggishness! Our grandfoals’ grandfoals are surely doomed!” didn’t make sense in many other contexts.

Illusion thought it over. Candy probably wouldn’t be one for a super-serious fight to save the world, but I don’t think she would mind being a superhero. It almost definitely qualifies as something she hasn’t done before. And, um… Monsieur Maladie doesn’t seem like a very nasty villain, either. Actually, wait, isn’t Candy a bad baker? Illusion contemplated that for a moment, then placed Young Harmony Issue 117 into his saddlebag. It’s kind of ironic, and she’ll probably get a laugh out of it no matter what.

That was Starburst and Cotton Candy down. That left Prism Bolt. Illusion grinned, this time mercifully on the inside.

So many ways I could do this. Mortally terrifying? To brutish. Mind shatteringly surreal? Not honestly sure they have that…

Illusion pondered the comics before him, recalling how he had been contemplating Starburst’s and Candy’s likes when selecting their comics. Except I don’t know Prism well at all. Well, I know he’s an arrogant blockhead who’s in love with himself, but everypony knows that.

Although… I could work with that. A comic that would bring him down a peg. One where the hero loses? How would the Story Spell work on a cliffhanger? Illusion considered his options. Probably beats out something scary or surreal. Oh, I could give him a story where he thinks he’s winning, and then all of a sudden he realizes the other guy’s just been stringing him along. Or wait, I could find one where he gets beat and a teammate has to bail him out, or one where he almost wins, but just barely doesn’t, like whenever he and Hot Head compete!

More options than he had started with. Illusion shook his head. What would really put him out of his depth? He almost wished he had spent more time with Prism, arrogance aside, just so he could pull off this prank right.

… Actually, there is another problem. Illusion didn’t really know how Prism would go through any particular comic. He couldn’t control the Story Spell like one of his usual illusions, making it follow his will, because Prism would be the one driving the carriage, so to speak. Anything Illusion intended for Prism to do could be subverted, ignored, or bypassed by the stallion himself, and a dramatic, resounding failure could be turned into a cliche-ridden flop.

He might even get his character killed before the story ends, Illusion thought sourly. The Story Spell, like most illusions, posed no physical risk to its subjects, but it stood to reason something as derailing as having the the main character die would promptly end the spell’s effects.

Thinking of the Story Spell, Illusion recalled what his father had said. A lesson for you on the downsides of planning, son.

… I’m probably overthinking this. I don’t need to control everything Prism experienced to a T just to pull off a good prank. It might work better, even, if Prism has enough freedom to fail completely on his own. Illusion gazed over the rows of colorful comics with measured contemplation. I can give him just enough rope to hang himself. Metaphorically. I just need to find something that’ll throw Prism off guard, a really big twist, and then be ready to gloat.

So all that remained was finding a really big twist. Illusion pondered the covers. He doubted any spoilers would be portrayed on the front of a comic. I can’t possibly go through all of these and look for good pranking material without taking hours! And I’d probably miss some of the really good ones, too! Illusion tapped his hoof against the ground a few times, his patience fraying. Recognizing this fact made him think of the breathing exercises his mother had taught him– and that lead him to think of his mother.

Don’t try to do everything by yourself, Illusion. As rulers, we have to deal with issues in every subject under the sun – or the moon – but that doesn’t mean we can’t ask for advice. One of Celestia’s more common idioms for ruling.

Illusion definitely didn’t have time to go through all of these comics by himself, but he didn’t need to. A much more knowledgeable pony sat barely ten feet from him.

Illusion approached the sales clerk with a measured expression. He would need an alibi…

The clerk looked up. He was a blue coated unicorn with a white mane, his cutie mark invisible from behind the counter. The comic he was reading depicted a huge, malformed creature, surrounded by tiny spots of color, flattening buildings.

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked. His voice pegged him to be younger than Illusion first thought.

“Yes, actually,” Illusion replied as inspiration struck him. “I’m buying comic books for a few of my friends, but I’m having trouble finding something for one of them. I don’t really follow most of the series, but my friend, I know he really likes stories that have big twists.”

“Twists?” The salespony raised an eyebrow as he got up.

“Yes, twists. Surprises, unexpected directions. I was going to buy him a story where the hero has to suff–erm, experience something quite shocking.”

“Huh. So you want to know which stories have big twists in them? I assume you’d like something recent?” the salespony asked.

“That would be best.”

“Well, okay. Erm, there was a really big reveal about Jestress’s-“

“Sorry,” Illusion cut him off, “I probably should have been more clear. I’m really looking for more action-related twists. Fights that didn’t end like it seemed they would, clever tricks, that sort of thing.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I haven’t read it yet, but I know the second Harbinger Arc is out and it’s almost guaranteed to have something like that. It’s more than one comic, though.”

And therefore would be useless unless Illusion stapled a half-dozen booklets together, which would definitely tip Prism off. “Sorry, I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“Ok, um… Oh! I just read The Deviants Issue 41. It was actually more about Spectrum, Aerial, and
Birr, though. You probably have no idea who they are. Erm, it was about the big fight between the Deviants and Spectrum. It’s sort of been coming for a long time, but the actual fight was a bit sudden and nobody expected Spectrum to lose as badly as he did–”

“The villain wins?” Illusion asked. That sounded like almost exactly what he was looking for.

“Well, the Deviants aren’t villains, exactly, but yeah, they defeated Spectrum pretty soundly. And it was kind of out of left field, because everypony thought they weren’t going to fight until after the second Harbinger Arc.”

“I’ll take it,” Illusion abruptly decided. It sounded like just the sort of story he was looking for. Prism and Spectrum, even their names are alike. “Ah, and both of these too, please.” Illusion laid the comics he had placed in his saddlebags on the counter, then waited while the clerk returned with the issue of The Deviants.

“That’ll be… thirty seven bits. I hope your friends enjoy those comics.” The clerk dropped the three books into a bag as Illusion hoofed him the money.

That is the plan. Illusion thought as he walked out of the store. Well… it’s the idea, anyway.

…

The sunrise over Ponyville broke slowly, rich in red and orange streaks. The Apple Family, accompanied by a certain orange pegasus guest, would likely have risen from their slumber, but few others stirred. The marketplace was all but abandoned, the footpaths and wide streets empty of traffic. Only a few buildings showed any signs of activity.

One of these rare establishments was the Ponyville Post Office, whose chief mailmare demanded an early schedule to better manage the inevitable mixups she had developed a keen understanding of during her career. Even as the sun won free of the horizon to show its full glory, the mailponies of Ponyville were arriving to start sorting, stacking, and distributing the day’s mail.

As the post office started to hum with activity, a lonely crow winged its way down to perch in a tree a few feet from the office’s exterior mailbox, resting itself as it watched the latecomers straggle in. Its beady eyes betrayed no sign of its hidden purpose, nor did its gait or posture convey anything of its mischievous intent.

The real tell was when the branch broke.

With a snap that echoed like a cannon in the early morning stillness, the crow and its failing perch both suddenly found themselves at the mercy of gravity, The bird, flopping wildly, smacked against both the branch and the tree on the way down. With a less resounding but more drawn-out crunch, it crashed to the ground, concluding its impact by vanishing amidst a flash of white light. Illusion groaned, his body bruised from his unintended descent.

Slowly, painfully, Illusion raised himself up. It took him a few seconds to remember his intention of stealth, and a few more to reform the crow disguise. Illusion worked quickly, but the light from his magic still glowed brightly in the early dawn light.

Once the crow had reformed, sharing a few of its creator’s injuries, it looked around. Fortunately, it seemed nobody had witnessed Illusion briefly revealing himself. Croaking in satisfaction, the crow flapped up to the mailbox, where it landed, hunching over.

The crow perched on the mailbox, seemingly unconcerned despite its bedraggled appearance. It gave a short caw, moved its head as if trying to catch something out of the corner of its eye, and then started to preen its battered feathers.

As the crow attended to its wing, the mailbox door slide softly open. There was a faint pop accompanied by a flash of light, and a manila envelope was dropped into the mail slot.

The crow, its preening abandoned midway through, glanced about furtively.

Seeing nothing amiss, it went back to working on its feathers. Two more small pops with accompanying flashes sounded before the mailbox closed. With a final surreptitious sweep, the crow flew off. It first angled towards the same tree it had perched in after arriving, but then seemed to think better of it and instead landed on the post office roof.

The crow stood there, silent save for the occasional caw, until it witnessed a mailpony emerge from the office, unlock the back of the box, and slip is contents into his saddlebags. He paid no attention to the three manila packages among his cargo.

The crow flew away, its work complete. Once it had gotten far enough from Ponyville that it would be out of the eyes of any early weather patrols, the crow flashed and changed back into the shape of Illusion. He grinned. His hard work was finished, and now came the fun part. It is, as Dad would say, time to sit back and let the cartoon take its course.

Illusion had always wondered what a cartoon was, but he hadn’t asked. It wasn’t as though his father’s sayings made sense.

…

Powered Comics Fun Fact: Of all the Power Ponies, Saddle Rager is unquestionably the most powerful in direct physical confrontations, and the Masked Matterhorn the most versatile and technically experienced heroine. However, in terms of reach, battlefield control, and overall firepower, both of these mares are outclassed by Zapp, whose meterokinesis makes her the strongest Power Pony in the sky. Zapp is more than just a mare with a magic amulet: her Thunderbolt contains the essence of the Roaman deity Zapp Fulmina, a pegasi weather goddess. With access to the all the sacrifices, stories, loyalty, and even the identity accorded to Zapp Fulmina by the ancient Roamans, the modern Zapp possess power, wisdom, and slightly reckless bravery in spades. She is both one of the Power Ponies’ strongest members and their expert on ancient magic. Zapp has only recently lost her monopoly on the power of the ancient Roaman pantheon: she now shares it with Young Harmony’s Birr, holder of the Icicle of Birr Stiriaque, Zapp’s mythological younger brother.

Author's Note

Author's Notes

Welcome to Maretropolis

Prism Bolt grinned. The town of Ponyville was a tiny speck below him, and he could feel the cold air moving past his coat and feathers. Here, far above the world, a pony would ordinarily feel inspired, or terrified. Prism felt neither. He simply continued to lazily turn and bank in the air, unconcerned with his fantastic surroundings.

Prism sighed in contentment. Here, above the world, he could see for miles, and nothing and nopony could bring him down. He spun into a loop-de-loop, then turned it into a flying square just for the heck of it, laughing and whooping, turning with such speed he seemed to be bouncing off of invisible walls.

Prism’s trail extending out from behind him as he flew faster. He rarely exerted himself, flew to his full potential, but when he did it felt great. Today it was almost liberating: Prism’s muscles were unstressed despite his exertion, and the way the wind blew in the high atmosphere was–

Wake up.

–odd, strong but more energizing than it was pushing. Even as Prism banked directly into the headwinds, it felt easy, more similar to pushing against a spring than fighting a gale.

Wake up.

He closed his eyes and coasted as he reversed directions and let the wind take him. With it at his back, flight became all but effortless, and Prism knew that this was where he ruled. Nopony else could ride the currents so easily, defy them so easily, as he could. He was one of the greatest fliers in Equestria, and–

WAKE UP!

Prism jumped, leaping forward and disrupting his covers. He blinked a few times, trying to process the sudden juxtaposition of his fading dream and the scene in front of him.

His room was unchanged from how he last remembered it. Prism’s floor was cluttered, with a combination of prizes, medals, posters, and other effects strewn about without much care. Prism’s bed sat opposite to the door, covered in blue and yellow Wonderbolts sheets he had never gotten around to changing. And Prism’s little brother, Icy Storm, was frowning at him. Judging from the fact that he was the only other pony in the room, he was the one who had been yelling.

Prism took all this in for a moment, then smirked. “What’s up, squirt?”

“You, finally.” Icy’s frown remained unchanged. Prism’s grin only grew larger at his sibling’s severe expression. “It’s afternoon.”

Prism glanced at his clock, which did, indeed, read twelve forty-five. “Yeah. So? It’s a Sunday. No weather patrol. Why do you care?”

Icy’s frown got even more severe for a moment, before he closed his eyes and groaned. When he reopened them, his annoyance had been replaced with a more fatigued tone. “You promised that you and I would go meet Whirlwind at two, to help her with her new flying trick. You said you’d be ready so she could impress the Wonderbolts who’re coming for the air show a week from now.”

Prism grumbled as he thought back. Whirlwind had asked him to help her with the trick, a particularly elaborate spin that she couldn’t seem to get down. From what she had told Prism yesterday, she and Icy had been trying the maneuver for days without success, and in the end, she had grown so frustrated and frightened she wouldn’t master it in time to wow the Wonderbolts that she had asked Prism for help.

A request, that serious and from Whirlwind, was something he couldn’t refuse. Prism started to get out of bed, but he continued talking as he freed himself from the covers. “That isn’t for another hour. She shouldn’t be so stressed over it, either. The Wonderbolts are a waste of time. She could be having fun, instead!”

“She normally is, thanks to you.” Icy rolled his eyes, starting to leave. “Dad made lunch. Oh, and somepony sent you a package, it just arrived.”

At this, Prism perked up, throwing of the covers and flying after Icy. “A package? What was it? Who sent it?”

“It wasn’t the Wonderbolts, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Icy replied sarcastically as he entered the large cloud-house’s dining room. He gestured to a manila envelope on the table. “There wasn’t any return address.”

Prism snorted as he picked up the letter. “You wish you got stuff from the Wonderbolts...” He trailed off as he looked more closely at the package. The envelope was thick, and felt like it had paper inside. Even if it wasn’t from the Wonderbolts, it still might have been some official document, which given Prism’s pranking history could have been good or bad. Prism ripped it open with slight trepidation.

When the contents of the package came out, though, Prism was bemused. Instead of a lengthy packet of legalese, or even a promotional booklet, the wrapping had held a comic book, with a depiction of a white-clad pegasus stallion flying on the front cover. The title read The Deviants Issue 41.

“Did you order that?” Icy asked, looking over at the book from the hallway entrance. “I didn’t know you read comics.”

“I don’t. Don’t need to read a book about people dressing up and doing cool tricks when I could do that anytime I wanted.”

“Sure. And I think they fight crime, actually.” Icy turned and walked towards the downstairs bathroom.

Prism huffed as he looked over the glossily-covered book. He had picked up comics a few times when he was younger. Cotton Candy had given him some when he was younger, but he had never really gotten into them.

As he considered the comic, he noticed a small slip of paper stuck into the inside cover. Hoping for answers, he pulled it out. It was a short letter, written in neat, tidy script.

Prism Bolt,
Consider this a gift for services rendered. Though I know you probably aren’t a big comics fan, I nonetheless hope you can find the time to read this book. The ending is more complex than you think, and I’m certain you’ll appreciate it once you solve the puzzle.

Sincerely,
A friend

Prism read over the brief message again, flummoxed. Who sent this? Who'd just sign it as some mystery “friend”? And who did I help who'd send me a comic book? This isn't like Candy or Whirlwind...

Prism considered the letter, and then the comic again, but couldn’t make head or tails of it. Eventually, he tucked the paper back into the book, then placed it back on the table, before sitting down to eat a belated breakfast.

He was only midway through some left-over hay and cheese sandwiches when Icy walked out of the bathroom, hair combed and teeth brushed.. He looked at the comic, back where it had started, before turning to Prism. “Did you find out who sent it?”

Prism looked up from his sandwich. “No. It was weird. It had a letter in it, but it didn’t say who it was from. Just that the ending was special or something.”

“Are you going to read it? Maybe whoever sent it was trying to surprise you.” Icy flew over and picked up the glossy volume.

“Yeah, maybe. I thought you wanted me to help out Whirlwind, though?” Prism asked

“I do,” Icy replied, flipping through a few of the beginning pages. They mostly dealt with the white-clad stallion from the front, along with a few other pegasi.

Prism took another bit from his sandwich, clearly unconcerned. “Then I’ll read it when I want to. That’s what you’re supposed to do with comics, they aren’t schoolbooks. If you’re so curious, anyway, why don’t you read it?”

“Maybe I will.” Icy said challengingly as he flipped the comic closed. Holding it in his hoof, he moved towards the house’s anteroom, where his saddlebags were hung.

He turned before he went through the door. “Just... try not to be late, okay, Prism? I don’t want to have to push you out the door and then race after you when you blitz over there. I don’t want to be late for Whirlwind.” With that, he turned and made his way out of the room.

Prism Bolt looked curiously after him for a moment, then huffed and returned to his meal.

...

Cotton Candy had already finished cleaning Ponyville Park, repairing Cranky Doodle’s favorite lawn chair, helping Aloe and Lotus with the spa, and babysitting Silver Spoon’s daughter by the time the mail arrived at Sugarcube Corner. It was pure luck Candy was even there to witness it; she was nearly finished with a late lunch and was getting ready to meet up with Claire and Anthea for one of their regular “girl talks”.

By the time the blue-clad mailpony dropped the letters into the extra-large mailbox (a necessity for an establishment routinely bombarded by party R.S.V.P.s), the Corner was already reacting.

“I’ll get it!” Cloudy Skies shouted. She practically rocketed out the door, narrowly avoiding crashing into the counter, the doorframe, and the mailbox itself as her twin, Sugar Rush, came after her. When the duo arrived at the mailbox, however, they found it already empty, and turned just in time to see a distinctive pink blur moving back into the Corner.

Pinkie Pie was already flipping through the assortment of letters when the twins reentered the shop. “ –invitation reply, invitation reply, invitation reply, oooh a bill! Invitation reply, invitation reply, magic comic for Candy, invitation reply. Okay, eight more ponies are coming for the ‘Hurray the Wonderbolts Came’ party, so we’ll need eight more chairs, eight more cupcakes, eight more Wonderbolts replica flying goggles, eight more bottles of sarsaparilla …” Pinkie’s party planning monologue continued as she bounced up the stairs to arrange for the additional ponies.

Pumpkin Cake, chuckling as he dodged around Pinkie, levitated the remaining letters to himself. Keeping them floating in front of his muzzle, he stepped over Cloudy Skies as she shot off to another part of the store, navigating effortlessly towards the counter. When he reached, it, he set the letters down one by one, before stopping at a large envelope on the bottom. “Candy!”

Cotton Candy looked over from where she has been finishing her salad. She sat at a small table far from most of the other residents of the Corner, quiet as she worked her way through the leafy greens. Only a few scraps of salad remained, and these Candy hastily ate before getting up.

As she approached the counter, Pumpkin Cake levitated the manila envelope over to her. “It was addressed to you. Guess whoever sent it knew you normally help out here. Or knew Pinkie does, at any rate.”

“Thanks, Mr. Cake!” Candy replied, taking the envelope. As she did, Pumpkin Cake picked up the rest of the mail and levitated it behind the counter in a rough stack.

Candy looked over the manila package as the usual controlled chaos of Sugarcube Corner carried on around her. The package had her name written on it, but bore no mark of a sender. The address was written plainly but neatly in black ink.

*Crash!* “Cloudy!”

Candy jumped as the noise jolted the Corner into brief stillness. Looking for the source of the disturbance, Candy found Pound Cake, Pumpkin’s twin, admonishing Cloudy Skies and Sugar Rush, both of whom were surrounded by dropped baking pans and the contents of an overturned bookshelf. The twins looked contrite, but Pound Cake seemed unusually concerned about the books. “Those were gifts from Princess Twilight herself!”

Pumpkin sighed. “Those two. It sometimes amazes me they aren’t even the worst in town... Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be insulting your sisters.”

Candy nodded in understanding. “It’s okay, I know they can be a bit of a hoofull sometimes. They always mean well, though.”

“Yes, they always do…” Pumpkin Cake looked away from where Pound was setting the bookshelf back upright, back to Candy. “I probably should go help with that. Is there anything else you need?”

“Nope! I’m good, but I could help too if you need it.”

“Thanks, Candy, but I thought you were meeting Fluttershy’s daughter now.” Pumpkin motioned to the clock.

When Candy followed his hoof, she jumped, then rushed back towards her table, words trailing behind her. “Oh, you’re right, and I’m gonna be late! Thanks, Mr. Cake, I’ve got to go, I’m sorry I couldn’t help, thanks for the meal–”

“It’s fine, Candy. Don’t forget your mail!” Pumpkin levitated the package, which Candy had dropped while galloping away, after her. Candy caught it sheepishly and stowed it in her saddlebags, then made for the door.

She kept running for about a minute before she realized she needed to slow down. Her sense of direction was notoriously poor, and Candy knew that running away from her friends was only going to guarantee she’d be late. Instead, Candy slowed to a brisk trot and looked around, trying to remember if she was on the right route.

It seemed so. There was Quills and Sofas… And a few places down was Claire’s shop, Hearthfire Jewelry. Definitely on the right track. All I need to do now is go straight ahead!

Which she did. As Candy continued forward, however, her thoughts returned to the package she had received. It wasn’t rare for her to get mail, but it was rare for the mail to be a thick envelope with no mention of a sender. It’s like something out of a mystery novel. Who would have sent it?

As Candy continued to trot down the street, occasionally glancing about to make certain she was going the right way, she continued to ruminate on the package. Finally, in an impressive display of hoof coordination only a child of Pinkie Pie could have achieved, she brought the envelope out of her saddlebags and ripped it open, still trotting forward.

Inside the manila envelope was a small volume with bright illustrations, titled Young Harmony Issue 98. Candy started to look over the cover, but then paused as she caught sight of a small slip of paper tucked into the book. When Candy pulled it out, she discovered it was a short letter.

Dear Cotton Candy,
Thanks for always being cheerful! You’ve always brightened up my day when you could, and I know you’ve done the same with all your friends. I hope you enjoy this comic book; please feel free to share it with somepony. With luck, it will bring you both a little bit of the joy you’ve always brought me.

Sincerely,A friend

Candy’s face scrunched up in concentration as she read over the letter once again. I may not have Mom’s Pinkie Sense, but I know there’s something off about this. None of my friends could’ve written this. Starburst definitely wouldn’t go on about how I always cheered her up, she always acts all stern and practical. Del wouldn’t have sent me a mystery letter, and neither would T! I don’t think Claire would have, either, or Prism. Unless this is a prank. How would you play a prank with a comic book? Maybe Annie sent this. Yeah, she might have sent this sort of letter, if she got someone else to write for her, but then why wouldn’t she tell me? And why a comic?

Abruptly, Candy remembered why she was trotting through the streets. I’ll ask Annie about it right now! Then she saw Barnyard Bargains and realized she had overshot her meeting place. But only if I’m not late!

...

*Thunk* The solidly built tree rattled under the impact, but it refused to yield its red fruits; they stayed firmly attached to the branches that swung above Sweet Apple Acres. As the echo of the impact faded, the branches returned to their slow waving, making a slow but constant susurration.

Princess Starburst frowned up at the apples. Despite years of work on the farm, she could never match its owners when it came to bucking the trees. Del had assured her this wasn’t her fault: half of apple bucking relied on earth pony magic instead of raw strength, and earth ponies hardly lacked for strength, either. Nonetheless, it still galled Star that she needed to buck trees three times or more to achieve what Golden Delicious or Red June could accomplish with a single, powerful impact.

Starburst shook her head to clear out the dejected thoughts, then gathered herself up again and bucked the tree again. This time, a few apples fell into the arranged baskets. On the third strike, more joined them; the fourth saw all but a few apples fall into the containers.

As Starburst readied herself to buck the tree for the fifth time, Golden Delicious trotted into the orchard. He had been working just as long as Star had, and was slightly sweaty for it, but unlike the smaller mare his breathing was easy, and his bearing calm and collected.

Del looked at Starburst as she finished bucking the tree free of apples. They both had been up since early in the morning, working hard, but Starburst had only been bucking for about an hour. Del had been reluctant to let her, as she almost invariably burnt out bucking trees, far faster than doing any other task.

It was a fear still reflected in Del's face; he looked worriedly after Star as she moved on to the next tree. She was perspiring heavily, and her small frame shook occasionally with the early stages of exhaustion.

“You know, you could have jus’ moved the baskets over to the barn while I bucked. Or picked the apples. No need to go off an’ work this hard all on yer own.” Starburst turned to look at him, breathing heavily.

“I wanted to… I need… to get stronger… and bucking… apples… helps out. A lot.” Starburst’s small chest was heaving like a pair of bellows.

Del nodded slowly, but Starburst could tell he still had qualms. “What… Are you doing here… anyway? If you wanted to check on me… I’m fine.” Starburst straightened herself, slowly recovering her breath. She adjusted her ribbon slightly, to move her bangs out of her eyes.

“No, I came to get you, actually. Red June wanted us to help her sorting her cherries, and Ah thought it would be a nice change of pace.”

Star blinked a little at that. Red June was the first Apple in many years to grow something other than the family’s namesake produce. It was rare that she asked anypony for help, even for something as simple as sorting. Maybe concerned her family wouldn’t respect her work enough, a situation Star was unfortunately familiar with. She refocused on Del. “Why did she need help? Not that I don’t want to, but I thought June normally likes to handle her cherries on her own.”

“Eeyup. Api pulled her away from them. She got her chores done early today and since then she’s sorta been all over the place with her friends. Which wouldn’t be that much of a problem, except now they’re all missing, along with two bales of hay, some of Aunt Bloom’s tools, six sackcloth bags, Api's wagon, and all of our mail.”

Star blinked.

“That’s what June said. She’s hunting them down right now, but we don’t even know what Api’s off doing, so it might take a while.

“Okay. So we’re going to take over for her today?”

“Eeyup. Jus’ until she gets back. Hopefully with our mail in one piece.” Star didn’t laugh. “Nothing very big, jus’ sorting out the cherries and packing them.”

Starburst looked up at the trees, still ripe with fruit. She wanted to keep bucking, keep working on her strength, but she knew June would be relying on them to keep her cherry farm running while she dealt with Api. Starburst shuddered a little: she didn’t know any of the founding members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders that well, but she had heard both her and Del’s mother’s stories. As far as Starburst could tell, Api was the entire trio’s energy, stubbornness, and boundless determination reincarnated into a single, pint-sized form. Star admired Api, in a lot of ways, but…

“Okay,” Star said, resolved to at least ensure that Red June wouldn’t have to deal with farm work after being covered in tree sap. “I’ll just get these over to the barn. Then we can go and sort cherries.”

“Ah’ll help.” Del moved to gather up some of the baskets. Starburst looked like she wanted to protest, but she swallowed it and moved to assist him.

...

“Great! Just like that!” Prism called. He was lounging on a cloud, but his eyes were trained on Whirlwind, who was flying above him. She pulled a loop-de-loop, apparently pleased with her success.

It had taken them some time, between Prism’s reluctance to teach and Whirlwind’s difficulty in learning, but they had finally started to make progress with Whirlwind’s trick. The maneuver had been deceptively difficult – it was fortunate neither of them had crashed – but Prism, once he mustered the effort, had mastered it. After that, he had started to teach Whirlwind, and in the end had retired to his cloud once she had learned enough to finish memorizing the trick on her own.

Whirlwind was preparing to try again as Prism watched. Flying straight across their impromptu training field, she rolled, flipping over in midair. For a brief moment, she flew upside down and backwards; then she rolled again, returning to her former position.

“Nice one, Dubz!” Prism called again. He smirked– the trick didn’t look easy, but he had mastered it quickly and still had managed to teach Whirlwind. The Whirligig Roll, as a she had called it, fit well into his natural talent for high speed agility and turns. The trick didn’t look easy, but to him, it had been.

Prism watched Whirlwind for a little longer, then looked down, towards a cloud floating twenty meters or so below him. Icy sat there, looking slightly morose and reading the comic book Prism had received. He had tried to master the trick too, but had failed. Not really his fault, given his age, but Icy had grown steadily more dejected as Prism easily got the hang of the Whirligig Roll and then coached Whirlwind through it. Eventually, he had given up on helping the two and had moved to the lower cloud, where he stole glances at Whirlwind while skimming through the comic.

Prism’s attention shifted as Whirlwind came in to land in front of him. He didn’t get up, but raised himself slightly from the cloud and shot her a grin.

“So, you think you’ve got it down?” Prism asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“Yeah,” Whirlwind replied. She saw Prism’s smirk and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Ah, stop it! I would’ve figured it out without your help eventually. No need to praise your skills as a teacher.”

“How about I praise my skills as a flyer, then? Cause I totally nailed that trick in ten seconds flat!” Prism responded cockily.

Whirlwind punched him again. “Yeah, I know, you’re brilliant. Thanks for helping, really. I want to go and fly a little more to cool off, but then we could go to Sugarcube Corner or something.”

“Okay, sounds cool.” Prism settled back onto his cloud. Whirlwind prepared to take off, then spoke.

“You want to come flying, or…?”

“Naah,” Prism replied easily, waving a hoof. “I’m just gonna chill for a while. Maybe Icy’ll come, though.” Whirlwind nodded, then moved over to look at Icy’s cloud. She frowned and pivoted her head searchingly, then started when Icy dropped down from above her.

“Do either of you have a magnifying glass?” Icy asked. He realized he was standing close to Whirlwind, and stepped back a little, turning his face away from her.

“No,” Prism said, plainly flummoxed. “Why would we have a magnifying glass? Why would you want a magnifying glass?

Icy frowned slightly as Whirlwind looked on in silence. He took out the comic Prism had been mailed and flipped to the end, holding it out towards both of the older ponies.

“There’s something weird at the end of this. The comic just stops all of a sudden, right in the middle of the story. There’s a blank page in the back, with a little message written on it, except it’s too small for me to read.” Icy stopped as Prism took the comic out of his hooves, looking over the ending page. Prism couldn’t tell much about the story, but he could see the writing, slightly above the bottom left of the blank page at the back. It was miniscule– even squinting, he couldn’t make out what it said.

“Maybe it’s just the copyright and stuff. Where do they normally put that in comics?” Prism asked, holding the volume loosely. Whirlwind moved closer to look at it.

“In the front cover. They wouldn’t make it so small you couldn’t read it, either.” Icy folded his hooves, then Whirlwind abruptly grabbed the comic out of Prism’s.

“Hey!”

Whirlwind ignored the outburst. “Oh, be quiet, I’ve got this.” She leaned in to look at the small text. “I’ve got the best eyes out of any pegasus in town. It says… ‘You may return to the place you’ve known when Spectrum is lost to his own.”

“What the heck does that mean?” Prism looked confusedly at Icy.

He appeared equally baffled. “Spectrum was the main character in the comic, but–"

“Shush! There’s more.” Whirlwind leaned in closer to the book. “‘Take a closer look... to join the adventure in this book?”

The trio looked at each other. “Does is say anything else?” Prism asked.

“Erm…” Whirlwind peered at the comic, her eyes practically slits. “Yeah. ‘Prism, you’re a dunce.’ That’s… wait, how the hay is your name–” Before she could finish, the comic glowed with a bright white light.

Whirlwind, whose face was literally inches from the back page, was sucked in before she could cry out. Both Icy and Prism made plenty of noise, though, as they launched themselves forward. For once in their lives, the two siblings acted in perfect unison.

“Whirlwind!”

“Dubz!”

Prism only just missed Whirlwind’s disappearing leg, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He fell in after her, caught up in the comic’s spell, and Icy followed a moment later.

...

“Yes, this should be enough. Thank you both, it’s been wonderful.” Claire returned her bit pouch to her saddlebags, before using her magic to lift them over her barrel. With a final faint tweak, they sat in perfect alignment.

“Oh, you’re welcome, Claire,” Anthea smiled. “I really enjoy these talks. I loved hearing about how you helped T learn to fly!”

Cotton Candy giggled a little. When she was young, she’d had a small crush on T, and though Candy didn’t begrudge Annie her relationship with him, she still liked hearing Claire’s childhood stories about the gentle dracony. Especially if they were cute and adorable.

“It’s my pleasure. I’ve been up to my horns recently, between the usual orders and all my new designs. This has been just what I needed.”

“We’re happy to talk whenever,” Candy said, smile undiminished. “We could do this again tomorrow, if you wanted.”

“Oh, you’re both too kind. But I can’t; my new line needs to be finished by autumn, and it won’t come along if I don’t work on it. I really have enjoyed today, though. Goodbye!” Claire got to her hooves.

“Bye!” Cotton said, waving a little.

“Bye!” Anthea said, as Claire padded away from the outdoor café.

When she had gone some distance, Candy turned to Anthea. “Well that was fun! You want me to walk with you anywhere?”

“Oh, thanks! I’m just going home right now. T was out looking for gems today, and he said he’d meet me there when he was done.” The two mares both got up, and Annie moved to brush against Candy’s shoulder. Candy led the way down the wide street, towards the edge of town and the hoofpath that wound slowly off to Fluttershy’s small cottage.

The two mares walked in companionable silence for a while, then Anthea stirred. “Oh, I’m sorry! I got so caught up in Claire’s story, I forgot to ask you if anything interesting had happened? Has it? Any new jobs, good books…” Annie exaggeratedly looked around, then leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “Handsome stallions?”

Candy laughed at that. “Nope, no stallions! I did help out Aloe and Lotus with their spa today, though. You’d never imagine how strong they both are! I’ve also been wanting to write another story, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Actually, wait a second!”

Anthea turned as Candy suddenly stopped and started rooting around in her saddlebags. She scrunched up her face, plainly baffled by Candy’s sudden halt. “Is something wrong, Candy?”

“No, but I’m sure I put it… Did I leave it around when I was walking over? Oh, here it is.” Grinning in triumph, Candy pulled out Young Harmony Issue 98.

Annie’s expression remained confused as Candy held the book out to her. Unable to properly see the text or illustrations, she must have only seen a large, ungainly blotch.

“Is that… a comic book?” Anthea hedged.

“Yep! It was really weird; I got it in the mail and there was a note attached – I’ve got it here – that said it was from a friend, except whoever it was didn’t sign it. I couldn’t think of anypony who’d send me a comic without telling me. I know Del, Star, T, and Claire don’t read comics, and Prism never really liked them either.”

“But you thought I might have sent it?” Anthea asked. “I didn’t. I would have said it was from me. I can’t really read comics, either, the pictures all just sorta blur together.”

“Okay, but then who did send it? Who else in Ponyville would send a comic book anonymously?”

“Hmm.” Anthea leaned closer now, a new interest showing in her face. “Maybe one of your friends from Canterlot? Didn’t you and Prince Illusion play a bunch of pranks together when he came to see Claire a while ago?”

“Yeah, he did!” Cotton Candy exclaimed. “Hmmm… But why wouldn’t he have signed it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s something in the comic that explains it? We don’t actually know if it was Illusion.”

“Wait! Maybe the comic book is an illusion!” Candy said, eyes widening. She pressed closer to the comic book herself, forcing Anthea to lean over slightly.

She soon recovered. “It might be. Can I feel it? Prince Illusion hasn’t fooled me yet!” Candy hoofed the novel over to her. Anthea started flipping through the volume, feeling its pages with her hooves and horn. She went through it front to back, then stopped, levitating the book in her magic. “Hmm. I don’t feel anything weird on it, like I would if it had a hidden page or pouch. Sorry.”

Anthea returned the book to Candy, who flipped through it herself. “Maybe there isn’t a hidden page. What if there’s a secret message, written in invisible ink, or underneath a fake picture? Ohh, what’s this?!” Candy had arrived on the last page of the comic, and was now staring at a few lines of tiny, illegible text on the back cover.

Anthea leaned in again. “Is something written there? Is it from Illusion?”

Candy squinted at the tiny type, but then frowned. “I don’t know, I can’t read it. It’s really small. Umm… Do you have a magnifying glass? ”

Anthea tapped her chin thoughtfully. “No, but I might have something that would help. Princess Twilight and I made a magnification spell in one of my lessons. Twilight thought I might be able to make out more details with it, since I normally have trouble seeing outlines. It didn’t really work, but Twilight said the magnification was actually really strong…” Anthea’s horn glowed. Candy watched as her friend concentrated, and before long, a faint green light illuminated the comic book’s back page.

Candy looked at the short paragraph again. Sure enough, the green light had blotted it out and replaced it with an enlarged and now readable version of the first line.

“Did it work?” Annie asked, horn still glowing brightly. “I actually can’t really see the spell when it’s this small…”

“No, it worked! I can read it now!” Candy leaned and started reading “It says ‘You may return to home and family when you have cured the dreadful Malady.’”

“… That… doesn’t sound very good. What does ‘you may return’mean? It doesn't sound like it was written to you...”

Candy blinked as she read over the short rhyme again. “I don’t know. There’s more writing, though. Can you move the spell down?”

Anthea still looked concerned, but she obliged, moving the green glow so the next line came into focus.

“‘Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book.’” Anthea’s ears perked up at this, and she suddenly looked at the comic book as if it had become a live snake. “And wait, it also says–”

“Candy, wait–”

“‘–Candy, have a blast!’ Okay, so we know it was sent to me.” Candy turned to look at Anthea, then snapped back as the comic flared white.

“What in Celest- waaaaaaahhhh!” Candy cried out as she was pulled towards the book, which fell to the path as she frantically backpedaled. Her face visibly stretching, Candy’s retreat was arrested even as Anthea used magic to pull on her tail.

“Candy! Hold on! I’ll-woooaah!” The dynamic shifted– Anthea suddenly found herself helpless to pull Candy back from the glowing book, and now she was getting sucked in as well.

Candy tried to turn to look at Anthea before the comic drew them both in, words of reassurement on her lips, but it was futile. Candy’s body collapsed into the flaring book, and her last sight was of Anthea being yanked in after her.

...

Red June walked into her small patch of Sweet Apple Acres with the weary demeanor of a pony thrice her age. She was dejected, battered, had bags under her eyes, and was, as expected, covered in tree sap.

Golden Delicious looked up at her from where he had been sealing a box of cherries. “Should Ah ask?”

June sighed. “She didn’t destroy the town, and she didn’t destroy our mail. Api’s taking a shower with her ma back at the house. I was going ta join them as soon as I made sure you’re all okay.”

“We’re fine,” Starburst piped up. She was returning from moving one of the cherry boxes to Red June’s small barn, flapping a few feet off the ground. “We’re nearly done, these are the last two boxes.”

Red June sighed again, but this time it bespoke relief. “Thanks. Ah’m sorry to have to ask you two to take over for me. Ah know you’ve both got other things you’d have rather been doing.”

“It’s fine, cuz,” Del said as he finished the box. Starburst nodded in affirmation.

“Reminds me. Both of you had mail. Del, here you go. Star–”

“I got mail?” Star asked, flying in closer to look at the envelope Red June was proffering. “I don’t even live here.”

“You’re here practically every day you’re in Ponyville.” Del didn’t look up from his own letter as he spoke. “You almost do live here, and maybe somepony caught on to that an’ wanted to send you something so you’d get it fast.”

Starburst raised an eyebrow at this, but took the offered envelope. It was manila, slightly sticky from residual sap, and had no return address. Slightly baffled, she looked to Del, who was frowning at his letter own letter in consternation, not opening it.

Red June looked between the two of them, then cautiously spoke up. “Something wrong? You can still read ‘em, right? Api might’ve gotten to them when Ah wasn’t looking.”

Del shook his head slowly. His frown remained on his face. “Ah can read it jus’ fine.”

Both the mares waited to see if he’d elaborate. When he didn’t, June looked to Star.

Star showed her the envelope. “No return address. I don’t know who sent it.”

“Why not open it and find out?” Red June asked.

“Sure. Just need to move these last few boxes. Del?” Golden Delicious looked up, but then stole another glance at his letter. Reluctantly, he put it down and moved to pack the final box, while Starburst moved the one he had finished towards the barn.

Starburst, as ever, moved fast, pushing herself. She stacked the box atop the five dozen or so they had already completed, then winged her way back to where Del and Red June were standing.

Star arrived to an awkward silence. Del was sealing the final box, his face slightly downturned, while Red June bore an expression of both with both annoyance and sisterly concern. Starburst looked between them, taking in how their eyes wouldn’t meet the other’s, before speaking.

“Is something wrong?” Star asked. Del stirred slightly, looking to Red June, then returned to packing, apparently wanting her to answer.

Red June leveled her gaze at Del for several moments, apparently thinking things over. Then she turned to Starburst. “It’s a bit complicated. Del got a letter from Canterlot. There’s a noblepony there, Del catered to one of his parties. The letter’s from his daughter, Creme De La Creme.”

The name rung a bell. “I think I know her. Her dad is Fancy Pants, right?” Del nodded in affirmation. “Does she want you to cater again?”

Del waited until he had finished sealing the cherry box, then responded with a terse “Eeyup.”

Starburst looked between the two Apples again. “That’s… good, right? You’re a great chef, Del, and it’s good that you’ve got ponies who recognize it.”

“Eeyup.”

Starburst looked at him. Del’s face wasn’t very expressive, save when expressing sarcasm, but Star had known him long enough to tell that his pinched eyebrows and slightly downturned mouth meant he was upset. She had been on the receiving end of that look often, when he lectured her after her burnouts.

Which made it odd that Del’swas so sour now, when she was in perfect health. Star looked at him seriously for a while, then turned to Red June again. “Am I missing something?”

Red June kept looking at Del. She shook her head slightly, then walked forward and hefted the cherry box onto her back. When Del moved to help she waved him off. “You need to tell her, Del. If not her, then somepony else besides me. Ah keep saying you ought to bring this up with Aunt Applejack. You’re not doing anypony a favor by keeping it all bottled up.”

Del looked at her for a while, then frowned at the ground again. “Okay.”

“Good. You two talk while Ah get this over to the barn.” With that, June turned and walked away, carrying the heavy box as though it weren’t there.

Starburst looked enviously after Red June’s large frame as it moved away, then stepped closer to Del.

Del looked at her for a moment, then returned his gaze to his letter, which sat on the ground beside him. Unopened.

Star looked a bit miffed at that. “You didn’t open it? How do you know what it’s about if you never touched it?”

Del looked slightly spooked at Star’s annoyance. Then he sighed. “Because it wasn’t the first letter Creme sent me. Ah turned two other offers like this, jus’ last month.”

Star frowned. “Why? I know Fancy Pants– he’s a good guy, and he’s rich! Her daughter would have paid you really well. She was, right?”

“Yeah, she was. It wasn’t about the money. Ah… Ah would’ve had to leave the farm. For a while, maybe even as long as a week, to plan and make all the food.”

“Yeah, but it’s a great opportunity! You would’ve gotten to meet with a lot of the nobleponies, and if your food was good, you might get more contracts…” Star watched as Del’s expression grew even more conflicted, becoming torn. Star opened her mouth, but Del beat her to it.

“Ah know all that. But I would’ve had to leave the farm, and mah family. Ah know that if Ah want to get noticed, and learn how to be a good chef, Ah’ll need to cater to lots of different events and learn from lots of different ponies and places. But Ah can’t. Ah can’t leave my family.”

Starburst looked at Del’s pained expression. He was breathing more heavily than he had been bucking apples. “Erm…” I’m not good at this “Del, has this been going on for a long time? You… you’re talking about it like it’s been eating at you for a while.”

Del nodded slowly. “Eeyup. Ah’ve been… well, ever since Ah got my cutie mark, and learned that I could cook things besides apples, I’ve wanted to learn how to get better, make new dishes, learn new styles. Except, Ah can’t really do that here. So, Ah’ve gone elsewhere to learn. Except every time… Ah had to come back. Ah couldn’t leave my family, Ah… they’re too important.”

“Okay… Well, Del, if you just wanted to stay at Sweet Apple Acres, your family would be fine with that. They really love you, and I… it’s good that you’ve learned so much from them… ” Starburst trailed off lamely. She wasn’t used to dispensing advice; her relationship with Del normally consisted of the reverse. Now I almost wish Mom were here. She’s the Princess of Friendship, she’d probably have this all wrapped up and written down inside a Friendship Report by now.

“Ah know.” Starburst refocused on Del when he spoke. He sounded at least somewhat more collected than earlier. “Ah know that Ah’ve got a lot that’s good here. Ah’m sorry to trouble you like this, Star. You’re here to train, not to listen to me talk about mah troubles.” He said the last sentence with a quiet finality, clearly wanting to end the topic.

Yeah, I definitely wish Mom were here. Shifting a little, Star said “Okay. It’s fine, though. I’m happy to talk, if you’ve ever got anything you need to say.”

“Okay.” The pair stood silently for a few moments. Just when Star was starting to feel awkward, Del spoke up again. “So, what about you? You get anything vast and life changing in the mail?”

Starburst pulled out her own letter. A second examination revealed nothing new: it was large, manila, and had only her name and the address of Sweet Apple Acres written on the upper right corner in neat hoofwriting. Starburst showed it to Del. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say who sent it.”

“Well, you should open it, then.” Del cut off as Red June reappeared trotting slowly, the cherries presumably safe in her barn.

“Sorry for taking so long. Ah saw your work, it all looked great. Thanks again for helping me.” Red June looked between Star and Del, apparently searching for signs of Del’s earlier conflict. “…You two talked?”

“Eeyup. We talked. Starburst was just about to open her letter. It’s a bit odd, doesn’t say who it’s from.” Del’s face was expressionless, but the deflection was blatant enough even Star could see it.

Red June certainly had, but Star spoke before she could respond. “Uh– yeah. But we should probably start heading back to your house, June, if you want to get a shower before supper.”

Red June stopped, then looked between the two reticent ponies with visible annoyance. She didn’t push the conversation, however, and,with apparent reluctance, turned to walk back towards the Apple Family’s sizeable farmhouse. Del and Star trailed after, Star occasionally breaking into flight to keep up with the two larger ponies.

Red June allowed the two time to catch up, moving stiffly. Del filled the silence. “So, are you gonna open your letter, Star? Actually, come to think of it, it might be important. You don’t typically get top secret Princess orders, do you? Confidential stuff, and all that?”

Starburst snorted. “I wish. I’m not technically an official Princess yet, just the daughter of one. I get the title and the fancy jewelry, but I don’t actually do anything.” Despite her proclaimed skepticism, though, Star eyed the enveloped with new interest. It did feel like it had paper in it, just like the files Star had sometimes come across in her father’s office.

Del grinned at Star’s expression. “Well, maybe that’s changing. You won’t know if you don’t open it.”

Starburst looked at the letter for another moment, then tore it open. When its contents slid out, however, her eager expression immediately turned to one of confusion.

Instead of secret documents, the envelope had held a comic book. Gaudy, glossy, and bright, it was about as different from the neatly written manuscripts Star had hoped for as was possible. The title was white on red: Marvel Mare Issue 34. Star didn’t look at much else before she looked away in disgust.

“Great. A comic.”

“A comic?” Del looked at the brightly colored volume with a quirked eyebrow. “Who sent you a comic?”

“You got a comic?” Red June interrupted, looking back at the pair.

Starburst answered both of the questions without looking at their askers. “Yeah. But I don’t read comics. And I have no idea who sent this.” She stared at the offending novel as if it had personally insulted her, finding the small note stuck into its front cover largely by accident.

As Del and Red June looked on with slight concern, Starburst took out the note and quickly scanned it. When she failed to find a signature, she went back and read it more slowly.

Dear Starburst,
I know you’re not one for reading, or comics, but I nonetheless hope that you will take the time to go through this particular volume. I know how seriously you take your free time, but I assure you this comic will be both more worthwhile and more immersive than you might expect at first glance. Please enjoy it to the fullest.

Sincerely,A friend

“Star?” Looking up, Star saw Del looking at her with mild fear.

“Yes?”

“Uhh, is it bad? Ah mean, what’s the note say? You’re looking a mite angry.”

Starburst realized she had been scowling, and tried to adopt a less hostile expression before replying. “Oh, no, it’s just sort of weird. The note still doesn’t say who sent it, but it said it was from a friend.”

“Can Ah see it?” June asked. Starburst gave her the note, then examined the comic once more.

Red June handed the note to Del when she had finished. “Seems pretty innocent to me. Except the mystery friend thing. Ah’m sorry, Ah don’t know you’re friends very well; can you think of anypony who’d send a you comic? Without telling you?”

Starburst thought for a moment, during which Del finished the note and looked at her expectantly. “Yeah, I guess. It probably wasn’t Mom or Dad, but maybe Uncle Spike. Or, if it was a friend, then… hmm. Do you know if Annie or Candy like comics?” Star directed the last query to Del.

“Ah think Candy does.”

“Maybe she sent this, then. She’s always trying to get me to do silly ‘fun’ stuff with her and Prism.”

“Letter doesn’t really sound like her, through.” Del looked over the note again. “Ah could see her playing the mystery friend, but the rest of it sounds like somepony else.”

“This all sounds pretty interesting, but Ah’d like to get moving again. It’s sort of a long walk.” June turned back towards the farmhouse. Del and Star quickly followed, and the group resumed its earlier trot.

Del, once again, broke the silence. “Ah really don’t think Candy sent that comic. What sort of story is it?”

Star looked down at the comic once more, changing to a low hover to keep her balance. “Just a normal superhero vs. the villain story, I think. I don’t really know much about ‘Marvel Mare’. Or ‘Earthshaker’.”

“Who?” Del inquired. Starburst responded by handing him the comic and pointing to the subheading.

“Ah. He’s a sidekick? Okay. Hmm… If somepony other than Candy sent this, do you think they would have signed somewhere inside the comic?” Del flipped it open.

“Like, on the back page? Maybe. Sounds like something my brother would do. Or Prince Illusi–”

“Hah! Here!” Del triumphantly pointed to the last page of the comic, which was blank. Except, Star saw, for a tiny blot of black letters in the bottom right corner.

“What is it?” Red June asked. The group had stopped once again when Del made his discovery.

“Ah found something in Star’s book. Might be from whoever sent it.” Del squinted. “Except it’s really tiny. June, do ya know if we have a magnifying glass back at the house?”

Star looked over Del’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I think I can read it.” Squinting hard, she started. “It says… ‘You may… return... to the place… you started… when the… Beast’s… Quest... is… ended.”

Red Gala looked skeptical, but Star pressed on. “‘Take… a closer… look…. To join… the adventure… in … this book’… Huh. That sounds sort of weird.”

“Ah think we should head back and a magnifying glass, Star. At this rate you’re gonna strain your eyes.” Red June turned around and resumed walking.

Starburst followed, Del beside her, both still considering the comic.

“That sounded a lot stranger than the letter. Ya have any idea who sent it now? Anything in there stand out?” Del asked.

Starburst thought about it. “Umm… It sounds like something Illusion or Lance would write. Or they both would write. Let me check again.” Starburst squinted once more, looking over the note. “… ‘join the adventure.. in… this.. book’… wait! There’s something after that…” Del leaned in, intrigued. “‘Star… have a blast!’” Star looked up.

Del looked a little disappointed. “Hm. Well, Ah gotta admit, Ah can’t really think of anypony who’d– what the!” Del leapt back as the comic started glowing brilliantly, Star flying straight up in similar fright. Both of them gazed in astonishment as the comic surged with white light. Ahead of them, Red June turned around with eyes wide and yelled something Star couldn’t hear.

Starburst briefly wondered if her brother had sent the envelope and had tried to enchant it to get back at her for eating all of his desert last week, but that thought turned to panic as she felt herself being drawn down, towards the comic book. Frantically, Star flapped her wings, trying to maintain lift, but whatever force was yanking her from the sky only got stronger. Night Light couldn’t use a gravity spell! Who the heck did this? Is somepony trying to assassinate me?

Del abruptly lost his footing. As Star watched, he tumbled forward, and then was sucked into the comic in a warp of limbs and stretching features.

“DEL!” Red June leaped forwards, trying unsuccessfully to grab her cousin, and then fell in after him. As she vanished, Star felt the pull from the book strengthen.

Star tried, desperately, to escape, to pull herself out of the comic’s range, but it was futile. Even her huge wings couldn’t move enough air to counteract the growing pull of the comic. She simply wasn’t strong enough.

This can’t be it, Starburst thought wildly. I still need to become a guard! I can’t, can’t die! It can’t just end!

The comic didn’t stop, and Starburst lost consciousness as the world warped around her and her vision was filled with bright white light.

…

“Uhhh…” Prism groaned. He slowly gathered himself and opened his eyes, blinking to clear them of spots. What the hay happened?

Prism slowly stood up, looking around as he did so. His vision was distorted, somehow: the shadows around him were thin and flat, the colors too bright. It made his head hurt, but Prism could still see where he was. Slowly, and slightly painfully, Prism’s gaze drifted from the file-filled shelves lining one wall of the rectangular room to a large table dominating half of it. It had a three-dimensional model on it, of a city filled with skyscrapers, standing on metal legs above a red carpeted floor. Maybe it was the dark grey walls or the fluorescent lighting, but the entire arrangement reminded Prism of a fire station for some reason.

“Prism? Icy?” Prism’s head snapped up when he heard Whirlwind’s voice. He searched for her, but his vision hadn’t improved, and he soon abandoned his efforts as his vision exploded with painfully bright spots.

“Dubz?” Prism asked hesitantly, blinking to get the spots out of his eyes.

“Prism? Are you– oh Luna what are you wearing?”

Prism turned towards Whirlwind’s voice. As he did, the spots abruptly grew worse, and Prism closed his eyes to block them out. “What do you mean? Where are we?”

“Priz, you look like you’re trying to impersonate Princess Celestia! What happened?” Prism shook his head, then reopened his eyes.

The spots immediately returned. Prism didn’t care. He was too busy staring.

“Prism!? That is you, right?” Whirlwind stepped forward. Prism nodded absentmindedly. “Okay, seriously, what the hay is going on? Am I hallucinating? Is this a prank? Prism? Prism, are you listening to anyth–”

Prism just barely managed not to scream. “Dubz. You’re wearing a ninja costume!”

“Wha–” Whirlwind looked down at her hooves, then felt her face.

She was wearing a purple bodysuit a few shades brighter than her coat, which covered everything except her head and wings. In design, it was similar to a Wonderbolts Cadet uniform like the ones Prism had worn during his flight camps, but the material Whirlwind’s costume was made from was much thicker, much more so than a typical flightsuit. This bulk was added to by the black panels of armor that ran along the front of Whirlwind’s legs, chest, and back, the latter of which was subdivided into three interlocking plates. Both the armor panels and the purple bodysuit were accented by flowing silver lines, which spiraled into shapes reminiscent of Whirlwind’s cutie mark on her chest and hooves. Completing the entire ensemble was a mask, purple and silver like the flightsuit but plainly made out of some metal. It left Whirlwind’s mane free and had a large gap over her mouth, curving around her face like a hoofball helmet’s guard. Only her upper muzzle and eyes were totally hidden behind the mask, which had glass lenses that matched Whirlwind’s eye color.

Prism noticed the last fact as Whirlwind attempted to rip the mask off of her face. She succeeded in unclipping the eyepiece, which she held in her hoof. After staring at it for a moment, Whirlwind looked up at Prism.

“…Just, what? Seriously, what the hay!?” Whirlwind looked at Prism completely flabbergasted.

“I don’t know. You said I was wearing a costume too?” Prism started hesitantly, still trying to clear away the spots.

Whirlwind nodded, walking towards the wall with the bookshelves on it in a half-conscious,vaguely shell-shocked manner. “Yeah, you’ve got a fancy white… something-or-other. I guess you don’t really look like Princess Celestia. You’ve got… greaves? Greaves with big lights on them and a visor.”

“A visor?” Prism started to reach up to fell his face, but then stopped. He felt like he had just forgotten something important. Something to do with… he kept reaching up and brushed his hoof over his eyes; sure enough, there was a bar of hard material covering them.

“Yeah, a visor,” Whirlwind continued, “and all of it’s white. Everything except for you mane, that’s normal. Actually, wait a minute.” Prism dropped his hoof from his eyes as Whirlwind cut off, only to find she had moved out of his field of view. When he tried to search for her, the spots returned with a vengeance.

“Okay, that’s even weirder.” Whirlwind’s voice came from somewhere to Prism’s left. He turned in that direction.

“What?”

“You’re wings are all white, too, but I can still see the feathers. It looks like somepony dyed them.”

Not dye, overlaid animathaumic photosolids, Prism thought. Wait, what?

Whirlwind’s tone was growing uncollected again. “Why would anypony want to dye your wings? How would anypony have dyed your wings? How long were we asleep for!? Or is there some kinda crazy unicorn spell to dye stuff super fast!?”

Prism stood still as Whirlwind’s questions grew increasingly louder and more frenetic. …What’s a photosolid? Prism didn’t know. But I know a photosolid is… something. It’s a substance. Well, not exactly, but photosolids at equilibrium behave like substances, and animathaumic ones can have fluctuating equilibrium states based on the magical flow of their projector. Oh my gosh, how do I know that?

“Nopony tried to dye my wings, did they?” There was a brief flapping noise followed by a thump. Prism jerked out of his reverie as Whirlwind cried out.

Prism heard a faint shuffling as he tried to focus past the spots. When he finally succeeded, he followed the shuffling to its source, and found Whirlwind with wings outstretched and a look of numb horror on her face.

Because Whirlwind didn’t have wings outstretched. She had only one. Where her left wing would extend there was only a stump, jutting out like a worn, ugly stick.

Prism stared for a few more seconds before Whirlwind started screaming.

…

Cotton Candy awoke to a loud, slightly panicky voice. Her eyes snapped open, and she blinked a little as her vision came back into focus.

“Candy! Candy, can you hear me? Are you there?” Anthea’s voice, the same that had woken Candy up.

Candy struggled to her hooves, still trying to get her bearings as she called back. “I’m over here, Annie!” She stopped and shook her head a little. Okay, what happened?

“Candy? Where’s ‘over here’?”

I’ll tell you when I figure it out myself. Candy turned about, trying to find the source of Anthea’s voice, and inadvertently taking in the current locale.

Candy was standing on the ground floor of a medium-sized processing plant, between two lines of decrepit conveyor belts. Judging from the absence of any other ponies, the plastic sheets hung over the large machines in the middle of the lines, and the cobwebs criss-crossing the rafters a floor above her, the plant had been abandoned for some time. Despite this, a pungent odor remained in the air, powerfully salty.

Candy would have examined her surroundings further had she not caught sight of another pony stepping around a plastic-sheathed machine a few aisles down. The pony scrunched up her nose and asked “Candy? Is that you?”

“...Yeah, its me. Umm, Annie, what are you wearing?”

Anthea, who was recognizable by her eyes and braid, in addition to her voice, was wearing a snug purple uniform and a similarly colored domino mask that did a good job of breaking up the shape of her face. Her uniform covered her from the neck down, flaring into a skirt at her barrel that hung over her flanks and covered her cutie mark. Ribbons were woven through Anthea’s tail and mane, including one that wrapped neatly through her braid.

Most impressively, Anthea’s entire uniform was sparkling, tiny spots of light dancing across her mask and the sides of her barrel and spiralling down her hooves. The spots moved in whimsical patterns, and they occasionally created splashes of rainbow color. It reminded Candy of pictures she had seen of the Aurora Borealis at nighttime, but Anthea’s costume was softer, with more motion and an even greater variety of colors.

The suit was so eye-catching Candy almost missed Anthea’s reply to her absentminded question. “I… don’t really know. I could feel it when I woke up, but I couldn’t really tell what it was. But is that really important right now? Do you know where we are?”

Candy looked around again. “We’re in some old factory, I think. There’s an odd smell.”

“Seaweed.” Candy looked at Anthea in askance. “The smell is seaweed; T and his family have it sometimes.”

“So we’re in an old seaweed processing plant? That’s abandoned? That’s kind of creepy.”

Anthea shivered. “Yeah. There isn’t anyplace like this in Ponyville, is there? We must be someplace else… Oh, wait. Do you remember how we got here? The comic book?”

At Anthea’s words, Candy did recall the comic book, and its role in her brief spell of unconsciousness. “Yeah! That was what brought us here, I remember! It must have been a portal or something!”

“It might have been. Twilight told me about portals once, she said they normally open holes between dimensions…” Anthea trailed off with a look of fear on her face. “Umm… Candy?”

“You think we might have been sent to another dimension!?” Candy could only begin to imagine the disaster that would be. It might take days to get back, or weeks, or mon–

“I don’t! Portal spells normally don’t behave like the comic did, but that’s not important! Candy, you’re green!”

“Green?” Candy looked down at her hooves.

… Well, they aren’t green, but why are they pink? Candy was wearing leggings with alternating pink, rose, and white squares, in a checkerboard pattern. On her hooves were bright pink boots, decorated with white fluff poms.

“Now you’ve turned back to normal! Well, almost back to normal. You’re still a little darker blue than you usually are.”

“But I’m not normal!” Candy tore her gaze from the boots and looked concernedly Anthea. “I’m wearing a costume like yours, except mine’s pink!”

“Now you’re green again!”

“Finally!” A loud, male voice echoed through the factory, carrying the tone of an exasperated store owner whose late shipment had at long last arrived. Both Candy and Anthea jumped at the voice, and turned to search for its source.

It was not difficult to find. The speaker was a griffin, hovering well above the abandoned conveyer belts, in the approximately middle of the room. He wore a white chef's hat and apron, both heavily stained, that matched his white and equally dirtied feathers. Only the griffin’s mustache, a long but well-kempt black pencil line curling away from his beak, was free from grime.

“Do either of you ponies have any idea how long I have waited for you to fall into my trap!?” The griffin asked with a strong Prench accent. “You were supposed to have stumbled upon my magnificently malefic machinations by yourselves in the next room, but instead you lazily lollygagged, and I was forced to abandon my expertly engineered encampment and track you down myself. C’est terrible!”

“Uhhh… Okay. Who’re you?” Candy looked over to Anthea, whose head was cocked curiously, and then back at the griffin. “Because I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen you before.”

“Never seen me bef– ahh ha ha ha, Jestress, zat joke was one you shall regret making!” The griffin flapped a few feet higher, his yellow eyes sparking with arrogance and aggression.“To jog your memories, I am Monsieur Maladie, the viral virtuoso, the patrician of plague! Voila, mon armèe!”

Monsieur Maladie swept a claw before himself, and at the end of every aisle, a pair of enormous beige creatures stepped forward. They had four legs and a blobby head with eyes, but otherwise they were just featureless masses of goo. As they moved, small globs of their substance dripped off, and their forms melted and shifted to account for the lost material. They were massive, horrifying, and clearly not equine.

Monsieur Maladie steepled his claws as Anthea and Candy recoiled in fright. “Now, Jestress, Cheerleader, mes copianes… Now we shall make up for lost time. Well, I will. Your times, I fear, will be brutally cut short. Muhahahahahaha!”

…

This can’t be it! I still need to become a guard! I can’t, can’t die! It can’t just end!

Golden Delicious awoke with a start and a horrible feeling that he had lost something. He got up so swiftly he nearly twisted a hoof, and then almost fell over again as he heard a faint rumble.

Del ignored the noise, too busy frantically searching for… for… what am Ah looking for, again?

Still tense, Del stopped for a brief moment, trying to recall what had happened. As he scoured his memories, he also took in his surroundings, his gaze charged with anxious energy.

Del stood on a street, under a starry sky. Streetlamps were lit at regular intervals, their illumination making small pools of brightness, one of which Del stood in. Otherwise there were just long stretches of shadow. He was surrounded by tall buildings, most five or six stories high; all were brick or painted plaster, completely different from the familiar Ponyville style Del was accustomed too and much drabber than the fancy Canterlot style he often saw when he catered for Fancy Pants’ or his daughter’s parties.

The street was completely abandoned, the only movement being pieces of paper and trash blowing around in the nighttime wind. Fearfully, Del realized that most of the buildings around him were not only dark: they were wrecked, old and mouldering, with broken glass in their windows and graffiti on their walls.

Okay. Ah ain’t in Ponyville anymore, that’s for sure. Where am Ah? What happened? Ahhh… Last thing Ah remember before this was being on the farm–

**ArfrRRf!*

Del spun around like a poked snake, his eyes wide and darting from point to point. The ground seemed unsteady beneath him, and adrenaline poured into his veins. None of this did anything to improve his fraying nerves.

A low, pained groan echoed through the dark night.

Del backed away a few steps, muscles tense, as he heard some quiet shuffling. Then there were a few seconds of silence, as Del’s heart palpitated, before a voice pierced the darkness.

“Hello?”

Del sighed with relief, the tension bleeding from his limbs. He trotted forward and called back.

“Ah’m over here, June. You mind stepping into the light?”

“Del?” Red June’s hooves clip-clopped in the dark stillness, and after a few moments her large frame became visible. “Del, is that you?”

Del relaxed even more upon seeing June enter the streetlamp’s small circle of illumination– but he tensed up again when he realized something was off.

Red June was easily recognizable, both by her face and by her sheer size – no other pony in Ponyville even approached her height – but from the neck down she was clad in a long-sleeved leotard. It covered everything except for her hooves; there were even red elastics that kept June’s tail in a neat rope. Colorwise, the leotard was fairly simple, red with white lines at the collar and hooves. The most bizarre thing about the uniform, in truth, was that it had June’s cutie mark, the cherry cluster, emblazoned on her chest and flanks.

“Uh, Del? That’s you, right?” Red June’s voice brought Del’s gaze back to her face, which looked baffled and more than a little concerned.

“What? Course it’s me, June.”

June’s expression relaxed fractionally. “Okay, but , uh, you’re wearing some… really weird armor, Del.”

“Ah am?” Del looked down at his hooves, then back over his shoulder.

Del was wearing a uniform far more elaborate than Red June’s. Its most basic layer consisted of a neutral brown fabric suit, but locked over it were pieces of gold armor, bulkier and more all-covering than that of a royal guard. Like a guardspony, Del had a chestplate, backplate and sideplates, but he also had a gorget made of flexible metal bands, additional protection on his undercarriage, and the armor’s most impressive feature: a quartet of armored greaves that completely encircled Del’s cannons and locked into a set of shoes that must have added half a foot to his height. The greaves were thick, solid metal, so large Del had no idea how he hadn’t noticed them earlier. They were also masterfully crafted and enameled; a row of three brown lines, oscillating like a heartbeat monitor or a seismograph, encircled each. At the apex of each line’s peak, it touched the trough of the line above it. The highest and lowest lines coming into contact with the armor’s edge.

“Eeyup,” Red June observed as Del looked over his new outfit, “you are. You couldn’t tell?”

“No, Ah didn’t notice it.” How in Equestria? Del looked down at his colossal greaves again, flummoxed, then back at Red June. “Wait. June, you’ve got a sort of uniform too. Did you notice?”

“Wha–?” Red June looked at her own hooves, then glanced over her shoulder, exactly mirroring Del a few seconds earlier. When she turned back, she had a nigh identical expression of bafflement on her face, too. “How–?”

“Ah don’t know.” Del frowned. “Ah don’t see… Do you remember what happened?”

*ArfrRRf!*

Both ponies’ ears flicked at the sound, but Del, having heard it before, got a slightly better impression of it. It reminded him a dog – or several dogs – barking at once.

Red June hissed “What was that!?”

Del breathed deeply, then replied “Ah don’t know. Ah heard it a while back, before you woke up. Sounded like some dogs.”

Red June scanned the darkness uneasily. “That’s an awful lot of dogs.”

“Yeah… But it’s more important that we figure out how we got here. I remember being on the farm last, but after that I’m blanking. Do you remember, June?”

“Not much. Ah know we were on the farm, me and you and Star–”

“Star!” Del looked at June as the ground shuddered again. “She was with us, and she… the comic! Star’s comic started glowing, and then Ah got sucked in, and you must have been pulled in after me… Did you see what happened to Star? Did she get away?”

Del realized he had taken several steps forward in his agitation. Red June, in turn, had moved several steps back, and she was looking at the ground warily as she replied. “Ah don’t remember, Del. Ah think… Ah think Ah tried to catch you, but Ah didn’t see what happened to Star.”

Del was breathing heavily, but, with apparent effort, he calmed down. “Okay. We need… First we’ve gotta find Star, if she also got sucked in. Then we need to figure out what happened, and how we got here… Actually, maybe if we knew where we were, we’d be able to find Star faster. You ever seen anyplace like this?”

Red June shook her head. “Looks like Manehatten, maybe. Aunt Applejack said they make buildings sorta like this. Must be the worst neighborhood in all of Manehatten, though; this place looks like it's been going to dust for years.”

*ArfrRRf!*

As Del’s heartbeat trebled yet again, Red June glanced around nervously. “Ah’m pretty sure that was closer.”

Del nodded, reluctantly. The noise did sound like dogs barking, but it wasn’t a happy bark: it was more the type of bark a dog made when they were tearing off after some poor chicken, or even a pony who had trespassed on the wrong farm.

*ArfrRRf!*

Red June and Del instinctively stepped closer together, both now scanning the darkness intensely.

“Okay, Ah’ve got a new plan,” Red June whispered. “First we find someplace not smack-dab in the middle of an abandoned neighborhood at night, then we figure out where we are, then we find Star and get home.”

Del nodded, and it happened as his head was rising up from its second dip.

Accompanied by yet another tremendous *ArfrRRf!*, a blur shot into the streetlamp’s radius, nearly five meters above ground , at an angle that could only have been achieved by leaping from one of the surrounding buildings. The creature didn’t slow as struck the pavement, but leapt forward, going so swiftly Del couldn’t get any idea of its shape. It’s speed dissolved it into a fragmented streak of scales and muscles bound with fur; a distorted impression of malicious yellow eyes and long, curved claws that sliced into Red June’s chest from shoulder to stomach.

…

Starburst awoke feeling awful. She was dizzy, tired, and shaky. Her head was pounding, and her limbs felt weak and numb. Her her stomach was cramped and protesting, and her whole body was feverishly warm. In short, Star was completely, overwhelmingly exhausted.

Not that it concerned her. This was how she always felt, after her burnouts.

Groaning a little and shutting her eyes, Star considered, in the idle, dreamy mindset of the recently woken, whether she wanted to get up. She knew that she should, so she could find Del, listen to his lecture, and get food into her stomach, but moving about sounded understandably unappealing in her current state.

Eventually, Star tried to get to her feet and managed to flop onto her belly, eyes still closed. Del had probably dropped her in the Apple Family’s barn, if he was following form. The hay felt a little softer than normal, though, and it was sapping Star’s desire to move.

Again, Star tried to rise, rising a little off the bed, but failing to really make progress. She did manage to drive something cold into her chest, though. The hard-edged object was trapped squarely underneath Star’s barrel, irritatingly unyielding. She shifted around, trying to dislodge it, and failed.

Star lay still for a while, contemplating the irritant and pondering whether removing it was worth getting up. Finally, she sighed, and, in a rather undignified tangle of limbs, rolled onto the floor and got shakily to her hooves.

Annoyingly, the frigid object remained in contact with her fur. Star blinked, still muzzy from sleep, wondering why it hadn’t remained in the hay. Then her mind finally put a few thoughts together, and Star reached for her chest, eventually seizing the whatever-it-was and holding it up for inspection.

Star’s eyes widened when she finally managed to see what had driven her from sleep.

It was an amulet – it was far too elaborately and painstakingly wrought to merit any lesser title – circular and larger across than Star’s hoof. It was made of an odd material, dark red-bronze in color and very light. The amulet also was shaped unusually: it was concave, the face gently sloping down from the edge. Covering the depressed surface were at least a hundred incised lines that spiralled around the center, some once and some many times, crossing over each other randomly. Each line originated from a perfectly round gem that was set into the middle of the amulet: a black opal, filled with flecks of red in a pattern infinitely harder to follow than that of the lines surrounding it.

Star held the amulet dumbfoundedly as her brain, entirely jolted from its lethargy, struggled to make sense of it. What… What is this? I’ve never had anything like it… Claire couldn’t have made it, it looks… it doesn’t look like anything anypony from Ponyville or Canterlot would wear…

Starburst stared at the jewel in the center of the amulet. Its multitude of red flecks whorled and wound in knots and loops, creating long interwoven strands before breaking their self-imposed pattern and becoming an explosion of red. The flecks were of different sizes and intensities, and as Star kept looking, she started to see them move. They were like a river, some flying straight and swift and others slowly drifting along the fringes, scintillating outwards. The flecks melded with one another until the jewel seemed to be covered in a flower-like pattern of red cracks; then the opal started to unfold, the flecks gushing out like –

Star jerked back and dropped the amulet, stumbling a little in her weakened condition. It bounced on her chest, hanging by a thin chain Star hadn’t seen in her first examination.

Star collected herself and realized, to her surprise, that her breathing was even. This fact changed when she looked, for the first time since getting up, at her surroundings.

Star was not in the Apple family barn, as she had believed. Instead, she was in an attic. Admittedly a large attic, long and with a ceiling sufficently high that even a pony as large as Red June would have stood no chance of bumping it, but still an attic; the wood floor and mismatched slanted plank and straight plaster walls made that clear. Star had been resting on a stack of mattresses in the corner, surrounded by crumpled blankets, next to a small window that provided a nondescript view of a nighttime street. The room was devoid of adornment, but it stocked many necessities one would expect of an apartment or home, including a washbasin, a couch, a kitchenette, and a full-body mirror. Next to the kitchenette was a sizeable pile of groceries, enough to keep a family of five feed for a week, which the attic’s resident hadn’t bothered to put away.

Star took all of this in with widened eyes. I passed out bucking apples, right!? I should be in Del’s barn! Star took a step forward and stumbled: the symptoms of her burnout, if that was really what had happened, were undiminished. Star had forgotten about her numb and shaky legs while she had been eyeing the amulet – Did whoever put me here give me that!? – but she remembered them as she struggled to make her way towards the other end of the attic, where the line of groceries extended into another room Star hoped lead to a door. As she strove not to fall over, Star tried to think back.

I was on the farm, definitely… and then… and then…

Star struggled, mentally and physically, until she got about midway through the attic, parallel with the couch. Then she had a breakthrough, at least on one front.

The comic! I got the comic, and it had a spell or a trap on it… Star stopped. Oh Celestia, if I’m here then where are Del and Red June! And why did I have a burnout? What… Star looked around again, searching the room with new scrutiny. Even ignoring how she had gotten there, it looked like a rather shady place. Was the book enchanted with some sort of teleport spell? Can unicorn magic even do that? Or did it just knock all of us out, and then somepony else moved me here?

Star kept searching the room. Next to the mattresses she had been sleeping on, there was a nightstand with a shuttered lamp, currently lightless. What illumination there was came from the moon shining through the window, and from a few scattered candles that lay on the floor or on the kitchenette counter. In front of the couch was a brown rug, both arranged so they faced the mirror. The couch was beige and looked cheap but new; the rug was contrastingly well-worn and fraying. Star turned toward where she had seen the washbasin, and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

I… I… W-what happened to me?

Star looked at least as horrible as she felt, if not more so. Her fur was bleached and stiff; her mane was almost gone, and what remained was a ratty mess. Her normally penetrating purple eyes were dull and bloodshot, and the face beneath them was skull-like. But Star had suffered more than just aesthetically: she was skeleton thin, her ribcage visible and her legs shaking and sticklike. The hard muscles Star had won through countless workouts and almost as many burnouts had atrophied down to nothingness.

As Star staggered backwards, legs still quivering, her wings instinctively flared out. Her feathers were still preened, still in alignment, but every one of them was dead. They were bleached, white, and dry. As Star looked at the full-body mirror with mute horror, she saw a few of her primaries fall out.

W-what did that comic do!? Poison me? Or, or… Who… WHO DID THIS!? WHY!? I’m going to KILL them! I’ll… why would anypony?...

Starburst felt her legs give out, and her reflection dropped to the ground with an empty look in its eyes.

… I don’t want to be like this…

On Star’s chest, the amulet glowed.

For a brief instant Star’s world blurred, and sight and sound and balance all swirled into an incomprehensible mess. Then, before she even had time to react, Star’s senses returned to her with as little fanfare as accompanies waking up in the morning.

The entire process was so completely disorienting and yet had so little actual impact that Star didn’t react for several seconds. She simply stood still, unconsciously noting that her former exhaustion and feverishness seemed to have faded.

Eventually, the reflection in the mirror again caught Star’s attention, and brought her out of her daze

The mirror now showed a Star wildly different from the one it had displayed moments ago. Just as she no longer felt tired or weak, so too was her reflection straight and proud. Her eyes had regained their strong purple sheen and her fur was back to full luster. Her wings were still extended, still had every feather meticulously locked in place, but they were restored to their former glory. Even the odd amulet no longer remained on Star’s chest.

The problem was that the mirror did not show only one Star. The healthy, vigorous Star was transparent. Her muscled legs, her massive wings, and even her restored body didn’t block out the sight of the plank wall on the other side of the room. She floated a few feet off the ground, her wings unmoving, and beneath her was the old Star, the decrepit one, unchanged from her former appearance save that she lay on the floor with her eyes closed. The amulet remained on that Star’s chest, the red flecks in its opal now definitely moving.

Star turned from the mirror and looked beneath her with a disbelieving gaze. There, just as the mirror had shown, was her body. Its limbs were stick-like and its mane was ratty, but it was her, and when Star brought up her hoof to look at the form her mind now occupied, she could still see her bleached fur through her new, transparent orange pelt.

… What did that comic do?

…

Powered Comics Fun Fact: The Questing Beast is one of the more minor denizens of Tartarus, or at least of Powered Comic’s somewhat artistic interpretation of Tartarus. The purpose of the comic version is the same as in reality: the infernal prison exists to hold beings whose magic is either too resilient or too dangerous to risk lesser confinements. However, Powered Comics has added many fictitious flourishes to its Tartarus, including many new denizens, a far more lava-heavy environment, and an entirely imaginary race of Tartarian Demons to act as guards for the inmates. While in reality Cerberus is Tartarus’s only warden, in Powered Comics lore demons have mostly taken over the role. Of course, the demons are not necessarily heroes: their two most favored pastimes are holding grudges and inventing new torture methods, so an escaped Tartarian demon is in some ways worse than an escaped Tartarian prisoner.

Author's Note

Because one cliff-hanger just isn't enough.

Author's Notes

The Alarms

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

Prism stared, without seeing, as Whirlwind screamed. He wasn’t sure if he should be reassuring her, running for an ambulance, or screaming himself. It was plain to him, even as Whirlwind moved around in a panic, that there was no chance of salvaging her injury. Her wing was gone, reduced to a tiny, featherless remainder covered in old scar tissue. It looked for all the world as if she had lost it years and years ago.

Whirlwind, after nearly half a minute of emptying her lungs, finally stopped screaming and shifted into panicked gasping. In between heaving breaths and the incoherent beginnings of sentences, Prism heard another sound.

Frantically pattering hooves came from the door on the near wall of the room, and as Prism turned to look at it, moving gingerly to avoid more spots, he heard Icy’s voice.

“Whirlwind!” The door burst open. “Whirlwind, are you okay!?” Icy stopped his headlong rush and gaped at the sight of Whirlwind’s scarred stump.

As Icy and Whirlwind looked at each other, one tearful, the other stunned, Prism noticed in a vague, detached manner that Icy also wore a costume. His was much bulkier than Whirlwind’s, though, made somewhat like a cross between a snow parka and battle armor. The suit was the same color as the dark blue stripes of Icy’s mane, and covered everything except for his wings. Icy’s hooves also had blue shoes, the same color as his lighter mane stripes, with grey fur sticking out of the tops. A hood was thrown over his face, with a grey fur ruff. Icy wore no mask under the hood, but he did have a pair of snow goggles that he had pushed up from his eyes. Icy also wore a sort of necklace, hanging out from the hood. It was made of thin cord, and attached to the necklace with a metal ring was an icicle, nearly a foot long.

Almost against his will, Prism’s attention was drawn away from Whirlwind, from the room, and from their current predicament. Icy's icicle was not normal, of that Prism was certain. It possessed a presence; a subtle sense of power that somehow demanded attention. Prism found his gaze locked to it as if it had reached out and frozen itself to his eyeballs.

The Icicle was shaped just like any other: it was lumpy and scrapped in some places, with a slight zigzag to its shape. However, this only made its oddities even more striking. Its core emitted a blue glow that suffused the crystal, pulsing occasionally. Every flaw and twist was highlighted by the light, but this only added to its appearance of power, because the flaws made the Icicle real in a way that no glow-in-the-dark toy would have been. Around the Icicle, moreover, was a sort of aura: the blue glow diffracted as it left the crystal, creating an effect like a glowing unicorn horn. Instead of sparkles, though, the Icicle appeared sheathed in a blue mist, faint but strong enough that Prism could see swirls and distortions snaking through the magic.

“...Woah. What’s that?” Whirlwind asked, gasping ceased. Her voice was nearly normal, except for the awe in it. Prism would have been astounded at how quickly she had forgotten about her injury had he not himself been feeling the power Icy’s necklace exerted. It was comparable only to the presence an alicorn possessed; Prism felt like Aunt Twilight or even Princess Celestia had stepped into the room in full regalia.

In light of such a lofty comparison, it was fitting that only Icy himself seemed indifferent to his equipment’s effects. He barely spared it a glance before returning his gaze to Whirlwind. “The necklace? I was wearing it when I woke up, just like everything else, but Whirlwind, that’s not important, what happened to your wing!?” Icy’s eyes were urgent and fearful.

At his question, Whirlwind seemed to shrink. As Prism turned to her, she looked at her stump again, and started to breath more heavily. “I… I don’t know. It was like this… since I woke up, but I don’t remember what happened… I d-don’t remember how I lo… l-lost it…”

Icy stepped forward, raising a hoof, but then stopped. He seemed to be at as much a loss for what to do as Prism had been earlier, but was likewise unable to look away from Whirlwind’s devastated expression.

Prism felt as if he had been punched, repeatedly. Okay, so we’ve got no idea where we are, we’re all wearing costumes, Icy has some icicle amulet that is definitely serious magic, Whirlwind is missing her wing, and I’ve developed a vision impairment and might be going mad, if a photosolid isn’t a real thing. Or even if it is. Seriously, what the hay should I be doing!?

Prism tried to look between his friends again and squinted as the lights returned to plague him. Okay, first I have to figure out how see. Ummm, Whirlwind said I had a visor, maybe I could just take it– wait. Okay, when I was looking between Icy and Dubz just now, my vision was mostly okay, except for those weird shadows. What was I doing different then?

Prism looked between Whirlwind and Icy once more, but as he turned his eyes, the spots again erupted. This time, however, he kept his eyes open against the glare, and the spots receded as he refocused on Whirlwind.

Okay, so I did something right. Prism moved his gaze back to Icy, tracking slowly. The spots didn’t return. Do they only come up when I move my eyes really fast? Prism slowly shifted his gaze around the room.

It was of no use; the spots returned when Prism moved his eyes off of his companions and into the corners. Darn it. Prism tried to blink the spots away and refocus.

“Hey!”

Prism jumped at the shout. Sometime when he had been trying to analyze the spots, Icy had shaken off his stupor and moved in front of Prism. He had also donned a fierce scowl. Prism normally wouldn’t have minded, but the Icicle lent a chilling cast to Icy's look that made him flatten his ears.

“Yea– yes?” Prism asked meekly.

Icy’s scowl deepened. Prism was briefly reminded of Starburst: her bangs cast threatening half-shadows over her face when she was angry in almost the exact same manner as Icy’s hood. “I was asking you if you remembered how we got here. The comic, remember that? It glowed and sucked in Whirlwind, and then you and I went after her, and I wanted to know what happened to you two when you woke up. Were you even paying attention?”

“Ummm, not exactly, I sorta–”

Icy cut Prism off with a sharp gesture. “Prism, this is serious! This is not something you can joke about, like you always do with weather duty, Whirlwind is missing her wing! We need to figure out what happened and–”

“I know that!” Prism hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but Icy’s accusation had reversed his earlier fear and turned it into hot anger. “I know that this is serious! I was gonna say that I was trying to figure out how to see!” Icy opened his mouth, but Prism kept talking. “Ever since we woke up, I’ve been getting these weird spots all over my vision, and it was really, really distracting, and now they’re coming back," – they were – "and if we’re supposed to be serious and figure out what happened, then getting angry at each other is definitely the worse thing we can do right now.”

Icy closed his mouth. He looked surprised and slightly cowed.

Whirlwind broke the ensuing silence. She was looking at Prism, but her gaze flickered backward occasionally. “Wait, you’ve been getting… spots on your vision? Do you think you… something happened to your eyes like…” She trailed off and looked again at her stump.

Prism had not thought of that possibility, and immediately decided he fervently hoped it wasn’t the case. “I didn’t think of that… it might not be, though, you said I was wearing a visor.” Prism reached up again to touch the bar of material around his face, then stopped when he remembered he was wearing greaves. “And a lot of other stuff.” Prism made an effort to focus on Icy, with only a mild attack of spots. “Icy, could you help me get– umm, bro, are you okay?”

Icy didn’t look okay. His eyes were wide and were darting between his Icicle, Prism, and Whirlwind, with the Icicle intensifying the expression by casting a bright blue light over Icy’s face that demanded attention and projected his shock better than a billboard.

“Icy?”

Wide-eyed, Icy focused on Prism, took a deep breath, and opened his mouth. “I… Okay. I think I might know what happened to us, but it’s really crazy.”

“Icy, I think we knew that from the beginning. Spill?” Prism noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes and was immediately attacked by another barrage of spots. He saw a flash of purple that was probably Whirlwind stepping forward, though.

“Yeah, but…” Icy tapped a hoof on the floor. “Okay, you know the comic that brought all of us here? It was about three pegasi superheroes. Spectrum, Aerial, and Birr.”

"O...kay. Why is that important?" Prism forced himself not to turn to Whirlwind as she spoke.

Icy looked vastly more nervous, but he continued. “Well… I was sort of skimming the comic, but I know that Spectrum wears a bright white costume, Birr has a magic Icicle, and Aerial was missing a wing.”

“Huh? What the hay–” Whirlwind’s eyes grew wide. “Oh Celestia, what the hay?”

“Woah, woah, woah, are you saying we… became these guys? Or something? How could that have happened?”

“I know it doesn’t sound like it makes much sense,” Icy put in, “but there are a lot of coincidences. I didn’t notice them at first because all of this stuff” –Icy motioned to his costume– “looks different in real life than in a hoofdrawn picture. But when the comic ended, I mean, where it cut off and there was just the blank page, all of the superheroes were at their base, and Spectrum and Aerial were, umm… they were in the command room, which had a city map and files and stuff, exactly like this place. You woke up here, right?”

“Yeah,” Prism replied.

“Okay, back up.” Whirlwind raised her hooves, then abruptly dropped back onto them as her one wing failed to balance her correctly. She glared back at it, then turned to Icy. “I guess that is a pretty big string of coincidences, but what are you saying? Are you saying we’re inside the comic book? Because I might not know very much about unicorn magic, but I'm pretty sure something like that breaks the rules. ”

Prism, however, interjected. “Hold on! You guys remember that weird note at the end of the comic? Didn’t it say something about joining the book?” I think I've heard of something like this before.

Icy nodded. “Yeah, umm… I think it said ‘take a closer look to join the adventure in this book.’”

Prism nodded slowly. “Okay. So maybe we are inside the comic!”

“Again, how?” Whirlwind’s tone was strongly skeptical. “If a unicorn could do something like this, then why haven’t we heard about it before?”

That’s it! “We have! Well, me and Icy, I don’t know about you.” Prism focused his gaze on Icy again. “Didn’t Auntie Twilight tell us that story about how she built a portal to another dimension once? Like, using a mirror?”

Icy nodded again. “Yeah! I mean, I think she just sorta refurbished an old portal, but it worked. You think the comic might have been a, a gateway to another dimension?”

“Maybe.” Prism was stopped as Whirlwind interrupted, sounding angry.

“Hold on! If this is a portal to another world, then why the costumes? Why– this?” Prism heard the sound of wings extending, and slowly turned his head to look at Whirlwind.

“But that makes even more sense!” Prism’s tone grew excited. “Icy, when Aunt Twilight went through that portal, didn’t she say she transformed into something else? Like, ahh, a muman?”

“Uhh, yeah, she mentioned that. She said she had only two legs and hands while she was there, like a minotaur. Except I think she also said she wore really funny clothes.”

“Exactly!” Prism focused on Whirlwind again. “If being sucked into another dimension can turn a Princess into some minotaur-thing, then why not superheroes? And” – Prism’s voice jumped excitedly – “she turned back into a pony when she returned! So if we can just get out of here, everything will go back to normal!”

There was a brief silence as Icy and Whirlwind processed this. “That… actually does make a lot of sense.” Icy sounded surprised. “I mean, it’s weird that we got a comic that’s a magical gateway, but I guess that given what happened, it makes a lot of sense.”

“Back up.” Whirlwind still sounded skeptical. “All of this hinges on there being a dimension made of comic book stories. Why would any dimension be like a bunch of comics from our world? That makes no sense.

“Well, Princess Twilight actually said she met alternate versions of all of her friends in the dimension she visited. They had the same personality and everything, but I think she said Mom was a sports captain instead of a Wonderbolt. So they were similar, but also kinda different. Maybe… maybe in this dimension, the part that was similar to our dimension was the stuff in the comic?” Icy fidgeted hesitantly. Prism started to turn to see Whirlwind’s reaction, but then he had a thought that cleanly blew all focus on interdimensional travel out of his mind.

“Do you think we got superpowers?” Whirlwind shuffled to look at him, but Prism was busy slowly shifting his gaze to Icy, trying to focus past the spots. “Ohmygosh, if this really is another dimension, maybe we did! Quick, what were Spectrum’s superpowers!?”

Icy was looking a little annoyed again. “Is that really important right now?”

“Yes! I mean, if I do have superpowers, then wouldn’t it be more proof that we really are in an alternate dimension? I mean, if I can do stuff here that I couldn’t do in Equestria, we’ve gotta be somewhere else. Now, c’mon, what can he do?”

“Uh, Spectrum could make duplicates of himself. Always three of them; well, he only ever made three in the comic.” Icy looked a little bemused by Prism’s enthusiasm.

“So. Awesome. I could pull off an entire flying show by myself! Okay, quick, how does it work?”

Icy shifted back defensively. “I don’t know! It’s not like the comic included a step-by-step review of how everypony’s powers worked. Spectrum said – well, I guess the comic book version of him said – that his duplicates were projected by his armor. It never explained how he controlled them, but he’s supposed to be a colt genius or something. You might have no idea how to use any of his stuff.”

Prism snorted, and Whirlwind cut in with her own question. “What about me? What powers did ‘Aerial’ have?”

Icy opened his mouth to respond, but Prism beat him to it. “Hah! See, I knew you’d come around.”

Whirlwind huffed. “Maybe I want to feel like I got something in exchange for losing a wing.”

…Well there is no good way to respond to that, is there? Prism bowed his head and tried to think of how a colt genius would design his duplicating armor.

“Aerial was… Huh. The book never really explained exactly what her powers were, but I think she was a really good martial artist. And she could do things with wind that normal pegasi can’t do, like making a cup fly into her hoof just by gesturing.” Icy’s voice was oddly nervous.

Whirlwind huffed again. “So what, should I have my hooves around and hope something happens? Why am I missing a wing? Does that have anything to do with Aerial’s ‘superpowers’?”

“I don’t know…” Icy eyed the ground.

Prism stopped paying attention to his companions as he considered his possible superpowers. How would you activate a magical duplicator? My wings aren’t actually in a uniform, so maybe the switch would be on the greaves? Would it even be a switch or button or something?

Prism attempted to look down at his greaves and was once again hindered by the spots. Wait. The spots! Do they have anything to do with it? Maybe the controls are built into the visor! Prism shifted his gaze rapidly left and right, nearly blinding himself, but no duplicates manifested.

Prism did notice something interesting, though. When he shifted his eyes rapidly around without turning his head… the spots never appeared when he was looking straight ahead.

Prism tried moving his eyes again, to confirm. It worked. The spots were always worst when he was gazing out of the corners of his eyes. When he brought them back into the center, the spots disappeared rapidly. Huh. Okay. So I guess I can look at things if I only turn my head? How does that tie into making duplicates?

“Woah! It worked!” Prism looked up, blinked at the spots, and refocused his eyes to the center of his vision before carefully maneuvering his head to take in the scene that had caused Icy’s exclamation.

Whirlwind was looking at Icy, who looked was smiling even though he had his Icicle gripped firmly between his teeth. In front of him was a tiny patch of fog, just a little bit thicker than a mist. It was rather unimpressive to Prism, and would have been so even to a pegasus far less weather-savvy, but he did wonder how Icy had made it so swiftly.

Prism’s question was answered when Icy stopped grinning and closed his mouth around the glowing Icicle. The aura around it started to shift and grow, dripping off the Icicle in a vaporous haze. At the same time as the magic intensified, the fog reacted, starting to rise off the ground. As it rose, it also expanded, thickened, and darkened. When it reached the ceiling, Icy closed his eyes and furrowed his brows, and a few seconds later the cloud released a faint but steady dusting of snow.

Icy released the Icicle and then his breath, grinning up at the miniature snow cloud. “That’s really cool.”

“That’s your power? Making clouds?” Prism asked. It sounded fairly useful, if mundane. Pegasi could make clouds by hoof, but it was time-consuming and labor-intensive, which was why most cities normally just imported them from Cloudsdale and its Weather Factory.

“Not exactly. I – Birr – could control the weather like a unicorn with really powerful weather spells, but when I used this–” Icy held up his Icicle. “–it was just like what I always do to shape the weather, except instead of pushing the clouds together to make them change, I just sorta told them to do it, and the Icicle made them listen. Does that make sense?”

Whirlwind started to reply, but Prism cut her off. "Perfect sense." He turned to address both other ponies at once. "See? Icy has superpowers, we've all got costumes, and we fell through some crazy magic portal. This is exactly like what Princess Twilight said happened to her. All we need to do is find the same gateway we used to get here, and we can get back home." Prism noticed Whirlwind giving him the evil eye. "Dubz, this is good! If we're in another dimension, then all we need to do is find the way home, and everything will go back to normal. Nothing that happened to Princess Twilight when she went through the portal stayed with her when she went back to Equestria. And finding the way back should be easy! We'll figure out how the rest of our superpowers work, and with those, I bet we can handle anything this world can throw at us. It could even be fun!"

Whirlwind stomped forward and glared at Prism. "Prism, I am missing. My. Wing. If you are right, and maybe you are, then we are stranded in a completely different universe. We don't know the way home, even if the portal or whatever stayed open! And if we have superpowers, has it occurred to you that there are probably lots of other ponies with superpowers here too? Even if you're right and I'll get my wing back if we can go home, we could still be hurt, and we don't know a thing about what this place is like or about anypony here. We barely know where 'here' is! And none of us know the first thing about being superheroes or using superpowers. It is definitely not going to be fun!" Whirlwind punctuated the last statement by raising her hoof to her chest and stomping on the floor.

There was a *fwoom* like an entire hot air balloon venting its contents, and a gust of wind erupted from under Whirlwind's hoof. It set the papers and shelved files to rustling, slammed the door closed, blew Icy's cloud straight into the ceiling, and sent Icy himself stumbling several paces back. Prism was able to weather the blast only because of his armor, and was able to see Whirlwind go flying tail over teakettle only because of his visor.

Therefore only Prism, frantically correcting for the spots, managed to follow Whirlwind as she twisted and flipped upright in midair, and only he kept her in his sights as she extended her legs and slowed down. For a brief instant he saw Whirlwind almost hover a few feet off the ground; then she landed, gracefully, without a single stumble, and wearing an expression of abject bewilderment.

For a while the only sound was that of the last few papers hitting the ground. Then Prism grinned. "Okay, right, not fun. But can you at least agree that it's pretty cool?"

…

"What should I even be looking for?" Whirlwind turned to Icy, who was hovering several feet off the ground, perusing the upper shelves. "You said 'look for something like the comic', but everything here is just boring junk about Maretropolis crime... actually, I don't even know where this place is. Are we in 'Maretropolis'?"

"Yeah, we should be. This is the Young Harmony team's headquarters."

"The... Young Harmony team? Is that some superhero thing?"

Icy replaced the papers he had been looking at and hovered slowly to the ground next to her. "Yeah. The team Birr, Aerial, and Spectrum were on was called Young Harmony. It's the Power Ponies'– you know who the Power Ponies are, right?"

"Sure. They're kind of a cultural icon."

"Young Harmony was the branch of the Power Ponies for underage members. Ponies who had powers but weren't old enough to fight the really big supervillians. That's why the team has a separate base, which should be this place. Assuming that the comic matches up to this dimension perfectly, which I guess it might not–"

"Back to the papers we're looking for?"

"Uh, right. Well, Princess Twilight said that she went through a mirror portal to get to the other world, and came back the same way, but we had a comic portal, so we should find something comic-like to to get back–"

"– and this is as good a place to start looking as any, you said that before. But none of this stuff" – Whirlwind flourished the large stack of files she was holding – "is like a comic. It's all just a bunch of boring, dry reports about crime rates and records about different supervillains and to what they can do. Which I guess could be helpful, but there isn't a magic portal-comic anywhere in here."

"There might be," Prism spoke from his seat by the door. "It might be hidden in there to keep supervillains from finding it.” Whirlwind gave him a raised eyebrow. “Or something. We can't know until we search all of it."

Whirlwind huffed and replaced the files. "If you want to go through it all so bad, you could at least help."

"I am helping." Prism gestured to his suit. "Icy said that my superpower was making duplicates. If I can figure out how to do that, then you guys won't even have to work at all. I can just make an army of duplicates and they'll find the portal for us."

"You probably can't make an army of duplicates," Icy interjected as he hovered up to grab another file. "I'm pretty sure Spectrum could only make three at a time."

"Whatever. We'd still go twice as fast. More than twice as fast, since they're duplicates of me."

Whirlwind snorted, then reached out and made a sudden, sharp beckoning gesture. Two more files flew off the shelves, both of which Whirlwind adroitly caught. “If the guy you're... replacing, Spectrum, only got his powers from technology, then are you sure you're even gonna be able to use any of his gear? You weren't exactly the best in school, Prism."

"Icy only has powers because of his Icicle." Prism made to point at the mentioned relic, then remembered he had told Icy to hide it in his uniform because it made him feel like he was in the same room as Princess Nidra when she was particularly irritable. Or happy. Or anything, really. Nidra had a somewhat overmastering personality. "Besides, it's not like I'm gonna have to rebuild whatever Spectrum made from scratch. I just need to figure out how to control it."

"Any luck with that so far?" Whirlwind replaced one of the files she was holding and opened the other.

"I already told you I figured out how my visor works. It won't take that long to figure out everything else. I'll have it all down before you guys are half finished, just wait."

Whirlwind smirked, then replaced the other file and summoned two more. "I don't know, Priz. Using superpowers isn't like flying, and you seem to be off to a pretty bad start. You might want to cut down on the attitude, before somepony else shows you up."

Prism snorted. "Please. Once I figure out the controls for this thing, I'll have it all down in ten seconds flat."

"We'll see." Whirlwind was visibly grinning, Prism rolled his eyes and returned to his contemplations.

The group was silent except for the shuffling papers for nearly fifteen minutes. Then Icy replaced a file and spoke up. "I really think the portal might not be here, guys."

"Have you searched the entire shelf yet?" Prism responded, looking up from his greave.

"Almost. There's only about a quarter left." Icy noticed the looks Whirlwind and Prism were giving him and continued quickly. "Look, all I'm saying is that we need to think of other places to look. The portal might be on this shelf, but it might also be somewhere else. Remember, I didn't wake up in this room, so the portal might be able to throw ponies further than just a few feet. It might not even be in this building."

"Say, that reminds me," Prism started, "where did you wake up? You never said."

"Oh, it was on the floor below this one. I wasn't paying that much attention to it when I was there, but I think it might have been the equipment room, or something like that. There lots of weird machines. Some of them actually looked sorta like your armor, Prism."

"Really?" Prism jumped to his hooves. "Where'd you say the room was, again?"

"Why? You think the portal might be there?" Icy asked, both he and Whirlwind turning to look at Prism.

"It could be. But there might also be something that could explain how my powers work. Spectrum was an inventor, right? He probably had a lab, and the lab might have a manual or a diagram or something for the armor."

"Prism, are you telling me you want to read a book? Are you okay?" Whirlwind asked, smiling. Prism rolled his eyes and smiled back.

"Hah hah, very funny. But seriously, like I said, if I could figure out how to make duplicates, we could search way quicker."

"And like I said, you'll probably have no clue what any of Spectrum's machines even do."

"Whatever. I'm going down to check anyway. Icy, where was the room?"

"Down the stair at the end of the hall. Go down one floor and it's the first door on... it would be your right." Prism turned and walked out the door. He heard Icy shout after him. "Even if you don't figure out how your powers work, you're helping us search the next place! You can't just sit on the floor and hit different pieces of your armor again!" Prism chuckled.

When his laughter subsided, he looked at his surroundings. Despite his proclaimed mastery of his visor's odd visual overlay, Prism still found that having to look straight ahead all the time was annoying in some circumstances. Looking around was one of them, and as Prism carefully moved his head to take in the hallway he again wondered why Spectrum had built such an obtuse feature into his armor.

The hallway didn't do much to distract him. It was rather plain and utilitarian, with the same fluorescent lighting as the command room and the same grey walls. It's floor was made of white tiles, though, and the doors arrayed on the walls were all made of some dark wood, with blackened glass windows.

Prism looked for the stairs Icy had mentioned, still moving his head awkwardly about to dodge the spots. At each end of the hallway were a pair of black doors with green EXIT signs above them, complete with pictograms of a pony rushing through the door below. Okay. Which one did Icy come from? After a brief second of consideration, Prism decided to just start towards the one that was closest.

Briefly, Prism lifted his wings to start flying, but then stopped when he caught sight of one of the door labels. It was stenciled onto the window in an eminently legible white type, just barely small enough to be unobtrusive, pronouncing the door the entry to the “Conference Room.”

Prism halted briefly, then set out at a more sedate pace that let him read the other doors. By the time he had reached the end of the hall, Prism had also found the Debriefing Room, the Calculating Room, and the Records Room. None of them seemed very extraordinary, but there were two seperate doors to the Records Room, nearly a dozen ponylengths apart. Please don’t let the portal be hidden in there, Prism thought as he pushed his way through the black double doors. If these guys are the sort of ponies who label every room in their base, they probably have records all the way up to the ceiling.

The black door lead, as expected, to a stairwell painted the same grey color as everything else. The stairs were square; along the left wall they went up, along the right wall they went down, and on the other walls they formed balconies. The stairwell was fairly large, and a steel rail guarded the gap in the middle. Prism was forced to jump this to get into the drop.

Prism snapped his wings open and beat them rapidly to arrest his fall, then allowed himself to hover downward at a controlled pace. He turned to take in the stairs, searching the balconies for doors. The first three balconies didn’t have any, though one of them had a fire extinguisher and blanket in clearly labelled glass-sheathed compartments. The fourth balcony, however, had a pair of black double doors exactly like those distantly above it.

Prism glanced downwards; this was the last balcony before the stairs terminated. Okay, I guess this is it. He flapped over the railing and pushed through the door, dropping back to his hooves as he did so.

The lower hallway was just as long as the one above it, with the same decor, but for a few differences. There were fewer doors, and they were spaced more widely apart. The flooring had changed again, now being composed of the same grey material – Prism hesitantly pegged it as a sort of concrete – as the walls. In between some doors, there were metal boxes with covered wires running from them, some with levers or dials attached. Surprisingly, none of the boxes were labelled.

Prism carefully moved his head again to search for the room Icy had mentioned. The first door on his right was a scant three ponylengths down the hall, with white text on it proclaiming “Armory.” Prism pushed it open and stepped through.

… Huh. Prism wasn’t exactly sure of what he had expected from the armory – he had never been in one himself – but this was…. pretty different from what he had imagined. It reminded him more of Aunt Rarity’s shop, the Carousel Boutique, than some superequine arsenal.

Dominating the armory and stretching nearly from wall to wall was a workshop so tremendous that Prism's only analog to its size was the Cloudsdale Weather Factory floor. The workshop was split into different tables and stations, and walkways allowed for easy movement. Even then, it was still big enough to make any Canterlot armorer jealous. Next to each table were one or more bins containing fabric, paint, metal, or various prefabricated parts. Upon each table were machines. Some of them looked vaguely like sewing machines, others like metalwork stations or polishing tables, but every one of them had an appearance like something out of science fiction, made of chrome or smoothed plastic and covered in blinking L.E.D.s. Only the labels, in the same clear white text that marked the doors, provided any indication of each device’s purpose, and even they were woefully incomprehensible.

Prism walked dumbfoundedly through one of the walkways. What the heck is all of this even for? Icy said that some of the machines looked like my armor, but this can’t all be for making… cloning magic… stuff. Prism paused next to a table dominated by a huge glass case, inside of which a pair of motor-driven steel bars lay dormant over a cartesian grid. What’s a “laser printer?” Augh, focus on finding out about the armor.

Prism looked around, but the combination of having to move only his head and the irregular height and bulk of the equipment made it impossible to see even the door he had come in from. Huffing, Prism unfurled his wings and took to the air.

The gust of wind rattled a few bits and bobs, but caused no real damage. Once in the air, Prism attempted again to survey the room, but stopped quickly.

On the opposite side of the room from where Prism had come in were a set of seven metal ponyquins, each of a different size and body type, lined up in recessed alcoves in the wall. On each ponyquin's right was a rack with a different arrangement of hooks, and on each ponyquin's left was a locker with a metal crossbar sealing it. Only a single ponyquin was in use: the one third from the right wore a white bodysuit, probably a mare's, covered in polychromatic puzzle pieces. A few of the ponyquin's racks had small gadgets or spare pieces of armor on them, but all of them, even the rack next to the puzzle piece suit, were mostly empty.

Prism looked down at the machines again, then back to the ponyquins. Is this where the Young Harmony team repairs their outfits? Even if he couldn’t discern the purpose of many of the stations… most of the bins were filled with materials used in clothing or armor. Huh. Do superheroes need to patch up their costumes super often? I mean, I guess they would get beat up after a while and it would be expensive to just replace broken suits over and over… I really hope they don’t need to use all this after every fight, though. Prism again surveyed the multitudinous machines. If Spectrum only has powers because of his armor, would he need his own special machines to work on it?

There. In the far corner of the room from the door Prism had entered was a collection of shiny, plastic boxes with glowing white circles along their sides, arranged on tables in an open rectangle. In between the machines, and notably clashing with the fastidious organization of the rest of the armory, were dozens of crystals, tools, and small parts, strewn about without much care on top of equally disorganized schematic papers. The machines were black, not white, but still... it looked very much like the workshop of a colt genius.

Prism hovered down into the middle of the tables. Okay, found his stuff. Now, where would a manual be? Prism reached one of the schematic papers, remembered he was wearing greaves again, huffed, and used his wing instead. Maybe I should just take off the armor until I figure out how to use it. Or at least the visor and the greaves – but then the pseudodermis projector wouldn’t work.

Prism stopped. … The what wouldn’t work? He shook his head. What’s a pseudodermis?

Prism attempted to recall for a good fifteen seconds, but if he had ever heard the term before, it escaped him. So how do I know it? Is a pseudodermis like a photosolid, or whatever it was?

He shook his head again, this time more violently. What is up with this? Gah, I just want to figure out how this armor works and then go home. He turned his attention back to the schematic he was holding.

In barely legible chicken-scratch writing, the paper was titled “Multiple-Layer Pseudodermis Shield Prototype”.

Prism stared at the paper as if it were a severed hoof. He did not panic, did not even move, but only started, in fragmented thoughts, to ask: H... How... Wait, how would you keep the layers from interfering with each other’s equilibrium fluctuations?

Prism still didn’t move, but his eyes, almost unconsciously, flickered down over the schematic proper, dodged the spots, and went to the small box depicting an enlarged pseudodermis cross-section. Oh, a thaumicly conductive separator creating a counterforce in time with a typical fluctuation cycle? That could work. Be a pain to get the projectors and the thaumic circuit to work in sync, though–

Then Prism what he was thinking and hurled the paper away as if it actually was a severed hoof, then clamped both of his own over his mouth as he dropped to the ground. Distantly, he was aware that he was hyperventilating. Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, don’t scream, you aren’t going mad, you will get out of here, Spectrum’s evil spirit is not going to possess you and turn you into Nightmare Prism, don’t scream, DON’T SCREAM!

For a small eternity, Prism lay on the ground, trying, with only moderate success, to not freak out. His thoughts raced frantically, but before he had even gotten his breathing back under control, there was the sound a door opening and Icy’s voice. “This was the door.”

Whipping around like a startled animal, Prism attempted to get to his hooves. As he did so, Whirlwind called out “Prism? You in here?”

Okay, don’t panic, don’t freak out Whirlwind, don’t tell anypony anything about photosolids, DON’T SCREAM, and answer her, answer her before this gets weird, dangit! “Uh, yeah! Yeah, I’m in here. In the back, next to the, uhh… in front of the ponyquins!”

“Ponyquins?” Almost simultaneously, Icy flew into view and Whirlwind stepped around a large drill press. Whirlwind had donned her mask again, and Icy had pushed his goggles back over his eyes. This effectively hide any reaction they might have had to the workshop. “Oh, ponyquins. Wow, this place isn’t what I was expecting. What do they even do here, fix their uniforms?” Whirlwind looked around at the machines and bins full of crafting materials.

Prism swallowed. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, superheroes probably need to patch up their uniforms a lot, even if you never see it, and these machines all look like they could make clothing or armor. Not that I know what most of this stuff does, of course!”

Whirlwind turned her gaze back to Prism and frowned confusedly. Icy dropped to the ground next to the photosolid workstation. “Uh, Prism, are you okay? You look sorta freaked out.”

“Huh? No, I’m fine. I'm just, you know, eager to get back home! So, did you finish searching the shelves?”

Icy nodded. “There wasn’t anything like the comic that brought us here on them.”

“Did you find what you were looking for here?” Whirlwind had moved closer to to the table while Prism and Icy spoke. She smirked. “Any insight into your great and powerful armor of self-duplication?”

Prism laughed nervously. “Heh heh, nope! It was all too complicated to understand, like you said. I guess I’ll just have to help you guys search the old-fashion way.” Whirlwind looked oddly at him.

“Okay… Well, should we keep looking? I guess I’m just as eager as you to get home.” Whirlwind flexed her wing a little.

“Yeah, great! I saw a record room upstairs when I was going down. We could go and try rifling through it.” I really hope there aren’t any records of insanity-causing phototechnic schematics in there. Oh Luna, I just used phototechnic in a sentence, it’s getting worse!

“Or we could just look around here. There’s plenty of papers.” Whirlwind picked up a schematic from the table, allowing a few crystals and metal rods to slide off. “Wow. Yeah, this stuff is a lot closer to a comic book than anything upstairs shelves. What’s an equilibrium state?”

The state at which photosolid constructs gain and lose energy at an equal rate, allowing them to adopt the properties of a solid object, Prism tried desperately not to answer. The silence stretched on until it became slightly awkward and Whirlwind looked up.

At that point, Icy cleared his throat. “Umm, I’ve been thinking. I didn’t really read the comic that well before we, you know, got sucked into it, but if this is another dimension, and it has superheroes in it, then maybe we could ask them for help? I mean, we became... versions, I guess, of a few of the heroes on Young Harmony, but they have other members–”

“Four other members, I’m guessing.” Whirlwind gestured to the ponyquins, having put the schematic back on the table.

“R-right. And, I mean, those other four members are an actual team of superheroes. They’d probably be used to dealing with crazy stuff all the time, and I’m sure that they would help us if we explained to them what happened. They might even know something about the comic that brought us here! It could make going back home a lot easier.”

“That’s a good idea, Icy.” Prism’s voice was colored with slight relief. “It definitely beats trying to search through this whole place ourselves.”

Whirlwind nodded emphatically. “Yeah, I didn't think of that. Good one, Icy." He smiled.

Whirlwind turned to Prism. "Okay, so should we go looking for everypony else in this place now? Say," Whirlwind turned to Icy. "we've been walking around for a while, you’d think we would have run into at least one of the other heroes. Unless this place is way bigger than what we’ve seen.” Whirlwind made an all-encompassing gesture.

“I don’t think it’s that big. But I guess there might be rooms the comic didn’t show…” Icy pawed the ground hesitantly as Whirlwind kept moving around the lab.

“They might also all be out patrolling, or doing superhero-y stuff, or whatever.” Prism managed to get his voice almost back to normal as he gestured towards the ponyquins. “It looks like most of them are using their uniforms.”

“I think they also wore uniforms around the base, but you might still be right.” Icy looked to the ponyquins himself. “Say, do you think we… replaced the original Spectrum, Aerial, and Birr from this dimension, or are they still out there? How does that work?”

Oh come on, did you have to bring that up now!? Prism struggled to come up with a response that didn’t involve photosolids or stuttering denials, but was saved by Whirlwind, calling from out of sight.

“Hey, guys, come check this out!” Icy and Prism looked at each other, then flew over the intervening machines and dropped down next to Whirlwind.

She stood in a small clear area on the far side of the workshop, gazing intensely into a silvery metal plate. It was one of five, in total, each about three pony-lengths across and maybe half as tall. Each of them was highly polished and reflective, but it wasn’t until Prism got closer that he realized what had fascinated Whirlwind. The plate was reflecting her, like a mirror, but it reflected only her, without catching any of the room. Moreover, it didn’t produce just a single reflection; rather, in it were four Whirlwinds, one front view, one back view, and one view of either side, arranged in a row.

Whirlwind turned around, and the four duplicates mimicked her, in accordance with their own orientations. “Pretty cool, huh? It just started doing this when I walked up to it.”

“Woah. Yeah, that is pretty cool.” Prism watched as Whirlwind turned around again and looked over her reflection. The left view clearly showed her missing wing, but Whirlwind didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she struck a pose, one foreleg stretched forward and head raised challengingly, looking on as her four reflections mimicked it. Then she turned around, still holding form, with a cocky smile on her face.

“Come, fellow defenders of harmony! Let us go forth and strike down those who would terrorize the ponies of this fair land!” Whirlwind's eyes gleamed intensely. Prism heard Icy make a small choking noise.

Then Prism started laughing hysterically, and Whirlwind joined in in a heartbeat. Eventually, both their chuckles subsided, and Whirlwind smiled. “Seriously, though, I didn’t realize that this costume made me look so... I dunno, intrepid? Is it weird to call yourself intrepid?”

“Nah.” Whirlwind gaze him a wry look. Prism grinned back. “I mean, maybe a little...”

“You look great, Whirlwind.” Icy put in. “Really.”

Whirlwind smirked at Prism, pointing at Icy triumphantly, then turned back to the mirror plate. “Come on, one of you step up. I wanna see what it does if there’s more than one pony in front of it.”

Prism moved to comply, but Icy managed to beat him to Whirlwind’s side in a surprising burst of speed. When he arrived, however, the metal plate simply blanked out, returning to shiny chrome.

Whirlwind cocked her head. “Huh. That’s weird.” Icy nodded in agreement, and Prism made to speak up, but his voice faltered when Whirlwind bunched her legs and, in a leap surely assisted by her powers, jumped backwards, landing next to Prism. When she was midway through her leap, and out of the immediate range of the plate, it reactivated and snapped out a view of Icy. As he was scrambling around in a frantic effort to keep Whirlwind in view, the quadruple image was jarringly dynamic.

Whirlwind remained unflustered as she landed. She looked at the quintet of highly surprised Icys and made a contemplative noise. “Huh. I guess it only works for one pony at a time.” Whirlwind turned to Prism with an expectant smile, then noticed his slack-jawed expression.

Whirlwind cocked her head, glanced at a similarly stunned Icy, then seemed to realize what had stunned them. She smirked. “What? Unlike you, Priz, I can use my powers well enough to show off if I feel like it.” She elbowed Prism, still grinning, and gestured towards the nearest unoccupied plate. “Come on, you try. You probably haven’t been able to get a close look at yourself with that visor.”

Prism looked briefly at Icy, who responded with an expression that was half befuddlement and half demoralization, and moved over to the plate Whirlwind had indicated. Why can Whirlwind use her powers so well t? She isn’t... becoming somepony from here, she’s still herself... But my powers don’t even work and I have a weird voice in my head. Is something about Spectrum in particu– ack!

The reflecting plate really did snap out images: there was no warm-up or warning, and with Prism, this produced the unfortunate side effect of a sudden onslaught of blinding white. After he had recovered from the burst, and from the precipitation of spots his flinch had triggered, Prism finally was able to take himself in.

As Whirlwind had said, Prism was white from his fetlocks to the roots of his mane. He could see why she had at first said he looked like Princess Celestia. He had almost her exact color scheme: an all-white body with a rainbow mane, though Princess Celestia’s was much softer in hue than Prism’s.

Looking further, though, Prism’s armor was clearly not intended to emulate the Princess’s slender elegance and poise. Indeed, it was curiously proportioned. While he had chest armor only a little heavier than that of a Royal Guard, Prism also had armor on his undercarriage, thick enough to stop a battle axe, with barely a third as much protection on his back or flanks. He had the bulky greaves on all four of his legs, but they stopped long before his thighs, making them look more like boots with very thin soles than real armor. His visor was also clunky. It was a bar of material, blocky, covering Prism’s eyes before swapping back and locking into place just below his ears, leaving his mouth and nose visible. The visor wings thinned as to went back, from a starting thickness equal to a half hoof-length to maybe a sixteenth of that.

Probably contributing to the flash Prism had suffered earlier was the battery of lights his armor bore, many of them facing forwards. There were illuminated circles on both of Prism’s greaves, with a much larger circle on his chest. Prism’s visor glowed as well, which might explain some of the odd saturations he'd noticed. Finally, Prism noted as he raised himself up, there were three lights on his undercarriage armor, arranged in a line.

The last thing Prism noticed about his armor was also the oddest. There was no visible seams, gaps, or chinks in it. The chest-plate, visor, greaves, and undercarriage-armor were all fairly solid, probably some type of hard plastic. The rest of Prism’s armor, including the layer underneath the bulky bits, was plainly a softer plastic or rubber going by feel alone. They shouldn’t have joined seamlessly. Moreover, there were no holes for Prism’s wings, despite the fact that pegasi couldn’t fly with covered wings and Prism knew his to be testable functional. Some substance had been used to cover the whole outfit, and, like vacuum wrap, it had followed every contour of the armor and Prism's own flesh and filled in the gaps.

A pseudodermis. A stabilized layer of animathaumic photosolids overlaid onto the armor and held in place by a tri-locus prism projector attuned to my magic. Basically, a second skin. Prism flinched.

"Probably a bit late on this, but congratulations, Prism, you officially look like a nerd." Whirlwind's voice caused Prism to turn around. She was looking at his reflections and smirking again. "Seriously, how are you even gonna fly in that? You must be about as aerodynamic as Starswirl the Bearded."

Prism laughed haltingly. "Heh, I... don't know. I guess I'll just... hope we find the portal soon."

Whirlwind scrunched her face. "Ohhhkay. Prism, seriously, is something wrong? You've been acting really weird ever since we got here. You didn't find out that Spectrum had some horrible secret deformity, did you?"

"No!" By Luna, that would be a lot simpler.

"Cause if you did, it really isn't any reason to freak out. I mean, I know you're in love with your own reflection, but it's not like it could be worse than this." Whirlwind flared her wing-stump.

It could. I could be going mad, or turning into Spectrum Bolt. That's actually a pretty cool name. No, not a cool name, bad name, do not want!

"And, if this really is a different dimension, you'll go back to normal when we get out of here," Whirlwind finished, pleased as punch. "So seriously, no worries, Priz."

It took Prism a few seconds to realize Whirlwind was waiting for an answer. "Uh, yeah, you're right. But, seriously, Dubz, I didn't find out I have a secret deformity. Really, it's nothing like that."

"Well, it's something. Is it about your powers? It's not like you to get so worked up about science-y stuff." Whirlwind put a hoof to her chin. "It's sorta weird you became some nerdy superhero, actually. Is that what's eating you?" Whirlwind smirked again. "You thought about it and realized you wanted better superpowers?"

I think I'd be fine with no superpowers if we could just head home here and now. "That's not it, Dubz. Really, I just want to get home."

Whirlwind responded with an eye roll. "You wanted to get home back in the meeting room, or whatever it was, and then I find you here and you're acting like you've seen a ghost." Whirlwind paused. "Hey, you didn't find out that Spectrum was, like, secretly evil or something, did you? And he was building a death ray to kill his teammates, or stealing technology to take over the world, or whatever evil colt geniuses do?"

Photosolids are ultimately a means of transferring kinetic energy, and so despite the medium of enchanted light, few ranged weapons employing them could accurately be termed "rays". Prism, by force of will, didn't spit out an answer.

Whirlwind took in his silence for a moment and then facehoofed. "Seriously?" She turned to Icy, who had been examining himself in the other mirror plate. He looked up as Whirlwind moved. "Seriously!? Spectrum is secretly evil!? Was that in the comic?"

"Uhh, no?" Icy took a step back. "I mean, it mentioned Spectrum joined Young Harmony really recently. I guess he could have been planning something, but everypony on the team said he joined because, uhh–"

Prism tried to interject. "I didn't find out that I'm secretly evil – I mean, Spectrum is evil, I mean, uh–"

But Whirlwind cut him off. "It's fine, it's not like him being evil is gonna make you turn into a supervillain, it's just is sounds like something we really should know. Icy, what were you saying?"

Icy looked terribly nervous. "Uhmm..."

After a few seconds of silence, Prism opened his mouth to speak up, just as Icy finally managed to ask "Didn't the note at the end of the comic say something about Spectrum?"

"Huh?"

"You know, the one that mentioned going home? It mentioned joining the book, but before that I think it had with something about Spectrum.”

Prism frowned. “That note was weird. How did it go again?”

“Uh, ‘You may return to the place you call home, when Spectrum… When Spectrum is…’" Icy trailed off

"‘When Spectrum is lost to his own!’ And then there was that bit about joining the adventure in the book.’ Whirlwind frowned in concentration. "Ah, come on, how did we forget that?”

"…WHAT!” Prism shrieked.

“Yeah, sorry. I guess that really might have helped us find the portal. To be fair, though, I did wake up missing a wing, and I didn't know about the whole 'different universe' thing.”

"Yeah, Prism–" Icy began.

“I’m not angry about that!” Through the haze of panic, Prism realized that he was hyperventilating again. “Wha-what does 'when Spectrum is lost to his own'mean?" Does 'his own' mean Spectrum's... memories, or soul, or whatever is in my head? I don't wanna be lost to Spectrum's soul!

"Well, apparently that's when we get to go home. Maybe it's a clue about where the portal is. Hey, if Spectrum is secretly evil, does he have a secret evil base somewhere around here? Maybe the portal is–"

"Spectrum wasn't secretly evil!" I really really really hope he wasn't, because that would just make this even worse!

"But you said–" Whirlwind started.

"He's not secretly evil! I was just, just surprised you said that!"

"Okay, then why are you freaking out!?" Whirlwind said, her voice raising to keep up with Prism's escalating volume.

"Because, I, it–" What if Spectrum really was secretly evil and he brought us here to control our minds and use us as an army of teenage zombies to conquer Equestria!? "The poem said we can’t get back until Spectrum is lost to his own!" Prism finally managed to spit out.

Whirlwind looked nonplussed. “...Yes. What, are you worried it was talking about you?”

“Yes!”

Icy stepped forward, appearing concerned. "Prism, you really need to calm down. You shouldn't freak out just because of a bad poem on the comic that brought us here."

"The poem was what brought us here! The comic didn't do anything until Whirlwind read the poem, and, and it said we can't get back until I, Spectrum, whoever is lost. To. His. Own!" Did Spectrum make the portal? Did he make it so he could control me, or possess me, or turn me into him?

"Prism, seriously, calm down." Whirlwind stepped forward as well, sharing Icy's look of concern. "Icy's right, you shouldn't get so worked up about this. You said that we can get home when we find the portal that brought us here, and the poem was probably just a clue about where it is. Or it might just have been nonsense. I mean, "lost to his own" is about as clear as mud."

"Well, it can't mean anything good! 'Lost to his own' could mean that, that–" That I'll only get home when Spectrum's soul, or knowledge, or whatever takes me over!

"Prism," Icy tried to cut him off.

" –that one of Spectrum's machines could blow me up, or maybe even the real Spectrum will find me and–"

"Prism!" Icy yelled.

"–And, I dunno, he'll be angry I took his stuff, or maybe he'll take over my mind and turn me into his clone!" Or maybe he's already here and he's already doing that, or maybe I actually turned into him and now I'm, I'm turning into him more!

"Okay, Prism, you sound like Candy before the Summer Sun Celebration that one time! Stop freaking out!" Whirlwind's eyebrows were raised almost off her face.

Oh my gosh she's right, I'm freaking out too much, I normally don't freak out so much, except for that one time I thought I hit Anthea with a lightning bolt, but this isn't then, Spectrum might be inside my head making me freak out! “Oh Celestia, you’re right, I need to stop freaking out, stop freaking out, stop freaking ouuuuuuut!” Prism started hitting the side of his head in time with his frantic self-directives.

There was a flash of blue and a blast of cold air. In his armor, Prism easily weathered the sharp wind, but it got him to look at Icy.

He had taken his Icicle back out, and was holding it in his clenched jaw. Icy's goggles were still pushed down over his eyes, which made his expression seem slightly sinister. Prism again felt the draw of the Icicle, the sense of weight and power it exerted, and when Icy released it to rest against his chest, Prism listened, even though he was still hyperventilating.

Icy, once the Icicle was out of his mouth, frowned. “Prism, seriously, whatever is wrong, you need to calm down. You aren’t helping yourself at all by panicking. Stop breathing so hard.”

Prism tried, failed, and then settled on breathing through pursed lips, which helped.

Icy frowned deeper. The Icicle continued to cast intimidating blue shadows over his face. “Okay, fine. Prism, that poem doesn’t mean somepony has it out for you. It’s true that we don’t know who sent the comic, or why, but we might never have been meant to get it in the first place!”

“We were.” Prism flinched at Icy’s cross expression, and looked at the ground. “It had my name in the poem. Remember that?” Prism managed to look up, and glared accusingly at Icy through his visor. “‘You may return to the place you call home when Spectrum is lost to his own. Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book. Prism, you’re a dunce.’ Whoever sent that comic wanted this to happen, and it sure sounds like whoever it was had it out for me.”

Icy looked shocked. “I… Sorry, I forgot about that…”

Whirlwind valiantly stepped up. “I forgot about that too. But Prism, you still shouldn’t be getting so scared. Even if whoever sent that comic did mean for you to get it and for it to bring us here, that doesn’t mean that they did it just to hurt you. If they wanted to do something horrible to you, they either wouldn’t have said anything at all or would have called you something a little stronger than ‘a dunce.’”

Prism’s breathing was getting a little slower. “That isn’t actually a very good reason.” I guess it is a little weird, though. What… what was Spectrum like, as a pony? Was he the kind of hero who taunted whoever he was fighting?

Whirlwind scoffed. “Sure it is! And here’s another one: ‘lost to his own’ could mean a lot of different things, and a lot of them aren’t bad. It could mean that the portal back is somewhere in Spectrum’s gear.” Whirlwind gestured over to the photosolid workstation.

Icy interjected, his courage apparently restored. “And don’t forget that no matter who sent that comic, we’ll be fine if we just find the return portal. Like you said; it has to be around here somewhere, and once we find it and get home, whoever sent us here can’t do anything else. We can tell Mom and Dad and the Guard about this, and they’ll find out who made the comic and what they were trying to do.”

What if they can’t? What if whoever sent us here hide the portal or closed it behind us? “But, guys, we could still be hurt, or whatever the comic maker wanted, while we’re here. We haven't found the portal yet!”

“Yeah, that’s what I said and you laughed at me.” Whirlwind pointed out. “Look, I get that you’re worried that comic might have been sent for something sinister, buT you have to admit, it isn't like we were attacked the moment we got here.”

Icy immediately followed up. “Yeah! And we’re right in the middle of a superhero base. This is probably one of the safest places to be in this entire dimension.”

… But it was Spectrum’s base. And I became him, and his voice or soul is in my head… “But… What if that was a part of the plan? What if whoever made that comic wasn’t from Equestria, they were from here? ”

Icy made a loose line with his mouth; Prism got the feeling that he had blinked under his goggles. "You mean, what, a supervillain made the comic?"

"If a supervillain did," Whirlwind interjected, "Then why – actually, how, – would they have sent it to our dimension, knew that we even existed, and decided they hated you personally? This is starting to get ridiculous.” Whirlwind trotted forward and placed her remaining wing over Prism’s shoulder. “Look, the truth is, we don’t know who sent the comic or why your name was in it or why we got sent here, but it doesn’t really matter right now. Like Icy said, we find the way home, and after that we can get the Royal Guard or the Princesses to figure out what happened.”

“Yeah, Icy said, striding up to Prism’s other side. “Look, Prism, you shouldn’t make the worst out of that note. We haven’t seen anything to suggest that somepony from either dimension planned this.”

… I have to tell them. Prism stiffened under Whirlwind’s comforting wing. There already is something going wrong here. They need to know about this voice, in case somepony really is trying to get us. Prism opened his mouth to speak.

That was when the alarm went off.

…

Illusion was smiling when Canterlot Castle finally came into sight. He had made good time, and would have almost the whole day before he’d need to return to Ponyville to witness, and gloat about, the results of his prank. Definitely good to have wings, Illusion thought as he retracted his and levitated the last few feet to the ground. Okay, what am I gonna do now? Mom’s probably still in her office… So’s Dad, even if he’s not exactly being productive… Hmm.

Illusion considered his options as he padded through the castle towards the royal chambers, eyes blind to the sumptuous tapestries and large marble pillars that surrounded him. It’s a shame Starburst isn’t here, and Claire’s busy. It probably would have been better if I could have stayed with her while everypony was in their comics. Illusion opened a door with his magic, returning the guards’ greeting with a mumble as he continued to think. Those new designs have been eating up a lot of her time. Huh. Maybe I could start working on another comic for her–

“Illusion, finally! Where have you been!?”

Illusion jumped, twisting frantically, and, after some undignified and Chaos-assisted flailing, wound up on the ground with two of his legs knotted together and his head twisted around backwards. Who– Oh, is the universe trying to make me into a slapstick gag today?

A badly stifled snicker erupted from somewhere to Illusion’s left. Or possibly right; Illusion wasn’t completely sure which was which. ‘Wha– *snort* What was that? I’ve never seen you do that before.” The snickering continued with less and less containment as a pony fluttered out from behind one of the pillars.

Illusion sighed and began struggling to untie his limbs. “Hello, Nidra.”

Nidra was still stifling laughter as she replied. “Yeah, hello to you too. Seriously, did you try to tie your tail into a knot? How does that happen by accident?”

“My tail isn’t–” Illusion managed to heave himself up far enough to see his tail, which was in a perfect bow.

Nidra snerked, then broke down into a fit of laughter that lasted until Illusion had managed to untangle himself and get upright. When he had finally unwrapped his toes from each other, Nidra trotted over to his side, still fighting down chortles.

“Okay. So, never speak of this to anypony ever again?” Nidra smirked.

Illusion grimaced, then suddenly smiled.“Nope, never again. You’re up early. I thought this was you ‘bedroom brooding’ time.”

Nidra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, try to change the subject. I'm not going to just forget about this little gem for a while. And I do not brood.”

“Really? I could have sworn you had a schedule. Now is your bedroom brooding time, and at noon you’ll brood around the castle before and after lunch, and then you might fly out for some scenic brooding–”

Nidra punched his shoulder. “I do not brood! I’m going out right now, actually. I was trying to find you so you could give me my Jet Stream disguise. I need it.”

And with it you won’t be able to tell anypony about me tying my tail into knots. At least today. “Yeah, sure.” Illusion eagerly raised a paw, then paused. “Wait. Why do you need it? It’s way too early for there to be any parties out in Canterlot. Where are you going?” He put his paw back on the ground as Nidra’s mouth twitched slightly.

Nidra shrugged with almost believable nonchalance. “Just out. Why do you care?”

“Because I’m your cousin...” Illusion trailed off. “Nidra, are you going to fly to Ponyville to stalk T again?”

“I do not ‘stalk’ T!” Nidra immediately exclaimed.

“But you’re still going to Ponyville,” Illusion prodded.

“I’m not– yes, I am! I have plenty of other friends in Ponyville! I could go visit Prism Bolt, or Starburst!”

“Or Anthea?” Illusion asked.

“Yes! Anthea and I are great friends–”

“And her boyfriend?”

“I–” Nidra closed her mouth and tried to force down the flush on her cheeks. “Look, are you going to give me my disguise, or not?”

Illusion considered for a moment. “...Yes. Are you going to follow T around all day?”

“Why do you even care?” Nidra scowled. “You’re not my mother, and I’m a Princess! The Princess of Slumber. You can’t tell me what to do.”

Illusion looked into Nidra’s eyes. They were stormy and irritable, with a faint flicker of something Illusion couldn’t intuit hidden deep in their yellow depths. “Look, Nidra, you’ve had a crush on T since you were... twelve? Ever since you’ve meet him, so for about four years.”

Nidra narrowed her eyes. “Why do you care?” She repeated.

“Because you’ve never gotten over him. You went out with Prism for awhile, and I do know that you really liked him” – can’t imagine why – “but then you broke up with him, and now it seems like you're just... back to chasing after T when he’s already in a relationship with Annie. I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t know you like him–”

“Yeah, rub it in, why don’t you,” Nidra muttered, glaring down at the floor.

“That’s not what I meant.” Illusion raised up Nidra’s chin with his paw. “Look, I’m just… worried you’re not letting yourself be happy, because you think you can’t be happy without T. I know how much he means to you, but you’re starting to let agonizing over him control you life.” Illusion removed his paw from Nidra’s chin and snapped his fingers. A layer of white light consumed Nidra’s form, and then cleared to reveal the blue mane and grey coat of Jet Stream. “So, if you want to hang out with T, okay, but do something else, too? For me? You shouldn’t let him take up all the time you aren't spendingwith him, along with the time you are. ” Illusion stepped back.

Nidra looked at the ground for a long moment, then silently turned around and started to trot back towards the castle gates. Illusion looked after her, then resumed his own trek back towards his room. He made it twenty more steps before he heard Nidra calling to him. “Illusion?”

Illusion swiveled back and looked to where Nidra had paused, eyes filled with… something Jet Stream’s blue irises stopped Illusion from comprehending.. “I… thanks, a lot, but I’m fine. I’ve got lots of friends besides T and Annie. I can go to all the best parties in Canterlot and I… I’m a Princess! So thanks, but you shouldn’t worry about me.” With that, Nidra turned, and used her wings to propel herself the rest of the way down the corridor, ignoring the gust of wind, swinging tapestries, and cursing guards she left in her wake.

…

*Krzzzzrscht* *Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!*

All three pegasi jumped at the sudden noise, and Prism winced at the continuing alarm. It lacked the piercing whine of a klaxon, but was certainly attention grabbing.

“What the heck is that thing for!? Prism, did you break something important before we got here!?”

“No! Did you!?” Oh Luna, this might be it, this might be the real Spectrum coming, or it might be whatever sent us here’s plan for us…!

*beep-beep-be-Krzzzzrscht* "Excuse me, everypony, sorry for the scare. Not quite used to this base's alarm and PA systems. Bit different from the one back at PPHQ..." The voice carried a cultured Canterlot accent, and came from every corner of the room simultaneously. It sounded old, far too old for the voice of an underaged hero.

"Who're you?" Icy demanded.

"Anyway, to be direct, we have an emergency: Maretropolis Central Weather Station’s been attacked. The Weather Factory, specifically, has been breached, which could become a city-wide disaster if any of the cloud-production machinery is damaged. Now, information's been spotty, but I know for a fact that Beatdown was confirmed to be on the scene, and given their track record the M.G. won't be able to stop him alone. Aerial, with Earthshaker on leave, Jestress investigating the Green Seaweed Plant, and Jigsaw still in Crystal City, you’ll be team leader. Take Spectrum and Birr, and be cautious; Beatdown may just be a common brute, but this is miles away from his typical style. It’s almost certain somepony else is involved. Get anything you need from the armory, be out in ten, and best of luck, old chaps." *Krzzzzrscht*

Icy blinked. "What was that?"

Whirlwind frowned, glancing around the armory. "It was a public announcement system. You wouldn't remember, but they had one in Cloudsdale Elementary. I'd like to know who that was, though. And what the heck he was talking about..."

Icy responded with a look of concentration. “Um… I think that guy was a unicorn named Gold Ledger. In the comic book he said he was 'standing in' for Jigsaw, who’s normally the team's information pony. He had the same accent, anyway."

“Brilliant,” Prism muttered. “Where was he when we were searching, locked up in an office somewhere?” That… didn’t sound like some evil scheme to get us all possessed.

“Probably…” Icy looked deep in thought, so Whirlwind picked up the conversation.

“Okay, the other pony ‘Gold Ledger’ mentioned, Beatdown? I saw his file, back when we were going through all that stuff upstairs. I didn’t really read much of it, but he was a supervillain.”

A supervillain. This place really does have supervillains. “And he’s attacking the Maretropolis – that’s this city’s name, right, Maretropolis? – the Maretropolis Weather Factory. Why does this place have its own Weather Factory?” Is this is really happening? Prism thought. There’s really a supervillain attacking someplace right now? Ah man, maybe a supervillain really did bring us here…

“This is an alternate dimension. There might not be a Cloudsdale here.” Icy spoke with a detached voice. “And besides, Maretropolis was supposed to be huge, like, bigger than Manehatten. It might need its own Weather Factory.”

“Okay, so what about the other ponies he was talking about? Jestress and Earthshaker and… Jigsaw? And is the M.G., like, another team of superheroes?” Whirlwind removed her wing from around Prism and started pacing.

“No. Well, I don’t think so, I sorta just assumed it stood for Maretropolis Guard…” Icy looked at Whirlwind with a sudden fierce intensity. “Guys, should we help?”

Whirlwind cocked her head. “Help…?”

Icy spoke breathlessly, as if frightened. “Help with the attack. Go to the Maretropolis Weather Factory and stop Beatdown from destroying it.”

Wait, what!? “Wait, what!?” Prism snapped to Whirlwind’s face to see her reaction and had to blink frantically when he triggered a cascade of spots. “Dude, have you lost it!? We can’t fight a supervillain!” If Spectrum or a supervillain really did drag us here, Whirlwind’s right, we can’t leave the only place we’ll be safe!

“We have powers,” Icy argued. “And we’ve turned into superheroes.”

“And there might be a bunch of real superheroes who don’t know we’re in their base and will be pretty shocked if a bunch of doppelganger's turn up all of a sudden!”

“If the original versions of Aerial, Spectrum, and Birr were here, then they ought to be rushing into the armory pretty soon to get their equipment.” Icy gestured to the door. “I don’t think they’re going to come. I think it makes more sense that we actually became them, or maybe switched places with them.”

That is not what I needed to hear right now! Prism opened his mouth, but Whirlwind managed to beat him to it.

“Okay, no more arguing about alternate dimension mechanics or whatever. None of us actually know what we’re talking about and it’s just getting really confusing.” Whirlwind paused and took a breath. “Look, Icy, Prism has a pretty good point. We’ve got superpowers, sure, but none of us really know how to use them, at least in a fight. I mean, heck, Prism hasn’t even figured out how his powers work.”

“Thank you!” Prism flapped his wings and hovered a few feet into the air. “There is absolutely no reason why we should fight a supervillain. Even if we are taking the places of the ponies here, there are probably other superheroes to handle it.”

“I don’t think there are.” Icy flapped up himself, matching Prism’s height. “I’m pretty certain that all the other heroes expect us to handle this.”

“Well, we are not going to handle this. We have never been in a real fight before, not even a pretend one like Star, and we don’t know what ‘Beatdown’ can do, or where the ‘Maretropolis Central Weather Station’ even is–”

“If it’s a cloud building, it would be hard to miss.”

“Not the point. The point is, we will not beat a supervillain. In fact, we will probably lose horribly, and we may get seriously hurt, and we shouldn’t risk that!” Prism paused briefly and tried to lower his voice, but started again before Icy could reply. “We should focus on what we already decided to do: find the portal, go home, and tell Princess Twilight about this.” And not do anything that will end in us getting possessed or hurt!

Icy closed his mouth and frowned, the Icicle still casting its blue shadows over his face. Nope, not getting scared this time. Fighting supervillains would be suicidal.

Whirlwind stepped forward. “Prism’s right, Icy. Why did you even want to do this?”

Icy looked at her and took a deep breath. “Because it’s the right thing to do.” Whirlwind blinked. “Look, Whirlwind, I know that trying to fight this guy will be dangerous. I know none of us have any experience with our powers, but… If we don’t do something, a lot of ponies could get hurt. You heard Gold Ledger, he isn’t expecting the guards to win! And if they don’t, Beatdown will destroy the Weather Factory, and then this dimension won’t be able to make clouds or control precipitation, and that could put thousands of ponies in danger.” Icy pushed his goggles up from his eyes. “I know this isn’t our dimension, and we only just got our powers, but if there are ponies in danger, shouldn’t we do something?”

Whirlwind looked stunned. Prism felt stunned. But while Prism was still trying to formulate a counter-argument, and get over the awe-inspiring effect Icy’s Icicle granted him, Whirlwind sighed. “Oh, Celestia have mercy… You’re right. Okay, fine, let’s go save Maretropolis.”

“Wait, you’re agreeing with him!?” Prism turned to Whirlwind, and, again, had to blink spots out of his eyes. It didn’t interrupt the flow of his frantic and accusing speech. “Have both of you lost it!? What even makes you think we can stop this Beatdown guy! If we go, we’ll just put ourselves in danger!”

Whirlwind groaned. “I know, but Prism, Icy is right, we have to try. We do have superpowers, and we can help. We’ll play it safe, but if we can stop even a single pony from being hurt, we should go.”

“Yeah, Prism–” Icy began.

“Whirlwind, this is nuts! This isn’t like some prank or dumb stunt, we’re dealing with a pony who sounds like he might try to kill us! I still can’t get my superpowers to work, Icy’s managed to make one cloud so far, and you can’t even fly.”

Whirlwind glared at Prism, but it was Icy who spoke. “She has aerokinesis! And maybe even some of Aerial’s martial arts abilities–”

Prism crossed his forehooves. “How are you even going to get to the Weather Factory? If it’s a cloud building, we’d need to fly to travel to it.”

Whirlwind faltered a little, and Prism thought he discerned a hurt expression flit briefly over her face, even if the visor made it hard to tell. Icy was back with a rejoinder immediately, however.

“We can push her on a cloud!” Prism glanced at Icy, this time being careful to mind the spots. “Whirlwind should still be able to cloudwalk. When we get out of this building, I can make a cloud for her to sit on, and we can both push her to the factory. Maybe she can even help us with her powers.” Icy dropped down and stood next to Whirlwind, so they both faced Prism. “Prism, we can help. We’ll be as safe as we can, we’ll run if it looks like one of use may get hurt, but we have to try, even if we don’t know any of the ponies here personally. It’s what a hero would do.” Icy looked at Prism, and the resolution shone through his eyes, burning out past the flickering light of the Icicle.

“Yeahahaha, no. You have been reading too many comic books, which, incidentally, is what got us into this mess in the first place. There is no way I am going to fly out of here with no plan, no idea of what we’re fighting, and no knowledge of what’s really going on, just because you two have a sudden hero complex.” Especially since I might be getting possessed by Spectrum;s evil spirit.

Icy’s resolute gaze narrowed, and the threatening caste came back to his face, but Whirlwind spoke before he could. “Okay, fine. We’ll go by ourselves. You can stay here.”

Prism looked at Whirlwind with uncontained exasperation. “No! What in Luna’s name has gotten into you guys! This is crazy! You have to realize this is crazy.” We could be hurt by the supervillain, or we could be hurt by whoever plotted this out in the first place, and we still don’t know where the portal home is or why we got sent here or what’s really going on…

Whirlwind kept talking, and Icy looked to her. “No, Prism, this isn’t crazy. Yes, we might get hurt, but if we don’t do something, a lot of other ponies definitely will be. I am not just going to sit here while that happens. You can, if you want to, but I’m going, whether you like it or not.”

I have to tell them. Prism looked from Whirlwind's angry face to Icy’s coldly determined one …So why do I feel like it wouldn’t do anything? “Okay, fine. Fine, we can go out and save the day, or whatever it is they do here. If anything goes wrong, if it seems like one of us might get hurt, if anything unexpected happens, we run. I will drag you both away myself if I have to. Oh gosh, I just sounded like Mom. How in Equestria am I being the responsible one here!?”

Whirlwind snorted. “I dunno, maybe the nerd costume is affecting you.” Prism attempted not to scream. “But you’re right, we will be careful. Thanks for coming.”

Not screaming was hard. Prism managed to turn his into a sort of choked gurgle.

…

Powered Comic Fun Fact: To give the superheroes of Powered Comics a more meaningful role in their society, the Powered Comics Universe is one without Princesses. In this “alternate history” of Equestria, the country is a democracy– or, more accurately, a lampooning of democracy, probably inspired by the derisive attitude most of Equestria held towards that system at the time of Powered Comic’s founding. In the early days, most superheroes of Powered Comics worked against not only criminals but also hopelessly inept or downright evil public servants, and the Maretropolis Guard (M.G.) was more likely to be a hindrance than a help. It took much time (and tighter trade relationships with democratic countries like Minos and Zebrica) for Powered Comics to finally start writing it's alternate history of Equestria as one with a reasonably effective, if often woefully overwhelmed, government.

Author's Note

Author's Notes

The Story Spell

The light was annoying.

Illusion groaned. He loved his mother dearly, but he sometimes wished she was less insistent about waking up bright and early. The light kept scratching at his eyelids, however, and soon there was nothing for it. Illusion opened his eyes and rose to his feet, resigned, if not eager, to greeting the new day.

Whereupon he promptly decided he actually really was eager to greet the new day, as it would surely have been better than this.

It was immediately apparent that Illusion was not in his bedroom, or in the guest bedroom of the Boutique, or in any other place he typically woke up. The place he was in, truthfully, could have been described as exceedingly atypical, as far as waking spots went.

There was nothing around Illusion except white. A featureless plane, illuminated by a directionless but omnipresent light source, surrounded him, totally devoid of variation. A quick glance towards the sky and the ground confirmed that both where similarly blank.

Illusion had only to realize this before he also realized that he wasn’t actually standing on anything, at least not exactly. He couldn’t feel anything under his paws and hooves, but they acted as if they were resting on a solid surface. As if in response to his thought, that invisibly surface-force vanished. Illusion didn’t fall, but his hooves moved through the formerly solid “floor” effortlessly, leaving him floating without reference in the blank expanse.

Fortuitously, Illusion was used to dealing with odd circumstances. It was inevitable, really considering who his parents were. So, rather than freaking out, Illusion put his paws back onto the “ground”, which reappeared the moment he stopped actively thinking about it, and started trying to remember if this scenario was, in fact, his own fault.

After that it wasn’t long before his impromptu enchanting lesson came rushing back. Right. Not my fault, then. Though I probably should have guessed that’d be coming. But now… Illusion looked around for Discord.

It took him longer than gathering his thoughts. Illusion had no idea where to even start searching, until he saw the formerly white landscape being marred by large splotches of color, forming around a narrow, line-like figure far in the distance.

Illusion started to walk towards the disturbance. When that proved too slow, he switched to flying, his large, fluffy wings erupting from his shoulders.

It still took about five minutes to get to Discord. The Master of Chaos was surrounded by a patchwork of crude chalk drawings, imitations of what he had described as his “usual fair”. Pink chalk cotton candy clouds, brown chalk buffalo, and black chalk fish encompassed him, moving in a poor facsimile of their abnormal style.

Discord himself stood in their center, mercifully still real. He was drawing with some aggression, chalk in each limb, including his tale and both legs. Unlike Illusion, he was not even attempting to maintain the appearance of gravity, and was floating perpendicular to Illusion’s “ground.” He was also scribbling furiously, more horrible chalk drawings taking shape every second. His face was a rictus of concentration and what Illusion thought might have been slight panic.

Illusion moved slightly closer, then cleared his throat. “Uh, Father? Is everything.. okay?”

“Oh, Illusion, hi!” Discord exclaimed in a frazzled voice. “Don’t worry, everything’s going according to plan! If I had a plan, this would definitely be following it! Just wanted to, you know, spruce up this place a little. Sorry for not finding you, but I didn’t think it would be so uniform here.” Discord shuddered.

Illusion relaxed; this was, for Discord, a fairly hopeful sign he that knew what he was doing. But it still raised some questions.

“Dad?” Illusion asked, more strongly now.

“Hmm?” Discord replied, his drawing continuing at Rainbow-Dashesque speeds.

“We’re in the scene you drew on the blackboard, right?”

“Yes. This is why you want a base with a decent story. A pocket dimension without anything written into it is just, just… clean.”

“Okay. Then, why can’t you just make everything chaotic by snapping your fingers?” Illusion liked being able to snap his fingers– Discord had taught him how to do it after his first really big pranking spree. Illusion felt it added a truly chaotic flair to his bigger illusions.

“Hmm? Oh, you can’t change an enchanted story from the inside. Or, well, you could, but then you’d break it and probably make it spit everypony out. What you can do is write ways to change things into the story itself. Your girlfriend’s little cousin might call them “cheat codes”. Spike would probably call them “superpowers”. Here.” Discord threw a piece of chalk at Illusion, then drew another from… somewhere and carried on drawing.

Illusion looked down at chalk stick. It was a light purple that reminded him of Claire’s fur. He looked up at Discord again, shrugged, and raised his hand. Moving deftly, Illusion started to sketch, years of experience with chaos magic allowing him to ignore how one should not be able to draw in three dimensions or against what was more or less thin air.

Before long, Illusion had made a crude image of a bird, which, as its limbs took form, started moving about on its own, opening its beak and flapping its wings. It made it difficult to continue drawing, but Illusion managed, and before long the bird took off, joining what was now essentially a river of creations pouring from Discord’s blurring limbs.

Illusion looked around at what his father had drawn. In addition to his more traditional designs, there were also upside-down dogs with pianos on their back, various strains of dancing asparagus, a jazz quartet of pink and yellow penguins, and dozens of other whimsical creations, each drawn with crude lines that somehow gave them an aspect of depth.

“So,” Illusion started again as he continued to draw, “you can write stories that give ponies new abilities? Magic?”

“Not magic, but yes. How did you think the Elements of Harmony got their superpowers? Though, some of them lost as much as they gained. Her Friendliness lost most of her magic, Flutters couldn’t chat it up with the woodland critters, even Rarity probably some of her dressmaking spells. And you, of course, can’t make any illusions. When you’re in a story, you can only use what the story gives you. And before you ask, no, I can’t really take away their magic. Keep in mind this is actually just a little bubble of space the size of a broom closet, and everything you perceive isn’t really there. That’s how I took the Element’s magic away: made it seem like it wasn’t doing anything when it was used, so there was no reason to use it.” Discord concluded his lecture just as his arms started to become visible again. The formerly white field around Illusion and Discord was now filled to the brim with crude drawings, so many that they hid the endless plane from view.

“Whew. That’s better.” Discord discarded his chalks, now ground down to nubs, then clapped his paw and claw together. “Okay! So, you wanted to know how the grand adventure of the Power Ponies didn’t descend into anarchy and jelly rolls until Spike made his debut?”

“Yeah.That, and how you made the Mane-iac and everypony in the comics talk and think.”

“Excellent! You already have all the answers, so this should be short!” Discord promptly plopped down and smiled benignly.

It took several seconds before Illusion realized he was expected to respond. “I don’t. Have all the answers, I mean. I have no idea how I could make something that thinks for itself.”

“Then you aren’t looking at it right.” Discord flipped upside down to illustrate his point. When Illusion didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes and asked “Fine, riddle me this: what defines thinking?”

“…Being able to use one’s mind to consider or reason logically?” Illusion asked, raising an eyebrow.

Discord frowned at him. “You’ve been hanging out with Her Purpleness, haven’t you?”

Illusion shrugged. “A little?”

Discord sighed. “Well, you aren’t wrong. Okay, new question.” He pointed to a chalk drawing of a dodo with ridiculously large wings, which was steadily rising far above them. “You would agree that that isn’t thinking?”

“Of course not. That’s just something you made, a really elaborate, temporary spell. Or whatever the equivalent of that would be in chalk. It’s just following instructions.”

“Okay. Then how about this.” Chalk abruptly reappeared in Discord’s paw, and with a few deft and physics-defying strokes, he created a rough sketch of a pony.

The pony had a black mane and a red tail, with a white coat that was only visible against the background of Discord’s other innumerable doodles. Its eyes were odd, red with yellow irises… it took Illusion few moments to realize he was staring at a sketch of himself.

As if reacting to his realization, the sketch cocked its head, looking over the original Illusion with consternation and perplexity.

“You’re me.” Illusion facehoofed, then growled with annoyance when his doppelganger did the same.

“You’re not me, you’re made of chalk!” Illusion said. The duplicate only copied the first half of his sentence, and this served to break the symmetry.

“So what?” The chalk Illusion asked. “I can do everything you can do. Look.” Snatching the piece of chalk from Illusion’s paw, the sketch started to draw, creating what Illusion realized was a replica of the bird he himself had made minutes ago. “I’m just as good as you. I’ll be just as good a ruler and a magician. I’ll be just as good a boyfriend to Crys-”

That caused Illusion’s head to snap to his father. “Not funny,” he growled. “That… caricature isn’t thinking, you’re making it do all those things. You’re doing all of its thinking for it, and chaos magic is filling in the blanks.”

Discord smirked. “Can’t. I can’t make chalk creations directly obey me, it wasn’t in the rules for this story. You’re welcome to try if you don’t believe me.”

Illusion didn’t, but rather looked back in confusion at his duplicate. The faux-Illusion was halfway through the bird, and was looking smugly at the real Illusion, as if daring him to try and out-draw a master.

Illusion didn’t like that look; it reminded him of Prism Bolt. He looked back to his father. “If you aren’t controlling him, then who is?”

“Oh come on! Think.” Discord twisted over until he had his lion paw slung around Illusion’s shoulder and his tail slung around Illusion’s other shoulder. “If I’m not doing that ‘caricature’s’ thinking, then, by your logic, who’s the only other pony who could?”

Illusion looked at the clone, then looked at his father. “Are you saying that I’m making him do that?” The chalk Illusion and the real Illusion looked equally affronted by the notion.

“Well, not deliberately.” Discord levered himself off of Illusion’s back and paced forward. “That Illusion is just acting like what you would expect yourself to act like.”

“What? I don’t act like a jerk!” Discord snickered into his claw, then took out another chalk stick. Within seconds, Illusion and his father were encased in a train car, which trundled away from the Illusion sketch with some speed. When Illusion peered out the window, though, he could still easily see his double, bird now complete, moving on to another sketch of what looked to be a large pony.

“Well of course not.” At Discord’s voice, Illusion turned and brought his head out of the window. When he looked at the interior of the car, he realized it was clearly intended to be a replica of the Ponyville Express. “It’s just, faced with another you, that Illusion reacted like how you would react. Or how you thought you would react, which is fairly accurate considering that you’re yourself.” Discord had resumed his lecturing tone.

Illusion’s expression turned thoughtful again. “So… the Mane-iac, and the henchponies, they weren’t, really, sentient, or intelligent? They were just doing what Spike and the Elements thought they were going to do?”

“Well, they had to follow the story. With this setting–” Discord gestured around himself “–there isn’t a lot of story to build from, but with a comic book, there were rules about how the Mane-iac would act, what kind of plan she would concoct, the sort of witty banter she would try. The story you use doesn’t just tell you what you can and can’t do in your dimension, it also pretty much is the dimension. The settings, the characters, the Heroic Monomyth and all that. Spike and his pals, though, they filled in the small stuff, the second-by second, meshing their beliefs about what a supervillain would say or do with what the base said the Mane-iac could say or do.”

“Wait,” Illusion said, raising a paw. “That makes even less sense. Spike and his friends were– why did it start? If Spike and the Elements were making everything happen, how did you get this bubble or world or dimension to not fall apart when they weren’t in it? Would it just be an ordinary comic book?”

Discord grinned. “Yup. Pretty much.”

Illusion blinked. He was reeling; even for Discord, this was a lot of information that didn’t quite fit together.

After some thought, Illusion spoke up again. “Okay. So this place–” He gestured around himself “–is being created, essentially, by me–”

“You and I. I’m here too, remember.”

“By both of us,” Illusion corrected, “and also by a base, which here is very simple, and in something like a comic book is very complicated. The base defines all the rules, and we define everything in between the rules. Um. We aren’t really here, we’re just in a little fold of space where we’re seeing all of this, and… Okay. Wait. How does it work when multiple people are in the same story? Wouldn’t their beliefs, I don’t know, cancel each other out? Make things not act consistently?”

“No, apparently not, given that Spike and the Elements got through it no problem. I have no idea why, of course, though Her Sparkliness would probably go on about the Magic of Friendship. I intended for only Spike to get into that comic, for exactly those reasons, but apparently they weren’t worthwhile worries. Ah, this is our stop.”

The train ground to a halt, making a remarkably accurate screech. The door opened, and Discord stepped out. Not entirely sure what to expect, Illusion followed him.

They were surrounded, once again, by white. Illusion was about to ask what they were looking for, when he noticed it, lying a few yards away: a chalk drawing of a comic.

Discord walked over, twitching a little as he took in the blank world, and picked the book up, riffling through it. Without turning, he asked “So, how are you feeling? Confused, but on the brink of understanding? Bewildered, but one puzzle piece away from the solution?”

“Erm, sure. Let’s go with that.”

“Great! The last puzzle piece is this.” Discord flipped over the chalk comic, holding it open over the ground. Out spilled a wave of watercolor, a nonsensical rainbow mix that pooled at Discord’s feet before spreading out, running forward as if a wall had been raised inches in front of Discord’s toes.

“Everything else was chalk.” Illusion’s tone was perplexed.

Discord’s, by contrast, was loud and bold. “Oh come on, that’s what you notice first?” He rolled his eyes. “That isn’t even the important bit! And I’m the Lord of Chaos, I’ll use paint on a chalkboard if I feel like it!” Shaking his head, he continued in a more patient tone. “Look at the paint. What do you see?”

Illusion did as Discord instructed. The paint was forming images, which Illusion belatedly realized were of the cityscape he had seen way back in Discord’s office. As the blot spread, the riotous colors separated, first forming into distinct blotches, and then into clear shapes. The street and bank came into view, then the skyscrapers that surrounded them. As the backdrop of the city overtook the skyline, the paint resolved itself further, allowing Illusion to make out the individual windows of the bank– and the Power Ponies engaging a trio of unicorns casting elaborate spells, the amulets they wore glowing with energy. Illusion could also make out Spike, clad in a domino mask and cape, fighting alongside the heroes.

Illusion watched as Spike backflipped over a pair of swords conjured by one of the villains. He was fighting with a brilliance far beyond what Illusion was used to– even the Royal Guards lacked his agility, lacked the speed of his reflexes. Illusion became so focused on Spike that the rest of the city started to blur.

Illusion blinked. It wasn’t just him, the comic actually was blurred; as he looked further away from Spike, the cityscape became increasingly less defined. The fight in front of the bank, even, was flickering: A thin cone of clarity was surrounded by colorful blurs, which occasionally resolved into sharp edges when they got close to Spike. Looking closer, Illusion realized what was happening: Spike’s field of vision was the only thing in focus. Where the drake looked, the city was crystal clear, and within a sphere around him, likely his range of hearing, one could make out blurry shapes that roughly followed the lines of the Power Ponies, their enemies, and a few features of the street, like an overturned cab. Beyond that, there were only the vaguest impressions: the outlines of buildings, the general shape of the night sky.

Illusion looked at Discord, who wore the type of expression that only he could pull off: a paradox, both challenging and fatherly. It was a look Discord only ever gave him, to Illusion’s knowledge: one that said ‘I’ve given you all the pieces, son, now put them together.’

“The spell was only interacting with the ponies inside the bubble.” Illusion tapped his hoof against the floor. “You created your bubble dimension, and it was really small, but it didn’t generate a world, exactly. It was more like… a story. You made the bubble have an illusion of the story inside it, obeying people’s perceptions, because they were in the bubble, but following the storyline, with everypony acting like they should inside a story. That’s why the illusion didn’t wreck itself, when nobody was inside it. Because it wasn’t going to tell a story if it didn’t have a main character to tell the story with.”

Discord grinned. “Precisely.” He indicated to the fight still going on inside the watercolor city. “I enchanted the comic to do what it was already supposed to do, tell its story, only I left a hole in it after I got about halfway. It wasn’t that I cut out dear Humdrum from Spike’s comic, more that I added a Spike-shaped space on top of Hum-drum. Or maybe an anypony shaped space on top of the whole shebang, given that the Friendship Brigade got sucked in too. Oh well. Chaos is flexible. But yes, without somepony in that new space, the ‘story spell’ couldn’t really get on with its storytelling, because it needed all the pieces or the story would fall apart. It relied on the pony in the bubble to play the part of at least one character, so until that space was filled, it was on pause.”

“So all I need is a story, and I need to create a pocket dimension with an enchantment in it to tell the story? Plus an extra space?”

“You make it sound easy!” Discord complained. “Its quality work, but not quite, erm, unorthodox enough for me. I never liked reading. All that linearity and continuity and cause and effect– seriously, I don’t know what Her Nerdiness sees in it. Oh, and incidentally, don’t enchant anything that doesn’t have at least one clear character and an actual narrative. No math textbooks or self-help manuals. I tried to enchant a cookbook once, for Celestia, and it was… bothersome. Interesting, and kind of funny, but… bothersome. Actually, you probably want to just stick to comic books for now. They work best for this, and I’m not sure how long it would take for someone to adventure their way through a Daring Do novel if you included the two sentences that sum up a month of trekking through the jungle.”

“Makes sense. Though that reminds me, how do we get out of here? Did you have a story in mind when you made this chalkboard?”

“Of course! A real bestseller, too. I think I’m going to title it ‘Illusion Learns How to Enchant a Comic.’ Speaking of, have you?”

Illusion blinked. “Well, yeah, you just told me. Except for how to get out, but I guess if this is all just a story, the enchantment should end when we get to the conclusion–” There was a flash of brilliant white, and before Illusion knew it, he had been ripped from his feet and vacuumed into a tear in the world’s fabric, Discord cackling madly as he followed.

...

Coming out of the pocket dimension was easier than going in. Illusion only took a few seconds to realize he was back in Discord’s office, the haddock still lying limply atop the remaining stack of paperwork.

Discord himself had reappeared to Illusion’s left, but he lazily curved through the air to his desk, picking up the haddock and turning it into a small mace.

“So that’s it?” Illusion asked after a few moments. “The story ends–”

“–when the story ends, basically. Fairly intuitive, I should think, given the entire enchantment is really just a top-notch video game. Oh, but I should tell you: conclusions are the most important piece of the story this enchantment works off of. If whoever you send in has no idea what they’re trying to accomplish, they’ll be all the more likely to fall out of the piece prematurely. You ought to leave some clue as to how they can end the story, even if it’s just a cryptic little post-it note.”

“You never told me how to end the story just now,” Illusion said peevishly, looking for the blackboard. It seemed to have disappeared while he had been getting his bearings.

“Nope, because I knew the ending perfectly well, thank you very much.” Discord started macerating another court petition. When Illusion didn’t respond, Discord looked up, then followed his line of sight. “Ah yes,” Discord sighed, standing up and walking over to the spot the blackboard had once occupied. “That’s the big downside of the enchantment. You remember the only rule of chaos magic, son?”

Illusion’s head snapped over. “Yeah. Nothing created by chaos magic is permanent.” This fact was the largest limitation of chaos: everything it created would decay, returning to how it was. It was the reason Discord couldn’t simply end world hunger by snapping his fingers: his transfigurations couldn’t be maintained, and using chaos magic a second time was liable to create something completely different. Illusion’s constructs were ephemeral in a different way, leaving no effect on their surroundings once he let them go.

“Indeed. It’s a pain. And since the Story Spell follows a single, clear narrative, it will collapse once it’s complete and the story is told, taking whatever the story was on in the first place with it. A lesson for you on the downsides of planning, son.”

Illusion nodded. “So that’s it, then? Is there anything else I need to know?”

Discord fixed Illusion with an intense gaze, which only just failed to conceal the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Only what you’re going to do with this great and powerful spell, son. I hope I don’t need to tell you the correct answer?”

He didn’t. Illusion grinned. “Prank as many ponies as I possibly can?”

“That’s my boy! Now get out there!” Discord roared, waving as he feed another petition into a toaster. Illusion leaped through the window and flew down to Canterlot proper. He had some shopping to do.

…

Powered Comics Fun Fact: There are a myriad of ways the superheroes of Powered Comics can receive their abilities, but a relatively common one is through the Transpony Phenomenon. Transponies, in Powered Comics canon, are ponies whose inner magic has been altered due to exposure to an unusual form of energy, such as ionizing radiation, lasers, alternating currents, or other types of energy only produced on Equestria through artificial means. When ponies are in dire straits, suffering from serious injuries or trauma, their magic will often “panic”, working with greatly enhanced strength to preserve the life of its host. This can allow ponies to perform feats of magic they normally would not be able to. During a transpony trigger, however, this magical reaction is complicated by the addition of one of the forms of energy described above. When a pony’s magic is panicking in the presence of these unfamiliar energies, it might attempt to absorb or use that energy to save the pony’s life. This occurs very rarely, but when it does, it results in a transpony, a pony who possess a magical ability to manipulate some type of energy affecting their own body. Many major Powered Comics characters are transponies, including both heroes, such as Fillisecond and Laserlance, and villains, such as Beatdown and Heatseeker.

Author's Note

Is it worldbuilding if you only explain how one spell works? Well, whatever it is, there's a lot of it this chapter. I can only hope I made Discord amusing enough to compensate.

Author's Notes