Splitting aMid the Night

Midnight's first day at work had been quite interesting. While she had obviously had to do her part, it appeared that Nurse Redheart had decided to unnecessarily go easy on her. Or it was just the fact that ponies were far too good at keeping themselves healthy for their own good.

The mending spell Midnight had a natural mastery of as part of her special talent which allowed her to quickly heal certain wounds as long as the victim's soul was still anchored well enough to survive the essence drain had helped, if only to conserve bandages.

Midnight wasn't sure she liked the prospect of having to run back and forth to still every small bleeding in the clinic, but it beat what medical work she had done in Canterlot.

Her quiet reflection in front of the TV was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Midnight got up and went to see who it was, but all she found was a note on the ground and a white dot quickly flying away. Levitating the piece of paper with her magic, Midnight returned to the living room containing Octavia.

"Now, what's this?" Midnight asked.

"Well, I'd say it's a note, but past that, don't ask me. Unless it's got notes written on it. I know stuff about those."

Midnight turned it and found some non-magic writing. On that note, somepony had scribbled an adress in Ponyville, not too far away from Midnight's house either.

"Oooh. Is that from your little peggy friend? Hee hee, I think it is. Lucky filly, now you've got two mares to choose from."

"But I don't want her! She rejected me in front of everypony! So not only was I even more of an emotional wreck, they kept laughing at me for even trying for weeks!"

"Yet..."

Midnight closed her eyes and shook her head in attempted denial. It didn't work, sadly. "Yet she just won't leave my head. But whom I really want is somepony vastly different from her. At least I think so."

"Good pick, by the way."

"How does everypony around me always know everything?" Midnight cried out.

"Vinyl told me, silly. She can get quite talkative when we're not busy with each other's lips," Octavia confessed, giggling slightly.

"Any advice?"

"Stick around, give both of them a chance. You'll figure out who it is you desire eventually. Winter Wrap Up is in about two weeks, there's a little something that evening that should make it the perfect opportunity to get whomever you chose. Or... you know, there's always polyamory."

Midnight groaned in annoyance. This wasn't helpful advice at all. She wanted one filly and exactly one, but the other kept messing with her head while she was thinking about one. Just rejecting any emotions and dying as an old virgin sounded more and more preferrable.

Dictionary mode engaged. Poly-am-ory. The state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time. Just how could you forget that?

"I don't think that's something for me. I mean, well, maybe lil' Sparkle would want to study it, but I don't think Shimmer... I wouldn't want more than one of them anyway! Which leaves me with the question of whom..."

Octavia let out a small sound of surprise, "I'd have expected to have to explain it to you. Yay for education!" After a quick hoofbump, Octavia's face fell back into a serious expression. "As I said, you'd best stop worrying and just listen to what your heart says."

My heart has a name and nothing to say.

"Okay, given that I wanted to go on the date Shimmer is obviously going to take me out to... what? How do I tell her? Do I show my superiority or express forgiveness?"

Octavia was having more and more fun with the situation, which was a fact that highly displeased Midnight. "You've never done anything like this, have you?"

"She made sure I didn't. That dumb little... with a coat so soft..." Realising how clichè her shifting emotions were, Midnight just stopped talking in order to prevent further damage.

"Three days rule, my dear. If you approach her before that, you look like you're completely obsessed with her. Give her time to think about you and realise her affection. Then you strike."

"Really? That's stupid."

"But it's the rule. Maybe your other sweetheart has a book on dating in her library. I'd sure love to see her reaction to you coming to get it."

"Ugh, great."

Behold, the Multiverse. Endless planes of existence.

Midnight's current location was somewhat peculiar. After a few paces around her, reality faded to black. If she stared into it, she could see shadows within the darkness, but they were gone as soon as she turned her eyes.

"And, let me guess, I can traverse them because they're all linked through the Magic Flow. What a lame plot device," Midnight said. There was nopony else anywhere to hear her, so she didn't have to bother keeping her voice down.

Ah, sadly, no. Technically, nopony can explain why they should even exist. The borders of reality prevent anything from shifting through them. However...

Noon manifested next to Midnight, expanding the radius in which she could see the bland ground by a little. Resisting the urge to just outright snap her neck proved to be quite challenging to Midnight.

"We cannot experience reality if we do not know what it is not. In our dreams, we may overcome any obstacle, solve any challenge."

"To find nothing but empty illusions."

Noon turned her head away and wandered towards the darkness, "Sometimes, it is better to fool yourself with what you want to be instead of suffering through what is, if reality would be too hard to bear."

"No. There is no situation where it is better to retreat into one's imagination instead of facing and solving the problems that arise."

At the border of their reality, Noon turned her head back to look at her vessel. "Maybe. But the real world is too terrible to endure permanently, which is why we retreat and collect happiness from our minds from time to time. See the world in a grain of sand, little one."

She tossed a tiny piece of rock - or a grain of sand, whatever is preferred - over to Midnight, who caught it in her magic. Inspecting it, she saw not the expected smooth, beige surface, but clouds, blue oceans, and landmasses stretching further than anypony on the surface could see.

The room changed. Darkness fled to allow an observation room to take shape, but no ordinary one. There was no need for a telescope as the planets and stars just soared around over their heads. Midnight was floating in empty space.

"Hold infinity in the palm of your hoof. Know that all of this is within you, as you are within it. There are so many planes, and in one of those, you're Batmare! Let's visit that one."

The universe around them sped past as Midnight and her clone headed to a very specific star. After a few seconds of travelling with ten times light speed, not caring for physical boundaries, they arrived at a parallel Equestria.

"Here we are. Have fun," Noon said before bucking Midnight down towards the planet with her hindhooves.

For ages, she fell. Air friction burned up her hair before burning out her eyes and boiling her blood. However, whenever she thought herself to be done, Midnight just had to blink and find herself fully restored. Light as a feather, she landed on the surface.

Technically, you're still yourself here because you travelled to this plane. Also, you'd wipe out the entire cosmos by encountering Batmare Midnight. So I took the liberty of fusing her into us. Now, you're an orphan due to an evil spellcaster summoning down a meteor onto your house when you were a filly. Left with nothing but your friends, an old butler and a fortune exceeding that of Princess Celestia herself, you swore to get your revenge through heavy awesome.

Boring. When do I get to buck ponies in the face?

Soon. First, we gotta go to your secret hideout below the family manor in Canterlot. What a handy thing that you can get us there.

Whose idea was it to build that below the ruins, the most obvious place possible?

Yours. But focus, please. I believe that this is Ponyville, thus the castle should be this way.

That's not anywhere near a safe distance to teleport, even for me.

Who cares, you're awesome! The Bat never dies. Come on, it'll be fun!

Hesitantly, Midnight prepared a fitting spell, finding herself at a very well known junction in the road at Canterlot seconds later. Her parallel self had to have spent years perfecting her magic ability.

Another difference was that, instead of a small house housing two ponies, she stood in front of a broken down manor. In the middle of the ruins, a signboard was put up, flashing 'Top secret Batmare hideout not here'.

I'm pretty confident in myself, yes?

Also called hubris.

And where exactly do I get down here?

Simple. You just press the button labelled 'Not top secret Batmare hideout elevator call button' on the closet over there.

After a long and, needless to say, incredibly epic, fight, Batmare had the evil Twi-Spark cornered. At last she could knock her unconscious, give her to the police so that she may be imprisoned only to break out again hours later, and call it a day.

Yet, there was something off.

"Ah, sheesh, I can't do this. Why should I want to beat you up?"

"Huh? But... you have to! It's in the rules, you gotta do it because I'm evil! I have a PhD in evilness. I can't win, silly!"

"You may not be real, but where I come from, we're friends and... you're a good pony... and I love you."

Sparkle tried to object, but gave up resistance as soon as Midnight pressed their muzzles together.

Creating such fantasies instead of working to live them out in real life was wrong, but Midnight didn't care. Those few minutes of making out with an image of her crush were the best she had ever had, giving her a purpose to live and reminding her of what she needed.

Taaackyyy!

Shut up, Midnight thought before going back to the pony lying on the ground below her.