Inevitabilities

by Sharp Quill

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Twilight Sparkle, Human
Length: 179658

Nearly a year has passed since the events that had brought two realms together. Each had kept the other a secret until now, two worlds separated by a certain cartoon. Finally, both are ready to deal with the inevitable complications.

Nearly a year has passed since the events that had brought two realms together. Each had kept the other a secret until now, two worlds separated by a certain cartoon. Finally, both are ready to deal with the inevitable complications, to realize the benefits of trade: human technology for Equestria, and magic for humanity.

The Princess of Friendship is convinced she‘s up to the task, while Meg‘s doubts over the true meaning of her cutie mark grow as the two worlds converge.

Read Destinies first. You won‘t have any idea what‘s happening if you don‘t.

Pre-reading and editing by Mitch H, Doggyshakespeare, and darkszero.

Published 2017-11-04 13:00:05 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-20 17:49:28 UTC

1. Showtime!

“Let’s spin!” Stephen Colbert pulled with gusto the giant, fake lever by his side. The studio audience erupted in cheers as the Wheel of News, projected onto the dome of the Ed Sullivan Theater, rapidly spun. Food. Religion. Clip Without Context. Politics. Commercial Break. News. Buy A Vowel. The clicking sounds ground to a halt. “Ponies!”

Hundreds of bronies filling the theater went crazy, many of them dressed up as their favorite characters. Everyone had to go through thorough security checkpoints.

In the green room, just off stage, Meg sat on her haunches, watching the live feed on a monitor, her ears locked onto the speakers. Twilight and Agent Jessica Fowler, now of the Secret Service, watched beside her. The Late Show host was signaling the audience to quiet down, to little effect.

“Just wait till they actually see you,” Meg commented, her wings shifting with nervous energy.

“Still not as bad as my coronation.” She almost sounded convincing.

The audience finally settled down, perhaps if only because they wouldn’t get to see what they had come for if they hadn’t.

Colbert began the scripted introduction. “Now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve no doubt heard that certain colorful ponies, of the magical persuasion, might be real. Perhaps the joint news conference held a few weeks ago by President Serrell and a lavender ‘alicorn’ was evidence to that effect—I don’t know. Certainly, people smarter than I think it was a hoax and are calling for Serrell’s impeachment.”

Stephen clasped his hands together and stared at the camera with deadly mock seriousness. “We at The Late Show are determined to get to the bottom of this. Sparing no expense, we have located the foremost expert on this pony phenomenon, and…” He stood up and faced stage right. “Without further ado, here she is!”

The band started playing the My Little Pony theme song. Meg gave Twilight a hoof bump for good luck and the alicorn teleported directly to the seat to the host’s left, giving the audience a huge smile and a hoof wave.

The audience went crazy. That being his cue, Colbert turned around and feigned shock at her inexplicable appearance.

“I sure hope they stay in their seats,” Fowler said.

“It’s not like they can hurt her,” Meg said, “even if one of them did manage to sneak a gun inside.”

“We’d still have to make arrests and fill out a lot of paperwork.”

“All on camera, too.” As if the protests outside the theater weren’t bad enough.

Stephen had taken his seat. Once the theater had gone silent, they began the rehearsed routine. Full of innocence, Twilight said, “I’ve heard you have questions about ponies.”

Light laughter. That warm-up comedian sure did his job, Meg thought, though considering this crowd he didn’t have to work very hard. They were primed to laugh at anything resembling a joke.

“Yes, I do,” he declared. “Are ponies real?”

The pony across from him blinked. “Is that so hard to believe?” Twilight asked, following the script. “Did you not once interview a full grown dragon?”

“On the old show, yes,” he admitted. “It wasn’t easy… it required lots of what we call ‘movie magic.’”

A Late Show mug floated off the desk. Engulfed in a lavender glow, it drifted over to the alicorn. Twilight took a leisurely drink from the conspicuously hovering mug. “Magic. Dragons. I don’t see what the big deal is.” The mug returned to the desk the way it came, to laughter and applause.

“Well… how can I put this… the dragon was fake.”

“Fake?”

“As in, a special effect. No one in the live studio audience could see Smaug in the flesh, I couldn’t see him—well, we could see him on the monitors, but the point is he doesn’t actually exist.” Scattered grumbles from the audience. “I know, shocker.” He turned back to Twilight. “Dozens of people put in long hours to create the illusion of a living, breathing dragon that could only be seen on TV.

“And here’s the thing: many people watching this at home will think you are a fake, a fictional character brought to life by special effects.”

“But I’m not fictional,” she countered, “You can see me.” She swept a hoof across the studio audience. “They can see me,” she said, to thunderous applause and cat-calls.

The monitors switched to the audience for a few seconds.

Too bad cameras and recording devices aren’t allowed. The flood of pictures and video uploaded to the internet would have been that much harder to dismiss. They had tried to negotiate an exception to that ban just this one time, but the network wouldn’t hear of it; if people were going to see this online, it had to be on the show’s website.

“They’ll do whatever we tell them,” Colbert replied, dismissively. “I’ll prove it.” He looked up at the audience. “Say, ‘friendship is magic,’” he commanded.

Cut to the audience. “FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC!”

“See?”

Surprisingly, there was much truth to the host’s claim. Meg had watched the warm-up comedian at work. One of the things he had done was to have the audience practice saying that phrase in unison. I guess we’ll find out soon enough how many think this was all faked.

“Impressive,” Twilight said.

“Indeed,” he concurred. “You say you aren’t a fictional character…”

“That’s right.”

“But how do I know you aren’t a fraud, an impostor claiming to be the fictional Twilight Sparkle?”

“Seriously?” she said, looking askance. “You think I might be a human in a costume?”

“Or a remote controlled robot. The technology exists to build some pretty impressive shit these days.”

Standards and Practices just earned their paychecks. For once, Meg got to hear the actual word instead of a bleep.

The alicorn responded with smugness. “Can one of your robots do this?”

From behind the chair a Rainbow Dash plush doll levitated up and over. Twilight sent it rocketing through the theater, doing loop-de-loops over the audience, just out of reach of grasping hands. Eventually she allowed it to caught by someone.

Meg wondered if it would turn up on eBay; that’d be ironic, considering that’s where she had bought it.

“So far so good on the magic generators,” Fowler observed.

Several had been placed at various points about the theater, as much as a precaution as to enable stunts like that. It gave the alicorn far greater freedom of action should it become necessary.

The feed returned to host and guest. “I’m here, sitting right next to you, and I still find it a little hard to believe. That first time you teleported in rehearsal… I nearly had a heart attack.”

“I find that curious. It’s hardly a secret I can teleport.”

“Knowing it… and seeing it… besides, that’s cartoon physics; it should be impossible in the ‘real’ world.” He actually air-quoted the word “real.”

“I thought we just agreed my world is as real as yours,” she jokingly replied, to scattered laughter.

“That may be,” he countered, not missing a beat, “but that doesn’t mean the laws of physics are the same in both worlds.”

“As it turns out, they are the same—my body couldn’t exist here unless it was composed of the same subatomic particles following the same physical laws as yours—but there is an important difference.” She looked nervously at the audience. “How eggheady do you want me to get?”

The roars of encouragement was nearly deafening even backstage. Were you really worried about that, Twilight? Meg wondered. What was about to be explained would become mandatory viewing by scientists and others in the days to come.

“Well, yes, anyway…” She waited for everyone to quiet down. “That important difference is, of course, magic. From the research I’ve done, it appears that magic is a part of your mythology, definitely a part of your fiction, but isn’t actually believed to be real. At best, it’s supernatural, outside the laws of physics.

“That isn’t true, of course. Magic is completely natural and obeys a set of laws, just like the other fundamental forces of nature.” She smiled. “I dedicated my life to studying those laws; it’s my special talent, after all.”

“You’ve set up a magic field in this theater. Should I be worried? It won’t give me cancer, or a third eye or anything, will it?”

“Absolutely not! A passive magical field, in the absence of any spells, has no—”

Agent Fowler grabbed the remote and switched over to CNN. Meg didn’t object; the lecture Twilight was giving was old news to her.

The news channel was covering the protests outside the theater, as they had been doing for hours. That they hadn’t prevented Twilight from getting inside did nothing to discourage them. Meg was willing to bet they’d stay precisely as long as the camera crews.

The protesters were a very mixed lot, judging from the signs they carried. Some claimed it was all a massive hoax, at best a publicity stunt to sell toys. Others believed Twilight was grown in a lab, the product of a government conspiracy involving genetic engineering. A small contingent espoused the belief that magical ponies were the devil’s spawn. Then there were some who warned of the coming Conversion Bureau.

Whatever their beef, the protesters were being orderly about it. No violence, no attempt to storm the theater, just holding up signs and chanting for the cameras. So long as they stayed outside, they were the NYPD’s problem.

Fowler switched back to the internal feed.

“—it, exactly? How do you get here?”

“Well, it’s not that far away, actually, much closer than your own moon. It’s just in a direction you can’t perceive.”

“Meaning…”

“I guess we’re in what you’d call a ‘pocket universe’ that’s sort of off to the side of this universe, embedded within the infinite hyperspatial void that contains all universes.”

“And how did you arrive here? Is there… a magical train that connects us?”

“No, nothing like that. I don’t think that’s even physically possible. The void is an incredibly alien place. The symmetry breaking that precipitated the fundamental forces of nature, including magic, hasn’t happened there.”

“I’ll pretend I understood that.”

“You can call it an extreme form of teleportation,” she continued, ignoring the light-hearted jab. “It requires incredibly high-level magic. For now, unfortunately, that means very few can make the trip.”

“So we shouldn’t expect to see groups of ponies on sightseeing tours anytime soon.”

“Nor should humans expect to plan a vacation in Equestria anytime soon either.”

Groans from the audience.

“Have any humans set foot in Equestria?”

“A very few, yes.”

Should have been more specific about the timeframe, Stephen, Meg thought facetiously. Those humans, the ones they’d found in the catacombs thanks to Daring Do, would remain highly classified for a long, long time.

“Anyone we might know?”

“Possibly.”

“How about myself? I happen to know myself quite well.”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Drat!”

“But I did bring some pictures of Ponyville and my friends with me. Would you like to see them?”

The audience cheered as Agent Fowler switched the monitor back to CNN. A panel of talking heads were busy pretending to offer insight into the protests, as a live feed of the protesters occupied a small square to the upper right. At the moment they were discussing conversion bureaus and why they would be bad for humanity.

“Idiots,” Meg muttered.

“Well, you’d have to admit they would be bad for humanity, if they existed.”

Meg glared at Fowler. “So would a neutron star on a collision course with the Earth, if that existed.” The pegasus sighed. “Sorry, it’s just so stupid. The preconditions of that story haven’t even happened. Equestria has not been transported to our world, magic is not lethal to humans, millions of humans cannot be turned into ponies via a serum, and a civilization of magical ponies wouldn’t fare well against a technologically advanced world that also happens to be a magical desert.”

“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir,” she said in self-defense.

“Not to mention the real Celestia can’t imagine why anyone would think she’d do such a thing, even if it were possible.”

Fowler grimaced. “She knows about that, huh?”

“I was the one who had to explain it to her.”

“Ouch.”

Meg walked over to the table full of snacks. “Oh, she’s not going to declare war over that.” She selected a few bags of sugar- and fat-filled snacks and put them in her saddlebag. “If there’s one advantage to being an immortal ruler, it’s that it helps put everything into perspective.”

Fowler looked at her saddlebags.

“It’s for Pinkie Pie.”

“Figures.”

Meg stepped away from the table. “I should be back in a few minutes.”

She invoked the return spell, glad that the silly click-rear-hooves-three-times part had been eliminated—not by Discord, but by Twilight. The alicorn had made some progress in reverse engineering the chaos magic of those plaid pills. Now if she could just do something about that taste…

She returned to Twilight’s private residence within her castle. A small herd gathered around the big screen TV showing, unfortunately, streaming video from CNN. It hadn’t been possible to provide a feed from inside the theater. Everypony would have to wait until the show airs late that night, just like everyone else. She saw Spike, the other Element Bearers, Sunset Shimmer, and…

Wonderful.

Not only was Celestia there, but so was Luna. Both watching the TV.

“Hey, everypony.”

Rainbow Dash was instantly in Meg’s face. “Is she alright?!”

Spike turned down the volume on the remote.

“Yes, Dash, Twilight’s fine. Right now she’s showing the pictures I took.”

“Well, darling, you have to admit these images look rather disconcerting.”

The cameras seem to be focusing on the “conversion bureau” protesters. “Must be giving them the highest ratings,” Meg muttered.

“Do you still recommend I refrain from making a reassuring statement?” Celestia asked.

Meg groaned inside. “All it would do is keep this story in the news. It won’t change anyone’s mind.” Meg looked at the screen. The same talking heads as before, saying the same things as before. They weren’t there to be persuaded by the other side while on camera. “It’ll all be forgotten once they have something else to fixate on.”

“Would it help if my sister refrained from opening these ‘conversion bureaus?’”

Celestia gave Luna a sharp look, then both broke out in giggles.

“Yeah, sure, it is my expert opinion that would help.”

They giggled even louder.

Sunset Shimmer made her way over to Meg. “I assume we should be leaving soon?”

“Yeah, must be in the commercial break by—oh, right, almost forgot.” She opened her saddlebag and tossed the junk food over to Pinkie Pie, who eagerly caught them and formed a small pile to her side.

After she’d tossed the last one, she found one of Discord’s plaid pills floating in front of herself. Celestia had sent one over to Sunset too. “Are you sure?” she asked the unicorn.

Sunset nodded.

They both took a pill, and Meg brought Sunset back to the green room.

“There you are!” At the door, a staff member swiped his brow in relief. “You’re on in ninety seconds.” The band’s trademark New Orleans jazz drifted in from the stage.

He looked at Sunset with increasing irritation.

Meg leaned in to her. “You’re supposed to follow him, then wait just off-stage for your cue.”

“Oh. Right.” She followed him out the door.

“I did try to explain,” Fowler said. “For some reason he thought Sunset’s appearance was confirmed.”

Whatever. It’s not as if Twilight hadn’t been clear that Sunset might be available. At least her possible appearance hadn’t been publicized; the audience was about to get a pleasant surprise. On the monitor, Meg saw the guy go up on stage and over to Colbert, presumably to tell him Sunset was there, then quickly departed. The host then leaned over to Twilight, who then nodded.

At some signal unseen on the monitor, the pause for a commercial break came to an end. The music concluded.

“And, we’re back! For those of you just tuning in, my guest for the entire show tonight is someone—”

“Somepony,” Twilight corrected, to knowing audience chuckles.

“Somepony who, until a few weeks ago, everyone thought was a fictional cartoon character, the Princess Twilight Sparkle. I hope we can get to that later. But first I’d like to introduce another Equestrian you might be familiar with. Please give a warm welcome to Sunset Shimmer!”

The unicorn walked onto the stage the traditional way, forgoing teleportation. If the bronies in the audience were surprised a human had not walked out, they did a good job hiding it. Sunset didn’t seem to know what to make of the adoration and switched to a trot, the faster to take her seat next to Twilight.

“I must admit I half-expected a human,” Stephen said.

“I returned home from that mirror realm nearly a year ago, at Princess Celestia’s request.”

“After the events of Rainbow Rocks, right?”

Twilight intercepted the question. “Now might be a good time to talk about the distinction between those cartoons and reality.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well… it’s true that the first four seasons of that cartoon are a disturbingly accurate documentary of my life and of my friends’—and before you ask, I still have no idea how that’s possible—but they’re not completely accurate. There are numerous little errors and a few big ones. That first Equestria Girls movie played especially loose with the facts. But Rainbow Rocks, and the fifth season so far, are pure fiction. I have no explanation for that, either.”

“Is there a Starlight Glimmer?”

“No, and believe me, we’ve conducted an exhaustive search for her and that alleged town of hers.” Twilight sighed. “Here’s a difference between fiction and reality: What she did in that episode, kidnap a princess and do bodily harm by removing her cutie mark, is treason against the crown. We’re supposed to believe, I guess, that Princess Celestia would never noticed that ‘I’ had vanished. Or that Discord would never notice the same had happened to Fluttershy. I don’t know about you, but that breaks suspension of disbelief for me.”

“What about Tree Hugger?” someone yelled from the audience.

“Sorry, she doesn’t exist either.”

Colbert waited for the sounds of disapproval to die down. “Is there anything in the eight episodes so far of this season that’s not fiction?”

Twilight thought it over for a moment. “Well, Discord did bring the Smooze to the Grand Galloping Gala as his plus-one—but only because he got the idea from that episode.”

“Should I worry he might make an unplanned appearance?” he asked only half-jokingly. Murmurs floated in from the audience.

“Unplanned is kind of his thing,” she replied, smirking. “But you needn’t worry. He can’t exist in this realm. The laws of physics are too inflexible for him.”

“But if I were ever to do this show in Equestria…”

“That’s the risk you’d have to take.”

“Still might be worth it for sweeps week.” He looked around Twilight. “And I haven’t forgotten about you,” he said to Sunset Shimmer. “Tell us what you’ve been up to for the past year.”

Agent Fowler once again switched the monitor to CNN. It was more of the same. Meg tuned it out as she went over to the snacks, this time to pick something out for herself.

“You’ve met Discord, right?” Fowler asked her.

Meg paused in front of a bowl of chips and nearby bean dip. “Several times.”

“How dangerous is he, really?”

“He is reformed, but he can still be a pain.” She took a bite. “So long as you can put up with that, he’s mostly harmless, now, I guess. He’s never boring, that’s for sure.”

“Should we be worried about the Smooze?” She shook her head. “Damn. I still can’t believe I’m asking questions like that.”

Meg finished off another dip-laden chip first. “I doubt he can exist in our universe either, not that I know for sure. But he doesn’t seem that bad, really.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Steve and I were at that Gala. Wait, I got a picture.”

Meg lifted the limb to which her phone was strapped and started searching through the photos. “Yup, here it is.” She held her forelimb out.

Fowler got down on her knees to look. “Purple, not green,” she observed. “That’s a really nice gown you’re wearing.”

“A Rarity original,” Meg said, smiling.

“You sure are getting the full Equestrian experience. I’m jealous.”

“Yeah, well, that particular experience included Discord taking me somewhere in the Everfree, at night, next to a pack of timberwolves.”

“He what?!”

“I survived,” Meg droned, “obviously. Like I said, he can be a pain—figuratively, in this case, I assure you. My fault for not being more specific when I requested a private conversation.”

Fowler considered that. “Somehow I don’t think it’d matter how specific you were. It’s like that movie Bedazzled. No matter how thoroughly specified the wish, the Devil always found a loophole.”

“You may be right. Anyway, that’s where he told me that ‘Smoozie’ hadn’t consumed an entire village in at least a millennium.”

“A whole millennium? Well, no problem then.”

“Yeah, I know. That was kinda my reaction too.”

“Guess it pays to get on their good side. Sure don’t want them as enemies.”

“And the Princess of Friendship is on the case, I can assure you.”

“‘Princess of Friendship.’” She rolled her eyes. “That still sounds so corny.”

“I know what you mean, but don’t tell her that.”

The agent got back on her feet and Meg returned her attention to the veggie platter.

That wasn’t there before.

Next to the platter was a sheet of paper. Printed on it were rows of pairs of hexadecimal digits, obviously a binary dump of some sort, covering most of the page. At the top…

“Jessica, you better get over here.”

She lost no time in doing so. “Why? What’s the problem?”

Meg pointed at the sheet of paper. “Please tell me this is a joke.” She scowled. “A really bad joke.”

The agent leaned over and read the sentence at the top of the sheet. It was short and simple. “It’s time for you to know: Twilight knows more about The Doll than she’s let on.” She looked at Meg. “If this is a joke, it’s not mine.”

“I swear it wasn’t there a minute ago.”

“Who could’ve put it there? It’s just us.”

Meg went airborne, hovered over the sheet, and took a close picture of it with her phone. “Magic could be involved, but… it doesn’t make any sense! That doll is as classified in Equestria as it is here, and nopony should have access to those pills, certainly nopony who’d do this!”

“What about that hexadecimal stuff?”

Meg studied it. “Looks like random junk to me. Maybe compressed or encrypted? I dunno.”

“Could Discord pull this off?”

She considered that. “I guess that can’t be ruled out, but binary data? That doesn’t sound like him.”

“Who would know what Twilight really knows about that doll, and would also know what you don’t know?”

Meg shrugged. “Beats me. Celestia, I guess. But if Celestia wanted me to know this, she’d simply tell me, or have Twilight tell me.” Her eyes returned to the sheet. “Still doesn’t explain the binary dump.”

Fowler wandered across the room. “And yet the list of human suspects is rather short, too.”

Meg sighed. “That’s an understatement.”

The agent returned to the table and carefully slid an edge of the sheet off the table with a napkin, then picked it up with that napkin. “I’ll run it through forensics. Won’t be easy, due to the sensitive nature of what’s printed on it, but I’ll see what I can do. I recommend not mentioning this to anyone or anypony for now.”

“Go for it.” After a moment’s thought, she added, “Take one of the magic generators with you. That should preserve any magical trace, if we decide to go that route.”

2. Cat's out of the Bag

After the show finished taping, Meg did not wait for Twilight and Sunset Shimmer to return to the green room. She returned to Equestria immediately. It wasn’t like she was supposed to wait for them; besides, the others were waiting for an update.

Rainbow Dash was in her face almost immediately—again. “How can you let that happen?!” she demanded.

Meg pushed her back. “They’re fine, Dash. They’ll be back any minute.”

“No, not that.” She waved a hoof at the monitor. “That.”

Meg looked for herself, wondering what the protesters had escalated to. As it turned out, the story of the hour concerned a hurricane developing in the Atlantic. It was currently projected to hit the lower east coast. “That might make them forget about the pony apocalypse for a while,” she mused.

“Never mind that! Why was that allowed to happen?”

Meg gave a blank look to the pegasus hovering annoyingly close to her face. “Allowed? On my world, Dash, no one controls the weather. You know that.”

“Even with all your awesome machines and computers and stuff?”

She didn’t need this crap right now. “We can predict a few days in advance how it will develop, what path it’ll take and how strong it’ll get, and that’s about it.”

“But, but, all the destruction that could be avoided!”

Meg glared at the weather pony. “Are you offering to divert or neutralize it?”

The weather pony sagged to the floor and folded her wings. “It’s too late for that.”

“A weather system that big would require tens of thousands of weather ponies to control,” Celestia explained. “It would also require a magical field encompassing the entire system. Isolated bubbles of magic would not suffice.”

“But we lacked the means to precisely model the dynamics of a weather system,” Twilight said. “Evidently, they can.”

Meg practically jumped at the unexpected voice. She hadn’t noticed their return. “Can you do something in, like, the next day or two?”

The alicorn’s head lowered. “No. It’ll take a lot of research and experimentation. It might not even be possible. In your realm, the energy of the system cannot be destroyed; it must go somewhere.”

The mood had grown somber. “Look, everypony,” Meg began. “This isn’t your fault. Hurricanes have been happening forever. We’ll survive. It wasn’t that long ago that we couldn’t know one was coming until it was too late to evacuate.”

“You’re right, of course,” Twilight said, sighing. “Let’s talk about the interview instead.”

“Excellent idea,” Princess Celestia said. “Meg, what’s your assessment?”

She quickly decided to stick to what had happened on camera. “It went as well as could be hoped for. Will it stop those protests? No, it’ll take more than mere words to do that.”

“I just can’t get over how much they liked me,” Sunset said. “I did some pretty horrible things, and they know it.”

“Yes, but they saw how reformed you were in the second movie. They like the reformed Discord too.”

“But none of that happened! We even told them that!”

“To be fair,” Twilight said, “that first one made you look worse than you really were, so maybe it balances out?”

“What matters is that you have learned from your mistakes, and have become a pony I can be proud of. They are not wrong to adore you, even if they do so for the wrong reasons.”

Sunset gave Celestia a wan smile. “If you say so, Princess.”

Once the meeting had ended, Twilight returned Meg to her home. The question of the Pinkie doll consumed her. Should she bring it up? That could be done without mentioning the mysterious message, after all.

“Do you have family or friends in the path of that hurricane?” Twilight asked.

“What? No. Why do you ask?”

Twilight looked at her with concern. “You seem… preoccupied?”

“No… well… sort of… There’s something I need to take care of, right now, actually, so…”

“Sure, no problem. Talk to you tomorrow.”

The alicorn vanished into thin air.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t around, unfortunately.

Meg hit her head a few times with her fist. “Don’t get paranoid.”

She dropped into the chair in front of her computer, plugged her phone in, and transferred the picture of that message. The word processor she used came with an OCR tool, and it had no trouble converting the image of hexadecimal digits into an actual text file. A quick and dirty script later, it had become a binary file.

“So now what,” she said to herself.

If she was supposed to make sense of that data, then it ought to have been encoded in a way she can decode. As she had mentioned to Jessica, the apparent randomness could be explained by either compression or encryption. Or both.

Compression was easy enough to test. She tried every compression utility she could think of, to see which one understood the file format. None of them did.

That left encryption, and decryption required a key.

“What am I supposed to use for a key?” she asked.

There was no obvious answer to that. For that matter, she did not know which encryption algorithm had been used.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t encrypted. Maybe it’s an application-specific file format—which begged the question of which one. Or maybe this was all just a bad joke after all, and it really was nothing but a bunch of meaningless, random bytes.

The sound of a key being inserted into the front door lock could be heard. Seconds later the door opened. “In here!” she called out, not bothering to hide her accumulated frustrations.

She continued to stare at the hex dump on the screen, hoping for some miraculous insight. She’d even settle for one of those apocryphal Pinkie Pie deus ex machina explanations.

“Did those protesters manage to get inside the theater?”

Meg looked up to see her husband leaning against the doorway. “No, nothing like that. The taping went as well as could be hoped for. Well… the audience did almost lose it when Twilight announced the Daring Do book deal in the works, and also the DVD commentaries that they’re working on with Hasbro.”

“Music to A. K. Yearling’s ears, I’m sure.”

Meg had resumed staring at the screen. She sighed. “Come over here.”

By the time Steve got there, the picture of that mysterious message was on the screen. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked after reading it.

“Your guess is as good as mine. It just appeared out of thin air on the snack table when I looked away for a moment. Jessica’s doing forensic tests on it right now.”

“And Twilight’s guess?”

“She doesn’t know about it, not yet anyway. Jessica thought it a good idea to wait until the tests are done. Maybe it’s nothing, just a bad joke.”

“Twilight has tests, too, you know, and since magic is implicated in its appearance…”

Meg pushed back from the desk and clasped her hands on her lap. “And what if she really is hiding something from us?”

Steve walked over to the shelves and retrieved the infamous Pinkie Pie doll. He stared into its eyes, as if answers might be found there. “Like what? It’s just an ordinary doll now.” He turned it on its side. “An incredibly valuable autographed doll.” He gave Meg a smile. “But we don’t need Twilight to tell us that.”

She sagged in the chair. “I don’t know.”

“And even if, for the sake of argument, she is hiding something, she probably has a good reason. She’s not the villain.”

She pointed at the monitor. “Well, someone or somepony seems to have different thoughts on that matter.”

With an air of resignation, he returned the doll to its place on the shelf, next to the still un-autographed Derpy doll. “I don’t know. I guess we wait for the forensics to come back and take it from there.”

She swiveled the chair to face him. “On a different subject, I just received an invite to a hastily planned staff meeting for the convention. Tomorrow.”

“Since when do you attend staff meetings?”

“Since ponies became real, obviously.”

“But they can’t possibly know… oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

Meg made her way towards the back of one of those trendy cafe breweries, where the house microbrews held the starring role on the menu. It was too public for her liking, but with the background noise of everyone talking at the same time, there wasn’t much danger of being overheard. Nor did it hurt that ponies were the topic du jour. Last night’s Late Show must have gotten record ratings.

She had little trouble finding them. The senior staff were all there, maybe a dozen in all. She didn’t know most of them. A large bronycon had many moving parts, and she had never been that interested in how it operated, much less doing the operating.

As she looked for an empty seat, her eyes met Tom’s, confirming her fears. His presence at a staff meeting was slightly less unlikely than her own.

Maybe it was a good thing. They’d likely want to know why she’d kept it secret; but then, until just recently, Tom was guilty of the same. After his encounter with Twilight and Sunset in her home almost a year ago, he had somehow convinced himself it never happened. Meg hadn’t brought it up again, and Sunset never did participate as a judge or contestant.

I guess he can no longer deny it happened.

She choose a seat on the other end of the table, on the same side so their eyes could no longer meet, and sat down. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Help yourself to some beer,” someone next to her said.

She waved off the offer. “That’s okay.”

Andrew, the president, addressed her. “I might as well get straight to the point. What would it take to get Twilight or the others to appear at the con?”

Exactly as she suspected. “I’m not her agent or secretary,” she simply said, knowing full well it wasn’t going to work.

“You know how to contact her, right?”

She wanted to give an answer that would make Applejack quite unhappy with her. It was her word against Tom’s. But to what end? The ponies weren’t going away, and neither was her connection to them. She settled for a non-answer. “Are you aware of the security implications? The Ed Sullivan Theater was crawling with Secret Service agents yesterday.”

He gave her a flat look. “One may wonder how you’d know that.”

Ouch. Fortunately there was a good explanation. “Because it’s their job to protect foreign heads of state?”

“Good point,” he conceded. With a smile, he added, “But I noticed you haven’t denied being able to contact her.”

It was a lost cause. “Yes, I can, but there’s no point. It’s not gonna happen, not this year anyway.”

“If we can make our case directly to her…” said the woman next to her, the one who had mentioned the beer. The head of PR & Marketing?

“I can assure you that Twilight is well aware of bronycons.”

“How do you even know her?” It was the vice-president this time.

What non-answer to give? “It’s a long story, one I’m not allowed to tell, so please change the subject.”

“Not allowed by who?”

Meg did not answer, choosing instead to help herself to… it was fried, whatever it was.

“Okay, different subject. Have you really been to Equestria?”

That made her take a quick look around her. No one at the nearby tables seemed to have noticed, what with the loud background noise.

Once again she wondered whether to disappoint the Element of Honesty, and came to the same conclusion. “You all saw Colbert last night, right?”

They nodded.

“And you saw all those photos of Ponyville?”

More nodding.

“I took them all with my phone.”

She helped herself to another fried something. It was cheesy.

“Did you use Twilight’s balloon? There were a lot of aerial shots.”

Didn’t think that through.

Before she could decide whether to just say yes, Tom finally said something. “She didn’t have to. She’s a pegasus there.”

Meg glared his way, but of course she couldn’t see him. Whatever, the cat was out of the bag.

“You were… turned into a pony,” Andrew said.

“I got better,” Meg helpfully pointed out.

No laughs.

No one gets the reference.

“Maybe you should have been there,” he said. “On stage, sitting next to Twilight. You’re a member of that exclusive club of humans who not only have been to Equestria, but got to be a pegasus.”

“Wasn’t gonna happen.”

“Oh, come on. How could they turn that down?”

The assumption behind that question sunk in. “They? Who says they even knew. I have no desire to become a freak show.”

“I would’ve done it a heartbeat. Think of all the fame.”

That look on his face… he probably would have.

“Look, you all must think I’ve been living the brony dream come true, and maybe I even thought that at first, but you have no idea what it’s done to my life, especially now.” She pushed her chair back and started to get up.

“Don’t go,” Andrew hurriedly said. “We get the point.”

Meg sat back down. “Do you? Here’s a small sample. You know all those ‘conversion bureau’ protesters?”

“That’s all nonsense, right?” the guy across from her asked.

“Guess who got to explain to Celestia what a ‘conversion bureau’ is.”

Pained looks on everyone’s faces.

“And yes, it’s all nonsense.” Meg decided to pour herself a beer after all. “The point is, this stopped being make-believe for me a long time ago.”

They waited until she put the mug down before asking another question. “It has stopped being make-believe for all of us,” Andrew said. “So what can we do to help?”

Meg’s eyes drifted over the other tables, full of people. She wondered how they would react if a pony walked in the front door. Would ponies ever be able to go about their business in public, with no one caring that they’re ponies? How to make such a world possible?

Is that what her cutie mark really meant?

What they were really after, especially Andrew, was the fame and glory of being the first bronycon to have actual ponies, of that Meg had little doubt. Nonetheless, bronycons—and bronies in general—could be a useful resource. Did their motivations really matter?

I’m not even thirty and I’m already becoming cynical and jaded. How does Celestia manage it?

Her eyes returned to Andrew. “What do you suggest?”

“How about we auction off some of Derpy’s muffins?” someone new asked. “Proceeds to charity, naturally.”

Meg shook her head. “Derpy doesn’t make muffins, she just eats a lot of them. That’s what Pinkie tells me anyway.”

“Really? There was this really popular fanfic about her talent for baking muffins—”

“I don’t care if it got to the top of the featured box. It’s not reality.”

“Really? Uh, okay… Wait, what about Pinkie’s cupcakes instead?”

“I suppose that might be doable. No promises.”

Murmurs of agreement halted when Andrew spoke. “Good idea, Penny, but how do we prove the cupcakes are what we claim them to be?”

Right, Penny, head of charity and sponsorships. She really ought to learn all their names, if she was going to become a regular attendee—as seemed inevitable. “A prerecorded video from Pinkie shouldn’t be a problem.”

“That ought to be adequate,” Andrew said. “Any other ideas?”

The head of events and programming spoke next. Meg knew who he was, as he was Tom’s boss. “Daring Do books are going to be sold here, right? I assume that A. K. Yearling will do a book signing tour. Why not at our con?” Tyler look at Meg. “By the way, who’s going to sign the books, Yearling or Daring Do? Are they really the same?”

Meg wasn’t sure how to answer that. Daring had been informed of the big reveal of Daring Don’t, but she could still choose to claim the cartoon got it wrong. If her true identity was widely known here, it was only a matter of time before it got back to Equestria. It wasn’t her place to make the decision for her. Nor, for that matter, was a book signing tour a given. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

No one pressed her on that, to her relief.

“Auction off zap apple jam?”

“Not a good idea to remove a highly magical item from a magical field.” Not after that “potion” incident in her office at work. “Plus, I don’t know if it’s safe for humans to eat in a magical field.”

The implications of that sunk in before the next suggestion came. “Apple cider?”

“That’s safe enough, but… not that I want to discourage ideas, but I don’t think Twilight would view auctioning off a lengthy list of items as being all that helpful to her.”

“Rainbow Dash could do something about that hurricane that’s about to hit Florida.”

Meg grimaced. “No, she can’t. It’s way too big. Even in Equestria, it wouldn’t be practical. Standard operating procedure is to stamp them out as soon as possible, while they’re still small and poorly formed. Dash was rather shocked we didn’t do that.”

The flow of suggestions dried up for the moment. Meg took advantage of that by drinking more beer.

“The problem, as I see it,” began Andrew, “is that we simply don’t know enough to know what would be helpful.”

That had become quite clear. How could it be otherwise? Their only sources of information was a cartoon—a cartoon that had stopped tracking reality as soon as ponies had discovered humanity—news stories that stretched the definition of “objective,” and a late night talk show.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Meg hurriedly got up and left, going straight to her car. Once inside, she got her phone out and called Twilight, praying she wasn’t too busy to answer.

“Meg? It’s not time yet.”

“I’m still at the staff meeting. Tom told them everything, it looks like.”

“Is that going to be a problem for you?”

Meg looked around, to see if one of them had followed her. “I don’t know.” None had. “They’re willing to help, but apart from auctioning off stuff of Equestrian origin, they don’t really know what would be helpful.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Pinkie’s cupcakes, AJ’s apple cider, but that’s not why I’m calling.”

“What is it that can’t wait an hour?”

“I’d like you to spend a few minutes with them when you come to pick me up. Even if there isn’t much they could do for you now, you should still cultivate a relationship.”

Twilight did not immediately respond.

“Okay, but no more than four, including Tom.”

“You specifically want Tom?”

“Sure, why not? He can consider it a reward for what we put him through. I’ll be there fifteen minutes earlier to make time to talk to them.”

“Okay, bye.”

She stared at her phone, the call concluded. “A reward? Really?” That wasn’t like her, to consider the chance to meet her again a “reward.”

After returning the phone to her purse, she got out of the car. As she headed back, she considered the logistics. They would have to come to her apartment. Tom knew the way, but not anyone else. Well, they’d just have to figure something out.

All were present and accounted for when she sat down. They went silent, waiting for her to say something. “Twilight has agreed to meet with three of you—plus Tom—for a few minutes. We’ll need to leave soon.”

“You just spoke with her?” Andrew asked, somewhat incredulously. “How?”

“I have her phone number.”

“She has a phone,” he said, even more incredulous.

“I know. Season five somehow missed that detail. Go figure.”

“An Equestrian phone?”

Meg decided she’d had enough fun. “No, a smart phone of human origin. Yes, she’s in Equestria right now. Yes, she can get a signal there. I can, too, on my own phone. No, other phones won’t have a signal. It involves magic. Enough said.”

“She specifically named me?” Tom asked, fidgeting.

“Yes she did, Tom,” she replied. “I assume you’ll be one of the three, Andrew.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

“I guess you get to pick the other two.”

He didn’t need long to decide. “Joe and Elaine.”

That would be the vice-president, who was sitting next to him, and, judging from the way she was bouncing in her chair, the head of PR and marketing. “We should leave soon to make sure you get your full fifteen minutes.”

Meg arrived at her home last, as she had to first call her husband to give a heads up. The four of them were waiting near her parking spot. None of them could’ve ridden with her, as she would be going to Equestria with Twilight. The staff meeting would resume without her once they went back.

Meg got out of her car and simply said “follow me” as she walked past them. They silently followed her to her front door. She checked the time on her phone. “It’ll be ten minutes before she shows up.”

Upon opening the door, she stood aside and invited them in with a wave.

“Over here,” Steve called out.

A second later, Elaine brought a hand to her mouth. “Ohmygod… you’re really here.”

Twilight Sparkle was lying on the sofa, giving a friendly smile to the new arrivals.

Steve got up from the recliner. “I won’t get in the way of your quality Twilight time, so I’ll just be in the other room,” he said, and left.

The four gathered around the pony on the sofa. Twilight looked up at Tom. “Nice to see you again, Tom. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry our last get together ended the way it did.”

“I-I’m not sure the blame is yours,” he stammered. “Meg obviously didn’t have any trouble accepting your reality.”

“Oh, yes she did,” Twilight said with a smile.

“But I did get over it quickly,” Meg countered. “You got here early.”

“Indeed, I did. I managed to free up some more time.” She stood up on a cushion and beamed. “Why don’t we continue our conversation at my place?”

That was not the plan. “In Equestria?” Meg asked, dreading the answer.

“Seriously?” asked Andrew. “We get to visit Equestria?”

“Don’t get too excited,” Twilight said. “Just for a few minutes, and you’ll be inside my castle the whole time.” She caught the look on Meg’s face. “You can wait here, Meg, until they come back, if you want.”

“Why wouldn’t you participate?” Andrew asked.

Why indeed, she thought. Twilight knew; that’s why she offered her an out. Why that should matter, when they all already knew, was the question.

Because there’s a huge difference between hearing about something, and seeing it.

It wouldn’t be the first time. She hadn’t wanted Special Agents Holmes and Fowler to know her as a pony, but that had worked out okay in the end. Luck, or destiny? If only her cutie mark had come with an instruction manual.

“What Twilight isn’t saying,” she said, “is that if I accompanied you to Equestria, I will arrive as a pony.” Before any of them could respond, she started walking. “Let me get my saddlebags.”

She went to the home office. Steve was on his laptop. “I heard,” he quietly said.

Meg fetched her saddlebags off the table and put them around her neck. “Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do. I dunno. Call it a leap of faith.”

“I don’t know either, but if things go wrong, our options are a heck of a lot better now. If nothing else, the Feds are with us this time, not against us.”

She could only hope it would turn out better than that as she transferred her phone from purse to saddlebag. Not that her destiny problems would impress Twilight, the mare who had dealt with Nightmare Moon, Tirek, and others. If this was the worst destiny had in store for her, she was getting off pretty damn easy.

Meg gave her husband a kiss. “Be back in a few hours—assuming there isn’t a windigo attack… or whatever.”

“Be sure to take plenty of pictures if there is.”

That was almost enough to make her smile.

Almost.

She went back to the others. Twilight was standing on the floor, the others in front of her. She stood beside the alicorn. “Let’s go.”

“Is that supposed to be a cutie mark?” asked Joe, pointing at her saddlebags.

Meg ignored the question for now. “Twilight, just do the return spell already.”

“One return spell coming up,” the alicorn obligingly singsonged.

The spell took them all to Twilight’s throne room, between the circle of thrones and the imposing double doors, now closed. The ones who were still human looked around, but their eyes quickly converged on the one unfamiliar thing in the room: a pegasus standing next to Twilight.

“You look so adorable!” Elaine squeed.

“Try being a pony that isn’t adorable,” Meg deadpanned.

She watched Joe move to her side. “That really is your cutie mark?” he said. “Why that one?”

“You’d have to ask whatever it is that passes them out. I had no say in its design.”

“How did those saddlebags move from around your neck to your back?” asked Elaine.

“Magic,” Meg replied. “It’s part of the standing transformation-on-crossover spell that’s in place.”

“If it’s a standing spell, why are we still human?”

“Because none of you have ever been ponified.” The pegasus walked into the circle of thrones. “This is where it happened to me,” she said, turning back to address them. “The Mane Six went Rainbow Power, zapped me with rainbows and harmony, then Twilight did her stuff. Same spell as that breezies episode.”

“With your permission,” Andrew asked. “Right?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Of course with my permission. If anything, Twilight tried to talk me out of it.”

“Hard to believe that was a year ago,” the alicorn said.

“Talk you out of it,” Joe repeated. “Why? What’s wrong with being a pony?”

“When I became a magical pony, well… like I said, whatever it is that passes out cutie marks noted my existence. I acquired a destiny. Or maybe I always had one, and that’s why I encountered Twilight and got ponified.” She sighed. “Who knows what’s cause and what’s effect.”

“You’re… not wearing anything,” Tom stuttered.

Meg spun to face him. “Is that a problem for you?” She scanned the others. “Any of you? Turned on by naked horses?”

"But… but… you’re not really a pony!”

Why did I do this?

“And that is why I would never do a talk show.” She took a deep breath. “Just change the subject.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Elaine obliged. “You can really fly?”

Meg spread her wings, started flapping, and lifted a few feet off the floor. “It’s as awesome as you think,” she said in an unenthusiastic imitation of a certain rainbow-maned pegasus.

Andrew pointed up at the ceiling. “What happened to the roots of the library?”

“In the ground, where they belong,” Twilight answered with a smirk. “Don’t bother believing anything you see in the fifth season.”

“But it was destroyed by Tirek, right?”

“Discord restored it as an act of contrition.”

“Indeed I did,” a solemn voice declared.

Out of the shadows—which weren’t there a moment ago—a figure dressed as a medieval monk shuffled forth, head bowed in penitence.

Elaine raised a hand to point at the hooded figure. “Is that… who I think it is?”

The robe and hood were doing a surprisingly effective job at hiding his identity, somehow, though why he was bothering was another matter. Meg flew over to Twilight, returning to the floor as the alicorn asked, “Discord, why aren’t you waiting for us at Fluttershy’s?”

In a flash of light, he ditched the outfit and shadows and replaced it with a hurt look. “And miss the opportunity to meet more humans?” He looked them over with an approving smile. “Such chaotic potential. Just look at how your kind are responding to ponies!”

“Well, we’re not freaking out!” Andrew said.

He was suddenly among them. “You misunderstand. It’s not about how any specific human reacts, it’s the variety of reactions! Some proclaiming the end of the world, others eagerly seeking the nearest conversion bureau, and some…” He jabbed an eagle talon at Andrew. “Some taking it all in stride.”

Discord appeared next to Twilight. “Same stimulus, an incredibly chaotic smorgasbord of reactions!”

Dishes popped into existence around the humans, each full of hors d'oeuvres.

Joe carefully picked up a T-bone steak that had been shrunk to only a half-inch in size. He examined it as if it might suddenly sprout fangs. “It won’t turn me into a pumpkin, will it?”

“Why? Would you like it to?”

He threw it back onto the plate.

“Don’t encourage him,” Meg said.

Discord pouted. “Party pooper.” No one was touching any of the food. “Not even the banana worms?” On one plate, tiny partially peeled bananas, only two inches long, moved around in a worm-like fashion, unmolested by humans. “Oh very well…” The plates all vanished.

“Perhaps we should be getting to the point.” Meg looked at Discord in irritation. “We’ll have to leave soon.”

“I heartily agree!” The draconequus snapped his talons and a blackboard appeared. He tapped it with a rod that was now held by his paw. “We can auction off this…” The words “Pinkie’s cupcakes” appeared in pink chalk. “Or this..” He tapped the blackboard again, and in yellow chalk the words “Applejack’s cider” appeared.

“How does he know—”

Meg shook her head at Tom, silencing him.

“But if you really want high bids, you need to auction off this.” He tapped it one last time, and on the blackboard appeared a miniature multi-colored chalk outline of Discord. It waved at the humans. “A chance to meet moi in person!”

Meg couldn’t deny Discord might be right. He probably would get a high bid. How that would help human-pony relations wasn’t so clear.

“I’m not sure our legal council would sign off on that,” Andrew said. “They might find the risks… uh…” He gulped. “You know.”

The blackboard and rod vanished. “I’m reformed,” he said, crossing his arms. “I can assure you the winner will be returned in the same state in which he or she arrived.”

“I think it’ll be best if we continued this conversation at another time,” Twilight said. “I need to go fetch something, then I’ll take you right back.”

She teleported away.

“This is what you’ve been putting up with for the past year?” Tom asked Meg.

“I’m still here, you know.”

Meg rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “Look, I know Discord can be… I guess what I’m saying…” She returned her hoof to the floor. “I can vouch for him, sorta.”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Such a resounding endorsement.”

This was getting worrisome. Fortunately, there was one card she could play that usually worked. “We can talk about it later, with Fluttershy.”

The draconequus grumbled. “Fine.”

Meg was sighing in relief when Twilight teleported back. The alicorn walked over to the humans. No plaid pill was visible. Was it already in her mouth? “I’m taking you back now,” she said in a slightly slurred voice.

They disappeared, leaving just Meg and Discord.

“So,” Meg said, breaking the silence. “You left Fluttershy all alone with the Smooze.”

“His self-control really has improved,” he said, waving off her concerns with a paw.

Meg said nothing in return.

“Point taken.”

Discord snapped his talons and the two of them were gone.

3. When It Rains, It Pours

Twilight and her passengers arrived back in Meg’s home. She gave them a few moments to get their bearings. “I’m really sorry about that. It might be better to hold our next meeting in this realm.”

Steve joined them in the living room. “What happened?”

“Discord happened,” Andrew said. “I’m beginning to appreciate the difference between wish fulfillment and reality.”

“Ah,” he said with a knowing smile. “He can come on rather strong.”

“Should we be worried that Meg is all alone with Discord right now?” Elaine asked. “Why didn’t she come back with us?”

“To answer your first question,” Steve said, “she’s safe enough with him.”

“As for your second,” Twilight continued, “she’s working on a project with me right now—with Discord too, for that matter.”

“What kind of project?” Tom asked.

“One I do not wish to make public at this time.”

Andrew got down on his knees, to bring his head closer to Twilight’s. “Before you go, what do you think of our auction ideas?”

The alicorn mulled it over. “The cupcakes can be arranged, for sure; the cider, I’m not so sure about. Anything else?”

“Have A. K. Yearling do book signings?”

“Or Daring Do, if they’re one and the same,” Joe added.

She’s going to have to decide one way or the other eventually. But that wasn’t for her to decide—assuming the book signing tour would take place in this realm. It was part of the ongoing negotiations. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

There was several seconds of silence before Elaine spoke up. “How about a performance from Trixie? We can promise an audience who’ll appreciate her act.”

It was an intriguing idea. It might even be just what the show pony needed. If only she knew how to contact her. Even so… “I’ll have to get back to you on that also.”

“But you won’t make an appearance,” Andrew said.

“Not this time, not me or any other Element Bearer,” Twilight said. “It’s not entirely up to me.”

“Secret Service?”

The alicorn nodded. “They say it’s too high a security risk. After what I saw at the Late Show, it’s hard to argue with that.”

“Well, it is what it is.” Andrew got back on his feet. “We’ve taken enough of your time,” he said. “We’ll be leaving now.”

As Steve walked them to the front door, Twilight said, “It was a pleasure meeting you all. Work with Meg to schedule another meeting.”

“Will do,” Andrew said as he walked out the door, the others right behind him.

Steve closed the door, then turned to face the alicorn. “I guess that went well enough.”

“Discord wanted them to auction off the chance to meet him in person.”

“Really?”

Twilight nodded. She couldn’t help but notice that they hadn’t brought that offer up again.

He threw up his hands. “I’m glad I won’t have to deal with that.”

Twilight sighed. “Sometimes I think he was easier to deal with before he was reformed. Anyway, I better get back there.”

She invoked the return spell, and returned to an empty throne room. Assuming they must’ve gone ahead to Fluttershy’s, Twilight fetched her saddlebags, overstuffed with equipment, and flew over to her friend’s cottage.

Her descent had just begun when—no, no, no, no, no!

A few hundred feet into the Everfree, a few of the gnarled trees were engulfed in purplish gloop. The alicorn teleported in fury, appearing above the feasting blob. “Smooze! Cease and desist, now.”

A pair of eyes blinked at her in confusion.

“Twilight, it’s okay,” Fluttershy said, having just arrived at her side.

“Okay?”

“We asked him to.” She pointed below. “Let’s rejoin the others and we’ll explain.”

Fluttershy was already returning to the ground, where Meg, Discord, and… Zecora?

I leave this realm for only a few minutes…

Those eyes were still looking at her.

“Uh, never mind. Just keep on doing… whatever.”

She teleported down to the others, and promptly glared at Discord, whose face of innocence was crowned with a halo. For once, she had to admit, he probably was innocent. She turned to the zebra. “Your presence cannot be a coincidence.”

Zecora greeted her with a slight bow. “As you yourself so justly surmise, that I am the cause is no surprise. These trees here are diseased with a virulence that cannot be appeased. By culling those already ensnared, we hope that the rest may be spared.”

“That’s… justified, sort of.” She resumed glaring at Discord. “Couldn’t you have saved these trees with a snap of your talons?”

The draconequus put a paw to his chest. “And deprive Smoozy of the opportunity to put his special talent to good use?”

Special talent? That was one way to look at it.

“It was my idea,” Fluttershy said. “Zecora paid me a visit after Discord had left. She told me about the sick trees and the need to do something quickly.”

Assuming Discord didn’t create this “opportunity” in the first place. It would have been nice to know the nature of this infection. “Did you collect any samples for study?”

“Uh… no?”

Twilight looked to the zebra. “Zecora?”

A head shake was her reply.

The Smooze had fully engulfed the affected trees and the space between them. They were breaking down, sagging as they were attacked by powerful… what? How did Smooze digest? Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. It didn’t matter; fat chance of collecting samples now.

It was a distraction, anyway. Her eyes re-opened. “How are we supposed to conduct our research with him like…” She waved a hoof at the gloop-covered, slumping trees. “That.”

The butter yellow pegasus hid behind her mane. “Uh, sorry?”

Discord was looking off into the forest at something only he seemed to notice.

“Don’t look at me,” Meg said.

Smooze, of course, said nothing.

Twilight sighed and eyed the feasting blob. “I guess today’s session is canceled.”

Sugarcube Corner wasn’t busy, which suited Twilight just fine. “Hey, Pinkie,” she said, gaining the attention of the pink pony behind the counter.

“I know that face,” Pinkie said. “One cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake, coming up!”

A shake plopped down in front of her. How does she do it so…

Nope. Not gonna go there. Not today.

Twilight took the shake in her magic and seated herself at a table.

Pinkie sat across from her. “I didn’t think you’d be done so quickly with…” She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “You know what.”

“The unexpected intervened.”

Pinkie giggled. “With you know who involved, I should think so!”

“Not this time,” Twilight said, then she sampled the shake. “Probably.”

A pegasus mare and unicorn filly entered the store.

“Gotta go,” Pinkie said. She pronked her way back behind the counter.

Twilight focused on her shake, to the exclusion of all else. It was just what she needed. No humans, no human technology, no draconequus, just that wonderful combination of cinnamon, daisy, and vanilla, all wrapped up in cold, creamy goodness.

“Princess?”

There was a filly standing next to her. Reluctantly, she let go of the straw. “Dinky?” Her mother stood a few feet away, beaming an encouraging smile.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can!” she replied with artificial enthusiasm. Perhaps it was just what she needed, a foal’s innocent question.

Dinky briefly looked back at her mother for a final boost of confidence. “Do you think we’ll ever see humans in Ponyville?”

“That’s a good question,” she answered, stalling for time. The existence of humans and their realm had been announced a few weeks ago. The American Secretary of State had made a public appearance with Celestia at her palace. Even so, humans were no more wandering the streets of Canterlot or Manehattan than ponies were wandering the streets of Washington, D.C., or Manhattan.

“Maaaaybe you’ve met one already,” Pinkie said in passing on her way to the tables outside, making Twilight face-hoof.

“We would know, wouldn’t we?” Derpy said. “Aren’t they supposed to sorta look like minotaurs?”

Just then, Meg walked in. The Crusaders were close behind her.

Twilight was more worried about the Crusaders. She would have to carefully word her answers. “You would know a human if you saw one.”

That got Meg’s attention, of course, not to mention the Crusaders’.

Twilight continued. “But you’d never mistake one for a minotaur. Humans have yet to visit Ponyville.”

It was true statement, strictly speaking. Only Meg and Steve have been inside the town of Ponyville proper, excluding her castle or Sweet Apple Acres, and then only as ponies.

Scootaloo was about to say something, but Pinkie was suddenly in her face, glaring. Thank Celestia for Pinkie Sense and Pinkie Promises.

Meg walked over. “So when do you think humans will be seen in Ponyville?” she asked, smirking.

Her melting shake called out to her. It would have to wait a bit longer. “It’s hard to say. Crossing between our realms is not like taking a train to Canterlot.”

“What’s their realm like?” Dinky asked. “Does it really lack magic?”

“It sure does.” It was more complicated than that, of course, but going into that kind of detail seemed inappropriate for a filly.

“How can they do stuff without magic?”

“That’s rather hard to explain, but they do.” It was hard enough to explain even to some adults, as she’d had to find out the hard way.

“Maybe we should collect photos of that realm?” Meg asked.

Dinky leaped to conclusions. “You’ve been there?”

“I’ve… accompanied Twilight there quite a few times.”

That’s one way of putting it. Photos were a good idea, though, and there were already so many to choose from, there was no need for Meg to take more.

One of Derpy’s eyes was studying Meg. “I’ve been seeing you at the castle for, like, a year now.” She shifted her head, focusing her other eye on Twilight. “Ever since the time you talked to me about… you know.”

Twilight could no longer ignore her shake’s cry for attention.

“Shortly after… that,” Meg said, “I was tasked with providing insight into the human realm.”

“I-I didn’t cause any problems by refusing to go, did I?”

Pinkie slapped down another shake, just like the first, on the table. “For you, Meg!”

“Uh, thanks, Pinkie.” She turned back to Derpy. “You didn’t cause any problems,” she assured her. “Pinkie did a good job of explaining the situation to—uh, to the humans.” She smiled. “That’s my understanding.”

Dinky gaped in disbelief at her mother. “You had a chance to visit their realm, and you turned it down?”

“It’s not that simple, muffin. They asked to see me specifically. Didn’t they have a doll that looked like me?” Derpy looked at the princess for answers. “Why would they want to meet me?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked that. Twilight glanced at the glass once full of milk shake. I’m beginning to understand why Celestia eats so much cake. She exchanged eye contact with Meg, who was drowning her own sorrows in vanilla, cinnamon and daisy goodness. “I still don’t have an explanation I can give you.”

“And what if humans did come here to Ponyville? What am I supposed to do then?”

Unfortunately, that was a question that could be asked by any of the so-called background ponies. “Before I give permission for humans to come here, I promise to have an answer for you.”

Twilight was in her residence, working on a status report to Celestia about the trade negotiations, when a pegasus flew in from the hallway.

“I’m ready to go home,” Meg said.

Twilight put the quill back into its ink pot. The status report would wait. “So what do you think of Derpy’s predicament?”

“Honestly?” she said, sighing. “It makes me regret ever making that request.”

“Would it have made a difference if you hadn’t, once humans start coming here?”

Meg paced inside the perimeter of bookshelves. “I suppose not. We both know too many will seek her out. Others too. Time Turner will get sick of being asked about his ‘blue box,’ Lyra and her obsession with hands—”

“Blue box?”

Meg groaned. “I’ll explain that some other time.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “The point is that letting fans of that cartoon into Ponyville will be bothersome to many ponies.” That was an observation she had already included in her report.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any good solutions—or even some bad ones.”

“Luckily, we don’t need one at the moment, not so long as I have to personally carry every human and pony across. Let’s change the subject. What’s up with the Crusaders?”

The pegasus stopped pacing and returned to the alicorn. “Oh, that? I simply figured that if they’re so determined to earn, somehow, their cutie marks in my world, I should know what they have in mind and try to discourage them from attempting it.”

“You have my royal approval,” Twilight said only half facetiously. “Not that I expect it to have much effect on them.”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.” Meg shifted a hoof about the floor. “Right now, their focus is on helping Susie find her special talent.”

Twilight looked askance at her. “They know humans don’t have cutie marks.”

“And they would point out that doesn’t prove humans don’t have special talents—or destinies, for that matter.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ll go get a pill,” she said, ending that topic. She quickly flew upstairs to fetch a plaid pill from its secure place, and returned to Meg.

Meg brushed the offered pill aside. “There’s something I want to ask you about first—completely different subject.”

“Sure, no problem.” She deposited the pills on her desk.

Meg again was shifting a hoof on the floor. Something was clearly bothering her.

“That doll… Did you ever find out anything about how it got tied to that leak?”

She was looking at her with penetrating eyes. It’s almost as if she had stumbled upon something, but how could that be? “Why,” Twilight cautiously asked. “Is something going on with that doll again?”

“Nope. Not at all. Still an ordinary doll. Just curious, that’s all.”

What to tell her… There wasn’t a whole lot to tell. Once the flow of magic had been reduced to a trickle, she had discovered that the terminus of the leak was magically bound to that Pinkie Pie doll by means of a spell that Star Swirl had created. Somepony had chosen that doll. Only Celestia had she told, who had recommended keeping it under wraps, at least until Twilight could determine who had done it—and why.

So far, she’d come up with nothing.

“I don’t have anything to tell you,” she said as nonchalantly as possible. It was best to keep the status quo for now. There was no telling how Meg would react if she found out what was currently known, but without the still-unknown full context.

As if I knew how I would react once the full context was known.

The entities capable of pulling this off formed a very short list—that they knew of, and that’s what worried her and Celestia. Furthermore, none of them could have been at the right place and at the right time, never mind have had any reason to have selected that doll.

“Just wondering,” she said with a touch of forced casualness. “You can take me home now.”

Meg entered the conference room. A half-dozen people looked up at her. “Let’s get started,” Jake, their manager, said. She helped herself to a jelly doughnut and took a seat.

Everyone being present and accounted for, Jake started the ball rolling. “Eric, where are you on the xenon poisoning.”

Eric Tanner threw up his hands. “About as well as could be expected, given that we still have no access to a nuclear reactor, and it’s not like the Equestrians have a reactor either. The models could be garbage, for all we know.” He bobbed a tea bag in his mug. “It doesn’t help either that they won’t explain the underlying theory to us.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d complained about that. “And you still wouldn’t understand it if they did,” Meg said, not for the first time. “None of us have been to magic kindergarten.”

“They could at least try! We’re not idiots. We’ve answered enough of their questions about nuclear physics.”

No denying that; to begin with, they had to explain the problem. A civilian nuclear reactor needed to be operated at a more or less constant load. While the fission chain-reaction could be damped at any time, once damped an isotope of xenon would rapidly build up from radioactive decay, an isotope that readily absorbed neutrons, thus preventing the chain-reaction from restarting. Being radioactive itself, this isotope decayed over several days—but days in which the reactor sat idle.

The problem could be avoided by using highly enriched uranium, expensive and not an option for civilian reactors anyway, or it could be solved with a suitable spell that prevented the buildup of xenon but let other radioactive decay take place. That decay produced a substantial fraction of the heat, so not only must it be permitted, a longer term goal was to actually accelerate it. In an emergency, a spell could suspend all activity in the core, preventing a catastrophic meltdown. Spent fuel rods would power the required magic generators.

It was one of several applications of magic being investigated.

Meg put down her doughnut. “Possessing a horn makes a big difference,” she countered. “Theoretical mages are almost exclusively unicorns.” It was difficult enough for her to wrap her mind around the theory. Steve had told her that being a unicorn definitely made it a lot easier; but even so, he lacked the lifetime of experience of using magic.

Eric’s smile declared victory. “Well, there you go: almost exclusively.”

“I think you’ve made your point,” Jake said.

“Fine,” Meg said. “I’ll see what magic textbooks I can come up with.”

He gave her a level stare. “When do the rest of us get to interact directly with our pony counterparts? The secrecy ended weeks ago.”

“Eric, change the subject. That’s above our pay grade.”

Jake and Eric held a staring contest. This had been brewing ever since ponies were declassified. Meg wondered how much longer Eric would last, if he kept this up. Only the fact it’d be difficult to replace him had saved him so far, in her opinion.

“I’d still like to know—”

Meg’s phone rang, possibly saving Eric’s job. She answered it. “This is Meg.”

“You have a visitor waiting for you in the lobby, a Jessica Fowler.”

There was only one reason she’d fly out here to see her in person. “I’ll be right there,” she replied, and ended the call. “Sorry, but someone’s here to see me. It shouldn’t take long.”

Jake waved it off.

Leaving her half-eaten jelly doughnut behind, Meg left the conference room and rushed through the corridors. As she entered the lobby, Jessica stood up, holding a satchel. “Your office?” the agent asked.

“Yep.”

The trip back to her office was at an almost leisurely pace. Once they were inside, Meg closed the door. “We’re sound-proofed,” she said, pointing at a crystal on her desk that just began to glow softly.

“That’s new.”

“Twilight gave that to me about two weeks ago. So long as the door’s closed and it’s glowing, we could hold a rock concert in here and no one outside will hear a thing.”

“Same spell she used on your home office wall last year?”

Meg shrugged. “I guess. But you didn’t fly out here to go down memory lane.”

“I certainly did not.” She opened the satchel and pulled out the mysterious note, handing it to Meg. Apart from one of the hexadecimal digits having been cut out, it was intact. She also took out the magic generator she’d borrowed and put that on Meg’s desk.

“Here’s the executive summary. No fingerprints or trace of any kind was found. The paper is of the type commonly used for inkjet printers, completely ordinary. Not surprisingly, the ink was applied by an inkjet printer.”

Meg held the sheet with both hands, hoping against hope to see something she might have missed before. “That narrows it down to just about everyone.”

“We’ll be able to identify the specific ink used, but it’ll take more time—not that it’ll narrow it down that much more.”

“What about the binary data?” Meg asked, swiping a finger across the hexadecimal digits.

“The tools I could get access to couldn’t figure it out. It’s either random junk, or competently encrypted. I take it you had no luck, either?”

“No. But why send me a message I don’t know how to read?”

It was Jessica’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know.”

Meg opened a desk drawer and hid the sheet under other accumulated stuff. “So what now?”

“I brought this to the President’s attention.”

“And…?”

“He recommends enlisting Twilight’s assistance, but will leave it to your discretion.”

Meg slammed the drawer shut. “I did ask Twilight if she’d learn anything about the doll—without mentioning that message—and all she had to say was, and I quote: ‘I don’t have anything to tell you.’”

The agent closed the satchel. “That does sound like a non-answer.”

Hand went to forehead. “I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.”

Once she had gotten home from work, Meg spent more hours trying to decrypt the alleged message hiding in that binary data. Whoever encrypted it presumably knew how she’d go about decrypting it. Perhaps that was a false assumption, but a necessary one; otherwise, it was a lost cause.

So the sender wouldn’t create a new encryption algorithm from scratch. That would be idiotic. The most sensible option would be to use a standard, widely known means of encryption. There was no downside to that, as security came from the key itself, not the obscurity of the encryption algorithm.

If it was up to her, she’d use AES. How would the sender know that? She hadn’t a clue. Yet that was the least of her problems: if the encryption algorithm she’d use was not knowable, what about the key? A quick check showed the data was a multiple of sixteen bytes, consistent with AES encryption, so that’s what she’d go with. Unfortunately, that didn’t help determine the key length. There were only three possibilities, so that wasn’t too bad.

She tried everything as a key: actual passwords she used, birthdays, anniversaries, names of friends and relatives, schools she went to, driver’s license, credit card numbers, everything, in various permutations and hashed via various means to produce keys of 128-, 192- and 256-bit lengths. A freshly written script sped up the process.

All she got was more random junk as output.

Well, it ought to. Those items were either theoretically unknowable to the sender or knowable to everyone, and the goal should be an encrypted message that she and only she could decrypt.

Out of desperation, she even tried some randomly generated keys. Why not? Magic was involved, right? Or maybe not. That didn’t work either.

“You should take a break.” Steve was leaning against the doorframe. “Give your subconscious a chance to mull it over.”

She shoved her chair back from the keyboard. “None of this makes any sense!”

“Will you show Twilight that message?”

“It basically accuses her of lying to me. Kind of awkward.” She stood up. “Especially since she might be.”

“Take it up with Celestia?”

“What are the odds Celestia isn’t fully aware of what Twilight isn’t telling me, and her reasons for not telling me?”

“Vanishingly small,” he conceded. “And if she didn’t agree with those reasons…”

“Exactly, so she does.” She walked over to the window. “Besides, I’ve no easy way of reaching her except through Twilight. I’d have to ditch her, fly to Canterlot, and get past the palace bureaucracy.”

Calling her, or texting her, was not an option. Celestia had declined when offered her own phone. Only two ponies had a phone, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.

“Sounds like fun.”

When she didn’t take the bait, he continued. “Bring it up at the next scheduled meeting with Celestia? Put it to both of them at the same time?”

“Others are usually present, don’t forget.”

“Wait until after the meeting is over?”

She stared into the sky. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Is there a rush? Why don’t you wait until we get back from Las Pegasus.”

“Is there a rush?” She turned around, arms folded across her chest. “That’s kind of up to them, isn’t it? Whoever left that message.”

“It didn’t specifically tell you to drop everything and get the truth from Twilight, only that there is a truth. It certainly didn’t put a deadline on it.”

She threw up her hands. “So why inform me of that now, and not a week earlier or a week later.”

“I don’t know.”

“And what will they do next if I procrastinate too long?”

Steve did not try to answer that question.

Meg’s phone rang. She quickly walked over to pick it up. “Speak of the devil.” She accepted the call. “Twilight?”

“Go watch CNN right now.”

“She wants us to turn on CNN,” she said, walking past Steve towards the living room. Once there, she turned on the TV and changed the channel. A priest was being interviewed.

“…in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Only then did they know of good and evil, and thus felt shame at their nakedness. These ponies, not being children of Adam and Eve, do not possess this original sin, and hence lack this shame.”

Just wonderful.

She muted the sound.

“I certainly do know of good and evil, and I still don’t understand this obsession over nudity.”

“Twilight…” She needed this right now like she needed a hole in her head. “I don’t even know where to start. There are religious books you can read, but they’ll probably leave you with more questions than answers.”

“Like the Bible? Already read it. And the texts of many other religions. As they all describe mutually incompatible realities, most of them must be wrong—and that’s before taking into account the considerable scientific knowledge you humans have accumulated.”

It just kept getting better. “I really, really, really advise that you avoid this topic in public. It’s a no-win situation for you.”

“That’s why I called. It’s only a matter of time before I’m asked to comment on such topics.”

“You’ve got my advice.” Unfortunately, she was probably right. “Anything else? Sorry, but this isn’t a good time for me right now.”

“No, nothing that can’t wait. Talk to you later. Bye.”

“Did we forfeit our immortal souls when we became ponies?”

Meg glared at her husband. “Don’t you start.”

He held up his hands in surrender.

She switched to Fox. “Might as well see what other shit is hitting the fan.”

Commercials. More commercials. It was three whole minutes before they ended, revealing a panel discussion. In the corner of the screen was a projection of the hurricane’s path, due to hit land sometime tomorrow afternoon. The topic under discussion, according to the bottom of the screen, was that hurricane; not the sort of thing typically discussed by talking heads, but at least it was refreshingly non-equine.

She turned the sound back on.

“…no offer to help us. Wouldn’t it be ‘foal’s play’ for Rainbow Dash to divert or even destroy that hurricane? We’d certainly make it worth—”

She turned off the TV.

4. It's All Relative

“Our modern understanding of physics began a little over a century ago, when it was discovered that space and time were connected, even interchangeable, forming a single entity, space-time.” Steve wrote the word with his hand, the sounds of actual chalk on an actual blackboard reverberating through the mostly empty lecture hall. “Often it’s even spelled as one word, without a hyphen, to emphasize that.”

An elderly, bespectacled unicorn with a long flowing beard interrupted. “That flatly contradicts the theory behind Star Swirl’s spells that manipulate space and time—separately.”

Graying midnight blue coat and violet mane. And you must be Arcane Scroll. Twilight had warned him about that old coot. Of the twenty or so unicorns in attendance—and they were all unicorns, naturally—a third of them were the proverbial graybeards. Their presence was a necessary compromise reached by the princess to permit the attendance of the more “impressionable” advanced students of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

“Being a human from a realm lacking magic, such theories are, of course, beyond my understanding.” And being a part-time unicorn for a year hadn’t done much to change that.

Arcane Scroll bore a condescending smile.

“However, Princess Twilight Sparkle has informed me that such spells must be cast with great care. When casting a space-manipulation spell, for example, a mistake could cause temporal side-effects, requiring a time-manipulation counter-spell. Is that not so?”

The old stallion was not the only one shifting uneasily in his seat. “That is so,” he conceded.

“That is why the princesses have requested this series of lectures.”

Steve waited a few seconds for any further responses; none came. Invoking the will of the princesses had that effect, especially when that will included Celestia’s.

“One can view time as an additional, fourth dimension perpendicular to the three dimensions of space. There’s more to it than that, naturally; otherwise, little would be gained by connecting them.

“What’s key is the geometry of space-time. It’s counter-intuitive.” He drew a three-dimensional set of axes on the blackboard, labeling them x, y, and ct. “Here are two dimensions of space—” he tapped x and y in turn “—and one of time.” He tapped the ct. “There’s a z dimension of space, of course, that I haven’t drawn, in order to keep the drawing simple.”

He then drew two points and a line between them. “Here we have two events in space-time, each at a specific point in space occurring at a specific time. What is the distance between these two events?”

He wrote an equation on the board: Δs² = c²Δt² + Δx² + Δy² + Δz². “If time behaved like space, it would be this. But it does not.” He changed the equation to: Δs² = c²Δt² - (Δx² + Δy² + Δz²). “This is the metric of the space-time continuum, what we call the space-time interval.”

Arcane Scroll interrupted, bearing the look of a cat that’s cornered a mouse. “You can’t add—or subtract—meters from seconds.”

“You are quite right; that would be nonsensical.” He tapped the ct. “Notice there are two letters. The t represents time, measured—as you point out—in seconds. The c is a constant representing the speed of light. The two multiplied gives you a distance.”

The self-satisfied smugness melted away.

“Now please bear with me, because it starts to get weird. First, notice what happens if this first event is the emission of a ray of light and this second event is its absorption. The distance traveled in space is equal to the distance traveled in time. The two cancel out, so the space-time interval is zero. This is very important, and I’ll get back to this later.

“But it gets weirder still. Everything travels through space-time at precisely the speed of light; only the direction differs. That we perceive a wide variety of speeds, even something as not moving at all, is an illusion caused by perceiving space and time as separate things. That ‘motionless’ object is moving: it’s moving forwards in time.”

Steve paused for a moment, looking at Arcane Scroll with quirked eyebrow, awaiting his inevitable objection. But an older filly was the next to speak up. “But if something is moving through space, doesn’t that mean it has to move more slowly through time?”

“Exactly! Acceleration causes a hyperbolic rotation of the accelerating object’s frame of reference with respect to all others. There are several physical effects. First, moving objects appear contracted in their direction of travel; their lengths go to zero as their speed approach that of light. Their clocks slow down by the same factor; not just clocks, but time itself. I’ll get to the equations and their derivation later.

“But it gets even weirder. This hyperbolic rotation turns a pure spatial and temporal dimension into a mixture of the two. Consider a zeppelin racing past us at nearly the speed of light. Assume we could somehow look at the clocks onboard the ship, one in front and one in back. We would see them ticking slower. Not only that, but the one in back shows a later time than the one in front. The front of the ship has been rotated into its past, from our perspective.

“And from their perspective? Both clocks are synchronized; they show the same time and tick at a ‘normal’ pace. But when they look out the window at us, they see us as the ones moving near the speed of light, and we’re the ones whose clocks have slowed. Furthermore, the universe—or realm—in front of them has been rotated into the future and the realm behind them into the past. If that doesn’t make sense, remember they see the universe going in the opposite direction, from the front of their ship to the back.”

Steve put down the chalk. “What this all means is that there’s no such thing as absolute space and time. There is no universal ruler or universal clock. Two observers can look at the same thing, and if they’re traveling at different velocities, they may disagree on how long something is or how much time has elapsed. They might even disagree on which of two events happened first! All such measurements are equally valid; none is more ‘correct’ than another.

“But we all live in the same realm. There must be an objective reality we can all agree on. That something is the space-time interval. All observers, regardless of their relative velocities, can take the coordinates of two specific events, relative to their own frame of reference, and will compute the same space-time interval between them.

“So I now bring your attention back to the space-time interval traversed by a beam of light. It’s zero, but more importantly: it is zero in every frame of reference. That means every observer will perceive that same beam of light, relative to themselves, as traveling at exactly the speed of light—not slower, not faster. It doesn’t matter how fast they’re moving or in what direction. This isn’t true for non-zero intervals; the ratio of space to time, i.e. observed speed, will differ for each frame of reference.”

Steve’s eyes swept the room. The students were busy taking notes, quills furiously scribbling in their magic. The mages and professors… well, only some of them were scowling. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. I’ll take some questions now before moving on.”

A young stallion raised a hoof. Steve pointed to him, and he asked his question. “It may appear that light always travels at the same speed for all observers, but at what speed does light really travel? It must have an objective speed independent of all observers.”

“Good question, and if absolute space existed, you’d be quite right to ask it. In fact, it was the search for that frame of reference of absolute space, and the utter failure to find it, that led to this.

“As there is no absolute space for light to travel through, the question is meaningless. Only the space-time interval has objective reality, and it says that light must be observed as traveling at that one speed; or more generally, anything that travels at the speed of light will be observed as traveling at that speed in all frames of reference. That speed is a fundamental constant baked into the very geometry of space-time, and through the space-time metric it defines the relationship between time and space.”

Another of the older mages, a mare, spoke. “I’ll grant, for the sake of argument, that this is the nature of your realm—the lack of magic is sufficiently inconceivable as it is—but that’s hardly proof that… this applies here.”

“There are differences between our realms,” Steve admitted. “Even when magic is brought to our realm, it is limited in what it can do. But there’s good reason to believe the physical laws, excluding magic of course, are all the same.

“For starters, consider myself,” he said as he swept a hand from top to bottom. “I am a creature of that other realm. Yet here I stand, my body functioning perfectly normally. The same applies to ponies visiting my world.”

“Magic could compensate for any differences,” she countered, “theoretically even permitting your laws to remain in effect for your body.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that,” he conceded. “But… that wouldn’t apply to ponies visiting my world without a supply of magic. That has happened, and there are no ill effects—apart from the obvious inconveniences of having no magic.”

He removed his phone from a pocket, woke it up, and held it out for all to see. “Then there’s our technology. It works just fine here. As it takes advantage of our deep understanding of the physical laws of nature, that’s additional strong evidence they’re the same here.”

An olive glow surrounded Steve. He found the stallion casting it, one of the younger professors. He could have asked for permission first, he thought but refrained from saying.

“I do not sense any spells on his body, no innate magic of any kind; I guess that’s to be expected. On that device he’s holding, on the other hoof…” He concentrated. “There does seem to be a spell, but it’s one I’ve never seen before. It’s bound to the device, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect it. Strange.”

“I can explain that. It’s a spell that lets this device remain in communication with other devices like it back in my own world. It creates what we call a wormhole. I’ll be getting to that subject in a later lecture.”

“The princess has come far since her student days.”

Steve did not correct his erroneous assumption.

The scan ended. “I’m satisfied. Our physical laws must indeed be the same, or certainly close enough that the difference is unimportant.”

“Close enough is not identical,” Arcane Scroll protested. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” He addressed the human. “What were the nature of these experiments to find absolute space, and can they be performed here?”

It was a reasonable enough question, nor was there any reason the classic Michelson–Morley test couldn’t be performed here. “Using laser interferometry, we send two laser beams at—”

“Laser?” the archmage interrupted. “Interferometry?”

Steve brought his hands to his forehead. “You don’t know what a laser is.” He was about to explain, when a more important question came to mind. “I don’t suppose this planet moves, does it?”

“Planet moves?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Steve muttered.

The experiment was pointless if the planet just happened to be at rest with respect to absolute space—or if they could simply claim that it was. The sun and moon did not physically move either, according to Twilight’s lecture on the subject, their apparent motion being an illusion of sorts.

So that meant setting up a moving platform that moved fast enough, and was completely stable and vibration free; that hardly seemed realistic. Then again, evidence via technology they did not understand wasn’t likely to convince them either. “I think I’ll have to get back to you.”

Arcane Scroll’s expression soured. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“If I may, Archmage.” It was the stallion who’d scanned him. “I believe there’s a magic-based test we can try.”

“I’m listening.”

“As was pointed out, space-manipulation spells must be precisely cast, otherwise a time-manipulation counter-spell may be required. By deliberately casting with a series of increasingly larger but precisely controlled errors, and measuring how much counter-spell is required to compensate, we can collect data that may be explainable by this theory—or not, as the case may be.”

Arcane Scroll was lost in thought. “It would be tricky to perform…”

Steve latched onto this lifeline. “I’m sure the princess would be willing to offer her assistance with such a project.”

“Of that I have little doubt.”

“That’s all fine and well, Princess.” The minotaur ambassador leaned ever so slightly forward in his chair. “But the means of communication with these humans pass exclusively through you.”

Princess Celestia calmly returned her teacup to its dish. “Ambassador Karpos, they reside in a realm quite different from our own, and the magic required to reach them is highly advanced.”

“So you say, Princess.”

Princess Luna rolled her eyes. “If you believe differently, by all means create your own channels of communication. We won’t interfere.”

The ambassador leaned back in his chair, collecting his thoughts. His eyes landed first on Meg, then on herself. Twilight was getting an ominous feeling. Did they find out about the catacomb we visited? Not to mention grave-rob, in a manner of speaking.

His eyes finally landed on Celestia. “May I speak bluntly, Princess?”

“If it would get to the heart of the matter.”

The minotaur’s eyes fell once more upon Meg and Twilight. “Several months ago, these two paid a visit to one of our archaeological sites, accompanied—without advance notification, I might add—by the famous author, A. K. Yearling.”

That ominous feeling tightened its grip. “I’m hardly denying that, Ambassador,” Twilight said.

A thin smile graced his lips. “Merely setting the context,” he said. “You inquired of the artifacts found there. Musical instruments, I believe, made for children?”

Luna snorted. “When will you get to the ‘blunt’ part?”

All pretense of a smile vanished. “It’s obvious you were aware of the controversy surrounding those objects, and here we are, several months later, and you have informed the world that you have discovered the human realm.”

“Are you implying that humans are somehow connected to these artifacts?” Twilight asked.

“Were you aware this realm of humans existed when you visited that dig?”

Twilight looked to Celestia. “Yes,” her mentor calmly answered.

“Do you think they’re connected?”

“How would we know?” Celestia said. “There were no artifacts present for Twilight to examine, is that not correct?”

“That’s right,” Twilight confirmed. “Would you be willing to let us examine them?”

He tapped his teacup on the table. “Unlikely.”

“We seem to be at an impasse,” Celestia said, as if merely commenting on the weather outside.

“It would appear so.” Ambassador Karpos got to his feet. “We’ll continue these discussions at a later time.” He bowed to the princesses. “The tea was excellent, as always.”

Luna got up as well. “I’ll escort you to the main hall.”

The others patiently waited for the door to close behind them.

“Do we really need to see those artifacts?” Meg asked, breaking the silence.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Celestia said over a refilled cup of tea, “but it is a convenient excuse not to be more forthcoming ourselves.”

“Do you think they’ve found any mummified remains?”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Twilight said, “considering how quick they were to connect our little visit with our knowledge of humans.”

“How fortunate, then, that they remain unaware of your side-trip to that catacomb.” Celestia permitted herself a small smile. “Or what you removed from it.”

The desiccated body was still in the possession of human scientists. They had been unable to determine its age, due to the effect of the magical field on carbon-14 decay, but they were obviously ancient. They had to have predated recorded minotaur history.

DNA testing had been more fruitful: it revealed a Mediterranean origin. Isotopic analysis of bone composition could narrow it down further, but that required the assumption that the individual had been born and raised in the human realm. That the ratios were not a good fit for any known region suggested otherwise.

Worst of all was that they only had that one sample. Who knew what those other remains would reveal? The one they took could have been an outlier. Unfortunately, minotaur cooperation was not looking likely.

“What if they did grant us access to the artifacts?” Meg asked. “What would we offer in exchange?”

“That is a good question,” Celestia said, without elaborating.

“I can’t begin to imagine how they’d react to the cartoon—and they’re barely in it.”

“I know,” Twilight said. “Then there are the griffons. Rainbow Dash doesn’t think Gilda will handle it well if—or when—she finds out. And that latest episode, The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone? Never mind Gilda, griffons in general aren’t going to be happy about it, especially since to them it’d look like a pack of deliberate lies.”

“What about the ‘Iron Will’ episode?” Meg asked. “Would that upset the minotaurs?”

Twilight blew out the side of her mouth. “Not really. And knowing that blowhard, he’d probably consider it fantastic marketing material for a tour across your realm.”

“To sell-out crowds, too, I’m sure.” Meg examined the bottom of her teacup. “You know, now that I’ve met a few, ‘Iron Will’ doesn’t sound much like a minotaur name.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to explain,” Twilight said. “It’s a stage name he adopted, the better with which to appeal to ponies. I don’t know his actual name, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”

Meg continued focusing on the bottom of her teacup, her wings fidgeting ever so slightly.

“Is, uh, something wrong?”

She didn’t look up.

“You may speak freely,” Celestia assured her, “whether it concerns blowhard minotaurs, or something else.”

That seemed to make up her mind, as she retrieved her saddlebags from under the table. “Maybe I should have informed you sooner.” She pulled something from her saddlebags. “Something happened during the taping of The Late Show.” She put a sheet of paper on the table. “This mysteriously appeared out of nowhere on the snack table when no one was looking.”

Celestia took the sheet in her magic and held it in front of herself and Twilight, the latter’s eyes going wide upon reading it.

“The paper, ink, and means of printing are all human in origin. That’s all we could determine.”

“We?” Celestia asked.

“Agent Fowler was there. She did forensics on it—that’s why a little piece was cut out. Serrell knows about it also, but that’s about it. This is no less classified than The Doll incident itself.” She quickly added, “Well, my husband knows too.”

Twilight had wandered over to the panoramic window. “So that’s why, out of the blue, you asked me about the doll.” It wasn’t a question; things were starting to fall into place.

The yellowish glow intensified about the sheet. “I’m not detecting any magical trace, but perhaps that’s to be expected.”

“That sheet of paper has been in a magical field since it appeared,” Meg said, addressing the implied criticism.

Celestia gave one of her enigmatic smiles. “The party responsible knew how to evade forensics, both human and equine.” Her eyes returned to the sheet. “What of these strange pairs of letter and digits?”

“Raw computer data,” Twilight said. “Further evidence of human origin.”

Celestia looked back at Meg with a questioning look.

“That’s what it looks like,” she confirmed. “The best guess is that it’s an encrypted message, but I have no idea how to decrypt it; I don’t have the key. So… unless there’s a magical way of cracking it…”

Twilight shook her head. “None that I know of. Even if possible, I have no idea where to start.” She had looked into it after her computer had been infected by so-called ransomware. There were no spells, or even research into spells of that nature, that she could find.

An awkward silence grew.

“Look… I don’t know who could have sent that to me, or how they know what they claim to know, but…” Meg took a deep breath. “I can’t help but notice neither of you have denied it.”

Twilight continued staring out the window at distant Ponyville below.

Celestia addressed her former student. “Twilight?”

It was a few more seconds before she turned around. “You’re not going to like it, Meg. I don’t like it, especially in light of this new development.”

“Go on…”

She made her way back to the table. “Remember when I said the junction was bound to the stuffing of the doll?”

Meg nodded.

“Then I said something about not believing it, but that it wasn’t important, because I knew what to do about it?”

She nodded again.

“That wasn’t completely true.”

The pegasus blinked. “But you did do something about it, and it worked.”

Twilight faced the window once more and began walking. “I meant the part about it not being important. It was terribly important, what was keeping that junction bound to that doll.”

Meg silently waited for her to continue.

“It was a spell, one of Star Swirl the Bearded’s. There are few ponies who would know of it and fewer still who are capable of casting it. At the time it must have been cast—while I was fighting… ah, recovering the Element of Magic from the mirror realm—all who could have done it have been accounted for.”

“Even Discord?” Meg asked.

“He was with Fluttershy at the time, getting a crash course in friendship,” Celestia said. “It was shortly after he was reformed, and we were keeping close tabs on him.”

“It wasn’t his magic, anyway,” Twilight added.

Meg chewed on that. “So what you’re saying… is that somepony, for some reason, chose my doll to be the terminus of that leak. Chose me.”

“And we have no idea who, or for what reason,” Twilight said.

“And they were willing to put both of our worlds at risk of destruction to do it,” Celestia added.

“And now this… message to you.”

“It is most worrisome,” Celestia said. “Superficially, it is human in origin, yet how could any human know what Twilight had discovered?”

“I only told Celestia.”

“And I confided in my sister. That’s the extent of it, until now.”

Meg slumped, her head winding up on the table. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Twilight and Celestia looked at each other, then back at Meg.

“The cartoon.”

“The current season has separated from reality,” Celestia observed. “Do you truly think it’s connected to this?”

The pegasus lifted her head, returning to a more upright seated position. “I don’t know what to think anymore. All I know is that it shows that it’s possible that something is observing, undetected, observing even you two, and making what you say and do known in my own world.”

Twilight poured herself another cup of tea. “Put that aside for the moment. The goal of the message has been accomplished. You now know what I know about the doll. So what comes next?”

“Beats me,” Meg said. “Try to decrypt that raw data? But that’s essentially impossible, unless the secret key is supposed to magically come to me somehow—and you already ruled that out.”

“We shall wait and see what develops next.” The solar diarch stood up. “Any further business, I believe, can wait until your return from your vacation in Las Pegasus.”

Meg remained seated as Celestia departed.

“Aren’t you looking forward to that?” Twilight asked.

“Sure.” Meg finished off her tea and stood up. “It’s just that it’s another reminder of the all-too-coincidental similarities of our two worlds.”

“Coincidences that nopony can explain.”

“You got it.”

Twilight gave her a warm smile. “Don’t worry. If I know Rainbow Dash, she won’t give you any opportunities to dwell on that.”

5. What Happens Outside Las Pegasus…

Meg watched the parched landscape fly past the windows. The hilly terrain, steeped in shadows from the setting sun, was sparsely covered in half-dead plants—or at least they looked half-dead—clutching to life until the next rainfall. It didn’t look all that different from the southern tip of Nevada.

It would have been easy to believe they were back on Earth, on the way to Las Vegas, if not for the fact they were on a train. That made it impossible; Amtrak gave up running trains to and from Las Vegas, as they couldn’t compete with cars, buses, and planes, and when was the last time passenger trains offered private cars?

“I wonder what this switch does?” Rainbow Dash flipped it. The roof suddenly became invisible, along with the upper half of all the walls. “Cool…”

Meg looked up at the 360-degree panoramic view in shock. “What happened to the rest of the train?!” Not just the roof and walls had vanished, so had the other cars! They had the tracks all to themselves. Wait. There was no scorching wind blustering through the topless railcar, nor did they seem to be slowing down.

“It’s still there.” Rainbow Dash hovered higher and knocked her hoof against the invisible wall. “See? The illusion spell has made the rest of the train invisible to us, so we could have an awesome view.”

That was an amenity provided by no train on Earth, in any country.

“I’m not sure I can believe my eyes,” Steve said. “Or rather, not believe them.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m the one who has to explain magic.” She went over to the bathroom door, blindly searched with a hoof for the invisible door handle, then opened the door, breaking the spell in the area enclosed by the door frame and revealing the interior of the bathroom—which, Meg hadn’t previously noticed, wasn’t visible either despite the wall’s transparency. Neither was the compact bedroom visible behind its own transparent wall. Dash closed the door, restoring the spell.

“Learn something new every day,” Steve said.

“I thought we paid for panoramic views,” Meg said. “When I saw these small windows…”

Dash flew to the other end of the expansive, private car. “You certainly spared no expense for this.”

Meg gave an embarrassed shrug. “Well, what else are we going to do with our income here? We have no living expenses, because we don’t live here, and we can’t spend bits in our world, not yet anyway.”

“And on top of Meg’s salary as a Royal Advisor,” Steve added, “I’m now getting paid to lecture on physics.”

Dash helped herself to a bottle of hard cider from the minibar. “Yeah, Twilight mentioned that.” She removed the bottle cap and took a swig. “Really stirring things up, from what I hear. You know who would be proud.”

“Inevitable, really,” Steve said as he telekinetically grabbed a bottle for himself. “The old guard is often resistant to new ideas. A famous scientist in our world once said, ‘science advances one funeral at a time.’ Truer words have never been spoken.” He took a swig of cider from the bottle levitating in front of him. “At least Arcane Scroll is willing to oversee the experiments. We’ll see how that turns out. Not much I’m expected to do there, unfortunately, what with me being a magic-less human don’t you know.”

“Eh, don’t worry.” The pegasus took another swig. “Twilight’ll keep ’em honest.”

Meg stared into the distance. No point letting the view they’d paid for go to waste. It wasn’t much of an improvement at first, just more of the same desolate territory and clear blue skies. She looked forward, in the direction they were traveling, and… “Is that what I think it is?”

The others followed her line of sight. On the horizon was a patch of cloudiness, the only clouds in the visible sky—illuminated clouds, it was becoming evident, as the sun sank below the horizon.

“That’s Las Pegasus!” Rainbow Dash confirmed. “Only the most awesome cloud city in the world!”

Meg gave her a pointed look. “I thought Cloudsdale was the most awesome cloud city in the world.”

“Well…” Dash desperately searched for a way out, then found it. “Las Pegasus is the most awesome cloud city that lacks a Wonderbolt training camp!”

Meg didn’t care to push it further.

Over the next half-hour, as the sky turned an inky, star-filled black, they watched it grow closer, larger, and brighter. What was on top of those clouds couldn’t be seen, but it was certainly lit brightly. Copious amounts of light leaked out the bottom and illuminated the ground beneath, eternally depriving it of darkness.

But it became clear that wasn’t the only source of light under the clouds, for an upside-down tower hung from underneath, extending into a ball at the bottom. And hanging below that was a humongous neon sign proclaiming “Las Pegasus.”

“That must be the Troposphere,” Steve said. The hotel/casino portion of it was on top of the clouds, of course. Buy a ticket and you can descend in an elevator to the bottom and take in the view from the bars and restaurants, or experience the adrenaline-packed rides.

Meg was frowning. “At least it goes down instead of up. It’s not exactly the same.”

“You said you wouldn’t dwell on that.”

“I know… it’s just seeing it…” She exhaled. “Whatever.”

“It can’t be that similar,” Rainbow said. “For starters, your Las Pegasus can’t possibly be in the clouds.”

Which was kind of missing the point, but what point was there in arguing it? “You’re right, Dash, it’s not.”

The cloud city started to descend and oddly tilt away from them—no, the whole world was tilting! Meg looked nervously at Rainbow Dash. “What’s going on?”

“We’re climbing, obviously!”

Dash got blank looks in response.

“How else did you think we were going to get from the ground to the clouds high in the sky?”

“What… are you saying this train is flying?” The ground was getting farther away.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, waving a reproving hoof. “Trains don’t fly. We’re climbing a cloud bridge.”

“And the tilting?” Steve asked.

“It’s a steep bridge. Don’t want everything to slide backwards.”

“Ah, so we’re the ones who are tilted,” he deduced. “What if the engine fails?”

“I dunno,” Dash said, shrugging. “You need to ask a certain egghead questions like that. Me? I’d buck out a window and fly away to get help.”

Another train passed them going the other way, the only thing that wasn’t crazily tilted around them. Once it had passed, Meg looked down and saw the cloud under the other set of tracks. It wasn’t much wider than the tracks. “Well, I guess it gets the job done,” she said without much conviction.

Meg looked forwards at the approaching city. The minutes passed as she tried to spot the Equestrian equivalent of casinos, but without success. Either they weren’t that tall or they weren’t close to the cloud’s edge. Whichever, it was becoming clear she wouldn’t see them until they reached the top of the clouds.

The cloud city tilted back towards the horizontal as the train leveled out from its climb. They were finally in Las Pegasus. In the distance, at most a mile away, the casinos were lighting up the night sky. Numerous zeppelins were in the air, coming and going from the airport not far from the train station. Traveling by air might have been faster, but they’d done that enough times already.

The train slowed to a halt. A porter was already heading their way.

Steve flipped the switch, making the walls opaque again. He put on his saddlebags, then levitated Meg’s over to her. By the time they had their luggage by the now open door, the porter arrived.

“Greetings,” greeted the unicorn stallion. “Your ride to Planet Do is arriving as we speak.”

“That’s good to hear,” Steve commented.

The porter picked up all their luggage with his magic and carried them outside. Rainbow Dash and Steve followed. Meg stepped out last into the warm air. While far cooler than the ground below, it was still too warm and dry for clouds. Magic, she presumed. Why else hadn’t the clouds evaporated away?

A carriage, pulled by two pegasi, landed in front of them. The porter first put the luggage into the carriage, then opened a door and lowered a ramp. He tipped his cap as they entered the carriage. After securing the ramp and closing the door, he departed.

The carriage began to move and soon rose above the oddly solid cloud surface. “The level of service is quite impressive,” Meg said.

“Trust me,” Dash replied. “You’re getting what you paid for.”

“That may be,” Steve said, “but in our world, you can pay for first-class seats on a plane and still get treated like crap at airports.”

“Then why would anypony pay more for that?”

“Because you get treated even worse if you don’t.”

Dash’s eyes looked far away. “Yeah… they really cram you in tight in those flying machines, don’t they?”

“They certainly do,” he grunted.

The carriage headed straight for the strip—of course they’re all lined up in a strip—and as it so happened their destination was the closest hotel/casino. There wasn’t much of a view during the short trip. The carriage never got far above what passed for “ground” and the back of the hotel wasn’t particularly interesting to look at. There was just the highly stylized Planet Do logo with the eponymous pegasus above the name.

A few short minutes later, they touched down at the back entrance. A bellhop opened the carriage, waited for them to exit, and levitated their luggage onto a cart. “I’ll take you to registration,” he said.

There sure are a lot of unicorns for a cloud city.

A set of large glass doors, one of several, opened automatically as they approached. Inside, the carpet they stepped onto depicted an ancient, floor-spanning map, ending at ancient stone blocks stacked high, forming foreboding walls. Against one such wall—a wall pockmarked with numerous holes, the kind of holes that spat out poisonous darts—was the registration desk. Meg wondered how real the stone blocks were. How could clouds support the weight of such a massive building?

They continued following the bellhop. Rainbow Dash looked left, right, behind, even up, like a foal in a candy shop. “I wonder if we’ll see her here?”

“Daring Do?” Meg asked. “It’d hardly shock me if they have some ponies dressed up as her, but I can’t believe you’d care about that.”

“Or A. K.,” Dash quickly amended. “It’s possible. She owns a piece of this.”

“With all the other things on her plate, I can’t imagine she has the time to deal with day-to-day operations,” Steve said. “Or the inclination.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, herself looking around. “I’m sure she helps with the interior design, to set the theme and all, but beyond that? Probably just sits back and cashes the checks. Well… not ‘sits back’—you know what I mean.”

They reached the line for registration. Thankfully, it was quite short. They must have beat the other passengers by taking that carriage.

“Well, it’s still possible.”

They silently waited as the line progressed. A few minutes later, they had reached the front and a spot opened up. They walked over, with Steve pulling the cart with his magic.

“Welcome to Planet Do,” they were cheerfully greeted by a pegasus mare behind the counter wearing a pith helmet but nothing else. “Do you have a registration?”

“Yes,” Meg said. “A two bedroom suite under ‘Coleman.’”

“Please wait while I look that up.” The mare went to a row of filing cabinets against the back wall, selected the one that covered the letter ‘C,’ and searched it. She pulled out a folder and returned.

Opening it up upon returning to the counter, she examined the paperwork within. “This is rather unusual…”

“Is something wrong?” Dash asked, her eyes narrowing.

“What? Oh, no, not at all! Quite the opposite.” She checked the paperwork one more time. “Apparently, you’ve been given a complimentary upgrade to a luxury suite on the top floor.”

Meg blinked. “Has there been a mistake?”

The mare flipped through the papers once again. “No mistake,” she said. “It’s been approved by A. K. Yearling herself.” She looked up. “Do you know her?”

Dash bore a smug smile. “You could say that.”

“How did she even know we’re staying here?” Meg asked. “Is she here, at the casino, right now?”

“I wouldn’t know,” replied the mare apologetically. “Here are you room keys…” She hoofed them over. They weren’t the ubiquitous key cards back home, but they weren’t the old-fashion metal keys either. It was a cylindrical crystal of some sort, attached by a chain to a crystalline card that bore the Planet Do logo. “…and you’ll find the elevators over there. Your room is eleven-oh-two. Have an adventurous time!”

Steve picked up the keys and put them in his saddlebag. “This should be interesting,” he said as a bellhop came and took their luggage cart. All three followed.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” Meg asked the too-excited-for-her-own-good pegasus. “You were rather insistent on this casino.”

“Nope! How would I get in touch with her anyway?”

Before Meg could say anything, Dash flew off ahead to the elevators, leaving her to ponder their good fortune. It was a mystery worthy of a novel: Daring Do and the Unexpected Room Upgrade. Except in this case, the protagonist—or rather, her alter ego—was the one behind the mystery.

“It’ll be interesting to see how whales are treated in Las Pegasus,” Steve said.

Meg sighed. “Just like they’re treated in Vegas, I’m sure.”

“Give it a rest for a few days, please?” he pleaded.

They caught up to Rainbow Dash, who had already pushed the up button. There were four elevators. In due time, one of them chimed and its door opened. A griffon family of four came out. The bellhop went inside first, and the others followed.

There were only ten buttons, presumably for ten floors. Weren’t we on the eleventh floor? Before she could point that out, the bellhop took out a crystal cylinder, shaped like a room key, inserted it into a matching hole above all the buttons, activating a light next to it, then removed it. Restricted access, of course.

The doors closed, and the elevator began its leisurely ascent. It eventually arrived at the top floor, and the doors opened. The carpet gave the illusion of stone blocks, but the walls were painted a generic off-white.

Meg exited first and looked for a sign indicating the direction to their room. “This way,” she said. The others followed her down a corridor. The doors were widely spaced. Theirs was the first one on the left.

In the wall just next to the door was a slot to accept a cylindrical key. Steve inserted his telekinetically. Something clunked. There was no door handle. After a few seconds, Rainbow Dash impatiently pushed the door open with a hoof. The bellhop held the door open while the others entered.

Meg oohed as she took in the room. It was spacious, naturally, almost absurdly so. Two levels. Panoramic floor to ceiling windows that looked over the strip. A few floating clouds.

Clouds?

Rainbow Dash had already flown up to one, and was now looking down at them. “A room with its own clouds?” She squeed. “Awesome…”

Steve shook his head. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

The bellhop paused in unloading the cart. “We have unicorns on staff who can cast a cloud-walking spell on you if you so desire,” he informed Steve.

“What? No, that’s not necessary.” He looked at the clouds anyway. Ability to fly wasn’t required, for one of them abutted the upper level, and from that one the others could be reached. Presumably something held them in place. “I assume I don’t need that spell to walk between casinos?”

“That is correct, sir. The clouds underlying the strip have been rendered impenetrable, such that nothing will fall through them. But, I must warn you, the same is not true for the rest of the city. Pay heed to the warning signs.”

Steve nodded. “Understood.”

The bellhop resumed unloading. Meg and Steve trotted over to the window to get their first real view of the strip.

The buildings were smaller—Planet Do only had eleven floors, whereas a Vegas hotel would have double or even triple that—but perhaps that was only to be expected, as Equestria was not as populous. Meg scanned the casinos on the other side of the strip: Silver Lining Cloud, Cirrus Cirrostratus, Hurricane's Cloudfortress, Everfree Wild, and The Minoan. The Troposphere must have been on their side of the road. In the early evening each was trying to out-neon all the others.

The bellhop had finished unloading the cart. “Our chefs will prepare any meal you desire for your enjoyment here in this suite. If you choose to dine in one of our fine restaurants, remember to charge the meal to your room. All food is complimentary during your stay.” With that said, he departed, closing the door behind him.

“And we don’t even have to gamble millions of bits,” Steve said.

“Sure helps to know the right ponies,” Dash added.

“I wonder if they’d automatically give a room like this to royalty, you know, like Celestia or even Twilight, regardless of whether they had any intention of serious gambling.”

“Dunno, never heard of a princess staying in a casino,” Dash said. “Wouldn’t surprise me. That’d be cool, though; there’s room here for all six of us.”

Meg returned her attention to the street below… “Well, that’s different.” It wasn’t exactly a road. Instead of six to eight lanes of asphalt overflowing with traffic, there were a series of moving cloud strips—slowest near the casinos, fastest in the middle. Regularly spaced bridges allowed one to cross over them.

Rainbow Dash landed by her side. “Only the most awesomeness of pegasus cloud engineering!”

“Is this commonplace?” Steve asked. “Like, does Cloudsdale have this?”

“No need,” she replied. “We just fly around.”

And it was true. Most of the pegasi she saw were in the air, not riding the strips.

“And it’s super expensive to build and operate,” she added. “It’s more about making ponies go ‘wow!’ than being practical. Like that cloud bridge our train used.”

Meg resisted a groan. “Yeah, completely unlike our own Las Vegas—not.”

Dash tilted her head. “You’re being sarcastic, right?”

“Yes, Dash, I’m being sarcastic.” She waved a hoof at the window. “This is all too much like our own Las Vegas. Sure, our penthouse suites don’t come with indoor clouds—not that we’ve ever remotely gambled enough to be comped with a room, much less a room like this. However, it’s a safe bet they don’t have indoor clouds. But ignoring little details like that, it’s all too similar.” She turned to her. “Doesn’t that bother you even a little bit?”

Dash scratched behind her ear with a hoof. “Well… should it? I dunno. I guess it’s an odd coincidence.” She shrugged. “Should we visit your Las Vegas next, so I could see for myself?”

Meg walked away from the windows and towards the jumbo hot tub. “Sure. Why not. You’d love all the attention you’d get.”

Steve went off and put a hoof on his wife’s withers. “Seriously, just put that aside for now, okay? We’re here to enjoy ourselves.”

“I’ll try,” she said, sighing.

One of the knobs on the hot tub was labeled “rain.” She looked up. One of the clouds was directly overhead. “You gotta be joking.” She experimentally turned the knob. Sure enough, it started to rain. Not a drop fell on the surrounding plush carpet. “Nope, definitely wouldn’t have this in Vegas,” she said without enthusiasm.

“I gotta check this out!” Rainbow Dash flew up to the raining cloud and landed on it. The weather mare poked and prodded and gave it a few hops. None of it had any effect on the rain, perhaps by design.

After a minute or so, she leaned over the edge. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. “Some kind of mixture of pegasus weather magic and unicorn magic.” She smirked. “Wait till I tell Twilight about this.”

“I’m sure she’ll find that fascinating,” Steve said, ending that topic. “Let’s see what pony slot machines look like.”

Twilight walked down the stairs of her residence, with two plaid pills in telekinetic tow. Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer waited patiently for her to reach the bottom. “Ready girls?” she asked once she had.

They nodded in reply.

She sent one pill to Moondancer and took the other for herself. After thinking of their destination, Meg’s Department of Energy office, she swallowed.

Desk drawers were open and empty, the bookshelves were empty of books, and the computer was missing. What in Celestia’s name… Twilight turned around. The door was open. It should’ve been closed and locked. It had been forced open. Sounds, unfamiliar voices.

“Uh, Twilight, Moondancer, I can’t see you,” a human Sunset whispered. “The magic generators must have been taken.”

Twilight checked. Upon finding a magic bubble, she switched off the invisibility. “Stay close to Sunset,” she whispered to Moondancer. “You’re her ticket home if necessary.”

“What do you think’s going on?” Sunset asked.

Twilight answered with grim determination. “I’m about to find out.” She removed her saddlebags. “Keep an eye on these.”

She poked her muzzle out the door. Nopony was to be seen, but the voices and sounds seemed to be coming from the direction of the testing vault. Did they get in? That’d be a lot harder than breaking into an office. After preparing some defensive spells for quick deployment, she trotted off in that direction, her hooves silenced by the sturdy carpet.

Were they staff? If so, that’d be a serious failure of background checking. She reached the junction that led to the lobby and paused to look at the main door. It was closed. How did they get in? It was a weekend, so they couldn’t have followed somepony in.

She began preparing offensive spells, just in case. Nothing too serious; these were magicless humans, after all.

Twilight turned a corner. The vault was open, the door blocked from closing by a book. There were few key cards capable of opening that door. How did they get one?

Taking a determined breath, she walked to the vault. Time to get to the bottom of this. There was clearly more than one in there, judging from the voices, but hard to tell precisely how many. She could hear stuff being moved around.

The door was opened by a man holding a large box, a man she did not recognize. An eager smile spread on his face. “Well lookie what we have here.”

Another was behind him, jostling for a good view.

“Whatever it is you are doing,” Twilight said, “I’m putting an end to it right now.”

They laughed.

The man put the box down, pulled out a gun and cocked it. “No, you’re not. You’ve just become another hostage, so don’t get any funny ideas. Those magic generators are all gone. You’re powerless, Your Highness. You can no longer threaten humanity.”

She almost rolled her eyes, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off them. I’ll play along, she quickly decided. Might as well take advantage of their false assumption and graze for more information. “What do you mean ‘another?’ Who else do you have?”

He held up a key card. “How do you think we opened this up?”

It had Meg’s face on it.

Her office had been emptied.

But they couldn’t possibly have taken her hostage. Twilight had seen them off at the train station. “Do you really need to lie to me?” She pointed a hoof at that key card. “There’s no way you have her.”

He shrugged. “You’ll be joining her soon enough.”

He stepped aside, and the other man, also carrying a box, left the vault. Their only way out was blocked by her.

The man waved the gun. “Be a good little pony and start walking.”

Twilight didn’t budge. She expanded her magic bubble to encompass both men. Her magic wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t need to.

First, that gun. She grabbed its barrel and bent it, rendering it useless.

Before they could react, she yanked them closer to her and magically bound them.

“I’m returning to the castle,” she yelled out and invoked the return spell.

The two men looked around in shock. Twilight magically glued their shoes to the floor as Sunset and Moondancer returned.

“I’ll repossess those, if you don’t mind.” She grabbed the boxes and put them aside, then she grabbed Meg’s key card. The man didn’t want to let go, but the alicorn’s magic was too strong. The gun went next; he couldn’t fire it, but he could still throw it.

“You can’t do this,” the man formerly in possession of the bent gun protested. He desperately tried to lift a foot to no avail.

“Why?” Twilight smirked. “Because I’m powerless?”

“What are we going to do about them?” Moondancer asked.

In response, Twilight yelled, “Spike!”

The baby dragon looked down from upstairs. “Yes, Twilight?”

“Letter to Princess Celestia.” She glared at the men. “I have apprehended two humans who were ransacking the Department of Energy office where Meg works, taking classified information and equipment. They claim to have kidnapped her, but there’s no denying they somehow acquired her key card. They also tried—pathetically—don’t write that word—to take me hostage as well, under threat of mortal injury. Please send a detachment of royal guards to take custody of them. Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

Spike rolled up the note and breathed fire upon it, sending it on its way. “You really should get your own royal guards someday. And some dungeons.”

“Later, Spike.”

“You can’t do this,” the other man protested, a man with a beard. “We’re American citizens. We have our rights.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Twilight said. “You’ll have your opportunity to exercise your rights when the FBI interviews you.” She looked back up a Spike. “Send a message through channels. They need to examine the crime scene ASAP. And get that door fixed, or something.”

“I contacted them while you were dealing with them,” Sunset said.

“Then let them know we have prisoners.”

Spike nodded and departed.

Twilight slowly walked around her prisoners. “Don’t be too surprised if they elect to let us hold on to you. I don’t know who you work for, or how big your organization is, or what they’re capable of, but I can promise this.” She came to a stop. “They will not be able to extract you from our dungeons.”

The bearded man spat. “You’ll learn nothing from us.”

Twilight looked at the wet spot on her immaculate floor, sighed, and looked back up. “You may want to reconsider that. Attempted kidnapping of a princess, never mind threatening physical violence, is a serious crime. We could choose to request extradition. You could have a prison cell in Tartarus right next to Tirek’s.”

He silently glared back at her. They both did.

“You think Celestia will want to interrogate them?” Sunset asked.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

6. …Stays Outside Las Pegasus?

The gaming floor looked like a gaming floor. Off to the right was a roulette table. Over there was a craps table, or at least something that involved throwing dice. Along the back were tables featuring card-based gambling. Even after a year of occasionally possessing hooves, Meg still felt surprise at the ease with which ponies held and manipulated a hand of cards with nothing but hooves. Even unicorns did not use their telekinesis, as far as she could tell. Was it forbidden?

And to the left were rows and rows of slot machines. “Why don’t we try those first,” she said, pointing at the slots.

“Too boring,” Dash said. “I’m going to the craps table.”

“Suit yourself,” Steve said.

Dash took off, banking around one of the ubiquitous pillars of stacked stone blocks supporting the ceiling.

Meg headed to the nearest slot machine. “She called it craps.”

Steve sighed. “And let’s just assume the card games are called blackjack or twenty-one, and there are poker tables somewhere, and these slots use symbols like sevens, bars, and cherries. There really is no need to obsess over every similarity.”

They walked on, the sounds of slots being played growing steadily louder.

The first row they reached was devoid of players. All the slots in the row seemed to be of the same type of machine. They went to one in the middle.

It looked rather old-fashioned. There was nowhere to insert a membership card. No slot to insert paper currency, which Equestria lacked anyway. No LCD display, just mechanical reels—three of them. The symbols on them did indeed include sevens, cherries, and bars, along with a pith helmet, and probably others not currently visible. You couldn’t choose how many rows were active—there was just one—and there was no display of your current balance. You had to insert a coin each time, and your winnings—if any—dropped into a metallic bowl below. Machines like this went out of style a quarter century ago back on Earth.

But there were differences. For one thing, there was no handle to pull, nor any button to push. Rainbow Dash had given them them a quick rundown on how they operated. The act of inserting a coin triggered the spinning of the reels. Nor was the coin, in fact, a coin; in another coincidence, each casino had its own set of “chips” of various denominations, used in slots as well as at table games. And while they were called “chips,” they were actually crystalline discs. You could play any denomination you wanted; the machine paid out in the same denomination as was played.

Don’t even think about using magic to examine the workings of the slot machines, much less manipulate them.

Dash had been quite clear on that point.

“Well, here goes nothing…” Steve levitated a red chip out of a bag—the lowest denomination, worth a tenth of a bit—and put it in the machine.

The reels spun. After a few seconds, the first reel stopped on a triple bar. A few seconds later, the second reel stopped on a blank. Finally, the last reel stopped on a compass rose. The payout: zero.

“I wonder what the payouts are.” He looked at the payout table, located below the reels in small print. “Cherries are the lowest, big surprise, and the jackpot is three compass roses, with a ten thousand multiplier.”

He inserted another coin. The reels stopped on cherry, double bar, and single bar. Two red chips dropped into the bowl with loud clangs.

“I wonder if there’re any progressives?” Meg asked.

“Without computers to network them? How could the jackpots go up on all of them as any of the slots are played?” He levitated a coin from the bowl and inserted it. “Then again, with magic, who knows what they could do.”

The reels spun. Compass rose… Compass rose… The third reel took seemingly forever to stop. Cherries.

“Yup, just like Vegas,” Meg said.

Twilight crossed over to Meg’s home. It was the only place they could’ve gotten that key card. She had no idea where it’d be located, but then neither would the thieves. They would have torn the place up searching for it, like they had done to her office at work.

She wandered about the apartment. Nothing had been disturbed.

The magic generators were in place, too, as her magic bubble was off.

The front door was closed, intact, and locked.

None of the windows were open or broken.

She ended up in the home office, under the watchful eyes of the autographed Pinkie Pie doll.

It didn’t make any sense.

How did they get that key card?

As much as she didn’t want to spoil her vacation, she might have to get in touch with Meg and ask her where she’d left it. But why would it be anywhere but here?

The Royal Guards would be arriving from Canterlot any minute now. Twilight invoked the return spell.

Steve put what was left of their chips back into the bag. “Let’s go watch Dash play craps.”

Las Pegasus casinos were huge, but not as huge as their human counterparts. There weren’t that many craps tables to search, and it hadn’t taken them long to find the one Rainbow Dash was playing. They approached the table while a griffon was throwing the dice.

The dice bounced off the far end and came to a rest. “Eight,” the stickman—stickpony?—announced. A quick check of the table showed that the point was currently nine.

“Yes!” Dash exclaimed with a hoof thrust, as one of the dealers payed out her come bet. She repeated the bet.

Meg wasn’t that familiar with craps, having never actually played it, but it sure looked like the human version to her.

Once all the relevant chips had been removed or added, the dice were returned to the griffon. He tossed them again.

“Seven.”

Nearly all the chips on the table returned to the house, including Dash’s. The round having ended, she finally noticed their arrival. “Hey, guys. Come for some action? Lady Luck is smiling on this table.” She waved a hoof at a nice pile of chips.

Steve shook his head. “We don’t play craps. We’re just passing by.”

The pegasus shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She placed a new bet on the pass line.

Meg wandered off in the direction of the blackjack tables. They looked frustratingly familiar. One table had a group of unicorns—all, again, holding cards with their hooves. Are they warded against most magic to prevent cheating?

She reached the edge of the gaming area, where a steady stream of ponies and other sapient beings were making their way from one place to another. As she waited for Steve to catch up to her, she wondered what to do next. Directions to various destinations hung from the ceiling. The front desk and elevators to the rooms were to the right, and to the left were everything else: restaurants, shopping, theaters, etc.

Steve caught up to her. “Okay,” he said, “I have to admit it’s a bit scary how similar the table games are.”

“I’m sure Twilight has a book on the history of Equestrian gambling we can borrow,” she said without enthusiasm. That mare had a book for everything, or knew where to find one.

“But you want to know what’s different?” He had a knowing smile on his muzzle.

“No,” she replied, somewhat annoyed. “Indulge me.”

“Take a deep breath.” He showed by example.

She did. “Yeah, so?”

“You can’t tell?”

Meg started walking in the direction of the points of interest. “I’m really not in the mood for games.”

“There’s no cigarette smoke. Ponies don’t smoke.”

That made her stop and look back at him. It was true. The air was clean. If there was one thing all casinos back on Earth had in common, it was air saturated with second-hand smoke. Sure, even Sin City was not immune to the spread of non-smoking areas, but where gambling took place? Smoking and gambling went hand-and-hand, for whatever reason, and casinos knew it.

It was also true she had never seen a cigarette anywhere in Equestria.

“The princesses need to come up with a smoking policy before allowing human tourism,” she said.

“Can’t imagine they’d allow it.”

“Yeah.” She started walking again. “Can’t wait to see the reaction to that.”

They continued down the path, bordered by the gaming area to their left and the occasional overpriced coffee shop to their right. Apart from the carpet and the faux-stone support columns, not much effort had been put into the theme.

Most of the “people” they saw milling about, or seated at the ever-present slots, were ponies. The remainder were griffons and minotaurs. Admittedly, there wouldn’t be multiple sapient species in Vegas—well, not yet. No cows, though; Meg could believe they didn’t care for gambling, from the few she had met. Nor were there any diamond dogs, dragons, or buffalo. Whatever that meant.

Once they’d reached the end of the casino floor, the path bifurcated. One way led to the all-you-can-eat buffet—no self-respecting casino would lack one—and several fancy restaurants, all competing to be the most expensive. The other way led to a curved escalator that turned a half-circle as it went up, where according to a sign the “Temple Shops” were to be found.

They already had an early dinner on the train. “Check out the stores?” Meg asked.

“Might as well,” Steve replied.

Twilight flew around the office building. Night had fallen, but artificial lighting was abundant. In the back, against a fence, was an unmarked delivery van. The back doors were open, with somepony sitting on the exposed floor. Another car was parked beside it. No others were back here.

I’m an idiot, she thought as she went down to investigate. I should’ve come back here first. There were others to apprehend and the Feds had yet to arrive. She had no idea when they’d show up.

She hovered a few feet away, invisible to the man. Inside were many boxes, similar to the ones their accomplices leaving the vault had been carrying, but no Meg. Either the man she had captured had been lying—almost certainly, though she couldn’t image what the point would have been—or another vehicle had already taken her away. The magic generators were obviously not here, so there was that evidence for a departed vehicle.

She resisted the urge to capture the man and the vehicles. Others were obviously inside, continuing their looting. She drifted backwards a dozen feet, touched down, and patiently waited.

A few minutes later, a pair of men exited the building, each carrying a full box. They walked towards the van.

“Has Jackson showed up yet?” one of them asked.

The man at the van got up and stood aside. “Nope.”

“I don’t like it,” the other one said. “He couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.”

The two men added their boxes to those already in the van. Twilight approached them, unseen.

“Something’s obviously gone wrong,” the van man said as he closed the doors. “I say we cut our losses and get lost.”

“We can’t leave all this stuff here.”

“Jackson has the keys to this van, or did you forget?”

Twilight had heard enough. She expanded her magic bubble, grabbed all three men and the van, and invoked the return spell.

They all returned to an unused room near her residence, big enough to hold any vehicles she might have found. “You’ll be able to ask Jackson for the keys soon enough,” she said.

They hoofed it over to the escalator and got on. Slowly it ascended. It wasn’t all that different from the circular escalators found in several Vegas casinos.

As the top approached, the reverberations of voices and hooves on stone got louder. The view expanded to reveal the inside of an immense stone temple, the walls lined with shops on multiple levels. They left the escalator and entered the voluminous interior, with space enough to fly around in. A few pegasi or griffons took advantage of it, flying from level to level or from one side to the other. More circular escalators accommodated the flightless.

“Wow.” Steve trotted to the closer end of the “temple,” where larger-than-life statues of Daring Do and Ahuizotl were glaring at each other from within a temple setting of their own.

Meg found a sign nearby. “Performances every hour at the top of the hour,” she read. “I guess those statues are animatronic or something?” There was a clock below the sign. “Looks like we just missed it.” Nor was there a crowd of ponies waiting for the next show to begin, not yet anyway.

Steve got within whispering distance of her. “I wonder how Ahuizotl feels about this.”

“Or being considered as fictional as Daring Do herself,” she replied in an equally low voice. “It’d be so easy for him to prove otherwise.”

He pondered the motionless mechanisms. “Something doesn’t add up.”

“I know, but Twilight did confirm the events of Daring Don’t happened.”

“Too bad you didn’t ask her when you had the chance.”

She gave him a flat look. “I had other things on my mind at the time.”

“I know, I know… just saying, that’s all.”

“Besides, I’m not sure she’d give a straight answer.”

Steve began walking down the middle of the themed mall, taking in the stores on either side. “Whatever is actually going on, there’s no denying she’s done well by it.”

Shops catering to tourists with too much money to spend were the same in any universe or realm, with a heavy emphasis on fashion accessories if not so much on actual clothing. Rounding that out were the gift shops, more often than not featuring Daring Do stuff, and the ubiquitous fast food eateries. Maybe they could find something Daring Do themed for Susie.

Meg suddenly stopped, staring at a particularly wide storefront. “A Barnyard Bargains? Here?”

There was no shortage of ponies entering and leaving the store. “Why not?” Steve said. “It’s not like Filthy Rich to leave a source of profits untapped.”

A mint green unicorn left the store.

Meg squinted, trying to make out the mare’s cutie mark. “Is that…”

The mare spotted them. As if to answer her question, she made a beeline towards them. They stood their ground, waiting for her to reach them.

“Hi…” Lyra said. “Funny bumping into you, here of all places.”

“It’s a small world,” Meg said. “We just got here ourselves.”

“Yeah, look, I’m sorry about intruding on your vacation…” She nervously looked around. “But Twilight said I could talk to you about visiting the human world.”

Meg exchanged glances with Steve. It was news to her. “Uh, sure, I can spare a few minutes. Should we wait for Bon Bon?”

“She’s not here,” Lyra replied a little too quickly.

That was unusual; the two were usually inseparable. “Okay… What questions do you have?” Twilight was more than capable of giving an overview of the human world, so what was it that only she could answer?

Lyra looked around once more, and got closer. “Twilight said that humans already know about me, somehow.”

Meg also kept her voice down. “I assume you were told that the nature of that knowledge is a royal secret.”

“Yeah, I know.” Her eyes flicked around. “Here’s the thing, that whole obsessed-with-hands deal.”

Meg wanted to groan. “I wish that wasn’t—”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, waving a hoof. “In fact, I was wondering if I should play that up.”

“Play it up,” Meg slowly repeated.

“Sure, if it’ll help draw larger audiences, and that’s good for business.”

“I’m… not sure how good an idea that is. I mean, it probably would draw larger audiences, but…” She took another breath. “But humans will always think of you that way, and you’ll have to live with that.”

“Don’t they already?”

“Well, yeah, but they haven’t met you, yet, and when they do… you’ll get only one chance to correct that.”

Lyra nodded. “I see.”

“And don’t forget that humans will be coming here to Equestria some day.”

“Yeah,” Lyra said. “That’s why Twilight chose to tell me.”

That was news too. How many have been told? Were they all being told the same thing?

“But she also said they’d be kept out of Ponyville, with few exceptions, for just that reason, so…” Lyra shrugged.

The unicorn seemed oblivious that two of those exceptions was standing in front of her.

“It’s your decision,” Meg said. “Not like you have to make it right now.”

“And I need to talk it over with Bon Bon.” Her eyes drifted elsewhere for a moment. “I should be on my way—I’m… attending a reunion later—but I’m sure I’ll have more questions once we’re all back in Ponyville.”

“Uh, sure, if I’m not around, just leave word with Twilight or Spike.”

Princess Twilight Sparkle, in full regalia, accompanied her mentor into the Canterlot throne room. Everypony stood at attention as they made their way to the thrones. Celestia took her throne, while Twilight borrowed Luna’s.

Princess Celestia spoke. “You may show them in.”

Massive marble doors eased open, revealing five humans accompanied by as many Royal Guards. None of the prisoners wore cuffs. Partially that was because cuffs designed for minotaurs were too large for humans. It also made a point: they weren’t dangerous enough to need cuffing. No human was going to win a battle with a trained unicorn guard.

Twilight was ready. The goal was to acquire information, specifically information on who they worked for or with. The human authorities did not particularly mind what was said to persuade them, but they had laid out clear guidelines on what they could do.

“You may approach the throne,” Celestia commanded.

After a little prodding, the humans began walking. One had a pronounced limp, a limp that hadn’t been there when Twilight had last seen them. “Why are you limping?” she asked.

A guard answered for him. “They tried to escape, Your Highness. The injury happened when they were subdued.”

The marble doors closed behind them with a decisive thud.

“I’m genuinely curious,” Celestia said. “Where did you think you could go? You don’t exactly blend in.”

The ringleader, Jackson, the one who had pointed a gun at Twilight, stepped forward. “You expect us to just wait around like cows waiting to be slaughtered?”

“I personally know a few cows who’d be offended by that,” Twilight said. “And we don’t kill criminals.”

“Fine. You’ll use us as guinea pi—excuse me, test subjects—for your ponification serum.”

“Why would I help you blend in?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. “It would only make it easier for you to escape. Besides, trust me, plenty of humans would volunteer if such a serum existed—which it doesn’t—so your services as test subjects are not required.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, defiant. “Whatever it is, we won’t cooperate. Sooner or later, you’ll have no choice but to return us.”

Ironically, he wasn’t wrong. Not that they’d be going free. If they refused to cooperate here, the hope was that they’d happily cooperate with the Feds in exchange for being returned to their own realm.

“I think you’ll find it in your interests to answer our questions,” Celestia said.

“I demand a lawyer.”

“Request denied.”

“You can’t do that,” he calmly stated. “I have my rights.”

Celestia tilted her head. “You seemed to be under the impression this is a trial. It is not. In her sovereign capacity as judge and jury, Princess Twilight Sparkle has already found you guilty of attempting to kidnap her at gunpoint. You are being questioned.”

His jaw worked silently for several seconds. “You can’t do that!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You keep saying that,” she droned.

“Aren’t we allowed to defend ourselves?”

“Do you deny trying to kidnap me at gunpoint?”

He opened his mouth, but then thought better of it. After a few seconds of silence, he finally said, “If we’ve been convicted, why are we only finding out about it now. What’s the sentence?”

“Your sentence depends on how cooperative you are,” Twilight replied. “A cell next to Tirek is still an option.”

They allowed the implication of her words to sink in. That some familiar human agents would be arriving to question them, ideally to take custody of them… well, if they were told that, they might not find their current circumstances that unpleasant.

Twilight wasn’t really comfortable with the strategy, but Celestia had no problems with it, and Luna wished she could be there to participate.

Celestia teleported Meg’s key card into the air in front of her. “How did you acquire this?”

He glared at her. “And how many times do I have to repeat myself?”

“You could try giving us the truth for once,” Twilight said.

“And what makes you so damn sure I’m not?!”

A guard telekinetically yanked him down to his knees.

“We ask the questions here,” Celestia calmly reminded him.

The guard released him, and he stood back up. “Then I have nothing to say.” He looked around at his fellow prisoners. “None of us do.”

“I see,” she said. “Perhaps a different approach is called for.”

One of the men tried to bolt, but was instantly restrained by a guard.

Celestia ignored that, turning her head to the wall on her right. “I have a small favor to ask of you, if you don’t mind.”

Twilight wondered who she could be talking to.

A fly departed that wall, drifted through the air towards them, and in a flash of light turned into a draconequus.

Discord folded his arms, pouting. “And I was so sure you didn’t notice me.”

“We’ll discuss that later, but since you happen to be here…”

He looked hungrily at the suddenly nervous prisoners. “I’m listening…”

“I feel that matters would be expedited if you could bring to us the human, Meg.”

His face fell. He picked it up off the floor. “She wouldn’t like me interrupting her vacation.”

“I’ll take full responsibility. It’d only be for a few minutes, I’d expect.”

Discord stroked his goatee. “Just to be clear, the human Meg.”

Celestia nodded. “That is correct.”

A grin, that in a different time might have been described as evil, spread across his face. “I can’t wait to see what happens.”

He snapped his talons.

Meg appeared in front of him, as human as she was when Twilight had picked up her and her husband for their vacation.

She did a double take. “Discord! What’s the—”

“It was at my request,” Celestia interrupted. “There has been a development that requires your presence, hopefully for just a few minutes.”

Meg spun around to face the thrones. Her key card was already floating towards her. She plucked it out of the air with a hand—noticed that she had a hand.

Before she could ask about that, Celestia spoke: “The gentlemen behind you claim to have taken it from you when they kidnapped you from your office earlier today.”

“Huh?” Slowly she turned around to face her alleged kidnappers. Her eyes went wide in recognition. “Eric?”

“You know one of them?”

Meg’s eyes remained on Eric. “Eric Tanner. A co-worker.” She turned around to face the alicorns once more. “Why is he here?”

“These men were ransacking the offices,” Twilight said, “including, with the help of your key card, the vault. Tanner was aiding them.”

She closely inspected the card, both front and back. “This is my key card,” she confirmed. She slowly turned around. “Ransacking the office?”

“You were supposed to be on vacation,” Eric grunted.

“I was, until a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Do you always spend your vacations at work?”

“What the hell are you talking about? I was in Las Pegasus!”

“We know that,” Twilight said, “but we seem to be having some difficulty convincing them of that. Where did you leave your key card?”

“It ought to be in my purse, which I left at home.” She looked back at the men. “Did they break into my apartment?”

“I already checked. There’s no evidence of breaking and entering.”

Meg looked at the popcorn-munching Discord, back at Eric and company, then once more at the princesses. “Could somepony clue me in on what’s going on?”

Jackson broke down in uncontrollable laughter. “Oh this is rich…”

Celestia quirked a royal eyebrow. “Care to enlighten us?”

It took a few moments for him to get his breathing back under control. “Isn’t it obvious? That’s a changeling!”

Meg threw up her hands. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“I do,” Celestia said. “This chamber has been warded against changelings. Any that enter are compelled to revert to their true form.”

“Then obviously, Your Highness, it isn’t working, because I know who I captured, and she can’t possibly be standing in front of me right now. And if you ever want to see her again, you’ll let us go.”

Discord put his snacking on hold. He got up, pulled out of thin air a bizarre-looking device, something with lots of flashing lights and antennas and making a lot of annoying pinging sounds, and walked around taking measurements. He stopped and pushed up a pair of nerdy glasses. “The wards are present and operational.”

He disappeared and reappeared in front of the prisoners, bearing no props other than a hungry smile. “Did you ever consider the possibility you kidnapped a changeling?”

A pin drop could have been heard.

Please just be messing with them, Twilight thought. Even if she had accidentally brought a changeling to their world, their transformation magic would violate that realm’s conservation laws. It’d have to have taken on her form before leaving Equestria. Yet it was so rare for Meg to depart this realm as a human. And there was still the key card. But they were so insistent they had her…

It was a conversation they needed to have, but this was neither the time nor place.

“What if we did?” the ringleader asked, all pretense of confidence evaporated.

“Tell us where she is being held, and I promise we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

He looked up at the solar diarch. “No. You’re messing with me. Fine, that thing isn’t a changeling. It’s one of Discord’s sock puppets. Same difference. We have her, and you won’t see her again unless you release us.”

7. Discordant

Meg found herself on a cloud back in her penthouse suite. Why the cloud? Silly question. At least Discord hadn’t forgotten to turn her back into a pegasus. The cloud hadn’t been turned into cotton candy either. Be thankful for small miracles.

She could use a few, after what she’d just learned.

First things first. Steve must’ve been wondering what the hell had happened to her when she suddenly disappeared from the gift shop. Calling from Canterlot hadn’t been an option. Her phone had gone to whatever limbo clothing and stuff went when she transformed, and Twilight had left hers in Ponyville. Now that she was a pony again, it was once more affixed to her left fetlock.

There was no signal.

Great.

Going to limbo must have severed its connection back to her world, and round-tripping back home to reestablish it was not an option. Should she wait here until they inevitably return, or go and look for them? It was a big casino.

They could be right below me, you know. She went to the edge of the cloud and looked down. A familiar pony had made herself comfortable, passing the time reading a book, but it wasn’t Rainbow Dash or her husband.

She jumped off the cloud and glided down, touching down in front of the mare.

A. K. Yearling looked up, her glasses as fake as ever. “You were not in this room when I arrived,” she stated with raised eyebrow.

“Just got back from Canterlot via the draconequus express. Princess Celestia had requested my presence. It’s…”—she shook her head—”a long story. I don’t suppose you happen to know where Steve is.”

“Long stories are my specialty,” she said with a smirk as she got up. She trotted over to the house phone and picked it up. “A. K. here. Please inform Security that Meg has been found and let her husband know that she’s with me in their suite.”

“You got dragged into this?”

Daring Do sauntered back to her. “An advisor to the Royal Court mysteriously vanishes into thin air? How could I pass that up?” She flashed a hungry smile. “I might even get a book out of it.”

Meg sighed. “It’s not one you’ll be able to publish for a while, if ever.”

“I see.” Daring returned to her place on the opulent cushion. “It figures Celestia wouldn’t interrupt your vacation to discuss new floral arrangements in the palace gardens.”

“No, it certainly wasn’t that.”

“Oh come on, spill it. I’ve got clearance now, or have you forgot?”

Should she? Just because Daring had clearance did not entitle her to every detail. That workplace break-in didn’t concern her.

Meg considered the disguised explorer in front of her. Daring had dealt with unsavory characters. She indisputably wrote about them. Perhaps she had useful insight.

“Wait until Steve gets back,” she said after making up her mind. “Telling it once is enough.”

“Fair enough, it shouldn’t be long now. What should we talk about until then?”

It didn’t take Meg long to come up with a question. Being a casino owner, she’d certainly know the answer. “Why do unicorns hold cards with their hooves and not telekinetically with their horns?”

As expected, Daring had a ready answer. “To prevent cheating, unicorn magic is prohibited; telekinesis is usually permitted, but for cards and dice even that turned out to be too risky. It’s enforced by detection spells.”

That was easy enough. An earlier conversation came to mind. Meg doubted this topic would be as easy, but it seemed as good a time as any to bring it up. “Ahuizotl. Why does he permit everypony to think he’s one of your fictional characters?”

Daring stared blankly for a second, then broke out in laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one!” She caught her breath. “I have to give you credit. That question never occurred to Rainbow or Twilight.”

“And?”

“I don’t think he gets out of the jungle much. Perhaps he’s never heard of my books?”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

She visibly suppressed another round of laughter. “Are you so sure I haven’t?”

Meg replied with silence.

“How about this: It suits his purposes.”

Meg rolled her eyes.

“Tell you what: I’ll arrange for you to meet him. You can then ask him yourself—if you can first get him to stop monologuing about his latest evil plans.”

Meg sighed. “No thanks. My life is complicated enough as it is right now.”

Daring shrugged. “Your loss.”

One unexpected teleportation later, and Twilight found herself in Celestia’s tea room. A quick glance revealed her mentor by her side. She saved her irritation for the draconequus by the panoramic window, who was taking in the view. “Would walking have killed you?” she demanded.

“Oh, come, come, now,” he replied. “Time spent walking is time not spent talking.”

What was even more irritating was that he wasn’t wrong. “You could’ve at least warned us first.”

Discord turned around to face them. “That would have taken precious seconds,” he pointed out. He checked a pocket watch that hadn’t been there before. “Seconds we are now wasting.”

“Since when are you so organized?”

He placed his paw over his heart. “That hurts. Surely you know me better than that by now. If I was never organized, my disorganization would be too predictable.”

Twilight took a seat at the table. “Fine,” she mumbled.

“Then let’s get down to business.” Celestia sat next to her former student. “Discord, would you know if Chrysalis had found some way to cross over to the human realm?”

He paced back and forth a few times as he stroked his goatee. “I believe so,” he said. “The magic required is quite distinct.”

Which was how he knew to intervene when the Crusaders had used his plaid pills without permission, Twilight remembered, or knowledge of how to use them. “And the fact that you’ve never mentioned sensing this magic means… it hasn’t happened?”

“I’m not sure I liked the way you asked that.”

Celestia waved it away. “We’ll take it as granted that the changelings cannot cross over on their own.” She flash-heated a kettle and added tea leaves.

Twilight was about to say something when Celestia cut her off. “We’ll also take it as granted that you have not given Chrysalis her own supply of plaid pills.” The diarch gave Discord a questioning look, waiting for him to confirm or deny.

He raised a talon in objection, then thought better of it. “Of course I haven’t.”

“Then we do have a mystery, one that cannot be solved without the prisoners cooperation.”

Twilight frowned. “Which we don’t have. Hopefully the agents will have better luck with them.”

Discord was playing with a yo-yo. “And if they don’t?”

“Then they don’t?” Twilight didn’t know what the point of that question was.

The yo-yo vanished. “Is not a cell next to my ex-BFF, Tirek, still an option?”

Oh, that point. “Well, technically, it is. Nothing physically prevents us from doing it. But that’s not the plan. That was just to scare them into cooperating, if not with us then with the Feds.”

Discord waved it away. “Yes, yes, humans call it the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine.” He smirked. “I’d never imagined you playing the ‘bad cop.’”

She’d have to ask Meg exactly what that meant, but she doubted she’d like it.

Those red-on-yellow eyes bore into her. “But what if the plan doesn’t work?”

Meg finished her recap.

Daring Do wrote some final notes. “You can’t make this stuff up,” she said.

Steve shook his head. “They really were that convinced they’d kidnapped you.”

“I don’t know what’s going with that, but there’s no question they cleaned out my office. Maybe all my stuff is in that van Twilight brought back, but I doubt I’m that lucky.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Daring said. “It stands to reason they removed your stuff from the premises at the same time they removed ‘you’—whatever that ‘you’ may turn out to be.”

Meg trudged over to the expansive windows and gazed at the Silver Lining Cloud casino across the strip. Lightning flashed across the cloud-like logo every now and then, triggering a light show of falling silver coins. “Kinda ruins the vacation, doesn’t it?”

“You should be concerned with what comes next,” Daring said. “Whoever pulled this off has connections and motivation. They’re not going to take this setback lightly.”

“I’m a bit surprised they’re sending Agent Fowler to see the prisoners, and not the FBI.”

Meg turned around to face her husband. “I think it’s a matter of trust. Daring’s right. Who knows who can be trusted in the FBI? In any government institution? This is a potential national security issue. Someone, with or without clearance, knew months ago what we were doing and got a plant hired by us.”

She faced the window again. “Sending Jessica’s plausible enough; foreign leaders are their jurisdiction.” She looked down at the moving strips below, full of ponies. “I wonder how this is being portrayed in the news.”

Steve joined her by her side. “It’s asking too much, isn’t it, to put this aside until we return.”

“Why the hell did this have to happen on our vacation?” she demanded.

“We can’t leave before tomorrow, so we might as well make the best of it?”

Meg’s jaw set. “We’re in the realm of pink, fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows. I think we can do better than that.” She walked to the hot tub in the middle of the suite, scanning the walls as she went. “Show yourself, Discord!”

Everypony waited for the draconequus to appear—in vain.

“Never a deus ex machina when you need one,” Daring quipped. She quirked an eyebrow. “Fluffy unicorns?”

“Maybe he’s still with the princesses,” Steve said.

Meg stamped a hoof in frustration. “There’s gotta be some way to get his attention.”

“As fascinating as this is,” Daring said, getting up, “I’m afraid I must leave you, as I’m already late for an appointment.”

“You’ve already been of great assistance,” Steve said, “and thanks for the room upgrade.”

“It would’ve been otherwise unoccupied,” she replied with a shrug. “I do have one last suggestion: go to the Discordant. You might have some luck getting his attention there. He doesn’t own or operate it, mind you, but his chaos magic is present.”

“We’ll do that,” Meg said. “Thanks.”

Daring began walking to the front door. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The door opened before she reached it. Rainbow Dash flew in. “Hey guys! You won’t believe how much—” She caught sight of her favorite author. “You’re here?”

“Was here, past tense,” quipped the disguised Daring Do as she walked out the door.

Dash flew over to Meg and Steve and noted their less than joyous mood. “Uh, did I miss something?”

Twilight removed the last box from the van, putting it on the floor beside all the others. The contents of the box floated upwards then spread out. There were some flash drives, a notepad, and manuals. It all came back together and re-entered the box.

Half the magic generators were accounted for, to her surprise. It turned out they were all switched off, which was why she hadn’t noticed them in the other realm. They knew to do that. They had an inside man, she remembered.

Unfortunately, nothing from Meg’s office was here, and that included several enchanted crystals, like the one that prevented eavesdropping.

Spike entered the room. “Jessica’s pickup confirmed for nine tomorrow morning at the Bethesda lab.” He scanned all the boxes on the floor. “She wants to start with the physical evidence.”

Pictures she had taken with her phone had already been forwarded. “Thanks, Spike.”

Twilight hopped into the van and made her way to the front, just to make sure there wasn’t another box. The front seats were empty as was the floor in front of them. There was some miscellaneous stuff in the pockets built into the doors, but it was probably best to let Agent Fowler deal with that. She turned around and exited the back of the van.

“Do we have everything they tried to steal?”

Twilight walked out of the room, unable to lift her head. “No. They got away with some important stuff.”

“What’s the point?” he asked. “They don’t have spell-casting unicorns to take advantage of it.”

Not every item needed a unicorn, but she didn’t feel like correcting him. “I don’t know, Spike.”

Getting answers from the prisoners was increasingly hopeless. Maybe Discord was right; she ought to have Tartarus cells ready. She could discuss it with Jessica tomorrow.

They returned to their residence. “I could really use one of Pinkie’s cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shakes right about now,” Twilight said. She looked around. None was to be found. Even Pinkie Sense had its limits.

“How about hot chocolate?”

“Okay,” she said. It would have to do. “Extra decadent.”

“One extra decadent hot chocolate coming right up!” The baby dragon hurried up the stairs.

Twilight went up the stairs after him at a more sedate pace. She joined him in the kitchen and took a seat at the table.

“Sometimes I wonder if this is worth it, Spike. First that ‘ransomware’ on my computer and now this.”

He put the kettle on the stove. “What about all the new books and the stuff you can learn?”

“I’d be happier if I could have just that and leave behind all the chaos that’s attached to it.” She rolled her eyes. “At least it makes Discord happy.”

Spike snorted. “I bet it does.”

“I’m worried it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” She sighed. “And we still don’t know where that mysterious message to Meg came from.”

Riding the moving strips was different, Meg had to give it that. They were on the fifth strip from the sidewalk, moving maybe seven or eight miles an hour. To be more precise, she and her husband were on the strip; Rainbow Dash was in the air, matching their speed. With the steady wind in her face, the temptation nagged Meg to catch the air with her wings.

Naturally, the pegasus in the air hadn’t failed to notice. “Nothing wrong with flying, you know.”

“Thanks for the tip,” she huffed.

Dash rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Dash had insisted on tagging along. She wasn’t going to let them deal with Discord by themselves, assuming he showed up, and if he did offer them an express trip back to Ponyville, well, Twilight obviously could use her help and the sooner she could provide it, the better.

The overpass approached. The Discordant hotel/casino was on the far end of the strip from Planet Do, on the opposite side of the “slidewalks.” Steve began working his way across the strips back to the sidewalk, avoiding the other riders. Meg stayed close behind. Rainbow Dash went up, over, down, and hovered, and waited for them.

It was a short trot to the overpass, but not an especially easy one. Under the rising moon they worked their way through the crowds clogging the sidewalks—Rainbow Dash simply flew above them, naturally—and eventually they reached the overpass.

There was nothing special about it. The overpass gently sloped up, leveled out, passed over the moving strips, then gently sloped down. It was wide enough for both pedestrians and vehicles—not that any vehicles were present. Pegasi didn’t rely on ground-based transportation.

The Discordant wasn’t far now. Glowing, mismatched yellow-and-red eyes peered out from the letters “o” and “a” in the name, eerily shifting about as if it was Discord himself looking about.

As they approached the end of the overpass, something apparently caught Dash’s eye. She rocketed away. From the ground it wasn’t possible to see anything past all the other ponies. “I’ll go up for a better look,” Meg told her equally mystified husband.

She took off, trying to look all directions at once. While nowhere near as congested as the ground, the air was far from empty of flying creatures. Soon she was hovering a dozen feet above the overpass and looking in the direction Dash had flown. There she was, four, maybe five hundred feet away—her mane was hard to miss—hovering above…

“You gotta be kidding me.”

She flew back down. Steve was waiting for her by the balustrade lining the overpass, staying out of the flowing river of ponies. It was easiest to hover on the other side of the balustrade; it was low enough for ponies to look over.

“Well?” Steve asked.

“It’s Trixie, the Great and Powerful. She’s putting on a show over there.”

“Out on the sidewalk?”

“That’s right,” she singsonged. “Not a big crowd either.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure enough,” she said. “I can make out her hat, her coat color, and that beat-up wagon she calls home and uses as a stage.”

“And Rainbow Dash went over there to…”

“Watch, for now. I don’t think she’s been spotted yet.”

“Should we get involved?”

She sighed. “You know what? No.” She took advantage of a break in the flow to land beside him. “Dash is a big filly, and we have enough crap to deal with.” She started walking. “Let’s go find a draconequus.”

They made their way down to the sidewalk. Trixie was to the left; they turned right and made a beeline towards the Discordant’s entrance.

The glass doors looked ordinary enough. Meg pushed one open and entered. Steve kept it open with his magic and followed her in. Rows of slot machines greeted them—figuratively speaking—no different from the slots back at Planet Do. Meg walked over to the nearest row and examined the reels of one machine after another. It used Discord-themed symbols, like cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk and a picture of his face, but along with the usual gaming symbols it was so… ordinary. None of them even so much as moved. They did in Vegas, thanks to the video gamification of slot machines.

She looked around, at the carpets, the ceiling, the walls—the patterns could be considered chaotic, but they were just patterns. Clashing eyesores, really. No magic required.

“Wasn’t there supposed to be chaos magic at work here?” Steve asked.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Meg replied.

“I’d say I was the one fooled,” added a defeated voice behind her.

She spun around to find Discord reclining on a psychiatrist’s couch, lion’s paw resting over his mismatched eyes. Not being in a mood to put up with his melodrama, she got to the point. “We need to get back to Ponyville right now, Dash included.” She added, “And don’t forget our luggage.”

A red-on-yellow eye peeked out from under the paw. “Can’t you see I’m busy here opening up my feelings?” he complained. “It’s not easy wearing my heart on my sleeve.”

A pulsating object caught her attention. Why does he have to be so literal about everything? The heart was still attached to arteries and veins that went back under the skin of his lion arm. It would have been a lot less disturbing to look at if it had been merely a cartoon. “I’d say you’re finding it quite easy to do.”

“Oh, really? Do you see a sleeve?”

True, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but so what? He was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Time for a different approach. “You know what’s going on. You’d do it if Celestia asked you.” Probably. “As her royal advisor, I’m asking you in her name.” Her façade cracked. “I can do that, right?”

In a flash of light, the couch vanished and his heart, thankfully, returned to its proper place. He stood before her wearing spectacles, flipping through pages of a thick book. “Can you? That’s an interesting question.” He found the page of interest and scanned numerous paragraphs of dense text with a talon. Satisfied, he slammed the book shut and willed it away. “No, you cannot.”

It was looking like a lost cause, but she had to persuade him somehow. “Since when do you follow rules? You should let me do it just to break them.”

“Hmm,” he said, tapping a talon to muzzle. “Intriguing… if breaking rules is my thing, a rule that I follow, then that rule must also be broken, which means I don’t break rules, which means—”

“Enough!” she interrupted. She sat on her haunches, fuming. “I’m not in the mood for paradoxes.”

Steve inserted himself into the conversation. “I think we can spare a few minutes,” he said. Meg glanced his way but didn’t object. “So, what is the story behind this casino and why hasn’t it worked out for you.”

The couch reappeared, with Discord already lying upon it. “It was Fluttershy’s idea,” he began. He waved his paw at the surroundings. “A themed casino so ponies could willingly experience the wonders of chaos. Even Sunbutt got on board; she helped find a casino operator for me to partner with.

“I was full of ideas! Hotel rooms should randomly change their layout whenever nopony was inside. All you can eat buffets where the more you ate, the hungrier you got—instant weight loss! Slot machines where you bet your lifespan; you age an hour each time you play, and if you win you get younger!”

His joy melted away. “But they were all rejected. Ponies don’t want their rooms to be rearranged, they said. Ponies eat to end hunger, not increase it, they said. The house cannot make money on slots that took lifespan instead of chips, they said.”

Discord fell silent. In the distance, the sounds of spinning reels competed with the sounds of a jackpot being paid off, the steady clang of crystalline chips pouring into a metallic bucket.

“That is… unfortunate,” Meg forced herself to concede. Regardless, the longer this pointless exposition went on, the longer before she could get back to Ponyville.

“Isn’t there supposed to be some chaos magic operating here?” Steve asked. “That’s what Dar—what we were told.”

Discord dismissed it with a wave. “The wallpaper and carpet change every now and then. That’s about it. They’re not allowed to change more than once an hour. Oh, and those eyes in the name outside? That was their idea.”

A light bulb appeared above Meg’s head—or would have, if she had been a draconequus. “I bet there are many bronies who’d love to experience chaos as it’s meant to be—within limits, of course. Rearranging floor plans is fine, but…” She shook her head. “We can talk about that later. But before hordes of bronies can visit Equestria, we have to get past the current crisis, and the sooner we can get back to Ponyville…” She gave him a pleading smile.

Discord gave her a flat look and sighed. He got up, reached out and lifted up the coach, somehow stretching out his arms, collapsed the coach like an accordion until it was no thicker than a sheet of paper, then he folded it in half, and again, and again, and again.

Meg watched, in growing irritation, as Discord gratuitously ate up time.

He kept on folding until it was no larger than a sugar cube. Finally, he popped it into his mouth and swallowed. He snapped his talons.

Twilight checked over her calculations once more. She frowned, and she finished off her second hot chocolate. It was doable, but not without the assistance of Discord’s magic. He would have to come along anyway, as only he knew how to access hyperspace from the mirror realm.

Would Meg also want to come? She probably would; it concerned her most of all, her husband too.

She sighed as she collected all her notes and assembled them into a neat pile. It had to be a last resort. There was no denying, however, that she was running out of options, and she needed to know what the hay was the story behind Meg’s mysterious message, her alleged kidnapping—and most of all, the incident that had started it all, that doll.

“What the—couldn’t you have given me a head’s up first?!”

Twilight’s ears locked in the direction of Rainbow Dash’s voice. She wasn’t supposed to be back for another four days.

“Well, if you had stayed with us instead of flying off like that…”

She stood up and walked to the railing overlooking the lower floor. Dash wasn’t the only one back early, it would seem.

“I saw Trixie, and I had a message for her.”

She found Trixie? That’s one item that could be crossed off the checklist—wait, no, it didn’t sound like she had actually talked to her.

“Well excuse me for not knowing.”

Twilight reached the railing and looked down. All three of them were back, their luggage too.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for your sudden and premature return.”

9. Whatever It Takes

Meg was waiting, along with Celestia, for Twilight to return. She scrolled through news headlines on her phone. “Still nothing on the break-in yesterday.” She sighed. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow, when everyone shows up for work.”

Twilight walked through the door, with the two Secret Service agents right behind her. Celestia took notice and addressed them. “Did they finally cooperate?”

“No,” Twilight replied. “They’re in Tartarus now. Meg, were you aware that Eric Tanner knew you become a pegasus when you came here?”

Meg’s jaw dropped. “He certainly didn’t find out from me! You know that’s on a need-to-know basis with my co-workers.”

“Well, he knew,” Fowler said, “and that has decidedly put you in the category of ‘traitor’ as far as they’re concerned.”

Traitor? For all the reasons she had for keeping knowledge of her ponification to a select few, that hadn’t been one of them. Mainly, it was about avoiding the disruption to her life that public knowledge would create. Sure, she had revealed all to the senior staff of the convention, but there couldn’t possibly be a connection between them and those fanatics—right? “Did he happen to say how he knew?”

Reubens proceeded to sit on one of the two chairs present. “Not upon being asked,” he said. “But we have a lead we’re following. In fact, we want to finish up on that before paying them a visit in Tartarus.”

Celestia poured tea for the new arrivals. “You may take as long as you need.”

He took the proffered teacup. “Uh, what’s involved in paying a visit to Tartarus?”

“Twilight shall be the one taking you there,” Celestia said, giving a nod to the newest princess, “so I’ll let her explain.”

All eyes were upon her. “Uh, right. The Gates of Tartarus are a few hundred miles from here. It’ll be a short trip in the Zephyr—but you can skip that part. I’ll just fetch you once I’m already there. Anyway, once we pass through the gates, it’s about a half-hour walk to their cells.”

“And we’ll have to ‘walk’ past Cerberus?” Fowler asked.

“That’s right,” Twilight chirped.

“Couldn’t you just fetch us once you’re at their cells?” Reubens asked.

Twilight went blank for a moment. “I… don’t know if that’ll work there. It’s a different realm, where magic is quite limited. I’d rather not risk it.”

Meg wondered if Discord would know if it would work. But if it did, that be a way for inmates to escape—to the human realm. But it wouldn’t really work, she then realized. They’d only return to Tartarus once their magic bubbles expired.

“A walk wouldn’t kill us,” Reubens said, “and how could we miss meeting the mythological guard dog of Tartarus?”

“And those were minotaurs we saw?” Fowler asked.

Celestia answered this time. “Minotaurs have served as guards in Tartarus for as long as I can remember.” She smiled. “Which is quite a considerable length of time. Magic is weak there, but that affects them hardly at all.”

“And humans not at all.” Reubens rubbed his forehead. “Not that we doubt you, but we still want to see for ourselves what the cells look like over there.”

Celestia nodded. “Understood. If the conditions are not to your liking, you may take them back with you to your realm.”

Fowler walked over to the panoramic windows and gazed into the distance. Pegasi were still adding to the rainclouds over the farmland surrounding Ponyville. “Is there any point in asking how Tartarus got into our ancient mythology?”

“I’m afraid not,” Twilight said. “Even we don’t know its origin. It has always existed, so far as we know.”

“Of course not,” Meg said, sulking on her cushion. “Just like there’s no explanation for why Las Pegasus is so damn much like Las Vegas. Ancient history, recent history, doesn’t matter.”

“Isn’t it a pegasus cloud city?” Fowler asked.

“Oh, sure, there are differences but, trust me, the similarities overwhelm them. A long row of themed hotel/casinos, fancy shopping malls—hell, the blackjack and craps tables follow the exact same rules, as far as I can tell.” Her eyes looked up to the ceiling. “No smoking, though; but then, I’ve never seen a cigarette in Equestria. And the luxury suite we got upgraded to had indoor clouds. You could even dial up gentle rain over the hot tub.”

“Really?” Twilight’s face had that look. “That’s an awesome feat of cloud engineering. Why didn’t you mention that before?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Rainbow Dash thought so too. And I had other things on my mind.”

“Indoor clouds that rain over a hot tub,” Reubens muttered. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

“Did you mention a luxury suite upgrade?” Celestia asked. “That would be quite unusual. Those are reserved for well-known high rollers.”

“Yeah, I know,” Meg said. “Yet another similarity to Las Vegas.” She brushed that aside. “So here’s what happened. We stayed at Planet Do, a Daring Do themed casino—because Dash insisted, naturally, and we figured, why not?” She was looking at the agents as she explained. “When we checked in, we discovered we got upgraded, approved by ‘A. K. Yearling’ herself. She’s a part owner, apparently. Guess she had to invest her book profits somewhere.”

“I suppose so,” Jessica said, nodding. “Was she there?”

“Oh, yes. ‘A. K.’ was waiting in our suite when I returned from Canterlot. Turns out my sudden and very public disappearance had security searching high and low for me.”

Celestia sighed. “The blame for that bout of chaos must be laid at my hooves, however much Discord enjoyed doing it.”

“Are you sure Discord cannot come to our world?” Reubens asked.

“As sure as we can be,” Celestia said, offering a faint smile. “It is not in my power to stop him, should he be able and willing to cross over. The fact that he hasn’t is the best evidence we have that he truly cannot.”

“And I think it’s safe to say he’d be more than willing,” Meg added. “Anyway, she had an interesting observation after I filled her in. She pointed out that organizations that commit acts like this don’t take setbacks lightly.” She shrugged. “Take it for what it’s worth.”

Reubens got out his notepad once more. “An observation from A. K. Yearling,” he muttered as he wrote. “This will make for one interesting report.” He looked up. “I wouldn’t say she’s wrong, though, not if the rest of them are anything like the five we got.”

He started to put the notepad back into this suit, then hesitated. “Anything else I should be aware of?”

“Well, I did bump into Lyra at the Temple Shops—in Las Pegasus that is. She’s apparently considering doing appearances in our world.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Fowler said.

Twilight took mild offense to that. “Lyra does not have a hand fetish or an obsession about humans, I’ll have you know. But I did warn her about that, because it was only a matter of time before she’d learn of it. I’m glad she followed my advice to talk to you, Meg.”

“And I gave her some. Believe it or not, she wants to pander to those memes, play it up if it’ll get her more bookings. I told her to think hard on that.”

Twilight grimaced. “Yeah… I’ll try to talk her out of that myself.”

Meg turned back to the agents. “I know the mane six are off limits for brony conventions, for now anyway, but what about background ponies like Lyra?”

“I’m adding Trixie to that list,” Twilight said. “That’s why Rainbow Dash went to talk to her, to give her an invitation to see me. We didn’t know where she was until you stumbled on to her in Las Pegasus.”

“Wait a minute,” Fowler said. “Trixie, as in the Great and Powerful?”

Twilight nodded. “I think it may do her good to perform in front of a human audience who’d be more receptive to her talents.”

So when did you plan on telling me? Meg wondered. “Did she even receive your invitation?”

“Not exactly, but now that we know where she is, I’ve sent a courier.”

Meg couldn’t help her wings from sagging a bit. “I’m gonna have to talk to her at some point.”

Twilight put on her best fake smile. “Maybe?”

Meg desperately turned to Reubens. “Are background ponies off limits too?”

Reubens scratched his neck. “That’s not our jurisdiction, but I imagine it’d depend on whether things settle down or not.”

Meg could only wonder which outcome would be worse. “What about their conviction that they had kidnapped me?” she asked, changing the subject. “Did you ever find out what that was all about?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said.

“They had to get my key card somehow.”

“They insist they took it off you.”

Meg rubbed her temples with her hooves. “Could someone please make sense of this?”

Fowler moved the other chair next to Meg and sat down. “Look, why don’t we try taking their statements at face value. What would it take to make that possible? Like, I don’t know, time travel. Crazy, I know, but we know it’s possible here.” She looked at Twilight.

Twilight’s ears went flat. “I didn’t want to bring that up, not without having more evidence first.”

Meg’s eyes bounced between the two of them. “Why the hell would I willingly go back in time so that I could be kidnapped?”

“Which was why I didn’t want to bring that up. We don’t know for a fact that you were, and if you never go back to that time and place, then obviously it couldn’t have happened.”

“Then I’ll make it real simple,” Meg declared. “Under no circumstances will I do so. Therefore, there must be another explanation.”

A cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake plopped down in front of Meg. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she said as the pink pony took a seat at her table.

Pinkie scrutinized her and rendered her verdict. “You’re not happy.”

“Is it that obvious,” Meg droned. The shake was pure bliss in her mouth, but it could only do so much. “Has Twilight filled you in?”

“Dashie, actually.”

“Good enough, I guess. I’m dreading going back to work tomorrow.”

“Shouldn’t Steve be here to support you?”

“He’s helping the best way he can right now: by helping Twilight perfect her latest—” Meg hesitated and looked around the shop. She lowered her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “—time travel spell. It’s the only way to get to the bottom of this.”

Pinkie nodded sagely. “I see.”

Not for the first time, Meg wondered just how much Pinkie really did see, grasp, or understand. It was best to change that line of thought. “Too bad we can’t auction off one of these shakes. I’ve never had a better shake, but daisies are too risky and flowers don’t taste the same to humans anyway.”

Pinkie brightened up. “Not to worry! No daisies, no flowers of any kind, no gems, and no hay. Everything I bake for the brony auction will be fit for human consumption. Pinkie Promise!” She went through the motions, forcing a modest smile to Meg’s lips.

“A bit overkill, isn’t it?”

“It got you to smile!”

“I suppose it did,” she conceded and returned her focus to the shake in front of her.

The door opened and the mailmare entered. Pinkie leaped to her hooves. “One blueberry muffin coming right up!”

Meg looked up and saw Derpy coming straight towards her. She was in uniform. Did she have a letter for her? There was a first time for everything.

She took the cushion formerly occupied by Pinkie. “Uhm,” she began, “do you have a few minutes? The princess said I should talk to you.”

“You mean, Twilight?”

Pinkie brought a blueberry muffin to the table.

The muffin went untouched. “Yeah. I know what I said before, but Dinky would really like to meet a human. Could that be arranged, but keep her safe?”

She hadn’t seen that coming. “Of course that can be arranged. Humans aren’t really that different from ponies, you know. Plenty are friendly and trustworthy.” As much as she’d like to volunteer herself, it’d be hard to keep her true nature from the anxious mother.

“Would they—” She looked around and lowered her voice before continuing. “Would they know about her, like they know about me?”

Suddenly, the thought of being at work tomorrow didn’t seem so bad. As much as she’d like to sugarcoat it, beating around the bush would only backfire sooner or later. “Not as much, but, yeah.”

“How?” she whispered, her misaligned eyes pleading for an answer.

“I… I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”

Derpy looked away.

“You’ll have to take it up with a princess.”

The mailmare stood up. “Already did.” She put the untouched muffin in a saddlebag and walked to the counter. After delivering the mail, she left.

Twilight levitated chalk to a set of equations on the blackboard, pointing it out. “I’m still not happy with this.”

“This spell may have fewer limitations than the one Star Swirl invented,” Steve said, “but a stable time loop cannot be guaranteed.”

She put the chalk down. “It’s not that. It’s just that I’d like a diagnostic component that provided data on why a time loop wasn’t possible. Otherwise, how are we to correct the problem and try again?”

“The ‘why’ is simple enough: the wave function of the time loop had an amplitude of zero, which meant that a stable time loop was impossible.”

Twilight walked back to the table and sifted through some scrolls. “Yes, I got that,” she said, frowning. “It still doesn’t tell us what to do differently to make it possible.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She stopped sifting and turned to face Steve. “We need data. I think it’s time to start running experiments.”

“Actually attempt time travel…” He shook his head, smiling. “I know you’ve already done it once, but where I come from… it might as well be impossible, even if it wasn’t.”

She smiled in return. “Then you may the honor of designing the first experiment.”

He thought it over for a moment. “We need a device that keeps accurate time. A phone will do.” He walked over to the nearest of the bookshelves that lined the walls of the lower floor. “What if you took yours back in time and hid it here under these books…”

He lifted a couple of them with his magic, revealing a phone, and froze. “This really happened—will happen.”

“Time travel sucks, doesn’t it?” Twilight trotted over. “It isn’t mine. Wrong color.”

“It’s one thing to talk about time travel in a theoretical sense,” Steve said as he retrieved the phone, “quite another to see in action. Without magic, the only options for achieving it are so unbelievably impractical…” He woke it up and saw his home screen. “Appears to be mine. Big surprise.”

Twilight stood next to him. “Bring up the clock app.”

He did so. The time was off by over thirty five hours. “So you went back in time thirty five hours and change and put my phone in that spot.”

“At least we know the spell works.”

“Still seems weird, to see the results of an experiment before it’s conducted. Wait a minute… something’s not right.” He examined the screen more closely. “It’s had over a day to synchronize its clock with the network. It didn’t, because it has no signal. It’s not even on wifi.” He navigated to settings and looked up at Twilight. “Wifi’s disabled.”

He walked over to his saddlebags and got out his phone, the one that had yet to travel back in time. “This has a cellular signal and has wifi enabled.”

Twilight digested that information. “Traveling through time must break the wormhole your magic creates, like teleportation did before I came up with a fix for that.”

Steve put the two phones side by side on the table, and brought up the clock app on the younger one. “Thirty five hours, seven minutes, and twelve seconds. That’s the exact temporal displacement. The difference in battery levels is consistent with that.”

Twilight stared at the two devices—no, single device—with growing unease. Nothing stopped her from damaging the younger phone, even outright destroying it. Yet that was literally impossible; the phone was part of a stable time loop. Something would prevent that from happening, though she couldn’t imagine what.

This wasn’t the time to contemplate such experiments. “I’d feel better if we got your phone on its way back in time,” she finally said.

“I know what you mean. Let me first disable wifi…” He did so, then he looked at the alicorn. “Might as well do it now and get it out of the way. We know nothing will go wrong.”

“Right.” Twilight picked up the younger phone in her magic and focused on the spell, plugging in the numbers for the desired temporal displacement. Thirty five hours ago would be the middle of the night, so she didn’t have to worry about her earlier self. It all seemed quite convenient—but then, that’s what made it a stable time loop. She cast the spell.

Nothing happened.

“Something went wrong,” she said.

The older phone was still there. The spell had to work.

“Let me check the phone,” Steve said. “Maybe I overlooked something.”

He retrieved it from her magical hold. “This is the wifi settings screen. The phone was on the home screen when I discovered it.” He navigated back to home and returned the phone to Twilight.

She accepted it and contemplated the screen. “Which implies, had the spell worked, I would have noticed it being on the wrong screen and had taken care of it myself before placing it under those books.”

Steve shrugged. “The wave function explores all possibilities simultaneously.”

“And that implies that was not possible, that I would not have noticed and thus fix it myself.”

He shrugged again. “I’m not sure we could ever know.”

Twilight frowned. “Which was exactly my point.” It only made her wish all the more that time travel was impossible, or at least had never been discovered. “Let’s see if that solved the problem.”

“If not, we have thirty five hours to find the correct fix.” He tilted his head in thought. “But on the bright side, we will find one, because otherwise the time loop breaks.”

Or we could just do nothing and see how the impossible happens. She rejected that thought. If they wanted to test causality, it’d be better to do so under properly controlled circumstances—which this most certainly was not.

She cast the spell, and the room went dark. It was night. The spell worked.

A low-powered illumination spell provided just enough light to find the books Steve had lifted. She raised them and placed the phone under them. It was done. Resisting the temptation to look in on her sleeping self upstairs, she cast the return spell.

Steve reappeared in front of her within the once-again lit room. “No phone, so I assume it was successful?” he said more than asked.

“Almost too easy,” she replied with a lack of enthusiasm. “But why thirty five hours, seven minutes, and twelve seconds? Why not eleven seconds? Or thirty six hours?”

Steve shrugged. “I’m sure those were all viable possibilities, with more or less equal probabilities. One had to be selected when the wave function collapsed. Which one? That’s the uncertainty principle at work.”

Meg left Sugarcube Corner and launched herself into the air. She had no destination in mind; she just felt like being airborne. Once above the buildings, the work of the weather ponies became evident: clouds covered the far end of Sweet Apple Acres, and only the far end. She looked around and found the weather ponies putting rain clouds in place over farms north of the town.

She flew south, retracing her first solo flight, back when being a pegasus had been new, different, and exciting. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the newness had faded over the past year, but nonetheless it still left her feeling that something had been lost, never to be recovered. She indulged the nostalgia; what she’d do once she arrived, she hadn’t a clue.

Row after row of apple trees passed beneath her. No activity was visible, none of the telltale shuddering of a tree as it was harvested. She headed towards the homestead, not knowing who’d be there or if anypony would be there and not particularly caring. Maybe she could go check up on Fluttershy and see if she could use any assistance—that had been her second trip to Equestria.

Meg adjusted her wings and descended towards the homestead. Ponies were out and about. Colors made it easy to tell from a distance who was who. Applejack, Apple Bloom… and Fluttershy? They were standing around an oddly lumpy, purplish mound—was that Smooze?

Big Mac came out of the barn with a barrel on his back, a barrel that had clearly seen better days. He walked over to the mound and dumped the barrel onto it. Purplish goo oozed over it.

Yep, Smooze.

Apparently, it was useful to have an elemental vacuum cleaner—or whatever the heck Smooze was—when a landfill wasn’t handy. Not that she had any idea how garbage was disposed of in Equestria; she had never spotted anything that had looked like a landfill from the air. Magic must be involved, she decided.

Applejack greeted Meg as she landed. “Hiya, Meg! Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hey guys,” she replied. “Just stretching my wings. Keeping Smooze busy, I see.”

The red stallion turned to her with a smile. “Eeyup.”

“Fluttershy here came up with the idea,” Applejack said. “Thought it would do Smooze good to carry out a useful service to the town folk.”

“Well…” Fluttershy said, “he needs to get out and meet more ponies, and this seemed like the way to do that.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Meg said. Putting his insatiable appetite to good use? Sure, why not—so long as it could be kept under control. Too bad his magic wouldn’t work on Earth, assuming he could exist there at all; there were some EPA Superfund toxic waste sites he could easily clean up. He didn’t seem to care what he ate—so long as it wasn’t plain dirt, rocks, or water—and once his “digestion” was finished, he was back to his original size, conservation of mass and energy be damned.

She spotted the apparatus on top of a nearby crate, a jury-rigged affair consisting of a notebook computer, a web camera plugged into it, and a multi-crystal assemblage covering the lens of the camera. It was aimed in the general direction of Smooze. “Do you like helping ponies?” she asked him.

Two large eyes shifted towards her. “Yes,” an emotionless, artificial voice said from the computer.

That one word constituted half of the translating software’s current vocabulary, the other half being the word “no.” You had to start somewhere.

“Well, obviously,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes. “When all he has to do is eat!”

Applejack glared at her younger sister. “Be that as it may, he’s still choosing to eat only what we find useful for him to eat.” She turned to Fluttershy. “As much as I dislike saying it, Discord’s right. There’s nothing wrong with Smooze that a little friendship won’t fix.”

Fluttershy directed a warm smile at the purplish blob. “He really is a gentle soul once you get to know him.”

Meg walked over to the computer and watched the diagnostic displays of the translation app. “And hopefully many more ponies will have that chance once we finish this translator.”

“Yes,” the computer said.

Apple Bloom came up beside her and inspected the webcam. “Ain’t this what Twilight was working on when we, uh…”

“You took that little field trip to my office at work?”

The filly grimaced. “Uh, yeah.”

Meg didn’t press the point. The fillies had made their apologies long ago. “It is. The crystal matrix detects variations in the magical field, variations that Smooze can consciously generate, and converts them to light, which the camera sees and sends to the computer, where certain patterns are detected and mapped to specific words—just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ so far.”

Apple Bloom threw the setup a skeptical look. “That sounds mighty complicated, too complicated to work.”

“That could be said about much human technology, and yet it does.” Meg put a hoof to the trackpad and switched to a different set of diagnostic data. “Doesn’t mean it works the first time, of course.”

“You actually understand how this here contraption works, doncha?” she said with new respect. “Not the enchanted crystals part, obviously, but the rest of it.”

Meg shrugged. “It’s how I make a living in my world. There’s far more I don’t know; there’s way too much for any one person to ever know, even after a lifetime of studying.”

“You seem to know a heck of a lot more than Twilight did—and she had dozens of human books on this stuff.” The filly was looking up at her, the ever present red ribbon on her mane bending backwards.

“That’s not really fair, Apple Bloom. I’ve been using computers my entire life, for starters, and she is learning rapidly. Twilight wrote the code that does the pattern matching.” She gave a wry smile. “It was either that, or teach me the science underlying those enchanted crystals—an easy choice.” As it was, Twilight had spent as much time tweaking the enchantments on the crystal as on the software that interpreted the visual image those enchantments produced. “She wants to master programming anyway. I did warn her that would take years.”

Apple Bloom looked back at the computer. “Well, she is an alicorn now. She can learn it all.”

That was something nopony really wanted to talk about, that Twilight had become immortal, whatever that truly meant—not even universes last forever. Even so, an alicorn certainly had the time to acquire vast amounts of knowledge, if she so desired. Regardless, Meg suspected that not even an immortal can learn everything humanity has discovered or invented, never mind keep up with the never-ending stream of new discoveries and inventions.

The filly was looking at her again. “Do you think there’s a cutie mark for computers?”

Meg suppressed a groan. “I have no idea.”

It was the day of reckoning. Meg pulled into the parking lot at work. Vans from CNN, FOX, and MSNBC were parked at the edges of the lot, their microwave dishes aimed at some distant, unseen tower. The break-in had finally caught the attention of the national press. No camera crews or reporters were visible, which meant they were inside.

She was half-tempted to call in sick. It wasn’t much of a falsehood.

Perhaps it was better to use the back entrance. She drove around the building. She stopped. Several police cars were there. A car she recognized as Tanner’s was being loaded onto a flatbed truck. Other cars were parked nearby, the sort of nondescript, domestic sedans favored by the FBI. An officer spotted her. He used hand gestures to tell her to turn around. She backed up until she cleared that side of the building, then turned.

Was the Secret Service here too, because of the kidnapping attempt on Twilight? The turf battles would be hilarious if it weren’t all so serious. At least I’m not the “person of interest” this time, she thought as she parked her car, as far from those news vans as she could manage. They must have known Tanner was involved or had gone missing, or they wouldn’t be towing his car, but how many of them knew he was in Tartarus?

Meg approached the front glass doors. Everything seemed business as usual inside; that made sense, as they would try to minimize the impact on the building’s other tenants. She entered the building, went to the elevators, and waited with a few other people for it to arrive, none from her floor. Soon enough, it did. They all entered. Someone pressed three, another pressed two, then Meg pressed four, the top floor. Having to wait as the elevator stopped at each floor did nothing to calm her nerves.

After an eternity, she was the last one left in the elevator. The doors closed, and she began to rise. A few seconds later, motion stopped.

The doors opened, revealing the opposite wall and nothing else. Faint voices were audible in the distance.

Meg stepped out of the elevator. The main doors to the office space, normally closed and with access by key card only, were propped open—a huge no no. A police officer was seated in front of the doors.

He noted Meg’s presence and stood up. “Your reason for being here?” she asked.

What was my reason for being here? In light of everything going on, not to get work done, that was for sure. “I work here,” she simply said.

“May I see your key card?”

She dug it out of her purse and presented it.

“Meg Coleman,” read the officer. She looked between the picture and her face. Satisfied, she instructed, “Swipe it past the card reader, please.”

She did so, eliciting a thunk from the locking mechanism that served no purpose other than to verify her key card worked.

The officer returned to her chair, picked up a clipboard that was resting against it, and made an entry. “Please go to conference room Gamma. You are instructed not to talk to the press.”

As if I had any desire to. Returning her key card to her purse, she went through the relocked but still open doors. The voices had become somewhat louder. It sounded like a press briefing. Conference room Gamma was in that direction too. She went the other way, towards her office. The officer at the door didn’t notice—or didn’t care.

Her office door was closed and sealed with “crime scene” tape. No question it had been forcibly opened. “I guess I’ll just have to take your word for what had happened inside,” she muttered to an imaginary Twilight. There was nothing to do but go to conference room Gamma like she was supposed to.

Meg’s phone chirped. It was a good excuse to delay the inevitable a bit longer. She got out her phone and checked her email. It was from “The Section”—about Susie? “What the…”

She opened the letter and read it: This email’s headers have been forged. Don’t bother tracking down its origin. We have your niece. She is safe so long as you cooperate. You shall use your connections to the princesses to have our compatriots returned to us. However you managed to escape from us before, don’t bet on it working a second time.

10. Immutable Observations

Meg stared at the email on her phone, shocked into paralysis.

A thought worked its way to awareness: Call Matt?

But her brother wouldn’t know anything unless the police had already contacted him, and it was too soon for Susie’s disappearance to have been noticed.

She paced back and forth with increasing agitation. Let him know his daughter’s been kidnapped? Why it happened?

Perhaps it hadn’t happened. Just because they claimed to have done it didn’t mean they actually had. They were still insisting, after all, that she had been their captive, absurd as that was.

She couldn’t take that risk. Assume it happened. Accept it. So now what?

Meg went motionless. Even if she knew how to break the news to him, all her brother could do was to contact the police. This was much bigger than the police. She had better options.

She made a phone call. “Jessica, it’s Meg. Something terrible has happened and I need your help.”

“Where are you right now?”

“At work, outside my office, if that matters.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Jessica’s already here? Had she taken a red-eye flight? The call had already ended. Nothing to do but re-read that message over and over, praying she had overlooked something.

It wasn’t long before the agent reached her. Meg shoved her phone in her face.

“That’s… oh boy. The Section.” Agent Fowler put hand to forehead. “Serrell will want to know about this.” Her eyes met Meg’s. “Can you forward that to me?”

“Sure.” Meg proceeded to do just that. “We can only hope they’re not as good at covering their tracks as they seem to believe.”

“I have little doubt the President will authorize whatever it takes to uncover those tracks. I’ll let you know as soon as there are any developments.”

Meg put her phone away. “I’m supposed to go to conference room Gamma. Do you happen to know what that’s about?”

Jessica waved it away. “You can skip that. You already know what happened, and you know better than to talk to the press. Everyone’s also getting the week off.” Her face went grim. “Not that you’ll be enjoying it.”

Meg stood there, still trying to process it. “What do I do?”

“Right now? Go home, relax—somehow. You can tell Twilight, but unless there’s a spell to trace emails…”

A lightbulb turned on, illuminating hope for the first time. “Maybe… maybe there is a magical solution, a way of uncovering a different sort of tracks. Don’t tell me about any developments, not until I say otherwise. The less I know, the better.”

“What, ignorance is magic now too?”

“Just… just go with it. For now.”

Twilight read the email with growing fury. “They would actually sink that low.”

“It hasn’t made the local news yet,” Meg said while pacing back and forth on two legs, “but I can’t imagine they’d lie about something like this. What would be the point?”

The alicorn shot her a questioning look. “You don’t know if they actually took her?”

“No, the less I know, the better.” She stopped pacing and sat down on the living room sofa. “Steve says you’ve made progress with your new time travel spell. I want to use it.”

Twilight jumped up onto the sofa and sat down next to her. “You know you can’t prevent the kidnapping.”

Meg grunted. “Are you so sure of that? What if we could trick them into thinking they have her, like, replace Susie with a changeling or something.”

“Well, aside from the fact we don’t have a changeling at our disposal, nor do we know how they would fare in this realm, I can’t say that plan wouldn’t work.”

“Well,” Meg said, throwing up her hands, “that’s the beauty of time travel. Whether we go back in time right now, or a month from now, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We have the time to see if that plan is feasible, to make it feasible.”

“Yes, it does matter,” Twilight replied softly but firmly. “You’re going to hear what happened, unless you completely cut yourself off from this realm. I very much doubt we’ll have days, never mind a month.”

Or even hours. An Amber Alert would be issued anytime now. Her phone would receive that alert, unless she put it in airplane mode. Then her brother would wonder why he couldn’t contact her—and he would try to contact her.

That all assumed they couldn’t substitute something else for Susie. If a changeling wasn’t a viable option, what was?

She could preemptively call Matt, explain the situation, and keep the police and media out of this. The proper authorities had already been informed, anyway.

Explain the situation. Convince him ignorance is magic.

Yeah, right.

“Fine,” Meg said. “Plan B. We observe the kidnapping and follow them to where they’ll keep her. Once they send that email, we can rescue her—or, if for some reason we can’t, return to the present, pass the location on to the authorities, and assist however we can.”

Twilight nodded. “Shall we do it now?”

Meg checked her phone. No alert, and nothing in the news. Shouldn’t there have been an alert by now? Dare I hope?

“Let me get my saddlebags.”

Meg paced around the circle of thrones, her frustration growing with every step.

She went past a throne that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Wouldn’t you agree I’m long past due for getting a throne of my own?”

Meg stopped and turned around. Slouching in the new throne was Discord. “I have no say in that matter,” she informed him. “This isn’t a good time to be bothering me.” She resumed her pacing, ignoring the draconequus.

Discord and throne vanished and reappeared in front of Meg. He leaned forward. “What better time than right now, while you wait for Twilight to find Rainbow Dash?”

“How…” She shook her head. “No, not playing that game.” Her eyes locked on to his mismatched eyes. “Can you help my niece?”

Discord leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’m not omnipotent, you know, not in this realm, and certainly not in yours.”

Meg did not back down. “Can you at least tell me where she’s being held?”

Discord brought out a second pair of mismatched arms and crossed them as well. “I’m not omniscient, either.”

Meg broke eye contact and resumed her pacing, going around him. “Omniscient enough to know what I’m talking about,” she muttered.

“Keeping on top of current events does not make one omniscient.”

“Whatever.” Her pacing continued. “Is there an actual point to this visit?”

He was now floating by her side. “As a matter of fact, there is. I feel like I’m being left out of the loop.”

Meg continued looking straight ahead. “Care to be more specific?”

“About the upcoming brony convention. What plans are being put in place for auctioning off a day with me?”

Meg sighed. Go figure, it was a reasonable question. Would wonders never cease? “With everything that’s been going on, it’s fallen through the cracks.” A grim realization dawned on her. “And with everything that’s been going on, maybe it won’t be allowed—any of it.”

Silence. Against her better judgement, Meg stopped and turned toward the draconequus.

“You’re serious,” he said.

“There was an attempt to kidnap an Equestrian princess, you know.”

“Well, technically there was an attempt, yes, but—”

“But nothing.” Meg resumed pacing. “It’s spiraling out of control. They got my niece, and who knows where it’ll go next. So unless you can pull a rabbit out of a hat—” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll assume you just did that. You know damn well what I meant.”

Sounds of angry chittering got muffled then silenced. “The prisoners are in Tartarus, right?” he hurriedly asked. “Maybe I should pay them a visit.”

Meg spun around. “No!”

Discord lowered his talons, stopped in the act of snapping. “No?”

“No. First off, they won’t know where she’s being held, because the ones who have her aren’t idiots. They’d expect some sort of magical inquisition, or assume I knew where I was allegedly being held captive. And second…”

After a few seconds of silence, he materialized in front of her, forcing her pacing to stop. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

She made no effort to go around him. “I don’t expect you to appreciate this, but if word got back that you used ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques on them, it would be considered proof that their cause is justified. So just… don’t.”

“I would suggest taking the advice of our Royal Advisor on Human Affairs.”

Twilight hovered in the doorway to the throne room, with Rainbow Dash hovering above her. The two flew over to Meg and Discord. Twilight set down on the floor; Rainbow Dash remained airborne. “We can leave whenever you’re ready,” Twilight said.

Meg looked expectantly at Discord.

“I was only trying to help,” he said, pouting. “It’s what friends do, right?”

“Yes, Discord, that is what friends do,” Twilight said. “And we appreciate the gesture. But this is one case, I’m truly sorry to say, that you can’t be of assistance.”

“Oh, very well.” He floated up into the air, away from them. “It just goes to show that I’m truly not omnipotent.”

Discord vanished.

“So what was that all about?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Not now,” Meg said, shaking her head. “Let’s just get going.”

Twilight moved to the back of the throne room. “Both of you stand by me.”

Meg trotted over and Rainbow Dash landed beside them.

“Is your phone’s transmitter off?”

“Just a sec.” Meg put her phone into airplane mode. That same phone was already on Earth and on the cellular network at the time of the kidnapping, but its older self could still be useful as a camera.

Twilight closed her eyes and lit up her horn. A few seconds later, they teleported—except their location hadn’t changed. “Looks like it worked.”

Rainbow Dash leaped into the air. “So, like, I could go outside and fly to my house and knock on my front door and see myself opening it?”

“Do you remember opening the door and seeing your future self?” Twilight asked in annoyance.

“Duh, obviously not, because I haven’t done it yet.”

“Then no, you cannot.” Twilight got three plaid pills out of a saddlebag.

“What’s stopping me from doing it?”

Twilight sighed. “I’d love to find out, but this isn’t the time for temporal experiments.” She levitated a plaid pill to each pony. “You’re navigating, Meg.”

“Right.” She took the pill into her mouth, concentrated on her brother’s house, and swallowed.

The three ponies stood on the front lawn. Apart from the occasional car passing by, everything was quiet.

“So now what?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“We wait, obviously.” Meg started a timer on her phone, counting down the two hours to the reception of that email. After putting her hoof back down, she said, “It shouldn’t be long before Susie leaves for school.” She turned to Twilight. “You sure we’re invisible?”

The alicorn nodded. “I double checked.”

Several minutes passed. Out of boredom, Rainbow Dash went flying around the neighborhood. Well, it wasn’t as if they had known the precise time Susie left the house. Better to be early than late. And if she’d already been kidnapped… well, they’ll just go back further in time.

Other children were starting to trickle down the road. “It can’t be much longer,” Twilight said.

It wasn’t. The front door opened and Susie walked out, making her way to the sidewalk and completely oblivious to the ponies just a few feet away.

It was so tempting to intervene. Screw the paradox. She’d mail that message to herself, somehow. Maybe there was never a kidnapping in the first place.

“Don’t do it, Meg.”

Meg tore her eyes off her niece. “We don’t know what really happens. What if this is just like It’s About Time—you know, when you went back in time to warn yourself, and caused the very thing you were trying to prevent?”

Twilight had a ready answer. “Which is precisely why we shall only observe,” she said. “Come on, let’s follow her.” She launched into the air.

Did it really matter? Meg thought as she took to the air and flew after Twilight. Time is immutable. Either Susie will be kidnapped, or she won’t. I just have to hope she won’t; then I’ll send that email to myself.

Rainbow Dash was already in position, trailing Susie from above. Twilight and Meg soon joined her. They followed her for the few minutes it took her to reach the school. On the school grounds, it became harder to separate her from the mass of other children, but not impossible; they watched her go inside a classroom.

“I guess that’s that,” Dash said.

“She does appear to be safe,” Twilight observed.

Meg checked the timer on her phone. “One hour, forty one minutes to go. We should stick around that much longer, just to be sure.”

Twilight pointed down at the roof, right above the door Susie had entered. “We can set down there and watch.”

Rainbow Dash was having none of that. “You two can do that. I’m gonna fly around and look for threats.”

“Fine,” Twilight conceded. “But if you find one, don’t engage. Come back and tell us.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re here only to observe.” Dash flew off.

Meg had already reached the roof and was carefully setting down, doing her best to minimize the impact of her hooves against the roof. There were limits to the sound suppressing abilities of Discord’s plaid pills. Twilight was shortly by her side. The two positioned themselves at the edge of the roof and began their watch.

Twilight was soon distracted by the sun. “It’s so low in the sky,” she said. “I know it’s early in the morning, because of the time travel, but it still feels odd.”

Meg kept her eyes on the ground. “It’s always early in the morning somewhere on this planet. We call what you’re experiencing ‘jet lag,’ because we experience that whenever we fly thousands of miles.”

Two women entered the classroom.

“One of them, I assume, is Susie’s teacher,” Meg said. “The other, I don’t know.”

“Seems innocuous enough,” Twilight replied. “Getting back to this ‘jet lag,’ I wonder why the time-of-day is the same here, where you live, and in Equestria. There’s only a four point one six six percent chance of that happening, if I understand your timezones correctly.”

“Why are our days the same length, down to the second?” Meg countered. “That’s an odd coincidence too, given that this planet’s rotation is slowing down. Sure, the lengthening of the day is gradual, but days were once many hours shorter than they are now.”

“Slowing down? What about conservation of angular—”

“Later,” Meg interrupted. Down below, that other woman had left the classroom—and right behind her was Susie.

“Maybe we should have waited inside,” Twilight said.

Susie was cooperating. It sure would have been helpful to know what had gone down inside. “We still can. Time travel, remember?” Meg said before taking off.

Twilight followed. “Let’s not get carried away.”

They quickly caught up to Susie and the mysterious woman. By the time they had reached the parking lot, Rainbow Dash had joined them. The woman—professionally attired in a pantsuit, Meg now noticed—reached her vehicle, the sort of nondescript, domestic sedan favored by government institutions.

“Shouldn’t you be recording this?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” Meg replied. She rotated her phone in its holder, uncovering its lens, and began recording.

The woman opened the driver’s side rear door and Susie went inside, apparently of her own free will. Meg dropped down behind the car to get its license plate. “Great,” she muttered. It was a federal plate. She had no idea how to decipher which agency owned that car, but that wasn’t her problem. Nonetheless she could take a good guess.

The engine started. Meg hurried back into the air and rejoined the others.

“You discovered something,” Twilight stated, as Meg stopped recording.

“Yeah. That woman must be a government agent. That’s how she got Susie out of there with so little fuss. Flashed a badge and spouted a pack of lies.”

The car was making its way to the exit.

“Now we find out where they’re taking her,” Twilight declared.

The car was easy enough to follow at first, as the morning commute was very much in progress. Meg wasn’t too sure she could keep up with a car on an empty freeway, not for any length of time—which was why Rainbow Dash had come along.

Her fears were soon confirmed. The kidnapper eventually took the onramp to Hwy 85, southbound. The northbound lanes were packed with cars inching their way forwards. The southbound lanes were wide open. Rainbow Dash effortlessly matched its acceleration. Twilight lagged behind her only a bit, no doubt benefiting from her alicorn constitution.

Meg was gasping for air by the time she caught up to them. Fortunately, maintaining speed was a whole lot easier than acquiring it.

Dash looked at her with bemusement. “The offer still stands, you know.”

The seventy mile-per-hour wind in her face did little to drown out Dash’s words, such being the power of pegasus flight magic. “Yes, Dash.” Gasp. “I think I’ll make…” Gasp. “Time for that.”

“If you think you can’t keep up,” Twilight said, “remember to give me your phone before you return.” She added, “In hindsight I should’ve brought mine.”

“And don’t forget to come to a full stop before you go back,” Dash said.

Twilight looked curiously at the pegasus. “That’s good advice, but why would you know that?”

Dash kept her eyes on the car. “Oh, just a lucky guess. I absolutely did not learn that the hard way.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m fine, for now,” Meg insisted. Keeping up this speed was like walking really fast. “It depends how far they go before getting off the freeway.”

“How far could they go?” Twilight asked.

“With a full tank of gas? Hundreds of miles. But if they were going to take her that far, they’d head to the airport, and that’s not where they’re going.”

“So where are they going?” Dash asked.

Her sigh was not drowned out by the wind, either. “I haven’t a clue.”

They continued following the car down the freeway. It stayed in the left lane, giving no hint of an impending exit. Finally, minutes later, it made its way to the right lane. Up ahead was the interchange with 880 and 17.

The car took the off-ramp to Hwy 17.

“They’re going over the mountains to the coast,” Meg said. “Unless they got a hideout in the mountains somewhere.”

The car once more got into the left lane and stayed there, and it began its climb towards the summit. The reduced speed was welcome; even with the gain in altitude, it still felt no worse to Meg than a fast walk.

In due course, the Pacific came into view. “No mountain hideout,” Twilight said.

“I still have no clue where they’re taking her,” Meg said. “I hope our magic holds out.” Magic generators weren’t an option, since that would break their invisibility.

17 came to an end. The car got on to Hwy 1, going south. After traveling just over a mile, it finally got off the highway, heading towards the coast. They weren’t that high up, but the coast wasn’t that far away. In that general direction a lot of boats could be seen.

“They wouldn’t…” was all Meg could say.

Twilight was quick to catch on. “The boats?”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t impressed. “So? We can follow a boat too.”

“For how long?” Meg said.

“A few hours, if we’re lucky, before our magic runs out,” Twilight answered. “But we can come back to the spot we left almost immediately, and a boat can’t go that fast. Where could they be taking her by sea?”

“I don’t know!” Meg shouted, throwing up her hooves. “Somewhere up or down the coast… Hawaii… maybe they got a secret lair on some tiny, isolated island somewhere.”

“A secret lair? Really?”

“You’re not helping, Dash.” Twilight focused on the approaching marina. That was almost certainly their destination. “Logically, they can’t be taking her too far. They need to return her quickly if we comply with their demands, right?”

“I guess so,” Meg said. “They can’t do that if she’s in the middle of the ocean.”

“And based on that email, I’d say the point of this is to make rescue impossible, and the best way to do that is to make it impossible to find to her, because they have no idea how you ‘escaped’ from them before.”

Meg attempted to clench non-existent hands. “How about because they never had me! I’ll never go back in time so they can kidnap me. Why won’t any of this make sense!”

They followed the car until it reached the marina. “So, like, we can rescue her here if you got that letter, right?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Meg woke her phone up. She ought to start recording anyway, but she first checked the timer. “About forty three minutes to go.”

“I think it’s safe to say they taking her out to sea,” Twilight said.

The car had entered the parking lot. Meg was ready to record. She went lower and closer, getting into position.

As the car eased into a parking spot, she began recording. The engine shut off. Moments later, the driver’s door opened and a middle-aged woman got out. It was the first time she had gotten a good look at her face; she wasn’t coming across as a minion of an evil organization, just someone who was doing a job. Did she even know what was really going on? Regardless, she had been captured on video, a video that would soon be in the hands of the President.

The woman opened the rear door. Susie hopped out. “Which boat is Meg on?” she asked.

“She’s not on any of these boats,” the woman replied in a friendly enough fashion. “It will become clear soon enough.” She closed the door, locked the car, and the two set off for the docks.

After first panning up and around to establish the location, Meg stopped recording. What was the point? It wasn’t as if that woman was going to monologue their evil plans to a child in a public place.

“I say we rescue Susie right now, then force that woman to send that letter at the right time.” Rainbow Dash was beside her.

“You’re assuming she’s the one who sends it,” Twilight said from her other side.

Time travel was proving to be a poor substitute for omniscience. Sure, watch long enough, and they’ll have all the answers. And yet… what if it turned out this woman was the one who sent that email? It wasn’t as if they could go back in time again and execute Dash’s plan. They can’t change what they had already observed.

“She’s right, Dash,” Meg spat out. “We just don’t know. We can’t interfere before that email has been sent.”

“Which, if they’re smart, won’t be until after they reach a secure location.”

“And they have plenty of time to reach one.”

The pace was being set by Susie’s short legs, her every step bringing her closer to imprisonment. Only the fact that, once they had returned to the present, they could mount a rescue with the full force of magic and federal agents on their side made it bearable.

Then she’d get to explain to her brother what the hell had just happened.

One crisis at a time.

They turned onto a pier. Meg began recording again. They stopped at a motorboat, at most twenty feet in length, its engine already idling. “These men will take you to the safe place where we’ll also be taking Meg,” the woman said.

“Okay,” Susie dutifully replied, looking at the boat with uncertainty.

“Ever been on a boat before?” the captain asked, a middle-aged man who also looked the opposite of an evil minion.

Smile! You’re on camera.

She had to remind herself that, no, they weren’t going to do anything to her. Susie makes it to that “safe location.” Mistreating a hostage was quite unprofessional, and this operation was anything but.

Susie got on board with the help of some strong arms. Wasting no time, the other man on the boat, not quite middle-aged, untied the last two restraining ropes.

The boat slowly backed out.

The ponies followed the boat as it made its way out of the marina, past the breakwater, and full throttle into the open ocean. It turned neither north nor south, heading straight towards the middle of nowhere.

11. Rescue Party

“I can scout ahead, see where they’re going,” Rainbow Dash said, eager for any excuse to stretch her wings. All this sluggish flying had been taking its toll on the energetic pegasus.

Twilight shook her head. “You’ll only exhaust your magic that much faster. It can’t be much longer, now. Meg?”

“Ten minutes, tops,” she replied after checking her phone. The sluggish pace suited her just fine. She could keep this up all day. Looking back, the coast was nearly invisible, the coastal mountains faded by haze.

Dash groaned. “Fine.”

The boat roared on, still full throttle. Susie had gone below some time ago. At least the Pacific was living up to its name.

Finally their destination came into view. It was another boat, a much bigger boat. “That’s… an expensive yacht,” Meg said. She searched for a suitable analogy. “The kind Filthy Rich might own, if he owned a yacht.”

The captain finally cut back on the throttle. The other boat was facing the same direction, more or less, so the smaller boat didn’t have to waste time maneuvering.

“Could it cross an ocean?” Twilight asked.

“I wouldn’t rule it out.” It was about three times longer than the other boat, a pleasure yacht with styling that bragged its owner had disposable income. A nice, comfortable—and mobile—hideout.

The smaller boat came up along its side; a quick reverse thrust and it stopped right by a ladder already in place. Some ropes were thrown down to hold it in place for the transfer.

The first mate came up from inside with Susie. “Is Meg on that boat?” the little girl asked.

“Not yet,” the captain replied, “but she should be soon.”

She looked at the ladder, but did not move.

A harness on a rope was tossed down. “We’ll put this on you so you can’t fall.”

They really thought this through, Meg thought. She was already recording.

Susie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t resist either. Once the harness was on, she was led to the edge of the boat. Meg got higher, so she could see the deck of the larger boat. One man there was keeping tension on the rope, while another was at the edge, ready to assist Susie once she got to the top of the ladder.

As soon as she was on the ladder, the smaller boat pushed off and began its journey back to the marina. Susie was now committed. With the rope taking up most of her weight, she reached the top quickly.

Once she was onboard, Meg switched back to the timer. Another minute to go. Rainbow Dash was hovering beside her, eager to strike once the timer counted down to zero. The wait was agonizing as the harness was removed and Susie was taken inside the yacht.

Still fifteen seconds to go. There would be no trivial rescue. She switched back to the camera.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted, glaring at her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “We can’t go barging in there. We don’t know the layout of that boat or what defenses they’ve set up.”

Engines came to life, and the yacht began moving, deeper into the Pacific.

“So now what?” Dash asked, fuming.

Meg had no answer to that question. Neither did Twilight.

Rainbow Dash filled the void with her own answer. “We take that boat back with us to Equestria. Get the Royal Guard. Tear the boat apart if we have to.”

“It won’t fit in the throne room,” was all Twilight would say.

Dash rolled her eyes. “Even I can solve that! We go back, go behind the castle, come back here, then take it back with us.”

Twilight was not impressed. “When we arrived at the castle to begin this mission, was there a big yacht behind the castle?”

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, but then thought better of it. “You’d think time travel would be more useful,” she finally said.

“No kidding,” Meg said. They could’ve brought the yacht back to a different place, one that none of them would have seen in the past few hours, but she didn’t mention that. Would bringing it back to Equestria really have made it easier to get Susie out of there safely? It only would have made her captors more desperate. “Besides, that’s kinda how we got into this mess in the first place, and you don’t have the excuse of self-defense this time. The yacht stays here.”

Dash gritted her teeth in response. Twilight’s ears fell flat.

“Look,” Meg continued. “I don’t like being unable to do anything, but let’s be real. Susie is in no immediate danger. Our best options require that we return to the present first. We know where the yacht is now, which way it’s heading, and how fast it’s moving. There shouldn’t be too much of a problem finding it again.

“And you shouldn’t underestimate the power of the information we’ve collected. The owner of that yacht can be identified, not to mention the captain of that smaller boat or the woman who picked up Susie in the first place. It won’t take long.”

“And just how do we know where here is?” Dash asked, waving a hoof at the endless water.

Meg gave her a smile. “I just have to take a picture.” She flew closer to the boat, dipping below it’s deck, and snapped a picture of its stern, capturing its name, Atlantis.

“Really?” Dash said.

“Yes, really. Every picture is tagged with the GPS coordinates of where it was taken.”

“Uh…”

Twilight jumped in. “It’s the longitude and lat—never mind.”

“Well excuse me for not being an egghead.”

Twilight tried again. “Every picture is tagged with the location of where it was taken.”

“You could’ve said that in the first place. That includes the direction we’re facing?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Meg replied. “I’ll take another picture in a few minutes. The difference in… locations and the timestamps will give speed and direction.” She switched to the compass app. “But the phone does includes a compass, and they’re heading due west. They’re putting as much distance between themselves and land as they can.”

Twilight gave that some thought. “They still need to be able to return her quickly; I doubt they’re crossing the ocean. They’ll stop at some point and wait.”

“And drift with the currents.” Meg sighed. “We’ll have to do a search, but it’s not like we have to search the entire ocean. At least it’s a big boat that can be seen from high up.”

“I’ll get a contingent of pegasus Royal Guards to aid in the search.”

And once they’re found? “Twilight,” Meg began, “you need to be careful. We’re still in the territorial waters of the United States. You can’t just bring in your own army—air force. Whatever.” She thought about it. “Searching? I doubt that’ll be an issue. Once they’re found…?”

Twilight mulled it over. “How quickly can the forces of your government arrive?”

“The Coast Guard can arrive quickly enough; their boats should be faster than this. Helicopters are an option too, so long as they don’t get too far from land.” Meg looked down at the boat, praying that Susie would come outside. Then they could just grab her and return to Equestria. “I’m not saying your guards can’t do anything, but they must do it under the command of our forces. Keep in mind this will be a police action, not a war.”

Still no sign of Susie on deck.

“We’re invisible, right?” Dash said. “Would it really be so difficult to go inside and find her?”

“The passages are narrow,” Meg said.

“And we’re still quite solid,” Twilight added. “It’d be best if her captors were distracted by something outside, like this Coast Guard or helicopters.”

The yacht went further into the sea with every passing second. Twilight made her decision. “Have we gone far enough to take that second picture? We should return and set things in motion.”

Steve pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. “Decided what you’re going to tell them?”

“Not really,” Meg said, covering her eyes to hide from reality. She had been checking her phone for messages on the way over. The yacht had been located in the present and the Coast Guard were on the way. Would that be good enough for her brother?

It would have to be. She unbuckled her seat belt and got out. Once her husband had done likewise, the two went to the front door and rang the doorbell.

Eternity ticked away before the door was opened.

Matt did a double take. “Meg? This… this isn’t a good time—”

“Susie’s missing, we know.”

“You… know.”

Meg pushed the door open and walked past her brother. “I don’t know what you’ve been told—”

“Damn little. The school says an FBI agent pulled her out to put her in protective custody, and the FBI just gives me the run-around, neither confirming nor denying.” He gave her a good hard look. “Why would you know anything about this?”

Meg avoided his eyes and went to the living room. Lori was already there. Avoiding her eyes as well, she sat on a sofa. “They’re using Susie to blackmail me,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“The FBI?” Lori asked incredulously.

“No, not… we don’t really know yet, but we should have answers soon. Look, remember the break-in last weekend, where I work?”

“Sure,” Matt said.

“What wasn’t reported in the news was that Twilight was there at the time. They actually tried to kidnap her; since they had stolen all the magic generators, they thought she was helpless. She, uh, took matters into her own hooves and captured her would-be captors.”

Matt sat in a chair across from her. “Took matters into her own hooves,” he repeated. “And the connection to Susie is…?”

“They’re cooling their heels in Tartarus right now. Their compatriots want them released. They know I have influence with Equestrian royalty.”

“Tartarus,” Lori said, standing beside Matt. “That’s a thing.”

“Sure, why not,” her brother said, “more to the point, what will the ‘Equestrian royalty’ do about this?”

“Thanks to Twilight,” Meg said, placing some emphasis on the name, “we know where Susie is. She’s on a yacht about fifty miles off shore. Twilight’s keeping an eye on it as we speak until the Coast Guard arrives.”

“On a yacht,” he droned.

Meg shrugged. “If we couldn’t find her, we couldn’t rescue her. I guess they didn’t want to deal with a pissed-off alicorn.”

“Dare I ask how you know she’s on that yacht and that she’s okay?”

Dare she answer it? Steve sat down next to her.

“May I assume magic was involved?” Matt added, in response to the silence.

“Fine.” Meg got her phone out. “But don’t you dare breathe a word of this to anyone.” She navigated to the video of Susie being transferred to the yacht and threw the phone to Matt. “Play it.”

Matt did so. He and Lori watched it in silence. “They sent this?” he asked once the video had finished.

“No.” Meg didn’t volunteer anything else; it would open a can of worms.

Matt’s eyes searched for answers. “Whose drone took this then? How could they not notice its presence? It was right on top of them.”

The questions went unanswered.

Matt scrolled through the videos. The pit in Meg’s stomach grew.

After watching another one, Lori looked up at Meg. “Why didn’t you stop them, if you knew they would take her from school.”

“I didn’t know,” was all Meg could say.

“Excuse me?” Matt stood up and walked over. He threw the phone back at her. “Yet you were there to take this video.”

The phone showed the end of that first video, when the car was about to depart the school’s parking lot. “The past is immutable,” she muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He rubbed his forehead. “For once, could you dispense with the drips and drabs and just spit it out?”

She checked her phone for messages. Still nothing.

“I didn’t know they had her until they sent their demands to me.”

He glared at her.

“We used a time travel spell to find out where she’s being held so we could rescue her in the present.”

A slight widening of his eyes was the only response.

“I’ve been assisting Twilight with that spell,” Steve said, “merging our understanding of physics with the magical insights of Star Swirl the Bearded.”

Matt threw up his hands. “Just when you think it can’t get any more absurd.”

“You got the license plate of the car, and that agent on camera,” Lori said. “We can find out who she is, right?”

“The White House is in possession of those videos,” Meg offered without further explanation. “It’s being given top priority.”

“The White House?!”

“Yes, Matt, the White House. An attempt was made on a foreign sovereign on U.S. soil, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Matt wandered back to his wife. “How did it all go from a cartoon to… this.”

“I never expected—”

He spun around. “And what comes next, Meg? Say we get Susie back safe and sound. How long before something like this happens again?”

Meg had no answer.

“A boat approaches, Your Highness.”

Twilight trotted over to the other side of the cloud platform the Royal Guards had set up. Sure enough, a boat was making a determined beeline towards their position. It was still too far away to make out Rainbow Dash.

Twilight turned around to address the three guards remaining, out of the dozen who had participated in the search for the yacht right below them. “Things are about to get interesting,” she began. “Remember that we are not in Equestria. This is a matter of human law enforcement; we are not fighting a war.”

“Understood, Your Highness.” Swift Wing spoke for them all.

Twilight returned to her original position and resumed watching the yacht. “For now, we wait until their Coast Guard gets their attention.” It wouldn’t be long now, only a few more minutes.

The yacht suddenly fired up its engines and took off, heading deeper into the sea. How was that possible? No one was outside scanning the horizon, and she could see the approaching boat only because of her elevated position. Must be more of their all-but-magical technology, she concluded.

Those mysteries could be solved later. “Lightning Strike, go tell them the target is on the move.” They probably had that same technology, but it couldn’t hurt to inform them.

The stallion gave a quick bow and shot off towards the boat.

She addressed the remaining two guards. “We’re following that yacht.”

They departed the platform, leaving the clouds comprising it to their fate. All three were visible, their magic supplied by generators; they maintained altitude to keep out of sight. Twilight bore the largest generator constructed so far. The magical reach it granted would not be found wanting.

Twilight looked back. The Coast Guard boat had gone full throttle. It would have no problem catching up.

A rainbow blur came out of nowhere and became Rainbow Dash by her side. “I did not tell Lightning Strike to stay with the humans,” Twilight said with raised eyebrow.

“I’m much faster,” Dash said, brushing that aside. “Their captain asks that you stop that yacht—if you can do so without causing any damage or injury. It’ll save them the trouble of threatening them with weapons or something.”

“Right. Not very credible with a child on board.” She could offer to teleport some officers onto the yacht, but that might not end well either. She needed to make it look so hopeless that they’d give up without a fight.

She studied the yacht below her. It was large, but mostly empty space inside. It had to be, for it displaced an amount of water equal to its weight. It should be lighter than a ursa minor. Piece of cake, if she had unrestricted access to magic. After quickly running some calculations in her head, she decided her magic generator had sufficient power.

“Stay back,” she said. “They may have weapons.”

Twilight began her descent, raising a shield almost immediately. She made no effort at concealment. Let them shoot. Let them see how useless that was.

By the time she reached sea level, the Coast Guard ship had caught up, its sirens blaring. It stayed back, though, no doubt waiting to see if she could stop that yacht.

She positioned herself slightly above the center of the yacht; her magical reach ought to be good enough, but the closer to its center of gravity, the better. She grabbed the entire yacht with her telekinesis and gradually—gradually—applied lifting force, giving her magic generator time to adjust to the increasing load.

The yacht slowly lifted out of the water. Once it was clear, she proceeded to counter its forward momentum. The pursuing ship slowed to match.

One of the captors came outside, spotted her, and fired a gun. The bullet hit her shield, stopped, and fell. The additional magical load was minor compared to lifting and stopping the yacht. Twilight ignored him as he fired a few more shots, the flattened bullets clinking as they hit the yacht.

The cutter pulled alongside the yacht. An amplified voice rang out. “Put down the gun. Prepare to be boarded.” Several officers were pointing guns of their own at the would-be assassin. Lightning Strike was standing on the ship’s bow, observing with professional interest.

The yacht’s engine had already shut off. It wasn’t going anywhere. Twilight slowly lowered it back into the water.

Freed of that burden, she flew over to confront her attacker face-to-face. “I think I may request your extradition to Equestria.” A grim smile. “Attacking a princess is a serious crime there, in case you were wondering.” She drifted in closer. “I strongly suggest that you fully cooperate with the authorities here.”

He nodded vigorously.

“Twilight! Send him to me.”

“Nor is it taken lightly here,” the alicorn said as she turned back to the aggressor. “For now, you can enjoy the company of the Secret Service.” Enveloped in her magic, he lifted off the yacht, thrashing about at the novel experience, and drifted over to Agent Fowler, who stood on the stern of the Coast Guard cutter. She handcuffed him.

“Send over his gun, too,” Fowler added. “It’s on the deck.”

Twilight look down and saw it. Seconds later, it floated over to the agent and into a plastic bag she was holding open.

That done, she turned around and looked through the window into the bridge. The older man who had welcomed Susie aboard was apparently the captain. A woman of similar age stood next to him. They were frozen in place, having seen everything. “Bring Susie to me now,” she commanded. “Don’t make me search for her.”

The woman managed to unfreeze herself and stumble her way off the bridge.

There was a knock on a door. One of the human guards had made his way across the narrow path along the side of the yacht. The captain tore his eyes away from Twilight and walked to the door. He opened it. “I-I didn’t sign up for this,” he sputtered, pointing at the alicorn.

Her ears had gone deaf to additional words, for the woman had returned and Susie was right behind her. Twilight teleported inside, reappearing right in front of them.

The woman shrieked in shock. “You can actually do that?!”

Susie wrapped Twilight in a big hug. “Of course she can!” she declared. “Magic is her special talent. Everyone knows that.” She let go to look into the alicorn’s eyes. “Is Meg with you?”

“No, Susie, she’s with your parents, who are very worried about you.”

The little girl was confused. “They don’t know?”

Twilight had no idea what to tell her, what she should tell her. “They can explain once you’re home.” She put on a big smile. “But first, Pinkie Pie would like to throw you a party. Ready to go to my castle?”

Susie couldn’t nod fast enough.

Meg put her phone down on the coffee table. “You’re on speaker phone,” she told Twilight. Steve, Matt, and Lori gathered around it.

“First of all, Susie is fine. They gave her up quickly once they realized, uh, who they were dealing with.”

“And who are ‘they?’” Matt demanded.

“I didn’t stick around. I returned with Susie to my castle as soon as possible. I’m sure Agent Fowler will be able to fill you in on that.”

“Agent Fowler?”

“Secret Service,” Meg said.

Her brother looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Do I want to know?”

“We can discuss that later,” Lori said. “Where’s Susie now?”

“Pinkie Pie’s throwing her a you’ve-just-been-rescued-without-even-knowing-you-needed-rescuing party. I can come fetch you now, if you’d like.”

Matt looked at his wife, who nodded in return. “Please do that,” he said.

“I’ll be there shortly,” Twilight replied before ending the call.

He gave Meg that look again. “Have you met the President? You took that White House tour a year ago. Did you convince him ponies were real?”

“The public tour almost never gets to see the President in person.”

“You’re doing it again, Meg.”

“No. I didn’t see him on that tour, but I didn’t have to. Serrell’s the one who got us the tickets.”

“Drips and drabs,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He fixed his gaze on her once more. “So you met him previously?”

Reluctantly, she answered, “Yes.”

He sighed. “Feel free to use more than one word.”

“The circumstances of that meeting are classified.”

“Classified,” Lori repeated. “You’re not joking.”

“It’s no joke,” Twilight said, her arrival having gone unnoticed. “It’s classified in Equestria as well.”

Matt ran his hands over his head. “And now our daughter has been dragged into this.”

Meg didn’t know what to say. The worst part was, she couldn’t honestly say it wouldn’t happen again. They’d probably try something different, something that hadn’t already failed to work, but she couldn’t know that.

“Maybe protective custody is the right idea, until this blows over,” Lori volunteered. “We just need the right custodian.”

She was looking at Twilight.

“That’s not funny,” Matt said.

“Good. I wasn’t joking. They can’t get to her there, you can’t deny that. The school already thinks she’s been placed in protective custody.”

Matt tried to find a flaw with that, but after a few failed attempts he gave up. “Hypothetically,” he finally said to Twilight, “can you do that?”

“Hypothetically, yes. There would be the complication that she’d be the only human in Ponyville. It doesn’t help that I promised a few ponies that there wouldn’t be any humans allowed in town until certain, uh, issues were solved.”

“Then turn her into a pony,” Lori said. “Problem solved.”

“No!”

“Look at them!” she shouted, pointing at her in-laws. “They’ve been part-time ponies for a year now. Doesn’t seem to have done them any harm.”

“Lori, stop.”

All eyes were on Meg, some in disbelief.

“It’s not something to be done lightly. Becoming a magical pony has consequences… consequences like destinies and cutie marks.”

“And look how well that’s working out for you, Meg,” her brother said. “No ponification. That’s final.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen next—”

“And I forbid the use of time travel to find out,” Twilight said.

“Uh, right, it’s not as helpful as you might think, trust me. Anyway…” Meg took a deep breath. “This isn’t about Susie. They have nothing against her. Taking her was an epic fail for them, so if they do try something else, it’ll be that: something else.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Twilight said. “I’m still willing to let her remain in Equestria for a short while, until the dust settles. I’m sure Applejack would be happy to let her stay with them, and it’ll keep her out of the town. Susie can spend time with Apple Bloom and her friends.”

“She might be safer with those kidnappers,” Matt muttered. “Fine. Let’s keep that option open.”

“Are we done here?” Lori asked. “I’m curious to see what a you’ve-just-been-rescued-without-even-knowing-you-needed-rescuing party looks like.”

12. The Gates of Tartarus

It was almost time to leave. Meg made one last check of her computer. To her total lack of surprise, the program to crack that mysterious message was still running. It hadn’t yet found the encryption key.

It seemed so long ago that she had gotten that message at the Ed Sullivan Theater. As hard as it was to believe, with everything that’s happened, only a little over a week had passed since that day.

Out of desperation, she had resorted to doing a brute force dictionary search, including the usual “clever” misspellings, combined with various personal information. It was going to take a long time to exhaust all the possibilities.

Too long.

And if the key was a random string of bits, like it should be…

Maybe in a century or two a magical quantum computer could crack it effortlessly. All she had to do was to convince Twilight to crack the encryption once it was possible, in that hypothetical distant future, then travel back in time to give her the decrypted message. It could be left on the bookshelf, under the infamous Pinkie Pie doll.

Well, why not? Meg reached up and lifted the doll with one hand and felt around for the message with the other.

Nothing.

She slammed the doll back down, its adorable smile unperturbed. There were any number of possible explanations, ranging from the impossibility of magical quantum computers to Twilight refusing to do it. Whatever. Why was irrelevant; it hadn’t happened, so it won’t happen. There was no point in bringing it up with the alicorn.

She checked the time on her phone. It was close enough. She put the phone in her purse and left.

Meg hadn’t been sure who’d be at the meeting. Andrew, obviously, since it was being held in his home. Joe, his second-in-command was there too. Only one other was present, Elaine the head of PR and Marketing. They were three of the four that Twilight had brought to her castle.

Barely had she sat on a sofa around a coffee table that Andrew got down to business. “Any feedback on our auction items?” he asked.

Nope, it wasn’t going to go smoothly. She put on a weak smile. “Things… have been happening, and there hasn’t been a chance to look into that yet.”

“You mean that break-in at the D.o.E., where you work?”

Meg looked at Elaine, shocked by her question. “I never mentioned where I worked.”

“My brother, Eric Tanner, works there too. You know him, don’t you?”

He’s your brother? That was news to her. And it was obvious from her tone that she was really asking something else, and the answer to that question was Tartarus. “He never mentioned he was a brony, or that his sister helped run a convention,” Meg carefully said.

“Oh, he’s no brony,” Elaine said. “I was surprised he had taken that job, once I found out what it was about. But…” Words failed her for a moment. “I haven’t been able to reach him since that break-in. It’s like he vanished. Maybe something happened to him…?”

Meg stalled for time. “Did you talk to the police or the FBI?”

“I did. Neither had anything to tell me.”

Of course not. All anyone would say publicly was that an investigation was ongoing, without a word about the captured perpetrators. The news channels had already moved on from the actual crime and onto the work that was being done there, the application of magic here on Earth—work that had until recently been classified, then not publicized, and now front page news. Neither Meg nor her co-workers had talked to reporters, and not from a lack of trying on their part.

She wasn’t in a position to tell her anything about her brother either. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Elaine said, lifting her hands to her face. She lowered them a few seconds later. “Didn’t mean to hijack the meeting.”

She hadn’t challenged her claim to have been elsewhere when it had happened. Meg would pass that bit of information along, for what good it would do; whatever her brother had got himself involved with, Elaine didn’t seem to be a part of it. “It’s okay,” Meg told her. “It’s not irrelevant to this meeting, unfortunately.”

“Could someone clue us in?” Joe asked.

Meg turned to him. “You haven’t been paying attention to the news, have you?”

A light shrug was her answer.

“We were doing research into how magic can be used to solve problems here on Earth. Our offices were ransacked. I can’t go into details, but this very much concerns the Equestrians. Which means it concerns President Serrell.” She then turned to Andrew. “Trust me, this all concerns the subject of this meeting.”

“Auctioning off Pinkie’s cupcakes?” he asked with raised eyebrow.

“And if protesters show up condemning the ‘special ingredient’ of her cupcakes?”

He looked askance at that. “Really?”

“During Twilight’s talk show circuit debut, the nutcases were outside protesting the coming Conversion Bureaus. Are we prepared to deal with crap like that?”

His mouth worked soundlessly.

“Will the convention center want to deal with it? The local authorities?”

Andrew found his voice. “We haven’t had any pushback… yet. But depending on how this plays out, perhaps it would be wise to prepare for that possibility.” He bore an overly eager smile. “If lemons are in the forecast, best be prepared to make lemonade.”

Meg wasn’t sure if he was being too optimistic—or she was being too pessimistic. It was hard to be otherwise when your relatives were being dragged into it.

“So, for now, let’s assume the show will go on.” He addressed Meg. “Any update on the Daring Do book signing tour? Like, uh, who will show up to do the actual signing?”

The actual question being asked was rather hard to miss. “I haven’t heard anything.” It was true; technically, she didn’t know which alter ego would show up. “But I can’t imagine recent events are helping.”

“Just come out and say it,” Joe said.

Meg put on an enigmatic smile. At least it was better than talking about break-ins or kidnappings. “I have met the author of the Daring Do books.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Obviously that must be the real Daring Do, or there wouldn’t be a need for all the mystery.”

Meg was prepared for that. “Not necessarily,” she said. “A. K. could put on a Daring Do costume as a marketing gimmick.” It wasn’t a half-bad idea, actually, now that she’d said it. Make the “costume” a bit less than convincing, and “act” like Daring instead of “being” Daring. Perhaps she ought to suggest it to her.

If the book signing tour happened at all.

“You’re serious,” Elaine said to the two Secret Service agents in the room.

Twilight answered for them. “You can blame this on me, if it makes you feel better.”

She thought it over, and assented with a nod.

Meg handed her the tablet. Pinkie Pie’s stern visage stared from its screen.

Elaine gulped. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Your Pinkie Promise has been duly notarized.” The party pony instantly brightened. “Gotta go! I’ve got a superific birthday party to plan for Dinky!”

Pinkie pronked away from the camera. Spike took her place and with a roll of his eyes closed the connection. Elaine handed the tablet back to Meg then turned back to the agents. “Where’s he being held?”

Agent Fowler pointed at Twilight.

Elaine turned towards the pony.

“He’s being held in Tartarus, along with his four co-conspirators. I can take you there right now.”

“What?!”

Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry, but you need to understand,” she began. “The office was being ransacked when we arrived—me, Sunset Shimmer, and Moondancer. When I confronted them, they pointed a gun at me and tried to take me prisoner, believing I had no magic. They were wrong, unfortunately for them.”

“Eric doesn’t even have a gun!”

“He was elsewhere in the building,” Twilight admitted. “I brought them all back to Equestria. I threatened them with sentencing them for their crime against an Equestrian sovereign, hoping they would cooperate with the agents here in exchange for being returned.”

“They wouldn’t budge, including Eric,” Agent Reubens said. “I was authorized to let them cool their heels in Tartarus. If you could get your brother to cooperate, he can come back with us. He won’t go free, right now, but we’ll be more than happy to cut a deal with him.”

Elaine violently shook her head. “No! This is crazy. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“He was an active participant in the looting,” Twilight softly told her. “He was the inside man.”

“There’s more,” Meg said. “They are adamant that they kidnapped me from my office. It’s an idiotic lie, as I was in Las Pegasus at the time—”

“I saw her off at the Ponyville train station myself,” Twilight said. “But they did have her key card, somehow, and used it to access a restricted room, a room your brother did not have access to.”

“I can only assume Eric somehow stole it from me before I went home on Friday.”

“No. Please, enough.”

Silence reigned as Elaine processed it all.

“Just… just take me to him.”

The Gates of Tartarus loomed before them, embedded high on the side of a mountain cliff. However much Twilight wished she could have used her portal spell, it only granted passage in one direction: inside. To leave, they’d have to pass through these gates anyway. The Zephyr would remain here, docked against the wide, level protrusion in front of the gates, waiting for their return.

“To be honest,” Agent Reubens said, contemplating the widely spaced bars comprising the oversized gates, “it doesn’t look all that escape-proof.”

Nor were there any guards present. There did not appear to be any way to open the gates, but that hardly mattered. A pair of elephants, side by side, could have passed between those bars.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Twilight trotted up to and through a pair of thick bars—easy enough to do in their inactive state, as they currently were. But Star Swirl the Bearded had designed the metal and crystal composite used to upgrade the gates many centuries ago. They would be quite impassable when the need called for it.

If somepony realized that the need called for it, as the Tirek incident had reminded everypony. How Cerberus had left his post, never mind how he wound up in Ponyville hundreds of miles away, was still unknown.

Twilight stopped and turned around. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Meg landed in front of the gates and walked through; Twilight had warned her about flying through them. Next, Reubens walked through like he was taking a stroll through a park. Fowler was looking up, taking in the entirety of the structure. “Isn’t Tartarus supposed to be deep inside Hades?” she asked.

Meg was having none of that. “Just go with it,” she said. “We already know that Greek mythology is wrong about many things.”

But it’s right about so many others, Twilight thought. How that could be was still an unsolved mystery.

“I suppose it’s just as well,” Fowler said, her gaze drifting down to the ponies on the other side of the bars. “The entrance to Hades is supposed to be guarded by hydras.”

“H-Hydras?” Elaine stuttered.

Twilight took a few calm steps back to the entrance. “Don’t worry. The nearest hydras are in Froggy Bottom Bogg, hundreds of miles from here.”

Fowler put a hand on Elaine’s shoulder. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can leave.”

She shivered in the warm sun. “Right,” she said, trying to convince herself. “Have faith in the alicorn princess.” She took hesitant steps forward, Fowler remaining by her side. “Why couldn’t this remain a cartoon,” she muttered.

Twilight’s equine ears had no problem hearing that. She, herself, had begun to wonder if contact with the human realm was worth the trouble. It would be so easy to have Discord dispose of those plaid pills, and for her to forget that their realm had ever existed. She glanced at the pegasus behind her. No reason they couldn’t be offered a choice—if it should come to that.

Elaine and Agent Fowler continued walking until they joined the others, on the other side of the gates. “So now what?” the agent asked.

They were in an enormous cavern, seemingly natural. At the far end, not all that far away, was a gigantic opening in the floor. Twilight began walking towards it. “Follow me.”

They did. The ground gently curved into the hole. As they got closer, the entire cavern seemed to rotate, always keeping “down” perpendicular to the ground. That did not go unnoticed by the others. “I assume there’s a logical explanation for this,” Fowler said, looking around in bewilderment. “And please just don’t say it’s ‘magic.’”

“Tartarus is a realm of its own, joined to our own realm at the Gates,” Twilight explained. “It’s what makes escape impossible—almost impossible—that and the fact that magic is very weak here.”

Which was why she had warned Meg not to fly through those bars. Flight wasn’t impossible, but it was difficult enough that it might as well be.

The throat at the back of the cavern was the opening of a tunnel comfortably wide enough for an ursa minor. They continued walking along the curved path. Long after the daylight from the other realm had faded to nothing, the interior remained evenly illuminated by means unknown, illumination that casted no shadows upon the solid rock around them.

“I’m pretty sure we should have returned to our starting point by now,” Meg said, her pegasus sense of direction telling her they’ve made a full circle. The tunnel’s curvature had been unvarying, the downhill gradient in front of them always getting steeper. Yet somehow the ground remained level as they “descended.” It was as if the tunnel was rotating in the opposite direction as fast as they walked.

As an alicorn, Twilight shared that sense; she also understood why this time it had failed. “The two realms are next to each other in hyperspace. This tunnel is displacing us through extra dimensions. We’re about halfway through.”

They hadn’t gone a dozen steps before the next question came. “How does gravity work in this tunnel?” Elaine asked.

Twilight searched for an answer. “I don’t know,” she said, having come up with nothing. “The illumination’s a mystery too. There’s much we don’t understand about this realm. It just… exists.”

They continued on in silence, the illumination becoming more reddish-orange the further they went. A minute later, the view opened up to a subterranean world—not that “subterranean” was technically correct, there being no surface world to be under.

A gigantic, three-headed bulldog came charging at them. All except Twilight stepped back from the oncoming onslaught. Cerberus halted in front of the alicorn and his middle head proceeded to slather her in saliva. The other two heads glared warily at the others.

“I missed you too,” she struggled to say. Cerberus had a big tongue. With her magic she kept his affection at hoof’s length. “They are with me,” she declared, wings flared in royal display. “You are to grant them passage both in and out.”

The other heads relaxed. Cerberus turned around started walking back to his cot near the guard station, his tail wagging.

“Isn’t he supposed to have a serpent’s tail?” Fowler asked.

Why she kept insisting on the inerrancy of that mythology was beyond Twilight’s understanding. It had been proven erroneous enough times, after all. “No, he’s supposed to have a dog’s tail,” she replied. “Please don’t bother the minotaur guards with questions like these.”

They came to the end of the tunnel and entered the large cavern. Numerous passages lined the walls, each as wide as the tunnel they had just traversed. Even from where they stood, it was obvious that some of those passages went up and others went down.

In the middle of the cave was the guard station, and a short distance away Cerberus was lying on his enormous cot. An armored minotaur was already coming their way. Twilight went forward to meet him. Once they reached each other, the guard bowed. “Your Highness,” he said, ignoring the humans and pegasus behind her.

“We shall be visiting the human prisoners,” Twilight said. “I already know the way.”

The minotaur bowed once more. “Understood.”

Twilight led them to one of the downward-sloping passages, which led to the region of Tartarus in which Tirek was imprisoned.

As they walked across to the passage, two of Cerberus’ heads idly watched them walk by; the third head was snoozing. One head usually was asleep. They took turns. It was how he guarded around the clock.

The passage threaded its way through the solid rock, going ever deeper—not that it felt that way. As before, “down” was perpendicular to the ground. This tunnel, however, was as straight as an arrow. Every now and then, other passages branched off of it.

Twilight took one of them, a passage that “descended” even faster. “Only a few minutes more,” she told the others. No other passages branched off of this one. They reached a bend, and on the other side of it was yet another cavern. Most of the ground within was occupied by buildings, each seemingly carved from a single block of rock. High above them, additional buildings covered the ceiling. Scattered throughout the interior were wide pillars connecting the top and bottom. The opposite end of the cavern was difficult to see, it was so far away.

A guard station was next to the opening. One of the minotaur guards came to meet them.

Twilight repeated her earlier statement. “We shall be visiting the human prisoners,” Twilight said. “I already know the way.”

The guard bowed. “Understood.” He returned to his station.

The alicorn set out into the interior on a path leading straight to the nearest pillar. “Not much farther,” she assured them.

The pillar was rectangular in shape, far wider than it was thick, looking like a humongous I-beam, thicker at the very ends. At its base, it spread out to form a curved ramp that met the road. Twilight didn’t slow down as she reached it.

The others stopped. “Are you crazy?!” Elaine gasped.

Twilight kept on walking. “Nope.” The cavern rotated around her as the ever shifting gravity created the illusion of level ground. She didn’t stop until she was standing on the pillar. There she waited, looking up—for the others were now the ones standing on a vertical plane.

Meg moved first, holding out her wings just in case. She looked around her as she climbed the ramp. “It’s just like that first tunnel,” she said, folding back her wings. She trotted the remainder of the way to join up with Twilight.

“Our turn now,” Reubens said as he started walking. The other two followed suit.

Once they had all regrouped, they walked across the pillar to what had been the ceiling but had become the floor. “The building on the right, after this one,” Twilight said.

Fowler looked up at the former floor. “Any chance we can get some of our scientists in here to study the wonky gravity?” She looked back at the alicorn. “If it wouldn’t be disruptive to running a prison, naturally.”

It was an intriguing proposition. Being a different realm, the physics could well be different. She’d assumed the “wonky” gravity was due to spells, but magic was different here too. “Not all caverns hold prisoners,” she said. “After all, the minotaurs have to live somewhere. I’m sure something could be arranged.”

“I’m sure Steve would want to get involved with that,” Meg said. “His special talent would be quite useful.”

Indeed it would. It was a reminder that there were, in fact, reasons to keep open relations with the human realm.

They reached their destination. The door was open; immediately inside was another guard station. Only two guards were present.

One of the minotaurs stood up and bowed. “Your Highness, what can we do for you?”

“We're here to speak with the human prisoners.”

“Who are the members of your party?” the seated minotaur asked. Their names would be written down in a logbook.

“These two are Agents Fowler and Reubens, representing the prisoners’ country of origin. This is Elaine, sister of one of the prisoners, and this is Meg, a Royal Advisor to the Equestrian Court.”

That raised a few human eyebrows, to Meg’s chagrin. I’ll deal with that later. Once the names were all recorded, the standing guard unlocked and opened a door comprised of thick metal bars. He held it open as Twilight and the others walked through. The door closed behind them with a thick metallic thud and relocked with a sharp clank.

A deep and carrying voice drifted from far down the corridor. “Is that Princess Twilight Sparkle I hear?” In a mocking voice, he continued. “Am I to receive a precious friendship lesson?”

Fowler pointed down the corridor and in a whisper asked, “Tirek?”

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed in an equally hushed voice. “Ignore him for now.” She had a sonic barrier spell ready in the likely event he wouldn’t shut up.

The corridor went to the far end of the building. At regular intervals, it intersected other corridors. Twilight led them to the second intersection and turned left. It ended in a wall a short distance away. One door was present along the wall, both constructed of metal bars. There Twilight finally stopped.

“Where’s my friendship lesson!”

Perhaps it had been a mistake to put them in the same building as Tirek. Using far more exertion than would ordinarily have been needed, Twilight put up a sonic barrier just before the intersection. Blessed silence was her reward.

Eric Tanner had noticed her arrival. “Tirek really did hear you this time, I guess.” He slid off the cot and got to his feet.

“I have some people who wish to talk to you, Eric.”

He approached the bars. “Who did you bring this time? The CIA?” He turned away. “Still have nothing to say.”

The Secret Service agents stepped into view. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s just us again,” Reubens said. “But we did bring someone else.” He waved Elaine over and stepped back.

Eric turned his head and froze.

His sister looked around the cell. “Doesn’t look so bad, really. I was sorta expecting a cage… you know… like the one—” she glanced over her shoulder “—he was in after Twilight defeated him.”

He swept his arms around his cell. “This is reality, not some damn cartoon.” His eyes locked on to the alicorn. “They’re not warm, fuzzy, innocent creatures with nothing but the best of intentions for us.”

“What have I done to deserve this enmity,” Twilight asked, genuinely curious.

His arms fell to his sides. “It’s about what you could do, what you will do. First, you somehow get that cartoon made, to lull everyone into a false sense of security.” He glanced at his sister. “Some drank it up all too eagerly. Now that your propaganda has laid the foundation, you’re here to begin your conquest.” He looked up at the agents. “Your boss is guilty of treason against the human race.”

Meg stepped into view. “So the ends justify any means? Your ‘friends’ kidnapped my niece to blackmail me into getting you out of here.”

Elaine gasped. “They did?”

His eyes went wide, but only for a second. He looked down at the pegasus in disgust. “So it’s true. You literally have become one of them.”

“How about you answer the question,” Elaine demanded.

He looked away. “I guess they’re willing to do what needs to be done to save humanity.”

Elaine grabbed the bars. “You guess? Will you listen to yourself? You think ponies are bad? What about your associates? How did you even get mixed up with that crowd?”

Eric sat down on his cot. “Why are you all here? To make an exchange, us for the girl?”

“Nope,” Fowler said. “Thanks to Twilight, she’s already been rescued. Everyone involved in that kidnapping has been identified.”

“I’m not sure I believe you. What’s the point of coming here then?”

“If you’ll just cooperate,” Elaine shouted, “you can come back with us, to Earth!”

“We’re willing to offer you an immunity deal,” Reubens said.

Eric laid down, taking his time to answer. “A jail is a jail. I have to admit, this isn’t what I expected from Tartarus. It’s not so bad, for a jail. Even that Tirek fellow isn’t so bad, once you learn to tune him out.”

So much for imprisoning them next to Tirek. The Tartarus and Tirek cards had been played, and the round lost.

Meg walked away. “I’ve heard enough,” she said just loudly enough for Twilight to hear. She went through the sonic barrier and around the corner.

In that direction was Tirek’s cell. Twilight was tempted to join her. It was conceivable the humans had mentioned things in the centaur’s presence, though admittedly it was a long shot that Tirek would share such tidbits with them. But first she had one last angle to play. “They can’t hear you—your co-conspirators that is. I’ve put up a sonic barrier.”

Meg walked towards the mocking voice, her hoof steps only egging him on.

“I can’t wait for my friendship lesson!”

She had no idea what she’d do once she reached Tirek’s prison. There was nothing she cared to say to him, and it was rather unlikely he had anything to say that she would care to hear. It was out of curiosity, mostly, that she wanted to see the vanquished archvillain—that and to be anywhere other than that… traitor?

Traitor to what? His workplace? To the United States? To the Earth? No, in their eyes they were trying to save it all from the pony apocalypse. Anything to accomplish that was justified. Wasn’t it a common sci-fi trope to go back in time to kill Hitler as an innocent baby in order to prevent the atrocities he’d commit as an adult? That time travel didn’t work that way was beside the point; it was the principle that mattered.

“Hurry up! The anticipation is killing me!”

How could they be convinced the ponies were no threat? That the cartoon was not some sinister propaganda created by the Equestrians?

But how did she know it wasn’t? That the ponies hadn’t been feeding her a pack of lies, using her as a pawn in their plans? Even if Twilight was too naive to pull that off, Celestia certainly could. Was that the real reason she was so quick to make her a Royal Advisor?

It still made no sense. They couldn’t colonize a world that lacked magic. Nuclear magic generators were far from sufficient, both in terms of the amount of magic they could produce and of the types of magic permissible in the human universe.

“I can’t wait to be reformed, like my old friend Discord, so that I too can go free!”

Meg reached the end of the corridor. Following the voice, she turned right. And there he was; beyond the bars stood Tirek. He was tall, even by human standards, and well-muscled, but he was little threat to anyone behind those bars—assuming his magic-stealing ability had been neutralized. It had to have been, by the realm of Tartarus itself if nothing else; that’s what made it a good prison.

For a change, he looked more like how a mythological centaur ought to look. The upper torso and head were completely human. No horns, not even stubs, projected from his head. He looked southern Mediterranean, with olive skin, his face lacking any bovine or equine features. However the cartoon depicted him in his defeat, in the flesh he looked quite young and healthy.

Tirek got one good look at her and started laughing his head off.

“I fail to see the joke.”

He pointed a finger at her, still laughing. “You’re not Twilight.”

“And that’s supposed to be funny?”

His laughter finally subsided. “It has been a long time, Common Ground.”

13. A Perfectly Chaotic Explanation

This couldn’t be happening. Only once had Meg heard that name, when Twilight had come up with it on the fly in a futile attempt to keep her true identity a secret from Special Agent Holmes.

And now Tirek had just addressed her by it.

Meg was fairly certain he had been nowhere near that Nevada desert. It seemed equally absurd that Twilight had ever mentioned that name to him while showing him a picture of her pegasus self.

She looked up, straight into the centaur’s eyes. “I think you have me confused with somepony else.”

Tirek shifted to the side and examined her flank. “I think not,” he calmly said. “You have quite the distinctive cutie mark.” He rubbed his chin with a hand. “Though I never would have expected you to be in the company of a princess.”

And what the hell was that supposed to mean?

None of it made any sense. There was no way they could have met—

Oh shit.

No, she hadn’t encountered Tirek in his past—yet. The pit in her stomach grew as the inescapable conclusion sunk in.

Misinterpreting her discomfort, the centaur provided his own explanation. “Of course, I understand,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You did what you had to do to see me again, even if it meant burrowing in to the good graces of those princesses.”

What the heck had she—would she—tell him in the past? “You have no idea.”

“Perhaps it no longer matters.” He turned around and walked to the back of his cell. “My goals have changed, now that I’ve met those humans.”

Nope, nothing ominous about that. “How so?” she asked, digging for information. And why not? What could he do? And whatever it was she had done in his past—will have done in her future—he seemed to… not distrust her as a result.

“For centuries I’ve wasted away here. Even when allowed to stretch my legs… out there… there is no sunlight, no moonlight, no sky. Even something as simple as filling my lungs with air…” He gave her a surprisingly warm smile. “I shall forever be in your debt for breaking me out of this prison—”

What?!

He turned around. “Sunset Shimmer is not with you.”

Can it get any worse?

“No escaping Tartarus today, it appears,” he said, looking at her for confirmation.

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it together. “I… I’m here with the princess, after all.”

He waved it off. “Yes, yes, of course.” He walked over to a mirror and stared at his reflection. “I was so blinded by my arrogance, by my thirst to avenge my endless imprisonment at Celestia’s hooves, I even betrayed Discord and stole his magic—or so I thought.”

“You thought?”

“Discord is not a pony,” he said. “He is his magic. He cannot be separated from it.” His head lowered. “He played me for a fool.”

Meg could only wonder if Twilight would feel the same. Hadn’t they been evenly matched in battle only because he stole—was lent—Discord’s magic? Lent just enough to make it even?

On the other hoof, Twilight was probably quite used to that feeling by now.

“So you see,” he continued, “even if, once more, you broke me out of here, what’s the point? With Discord on the side of the princesses and those accursed Element Bearers…” He let out a weary sigh. “There is nothing more for me here. I want only to return home, to my own world.” He walked back to her. “After so many millennia, it may finally be within my grasp.”

If that was his new goal… “Because you met those humans? How does that help?”

“Because for the first time in countless millennia, a portal exists!” He clenched a fist. “And it’s under the control of those alicorns.” He shot her a pleading look. “If you have any influence with them—”

Clopping sounds interrupted him. Meg’s ears focused on the source. It wasn’t only hooves that were approaching.

Now what?

There was much to discuss with Twilight, but not in the presence of her fellow humans—especially when two of them had the ears of the President. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to tell Twilight. What was she supposed to say? Remember when Tirek almost conquered Equestria? Guess who deliberately set him free.

And yet there was no way to travel years into the past without her assistance. And she had to talk Sunset Shimmer into helping her commit the prison break of the millennium—and speaking of which, how the hell were they supposed to pull that off?!

The approaching footsteps, humans and equine, got louder. It would have to wait—and besides, for all she knew it’d be months, even years, before she went back to break him out.

“You don’t know me,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Obviously.”

No further words were uttered. Meg looked to her side as the others arrived, with Twilight coming around the corner first. The alicorn didn’t look particularly eager to be there. Meg could only assume the others had wanted to see the infamous Lord Tirek. She backed up a bit to make room in front of the bars.

Whatever Tirek was going to say to Twilight was abandoned when he caught sight of those who accompanied her. “Humans who are not prisoners?” he asked, studying the agents with intense curiosity. Elaine had stayed back, just out of his sight.

Reubens and Fowler stood there impassively, not reacting to the centaur’s stare. A shadow of his former self he might have been, he was still considerably larger than an adult human.

“These two,” Twilight coldly informed him, “represent the government of the country to which those other humans belong.”

“Intriguing.” His lips curled up ever so slightly. “You seek an audience with me?”

Meg rolled her eyes. Whatever it was Lord Tirek wanted, he’d have better luck getting it if he dropped the entitled sovereign crap.

“We have no business with you,” Reubens said. “We’re here out of curiosity only.”

“You shall have it anyway,” he declared. “Do you have authority to negotiate a deal?”

If that caught Reubens off guard, he hid it well. “No.”

“Do you have the ears of those who do?”

Twilight snorted. “What game are you playing, Tirek? You are in no position to negotiate anything.”

He gave her the smile of a shark. “Are not games harmless, Your Highness? What is there to fear?”

“I don’t—I’m the one who put you in here, in case you’ve forgotten!”

“Indeed,” he said irritably enough. “And before you it was Celestia.”

“We’re in no rush to go anywhere,” Reubens said, “so I’ll play your game. Let’s say, in this game, that I do have the ears of those with the authority to negotiate. What do you want?”

Tirek straightened up, his soul inflating with true hope for the first time in ages. “I wish to return to Minoa, the land of my birth, to live out my remaining days.”

All were too stunned to speak.

Fowler broke the silence. “You, uh, should know there are no centaurs living there today, that there’s no physical evidence centaurs had ever lived there—or anywhere else on our world.”

“That surprises me not. Without the assistance of magic, a centaur would suffocate.” He tapped his human nose. “This cannot satisfy the needs of equine lungs.”

Reubens folded his arms across his chest. “Then your remaining days would be numbered indeed. I’m afraid I don’t understand the point of this game.”

Twilight’s horn glowed. She winced as it flickered out. “That type of magic won’t work here.” She looked up at Tirek. “But I don’t need magic to guess you were not born a centaur.”

He held a hand to his chest and gave a slight bow at the waist. “My true name is Androgeos, son of Minos, King of the Minoans. Once I was as human as these two, prior to my entrance into this magic-filled realm.”

“How did you cross over?” Twilight demanded.

Meg wondered if she was thinking the same thing Twilight was thinking: Discord.

The centaur laughed. “It would appear I’m in a position to negotiate something after all.”

Through the Gates of Tartarus, Twilight welcomed the sight of the Zephyr. The farther away she could get from that monster, the better. He might have been human once, but since taking the name Lord Tirek he had committed numerous atrocities. And now he possessed something she wanted dearly: knowledge.

Passing through the widely spaced bars of the gates, they returned to the realm of Equestria. A half dozen Royal Guards, all highly trained unicorns, were patrolling the ledge. As unlikely as another prisoner escape might have been, the Zephyr made for an excellent escape vehicle.

Twilight teleported to the ship’s just-deployed gangway, tasting the freedom of unrestricted magic. Even the human realm permitted teleportation; odd how Tartarus had a magical field yet permitted so much less. True, it made for an excellent prison, but why was it the way it was? Maybe she should allow some human scientists to study its physics.

A guard by the gangway quickly scanned her, then returned his attention to the others approaching. Neither changeling nor other camouflage magic worked in Tartarus, and the guards had observed them as they had passed through the gates, but one could never be too sure. It was all by the book.

She turned back to the others, who were hurrying to catch up. “Sorry,” she said. “I just couldn’t resist.”

Meg caught up first, landing next to her, and got scanned in turn. “I get it. I hadn’t felt like that trying to fly since the—” She caught herself, eyeing Elaine approaching. “—you know what.” The pegasus had tried flying through a tunnel on the way back, with predictable results.

The two ponies waited on the gangway. Two of the guards intercepted the humans via teleportation and scanned them, then proceeded to escort them back to the ship. The three remaining guards teleported directly to the gangway.

Once the humans had reached them, Twilight went inside. The guards remained outside, and would stay outside until they were ready to depart. She retracted the gangway and closed the door for added protection; these guards could all teleport inside.

“I can take you all back now,” she began, “but I imagine we have things to talk about first.” By unspoken agreement, none had brought up the subject on the way back.

Agent Reubens stood in front of a window, staring at the desolate valley below. “Obviously we have no jurisdiction over Tirek or Tartarus, so that’s your decision alone to make. Would he be welcome on Earth? That’s… an interesting question.”

“He could do the convention circuit,” Elaine suggested. “Could make a lot of money that way—assuming he behaves himself—and if people believe the human they see is really him.”

“He does represent living history,” Fowler said. “Not much is known about the Minoans. Their written language has yet to be deciphered. King Minos himself is practically myth; he’s supposed to be a son of the Greek God Zeus, and he also… allegedly had a minotaur in his labyrinth.”

“Minotaur…” Meg said. “Literally translated as the Bull of Minos.”

“Yes… and probably he has knowledge of how that minotaur got to your realm—and certainly of how he got to ours.” Twilight sat on her haunches and looked up to Fowler. “How long ago would you say?” Tirek had refused to offer even that small detail for free.

She looked up in thought. “Three thousand years, minimum, maybe closer to four?”

“Possibly even older.” Meg was using her phone, tapping its screen with a hoof-attached stylus. “The earliest signs of Minoan civilization date back forty-five hundred years. Androgeos was one of the sons of Minos, for what it’s worth. Supposedly he was murdered in Athens; there are conflicting stories as to how.” She looked up. “But this is mythology, not history.”

So much knowledge, so effortlessly retrieved. If only that wasn’t counterbalanced by real dangers, as she had learned the hard way. Twilight now had a dedicated computer for accessing the human internet, one she could afford to lose to the occasional malware infestation.

“All the more reason to go with earlier rather than later,” Fowler said. “Even so, mythology often has a kernel of historical truth in it. For example, the Trojan War was once considered myth, but then the remains of Troy were discovered.”

“Or Nightmare Moon,” Twilight added. “Everypony once insisted that was a myth.” Though to be fair, she had to concede, that had been quite deliberate on Celestia’s part.

“Aren’t you all forgetting something?” Elaine asked. “He wants to go back to the land of his birth. He can’t; it no longer exists. It’s just a bunch of ancient ruins now. Yeah, sure, he can go there, but does he really want to spend his remaining days mingling with archaeologists and tourists?”

That was Tirek’s problem, as far as Twilight was concerned. Once she turned him back into a human and returned him to his realm—if she agreed to this—there wasn’t much he could do if it didn’t live up to his expectations. He should know already anyway, since he had been talking to the human prisoners.

“And that’s assuming he’s not playing us,” Reubens said, “that he’s not just repeating what he learned from the others.”

In hindsight, perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to put them next to each other after all.

“Could that really be what’s happening?” Meg asked. “Knowing about King Minos is one thing, but about his children? Sure, one of them might be that into Greek mythology, but it sure isn’t likely.”

In other words, the odds were that Tirek was telling the truth. Twilight never would have guessed he originated from the human realm. If Celestia or Discord had known, neither had volunteered that information. “Nothing is being decided here,” she finally said. “For now, figure out if you’re willing to take him and, if so, under what conditions.”

Reubens nodded. “I’ll bring it to the President’s attention. I’m sure we can figure out some way to determine if he’s who he claims to be.”

Twilight nodded. That needed to be ascertained before all else. “Elaine, remember that this is all covered under your Pinkie Promise.”

“I was afraid of that,” she muttered.

“I’m sure the President would appreciate your cooperation in this matter,” Fowler said.

“Yeah, I get it.”

Twilight turned her attention to Meg.

“I’ll go back with you to Ponyville,” the pegasus said. “I want to check up on Susie.”

Meg had spent most of the trip back to Ponyville staring out the panoramic windows. There hadn’t been that much to talk about—what she had been willing to talk about. It turned out that Eric had not volunteered anything after she had left, even after being informed of the sonic barrier. It wasn’t really surprising; after all, they had all been questioned individually before being sent to Tartarus.

And Tirek had refused to volunteer anything beyond his true identity, to Twilight’s increasing frustration. Tirek, thankfully, had also kept silent on his relationship with “Common Ground.” When Twilight had asked what they had talked about in private, Meg had given her a highly abridged version.

Nor had Meg given her all her reasons for accompanying her back to Ponyville.

Less than an hour had passed when the ship touched down behind the castle. The first course of action was to pay Sweet Apple Acres a visit. That had been the reason she gave Twilight, so she might as well do it first. Then she’d be free to seek out Discord.

The door opened and the gangway deployed. No sooner did Meg exit the Zephyr that she was accosted by a bouncing pink pony. “See?” Pinkie exclaimed. “Told ya she’d be here!”

Meg did not bother asking how Pinkie would know that, considering that she herself hadn’t decided until the last moment to remain in Equestria. When she looked up into the air, she saw who Pinkie was talking to. “You wanted to see me?” she asked Derpy.

“It’s about Dinky’s birthday party,” Pinkie answered for her.

“Okay?” Meg looked back and forth between the two ponies, not sure to which one she was supposed to be talking.

“What about it?” Twilight asked.

Derpy landed in front of the princess. “I’m sorry to bother you about this, but I want to make my little muffin happy, and…”

“What better way to make her happy than have a human attend her birthday party!”

Twilight looked askance at her friend. “Pinkie, could you follow me?” She began walking without looking back. The pink pony bounced after her.

That left Meg alone with Derpy; the other two hadn’t gone very far, but Twilight had put up a sonic barrier around herself and Pinkie Pie.

“Do you really want to do this?” Meg asked. “I know how you feel about it.”

“I dunno.” Derpy scraped the grass with a hoof. “You’d choose a human who was safe, right?”

“That goes without saying.” And this could be an opportunity to get Susie out of Sweet Apple Acres for a few hours.

“I just wish I knew what the deal was with humans.” The mailmare looked into her eyes, as best she could. “Why does it have to be a secret?”

Meg wished she could be somewhere else. “It’s not my place to answer that,” she said. “Look, I can talk to Twilight about it, but you’ll have to Pinkie Promise to secrecy—and I can’t guarantee that knowing will make you happier.”

“Speaking of Pinkie…”

Whatever arguments Twilight was throwing at her, it was leaving Pinkie unfazed. With an exasperated roll of her eyes, Twilight broke the sonic barrier and walked back to the two pegasi, Pinkie pronking alongside her.

“How about a human child, a young girl?” Meg suggested, preempting whatever Twilight was about to say.

“Without her parents?” Derpy asked. “You can arrange that?”

Twilight paused before answering. “There’s… uh, it might be possible?”

“Also,” Meg continued, “and I only present this as an option, Your Highness, but Derpy has expressed a willingness to be Pinkie Promised to secrecy if it would allow her to learn what the, uh, deal was with humans.”

Twilight looked at Meg, then at Pinkie, and finally at Derpy. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Derpy. There are reasons those details are being withheld.”

“Would this human child already know who I am? Who Dinky is?”

“That’s one of the reasons,” Twilight reluctantly admitted.

Pinkie put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “You can’t keep it a secret forever. Then what?”

Twilight looked at Pinkie. Maybe it was her imagination, but Meg could have sworn she cringed.

“If… I was to ask this human child how she knows who I am, what would she tell me?”

Not helping, Derpy.

Everypony looked at Twilight.

“I’ll have to think about it,” was all she could say.

“You could start with just me?” Derpy asked, almost begging.

Twilight sighed. “The last time I tried, you wanted nothing to do with it.”

Derpy definitely cringed. “Maybe I was wrong?”

“I’ll think about it,” Twilight said, “but for now there are other matters I have to attend to.” She teleported away.

Pinkie beamed. “Luckily for you, Twilight’s good at thinking!”

“Okay…?”

Meg spread her wings. “I have something to take care of too.”

“Wait.”

She remained on the ground, wings ready for takeoff.

“Those humans who wanted to meet me… would that still be possible? If Twilight says yes, that is…”

“Uh… maybe?” Meg lowered her wings, so many questions racing through her mind. “I mean, it’s not impossible, but there could be, uh, complications?”

“Think of them as… surprises!” Pinkie chirped.

“Yeah, sure, surprises, why not,” Meg flatly said. “I really need to get going.”

Without waiting for any response, she took off. As she circled around the castle to the south, gaining altitude, she decided to make a quick detour to Fluttershy’s cottage. The odds of Discord being there were slim—that’d be too easy—but at least she could leave a message for him.

A few minutes later, she was circling the cottage as she descended. Fluttershy was outside, by the chicken coop. There was no sign of Discord or of anything particularly chaotic going on. Leave a message, then.

“Hey, Fluttershy,” she said once she had gotten close enough. “Got a minute?”

The Element of Kindness was spreading seeds about the ground. Numerous chickens pecked away with enthusiasm. “If you don’t mind me feeding the chickens. They really are quite hungry.”

“Sure, no problem.” Meg figured it’d be best to stay in the air and out of the chickens’ way. “Would you happen to know where Discord is right now?”

Fluttershy paused.

“No, he didn’t do anything wrong,” Meg quickly added. “I just need to ask him about something.”

Another hoof full of seeds scattered across another patch of ground. “I really should have more faith in him by now, I suppose. He really is trying.” She tossed another hoof full of seeds.

“I’m sure he is,” Meg said agreeably enough, not wishing to argue the point. “Do you know where he is?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“Could you let him know I’m looking for him, the next time you see him?”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Fluttershy said to the departing pegasus.

Meg banked until she was aimed at Sweet Apple Acres, then climbed until she could make out the homestead. She hadn’t expected to run into him, true, but when would he get the message? Possibly not until next week’s tea party. And when he does get it, how would the meeting be arranged?

She shook her head. “That’s the least of my problems,” she said to the air flowing past her. He would show up when it was least convenient. He was surprisingly predictable that way.

Then there was Sunset Shimmer. She was spending plenty of time on Earth, so it shouldn’t be too hard to have a private conversation with her. But what do I say to her? That was the real problem, besides figuring out how the hell were they supposed to break him out of Tartarus without leaving telltale evidence behind. Yet they had, if Tirek was to be believed.

So which was less impossible? That Tirek was telling the truth, or that he had somehow known that he would be visited by “Common Ground” and had that bullshit story all ready to go, a bullshit story she could only have perceived as bullshit—and would have, too, if not for the time travel. Which he couldn’t have known about. Like he couldn’t have known about “Common Ground.” But he did.

The homestead approached. She wasn’t going to solve the Tirek riddle. For now she put it aside.

Nopony was visible, but hammering sounds emanated from the open barn doors. Meg descended and hovered outside. Inside, Big Mac was assembling a new barrel. She drifted towards him. “Hey, Big Mac. Know where Susie is?”

He put the hammer in his mouth down. “Eeyup,” he drawled. “In the clubhouse, with Apple Bloom.”

“Thanks.”

The sounds of hammering resumed as she flew out of the barn. Into the orchards she went, through the rows of apple trees, until she came upon the clubhouse, nestled under the branches of an ancient apple tree.

She came to a hover outside a curtained window. Voices, oddly muffled, came through. The words were unintelligible, but there was no doubt they belonged to Susie and the Crusaders. Something exciting was going on.

And she suspected magic was responsible for that muffling. Mere glass and curtains couldn’t do that. Ignoring the question of how they got their hooves on such magic—one might as well ask how Pinkie Sense works—that they were using it couldn’t bode well.

It’s probably okay, she assured herself. They were having fun, after all, not panicking. She flew around to the front and landed in front of the door. She decided against knocking; if something fishy was going on, with Susie in there she had to know about it.

She opened the lockless door.

There, in the middle of the clubhouse, were Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo—and a fourth pony? “Where’s Susie?” Meg asked. “I know I heard her.”

The extra pony, a pegasus with a sea-green mane and ocean-blue coat, cringed and tried to hide behind the other three, who looked no less guilty. But guilty of what?

A head bearing mismatched red-on-yellow eyes slid around from behind the open door. “There’s a perfectly chaotic explanation, I can assure you.” A halo appeared over his head.

Meg looked between Discord and the mysterious pegasus with growing horror.

She face hoofed. Hard.

“What am I going to tell your father, Susie?”

14. Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be

“Do you have to tell him?”

The quivering filly, her ears flattened against her head, tugged at Meg’s heart. Her niece had the pony body language down cold, not that it was a conscious choice. She wanted to say “no.” It would make her life so much easier to keep her brother Matt in the dark. She needed this like she needed a hole in her head.

Hopefully, the draconequus would refrain from giving her one of those too.

“Discord, we need to talk. Now.”

Not waiting for a response, she turned around and launched into the air, rising above the apple trees. Either he’d follow or he wouldn’t; there wasn’t much she could say in front of the fillies if he didn’t.

After climbing a few hundred feet, she paused and looked around. He was nowhere to be seen.

“So that’s how you want to play it?” she muttered. That left only one option: take Susie to Twilight and have her turn her back.

Meg began her descent and crashed into a cloud that appeared out of nowhere—a cotton candy cloud.

She got back up on her hooves and spit out a wad of cotton candy; though drenched in chocolate milk, it hadn’t dissolved. “I’m really not in the mood for this,” she said, glaring daggers at Discord.

He tore off a chunk of cloud, raised it above his mouth, and squeezed out chocolate milk. After wiping his mouth with his lion’s paw, he said, “Oh, come now. You of all people know how harmless it is to turn a human into a pony.”

“That’s not the point! That option was considered and rejected by her father. What am I supposed to tell him?”

He shrugged. “That his daughter disobeyed his wishes?”

“That isn’t—” She groaned. “Fine. Let’s start at the beginning. Please?”

“Since you asked nicely…” He was now sitting in a reclining chair, holding a glass of ever swirling layers of multicolored whatever that refused to mix. “The Crusaders—I am never ceased to be amazed by their chaotic potential—it helped me escape my stone prison, did you know that?” He smacked his head. “Right, of course you did.”

He took a sip, and the beverage obliged by turning into swirling polkadots within a translucent teal fluid. “Anyway. They wanted to help Susie find her cutie mark, and they weren’t going to let a little thing like the fact that humans can’t get one to get in their way, so—”

“So, you decided to lend a helping hand.”

He licked at the glass as if it were a popsicle, melting it away; the beverage inside remained in place, rejecting its newfound freedom. “How could I not? The chaotic potential was off the charts!”

Meg’s glare hardened. “Susie can’t get a cutie mark without being magical, and being coupled to the magical field is permanent. The whole destiny thing? That’s why ponification was unacceptable.”

He was tossing the now glass-free yet still glass-shaped fluid back and forth between talon and paw. “Do I look like a harmonious Element of Magic to you?”

“Wait. You didn’t make her magical?”

“Well, I did lend her a teensy tiny portion—infinitesimal, really—of my own magic so she could fly. Sort of… she’s still rather young.”

“Wasn’t that a cheap trick to play on the Crusaders?”

“But they get so much enjoyment out of it! How could I deny my—”

“Hold on. Did you say ‘lend’ your magic? As in, how you lent your magic to Tirek when he thought he took it?”

The glass-shaped blob of polka-dotted fluid froze in mid-air. In a flash all his props disappeared.

Well, I sure got his attention now.

“You’ve been talking to him.” It wasn’t a question.

Meg nodded. “A few hours ago.”

“Does Twilight know?”

“No. She wasn’t present at the time.”

“I’d very much appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”

Not that anything would prevent Tirek from telling her himself, if he was so inclined. “Why? You obviously gave him just enough to make their fight end in a draw.”

“One-sided fights are rather boring, wouldn’t you agree?” He hadn’t resumed his chaotic fidgeting. “Besides, everything turned out okay in the end.”

Meg couldn’t argue with that; indeed, it was how the Mane Six acquired their Rainbow Powers and Twilight her castle. That seemed… too pat. Something wasn’t adding up, but clearly Discord had no intention of elaborating.

“Did you know Tirek was originally human?”

Discord stroked his goatee. “Odd he would mention that,” he said. “He thought knowledge of his true origins would hurt his image.”

“He wants to return to his homeland back on Earth, to be human again. You’re one of the reasons why, apparently.”

He waved it off with a paw. “Good riddance, I say. You won’t see me stand in his way.”

“Do you know how he came to this realm and got turned into a centaur?”

“I had nothing to do with him becoming a centaur; I hadn’t even met him yet.”

Which only begged the question. But if he didn’t want to properly answer it, her efforts were better spent elsewhere.

It was time for the million bit question: “Do you know how he escaped from Tartarus a few years ago?”

He put talon and paw on his sides. “I was a stone statue at the time, in case you forgot.”

“That didn’t stop you from following what was happening on my world during that time.”

“My, my, how the centuries fly by.” He looked at a sundial on his wrist, shook it, then looked at it again. “Nope, looks like they haven’t.” He gave her a patronizing smile as the timepiece sloppily melted off his wrist. “You’re still too young to know about such things.”

This was getting nowhere. With a sigh, she tried a different tack. “Changing the subject back to Susie… Will she now transform between human and pony each time she crosses over?” If there was any hope of keeping this a secret from her father…

“She’s not a proper, magical pony, so no, she won’t.” A chirping bird emerged from a full-sized cuckoo clock that now adorned his wrist. “Will you look at that? I’m going to be late for my next appointment.”

Before Meg could say anything, Discord was gone.

The cotton candy cloud beneath her vanished.

Her wings shot out on instinct, arresting her fall. “A little warning would be nice!”

There was no reply, of course, much less an apology. She looked down at the clubhouse, barely visible under its tree.

Now what?

She wasn’t inclined to tell Matt. It just wasn’t worth the aggravation, and as it looked like no harm had been done, by any reasonable definition of “harm”…

So do I take her to Twilight now, or later?

She exhaled. Everything had been going so smoothly for most of the past year. Why did it all have to go to hell now?

Screw it.

She began her descent. Susie was already a pony; remaining one for a few more hours wouldn’t make a difference. She might as well get the most out of the experience. The only real deadline was her parents’ next visit that evening. Obviously, Twilight would change her back before fetching them.

Upon reaching the clubhouse, she stood in the doorway. The Crusaders were standing around an unsteadily hovering Susie, offering feedback on her performance. It wasn’t that great, but neither had been her own flying that first day as a pony. Whether that was a valid comparison was a good question; not only was Susie quite young, she wasn’t hovering on her own magic.

“Where’s Discord?” Apple Bloom asked, having noticed her presence.

Meg stepped inside. “He… had other business to take care of.”

“Are we in trouble?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Look, just don’t mention this to her parents, okay? I guarantee you’ll be in trouble if you do.”

“So we can keep on trying to find her cutie mark?”

They were all so eager for her to say yes. Why did she have to be the bearer of bad news? “I hate to break it to you, but Discord hadn’t been completely upfront. Susie cannot get a cutie mark.” She looked at her niece, so joyful in her hovering. “I’m sorry, Susie, but you are not magical. Only the Element of Magic can change that.”

“But she’s flying,” Scootaloo objected.

“That’s magic on loan from Discord. It lets her do all the usual pegasus stuff, I’m guessing, but it won’t let her get a cutie mark.”

“Oh,” a dejected Apple Bloom said. “Well, it was worth a try.”

“How long can I keep this magic?” Susie asked, ears fully flattened.

That was a good question. “I honestly don’t know.” Meg tilted her head up into the air and with raised voice said, “Hopefully until she becomes human again.” She then added, “And not a second longer.”

“Can he still hear us?” Susie asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, not sure if she really even cared. “I’ve seen Twilight do that, for what it’s worth. And speaking of Twilight, let’s go see her and have her check you out. She’ll need to change you back before she fetches your parents, anyway.”

“But I wanna remain a pony! Can’t it wait until they come?”

“I’ll decide that after Twilight checks you out.” Meg turned around and started walking. “Let’s go.”

“Can we fly there?”

She stopped and turned around. She had planned on flying there, but there was no way Susie could fly that far. Trotting that far wasn’t much better.

There was no other good option. “Get on.”

Susie fluttered over. “You’re really letting me ride you?”

“You’re a lot smaller right now, so don’t get used to it.” She’d seen enough pegasi carry their foals this way, so she knew it was doable. “Put your front hooves ahead of my wings.”

Susie plopped down on her back, knocking the breath out of her; the filly definitely lacked fine control. Meg walked outside and spread her wings. “Ready?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hold on tight.” With a downward thrust of her wings, she leaped into the air. Susie squeed with excitement. She was also squeezing her for dear life, fortunately not enough to impede breathing. It was reassuring in its own way; she just knew that unless she did something really stupid, her niece would not fall off.

Up through the canopy they flew, into the open sky above the rows of apple trees.

“Is that Twilight’s castle?” Susie asked once it came into view over the hills.

“It sure is,” Meg said. “And that’s Ponyville, and over there on top of that mountain is Canterlot.” Due to the surrounding hills, none of that had been visible from the homestead.

“Can we go there and see Princess Celestia?”

“I’m afraid not, Susie. The princess is very busy running Equestria. We can’t just drop in unexpected.” Not without a good excuse, like, say, a human child being turned into a pony via chaos magic. But she’d leave that up to Twilight’s discretion.

“Oh.”

Ponyville unfolded before them as they flew over the final hill separating the town from Sweet Apple Acres. Meg tuned out Susie’s running commentary of the familiar buildings she was spotting.

A familiar rainbow contrail shot across the sky in front of them. It turned towards them. “Look who’s coming, Susie.”

“Rainbow Dash!”

The prismatic pegasus matched velocities and came up alongside them. “Hiya squirt,” she said, flying sideways. Meg still had no clue how she did that. “Who’s the filly?” Dash asked.

“My niece, Susie,” Meg said, preparing for the inevitable followup questions.

“Huh? I thought Twilight wasn’t going to do that.” Dash scrunched her muzzle. “And without the rest of us?”

“She didn’t. Discord did.”

“Seriously?” Dash noticed where they were headed. “I’ll fly ahead and give her a heads-up.” The fastest pegasus in Equestria was replaced by a rainbow stretching all the way to the castle.

Susie’s eyes went wide. “Wow…”

“You had no idea he was originally human?” Twilight asked.

Spike returned from the kitchen and set a plate, bearing two teacups, on the table in the middle of the library. Celestia helped herself to one before replying.

“No. When I had first encountered him, he claimed to be the last of his kind. There was no reason to doubt that claim; centaurs had never been numerous, nor have I ever seen or heard of another.”

Twilight put down her own teacup. “I don’t know what to do. Letting him go free seems wrong, but how many centuries of imprisonment is right? On the other hoof, he’ll be a powerless human in another realm, a realm that has changed unimaginably since he’d left it. He’ll no longer be a threat to anypony.” She averted her eyes. “And he’ll grow old and… pass on. And that will be that.”

Celestia gave her former pupil a gentle smile. “Problems often lack ideal solutions.” Her smile turned into a pained frown. “Often, you must accept that and go with the least bad solution you can find.”

Twilight met her eyes. Like your first solution for Nightmare Moon.

“If he had, somehow, stumbled upon a portal,” Celestia said, changing the subject, “I wonder how he planned—”

Rainbow Dash burst into the room. “Twilight! Discord changed—oh, uh, hi, Princess.”

“Please continue, Rainbow Dash. What did Discord change?”

“Uh, right… Discord changed Susie into a pony. Meg’s bringing her here right now. They’ll be here any minute.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Twilight tried to rub out a growing headache. “I’m sorry, Celestia, but I’m afraid this takes priority.”

“I quite understand. I’m curious myself as to what has happened.” Celestia addressed Rainbow Dash. “Could you guide them to us?”

“On it.” The prismatic pegasus was gone.

“As I was saying, I wonder how he planned on becoming human again, if he could return to his realm. He must know that a centaur cannot survive long without magic.”

“The innate centaur breathing magic,” Twilight surmised, happy to take her mind off of Discord for the moment. “It was rather obvious, to my magical senses anyway.”

“Maybe if we knew how he became a centaur in the first place?” Spike asked.

“He’d be happy to tell us,” Twilight said, “if we agreed to his terms.” She waved it away. “Not that it really matters. I can turn him back into a human regardless.”

Sounds of approaching pegasi drifted in through the doors, including those of an over-stimulated filly. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, Twilight said, “Let’s see what game Discord’s playing now.”

Before long, Rainbow Dash returned. Meg, entering the library right behind her, landed in front of the princesses. The unfamiliar pegasus filly on her back went wide-eyed at seeing the Princess of the Sun.

“Hello, my little pony.” Celestia giggled. “Well, ‘little pony,’ anyway. You must be Susie.”

Susie nodded, mouth hanging open.

“Could you scan her, make sure there’s nothing, I dunno—”

“Say no more.” Twilight got up off her cushion and walked towards them. “When Discord’s involved, it never hurts to be extra vigilant.”

Susie looked like a normal enough pegasus. She grasped the filly in her magic and lifted her off of her aunt. Susie squirmed at the unfamiliar sensations. “Please be still,” Twilight said. “This won’t hurt.” Scanning her, there didn’t seem to be anything physically unusual. Twilight then scanned for innate magic; as the Element of Magic hadn’t been used on her, she ought to be devoid of magic.

“That’s odd.” There was magic, and plenty of it. It superficially looked like innate pegasus magic, but… “She’s full of chaos magic masquerading as pegasus magic.”

“Discord did say he lent her some of his magic so that she could properly function as a pegasus,” Meg said. “I don’t know for how long. Would that get in the way of turning her human again?”

“Don’t turn me back,” Susie protested. “Meg said it was okay.”

Twilight turned to Meg with raised eyebrow.

“That’s not exactly what I said, but—” she exhaled “—close enough. I figured the damage is already done. It wouldn’t hurt for her to remain a pony until you fetch her parents. That way, I can give her a tour of the town. Unless you see a reason to change her back now. And please don’t tell Matt what happened.”

No, her brother would not be happy at this turn of events, not in the slightest. “I don’t see any obvious reason to change her back right this second.”

Celestia had joined Twilight, standing beside her. “I’d like to scan her too.”

Meg shrugged. “A second opinion wouldn’t hurt.”

“Can you hover?” Celestia asked the filly.

“Uh huh.”

“Twilight, please release her—slowly.”

Susie extended her wings and began flapping, taking up the slack as Twilight released her. A yellowish glow engulfed the filly as Celestia began her scan. Rainbow Dash also came closer, the better to study Susie’s technique.

A few seconds later, the glow subsided. “Quite fascinating. I did not know Discord could do this.”

“She’s hovering about as well as I’d expect for a filly her age,” Dash said.

“I agree,” Celestia said. “Can you stand on a cloud, Susie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s find out.” The diarch’s horn glowed, and a small cloud grew in the library, only a few feet off the floor. “Please fly over to this cloud and try to land on it.”

Susie unsteadily fluttered up and over to the cloud, then slowly lowered herself. She touched the cloud, tested it, and folded her wings. “I did it!”

Rainbow Dash landed next to her on the cloud. “You sure did! How would you like a quick flying lesson?”

“Really?”

“Don’t go too far,” Meg said.

“I’ll take her up to the balcony. You can keep yourselves occupied talking about stuff until we come back.”

“That’s a good idea,” Twilight said. And it was a good idea. Susie did not need to hear what needed to be discussed.

“Follow me, Susie.” Rainbow Dash lifted off the cloud and slowly made her way out of the library, with Susie doing her best to keep up.

Once they were out of sight, Celestia broke the silence. “I see no reason for concern. I detected nothing that would interfere with the undoing of her transformation. As for Discord’s magical assistance, it is tied to her pony form; it will end on its own once she’s returned to her proper form.”

“That’s my conclusion, too,” Twilight said. “That still leaves the question of why he did it.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “That he was happy enough to tell me. Basically, the Crusaders wanted to help Susie find her cutie mark, that required she’d be a pony, and Discord decided to make that happen—because the quote-unquote chaotic potential was off the charts.”

“But she still couldn’t get a cutie mark,” Twilight said.

“He decided to leave out that detail, as it would ruin the Crusaders’ fun. He has a soft spot for them. Go figure.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Twilight said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Anyway, it sounds like Discord was just being Discord. No real harm done.” Meg gave her a sharp look. “So long as Matt doesn’t find out.”

“The chaotic potential may well be ‘off the charts,’” Celestia said, “but we need not help that potential be realized.”

Regardless, something like this should have been foreseen. All too evident was Discord’s interest in humans who came to Equestria, starting with the very first two—the first two in modern Equestria, anyway. But who’s to say his interest wasn’t as ancient as this realm? Which brought Twilight’s thoughts back to Tirek. “Did the subject of Tirek happen to come up while you were chatting with him?”

Meg’s wings twitched a bit. “Yes. On Tirek’s interest in returning to my world, he said ‘good riddance.’ He wouldn’t stop him. On Tirek’s human origins, he knew, but he was already a centaur when they first met.” Her wings shuffled some more. “I got the impression he knew more than he was letting on.”

Twilight couldn’t help feeling the same about Meg, though what she could possibly be hiding baffled her.

“Do you think your leaders will take him?” Celestia asked.

Meg shrugged. “I don’t know. It would certainly help if he was willing to share his knowledge of the ancient world. But he could also be perceived as the archvillain, a problem you’re dumping on us, so… like I said, I don’t know.”

Spike placed a plate full of snacks on the table. “What if he told them how he got to Equestria? Wouldn’t humans use that to come here?”

“You’d better believe it,” Meg said, “if it still exists. Which it doesn’t—not according to Tirek.”

Celestia picked out a pastry and lifted it in her magic. “If it existed once, it could exist again.”

“Why wouldn’t magic pour through this hypothetical portal, as had happened with the doll?” Twilight asked. “Obviously, that hadn’t happened.”

Celestia smiled. “If we knew the answer to that, I imagine much would be explained.”

Meg suddenly looked up. “Do you still plan on going back in time to see how my doll got bound to that leak?”

Recent events had pushed that project to the side, it was true, but in light of this… “Absolutely,” Twilight said. “Perhaps it’s even connected.”

“I want to come along,” Meg said. “I know I’d be more of hindrance than a help, but that… that event has turned my life upside-down. I want to see for myself what caused it.”

Bringing her along—and Steve, with his special talent—had always been an option. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I can’t make any promises.”

“That’s all I can ask for.” The pegasus got up off her cushion. “I’d like to go check up on Susie, if that’s okay.”

“By all means,” Celestia said with warmth.

Meg stepped outside onto the large balcony. Susie was over a cloud struggling to make figure eights. Rainbow Dash must have fetched it from the sky to cover the unforgiving crystalline floor.

“That’s it… lean into the curve… that’s it… now try to go a bit faster…”

She didn’t want to interrupt them. Susie was having too much fun. Her niece seemed to have better control of her pegasi—no, borrowed—magic than she herself had had in her first few hours. It must have been one of the advantages of using borrowed chaos magic.

Susie noticed her aunt’s presence, lost control, and tumbled into the cloud. She got back up on her hooves, unharmed. “Meg! Can I be a pony again after my parents go home?”

There had to be some way to let her down easy. “I don’t know, Susie. That’s up to Discord, and he’s not known for his… consistency?”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “I’ll say.”

“Can’t Twilight make me a pony again?”

“Well, yes, but she can’t give you magic, not like Discord can. If she did make you magical, like how she made me magical… your father would be mad—really mad. And without magic, you can’t fly.”

Susie pouted. “It’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t always fair.” Meg nuzzled her. “Enjoy this while you can. When I come back, I’ll take you to Sugarcube Corner. How does that sound?” She could use another cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake herself.

“Something with flowers in it?”

“Only if Rainbow Dash gives you a passing grade.” She flew away, not giving her a chance to negotiate. “I’ll be back in a bit,” she yelled back.

Meg didn’t have any particular destination in mind; she simply wasn’t ready to return to the princesses just yet. Would the ‘Discord’ solution satisfy her brother? It did address his strongest objection. That his daughter was subject to the whims of a chaos spirit, reformed or not… And who knew if he’d lend his magic again in the future—Discord himself might not even know.

She was flying a big circle around Ponyville, over the farms that encircled the rural town. Something caught her eye as she passed over a road heading into the north side of town: a lone wagon, pulled by a single, blue pony. There was something familiar about it.

“Right, Las Pegasus,” she said to herself once it clicked. The royal courier must have reached her and delivered Twilight’s message.

It was Trixie.

15. The Day That Wouldn't End

Meg hovered, unable to make up her mind. A few hundred feet below, Trixie trudged on, pulling her wagon ever closer to Ponyville. Meg didn’t have to do anything, and if the Great and Powerful Trixie was anything like her cartoon counterpart—and so far every pony had been—she was best avoided.

But if her presence was in response to Twilight’s message, it was only a matter of time before she got dragged into it. Besides, hadn’t that whole Alicorn Amulet incident been a wakeup call for her? Obviously, since she came, there wasn’t any more bad blood between her and Twilight.

What tipped the balance was Trixie’s attire—or more precisely, her lack of it. She was not wearing her cape or hat. Didn’t she always wear that? Meg couldn’t remember, but it seemed… out of character?

“I just know I’m going to regret this,” she muttered as she began her descent. If nothing else, she could make sure Trixie didn’t arrive at the castle, if that was her destination, while Celestia was still there.

For the first time, Meg was getting a good look at the wagon. Bits of paint had flaked off. Some planks of wood had begun to warp. The wheels creaked on their axles. It wasn’t particularly large; if she kept all her props and personal possessions in there, there wasn’t much room for living space.

As for Trixie herself… Her coat was matted and dirty, her mane needed a good brushing, and her scent was definitely on the physical workout side. Did she pull that thing all the way from Las Pegasus? No, no way she could have gotten here this soon if she had.

No sooner was she flying beside her that Trixie gave her a sour look. “I don’t suppose you want an autograph,” she flatly stated.

“Uh, no.” It was hard not to sympathize, not after seeing the hardship of her life. “Are you here in response to the message you received from Twilight?”

The show mare slacked off, and the wagon ground to a halt. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity she mentioned? It was rather vague.”

Meg could make a good guess, but decided it was better to play it safe. “I’m not privy to the contents of that message, but I do know she was hoping you’d come. Were you going to see her right now?”

“As soon as I can get this wagon to her castle,” Trixie said, and with a grunt she resumed her slow forward progress. “Is that a problem?”

“I… wouldn’t think so,” Meg said, “but I’ll fly ahead and tell her you’ll be there soon.”

“Also tell her I expect compensation for this little visit, regardless. I had a nice gig going for me in Las Pegasus.”

“Ah, sure, I can do that.” This visit was easily lost income she could ill afford. Something else caught her attention. “Don’t you always refer to yourself in the third person?”

Trixie groaned, shaking her head. “It’s a stage persona, for Celestia’s sake. An act.”

Meg grimaced. “Sorry. I should’ve known better.”

The unicorn truly looked at her for the first time. “I don’t recall you being one of Twilight’s inner circle of friends.”

“I’m more of an advisor than a friend, and I wasn’t around then.”

Trixie looked ahead once more. “You might as well be on your way, if you wish to arrive at the castle first.”

The conversation was apparently over. “Uh, I guess I’ll be seeing you later.” Meg picked up speed and climbed.

On the flight back to the castle, Meg wondered how much of Trixie’s questionable decisions were due to character flaws, and how much were due to simple desperation. Perhaps, just possibly, there really was nothing wrong with her that a lucky break wouldn’t cure.

A few minutes later, still undecided as to which it was, she re-entered Twilight’s residence within her castle. Celestia was still there. “Is everything alright?” she asked. “You were gone for quite a while.”

Maybe too long, in hindsight. “Susie’s fine. But I saw Trixie approaching and I talked to her for a bit. She got your message, Twilight, and she’s just outside of town. And, uh, she requests compensation for the income she lost by leaving Las Pegasus.”

Twilight frowned. “Given how Rainbow Dash described the current state of her wagon, I guess I can see her point.”

“It does look rundown,” Meg confirmed. “And Trixie herself could use a trip to the spa. She must’ve been pulling that wagon all day.”

Twilight nodded. “That pony needs a lucky break, and I hope we can provide her with one. How long do you think it’ll take her to get here?”

“She’s not moving fast. I guess it also depends on what she encounters in town. Are there still bad feelings from her, uh, previous performances?”

Twilight got up. “It’d be best if I went to her. I think we’re about done here?”

“I’d say so, and I should be returning to Canterlot.” The hint of a frown ever so slightly graced Celestia’s face. “The griffon ambassador, you know. I’m doing my best to keep him out of your mane.”

“And I appreciate that,” Twilight said. “Believe me.”

“And I should free Susie from Dash’s training regimen and take her into town.”

Satisfied the meeting was over, Twilight called out to her number one assistant. “Spike? Make sure a guest room is ready. Trixie Lulamoon is not sleeping in her wagon tonight.”

The baby dragon appeared at the railing upstairs. “You can count on me!”

“I know I can, Spike,” Twilight said with a gentle smile. “And we’re about to show Trixie what the Magic of Friendship can accomplish!” She vanished in a flash of teleportation.

Celestia teleported away next, to Meg’s relief. She’d been half-afraid she’d stay behind just a bit longer, to uncover what was really bothering her; Celestia was too perceptive. Or, she glumly considered, maybe she already knew and was content to let events play out as they would, because that was how time loops worked.

I hate time travel.

Spike was out of sight. She lifted herself above the upstairs railings and found him reading a comic book. “Shouldn’t you be making a guest room ready or something?”

“Nah, one’s already ready,” he said, not looking up. “Twilight doesn’t pay much attention to such things.”

“Oh.” She descended back to the floor, left the residence, and made her way outside to the main balcony.

Once there, she looked in vain for Susie. “Damn it, Dash.” Neither of them were there; the cloud was gone too.

Well, they wouldn’t have gone far. Meg scanned the skies. They weren’t over Ponyville. Clouds were being assembled above the farms to the north. They were too far away to make out anypony, but it seemed like her best bet. She launched into the sky.

Please, please, please be there…

With growing urgency, she flew faster and faster towards those clouds. Once above them, she scanned the area and… nope.

She flew over to the nearest worker, who was pushing a cloud fragment into place. “Have you seen Rainbow Dash in the last half-hour or so?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said, barely looking up. “She’s not on assignment today.”

Where are you? “Okay. Thanks.”

Meg climbed some more and scanned all around her. Nothing. They could be anywhere—except up here.

She descended back to the ground. There wasn’t much point running herself ragged trying to find them. They’d turn up in due course. It’s just that she didn’t need this aggravation right now.

A gingerbread building approached. She knew just what she needed to melt away the stress. After touching down, she went inside and made a beeline for the counter.

Pinkie Pie looked her over with mock seriousness and rendered her diagnosis. “This calls for a cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake.”

“I don’t suppose your Pinkie Sense can tell me where Susie is right now?”

The mare brightened instantly. “You mean the new pegasus filly in town with a sea-green mane and an ocean-blue coat?”

Meg gaped at her. “Seriously. How do you do that?”

“That’s easy, silly! I just keep my eyes open!”

“Huh?”

Pinkie leaned in and with a stage whisper said, “Over there…”

Meg followed the pink hoof… and saw them. Rainbow Dash and Susie were seated at a table, giggling at some joke. A joke she was evidently the butt of. Did they just prank me?

A clunk of glass on counter brought her attention back to Pinkie. She winked at Meg. “On the house.”

“This really isn’t a good day to prank me.”

“Those are often the best days to do it!” she chirped.

It wasn’t worth arguing over. Meg took the shake and joined the others. Taking a seat, she glared at Rainbow Dash. “Took you a whole year to get around to pranking me?”

“What can I say?” she said around barely controlled laughter. “Took a while to find a good one for you.”

Meg continued glaring.

“Oh, lighten up. If I had my way, you’d’ve been exposed to poison joke months ago.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Hey, it’s not that bad, really. It’s easy enough to cure.” Dash gulped down some apple juice. “Besides, aren’t you curious what sort of joke they’d pull on you?”

“It’s not on my bucket list, no.” It already felt like the universe—universes?—were playing a cosmic joke on her. Meg slurped up through a straw some of that wonderful concoction.

Susie had been ignoring the adults, entirely focused on her cupcake. It did indeed have flowers—petals from two different flowers, no less. On top were daffodils glazed with caramel, and daisies on the inside. Meg couldn’t help noticing that she used her hooves to hold the plate in place as she took a bite out of the cupcake. Luckily there was nopony else around to see that and wonder.

“So?” Meg asked her niece. “How’re the flowers?”

“Awesome.” She took another bite out of it.

Enjoy it while it lasts. “Did you fly all the way here?” That seemed unlikely, especially after what for her must have been an exhausting training session.

“Rainbow Dash gave me a ride,” her niece said, lighting up. “It was even awesomer.”

“You got that right, squirt.”

Meg gave the fastest pegasus in Equestria the stink eye. “Do I even want to know?”

Dash gave her a smirk in return. “I got her here in one piece, didn’t I?”

Susie giggled.

Whatever. It was days like this that made Meg wonder, as she slurped up that impossibly wonderful shake, if her brother might have had a point. Maybe Susie would have been safer with those kidnappers.

Rainbow Dash was looking out the window. “Trixie’s back in town?”

Meg jerked her head to see for herself. There she was, accompanied by Twilight, and they were heading straight for Sugarcube Corner. “I wonder if there’s a back exit to this place,” she muttered.

“Oh, come on, she’s not that bad.” Dash gave her a smirk. “Don’cha wanna meet another background pony?”

“Antagonist is more like it,” Meg said. “Besides, I already had a brief conversation with her, right after I left you and Susie at the castle.” She looked out the window again. “I wonder where her wagon is?”

“Probably back in Las Pegasus. Doubt that ratty old thing would survive a trip here.”

“Guess again. She was pulling it into town when I saw her.”

“Huh. Well, I guess she finally got Twilight’s message.”

“Can I see her show?” Susie asked.

The filly was looking at Meg with pleading eyes. “Uh, that’s not why she’s here, Susie. See how she’s not wearing her cape or hat? You shouldn’t bother her once she’s inside.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for another Ponyville performance.”

“Oh. Okay.” The filly returned her attention to her cupcake.

Meg kept her eyes on them, hoping they’d ignore her and her niece. It wasn’t as if Twilight knew she was there, after all. She was just treating Trixie to a snack. Maybe they’d fail to notice her, just like she hadn’t noticed Dash and Susie.

The two mares came inside.

“Hey, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “I’ll have a single scoop of vanilla on a cone. I’m paying for both of us; put it on my tab.”

“And what’ll you have?” Pinkie asked Trixie.

The unicorn scanned a display case. “I think I’ll have that,” she said, pointing at slice of cake.

“That’s four and a half bits,” Pinkie said. “Consider it tabbed.” She plated the cake slice and placed it on the counter. She next scoped up vanilla ice cream, deposited it in a cone, and presented it to Twilight, who took it with her magic.

“Inside or outside?” Twilight asked Trixie.

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

Twilight did a quick scan of the tables inside and… “Ah. Perfect.”

Meg did her best to hide her dismay. The two were heading straight for their table. “Remember,” she quietly said to Susie, “don’t bother Trixie.” Twilight bore her usual smile, while Trixie’s smile… “Better yet, don’t say anything.”

The table wasn’t big enough for two additional ponies. Twilight moved a nearby table closer. “I believe you’ve already met Meg,” she said as the two mares took their seats. “She’ll be your liaison to the human realm and help you organize a tour.”

Yep, this is happening.

Susie went wide-eyed. “You’re gonna do shows on Earth?” She turned to her aunt. “Can I go to one… please?”

Meg cringed.

“Let me guess,” Trixie said. “Your daughter is really a human, too?”

“My niece, actually.” There was no point trying to hide it. Obviously Twilight had told Trixie her true nature.

“If only the fillies and colts of this realm were so eager to see me perform.” She dug into her cake with a fork. “I guess you weren’t pulling my leg after all.”

Twilight looked at Trixie with unease. “By the way, not all magic works in that realm.”

The fork froze in show mare’s mouth. “What?”

“A lot of magic does work,” Twilight quickly added, “and it might not affect your magic at all, but you do need to do a trial run of anything you wish to perform, just to make sure there won’t be any problems.”

Trixie sighed. “Well, it is what it is. And there are truly human magicians who perform so-called ‘magic tricks,’ despite having literally no magic of their own?”

“That’s correct,” Meg said, figuring she might as well join the conversation. “It’s all illusion, of course. Sleight-of-hand, misdirection, that sort of stuff. It just looks like magic, and it’s impressive precisely because the audience knows magic isn’t real.”

“But I do have real magic. Isn’t that, I dunno, unfair? Would it be considered deceptive, even cheating? I don’t need to be run out of an entire realm.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Meg assured her. “They’ll know that as a unicorn you possess real magic.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Twilight added. “They’ll be there to see you, to see your illusion magic.”

“Right,” Trixie said, looking at Susie. “They already know who I am. Somehow.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.” Twilight contemplated her half-eaten ice cream cone. “Once you’re there, in their realm, it’s inevitable you’ll discover how. Just… be prepared to keep an open mind when you do.”

“And keep my mouth shut when I return to Equestria? Is that the real reason for all the secrecy?”

“Believe me,” Rainbow Dash said, “you’ll understand once you know.”

“Not everything has to be kept secret. Once you return from your first show, we can go over the details.”

“Fine, fine,” Trixie grumbled. “I know how to keep a secret; it goes with being a magician.” She gave Susie a surprisingly warm smile. “How would you like to attend my rehearsal?”

The filly gasped. “Can I?!”

“That’s up to your parents,” Meg said, “but I don’t see why not.”

“They’re invited, too.” Trixie turned back to Twilight. “What about my wagon? You can bring it to that other realm, right? It’s part of my show.”

“No problem,” Twilight said. “And once Big Mac is done with it, it’ll be as good as new!”

Trixie finished off her cake slice. “You’ve certainly made it worth my while to leave Las Pegasus, I’ll give you that.” She stood up. “Now let’s see what magic—Rarity, wasn’t it?—can do with my cape.”

Twilight got up as well. “We’ll take care of… stuff before I fetch your parents,” she told Meg and Susie. “I’ll see you at Sweet Apple Acres later.” She started walking. “Come on, Trixie. Let’s go see Rarity.”

Meg waited until they left the premises. “I have to admit she’s more… sympathetic than I’d expected,” she told Rainbow Dash. “She seems to have had a hard life.”

“I guess,” Dash said, shrugging. “Not sure that excuses some of the bad choices she’s made. We could’ve done without that whole Alicorn Amulet thing.”

“Right. That.” Meg gave some attention to her neglected shake. “Well, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. She could certainly attract some big audiences in my world. It might do her some good.”

“I think that’s what Twilight has in mind.”

“What do we do next?” Susie asked, having finished eating her cupcake.

They still had a few hours to kill. Meg wished the day would be over already.

Steve wrote an equation on the blackboard:

R_{\mu \nu} - {1 \over 2}g_{\mu \nu}\,R + g_{\mu \nu} \Lambda = {8 \pi G \over c^4} T_{\mu \nu}

“The left side of this equation,” Steve said, tapping it with a finger, “is a tensor representing the curvature of space-time. The right side—” he tapped that in turn “—is the energy-momentum tensor.” He tapped the equals sign between them. “They are equal. Matter and energy cause space-time to curve, and the paths through curved space-time cause matter to change speed and direction. This is the underlying mechanism of gravity.”

Steve paused for the inevitable questions, his eyes scanning the mostly empty room. Out of the thirty or so who attended the first lecture, only seven were now present.

He didn’t have to wait long. The one remaining elder professor in attendance, Arcane Scroll, spoke. “It was hypothesized by Star Swirl the Bearded that telekinesis was a form of magical gravity. It is certainly the case that telekinesis acts equally on all parts of the affected object. Somepony who is unskillfully lifted off the ground experiences a feeling akin to falling freely. Would this equation apply to this as well?”

Steve put down the chalk. “I… doubt it. From what I’ve seen, telekinesis violates conservation of momentum; there is no equal and opposite force. Gravity doesn’t do that.” It wasn’t clear how telekinesis worked in this universe, but he had some theories. “Conservation of momentum implies that the laws of physics are everywhere the same. Magic can locally change those laws—in this realm, anyway—and that must be how telekinesis works.”

Arcane Scroll took a moment to digest that. “I’ve read the princess’ report on the limitations of magic in your realm.” He paused for effect. “Telekinesis appears to be unaffected. And yet, the conservation laws are inviolate in your realm.”

“Indeed, they are quite inviolate,” Steve said. “I’ll… have to get back to you on that.”

The elder professor bore a trace of a smug smile at his apparent victory. Steve could have explained how he sensed the gravitational waves that were that equal and opposite force—and sensed them only in his own universe—but he wasn’t supposed to let on that he was a part time unicorn.

Steve often wished that the old geezer was one of the ones who had stopped coming.

“Anyway, getting back to the field equation… A consequence of this equation is that space itself must either contract or expand, depending on the average density of mass and energy. That was considered an absurdity.” Steve once again tapped the left side, but this time on the term g_{\mu \nu} \Lambda. “This term here, called the ‘cosmological constant,’ was introduced to counter that, to describe a realm that eternally remains unchanging in size.

“At first, it turned out to be a huge mistake. It was later discovered that our universe was, in fact, expanding, would expand forever, and as a result this constant was dropped from the equation. More recently, it was discovered that the expansion was actually accelerating, when gravity was expected to gradually slow it down, if not completely stop it. The cosmological constant has thus made a comeback, ironically as a possible explanation for this acceleration.”

“It is a fact that our realm neither expands nor contracts,” Arcane Scroll declared. “Can you explain this?”

He waited for his answer.

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s not impossible, but it does require that the average density of this realm be at precisely the right value. Even the tiniest deviation would—”

“Quite sure.”

“Uh… okay then. Interesting.” He turned back to the field equation, as if hoping to find the answer there. “After all, even quantum vacuum fluctuations would tip it one way or the other eventually—not to mention the non-stop magical violations of conservation of energy…”

The professor rolled his eyes.

As annoying as his objections were, Steve had to admit he wasn’t pulling them out of thin air. Unquestionably some things were different about Equestria’s realm, and he would do well to remember that. “Maybe magic has something to do with it?” Steve offered.

“That would be a reasonable assumption,” he conceded, “though to be fair we had never sought a magical explanation. We had no reason to look for one, nor for any other kind of explanation, as we were unaware a stable size was a problem—assuming this equation is applicable to our realm.”

And, also to be fair, it was refreshing that this pillar of the establishment was willing to acknowledge their own potential shortcomings.

An amber unicorn had entered at the back of the lecture hall. It was time to wrap up this session. “Well, to answer that, we’ll have to examine the assumptions that led to its development and see if they’re still valid in this realm. Special Relativity only considered inertial frames of reference—that is, frames moving at unchanging velocities.

“General Relativity extended that to include accelerating frames of reference and, in particular, frames in a gravitational field. It assumes there’s no difference between standing on the ground, feeling weight from gravity, and being accelerated by an equivalent force in a rocket out in space; and therefore, a free falling object in a gravitational field must be in an unaccelerated, inertial frame of reference, just like an object floating in space far from anything else. If those assumptions are valid in this realm, the rest of the math still follows.”

“But only if this Special Relativity is also valid in our realm, which remains to be seen.”

The experiments suggested earlier had yet to be performed. “I’m sure the princess will find time to acquire the necessary resources and help carry out the experiments. She’s been quite busy recently—from what I’ve heard.”

“Indeed.”

Steve glanced up at Sunset Shimmer. “But we’re out of time for today. Next week, I’ll go into the effects of a gravitational field.”

The elderly professor sluggishly got up to his hooves and made his way up to the exit, following the younger attendees. Sunset Shimmer went past them on her way down, to join Steve at the podium.

“Are you aware of this?” Steve asked her. “That your realm has an unchanging size?”

“Star Swirl devised a spell that measures the size of our realm—”

“Of course it was Star Swirl.”

“Well, he is a legend for a reason. Anyway, that spell is cast about once a decade—it’s not an easy spell to cast—and the answer is always the same, within the margin of error.”

“So how large is this realm?”

Sunset gave an embarrassed smile. “Uh… we don’t actually know. We just know it hasn’t changed. We don’t know how to interpret the results of the spell as measurements of distance or volume.”

Steve sighed. “Well, it can’t be too large, not unless that spell can travel to the ends of the realm faster than the speed of light, and I rather doubt that. If it were possible to cast it in my universe, it’d take many billions of years—at best—for it to yield an answer.” He shrugged. “Arguably, it would never reach the far end due to eternal expansion.”

She tilted her head in thought. “I don’t know how long it takes, but it’s a difficult spell to cast for a reason. A unicorn must continuously cast it until it fills the entire realm. While that doesn’t take years, it certainly doesn’t take seconds either—on the order of hours, I think. It’s quite exhausting.”

“Huh. That would make this realm, at most, about the size of our solar system—assuming ‘speed of light’ yada yada yada. I guess that’s my fun fact for the day. I don’t suppose there’s been any research into the hypothetical magic that keeps the size stable?”

“Arcane Scroll’s right, so far as I know. Nopony had ever suspected there was a need for any.”

“Right.” He rubbed his eyes. “Hard to imagine such convenient magic would spontaneously come into being when this realm began, though it’d pretty much have to unless I’m really wrong about the physics of this place.”

He threw up his hands. “Enough unsolvable mysteries for one day. I’m ready to go home.”

Susie trotted a circle around Trixie’s wagon, looking without success for any opening.

“Ain’t nothing in there to see, sugarcube.”

“Eenope.”

“I’m guessing all her possessions are at the castle?” Meg asked.

“Eeyup.”

Curiosity satisfied, Meg left the barn to scan the skies. Come on, Twilight. The sooner Susie was restored to her proper form, the sooner she could put this day behind her.

Applejack had joined her outside. “She’ll be here soon enough, I reckon.”

No sooner had she said that, a lavender dot appeared in the distance and began to grow. It slowly resolved into an alicorn. Moments later, Twilight touched down.

“Susie’s in the barn,” Meg said.

Twilight started trotting in that direction. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

Susie was hovering at an open window, peering inside the wagon. Big Mac must have opened it for her. Meg guessed it didn’t really matter, if it had been emptied of everything. “It’s time, Susie.”

The filly rotated in place to face them. “Do I have to?” she whined. “Why can’t I be like you? A pony here and a human back home?”

I really really don’t need this crap right now. “We’ve been over this already. It’s time for your parents to visit you, so yes you have to.”

Twilight went over to the wagon. “Don’t make this harder for me, Susie. Please land.”

Susie didn’t budge.

“Do you want to fall after I change you back?”

She looked down at the ground, grimacing. “No…”

“Then please land.”

Susie looked at the ground for a bit longer, then descended. “Bye bye, wings.”

Twilight cast the spell, and a human child once more stood before them. Her magic engulfed Susie for a few seconds more. “As Celestia predicted,” she declared, “the chaos magic is gone.”

“Look at the bright side,” Meg said. “You have hands again.”

The little girl brought her hands up to her face and wiggled her fingers. She didn’t look completely convinced.

Twilight vanished after swallowing a plaid pill. Meg gave Susie a stern look. “Remember, not a word about being a pony.”

Susie silently nodded.

Twilight returned with Matt and Lori. “Still in one piece, I see,” Matt said, only a bit facetiously.

“Here’s your school work,” Lori said, holding out a book and some handouts to her daughter, who showed little inclination to use her newly restored hands. “I’ll just put them here for now.” She placed them on a bale of hay.

While the familial union was going on, Meg went over to Twilight. “I’m ready to go home,” she quietly said.

Twilight began leaving the barn, inviting Meg to join her. “About that… I’d like to bring Trixie along, just for a few minutes. I want a quick test of her magic in your realm.”

Meg wanted to say no; all it would do is drag out this day that much longer. She sighed. “Just for a very few minutes.”

Trixie looked around the room, taking in the not-designed-for-ponies furnishings. Then her eyes encountered Meg. “So that’s what you really look like,” she said. “A hideously deformed minotaur.”

It was stated as a simple fact, not an insult, and perhaps it was even true from a certain point of view. The day had been way too long for Meg to care. “Yep, get used to it.” She sat down in front of her computer. “Let’s get the magic test over with.” So this day can end.

Steve called out from the living room. “Meg? You need to see this. Twilight too, if she’s still there.”

“Now what?” she muttered as she got up.

“I guess it’ll have to wait a few minutes,” Twilight said to Trixie.

The two ponies followed Meg into the living room. A CNN Breaking News graphic was frozen on the TV. “I recorded it on the DVR,” Steve said.

The video resumed. “Could there be humans imprisoned in Tartarus? CNN has learned that at least one, possibly more, are in the custody of Equestria—with the approval of the Serrell Administration. Here to discuss the implications is Senator Clarence Routledge of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

The day just got longer.

16. Narratives are Magic

Twilight watched the TV with growing unease. The senator went on and on, acting as if Serrell was the archvillain who must be brought down. This sort of behavior was tolerated? Was the President powerless to stop it? She glanced at Meg and Steve sitting on their sofa, neither of them really bothered by the call to overthrow—if not in so many words—the ruler of the country.

Perhaps it was the unfamiliar terminology. Why was Tartarus like “Guantanamo?” Was that also a literal hell like their mythological Tartarus? She really needed to correct their misconceptions. But somehow she knew that wouldn’t be enough. It was quite clear the real problem was that humans were there at all.

For five minutes it went on before Steve stopped the playback. Much had been said: about due process, possible torture, speculation on what else the president might have going on with Equestria that was to his own benefit and not the nation’s—but, as Celestia often emphasized, what was not said is often more important than what was said.

It hadn’t escaped Meg’s notice either. “Not a word on who the prisoners are, why they’re prisoners in the first place—or even the exact number. Whoever leaked this was rather selective with their leak.”

Steve shut off the TV. “I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.”

“Could somepony please explain it to the Dazed and Confused Trixie?”

Meg jerked around, as if she had forgotten the showmare was there. “I thought referring to yourself in the third person was just a stage persona?”

“Cut me a break, will ya?” she grumbled. She nodded at the TV. “How’s that… thing even possible? You don’t have magic, right?”

“They don’t,” Twilight said, “and that ‘thing’ is called a ‘television.’ It functions exclusively on non-magical scientific principles. You’ll encounter many incredible inventions like that here.”

Trixie put on a thoughtful look. “Would any of these inventions work in our realm?”

What was she getting at? “They all do—at least the ones not dependent on infrastructure we currently lack. Why?”

“Just thinking… I might be able to use them in my show.”

Twilight considered the possibilities for herself. Devices that couldn’t possibly do what they did without magic, and yet they did. Part of the act could involve letting ponies look for spells themselves—and of course not finding any. Moondancer’s initial reaction to computers came to mind. It seemed harmless enough. “Just be aware that they’ll become commonplace in Equestria eventually.”

Her face went from thoughtful to worried. “How quickly?”

“I don’t know, quite honestly—which means, I guess, probably long enough for you to take advantage of it.”

Trixie took a step back. “I need to think about this.”

She invoked the return spell and vanished.

Meg shook her head. “I know. She’ll be coming back; her magic still needs to be tested here.”

Trixie was nowhere to be found when Twilight returned home. It was probably just as well. She went to her bedroom, where could be found the one computer that was connected to the human internet. On that computer was the secured communication software she had been given. Upon unlocking the computer, she found a message waiting for her.

It was short and simple. A brief summary of the news leak—it hadn’t gone unnoticed, to her utter lack of surprise. Serrell wanted her to come by to discuss the Tartarus situation. Tomorrow morning if possible. She sent a reply to confirm the meeting.

What the President wanted from her wasn’t clear. Whether the prisoners remained in Tartarus or were returned to their realm, it wouldn’t change the fact that it had become public knowledge; the damage was done. She couldn’t imagine any public statement she could make that would improve the situation.

Odd that he wouldn’t trust their own communication software for this subject. Must have been a sign how sensitive the situation was. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

She fetched another of Discord’s plaid pills from the seemingly bottomless dispenser and put it in a saddlebag; Susie’s parents were not staying overnight. Yet it was too soon to head back to Sweet Apple Acres.

Sugarcube Corner. That’s where she’d go to kill some time.

She went downstairs. Before she could reach the door, Derpy entered with the mail. The pegasus retrieved a thick stack of envelopes from a saddlebag and presented them. Twilight took them in her magic and leafed through them. It was a somewhat more productive means of killing time.

But only barely. The letters were all from some noble or businesspony or agency that wanted something from their newest princess. If she was lucky there’d be a letter from Cadance or Shining. There wasn’t, of course. Perhaps she should have her mail pre-filtered, taking up Celestia’s offer to have her staff handle it. Or get her own staff, as Spike kept suggesting. She dumped the junk mail on a table. It was only a matter of time, really.

Derpy was still there, her unease increasing by the second.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Twilight gently asked. She’d much rather help ponies like the mare in front of her than the ones who had sent those letters.

“Uh… do you remember the last time we talked? About humans? You said you’d think about it?”

Twilight kept her face neutral. “I haven’t had a chance, really. It’s only been a few hours, and I’ve been busy with other matters.”

Derpy took a step back. “Of course, how silly of me.” She turned around and started walking.

Pinkie’s words came back to her: You can’t keep it a secret forever. Then what? Like it or not, her friend had a point. You had to start somewhere. “Wait a minute,” she said, just before Derpy reached the door.

Derpy turned to face her, expectant.

“You’ll Pinkie Promise to keep secret what I’m about to tell and show you?”

Without hesitation she went through the motions. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Twilight let out a sigh, hoping she wasn’t about to blunder big time. “The human child that was mentioned? I can take you to her right now.”

Her eyes went wide. “You mean… go to their realm? Like… this second?”

“That… won’t be necessary.”

The pegasus tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re in this realm, not far from here.”

“I… thought you said humans wouldn’t be allowed in Ponyville.”

“Technically,” Twilight singsonged, “they’re not in Ponyville.”

“They?”

“Her parents are there too,” she admitted. “Think of it as a lucky break. You can ask them for their permission for Susie to attend Dinky’s birthday party.”

Derpy’s eyes went their separate ways.

“Just…” Twilight said, shaking her head. “Just follow me.”

They began their descent towards the Sweet Apple Acres homestead. Twilight scanned the area and found nopony outside. “They’re probably inside the house,” she told Derpy.

Upon landing at the front door, Twilight knocked. The seconds passed uneasily. “Could they be in the barn?” Derpy asked. “Somepony usually is when I deliver the mail.”

Before Twilight could answer, from inside came the sound of approaching hooves. The door opened, revealing Apple Bloom. The filly looked back and forth between the two, and decided to address the mailmare first. “Didn’t you already deliver the mail earlier today?”

Twilight answered for her. “She’s here to meet Susie and her parents. Are they inside?”

“Really?” Apple Bloom turned back to Derpy, who gave her a nervous grin in turn. “Uh, okay, then.” She once more looked at Twilight. “They’re in the clubhouse. Applejack’s with them.”

“You’ve met the humans,” Derpy asked, “and they’re okay? You’re not afraid of them?”

Apple Bloom looked askance at her. “Why would I be afraid of them?”

“Well, they know so much—”

“Why don’t we hold off on that conversation for now,” Twilight said, interrupting. “Let’s go to the clubhouse.”

Derpy hesitantly turned away from the filly. “Sure, let’s do that.”

Twilight left the ground and Derpy followed. “She’s had firsthoof experience with that, just so you know,” Twilight said. “She’s been to their realm a few times.”

They entered the orchard, flying between the apple trees at a leisurely pace. “Am I really being that silly about the whole thing?”

Twilight briefly looked back at her. “I don’t know, Derpy. When I first encountered it, I… could’ve handled it better myself. I still don’t know how it’s possible. Nopony does. No human does.” The clubhouse came into view up ahead. “It’s not fair to hold it against them.”

“I’ll… I’ll try.”

The door to the clubhouse was open. Twilight set down on the terrace and went inside. They were all there. Matt and Lori were sitting cross-legged on the floor, the roof not quite high enough for adult humans. From the calm way they looked at her, she could assume Susie’s pony transformation had gone unmentioned.

“My, how time flies,” Applejack said, herself sitting on her haunches. “Coulda sworn we had at least another hour.”

Twilight waved that off. “You do; that’s not why I’m here.” She looked back at the door. “Come on in.”

A gray muzzle poked through the door.

“Derpy!” Susie squealed, arms spread out for a hug as she ran towards the pegasus. The pony edged back out the door, her wings preparing for flight.

Twilight halted the child’s forward movement with her magic. “That could be interpreted the wrong way,” she chided her.

“Yes, Susie, you’re scaring her.” Lori waved the mare inside. “She won’t harm you,” she assured her.

Susie let her arms drop. “I’m sorry.”

Applejack gave Twilight a raised eyebrow. “This is mighty unexpected.”

“I assume there’s a reason for introducing Derpy to us?” Matt asked.

“There is.” Twilight looked back at the pegasus standing in the doorway and gave her an encouraging smile. “Derpy has a question she’d like to ask you.”

“She does?” Matt studied the pegasus. “I, uh, can’t imagine what about, but…” He shrugged. “Go right ahead.”

Derpy took a few small steps forward, not quite entering all the way. “My little muffin, Dinky—my foal—is having a birthday party soon, and…” She looked at Twilight, who with a smile encouraged her to continue. “And… she really wants to meet a human and I was wondering if… if Susie could attend the party.”

Susie exploded with excitement. “Can I, dad, can I?”

“Now just hold your—just hold it.” Matt covered his eyes for a moment. “I’m not saying no,” he said, “but I’m not saying yes either, not yet. I’ll need more information first. I’m sure Twilight here can provide that in due time.”

“I’ll be happy to, Matt.” Twilight debated whether to tell him about the Tartarus news leak. It wasn’t the best time to do so, but it was probably better that he heard it from her first. “Could you follow me outside? There’s something you should know.” Lori needed to hear it too, but she was also needed to keep an eye on their daughter.

“Ah… sure.” He carefully got up, remaining hunched over, and made his way to the door. Derpy hopped to the side, getting out of his way.

Matt stretched his back once he was outside. Twilight closed the door and cast a sonic barrier spell, but not before Susie could be heard asking, “Can I hug you?”

He addressed the alicorn. “It sounds important, whatever it is.”

“It doesn’t directly impact you, but you’re going to hear about it the next time you watch the news.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“You know those humans who are being held in Tartarus?”

“Yes,” he dryly said. “The reason my daughter is in Equestria right now.”

Best to get to the point. “Well, the fact that there are humans being held in Tartarus has made the news, and Serrell is being held responsible for that.”

Matt’s hand froze on his forehead. “I imagine it sucks to be him right now. So what are you doing about it?—if I may ask.”

“I only just found out about it myself. I’m meeting with Serrell tomorrow.”

He dropped his hand and looked up through the canopy. “Can’t image what could be said or done to undo the damage, but that’s not my problem. But if they’re going after him, I’m guessing it means it’s safe for Susie to come home?”

“It’s starting to look that way, but I’d first like to see what I’ll learn tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” He turned back to the door. “If they wanted to impeach him before… Still… I wish they’d done this first instead of going after my family. Just saying.”

Twilight Sparkle appeared inside the Oval Office, as she usually did, on top of the presidential coat of arms at the center of the oval rug. Not for the first time, she wondered what griffons would make of its eagle clasping an olive branch with one talon and arrows in the other. None had yet to lay eyes on it, so far as she knew.

President Serrell got up from behind his desk. “We’ve much to discuss,” he said. “Let’s get to it.” He strolled over to a sofa, and as he sat down he waved a hand at the facing sofa.

Twilight leaped up with the aid of her wings and make herself comfortable. “Perhaps you could start by providing some context? If I didn’t know any better, it looks like they’re trying to take you down over this. I mean, sure, the prisoners can be returned to your realm, but I’m not getting the impression that would really satisfy them. The few humans I’ve talk to about this more or less agree.”

“Humans like your Royal Advisor, Meg Coleman?” he casually threw out.

It took a second for that to register. “Right. Your agents overheard that in Tartarus, didn’t they?” When they were checking in with the guards. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“It doesn’t have to be, so long as she follows the laws concerning the representation of foreign powers. The easiest way of doing that is simply to avoid representing you in your interactions with us.”

There was so much to learn about how their government worked. “Then I will not ask her to serve in that capacity—but I doubt she would want to anyway.”

“Then let’s move on. Context.” He considered his words. “It will—and it won’t—satisfy them.”

Twilight waited for the explanation.

“It’s no accident the identities of the prisoners, even their number, were not leaked. It’s to give plausible deniability. Free them, and the accusations against me turn into mere unsubstantiated rumors. Everyone moves on to the next crisis du jour, and it falls off the headlines. And because their identities weren’t leaked, the former prisoners can go back to their lives. In that sense, it’ll satisfy them.

“But the accusations won’t completely die off; they’ll have taken on a life of their own. Mere lack of evidence won’t stop them. Many will latch onto them as additional reasons why ponies must be banished—and why I should be impeached. And in that sense, it won’t satisfy them. Of course, they win either way, whether they’re released or not. Sure, they’d have to out at least one of them if they’re not, but no more than one. Someone they consider relatively expendable.”

And I thought our nobles could get manipulative and underhoofed. Even they knew better than to openly work against Princess Celestia—or, as hard as it was to believe, against even herself. But, she had to remind herself, the man in front of her was just a man, little different from other men.

Serrell was waiting for some sort of feedback.

Strange. He didn’t seem as worried as he ought to be, given what he’d just said. “I’m assuming ‘they’ are the same people behind the break-in and Susie’s kidnapping? This ‘Section?’”

“You could say that,” was all he said.

“Am I missing something?” Twilight asked. “Some nuance of human politics?”

“I guess you could say that too.” He got up and started walking about the office. “All the people directly involved with that kidnapping have been identified, of course—don’t ask me who. What matters is that there has been a frank conversation.” He stopped and looked at her. “Are you aware of the phrase ‘mutually assured destruction?’”

“Mutually assured what now?”

He waved it off. “I’ll spare you the history lesson. The point is, neither side can take the other down without being taken down in turn. We’ve both taken actions that won’t sit well with the public.”

Nothing Celestia had taught her had prepared her for this. “Seriously?”

Serrell took a few silent steps around the Oval Office. “They know you are holding their operatives in Tartarus. They know I know that, and have done nothing about the abduction of citizens from our soil, have kept it secret. If that went public, really went public…” He threw up his hands. “Matters would become… untenable for me quite quickly.”

It would certainly play into the Equestrian Invaders narrative. By taking that action…

She stopped that line of thought; what’s done was done. “How could they know that?” she asked. They shouldn’t have known any of that; very few humans did, and none of them would have talked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, obviously wishing he did. “They claim that Meg spilled the beans while in their captivity.”

Twilight had had enough of that claim. “That’s absurd. Even if they really did have her—and they most certainly did not—she was gone before I arrived. She’d have no idea I’d taken them, much less where I had put them. None of them could’ve known I’d taken them, only that they ‘disappeared.’” And, she did not add, Meg had already made it perfectly clear that she wouldn’t go back in time in order to make this “kidnapping” a reality. Twilight saw no reason to persuade her differently.

He threw up his hands again. “It is what it is. Anyway, I’m officially asking for the return of the human prisoners in Tartarus.”

“Consider the transfer officially approved. We can work out the details later, but what stops the prisoners—ex-prisoners, I guess I should say—from talking?”

He grinned, to her surprise. “Mutually assured destruction, that’s what.”

Twilight groaned. “I must admit this wasn’t part of the training I received from Celestia.”

“Consider yourself fortunate that as a ruler of Equestria you needn’t worry about it. The bottom line is that most of those individuals don’t want to be in the news or the public eye. There’s a reason the news leak said one or more. I’ll say this much: this ‘Section’ is a band of strange bedfellows. If not for their common cause, I doubt they’d give each other the time of day.”

She had much to discuss with Celestia the next time she saw her. “Okay. So assume this goes according to plan. These accusations won’t just disappear, by your own admission.”

“Quite true, quite true.” He retook his seat across from her. “There’s only one way to make them go away, and that’s to confirm them with hard evidence.”

Her face went blank. “You’ve lost me.”

He gave her a big smile. “They got everyone believing there must be a human in Tartarus? Well, it turns out there already was one. He’s been stuck there for centuries, and he wants to come home.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. Serrell leaned back, pleased at her reaction.

It was brilliant. It confirmed the basis of the accusation, that at least one human was being held prisoner in Tartarus, but in a way that absolved Serrell of any responsibility whatsoever. And this “Section” couldn’t counter it without hard evidence of their own—that is, by outing their operatives.

Serrell continued. “Even better, it’ll dominate the news cycle, change the narrative. Equestria isn’t some alien place; it’s tied into our own history, a part of us, in ways no one could have conceived.”

“I suppose… so long as nopony asks how that’s possible.”

He waved that off. “Doesn’t matter. There’ll be no shortage of talking heads on the news channels endlessly speculating on that, spouting nonsense and contradicting each other. It’ll be great for ratings.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that already.” As enlightening as broadcast television could theoretically be, the humans had managed to come up with a devastating counterexample. She could see no reason to import that to Equestria.

“The point is, time they spend on that is time they won’t spend on the stuff we’d rather they didn’t. But we’re putting the cart before the horse—uh, no offense.”

“Uh, none taken?” The human need to apologize for equine-related sayings never ceased to amaze her, never mind that many of them were pony sayings as well.

Regardless, the President’s plan depended on one small detail. “I have no idea if Tirek was telling the truth, you know. He could have learned of this mythology from the other humans, though I gathered it’s unlikely any of them would have known the names of King Minos’ sons.”

“Not a problem,” he declared. “We’ve come up with a solid test. The ancient Minoans used a writing system known to us as Linear A. It has never been deciphered. As a Minoan royal, Tirek ought to be literate in that writing system.” He looked at her questioningly. “Assuming the passage of millennia hasn’t caused him to forget it?”

“It’s conceivable,” Twilight replied after a moment’s consideration, “but not likely. It seems to be a property of immortality. Certainly Celestia, Luna, and Discord have no trouble remembering the distant past.” Actually sharing what they could remember was a different matter, at least for one of them.

“Well, let’s hope he still remembers it. Anyway, it’s not like it has to be a timed test. He can take as long as he likes or needs; he has every incentive to finish it as soon as possible.”

“So, what is this test?”

“It’s simple, really. We give him something in English and have him translate it to Linear A. Then we give him something written in Linear A from ancient times and have him translate that to English.”

“But if it’s never been deciphered, how can you tell if he did it correctly?”

“Because his translations will form a Rosetta Stone that can be used to crack Linear A, allowing us to read all those ancient Minoan writings. But if he simply makes it all up…”

Twilight had no idea what a Rosetta Stone was, but it was easy enough to guess. “Then all those ancient writings will remain unintelligible.”

He sported a big grin, spreading his hands wide. “Precisely.”

The test was easy enough to carry out, and it seemed virtually foolproof. “I’ll be happy to administer it once it’s ready.” She didn’t know which outcome would be better. If he failed this test, she’d be spared a difficult decision, but relations with this realm may depend on him passing.

Serrell got up and walked over to his desk, and he picked up a large manila envelope. “It’s right here.” He carried it over to Twilight and set it down next to her.

Twilight stared at the envelope as Serrell returned to the sofa.

“Assuming he does pass this test, I’d like him to be interviewed on camera by our news organizations. It’s all part of dominating the news cycle; you have to give them fresh meat they can’t refuse.” He grimaced. “Sorry about the ‘fresh meat’ metaphor.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’ve attended state dinners with griffons. You really don’t need to worry about that sort of stuff.”

“Uh, right. Anyway, I assume the interviews will have to take place in Tartarus. That’s actually a good thing, putting the mythological prison on TV. Show that it isn’t a place of hellish torture. They’ll eat it up. The ratings will be through the roof. And it’ll play into the narrative that you, somehow, have a common heritage with us.

“But the pièce de résistance is the Tirek interview. Let him say in his own words who he is and what he wishes from us. Let that start the national debate, not some proclamation from this office.” He grinned. “Much safer from my perspective.”

I really need to discuss this with Celestia. Sure, this kind of manipulation for political benefit was hardly uncommon among the nobles, but from the rulers? She didn’t think Celestia played this game.

“You’re being awfully quiet.”

Twilight looked up. “Sorry, it’s a lot to think about. What happens if this ‘national debate’ decides to deny him his wish to come here?”

He shrugged. “Then he stays in Tartarus. Better to find out this way rather than after he’s already here. You might wish to point that out to him, that he really needs to sell himself during those interviews. Either way, the ‘human in Tartarus’ narrative is defused.”

17. Pop Quiz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So where is it?” Meg asked.

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

“Wasn’t that an autographed copy too?”

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

“Wait. Don’t. Isn’t it obvious?”

Her horn fizzled out. “Huh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This isn’t a social visit, Tirek.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She looked up. “Huh?”

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

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

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

Tirek took hold of the folder and opened it.

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

He slid the pen off the folder and inspected it.

“Press the button on the end.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where the hell are we?” Jackson asked.

“Bethesda, Maryland,” Twilight answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Quiet,” Trixie hissed.

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

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

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

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

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

“Five.”

The first human raised her ball.

“Ten.”

As did the next in line.

“Twenty-two.”

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

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

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

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

They both looked at Trixie.

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

“Are there minotaur magicians?” Steve asked.

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

“Nor have I,” Twilight said.

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

And the final task on her to-do list.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arcane Scroll shook his head. “Incredible.”

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

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

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

“That’s unfortunate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh.”

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

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

“Perhaps you could persuade her to see differently?”

18. Into the Lions' Den

The Zephyr’s gangway lowered. Shafts of sunlight from the setting sun illuminated the cave interior on the far side of the Gates of Tartarus. No sooner had the gangway touched the ground that Twilight trotted out, saddlebags on her back. Closely following her was Rarity, also laden with saddlebags. Rainbow Dash flew unencumbered behind them.

Twilight paused in front of the gates that marked the boundary between realms, frowning at the pegasus. “You really should walk through the bars, Dash. Flight magic barely works there.”

Rainbow Dash remained airborne, defiant. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Twilight shook her head and stepped through the giant, widely spaced bars. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you certain you won’t reconsider, darling?”

Dash crossed her forelimbs. “Yes, Rarity. I’m certain.”

With a polite smile, she turned and stepped through the bars herself.

The alicorn and the unicorn waited for the pegasus to fly through the bars.

Dash glared back at them. “Honestly,” she muttered, “just because some pegasi can’t manage it…”

A few feet off the ground, she drifted across the threshold. “See?” she said, bearing a huge smirk. “Easy as—whoa!” Fierce flapping halted her plunge. She slowly regained her original altitude. “No problem,” she insisted.

Twilight rolled her eyes and trotted towards the back of the cave. “Just remember that gravity is weird here, and we’re not about to go in circles, never mind what your internal compass is telling you.”

“Sure, whatever.” The pegasus flew behind them, refusing to let mere exertion force her onto her hooves.

They reached the throat at the back of the cave. Twilight did not slow down, and quickly she disappeared over the rounded edge. Upon failing to hear hooves or wings following her, she stopped. Rainbow Dash was hovering over the pit, gawking at the illusion of her standing on a wall; as for Rarity, her head was all she could see. “Gravity is weird here,” she repeated, and continued trotting.

This time, the others followed.

The end credits to the Daring Don’t episode appeared. Meg hit the pause button. She had saved this one for last. Since Twilight had brought over her guest several hours ago, it had been nothing but non-stop MLP cartoons. “Now you know what to expect,” she said to the pony lying down on the sofa.

A. K. Yearling adjusted her cloche hat. “That’s… a lot to think about.”

“That all happened, right?” She sat on the recliner opposite the disguised explorer. “Maybe not down to the smallest detail, but neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash found any material differences. Mostly just stuff left out so it all fit in twenty-two minutes.”

“I… can understand why they’d come to that conclusion.”

Meg leaned forward, hands clasped. “Meaning?”

“It’s… not that simple. One can be presented with a collection of true facts, yet the ignorance of other facts will lead to erroneous conclusions.”

Meg flopped back. “Like what?” Somehow she doubted she’d get a straight answer.

She got that infamous Daring Do smirk. “That would be telling.”

No, of course not. Straight answers seemed to be in short supply, in either universe. Luckily for her alleged secrets, the cartoon mostly followed the viewpoints of the Mane Six. “Well, you better decide quickly how you want to deal with that episode, unless you want to bail out now.”

“Thinking on my hooves has never been a problem for me.”

Meg had no comeback to that. She had no idea at all what to say. There was at least another fifteen minutes before they arrived. The silence grew.

Yearling broke the silence. “I’ve heard that you’re helping to give the Smooze the power of speech.”

“You have?” Meg asked. “Who told you that?”

“I have my sources,” was all she said.

Would it kill her to give a straight answer for a change? “I assume it was Twilight.”

“Nope.”

“I doubt it was Rainbow Dash.”

“Quite correct,” she replied, grinning. “It wasn’t.”

Meg was already tired of this game. Would she even admit it if she’d guessed correctly? She was half-tempted to throw out a random name, like Lyra Heartstrings, but decided to stop playing. “Yes, I’ve been helping to adapt human technology to the problem. We still have a long way to go.” She hadn’t worked on that for a while. There had been too many distractions lately. “Why the interest?”

Yearling exhaled. “You might say he’s an archvillain of mine—not in the sense you’re thinking.” A wry smile. “It’s not like he’s ever personally attacked me. We haven’t even met—I doubt he knows I exist, probably—but nonetheless he’s made my life quite difficult.”

“So… a conversation with him would… clear up some misunderstanding between you two?”

“It’s not so much a… misunderstanding.” She rubbed her suddenly tired eyes. “I’ve been searching long and hard for other evidence of ancient humans in our realm.”

“Okay…” Presumably without success.

“Over the years, I would occasionally stumble across a promising lead to something extraordinary, or so my special talent would insist. Every single time, when I visited the site, I would discover that at some point in the ancient past it had been wiped totally clean—and I mean totally clean.” She locked onto her eyes. “Every single time—with one exception.”

Meg didn’t like where this was going. “And the exception was?”

“The catacombs with ancient human remains. I’ve visited two other sites since then; both long ago had been wiped clean.”

Meg sifted the pieces, trying to make sense of it. “You think the Smooze had something to do with this?”

Yearling looked away. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to prove it. But I’m certain now those other sites, including, in hindsight, the ones I visited before those catacombs, were connected to ancient humans. I’m beginning to think somepony wanted to destroy the evidence, and the Smooze was the tool.”

During her first Grand Galloping Gala, Discord had admitted that “Smoozie” had wiped out villages in the past. Could it be connected to this? Asking Discord was unlikely to yield answers, helpful answers anyway, but… “You want to ask the Smooze if he did it, and if so, why.”

“That’s basically it.”

Cerberus sniffed Rarity with one nose, a laboring but still hovering Rainbow Dash with another, and his remaining mouth attempted to lick Twilight. “You just saw me yesterday, you silly dog,” she said, giggling. Her magic worked well enough to keep his tongue off her coat.

“Yes, well, no need to show me affection, darling.”

“Ah, come on, Rarity!” Dash said, petting the nearest head. “He’s such a pushover.”

“Not to the inmates, he’s not,” declared a minotaur guard.

“Speaking of which,” Twilight said, “please send some extra guards over to Tirek’s cell. Not that I’m expecting any trouble, but it’ll be necessary for us to open his cell and go inside.”

Rarity couldn’t help shuddering.

The guard bowed. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll notify our elite troops.” He returned to his station to pass on the request. The residents of this realm used a means of long-distance communications that somehow used the rock comprising the cave walls as a carrier.

Twilight hadn’t paid much attention to that before, nor unfortunately was there time to pursue it now. She headed towards to tunnel leading to Tirek’s cell, leading the way for Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

Once they had entered the tunnel and were out of minotaur earshot, Rarity spoke up. “This is really happening,” she said. “You intend to release him.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Dash said, flying along—barely—on Twilight’s other side.

There was little to be gained by rehashing the argument, but it seemed she had little choice. “First off, that’s not set in stone. He still has to meet certain conditions. He has to convince the humans to accept his return, and he has to reveal how he crossed over to our realm. Second, it’s not just about him or us, but about the humans, about how his return may help stop this insanity about us being invaders. And don’t forget he’ll return to being one of them, confined to their realm, devoid of magic and no longer a threat to us.” She turned her head to face Dash. “Or do we wait until he manages to escape Tartarus once more? He’ll have plenty of centuries to figure something out.”

“Jeez, I wasn’t expecting a lecture.”

“I’m not happy about it either.” Twilight lowered her head. “I need to convince myself as much as anypony else. It seems like no matter the outcome, I… don’t exactly win.”

There was a knock at the door. Meg stood up. “Last chance to back out.”

“As if,” said the disguised adventurer.

It’s your funeral, Meg thought as she went to answer the door. But this was Daring Do, after all, not Derpy, and it wasn’t as if she was about to be tied up and thrown into a pool full of hungry cragodiles. If cragodiles were even a thing.

She opened the door and stood aside. “Come on in,” she said. Andrew, the president of the board, Joe, the vice-president, and Elaine, head of PR and marketing—and sister of the infamous Eric Tanner—all entered.

Does she know yet? The social smile upon meeting her eyes suggested she did not. But then, apart from the fact that he was somewhere on Earth, Meg herself did not know Eric’s current status or location.

Meg led them to the living room. Yearling had, for some reason, relocated to the recliner—possibly to deny the others the option of sitting next to her. She adjusted her fake glasses, now magically enchanted to optically distort the face behind them, and greeted the new arrivals with a practiced smile.

The others halted and gaped upon seeing the celebrity author. “Tell me you see her too,” Elaine said.

“Yes, I can also see Meg,” Yearling deadpanned.

Joe found his voice next. “So you’re also a comedienne?”

“No, but I’ve gotten so bored of simply responding with ‘why yes, I am A. K. Yearling. Would you like an autograph?’”

“I, uh, hope this doesn’t come across as rude,” Andrew said, “but… are you a pegasus or an earth pony?”

Meg suppressed her gut reaction to that question, which was so obviously a roundabout way of asking whether she was really Daring Do. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The mare raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Meg almost choked on that reply. No, it wasn’t obvious, not even to other ponies—that’s why she wore that shawl—but apparently she figured humans wouldn’t know that.

“Um… no?” Andrew admitted. “Not to us humans, anyway.”

Yearling adjusted her glasses. “Well, let’s leave it a mystery, shall we? I’m here to discuss my potential appearance at your convention. Why don’t you all take a seat?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, as he, Joe, and Elaine found spots to sit on the sofa. “We’re more than happy to talk about that.” Meg went to the kitchen to get snacks and refreshments.

“My main reason for appearing, naturally, is to promote my books. Your realm is a huge, untapped market.”

“We are absolutely okay with that. Will you have books to sign? Have you found a human publisher yet? Are you even looking for one? Uh, how does any of this actually work?”

“That’s quite a few questions there,” she said with a smile. “The answers are yes, no, yes, and we’re making it up as we go. Any books I’ll bring with me will have to come from Equestria—this time, anyway—and I’m not even sure I’ll be allowed to do that.”

“Why would the princesses object?” Elaine asked.

“I’m sorry, allow me to rephrase. I can bring the books; the question is whether I can sell them. Trade treaties and all that haven’t been worked out yet.” Yearling rolled her eyes. “And then there are the taxes. I’d have to deal with your IRS.”

“Well, we can’t help you with that, specifically,” Elaine said, “but how about this instead? Don’t sell them, donate them to a charity auction. We already plan to do that with other Equestrian objects. Instead of taxable profits, you get a tax deduction.” She grimaced. “Well, you plan on making money here eventually, so it’d still come in handy.”

Yearling tapped her muzzle in thought. “I think I could get on board with that. It’d generate good publicity, and that’s good marketing.”

“Allow me to apologize in advance for our IRS.” Meg had returned with beverages and bowl of pretzels.

“It can’t be any worse than that monstrosity of a tax code the minotaurs have cooked up. That’s why I hire accountants.”

Elaine giggle-snorted. “Daring Do and the Minotauran Tax Audit.”

Yearling rolled her eyes. “If I ever wanted to retire from writing, that would be a good way to bring it about.”

The room went silent, apart from the sounds of pretzels being crunched. Eventually, Andrew sighed. “I’m really sorry, but I gotta ask this.” He looked the mare in the eyes. “Are you, in fact, Daring Do?”

A vast cavern opened up in front of them. Twilight stopped as a minotaur guard approached. Rainbow Dash took this as an excuse to finally land and rest her definitely-not-exhausted wings.

“Your Highness,” greeted the bowing guard. “The troops you requested are waiting at the entrance of Tirek’s prison.”

Twilight looked up to the ceiling, at the building in question. “I see them,” she said. How many there were was hard to tell, due to the distance, but there were certainly enough of them. It was mostly for show; her alicorn magic, limited as it was in this realm, would still be more effective in the unlikely event Tirek was… uncooperative. “We’ll be on our way,” she said, dismissing the guard.

The guard bowed once more and returned to his station.

They set out down the path to the nearest connecting pillar. Rarity felt the need to point out the obvious. “It’s on the ceiling, Twilight.”

“That is correct, Rarity. We’ll be taking that pillar ahead of us to the ceiling.”

Her eyes followed it from bottom to top. “If you say so, darling.”

Twilight couldn’t help noticing that Rainbow Dash was trotting alongside them. “Wings finally gave out?”

“Not really. Just pacing myself.”

Twilight threw her a skeptical look, but remained silent.

“Fine, you were right about this place. I think I’d like to come back here for endurance flight training.”

“I suppose that could be arranged.” She made a mental note to propose that for pegasus royal guards as well. The Wonderbolts might be interested too. Wouldn’t that make Rainbow’s day.

“Can’t something be done about the light?” Rarity asked. “This reddish-orange color just… makes everything look awful.”

“It’s a prison. What d’ya expect?”

“It’s not because it’s a prison, Rainbow Dash. The civilian caverns are like this too. The ambient illumination can be adjusted within a small area, like inside a building, but not out here in the open.”

“This is a definition of open I haven’t encountered before,” Rarity said, looking around her. “We’re in a cave.”

Twilight sighed. “It’s as open as this realm gets.”

“Where does the light even come from?” Dash asked.

“The cave walls.”

“But they’re not glowing.”

“Just take my word for it.”

They trotted on in silence. Upon reaching the curved ramp that joined pillar and ground, Twilight did not slow down. “Keep trotting. You won’t fall off.”

With only the slightest of hesitation, Rarity and Rainbow Dash followed. “If I was high off the ground,” the pegasus asked, “which way would be down?”

“I don’t know.” There wasn’t anything floating in the middle of the cave; there was that. “And this isn’t the time to find out,” Twilight preemptively declared.

Rainbow Dash refolded her wings and continued trotting in silence.

They reached the building in which Tirek was incarcerated. A half-dozen guards, armored up to fight a war, stood outside the door. They bowed at Twilight’s arrival. “You are to make sure Tirek does not leave his cell while it is open,” the princess commanded them. “But—and I want to emphasize this—I do not anticipate any problems. This is merely a precaution.”

“Understood,” their commander said.

The three ponies went inside, signed in, and made their way to the back, past the empty cells. The elite guards followed close behind.

When they turned the final corner, Tirek was already standing in front of the bars, alerted by the sound of so many approaching hooves. “Rarity!” he exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. “Dare I consider this evidence of having passed the first part of the test?”

“Hey, what about me?”

The centaur looked down his nose at the pegasus. “I know why she’s here.”

“Well, I’m here to make sure you don’t harm her.”

Tirek folded his muscular arms against his chest. “Are you sure you’re up to it, when you can barely fly?”

“That’s enough, both of you.” Twilight met Tirek’s eyes. “The final results aren’t in yet, but it’s looking good. That was a nice touch, by the way, throwing in the alphabet, a minimal dictionary, and a basic description of the grammar.”

He shrugged. “I have a lot of free time and a desire to make a good impression—and it was rather obvious from your reaction to that ‘thirty amphora of olive oil’ translation that you had no idea if it was correct, which suggests that knowledge of my native tongue had been lost.” He walked over to the desk and picked up a folder. “Here’s part two,” he said, walking back to the bars. “It documented a visit to Knossos by Mycenaean royalty,” he said dismissively. “Can’t imagine why those upstarts had been received with such honor.” With a heavy sigh, he added, “But it did take place well after my time.”

Twilight levitated it out of his hand, through the bars, and into her saddlebags. “Your language has been lost to time,” she confirmed. The test had been completed; there was no harm in admitting it now, and he’d find out soon enough anyway. “Let’s get started.” She turned to a guard. “Open the cell.”

“Am I, in fact, Daring Do,” the disguised pegasus slowly repeated. A smile grew on her muzzle. “I can definitely say that name does not appear on my birth certificate.”

Meg suppressed a groan. You’re gonna have to do better than that.

Andrew wasted no time in proving her right. “Are you aware of the My Little Pony cartoon?” He might as well have been asking about the weather, from how he asked it.

“As a matter of fact,” she beamed, “I am. Meg was kind enough to play the Daring Don’t episode for me. I can certainly understand, after watching that, why you’d think she and I were the same pony.”

“And…?”

“Well, I suppose, in some sense, we are the same. She is my creation, after all, and when I’m writing those books, I’m very much inside her mind.”

And you’re also “very much” inside her mind when you’re not writing those books. Meg had to give her credit. Not a single false statement, yet all designed to lead to the wrong conclusion. Would it work on an audience of adults?

“Could we see your cutie mark?” Elaine asked. “Please?”

The room got deathly silent. “Daring Do is not the only pony to have a compass rose cutie mark,” the author stated, strangely calm. She carefully lifted her shawl, revealing her cutie mark: a quill in an ink pot. “But I am not one of them.”

What the… Meg had never seen—no, that’s not true. The very first time she met Daring, in the guise of her alter ego, she had thrown off the shawl and revealed the compass rose. Is this a body double? If so, she was an unbelievably well informed double; Meg hadn’t suspected a thing.

“Wow,” Joe said. “The cartoon got something wrong, big time—and this was season four, not five.”

“Is something wrong, Meg?” The question was innocent enough, but the way Yearling was holding her ears, directed to either side instead of towards her… Only another pony—or a human who has spent a lot of time as a pony—would catch how odd that was. It was a signal, a wink, meant just for her.

“Uh… no?” You have a lot of explaining to do. “Just surprised at how wrong that episode was, that’s all.” And you’d better hope no one thinks to ask Twilight or the others about it.

“Unfortunate, indeed. I suspect this won’t be the last time I’ll have to lift my shawl.”

“We’ll see what can be done to keep that to a minimum,” Andrew assured her.

“I wonder,” Yearling pondered, stroking her muzzle with a hoof. “Would keeping the mystery alive—was I or was I not Daring Do—would that help book sales?”

Rarity rolled up her measuring tape and placed it back in her saddlebag, along with a notepad full of measurements. She retrieved a sketchpad and presented it to Tirek. “I was provided with pictures of ancient Minoan attire. They came from frescos, which are all that survived to the present day. I adapted them to your current partially equine physique.”

Tirek flipped through the pages. “Ancient to them, perhaps…” He paused on one of them. “To me…” he said, as he studied the details more closely. “I do believe this one is based on fashions that came well after my time.” He presented the sketchpad back to Rarity. “But no matter. I quite like it.”

The fashionista earmarked the page and returned the sketchpad to a saddlebag. “I believe we are done for now.”

“I do seem to have made quite the impression,” Tirek said, turning back to Twilight. “They must be quite eager to have this ‘press conference.’”

There was no denying that. If the “narrative” didn’t change soon, and for the better, Daring Do was wasting her time planning an appearance at that brony convention. “And they can’t put you naked on worldwide television, so this will be Rarity’s top priority.”

“I’m certainly being paid well enough,” Rarity said with strained civility. Nor had she made even a token effort to refuse payment from the royal treasury.

“Would you rather I imprison you in a force bubble for old time’s sake?”

Rarity glared at the forced attempt at humor.

“How about we go all rainbows and stuff and, you know, zap you for old time’s sake?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You’re not helping, Dash.”

That provoked a laugh from Tirek. “Indeed! The time has past for us to be enemies. We could even work together.”

While it was true that she had no cause to battle a human Tirek living in the human realm, that was pushing it. “Work together?”

“We could collaborate on research.”

Against her better judgement, Twilight found herself playing along. “Like what?”

“Oh… consider the matter of languages. Imagine my surprise when I was able to converse with the human prisoners with whom I briefly shared this prison. They spoke nearly flawless Equish; they didn’t even have an accent!” His lips curled into a smile. “But surely you once felt that same surprise. Haven’t you wondered how that came to be, how it’s even possible?”

Of course she had wondered. Since Equish had been around for far longer than English, she first had assumed that inter-realm contact had transferred the language to the humans. But then she had learned that the evolution of English over the centuries was well documented. There was no room for Equestrian influence—and if there had been such influence, it would had to have been so recent and massive that it couldn’t possibly have escaped notice in either realm.

Rarity broke the silence. “I must confess I have, on occasion, wondered that myself.”

“Yeah, well, so what?” Rainbow Dash spat out. “Twilight has the smartest ponies in Equestria to help her. How can you top that?”

Tirek bore a cryptic smile. “I’ve been around a very long time. When I arrived here, nopony spoke anything resembling modern Equish.”

The implications sank in. Not even Celestia predated modern Equish. Discord, maybe, but he rarely cooperated in such matters and for this he’d made no exception. On the origins of Equish there was no written record. If Tirek had lived through its origins and development, that was huge. “I’m listening.”

“And I’ll be happy to fill you in—once I’m back on Earth.”

19. News Travels Fast

Steve was hunched over his notebook computer, typing and clicking away. Twilight watched, eager for the answer. The time had come to plan their trip back in time, to witness who or what had bound the magic leak to that Pinkie Pie doll, using one of Star Swirl’s binding spells.

Sounds of the front door unlocking and opening competed with the sounds of typing. “I’m home,” Meg proclaimed.

“We’re in here,” her husband replied.

She entered the living room and stopped upon noticing Twilight’s presence.

“How was work today?” Twilight asked. “Will we be back in operation soon?”

“Just about, I think,” Meg replied. “My office is back in one piece, anyway. You can start replacing the stolen magic generators and enchanted crystals. Something to make my office unbreachable would be nice.”

“It’ll need a strong magic generator to power it, but I think that could be done.” Several of those enchanted crystals ought to be made; this home could use one too.

“Lucky for us there’s no shortage of radioactive waste to power these things.” Meg approached the coffee table. “By any chance, do you know anything about an enchantment on A. K. Yearling’s shawl?”

Twilight looked up in confusion. “Enchantment what now?”

Meg slid her purse off her shoulder and set it down on the table. “Her shawl is enchanted to disguise her cutie mark. Only works if it’s in contact anywhere on her body.”

“Okay…” Twilight scrunched her muzzle, searching her memories. As far as she could remember, Daring was either not wearing it at all, wearing it and thus hiding her cutie mark, or dramatically tossing it off. As her attention had never been on the disguised explorer’s flank during the tossings, she’d never have noticed the disguised cutie mark during the brief instant the enchantment was still active. “What does the disguised cutie mark look like?”

“A quill in an ink pot, just what you’d expect for an accomplished writer.”

“No, I didn’t know—but it’s not something I’d notice if I wasn’t scanning for it.” Which she fully intended to do the next chance she got. As “Yearling’s” cutie mark was not public knowledge, she decided it must have been something recent. She’d have no reason to hide it, quite the contrary, if she’d always had that enchantment.

But that rather depended, on second thought, on how the enchantment worked. The shawl might require prolonged physical contact with the cutie mark to set up the illusion, even if it could then be maintained with contact elsewhere on her body. That was right up Trixie’s alley; maybe she’d have some insight into that magic.

“Well, it fooled Andrew and company,” Meg continued. “They’re now totally convinced Daring Do’s fictional and that Daring Don’t got it wrong.” Meg went to the kitchen. “You might want to keep that in mind the next time someone asks you about that episode.”

Twilight clenched her teeth. Why couldn’t she run that past me first? What if the enchantment hadn’t work in this realm? A possible solution came to her: claim it was all a dream Rainbow Dash had one night, and somehow it got re-interpreted as actual events by the cartoon. Would Dash go along with that? Could she trust her not to mess it up if she did?

“By the way,” Meg shouted from the kitchen, “Daring now thinks somepony used the Smooze to destroy all evidence of ancient humans in your realm—except for what we found, lucky us—and she’d like to talk to him once we got the speech synthesizer working.” A pause. “Yes, she found out about that. Somehow.”

Twilight wasn’t sure which annoyed her more: Daring pulling that cutie mark disguise on the humans or coming up with this Smooze conspiracy. And how did she find out about the synthesizer anyway? Not that it was a royal secret or anything, but even so… it wasn’t as if she’d hung around Ponyville. “Well, I didn’t tell her.”

“She admitted that. Also said she didn’t find out from Rainbow Dash. But she wouldn’t give up her source.”

As annoying as it was, it didn’t alter the facts. Daring wouldn’t make that claim about the Smooze without good reason. “We need to get that voice synthesizer working sooner rather than later, but for now let’s stick to the matter at hoof.”

She returned her attention to Steve. “Any estimate yet?”

He continued typing for a bit longer before looking up. “I think we can get it down to a few minutes. But that’s still too long. We’ll need an enclosure of some sort to protect us.”

“Are you sure? Teleportation is virtually instantaneous.”

“This isn’t teleportation, or at least not that kind of teleportation.” Steve leaned back in his chair. “Normal teleportation works by first creating a wormhole. The far terminus must first cross the intervening distance, which it does essentially at light speed. The wormhole itself does not stretch as this happens, so it brings two distant points essentially adjacent to each other. You pass through it in zero time, for all intents and purposes. The time it takes for the terminus to reach its destination is on the order of microseconds, at most, so you don’t notice that passage of time either.

“Time travel could theoretically work that way, but not in practice. The distance to travel one year through time is a lightyear, so it’ll take a full year for the wormhole terminus to reach its destination, and the poor unicorn attempting it must keep the spell active the whole time. And even then, once the wormhole has been established, there are quantum mechanical reasons why it’d immediately collapse.” He waved his hands around. “It’s due to particles looping through it, back in time, an all-but-infinite number of times, because there’s a nonzero probability of that happening, and every particle simultaneously takes every possible path, no matter how absurd, until its wave function collapses.” His hands dropped back to his lap. “Well, that’s all conjecture until someone actually creates such a wormhole.

“This spell does not create a wormhole. What it appears to do is to carry the travelers in a separate bubble of spacetime. It splits off from the rest of the universe at the point of departure, follows the worldline of that point towards the past, then merges back into the universe. I’m not sure how that prevents hitchhiking virtual particles, but it evidently seems to solve that problem; even so, the sheer distances involved create others.”

“I didn’t perceived the passage of time when I previously time traveled.”

Steve leaned back in his chair. “We won’t be traveling back a day or even a week. This time it’s a few years; that’s lightyears of distance. The spell incorporates massive time dilation, but not that massive. Unless you know how to improve it…”

Twilight frowned. “No, I don’t.” A lightyear was six trillion miles of distance. It was still difficult to think of time as literally equivalent to distance, never mind so much distance. “Could this enclosure be magical in nature?”

“I suppose,” he said, shrugging. “If you think you could keep it up the whole way. That spacetime bubble will have nothing in it but what we bring with us; it’s a hard vacuum. We’ll need to have enough air to last the trip, and it wouldn’t do if you passed out on the way.”

Ouch. She hadn’t thought of that. It was only a few minutes, though. They wouldn’t need that much air. “A physical enclosure risks being discovered. I mean, I know it wasn’t, but that’s because we would take steps to prevent it, and this will be complicated enough as it is.”

Meg returned from the kitchen, holding a tray of refreshments. “You were there, so you know best.”

“Correction: I was there until I went through the Mirror. We’d be arriving well after that point, unless you want to spend a few days keeping out of sight at Canterlot High. I do know Cadance kept it under guard while I was on the other side.”

Meg placed the tray on the coffee table. “We didn’t get caught—or if we were, we managed to talked Cadance into keeping it a secret from you. That must count for something.”

“Or Discord did something unusually helpful.” Everyone looked at Steve. “It could happen.”

“I already had a brief conver—”

Meg’s phone rang, interrupting Twilight. After briefly checking the screen, she said, “It’s Matt,” and accepted the call.

Twilight couldn’t make out the words Matt was saying, but he had few to say.

“I’ll turn it on,” Meg said. “Twilight’s here and I’m sure she’ll want to see it too. … No, I can’t say anything more; you know the drill. … Okay, bye.”

She grabbed the TV remote and turned it on. It was tuned to CNN; she did not change the channel. There was a panel of a half-dozen people, discussing something.

“—of prior contact between our two worlds—”

Meg pressed a button and the video went into reverse. “Let’s see if the DVR still has the beginning of this.” When a breaking-news graphic appeared, she pressed another button.

“The deciphering of a long-dead language is rarely news outside of linguistic circles. What makes it different this time is how this particular language, used by the ancient Minoans many thousands of years ago, was finally cracked. It turns out the language exists in living memory after all—in Equestria, of all places.

“We’ve assembled a panel of experts—”

Meg paused the DVR. “Just wait till they find out whose ‘living memory’ it is.”

“How do you think they’ll react?” Twilight asked.

Steve looked up from his computer. “In a way that maximizes ratings,” he cynically threw out.

“They’ll certainly have more talking heads like these,” Meg said, pointing a finger at the TV, “pretending to know what they’re talking about.” She shut off the TV. “So when do we enlighten them?”

Twilight wanted to see more, but didn’t object. “Serrell wants them to chew on it for a day or two, then make it known that I’ll soon be releasing a statement. It’ll end with the press conference in Tartarus, of course. I’m already making arrangements for that.” She bore a sheepish smile. “It’s, uh, not something they’ve ever had to deal with before.”

“I bet,” Steve grunted.

Meg sat on the sofa, next to Twilight. “Let’s stay focused.” It was no secret she wanted to get to the bottom of that doll, not that Twilight didn’t. “You were about to say something about Discord when we were interrupted?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “As I was about to say, I already had a brief conversation with Discord. He admitted he would notice if his future self popped into the present but, if at all possible, he would also leave his future self alone. Immutable knowledge of his future ‘harshes his vibe’ as he puts it. He hates being locked into a predetermined sequence of events.”

“Doesn’t that beg the question?” Steve asked. “Did he notice his future self popping in to the present?”

As if she hadn’t thought to ask that. “He refused to say. Even being asked was obviously distasteful to him.”

“But he’s coming with us, right? We need him, unless you’ve learned how to get to hyperspace.”

“I have learned how, but we still need his magic. I can’t handle the raw magic of hyperspace, not yet.” She grimaced at the memory from a few months ago. If Discord hadn’t been with her… “I’ve already tried. Celestia or Luna could handle it, in theory, but they lack the experience and the time to acquire it. So Discord it must be, and fortunately he has agreed to accompany us.”

“He refused to say, huh?” Steve smirked. “You’re sure about that?”

Work was returning to normal. Meg locked her new desktop computer and left her office. She walked through the corridors, passing by a few recently vacated cubicles on her way to the secured testing vault. Eric Tanner had been terminated, naturally, not that he had ever showed up again. Additional background checks had led to a few others being “strongly encouraged” to find other employment. There should be no more inside jobs.

It was time to get it back in operation. Sunset Shimmer would be waiting for her in the vault. It was also time to sound out her feelings about breaking Tirek out of Tartarus in the past. Meg still hadn’t a clue how to do that.

She arrived at the vault. After making sure no one was nearby, she swept her key card past the scanner and was awarded with a satisfying clunk. She pulled open the reinforced door—and stopped.

Sunset was not the only pony in the vault, never mind that she wasn’t supposed to be a pony. Meg rushed in and closed the door. She cut to the chase. “Why is Derpy here?”

The gray pegasus answered. “You’re Meg, right?”

What was the point of denying it? That she was even here… “That’s right,” she said. “The same Meg you knew as a pegasus in Equestria.”

“I, um, wanted to ask you a question about the birthday party. The princess said it was okay.”

Here? Now? Meg turned to Sunset. “And why didn’t ‘the princess’ bring you over?” She couldn’t have; that’s why Sunset wasn’t human. Not that Twilight would have stayed long; she had been counting on that.

“She needed to be in Canterlot,” Sunset said. “That’s all I know. She did grant Derpy permission. Figured this vault was a safe enough environment for a quick question.”

Safe from other humans, in other words. Regardless, the mailmare had never expressed any interest in coming to this world. And here she was. Seeing Meg in her original form. Something Twilight would not have been unaware of.

Meg got down on her knees and put on a smile. “By all means, ask your question.”

Derpy’s wings twitched in nervousness. “It’s about Dinky’s birthday party.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Well, now that we know Susie can come, Dinky wonders if the party could be held here, in this realm.”

“I, um, that’s… an interesting question.” Meg ran her hand through her hair. “It’s certainly not physically impossible, but, uh, I’m… not sure where it could be held.”

“Don’t you have places like Sugarcube Corner?”

“Well, yeah, sorta, but they’re awfully public places and that really isn’t a good idea right now.”

“You mean it could actually be dangerous?”

“Not necessarily, but, yeah, there’s some risk. News travels fast in our realm—you can’t believe how fast—and, well, it might be a problem.”

“I see.” Derpy’s face drifts downwards. “Because everypony here knows who we are. They’d want to meet us.”

How much did Twilight tell her? “There are other options. Let me look into them and get back to you. Any other questions?”

Derpy looked at the closed vault door. “Could I take a look outside?”

The chaos that would cause would make Discord’s day. Sunset spared Meg the burden of explaining the situation. “It’d be highly disruptive. No pony has been outside this vault while humans were present.”

Ignoring one notable exception, Meg did not say.

“The reasons for that are somewhat outdated, but it’s not in Meg’s power to change the rules.”

“Not even the princess?”

It wasn’t clear if Derpy meant whether it was within Twilight’s power to change the rules, or that she could leave the vault when humans were around. Meg decided it didn’t really make a difference. “Twilight has no authority here,” she pointed out. “She’s not our princess.”

Derpy grimaced in embarrassment. “How silly of me to forget that.”

“Don’t worry about it. If you really want to see more of this realm, you can visit me some other time.”

“I think I’d like that.” The pegasus looked around the room at all the scientific equipment. “What do you do here? If I may ask…”

Not that Meg wanted to pressure Derpy to leave, but this was taking up more time than she’d like. She’d give her a few more minutes. “We’re researching the use of magic in our realm. We don’t have any—at all. It’s the basis for trade between our worlds. We get your magic, and you get our technology.”

“Like what?”

Meg got back on her feet. She had to draw the line at open ended questions like that. “I’d be happy to answer that some other time, but Sunset and I need to get to work.”

Sunset gave Meg a strange look, but she remained silent.

“Sure, I understand. Thanks for answering my question. I’ll talk to you later.” Derpy invoked the return spell and vanished.

Sunset went over to a box and opened it, revealing a collection of crystals. “I know that was unexpected, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of her.”

Meg couldn’t really deny that. “This just isn’t the time or place. Believe me, I’d be more than happy to entertain her some other time.”

“Are you going to show her that Derpy doll of yours?” Sunset was telekinetically moving crystals one by one to a shelf, each one tagged with a description of its enchantment.

“Did Twilight mention that to her?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t present when Twilight revealed your true nature to her.”

Which meant she’d have to ask Twilight about that before inviting Derpy to her home. But that was a problem for Future Meg. Present Meg had her own problem to deal with.

“Mind you,” the unicorn said, “I don’t see what the big deal is.” Another crystal joined the others on the shelf. “I like my doll. It makes me look so cute.”

It was now or never. But would Sunset pass on whatever was said to Twilight, even if asked not to? The direct approach seemed ill-advised. “Change of subject,” Meg began. “You know that Tirek escaped from Tartarus a few years ago, right?”

Sunset paused emptying the box. “After the fact, obviously. I wasn’t tuned in to Equestrian current events at the time. Why do you ask?”

“After visiting him in Tartarus, it got me wondering, that’s all. All I know is that he somehow did it after Cerberus went missing. And how did that dog wind up in Ponyville anyway? He had to have crossed hundreds of miles.”

She gave Meg a curious look. “Quite honestly, you’d be better off asking Twilight.” She resumed unpacking the box. “I’d imagine there was an investigation, and she’d know its conclusions, if any. As for me, I haven’t a clue.”

The results of that investigation were classified, and Meg had no need to know—certainly not one she could admit to. It seemed safe bet that those results did not include the involvement of either herself or Sunset Shimmer, which meant that the investigation had no answers for those questions. That lack of answers may even be why it’s classified. Or maybe I’m getting cynical.

Whichever, it didn’t seem the right time to mention Sunset’s alleged role in his escape.

When would be the right time? she pondered.

She had no idea.

What if she didn’t believe it?

A private meeting with Tirek would go a long way towards convincing her, but how to arrange that? Twilight would be there too; they wouldn’t otherwise have permission to be there. It was a fluke that Meg had been alone with Tirek, and there were no longer any human prisoners to distract Twilight.

A smaller box floated out from inside the bigger box. “These are for your office: a replacement magic generator, a sonic barrier, and this one is what you asked for, a spell that prevents unauthorized entry. It needs to be attuned to you.”

Meg reached out for it, welcoming the excuse to drop the subject. “I have to touch it, I presume?”

Sunset’s horn glowed. “Touch it now.”

She did. The crystal pulsed yellow in response.

“It wouldn’t hold out long against a trained unicorn, you should know, but luckily they seem to be in short supply around here. It also needs to be attuned to your office; we’ll have to take care of that at a later time.”

“I’m also guessing it won’t stop a pony from crossing over directly from Equestria to my office?”

“Obviously, the spell is oblivious to the existence of hyper dimensions.”

Meg supposed that deficiency would—should—get fixed some day, but for the present it met her needs just fine.

Twilight gazed into her teacup. The ritual of tea making had not calmed her nerves. Celestia should have arrived by now. It was rare for her to be so late to her own meeting.

She gazed out the panoramic windows at distant Ponyville below, the weight of her crown bearing down on her head. It was so tempting to set it down on the table, but Celestia could walk in at any moment. Wearing it would become a habit in due time, Celestia had assured her. Her mentor was no hypocrite, she had to concede that. It was hard to remember the last time she had seen Celestia without her regalia.

It was a few more minutes before Celestia arrived. “I’m terribly sorry, Twilight,” she said as she entered the room. She closed the door behind her and cast a rapid-fire sequence of security spells; Twilight could barely keep up—it was an impressive set of spells, too. “You know how the griffon ambassador can be.”

She certainly did. “Let me guess. They’re still demanding access to the humans?”

Celestia took a seat and filled her teacup, rolling her eyes as she did so. “They’re quite convinced we intend to monopolize all contact with the human realm.”

And the minotaurs were probably thinking the same thing, if less vocal about it. Offering them and the griffons their own plaid pill dispenser—ignoring the question of whether Discord would make more of them—was just too risky. “I could look into getting them their own human phones. Steve would have to use his special talent on them, of course, but then they could talk freely to the human governments. It may be enough to satisfy them for the time being.”

“That’s worth investigating.” Celestia sipped her tea. “On the other hoof, I’m surprised we haven’t had more contact with the other human nations.”

“That’s because most of them aren’t sure we’re real yet, and the rest think we’re the creation of the American government for some inscrutable purpose, either computer graphic simulations or bio-engineered creatures.” Twilight sighed. “It’s that cartoon, of course.”

“Indeed. I encourage you to take full advantage of the upcoming press conference in Tartarus to convince them all of our reality.”

Whether that’d be sufficient was a good question, given the effectiveness of her appearance on a late night talk show. Too many would dismiss it as Hollywood special effects. Having seen a few examples of their craft, she could understand why.

Twilight set her teacup down. “As important as this may all be, this isn’t why you called me here.” Not with all those security spells she’d used.

“No, it isn’t.” Celestia set down her own teacup. “It has come to my attention that you have begun research into the origins of our realm.”

How? Twilight had told nopony. Only Arcane Scroll might have suspected, and she couldn’t believe he’d mentioned it to Celestia, assuming he even had the opportunity. All she had even done was browse a highly restricted section of the archives. There was only one scroll she could find that touched on the subject, and that was little more than a litany of reasons why the Discordian Era made it all but a pointless waste of time.

That’s it, she realized. That scroll must have been magically tagged somehow. It hadn’t occurred to her to check. “Yes?” she admitted. There was no point denying it, and it was within her rights as a princess to utilize those archives.

Celestia gave her a serene smile. “If any pony could pierce the veil of chaos and uncover the secrets of our realm’s genesis, it would be you.”

So this was why Celestia called her here on short notice and used every spell in the book to guarantee their privacy?

“I can’t wait to hear what you discover,” Celestia continued. “I do ask that other ponies not be involved, not before it becomes clear that you have, indeed, made real progress.”

It was becoming a bit clearer. “And if I should make real progress?”

Celestia took her time sipping tea. “I have to be honest with you, Twilight. I encourage the Discordian Era narrative for a reason. Research of this nature has, in the past, led to… counterproductive speculations.”

“But if I successfully ‘pierce the veil of chaos,’ it won’t be speculation; it’d be hard scientific facts.”

Her mentor look down into her tea, avoiding her eyes. “Even then, I’m not sure. It depends on what you find.” She looked up. “Ponies have lived happy lives not knowing. Would knowing truly make them happier?”

Thoughts of human religions came to Twilight, with their mishmash of creation stories, mostly contradicting each other. Ponies have avoided that, thanks—as she now knew—to Celestia’s efforts. “Perhaps… not.”

“You need to trust me on this, Twilight; I speak from hard-earned experience. Please come to me first with any discoveries.”

It didn’t take her long to decide. “Sure, I can do that.”

Celestia rewarded her with a smile as she lifted her teacup.

“May I involve Meg and her husband? They already have the human perspective on such things, and there’s something I want to try with Steve’s special talent.”

Celestia thought it over. “I see no reason why not, so long as you make clear to them the sensitive nature of this inquiry. What did you have in mind?”

“There’s a spell that measures the size of our realm. I’d like him to learn it and cast it.”

Her mentor tilted her head. “That is not a simple spell, and it requires much magical stamina. Is he even capable of casting it?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. “But I’m hoping his special talent will come into play.”

“He would still have to learn the spell and build up his stamina.”

Twilight smiled. “I’ve already prepared a lesson plan.”

20. Meet the Press

Twilight watched the monitor. The White House Press Secretary was dealing with a difficult journalist, one who wouldn’t give up his turn to ask questions.

“And I assure you, Max, we have looked into that and found no evidence of anything suspicious. Now if you don’t mind, there are others—”

“That cartoon has been running for over four years. Isn’t that suspicious enough?”

The Press Secretary was clearly getting fed up. “And that has all been addressed before. Jason, you’re—”

“And wouldn’t a DNA test prove these ‘ponies’ aren’t bioengineered creations? Isn’t it suspicious that hasn’t been done—or the results not made public?”

“You’ve had your turn—Jason, you’re next.”

In a few minutes, Twilight would be called to the Press Briefing Room. She could only hope they’d show her more consideration.

As for a DNA test, those had been done months ago in secret. The results, unfortunately, could be interpreted to fit many narratives.

It was best to get her mind off that. She thought about the tutoring session with Steve and his reaction upon studying the spell, that it wasn’t clear what it was actually measuring. All her attempts to convince him that it actually measured the size of the realm had boiled down to “Star Swirl said so,” and that had worked as well as could be expected—which is to say, not at all.

Yet what else could it possibly be measuring?

Another data point would be helpful. She was in a different realm. True, it was supposed to be unimaginably larger, and she only had a few minutes at most, but that might be enough time for something different to be observed.

The alicorn closed her eyes and brought all the myriad components of the spell to mind, reviewing them prior to casting. It was not a spell she had ever cast before. Satisfied she was ready to supply the never-ending stream of power required to propel it to infinity, she cast it.

It completed—instantly.

“That’s impossible.”

“Something wrong?” asked an attendant.

Twilight gave her a sheepish grin. “Uh, sorry, just… thinking out loud.”

The attendant returned her attention to the monitor.

A quick review did not turn up any mistake in the casting. She cast it again.

Same result.

It made no sense. Quite possibly this realm wasn’t as large as humans believed it to be, but there was no way it could be that much smaller than her own. Could it really be measuring something other than physical size?

“You’re up.” The attendant was pointing at the monitor.

It would have to wait. It was time to tell the human world about the ancient Minoan who currently goes by the name “Tirek.”

Twilight trotted out of the room, down the thickly carpeted hallway, and stopped just out of sight of the briefing room. Her presence was noted, and the Press Secretary was informed.

“Without further ado, I’d like to introduce Princess Twilight Sparkle. Please hold any questions until after she makes her statement.”

Twilight stepped inside. She counted seven rows, each with seven seats. All were filled. It was a surprisingly small room. Along the walls were yet more journalists and numerous TV cameras, jammed into the narrow spaces. They were largely from American news organizations, she had been informed, but not exclusively. What she was about to say would be carried live around the world, heard by who knows how many millions.

No pressure at all.

She took wing, to more than one gasp. What better way to show that she wasn’t some “bioengineered” creation than magically assisted flight? She was nearly blinded by the barrage of camera flashes. More hovering than flying, she drifted over to the lectern. Halfway there, she teleported to the platform that had been set up at just the right height behind it. She smiled and gazed out at the reporters. Max stared back at her, practically catatonic.

Twilight looked into the camera at the far end of the room. “As you’ve all heard,” she began reading her prepared statement, “the writing system of the ancient Minoans, known to you as ‘Linear A,’ has been decoded with Equestrian assistance. While their language, written or spoken, is not in use in our world, we do know of an individual familiar with that language. His assistance was invaluable, and it is he who I wish to speak about today.

“You know him as Androgeos, one of the sons of King Minos of Greek mythology.”

Questions erupted. The Press Secretary stepped in. “Please hold your questions until afterwards!”

It was a few more seconds before Twilight could continue. “Your mythological accounts state that he was killed in Athens. That is not so, though perhaps an understandable mistake; instead, he got transported to Equestria—or what would become Equestria. We don’t know how that happened. Whatever means he used was apparently short-lived, and he has been trapped in our realm ever since.

“He’s still very much alive, and yes that makes him thousands of years old. We’re not sure how he managed that either, but the fact that he somehow became a centaur and acquired great magical powers no doubt played a role.

“Androgeos is currently imprisoned in Tartarus for his crimes. Now that contact with this realm has been re-established, he wishes to return to the world of his birth. Whether that shall be permitted is up to you. To facilitate this decision, I will arrange for a press conference at which he shall make his case. Thirty of you may attend, including cameramen. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who.”

Twilight scanned her audience. Oh yes, they had questions. And she hadn’t even gotten to the best part yet. “The press conference shall be held inside Tartarus. For many centuries Androgeos has been an inmate there. You may also know him by his adopted name, Lord Tirek.”

She held up a hoof and waited for them to quiet down. It was not that short a wait. “Should you be willing to accept him, I will change him back to his original human form. Please note that he has granted his consent to this; he understands that centaurs cannot survive without magic, and this is a price he is happy to pay. He will have no magic, no so-called supernatural abilities; he’ll be just another human, no different from any other, returning to a world that has changed beyond recognition.

“I will now take questions.”

The Press Secretary returned to Twilight’s side. By prior arrangement, he’d act as moderator. He selected a journalist.

“Jason Polson, CNN. However ‘harmless’ he may become, why should we take a vicious warlord off your hands?”

That was a question she had expected, and was happy to get it out of the way. “He’s willing to share all he knows on Minoa and the surrounding city states. The decoding of Linear A is only the beginning.”

“Does that merit a ‘get out of jail’ card?”

“Consider this: by returning to his human form, he is sacrificing his immortality. In effect, he’s replacing eternal imprisonment with a deferred death penalty. He’s willing to make that trade, and that’s all I’ll say about that.”

“He broke out from Tartarus and nearly conquered Equestria, did he not? Is this your way of ensuring it won’t happen again?”

This wasn’t quite what Twilight was hoping for, but she couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. “Tirek would regret a repeat of that ‘incident.’ Discord will personally guarantee it, and he knows it.”

“Fletcher Dyer, MSNBC. Will this press conference be broadcast live?”

“I’m sorry, but that will not be possible for technical reasons. You will be able to record for later broadcast, however.”

“And one more quick question: why can’t centaurs survive without magic?”

“Human respiratory systems unassisted by magic cannot provide the airflow needed by centaur bodies. To put it bluntly, a centaur would slowly suffocate outside a magical field.”

“Simon McNaught, BBC. You’ve just confirmed that the mythological Tartarus is real. Will we be permitted to do reporting on Tartarus itself? On how it differs—or is similar—to our myths? For example, is the entrance actually guarded by Cerberus?”

“Princess Celestia encourages you to do just that. And yes, you’ll get to meet Cerberus.” Twilight smiled. “It’s rather unavoidable.”

Polite laughter swept the room.

“Jason Dutt, CBS. How did Tirek escape, and why was Cerberus in Ponyville and not at this post?”

There was no way she was going to answer that question properly. “An investigation was carried out, and measures have been put in place to prevent a recurrence.” That investigation had yielded no answers, but that was a royal secret. If the trip back in time to observe the binding of the doll worked out, perhaps she’d go back to observe Tirek’s breakout and finally reach closure on that event.

“Are there any other humans being held in Tartarus?”

They had been hoping that question wouldn’t be asked, but there were worse ways it could have been phrased. “There are no other humans being held in Tartarus, either as humans or having been magically transformed into something else.” A present-tense answer for a present-tense question.

“Also, why don’t you know how Tirek came to your world or how he became a centaur? Did you not ask him?”

As if the thought of asking him hadn’t occurred to her. “He’s withholding that information at this time.” Her tone made it clear that was her final answer.

“Eric Barret, Bloomberg. Tirek is currently immortal. You, as an alicorn, are also immortal, correct?”

There was no point in denying it, though she wasn’t sure that question served any useful purpose. “I believe so, in the sense that I’ll age slowly if at all.”

“Is there any way this ‘elixir of youth,’ for lack of a better phrase, could be made available here to humans? That Tirek—according to you, a former human—has found it would be an existence proof, would it not?”

“It’s… not that simple.” Nope, no useful purpose. “I can assure you there is no such ‘elixir.’ Sure, there are spells that can create a convincing illusion of a different age, younger or older, but that’s all they are: illusions. I don’t know how he did it, granted, but even in the best case scenario, it’d require constant exposure to a magical field to maintain youthfulness.”

“How do alicorns do it, then? Surely you’d know that.”

You’d think so. But in this case, it didn’t matter that she didn’t. “It wouldn’t do you any good, not unless you wanted to become an alicorn—thus Equestrian royalty—and we don’t need any more princesses.”

She had tried to deliver that like a joke, but it elicited no laughter.

In a more serious tone, she tried again. “It’s a fact of life that unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies grow old and pass away. We can’t do anything about that in Equestria, and we can’t do anything about it here. There are limits to magic. Next question, please.”

Silence. Twilight suspected they weren’t buying it. As had been pointed out, Tirek was an existence proof. But they also conveniently ignored he was no longer human.

Eventually, another hand went up.

“Liza McGowan, Boston Globe. Two atomic clocks from MIT. have been given to you. For what purpose do you need them?”

That question was a welcome respite. “First off, they’re on loan; they’ll be returned in a week or so. Their purpose is quite simple: to test whether General Relativity applies in our realm. One is up in an observatory in Canterlot, the other down in Ponyville. If gravity works the same way in our realm as in yours, time should flow slightly faster in Canterlot. Only your atomic clocks are precise enough to measure that.”

“Is it an appropriate use of our resources to conduct science experiments in your world?”

Twilight couldn’t believe her ears. “It’s not like we’ll keep the results to ourselves, and we have been using our resources to conduct magic experiments in your realm, for your potential benefit—such as solving your nuclear waste problem.” All that went public after the break-in at Meg’s office. Have they forgotten already?

Perhaps not, as Liza asked no further questions.

“Vincent Kemp, Washington Post. What’s Equestria’s stance on the crisis in the Middle East?”

Twilight barely knew anything about it, but that made the answer easy. “Equestria takes no position on human international affairs,” she simply stated.

“This will be the final question,” the Press Secretary said from the side.

“Lewis Walker, New York Times. You say you take no position on human international affairs, but let’s be fair. We are here at the White House. Why not at your castle?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “President Serrell and his administration willingly acknowledge our existence; the same is not true for most other countries. As for why here and not at my castle… well, to be fair, how would you get there?”

“How would we get to Tartarus?”

Ouch. Couldn’t argue with that. Sure, she could point out the logistical headaches, but that was unlikely to be persuasive. “I, uh… I’ll see about holding the next one in Equestria.”

The Press Secretary stepped in. “That concludes the Q & A.”

“That concludes the Q & A.”

Meg fetched the remote. By the time she turned off the TV, Twilight and the Press Secretary were halfway to the exit.

“They were rather disrespectful to the princess.”

Still holding the remote, she gave Derpy a wan smile. “Trust me. They don’t treat our leaders any better. It’s just how things are done here.”

“I can’t imagine Princess Celestia tolerating that kind of rudeness.”

Meg hadn’t been sure this was a good idea when Twilight had dropped Derpy off, and it didn’t seem a better idea now. But she had encouraged her to let her guest watch the press conference, so she did. “She’s delegated that to Twilight, so she won’t be dealing with that—but… I doubt she’d have any problems handling that crowd.”

“Of course not! She has dungeons.”

“That’s not what I meant, but… nevermind. Princess Celestia has no intention of holding a human press conference.” Meg looked at the blank screen, grimacing. “But to hold one at her castle… that’d be awfully tempting to Discord.”

“Serves them right, I’d say.”

Meg sighed. “Don’t be so sure. It’d be great for ratings, and that’s all they really care about.”

“Ratings?”

“How many people watch. It’s how they make money; the more people watch, the more they make.”

“But how could they know that?” Derpy looked at the remote in Meg’s hands. “Does that tell them?”

“What, this?” Meg lifted it. “No.” She looked at the internet-connected DVR. “Well, maybe. Indirectly. It’s complicated.”

“Could I see that?” Derpy said, pointing at the remote.

“Uh, sure,” Meg said, handing it over. “Just don’t press any buttons.”

The pegasus took it with a hoof and giggled. “How? They’re so tiny!”

“Yeah, not designed with ponies in mind.”

Derpy slowly scanned the controls, trying to read the tiny print with an eye. “So, are each of these buttons like a different spell?”

Meg’s first reaction was to point out they weren’t—they couldn’t be—because there’s no magic. But perhaps that was a difference without a distinction. True, they weren’t magical spells, but as far as an Equestrian was concerned, they acted like spells. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” she muttered.

“Huh?” Derpy looked up at her with misaligned eyes.

“Sorry. It’s something a famous writer once said.”

Her eyes drifted further apart.

“No, they aren’t spells. We don’t have magic. But it’s a machine so ingeniously designed that it looks like magic to somepony like yourself.”

“Oh. I don’t know much about magic, so I’m easily fooled.”

Meg recalled what Twilight had told her about Moondancer, that the unicorn had attempted to uncover the magical underpinnings of the personal computer she had been assigned. “Don’t be hard on yourself. Even highly skilled unicorns have been fooled.”

So now what? She hadn’t quite thought this through. A drive around town was an option, so long as Derpy knew how to control the invisibility of her magic bubble.

“Could I see that doll that looks like me?”

Or we could do that. Twilight had brought her direct to the living room, bypassing the home office, at Meg’s request. That hadn’t stopped her, it would seem, from mentioning the doll’s presence to Derpy.

Meg set down the remote and got up, resigned to the inevitable. “Sure. Follow me.”

Derpy hopped off the sofa, and they went to the room in question. Meg reached up and took down both dolls. She placed them on the floor, side by side, facing the pegasus.

Derpy examined them; it was difficult to read her expression. After looking at the side of the pink one, she asked, “Isn’t that Pinkie’s signature?”

“Yep. She was worried about it somehow getting lost in a box full of Pinkie dolls or something.”

That elicited a smile. “That’s Pinkie alright.”

Derpy looked up, both her eyes looking straight at Meg. “You were the one who originally wanted to meet me, over a year ago.”

It wasn’t a question. Twilight must have told her that. “That’s right,” she admitted.

Her eyes started drifting apart. “Did I live up to your expectations?”

Meg got down on her knees. “It’s not fair, I know. I had only just learned ponies even existed. It hadn’t really sunk in yet, that you weren’t fictional cartoon characters. If I caused you any distress, I’m really sorry. I did respect your decision.”

Derpy’s gaze drifted downwards. “Which leaves all the other humans.”

“Which is why Ponyville is off-limits for the foreseeable future. Not just for your sake, but for the sake of all ponies living in Ponyville.”

Her attention returned to the doll that looked like herself. “Would you like me to sign it?”

Yes! But in light of what was just said, she forced herself to respond with, “Only if you want to. I didn’t ask Pinkie to sign that other doll, for what it’s worth.”

“Okay, then.”

The pegasus continued staring at her doll.

No signed doll for me, Meg concluded. “I know you didn’t ask for any of this, but you can still take advantage of it.”

Derpy looked up. “How?”

“You could make a lot of money autographing dolls like this, for example. You’d be paid human money, not bits, but eventually you’ll be able to exchange one for the other. That’s one of many things Twilight is working on.”

Before Derpy could answer, Meg’s phone chimed with the arrival of email. “What’s that?” the pegasus asked.

“More non-magic magic.” She got back on her feet. “Let me check that; it’ll just take a few seconds.” It might have been a message from Twilight. The phone was plugged in, charging, on the desk. She picked it and checked her mail. Only with great difficulty did she avoid slamming the phone back down.

One eye looked at her in puzzlement.

“Sorry,” Meg said, covering her eyes with her hands. “It was a message from someo—somepony. Wanted to know if I could arrange for Tirek to show up at a convention that I help to organize. He obviously just watched Twilight’s press conference.”

Derpy’s eyes went wide. “You have the power to do that?”

“What? No! I mean, once he’s back in this realm, maybe, but that has to happen first, and that isn’t up to me.” And who knew if he’d even do it—though one could argue he ought to. “Anyway, I doubt he’d be released from Tartarus in time for the next convention.”

“What kind of convention would want an evil pony like Tirek?”

Meg covered her eyes once more and groaned. Having gotten that out of her system, she got back down on her knees. “A brony convention, run by and for fans of ponies—or, to be precise, of a certain cartoon about ponies. There are quite a few such conventions around the world, and this one, I’m beginning to think, is run by someone who wants the fame of having as guests of honor as many characters as he can get from that cartoon.”

Derpy frowned. “That wouldn’t include me, would it?”

“No, it does not, and if your name ever does come up, I shall make it very clear you are not available.” Meg leaned back a bit. “I think we have enough ponies anyway. A. K. Yearling’s willing to promote her Daring Do books, Trixie may do a magic show, and Lyra might be interested in performing too.” She rolled her eyes. “Hell, the only thing stopping Discord from attending is his literal inability to exist here, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to be involved somehow.”

Derpy’s jaw dropped. “I can do something he can’t?!”

Meg was speechless for a moment. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

She got back on her feet. The princesses will want her opinion on the media coverage of Twilight’s big announcement, but the thought of subjecting Derpy to more of that made her cringe—and it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be talking about it for days.

They’d better be talking about it for days. This whole Tirek gambit was heading toward failure if they didn’t.

Meg took a few steps to the door. “Come on. You want to see more of this world? Let’s see what’s on the Travel Channel.”

President Serrell poured himself a cup of coffee. “You’re sure you don’t want some?”

“That’s okay,” Twilight said, politely refusing.

He took a sip as he walked back to his desk. “So…” he said, sitting down. “You’ll want to establish a credentialing protocol. Every journalist you saw in that room had White House press credentials. You can use whatever criteria you think is appropriate, but some kind of background check is required; you don’t want some nutcase causing trouble. We’d be more than happy to do that for you. The odds are, we’ve already done background checks on the most likely applicants.”

“We’d appreciate that. I have no idea how we’d conduct our own background check on a human.” All she could come up with was having Applejack ask a bunch of questions and look for dishonest answers. Was that adequate? It assumed the right questions being asked—a dangerous assumption.

They absolutely needed to exclude those who saw Equestria as invaders and conquerors. Who knew what they would do?

“How do you handle that in Equestria, if I may ask?”

“Well, princesses don’t do press conferences, not even by proxy, so we don’t really have that problem. We don’t even have television.”

Not yet, anyway.

Serrell let out a long whistle. “Lucky you.”

It was a stark reminder how different this world was from her own. Celestia’s mentoring had been poor preparation for this. How could it have been otherwise? No social order like this existed inside Equestria, nor outside of it.

“Anyway,” he continued, “journalists do more than press conferences. All the major news organizations will want to place people in Equestria, so they can report on whatever happens there that they’d think would be of interest back home.”

And Twilight was sure there were a few Equestrian newspapers who wouldn’t mind placing some ponies in human cities. That, and the more general problem of tourism and trade, kept coming back to the same issues. First, every inter-realm crossing had to be done by herself—or at best, by a very limited group of trusted ponies.

Then there was that bucking cartoon and the highly private and personal stuff that it revealed.

She still had no idea how to deal with that. The more she thought about it, though, the more she wondered if Daring Do had the right idea: to effectively discredit that cartoon. If Daring Don’t ever made it to Equestria, it’d be accompanied by so-called “proof” that Daring and Yearling were not the same pony.

Never mind that; if Daring Don’t ever made it to Equestria, how would Ahuizotl or Caballeron react to it? She never could understand why those two apparently tolerated the Daring Do books. They had to have known about them.

Serrell set down his coffee mug. “You’ve been rather quiet.”

Twilight suddenly refocused on the President. “Sorry, just lost in thought.”

“There certainly is much to think about, and I doubt there’ll be much time for it. I’ll have my people round up and vet the thirty who’ll be attending Tirek’s press conference.” He gave a huge grin. “I’m sure there’ll be no lack of would-be participants. We just need to set a time and place for you to pick them up.”

“The place doesn’t matter much to me, so long as it’s near a place I’ve been to before.”

The President nodded in understanding.

“The time… It will be a few days, maybe more. Tartarus has never held an event like this before, and the security concerns have caused bureaucratic pushback. I need to make another trip there to address those concerns once and for all.”

Serrell grunted and shook his head. “It’s so weird hearing a mythological place being described like that. It sounds so… mundane.”

Twilight shrugged. “I suppose it is mundane, particularly to the large population of minotaurs that live and work there.”

“Minotaurs. Right.” He lifted his coffee mug. “I don’t think that’s in the mythology.”

“Tartarus has always has been run by minotaurs, as far back as history records. They’re more or less unaffected by the weak and restrictive magical field of Tartarus, the same properties that make it an excellent prison for magically powerful beings.”

“Like Tirek.” Serrell finished off the mug and put it down. “I can’t wait for the coverage of Tartarus to be broadcast.”

21. A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Steve’s eyes were closed; the strain of powering the spell continued to build. Focus. Keep the spell matrix in the forefront of his mind. Be receptive, as the spell extended to infinity, to whatever feedback it produced.

There was no feedback, none that he could sense; that was to be expected. It took hours for the size of the realm—or whatever it was that was being measured—to be determined. He never imagined just how physically draining prolonged magical exertion could be. It was like attempting to run a marathon—or so he imagined, as he had never done that either.

“Six minutes.”

It was too much. His horn went dark.

Sunset Shimmer pushed the button on the stopwatch floating in front of her. “Six minutes, eight seconds.”

Gasping for air, he looked up at his trainer. After a few deep breaths, he said, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep this up for hours.”

She replied with an encouraging smile. “It would help if you remembered to breathe,” she said. “Don’t get discouraged; it’s your best time yet.”

“Yeah, remember to breathe,” he said, wiping his brow. “Still, not too shabby for somepony who never attended magic kindergarten, never mind Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

“Most graduates of Celestia’s school can’t cast that spell at all, so don’t belittle yourself.” She levitated a jug of apple juice and poured its contents into a glass. The glass floated over to Steve. “There’s a reason the size of our realm is measured so infrequently. It’s like running a marathon. You need to train, hard.”

Steve took the glass in his own magic—almost dropping it to the crystalline floor in the process—and quenched his thirst. “Even for an alicorn?”

Sunset mulled it over. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I don’t know the last time Celestia cast it, or if she ever had. Lack of time is more likely the problem for her; she’s just so busy, and there’s no real reason to cast it over and over again. It’s not as if the results ever change. And as for Twilight…”

“She’s more interested in me casting it than spending the hours herself, regardless of whether becoming an alicorn has made it a walk in the park for her.” He managed to put the glass back on a crystalline table.

“Well, to be fair, she’s hoping your special talent will yield new insight.”

Steve experimentally lifted the glass again. He’d need more time than before to recover. “Not yet, it hasn’t, but I guess none is to be expected after only a few minutes.” He tried lifting the glass again. “What if others added their power to the active spell? I know that’s possible; Twilight had me do it for a spell she had cast once.” That had been a year ago, when the spell in question had staunched the flow of magic into the human universe.

“Yes… and no.” Sunset retrieved the scroll that laid out the realm-measuring spell. “See this section here? Other unicorns can supply power, true, but it’d mess up the feedback, rendering it pointless.”

Steve reviewed the section in question and… didn’t really get it. In resignation, he asked, “Does Celestia’s school have night classes?”

“Afraid not,” she said, then broke out in a smile. “But you do have world-class experts to tutor you. You’ll get there eventually.”

He wasn’t sure he shared her optimism. There was a reason Celestia’s school took in foals at a young age. The best human athletes, artists, and musicians also got started quite young.

Sunset rolled the scroll back up. “I wonder if it’s worth hopping over to your realm. The spell completes immediately there, according to Twilight, so you could experience its conclusion.” Sunset shrugged. “Not sure what that’ll accomplish, honestly.”

That was a good question. If it were possible to establish a magical field of a known size, then the spell’s feedback could be correlated with that size. And it was possible, obviously, using a magic generator in the human universe.

The problem, unfortunately, was that the fields in question were too small. They needed a field measuring on the order of tens of thousands of miles across, and a magic generator that could do that was simply impossible—never mind what that would do to the nuclear-based technologies on the planet.

“Hard to say,” he finally said. He couldn’t resist a smirk. “At least it proves I was right. That spell does not measure the size of the realm, it measures the size of the magical field.”

Sunset was quick to counter. “But magic fills the entire realm, so that’s a distinction without a difference.”

“Do you know that for a fact? Or is it an assumption?”

“I, uh…” A sheepish smile. “How could it not?”

Steve sighed. Honestly, he expected a bit better from a former star pupil of Celestia. “I haven’t a clue. Doesn’t mean it’s true; doesn’t mean it’s false. I don’t know if it even matters.” A thought came to him. “But the spell ought to give some indication as to which it is, because it’d affect how it terminates: either by hitting the edge of the magical field, or by encountering itself as it wraps around the positive curvature of this realm.”

“Aren’t you the one making assumptions now? What if the curvature isn’t positive?”

That elicited a smile from Steve. “In that case, the size of the realm is infinite, so the spell must terminate because it had hit the edge of a quite finite magical field.”

Sunset Shimmer grimaced. “Right. Good point.” She paced around the castle’s library, digesting it all. “And in that case, our realm is also eternally expanding, just like your own, so no need to explain how it remains balanced on a knife’s edge.”

“It would eliminate that particular conundrum, yes.”

She completed a circle and stopped. “Then we do want you to cast the spell in your own realm, because that’s a data point for when the spell terminates due to encountering the edge of the field. And when you successfully cast it here…”

Successfully. Her optimism was touching. “I may be able to tell the difference if it terminates due to encountering itself,” he said, completing the sentence. That had sounded more like a star pupil of Celestia. “But we don’t need to do that now—we shouldn’t, actually. It’d be best to do it right after casting it here successfully, with the data fresh in my mind.”

“Oh, sure, no problem,” Sunset said, waving it away. “We can’t do it right now anyway; Twilight didn’t leave me enough plaid pills for side trips.” A mischievous smile broke out. “Though we do know where Discord is right now…”

We certainly do. He was helping his wife with Smooze’s speech synthesizer. “Like I said, no need to do that now—and besides, he might not cooperate.” He rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t be the Spirit of Chaos if he was predictable or dependable.”

The train from Canterlot pulled into the Ponyville station, right on time, as Meg arrived. She began her descent, wondering how often a train ever arrived late or early. It was uncommon, that’s for sure. When she had asked Twilight how they did it, the alicorn had trouble understanding the question. Why wouldn’t they follow the published schedule, she had asked, or publish a schedule they couldn’t follow? Surely human trains did even better, what with the assistance of computers and advanced communication technologies! Convincing her that wasn’t the case had been… difficult.

Meg touched down on the platform, not a dozen feet away from the resting train. No security pony came to challenge her. Why would they? Equestria was blissfully ignorant of terrorist threats.

Passengers began exiting the train. A light yellowish unicorn mare with glasses and a full set of saddlebags hopped down onto the platform. She looked around, spotted Meg, and made a beeline for the pegasus.

“Hi, Moondancer. I’m glad you could fill in for Twilight on short notice.”

The unicorn magically adjusted her glasses. “I wouldn’t miss this chance to see a computer mage at work. I still find it hard to believe that numeric computations can yield an artificial voice, without—or even with—magic.”

A mage? Meg supposed she ought to be flattered—though if she were a true computer mage, she would have been able to decrypt that damn message, a copy of which was currently in her own saddlebags.

She started walking. “Definitely without magic. It’s not quite that simple, of course. I barely understand how it works myself, but I don’t have to. It’s more or less a solved problem—starting from written text, that is.”

“And the challenge is coming up with that text. Yes, I’ve read the notes Twilight left for me. It’s a rather interesting problem.”

“Which is totally outside my area of expertise, of course, but I have to deal with it anyway because of the machine learning algorithms we’re trying to apply—which isn’t my area of expertise either, but I’m still better qualified to tackle it than anypony else.”

Meg made a turn that surprised Moondancer. “Isn’t the castle that way?” she asked.

“We’re going to Fluttershy’s cottage.”

“Fluttershy?” She looked at Meg. “Isn’t that one of Twilight’s Ponyville friends?”

“Yeah, umm…” She looked back at Moondancer. “You are aware that Discord will be there, right?”

“Yes, but I fail to see the connection to Fluttershy.”

Twilight may have reconnected with one of her childhood friends, but it would seem much remains to be shared between them. Meg assumed this particular detail had not been intentionally withheld. “Fluttershy is why Discord is reformed; she’s his first true friend. Nopony else can better handle him and keep him, uh, under control—sorta.”

They walked in silence.

“Interesting,” the unicorn finally said.

As they walked to Fluttershy’s cottage, Moondancer peppered Meg with numerous questions on how data from the magical sensors were interpreted by software, yielding text, which could then be handed off to the voice synthesizer. Meg’s protestations of ignorance did not stop the questions on how the voice was synthesized and turned into audible sound.

None too soon, the cottage at the edge of the Everfree Forest came into view. “The equipment is already set up inside?” Moondancer asked.

“Probably… I wasn’t there when Twilight set it up.” Meg didn’t have the chance to ask her either, because she had already left for Tartarus. Sunset Shimmer had been the one to bring her across, along with her husband. “Wait a sec while I take a quick bird’s-eye view.”

The pegasus launched into the air before Moondancer could say anything; it was an excellent opportunity to get a breather from her endless questions. Quickly she gained altitude and positioned herself over the cottage. Some of the sessions had been held outdoors and, with sunny skies scheduled for the day, it could be outside again; it hadn’t just been an excuse to get away for a moment from the insatiably curious unicorn.

A three-sixty scan around the cottage came up empty. “Inside it is,” she muttered to herself. “I sure hope Angel Bunny got over that little incident.”

Meg descended. Moondancer had been walking up to the cottage while she was taking a look-see. Since the unicorn was almost there anyway, Meg went straight for the front door. With Moondancer still a dozen feet away, she knocked on the door. “Fluttershy? It’s me, Meg, with Moondancer.”

The door opened on its own, revealing nopony behind it. Looking inside, Meg spotted Fluttershy, Discord, and Smooze sitting around the coffee table, upon which were a tea set and a plate full of little sandwiches.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Fluttershy said. “We decided to have an impromptu tea party while waiting for you to arrive.”

“Mind? Why should we mind?” Meg asked as she stepped inside. It was a sincere enough question, if also rhetorical. Fluttershy would apologize to a cloud for making it rain.

Discord appeared in front of them. “Ah, Moondancer! We finally meet. Twilight had so much to say about you!” He held out a paw to the coffee table. “Care to join us for tea and cucumber sandwiches before we get started?” Another two cushions fell from nowhere onto the floor.

Moondancer looked at Meg with a questioning look; she shrugged in response.

“Sure, I can do that.” The unicorn went over to the table.

The draconequus turned his attention to Meg. “Will you also be joining us?”

He was being quite polite and proper. Much better than the alternatives, Meg concluded, not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I’d love to, but first…”

She reached into a saddlebag with her muzzle, withdrew the encrypted message, and presented it to Discord. Full of curiosity, he took it with his eagle talons and inspected it.

“I’ll admit this is an act of desperation,” Meg said, “but is there any chance you can make sense of that?”

Disapproving eyes peered over the top of the sheet of paper. “Make sense? Make sense?! The pure randomness of these numbers is its own sense! That a computer, the very definition of logic and order, could turn an intelligible message into…” He thrust out the message. “This! Oh, Meg, it's delicious. Rich, chocolatey, positively decadent... chaos. Oh, I love a good encryption.”

Was he actually shedding a tear?

“Maybe there’s hope for your realm after all.”

Meg’s expectations had been low, but she could have done without the melodrama. “Yes, but can you, I dunno, extract the randomness? You can keep it and do whatever you want with it.”

He wiped a tear from a mismatched eye. “As thoughtful as that offer may be, I’m afraid I cannot.” He returned the message to the saddlebag from which it had come.

“Worth a shot,” Meg said, sighing. She looked at the sandwiches. “I’d be happy to join you.”

Discord had already returned to his seat and was setting out a plate for her, while Fluttershy poured tea into a cup.

Meg walked over and sat on the last, unoccupied cushion. Smooze greeted her with his usual inarticulate smile. Her eyes drifted over to Fluttershy, who was looking down at…

That’s not possible. Then she remembered who was seated across from her. A head of cabbage, with radishes for eyes, leafy lettuce for ears, tiny carrots for teeth… “Angel Bunny?”

The not-a-bunny glared at her.

“He was so possessive of his food,” Discord said, “and as you are what you eat, I thought it was only fitting.”

Meg looked aghast at Fluttershy. “You’re tolerating this?!”

“Well,” she said, grimacing, “it all started, as you know, when Smooze accidentally ate his lunch…”

She didn’t continue, but she didn’t have to. That insufferable rabbit must have plotted revenge and learned the hard way that one does not piss off a certain draconequus.

“It’s only temporary,” Fluttershy assured her, then she fixed her gaze on Discord.

“Yes, yes,” Discord said. He snapped his talons and Angel Bunny was once more a rabbit, a rabbit that lost no time darting from the room.

Meg looked at Moondancer, who was surprisingly taking it all in stride. “You get used to it,” she told the unicorn.

The room wasn’t that much larger than the White House press briefing room. The walls and floor were made from the ubiquitous rock of Tartarus, solid slabs of material tweaked such that the omnipresent light filling the room was whitish instead of the usual reddish-orange. No windows were present, just the one door.

“This will do just fine,” Twilight said, wandering about the bare room. “We’ll need thirty chairs. Minotaur chairs ought to be fine, but please use nicely padded chairs if possible. We want to make a good impression.”

The senior administrator and his assistant, who was dutifully writing down what Twilight had said, remained at the door. Neither said anything.

She turned to face them. “Is there a problem?” This passive-aggressiveness was getting on her nerves.

“Of course not, Your Highness,” said the administrator. “There will be no problem acquiring chairs of sufficient padding.”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

The two minotaurs looked uneasily at each other.

Twilight sighed. She almost wished she could trade places with Rarity. Dealing with Tirek while making final adjustments to his attire had to be better than this. “You have permission to speak freely—so out with it.”

He put on a placating smile. “I’m not sure you appreciate just how dangerous Tirek is. Perhaps if you consulted Princess Celestia—”

“Princess Celestia has delegated this matter to me,” she said, flaring her wings in royal display. “As I’m the one who recaptured him after he escaped from here—and you still don’t know how that happened—I think I do appreciate just how dangerous he is.” She folded her wings. “But, if it would finally put this to rest, I’ll go fetch Princess Celestia—”

“That won’t be necessary,” he quickly said. “But please consider our position. As you… pointed out, he escaped from a locked cell.” He waved a hand about the room, then let it drop to his side. “Can’t you see the problem?”

She had already tried explaining that Tirek had every reason to be on his best behavior; it had fallen on mostly deaf ears. Nor had she done herself any favors by reminding them of their failure to keep him within Tartarus. A different tack was needed.

“I will be present, don’t forget, and Royal Guards will be posted at the Gates.”

“That does lower the risk.” Those were polite words, said without conviction.

It was tempting to just issue a royal decree and be done with it, but it was always better to have willing cooperation. Celestia had drilled that into her. She just had to figure out how to get it.

There was one card left she could play. “Humans have weapons and tracking devices you cannot conceive of, and they use no magic whatsoever. Tirek, not to mention many other inmates, would be helpless against them, here where magic is of little use as a defense.”

Both of them were speechless. The assistant had yet to write down anything of what she had just said.

“You have our attention,” the administrator said.

Twilight did her best to suppress a sheepish smile. It wouldn’t do to admit that she may have promised something she cannot deliver. “I’ll schedule a training session with the human equivalent of Royal Guards as soon as possible.”

“I shall select candidates to receive training, with an eye on those most capable of passing their training onto others.”

She could only wonder how President Serrell would respond to this request. The weapons themselves ought not be a concern; there was no need for military grade weapons, just what was available to upstanding citizens—or not so upstanding, as she’d personally experienced.

Was this something worth mentioning to the human news organizations? Best to defer to Serrell’s judgement on that. But speaking of those journalists…

“There is another matter I’d like to discuss with you. The humans know little of Tartarus, and even that is in the form of myths and legends passed down from the ancient past.”

The administrator shrugged his broad shoulders. “If you say so. I had no idea they existed until you brought several here as prisoners.”

Nor had anypony else in Tartarus, so far as she could determine. “That’s not where I’m going with this. The humans would like to learn more about Tartarus. Would it be possible to give them a tour?”

Both minotaurs just stared at her. “A… tour?”

Meg turned off the ignition. She had parked the car far from the entrance.

“So now what?”

No one else was there to provide an answer.

Inside that cafe brewery were Andrew, Elaine, and the other senior staff members. She would not have the option of ignoring the Tirek question.

She considered turning around and going home, to cut off all ties to the convention. It had long since stopped being fun. It wasn’t even clear that it was still safe, what with all the anti-pony lunatics out there.

Meg sighed and opened the door. If she was lucky, the government would put an end to this convention in the name of public safety—or at least forbid any and all Equestrians, regardless of current species, from showing up.

Unfortunately, she was well aware that Serrell would do that only as a last resort, that public appearances by Tirek would fit the president’s plans perfectly.

Closing the door, she faced the entrance.

Let’s get this over with.

Meg walked across a few empty rows of parking spaces, threaded her way through several rows full of cars, and reached the entrance. Once inside, she made her way through the crowded and noisy restaurant to the now all too familiar table.

Andrew lost no time in greeting her. “Ah, there you are!” he said with a practiced smile. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up.”

Me too, Meg thought but did not say. “Sorry,” she said, not really meaning it. “There was something I had to take care of first.” She picked out a seat that was far, but not too far from Andrew, and sat down.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with booking an appearance by Tirek, would it?”

Not wasting any time, is he?

Meg gave him a flat look. “He’s still in Tartarus, you know.”

“Surely with your connections…”

No, of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. She glanced at Elaine, who sent back a don’t-look-at-me look.

Maybe the direct approach would work. “Believe it or not, the princesses do not automatically grant every request I make.” Not that she had made that particular request. “When and if humanity takes him back, then we can try to book him—and who knows how long that will take.”

“Perhaps if I could talk to Twilight…” he began. “Persuade her how useful it’d be…?”

He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Tough. “She’s really busy right now, you know, getting that press conference organized.”

“How about Celestia—or even Luna?”

Meg’s jaw dropped. “Sure,” she said as sarcastically as possible, “when I have tea with them next week I’ll be sure to bring it up.” Of course she had no intention of mentioning it when she did have tea with them next week, as she did most weeks. It was in the job description of being a Royal Advisor.

The irony was that Twilight almost certainly would let her visit Tirek for the purpose of booking him. It’d be a taste of what his new life could be. But there was no way in hell she was going to let Tirek make the connection between “Common Ground” and her human self. What that tyrant would do with that information terrified her.

“Meg, I think you’re holding back on us.”

“Excuse me?!” Meg glared at Andrew. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m getting the distinct impression you don’t want to book him.”

Meg struggled for some rebuttal, any rebuttal. “And I suppose you’d book Hitler if you could.”

A few gasps, to Meg’s instant regret.

“That’s not the same thing, and you know it. He didn’t kill millions of ponies.”

She had to get things under control—fast. “Okay, fine, that was uncalled for. But it doesn’t change the fact there’s no way to book him right now.”

Andrew frowned. He got up. “I’d like a private word with you outside.”

This didn’t bode well, not at all, but refusing was not likely to improve matters. She got up too.

Without saying another word, Andrew headed for the exit. Meg followed.

Once they were outside and far enough away from the door, he stopped and turned. “Seriously, what is your problem?”

“And what’s your problem?” she hissed. “A. K. Yearling ain’t good enough for you? Seriously, why the Tirek obsession? Even if he didn’t kill those ponies, he still stole their magic. That’s not a minor inconvenience!”

He seemed flabbergasted by the question. “You watch the news, don’t you? I’d happily swap Yearling and all the others for Tirek. Just think of the publicity!”

Meg shook her head. “No. I-I can’t do this any more. I quit.” She turned and started walking. She’d have to explain it to Daring and the others, but that was preferable to… to this.

“I’m not giving you that option. Book him, or else.”

“Or else?” Meg stopped and turned around. “Or else what.”

Andrew threw up his hands in self-defense, evidently regretting his choice of words. “Look, I’m not the villain here. I could… hypothetically...” He looked around; no one was within earshot. “I could out you as a human who has been to Equestria, who has been turned into a pegasus, who has experienced Equestria as a pony, and who has hobnobbed with all the characters from the show. That would be even bigger than Tirek.”

She stared at him like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car. How many bronies would sell their souls to trade places with her? Maybe it would be a bigger story. After several long seconds she found her voice. “But, as you said, you’re not the villain.” And, it was true, that hypothetical wasn’t meant as a threat—for what that was worth.

He smiled. “This is a win-win for everyone—yourself included.” His smile got bigger. “I’ll make it worth your while to book him.”

22. The Wisdom of Alligators

No sooner Meg had taken a seat across from Rarity that Pinkie Pie slammed down a shake in front of her, somehow not spilling a drop. “You’re not happy,” diagnosed the pink pony.

“How can you tell?” Meg dryly said. She stared at the cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake, wondering if it was in danger of becoming a cliché. It didn’t matter, she decided; they were too good.

Rarity touched up her muzzle with a napkin. “It is rather obvious, darling. Perhaps it would help to share?”

Meg looked up, considering it. There were a half-dozen other ponies inside Sugarcube Corner; there wasn’t enough background conversations to obscure their own. Twilight could have cast her sonic barrier spell, except she wasn’t here.

“Is the party room in use right now?” Rarity asked Pinkie, quickly having deduced the problem.

“It will be as soon as we get there!”

Meg stood up and picked up her shake with a hoof. “Works for me.”

Rarity levitated what was left of the biscuit she’d been having with her tea. “I suppose it does.” She followed the other mares to the party room in the back.

Trailing behind the others, the fashionista closed the door behind her, then gently deposited the plate and teacup she was carrying onto one of the tables set against a wall. She next levitated that table into the middle of the room.

“See?” Pinkie said, moving several cushions around the repositioned table. “The party room is now in use!”

“Not feeling up to much partying,” Meg said, then jerked back from the straw. “No party cannon!”

Pinkie gasped. “Gummy! You don’t have a reservation for this room!” She darted over to the baby alligator and picked him up. After depositing him on her back, she went back to her party cannon—that absolutely was not there before—and pushed it into a corner.

Meg still couldn’t figure out where the hell she kept it when not in use.

Rarity smiled just-so at Meg. “Now tell us what’s bothering you.”

Meg swallowed some of that heavenly shake while focusing on the alligator riding Pinkie’s back. Gummy blinked one eye, then the other. She sighed. “It concerns the brony convention. I’ve been told to book Tirek for an appearance, or else.”

“Why would anypony want to see that meanie-pants?”

Meg gave the pink pony a wan smile. “Trust me, many would. And that means fame and fortune for our glorious leader. I guess. Not sure what his deal is.”

“Be that as it may, he first has to be released from Tartarus. Isn’t this a tad premature?”

Meg helped herself to more of that scrumptious shake before replying. “You think I haven’t tried explaining that?”

“I’m sure you did.” Rarity took another bite of her biscuit while she thought it over. “I’ll be visiting Tirek tomorrow to do a fitting of his new clothes. Being a centaur does present its challenges, but he shall be presentable to your world’s cameras by the time I’m done. Regardless, I’m sure Twilight would let you accompany me so that you can ask him yourself if he’s interested.” She tilted her head. “There’s certainly no harm in asking, I should think.”

Which was the last thing she wanted to do. Tirek must not know that Common Ground the pegasus was also Meg the human. It’s proving bad enough that certain humans were aware of that. If only the past was mutable; she’d go back to prevent herself from revealing her double-existence to the convention senior staff.

“I can’t, unfortunately.” Or fortunately, as the case may be. “I have to be at work tomorrow.”

“Yes, of course.” Rarity finished off her biscuit. “Alas, work requires that I be in Tartarus tomorrow.”

Meg was starting to feel a little guilty; Tirek had already done far worse to these ponies. “You’d rather he remain in Tartarus.”

The unicorn sipped her tea. “My feelings on the matter are irrelevant.”

Meg turned to Pinkie Pie. “How about you?”

If looks could kill… “I’ve never thrown him a birthday party, and I never will.”

And I’m allegedly going to go back in time to free him from Tartarus, so that he can go on the rampage that will lead to… this. How could she blame Rarity and Pinkie Pie for feeling the way they do?

Rarity set down her teacup. “I’ll ask him for you. I must suffer his presence anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Meg asked. It might solve her problem, though. “I wouldn’t want to add to your burden.”

“Quite sure. I’ve already stated the relevance of my feelings on this matter.”

“Well, I mean, Twilight could ask instead, I suppose, since she’ll be there too.”

“Nonsense. She has more important matters to attend to in Tartarus. I insist we change the subject.”

“Okie dokie lokie: Dinky’s birthday party!”

Rarity had a momentary loss of words. “I didn’t expect you to take my request with such enthusiasm, darling. But what in Equestria does that have to do with us, if I may ask?”

Meg resisted the urge to face-hoof. “It’s nothing in Equestria,” she said, “if you catch my drift.”

Realization dawned on the unicorn. “I see.”

“And Meg is gonna find the most awesomeness place in the human realm for her birthday party!” The party pony’s expectant eyes bored into her. So did Gummy’s.

“Nothing’s changed,” she said. “We can host it at my place, or possibly my brother’s, but any public place is just too risky.”

Pinkie was not deterred. “You’ll come up with something. I’m sure of it.”

Meg didn’t feel like arguing the point. “I’ll keep looking, but no promises.”

What could she even look for? All it would take was one person spotting them, taking a picture and tweeting it or something, and the world would descend upon them. If Twilight were to attend, that would give the Secret Service an excuse to—no, that was just ridiculous.

Maybe some kind of barrier spell? Did it matter if pictures were taken and posted online? An opaque barrier spell? How would the venue feel about that?

Meg resumed drinking her shake, lost in thought.

Rarity got up. “I’m afraid I must get back to my work,” she said. “I’ll let you know what Tirek says.”

Meg’s head jerked up. “Make it clear that this is something that might happen. The Feds may decide it’s too big a security risk.”

“Of course, darling. We’re not allowed to attend this year, after all. I’ll be sure to point that out.” Rarity left the party room, closing the door behind her.

“Or else… what?”

“Huh?” Meg looked up at Pinkie.

“You had to book Tirek, or else.”

“Yeah, that.” Her eyes went back down to her shake. “He didn’t quite make that threat, exactly? Just gave a hypothetical he could do, but won’t, because he’s not the ‘villain?’ Then he said he’d make it worth my while if I book Tirek. Didn’t get very specific on that.”

Pinkie rested her muzzle on her hooves. “Uh huh.”

“Don’t know what else to say. I mean, that hypothetical concerned outing me as a literal pegasister.” She shook her head. “I really regret revealing that.”

“And what if he did? Would that get him in trouble with your government?”

Meg drank more of her shake. “Being a part-time pony is my secret, not the government’s. It may be untrustworthy, unethical, immoral, whatever, but revealing that secret isn’t illegal. And even if it was illegal, the damage would’ve been done.”

Pinkie mulled it over. “It’d only be damaging if he was believed. What if nopony backed him up?”

Would any of the other staff refuse to do so? Maybe. But they weren’t the only ones to know her secret. “Don’t forget Jackson and his accomplices. They know too. I guess the mutually-assured-destruction détente they have with the President means they won’t reveal it themselves, and they haven’t, so far, but what if someone else did it first? They might take advantage of that.”

Meg stared at her half-finished shake. “I don’t know.”

It didn’t really matter if this “Section” had truly put her off-limits. She still had to worry about all the other crazies in the world who might stumble onto her dual nature.

The pink pony took a deep breath. “But you’ve been avoiding booking Tirek so he won’t be able to make the connection between your pony and human selves because who knows what that meanie would do with that information but Rarity will book him for you so problem solved!”

“Maybe.” Meg’s head hit the table. “If he doesn’t recognize my voice—or my face, even. I’d still have to avoid him as a human.”

Gummy had climbed to the top of Pinkie’s head. He stared at Meg, blinking one eye then the other.

“The worst part is, what Andrew wants is basically what Serrell wants: to put Tirek out in front of the public. Have it make as big a splash as possible.”

“I’m pretty sure Twilight would also think that’s not a bad idea.”

Meg groaned. “That’s what sucks about it. I don’t have a reason to say no to Andrew, none that I can give him.” And one big one I can’t even tell you. “Hell, if I did quit, I might have the President on my case.”

Gummy was peering into her soul.

What have I got to lose? “Gummy, what do you think?”

The baby alligator blinked one eye, then the other.

Pinkie brightened. “He thinks everything will work out juuust fine.”

Sunshine drenched the expansive balcony of Twilight’s castle. Steve rested on the crystalline floor, his coat soaking it in, as he poured magic into the spell. Sunset had called out fifteen minutes; twenty could not be far away. It no longer felt inconceivable he could keep it up for hours, but he couldn’t do it yet.

“We have company.”

“Huh?” Steve opened his eyes, the spell collapsing. He followed her gaze and saw them: two griffons approaching fast. They were coming from the direction of Canterlot. Had they flown all the way from there? “Are they a problem?”

Sunset Shimmer stared at them for a few more seconds before answering. “This isn’t exactly protocol.”

They were close enough for their clothing to be seen. That they were wearing any was unusual enough. The only griffons Steve had ever seen that wore clothing had been at the Grand Galloping Gala. “Is that the ambassador?”

She nodded. “And I’m pretty sure they don’t have an appointment with our local princess.”

There was nothing to do but wait for them to arrive, nor was it a long wait. With powerful strokes of their wings, the two griffons arrested their forward momentum and gracefully touched down in front of them.

The elder griffon stepped forward and nodded his eagle head. “Sunset Shimmer, I presume, the former pupil of Princess Celestia?”

The unicorn returned the nod. “That is correct, Ambassador Gosswell. May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?”

“I seek an audience with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Is she here?”

So, no appointment. The ambassador looked just as Steve remembered from the Gala: an old-school, lead-an-army-into-battle aristocrat, complete with uniform, numerous badges of honor, and a sash. This time he bore a sword, its scabbard held in place under a wing—as if those talons and beak weren’t enough. The younger griffon, bearing fewer badges and no sash, must have been his assistant.

“Why do you seek an audience with the Princess?”

The first hints of annoyance appeared. “That is none of your concern.”

“Does Princess Celestia know you are here?” Sunset asked, not in the least bit intimidated.

“Inform the princess of our presence.”

It was clearly not a request. “Maybe I should go inform the princess,” Steve suggested.

“I shall keep the ambassador company while you do.”

Better you than me.

Twilight was reviewing the preparations for the Tirek press conference. The equipment required by the news networks was bulky and heavy, and she had been warned that many of the journalists would not be happy walking the distance from the Gates to the building where the event would be held. A “bus” was the preferred means of transportation in a situation like this, but that simply was not an option; it’d be far too big to navigate some of the tunnel curvatures.

“Golf carts” were the solution the humans had come up with: six of them, each capable of seating six, enough to seat all the people and carry their equipment. Better yet, electric powertrains were available. The Tartarus bureaucrats had not been thrilled with the prospect of fumes from internal combustion engines. Fortunately, the carts’ batteries would be up to the task, for recharging would be problematic.

She perused the list of journalists. They had all been vetted by Serrell’s people, of course. Many of them she recognized from her own recent press conference, but as to the others she hadn’t a clue. They wanted her to sign off on the list. It was a formality she’d take care of shortly.

Hoofsteps approached. “Sorry to disturb you…”

Steve was standing in the doorway of her residence.

“The griffon ambassador is here to see you, like, right now. I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.”

Twilight stood up, wondering what to make of it. “Did he say why?”

“He refused to tell us. Sunset’s keeping an eye on them right now.”

“That’s odd…” Celestia hadn’t sent him, not without advance warning—of that she could be certain.

“I should go find Spike and have him send a message while you deal with them?”

He could have been reading her mind. “Spike’s in town doing some shopping. I know, not terribly specific.”

Steve sighed. “I’ll manage.”

As he departed, she turned back to her computer and locked its desktop. Next, she went upstairs to put on her regalia. She took a calming breath and teleported to the balcony.

“Ah, Princess!” Gosswell exclaimed. “We have much to discuss.”

Sunset looked behind herself and smiled with relief.

Twilight approached the griffons. “So I’ve been informed, Ambassador. What matters are so pressing that you seek an immediate audience?” She was pretty sure that’s how Celestia would have phrased it.

The griffon glanced just long enough at Sunset. “It is a sensitive subject,” he pointed out. “May we retire to your throne room?”

The sooner she obliged him, the sooner she’d find out what this was all about. She turned to Sunset. “Your student’s in town looking for my number one assistant. He could use some help with that.”

The unicorn nodded in understanding and teleported away.

Now for the ambassador. Twilight walked up to the griffons. “We may,” she declared. Without warning, she teleported herself and the two griffons to her throne room. She wanted to send the message, loud and clear, that attempting to bypass Celestia was not an optimal strategy.

Twilight sat on her throne and studied the griffons. If the ambassador had been intimidated by the unexpected teleport, he hid it well. His assistant… almost as well.

The throne room doors were open. Twilight closed them without getting up, the doors silently gliding until they met with a satisfying thump. She wondered when Celestia would show up—or if she would at all. Who knew how long it’d take to find Spike, or whether her mentor felt this required her immediate attention. That she would have words with Ambassador Gosswell, and sooner rather than later, of that there was no doubt.

“You have your audience,” Twilight said.

The griffons bowed. “Your Highness,” the ambassador began, “I understand your time is valuable, so I’ll be brief. We have yet to be granted access to the human realm; indeed, we have had no contact with any humans apart from the one time their representatives made a public appearance in Canterlot. This is unacceptable.”

In other words, you got tired of being stonewalled by Celestia, so you decided to try your luck with me, the new and inexperienced princess. They had to know Celestia would find out about this. Was it really worth the risk? “It was my understanding you have been discussing this with Princess Celestia. International affairs are not normally my responsibility.”

“But human affairs are, are they not?”

Twilight just wanted them to admit what they were trying to do. “Did Princess Celestia direct you to me?” she asked, knowing full well the answer.

For the first time, the ambassador looked uneasy. “Not in so many words, no.”

“Do you expect me to keep this impromptu meeting a secret?”

“We… would not presume.”

The point had been made. It was time to end this. “You’ve already heard what I’m about to say, but I’ll repeat it anyway. It is not our intention nor desire to prevent contact between griffons and humans, and the same applies to minotaurs, yaks, zebras, dragons, and all the other sapient races of our realm.”

Gosswell glared at her. “And yet you do!”

Twilight put a hoof to her forehead. “It’s not that simple. I can’t go into details, but there are complications. We’re working on them.”

The ambassador snapped his beak shut in anger. “So you say.”

So this is what Celestia’s been putting up with. She needed to find a way to make them see. “If I were to take you to their realm right now, how do you think I’d accomplish that?”

He almost smiled. “You would take us to a mirror that is now kept in this castle. You would then activate it, and we would simply walk through.”

They shouldn’t have known about that mirror. But however they acquired that information, they obviously had drawn the wrong conclusions. She was tempted to do just what he’d said, if only to see what form they’d take on the other side. How long would it take for them to figure out it wasn’t the actual human realm?

But pony-griffon relations were strained enough as it was by this. “Your information is incorrect,” was all she said.

“So you say,” was the ambassador’s reply. “Care to put it to the test?”

Proving it wasn’t the mirror, that they didn’t know as much as they thought, might help. And what was the harm of taking them there for a few minutes? She’d take them to a secluded spot. They wouldn’t get a plaid pill, so they wouldn’t learn about that, and best of all they wouldn’t be able to fly away and make a nuisance of themselves.

It didn’t look like Celestia was going to show up, so it was either this or demand they leave.

“Yes,” she said, “let’s put it to the test. I’ll be back in less than minute. Please wait here.”

Without waiting for a response, she teleported to the bedroom safe in which the pill dispenser was kept. In under the promised minute, she was back in the throne room with a pill in her mouth, hidden with the help of a smug smile.

“I’m taking you to their realm right this instant, without using that mirror. Prepare to be teleported.”

Again, without waiting for a response, she grabbed the two griffons in her magic and swallowed the pill. She knew just where to go.

They appeared high up on a mountain, far above a vast human suburban area. A year ago, she had passed through these coastal mountains in the search for the terminus of the magic leak. Wilderness surrounded them, mostly small trees and shrubs. No humans would spot them.

The griffons were transfixed, gaping at the suburban sprawl colloquially known as Silicon Valley.

“Don’t try to fly,” Twilight warned them. “There’s no magic here, except what I brought with me.” She shrunk her magic bubble, just in case they tried anyway.

The ambassador’s assistant did try. Furious flapping did little more than to get him hopping an inch or so above the ground. He gave up after a few seconds.

The elder griffon pointed at a jumbo jet, taking off from the region’s international airport. Even at this distance its roar could be heard. “That can’t be lighter-than-air.” He tracked it with his eagle eyes as it climbed ever higher, went ever faster. “How is that possible without magic?”

“You’d be amazed at what they can do without magic.”

The griffon grunted. “And I’m sure they’d be equally amazed at what can be done with magic.”

No doubt that’d be true, if a certain cartoon hadn’t already informed them. But that was a subject she had no desire to bring up.

Twilight enlarged her magic bubble to re-encompass the griffons. “I think I’ve made my point.” She cast the return spell and returned them all to her throne room. “As you have seen, there is no portal through which a steady stream of humans, ponies, and griffons may pass. There’s just an incredibly advanced inter-realm teleportation spell. There are few who can use it.”

Why only a few may use those plaid pills, that there were plaid pills to be used, was the unspoken question that would not be explored for the benefit of the diplomatic corps.

“Uh, Twilight?”

Spike’s voice got her attention. He was holding aloft a rolled-up scroll.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said and walked over to the baby dragon. She took the scroll in her magic and checked the seal. It was from Celestia, unsurprisingly. Let’s see what she has to say about the ambassador.

Twilight broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. It wasn’t addressed to her. She levitated it over to the ambassador. “Princess Celestia has a message for you.”

He stoically plucked it out of the air with a talon. After taking a deep breath, he read it and, a few seconds later, rolled it back up and placed it in a pocket. “It would appear there are consequences,” Gosswell said, “which were not… unanticipated.” He bowed. “We will not take any more of your time.”

The throne room doors were open, presumably by Spike when he had entered. The griffons walked towards them. Before entering the hallway, the ambassador turned to make a final statement. “Thank you for the brief visit to their realm, and for correcting a few misconceptions.”

Meg pulled into the parking lot—and stopped. Definitely Monday, she thought as she stared at the main entrance to the office, where numerous protesters were protesting… something—they were too far away to make out the signs—and of course the media was there covering it. It was a safe bet it had been motivated by the latest announcement concerning nuclear waste.

Police were present too, keeping a watchful eye on them; regardless, she wasn’t going anywhere near them. She resumed driving, making her way to the back of the building, hoping that nothing out of the ordinary was happening back there. And if there was… too bad teleportation was not an option for her. She’d settle for flying up to the maintenance access door on the roof, but neither was that an option in her current form.

A detour through Equestria would work, but that line of thought faded as she rounded the final corner. She found a parking spot, walked up to the back door unimpeded, swiped her key card, and went inside.

Upon arriving at the Department of Energy offices on the top floor, Meg went straight to the conference room. Everyone else was already there, except for their manager. She had been a little late herself; he must’ve been tied up with the special guests for this meeting, Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer. As she took a seat, she listened to the idle chitchat.

“How long do you think they’ll be out there?”

“Who knows. It’s so stupid. They’d protest a cure for cancer if it came from ponies.”

Meg wondered if she should’ve read those protester signs. But she had seen the media. It’d be on the news, if she really cared. It was probably more of the same anyway. What was new was that they were here.

Jake, their manager, finally entered the room. All eyes locked on to the two unicorns with him. It was the first time any of them—besides Meg of course—had seen a pony in person.

He stood in front of a white board at the head of the table. “You’ve heard about the announcement. As you can see,” he said, gesturing a hand at the ponies, “things will be changing for us. From now on, we’ll be interacting directly with ponies. Allow me to introduce Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer, who I’m sure you’ve already heard of.”

Sunset smiled and waved a hoof. Moondancer merely looked uncomfortable.

“What was not in that public announcement,” Jake continued, “was that a nuclear power plant has already been selected, Diablo Canyon, which is scheduled to cease operations in about a decade. One need only look at the protesters outside to see why that detail was omitted.

“Sunset is leading the team that will transport the waste to a safe location in Equestria. Once that’s been done, our job will be to assist in figuring out what to do with the stuff. Extracting the remaining uranium would be the low-hanging fruit, obviously, but whatever we come up with, we’ll no longer be limited to computer simulations.”

He let that sink in for a few seconds, then broke out in a smile. “That’s right, you’ll finally get to participate on experiments carried out in a proper magical field.”

It had been so long since Meg felt what everyone around her was now feeling.

“Aren’t you excited, Meg?” Sunset asked, her head askance.

The human rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

The mare giggled as everyone else wondered what was going on.

It was probably best to end the speculation now. “Let’s just say,” Meg said, addressing the table, “that this isn’t the first time I’ve been in the same room with these two.”

“In which universe was this room?” someone asked.

So much for ending it.

“It’s no secret Meg has been our point of contact with the Equestrians,” Jake said, coming to her rescue. “The details are still on a need-to-know basis.”

And what about the first time they were all brought to Equestria? One hell of a detail would become known. Meg had already learned—the hard way—to give the phrase “need to know” the respect it deserves.

Sunset Shimmer became all-business. “Moondancer will be in charge of experiments conducted on Equestrian soil.”

A question was directed at the ponies. “What do you think of this Tirek development?”

Sunset was caught off-guard by the question. “Well… I was elsewhere at the time, as you probably know. I barely knew he existed. By the time I learned of what he did, he was already back in Tartarus and the damage undone.” She shrugged. “I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t have strong feelings on the matter. Whether he remains in Tartarus or is released as a magic-less human, he is no longer a threat.”

“I was one of his victims,” Moondancer spat out. “He stole my magic, and that’s all I’ll say about that.”

Meg cringed. What am I supposed to do?

The day had finally arrived.

Two adjacent lines of electric golf carts waited for them, three of them back to back in each line. Princess Twilight Sparkle stood in front of one of those lines, in full regalia at Celestia’s gentle suggestion, ready to address the assembling gathering of journalists. They were on the bottom level of an underground garage. Access was easy for the Secret Service to control, and there was plenty of parking for the attendees.

“May I have your attention,” she began. It looked like all had arrived. Flashes went off as photographs were taken. “In a few minutes, you will all board these golf carts. I shall then transport them directly to the Gates of Tartarus. You’ll be driving them to the location of the press conference within Tartarus.

“Here’s what you need to be aware of. Numerous Royals Guards will be stationed at the Gates. Their primary purpose is to prevent inmates from taking advantage of this event to escape. Most will remain outside Tartarus. When we return to the Gates, they will magically scan us—myself included—to ensure that we are what we appear to be. Do not resist.” She scanned their faces. “Do I make myself clear?”

A sea of nodding heads. “What about the Secret Service,” one of them asked. “Will any of them be accompanying us?”

“They will not,” she replied, then half-jokingly added, “It’s a bit outside their jurisdiction.”

That hadn’t elicited much laughter. She continued her lecture. “Likewise, allow Cerberus to get your scent on the way in; it will make it much easier to get past him on the way out.

“Be aware that gravity works differently there. The route we’ll be taking will look… impossible in places. Just keep following me; everything will be fine, I assure you.”

“What do you mean, ‘different?’”

“It’ll be obvious soon enough.” It didn’t seem the best time for a science lecture. “Finally, Tartarus is run by minotaurs. The ones you’ll be encountering will be guards and bureaucrats for the most part. You don’t have to treat them differently just because they’re minotaurs; I mention it now simply so that you won’t be surprised when you encounter them.”

There weren’t any more questions.

Twilight flew up to the roof of a cart. “Please be seated and we’ll be on our way.”

23. Handle With Care

Meg flew up to get a birds-eye view of the large pool, squarish and deep. There was an odd, soft, bluish-glow to the water, in which numerous racks were suspended.

“Common Ground, I’d prefer you’d stayed on the floor,” said a senior executive. “You really do not want to risk falling into that pool.”

Being addressed by that name grated on her, but it was better than the alternative. Anyway, he had a point. While her magic bubble ought to provide some protection, there was no point in putting it to the test. She landed next to Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer, a radiation dosimeter dangling from around her neck.

Satisfied, the executive continued the tour. “This is one of our storage pools, where spent fuel rods go. There’s one for each reactor. The water both absorbs the radiation and keeps the pellets from overheating and melting down. After five years, the radioactivity has decayed enough that we can transfer the waste to dry storage casks. That will be our next stop.”

“What causes that glow?” Moondancer asked. “It almost looks magical in origin, but that can’t be the case.”

“Cherenkov radiation,” someone else answered. “It happens when charged subatomic particles, here being emitted as radiation, exceed the speed of light within water.”

The unicorn tilted her head. “I thought exceeding the speed of light was impossible.”

“It is impossible in a vacuum, but light slows down while passing through water.” He shrugged. “You’d have to ask a physicist as to why.”

There were no further questions. The executive pointed in the direction they were to go. “Let’s be on our way.”

In addition to the three ponies and the senior executive, there were also a few technicians and managers. Meg could only speculate on how many of them were present for no other reason than the equines. When she had driven down here a few days ago to arrange this event—so she could bring the other ponies directly to this facility—far fewer people had felt the need to meet with her.

They reached the dry storage casks after several minutes of walking. Before them were all too long rows of cylinders, each twenty feet tall.

The executive laid a hand on a cask. “This is one of the oldest, hence the safest—‘safe’ being a relative term, of course. What you see is a thick, reinforced concrete shell. Inside that is an inner steel lining, and inside that are the spent fuel assemblies. Cooling is by natural air circulation through vents, completely passive and as such immune to power failures.”

He stamped his foot on the floor. “The casks are bolted to a thick steel-reinforced concrete pad to ensure seismic stability. They’re designed to survive just about any natural disaster.”

Sunset walked around the cask, studying it. “Are we supposed to take the entire cask to Equestria? It would need to be unbolted from the floor first.”

A technician spoke up. “We’d rather you didn’t do that. The top can be unbolted and removed, giving access to the contents.”

“Which also removes some of the shielding.” Moondancer removed a large quartz crystal from a saddlebag and placed it on the ground next to the cylinder. She powered it up the modified magic generator with her magic. “Radioactive decay is now suppressed. Shielding is no longer necessary.”

The executive contemplated the faintly glowing crystal. “You don’t know how much I wish that was true.”

Sunset gave him a reassuring smile. “A magical field passively suppress radioactive decay. While we don’t yet have a good theoretical understanding of why it has that effect on the weak nuclear force, there is no disputing that it does.”

“How long before it… runs out of power?”

“It draws power from what little radioactive decay still takes place, so for all intents and purposes, never. In fact, the more radioactive the material, the more power it gets, resulting in a stronger magical field, which strengthens the suppression of the decay. It still needs a spell from a unicorn to get it going, but once started it’s self-sustaining.”

“It really does sound too good to be true.” He continued staring at the crystal. “What if it got separated from any radioactive material?”

“The spell matrix shuts down as the magical field fades away from lack of fuel to sustain it. The services of a unicorn would be required to restart it.”

A technician spoke up. “Could we embed the crystal within the concrete, so it wouldn’t get separated accidentally?”

“I see no reason why not.”

The executive exhaled. “If this works, there won’t be any casks to worry about. Well, only one way to find out. Let’s take the lid off.”

Six electric golf carts appeared before the Gates of Tartarus, next to the Zephyr docked against the ledge. Their arrival had not gone unnoticed. A half-dozen Royal Guards, all unicorns, exited the ship and stood at attention before its entrance. An equal number of other guards continued patrolling the ledge, ignoring the carts and their gawking occupants.

Princess Twilight Sparkle teleported from atop one of the carts and reappeared in front of the guards who had just exited the Zephyr. The humans were getting out of the carts, many not waiting for the step ladder to be deployed. It was annoying; they had a schedule to keep.

She was about to tell them to get back in when she realized what they were doing. The two photographers were taking pictures of the gates, the Zephyr, the Royal Guards, and herself in front of the Royal Guards. Some of the journalists had paired off with the three cameramen to record… their first impressions? She decided she could afford a few minutes.

One such pair approached her. “What can you tell us about this ship?” the journalist asked. She looked up at it. “The E.R.S. Zephyr? Will we be taking it somewhere?”

And those minutes were melting away. “We are already here at the Gates of Tartarus, as you can see.” Twilight made the effort to remain affable. “The ship is how I and the Royal Guards arrived here. We’re hundreds of miles from Ponyville and Canterlot.”

“What does ‘E.R.S.’ stand for?”

“Equestria Royal Ship. The Zephyr belongs to Princess Celestia.”

She motioned to the entrance to Tartarus. “What purpose do those gates serve? It looks like a tank can pass through those bars, with room to spare. How do they prevent escapes?”

“Those gates were designed by Star Swirl the Bearded. I can assure you that, when activated, nothing can pass through them.”

Something caught her attention. A human had tried to enter the airship, but was blocked by a guard. “Sorry,” Twilight said, “but there won’t be any tours of the ship.” Enough time was being wasted as it was.

The pair whose questions she’d been answering shifted their attention to the Royal Guards, the camera panning across them. “Aren’t they all supposed to look the same?”

“No,” Twilight declared. “Reality is not constrained by an animation budget.”

“What about Princess Luna’s guards? Are they all bat ponies?”

With effort, she avoided rolling her eyes. “There’s no such thing as ‘bat ponies.’” One would think the absence of bat ponies from all other contexts would be a clue—the “Flutterbat” incident notwithstanding, of course.

The questions were getting annoying, and they really needed to be on their way. She teleported to where she could address them all, not coincidentally terminating the impromptu interview. “May I have your attention please! We will be going through the Gates of Tartarus now. Please return to the carts—unless you wish to walk.”

Twilight had presented the option of walking as a legitimate option; she would be walking herself, after all, as would the guards. All the humans scampered to retake their seats.

Of the half-dozen guards who had just left the Zephyr, three of them had joined her. They would lead the procession of carts, while the other three would take up the rear.

Once they were all seated, Twilight said, “Please form a single line and follow me.”

She walked up to the gates and turned around. The carts had begun to follow. Each one required a driver; none had been provided, as it had been viewed as a role easily filled by whichever journalists were willing and able to drive one. A cameraman rode shotgun in the lead cart, his camera pointed forwards.

Satisfied, Twilight trotted through the gates and paused halfway to the “throat” at the far end. Ramps had been placed on either side of the gates to make it easier for the wheeled vehicles to drive over the bottom bar. The carts entered the realm of Tartarus, cautiously if without difficulty.

She resumed trotting. As the throat approached, she slowed down, signaling the carts to do likewise. Stopping altogether, she turned around to address them. “You are now in the realm of Tartarus. The gates through which you have just passed mark the boundary between Tartarus and Equestria. I will now take you to Cerberus.”

Twilight took a few steps forward, to where the ground began to curve down into the throat. There had been concern that the curvature was too high, that the middle of the carts would get stuck while the wheels spun uselessly in the air. These carts had been chosen as larger wheels could be mounted, providing sufficient ground clearance despite their longer wheelbase.

“Remember when I said gravity works differently here?” she asked, addressing them once more. “You’re about to experience it. Just keep following me. I promise that the carts will have no problem with this tunnel.”

Twilight and her guards resumed walking, slowly at first. From sound alone she could tell that the carts had begun edging forward, the lead driver trusting his eyes more than her words. Foot by foot they progressed. But no matter how far they went, they remained level, as if moving on top of a gigantic barrel that spun just fast enough in the opposite direction to keep them on top.

Their speed gradually picked up as the “new normal” sunk in. Soon the carts were matching the ponies’ trotting pace, and the cavern they had departed disappeared from view, taking with it any Equestrian sunlight illuminating the entrance to this realm. A reddish-orange light of indeterminate origin took its place.

“Where’s this light coming from?” someone shouted from a cart.

Twilight turned her head behind her the best she could to answer. “It’s a property of this realm. You’ll just have to get used to the color.”

A different voice shouted, “I don’t know how our cameras will handle this.”

It never occurred to her that might be a problem. Fortunately, it was a transient problem. “The press conference will be held inside a building, where the intrinsic ambient lighting can be made whitish.”

That seemed to satisfy them, for there were no more questions. They continued on in silence for several minutes, seemingly going nowhere as they apparently looped multiple times around a huge circle.

Someone finally had to ask it: “How much longer?”

The tunnel began flattening out, opening into another cavern a few hundred feet ahead. “It’s right up ahead,” Twilight said.

No sooner had she said that, a gigantic three-headed dog came charging at them. The drivers all slammed on the brakes. Twilight trotted onwards, her shield already up to protect herself from the coming onslaught of enthusiastic licking.

When they finally met, Cerberus devoted two tongues to his greeting. The third head warily focused on the line of carts and on the humans who were stepping off and pointing cameras at him.

“You’d think you’d be getting tired of me by now,” Twilight said, giggling. She got serious. “Cerberus, pay attention!” She waited until she had the attention of all three heads. “These are all guests. You are to grant them passage, both coming and going. Is that understood?”

The guard dog eyed the humans with three pairs of eyes. He barked an acknowledgement.

“You’re a good dog.”

Cerberus lowered a head to the alicorn, and it was patted in response.

That bit of business having been taken care of, she turned around to address the humans. One of the cameramen had been brave enough to get close to her and the mythological guard dog of Hell. “It’s safe now, but I wouldn’t recommend annoying him.”

Several of the journalists had come closer. One of them asked, “He understands everything we say?”

“Well, he certainly understands everything I say,” Twilight responded with a smile.

She resumed walking. “We need to check in at the guard station next.”

Cerberus walked past her on his longer legs, tail wagging, as he returned to his cot.

“Yes, I know he doesn’t have a serpent’s tail,” she said, anticipating the question. “You need to ask the ancient Greeks about that.”

“How did they know about Cerberus at all, never mind Tartarus itself?”

A microphone was thrust into her face. “I really wish I knew,” was all she could say. Maybe Tirek would enlighten them on that subject—if and when he got what he wanted.

As usual, an armored minotaur came forward to greet Twilight as she left the tunnel. “Your Highness,” he said after bowing. “We are to escort you and your guests to your destination.”

Three others had joined him.

The polite fiction was that they were there to guard them from the theoretical possibility of inmates running loose. The not-so-polite reality was that they were there to guard Tartarus from the perhaps-not-so-theoretical possibility of human misbehavior. Twilight didn’t think it was needed, but so long as the theoretical remained theoretical, the humans need be none the wiser. It wasn’t worth arguing about.

Two cameramen approach along with several journalists. The guards fixated on the cameras on their shoulders. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she quickly informed the guards. “Those are not weapons.”

She turned around to face the humans. “Please keep your distance from the guards. In fact, please return to the golf carts so we may be on our way. And remember that Cerberus is going to gather your scents as you drive past.”

Thankfully, they all did so. The unyielding stare of the minotaurs might have had something to do with that.

A man in a hazmat suit pointed a Geiger counter into the open top of the cask. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Somewhat lower than background.”

“Shouldn’t it be nothing?” asked the executive, looking at Sunset.

“Radiation originating outside the magical field is unaffected,” she said. “My understanding is that a lot of it comes from outer space.”

He signaled to the hydraulic crane operator, saying, “Bring him down,” and returned his attention to the ponies. “Yeah, that sounds right. Regardless, it works. No question, that’ll make our lives much easier. So, what’s the next step? How will you take those fuel assemblies to Equestria?”

Sunset watched as the the crane lowered the basket in which the man was standing. “I guess I go up in that thing and take a look inside myself. I should able to lift the waste telekinetically. Then, all I need to do is return to Equestria with the material in my magical grasp.”

The executive shook his head in disbelief. “As easy as that.”

Sunset smiled. “It should be.”

“You have no idea what this means to us. Even after the power plant shuts down, this stuff won’t be going anywhere. We’d have to look after it, safeguard it, for who knows how many decades.”

“And that’s why this was fast-tracked in the trade negotiations,” Sunset said. “It’s an easy service for us to provide.”

“I’m not complaining,” he replied. “What about the storage pools? That stuff is far nastier.”

“That just makes it more valuable. When I come back, we can move the crystal to the pool and see how well it suppresses its radioactivity. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t do a good job.”

The crane had finished lowering the technician. He left the basket, removed his head protection, and walked over. “I measured it and I still can’t believe it.” He checked a dosimeter on the outside of the hazmat suit. “Nothing.”

Everyone looked at his dosimeter.

The executive exhaled through pursed lips. “Hard to argue with that.” He swept a hand from Sunset to the basket. “By all means, take this nightmare off our hands.”

The procession of golf carts, Royal Guards, minotaur guards, and an alicorn reached the colossal cavern which housed Tirek’s prison. The minotaurs entered the cavern first, followed by Twilight and three of her Royal Guards. The six golf carts entered next, followed by the three other Royal Guards. They headed toward the nearest pillar connecting the “floor” to the “ceiling.”

Twilight turned her head back to address the humans. “Our destination is on the ceiling. We’ll be going up that pillar in front of us. I know that sounds absurd, if not impossible, but that’s how gravity works here. If you would look up, you’ll see what I mean.”

The humans did lookup, leaning out of the carts, and uttered a collective gasp. All the cameramen tried to capture the absurdity of what they were seeing.

They reached the curved ramp at the pillar’s base. The minotaurs did not hesitate. Neither did Twilight, having lost interest in the now-familiar illusion of the cavern rotating about her as she ascended the ramp. Her guards—without hesitation, to their credit—followed their princess.

The golf carts… the whine of their electric motors had stopped.

“Wait a minute,” Twilight called out to the minotaurs. She, the minotaurs, and her own guards all stopped and turned around. The carts were motionless, stuck to what, from the perspective of those on the pillar, was a vertical wall.

That was enough to spur the driver of the lead golf cart. She inched forwards onto the ramp. As it became apparent they weren’t going to slide backwards or tumble off, she picked up speed. Upon seeing the lead cart crawl up the vertical pillar, the other drivers resumed their own forward progress.

“You’re not in any of the episodes, are you?”

One of the technicians was looking at Meg. “No, I wasn’t—not even as a background pony,” she replied back to him.

“How do you feel about being left out?”

She wished Sunset and Moondancer would return already.

Giving a nonchalant shrug, she said, “It doesn’t bother me.”

He wasn’t finished yet. “Is your cutie mark common? I’m pretty sure it’s never been seen in the cartoon.”

“No, it’s not.” She didn’t really care to continue this conversation. “I should get a status update from Sunset Shimmer.”

Meg invoked the return spell before he could ask another question.

She spun around, looking for either Sunset or Moondancer within the abandoned mines below Canterlot—soon to be a laboratory used by both humans and ponies for experimenting with nuclear waste. The light from the few magically-powered crystals installed so far poorly lit the artificial cavern. Another, dim, magical light source from a tunnel caught her eye.

There they were, carefully laying out the spent fuel assemblies against the wall of a side tunnel. The ones yet to be laid down were floating next to Sunset, as they no doubt had been since she removed them from the cask.

Sunset spotted her first. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not really,” Meg said. “They were starting to ask me personal questions I didn’t care to answer. So I said I’d get an update from you.”

“We’re about done here, so wait a minute and we’ll go back with you.”

Moondancer was already grabbing the penultimate assembly. After she carefully laid it down, Sunset laid down the final one.

They left the side tunnel, and Sunset closed the recently installed doors, sealing it off. While the waste’s radioactive nature was not a danger, due to Equestria’s magical field, it was still chemically nasty. Better to be safe than sorry.

Also behind those now-locked doors was their limited supply of plaid pills. Sunset had three of them in her magical grasp. Silently, they each took a pill and swallowed.

They returned to the empty cask. Its lid had been put back on and was being secured.

“Isn’t it safe now?” Sunset asked.

The executive jerked at the unexpected voice. “Ah, you’re back. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.” He looked at the re-sealed cask. “It’s safer, much safer, but after decades of exposure, the lining has become slightly radioactive.”

How could they tell? But Meg then noticed the crystal was gone.

“We may want a solution to that too, eventually,” he continued, “but that’s something that can wait until all the spent fuel is out of here.” He had noticed Meg glancing at where the crystal had been. “It’s at the storage pool by now. We had to move it to take the readings.”

“Then let’s head over there,” Sunset said, “and I’ll reactivate it.”

They started walking. “How close does the crystal have to be to the radioactive material? Those assemblies are under a lot of water.”

“Within a few feet is ideal,” she replied. “It can go under water, if necessary.”

“We can attach it to an empty assembly and lower that into position,” someone offered.

“But how close do you need to be in order to activate it?” someone else asked.

Sunset thought it over. “I think I can manage it from the perimeter of the pool.”

“Just so long as there’s no harm in trying,” the executive said.

Several minutes later, they reached the spent fuel storage pool. Sunset went to the perimeter and looked down. “That does look deep—too deep I’m afraid.”

“A bit over two dozen feet to the top of the racks,” a technician said.

“That settles it,” Sunset said. “It’ll have to go under water, and that’s too deep for me to activate it from here. We’ll have to lift one of those assemblies out of the water, attach the crystal, activate it, then lower it again.”

The executive shook his head. “That’s not something we can do on short notice.”

“No problem. Let us know when you’re ready.” She lifted her head and turned around. “We can do two more casks right now.” They only had pills for one more trip.

“Sure,” he said. “This time, let’s do the newest and most radioactive one.”

There were no more unscheduled stops; at the other end of the pillar, no one had even slowed down upon reaching the curved ramp. They all came to a rest in front of a modest building, much longer than it was wide, seemingly extruded from the ground.

“Please wait outside,” Twilight said, “until I return.”

She went to the third door from the right, opened it, and went inside—alone. The guards, both minotaur and her own, would keep the humans outside until they were ready to begin. She quickly closed the door behind her.

A deep voice greeted her. “The time has arrived.”

Tirek stood behind the lectern, facing the rows of empty chairs. His garments were fit for a king—no, surely better than any ancient king had ever worn. However much Rarity despised the tyrant, she couldn’t let her feelings compromise her work. As befitting human sensibilities, everything was covered from front to back.

Four elite minotaur guards were keeping watch over him. Many more were only a shout away.

Twilight approached him. “They’re right outside. Just remember they may ask questions you don’t want asked. You may choose not to answer them, but you have no choice but to tolerate them asking.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” the centaur asked with a smile.

She didn’t care to play this game. “It wouldn’t do for you to return to your realm, only to wind up in a prison there.”

His smile melted away. “Believe me, I understand humans far better than you ever could. Much may have changed, but far more has not.”

He was once human himself, she reminded herself. Even so, she wondered if he appreciated just how much his world had changed. Twilight turned around and walked back to the door. “I’ll bring them in.”

The door opened wide in her magic as she approached. “You may enter and take a seat,” she announced.

Half of them were already out of the golf carts and on their feet. The cameramen had been taking in the surroundings, but quickly pivoted to the door as it opened. Those who were still seated got up. All headed towards the door, and there forward progress halted.

“Please don’t block the door,” Twilight implored, for the sight of the centaur had frozen the first humans in the doorway. “Take a seat.” She walked back towards the lectern.

Tirek laughed heartily. “There is nothing to fear! These fine minotaurs”—he waved a robed arm at the guards, then at the approaching Twilight—”and this enchanting alicorn will see to that. She is more than up to the challenge, as I can personally attest. Please take your seats so that we may begin.”

They did, and as they did, one of them hesitantly approached the lectern holding a wireless microphone, fueling the centaur’s curiosity. “It’s, uh, a device for recording your voice,” the human said. “So that everyone back on Earth will be able to hear you. I just need to place it… uh… there.”

“By all means.”

The human placed the microphone on the lectern, adjusted the angle, and switched it on.

“They will be able to see me too, correct?”

“Yes, through those cameras.” He looked at the microphone and said, “Sound check.”

One of the cameramen gave a thumbs up.

“Fascinating.” Tirek lowered his head to better inspect the microphone, either unaware or not caring that the cameras were watching. “I can’t wait to discover what else humans have accomplished in my absence—and all without the aid of magic!”

He stepped back as the process was repeated with another wireless microphone, this one for Twilight.

Twilight scanned the room. All had entered and taken seats. The three cameramen had positioned themselves: one at either side of the room, closer to the front, and one at the back.

It was time to start.

She spoke into her levitated microphone. “Lord Tirek, who in your realm was once known as Androgeos, the son of King Minos and Queen Pasiphaë, will first give a statement. You will then have the opportunity to ask questions.”

Twilight walked off to the side and watched, along with everyone else, as Tirek approached the lectern.

24. Face the Nation

Tirek laid his hands on the lectern as his eyes swept the room. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the press,” he began, putting the coaching he’d been given to use. Twilight could not deny he had been a quick study. He looked straight at the camera at the back of the room. “And the over seven billion people who now live on the world that I once called home.

“What you have been told is true. I am one of King Minos’ many sons. According to your myths, I met a foul ending in Athens, the details of which are in dispute. The only correct detail was my removal from the world—not by death, but by a mysterious portal, a portal that led to the land of Equestria.”

Twilight couldn’t believe her ears. An actual portal? How was that even possible? Wouldn’t magic flood into their realm from Equestria, causing the catastrophe she had prevented? She could only hope that he would go into detail.

The centaur chuckled. “It wasn’t called that at the time. This was long before the rule of alicorns, when the three tribes of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies kept to themselves.

“I did not stumble upon this portal by accident, quite the opposite. Legend speaks of a minotaur my father kept in a labyrinth. That labyrinth was nothing more than myth, but he had most certainly acquired a minotaur. I made it my quest to visit the land of its origin and return with a different fantastical creature. The details of the minotaur’s capture were known to me, so with my half-brother Philolaus and four of my best men, I set out for Athens, where hidden in a cave in the surrounding mountains could be found the portal. We set up camp inside the cave, and the next morning we went through.”

Twilight spared a quick glance at the minotaur guards, curious as to their reaction. If they were bothered by that particular revelation, they were doing a good job hiding it.

“It turned out to be a one-way trip. When we returned to the portal, as night was falling, it was gone. For weeks we remained in the area, hoping in vain for its return. For at least a year it had existed; why now? Desperately hoping that it must have moved elsewhere, we set out to search for it. Never did we find it; and so far as anyone knows, it has never returned. Only recently, by other means under the control of the alicorns, has it finally become possible for me to return to my world.”

What about the portal itself? Was that all he was going to say about it?

“Much has changed since I’d left millennia ago. The machines I see before me, through which you can all see and hear me, are…” He briefly lifted his hands. “Just miraculous to me. Not even Equestrian magic is capable of this feat.”

Twilight frowned. He wasn’t free yet, granted, but he could’ve provided a few details!

“All I’ve ever wanted was to find a way home. I understand that’s not really possible anymore, that the civilization I once knew exists now only in museums. Doesn’t matter; I’ll take it.

“Yet why should you accept my return? Through means that I do not quite yet comprehend, you know of my recent escape from this place, of my attempt to seek retribution for what this realm has done to me—do not judge before you have all the facts. I did not choose to become an ageless centaur. How many millennia must I remain imprisoned here?”

I’m sure Celestia had her reasons. Regardless, that raised an interesting question: if he had not chosen to become a centaur, then how had it happened?

He took a deep breath. “But I do not want or expect your pity. There is much I can offer. You now possess the means of reading the writings of my people, thanks to me, and that’s only the beginning. I can separate history from myths and legends. And now that magic is being introduced to the human world…” He smiled. “Even if I’ll no longer be able to wield magic myself, I still happen to know a thing or two about that subject.

“Nor am I a fan of the princesses, should you want someone like me who can offer a second opinion.” Tirek took a step back. “I will now take your questions.”

And that’s my cue. Twilight crossed half the distance to the lectern and from there levitated a wireless microphone to a raised hand in the press pool.

“Jason Polson, CNN. If not by choice, how did you become an ‘ageless’ centaur?”

Tirek’s jaw set, his head slowly nodding. “Yes, our transformations. Equestria is a land of many dangers, more so then than now. It wasn’t enough that our way home was denied us; it stole our very humanity.

“It happened about a half-year after our arrival. We were passing through a forest. Two of my men had already met their fates by the monstrosities that inhabited that foul place—plants, would you believe it, giant carnivorous plants with vines that ensnare! We came across a glade. We thought it a place of safety, out of reach of any vines, where we could rest.

“In hindsight, there was a sign: the small plants that covered the glade had not been disturbed by the trampling of animals. There were no paths through those plants. They knew better; but what harm could there be in that calm sea of blue flowers? And rest we did, to no apparent harm. After an hour, we continued our quest to find another portal.

“The next day, when we woke up…” He gestured towards himself. “I had become what you see now. My brother and the two others had changed as well. We had no idea what had happened or how to reverse it. All we knew was that our quest had become futile, for we could not return home as what we had become. We’d have been no better off than that minotaur or whatever creature we had hoped to capture and bring home. We had become the victims of the cruelest of jokes.

“There’s a simple cure for poison joke, of course, but it would be centuries before I learned of it. By then, it was too late—far too late. If the ‘joke’ isn’t cured within a few months, it becomes permanent.”

A few months? I didn’t know that. Nopony would wait that long to be cured, naturally, so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that fact wasn’t widely known.

“What about the ‘ageless’ part?” Jason reminded him.

Tirek shrugged. “Certain species have long lifespans—dragons, for example. It would seem that this includes centaurs. It’s not always a blessing.”

That answers that question, I suppose. And it certainly wasn’t a blessing, not if you’re serving life imprisonment. How many millennia was enough? It made her feel better about returning him to his realm of origin. She forwarded the microphone to another raised hand.

“Jason Dutt, CBS. How did you escape from Tartarus a few years ago?”

Tirek smiled and looked at the minotaur guards and at Twilight. “Sorry, but that’s a question I’m not going to answer.”

No, you wouldn’t. He couldn’t yet rule out needing to do it again, after all.

“Vincent Kemp, Washington Post. You became friends with Discord. Could you tell us how that happened?”

For the first time, Tirek’s expression soured. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

It occurred to Twilight that Discord could have arranged for Tirek to return to his realm—as a human—any time he had wanted. The centaur seemed unaware of that. What kind of friendship was that?

“Fletcher Dyer, MSNBC. What would you do as a free human, and are you the grandson of the Greek God Zeus?”

Tirek was speechless. “You think my father is literally the son of Zeus?”

“According to mythology.”

“You are not aware that ‘son of Zeus’ is a euphemism, one that I cannot explain in polite society?”

The reporter briefly hesitated. “Uh… that has been lost to history, it would appear.”

He shook his head, then he looked out at the humans in front of him with purpose. “And that leads into the first question. An excellent start would be catching up on thousands of years of history and progress—maybe then I could figure out how defamatory myths like that got started. Regardless, I wish to remain relevant, not be a figurative exhibit in a museum. Other than that…” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m told there’s something called a ‘talk show circuit’ that might be a good start for me.”

He had said that with a touch of humor and got some chuckles in response.

He does know how to work a crowd. She floated the microphone to the next person.

“Amy Cox, New York Times. If you had succeeded in conquering Equestria, how would it have functioned when all the ponies had been stripped of their magic? Who’d raise the sun and moon?”

That was something Twilight herself had wondered. Tirek didn’t seem like the kind of person who didn’t think things through. Fortunately, nopony ever had to find out what he had planned for victory.

“First of all, I’d say no more than one percent of all ponies had their magic borrowed by me. That’s still a lot of ponies, of course, mostly in a few major cities. But even so, I had no intention of irreparably damaging what I wished to rule. It was a means to an end: to take out the princesses. Once that had been accomplished, I would’ve returned all magic to their respective owners—while keeping the alicorns’ magic for myself, naturally, as they rotted in Tartarus in my place.”

He had smiled at Twilight with that last sentence, eliciting a frown from the alicorn. Photographers captured the moment.

And he had come so close to pulling it off.

“Technically, with that power I could have handled the Sun and the Moon myself, but I think I would’ve returned that task to the unicorns, as before the time of Celestia and Luna. Quite honestly, I’m surprised those two refuse to take the occasional day off. They don’t have to do it every single day without exception. Why they insist is a question you’d have to ask them.

“But all that is in the past. Once I’m a free man in your world, I have no reason to hold a grudge. Indeed, I’ve already offered to work with Twilight Sparkle to investigate the curious similarities between our two worlds.”

“Was the offer accepted?” Cox asked.

The sounds of shutters being released filled the room.

Tirek offered the annoyed alicorn another smile. “Not yet.”

“Why the vendetta against Celestia?”

Twilight yanked the microphone away and practically shoved the microphone into another raised hand.

“I’d be happy to answer that question,” Tirek said, preempting the next questioner. “It was nothing personal, at first. This magical land had blocked my way home, then stole my humanity. If it was to be my new home, then the recompense I demanded was that I shall be its ruler, for I was of royal blood. I took on a new name for a new, centaur identity; my brother took on the name Scorpan. When the alicorn sisters came along, they were simply the newest challenges to my rule—and powerful challenges they were. I prevailed only due to my alliance with Discord.

“But then somehow they defeated Discord, turning him to stone. Soon thereafter, I was here, in Tartarus. As the years went by, then decades, and centuries, and then millennia, seemingly forgotten, with no end in sight… How long was long enough!? I think you can figure out the rest.”

The man currently holding the microphone finally took his turn. “Kurt Shearer, Fox News. First, is Scorpan still around? And second: we are already aware of the many, as you put it, ‘curious similarities.’ How would you aid in investigating them?”

“To answer the first question, no he is not. The goat-like creature he became was not endowed with immortality. He lived far longer than any human could have, at one hundred and sixty two years; still, he died peacefully millennia ago.

“For the second question, the answer is by offering the perspective that comes with a very long life. For example: when I first arrived here, nopony spoke modern Equish—which, as you all know, is nearly identical to modern English. Five centuries later, everypony was speaking it. Imagine my surprise when I learned that modern English arose over two millennia later!”

“Could not other immortals offer that same perspective?”

He waved it away. “If you’re referring to Celestia, she and her sister hadn’t been born yet. Modern Equish is their mother tongue.”

“But did not Scorpan meet with the princesses?”

Tirek glared at the reporter. “Why would you ask such an absurd question? Did I not just say that my brother died before Celestia was even born?”

“It was in the season four finale of My Little Pony,” Kurt said, as if catching the centaur in a lie. “Are you aware of that cartoon?”

The centaur paused to choose his words. “I may have heard about it…”

Twilight’s ears pricked. There was only one way that could have happened.

“…but clearly those behind this so-called ‘cartoon’ have gotten their facts wrong.”

“Getting back to my second question, what about Discord’s perspective?”

Tirek grunted. “You won’t get any ‘perspective’ from him, trust me.”

The deep learning algorithm finished processing the updated training set. Meg restarted the speech synthesizer program and looked up at Smooze. The purple blob was finishing off the detritus left behind by the last occupants of Sugarcube Corner’s party room.

“That’s the last of it,” Pinkie said, and left the room.

Fortunately, he could eat and “talk” at the same time. “Repeat the last set,” Meg instructed Moondancer.

Moondancer held up a blue square in her magic.

Two seconds later, the laptop computer said, “Blue. Square.”

The unicorn next held up a green triangle.

“Green. Triangle.”

She then held up an orange circle.

“Orange. Circle.”

Pinkie Pie re-entered the room, balancing a large tray of stale muffins, cupcakes, and other baked goods. The shelf life of Sugarcube Corner’s offerings wasn’t terribly long, being preservative free. She plopped the tray in front of the elemental vacuum cleaner. Smooze grabbed a mouthful, not caring in the slightest about freshness, nor did he worry about putting on weight.

Pinkie took a seat. She watched as they ran through the remaining colored objects.

About ten minutes later, they were done. “Looks good,” Meg said.

Pinkie Pie jumped up and pronked in place. “Is it time for a Smoozie-can-talk party?”

The crystal sensor covering the webcam glowed as Smooze formed his response. “I. Don’t. Know.”

“You’re certainly making good progress,” Moondancer said. She looked down at the computer. “It’d go a lot faster if we could understand how the output of that sensor is being mapped to words. Then we could directly fix the modeling errors.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not how it works,” Meg said. “The billions and billions of calculations it does may uncover the relevant patterns, but it doesn’t tell us how it comes up with them, or why it comes up with the wrong ones. We just have to keep enlarging the training set until it seems to work—but making it too large can be just as bad as not large enough.”

Moondancer raised an eyebrow. “If it learns too much, it may do worse?”

Meg sighed. “It’s not really ‘learning’; that, how should I put it, is ‘marketing.’ It’s just complicated statistics applied to an enormous amount of data. It’s not remotely like how people learn; it has no understanding of what it has ‘learned.’”

The unicorn slightly tilted her head. “That didn’t really answer my question.”

Meg closed her eyes, trying to dig up the answer from memory. “I think over-training makes it more likely to be wrong when presented with something not in the training set.” She reopened her eyes. “How much of a problem that’d be in this case remains to be seen. It’s highly dependent on what’s being solved.”

Pinkie’s smile widened. “Smoozie, say ‘party!’”

The sensing crystal glowed. “Platypus,” said the computer a second later.

Pinkie gasped. “A platypus party! That’s a superduperific idea!”

“Not even the same number of syllables,” Moondancer observed, ignoring Pinkie’s outburst. “But we’ve already determined that the mapping is more than phonetics.”

Meg all-too-slowly typed in a note, tagging that sensor data with the word ‘party.’ “It’d sure make this a lot easier if it was just phonetics. I don’t really know what’s going on. He clearly understands us; he ought to be thinking the same words we say, but it just doesn’t come out the same.”

The crystal glowed some more. “Yes.”

Pinkie’s right ear started twitching. “Twitchy right ear! That means somepony’s about to arrive who needs to see me but doesn’t know it yet!”

“Any chance it’s Discord?” Meg said in annoyance. “Maybe he got lost finding this room.”

“Maaaaybe.” She pronked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Moondancer stared at the closed door. “Is this normal behavior for her?”

Meg scrolled through the log produced by the translator software. “Yes, and for the sake of your sanity you should just accept it. It’s called Pinkie Sense, and you can’t believe how useful it is—literally, you can’t believe it.”

The unicorn was silent for a moment. “Has this ‘Pinkie Sense’ been scientifically studied?”

Meg looked up. “Word of advice: do not ask Twilight that question.”

Another moment of silence. “She tried, didn’t she?”

“Yep, and it wasn’t good for her mental health.”

“Okay…” the unicorn drawled. She looked at the closed door. “You really think Discord got lost finding this room?”

“Of course not! I just hope he has a good reason for missing this session.” He was the one who came up with the sensor crystal enchantments. The thought had occurred to her, more than once, that—possibly—the enchantment being chaos magic might have had something to do with the modeling complications they kept running into.

Moondancer returned her attention to Smooze, who had finished disposing of all the stale baked goods. “What’s the next addition to the training set?”

“Numbers. I’m setting it up now.”

It was another minute of slow typing and trackpad use. “Okay, ready to start. Moondancer, start counting from zero, saying each number in turn. Smooze, you repeat. And… go.”

“Zero.”

A moment later, the crystal glowed. No speech came from the computer. The weird words to which novel words were typically mapped had stopped being funny some time ago.

The glowing stopped. That was the signal to continue. “One,” Moondancer continued.

This continued until they were interrupted by the opening of the door. Lyra walked in, her eyes flicking from one occupant to the next. They lingered on Smooze as she said, “Uh, Meg? Do you have a few minutes?”

“Uh, sure, wait a second.” After the data for ‘thirteen’ was recorded, Meg looked up. “How did you know we were back here?” she asked.

Lyra gave a sheepish smile. “Pinkie told me. Without me asking.”

Figures. “See?” Meg told Moondancer. Turning back to the other unicorn, she said, “I can spare a few minutes.”

“I just wanted some details about the venue I’d be performing at in the other realm. How large an audience, what kind of music I should play, that sort of stuff.” Before Meg could respond, Lyra continued. “Oh, and, uh, Twilight convinced me to stay away from the whole ‘hands’ thing.”

“I’m sure that’s for the best,” Meg said. That’s one potential headache taken care of. “To answer your other questions: Several hundred to maybe a thousand humans. Sound amplification—non-magical, of course—will be present. As for what kind of music, whatever you want to play, however you want to play it. I’m sure they’ll eat it up.”

“I guess that makes it simple enough.” Lyra walked over to the Smooze, who watched her with his enigmatic smile. “Are you talking yet?”

The sensing crystal glowed, uselessly; the voice synthesizer was not running.

“It’s still a work-in-progress,” Meg said. “You know about this?”

Lyra shrugged. “Word gets around.”

True, it was a small town, and they had made no particular efforts at secrecy, but it was still surprising Lyra knew about it. Yet Daring Do knew about it too. At least Lyra lived here.

“I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks answering my questions.” Lyra quickly left the party room, closing the door behind her.

Meg sighed, not sure what to have made of that. “Let’s continue where we left off,” she said, turning back to her laptop. “Fourteen’s next.”

Stars twinkled in the night sky, forming patterns unlike any seen on Earth, above a balcony adorning a high tower of the Canterlot palace. For all the unexplainable similarities of the two realms, constellations had not been one of them—nor were planets, asteroids, comets, or the Milky Way, never mind other galaxies. Nothing but stars and the moon resided in the heavens above.

On that balcony, Steve sat motionless, eyes closed, his attention focused on the spell to measure the size of the realm, in which the planet he was on truly seemed to be the center of everything.

Sunset Shimmer’s attention was focused on a stopwatch. “One hour. How are you holding up?”

“Great,” he said. “I think I’ve got my second wind—or whatever unicorns call it. I feel like I can keep this up indefinitely.” He smiled. “And it’s about time.”

“‘Second wind’ is what it’s called,” she confirmed. “So you think you can keep it up for another three hours?”

“Probably not, if only because Meg will—” His muzzle scrunched. “That’s odd.”

“Odd?”

Steve opened his eyes and looked at a specific spot in the sky. “That star… I think the spell just passed it and… I sensed something. Is that expected?”

“I don’t believe so, not that I’ve ever cast it myself. So far as I know, there’s no feedback until the spell has filled all reachable space.”

A minute later, his head jerked to the other side of the sky. “There. Another star. Same thing.”

“I’m pretty sure that spell ignores stars.”

He looked down. “That one’s on the other side of the planet. Something is going on with this spell.”

Sunset edged back to the door. “I’ll go see if Twilight’s back. Just keep the spell going.”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll see if I can find a pattern in what I’m sensing.”

Sunset went inside while Steve continued feeding magic into the spell. More and more somethings were sensed as it raced ever outwards. They may have looked like stars, but they couldn’t have been stars—not when the closest was about a light-hour away. That was about the distance of Saturn from Earth at opposition.

No, more like the distance to Jupiter. The magic had to make a round-trip, doubling the time for the data to come back. Even that assumed propagation at the speed of light. As more and more somethings came back, it was becoming clear that this realm had no “real” stars, no balls of hydrogen gas so massive that they fused hydrogen into helium.

Neither was this realm’s sun; he already knew that. But whatever those “stars” were, they weren’t anything like Equestria’s sun either. He had never sensed anything when the magical wavefront went past that magic-powered orb.

Two sets of hooves returned. “Still sensing it?” Sunset asked.

“Like popcorn popping,” Steve said. “It’s coming from all directions, including from the other side of the planet.”

“How odd,” Luna said, stepping forward. “Nopony else had ever reported sensing the stars with this spell.”

Steve spun around at the voice. “Luna?”

“Twilight thought she’d be better qualified to look into this,” Sunset said.

Luna was looking at him, curiosity in her eyes

“Do you know what the stars are?” he asked her.

“I fear not. So far as I know, they’ve always existed, as have the Sun and the Moon. I can move them around somewhat, sluggishly and with difficulty—it’d take many nights to rearrange them—but that’s about it, nor will they stay put either. Several times I tried to bring one down to the ground, but never have I succeeded.”

“And nopony has ever sent a probe up there, because you don’t have that technology.”

Luna blinked. “You do?”

“Yes, but it’s really difficult and expensive. It’d take years, maybe decades, before that could be attempted here—at least without magic. But, right here and now, I’m somehow sensing them.”

Sunset squinted at his glowing horn. “We can safely say it’s not due to the spell you’re casting—not directly, anyway. Could it be your special talent? Piggybacking on the spell?”

My special talent? To sense waves and distortions in space-time?

“That would imply,” he drawled, “those stars are doing something to space itself.”

“Like what?” Sunset asked.

“Like what, indeed.” He could make an educated guess, but how could he prove it? The sensations weren’t strong enough, and they were getting weaker and weaker as the magical wavefront progressed farther and farther away.

Steve fixed his eyes on the Princess of the Night. “I’d like you to bring a star as close to us as possible. Right now they’re all too far away for me to sense much.”

Luna nodded. “I don’t have the time to do that tonight; it takes many hours to get them moving. Possibly tomorrow?”

“That depends,” Steve replied. He turned to Sunset. “I need a modification of this spell, so that I can zero in and track a specific star.”

“I’ll need to consult with Twilight first, but tomorrow should be doable.”

Princess Luna smiled. “There’s no need to disturb Twilight. I believe I can be of some assistance here.”

25. Pinkie Promises

“Mind the poison joke,” Twilight said, skirting the patch of blue flowers.

Meg did likewise. “It’s not the poison joke that worries me the most.”

The alicorn rolled her eyes. “We’re not that deep in the Everfree.”

They walked past a tree that looked like it had a really bad toothache and was ready to take it out on somepony.

“Deep enough for me. Who could possibly observe us time travel here?”

They reached a small opening in the canopy. The morning sun did little to relieve the gloom. Twilight decided it was a good enough spot and stopped. “The whole point is to be observed. We are planning on attending your last session with the Smooze, but time traveling inside that party room fails for obvious reasons—”

Meg was warily looking around. “While the Everfree offers many opportunities to keep us from Sugarcube Corner. As if you couldn’t handle timberwolves.”

Twilight smiled. “That’s what makes it interesting, seeing what unlikely roadblocks the forest can present to us—not that I’m expecting anything really dangerous this close to Ponyville.” Her horn lit up. “But I’ll be ready.”

Twilight focused on the time travel spell. There would be no obvious paradox until they reached the party room, where past-Meg and Moondancer were working with Smooze on his voice synthesizer. Sure, they could run into somepony who knew she had left town and gone to Tartarus, but that was manageable—even so, there had been no reports of mysterious Twilight sightings, for what that was worth.

“Casting spell now.”

Nothing happened.

“Second attempt.”

Nothing happened.

Meg nervously looked up at the sky; if something did attack, that was the escape route. “Two down, one to go.”

It was probably futile—rarely had it succeeded on the second, and so far never on the third—but the protocol called for three attempts. Meg scanned the shadows as Twilight’s horn lit again.

“Third attempt.”

The sun shifted, pouring abundant afternoon light into the clearing.

Twilight beamed. “First time for—”

Meg’s jaw had dropped. Twilight followed her gaze. Staring back from the now sunlit ground were an equally stunned Lyra and a changeling. Green flames erupted and it took the form of Bon Bon, far too late to have escaped notice.

Lyra finally squeaked out a word. “How…?”

Twilight grabbed the faux Bon Bon—assuming there had ever been a real Bon Bon—and lifted the changeling off the ground, pinning its wings to its side. She quickly ran a changeling detection spell over Lyra; it came back negative. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”

The unicorn glanced at the changeling, face full of fear and concern. “Don’t hurt her. She’s not part of Chrysalis’ hive—I swear.”

There are changelings not part of her hive? So little was known about them. “Even if such changelings exist, what proof is there that she’s one of them?”

“I… I… don’t know what to say!” Lyra pointed at Meg. “What about her? If she isn’t a changeling, then there’s one impersonating her back at Sugarcube Corner!”

Twilight shot the pegasus a questioning look. Meg face-hoofed. “Lyra was there. Pinkie told her where to find me so she could ask me some questions about what sort of music to play.”

Lyra stared at Meg in disbelief. “That’s… not possible. I-I just left you at Sugarcube Corner!” Her stare moved to Twilight. “How did you find us?”

Twilight didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to admit to time travel—not after that first time-travel fiasco when she had used Star Swirl’s spell to warn her past self to… it was best not to mention time travel.

“Quite the ‘roadblock,’ eh?” Meg asked rhetorically.

“Yeah,” Twilight admitted. “It sure is.”

They had to get past these two—but a changeling? She couldn’t ignore that! But what could she do? Her present self at this point in time had no knowledge of a changeling in Ponyville; that ignorance must be preserved.

But neither could Twilight let it deter them from barging in on Meg’s voice synthesizer session with the Smooze; they didn’t have time to spare on this. She had to leave for the Crystal Empire in little over an hour, that session with the Smooze wouldn’t last much longer, and she most certainly was not going to use time travel to give herself more time!

The changeling had reverted to its true form. “I’m no threat, I swear! I’ll… I’ll find some way to prove that, but I need time!” An idea came to it. “I Pinkie Promise!” It said the words and went through the motions.

A thoroughly rattled Lyra joined in. “Me too!” She also said the words and went through the motions.

Twilight was stumped. The irony was that she needed time too, time enough to catch up with the present. At least she could tell herself that even if they were lying, their plans had been disrupted now that she knew about the changeling’s presence.

“I don’t see Pinkie Pie,” Meg quietly observed.

Twilight sighed and gently deposited the changeling on the ground. “The sooner I get that proof, the better.” Though not before tomorrow. There was no need to say that; besides how odd that would have sounded, it was a fact that they hadn’t, so they wouldn’t.

Lyra and the changeling hastily departed.

“That was unexpected,” Meg said.

Twilight started walking back to Ponyville. “You’re telling me. What were the odds?”

Meg pondered that. “You know, I think it was me looking in their direction that let the spell succeed.”

If Meg hadn’t been looking in their direction… by the time those two had been noticed, there wouldn’t have been an undisguised changeling. “You’re saying that a stable time loop depended on us learning about the changeling.”

“Beats me. I still don’t see how knowing there’s a changeling in Lyra’s life—whatever that’s about—helps us reach that party room.”

As they continued on their way back to Ponyville, the dark recesses of the forest surrounded them once more.

“Me neither.” They went around that patch of poison joke. “I guess I’ll have to pay Bon Bon a visit, to see if she’s been replaced or not.”

Meg flinched. “I hope that’s not the case.”

It would have to wait until they returned to the present. Again, what could they do in the past if she had been replaced by that changeling?

The sound of snapping branches stopped them. Only something big could do that, and as a general rule big things in the Everfree were not friendly.

The two ponies warily scanned their surroundings. More snapping sounds approached—from multiple directions. Twilight prepared several defensive spells.

Lime green eyes glowed around them, edging closer.

“Timberwolves,” Twilight muttered.

“Our next roadblock,” Meg said.

“Not for long.” She knew just the spell to use.

Two leaped at them, and promptly disintegrated into their component parts, falling to the ground. All the glowing eyes around them were gone.

“I… didn’t do that.”

“No, I did. No need to thank me. After all, it’s what friends do for each other.”

A draconequus drifted down from the canopy.

“Our next roadblock?” Meg asked.

Discord frowned. “Well, at least it’s original. Never been called that before.”

“Why are you here?” Twilight asked.

“Other than saving you from those nasty timberwolves?”

“I could’ve handle them just fine.”

With a broom he swept the pile of branches and logs away. “Yes, yes. I suppose you could.” He vanished and reappeared in front of them. “If you must know, I sensed the presence of another alicorn. How could I resist?”

“You resisted all those other times I traveled to the past.”

“Ah, but this time you did it in the Everfree!”

“What difference does that make?”

Discord looked genuinely surprised by the question. “It makes all the difference!”

Twilight was getting a bit annoyed by this—and the time it was eating up. “Why?”

He raised his arms in joy. “Because I say so!”

Twilight resumed walking, shaking her head. “Come on, Meg.”

A wall of stone blocked their way. “No paradoxes today, I’m afraid.”

“How do you even know that?” Meg asked.

Eaves flashed into existence on top of the stone wall. Discord pushed them off, letting them crash to the ground. He got blank looks. “Habitual eavesdropper, or have you forgotten?”

“Why do you even care?” Twilight asked. “What of the chaos if we succeeded?”

Discord pouted. “That’s just it. You won’t succeed, so there won’t be any chaos. So I’m thinking, why not be the cause of your lack of success? It’s been so long since we matched wits. That sounds way more fun, and you can’t hold it against me because you know you can’t succeed anyway. I’m guaranteed to win!”

Meg shook her head. “That’s why you missed our session today? So that you can ‘have fun’ here?”

The draconequus froze. “What do you mean I missed it? Sure, I admit I’ll be late…”

“You didn’t show up at all.”

All the color drained out his face. “You’re telling me my future—my immutable future?!”

Which gave Twilight an idea. “Want to hear about what you do tomorrow?”

Discord instantly vanished. The stone wall vanished a second later.

“Think he’ll try to show up at that session anyway?”

Twilight sighed. “He’s free to do so. I wonder what would prevent it?”

The mere thought made her shudder.

“So now what?” Meg asked.

If even Discord was powerless to change the immutable past—or future… “Let’s mark this experiment as a failure.”

Meg walked about the newly completed lab, taking it in from the human perspective for the first time. The tracks spanning the former mine’s floor had been removed and replaced with bland, neutrally grayish carpet, designed for durability rather than elegance. More granite had been removed from the few low-hanging sections of the ceiling, so that humans would not have to stoop.

Ergonomic chairs had been brought over from the Department of Energy office. Cushions for ponies to sit upon and sturdy wood tables had been provided by Equestria. Computers had been brought over and a local area network had been installed. Over there was the wi-fi access point her husband had enchanted, tying it to the office network.

Bookcases were carved into the cavern walls, mostly empty for now. Other shelves were full of lab equipment, of both human and pony origin, waiting to be used.

Off to the side was a door sealing off a side tunnel, inside of which was now kept all the nuclear waste that had been formerly stored onsite at a nuclear power plant, made relatively safe by the magical field of this realm. Another door, sized for ponies, sealed the tunnel that lead to the outside; there would be no uninvited guests here. Nonetheless, there was ventilation, as evidenced by gentle air movement. Where it came from or to where it went wasn’t obvious.

Perhaps it was magic. The bright light certainly was, provided by numerous crystals lining the ceiling. Magic connected the electrical wiring to the Canterlot electrical grid; ponies did not use wires to transmit electricity over large distances. Magic also had something to do with the functioning of the restrooms, which she had not inquire into. She wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Princess Celestia patiently waited until Meg completed her inspection. Sunset Shimmer waited by the alicorn’s side.

Finally, Meg turned to the ponies. “Looks good. We can bring my colleagues here once you’ve departed.” To Celestia, she said, “And thanks for turning me human. I really need a way to block the transformation when I’m brought over to this realm.”

“I’d be happy to discuss that with Discord,” the princess replied. “And as Twilight is not available, before I depart I think I shall welcome your colleagues to Equestria.”

Can’t wait to see their reaction. Meg got out her phone. “I’ll let them know Sunset’s coming to pick them up.” She tapped out a message and sent it.

Sunset trotted over to the safe, which could only be unlocked via a spell, and got a plaid pill from within. There were more than enough to last until Twilight got back.

Questions were going to be asked about that safe, and Meg wasn’t sure how to answer them. Probably something about magics that they shouldn’t be messing around with. And wasn’t that true enough? Regardless, that was a problem for future Meg.

Sunset Shimmer vanished. Meg took a seat to wait for her return.

The Zephyr drifted down the remaining few feet to the ground. Cadance and Shining Armor stood a safe distance away, next to a royal carriage. Twilight did not wait for the airship to touch ground. She teleported directly to them and gave her BBBFF a hug.

“It’s been too long, Twily.”

“I know.” She released him. “But this isn’t a social call, I’m afraid.”

“It never is,” he sighed.

Cadance stepped forward and laid a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “What’s the world-ending crisis this time?” she asked, only half mockingly. “Has Lord Tirek conquered the human realm and declared war on us?”

“You know he hasn’t left Tartarus yet,” Twilight grumbled.

Cadance giggled.

“Come on, sis, you know better than that. Why don’t we skip to the part where you explain everything.”

The airship had completed its landing, and its gangway had deployed. “Let’s go inside,” Twilight said. “This shouldn’t be discussed out in the open.”

Cadance and Shining Armor looked at each other, then followed Twilight back to the ship. “Does Celestia even use this ship anymore?” her brother asked. “Maybe she should just give it to you.”

“Yes, she still uses it, and I can’t exactly afford to maintain and operate it.”

“You should ask for a bigger budget,” Cadance helpfully suggested.

Maybe I should. Celestia would likely approve it. She just didn’t have need of more money—though, as Spike liked to point out, she ought to have some Royal Guards of her own. But on the other hoof, nopony bothered her with requests for funding. Regardless, she had to admit she was only delaying the inevitable.

They went inside the Zephyr. Twilight closed the door behind them.

“So what’s this about?” Shining asked as he took a seat.

Twilight remained standing. “You remember the incident with the Mirror a year ago?”

“How could we forget?”

“I’m planning on going back in time and observe how that magic leak got started. Somepony bound it to a doll in the human realm, and I intend to find out who and why.”

Her brother blinked. “Okay… didn’t you swear off time travel after that—”

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” she stated, “but I’ve also learned from that experience on what not to do.”

“So why tell us?” Cadance asked. “That mirror is in your castle now.”

It was Twilight’s turn to blink. The answer ought to have been obvious. “Not when that leak got started. I’ll have to go back to before my fight with Sunset Shimmer, go through the mirror, and from there to hyperspace.”

“Of course.”

Twilight couldn’t help but feel that her former foal sitter was holding something back. “You posted guards on it, right? After I went through it to retrieve my Element?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I need to get past them without you finding out. The past cannot be changed.”

“No, I suppose it cannot.”

The pieces were starting to click together. “You did find out. And you never told me.”

Shining’s jaw dropped. “Wait, what?”

Cadance sighed. “You were quite insistent on that point.”

Twilight wanted to face-hoof. Of course I was—would be. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

“You made me Pinkie Promise not to tell you anything.”

Now she did face-hoof. “And that leaves me with no choice but to do that,” she groaned.

Sunset Shimmer returned to the lab, accompanied by Jake, Meg’s manager, and her eight fellow employees. Meg remained seated, wishing she could conjure up a bag of popcorn like Discord or Pinkie Pie. Anytime now…

They were all facing the wrong way; the newly arrived humans, still somewhat disoriented, stepped forwards toward the shelves of lab equipment, looking everywhere but behind themselves, where Meg waited patiently. Sunset glanced backwards at Meg and gave her a silent wink.

She didn’t tell them. Meg stole a glance at Celestia and got another wink in return. Now I really wish I had popcorn. When had those two arranged this little prank?

“P-princess Celestia?”

The others twisted around until they spotted her too. Priceless were the looks on their faces.

“Welcome to Equestria,” the princess said. “With the opening of this facility, a seed has been planted, a seed formed from the blending our magic and your technology. I cannot wait to see the fruit it shall one day bear.”

Jake stepped forward and gave a brief and uncertain bow. “We are honored by your presence.”

Celestia gave slight nod in return. “I shall leave you to your work.” Lighting up her horn, she teleported away.

Everyone was gawking at where the alicorn had been. “I’m here too,” Meg said, waving her hand.

All heads turn to her. “When did you get here?” Diana asked.

Meg stood up. “A while ago. So what do you think of the place?”

Jake looked around, spotting the side tunnels. “It looks like a former mine, quite honestly. Not exactly what I was expecting.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Meg said. “We’re inside the mountain on which Canterlot was built.” She pointed to a locked door. “Behind that door is all the nuclear waste from Diablo Canyon. Even without its radioactivity, it’s still nasty stuff, chemically speaking. The princesses felt isolation was best.”

“Uh,” Martin started to ask, “are there restrooms here?”

Sunset trotted to one of the side tunnels. “You’ll find them just down this corridor.”

“And they have running water, in case you’re wondering. Just be sure to use one with a picture of a human on the door.” Meg was willing to bet that every one of them, at the first opportunity, would take a look inside the ones with a pony on the door.

“And which tunnel leads to the outside, or Canterlot, or whatever?”

“That door over there,” Sunset said, pointing. “It’s normally locked to keep out uninvited guests, not that many would find this place.” She unlocked and opened the diminutive door, revealing unlit tunnel. “I do not recommend exploring these tunnels. It’s easy to get lost. Most are not tall enough anyway for a human, and we are a long way from the mine entrance.” She re-closed and re-locked the door.

The previous times Meg had passed through those tunnels, on the way to this pony-made cavern, she had always been accompanied by at least one unicorn using a lighting spell. This one time, Celestia had teleported her from the castle above, after first having made her human again. She could find her way out if she had to, using one of the lighting crystals, but doing so as a human would not be pleasant—nor was the entrance to the mine located in either the Canterlot business district or the palace gardens.

Sunset grabbed a Geiger counter from a shelf with her magic, then she trotted over to the other locked door. The human-sized door opened with her magic. Light spilled into the side tunnel, illuminating countless nuclear fuel assemblies stacked up against the sides of the tunnel, extending into the darkness.

The unicorn pointed within. “There are all the fuel assemblies, as you can see, with no shielding of any kind.” She turned on the Geiger counter and floated it over to the nearest assembly. After many seconds, it gave a single, belated click.

“I still wouldn’t handle that stuff without gloves,” Meg said. “Or just let a unicorn do telekinesis. You don’t want any rubbing off on you. Once you’re back home, it’ll be radioactive again.”

Sunset closed the door, once more hiding the spent fuel from view.

“That’s good advice,” Jake said, addressing his underlings. “I want you all to follow it.”

He took a breath. “The purpose of this lab, in the short term, is to explore options for dealing with nuclear waste. I can now tell you that there’s already a smaller lab like this at our facilities, for some time now, that the ponies have been using. The key difference between that one and this one, is that here magic is unconstrained by the restrictions imposed by our own universe.”

He turned to Sunset. “I don’t suppose there’s something you can show us that’s impossible in our world?”

“Well…” The unicorn thought it over. “The problem is, you’d have to take my word for it. For example, I could boil a pot of water, but how could I prove the energy came from nowhere? Indeed, if I were to use that same spell in your realm, it’d still work; the energy would come from a magic generator. But in this realm, the energy is created from nothing; it’s not conserved.”

If Discord were here, Meg thought, I doubt he’d have any problem coming up with something blatantly impossible in our universe. She was half-surprised he hadn’t showed up. Party-crashing when humans showed up in Equestria was kind of his thing. Or was that “too predictable,” as he would put it?

“Couldn’t hurt to ask,” Jake said, brushing it off. “Longer term, we’ll want to explore magic itself, to understand how a spell adapts to the conditions of the universe it finds itself, like that boiling a pot of water spell. Another long term goal is to discover the potential synergies between Equestrian magic and our technology.”

Potential synergies? Meg wondered how much longer the bureaucratese would continue. It was almost enough to make her wish Discord would show up. It’d certainly liven things up.

The morning sun shone on Canterlot Palace. On the same balcony as before, shaded from the sun by the tower it adorned, Steve was practicing the revised spell, the one that would let him focus on a single star. That it was day and not night was not odd; the spell did not care if the star could be seen.

“There. I don’t think it’s moved all that much closer.”

Luna checked her stopwatch. “Not quite an hour. It was just over an hour before, correct?”

“Yeah.”

What was odd was that Luna was coaching him instead of Sunset Shimmer. But Luna herself had come up with the modifications to the spell, and Sunset was otherwise occupied in a converted mine below them.

“That’s unsurprising,” said the Princess of the Night. “I spent many hours last night pulling it towards us, but the distance it must travel is vast. It will take about two weeks for it to come as close as it will come—and then only if I keep pulling on it every night.”

Steve maintained his focus on the spell. Though it “stuck” to the star, not zooming past it like the realm-measuring spell, he wasn’t really sensing anything more. It was just too distant. “Considering it’s a half-light-hour away, I suppose that’s to be expected. So what stops it from coming any closer, once it’s ‘too close?’”

“I do not know. I am hoping you will be able to determine that.”

He hoped so too, along with determining other things. “It must take weeks to re-arrange the stars into new constellations.”

“Indeed it does—which is why I wish more ponies would appreciate the result.”

“I think it’s safe to say that human tourists will appreciate it. Our stars never move—well, that’s not actually true. They do move, but so slowly that many thousands of years would be needed to see even a minor difference. Even then, no one controls it, could control it.”

Luna looked up at the starless blue sky. “Yes, I’ve read Twilight’s report on your realm’s cosmology. It is… different.”

Steve continued casting the spell, focusing on what little feedback he was receiving. No matter how long he observed it today, he knew it wouldn’t become any clearer.

Celestia walked onto the balcony and glowed with approval at what she saw. “I see you’ve found your own faithful student.”

Steve decided to keep his mouth shut. He was pretty sure that had been said in jest.

“Jealous that I have found one before you could find a replacement for Twilight?”

Definitely staying out of this. He kept his focus on the spell.

“Oh, dear,” Celestia said. “We may be giving our guest some incorrect notions. Pay no attention to our banter, Steve. I just returned from the converted mine, by the way; I welcomed Meg’s co-workers to Equestria.” She grinned mischievously. “Without advanced notice.”

He shook his head. “I’d love to have seen their faces.” He’d have to ask Meg about that.

That enigmatic smile. “Let’s just say I have no regrets.”

This time, Andrew had booked the private room in the back. Meg made her way through the microbrewery and the after-work crowds, hearing the name Tirek more than once. She reached the closed door. She hesitated. She forced herself to open the door and go inside.

Everyone else was already there, to her total lack of surprise. Her eyes lingered on the pitchers of beer; she might need a glass or two or three before this was over.

Andrew spotted her. “Ah, Meg! Just the person we wanted to see!”

She reluctantly closed the door and took a seat and waited for the inevitable question.

The question came: “Has our invitation been conveyed to Tirek?”

All eyes were upon her. “Rarity was willing to convey the invitation for me. She designed and made his regal attire you saw on TV, by the way.”

“And refused to be paid a single bit for it, am I right?” someone asked. Knowing laughter was the response.

“I can assure you she was paid handsomely by the crown,” Meg coldly informed them, “and she refused not a single bit.” Her eyes swept the table. “She still holds a grudge against Tirek—you know, for the events that actually happened in the season four finale.”

Andrew was undeterred. “And there’s more than one side to that story, as he’d made perfectly clear—but that isn’t our problem.” He looked Meg in the eye. “What was his answer?”

Meg was so glad they were in a private room. “No promises, but our invitation fits his desire to be in the public eye.”

“Perfect!”

“Assuming humanity takes him back, and assuming the powers-that-be don’t consider his appearance at our convention to be too dangerous. Don’t forget the Mane Six are off-limits this year.”

He waved it off. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Quite frankly, the publicity from booking him would be worth it, even if he wasn’t allowed to show up.”

Should I try to book Chrysalis as well? she sarcastically thought. Think of the publicity of that!

“Would the ponies release him if we did take him back?” Penny asked. “I dunno, but towards the end, Twilight looked like she could’ve strangled him. Or was that all in the editing?”

Meg finally poured herself a glass. “I saw the same video you did.” With Twilight. What aired was close enough to what happened. “I have no reason to believe they won’t follow through on their promises.”

“You weren’t there?”

She set the glass down before answering. “My understanding is that nopony accompanied Twilight and the selected journalists to Tartarus, apart from some Royal Guards.”

Meg was fairly certain she could’ve been there if she’d wanted. If she’d wanted to be on camera as a pony. If she’d wanted to be on camera with Tirek.

Another question came from the table. “What’s the deal with that airship? How come Twilight wouldn’t let anyone inside?”

That refusal had spawned its own conspiracy theories, naturally. “The Zephyr doesn’t even belong to Twilight. It’s Celestia’s. And there aren’t any hidden secrets inside waiting to be exposed.”

“So you’ve been inside?”

Meg took another gulp of beer, even as she knew she couldn’t afford to drink too much. “Yes, I’ve been inside. It’s very nice. Now can we change the subject?”

Her eyes briefly met Elaine’s. She, too, had once been inside that airship, after visiting her brother in Tartarus. She did not volunteer that information.

“Fair enough,” Andrew said. “Could you provide an update on the other potential pony bookings?”

Meg finished off her glass. “First, there’s A. K. Yearling. That depends primarily on how her book publishing negotiations go. Lyra Heartstrings is interested in putting on a performance. She sees it as free publicity, basically. Finally, and this is new, there’s Trixie the Great and Powerful. Twilight’s pushing that one; thinks it’ll do her good.”

“Seriously?” Penny said. “Trixie? Is that a good idea?”

Meg looked at the closest pitcher of beer, but abstained. “And no one has a problem with Tirek?”

“Well, that’s… different? I mean, she’ll still have magic, right? If Tirek shows up, won’t he be a magic-less human? How dangerous can that be?”

Others nodded in agreement.

“Besides,” Penny continued, “his grudge is against Celestia and the ponies, not against us. We’ll be doing him a big favor.”

“He’s still a bad dude,” Tyler, the head of Events and Programming, countered. “His values are from a different era, and we have no idea if he was telling us the truth.”

Andrew held up his hands. “I think we can all agree to disagree. But it’s safe to say that, no matter how evil he truly is, it’s in his interests to be on his best behavior at our convention. And, if nothing else, he proved in that press conference he was capable of doing that.”

No one spoke up.

If someone had brought up the question of how many centuries in Tartarus was enough punishment, they would have more or less summed up the pro and con arguments that were taking place in the restaurant outside and on the cable news channels. It was still too soon for the first polls.

Addressing Meg, Andrew asked, “Have you met Trixie? Would she go all Alicorn Amulet on us?”

Meg decided to ignore the “Alicorn Amulet” part. “I’ve met her, yes. She’s not the most pleasant pony to be around, I’ll grant that, but she does have a strong work ethic—she doesn’t live an easy life, so she needs one. I agree with Twilight that putting on a show for a human audience could do her a lot of good.”

“Sounds good to me. Anything else?”

Meg sighed. “Any progress on auctioning off a day with Discord? He’s complained about being ‘left out of the loop.’”

It was Andrew’s turn to sigh. “You don’t know how glad I am he can’t come here to complain in person.” He popped a fried cheeseball into his mouth. “The lawyers are getting cold feet on that contract they’d come up with.”

Twilight ended the enclosure spell. The room became visible once more, revealing a reserved Cadance, an appraising Shining Armor, and a bored Discord. “Any more tips?” she asked her brother.

“Nope, you’ve nailed it,” he said. “But who really knows what it’ll have to shield you against during your trip through time.”

“Vacuum and extreme cold, according to Steve.” Twilight smiled at her former foal-sitter. “But we already know it’ll be successful.”

“I’m not breaking my Pinkie Promise,” Cadance said, sighing. “And just because you could extract that promise from me doesn’t mean there were no ill effects from the trip—not that I’m saying whether there were or were not any ill effects—and it certainly doesn’t mean you return to the present in one piece!”

All good points, she had to admit.

Discord looked up from a game of solitaire he’d been playing. “Never fear, Discord is here! I have no intention of becoming ‘lost in time’ because of an enclosure spell gone bad. You really should just let me handle the whole thing.” He already held responsibility for maintaining air quality during the journey.

“You can’t expect me to do nothing,” Twilight said. “Besides, the enclosure spell will give me data on the surrounding environment. I can’t pass that up.” She walked over and stared at where the mirror once stood when she had first passed through it, as if looking at it through the mists of time. “Having said that, I’m glad I won’t be a single point of failure.”

Cadance joined her. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

Twilight fetched a plaid pill from a saddlebag. “It’s time,” she repeated.

Before she could take it, Cadance spoke. “We’ve never seen their realm. Would it be okay if we accompanied you? I know we’ll be coming right back, but I’d like to see it, even if only for a minute.”

“Uh…” She couldn’t imagine Meg and Steve would mind, but there was a problem… “I only have the one pill with me, and I only have one other back in the ship, so…” She bore a sheepish smile. “If you’re willing to cross over without any magic? I mean, you’ll still be inside my magic bubble…”

Discord played a card, causing the one it landed beside to run away screaming. “You could just ask, you know.”

Oh, right. It’s been so long since Discord had created that always full dispenser of plaid pills, now safely back at her castle. “I’m asking?”

Another card was played. All the cards on the floor got up, did a little dance in which they randomly swapped places, and collapsed back onto the floor. Without looking up, he snapped his talons. Two additional plaid pills joined the one Twilight held in her magic.

“Thanks, Discord.”

The draconequus mumbled, “You’re welcome,” and returned to his game. Twilight wondered what the rules were, then admonished herself for assuming that there were rules.

Twilight floated a plaid pill to princess and prince. “Don’t swallow until I do; it’s important. Just think of going where I’m going.”

They nodded. Twilight waited until they were ready, then swallowed her pill.

The three of them appeared in Meg’s home office. The human in question looked up from her computer. “Steve, Twilight’s here!” She got up and—

Twilight quickly used her magic to hold her in place. Before Meg could ask why, she said, “You were about to run into Shining Armor.”

“He’s here? Why’s he invisible?”

“Yeah, why am I invisible?”

“Because you don’t know how to turn the invisibility off. You too, Cadance. Here, let me…” Their bubbles already overlapped; Twilight cast the spell to make them visible.

Steve appeared in the doorway. “More than just Twilight, it appears.”

Meg stepped around Shining Armor to retrieve her saddlebags. “They arrived invisible. Let’s get going.”

Cadance had been looking about the room, full of curiosity, and her eyes landed on the Pinkie Pie doll. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Meg said. “That’s what started it all. It’s time to get answers.”

26. Bound

Meg looked around the empty room. Before the mirror had been moved to its current, secure location at the palace in Canterlot; before it had been moved to a grassy field dozens of miles from the Crystal Empire; before it had been moved to a closet in the back of the ballroom at the top of the Sombra’s old castle; it was in this room, where Twilight had passed through it to recover her Element.

That was a few years ago. Now, all that was in the room was herself, Steve, Twilight, Cadance and Shining Armor… and Discord. What kind of solitaire game is that? she wondered. Something chaotic, she concluded, after watching him pick up a card then toss it down; the card had bounced around a dozen times before coming to a rest.

Twilight trotted to the door. “Please follow me to the departure point.”

Meg exchanged a look with her husband. This is it. She walked over to Twilight, Steve by her side. Cadance and Shining Armor joined them.

The ponies looked at Discord. The draconequus sliced a card in half using a talon. Both halves grew back into complete cards as the nearby cards ran away screaming in terror.

Twilight’s frown deepened. “Whenever you’re ready, Discord.”

“Yes, yes.” He placed one card on top of another. What looked like a black hole opened up, sucked in all the cards, then went poof, leaving nothing behind. He smiled and got up. “That’s four wins in a row.”

“What would a loss look like?” Meg just couldn’t help asking.

Discord made a face as if eating something distasteful. “All the cards would be in some orderly pattern. There are so many of them. It’s surprisingly hard to avoid.”

Okay… That did not sound like a game she had any interest in learning.

“We’re going to the guest room I was staying in at the time.” Twilight began walking. “It’s at the other end of this corridor.”

Meg followed, the others following behind her, as she thought that over. It made sense. Nopony would be in that room, because at that time Twilight had been at Canterlot High.

Most of them gathered inside the royal guest room. Cadance and Shining Armor remained just outside.

Twilight began casting the shield spell.

“Be careful, Twily.”

“I will, Shiny,” she replied, just before the shield cut off all sight and sound of the royal couple.

Twilight’s horn got even brighter. “Discord, you can now add your magic to the time travel spell.”

Would it work? Did they overlook something that would cause the spell to fail?

All Discord had done was close his eyes, but that seemed to have done the trick. Meg found herself suddenly weightless, her wings flaring out by instinct. She resisted the urge to flap them; she’d only bang her head on the inner surface of the shield above her. Looking around, she could see that everypony else was floating too.

No question about it; they were on their way.

Finally, we’ll get to the bottom of this.

Hopefully.

Just because the trip back through time was happening, she reminded herself, didn’t mean they would achieve their goals.

“Any interesting observations?” Twilight asked.

The question had been directed at Steve. His eyes were closed, his horn active. “Nothing unexpected. We’re in a large, more-or-less spherical bubble of space-time. The local geometry is flat, hence no gravity. We’re barely connected to the universe—just a contact patch, theoretically smaller than an atom, allowing us to pass through history without affecting it. The geometry of that patch is massively warped, no question about it.” He opened his eyes. “I assume that means we’re on our way.”

Twilight let out a breath. “That does match the theoretical model. It won’t be long before we know one way or the other.”

“So what’s the plan when we arrive?” Meg asked. That they would arrive wasn’t in doubt as far as she was concerned; Cadance had confirmed it. “I mean, we can’t just go to the mirror. Your friends are there waiting for you to return.”

Twilight’s ears sagged. “I know. And they never mentioned seeing me before I returned through the mirror.”

“Is it asking too much for them to keep quiet about our presence?” Steve asked.

She grimaced. “I don’t think all of them are good enough actors to pull that off, however willing they may be to try.”

“This would be the first time they saw Steve and I—if they saw us. I never had the sense that they’d seen us before when we met them for the first time.”

Twilight looked at Discord. “And they never mentioned having seen you.”

The draconequus smirked. “I can be subtle when I want to be, you know. I just need to create a distraction, and they’ll never know we were here.”

Twilight pondered that for a moment. “Maybe, maybe not. Don’t forget that we’ll encounter Cadance. Perhaps we should start with her. She could be the distraction that clears out that room for us.”

“What’s the fun in that?” he grumbled.

“That assumes we bump into Cadance before we go through the mirror,” Meg pointed out, “not after we come back.”

“I’m just keeping our options open,” Twilight said. “We just don’t know what we’ll encounter.”

Because Cadance wouldn’t tell us. Because you made her Pinkie Promise not to.

Perhaps the biggest joke was that all of those scenarios were possible stable time loops. Which one turned out to be reality was a literal roll of the dice. It wouldn’t even matter if Cadance had told them everything. In each possible time loop, she would have said what had happened in that version of the loop. Who knows? Maybe there were possible loops where Twilight had not extracted a Pinkie Promise. Or maybe Shining Armor was involved instead of Cadance. It was all a gigantic superposition of a wave function.

They didn’t get to chose how the wave function collapsed.

“We’ve arrived.” Twilight dropped the shield.

Meg looked around. The guest room looked the same—no, that wasn’t true. There was Twilight’s suitcase, and on the nightstand was a pile of books. The books rose into the air and started flying about the room.

“Discord, put them back.” Twilight then addressed the others. “Everything must be as it was. I don’t remember anything being disturbed when I got back.”

The draconequus pouted. “Fine.” The books returned to the nightstand. “It’s not like I can change anything even if I tried.”

With her magic, Twilight took her time exactingly tweaking the pile to her satisfaction.

“I guess we’re really here,” Meg said. “So now what?”

Twilight answered that by looking at Discord. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but the least chaotic way of getting Cadance’s attention is you.”

He looked askance at her. “You’re joking, right?”

“I wish I was. I’m supposed to be on the other side of that mirror, and nopony here has ever seen these two before. That leaves you. Just… snap you talons or something, appear next to her, and bring her here.”

Discord grinned a predatory smile. “I can do better.”

Before Twilight could object, he snapped his talons. Cadance appeared in the room.

“Wha—? Discord! Why have—Twilight?!”

Twilight quickly shut the door. Cadance spun around at the sudden sound, and spotted the other two ponies in the room. “And who are you?”

“Cadance, please calm down and listen. We’re from the future and we need your help.”

Cadance turned back to Twilight. “From the future,” she carefully said. “Doesn’t that spell last only seconds?”

“Different spell. We’re here as long as we want.”

“So, just to be clear, the ‘you’ in the present is still on the other side of that mirror.”

“That’s right. And we need to go through that mirror, without my friends being the wiser. Actually, it’d be best if nopony knew besides you.”

Cadance cast a scanning spell on Twilight.

“I’m not a changeling, as you can see.”

She nodded. “I had to make sure. It must be important if you’ve brought Discord with you.” She turned to the draconequus. “You are from the future, right?”

“Yes, yes, we all are.”

Her attention fell on Meg and Steve. “And you two are…?”

“Ponies you won’t meet for over a year,” Twilight quickly said. “And when you do, you must pretend you hadn’t seen them before.”

“From at least a year in the future…”

“Look, I know you have many questions, but time is of the essence. We need to pass through that portal in the next half-hour. So if you could get everypony to leave that room for a few minutes…”

“That… shouldn’t be a problem. What about when you return?”

“We’ll return shortly after the present ‘me’ returns, when the portal has supposedly closed for another thirty moons.”

“Supposedly?”

Twilight groaned. “I promise you’ll know everything eventually. You were there when we departed. For now, the less you know about the future, the better.”

“I guess… that makes sense.” Cadance walked to the door. “Wait here. I’ll teleport back once the room is clear.” She opened the door, walked through, and closed it behind her.

Meg looked at Twilight, curiosity in her eyes. “No Pinkie Promise?”

Twilight smiled back. “Not yet,” she singsonged. “I’ll do that after we get back. Since we know I made her promise, that means we have to come back, otherwise there’d be a paradox.”

“Technically,” Steve began, “you have to come back. There’s no paradox if the rest of us don’t.”

“Uh… right.” Twilight added, sheepishly, “Well, there’s no paradox if you do, either.”

Discord rolled his eyes, but thankfully said nothing.

“Nopony is suggesting that anypony will fail to come back,” Meg said, “so let’s just change the subject.”

An awkward silence grew.

“How long should it take Cadance to clear that room?” Steve asked.

“Beats me,” Twilight said. “I have no idea how she could convince them all to leave that mirror, even briefly.”

It was another two minutes before Cadance teleported back to them.

“That took a bit longer than expected,” she said in apology, “but you can teleport to the mirror.”

“Thanks, Cadance.” Twilight went next to Meg and Steve, then looked at Discord. “I’ll teleport these two.” And she did.

Discord and Cadance followed.

The mirror was in front of them. It didn’t look any different to Meg, but there was no reason it ought to have. “After you?” she asked Twilight.

Twilight walked up to her shimmering reflection. “Remember that first step is a doozy.”

“How could I forget?”

The alicorn stepped into the portal and was gone. Discord went through next.

Steve walked up to the portal next.

“Don’t forget: you’ll be sorta human on the other side,” Meg told him.

“Right.” He went through.

Meg took her place in front of the portal.

“What’s ‘human?’” Cadance asked.

Meg’s focus remained on her pegasus reflection. “You’ll find out eventually.”

She stepped through.

Canterlot High stood in front of her once again, only this time no students were out and about. There was bipedal Twilight, standing next to an unchanged Discord, and next to him…

She walked up to her husband, who was busy checking himself out. “That’s pretty much how I expected you to look,” she said.

He looked her over from head to toe. “There are so many questions this raises, but I guess I know better than to ask them.”

“We can’t even blame magic, given there’s none here.”

“The mirror itself is magical,” Steve countered.

“While you two are trying to make sense of this place,” Twilight said, “Discord, do what you need to do.”

He gave her an convoluted salute and vanished.

“I wonder where he went?” Steve asked.

“To the school library, I’m guessing.” Meg faced the main entrance, expecting Discord to return on foot. “The controls for the hyperspace portal are there.”

And it wasn’t long before he came through those doors, not on foot but by wing.

“The hyperspace portal’s open,” Meg said. It had to be open; that’s why he didn’t teleport back—though why teleportation and an open hyperspace portal didn’t mix was still unknown to her. She walked around to the back of the statue, not waiting for Discord to rejoin them.

There she waited, staring at the concrete base. She wasn’t even tempted to test the portal by poking her hand through.

Steve was by her side. He reached for the portal.

She slapped his hand away. “Don’t even think it until Discord is on the other side. No symmetry breaking out there, remember?”

He yanked his hand back. “Right. All the fundamental forces are unified. Bad for things made out of subatomic particles.” He studied with his eyes the concrete base for himself. “I wonder what keeps the air from being sucked out?”

Twilight had joined them. “We’ve never been able to take a physical object from this place back to Equestria. I suspect that material substances here aren’t ‘real’ in a physical sense.”

Steve let out a long whistle. “I can only imagine how many human scientists would sell their souls to come to this place and study it, to find out what ‘stuff’ here is made of. Never mind what’s through that portal.”

Discord drifted around to their side of the statue. “As fascinating as I would find chaperoning a gaggle of human scientists in hyperspace, I can only keep magical creatures functioning in that place.”

That was what Discord had told Meg the last time she’d followed him through that portal.

“Can humans function in this place?” Steve asked. “Would they remain human? Fully human, I mean.”

Discord tapped his chin. “No, I believe not. They’d turn into ponies while keeping their hair color and skin tones.”

Steve shook his head. “Well, that’s symmetry for you.”

“And it wouldn’t do them any good in hyperspace,” Meg said, “because they’d turn human again once they enter it.”

Steve smiled. “Becoming a magical pony is a lot cheaper than selling one’s soul.”

Meg peeked around the corner. Still no activity. “We won’t have much warning. It starts with Snips and Snails running right past here, with Twilight—er, past Twilight—not far behind. Then Sunset shows up—”

Twilight held up a hand. “We get the picture. Perhaps we should wait on the other side.” She addressed Discord. “Can we listen in from there?”

“I see no reason why not.”

A door slammed open. Meg pulled back. “Guys? We need to go. Now.”

Discord sprung into action, leaping through the portal.

Meg was right behind him. A familiar void of absolute darkness engulfed her. She turned around with a flap of her wings. Through a shimmering rectangle came first her husband and then Twilight, both also restored to their true pony forms.

Steve’s mouth hung open. “This is really it. Hyperspace.”

Meg drifted over to the portal, as close as she dared. “Yes, now be quiet. I’m trying to listen.”

Seconds ticked by in silence, then…

“That’s close enough!”

“Twilight!”

“Don’t hurt him!”

“Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. I'm not a monster, Twilight. … Let him go. … You don't belong here. Give me the crown, and you can go back to Equestria tonight. Or keep it and never go home.”

Discord held out a small box with a knob on it. “You can use this to turn down the volume, if you’d like.”

Meg drifted back a few feet from the portal. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“It’s so weird hearing my past self like that.” The alicorn’s head was down, her eyes closed. “It’s just as I remember it.”

Meg scanned the void, looking for what she knew not. What were they supposed to see when the leak began? “It shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Oh, please! What exactly do you think you're going to do to stop me? I have magic, and you have nothing!”

“She has us!”

Twilight sighed. “Not much longer.”

They continued listening. As the Twilight on the other side of the portal said the fateful line, the Twilight on this side echoed them: “The crown may be upon your head, Sunset Shimmer, but you cannot wield it, because you do not possess the most powerful magic of all: the magic of friendship!”

“No! What is happening?!”

“My Element has reached out to the others back in Equestria,” Twilight said, talking over her past self. “The damage that caused the leak is happening right now.”

Steve looked around. “So what are we supposed to see?”

“A tube, sorta,” Meg said. “A glowing green tube.”

Twilight spun around. “I see nothing. Literally nothing, besides us and the portal.”

With a flap, Meg drifted through the endless void closer to Discord. “Let me guess. We need to be ‘rotated’ to see it?”

“Probably, but not yet. It hasn’t formed yet.”

“How long is it supposed to take?” Twilight asked.

“More to the point,” Meg countered, “when will they show up?”

Twilight shrugged. “After it forms?”

How long could they wait? Probably as long as Discord could stay awake, Meg figured. Perhaps even longer. But what if they were way too early? What if it took weeks for that tube to grow across the hyperspatial void to her own universe? Only after it had done that would the mysterious agent bind it to her doll. Right?

Steve’s horn began glowing brightly. “Let’s see if my special talent can sense anything.”

Everypony held their breath.

He winced, but persisted.

Meg drifted over to him. “Is it that bad out there?” She knew all too well that it wasn’t exactly “normal” outside this bubble that Discord had created for them.

“Bad isn’t the word I’d use.” His horn went out. “Outside of this little bubble of ‘normality’ we’re in…” He struggled for words. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s alien. I can’t make sense of it. That I’m familiar with all the theories… it doesn’t help.”

“So you can’t detect the beginnings of the leak?” Twilight asked.

Steve shook his head. “Not unless it was inside here with us, but then all of us could just see it.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, “it’s hard to miss—so long as we’re rotated in the right direction.”

“I wonder if that… hyper-dimensionality would affect my magic.” He shook his head again and looked at Discord with new appreciation. “How do you do it? Making this bubble for us where the laws of physics are compatible with our existence, never mind keep that outside. The middle of a neutron star is a more hospitable place for us. Hell, the center of a black hole might be more hospitable to us!”

Discord rubbed his lion knuckles against his chest in pride. “A simple matter of using its own energy against it. But it does require my constant attention.”

In other words, for as long as Discord could stay awake. However long that was. Meg hoped they wouldn’t have to find out how long that was. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t chaotically fidget out here. He can’t afford the distraction.

Twilight drifted slowly, carefully, to the boundary of their bubble, and tried to examine it for herself with her magic. “What is out there? Theoretically speaking.”

“Our best guess?” Steve said. “A quantum foam so energetic that all the fundamental forces—electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear force, gravity, and I guess magic as well—are unified into a single force. It is from that foam that space-time bubbles randomly pop into and out of existence, and—unimaginably infrequently—a bubble manages to inflate enough to sufficiently lower its energy density to break the symmetry that unifies the forces, creating a random set of physical laws, and becomes a new universe.” He peered into infinity. “Matter as we understand it cannot exist out there. I was really hoping my special talent would be up to the task, but it doesn’t look like it.” He let out a sharp chuckle. “There goes my Nobel Prize in Physics.”

Twilight tapped the boundary. It flashed in response.

“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” Discord said.

Twilight sighed at the void. “What are the odds that two adjacent realms would wind up with the exact same physical laws, besides the laws of magic?”

Steve shrugged. “Being near each other wouldn’t make a difference; it’s all due to quantum fluctuations at the Planck scale. The odds are close enough to zero that it might as well be.”

“And yet it appears to have happened.”

“Maybe that’s proof our theories are full of crap. It’s not like we had a shred of evidence one way or the other—at least until now.”

“But your theories do predict that out there, this ‘quantum foam’ from which realms arise.”

“Like I said: at least until now. I don’t know. Just because they’re not utterly wrong doesn’t mean they’re totally right either. And I don’t see how we can perform experiments out here—out there.”

Meg kept her focus on the void, looking for the developing leak, looking for the mysterious them, looking for anything. “Discord, are you sensing anything yet?”

Twilight drifted back to the others. “Shouldn’t it have started by now?”

Everypony looked at the draconequus.

He closed his eyes. For a few seconds, silence.

“Yes. Yes, I do believe it has formed. Follow me.”

He started to rotate.

He rotated back to them. “Ah. Right.”

Discord floated over to each pony in turn and rotated them. An endless plane, softly glowing in a deep red, was before them. A portal-shaped patch of the plane was tinted yellow, and from that extended a green-glowing tube.

It was just how Meg remembered it, except this time the tube was growing, reaching out to her universe. “Now we wait for them to show up.”

“Should we be this close?” Twilight asked. “We don’t want to scare off whoever they are.”

Meg was about to point out that the past couldn’t be changed, that they would not be scared off—until she realized that all of their deaths would also be consistent with an unchanged past. Did they want to bet that was beyond their means? Or incompatible with their goals?

“They shouldn’t be able to detect us,” Discord said, ”so long as they don’t stumble upon our little bubble.”

“Keep us a safe distance away,” Twilight said.

They followed the tip of the magic-laden wormhole as it extended across hyperspace, picking up speed as it got ever closer to humanity’s space-time. No one else had shown up. No one was guiding the tube.

Discord gave everypony another round of the periodic hyper-rotations, needed to match the curved path of the tube. Another endless plane popped into view, this one a deep, almost ultraviolet. It was impossible to tell how far away it was, but time was clearly running out.

“What are they waiting for?” Meg asked.

“Is it heading for the doll on its own?” Steve asked.

“Even if it was,” Twilight said, “it’s not going to cast that binding spell on its own.”

They continued following the ever extruding tube. A few more minutes passed.

Discord shot forward, magically pulling the others behind him. He reached the tip of the growing tube and held it in place. “It was about to make contact, and we’re nowhere near the doll.”

The tip bulged as it filled with Equestrian magic. They didn’t have much time.

No one else was around. There was nothing besides them, the tube, and the human universe. “Where are they?” Steve asked. “What are they waiting for?”

“How much time do we have?” Twilight asked Discord.

“A few minutes at best.”

The bulge grew. Letting it burst was not an option—could it burst?— even ignoring that the past could not be changed.

They were conspicuous by their continued absence.

The bulge had gotten so big, it was threatening to engulf the draconequus as it tried to go around him, ever pulled to the magic-less universe in front of it. “I can’t keep this up much longer,” he said, his voice strained from the effort.

They needed to do something, anything. “Can you direct it to my doll,” Meg asked, “to buy more time? Maybe they are waiting for it there?”

Discord slowly backed away from the tip, guiding it to a new path. The bulge shrank as it resumed extending in its new direction. “It won’t buy much time,” he said.

The endless plane was featureless to pony senses, but eventually Discord slowed to a crawl. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing. Meg had to take his word for it that the Pinkie Pie doll was on the other side of that featureless boundary to her universe.

They were still nowhere to be found.

Another minute passed.

The bulge was starting to build again, their movement too sluggish to prevent it.

No one else had shown up.

No one else was going to show up.

“Twilight,” Meg slowly began. “About the spell that bound this thing to my doll. You said it was one of Star Swirl’s, right?”

“Right. Only a few ponies know it, and they’ve all been accounted for.” She waved a hoof about. “Do you see any other ponies?”

“You know it, correct?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I know it.”

Meg stared at her in silence.

“You’re not suggesting…”

Meg waived her own hoof about. “Do you see Star Swirl the Bearded anywhere?”

Twilight watched the bulge grow larger. “You can’t be serious.”

The bulge was threatening to engulf Discord once more. “A decision would be nice, like, right now?”

It was all becoming crystal clear, painfully clear. “Don’t you get it? There are no others. We are the ones who bind that… that thing to my doll, and we do it because that’s what this stupid time loop requires us to do!”

No one chose her doll out of all the possible attachment points. No one chose her to play a role in some grand scheme. She couldn’t even claim to have made the choice herself, right now, for altering her own past was not a choice she was permitted to make.

She couldn’t deny it anymore. I really do have to break Tirek out of Tartarus—and maybe those goons really did kidnap me at work. Would they stumble onto other time loops? Maybe that’s what the circles in her cutie mark really stood for: time loops.

“Just do it, Twilight.”

27. Purgatory

Discord hovered near the infinite near-ultraviolet plane, struggling with talon and claw to keep the growing bulge of the tube of Equestrian magic under control. Twilight stared at it, undecided.

That bulge continued to grow larger, threatening to spill around the draconequus. Time was running out.

“What will happen if that makes uncontrolled contact with my realm?” Meg asked, hoping it would jolt Twilight out of her inaction.

Twilight’s jaw clenched. “Nothing good.” The alicorn’s horn lit up. “Point out the exact location, Discord.”

“About time,” he muttered. With a hard shove, he pushed the bulge away. As it got pulled back to the plane, he grabbed the leading edge and pulled it to a specific spot. How he could tell that’s where the doll was, Meg hadn’t a clue. It was hard enough to believe that her home was literally a few feet away along a hyper-dimension.

It made contact. Twilight cast the spell, holding her breath as she did so.

She exhaled. “It’s done.”

A tangerine tinge had already appeared at the boundary between four-dimensional space-time and hyperspace. The bulge slowly shrank as magic poured out of it through the Pinkie Pie doll, its then-owners then oblivious to the sequence of events set into motion.

Over the next year, that flow of magic would grow larger and larger, until the Crystal Heart was put at risk. Twilight would be called in to investigate. With Discord’s help, she and Rainbow Dash would cross over to the human world, hoping to find some way of tackling the problem from that end. They would unexpectedly run into Meg and her husband; and because Twilight didn’t read the instructions for those plaid pills, she wouldn’t know that their magic bubbles would switch off in the presence of a sufficiently strong magical field.

One thing would inevitably lead to another; the time loop was complete.

No, that time loop was complete. Meg knew all too well there was at least one other. Maybe two.

Twilight checked the junction one more time. “We’re done here,” she declared. “Let’s go home.”

“Wait.”

Everypony looked at Meg.

“There’s… there’s something I have to tell you. Maybe I should have told you sooner. I don’t know. Or maybe this is the moment the time loop requires.” She shook her head. “Whatever. I can’t think of a more secure place to hold this conversation.”

Steve looked at her with concern. “Meg, what are you talking about?” He pointed at the junction. “It’s done. The time loop is complete.”

“This time loop, yeah.”

A tangerine discoloration spread out from the junction, as magic infiltrated the human world.

Twilight looked like she ate something nasty. “There are more time loops,” she said.

Discord preempted any reply. “I can’t maintain this environment for us indefinitely, you know.”

“We can talk and move at the same time,” Steve suggested.

The draconequus shrugged and started their journey back to the portal.

“What other time loop are you referring to?” Steve continued. “Are you saying you do get kidnapped from your office while we were in Las Pegasus?”

Meg grimaced. “I rather hope not. Maybe I’m in denial. But there’s definitely another time loop, one that has nothing to do with that.” Meg looked straight ahead, avoiding the others’ eyes. “I learned of it when I spoke to Tirek, privately.”

Twilight caught up to Meg. “Wait. You’re telling me Tirek knows about a time loop? Why in Equestria would you keep that from me?”

Discord snorted.

Not for the first time, Meg wondered just how much Discord knew. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t know about a time loop—well, he gave me no reason to think he does. But…”

Twilight’s eyes bore into her. “But what?”

“He recognized me, okay? He called me Common Ground.”

“You don’t even use that name,” Steve pointed out.

“Oh, it gets better—much better.” She returned Twilight’s glare. “You want to know why I didn’t tell you? Because—apparently—I’m the one who broke him out of Tartarus a few years ago. Satisfied?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped.

“No, I don’t know why and I don’t know how—well, I guess I do know why. Because it’s a fucking time loop.”

Discord hummed a little tune to himself, pretending to ignore the heated conversation.

Twilight stammered. “It’s… that’s… there’s no way you can do that on your own. Even I can’t send you back several years on my own.”

Discord gave them a little wave.

“Oh, it gets even better,” Meg said, not paying any attention to the draconequus. “You’re right, I didn’t do it on my own. Sunset Shimmer was a co-conspirator. Tirek was disappointed when he didn’t see her with me.”

Twilight threw her a disbelieving look. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“No, I haven’t told her about this. I tried dropping a hint or two… whatever. Do you see my problem?”

Twilight did not immediately answer. They continued on through the infinite silence of the hyper-dimensional void. Eventually, Discord paused to rotate everypony into alignment with the portal. They continued their journey.

Twilight broke the silence. “Do you know when you’ll be going back in time to free Tirek?”

“Not a clue. Could be tomorrow, could be a decade from now.”

“I can safely rule out tomorrow,” Twilight said in an attempt at humor.

Nopony laughed.

“For what it’s worth, Tirek didn’t mention how much younger I looked, so it can’t be too far into the future.”

The portal could be seen in the distance, a small but brightening dot.

Twilight ignored it. “That still gives us plenty of time to look into this. Given the nature of time loops, we’ll probably stumble upon the necessary information in due time. Maybe I can get Tirek to volunteer some context once he’s out.” She shook her head. “If he’s released. But this certainly offers a fresh perspective on the unsolved mysteries surrounding his breakout. And we shouldn’t rule out other possibilities, however improbable. Perhaps neither you nor Sunset had anything to do with it.”

Meg sighed. “Just like it might not have been me who was kidnapped from my office. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, Twilight, I think it’s time to stop the denial and face the facts.”

Twilight remained silent.

The dot had resolved into a rectangle. Steve looked at it with concern. “Shouldn’t we have been worried about anyone stumbling through that portal?”

“I don’t see why,” Twilight said. “Sunset’s the only one who could pass through it, and it’s a fact that she hadn’t, therefore she wouldn’t.”

“Right,” Steve said. “I remember now. All attempts to bring artifacts through the mirror failed.”

“Nothing is real in that realm, apart from ourselves,” Discord said.

Someday Meg wouldn’t mind digging into the substance of the rules underlying that realm, but this day was not that day. She kept quiet. No one else said anything either, the approaching portal seemingly silencing all conversation.

They stopped before it. No signs of activity could be heard.

“So now what?” Meg asked.

“I’ll go first,” Twilight said, “to see if the coast is clear.”

There were no objections. Her presence would raise the fewest questions should she be spotted.

She passed through. Seconds later, her voice drifted through the portal. “It’s clear. You can come through.”

Meg went through, prepared to land on two feet; knowing what to expect made the transition easier. Steve came through next, almost tripping over his feet. The last one through, out of necessity, was Discord. Meg never could understand why he, alone, did not change form as he passed through these portals. But right then she couldn’t care enough to ask about that either.

Now that they had all reassembled, Twilight peeked around the base of the statue. “Let’s go.”

They followed her to the opposite side of the statue. No one was around to see them. Probably they were all recovering from that battle. Or something.

Twilight stuck her hand through the base—but hit solid concrete instead. She waved away the pain. “Nothing wrong with hooves,” she muttered.

Discord walked up to the statue. “Give me a second.” He put his paw on the base. It briefly glowed. “That should take care of that.” But he didn’t walk through.

Twilight shot him a questioning look. “It’s open, right?”

“Quite so,” he said. “You may pass through.” His face bore a pained expression. “I, however, need to close that other portal before departing this realm myself.”

He walked away towards the school.

“Why?” Steve asked. “Nothing here can pass through it anyway except for Sunset, and we know she didn’t.”

Meg walked up to the statue. “It was closed when Discord and I were last here—in the future.” That was the source of his pain, she knew: he had no choice but to close it.

“Oh.”

She went through the portal and landed on four hooves.

Cadance was the only pony in the room. She put down the paperwork she was reading.

Twilight emerged next.

“That portal’s been closed for half an hour,” Cadance said to her.

She gave her a smug smile. “Not a problem for Discord.”

“Do I want to know?”

Steve came through.

She gave her an apologetic look. ”You’ll find out eventually.”

“I… see,” Cadance said. “Did you accomplish what you set out to do?”

Twilight downcast her eyes. “We… did,” she said. “And as soon as Discord comes back, we’ll return to the future.”

“We’re not quite done here,” Meg said. “There’s still a loose end we need to tie up.”

Twilight grimaced. “Yes, you’re right. I almost forgot.” She addressed her former foal-sitter. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“You must Pinkie Promise not to tell the present me or my friends anything about this trip through time. You can’t tell Shining or anypony else either. Not until after we depart for this trip does this promise expire.”

“And if you explicitly ask me as part of your preparations for this trip? What do I say?”

“That I made you Pinkie Promise not to tell me. I know it’s a bit silly, but that’s what you told me, so in the interests of a stable time loop I must ask you to do so.”

“I see. I guess I don’t really have a choice then.” She began to say something then stopped. “How do I… ‘Pinkie Promise?’”

“Right. You don’t know what that is.” Twilight went through the motions as she said, “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Cadance couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“Just do it… please?”

She stood at attention, as serious as can be. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Then she broke down in giggles.

As Cadance recovered her composure, the other three turned to the mirror.

“How much longer do you think he’ll be?” Steve asked.

“No idea,” Twilight said.

“It shouldn’t take him too long,” Meg said, “if it’s anything like what he did…” She glanced briefly at Cadance. “…you know.”

They watched the mirror in silence.

“Any chance your past self will stumble upon us in here?” Steve asked.

“I don’t come back to inspect this thing until tomorrow. None of the others will come back here today either.”

Meg walked up to the mirror and attempted to tap its surface. It was still open, her hoof passing through it. “How does it wind up in the Crystal Ballroom’s storage closet?”

“Why would it wind up there?” Cadance asked.

“To keep it out of the way,” Twilight said. “That’s what you told me—will tell me.”

“I honestly have no idea why I would do that.”

Meg shook her head, sighing. “Isn’t it obvious, Twilight? Because we ask her to. It’s part of the time loop, to have that mirror moved to the farthest spot from anywhere else in this castle. In an unguarded and not particularly secured location—not that anything will happen to it, as we know. Where it would take the longest for the effects of the you-know-what to be noticed.”

Twilight’s jaw went slack.

“You-know-what?” Cadance asked.

Meg stepped towards her. “All we can say is that when those effects are eventually noticed, you bring Twilight here to investigate—and tell her nothing. Just bring her up to the ballroom to investigate a mysterious anomaly.”

Twilight dropped the shield. The royal guest room appeared around them. The door was closed. Nopony else was there waiting for their return.

“Three and a half hours have passed,” Steve said, pointing at the ornate clock on the wall. “As predicted, the return point moved forwards in time in lockstep with us in the past.”

Discord yawned. “As fascinating as this exposition must be to some ponies, I have other business to attend to.” He vanished.

Meg looked at the space formerly occupied by the draconequus. “Like what, I wonder?”

“You should know better than to ask,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go find Cadance and my brother.”

The door opened, revealing the aforementioned ponies. “Did you just get back?” Cadance asked upon seeing them. “I’d figured you’d be gone for as long as you were in the past, if you hadn’t returned immediately.”

Twilight went over to her and gave her an embrace. “We did. There’s so much to talk about, now that we can talk about it.”

“There certainly is,” Shining declared, only having just been fully informed on what was going on. He looked around. “Where’s Discord?”

“Gone,” Meg said. “I think we were boring him.”

“Never mind that,” Cadance said. “What about the leak? Who bound it to that doll?”

Twilight turned away, looking down at her hooves. “I did.”

Her brother took a step forward. “You did?”

“There was nopony there. Just us. We had no choice.”

“I told her to do it,” Meg said. “For what it’s worth.”

Shining looked at his sister with disbelief. “Of course you had a choice! If nopony was there, nothing stopped you from sealing that leak right then.”

Twilight sighed. “No, Shiny, we didn’t have a choice. Not really. We ran experiments that attempted to change the past, to create temporal paradoxes, and every single time we failed. I have no idea what would’ve stopped us from sealing that leak, or somehow forced us to bind it to that doll, but that binding would have happened.”

If she hadn’t done it then, that magic leak would have made uncontrolled contact with their realm. Perhaps that would have forced them to go back later and do it properly, after first cleaning up the mess. It was hard to say. That was the problem. Forcing the wave function collapse to pick one of an unimaginably huge number of extraordinarily unlikely and equally unlikely to be desirable outcomes, because they refused to do the sensible thing that would lead to an otherwise likely outcome… it just wasn’t a good idea.

She collapsed to her haunches. “Better that it happens on our terms.”

Cadance placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “Does it really matter? It all worked out in the end. All it means is that we can put it behind us. No more mysteries left to solve, nopony to bring to justice.”

Twilight looked up and gave her a half-hearted smile. “Would you believe there might be other time loops we have to deal with?”

“Other time loops?”

It was Meg’s turn to collapse to her haunches. “You’re gonna love this one.”

A minotaur unlocked and opened the door at the back of the building. Reddish-orange light flooded the corridor. “You have thirty minutes,” he said.

Meg went through the door and into the courtyard. Solid rock enclosed it on all sides. High above, buildings covering the “ceiling” could be seen peeking through the pillars of rock, which rose from the walls and curved to meet in the center, preventing any escape by air—as if what passed for flight magic in Tartarus gave her that option to begin with.

“Look who’s joined us.”

It was Jackson. All five of them were there.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There must have been a mistake. Twilight will fix it.”

He laughed. “Just keep telling yourself that.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

The human stalked her. “You broke Tirek out of here.”

She backed away. “I had no choice! The past is immutable!”

He sneered at her. “Then you shouldn’t have become a pony.” He turned and walked away.

Meg shivered. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, tapping his fist against the Tree of Harmony in the middle of the courtyard, “that that’s the price you paid for accepting your destiny from this thing.”

The Tree of Harmony, somehow rejecting the prevailing illumination, sparkled and shimmered in cool colors.

“No. No, this isn’t my destiny. I’m not rotting in this place for the rest of my life.”

“Believe what you want,” he said with a shrug. “Us humans get to make our own destiny. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

Meg stared at the crystalline tree. “What do you want from me?!”

The Tree of Harmony was silent.

“Answer me!”

Three ropes descended from the upper branches. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo slid down from above, making flawless simultaneous touchdowns.

Sweetie Belle inspected herself and the others. “No pine sap!”

“Duh,” scoffed Scootaloo. “It’s a crystal tree!”

“Well, it could still have crystal sap!”

“What in tarnation is crystal sap?”

Meg couldn’t believe her eyes. “Girls? What in Tartarus are you doing here?”

Apple Bloom beamed. “Getting our cutie marks in Tartarus escapes, of course!”

All three fillies raised a hoof and did a simultaneous hoof-bump. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Tartarus Escape Artists YAY!!!”

Beggars couldn’t be choosers. If it got her out of this place, she’d take it. Anything to get herself to Twilight.

The Crusaders galloped to the still open door to the prison building. The five humans ran after them. “What did I tell you!” proclaimed Jackson.

“Hey!” Meg belatedly galloped after them. Before she could reach the door, it slammed shut.

Furious at the unfairness of it all, she returned to the Tree of Harmony. “Answer me!”

“Your destiny has been fulfilled.”

Meg spun around and faced Princess Celestia.

“You broke Tirek out of this prison,” the alicorn continued. “All that remains is for you to take his place in his former cell.”

All hope died. “Didn’t Twilight explain? It was a time loop. It couldn’t be changed!”

Celestia tilted her head. “A predestination paradox is no excuse for committing an inexcusable crime.”

“Be silent, sister!”

Celestia did as commanded.

“I must confess that was inappropriately pleasurable,” Luna said in a softer voice.

Meg looked in confusion between Celestia, the Tree of Harmony, the prison building, and finally back at Luna. “It’s a dream, isn’t it?”

Princess Luna nodded and walked towards her. “It is.”

Meg thought quickly as Luna approached. Twilight had yet to inform Celestia of her alleged role in Tirek’s escape, so Luna couldn’t know about it either. What the princess had just witness didn’t count; she more than most would be aware of the unreality of dreams. What should she tell her?

“First, let me assure you that this shall not happen.” The Princess of the Night’s horn glowed, and around them everything dissolved away. Replacing it was a modest meadow, surrounded by woodlands and split in two by a burbling stream. The air was crisp and refreshing, and cheerful birds sung in the distance.

The serene surroundings did little to improve Meg’s mood. “Don’t be so sure. You haven’t heard what I supposedly did—will do.” Meg collapsed to the soft grass. “Whatever.”

“And you would be wrong. I just finished a conversation with Twilight while she dreamt; that is why I am here.”

That solved one problem. “How do you think Celestia will take it?”

“Even if you do go back in time to break Tirek out of prison, there is no conceivable way you did so on your own—and I am not just referring to the help of Sunset Shimmer. If and when it comes to pass, you shall indubitably have our forbearance, maybe even our blessing.”

Meg had not the energy to lift her head. “Blessing. How can you say that?”

The princess lay down on the grass in front of Meg. “While these actions may lie in your future, the consequences are in everypony’s past—literal history. Tirek’s rampage caused much suffering, it is true, but that suffering was short-lived. One could argue that we are better off than if it had never happened.”

Meg somehow lifted her head. “Seriously? Is this some sort of ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’ crap?”

Luna tilted her head. “Surely you already know? It led to Discord’s true reformation. Twilight and her fellow Elements gained their rainbow powers—without which you would not now be a magical pony—and Twilight herself gained her castle.”

Meg’s head dropped back to the luxuriant grass. “It doesn’t matter. The past’s immutable. It’s gonna happen whether you bless it or do your best to prevent it.”

“Indeed. Twilight was quite emphatic about that. If it must happen, then it is best that it happens on our terms.”

“And what if I refuse to do it?”

Luna took a moment to tweak the dreamscape. Colorful flowers populated the meadow. “It is possible that others taking your and Sunset’s forms broke him out. How their camouflage could function in Tartarus’ restrictive magical field is a valid question. Perhaps by combining human science with magic? You have the means to clone individuals, do you not?”

Meg groaned. “Today? No. But if we’re dragging time travel into it… in the future, almost certainly. We can clone some animals already.”

“I think you can see the point. Whoever these hypothetical actors might be, we cannot depend on their motivations being compatible with our interests. By refusing to do it yourself, you might well force them into existence.”

That wasn’t exactly how quantum mechanics worked, but the point stood regardless. Meg put her hooves over her head. “And the same applies to my alleged kidnapping at the hands of The Section. You can’t do anything about that nightmare.”

“We shall see. I can assure you that we will do what we can to make it happen on our terms.”

29. Accidental Diplomacy

Twilight positioned several large and empty glass jars, each covered by a metal lid, on a table. “I think we’re ready to put on an excellent demonstration,” she said. Moondancer left the side tunnel, carrying a spent fuel rod in her magical grasp. She closed and locked the door behind her.

The unicorn leaned the rod against the wall, by the table. “So what do we do until Sunset returns?”

“Hard to say, since we don’t know when that’ll be.” Twilight walked over to one of several whiteboards, this one covered in magical spells and equations. “Got any working prototypes of the electric generators yet?”

“Barely. We’re having difficulty matching output to load.” She gave the whiteboard a frown. “Do we want them to see this?”

Did they? On the one hoof, there were precious few humans who’d be able to make any sense out of that, and those humans already had access. On the other hoof, that would not remain true indefinitely; eventually numerous humans would understand it. But did that really matter? The point was to be open, transparent.

Twilight scanned the room. The computer monitors were all dark, so that wasn’t a concern. There was the mixture of human and pony technology; that wasn’t anything to hide. It was similar to what was in the testing vault back in the human realm anyway.

One unicorn and five humans appeared in the middle of the cavern.

That took less time than expected. Too late now to do anything about the whiteboards. “I think we’re okay,” she half-whispered to Moondancer.

Getting his bearings, the Energy Secretary looked around and spotted Twilight. “Ah!” he said, also spotting the glass jars. “All set to make your demonstration?”

“Indeed I am, Secretary Whitcomb. Whenever these fine gentleman are ready to record it.” She gave herself a mental hoof-bump for using the human vernacular.

Both cameramen were watching something through the eyepiece of their cameras, though neither were pointed in any particular direction.

“Capture anything interesting during our transit?” Anderson Cooper asked.

One looked up and shook his head. “The camera’s fine, but it simply happened too fast. We’d need one of those absurdly high frames-per-second jobs—if even that’d be fast enough.”

“Same here,” said the other one.

“Well, it was worth a shot.” Cooper walked around the cavern, one camera tracking him. “Doesn’t look all that different, really, apart from the cave-motif. Mostly just larger.”

The other camera was pointed at Twilight. “Much of the same equipment is available,” she said. “What distinguishes this location from the testing vault back in your realm is that it is in this realm, where there is a proper magical field. We’re very interested in discovering what can be learned by apply human technology to magic.”

“And by ‘we’ she means both humans and ponies.” Whitcomb pointed at a workstation, grandstanding for the camera. “Note the human-style chairs. This is a joint effort.”

“But why a cavern?” Cooper asked. “How deep are we?”

“Deep enough that nopony is going to accidentally stumble upon it. We’re inside the mountain that Canterlot is built upon. This used to be a mine. As for why: primarily for safety. We’re storing substantial amounts of your nuclear waste in the side tunnels.”

Cooper was speechless for a few seconds. “Really? When did that happen?”

Whitcomb took over. “We’ve successfully kept it under wraps until now, but I’m pleased to announce that we have transported the accumulated waste from a single nuclear power plant. I won’t say which one right now, but I suspect your people will figure it out soon enough. But I will say that it won’t be the last one to be freed of this storage nightmare.” He nodded to Twilight. “Could you open that door?”

From where she stood, she unlocked and opened the door to a side tunnel. Light spilled into the unlit tunnel, illuminating spent fuel rods lining the walls into the darkness. “Decades worth of accumulated waste,” she said. “Took quite a few hours to transport it all.”

The 60 Minutes crew all took a few steps back. “Shouldn’t we, uh, be wearing radiation suits, or something...” the soundman asked.

“That’s the beauty of a magical field,” Twilight said. “It passively suppresses radioactivity, even in the absence of any spells.” She lifted a Geiger counter in her magic and floated it over to Cooper. “See for yourself. It’ll barely click.”

He cautiously took the instrument, slightly glowing from the alicorn’s magic. Signaling the others to follow him, he entered the side tunnel. He turned the device on and waved the probe about. It clicked once after five seconds. “As you can hear, it’s not reacting to any radiation. I think there’s actually less radiation here, standing next to this nuclear waste, than the background radiation back on Earth.”

“It’s still quite dangerous.” Twilight’s voice drifted from the main cavern. “You wouldn’t want to lick it, for example.”

Cooper chuckled. “No, I’m sure this stuff is still chemically nasty.”

He switched off the Geiger counter and exited the side tunnel. Twilight closed the door and locked it.

“So what will you do with all this waste? To put not too fine a point on it, what’s in it for you?”

Twilight smiled. “It’s not so hard to understand. This is something we can do for you; in return, you can do something for us. It’s called trade.”

“And what would you want from us in trade?”

“You have advanced non-magical science and engineering to heights unimaginable in our world. We have nothing like the computers you see around us, or the camera that’s now recording me.” She gave said camera her best smile. “That’s just the beginning, naturally. I’m sure we’ll find many other mutually-beneficial trades.”

“But what could you do with this waste? There has been no lack of trying on our part—with limited success, to put it generously.”

Twilight walked over to the table with the glass jars. “I’ll be happy to show you.” The spent fuel rod leaning against the wall levitated up into the air by her side.

“Before you start that… would it be possible for us to visit one of the atomic clocks you have on loan from MIT? It’s in an observatory, if I remember correctly?”

Twilight turned her head towards Cooper, the rod still suspended in mid-air. “You mean, like right now? I suppose we could; it’d only take a few minutes.” That particular request had been anticipated.

He looked almost apologetic. “I didn’t mean right this instant, but I suppose if it wasn’t inconvenient, it wouldn’t hurt to get it out of the way now.”

Twilight shrugged. “It’s as easy to do it now as later.” She walked over to the humans. “It’s a quick teleport away.”

The five humans gathered in front of the alicorn. “Ready?” she asked. They nodded. She grabbed them in her magic and teleported.

They appeared in Luna’s observatory, near the atomic clock. Nopony else was around, and that was no accident. Luna had wished to greet them, but both Twilight and Celestia took pains to convince her otherwise. The risks of an impromptu interview were too high.

Twilight pointed a hoof at the clock. “There it is, ticking away.”

“I’ll be happy to tell MIT there isn’t a scratch on it,” Whitcomb said.

A cameraman grabbed some footage of the clock, then refocused on Cooper.

“How much time has it gained over its counterpart in Ponyville?”

The other camera was on Twilight. “We won’t know that until we bring them back together again. It’ll be on the order of billionths of a second—assuming General Relativity applies here.”

“And when will that be?”

“We’re giving it a few more days. The longer we give it, the more precise the answer.”

Cooper looked up at the telescope, the Q&A portion of this side-trip apparently concluded. “Would you mind if we got some footage of this place?”

“Go right ahead. There’s also a balcony that goes around the dome. You can take pictures of Canterlot.”

His eyes spotted the closed door. “We’d like that very much.”

A cameraman took some shots of the interior, but Cooper’s eyes returned to the clock. He looked behind it, spotted the power cord, and followed it to an outlet beneath the table. “Electricity’s the same here?” He inspected an unused outlet. “Same plugs? Did you install this just to power the clock?”

“That wasn’t necessary. We use the same voltage, same alternating current frequency, even the same plug. Don’t bother asking how that’s possible. I haven’t a clue.”

He stood up. “You have to admit that strains credulity.”

We’re speaking the same language, and that’s what strains credulity? But nothing would be served by pointing that out.

“In fact…” He looked at the door, still closed. “To be honest, it makes me wonder if we’re in Equestria at all. I can’t deny we teleported, which is impressive enough, but maybe we teleported to somewhere else on Earth.”

The door unlocked and opened with a lavender glow, revealing just below them the summit of the mountain upon which Canterlot was built. “Be my guest.”

With a deep breath, Anderson Cooper walked to the open door. Twilight teleported ahead of him to the balcony. There wasn’t much to see here; beyond the summit was a forested valley bordering the Everfree. Earth had mountains and valleys too. As he came through the door, she said, “Follow me.”

They went clockwise, to the south. Before long, Ponyville and the Everfree Forest came into view. It would have been perfect if pegasi were out setting up rain clouds, but alas that wasn’t the case. Maybe she should have arranged for that. The few pegasi flying about were too far away to be distinguishable from birds. But the tour had just begun.

“Not quite convincing yet,” Cooper said as he looked over the too-low-for-a-human railing, straight down to the lower reaches of the castle, “but it’s getting there.” He eyes scanned the forest. “That’s one nasty looking forest.”

“You got that right,” Twilight singsonged.

They had gone most of the way around when Twilight stopped. The bulk of Canterlot was now visible, the streets full of colorful ponies, mostly unicorns. But that wasn’t what Twilight was pointing at, above them in the distance. “That’s Cloudsdale over there.” The others had caught up to them, and the camera was taking in the cloud city. Though far away, it was obvious that natural clouds would not take on such clearly sculptured shapes.

“What’s that down there?” Whitcomb asked.

Twilight took a look for herself. Two were in the palace gardens, slowly walking this way. If she didn’t know better… I didn’t think she was serious.

A cameraman made an adjustment of some sort. “One of them’s Celestia. Not sure who—or what?—she’s with… I guess it’s a griffon?”

The Ambassador. Twilight wanted to face-hoof, but she didn’t dare in the presence of these particular humans. She could take a good guess where this was going.

The cameras remained pointed down below. Would that footage be included? Should she ask that it wasn’t? Would they even care? Did it really even matter? Twilight’s head drooped. It all depended on whether Gosswell…

“I, uh, I think they noticed us,” a cameraman said, eyes glued to the eyepiece.

…looked up. He realized immediately what he was seeing, the distance no match for his eagle eyes. The princess and ambassador exchanged a few inaudible words, and the griffon launched into the air. Only then, finally, did Celestia look up, right at her, a knowing smile gracing her muzzle. Twilight would have to handle this on her own.

The ambassador circled, gaining altitude.

Cooper couldn’t tear his eyes from the approaching griffon, who was doing an impressive impression of a preditor in pursuit of his prey. “There’s nothing to worry about, right?”

Did he have to wear that ceremonial sword? Ceremonial or not, it was still quite functional. “I should hope not,” she sighed. Twilight debated whether to intercept him, to find out his intentions—as if she couldn’t make a good guess—but she had run out of time.

Ambassador Gosswell came to a hover in front of Twilight. He nodded his head, and peered into her eyes. He wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, may I be introduced to your guests?”

That camera was on them, as was the microphone. The ambassador wasn’t permitting himself to be distracted by them, focusing solely on the forthcoming answer to his request.

A quick glance revealed that her mentor was no longer in sight.

Bowing to the inevitable, she turned to the camera. “This is Ambassador Gosswell, the griffon ambassador to Equestria.” She turned to Gosswell, pointing a hoof at the silver-haired human. “This is Anderson Cooper, a prominent journalist for a major news organization.” Her hoof shifted to the half-bald man. “And this is Secretary Whitcomb, a high-ranking government official.”

The ambassador’s eyes lit up on the latter introduction, but first he finally turned his attention to the camera. He was actually posing for a photograph. “Rather unwieldy for a camera, is it not? I was under the impression your technology was vastly superior.”

“It takes moving pictures,” Cooper politely informed him.

“Oh?” He moved to the left, to get a better look at the camera’s side. “No reels of film? No mechanical racket as the film moves from one reel to the other?” He glanced at the microphone suspended above them, but gave it no further thought. Its purpose wasn’t hard to figure out, once the “moving pictures” part was known.

“It’s all digital these days.”

“Digital?” He tilted his eagle head. “I must confess I don’t know what that means. But that matters not.”

He touched down on the balcony next to Whitcomb, apparently not bothered in the slightest that this was all being recorded. Twilight suspected it suited his purposes.

“Am I to understand that you have the ear of your leader?” He looked up, struggling to recall something. “Your ‘President,’ is it not?”

“‘President’ is the correct title,” the Secretary said. “I can pass on a message to him, if you wish.”

Or Serrell could simply watch this 60 Minutes report. It was all being recorded.

“Please inform him of my desire to meet with him or a representative of his choice to begin the process of establishing relations between our great nations.”

And that’s why Celestia surreptitiously permitted this to happen, Twilight realized. It was the only way to convince the Ambassador that, no, the princesses weren’t trying to keep the humans all to themselves.

Whitcomb carefully chose his words. “I apologize if you feel that we have been ignoring you, but you must understand that there are… challenges that must be overcome before we can properly establish relations with Equestria, never mind the other nations of this world.”

Gosswell cocked his head. “Challenges?”

Whitcomb was at a loss for words. He looked towards Twilight for a hint.

Twilight wasn’t sure what to say either, certainly not in the presence of those cameras. “This… isn’t the venue for addressing that, but I promise to do my best to arrange something.” After that exchange gets broadcast, Serrell would have both reason and cause to make something happen.

The ambassador glanced at the camera and nodded in understanding. “For now, that will suffice.” He gave the Secretary a nod, and he launched into the air and flew away.

“So…” Twilight tried her best to sound chipper. “Let’s get back on track and return to the lab. I still have a demonstration to give.” This side-excursion had gone on far longer than she’d anticipated. Moondancer and Sunset must be beginning to wonder. She powered up her horn…

“Before we do, could you offer some background on what just happened?”

A camera was on her once more.

She quickly thought it over. On one level, the relationship between ponies and griffons was none of their business. But on a deeper level, the cause underlying the fissures in that relationship was also the cause behind many of humanities problems with ponies. What had Serrell said to her? Never let a crisis go to waste?

Twilight peered into the camera, as if seeing the millions of humans who would watch this. “It’s that cartoon. Its existence has created numerous issues for us. How do you think the ambassador would react to that Griffonstone episode? The minotaurs to Iron Will being the sole representative of their kind? The dragons to the various episodes that featured them? The residents of Ponyville to learning that you have been watching them live their lives. And let’s not even talk about Chrysalis. Many here could interpret that cartoon as proof you were spying on us, possibly still are.

“I know many of you believe that we’re behind that cartoon, that it plays a role in some evil plan of ours.” She rolled her eyes. “If we were, you’d think we’d come up with something that wouldn’t upset those we could do without upsetting.”

She let that hang for a second.

“The ambassador is currently unaware of all this, and that is the background.”

“You haven’t made the cartoon’s existence public knowledge here.”

“We’re still trying to figure out how best to do that.”

“You didn’t mention Tirek. Does he know?”

“No, he does not. But should humanity accept him back, it’s inevitable he’ll learn. I won’t speculate on how he’d react.”

“What about Discord?”

Twilight exhaled, and she looked up into the sky. “Care to answer that for yourself?” Quite frankly, she was half-surprised he hadn’t already crashed the party.

The humans were nervously looking about, perhaps regretting that question.

She returned to the camera. “I guess not. As I already said on the Colbert show, he has seen the cartoon. He has no objections he has cared to share, for what that’s worth.” She again powered up her horn. “We really should return to the lab. The others are waiting for us.”

There were no further questions. Twilight teleported them all back to the lab, where Sunset and Moondancer were discussing something in front of a computer. “Sorry that took longer than expected,” Twilight said to them.

“No problem,” Sunset said. She quickly blanked the screen. “We’ve been keeping ourselves occupied.”

Twilight noticed all the whiteboards had been erased—no, it was an illusion spell. Regardless, the humans had lost their opportunity to get it on camera. “Shall we get started on the demonstration?”

“We’re ready when you are.”

Twilight walked over to the empty glass jars sitting on a table. She waited for a signal from a cameraman before starting. Cooper went over and stood next to her. The microphone was moved into position, close to them but out of view of the camera.

“You can start.”

She lifted the nearby fuel rod and held it above the jars. “This is a spent nuclear fuel rod.” The casing slid off in her magic, leaving just the fuel. “And this is the uranium fuel. In your realm, it would be deadly radioactive due to the waste products of nuclear fission. Here, in our magical field, that radioactivity is suppressed.

“Perhaps surprisingly, it’s still mostly uranium. Only a tiny fraction has been consumed. We have been working on spells to extract that unspent fuel, separating it from the waste products, so that it may be used to fuel your nuclear power plants. I will now demonstrate.”

Her horn powered up, and the glow intensified around the spent fuel. It seemingly liquified. A silvery substance separated out and flowed into a jar, mostly filling it. The spell ended. The contents of the jar had turned to a silvery metal and the rod had shrunk to a small fraction of its original size.

“All the uranium-238 has been extracted and placed into this jar. This spell, for now, can only extract by atomic weight, so the various isotopes must be individually extracted. Next, I’ll extract the uranium-235, which is the isotope that actually fuels your power plants.”

She cast the spell again, and once it finished the second jar contained a much smaller amount of an identically-looking silvery metal. The rod had shrunk much more.

Anderson Cooper asked a question: “Should we be worried about that pure U-235 having a spontaneous chain reaction that triggers an explosion?”

Twilight gave a reassuring smile. “It’s perfectly safe. A chain reaction requires radioactivity to start it going. No radioactivity, no chain reaction. Obviously, it’ll be necessary to remix the isotopes before returning it to your realm.”

With her telekinesis, she squeezed the remains of the fuel rod into a ball and placed it into the final glass jar. “What remains are the waste products. Extremely radioactive in your realm and quite dangerous. This we can use to manufacture magic generators, converting the energy of that radioactivity into a source of magic for your realm, and in the process rendering it quite safe to handle.”

Twilight turned around to face the camera. “That’s not the only thing we’re working on. We’re also working on a means, via magic, of turning radioactivity directly into electricity. We’re also researching magically induced nuclear fission, so that numerous small, safe, and compact generators can replace your currently giant and problematic reactors.”

“Would you use these generators here in Equestria?”

“Perhaps. We already have spells to create electricity, but they violate the energy conservation laws of your realm. While that isn’t a problem here, they nonetheless require a unicorn to cast them for as long as power is needed. We still rely heavily on non-magical sources of electricity. Ponyville has a hydroelectric dam, for example.”

“Do you have your own sources of uranium, or would you need to import it from us?”

“I don’t know yet. We never knew that metal existed until we met you. It’s probably not plentiful, otherwise we’d have known about it. Maybe it doesn’t exist at all, considering that, in your realm, it takes the explosion resulting from the collision of two neutron stars to make the stuff. I’m not sure how it’d be made here.”

“There are no stars in your sky?”

“There are stars, and to the eye they look the same as your stars, but they’re not the same thing at all. Don’t forget that Princess Celestia raises and lowers our sun. It’s not a giant ball of hydrogen gas producing energy from nuclear fusion.”

“Honestly, I cannot tell the difference. It looks and feels the same as our sun. What powers it, if not fusion?”

Twilight simply said one word. “Magic.”

Cooper turned to his crew. “I think this is a good place to end the segment.” He turned back to the alicorn. “What about the other side tunnels? Anything of interest there?”

“Not really. We might use them to expand this facility, but right now they’re just leftovers from when this was an active mine.” She pointed a hoof at one of them. “Restrooms are down that one.”

He mulled it over. “Pony or human?”

“Both.”

He exchanged glances with his team; the soundman shrugged.

“I think we’ll pass on that. If there’s nothing else to see here…”

“That’s all there is to see. Sunset Shimmer will take you back.”

The mare discreetly popped a plaid pill into her mouth and walked over to the humans. They knew the drill by now and gathered together.

They vanished.

A knock on the door to her office interrupted Meg’s web surfing. She got up and opened it.

Sunset Shimmer looked up at her. “Do you have that sampler box here? They’d like to look at it and—uh—sample it. I’ll keep them away from the ones unsuitable for humans.”

“Sure.” It was on top of a pile of stuff on her desk, still unopened. “So long as I don’t have to be there.”

“No problem. I’ll handle it.”

Meg handed the box to Sunset. The unicorn took it in her magic and departed.

Her gaze returned to the monitor. To be honest, the browsing had gone long past the point of diminishing returns. Views and opinions on the Tirek question were all over the map, as would be expected. Let him rot in Tartarus forever! How many centuries of imprisonment was enough? Yeah, he went on a rampage, but only to repay the injustice of the princesses. He’d try to conquer us! He’d be a powerless human! He can shed a light on ancient history! Only idiots and fools would believe that crap about him being the son of King Minos.

Most disturbingly, there seemed to be a pattern: the ones most willing to accept him were often also the ones who harbored the most distrust of the ponies. A “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sentiment. Didn’t they hear the part where Tirek offered to collaborate with Twilight?

Maybe they’re hoping he’s just saying that to get his freedom.

And maybe he was. No one and nopony knew what was going on inside Tirek’s head.

There would be no official, national vote on the question of whether to accept Tirek; there was no system in place for such ad hoc matters. It all boiled down to opinion polls. The usual suspects had been polling non-stop, and the news channels had been airing the results.

It wasn’t clear how much longer that would continue before Serrell made it a done deal. Perhaps it depended on how long he wanted to milk it. It wasn’t a landslide by any means, but the numbers changed little from day to day. The outcome was inevitable.

Andrew had already asked her to be the official contact between Tirek and the convention. The President had communicated his hopes that she’d do what she could to help the once and future human to adapt to the modern world. The princesses hoped she could find out from him how he broke out of Tartarus—find out what she’ll have no choice but to do in her personal future.

Meg plopped into her chair and closed the web browser. She was beginning to understand Discord’s aversion to future knowledge.

What the hell am I going to do?

30. Just Another Tuesday

“This will be the most awesome book signing event ever!”

A. K. Yearling rolled her eyes at the hovering pegasus, who was hanging a banner from the crystalline ceiling. “It’ll certainly be the first book signing event I’ve ever done in Ponyville.”

“What better place to hold one than inside a library?” Twilight set down the table on the spot within her castle library where Yearling would greet her fans and sign books. She’d spent most of that morning determining the optimal location.

“Oh, I don’t know. A bookstore, maybe? So, you know, ponies could buy a copy that I would then sign?”

Rainbow Dash waved that away. “Sure, that’s how it’s usually done, but this is a princess’ castle we’re talking about!”

Yearling sighed. “I think you’re missing the point.”

Twilight placed a quill and ink pot on the table. “Barnyard Bargains has stacks of Daring Do and the Calamitous Catacombs available for purchase. The flyers announcing this event make that very clear.”

“I know, I know… and my publisher did go along with this.” She trotted over to the table. “Hard to turn down a royal invitation.”

“All the trains from Canterlot for the next few hours are sold out,” Twilight pointed out. “Plenty of books will be sold. Filthy Rich has even set up a kiosk at the train station.”

“I’m here, so there’s really no need for the sales pitch.” Yearling sat down on the plush cushion behind the table and went through the motions of signing a book with an un-inked quill in her mouth. “This works.”

Rainbow Dash put on the table a cup and a pitcher of water.

Yearling got up. “Look, this isn’t the only reason I agreed to this event.”

Dash tilted her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The disguised pegasus went around the table to where Twilight was standing. “Could you cast a privacy spell?”

Twilight looked around. Nopony else was present, but somepony could always walk in. Must be Daring Do related, she thought.

The other pegasus suddenly dropped to the floor next to them. There was no objection from Yearling, so Twilight went ahead and cast her spell. A translucent lavender shell surrounded them.

“Does Ahuizotl have a new relic that threatens Equestria?”

“No, Dash, that isn’t what this is about.”

“Dr. Caballeron?”

“No, this has nothing to do with my next book.”

Twilight took a step in front of Dash. “Then what is this about?”

Yearling adjusted her cloche hat. “You understand that what I’m about to tell you must be kept in the strictest confidentiality. To be honest, I’d rather not tell you at all.”

“You can trust us, of course.”

“Absolutely!”

Yearling searched their eyes for a few seconds before settling on Twilight’s. “In the Everfree Forest, you encountered Lyra Heartstrings with a changeling.”

“Wait. What?”

Twilight gave Rainbow Dash an apologetic look. “Yes, Dash, I did.”

“And you didn’t mention it?!”

“Lyra insisted the changeling wasn’t a threat.” Lyra and the changeling had also promised proof of that, which she had yet to receive. Only the fact that the changeling had not been seen again… Her eyes turned to Yearling. “How do you know about this?”

Yearling dropped to her haunches. “I’m vouching for that changeling. Everything they told you is true. It is not a threat.”

Rainbow Dash also dropped to her haunches. “Uh… what is true? I wasn’t there.”

“Basically that the changeling wasn’t part of Chrysalis’ hive,” Twilight said, “and was no threat to anypony.”

“There are other hives?”

Yearling stood back up. “Yes, Dash, there are other hives. There are also drones who do not belong to any hive—precious few, but they do exist. I’ve… encountered a few in my travels.”

Twilight let that soak in. Ponies knew so little about changelings, and what was known centered on Chrysalis. Were other hives like hers? And what about these… what to even call them? Were they drones if they had no queen? Daring knew them well enough to vouch for them?

And then there was Lyra.

“Why would Lyra be with one of these changelings in the Everfree?”

Yearling sighed. “Yeah, talk about bad luck. What were the odds of you stumbling upon them like that?”

Something Twilight had wondered herself. That it had been part of a time loop, that the time loop wouldn’t happen until they were in a position to see the changeling… that could not have been a coincidence. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She removed her cloche hat, this time revealing only a mane. “Lyra was keeping an eye on Smooze for me. Last I’ve heard, you’re making good progress with that voice synthesizer.”

Well. That explained a few things. Clearly, that changeling was the go-between.

Dash glared at her. “We would’ve kept you informed ourselves, you know, if you’d only asked us.”

“Old habits die hard?”

Twilight had never seen the explorer so… fragile? “No real harm done, I suppose.”

Yearling gazed at the lavender hemisphere still surrounding them. “I’ve said what I needed to say. You can drop that now.”

Meg’s predicament came to mind. The privacy shield remained. “There’s something I want to ask first.”

The cloche hat returned to Yearling’s head. “Go ahead.”

“Would one of these changelings be willing to assist us? We could use a shape-shifter.”

Dash jaw dropped. “We can?”

Twilight ignored her, keeping her focus on the disguised Daring Do.

“What would be in it for them?”

“What would they want?”

A smile grew on Yearling’s muzzle. “Could you be more specific about what task you had in mind?”

“Fair enough.” Twilight had the distinct impression that the adventurer and businessmare was far more experienced at negotiating than herself. “I need a changeling to take on Meg’s pegasus form while Meg herself is nearby in her human form. This is to happen when Tirek is released from Tartarus. The human media will be present; the deception is for their benefit and Tirek’s.”

Yearling’s jaw dropped.

Dash nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“None of that makes sense to me, starting with ‘Tirek is released from Tartarus.’”

The explorer had kept their secrets so far. “What I am about to tell you is a royal secret.”

That elicited a sigh. “What’s one more secret?”

A red-hot crystal sphere, a few inches in diameter with a pair of metallic poles at opposite ends, floated in Moondancer’s magic as they waited for it to cool down. The experiments had been terminating in runaway exothermic reactions, and no one and nopony had figured out why as of yet.

“Still no electricity generation,” Sunset Shimmer said, after checking a meter.

Meg sat in front of a computer workstation, idly fingering the enchanted gem of her new pendant—but careful not to squeeze it. “Still no idea what the simulations are missing?”

“It’d be nice to know what, exactly, is generating that heat.” Jerry checked the recorded data on his computer. “No detectable radiation, not that that means much in this place.” Inside that crystal was highly radioactive waste, fuel for the integrated magic generator.

“All that means is that the magic generated from the magically accelerated atomic decay is being efficiently converted to heat instead of electricity,” Martin said. “Where else would the energy be coming from?”

Not that conservation of energy applied in this place, as everyone knew, but they had already reproduced the symptoms in the testing vault back on Earth—behind substantial lead shielding, of course, though unnecessary as it turned out—so that ruled that out.

Diana walked over to the levitated sphere, no longer radiating heat due to Sunset’s cooling spell. “It’d sure help if we knew what the heck was happening in there. We might not have a choice but to send a sample off for isotope analysis.”

Everyone looked towards the unicorns.

Sunset looked apologetic. “Still working on that spell.”

The best magic could do was to exhaustively iterate over all the possible isotopes, pulling them out one by one. Besides the fact that no unicorn could cast that spell that many times in a row, many of the extracted elements would not play nice with an oxygen-containing atmosphere—nor with nearby biological organisms. The problem was that sending the sample off to a human lab for analysis would take a lot of time.

Moondancer came to a decision. “We need to eliminate variables. Start with a pure isotope, one which decays in one step to a stable isotope. Analysis becomes trivial with our existing isotope extraction spell.”

“We’re not going to find enough of a suitable isotope in that waste,” Jerry said. “The predominant heavy elements have complicated decay chains.”

Diana returned to her seat. “Does it really matter? Generating magic from atomic decay isn’t the problem. Magic generators prove that. It’s converting that magical energy into electricity that’s the problem.”

It was a discussion to which Meg had nothing to contribute; she was neither a physicist nor a mage. She decided to stretch her legs and walk about the converted cavern.

Flash.

Meg turned around. Twilight was there.

“Sorry to interrupt, everypony, but I need to borrow Meg for a bit.”

“For how long?” Meg asked, fingering her pendant, an act which did not go unnoticed by the alicorn.

“I’m… not sure. Not too long, I hope.”

“Well…” She looked back at the others. “It’s not like I’m all that much use here right now.”

“We’ll let you know what we’ve decided when you come back,” Sunset said.

“If we can decide,” Jerry muttered.

Meg went back to her workstation to retrieve her purse. Upon returning to Twilight, she shrugged her shoulders. At least she’d be doing something useful. “Let’s go, then?”

One teleport later and she found herself just inside the main mine entrance, her eyes momentarily blinded by the sunlight pouring in. Shielding her eyes with a hand, she noticed another pony present in the tunnel, a pony wearing a pith helmet.

Daring Do looked up at Meg with a critical eye. “You know she’ll need to be a pegasus,” she said.

Twilight smirked. “Just watch.”

We’re flying somewhere? Meg got her phone out of her purse and held it out to Twilight, who took hold of it with her magic. That having been taken care of, her hand returned to the pendant. It was that enchanted gem that had prevented her transformation when she was brought to the cavern along with the others. But that wasn’t its only function.

She gave the pendant a squeeze, and she no longer towered over the other ponies.

“Impressive,” Daring said.

Twilight returned the phone to its holder around Meg’s front leg; her purse had vanished along with her clothes, to return when she changed back to a human. “As you know, Discord cast a standing spell that transforms an individual between pony and human upon an inter-realm teleport to and from the human realm. I reversed engineered the mechanisms and that pendant is the result.”

Daring politely nodded. “I can see how that’d be useful.”

Naturally, Twilight wasn’t going to leave it at that. “By wearing that pendant, the trigger for the transformation is blocked. Meg can arrive here with other humans, none becoming the wiser as to her dual nature. By squeezing it, it tricks Discord’s spell into thinking she’s about to leave or has just arrived in this realm, thus triggering the appropriate transformation.”

“My curiosity has been satisfied,” Daring said, preempting the remainder of the lecture.

Twilight sheepishly smiled. She unfolded her wings and began to hover. “Give me a call when you’re ready to return to the office.”

The alicorn flew away.

Meg still had no idea what this was all about, but it evidently didn’t involve Twilight. “Are we flying somewhere?” she asked. Why else would she need to be a pegasus?

“You could say that.”

“Because?”

The explorer was enjoying this too much. “Because I also have a solution to a problem of yours.”

Meg gave her an annoyed look, which did nothing to prompt an explanation from the pegasus. Only the fact that Twilight had vouched for… whatever this was prevented her from going back to the cavern office the hard way. “Fine,” she said, unfurling her wings. “I’ll follow you.”

The mine reached the surface on the opposite side of the mountain from Canterlot. Ruins of defunct ore processing facilities littered the mountain side. Nopony was around to see them fly away, gaining altitude as they headed east.

For several minutes they flew, until they reached a forested valley on the other side of the next ridge of mountains. Daring descended. There didn’t seem to be anything terribly ominous about those trees. Meg didn’t think this valley was still part of the Everfree Forest to the south, but unfortunately she couldn’t use the map app on her phone to tell her whether it was.

At least it wasn’t some hot and humid jungle.

Daring seemed to be aiming for something, but what Meg couldn’t tell. It was just a bunch of trees nestled in the valley between the mountains. No stone temple, no obelisk, no sign of any kind of civilization, recent or ancient.

Twilight did know what this was about, right?

She knew the way back to Canterlot and that mine—and so long as she did, she’d follow. It was flying exercise, if nothing else. Rainbow Dash still got on her case about that.

The two pegasi slowed down as they neared the canopy. Through the branches they threaded until only trunks surrounded them. Dappled sunlight danced on the plants covering the forest floor. Over there the vegetation was sparse.

That’s where they landed. Meg’s ears darted about. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Birds sung in the distance. An insect buzzed by. Not the Everfree, it was safe to say.

Daring gave her a smirk.

“Well?” Meg asked.

“Be patient.”

Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

Meg jumped back. Something had rubbed against her leg. It was a cat. A white and fluffy, perfectly ordinary house cat.

A cat that had no more business being here in the wilderness than she did.

Rustling sounds came from all directions; this time the breeze had nothing to do with it. Meg spun around. From the surrounding bushes emerged a black panther, a lynx, a tiger, and a cheetah. The only way out was up, but they were already too close and poised to leap; she wasn’t Rainbow Dash.

Daring Do casually looked around, her wings folded.

Her nonchalance was irritating. Maybe it’s just another Tuesday for you…

The big cats held their ground—waiting for something? The house cat was rubbing against her legs again, serenading her with cute meows.

There was something oddly familiar about it.

Meg angrily turned to Daring. “You didn’t.”

“Ah, but she did!”

Meg spun towards the deep, masculine, gloating voice. A collection of mismatched parts came into view: dog-like hind limbs, ape-like forelimbs, an elongated dog-like head with eyes positioned over his nose at the end of the snout, a long monkey-like tail with—and most absurdly of all—a hand on its end. At least the creature was bilaterally symmetrical, unlike a certain draconequus.

This has to be a nightmare. She must’ve dozed off. Princess Luna would come by any moment to put an end to it—except for the tiny detail that she was already lucid, she could clearly remember the events of the last few hours that led up to this, and the princess was nowhere in sight. Face it: it’s happening.

“Why?!” she demanded of Daring Do.

The explorer shrugged. “I had an offer too good to pass up.”

Ahuizotl laughed maniacally, exposing his sharp canines. “And how fortunate for you that she took it.” He took hold of the house cat and began to pet it. “Daring Do has told me all about you and the world you come from. You need a solution to a certain problem, and I want access to your world.” He menacingly leaned forward, his necklace swinging. “Let’s make a deal.”

Twilight knew about this? That was inconceivable. Daring must have lied to her. There was no other possible explanation.

The pegasus in question whispered into her ear. “Here’s your chance to ask what’s his deal with my books. Quick, before he monologues.”

Meg scowled at her. This wasn’t some joke. How could she—

Wait. That conversation back in Las Pegasus—the way Daring had reacted to her questions—she had proposed the very situation she now found herself in. Meg took another look at the felines surrounding her. Something wasn’t right. Solitary predators shouldn’t be behaving like this, like… henchmen. It was all so… cartoonish. MLP might have been a cartoon, but the physical Equestria she was in… not so much.

Her eyes returned to Ahuizotl. She had no idea what he was, but in the real world there was no such thing as a species with only a single instance—draconequus excluded. “Where’s the rest of your kind?”

“What do you mean?” he defensively asked.

“You know: your parents, siblings, distant relatives… other whatever you are. You must come from somewhere.”

“That’s none of your business,” he said a little too hastily.

Meg locked her eyes onto him. She might not be the Element of Honesty, but it was obvious enough that something fishy was going on. “I’m making it my business. Answer my question, or I won’t answer yours.”

Ahuizotl nervously licked his lips, his pleading eyes fixed on Daring Do.

The pegasus shook her head. “Okay, you got us. None of my books ever had a reason to go into that backstory.”

Meg stared blankly at her. “What?”

“Drop character, everypony.”

All around them, green flame swept over Ahuizotl and the felines, the house cat included.

Six changelings surrounded them.

“What?”

“None of my archvillains are real,” Daring explained. “It’s all playacting, brainstorming for my next book. That’s what Twilight and the others party-crashed in that episode.” She shrugged. “We went with it, didn’t break character; it was the lesser of two evils. Sorry about the charade. I couldn’t resist. I dunno, maybe Rainbow Dash is rubbing off on me.”

Meg unfurled her wings in anger. “I got pulled out of work for a stupid prank!”

She tried to take off, but a changeling telekinetically kept her on the ground. “Let me go!” She was so going to have words with Twilight over this. She already had enough crap in her life.

Daring Do sighed and removed her helmet. “It’s not just a prank, I promise, okay? Don’t go. It’s important.”

Had she ever seen her without a hat or helmet before? Was it truly important? Would Twilight have fetched her if it wasn’t? That pony wasn’t into pranks, after all.

Meg’s wings re-furled, and the changeling released its telekinetic grip. However, she wasn’t quite done with this prank yet. She considered the implications of what she’d just seen. If what the Mane Six had stumbled onto was just brainstorming… “That relic… the one that’d do something to the sun for a few centuries… not real?”

“Nope,” Daring said, shaking her head. “And that whole temple was a set.”

Meg stared at her.

“We, uh, find that a convincing set helps with the ideas, makes for a more convincing predicament. Hey, don’t judge me; I can afford it now.”

She still wasn’t sure she believed her ears. “I thought all your books were based on real-life experiences.”

“For some definition of ‘real.’ I had to tell Twilight, and especially Rainbow Dash, something.” She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I paid a price for that. The lectures I got about informing the proper authorities whenever I stumble across dangerous magical relics…”

Great. So the Mane Six stumbled onto a larping session. And she managed to convince them to keep it secret.

“But Twilight knows the truth now?”

Daring tilted her head back and forth. “Sorta. She knows about the hive-less changelings, but not about the service they provide me—and I’d like to keep it that way, if you know what I mean—apart from being a messenger between myself and Lyra. That, uh, incident kinda forced the matter.”

Meg stared at the—hive-less?—changelings. “So which of you was the one I saw with Lyra?”

The one in the middle raised a hesitant hoof.

She turned back to Daring. “What’s the point of this, if not just a prank? What does Twilight think is happening here?”

The pegasus shook her mane and returned the pith helmet to its proper place. “Look, I really did get an offer too good to pass up. It came from Twilight. These changelings can solve a problem of yours.”

Daring nodded at one of them. A flash of green fire, and it took on Meg’s form. It was like looking in a mirror; even the phone and its holder were copied. But it couldn’t be functional, right?

“Okay…”

Daring walked over and stood next to faux Meg. “Now imagine that you, as a human, are standing next to this ‘pegasus’ in front of cameras as Tirek is released from Tartarus.”

Meg was speechless. It was so simple, and it solved both problems: Tirek would have no reason to think Meg the human was also Common Ground the pegasus, and any human who tried to out her dual nature would be made to look like a fool.

There were details, of course; there were always details. This changeling would have to convince Tirek that it was, in fact, Common Ground—but that was a problem she herself had. After all, all of Tirek’s shared past with her was still in her future. How much had Twilight told them about the alleged time loop? And she’d have to be there when Tirek was released; furthermore, why would the cameras pay attention to her? She could worry about those questions later; it was safe to assume those details were already on Twilight’s checklist.

But is it worth putting myself on national television for it?

A different thought came to her…

No, don’t get ahead of yourself. There were too many questions, like how did Tartarus affect changeling magic? Maybe it couldn’t set foot beyond those gates without blowing its cover. And don’t even think of having it take my place as a kidnapping victim on magic-less Earth.

Daring was smirking at her. She really was enjoying this too much.

“Yes, I’m interested,” Meg said, before glaring at her doppelgänger. “You are to keep away from my husband, got it?”

“I’m back,” Meg said, as Twilight teleported away. She walked over to her workstation. “What did I miss?”

The spherical crystal with the metal poles rested on a table, this time with wires connected to the poles. Those wires led to a box, to which a large fan was plugged in. The fan was spinning full blast.

“We figured it out,” Moondancer said. “Electricity was being generated, but not at the poles. The current was heating the nuclear material inside the sphere.”

“Ironically,” Sunset Shimmer added, “the integrity spells we cast on the quartz, which may have prevented it from exploding if any of that material had vaporized, was part of the problem. It also accidentally prevented electricity from being generated outside the sphere and inside the poles.”

“So the computer models were correct after all,” Diana said. “What about you? You were gone for over an hour.”

Meg put down her purse. “Oh, nothing much,” she said. “Me and Daring Do had a face-off with Ahuizotl. Did you know he knows about humans? I think he wants to plunder us or something.”

“But you defeated him, right?” Sunset asked, feigning boredom.

“Oh, yeah, totally defeated him. All I had to do was ask him where the others of his kind were. Totally stumped him. He’s overrated, if you ask me.”

Jerry facepalmed. “If we don’t have a need-to-know, you could just say so, you know.”

31. May You Find What You're Looking For

There was no better vantage for the approaching sunset than one of the high towers of Canterlot Palace. Out on the balcony, far above it all, Steve found the experience meditative, quite conducive for casting the modified realm size spell. The target of that spell, the star that Luna had been moving ever closer, was now bright enough to be barely visible in the sunlit sky.

Meg was getting antsy. “Twilight better hurry up with our special guests or they’ll miss the show.”

It’d be even more meditative if he could tune out the voices around him.

“I can delay for a few more minutes,” Celestia said, “but no more.”

“The night cools the world, revitalizing,” Luna said. “Every minute of delay impairs the balance.”

It was elementary physics, seemingly as applicable in this universe as his own. The night cools by providing a heat sink; heat radiates away as infrared radiation, while the frigid depths of space provide little in return. That’s how it worked on Earth, but what if this realm really was fixed in size? Its volume would become saturated over time with infrared radiation, diminishing the cooling effect of night.

How long would that take? If this universe’s size was truly measured in light-hours… But did that really matter? If the curvature was positive, every photon emitted by the planet would loop around and be absorbed by the opposite side. That was almost certainly an oversimplification, but the point remained: there shouldn’t be any nighttime cooling by now. Yet there indisputably was.

The Sun’s descent had slowed to a crawl, barely dipping behind the distant ridge of mountains, the source of light and heat waiting for the final “push” to end its labors for the day. Steve gazed at his target star. Feedback should be arriving any minute now. Maybe this time, it would start providing answers to these questions. If he was really lucky, it wouldn’t boil down to “it’s magic!”

“Are we too late?” Twilight raced onto the balcony. Behind her, at a considerably more sedate pace, were Agents Ruebens and Fowler.

“Not at all, Twilight. You’re just in time.” The Sun had frozen in place, an uncommon sight. Celestia’s horn glowed, and it descended the remainder of the way, dimming as it did to nothingness. A star-filled sky emerged, one star far outshining the others.

Luna completed the changeover. On the other side of the sky, the crescent Moon quickly rose above the Canterlot mountain, lighting up as it did so.

“Wow,” Jessica said. “Knowing about it is one thing, but seeing it… is something else.”

“I have to agree,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t believe my own eyes, if I didn’t know where I was. There’s no way your sun and moon could possibly be physical objects similar to our own.”

“Oh, they’re not,” Steve said. “In a way, it’s all a magical illusion.” Twilight had explained their nature to him long ago, during one of his early lessons in unicorn magic: a pair of intensely magical objects about a thousand feet across, hovering motionless approximately twelve thousand miles up. The light they magically created over the entire atmosphere had to enter the air at the exact same angle relative to the ground below to create the illusion of the sun and moon appearing in the same place in the sky regardless of longitude.

Why didn’t their magic create the illusion of a star millions of miles away, so that it worked just like back home? Why create an effect so similar, yet different? It had to have had a profound impact on weather systems, the entire planet warming up at once then cooling down—which pegasi then manage?

“But what’s with that star?” Jessica pointed a finger at it. “That can’t be normal, could it?” She noticed Steve’s glowing horn and that he was watching it. “Are you doing that?”

Princess Luna rolled her eyes. “Nay. That is my doing. I am slowly but surely bringing it to us as close as it would come.”

There were enough mysteries for now. “And I am trying to analyze it with my magic, so far with little success.”

Jessica held her forehead. “You can bring a star across light—” She dropped her hand. “Right, it’s not the same kind of star as what we have.”

“Light-hours, at most,” Steve said. “And it most certainly is not a massive ball of hydrogen undergoing thermonuclear fusion. What it is I hope to find out.”

Princess Celestia poured tea for the new arrivals. “We should attend to matters at hoof. When shall you be ready to bring Lord Tirek to your realm?”

And this is where I tune out. This meeting didn’t concern him. He remained only because Luna was here, just in case something happened that required her attention.

The two Secret Service agents sat in the two chairs that had been provided for them, and two teacups floated over to them. “At least another week,” Reubens said, taking hold of his teacup. “His security will need to be provided for—we’ll handle that, treating him as a foreign dignitary—and we figure he’ll need assistance to adapt to the modern world. How best to accomplish that is the main sticking point.”

“Will your media be present when he’s released from Tartarus?” Twilight asked.

“I guess that’s mostly up to you,” Fowler said, “but they certainly want to cover it. The ratings on his press conference broke records.”

“We do want them there, but not for the reason you might think.” Twilight looked at the pegasus in attendance. “We want Meg to be present and on camera, both as a human and as a pegasus.”

Meg looked towards Steve, who nodded in return. They had spent most of last night debating—and arguing—what to do. It was time to commit or bail. “That’s right,” she said.

The two agents were speechless. “Uh,” Fowler said, “forgive me for asking a stupid question, but how are you supposed to be standing next to yourself?”

Twilight looked them straight in the eyes. “A changeling will assume the form of Common Ground the pegasus.”

“Okay…” Fowler’s eyes wandered about as she digested that. “That would obviously work, and I’ll assume you know what you’re doing when it comes to changelings.”

“This particular changeling is not associated with any hive, much less Chrysalis’.”

The agent digested that fact as well. “I’ll also assume this changeling will not be coming back with us to our world?”

“That is correct. I expect Meg will return with you, however. We just need to justify her presence.”

Reubens cradled his teacup. “The point of this exercise, I take it, is to provide ‘proof’ that Meg doesn’t moonlight as a pegasus.” He got a surprised look from Twilight. “It’s a common enough ploy in superhero comics and TV shows when a secret identity has been revealed.”

“Uh… right. I’ll have to ask Spike if the same is true in our comics.”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.” He got serious. “But that just raises the question: why is this necessary? The Section operatives have kept their silence, as per our ‘understanding.’” He waved a hand. “Not that some insurance wouldn’t be a bad idea, mind you.”

All eyes were on Meg.

“There’s an individual I’ve told—worse, shown—and that has proven to be a… mistake.”

It was just as much about Tirek, of course, but Steve knew Meg wasn’t going to mention that to the agents. That would be admitting to time travel, something everyone agreed would be best to keep from the authorities. Even the video evidence of Susie’s kidnapping had been explained as being “magically” acquired.

“Is it someone we should be aware of?” Reubens asked.

Meg hesitated. “It’s outside your jurisdiction?”

“What if this person would have contact with Tirek?” Twilight sighed. “Sorry, Meg, but I really don’t understand your reluctance here.”

You and me both, Steven thought.

Agent Reubens choose his words carefully. “Protecting Tirek falls under our jurisdiction. Beyond that, I cannot say without further information.”

“It doesn’t hurt to tell us,” Agent Fowler said. “The worst we could say is that you’re right: it doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction. Maybe we could recommend someone whose jurisdiction it does fall under?”

Meg stood up and started to wander about the balcony. “It’s Andrew Malley, the president of SILICon—that’s the brony convention I’m a volunteer at. He’s—how shall I put it?—extremely ‘enthusiastic’ about booking Tirek at the next convention in a few weeks.”

“And what does ‘enthusiastic’ mean?” Reubens asked.

“Book him, or else.” She tossed her head in pent-up frustration. “Oh, he immediately walked that back, talked about making it worth my while—without getting specific—but he had to mention that someone like me, a human who has been transformed into a pony, would be big news too. Not that he would do that, oh no, since he wasn’t the villain.”

“Hence the changeling deception,” Fowler said. “May I ask how he learned about this?”

“I brought several of the senior staff to my castle for a quick meeting,” Twilight said. “Meg came along, knowing what that would reveal.”

Meg was at the railing, looking down at the distant lights of Ponyville. “It seemed a good idea at the time. I was overthinking the meaning of my cutie mark.”

“Did you book Tirek?” Reubens asked. “That’s certainly something we need to prepare for.”

“Not officially. Rarity did present the opportunity to him during one the fitting sessions for his robes. He’s interested, for what it’s worth.”

Jessica smirked. “I knew that was a Rarity design,” she muttered.

Her partner ignored that. “Assuming that booking becomes official, provisions for his security at the convention would need to be arranged.” He raised an eyebrow at Meg. “I’d say that calls for a meeting. Could you arrange one?”

Meg turned around. “Uh, sure? But what about my situation? Yeah, sure, he’s getting what he wants, this time. But there’s always a next time, and I want out.”

He sipped his tea. “As you suspected, it’s not under our jurisdiction. But I think you’ll find that being our official point of contact might… influence Andrew’s future decisions.”

Meg blinked. “I am? Your official contact, that is.”

“Someone has to be,” Fowler said. “Might as well be you, don’t you think?”

“You might also wish to mention that the President will be keeping a close eye on everything Tirek for the foreseeable future,” Reubens added. “And he certainly knows of your involvement in this undertaking.”

The pegasus once more stared at faraway town. “Yeah. I’m so involved, I’ll be there on international television when he walks through the Gates of Tartarus. Just need to figure out how I’m involved.”

Steve’s head snapped up. Feedback from the spell had arrived. This time, it was different.

It had not escaped Princess Luna’s attention. “It is finally close enough?”

He closed his eyes and focused. “Maybe… Something’s coming in, but I’m not sure what yet.” Whatever it was, it was tickling his special talent. “Just ignore me for now.”

“Consider yourself ignored,” Celestia said with a smile. “I believe the best way for you to be involved, Meg, is for you to assist with Tirek’s habituation to your world. You would be introduced to him in that role once Twilight has restored his human form.”

Meg’s head slumped against the railings. “Serrell has already expressed the same idea to me, more or less.”

“I understand your concerns,” Celestia said, hinting at the true reason, “but do not forget that to Tirek you are just another human.”

Meg sighed. “Point taken. Heh. Who knows? Maybe he’ll come to trust me enough to blab about how he’d escaped from Tartarus before.”

“That would be nice,” Twilight said. She lit up. “Perhaps it was destined to happen?”

Meg gave her the stink eye. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Twilight returned a sheepish look. “Sorry?”

The pegasus shook her head, sighing. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

Approaching the agents, she said, “Let’s change the subject. Maybe there’s something else you can help me with.”

Fowler shrugged. “We’re listening.”

“It concerns a birthday party for Dinky. She wants to have it in our world, but… I just don’t see how to make it happen without putting them in danger. I mean, sure, we could hold it at my place, but that would hardly be different from holding it in Equestria. Yet hold it at some restaurant…”

“And it would be instantly tweeted to the world with pictures,” Jessica said, “attracting a crowd—and probably some nutcases.”

“Yeah. That.”

“I don’t see how we can help with that.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Here’s the thing. You’re going to provide security for Tirek at the convention. Guess when Dinky’s birthday is.”

The two agents looked at each other. “During the convention?” Reubens guessed.

Meg nodded. “Right. So what if it was held there? We wouldn’t publicize it. It would come as a complete surprise to the attendees. Maybe we’d have a lottery to select who gets to attend, but we’d keep that a secret from the winners until the last minute. You’ll already be keeping the crazies out because of Tirek; that’ll be a big help. Perhaps have a few ponies to provide security for the party itself.” She looked at Twilight. “Maybe an unannounced appearance by a princess, for example?”

Twilight tilted her head in thought.

“We’ll get back to you on that,” Reubens said. “But I can say right now there’s a non-negotiable condition: should there be any trouble, you must contact us immediately. You’re allowed to keep everyone safe until one of us arrives, but no more.”

“I agree to that condition,” Twilight said. “I also see no reason why an agent couldn’t attend the party under the guise of being one of the convention staff.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing that,” Fowler said, “but we’ll have to see. If your appearance was limited to this party and it wasn’t pre-announced, I don’t think there’d be any problems. The same applies to the rest of the Mane Six, I’d think.”

“Like I said, we’ll get back to you.” Reubens finished off his tea. “First order of business, I believe, is to have a chat with the convention senior staff.”

The rest of the conversation faded away as it became increasingly clear to Steve that the nearest star in the night sky was doing something to the space-time surrounding it—if only he could make out what.

The mailmare’s face lit up with a smile. “You’ve found a place?”

“Absolutelitutely!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Dinky will have the bestest, most humanist birthday party ever!”

“Now don’t get too excited,” Meg said. “A room is still a room. If not for the humans who’ll be invited, you wouldn’t really be able to tell you weren’t in Equestria.” She looked around the room. It was hard to miss the pervasive gingerbread house theme of Sugarcube Corner’s party room. So maybe you could tell.

Fortunately, she could offer more than just that one room. “It should be possible to have a tour of the convention before it opens for the day—or after it closes—or maybe during, but you’ll have to be invisible and preferably well off the ground, which means a pegasus will have to carry her.”

Derpy’s smile faltered. “Guess it can’t be me, then. I can’t do invisibility.”

“Not a problem,” Pinkie said, beaming. “Those plaid pills can make you invisible. Though wouldn’t it be super fun for you to go visible for like a few seconds here and there? We could have “where’s Derpy” prizes. The bronies will love it!”

They probably would, too. Whether it was fair to put Derpy through that was a different matter. “I wouldn’t go that far. Anyway, there won’t be many magic generators present, so just avoid those areas and you’ll be fine.”

The mailmare’s smile had turned to confusion. “Huh? Wouldn’t invisibility need magic?”

“Yes, but those plaid pills provide their own magic, and they won’t do that in the presence of a magical field. The invisibility spell only works when the pill is supplying the magic.”

Her muzzle scrunched. “Even I can see that doesn’t make sense.”

It’s Discord. What do you expect? Not that she could mention that. And it was hard to say if that limitation was due to some perfectly reasonable limitation of chaos magic—or just his capriciousness. “It is what it is, unfortunately.”

The party pony, thankfully, changed the subject. “I’ll have to come up with room decorations, of course.” She hummed to herself. “Something human themed, I would think.”

Whatever that meant, but that was Pinkie’s problem. “You shouldn’t rely on your party cannon working there.” She’d certainly have to bring it across like any other sensible object. “At least test it there first.”

A sudden thought struck terror into Meg’s heart. That cannon was a physical object, right? It might be a useless, physical object when deprived of an Equestrian magical field, but it was still just a plain, old, run-of-the-mill physical object made up of boringly ordinary atoms. Not some form of crystalized magic that would destroy a universe unable to reconcile itself with that magic’s existence.

Of course, one could say the same about Pinkie Pie herself, and the universe had coped with her presence just fine. Regardless, better to have Twilight check that cannon out first. She’s probably been looking for an excuse to do that anyway, if she hadn’t done so already.

“What kind of presents would humans give my little muffin for her birthday?”

Meg grimaced. This might be awkward to explain. “Actually… they won’t know they’ll be attending a birthday party. For security reasons, it’ll be kept a secret until it’s over. We’ll hold a lottery to determine who attends your party. All anyone will be told is that those selected will have an experience to remember.” Phrased better than that, hopefully. “I’ll see about buying something as a present from the dealer room. Or maybe take a lot of pictures of items for sale and let her decide what she wants.”

“It is what it is?” Derpy asked, repeating that phrase back to Meg. “How many humans will be attending?”

“We haven’t decided yet. We’d be looking for children around Dinky’s age, naturally, but their parents couldn’t reasonably be excluded. There’ll be ponies present as well, and we’ll want to keep the numbers manageable.”

Derpy frowned. “I can’t help but worry about what might go wrong.”

You and me both. “Twilight will be there—”

“And me!”

“—and Pinkie,” Meg obligingly added, “almost certainly Applejack, and maybe Rainbow Dash, and you can trust them to keep Dinky and the other foals safe.”

Meg led the way through the cafe brewery to the now familiar table. This time, the loud background noise did little to provide a sense of privacy—but perhaps that could work to her advantage as well. It was better to just get it over with.

They reached the table. As had become her routine, Meg took a seat some distance from the president of the convention, but not before pointing him out to the unexpected and uninvited guests. Agent Reubens took the closest available seat to Andrew, right across the table from him; he smiled disarmingly at the president of the convention. Agent Fowler sat next to Meg.

Andrew raised an eyebrow at Meg. “I trust there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this?”

All heads turned to Meg. She countered the raised eyebrow with a smug smile. “As a matter of fact, there is. You want Tirek to appear? You’ll have to deal with these two.”

He faced the man across from him. “Are you his agent, or something? You know there’s no money involved, right?”

“Agent,” Reubens repeated. “You could say that.” He took out his badge and presented it. “Secret Service. I’m Agent Reubens, and that’s Agent Fowler. We’re providing security for Lord Tirek, as directed by President Serrell.”

Andrew stared wordlessly at the badge. He looked up. “This isn’t some prank, right? I honestly have no idea if that’s a real badge.”

“It’s real,” Meg said, surprised at the satisfaction she felt saying it. “They’re the real deal.”

Andrew looked her, not sure what to make of it. “So you say.”

“If it’s proof you want, that can be supplied later.” Reubens pocketed his badge. “But for now, allow me to talk. As an honorary foreign dignitary, his security falls under our jurisdiction. We’ll be overseeing security at the convention during his public appearance. Meg Coleman is to be our point of contact with your organization.” His eyes bore into Andrew’s. “The President will be keeping a close eye on this event.”

Andrew glanced at Meg. “Why her?”

Reubens leaned back. “She was recommended by Princess Twilight Sparkle. The President accepted the recommendation.”

Meg grabbed a handful of tortilla chips. “You know about the Chinese Curses, right? Everyone’s heard of ‘May you live in interesting times,’ and right now they sure are interesting. But there are two others. ‘May you be recognized by people in high places’ is one of them; that’s my curse. That last one is ‘May you find what you’re looking for.’” She dipped a chip in some salsa. “You wanted Tirek; you’ve got Tirek. Well, probably. I’ve heard he’s interested, but as I’ve said I can’t ask him myself until he’s released.”

She bit into the salsa-coated chip.

“Are you going to ask him right after Twilight changes him back?” Fowler conveniently asked.

“In front of all those cameras? I dunno.” She shrugged. “It’d look awfully bad if he said no.”

“You could ask him once we ditch the media.”

“Wait just a minute,” Joe the vice-president said. “Are you saying you’ll actually be there, at the entrance to Tartarus, when he’s released?”

“That’s the current plan,” Reubens said. “We’ll be there too, by the way, if you consider that proof enough.”

Meg waved around a chip. “And yes, that is what I’m saying. I’ll be standing next to the orchid pegasus with a cutie mark of two intersecting rings.” She looked at Andrew. “On international television.”

It was so good to see him thrown off balance by that.

“Standing on two feet?” he finally asked.

She gave him a big smile. “I’m certainly not getting down on my hands and knees and make a fool out of myself on international television.”

“How… how is that possible?” Joe asked.

“Maybe I did not accompany you on your visit to Twilight’s castle, and that pegasus wasn’t me?”

Elaine curiously considered her, but said nothing. The others uneasily looked back and forth from one to the other, wondering what was really going on.

Andrew was regaining his balance. “Or you’ll have a changeling impersonate you?”

Reubens leaned forward. “Should you have evidence of that, Mr. Malley, the President would be quite interested in seeing it. It would be deeply troubling if Meg was conspiring with Chrysalis’ hive.”

He should get an Oscar for that performance. Meg leaned forward herself to give her own prepared answer to that accusation. “Fortunately for me, I have never encountered Chrysalis’ hive, much less conspired with them.” It was so convenient that the cartoon had implied there was but one hive, and all changelings belonged to it. “I’d probably just wind up in a pod anyway if I tried—you know, so that one of their infiltrators could take my place.”

If infiltrators were even a thing—but why let facts get in the way of a good narrative?

To give him credit, Andrew was smart enough to know when to change the subject. “Naturally we’d be happy to cooperate with the Secret Service. Anything else we should be aware of?”

32. Worthy Opponent

The throne room was not the ideal place for the “interview,” but with Smooze one could never be too sure. Having him in close proximity to all her books just seemed… unwise. To keep things from being excessively formal, Twilight abstained from using her throne. She sat on a cushion along with Moondancer and, who had just arrived, A. K. Yearling.

Discord was nowhere to be seen, as per her request. They didn’t want his presence possibly influencing Smooze’s recounting of events long past. Unfortunately, “seen” was the operative word. He was, by his own admission, a habitual eavesdropper.

“Now that we’re all here,” Twilight began, “let’s get started. Smooze, allow me to introduce A. K. Yearling, a famous author. She’s doing research for a new book that takes place in the distant past, and she would like to ‘pick your brain,’ so to speak, about what it was like then. Practically nothing is known about those times.” She directed her gaze to the computer on a nearby table. “This would also be a good test of your voice synthesizer.”

The synthesizer wasn’t ready yet, but Yearling had insisted on sooner rather than later. Nopony knew when it would become ready, and it didn’t help that Meg was with Celestia on a trip to Tartarus. Moondancer was filling in for her. The raw data would be recorded so that Meg could later use it to improve the translator.

The synthesizer spoke: “Okay.”

“All good stories have conflict, threats, danger,” Yearling began. “You were once one of those threats.” She hurriedly added, “I’m not blaming you, I want to make clear. Whatever you might’ve been back then, you’ve become a friend to ponies—just like Discord.”

For some definition of “friend,” Twilight thought to herself regarding the draconequus.

“So, while I understand this may be an awkward question for you to answer, please remember that I only want to understand what it was like back then.”

She waited for a response. Smooze’s goofy smile remain unchanged.

“Okay.”

She took a breath. “Why would you destroy villages? What was your motivation? Was it simple hunger?”

The answer came surprisingly quick. “No. Was. Told. To. All. Empty. No. Harm.”

That was the last answer Twilight expected. “Just to make clear, the villages you ‘ate’ were all abandoned, unoccupied?”

“Yes,” he replied to her immense relief.

“And somepony told you to destroy them?” Yearling asked.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Not Discord?” Twilight warily asked. It was a fact he knew about it; he admitted it to Meg a while ago during the Grand Galloping Gala.

“Not. Discord.”

Then he did nothing to stop it, either—not that he ever implied he had. “Okay, who?”

Smooze’s response was a single word: “Alicorn.”

“Alicorn,” Twilight flatly repeated. “I assume we’re not talking about Celestia or Luna.” That was simply inconceivable.

“No. Different.”

“Me? Cadance?” Was this another case of time travel? Not that that would be more conceivable.

“No. No.”

That was every alicorn in existence, that had ever existed—so far as she knew—which left one possibility. “Was this alicorn from the future?” After all, other ponies might ascend in the future, obviously, though why they would do this…

Yearling gave her a curious look. Her curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied.

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“Could you des—”

Steve came barreling in. “Twilight! I’ve got it! I know… what…” He looked around at those present.

Twilight gave an exasperated sigh. “Kind of busy here, Steve.”

“I’ll make it quick.” He gathered his breath. “The stars. I know what they’re doing. Two things, actually. They’re keeping outer space cold, eliminating infrared radiation—most light, actually—so that the planet can continue to cool off at night.

“But that’s not the big thing. They’re actively maintaining the curvature of this realm’s space-time, creating or destroying energy so as to keep this realm balanced on a knife’s edge, neither expanding nor contracting.”

Okay, that was important—inconvenient timing, but still important. “How are they doing this? What kind of magic?”

Steve shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it’s definitely magic.” He looked at Smooze, paying attention to him for the first time. His horn lit up. “I’m sensing a similar kind of magic from you, believe it or not.” He looked back to Twilight. “He destroys energy too, makes stuff vanish, sorta like the stars.”

“He’s clearly not a star,” Twilight said with tilted head.

He shrugged. “Similar magic, regardless.”

“Yes.”

Everypony looked to Smooze.

“You know about this?” Twilight asked the blob.

“Yes.”

“But you’re not a star?”

“Not. Scaring.”

Twilight was baffled by that response. Moondancer explained. “The word ‘star’ is not in the translator’s database.”

This was frustrating. If only the translator was fully functional. “I guess there’s no point in asking further about this, not until we have a much larger vocabulary to work with.”

“Yes.”

“What about spelling the words out?” Yearling asked.

“Cannot. Splat.”

“‘Spell’ isn’t in the database either.”

Twilight sighed. “Let’s resume where we were interrupted.”

Yearling did so. “Could you describe this alicorn? Mare? Stallion? Coat color?”

“Mare. Orchestrate.”

Twilight shook her head. “Orchestrate. Let me guess: another word not in the database.”

“We did cover a lot of colors,” Moondancer said.

“Not that one, apparently.”

“Maybe it’s just as well,” Twilight said. “If that alicorn really did come from the future—our future—it might be better if we didn’t know too many details.”

Yearling quirked an eyebrow. “Why would that be?”

Discord appeared. “Because, my dear, the future is just as immutable as the past. Knowing it ties your hooves. If you don’t like it, too bad; you can’t change it, no matter what you try.” He glowered. “Don’t ask me how I know.”

Somehow, Twilight doubted he was referring to that incident in the Everfree. “You were supposed to stay away,” she said, glowering a bit herself.

Discord waved off the complaint. “You asked him your questions; he answered them. This is no longer about him.”

No, it wasn’t; it was about this mysterious alicorn—and conveniently here was a somepony else who had happened to be there. “You were around then. You must have sensed this alicorn.”

He eyed her warily. “Of course I did.”

“Did that alicorn belong to that era and was somehow lost to history, or did she arrive from the future?”

Pinkie entered the throne room, carrying a large box of stale leftovers on her back. She trotted over to Smooze and dumped the box on the floor in front of him. “Here’re some snacks for you!” she said, opening the box up.

Smooze oozed a part of himself into the box, being careful not to consume the box itself.

Discord sighed. “If you must know, the future. I have not sensed this alicorn since that time.”

“Has she been born yet, just not yet an alicorn?”

He walked over to the preoccupied Smooze and put an arm around him. “This interrogation is over.” He softened, almost pleading. “Be content in your ignorance.”

They vanished.

“Hey!” Pinkie shouted. “What about my box?”

They entered the prison. Two guards were present, same as Meg’s previous visit. Whether they were the same two, she couldn’t say; she lacked the experience to easily tell minotaurs apart. Both of them stood up and bowed upon seeing Princess Celestia—only one had done so for Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Your Highness, what can we do for you?” asked the taller one.

“We are here to see Lord Tirek,” the princess said. “I believe you know two of the humans accompanying me, Agents Fowler and Reubens. The third is Meg Coleman.”

The shorter guard sat down and recorded the names; if he thought the third name seemed familiar, he showed no indication of it. The other guard went to the gate and unlocked and opened it. He held it open as Princess Celestia and the others walked through. The door closed behind them with a thick metallic thud and relocked with a sharp clank.

A deep and carrying voice drifted from far down the corridor. “It has been a long time, Celestia. Far too long.”

The alicorn did not respond. Silently she led the procession to the end of the corridor. Lord Tirek was standing in front of the bars, bereft of clothing as usual, when they rounded the corner. Celestia held up a hoof, informing the others to remain out of sight.

“Perhaps it has,” she softly responded, finally, “though I’m sure you can understand. There seemed little point, as there was nothing left to say.”

He grunted in agreement. “I suppose it had gotten repetitious. So why now?”

What really had happened? Meg wondered. She doubted she’d ever know. Celestia had never volunteered any information about what had gone down between them.

A smile graced the princess’ muzzle. “I’m here to inform you that the humans have agreed to take you back. It’s only fitting that I be the one to deliver the news, as it was I who put you here.”

Tirek was speechless for a moment. “It’s really over.”

“Not quite over, but soon. There are details to work out.”

Celestia nodded to the agents, and they came into view. Tirek studied them. “You two look familiar,” he said.

Meg’s turn would come. How familiar would I look?

“Not as familiar as we’ll become,” Reubens said. “My partner and I will be in charge of your security in our world. We work for the branch of the government that, among other things, provides security for visiting foreign dignitaries, as which—for now—you are being classified. As I’m sure you can imagine, there are numerous potential threats.”

“I am hardly a stranger to such threats.” He paused. “Though I may be surprised by the forms they take in the world as it now is.”

“Precisely. We have arranged for your accommodations—nothing fit for a prince, I must confess, though still superior to this cell. It won’t be much longer, a few more days, a week at most. We also need to coordinate the media coverage of your release.”

That caught his interest. “Media?”

“They want to cover your release from Tartarus; they’ll be positioned just outside the gates. You can make a statement, if you wish—or not—but they will not be following us back to your new accommodations. Twilight will be transporting them back separately. In fact, the location of your new residence will not be made public, though admittedly it’s only a matter of time before someone figures it out. Perhaps by then you’ll have found a permanent home more to your liking.”

The centaur turned away from the bars. “It has been so long since I have had to concern myself with such mundane facts of life.” He turned back, addressing Celestia. “What about Discord? Will he show up to deliver his final words to me?”

“Yes,” she replied, “he will. He wants to ensure that you depart for the human realm without any… detours.”

I hope the media is prepared for that. Not that they’d have any right to complain. It’d be good for ratings, whatever he does.

Tirek sighed in resignation. “I’d expect nothing less from him.”

He turned back to the agents. “What about money? I would expect the generosity of your government to have limits.”

Reubens let out a breath. “No doubt, it has limits. But I have a feeling you won’t have much trouble earning an income. Write a book about your life; it’ll be a best seller, I’m sure. Sell the rights to Hollywood—you’ll know what that means soon enough. We can certainly put you in touch with people who can get the ball rolling.”

Fowler took over. “But the best way to make that happen is to keep yourself in the public eye. You appear to know something about the My Little Pony cartoon?”

“I was informed by those human prisoners who briefly shared this prison with me. Quite honestly,” Tirek said, pointedly looking at Celestia, “I half suspected you put them up to it. How could this ‘cartoon’ possibly have known of my recent efforts to conquer Equestria?”

The princess permitted a small frown to form. “We wish we knew how it was possible.”

“And by ‘we,’” Reubens said, “she means humans as well as ponies.”

Tirek was silent for a moment. “And what it reveals is not totally accurate, as I found out during that press conference.”

Reubens shrugged. “It is what it is—for now, anyway. You’re free to ‘correct the record,’ as we put it.”

Tirek eyed Celestia. “Even if it would meet with disapproval?”

“You shall be released from this prison, regardless. The so-called ‘bronies’ will assume you are lying, and those who protest our presence will assume it is I who is lying. No minds will be changed by facts—true or not—uttered by either of us. We both have been around long enough to understand this.”

Tirek grunted. “That you did not prevent my release will not go unnoticed either. It signals that you fear not what I might say. You have always been a worthy opponent, Celestia.”

“As have you,” she replied, slightly bowing her head.

The agents had closely followed that exchange. Meg could imagine the executive summary they’d give the President: don’t let Celestia become an opponent. Never mind that since defeating Tirek, she has gained at least another millennium of experience.

The centaur turned back to Fowler. “So as I was saying, yes I know of it.”

“There are conventions organized by fans of the cartoon,” Fowler said. “Attendance can easily exceed a thousand people. The next one is in a few weeks. They’ve already booked a few ponies; they’d like to book you too. In fact…” She waved Meg over. “We have a someone with us to discuss that with you.”

The moment of truth. Meg stepped into view, nervously waiving a greeting. “Uh, hi. I’m Meg Coleman.” The centaur didn’t look so tall, now that she was much taller herself. Tirek studied her, clearly aware of something. “I’m with the convention,” she continued. “I can answer any questions you may have.”

“How much would I be paid?” he asked bluntly.

Either he had decided he was imagining things, or he had decided to keep the uncanny similarities between herself and “Common Ground” to himself—for the time being. The sooner he saw her with her changeling doppelgänger, the better.

“We cover expenses, like travel and hotel room, but that’s all. That’s typical. The primary benefit to you would be the public exposure. That exposure will go well beyond the thousands who’ll be seeing you in person. The event will be recorded and made available for everyone in the world to see.”

“Recorded,” he repeated. “By the same people who recorded my press conference?”

“No, we can do that ourselves. Pretty much everyone can do that now—maybe not as well as the press could, that being their job, but well enough.” She took out her phone and held it up. “A device like this can do it.”

Tirek gave it a skeptical look. “Could you prove that right now? That’s a lot smaller than what was used at my press conference.”

“Uh, sure.” She switched to the camera app and centered the centaur on the screen. “It’d only take a minute.” She held a finger just above the record button. “Say something…” She tapped the button. “Now.”

Tirek uttered a surprisingly meek “Something?”

Meg tapped the button again. “Good enough.” She started the playback and turned the phone around, so he could see it.

“Something?” came Tirek’s voice from the phone.

Meg returned the phone to her purse.

“I’m impressed,” he intoned. “Could I get one of those?”

“We can arrange that,” Reubens said. “We ought to, really. It’s hard to live without such a device in the modern world. It can do far more than take pictures or record video.” He took out his own phone out of his jacket and briefly showed it before putting it back.

Tirek’s attention returned to Meg. “What else takes place at one of these conventions? Would I be able to partake in them?”

That was a question no one had even conceived of being asked. “Well, quite a few things take place; it lasts several days. Other speakers related to the cartoon—writers, voice actors—vendor area where you can buy pony-related stuff, various contests… autograph signings… We have to make it worth the admission fee, after all—”

He gave her a flat look. “You will make money off it, profiting from my presence, but none of it will come my way?”

Meg was suddenly glad he was on the other side of those bars. “It goes to covering our expenses; we don’t really make a profit. None of the guests of honor are paid, other than to cover their expenses for showing up. That’s true for all events like this.”

“You should be aware,” Fowler said, “that the talk show circuit you’ve heard about is not much better. They pay, but very little. The benefit is the national exposure you get for whatever it is you’re selling or promoting—like, say, to promote a book you’ve written that’s just gone on sale.”

“I see.” He seemed mollified by their explanations. “Now answer my other question. Would I be able to partake in those events you listed?”

Clearly he could use some coaching on how to interact with people in the modern world. Meg was spared from answering the question.

“It’d be best if I answered that,” Reubens said. “It’s a matter of your personal safety. You would be the center of attention wherever you go, and going about from one activity to another like that makes you an easy target. We’ll certainly try to accommodate your wishes, but we may not be able to. A schedule should be available in advance—” He looked at Meg, who nodded back. “—so you could pick what seems most interesting to you, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Tirek walked a circle about his cell, head down in thought, before returning to the bars. “Yes, you’re right, of course. It has indeed been too long since I had to think about such things.”

Meg could almost feel sorry for him. He had a long road ahead of him; it would not be easy for him to fit in to modern society. She just wished it didn’t have to be her problem.

Tirek addressed her. “You mentioned that writers will be present.”

Uh oh, this can’t be good.

“Does that include the one who got my brother totally wrong?”

How to answer that? The answer was no, fortunately, but that was kind of missing the point.

Tirek waited for her answer.

She didn’t have much choice but to give it. “No, it does not.”

“How can I contact him?”

Meg didn’t think it was worth correcting his erroneous assumption. She looked to the agents for assistance.

Reubens provided it. “We must ask that you do not do that.”

Meg was glad not to be on the receiving end of that glare.

“Let me explain. We have already conducted a thorough investigation and questioned everyone associated with the cartoon. We are satisfied that all of them were oblivious to the reality of your world. They thought they were creating a fictional world from scratch. There is no evidence we could find that their interpretation of Equestria had come from anywhere but their collective imaginations.

“I know that’s not a satisfying answer. We’re not satisfied either. I can understand your displeasure at your brother being inaccurately portrayed—there are other inaccuracies too—but you are not going to accomplish anything by confronting them. By all means, correct the errors, set the record straight, but please do not do more than that.”

Princess Celestia chimed in. “Trust me, you are not alone. You’ll understand when you see the cartoon for yourself. Nonetheless, I do not hold those associated with it responsible. As Agent Reubens just said, they were unaware, and they had fully and without reservation cooperated with the investigation. They were no less shocked at learning of our existence.”

“How can I see it for myself?” he asked.

“I believe Meg would have the full collection,” Celestia said. “You should arrange a viewing with her, once you’ve settled in. I’m sure she can answer whatever questions you may have about each episode. Be aware, though, that it’ll take several dozen hours to watch them all.”

Did you have to do that? Tirek’s eyes were on her. Couldn’t you have given me a heads-up? “Uh, at least three dozen hours,” she said, her barely contained annoyance at the princess eliciting a knowing smile from the centaur. “Not counting the current season, which has diverged from reality anyway.”

Tirek covered his eyes in thought. “Fine,” he finally said. “Obviously you all know more about what’s going on than I do, even if that’s not saying much.” He resumed eye contact with Celestia. “But what doesn’t make sense to me is why that cartoon would be mostly right. That cannot be coincidence. Yet where would the mistakes come from?”

“If we knew the answer to that,” Celestia said, “I imagine it would explain a great many things.”

Meg stood alone in the observation lounge of the Zephyr, gazing upon the Gates of Tartarus and the Royal Guards still patrolling the ledge. Celestia was returning the agents back to their world. The princess only knew where to take them because earlier that day Meg had brought her to the agreed-upon location to pick them up.

She had been a pony for that trip, of course. The pendant was once again suspended from her neck, having been left behind in the ship during her visit to Tartarus. She would go equine again, but not just yet. It was easier to wring her hands when she had hands—not to mention it was also easier to confront the princess when they were more or less the same height.

Celestia returned. “You have words for me.”

Meg didn’t bother to turn around. It was a simple statement, but one that derailed what she had planned to say. Was there any point in saying what the immortal alicorn already knew she was going to say? “Why?” was the only word she could eke out.

Celestia stepped closer. “You need to spend time with him, to find out what you can about how you and Sunset Shimmer aided his escape.”

Meg turned around. “I get that. What I mean is, why couldn’t you have warned me in advance you were going to do that?”

Compassionate eyes answered her. “Would it truly have made it any easier?”

Not really, she had to admit. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she muttered.

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She looked into the eyes of the mare who condemned her sister to one thousands years on the moon. It made her issues look so piddling in comparison. She didn’t know what to say.

Celestia walked over to the intercom. “Captain Shooting Star. Prepare for departure. We’ll leave as soon as the guards are onboard.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

She paused for a moment. “Meg, please keep me informed on your interactions with Tirek. My experiences in dealing with him shall be at your disposal.”

Meg made a beeline for Twilight’s castle. The Zephyr had slowed down as it approached Ponyville, allowing her to jump off. Possessing wings certainly had its advantages. If only that pendant would work in her own universe.

She spotted them on the main balcony—some of them. Smooze was definitely not there. As she got closer, it become clear that Yearling and Moondancer weren’t there either. Were they still conducting the interview? It’d be a nice distraction from all things Tirek. But she could see Twilight; wouldn’t she be with them?

Steve was down there—and so was Pinkie Pie? Was there a Smooze-was-interviewed-by-a-famous-author party? But where was everypony else then? And it didn’t look like a party. Just a patio table they were all seated around, with nothing on it but glasses and a pitcher. And why were they outside? Well, it was a gorgeous day. She was half-surprised Rainbow Dash wasn’t down there bragging about it.

They all watched her come in for a landing. “How did it go?” Twilight asked.

“About as well as can be expected,” Meg replied. “Tirek and Celestia were actually civil with each other, believe it or not.” Steve looked rather pleased with himself. “Something you want to tell me?” she asked him.

“Nothing much,” he said with fake casualness. “I may have solved the neither-contracting-nor-expanding realm problem, that’s all.” He got serious. “But I can tell you about that later. This is more important.”

It looked like Twilight already knew about it. Yeah, it could wait. “Where’s Smooze and the others? Still talking?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, it didn’t last long, actually. Discord took Smooze away after he revealed who put him up to destroying all those villages in the distant past—you’d never guess who, and, fortunately, the villages had all been abandoned.”

Never guess who. “Not Discord? Why would he care, then?”

Twilight sighed. “Meg, we have another time loop here—not one of us, but an unknown alicorn from the future. Our future.”

Another time loop. Suddenly, all things Tirek sounded rather appealing. “And… what did Discord have to say about that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Three guesses. No, make that one guess.”

Meg offered the obvious guess: “Too soon for us to know?”

“Uh… actually, ‘be content in our ignorance.’” She grimaced. “I suppose it means the same thing. Anyway, Yearling and Moondancer have already left town. The sensor data from the interview is on your laptop for you to look at later.”

That ought to include an audio recording; there was no point in asking questions that listening to it would answer. “Another time loop,” Meg glumly repeated. “And I still think that whole Lyra and the changeling thing must be tied into one as well.” She looked at Pinkie. “I don’t suppose Pinkie Sense has anything to say about that?”

The pink pony looked up for a second. “Nope!” she chirped.

That was hoping for too much. Pinkie would’ve said something before now, anyway, if it had registered on her Pinkie Sense.

“And I still got that damn, encrypted message. Probably another time loop, given my luck.”

“Nothing we can do about that one, unfortunately.” Twilight drank from her glass of apple juice. “Do you know what your involvement will be with Tirek?”

“I certainly do,” Meg said listlessly. “Celestia volunteered me to watch all the episodes of MLP with him, to answer his questions and hope he spills something about how he broke out of Tartarus.” She found a cushion and moved it next to her husband and sat down. “That’s dozens of hours of quality time with him.”

Pinkie perked up. “Maybe the big meanie knows the encryption key to your message?”

To her shock, Meg couldn’t reject that possibility. It wasn’t that Tirek knew he had the key, but maybe the key was something he knew, like lyrics to his favorite Minoan song. Time loops seemed to be full of crap like that. “Well,” she conceded, “guessing keys at random sure ain’t working.”

Pinkie was oddly focused on her. “Maaaybe you haven’t tried enough of them?”

“Pinkie, I tried I don’t know how many millions, billions of them. Cracking our encryption that way just doesn’t work. The set of possible keys might as well be infinite.”

“Maaaybe you need a super duper random key?”

Meg blankly stared back. “A super duper random key.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

Author's Note

Spoilers if you can successfully decrypt this :pinkiegasp:

cb 01 58 73 29 fb dc 88 fe af 60 47 4d 36 f1 e9
15 b6 ec 9b e1 12 d3 e2 79 18 ea ae 4b e1 91 79
43 a3 5f be ff f3 56 35 dd 7b 6a 7e 4d 9d f5 2a
05 9b 47 3a bb 5b 3d 37 eb ef 01 3f da 02 f7 9c
3d cb 79 a1 64 76 d8 81 0f 5f fd 62 5e 59 61 5e
7d 7c 18 0d 28 52 e4 cb de 8b d5 6c c4 38 65 fe
54 70 6f 37 6d 0a 71 cd 62 16 7d dd 88 ce bd 73
50 78 11 9b 5a 61 2d 61 c0 0f 64 91 be c2 32 c3
72 01 11 93 ea e9 95 8f e7 58 bd 18 90 5a fe ef
07 c1 66 03 a9 19 5d 02 b8 6e 15 87 de c2 41 d0
31 95 0e b0 7e ca 2c ca a5 09 48 0f b3 97 55 8d
aa a4 7c f6 63 96 8c 67 8e c9 e7 67 7d 91 b2 f0
b7 b0 a2 43 b8 ff ba a6 cc 29 a6 fa 0e 19 f1 dd
38 6a bb fe 00 f7 15 57 07 ed 32 95 b6 69 9a c7
1c cd 4a 8a fc 1b 97 88 b7 4a fa 1a 45 8a ce 80
67 60 c9 1f de 74 2b 01 81 a3 cf 15 a3 61 5c 2e
cb 1a 1d bc 0a cb c2 58 9e 1e 25 3a 66 10 a8 c5
09 e8 48 e2 12 76 9c cd 23 10 3d 45 5d de 21 c6
e2 6b a7 1b 3b d7 ca fb 3e 59 4c 2b f6 8f e6 e7
d9 e7 e2 55 65 f6 5e 57 2a 03 cd 51 61 ad 7d bb
5b 74 0c 5b 79 62 d6 93 ab 46 7f 11 00 10 7d c1
37 48 fe cb 08 18 ad 20 83 be 81 c3 6c 59 16 c0
b4 1c 39 a9 93 83 40 26 75 f0 0b 2f 42 fa 1b 85
9e 8e d7 23 40 37 34 d8 27 54 f7 b4 e6 54 5d 26
ba d6 de eb 5d 6f c2 52 c4 53 c1 31 c3 da fd 84
ee ba fb f8 26 eb 16 9a 65 27 f3 95 17 98 e1 ba
db 77 fa 89 80 49 bf 08 dc 3d b0 24 3b 00 a1 7d
72 26 52 e6 e9 fc 0e 00 3c c5 4c 2d 18 3a 86 80
86 b1 95 68 35 cc 49 42 8a 39 11 ea e9 1a 8a f6
9f fa 44 5e 5b 25 67 b5 6b 5f 68 90 ed d3 5f d5
5d 77 43 1c 83 40 a8 b0 d8 63 3b 65 96 9e b4 58
96 a4 6d 78 cc 96 b1 17 23 65 92 4a 92 69 2e e7
6e 81 16 59 49 11 78 9e 16 fd e6 13 12 4d 04 ce
55 83 40 0b c4 bd d5 79 a6 84 c4 1d 30 58 ba 50
b1 95 44 73 07 5e e9 f9 fa b9 78 33 c8 e1 ab 68
dd da 6d dd 59 49 68 18 14 da 0e 68 d0 40 dd 44
df 6b a8 9e 55 0c 9c cb e1 e5 f2 9c 40 92 f1 42
4a a4 6e 5e 63 cf d1 66 ce 2b 89 e6 7c 57 eb 91
b4 a8 1a f5 90 3f 59 54 d3 4c 7c 26 8e e4 13 96

33. Random Is as Random Does

The morning traffic was infuriating. Maybe she shouldn’t have picked a library dozens of miles away, but Meg was determined to use a computer that had never been exposed to magic. So not only could she not use her own computers, or the computers at work, but she couldn’t use any computer that had been inside the giant magic bubble that had surrounded her Pinkie Pie doll a year ago.

And speaking of the pink pony, Pinkie Pie had said to use “super duper” random numbers. At first, that didn’t seem to make sense. She had been using the best random number generators known to computer science. The problem, though, is that those were technically pseudo-random, as were all software-based random number generators. Eventually, they all repeated. The best simply took a ludicrously long time to do so. And even those needed a seed to start with; how random was that?

To go truly random, one needed a hardware-based generator. But were those reliably random?

Then it had hit her. There was just one, unimpeachable source of randomness: quantum mechanics. And after a little bit of searching on the internet, she discovered that there were quantum mechanical random number generators, and that there were websites that live-streamed those random numbers.

Perfect.

Perhaps she was being paranoid by avoiding any possibility of magical interference with her acquisition of super duper random numbers—not in generating them, not in transmitting them, and not in displaying them. Zero possibility. Twilight had certainly thought so. It also ruled out having a certain pony tag along on this trip who very much wanted to come along.

Meg had been adamant. Random numbers influenced by magic were not truly random, much less “super duper” random. The only way to ensure that no such influence could happen was by excluding magic.

Naturally, Twilight had found a loophole; the passenger seat next to her was occupied by a human—and quite magic-less—Sunset Shimmer. At least as magic-free as Meg herself was as a human. Not much she could about that.

After far too many traffic jams and red lights, they finally arrived at the chosen library. Once inside, it didn’t take Meg long to find the public internet access computers. Sunset did her best to keep up with Meg as she raced towards the nearest available computer.

Meg plopped down into the chair. A web browser was already open. She barely looked at the webpage it was displaying—about some rising pop musician—before opening a new tab and, from a slip of paper, typed in the URL of the quantum mechanical random number generator.

“Not much to look at,” Sunset said.

And it wasn’t. White text on a black background, mostly, and some pictures of the hardware they used. “I don’t care how it looks.” It belonged to the physics department of a university; HTML wasn’t their speciality. Meg had already visited the page, so she knew what to look for. “There. Live numbers.”

She clicked it. A submenu appeared. She clicked “live streams.” Another submenu appeared. She chose “hex.”

A new page loaded, nearly completely black. Meg read the text for Sunset’s benefit: “These numbers are streamed live from the lab.” A series of hexadecimal numbers was already streaming onto the page. Sixty-four were all she needed, maybe only thirty-two. She clicked “stop” once she had enough. Taking out her phone, she snapped a picture.

“That’s it?” Sunset asked.

Meg verified that the numbers were readable in the photo. “That’s it. We’re done.” And if this worked, that meant the time loop’s wave function was now a superposition of 2256 possibilities of presumably equal amplitude. It was an unimaginably huge number, and one that ignored whatever other superpositions there might have been in progress. Fortunately, that was the universe’s problem, not hers.

“I mean, how are those numbers even generated?”

As much as she wanted to get home and try out the super duper random number as the encryption key, she navigated to the website’s FAQ and pointed at the relevant question and answer. “Their device measures quantum fluctuations of the vacuum. They can produce billions of random bits per second. There’s a published paper on what they’re doing, if you’re really interested.”

Her patience having run out, Meg closed the tab and stood up. “Let’s go.”

It took nearly an hour to drive home. Frustrating as that was, it wasn’t as if those random numbers had an expiration date on them. She’d have to think of some way of preserving them until they could be used to encrypt the message in the future.

Assuming they were the encryption key.

She’d know soon enough.

She pulled into her parking spot. With Sunset Shimmer right behind her, she ran to her apartment, unlocked the door, and went inside.

Twilight was already there. That wasn’t unexpected. Agent Fowler was also there, which caused Meg to curse herself. “Sorry, it completely slipped my mind.” Twilight must’ve let her in.

The agent waved it off. “If you think you’ve got the encryption key, no problem.”

She’d rather read the unencrypted message privately, but did it really matter? It wasn’t as if she could keep the decryption a secret forever. “Let’s find out,” she said as she hurried to her computer.

Once there, she got her phone out, brought up the photo, enlarged it so the hex digits were readable, sat down, and put it aside. The computer was next; she woke it up, unlocked it, and brought up a terminal window.

And hesitated.

There were a quite a bit more than sixty four hex digits in the photo. Which ones to use?

“Is there a problem?” Twilight asked.

Did it matter which ones? They were all “super duper” random. If this was even remotely the right track, it didn’t matter which ones she used. Whatever she picked would work.

She decided to use the first sixty four digits.

“No problem,” she said as she rested her hands on the keyboard. She began typing the decryption command: openssl enc -d -AES256 -in encrypted -out unencrypted -K. Now for the key. She handed the phone to Fowler. “Read the first sixty four digits.”

Fowler did so, and Meg typed it in: 42 41 53 ea 19 f6 98 e1 1d ab d6 e8 47 a9 13 4c c7 df 40 f6 7e 39 0c 9a 9e f3 ea 2a 08 d1 43 f3. Though Fowler paused after every byte, no spaces were typed in.

Meg hit enter.

An error came back: iv undefined.

“I keep forgetting the initialization vector.” An eye roll. “Should default to zero if you ask me.” She repeated the command, by first hitting the up arrow, but then adding -iv 0 to the end.

There was no error—but that didn’t mean it had actually worked. The file unencrypted either had a readable message, or, as had always been the case before, it had more binary garbage. If the latter, she’d try half of the digits as a 128-bit key. Twilight, Fowler, and Sunset crowded behind her.

Meg typed the command cat unencrypted and hit enter.

Meg, I'll get to the point. Meet me in the most secure place you know of; you know what I mean. Only Discord may accompany you, for obvious reasons. Some of your questions shall be answered, but others shall not. You know the drill. As the 'super duper' random key worked, you know this is a time loop, so let me restate the above: it is a *fact* that only you and Discord arrive to this meeting. I know you are reading this, Twilight, so don't even think it. I also know Agent Fowler is reading this; you'll just have to deal with Serrell learning about the time travel that's been going on. That's all for now.

Meg stared at the screen, speechless.

“One of these days,” Twilight muttered, “I’ll figure out how Pinkie does it.”

“There’s time travel going on?”

Fowler was looking at her. “No offense, Jessica, but I don’t need this right now. I’m sure Serrell will have many questions, and it sounds like we’re expected to answer them, but…” Meg gave an exasperated sigh. “That’s a problem for Future Meg.”

Sunset kept her eyes on the decrypted text. “It says where, but not when. That’s an odd omission.”

“Not really,” Twilight said. “Just like we’ll pass on the encryption key, we’ll also pass on when the meeting took place. Basically, it takes place whenever Meg decides to show up.”

“Or whenever Discord decides to help,” Meg muttered. “He may not have a choice as to whether to help, but he sure as hell has a choice as to when.”

Twilight closed her eyes in thought. “That… might not be an accident—not setting a time, that is. That makes the meeting time unconstrained, part of the superposition.”

Fowler grabbed her head with both hands. “Could someone please throw me a bone here? I’m sure that time travel has rules, so, like, what are they? Can the past be changed, can you kill your grandparents—I mean, time travel is actually possible?”

It looked like Future Meg has become Present Meg. The sooner she became Past Meg, the better. Bowing to the inevitable, she began to explain. “The past is immutable. We used time travel to witness Susie’s kidnapping—that was the ‘magic’ we used to record that video—but we couldn’t prevent it.”

Twilight chimed in. “We’ve conducted experiments that tried to alter the past, to create a paradox, and every time we failed. Either the time travel spell didn’t work, or it did work but something gets in the way of changing the past.”

“And this meeting… you’ll be meeting someone from the future, it sounds like?”

Meg looked into the bewildered agent’s eyes. “Sure sounds like it.”

“But it takes place now, in our present?—I mean, it’ll be our present when it does take place?”

“Yep.”

“But wouldn’t our present be their immutable past?”

“You got it.”

“If… if they know the meeting time, it’s part of their immutable past, so how can it be unconstrained? You’re making it sound like you—or Discord—have a choice.”

Meg choose her words carefully. “It’s not so much a… choice, but rather… nondeterministic. You can thank quantum mechanics for that.”

Fowler had nothing to say to that.

“It’s how paradoxes are avoided. They would cause destructive interference in the wave function, resulting in an amplitude of zero. They’re simply forbidden.” Meg shrugged. “There are actual physics papers published on it.”

Fowler still said nothing.

“Believe me,” Meg added. “It’s a lot less fun in real life than it sounds.”

“A lot less,” Twilight added.

“How am I going to explain this to the President?”

Meg had a ready answer. “You know that old sci-fi trope of time traveling to kill Hitler as a baby? Totally pointless to attempt that.”

Fowler grimaced. “It’s a start I guess.” She re-read the message. “Who do you think you’ll be meeting? Is that ‘unconstrained’ as well?”

“I doubt it.” If Meg had to bet, she’d bet on a literal Future Meg showing up. Who else would know the encryption key, would know who was present when she had decrypted the message, or would know when the meeting would take place? Anyone I will tell, stupid. The argument against it being her future self was obvious: it’d be fuel for the mother of all temporal paradoxes.

But paradoxes were quantum mechanically forbidden, right?

“And the location?” Fowler asked. “What’s the most secure place you know of?”

A fact known only to those present when she uttered that phrase—or anyone she told in the future. “Hyperspace,” Meg said. “Outside of any universe. No one to eavesdrop.” Certainly not any magic-less humans. And as for that professional eavesdropper, Discord, he’d have to be present anyway.

Fowler stepped back and turned away. “I’m gonna have to sleep on this.” She groaned. “After I write my report.”

“Sorry,” Meg said, genuinely sympathetic. “If it makes you feel any better, at least you haven’t been doing time travel. We weren’t joking about it not being fun.” And she hadn’t even mentioned the predestination paradoxes—which, unfortunately, were due to constructive wave function interference, and hence the opposite of forbidden. Those were as not-fun as you could get.

“Not really.” The agent turned back. “We need to get going. We’re behind schedule as it is.”

Meg and Agent Fowler stepped off the elevator. “We have the entire floor booked, or it will be by the time Castaway returns,” the agent said as she turned left. Castaway was the Secret Service code name for Tirek.

Who came up with these code names anyway? Was there a dedicated bureaucracy? That word didn’t really describe him very well. It’s not like he fell off a boat and washed up on an island—which was, Meg guessed, as good an argument as any in favor of it being a bureaucracy.

“The entire floor?” she asked. That was a lot of rooms. Surely there wouldn’t be enough agents to fill them all.

“Most of them will go empty, but it makes it much easier to secure. You can use one of them, if it’s convenient.”

And be within walking distance of Tirek? “I doubt that’ll be necessary.”

They continued walking. Booking the entire floor must’ve cost an arm and a leg. While it wasn’t the top floor, it was far from the bottom, and it was one of the fancier hotels in the south bay. It was about as “fit for a prince” as one was going to get in this town, which granted wasn’t saying much—notwithstanding what “Castaway” had been told in his Tartarus cell.

Their destination was at the end of the corridor. Fowler swiped a card through the door lock and opened it, waving Meg through. She looked around as she entered. A two bedroom suite—two, really?—full kitchen, large flat-screen TV, fancy ceramic tile flooring that looked like hardwood, plush furniture, potted plants, totally out of her price range. Was every room on this floor like this? Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to spend a night or two here.

If she didn’t mind being a short walk from Tirek.

Meg sat down in an overly plush reclining chair. “Maybe it’s not as large as the palace at Knossos, but I can’t imagine he’ll find much to dislike about modern luxury.”

Fowler sat down on the sofa across from her. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. It’ll sure be interesting, if nothing else. By the way, do we know yet what will happen when Tirek is made human again—I mean, he won’t be naked, will he? On television?”

“Not really.” That possibility had been taken into consideration. “His clothes at the time the poison joke changed him might return, or maybe they won’t because the transformation became irreversible so long ago. Twilight has no idea. Fortunately, Rarity took that into account. Tirek will be wearing the same outfit he wore during the press conference, and that outfit was designed to be wearable by a human, sorta like a toga. Just need to detach the part that winds up on the ground behind him. Twilight’s sure she can exclude that outfit from the isomorphic mapping spell, so it won’t be going anywhere.”

“Isomorphic mapping spell? That’s what it’s called?”

“That’s what she called it when she used it on me and Steve. Better than calling it ‘that Breezie spell,” I guess.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Any idea yet what you’ll be doing at his release?”

“Other than being seen next to a changeling impersonating me? I hope that’s all I’ll be doing, quite bluntly.”

“It was, uh, never mentioned where you got the changeling…”

“Not from Chrysalis. That’s all I can say, unfortunately. Bit of a sensitive subject. I’m sure you can understand.”

“But that changeling won’t be returning with us, right? Just making sure there hasn’t been a change of plans.”

“Nope, it’s staying in Equestria. We don’t know if changelings can even survive in our universe, and this one has not volunteered to be a guinea pig.” Meg smiled. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

“For now anyway.” Fowler checked her phone. “What did Twilight mean when she mentioned Pinkie Pie? Please don’t tell me she came up with that key!”

“No, she didn’t come up with the key.” Apparently, Twilight didn’t give Fowler the whole story. Meg couldn’t see any reason to hold back the details. They seemed harmless enough. “All Pinkie Pie told me was that I needed to use a ‘super duper random key.’”

Fowler blinked. Several times. “That’s it? Was… that one of her hunches?”

“You got it. She said it was ‘just a hunch.’ But the way she was looking at me. Really focused. It was weird.”

Fowler leaned back. “Can’t look a gift horse in the mouth—uh… excuse the…”

“It’s appropriate.”

“Right. So, what do you think she meant? Try random keys? I mean, surely you’ve tried that?”

“Yep, been doing that. Until now it hasn’t worked. No reason it ought to have worked.”

“No, of course not. So you were using the wrong random number generator? She did say ‘super duper random.’”

“Yes, she did say that.” Meg didn’t feel like giving a lecture on the subject, but if she didn’t give it now, to Fowler, she’d probably have to give one to Serrell himself. It wasn’t hard to figure out who would find it easier to understand. “Software can’t really generate random numbers, only pseudo-random numbers. They all repeat eventually.” Meg got up and walked to the kitchen. “So none of them are truly random, never mind ‘super duper’ random.” The appliances were all much nicer than what her apartment had.

“So, hardware?”

Meg looked inside the refrigerator. It was empty. “Quantum mechanics. It’s the only unimpeachable source of randomness. I got the key from a website that live-streamed numbers generated from quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.”

Fowler stood up. “But why would that happen to produce the correct key? The odds are still infinitesimal.”

Meg sighed. “Because it’s a time loop. The random bits, being quantum mechanically generated, form a superposition. That superposition of the wave function includes every possible key. One of them gets picked when the wave function collapses, but which one gets picked doesn’t matter. Not if it gets sent back in time in the form of an encrypted message. I simply save the key so that it could be used to encrypt the message in the future.”

A thought occurred to her. Why not save the message too, so that it wouldn’t need to be written in the future? Hell, save the encrypted message, so there’d be no need to save the encryption key. After all, that message would get written anyway, one way or the other, so why not save the bother of encrypting it?

It made her head hurt.

Fowler joined her in the kitchen. “That still doesn’t explain how Pinkie knew this would work.”

There was only one thing to say to that: “Because she’s Pinkie Pie.”

Meg and Agent Fowler walked down the eerily deserted hallway of the convention center. Posters and signs from the previous convention just ended had yet to be taken down. Meg pointed to a room up ahead. “This one is about the right size for a modest birthday party. I know it’s off a main hallway, but perhaps that’s a good thing—you know, hiding in plain sight. Don’t forget that Twilight can magically secure the room.”

“Let’s take a look inside,” Fowler said, not committing to anything.

They stopped in front of the closed door to the room. Meg opened it and held it open for the agent, and she followed her inside.

It was the typical nondescript conference room. Rows of uncomfortable chairs were laid out, all facing a long table at the front of the room. “Not sure what to do about the chairs,” Meg said. “We need them here for the other events that’d be scheduled for this room. I guess I can ask Twilight if she could teleport them all to her castle when we set up for the party, then teleport them back afterwards.”

“What about the party decorations.” Fowler raised an eyebrow. “Would I finally get to see Pinkie’s party cannon in action?”

“That...” Meg tilted her head back and forth. “Hasn’t been decided yet. Twilight wants to investigate the magic of that cannon first.”

“Probably wise,” Fowler said. “And the other candidate room?”

“Pretty much the same on the inside. Only difference is that it’s off the beaten path, at the end of a corridor.”

“Easier to secure, but harder for reinforcements to arrive if necessary.” The agent thought it over. “But maybe that doesn’t matter much, not with Twilight’s magic and her ability to evacuate everyone to her castle.”

“Magic certainly does make a difference.”

“Yeah, it sure does. Too bad it can’t help with Castaway. Are the princesses still adamant about that?”

“I’m afraid so. They won’t lift a hoof to protect him. Once he’s here, he’s our problem.”

“Guess I can’t blame them.”

“I’m not sure he’d accept their protection even if they offered it.”

Fowler waved it away. “They’re not, so it’s academic. Is it safe to say Castaway will make his appearance in the biggest room here?”

“You better believe it,” Meg said. “And do you have to keep calling him Castaway? There’s no one here but us.”

Agent Fowler shrugged. “It’s a Secret Service thing. You never know who might be listening.”

That seemed excessively paranoid. Even Discord couldn’t eavesdrop on them here. Probably. It wasn’t worth arguing about. “That’s our next stop.”

The night sky beckoned above Luna’s observatory, the telescope pointing at the one star vastly outshining the others. Twilight was currently looking through it, Luna next to her. Steve was off to the side, trying to study the star via his own magic. “I’m not really getting a clearer picture,” he said. “I’m not sure it’ll make much of a difference no matter how much closer it gets. I mean, magic is your special talent, not mine.”

Twilight pulled back from the eyepiece, frowning. “Unfortunately, it’s your special talent that’s letting you sense anything at all at this distance. Luna’s modification of the spell doesn’t do anything for me.”

“That was not its purpose,” Luna said.

Twilight’s head sagged. “I know.” She attached the spectroscope she had constructed, following the design principles she had acquired from the human version. “But we seem to be stuck. Steve can sense the magic, but can’t dissect it the way I can; while I can dissect it, but I can’t sense it at this distance.”

The device was attached. It was surprisingly simple, little more than a piece of glass in the appropriate shape. Ponies knew that a prism could spread light out into a rainbow, but they had never suspected that scientifically useful information resided in that rainbow. It was from human science that Twilight had learned of spectral lines and how they could reveal the makeup of light sources. Those lines were rather thin and easily blurred. The trick was in making the prism’s shape precise enough and its composition uniform enough to render the lines sharp and clear.

For now, a sheet of white paper would reveal the lines to their eyes. Twilight moved it into place. The sheet reflected the expected rainbow of colors, but no lines. They had tested it against the light from a candle flame, so it ought to work, but it was a bit tricky getting everything lined up properly.

“What if we could get right next to a star?” Steve asked.

Twilight rolled her eyes, as she continued to fuss with the setup. “Well, sure, but we can’t.” Lines still refused to appear. Was it because there truly were none? Or were they being blurred out of existence?

“Maybe we can.”

“Truly?” Luna asked, intrigued.

“I’ve been thinking about it. We can use the time travel spell, except instead of traveling a few years into the past, we travel a few million miles into space. We just go in a different direction, spatial instead of temporal. We still need a force field to keep the air in once we arrive, of course, but it’d be little different than the one needed for the trip itself. Sure, there’s also the small matter of escaping the planet’s gravitational field...” He shrugged. “But here in a realm where magic laughs at the conservation of energy, that really is a small matter.”

The two alicorns thought it over. “I doubt Discord would be interested in this particular trip,” Twilight said. She looked up at nothing in particular. “Would you?”

There was no answer. There rarely was. Did he really eavesdrop as much as everypony thought he did? “But we’re not traveling anywhere near as far, if I understand this correctly, so we probably don’t need his magical assistance.”

Luna broke out in a smile. “I would be happy to assist, for I also desire to examine a star up close.”

34. It's About Time

“Meg, do we really need to have that on?”

The pegasus shuffled her wings in annoyance as she tossed her brother an annoyed glance before returning her eyes to CNN. “It’ll start any minute,” she said. The sound was off, in concession to Matt, but a pair of lecterns adorned with the presidential seal filled the screen. On either side were the flags of the United States and the Griffon Empire. It was to be held in the White House Rose Garden.

Lori came to her defense. “You have to be a little bit curious,” she told her husband, “about what they’ll say.”

“Not that curious,” he grumbled. “It’s not as if it won’t be repeated endlessly for days.”

Tiny hooves, accompanied by shouting, scampered across the ceiling.

“I’ll take care of that,” Rarity said. She got up, startling her cat, and daintily lowered herself to the hardwood floor.

Opalescence hissed in annoyance.

“Behave yourself. We are guests in this home.” The unicorn addressed her hosts. “I’m terribly sorry about that, but I assure you she’ll behave herself.”

More scampering of hooves.

She sighed dramatically. “And so will Sweetie Belle and her friends.” She glanced at the TV. “I do hope they don’t start before I return.”

“We’ll pause it if they do,” Lori said.

“It’s quite amazing you can do that.” Rarity headed for the stairs.

Meg waited for her to get out of earshot before saying anything. “I sometimes wonder who’s in greater denial: Rarity about Opalescence or Fluttershy about Angel Bunny.”

The cat in question made a point of ignoring them, occupying herself with licking a paw.

“We agreed to having the Crusaders visit Susie,” Matt said. He sullenly considered the cat. “Not run an experiment.”

“It’s just a cat,” Meg stated, as if that rationalized everything.

And Opalescence was just a cat. Her DNA had been checked. There was nothing to distinguish it from earthly cats. The same was true of Angel Bunny; he was genetically indistinguishable from earthly rabbits. So how were they so—for lack of a better word—intelligent?

The obvious answer was magic. So what happened when they were put into a magic-less environment? Did magic allow them to form better brains, or did magic let those brains function better? Or maybe some of both?

At least it didn’t involve time loops and a message from the future. Discord hadn’t seen fit to make himself available anyway. And was there really any urgency?

Matt shook his head. “At least she’s not a certain rabbit.”

Meg couldn’t agree more. And as somepony was needed to keep the CMC on a short leash, and Rarity was a logical choice, and she was available, and she had a suitable pet…

“Why aren’t you using your new pendant?” Lori suddenly asked. “I get it, that you have to be a pony to bring others with you to our house, but do you have to remain a pony now that you’re here?”

Meg touched her pendant with a hoof. This time it hadn’t stop her transformation to a human; swallowing the plaid pill did that. “Actually, I do. That kind of magic doesn’t work in our universe.” She glanced at the TV. There was a panel discussing whatever, while the waiting lecterns occupied a corner of the screen.

Opalescence yawned, then threw an accusatory look at Meg.

“What?” she rhetorically asked. Magic or no magic, it certainly didn’t affect that cat’s behavior. But was the lack of magic making her less intelligent?

The cat resumed licking a paw.

Quite honestly, a cat may not have been the best choice. As much as she hated to admit it, Angel would have been a better subject. Hell, Tank would have been a better subject.

The sounds of soft hoof clops returned. As before, Rarity used telekinesis to gracefully assist herself up onto the sofa. Opalescence deigned to return to the unicorn’s side. “Miss me?” she cooed. As compensation she petted her, which the cat dutifully tolerated.

One thing was certain: Opalescence gave no indication that she noticed entering or leaving Rarity’s magic bubble. But would the cat notice a change in her own intelligence, if such a change was in fact happening?

The lectern and flags filled the entire screen. Two persons were carrying a sizable box made of wood over to the lectern nearest the griffon flag. “Maybe it’s about to start?” Lori asked. She unmuted the TV.

“—just the right size to elevate the griffon ambassador to the microphone.”

“Shouldn’t it have been in place before now?”

“Maybe they just finished nailing it together? It’s not like they’d have something like this lying around.”

“It still shows a lack of planning—”

Lori muted the TV and looked towards Meg. “Any inside info about that?”

“Not in the loop on this one. All I know is that Twilight brought the Ambassador and a few other griffons to the White House yesterday, left them some magic generators, then quickly departed. This doesn’t involve ponies, and the griffons want it that way.”

“No plaid pills?” Matt asked.

“I’m afraid not, darling. That’s still on a need-to-know basis; and besides, those pills wouldn’t last even a full day, never mind two.”

Matt looked confused. “So… they switch over to magic generators when their magic runs out?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Meg said. “The failsafe kicks in, and you return to Equestria.”

“Really? How come you’ve never mentioned that before?”

“I had no reason to? I mean, I’ve never experienced the failsafe myself.”

“Nor I.” Rarity tilted her head in thought. “Though I do believe Rainbow Dash once did.”

“She did?” Lori asked. “How’d she manage that?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “By chasing a commercial jet as it headed out over the ocean. She ran out of magic long before it reached cruising altitude.”

“She can fly that fast?” Matt asked incredulously.

“I’m sure the plane was nowhere near cruising speed, but yeah I believe it. No idea what her top speed is, or whether it’s the same here as in Equestria. Maybe we should properly measure it someday.”

Rarity gave a smile that definitely was not a smirk. “You wouldn’t have to ask her twice.”

“I bet,” Meg said, “and with a nuclear-powered magic generator, she won’t have any problem hitting her top speed.” Her head tilted in thought. “Pretty sure a sonic rainboom is still not an option, though, not in our universe.”

“A nuclear-powered Rainbow Dash,” Matt muttered. “Just what the world needs.”

Lori shushed him as she unmuted the TV again. President Serrell and Ambassador Gosswell had emerged from the White House and were walking to their lecterns. Upon reaching them, Gosswell briefly flapped his wings to get on top of the wooden box. They briefly posed for photographs.

“I wonder if there’re any pony or griffon reporters present,” Lori mused.

“Pretty sure there aren’t any,” Meg said. “Some day, I suppose. It’s only a matter of time.”

President Serrell adjusted his microphone. “With all the attention on ponies recently,” he began, “it is important to remember that Equestria is not the only nation in our sibling universe. These past two days with Ambassador Gosswell have been quite productive. I’m pleased to announce that we have started down the long road to establishing formal relations with the Griffon Empire.”

He looked to the ambassador.

“Unfortunately, it will indeed be a long road,” the griffon said. “Not due to lack of interest on either side, but simply because travel between our worlds is so limited—doubly so for us, as the means of such travel are exclusively in the possession of Equestria.

“However…” The griffon swung a talon back to the building. “As a token of goodwill, I offer this gift to your great nation.”

The doors opened and another griffon emerged, pushing a dolly. On it was a sizable cage, and in that cage was a strange bird—quite a large bird too, standing about three feet tall. Its wings seemed too small; did it use flight magic? Its beak was long and bulbous. Quite honestly, it wasn’t a terribly attractive looking bird. Just as well the camera didn’t or couldn’t zoom in on it.

The caged bird was rolled between the two lecterns. It seemed utterly unconcerned about its situation, just mindlessly standing there, idly surveying its surroundings. The griffon who had delivered it returned inside.

“I present the dodo, a bird which—though extinct in this world—lives on in a territory of our empire.”

Dozens of photos were snapped, to the complete disinterest of the bird.

“How do we even know that’s really a dodo?” Matt asked.

“DNA testing?” Meg said. “I’m sure there’re suitable fossils in some museum somewhere. It’s not like it went extinct millions of years ago.”

“Sure acts like the proverbial dodo,” Lori said.

Serrell had been making a show of inspecting the bird, accompanied by the sounds of camera shutters. Meg found it unlikely this was the first time he’d seen it. The griffons must’ve brought it with them, which meant… “I wonder how they knew it had gone extinct here?”

“I believe Twilight told them,” Rarity said, “and suggested this gesture of goodwill. I, myself, had no idea that the dodo existed in either realm.”

The bookhorse had clearly been putting her internet connection to good use.

The President returned to his lectern. “We shall treasure this bird, Ambassador. One day, it may be possible to repopulate the islands where the dodo once thrived.” He faced the cameras. “Of course, the dodo isn’t the only species to have suffered extinction at the hands of humanity. Who knows how many others still exist in that other world?

“We’ll take a few questions.”

That was unusually short for a joint speech, Meg thought. Did they really have that little to say in public?

“Any wagers on how long before they ask Gosswell about the cartoon?” Matt asked, to disapproving faces. “You know they all saw 60 Minutes.”

The first question was asked: “This is for the Ambassador. How did you know about the extinction of the dodo in our world?”

“From Princess Twilight Sparkle, believe it or not. She thought it would help us make a good first impression, and I saw no reason to disagree. As to how she knew, you’d have to ask her.”

Rarity smiled, but said nothing.

“Also for the Ambassador. Would you be open to establishing relations with other nations, in addition to the United States?”

“Without question. The Griffon Empire has diplomatic relations with all the nations of our realm, and we would be open to diplomatic relations with all the nations in this one.” He paused for a second. “Though they would have to first admit we actually exist,” he deadpanned. He turned to address Serrell. “Hard to believe that’s still a problem.”

The President shrugged in response. “I believe you exist.”

A few too many seconds went by before the next question was asked.

“This question is for either of you. It had been mentioned that there were ’challenges’ that had to be overcome before proper relations could be established. Is the fact that the Ambassador is here evidence that they’ve been overcome?”

“That’s a clever way to phrase it,” Lori muttered.

“Indeed,” Rarity added.

“Partially,” the President finally said. “I’ll let the Ambassador speak for himself.”

There was the smallest crack in Gosswell’s demeanor. “The My Little Pony cartoon,” he said, getting those words out of the way. “It’s hard to believe such a thing is possible, but I’ve now seen it with my own eyes.”

He took a breath. “We believe that the Equestrians are taking the right approach in regards to that cartoon, and we shall be following their lead. They are far more impacted by it than us, after all. As for that Griffonstone episode…” The Ambassador rolled his eyes. “As offensively as it depicts griffon society, it is so ludicrously wrong that it lacks the power to outrage.”

Serrell held up his hand. “That’s all the time we have for questions.”

He and the Ambassador turned around and returned to the White House. A staffer pushed the dolly towards the journalists and away from the lecterns. “Please form a line to see the dodo,” he said. The bird cocked its head, unfazed by the latest developments.

An off-camera Anderson Cooper was giving a summary of what had just happened.

“That seemed to go well enough,” Rarity observed.

Meg had her doubts. “Don’t judge until the talking heads put their spin on it.”

“Do you really think the griffons will look at the Griffonstone episode that way, or was the Ambassador just saying that?” Lori asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” Rarity said. “I’m sure they’ll try to spin it that way. But if they’re truly following our lead, then the average griffon will no more know of that cartoon than the average pony—which is to say, not at all—for quite some time.”

“How do you feel about being in those cartoons?”

The unicorn gave her cat a smile. “I feel that it is not productive to dwell on that question.”

The video had switched to the CNN studio, with Anderson Cooper presiding over four seated commentators. “Any first impressions about what we just witnessed?” he asked.

“Well, the first question that must be asked is, quite simply, is that a real dodo? I mean, what are the odds that a different world would evolve an exact duplicate?”

“The dodo went extinct only a few centuries ago,” said the second panelist. “I’m sure a DNA sample could be acquired from a museum. We’ll know soon enough if it’s real.”

“Assume for now that it’s real,” Cooper said. “What then?”

“Then,” said the first panelist, “there’s only one way the griffons could have them. They visited our world centuries ago and helped themselves.”

“That’s ridiculous,” a third said. “They have no means of traveling to our world. Princess Twilight brought them over.”

The first waved that off. “So the ponies helped themselves to some dodos and for some reason they wound up in griffon territory. The point still remains: it simply isn’t credible that the dodo independently evolved on a different world.”

“It’s not just the dodo,” Cooper said. “I was there. I saw forests, farmland, birds… I have no idea if they’re the same species as exist in our world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Surely the ponies—or whoever—didn’t ‘help themselves’ to a proverbial Noah’s ark in order to populate a barren world.”

“Sounds like that dodo isn’t the only creature from which we should demand a DNA sample.”

A pit formed in Meg’s stomach. That DNA sequencing had happened months ago. How much longer before it all leaked, now that it had entered the public consciousness? Those samples included two from herself, one as a human and one as a pony.

The fourth panelist spoke up. “Then there’s the question of mythological creatures. How do we know about unicorns, pegasi, minotaurs, griffons, dragons, manticores, and the other creatures that exist only in their world?”

“I thought Tirek had made that perfectly clear,” Rarity said.

The first panelist grunted. “I’d love to see DNA samples from those creatures.”

The pit grew larger.

“What impact will this joint appearance have on the ongoing protests against Equestrians?” Cooper asked.

“Which protesters?” the third asked. “The ones convinced this is all a hoax? Or the ones convinced that ponies mean to conquer us?”

“I’d say the latter have new cause to demand impeachment,” the first said. “How can Serrell deal with the Equestrians while these new questions remain unanswered? How did they acquire dodos from our world? What else have they acquired?”

“I’m afraid I must agree,” said the second panelist. “I have little doubt that the Senate Judiciary Committee will reopen its investigation. Senator Routledge will see to that.” He shook his head. “Though I feel we should wait for DNA results before rushing to judgement.”

“Serrell is damned either way. Either DNA proves it’s a genuine dodo, in which case either the griffons or the ponies pilfered them from our world, or it’s not. In that case, they’re passing off a fake as the real thing.”

“Let’s switch subjects,” Cooper said. “An atomic clock had been on loan to the Equestrians for a few weeks, to measure gravitational time dilation on their world. Recently the results were announced. The one in Luna’s observatory, which I saw, ran about seven billionths of a second per day faster than the one down in Ponyville. Any reaction?”

Steve switched on the projector. On a makeshift screen played a washed-out video of a planet orbiting about its star due to the curvature of space-time. “Could somepony turn down the lights?”

A unicorn obliged, without bothering to get up off her cushion. The warped grid of space-time popped into clarity. Steve kept his attention on Arcane Scroll as he resumed his lecture.

“The mass of the central object warps the surrounding space-time. As a result, the orbiting object finds itself going around in circles, even though it’s traveling in the straightest possible line.”

There seemed to be a lot of skepticism—and Steve had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning “stars” and “planets” as it would have only confused matters.

One pony finally spoke up. “So… if you shine a light from that circling object, would the light also go around in a circle and hit the object from the other side?”

“Actually, no. To go around in a complete circle, the object would have to travel at precisely the right velocity. The larger the central mass, or the closer to it, the higher that velocity must be. The speed of light far exceeds that. The path of the light will curve, but only slightly.”

“Could that central mass be so large that even light would circle it?”

Steve smiled. “Yes. We call such objects ‘black holes,’ because their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape—though why light cannot escape is not as straightforward as it may seem.”

Another pony spoke up. “How can you say that the circling object is traveling in the straightest possible line when you just admitted that light would travel an even straighter line?”

“If we were talking about curved space, and not curved space-time, you would be right. Remember that all objects travel through space-time at the speed of light; what appear to be different velocities are actually different directions. This affects how the curvature is experienced.”

Arcane Scroll finally spoke up. “That… movie doesn’t make any sense. Yes, if you drop a heavy object onto a rubber sheet, it’ll form a depression as depicted, and a small ball traveling at the right velocity will circle the inside of that depression. But those things happen only because of gravity.” The professor fixed his eyes on the human. “Your explanation of how gravity works requires gravity to work.”

Steve leaned over his computer and stopped the playback. “You’re absolutely right, of course. It’s a terrible metaphor, but unfortunately it’s the best visual metaphor we have.”

That admission seemed to please the professor. “Then let’s dispense with it. I lift an object, then I drop it. It falls, picking up speed. Why?”

Steve spent a few seconds to come up with an explanation that didn’t require tensors. “Imagine we’re in empty space, where space-time is perfectly flat. We populate it with a collection of objects that, for now, do not warp space-time with their mass. They are at rest with respect to each other, all traveling in the same direction: the future. Their paths form parallel lines that will never meet.

“But objects do have mass, and they do warp space-time. They impose upon the surrounding space-time a positive curvature, like the surface of a sphere. If you try to draw parallel lines on a sphere, you’d find that they’ll eventually meet. That’s a property of positive curvature: parallel lines meet.

“In the case of a gravitational field, that curvature causes the paths of objects to deviate, away from the future and towards the center of their collective center of mass. We perceive that as the objects falling. This deviation causes a rotation of the objects’ frame of reference relative to an observer far away in empty space. But that’s how velocity is represented in space-time: as a rotation of one frame of reference with respect to another. The objects pick up speed as they fall.

“Now, the curvature of the space-time we’re in—right here, right now—is very slight. No measuring device is going to pick up the deviation from perfectly flat geometry. The reason that slight curvature is sufficient to produce the gravity we observe is because we’re following that curvature at the speed of light.

“But only when we are in free-fall do we travel through space-time in straight lines—at least, the straightest possible given the curvature. None of us in this room are in free-fall; the floor prevents us from falling. That floor is pushing back, accelerating us just enough to cancel out the change in velocity caused by the local space-time curvature. Ironically, even though we’re not apparently moving, our space-time paths are bent, deviating from straight lines.

Steve dramatically paused. “And then there’s light. What happens to light when we send it straight up? Any guesses?”

One of the younger mares volunteered an answer. “It slows down?—no, wait, it can’t slow down.”

Steve shook his head. “No. Light can only be observed as traveling at one speed; the space-time interval it traverses between emission and absorption is always exactly zero. Climbing out of a gravity well does not change that. But to a distant observer, light is affected. It shifts color, towards the red end of the spectrum, because red light has less energy than light of other colors.

“It’s easy to conclude that light loses energy as it climbs, just like an object slows down as it climbs. But losing energy is change, and change requires the passage of time, and light does not experience time. If it doesn’t experience the passage of time, then it cannot change; and if it cannot change, it cannot lose energy.

“So why does light that originates in a gravity well appear redder when observed outside that well?”

He scanned his audience. Nopony volunteered an answer.

“We recently conducted an experiment using atomic clocks. One was placed at the highest point in Canterlot, in Princess Luna’s observatory. The other was down below in Ponyville. What’s special about atomic clocks is their incredible precision. They drift by less than a nanosecond per day—that’s a billionth of a second.

“Upon arriving in Ponyville from my realm, the two clocks were synchronized. One then went to the observatory. The two clocks happily ticked away for over a week. Afterwards, the one up here was returned to Ponyville. Once they were again side by side, their times were compared.

“Raise your hoof if you think the clocks were still synchronized, having drifted apart by no more than what their inherent precision would permit.”

No hoof went up.

Steve smiled. “Good. You’re catching on. No, they were not synchronized. As to how much they had drifted apart, let’s go calculate that.”

He wrote the following equation on a blackboard:

\sqrt{1 - \frac{2m}{r}}

“What this equation computes is the amount by which time slows down due to gravity. It’s surprisingly simple. All you need to know is the mass of the object generating the gravity and the distance from its center.

“Now I know what you’re about to say: you can’t divide mass by distance. And that’s ordinarily true. But it turns out there’s a geometric interpretation to mass: it’s the radius at which that mass becomes a black hole, the point at which surface gravity becomes so high that not even light can escape.

“So what numbers do we plug in? Well, for my home world, we use zero point four four four for the mass, and six three seven one zero zero zero zero zero for the radius—that’s putting everything in centimeters. And doing the math, we get about seven-tenths of one-billionth. That is the factor by which time slows down.

“But we can’t measure that directly with just one clock. What we can do is to put two clocks at different altitudes and measure the difference in the flow of time due to the difference in heights. The observatory is about twenty-five hundred feet above Ponyville. Plugging in the numbers, we can predict that the Canterlot clock will gain about seven point two nanoseconds every day relative to the Ponyville clock.

“That, of course, assumes that this world has the same mass and size as my world.”

Steve paused, waiting for somepony to ask the obvious question.

“So… is it?”

The question asked, he provided the answer. “The observed gain was seven point one nanoseconds per day, within the margin of error. That implies our worlds are in fact the same size and mass. We can add that to the list of coincidences, I suppose. It also shows that General Relativity applies to this realm.

“Anyway, the reason gravity redshifts light is because it slows down time. If, for example, time runs ten percent slower, then light will have ten percent less energy, and that makes it redder. The observed redshift depends on the observer, of course. Somepony in that same gravity well, her clock also going ten percent slower, will not see any redshifting.”

Somepony raised a hoof.

“Yes,” he said, pointing at the stallion.

“Looking at that equation,” he began. “If the radius was smaller than twice the mass, you’d be taking a square root of a negative number.”

“Ah, yes. That hints at the weirdness of the interior of a black hole.” Steve noticed Princess Luna standing in the back of the hall. “And that will have to be the subject of a future talk. I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today.” He nodded to the princess.

The attendees looked back and saw Luna walking towards the front of the lecture hall. They quickly got to their hooves and briefly bowed.

“Professor Arcane Scroll, would you stay a moment? The rest of you may depart.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“We shall wait until the others have left.”

Steve remained where he was, already knowing his presence was also required, and idly watched the other ponies leave through the back of the hall.

Once the doors had closed after the last pony had left, Luna addressed the professor. “We are organizing a journey to a star, specifically the star I have brought as close as possible to our world. Accompanying me shall be Princess Twilight Sparkle. We would like to invite you to join us. Steve, here, shall also be accompanying us.”

As surprised as he was by the request, the stallion was outright shocked at hearing the human’s name. “How is such a trip possible?” he asked, not quite daring to gainsay the princess. “What would be the goal?”

“You wish to research the origins of our realm?” Luna asked. “We have reason to believe the stars may provide insight.”

The professor didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “Seriously?”

“Remember how this realm neither expands nor contracts?” Steve asked. “I’ve uncovered evidence the stars are responsible for that. I am certain they are magically manipulating this realm to keep the average energy density at just the right value to keep the size static.”

Arcane Scroll looked at Steve as if for the first time. “You’re a magic-less human… how?”

Luna stepped between them. “Before we can proceed further, you must first be informed of certain royal secrets.”

35. Diamonds Are Forever

Their destination blazed in the night sky, far outshining the other stars. Steve gazed at it from the balcony that looped around Luna’s observatory, his horn quiescent, as he and Luna waited for Twilight to arrive with the professor. His magic had revealed all it could reveal from this location, the highest point in Canterlot.

The light itself he was perceiving had revealed precious little additional information, mostly from what it lacked. Twilight had fashioned a spectroscopic attachment for the telescope. It wasn’t all that hard to do; it had simply never occurred to a pony to do it. They now knew that starlight lacked any spectral lines whatsoever. The spectrum perfectly fit the black body radiation curve of a white-hot object, yet it lacked evidence of the ionized plasma that ought to exist at that temperature.

Earthly science had no good answer for how a cold object could put out so much light, never mind light that had the spectrum of a hot object. Obviously magic was involved, but that was hardly news.

Maybe stars had no material substance at all.

They would find out soon enough.

Steve returned his gaze to the princess. Luna was about a dozen feet away, contemplating the city below. She had been that way since she had raised the moon a few minutes ago.

He looked down at the city himself. Pools of light outlined the three-dimensional, mountain-hugging shape of the capitol. It was a pleasing effect. He wished he could point it out to Meg, but his wife had her own cross to bear that evening, preparing that changeling to stand in for her pegasus self. Tirek’s release was coming up fast.

Not that she had any interest in participating in this venture, but that wouldn’t have prevented her from seeing them off.

The tapping sound of approaching hoofsteps attracted his attention. In the combined light of the moon and their destination, he made out Twilight coming around the curve. Behind her was Arcane Scroll.

Luna was walking towards Steve. “Nopony else shall be joining us?” she asked the professor.

“Maybe on future journeys, but not this time.” Arcane looked at the unfamiliar unicorn next to Luna. “Not in light of the royal secrets that must be kept.”

Twilight stepped forward. “This is Steve, as you probably guessed, as a unicorn. If you could turn to the side, Steve…” She waited until he had done so. “Note his cutie mark. His special talent is highly relevant.”

The professor studied the cutie mark, a grid with ripples emanating from its center. “Yes… represents waves in space-time, does it not?”

“I believe so, yes.” Steve turned around, to face forward again.

“And you never had a cutie mark prior to becoming a pony?”

“Nope. And I still don’t have one when I’m human.”

“I wonder… just because it’s not visible doesn’t mean it’s not there. We know that a cutie mark is a magical projection onto the coat. Without magic, there can be no projection, and humans do appear to lack magic even when in our realm.”

True that may all be, but almost certainly academic. “Unfortunately, becoming a cutie-mark-bearing magical pony does not grant me magic when I am once more human. It’s an interesting hypothesis, but not, so far as I can see, testable.”

“You are right, of course. One of my students scanned you in the first class you held, and he found not a trace of magic.” He gazed up into the sky, his eyes unavoidably drawn to the unusually close star. “My gut tells me your cutie mark goes latent, but still present. Alas, I can think of no way to prove it.”

Steve wasn’t sure if it made a difference one way or the other. There was no observable difference, which was the point.

“Cutie marks are a mystery for another day,” Luna said. She, too, looked up at the star. “Let us remained focused on this mystery. Any reason we should not depart now?”

Meg wandered about the Oval Office, sticking her muzzle into every nook and cranny. It wasn’t furnished the way she remembered; it was more like a composite of the office as it had existed under the last few presidents.

“So what do you think?” A. K. Yearling asked. The changeling next to the author was paying close attention to Meg, ready to study her response.

Meg stopped and turned to face the author. “Your next book?” It was the obvious inference. “You’re going to set it on our world?” That prank in the forest must have seemed too good an idea to pass up. Having a book set in the human world would be good for sales in both realms.

Green fire erupted over the changeling. “It is a world ripe for plundering,” proclaimed the archvillain Ahuizotl. “This office is but a stepping stone!”

“Spoilers?” Meg asked rhetorically. “Never mind. I’m sure Daring Do defeats you in the end.”

He leaned in to her, sneering. “Can you afford to take that risk?”

“Can it,” Yearling said. “We don’t want the agents seeing you like this.”

The changeling reverted back to its true form. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

Meg resumed walking around the mock Oval Office. “So how are you going to explain this to them, without letting them in on your little secret?”

“With a half-truth, obviously. By the time the book is published, this set will have been deconstructed, transported, and reconstructed in my casino, where it will serve to promote the book.” She trotted over to the bust of Winston Churchill and tapped it. “All this ain’t cheap to recreate. Gotta get my money’s worth out of it.”

Indeed. Even ignoring the book tie-in, an Oval Office replica would be good for business. After all, Presidential Libraries have within them an Oval Office replica. Meg completed her circuit. It was quite impressive, considering all the ponies had to work with were photos and whatever else they could find, she assumed, on the internet.

Twilight would’ve been more than happy to have helped with that—once the need had been justified with that half-truth.

Sunset Shimmer appeared on the Presidential Seal on the carpet in front of the desk, as had become standard procedure in the real Oval Office. They had all been avoiding that spot for just that reason. Standing behind the mare were Agents Fowler and Reubens.

The two agents slowly turned around, taking in the replica presidential office. “Not bad…” Reubens said. “All to promote your next book inside your casino, right?”

“That’s right,” Yearling confirmed.

Twilight must have told them—which confirmed Yearling had first told that to Twilight.

But wait… no reaction to the changeling? That’s why they were here, after all, to get first-hand experience with one.

Fowler was looking at her strangely. Before Meg could ask why, her eyes shifted elsewhere. Meg followed them, and saw another Meg. She suppressed a groan. “I’m the real Meg; that’s the changeling.”

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing.”

It was also doing a good job of mimicking her emotional state. But they could sense that directly, right?

Sunset shrugged. “You wanted to experience changelings first-hoof? Here you go.”

“We sure did.” Fowler walked around the two orchid pegasi. “You look exactly alike… you sound alike… act alike…” Her eyes locked on to something. “You’re both carrying phones. I’m guessing only one is real?”

“That phone,” Meg said, pointing a hoof, “is a fake.”

Her confidence wavered. Just because it was a changeling copy didn’t mean it couldn’t work—right? Could it work? Could they copy the CPU and other electronics?

Fowler lowered herself in front of the disguised changeling, holding out a hand. “May I inspect your phone?”

The changeling hesitated for damning seconds.

“I’m guessing you can’t separate from it?”

In an eruption of green flame, it resumed its true form. “Not… easily.”

Reubens nodded. “That’s certainly useful to know.”

Fowler got back up on her feet. “Yeah. Humans are rarely without something they could hand over.”

“Not everything we’re carrying is necessarily copied,” the changeling countered.

“True,” she admitted, “but driver’s licenses, credit cards, passports, and stuff like that would likely be copied. Acquiring the originals would necessarily introduce risks of its own. Still, that’s a valid point.”

Sunset took a seat on a sofa. “As interesting as this is, it’s largely academic. Here, in this realm, there are spells to expose changelings; what they are or are not carrying does not matter. In your realm, changeling shape-shifting cannot work due to the conservation of mass and energy, assuming changelings can function at all. And if they can, those detection spells will probably still work.”

“In other words,” Reubens said, as he took a seat on the other sofa, “we should focus on Tirek’s release from Tartarus.”

Meg took a seat next to Sunset. It was time to come up with her rationale for being there, alongside “Common Ground.”

The first long-range teleport completed. Twilight’s eyes remained closed while she quickly ran down her checklist, verifying that everything was nominal. There was still air, that much was obvious. A faux gravitational field provided a sense of “down.” Another spell created the illusion of a floor that prevented them from “falling.” Temperature appeared stable.

“Incredible…”

The alicorn finally opened her eyes, reacting to Arcane Scroll’s utterance. Below them, their planet hung suspended in the void, a sight never before witnessed by a pony. It shimmered in the moonlight. No part of the planet was currently exposed to sunlight.

Steve sighed. “Just as well Meg isn’t with us.”

“Why would that be?” Luna asked. “It looks remarkably similar to pictures I’ve seen of your world from space.”

“Exactly. Another similarity or coincidence. It’s something that’s been rubbing her the wrong way.”

Twilight scrutinized the continents. All the clouds made that difficult, never mind the lack of proper illumination, but Luna was right: they did seem to line up with Earth’s North and South America. Not exactly, and maybe that was due to the cloud cover, but it was close enough.

She knew that Earth’s continents were shaped by billions of years of plate tectonics, driven by mantle currents, which were themselves largely powered by radioactive decay in the core of the planet—decay that could not operate in her own realm. So by what means did her world acquire the same, or at least similar, continents?

“We should teleport as soon as possible,” Steve said. “We are falling, despite appearances.”

There was no sign of visible movement, but that was only due to the many thousands of miles that separated them from their home.

“Yeah.” Twilight focused on their destination and prepared the spell for the next teleport. This one would go much farther.

“I regret not bringing my camera,” the professor said.

Right! The teleport could wait a few more seconds. “I got one.” She got out her phone from a saddlebag and snapped a picture of her their world.

“That’s a camera?”

It was probably her imagination, but she could swear the planet was ever so slightly larger. “I’ll show you after we teleport again.”

She refocused on the nearest and brightest star and again prepared the spell. Without needing any prompting, Luna poured in power at the right moment.

A brief flicker, and the planet was now a marble. Stars surrounded them, no longer competing with the planet’s luminosity, such as it was .

As Twilight went through her checklist, Steve made an observation: “I don’t see the Sun or Moon.”

The Sun, obviously not; it was nighttime. The Moon… well, the planet was being illuminated by moonlight. “I never considered the possibility that they wouldn’t be visible out here, but I guess it makes sense. The objects themselves do not glow; they are the source of the magic that produces the light, all over the world.”

Luna nodded. “I believe you are correct, Twilight.”

Arcane Scroll shook his head. “Fascinating. Maybe we should some day pay a visit to those two objects.”

“So long as I have a return ticket,” Luna muttered. If anypony else had heard those words besides Twilight, they did a good job of hiding it.

“Perhaps if I could make a suggestion,” Yearling said. “While none of this is, strictly speaking, any of my concern, I am a professional storyteller.”

She was sitting behind the Resolute Desk. A replica Resolute Desk. A replica that she commissioned and paid for. It still seemed odd and a bit disrespectful, but what was the point in bringing that up? Meg shot a glance at the Secret Service agents. They didn’t seem to be offended. For all Meg knew, you could buy one on the internet. “I’m listening,” she said. Anything to make some forward progress.

The author rested her front legs on the desk. “It’s quite simple, really. Meg, as a representative of the convention, needs a point of contact with the Equestrians. Twilight’s too busy to be that contact, being a princess and all.” She waved a hoof, forestalling the obvious objection. “Yes, we all know she’s quite involved, but that’s not the story we want to paint here, and a princess delegating stuff like this has the virtue of being credible.”

When no one spoke up, Yearling continued. “So there needs to be a point of contact on the Equestrian side as well. That contact is the pegasus, ‘Common Ground,’ played by the changeling. When Tirek is released, both point of contacts will be present to represent their respective interests. That provides the rationale for you two to be seen together.”

Her eyes surveyed the room. “What do you all think?”

Meg waited for anyone else to comment first. No one did. “Works for me, I guess.”

The changeling was less certain. “But what if Tirek tries to talk to me? I still don’t know how to handle that!”

And that was the giant wild card. “I, myself, don’t know how to handle that,” Meg confessed.

“At least you have talked to him,” Sunset pointed out. “The changeling hasn’t.”

“And we can’t read thoughts, just emotions.” The changeling tilted its head. “And yours right now…”

“Just… stop.” Meg had a decision to make. “It’s complicated, okay?”

Sunset looked at her. “Complicated, how?”

Should she tell them, or not? The changeling would not be alone with Tirek. She couldn’t imagine the centaur—soon-to-be-former centaur—bringing up the subject of his Tartarus breakout. Not in front of everyone else. Even if asked by the media, what reason could he have to throw under the bus the pony who had helped him?

On the other hoof—she looked down at the appendages in question—this may be the best opportunity she’d have to inform Sunset Shimmer of her alleged role in that breakout.

Then there was the author… explorer… she wasn’t quite sure what that mare was anymore.

Yearling’s eyes were upon her.

Meg sighed. She’s kept our secrets so far… She really ought to get Twilight’s permission first, for it was a royal secret, but it had started out as her secret. And as long as Twilight trusted Yearling as well…

“Fine. What I’m about to say is not to leave this room—not without the say-so of a princess anyway.” She addressed the human agents. “Can you keep this from the President?”

Reubens answered with a question of his own: “Would this information affect our ability to protect Tirek, never mind affect the national security of the United States?”

“I… don’t think so.” And if it turned out it did, should she keep it from them? For better or for worse, Tirek was about to become humanity’s problem. Was it right to potentially endanger her world in order to—potentially—spare Equestria a certain amount of embarrassment? As for the time travel part, Serrell already knew about that and had no desire to let it go public.

“Assuming that’s the case, then the answer is yes.”

It would have to suffice. She gathered her nerve.

“When I first saw Tirek, in his cell, he recognized me, called me ‘Common Ground.’ He actually seemed happy to see me.”

She let that sink in.

Yearling smirked. “Okay, didn’t see that twist coming.”

“Time travel?” Fowler tentatively suggested.

Yearling tilted her head at that.

“Maybe. I don’t know. But it gets better. Apparently, I helped to break him out of Tartarus a few years ago.”

Sunset snorted. “That’s absurd. No offense, Meg, but what could you possibly do to break somepony out of Tartarus?”

“Oh, none taken. You’re absolutely right. Tirek initially thought I was there to break him out again.” She looked Sunset straight into her eyes. “Then he realized that couldn’t be the case, because you weren’t there.”

“How…”

“He mentioned you by name. Then Twilight, Elaine, and these two showed up, and suddenly that conversation never happened.”

“You did seem a bit rattled,” Reubens said.

“You’re only telling me this now?”

“What was I supposed to say? I don’t even know we’re the ones who’ll do it—did it! Maybe whoever did had implanted false memories. I dunno.”

Sunset wasn’t impressed. “You had yet to visit Equestria, and I was… elsewhere. Who could have known about us to impersonate us or implant memories of us?”

“Somepony from our future, obviously.” Yearling was enjoying this too much. “Once you admit time travel, almost anything is possible.”

“That’s the problem,” Meg muttered. She spoke louder. “But not every possibility has the same probability. I’m afraid the most likely possibilities call for our direct involvement. We might not want those other possibilities to be the reality. Luna reminded me of that, in my dream.”

Fowler gasped. “Luna’s been in your dreams?”

“The novelty wears off, trust me.”

Sunset was still skeptical. “So when do we allegedly go back to break him out?—never mind how.”

“Not a clue,” Meg said. “I’m hoping to get that information from him.” She turned to the changeling. “And now you know everything I know.”

The sole planet in the realm was a dim spot, barely distinguishable from the stars. One of those stars was almost painfully bright against the blackness of space. Their hops would become smaller, now that they were closing in on it.

“Shouldn’t we be seeing multiple images of everything as their light circumnavigated this realm?” Arcane Scroll asked. “I mean, if what you say about curved space-time is correct.”

“We would see multiple images,” Steve replied, “except the stars are absorbing the light before it can circle around to its point of origin. They’re creating the illusion of an infinite realm.”

“That’s one possible explanation.” The professor was polite enough—or possibly unsure enough—to mention other possible explanations.

For example: space was finite, as the realm-measuring spell proved, but flat. There would be an impassable boundary—at least, impassable to the realm-measuring spell. More data was needed; all could agree on that.

Which was why they were here. Steve cast his modified realm-measuring spell on the star before them. The feedback came quickly. “Just over a light-second away,” Steve said. Though by far the strongest feedback yet, he couldn’t make better sense of it. It was beyond his skill or innate talent. It was up to Twilight, Luna, and the professor, once they reached their destination.

Luna was perplexed. “Why would they absorb light when they emit light of their own?”

“I don’t know. Evidently, no photon of starlight can circle the realm before being eliminated by some star’s magic.” Quite honestly, so far as he could see, starlight was purely cosmetic. At first, he thought it might have been the flip side of destroying energy, to keep the average density at the critical value. But that would require the light output to vary over time; instead, the stars’ luminosity stayed constant. It couldn’t work anyway; as every photon emitted would vanish before it could circle the realm, the net energy added by starlight was zero.

Using one of several instruments she had brought along, Twilight measured the star’s luminosity. “It’s hard to be sure, not knowing our precise distance, but it does appear that its brightness is increasing a bit faster than the inverse square law would suggest.”

In hindsight, Steve realized, that should have been predicted. “That’s because the star’s magic consumes some fraction of all light passing through its extended neighborhood, even the light it itself emits.” He realized that even if the photons didn’t endlessly circle the realm, they would nonetheless impart a slight curvature to whatever region they passed through. Starlight might be more than cosmetic after all. It’d require further research.

“If that’s the case…” She closed her eyes and reached out with her magic, analyzing the ambient magic that surrounded them. “Yes… there’s definitely a spell at work here, diffuse and weak to be sure…”

“But presumably operating over an immense volume,” Arcane Scroll said, “thereby having a substantial cumulative effect.” He tried to analyze the magic himself. “I’m afraid it’s too weak for me. I can barely sense anything at all.”

“I cannot sense much either,” Luna said, “but then neither of us is the Element of Magic.”

Steve didn’t bother trying. He knew he was out of his league here.

“It’s not like I’m detecting much myself,” Twilight said. “Certainly not enough to get a feel for what the spell is doing.” She looked towards the star. “I’m sure the spells will get stronger as we get closer.”

Meg’s phone rang.

Everyone looked at it, most of all the changeling. Probably wants to improve its emulation of it, she thought. Maybe a changeling can impersonate an inanimate object, but she doubted it could ever functionally mimic modern human technology.

She didn’t recognized the number. It could go to voice-mail. Most likely a scammer anyway.

“If they call again, you should answer it,” Reubens said.

“Huh?”

“I gave them your number, as you have the only working phone in this realm.”

“Well, Sunset’s—” The phone rang again.

Same number.

She took the call.

“Hello, Meg?”

The voice was unfamiliar. “Yes?”

“Could you please give your phone to Agent Reubens?”

What else could she do? She looked towards Sunset Shimmer, holding up the limb with the phone. “Could you…?”

“Sure, no problem.” With her magic, she extracted the phone from its holder and floated it over to the agent.

“Agent Reubens here.”

Everyone patiently waited for the call to finish. It didn’t take long.

“I’ll pass it along.”

Reubens held the phone out in Meg’s direction. Sunset returned the phone to its holder on the mare’s forelimb.

“Something happened?” Fowler asked.

Reubens grimmaced. “Yeah, you could say that. Senator Clarence Routledge will be in attendance for Tirek’s release. He wants to welcome Tirek’s return as a representative of the government.”

That name rang a bell; where had Meg heard it? It came to her. “Wasn’t he calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Serrell’s involvement with the imprisonment of humans in Tartarus?” All such calls had ceased after Tirek’s press conference.

“So, not a friend of Serrell?” Sunset rhetorically asked.

“I rather doubt it,” Meg said.

“And he can’t stop this Senator from attending?”

“That will be up to Princess Twilight,” Reubens replied, “as it is she who decides who may enter Equestria.”

Meg shook her head. “I doubt much good would come from denying him entry. He’d just use that to his political advantage.”

Yearling was still seated behind the replica presidential desk. “What’s in it for Routledge? He must have some motivation to publicly welcome Tirek like that.”

Meg shook her head. “You mean, beyond being on national television for the biggest event of the century? He probably wants to run for president himself someday. Assuming that associating himself with Tirek doesn’t backfire on him.”

“Precisely. Why take that risk?” Yearling gave her a thoughtful smile. “There must be more to it than meets the eye. Call it a writer’s hunch.”

“Where did it go?” Steve looked around in vain. The star was gone. “Did the teleport go wrong?”

“I rather doubt it,” Twilight said. “It was a short hop. There’s no way we could’ve overshoot like that.”

At their previous location, the star had been so bright that Luna had added a sunshade spell to their bubble. The other stars brightened as that spell was canceled. There was still no sign of their destination.

“Examine the ambient magic?” Arcane Scroll suggested.

“Good idea.” Twilight closed her eyes and lit up her horn. She flinched and desisted immediately. “We’re in the right area, all right. The spells are stronger than ever.” She looked around again. “So why don’t we see it?”

The view ahead slowly washed out, as if dawn was breaking. It got steadily brighter.

Arcane Scroll rubbed his muzzle in thought. “Perhaps starlight doesn’t come from the star itself, but from its spell operating in its vicinity. We must be drifting away from it.”

“We shouldn’t be drifting,” Twilight said. “We should be motionless with respect to it.”

“But the star isn’t motionless,” Luna said. “It wants to flee our world. Only my nightly efforts have brought it so close.”

“Could you use your magic to bring it closer to us right now? It can’t be far away.”

“I see no reason why not.”

Her horn lit up. The brightening reversed, and in a few seconds it was dark again. “It truly is close,” she said. “I’ve never had a star respond so fast.”

“But if it isn’t radiating light itself, how will we see it?” Steve asked.

Twilight’s horn lit up. “By illuminating it with light of our own, of course.”

She swept her horn about, trying to locate the star. Finally, something sparkled in the distance. Twilight locked on to it, narrowing the beam of light. The star erupted in coruscating colors, visibly approaching. But to know how far away it was, one first had to know how large it was, and they had no clue as to its size.

Luna was evidently thinking the same thing. “It’s probably best if I slowed it down, though I don’t think it’s very large.”

It appeared to be a foot across. Two feet. Three feet. Four feet.

“I’m getting a sense of distance now. It’s almost here.”

Nine feet. She further slowed its approach. Eleven feet. It drifted to a stop. It seemed to be about a dozen feet across. Its shape was hard to discern, as the light endlessly refracted about within the object, making it hard to see the actual surface.

“I wish Rarity were here,” Twilight said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was a flawless gemstone of enormous size.”

“I suspect that’s exactly what it is,” Arcane Scroll said. “What better matrix for spells of this power and longevity?”

“Yeah… let me try something with my light spell…”

The flash and sparkle faded away. The surface was now visible, sort of. It did in fact look like a gemstone, one that was spherical, virtually transparent, apparently flawless, and had far too many facets to count. The object rested just outside their bubble, being held in place by Luna.

Arcane Scroll got as close as he could to it. “A simple analysis spell should identify the gemstone, assuming it isn’t something never before encountered.”

A few seconds later he had his answer. “I believe it is a diamond. It is definitely the source of the spells.”

“A diamond that big,” Steve said in awe. “And I’m guessing every star is like this. They had to have existed for as long as this realm has existed. Where did they come from? How were they enchanted?”

Arcane Scroll turned about to face the others. “The answers to those questions may best be answered by studying the object in front of us.” He smirked. “Even better, those questions haven’t been rendered unanswerable by the Discordian Era.” He looked up. “Not out here amongst the stars.”

36. Release

“It only goes to show how special I am,” Discord said. “Name one other Equestrian who has a character based upon them in a different franchise!” A Star Fleet uniform appeared out of nowhere upon him.

The journalist wasn’t sure how to break the news. “Uhm, well, technically you were based upon that other character…”

“Oh, pish posh,” the draconequus replied, waving it away. “I’m real, in case you haven’t noticed. How can somepony real be based on a fictional character?”

Another journalist injected a question. “How do you know about Star Trek?”

The draconequus smirked. “That would be telling.”

Meg leaned against one of the vertical bars that comprised the Gates of Tartarus, well away from journalists and the cameras that surrounded Discord. The whole point of her being there was to get in front of those cameras, of course, but there was no hurry. Twilight had yet to return with Tirek. Let Discord have the limelight.

Numerous Royal Guards patrolled the wide ledge; the media had lost interest in them some time ago. The Zephyr was docked against the ledge, still off limits to press. Meg wasn’t really sure why. Maybe because Twilight found them too annoying.

She hadn’t granted Senator Routledge access to the interior either, much to his annoyance. He responded by making a statement to the cameras, asking what the princess was hiding. Twilight had rolled her eyes at that; well, maybe she should have allowed him to bring along some of his staff. Discord had arrived shortly thereafter, and the media quickly lost interest in the senator, showing no inclination to watch him as he walked along the Zephyr, inspecting it as best he could for Equestrian secrets.

Meg silently groaned. The senator was heading straight for her. An orchid pegasus was near her; that was the changeling’s primary job, after all, to be seen next to her. This time, the changeling did not mimic her phone, as an Equestrian wouldn’t be expected to have one. Should the subject come up, “Common Ground” was her liaison who oversaw the participation of ponies in the upcoming convention.

“This is gonna be fun,” she muttered. What would the senator want with her? So far as she knew, he hadn’t a clue she existed. Could it be because she was the only other human present who wasn’t media or Secret Service?

Senator Clarence Routledge stopped in front of her and held out a hand, a politician’s smile gracing his face. “Meg Coleman, I believe?”

She hesitantly took it and got a firm handshake in return. “You know who I am?” That couldn’t be good, could it?

“My staff is without peer,” he said, still smiling. “You are here to book Lord Tirek for your convention—SILICon, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“You needn’t worry,” he quickly assured her. “I’m all in favor of it. I am here to welcome him back home, after all.”

Well, it could’ve been worse, she had to admit. Still begged the question why, but he wasn’t likely to volunteer that information—not the actual reason, anyway. She’d let the professionals deal with that.

“Granted,” he continued, “I’d be happier if he was the only guest of honor from this universe, but we can’t have everything we want, now can we?”

“I suppose not.” It was a point easy enough to concede.

The senator’s polished smile took a mild hit. “And who might this be?”

Her doppelgänger had joined them. “This is my Equestrian counterpart, you might say.” Meg waved a hand at the changeling. “She’s my contact over here for handling convention appearances. Allow me to introduce Common Ground.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the changeling said.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise; he quickly recovered his composure. “Striking how similar you two sound…”

Something about how he said that bothered her.

Routledge looked through the gates into the cave. “I wonder if it’d be okay for me to go inside. I didn’t think to ask the princess.” He looked back at the media, still obsessed over Discord. “Maybe later.”

A muffled scream.

Meg facepalmed upon seeing that a journalist’s lips had been replaced by a closed zipper. He was trying to pull it open, without success.

“I thought I had made myself quite clear,” Discord said reproachfully. “I will not answer questions about my former friendship with Tirek.” He leaned in. “Got it?”

The man nodded vigorously.

His gaze swept his audience. “And the rest of you?”

Lots of nodding and affirmative utterances.

Discord snapped his talons. The man tried once more to pull the zipper open, this time succeeding. Once it had opened all the way, it disappeared. He gingerly explorer his restored lips.

Meg sadly shook her head. What did I tell you, Discord?

“They knew the risks,” Agent Reubens said, not far from her. The media had been informed of Discord’s likely participation.

“Much safer to annoy ursa minors,” Agent Fowler added.

The senator rushed over to them. “Shouldn’t it be your jobs to protect our citizens from the likes of him?”

Reubens met the senator’s eyes. “The Royal Guard provides the security here, and they’re far better qualified than us to handle magical threats. Our job is to protect Lord Tirek from the dangers of our world, once we return.” He paused for a moment. “What would you have any of us do about Discord?”

Routledge was at a loss for words. Finally: “That’s why they should stay out of our world.”

He stormed away.

“Discord still shouldn’t be doing that,” Meg said. But nothing could be done about it, and Fluttershy was hundreds of miles away. “I wonder if that’ll get on TV.” One camera had been pointed at the victim of Discord’s annoyance since the muffled scream.

No one offered an opinion.

“I sure hope they don’t pester me like that,” the doppelgänger said.

It was still a bit weird hearing her own voice from another’s mouth. “You and me both,” Meg said. “Too bad our options for dealing with it are a bit more… limited.”

“You could ask Discord to intervene,” Fowler helpfully suggested.

“I suppose I could.” Meg wasn’t sure that’d be a good idea. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Thinking she might have heard something, she peeked around the wide metal-and-crystal-composite bar.

The others with her were also looking into the cave. “I don’t see anything,” Reubens said.

Meg shook her head. “I thought I heard something, but it’s hard to tell with all the talking over there.”

A few seconds later, a Royal Guard came into view, ascending from the throat at the back of the cave. A second guard appeared. And there was Tirek, his height exposing his head almost before the guard in front of him. It wasn’t long before Twilight could be seen by the centaur’s side.

“It’s really happening,” Meg said.

Behind Tirek and Twilight were a pair of minotaur guards. The centaur lacked any visible restraints, though some might have been present under his robes. But then, Meg considered, that’s why Discord was here, to be the ultimate restraint.

The draconequus teleported beside them, presenting a poker face to his former friend. Once the media realized where he went, they scurried over. One camera locked onto the procession that slowly but surely approached the gates. Another camera locked onto Discord, intent on catching any reaction. The third watched the guards, no longer patrolling the ledge, as they took up positions in front of the gates. The media stepped aside to let them through.

Silence descended, broken only by the hoof steps of the approaching ponies, minotaurs, and the lone centaur. Tirek stared almost unbelieving at the gates, his freedom moments away. If he had noticed Discord, he didn’t show it.

The two Royal Guards leading the procession passed through the gates first. They submitted to a magical scan by the other guards. After they passed inspection, they fell into position, helping the other guards keep the journalists back.

Twilight passed through the gates next and was herself scanned, all captured by a camera. She turned around to face the ex-prisoner. “You may enter Equestria,” she said as officially as she could manage.

Was he hesitating? He eyes swept the crowd of humans awaiting him, then hung momentarily on “Common Ground.” He smiled, silently thanking her for getting him out of Tartarus—this time, for good. He stepped through the gates.

A guard scanned him, then backed away, his work done. The minotaur guards remained on the other side of the gates, their work almost done; they stayed to discourage humans from entering the Tartarus realm.

Cameras, still and video, were on the proud centaur. His eyes scanned the assembled humans. Once more, he glanced at Common Ground. His eyes quickly returned to the journalists, looking as if he had tasted something unpleasant.

“Anything you’d like to say now that you’re free?” someone asked.

It took a moment for the question to register. “Free?” A joyous laugh. “Not quite,” he corrected. “One thing remains to be done.” He nodded at Twilight. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Not quite.” Discord materialized in front of Tirek.

The centaur raised an eyebrow. “Do you object to my release?”

“On the contrary,” he said, poking a talon on Tirek’s chest. “I’m here to make sure you go through with it.”

“You needn’t worry about that. I know better than to share a realm with you.”

“Then we understand each other.”

Tirek nodded. “If there’s one thing I regret, it was betraying our friendship. Perhaps you can one day forgive me, but I suspect that day shall not come until long after my restored human life has ended.”

Discord was as silent as a stone statue.

Tirek sighed and turned back to Twilight. “Speaking of ‘human life’…”

“Right.” The alicorn addressed the journalists. “You probably want to pay attention.”

As if they weren’t already. This was it. It wouldn’t be long before Meg, along with her doppelgänger, was to have her moment in the limelight.

Twilight closed her eyes. Her horn glowed. Tirek glowed. There was a cacophony of camera shutters. What were the odds every last photo, every last frame of video, would be analyzed to uncover the secrets of the isomorphic mapping spell?

A human stood where a centaur once did.

Tirek looked himself over, lifting one human leg then the other. The robes now draped around his human form, as Rarity had designed, the rear end fluttering to the ground behind him. Twilight detached the excess cloth with her magic, rolled it up, and put it aside.

“Finally,” he whispered. “I can return home.”

Discord looked Tirek over, from head to toe. “I’m satisfied,” he said, and with a hard glare added, “Never come back.”

He vanished.

After a few moments, the former centaur seemingly noticed that the crowd of reporters was still present. For the first time in millennia, he stepped forward on two legs. “Allow me to make a brief statement first.”

He waited for the few raised hands to be lowered.

“First, I am discarding the name ‘Lord Tirek.’ I took that name to go with my imposed centaur identity, and—” he raised his arms in vindication “—I am no longer a centaur.” His arms dropped. “Yet my original human name, Androgeos, is no longer appropriate either. That life, too, ended ages ago, and I hold no delusions that I remain a Minoan any more than I’m still a centaur.” He bore a placid smile. “I have given it some thought and, after consulting with other humans, have chosen a new name, a name suitable for my new identity as a twenty-first century human.”

The human formerly known as the centaur Lord Tirek dramatically paused for a few seconds.

“You may call me ‘Andy.’”

Meg didn’t think that name really fit him, but that was his business, not hers. And what about a last name? Maybe the ancient Minoans didn’t use them, but the modern world did. Nonetheless, “Androgeos” was a mouthful. Perhaps the new name was for the best.

Andy’s eyes swept the humans in front of him, their higher vantage gone along with his equine physique. He wasn’t tall by modern standards, though well-muscled.

“As for what I shall do next…” He shrugged. “My schedule is wide open, and I’m open to suggestions. I do have an invitation to speak at one of the so-called ‘bronycons,’ and,” he said, turning to Meg, “I am accepting your invitation.”

All eyes and cameras fell upon her—and not coincidentally, the orchid pegasus standing next to her. She nervously smiled.

The senator made his way through the crowd and emerged in front of the reborn man. He offered his hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Senator Clarence Routledge. As a senator of the United States government, I’d like to welcome you to our great nation.”

Andy took his hand and shook it. “I am honored. Will you also be making an appearance at this bronycon?”

“Oh… I don’t think I’d be welcome, given my public views on ponies.” He looked at Meg, smiling. “Am I wrong?”

A camera was on her. She had not the slightest clue what to say.

Twilight saved her. “The bronycon Andy is referring to is the upcoming SILICon in the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area. I suspect tickets will be selling out fast, so you might want to get yours as soon as possible.”

Thank you. That camera had pivoted as soon as Twilight began speaking. And on the subject of tickets, Meg was willing to bet none of this would air until those tickets had been acquired by the media. Hope this makes you happy, Andrew.

A question was directed at Twilight: “Will you also be making an appearance at that convention?”

“No, I won’t be making an appearance, nor will any other of what you call the ‘Mane Six.’ Your government is concerned that our presence would be too inflammatory.”

“Couldn’t the same be said about T—I mean, Andy’s appearance?”

Andy swept his hands out. “I’m one of you now, a human once more.”

“As he implies, he’s no longer my responsibility,” Twilight said. “You’ll need to take that up with your government.”

Serrell was willing to manage that particular risk, Meg knew, because the distraction the ex-centaur would create—was already creating—suited his purposes. Twilight knew that too, but of course she wasn’t going to mention it to the press. She looked at the senator; he did not seem inclined to make a statement one way or the other. Did it suit his purposes as well?

“Where will you be staying,” came another question, “once you return to our world?”

“I’m not sure, actually. I’ve yet to familiarize myself with the modern world.” He glanced at Twilight. “She would know, since she’ll be taking me there, but I believe the specific location is being kept a secret for now.”

“That is correct,” Twilight said. “The Secret Service will be providing security for Andy. They prefer that his new home be undisclosed for the time being.”

Agent Fowler tapped Meg on the shoulder. “It’s time we get going.”

“Okay.” Meg followed the two agents as they walked to their new assignment.

Twilight spotted them coming her way. “And speaking of the Secret Service, I’m afraid our time here is up. After I’ve taken Andy to his new home, I’ll come right back to return you all to your realm.”

A jumble of questions were shouted out, but Twilight ignored them. “Don’t answer any more questions,” she told Andy.

He smiled. “Leave them wanting more. Got it.”

Twilight started to say something, but instead shook her head. She addressed the guards. “Please keep them at a distance.” She shot Routledge a pointed look. “That includes the senator.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

She teleported away—to get a plaid pill, Meg knew.

Andy shot Meg a curious glance. “You’ll be coming with us?”

“It’s… a bit complicated to explain right now,” she said, gesturing to the press, still trying in vain to squeeze in more questions.

He looked oddly at the lone pegasus by the gates. “Will Common Ground be joining us?”

“There’s no reason for her to accompany us,” Agent Reubens replied. “Is there one I should be aware of?”

“No,” he quickly said, “it’s just that she had been with you when we first met in Tartarus, so I simply assumed she would be.”

Meg did her best to keep a poker face, pleased that the changeling gambit seemed to have paid off. But will it pay off with Andrew? She looked at the senator, unhappy at being kept back with the others. Perhaps the gambit had unexpected benefits.

“It’s possible you may see her again,” Reubens said. “That’s up to Twilight, really.”

“What role—”

Before Andy could finish the question, Twilight returned. “We’re going to your new home right now,” she said around the pill in her mouth. Gathering up the four humans in her magic, she transported them to the hotel suite.

Andy stepped away, taking in his new surroundings. The kitchen. The flat-screen TV. The plush furniture. The potted plants and abstract paintings. The electric lights. The closed curtains covering the windows. He headed there first, pulling aside a curtain and looking out into the surrounding twenty-first century city. “I never imagined… even after what those other inmates had told me.”

He watched a jumbo jet soar into the sky.

“Take all the time you need to let it soak in,” Fowler said. “I’m sure it’ll be overwhelming at first.”

“It took me a while, too,” Twilight added. “But then, I’ve only been a visitor to this realm, never a resident.”

“Our first order of business is getting you a proper wardrobe,” Fowler continued. “A tailor will be coming over soon to get your measurements. Unfortunately, what you’re wearing now is… not customary, to put it mildly. Once you have something that won’t draw attention to itself, we can take you shopping.”

“I think you’ll find modern shopping malls to be quite the experience,” Meg couldn’t help adding.

“But of course.” Andy continued to take in his new world. “How far away are we, from my ancient homeland?”

Fowler pointed to a globe over on a counter as she walked towards it. “You can see for yourself right here. We got this for you. It’s a globe of our world. We’re over here…” She rotated it almost half-way. “And Minoa used to be over… here.”

He joined her and inspected the globe himself, turning it around. “Must be thousands of miles.”

“Ten thousand miles, more or less,” Reubens said. “But it’d take less than a single day to travel there.”

“Less than a day,” he said in wonder. “On one of those flying machines I saw?”

Twilight interrupted. “I really need to get back, so let’s take care of some unfinished business first.”

Andy continued studying the globe. “Go ahead.”

“We had a deal. Your freedom is contingent on providing everything you know about the portal that brought you to our realm.”

He finally looked at her. “Right this second? It was a long time ago, after all.”

Meg wondered if he was trying to renege on the deal. He couldn’t get away with that, could he?

“No, not right this second. But soon, unless you want to return to Tartarus.”

He turned to his new protectors. “You’ll let her do that?”

Reubens shrugged. “The terms of your release are between you and the princess. In practice, there’s nothing we could do to stop her from taking you back.”

The alicorn stomped a hoof. “We don’t want you back, Discord doesn’t want you back, so just honor the deal, okay?”

Without waiting for a response, Twilight returned to Equestria.

“I have every intention of doing so,” he said quietly. “I’d just like some time to get settled first.”

He wandered over into the kitchen. The shiny and stainless steel refrigerator caught his eye, and he opened it. “So cold, yet achieved without magic.” He closely inspected the interior. “No obvious ice, either. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

“It uses a heat pump powered by electricity,” Fowler explained. “We’ve had them for, what, sixty, seventy years now?”

Andy opened various cabinets, inspecting the plates, glasses, pots and pans provided with the room. “Almost makes me wish I could’ve returned a century or two earlier. That world would have been much easier for me to understand.” He flipped a switch, and the garbage disposal made a hideous racket. He abruptly shut it off. “If far less intriguing.”

Meg uneasily looked about. Why am I still there? To discuss the convention, sure, but shouldn’t Andy first have had the chance to get settled, as he had said? “I guess I’ll be going now. I’ll be back later to talk about the convention.” She spotted the DVD player and remembered what Celestia had asked of her. “And I’ll bring DVDs—a copy of the cartoon—with me, so you can start watching them.”

Andy was looking inside the oven. “There was a changeling present.”

Meg froze.

“I find it unlikely Twilight was unaware of that. If I could sense it, before my humanity was restored, surely so could she.”

The changeling gambit had failed? But then why was he mentioning it only now? Meg waited for the other shoe to drop.

Andy closed the oven door and looked directly at Meg. “So that had me thinking: why would Twilight be okay with that? What purpose would be served? Why didn’t she mention something to me? Surely, not in front of the media, but she could’ve given me a heads-up in Tartarus. But I suppose she didn’t know I would notice.

“Anyway. Then you spoke, and in hearing your voice it fell into place.”

Here it comes.

“You are Common Ground the pegasus, and the changeling was there to obscure that fact.”

He bore the self-pleased look of the cat who had caught the mouse.

She threw out her hands in defeat. “I suppose you got me.”

He broke out in a smile. “No need to be like that. Obviously, that little deception was for the media. I noticed how that changeling clung to you whenever a camera was pointed in your direction.” He briefly glanced at the agents. “Perhaps you could fill me in on the details later, when taking a break from watching those cartoons.”

“Sure, we can do that.” Left unspoken: when the agents weren’t around.

Andy studied the agents. “But you already knew about the changeling.”

Reubens nodded. “We did.”

“Interesting.”

Well, maybe it wasn’t a disaster after all. Andy trusted Common Ground, because she had gotten him out of Tartarus—not once, but now twice. That trust was now transferred to her human self.

Yet it wasn’t all roses either. In some sense it made it harder to pump him for information, because as far as he was concerned she already knew all about how he had escaped from Tartarus that first time. And how to explain the transformations between human and pony? That required a close association with the very alicorns she “betrayed” when she broke him out of Tartarus.

She needed an alibi. Unless she wanted to gamble on Tirek—no, it’s Andy now—not inquiring too deeply.

Nope, not a good idea; she needed an alibi. Maybe Yearling would be willing to help with that. Stories were her speciality, after all.

Her phone rang. She took it out of her purse and noted the caller. Couldn’t wait, could you? Sighing, she accepted the call. “Hello, Andrew.”

“Just saw it on TV. Did you officially book him yet?”

Already? She knew for a fact they couldn’t broadcast live. They must’ve transmitted the second Twilight brought them home. “What exactly have you seen?” There hadn’t been enough time for them to stream the whole thing.

“Stills, mostly. They’re promising video soon. But I saw Tirek as a centaur, then as a human, also minotaur guards, royal guards, those two Secret Service agents—and you and yes that pegasus that looks like you. Happy? Did you book him yet?”

She wanted to groan. “He accepted in front of the media, you know.”

Andy looked up at her, having become aware he was the topic of the conversation.

“He did? They didn’t say anything about that, not yet anyway.”

She put the call on speaker. “I’m in the room with him right now. Andy, do you accept our invitation to appear at our convention? Speak loudly, please.” She held her phone out.

“Yes!” he shouted.

She moved the phone back to herself. “Satisfied?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“You’ve made my day! Good job. Talk to you later.”

Andrew ended the call.

Andy was impressed. “That device will also let you talk to another person. Over what distance?”

“Anywhere in the whole wide world,” Meg intoned.

“I cannot wait until I get one of my own.”

“We’re working on it,” Reubens said.

“It can do a lot more than record video or make phone calls,” Meg said. “Might as well check what the CNN headlines are.” Maybe they hadn’t mentioned Andy accepting the invitation because they hadn’t gotten their tickets yet—just as she’d predicted would happen. She brought up the news app. The top headlines were what she expected, a summary of Tirek’s release from Tartarus—and still no obvious mention of the convention. She scrolled down.

Crap.

There it was, in black and white: Developing story: Equestrian DNA sequencing conducted in secrecy.

37. A Long Game

Meg quickly scanned the story. It had all leaked: the DNA samples from numerous flora and fauna, and how they were more or less indistinguishable from their earthly counterparts—that is, the ones that had earthly counterparts. Then there were the samples from the fauna lacking earthly counterparts…

“Did something happen?” Fowler asked. She got out her own phone.

“Yeah. You could say that.”

The only good news was that no names had been leaked. The donors of pony DNA had remained anonymous. Crap. The story mentioned the fact that pony mitochondrial DNA was indistinguishable from human mitochondrial DNA. There was no way that wouldn’t rub some people the wrong way.

Meg cringed. “I should never have agreed to it.”

There it was. Her worst fears were coming true. The DNA database reportedly included two human DNA samples, and that one sample had significant similarities to that of a pegasus mare and the other to that of a unicorn stallion, including identical mitochondrial DNA. The story’s author speculated the humans and ponies might be the same individuals. Worst of all, he did not shy away from speculating on the significance of that. The changeling may have been for nothing.

“How many humans have been converted to ponies,” Fowler read off her own phone, “and for what purpose? Why has the president kept this under wraps? Did he authorize it?”

Meg had just read that herself. The story was quoting Senator Routledge.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was threatening the ruler of this nation.” Andy was behind her, reading her phone over her shoulder.

“Oh, that’s exactly what he’s doing,” Meg said. Unless this got fixed real fast, she had no idea how Serrell would avoid impeachment.

The son of King Minos had trouble processing that. “Isn’t that foolishly putting his own life at risk?” He looked at the agents. “You’ll do something about him, right?”

“That isn’t how the world works anymore,” Reubens replied. “Most of it, anyway. The point is, there’s nothing we can or should do about it. This is a political process that must follow its own rules. The president may be removed from office by this process, that is true, but he will suffer no physical harm. If that removal indeed happens, we’ll serve his successor; we serve the office, not its occupant.”

Andy slowly shook his head. “I still find it hard to grasp.” He pointed at Meg’s phone. “I’m starting to appreciate just how indispensable such devices can be.”

Meg wanted to throw her indispensable device to the floor. She settled for returning it to her purse. “I’m dead if my name got leaked.”

“Dead?” Andy asked, genuinely surprised. “Wasn’t I just told the world didn’t work like that anymore?”

“Fine, let me rephrase that: I’ll wish I was dead if my name got leaked.” She added, “And with all the crazies out there, that wish might still come true.”

“We’ll see about around-the-clock protection,” Reubens said.

Meg plopped down into a chair. “Or spend a lot more time in Equestria. Maybe I should do some house-shopping in Ponyville. Oh, I know! I could move into the Golden Oak Library. They still haven’t found a new librarian yet. I could computerize it or something. Sure would make Twilight happy.”

Andy was tapping finger to chin. “Pretty sure I destroyed that.”

“Discord repaired it. Good as new.”

“Really?” Fowler asked. “In Castle Sweet Castle—”

“Season five, remember? Dead wrong, trust me. That was one of the first things I sought out on my first visit to Ponyville. Twilight even gave me a tour. Not a scratch.”

“Right,” the agent said, facepalming. “Season five.”

Andy had returned to the window. “Discord did that, did he?” He took a heavy breath. “He must really have it out for me, to so thoroughly undo what I did.”

“Maybe?” Meg had trouble feeling sorry for him. “I mean, I’m sure that’s part of it, but he’s been learning about the magic of friendship.” She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. “He did it out of friendship to Fluttershy and the other ponies.” Better make it count. “Perhaps you’d might benefit… from some lessons… yourself?”

He broke down in laughter. “I doubt the Princess of Friendship would be interested in giving me lessons. Are you offering to teach me friendship lessons yourself?”

“Uh… not really, no.”

He turned around to face the room. “Just as well. This is now my home. There is no magic here, not even the so-called magic of friendship.” He looked up in thought. “Though I must admit: I’m intrigued by the notion of Discord being seduced by the friendship of ponies. Perhaps I shouldn’t dismiss it so casually.”

“There are ponies here now,” Fowler pointed out, “and they bring magic with them.”

“True, true. And it is good that I have returned, for I understand ponies better than anyone—and by ponies, of course, I mean Celestia.” A smile grew. “There will be need of a new president soon, from what I gather. How does one go about claiming this position, in this new world?”

Meg cringed. Only the fact that it wasn’t an option… But he had a point, she had to admit: he was the only human who could claim to truly understand Princess Celestia. It probably took an immortal—even if a former immortal—to understand another immortal. She sure as hell didn’t understand her.

Reubens humored him. “First, you must be at least thirty-five years of age,” he began. “ Second, you must be a natural born citizen. And finally, you must have been a resident within the U.S. for at least fourteen years.” He delivered the verdict. “You meet only one of the three requirements.”

The former Lord Tirek did not seem like the kind of man who would take “no” for an answer, and he wasted no time in proving it. “And where did these requirements come from?”

“Our founding document, the Constitution.”

“Laws are not immutable,” he observed. “There’s always some means of altering them, even if through old-fashioned force.”

“And that would be true in this case—no spilling of blood required. A constitutional amendment could change those requirements, but the process for doing so is by design slow and difficult. Just to begin the process, you’d need to convince a large fraction of this nation that it’d be a good idea.”

The smile returned. “It appears I don’t have much else to do with my time.”

Reubens shrugged. “It’s a free country; you’re free to do that. Just keep your expectations at the appropriate level.”

Andy laughed. “And by appropriate, you mean not a chance in Tartarus. No, no, I’m not offended. I appreciate a man who tells it to me like it is. I have lived far too long to cripple myself with wishful thinking.” He smirked. “But I happen to have learned something about chances in Tartarus.”

Maybe I should relocate to Equestria.

As unlikely as it was Andy could become President—and even under the best of circumstances it’d take many years—Meg could not forget that he had already won his first popularity contest. That’s why he was here in the first place and not in Tartarus. If anti-pony sentiment truly got out of hand—and given recent developments, that was hardly impossible or even unlikely—would he be viewed as the best chance to defeat the pony threat?

Andy clapped his hands together as he looked about the room. “But that’s all in the future. Right now, why don’t I check out the other modern conveniences this new home has to offer.”

“Sure,” Fowler said. “We could do that.”

“I have to be going now,” Meg said. She really just needed to be elsewhere. “I’ll touch bases later.”

Andy was in the bathroom, checking out modern plumbing. “Bring over that cartoon as soon as you can,” he said as he experimentally flushed the toilet. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

“Thanks for coming on short notice,” Meg said. Sunset Shimmer had just appeared in her home office. She got her saddlebags, put her phone into one of them, and hung them around her neck.

“I checked with Spike,” the unicorn said. “Twilight’s in Canterlot, working with Arcane Scroll. I guess she’s too preoccupied to check her phone.”

How ironic. Canterlot was where she needed to be, and Sunset herself was more likely to be in Canterlot than Ponyville. But not this time. Well, it wasn’t that far for a pegasus. “So Spike’s still in Ponyville?” That would be quite helpful; she didn’t have an appointment, after all.

“I couldn’t have checked with him otherwise,” she dryly noted.

Meg reached for her magic pendant, paused, then decided to take it with her after all. She couldn’t see why she’d need it, but it didn’t hurt to have it, and it wasn’t worth the time or energy to debate the issue. Into a saddlebag it went.

“Okay. I’m ready to go.”

A trans-dimensional teleport later, and Meg found herself in the castle library. “Do you know where Spike is?”

“Over here!” he yelled.

She trotted over to the sound of his voice. He was re-shelving books. “I’d like to send a message to Princess Celestia. It concerns the former Lord Tirek.”

“Whoa. That sounds serious.”

Sunset had joined them. “There’s been a development?”

“You could say that. Nothing urgent urgent, really. I mean, maybe it’ll be a catastrophe some day—but not today, tomorrow, or even next month. Regardless, Celestia did ask to be kept informed about Tirek-related developments, so…” She shrugged. Quite honestly, it was more an excuse to see her so she could discuss a different subject.

“I’ll be right back.” The baby dragon ran off, presumably to get paper and quill.

“Just how catastrophic are we talking about?” Sunset asked.

“He apparently wants to run for president someday. Fortunately, that’ll be—at best—a long, drawn-out process, but what if he taps into something, some anti-pony sentiment simmering out there? I mean, he’d have to, to have any chance at all, and that sentiment may be the biggest danger of all.”

“If you say so. I’d’ve thought his biggest support would be from pony supporters, him being an honorary Equestrian and all.”

Meg spotted Spike rushing back, paper and quill in claw. “That doesn’t seem to be the platform he’s interested on running on, if you catch my drift. Very much ‘I’m the most qualified to protect you from Celestia.’”

Spike grimaced. “Yeah, I’d think the princess would want to hear about that.” Quill hovered above paper. “What’s the message?”

What should the message be? Best to keep it simple. “I need to talk to you about Tirek. He’s expressed a desire to become President.” It was probably unwise to overstate the urgency. It wasn’t after all a drop-everything emergency, not even remotely. “Fortunately, that will be a lengthy process at best.”

Spike looked up at her expectantly.

“That captures the gist of it. You can send it.”

The dragon rolled it up and bathed it in green flame. “I’ll let you know when I get a response.” He went back to his task of re-shelving books.

So now what? There was no telling how long she’d have to wait for a response. It could be seconds—or hours. She glanced about the library. She didn’t feel like reading anything to pass the time, but leaving the castle would be bad if Celestia did reply quickly. It was at times like this she really wished Celestia had accepted a phone.

“We could talk shop while you wait,” Sunset suggested. “Twilight wants me to assist her in writing simulation software for the stellar magic she and the professor are studying.”

“Sure, we can do that.” Anything that would get her mind off her problem was welcome. Meg headed toward a reading area. “You probably want to use as a starting point what I wrote to simulate a sonic rainboom.” They didn’t need her direct involvement; both had acquired sufficient programming skills in the past year, and obviously they had the domain expertise she lacked concerning magic.

“Twilight already thought of that, but the magic is so novel and complex she’s not sure how useful it’d be. She wants to use simulations as a form of experimentation for deciphering how the magic works.”

She was afraid of that. Steve hadn’t gone back to that star with the others because the magic was beyond his comprehension. There really wasn’t much she could do to help. And that star just had to be a diamond, just like in a human nursery rhyme.

Why she continued to be surprised by new “coincidences,” she didn’t know. She’d have thought she’d be used to it by now. She returned her attention to the unicorn. “Yeah, that makes sense. You don’t want to experiment on the star itself.” Who knows what could go wrong with that?

“We still think it’s a useful starting point, as a framework for finite element analysis. We just have to rewrite the equations simulating the magic, right?”

“I would think so.” Those equations had come from Twilight in the first place.

Except…

“Maybe not,” Meg said. “If it’s messing with space-time geometry—and that’s the point of what the stars are doing, to keep the size of this realm constant—then that affects the grid of finite elements being simulated. That’s a lot more complicated.”

That wasn’t the answer Sunset was hoping for. “How much more complicated?”

“Potentially? A lot more. The very geometry of the finite elements would be changing over time. I can give you the merging black holes simulator to look at. It doesn’t get messier than that.”

Definitely not what the unicorn wanted to hear.

“That’s the worst-case scenario,” Meg hastened to add. “I guess it depends on what the stars are doing. It surely can’t be that bad. After all, if they were messing with space-time to that extent, nopony would have been able to get right next to them.” And survive, she didn’t add.

Perhaps it had been incredibly foolhardy to attempt it. No, her husband’s special talent would have detected that long before they had gotten close enough to be harmed.

Spike burped up green flame, and a scroll materialized.

“Your probably right,” Sunset said. “But I guess we’ll see.”

Meg got up and quickly flew back to Spike. He handed her the scroll. She unrolled it. “Come to Twilight’s throne room,” she read. She looked up. “She’s here?”

Spike shrugged. “Sounds like it.” He shelved another book.

Sunset trotted up to them. “You shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

Did Celestia just come all the way from Canterlot? No other explanation seemed likely. If it was that important to her… “No, let’s not keep princesses waiting.”

She held out the unrolled scroll in Spike’s direction. “Uh, could you dispose of this?”

“No problem!” he said as he took it back.

“Well, I guess I’m off to the throne room.”

Meg took wing.

She arrived moments later. The doors swung open as she approached, glowing a soft yellow. No question about it; Celestia was here. The doors closed behind her once she was through.

“You have news concerning Tirek?”

Celestia stood off to the side of the circle of thrones; they were sized for ponies, not mature alicorns. Meg landed in front of her.

Get the easy stuff out of the way first. “He’s expressed a desire to become president. That isn’t possible under our current laws, but, as he pointed out, laws can be changed. And it’s true they can, though changing the relevant law is a slow process. But if he actually pursues this…”

“Please continue,” Celestia said, encouraging her to do just that.

“I’m concerned about the damage he could do just trying, even if he fails. He’ll position himself as the only person qualified to protect humanity from… from you.”

“I see.”

There wasn’t much to be read from how she’d said that. “The gift of a dodo from the griffons might have backfired—you know about that?”

“Twilight had informed me.”

Of course she had. “Like I said, it might be backfiring. It’s fueling anti-pony sentiment. The question being asked is how dodos wound up in this realm. It’s being spun as an act of theft—or an act of fraud if that bird wasn’t actually a dodo. Which raises the question, also being asked, what else was appropriated?”

“Curious that a dodo would trigger this. There are many flora and fauna common to our realms; we hadn’t been accused of stealing those.”

“Because the dodo is extinct in our world? I don’t know. Maybe because it’s a convenient attack against the President. It’s too soon to tell, but…”

“I think I see the problem. Tirek intends to use this to his advantage.”

“That’s what it sounds like. I’m not sure he appreciates just how unlikely it is he can be elected president, or if that’s even his goal.”

Celestia closed her eyes in thought.

A moment later, she reopened them. “I doubt he knows himself at this point. It’s difficult to imagine he’d be satisfied with an elected office, no matter how powerful. He’ll certainly want to be a player, and this may be his means of entering the game.”

“You don’t think he’ll try to drive a wedge between humans and ponies?”

Celestia frowned. “I didn’t say that. I’m certain he would if he could, but I feel it’s more of a means to an end than an end unto itself. Understand that end, and he could be managed.”

Meg’s head sagged. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not, not even for me, and I know him perhaps better than anypony alive.”

“Better than Discord?”

Her eyes twinkled. “I did say ‘perhaps.’”

And it wasn’t as if Discord would be helpful in this matter anyway. It just wasn’t his nature.

Meg sighed. “There’s been another development, one that could also blow up in our faces—mine, especially.”

“How so?”

“Many DNA samples were collected from Equestrian plants and animals. The fact that they were collected has leaked—possibly because of that dodo.” She needed to explain it better. “We’ll soon know if it’s a real dodo from its DNA. That put the whole DNA thing in the public consciousness. That led to demands for more DNA samples, to see what else was ‘acquired’ from us…”

“Which made it easy to leak the fact that those samples have already been collected.”

“Right. The worst part is, those samples include two each from myself and my husband: one human and one pony.”

Concern graced the alicorn’s muzzle. “And you’re afraid it will lead to your identity being leaked.”

“Even if it doesn’t, now that word has gotten out that humans have been changed into ponies, it’ll fuel those Conversion Bureau conspiracy nutcases. They won’t even ask if the transformation had ever been reversed. Hell, just the fact that all ponies appear to have human mitochondrial DNA may set them off.

“But if it does get out that I’m the one, or Steve…” She grimaced. “We may have to seek asylum here, for our safety.”

Celestia was quiet.

Too quiet.

“Is… there a problem with that?”

“Personally, I have no objection to granting you asylum. I can’t image Twilight or any other princess objecting either. We would all be concerned for your safety.”

Something wasn’t right, but Meg couldn’t put a finger—or hoof—on it. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

A wan smile. “Not so much a ‘but,’ but an observation: asylum, should it be needed, would be at cross-purposes to your cutie mark. Destinies cannot be sidestepped so easily.”

That was a good point. A terrifyingly good point.

“Nonetheless it would be granted. Just understand it probably won’t make your problems go away.”

Not if it was her destiny to be the intersection of the worlds of ponies and humans, or to be involved with all these time loops, or whatever the hell her cutie mark was supposed to mean.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? What did it mean? What did butterflies have to do with kindness? Diamonds with generosity? Apples with honesty? Balloons with—okay, that one kinda made sense. The point was, cutie marks didn’t come with instruction manuals. For all she knew, her cutie mark would be just fine with spending the rest of her life in Equestria. Maybe what her cutie mark really meant was that she had a talent for spinning two hula hoops at the same time.

“Would you care to share what you’re thinking?”

Meg looked up at the princess. “Do you happen to have a pair of hula hoops I could borrow?”

“Hula hoops?”

“I guess ponies don’t have those.” Meg sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m simply in denial.”

“I truly wish I had sage advice to offer.”

“I know,” Meg said with growing despair. “This one is for me to solve. Maybe when I talk to my future self—or whoever shows up—I’ll get some real answers. Maybe. But Discord has to stop hiding from us first.”

“He is waiting for what he feels is the right moment.”

“Huh? You’ve been talking to him?”

“He has not been hiding from me, no.”

“Then why—no, there’s no point in asking. Even if he told you, the answer is not likely to make me happy.”

“One could say that you already grasp the essence of that answer.”

Celestia’s practiced composure revealed nothing more. Essence? Did that mean that he would only make us unhappy if he hadn’t been hiding from us? We’re unhappy that he was! And since when did he care about anyone else’s happiness?—other than Fluttershy’s. Or was it about waiting for the right moment?

It was a waste of time thinking about it, much less worrying about it. The “right moment” would eventually come, she thought sourly; the immutable time loop made it an inevitability.

Another thought came to her: what if something had to happen first, something to set up the proper preconditions for that meeting? But how would Discord know anything about that? No such thing was hinted at in the message from the future.

“I don’t know,” Meg finally said. “I guess I took up enough of your time? I’m surprised you came here, quite honestly.”

Celestia giggled, to Meg’s surprise. “I was more than happy for an excuse to escape that meeting with those nobles. I might have left them with the impression that that urgent message had come from Princess Twilight; it was sent by dragon fire, after all.” She turned serious. “But I was not joking when I stated my desire to be kept informed of Tirek’s progress, and that desire still stands. Whatever he has in mind, these are but the first moves in a long game.”

A game in which Meg had no choice but to be a participant. “I think he wants to talk to me in private. He’s suggested a marathon of the cartoon as a pretext.” She’d do it, but she’d make damn sure those agents were only a scream away. “I guess that’ll be his next move.”

Celestia nodded. “I would agree.”

“And, uh, for the record, he’s going by the name ‘Andy’ now. A new identity for a new life, and all that.”

“Twilight has informed me. For the time being, I prefer to use the name I am familiar with.”

Meg shrugged. “Since you two won’t be meeting face to face, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“Such a meeting does seem unlikely.” The diarch stretched her wings. “I shall be returning to Canterlot.”

Celestia teleported away.

38. Centaur's Gambit

Meg stood in front of the door to Andy’s hotel room. She looked down the hallway. There was not a soul to be seen, of course, as the whole floor was off-limits to the public. It took a special key to get the elevator to stop here. Agent Reubens was in the next room; she had just come from there. It was as safe as it was going to get.

I’m being silly.

However much he had been portrayed in the cartoon as the one-dimensional villain, she had spent enough time in his presence to know he wasn’t a monster. Just… out of touch with modern sensibilities.

She shifted the weight of her backpack, ladened with four seasons of DVDs.

Just get it over with.

She knocked on the door.

Eternal seconds passed.

The door opened. On spotting her, Andy opened it all the way and stood aside. “You may enter.” The robes were gone. He now wore a conventional shirt and pants. There’d be no trouble blending in now.

“Uh, thanks.” Meg entered, at the same time taking off the backpack. “I’ve brought the cartoon. We can watch them in order, or jump to the very last one—that’s the one you’re in.”

“The last one, as it has the greatest personal relevance to me.” Andy closed the door. “But let’s talk first. It’s the first private conversation we’ve had since Tartarus.”

Meg noticed the TV was already on, though muted. It was tuned to CNN. Andy was evidently catching up on current events. “We could do that,” she said noncommittally.

He sat down in the recliner, leaned back and pushed a button on the side. His feet came up. “It’s amazing what people have thought of,” he said. “I’m sure something like this could have been crafted in my day. At great cost, surely, but nothing a king could not commission; it is certainly fit for a king! But no one had ever conceived of such a thing.”

Meg sat on a sofa, laying the backpack by her side. “I have something like that recliner; most people can have one, if they wanted one.”

“So I understand. But enough about furniture.”

She opened her backpack and pulled out the box of DVDs, hoping that was what he meant.

His eyes were on her. “I never expected you to be a part of this realm as well.”

She fished out the last DVD of the fourth season, and left it on the sofa. “It’s complicated.”

“Such things usually are.”

She never had the chance to get an alibi from Yearling. How much did it matter anyway? After all, nothing could happen that would invalidate the time loop, to keep her from breaking him out of Tartarus several years ago.

Naturally, there was no way she’d mention time loops to him. I just hope he doesn’t mention it to me!

“I’m human,” she admitted, “one of the first Twilight met in this realm. It’s a long story, and I’m not at liberty to discuss much of it, but on our first visit to Equestria she turned me and my husband into ponies—at our request—to fit in, because we were bronies ourselves. I’m still coming to terms with the cutie mark I acquired soon after.”

He grunted. “Perhaps I should count myself lucky I never had a cutie mark.”

“It’s… proving to be more than I could’ve anticipated.”

“You’re clearly on good terms with the princesses. Why would you have chosen to help me? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

Why indeed. What had she told him during that first breakout? “I have my reasons.” She hoped she sounded convincing.

He exhaled. “It’ll have to do. I have too few allies as it is to squander them.” He pointed at the TV. “Perhaps you could explain what all this DNA talk is about?”

Meg look at the screen, trying not to think about being labeled an ally. CNN was running a clip of Senator Routledge. The sound was still off, but the chyron at the bottom mentioned the Equestrian DNA scandal. The senator had used that leak to initiate a congressional investigation into what the president knew and when he knew it—especially concerning those two human samples.

“DNA… that’s modern biological science.” She struggled to come up with an explanation. “It’s the mechanism behind heredity. Why children have characteristics of their parents. We’ve identified the specific substance—that is, DNA—and can decode it, even modify it… a bit. The science is in its infancy.”

Andy shook his head in awe. “Incredible.”

She internally debated whether to say more. Might as well, she concluded. He was going to hear about it regardless. It should come from herself, to build up trust. “A while ago, many Equestrian animals and plants had their DNA sampled. It showed they were indistinguishable from their counterparts here, those that had counterparts. It was done in secrecy, and the results kept secret.”

“Until someone talked.” Andy sighed. “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad that human nature has changed so little.”

Meg didn’t know what to say to that.

“And this talk about strikingly similar human and pony DNA samples,” he continued. “Would I be surprised by the identity of one of these humans or ponies?”

Meg cringed. “I… would say not.” It was becoming terribly clear that she had better avoid getting on his enemies list, and she had little doubt he had one.

“I wonder how magic rewrites this DNA when changing you from a human to a pony; alicorn magic is powerful, as I know all too well.” He leaned back. “Or me from a human to a centaur.”

Poison joke magic evidently being just as powerful. “That was why I was persuaded to participate. What was changed, and what was left unchanged, by the… ‘rewrite’… is being studied.”

“If I had known, I think I would have offered a DNA sample before my humanity was restored. There are no other centaurs left to my knowledge. How is this DNA acquired?”

“It’s completely painless and harmless. Just rub something against the inside of the cheek.”

“What about plants, which do not have mouths?”

“Just about every part of the body, plant or animal, has DNA.”

He smiled at her. “You have done much for me, Meg. I’ll do what I can for you, and I’m sure there’s much you can still do for me. I’d like to give this ‘social media’ a try, for example. But for now, let’s watch a cartoon.”

“I knew I was going to earn my spot in the history books because of ponies,” Serrell said, almost facetiously, “but hopefully not as the first president to be impeached and removed from office.”

Twilight found it a bit difficult to meet the eyes of the human president sitting across the Oval Office from herself. She was somewhat to blame for the predicament he was in, after all. “To be honest, I don’t understand your optimism.”

“That’s because you don’t understand how the political game is played here. It’s mostly grandstanding. Senator Routledge, for example, wants my job. Sure, they might try to impeach me—hell, they might even succeed—but even that’s pretty meaningless. It’s just an official ‘we disapprove of you,’ unless they put some teeth into it, and that has never happened in the history of this country.”

It was a game she had no interest in playing, and fortunately it was not played in Equestria. It made the jockeying of the Canterlot nobility seem so… relaxed in comparison? “I still can’t believe a flightless bird could cause all of this.”

Serrell waved it away. “To be fair, I didn’t see it either. Maybe it would’ve happened regardless; this just made it happen sooner.”

Twilight sighed. “I could handle it if it was just about cats and dogs, apples and bananas, but accusations of humans being turned into ponies? What could I say? They’ll only hear that it’s true; they won’t hear that it was voluntary, that those were the only two, and that they can return to being human whenever they please!”

“And the very next question they’d ask is ‘what are their names?’ Fortunately, that information is not there to leak.” He looked down at his clasped hands. “It’s probably best for you to continue avoiding the media; it’s simply a no-win situation. I, alas, do not have that option.”

She wondered if she truly had that option either. The situation wasn’t going to fix itself. She just wished she knew how to fix it.

A change of subject might improve the mood. “I’m hearing from Meg that SILICon tickets sold out within hours once Andy’s booking was made public. Tickets are even being… ‘scalped,’ I think? Resold at huge markups. ”

The president’s mood had not improved. “About that.”

What could possibly be wrong with that?

“A lot of tickets are being bought by bad actors.”

He let that sink in.

“What do you mean, ‘bad actors?’”

“Exactly what you think. You know all those concerned citizens protesting for the cameras? They intend to make an appearance at the convention. We know this because we have undercover FBI agents planted in many of those groups.”

Her wings sagged. What was she supposed to do about this?

“You might want to consider pulling all Equestrian guests appearances.” Serrell looked at her hopefully. “Unless there’s something magic can do about this?”

Canceling all pony appearances wasn’t going to fix the situation either, but… “No, there isn’t. What about Andy?” The former centaur was no longer her problem, of course.

“Still keeping our options open—and… You haven’t checked out his new Twitter feed by any chance, have you?”

“Uh, no?”

A grim smile. “Let’s just say I don’t think he needs to be terribly concerned about anti-pony protesters.”

“She can’t do that!”

How much longer do I have to put up with this crap? Meg levelly stared across the table at the convention president. “Andrew, have you listened to a word I said? There will be major protests at the convention. They have tickets. What do you expect Twilight to do?”

Andrew was unfazed, lifting his glass of beer. “Then get a list of the ticket holders from the FBI and we’ll cancel them, refund their money. Problem solved.” He took a drink.

“Uh, this won’t affect the items being put up for auction, would it?” Penny said.

Well, Penny was the Head of Charity and Sponsorships. “I see no reason why it would,” Meg told her. To Andrew, she said, “The FBI won’t release that information. First, because they don’t have a complete list—so they say. Second, because it would compromise their undercover agents. And third, it won’t stop the protests; it’ll just move them outside the convention hall, where they can harass the other attendees as they come and go.”

Joe, the convention vice-president, shook his head over his own glass of beer. “They’ll at least be present to help maintain order, right?”

How much longer was this going to drag on? “The FBI? No. They don’t do that. It’ll be up to the local police—and the cops won’t stop them from protesting, they’ll just try to keep it from getting out of control. What about our security? Have we hired some professional outfit?”

“I’m looking into that,” Joe said. “The only ones returning my calls are asking big bucks.”

“And how big will the bucks be if something happened?”

“Secret Service?” Andrew quietly asked. “Why aren’t they at this meeting anyway?”

“Only to protect Andy. Which is what they’re currently doing at his undisclosed location.”

“But you know where he is,” Elaine asked. “Right?”

Meg looked straight into the eyes of the Head of PR and Marketing. “I will neither confirm nor deny that.” It felt strangely satisfying to utter that cliché. She just hoped it wouldn’t backfire on her.

“The point is,” Andrew said, “is that Tirek, or Andy, or whatever his name is today, is still on—correct?”

“Yes, Andrew, he’s still on. For now.” Meg punctuated that by loudly munching on some nachos.

“I guess we should be thankful for small miracles,” Tyler, the Head of Events and Programming, said. “This fiasco is creating enough holes in our schedule as it is.”

“Why is he still on,” Elaine asked, “when Twilight has pulled the plug?”

Did she really have to explain everything? “Because,” Meg said, “Twilight has no say concerning the former Lord Tirek. He’s no longer her responsibility.”

“Even so, hasn’t it become too dangerous for him too? The Secret Service are still okay with this?”

“You haven’t been following his tweets, have you?”

“He’s been tweeting?” Andrew asked.

Meg sighed. “He sure has, starting with ‘Never underestimate Celestia hashtag beware Celestia.’ He’s looking into starting a YouTube channel as well.”

Andrew was speechless for a moment—but only a moment. “Will he be tweeting about his upcoming appearance at our convention?”

“I think everyone already knows,” Meg dourly replied.

Joe finished off a few sweet potato fries. “I guess that’s why they’re not too concerned about his safety. With tweets like that, those protesters will mob him in a good way.”

Elaine looked concerned. “Is that really the right messaging we want for a bronycon?”

Andrew shrugged. “We sold out, didn’t we?” He finished off his beer and threw Meg a smug smirk. “‘May You Find What You’re Looking For,’ wasn’t it? Can’t say I have any complaints.”

Meg didn’t know how much more of this she could take. “How about when those protesters start disrupting the convention? Will you be complaining then?”

“No such thing as bad publicity,” he replied. “Besides, I have full faith in the police’s ability to keep things under control.”

Meg couldn’t decide if he was incredibly stupid, or just incredibly optimistic. She got out her phone. “Let’s just hope that bad publicity doesn’t scare off all the true bronies.”

“Too late for them to get refunds anyway,” Andrew said as he reached for some fries.

“No,” Meg said as she checked YouTube. “They’ll just resell them, to be bought by other protesters.” She still hadn’t told Dinky her human birthday party was off. At best, she’d have to find another venue. I suppose my brother’s house is still an option. “Wow. That was fast.”

“What was fast?” Penny asked.

It already had tens of thousands of views, and it’d been up for barely an hour. How did so many stumble on it so fast?—assuming “stumble” was the proper word. “Andy’s first video blog,” Meg replied. She silently read the description. “Looks like it’s about the portal he used to enter Equestria.” A certain pony needed to know about this ASAP. She texted a message to Twilight.

“I reckon it ain’t none of our business,” Applejack said. “You’re a princess of Equestria, Twilight. Don’t get so caught up in their foolishness.”

Twilight glumly stared at her apple fritters. “I’m afraid their foolishness is my business. Their Congress is demanding that I appear before them to answer questions about how dodos wound up in our realm.” DNA testing had confirmed it was an actual dodo.

“Will you do that?” Fluttershy asked.

“They certainly can’t force me to.” Twilight sighed. “However much they wish they could. But I’m afraid refusing may be worse than consenting.”

“I don’t envy your decision,” Rarity said.

Rainbow Dash knocked back a mug of apple cider. “I’m just glad they can’t come here by their own means. Who knows what they’d do to us, here, if they could?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie shouted. “They’re, like, you’re turning us humans into ponies—and we are!”

Rarity magically dug her fork into a slice of apple pie. “That’s taking things completely out of context, darling. You make it sound like we’re turning large numbers of humans into ponies against their will.”

Twilight hesitantly lifted a fritter in her magic. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what a vocal minority is accusing us of, or of planning to do, and accusing their own president of being our accomplice. Taking facts out of context is something they’re quite good at, when it serves their purposes.”

Rainbow pounded the rustic table with a hoof. “Then forget about them! Give those yucky pills back to Discord and be done with them. Yeah, sure, they got some interesting stuff, but it’s not worth the headaches.”

Fluttershy quietly nodded in agreement.

“What about Meg and Steve?” Pinkie demanded. “Will that make them happy?”

Rainbow shrugged. “They’d have a decision to make. I’m fine either way.”

“We all would be fine however they decided,” Rarity said, “but let’s not be hasty about it.”

Twilight finally bit into her apple fritter. Perhaps she was letting it all get to her. After all, the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze was rustling through the apple trees, and Celestia cared for her little ponies… none of that would be changed if Serrell was removed from office.

Her phone buzzed. She lifted her foreleg to check it. A message from Meg. A video blog from Andy? “Just what we need.” She clicked the link with her magic. “The portal? This is how he tells me? By sharing it with the whole human world?”

“Well, don’t make us wait! What’s the varmint saying?”

“I haven’t… here, we’ll all find out together.” She turned up the volume to max, set the phone on the table, and hit play.

Andy’s face appeared. It was easy to forget it was no longer attached to a centaur body. Behind him was an abstract painting; it was in his hotel room, she knew.

“Greetings to all who are watching this,” he began. “Back when I was a Minoan prince, no one could conceive of even our Gods doing what I am doing right now: sending a message directly to uncounted people across the entire world. What humanity has accomplished during my absence never ceases to amaze me.”

He looked down for a second. Checking his notes?

“There’s a bit of unfinished business I need to take care of. It is not widely known, but my release from Tartarus was contingent upon the completion of a certain task: to tell all that I know about the portal that had brought me to the other realm. That task I shall fulfill now.” He smiled, as if at a private joke. “I was only required to provide this information to Princess Twilight Sparkle, but nothing prohibits me from sharing it with all of you.”

Applejack snorted. “Now that there's a loophole you could stampede a herd of buffalo through!”

Twilight sighed. It had never occurred to her he would inform her in this fashion. But did it really make a difference how he informed her?

The former inmate continued. “At my first press conference, I said all that I knew about the portal that once connected our world to theirs—all that I knew at the time I had passed through it. During the long centuries I was imprisoned in Tartarus, however, I had the opportunity to learn additional bits and pieces from other inmates. There’s no need to name them, nor shall I, for what I have to say does not depend on their credibility.

“Once I had accumulated enough of those bits and pieces, it had all become clear.”

He paused for dramatic effect, peering at the camera.

“Here’s the short version: if you want that portal back, talk to Discord.” He bore a grim smile. “Not what you wanted to hear, Twilight, am I right?”

Twilight hit pause. No. It wasn’t what she had wanted to hear. She got up and stomped towards the orchard, looking up into the sky. “Discord! We need to talk!”

“I knew he couldn’t be trusted,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

Fluttershy cringed. “I’m sure there’s an explanation,” she whispered.

“How do we know he’s even telling the truth?” Rarity asked.

Applejack pulled down her Stetson. “Oh, that’s the varmint’s honest truth, all right.”

Not that Twilight could image Andy lying about that; he knew they would bring this accusation to Discord’s attention.

Who still hadn’t appeared.

But he had been avoiding everypony—everypony but Celestia, apparently—for some time now.

“Huh,” Pinkie said. “That means Discord could’ve returned Andy to his world whenever he wanted.”

Twilight spun around to face the pink pony. “Is that one of your hunches?”

“No, just a logical inference.”

And it was a good one—an inference that Andy, or Lord Tirek as he called himself then, should have also made. “Maybe we should hear the rest of what he has to say.”

“I reckon you’re right.”

Twilight returned to the table and resumed playback.

“Now I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Did I not say the means of traveling between our realms was under the control of the alicorns? Indeed I did, and it now is, for the magic of friendship has somehow put Discord at the disposal of the alicorns.”

“For some definition of ‘disposal,’” Twilight muttered.

He leaned forward. “I know, Discord, that you’ll see this. You want to know the reason I betrayed you? Because you claimed there was no way to send me back to my world, when you had that power all along.” He leaned back. “I was never anything more than a pawn in one of your games, right till the very end, when you let me ‘steal’ your magic so that I could fight Twilight to a draw—and only to a draw.”

Twilight’s jaw fell. “What?”

“I do regret it, betraying you that is. Maybe it was just a game to you, but it was a game I had undeniably benefited from, enormously.” He shrugged. “I still should have asked you. Perhaps you had a legitimate reason, maybe even a good reason. All I can offer as an excuse was my questionable mental state—eternal incarceration can do that, you know.

“Anyway, considering where I ultimately wound up, in a time when men have literally walked on the moon, I’m not sure how much I’d do differently.” A chuckle. “Besides not spending so many damned centuries in Tartarus, of course.”

He briefly paused. “I have yet to complete my task. Here’s the remainder of what I know about that portal, belatedly uncovered during my long internment.”

Six ponies fixed their attention on the phone.

“A portal cannot directly connect our two realms. I am not sure why, but I was assured it is a fact. There exists another realm that serves as an intermediary. You don’t experience it passing through the portal, perhaps because the portal has no perceived thickness.

“There are other realms, of course; Tartarus is one, the breezies live in another. Why this particular realm exists, I do not know, nor do I know what exists within it. I have learned from others that Discord learned of the existence of this mysterious and created a full length mirror that granted passage into it. From within, it is possible to somehow interpose this realm between ours and Equestria’s to form a portal. These portals had existed, on and off, over many centuries, perhaps even millennia, until I was trapped. No portal has been in operation since. Discord presumably had his reasons.

“Nor do I know the means used by Twilight to cross between realms, except that it does not involve portals. Nonetheless, I’d wager a large sum of bits that Discord was somehow involved.

“And with that my task has been completed. Goodbye for now. Be sure to subscribe to my channel.” He grinned. “You don’t want to miss out.”

The video concluded.

“Are you okay there, Twi?”

Twilight couldn’t peel her eyes off her phone. “No,” she quietly said. “I’m not.” Her battle with Tirek managed to a draw? Discord responsible for the very portal that gave him entry? Responsible, perhaps, for all the portals that had allowed humans, and who knows what else, entry to the Equestrian realm in the forgotten past—no, not forgotten, erased. The Smooze more or less confirmed that.

Rainbow Dash took another swig and slammed down her mug. “So that mirror really was connected to the actual human realm somehow. Go figure.”

Twilight returned her phone to its holder on her foreleg, at a loss to do anything else. She could guess what purpose that mirror realm served: to permit physical contact between their realms while avoiding the sort of catastrophe that the Pinkie Pie doll almost caused—if the time loop hadn’t guaranteed its timely prevention.

“We should talk to Discord,” Fluttershy firmly said. “If we don’t, we may wind up regretting it, like Andy did.”

“I’d love to,” Twilight said in exasperation. “If he’d only show himself!”

The draconequus did not oblige.

39. Discovered Check

Twilight jabbed the pause button with her magic. “Can you believe this?!” She was glad she had sent Spike on an errand. On the large screen was frozen an embattled Energy Secretary Whitcomb, in the process of being grilled by Senator Routledge.

Luna remained calm. “This is why my sister thought I’d be in a better position to… explain things to you. She has been, perhaps, too effective in civilizing political discourse during my absence.”

The junior alicorn scoffed. “It couldn’t possibly have been this bad back then.”

“The noble classes, such as they were then, were more, shall we say, vigorous.”

Twilight wasn’t quite persuaded. “At least,” she said, pointing a hoof at the screen, “they aren’t lowering themselves to physical violence.”

“The non-physical can be just as damaging.”

That remained to be seen. What she was seeing had certainly justified her decision to decline their request to appear before that subcommittee to answer their questions, however much their media raked her over the coals for that decision.

As if sensing her line of thought, Luna said, “Sometimes you must suffer that damage, for the alternative could be worse.”

“Secretary Whitcomb sure is suffering,” Twilight said. She hit resume.

“It’s a simple enough question,” Routledge said. “How many people were turned into ponies?”

“As if ponies aren’t also people,” Twilight muttered.

“We did not turn any people into ponies.”

Routledge bore a humorous smile. “I am not suggesting that you, personally, did the deed, or anyone else in the administration, or indeed any other person at all. Clearly the deed would have been done by a pony. I personally witnessed Princess Twilight Sparkle do just that to the former Lord Tirek.” He took a breath. “So, once again: how many people have been turned into ponies?”

“I am not aware of a single human who has gone missing because they are now wandering the streets of Ponyville—or, for that matter, anywhere else in either universe.”

“And yet we have DNA evidence from a half-dozen ponies that says it did happen. Every single one had mitochondrial DNA that was indistinguishable from human. Two of them had substantial matches to the two human DNA samples that had also been collected. How do you explain that?”

Whitcomb shrugged. “I am not a biologist.”

“Why were two human DNA samples present at all?”

“I wouldn’t know. I run the Department of Energy.”

“Indeed.” Routledge leafed through some notes. “The Department of Energy has a facility in Bethesda. There’s a caged cockatrice there—harmless, fortunately, without magic.” He looked up. “What does that have to do with energy?”

“I… would have to get back to you on that.”

“There’s also a cockatrice DNA sample. Would it happen to be from that same animal?”

“Again, I’d have to get back to you on that.”

“That facility also has a large cage. Perfect for holding dangerous Equestrian monsters? I note that DNA has been collected from several varieties, including a manticore.”

He once again gave the ritualistic response: “I’d have to get back to you on that.”

The Senator hardly seemed to notice or care. “Getting back to the human DNA samples. Could you identify the donors? What better way to assure us that they are, in fact, still human and not, as you put it, ‘wandering the streets of Ponyville’?”

“Assuming they could be identified, that would constitute a severe violation of their privacy. They would be subjected to a media circus.”

“That would be the least of their problems if they were, in fact, wandering around some street on hooves. Nonetheless, I’d be willing to hold a closed session for that.”

“I do not know if they could be identified. That information was not present in the database, as you know.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Routledge dryly observed. “Nor were the identities of the other pony donors. Quite convenient.”

Whitcomb did not respond; there was no question to answer.

“Who authorized this DNA research?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Why was it kept secret?”

Twilight had had enough; she hit pause. “Do they even care about the truth?”

Luna first asked her own question. “How many can watch this cat-and-mouse game?”

“Cat-and-mouse?”

“Clearly, as you have noticed, the purpose of this interrogation was not to uncover ‘the truth.’”

Twilight turned off the monitor. “Any who want to watch it.”

Luna laid a wing on Twilight’s back. “I know you find this disturbing. It is clear my sister did not properly prepare you for this harsh reality.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Though, to be fair, it is a reality that has been expunged, more or less, from Equestria. Nonetheless, you must learn to acknowledge it, if not accept it, if you are to manage it successfully.”

Twilight pointed a hoof at the blank screen. “He didn’t even acknowledge the facts that don’t back his position!”

“Are you so sure of that?”

Twilight gaped at the elder princess. “What about the fact that no humans have ‘gone missing’ because they were turned into ponies? He simply ignored that!”

“Twilight, you must learn to hear what is not said.”

“Huh?”

“Routledge did not list any humans who have gone missing.”

“Okay…”

“He did not contradict Whitcomb’s statement; he wasn’t surprised or even bothered by it.”

“I’m still not getting it.”

“He replied with his own statement that suggested transformed humans have gone missing, but failed to show it. He knows none have gone missing; that is one item that was not said. And that’s more telling than it seems, as it is almost certainly the case that people go missing all the time for various reasons. He could have taken advantage of that, if nothing else; yet he did not.”

That does seem odd. Twilight ran through the rest of the exchange in her mind. “He’s ‘not saying’ that the identities of the transformed humans are known to the administration; that even though they’ve become ponies, they’re still living their human lives, because they’re not ‘missing’; and…” Her voice trailed off.

Luna patiently waited.

“…and he knew who Meg was when he met her for the first time at the Gates of Tartarus. Supposedly, that was because of her connection to the brony convention, but…”

“Or he knows of Meg’s dual nature and is holding that over Serrell’s head. Maybe. That’s what makes it a game. It’s hard to know who truly knows what until it’s over.”

“Some game.” Twilight hadn’t talked to the president yet. If this indeed was a threat directed at him, he ought to know; otherwise, it was a ineffective threat. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t taken advantage of random people who went missing; this was about the two people he and Serrell knew had been turned into ponies.

Luna looked up in thought. “The existence of this ‘mass media’ does significantly alter the game in ways I had never thought possible. The senator had the advantage here, almost absurdly so. I should hope the president has his own advantages that he could exploit.”

Twilight digested that for a moment. “It won’t be a game to Meg and Steve if their identities are revealed.”

“I appreciate you coming on short notice.” President Serrell got up from his chair, no trace of his earlier optimism remaining. He walked around the Resolute Desk. “Could we go to your castle? I want to ensure no one overhears our conversation.”

Twilight was about to object, that she could cast a privacy spell right here, but then she reconsidered. It wouldn’t protect against a recording device that was close by, and she had no means of detecting one. Besides, what was the harm in granting this request?

Serrell was standing next to her on the presidential seal. “Sure,” she told him, “we could do that.”

She did so, and returned to the bottom floor of her residence within the Castle of Friendship. Serrell looked around, having never been there before. “I know,” she said, pre-empting him. “It looks like the Golden Oak Library. We’re inside my castle.”

He leaned against a desk, there being no proper chair for him to sit in. “Have you seen Andy’s latest YouTube video?”

“I haven’t.” The former centaur was cranking them out twice a day. Apart from that first one, they had been inoffensive, like stuff about life in Minoa and the truth about his brother. The urgency to watch them had faded. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

“Can we watch it together now?”

“Uh, sure, just give me a second to fetch my phone.”

She teleported to her bedroom, fetched the phone… and hesitated. The president was not a young man; it was only right to get a chair for him. She teleported to a storage room, selected a chair, and teleported back to Serrell. He spotted the chair.

While he was sitting down, she said, “Let me bring up the app…”

And there it was. “Inconvenient truths,” she said, reading the title. Nope, not ominous at all.

She started the playback.

“One of the aspects of this modern world,” Andy began, “that has been the hardest for me to come to terms with, has been its systems of governance. Though I understand that Athens is considered the birthplace of democracy, that was far after my time. The world I knew only had kings and their equivalents.

“So imagine my surprise as I watched Senator Routledge lead an inquisition against the President’s men. This would have been inconceivable in my time, and not because television had yet to be invented.”

Serrell nodded. “Pay close attention.”

“It’s ironic, really, this talk about people who’ve gone missing because they were turned into ponies. I couldn’t help but notice that the senator all but admitted none had—gone missing, that is. I believe his words were, ’If they were, in fact, wandering around some street on hooves.’” Andy shook his head. “If?”

He theatrically sighed. “So where’s the irony? It’s this: five people did, in fact, go missing, and not because they were turned into ponies. Senator Routledge was aware of this fact, because one of them was a close associate of his—a ‘problem solver’ was how he’d described himself. Indeed, he claimed to have solved numerous problems in the senator’s most recent election campaign.”

Twilight paused the video. “I can see where this is going.” She met Serrell’s eyes. “You didn’t tell him to keep quiet about this?”

Downcast eyes. “I considered it, and decided that tipping him off to its importance might backfire.”

“It might have,” she conceded, small comfort that might be.

“The real irony is that his release was supposed to divert everyone’s attention from the human prisoners.” The president was showing every bit of his age. “It was a calculated risk. He didn’t mention them at this first press conference, after all. He’s not the type to volunteer information without good reason.” He sighed. “And it looks like he found one. In hindsight, it’s looking like a no-win scenario.” He waved a hand at the phone. “Hear the rest of it.”

Twilight could only assume it got worse. She resumed the video.

“By now you’re no doubt wondering, how did I meet this person? The answer: we were fellow prisoners in Tartarus. All five were incarcerated in the same building as myself. We had numerous opportunities to talk. They mentioned they were part of an anti-pony resistance that calls itself The Section. They jokingly invited me to contact them should I ever escape again from Tartarus.”

He sipped from a mug before continuing. “I’m declining the invitation. Yes, the good senator greeted me warmly enough upon my release, but it was the president who actually set that release into motion. I am not without honor, so consider this my effort to level the playing field in the president’s favor.”

Serrell shook his head. “The irony never ceases.”

“So how did five humans wind up in Tartarus?” Did he actually roll his eyes? “I assign no blame to Twilight for what she did. If they did to me what they had done to her, they would’ve wished they could spend the remainder of their lives in Tartarus. Believe it or not, they had actually tried to kidnap her at gunpoint. Thought she was helpless due to a supposed lack of magic.” A grim smile. “They were wrong.

“I’m sure there’s more to this story, not that I know much more. They claimed to have been interviewed by the Secret Service before being thrown into Tartarus. I do know they were eventually released to the custody of the Secret Service; indeed, they were quite certain that their benefactors would obtain their release.” He shrugged. “Evidently they were correct. And that’s all I know about that. Where they are now I have no idea.”

He smiled at the camera. “Don’t forget to subscribe, so you’ll be notified of future postings.”

The video ended.

Twilight remembered Luna’s lesson. “He didn’t mention any of the human prisoners’ names.”

“No,” Serrell said, “he didn’t. Nor did he mention his attempts to pump the agents protecting him for more information about those five—without success, in case you’re wondering. But none of that really matters. Whether it was a good faith effort to ‘level the playing field’ or not…”

“How’s Senator Routledge taking this?” Twilight asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

“He’s not letting the crisis go to waste, of course, claiming that Jackson is still very much missing, that he’d had no idea what had happened to him until Andy revealed all—not to mention plenty of outrage over my administration acquiescing over an upstanding American citizen being thrown into Tartarus over manufactured crimes.”

Twilight fumed. “Andy was repeating what that upstanding American citizen had told him. Is he accusing Andy of lying too?”

Serrell sighed. “With all due respect, Twilight, sometimes I think you’re too innocent for this. Like it or not, it’s how the game is played here, and I think it’s time to lay down all the cards and let what will happen, happen.”

Twilight had little doubt Luna would have completely understood. She hesitantly asked, “Which means?”

A grim smile. “Mutually Assured Destruction. Routledge did not sufficiently distance himself from the operation that kidnapped little Susie. And I’ll have made public all the details on what his upstanding citizens have done.”

Twilight was too shocked to respond.

“There will be collateral damage, unfortunately. He’s counting on that to stay my hand. I highly recommend you grant her family asylum until the dust settles. On the bright side, they could get rich off a movie deal for their story. You might want to mention that.”

“W-what about you?”

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I’m not asking for asylum, if that’s what you mean. Articles of Impeachment have become inevitable, but Andy did do me one big favor. He justified your actions. Who knows? That may well make a difference.” He exhaled, ever so slightly slumping. “It’s now up to Fate.”

There was nothing worse than the shimmering eyes of a heart-broken filly. “Why not?” Dinky asked Meg.

“Well, the princess isn’t letting any other pony go either, because it has become too dangerous.”

“I’m sure the princess knows what she’s doing,” Derpy said.

Meg wasn’t sure how safe the convention would be for humans. Still, the Secret Service hadn’t vetoed Andy’s appearance yet.

It was time to play her best card. “You can still have a human-themed birthday party. I’m sure my brother would be willing to host it.” He’d better. She had better get around to asking him.

Pinkie arrived with a trio of shakes. Before she could set any of them down on the table, violent spasms caused them to fly away, throwing their contents across the floor. It could only mean one thing, and it terrified Meg. “A doozie?” she asked the spazzing pony.

Before Pinkie could answer, Twilight teleported into Sugarcube Corner and quickly spotted them. “Meg, we have an emergency. Serrell’s about to play his mutually assured destruction gambit. We need to see your brother immediately and get his family, especially Susie, to Equestria for their own safety.” She finally noticed tear-stained Dinky. “Oh, uh…”

“Thaattt… waassn’t… the… doooozzie!”

“Wait, what?” Twilight spun to the shuddering pony. “Doozie?”

“What could be a bigger doozie than this?” Meg asked. The bottom fell out of her stomach. “It’s me, isn’t it?” If Serrell was about to tell all, then so would the other side. The changeling gambit should have prevented that, but…

Pinkie became as motionless as a tombstone. “I think that’s it.”

Derpy threw a protective wing over her filly. “I… think it’s best we leave. Come on, Dinky.”

Dinky followed her mother out the door, her head hung low.

Twilight watched them leave Sugarcube Corner. “I’ll talk to them later.”

Meg collapsed onto a cushion. She could so use one of those shakes right now, but there wasn’t time. “Back to the castle?” she asked Twilight. That’s where those plaid pills were.

Twilight stood next to her. “No time to lose. I’ll teleport us back.”

She did so. Meg found herself in the alicorn’s residence. “Should I accompany you?” Twilight asked.

Meg shook her head. “I don’t see the point. They’re not going to come here right this second.”

“Nor is there need. We’ve got until tomorrow evening.”

Meg had nothing to say. Twilight teleported to where the pills were kept, and came right back with one floating in front of her. It floated over to Meg.

“I doubt this will take long.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

Meg swallowed the pill. She arrived in the living room of her brother’s house. Susie was watching some cartoon on the TV; no one else was in sight. Meg switched off her magic bubble’s invisibility. “Hi, Susie.”

“Meg!” The little girl ran up to her pegasus aunt, cartoon forgotten, and gave her a hug. “Anypony else with you?”

“No, just me. Are your parents around?”

Matt walked into the room. “Finally! We’ve been trying to get ahold of you. We couldn’t get through, could only get a busy signal, and I guess you haven’t been checking your emails until now.”

Meg looked up at her brother, blankly. “Huh?” Quickly she checked her phone. “Hundreds of missed calls? Dozens of messages?”

“You… might want to hold off listening to those.” His eyes meaningfully flicked to Susie.

Uh, right… She checked her email. “No, nothing from you, from anyone in the past few hours… wait, invalid user name and/or password?”

“Never mind that. Do you know an Eric Tanner?”

She looked up. Of course she knew him. He was the inside man at the botched ransacking at work, and one of the five human prisoners imprisoned in Tartarus. But more to the point… “How do you know of him?”

“Let’s talk elsewhere. Susie, stay here and watch your cartoon.”

Susie was reluctant to let go of the pony. “Do what your father says,” Meg told her.

“Okay…”

Susie finally released her, allowing Meg to follow Matt to the garage. Not a word was spoken until the door was closed.

“Yes, I know him. He was a co-worker at the D.o.E., until… he did something unwise.”

“And wound up in Tartarus? Had a cell near Tirek?”

The doozie kept getting doozier. Andy had never mentioned names. “How do you know this?”

“He’s turned up in the news, giving interviews. Insisting he had done nothing to Twilight, hadn’t even seen her until she suddenly showed up, kidnapped him, threw him into a dungeon, and ultimately Tartarus. Largely confirmed what Andy had said.”

Why now? They couldn’t have been reacting to Serrell’s tell-all; that hadn’t happened yet.

“He also claims that you are one of the two humans turned into ponies. The pegasus you were seen standing next to, in front of the Gates of Tartarus, was your pony form—though, he also added, that particular pony was obviously not you, so it had to be a changeling. He then basically said, though not in so many words, that this proves the president is in cahoots with Chrysalis.”

Meg collapsed to her haunches. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense? The part about the changeling? I know everything else is true!”

“No… no, it was a changeling, but not one of Chrysalis’.”

“Seriously? I assumed it was illusion magic of some sort.”

It was all falling to pieces. She’d been outed; that’s why her phone was tied up. Was her email hacked and her password changed? Were there mobs in front of her apartment? Serrell in cahoots with Chrysalis? The changeling gambit had not only failed, it had spectacularly backfired.

And she hadn’t even gotten to the reason she had come here. “It’s worse than you think. That’s why I’m here.”

“You didn’t even know about Tanner?” He turned around, hand to forehead, then turned around again. “Why are you here?” he flatly asked.

“Serrell plans on telling all tomorrow. Did you know Senator Routledge was connected to Susie’s kidnapping? Soon everyone will know.”

Her brother tried and failed several times to say something.

“Twilight’s willing to offer asylum for your family until this blows over. That’s why I’m here, to tell you this.”

Finally, Matt spoke. “Sounds like we’re not the only ones who’ll be needing asylum. Did they find out about Serrell’s plans and decide to preemptively take you out?”

Hooves over eyes. “I don’t think anything can surprise me anymore.”

“Tomorrow, huh? That’s all the time we have to decide and act. Assuming this latest fiasco doesn’t cause our glorious leader to move up his time table.”

Meg looked up. “Would he?”

“I’m not the one who knows a pony who can directly ask the president that question.” He sighed. “Look, come back in an hour with Twilight and I’ll let you know our decision. If we decide to accept her offer, she can start moving our stuff to Equestria at that time.”

“I’ll… I’ll do that.”

Meg invoked the return spell.

Twilight didn’t waste any time. “So?”

“He’ll let us know in an hour—but there’s been another development.” Meg gave a summary of the Eric Tanner development. “I think we should visit my apartment and see what’s going on—hopefully, nothing.” A foolish hope, she knew, given what was happening with her phone.

Without saying anything, Twilight teleported. Almost immediately she came back with two plaid pills in her magical grasp. One drifted over to Meg.

Meg didn’t take it just yet. She extended her wings. “Let’s arrive in the air outside, to get a bird’s eye view of the situation.” Twilight could teleport them inside later.

Twilight extended her own wings. “Good idea.”

Seconds later, they were hovering above the apartment complex. “Just great,” Meg muttered. It was a circus down there. Multiple news vans, numerous police cars, protesters, onlookers, and… the door to her apartment was open. A cop was standing guard outside. She cursed herself. “Shouldn’t have procrastinated on those shield crystals.”

Meg flew down to the carport. Her car was missing. “Wonderful.”

Twilight had joined her. “I’m so sorry, Meg. I’ll have Spike send a letter off to Celestia, so that Steve is informed.”

There didn’t seem much point going inside, not yet anyway. True, they were invisible, but they were not immaterial. Who knew how much activity was taking place in there right now?

No, she corrected herself. There wasn’t much point going inside now, not when they had time travel at their disposal. “It’s not a problem,” Meg said. “We’ll go back in time till just after you picked us up, and we’ll clean the place out—take the car too. Nothing of value will get taken by them.” She gave Twilight a hard look. “Any objection?”

“No, I’m fine with that. We’ll just have to find a place to put it where we won’t stumble on to it prematurely.”

“It’s a big castle with lots of unused rooms. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

They flew back up, to better survey the scene below them. It didn’t seem real to Meg. Sure, time travel would save all her possessions, but life as she knew it had just been destroyed. Maybe the reality of the situation simply hadn’t sunk in yet; time travel wasn’t going to save that. It might have made it even worse, for everyone will “know” they must have skipped town in advance of the outing. What speculation would that cause?

Could it actually be better to forgo the time travel and instead let it all get stolen or destroyed?

“I could really use one of Pinkie’s shakes,” Meg finally said. “Let’s head back.”

Twilight sighed. “Might as well, I guess.”

They both invoked the return spell.

Discord was waiting for them.

Twilight angrily approached him. “Now that you’ve deigned to show yourself, what’s this about the portal?”

“So Tirek had figured it out after all,” he dismissively said. “It’ll have to wait.”

“No. We’ll talk about it—”

The draconequus teleported next to Meg. “It’s time for you to meet your future.”

With a snap of his talons, the two of them disappeared.

40. A Different Game

Meg found herself in front of the mirror, at its current home in a secure vault in Canterlot. All that security had been trivially bypassed by Discord. “Does it really have to be right this second?” she spat out. “My life’s kinda in ruins right now, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Precisely why this is the perfect time.”

If only it was possible to strangle a draconequus. “I have other rather important matters to deal with.” Like getting back to her brother for his answer, less than an hour from now.

Discord walked up to the mirror. “This takes priority.”

Nor did he seem to be facetious. He gave the mirror a hard slap against its side, causing it to briefly rock back and forth. The surface changed from a reflection to a pearlescent shimmer. “After you,” he said with a wave and a bow.

Might as well get it over with. It was time for answers, and it wasn’t as if Discord was giving her a choice. She went through…

…and stepped out the other side on two legs. Canterlot High was before her, eerily silent, with no one in sight. Discord came through, his usual mismatched self—and immediately teleported to the hyperspace portal controls.

That gave her time to ponder some more about the physical reality of stuff in this realm. Enough time had passed since all the occupants were… erased… for lack of care to make itself known. But the lawn, the buildings, they showed no evidence of absence of care. Would the lights still turn on if she went inside and flicked a switch? How would electricity still be generated without anyone to operate the generators, to keep them fueled?

Could I survive here?

Sunset Shimmer did, for years after all, but it was full of life then. Too bad; it seemed a great place to escape from reality.

Discord was coming back from the school, walking as he usually did after opening the other portal. She went around to the opposite side of the statue and waited for him. She knew better than to go through first.

The draconequus finally reached her and without pausing went on through to hyperspace. Meg followed, becoming a pegasus once more, and scanned the infinite blackness that surrounded her. It was almost becoming familiar.

No one else was present.

Meg asked the obligatory question, all too afraid she already knew the answer. “So where do we go?”

The draconequus folded his arms across his chest. “This is your show, not mine.”

Meg sighed. “I suppose it is.” The answer to her question, of course, was wherever they went—no, where she went. She was calling the shots, for better or for worse. Just like the encryption key and the time of this meeting, she would also remember and pass along the meeting’s location. That location would not be here, not right next to the portal. Twilight was probably rushing over right now, and she knew from experience that the portal was not impermeable to sound.

They wouldn’t need to go far. “Move us far enough away that the portal is outside our bubble, and rotate us until we can see the realm’s hyperspatial boundary.” She could only hope those directions would make sense to the other party, whoever that might turn out to be.

Idiot. Of course it’ll make sense. It’s a fact they show up, right?

Discord led her away from the portal; Meg followed, her wings slowly flapping.

Unless this is not when and where the meeting takes place.

She mentally kicked herself. Stop overthinking it.

Discord stopped. When Meg reached him, he reached out and rotated her.

“Oh my god.”

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Right in front of her, a half-dozen feet away, was literal Future Meg. Her future self waved a hand at her. “Hello, past self.”

She turned to Discord. “I thought magic-less creatures can’t exist here,” she said, pointing a hoof at her very human future self.

“Don’t look at me.” His eyes fixed onto the impossible human. “This is beyond my abilities.” He drifted over to and around her, studying her, to Future Meg’s amusement. His eyes went wide and he backed away.

“What is it?” Present Meg asked.

His shock had morphed into disgruntlement. “I’m not touching that question with an ursa major.”

Meg frowned, locking eyes with her presumed future self. “I was promised some answers. First question: why are you not a pegasus, a magical creature?”

“I also mentioned that not all questions would be answered; that is one of them.” She threw a smile at Discord. “He knows.”

He glared at her. “I didn’t expect this. I want no part of it.” He rotated out of sight.

You can’t—

Despite his sudden departure, the bubble of normality was intact. She looked at her future self. “You’re maintaining this bubble?”

“Of course I am. I was here when you arrived, don’t forget.”

“Second question: how are you maintaining this bubble?”

A smile. “I Pinkie Promise that you will one day figure it out.” She went through the motions.

Meg looked around. No Pinkie Pie, but she wasn’t willing to rule anything out at this point.

Her gaze returned to the human her, scrutinizing her. She didn’t look any older, and she was wearing clothes she still possessed—hopefully still possessed. Assuming she was telling the truth, it couldn’t have taken terribly long to have “figured it out.” To figure out something Discord couldn’t do. Something no alicorn could currently do, not even for themselves. Would I lie to my past self? Was this even my future self?

“Technology?” she asked, not believing it for a second.

“Not answering that.”

The pegasus silently stared at the human, wondering how the hell she could prove that really was her future self.

“It can’t be done,” her future self said, as if she could read her mind. “No, I’m not reading your mind; I’m simply remembering from when I was you. Look, this is difficult for both of us. For you because you’re wondering what the hell I am, and for me because, well, doesn’t everyone wish they could visit their past self and give them a clue or two? Except that time travel doesn’t work that way, so… yeah. Let’s just get down to business, okay?”

The pegasus exhaled. Apparently knowing what she was thinking right then was probably the best proof she was going to get anyway, however much it left to be desired. “Fine. How about this: did you place that message in the Late Show green room?”

“Yes.”

Finally, an answer.

“How?” she then asked, not expecting an answer to that question.

“From hyperspace. It is possible for a material object to pass through the boundary, if it’s very carefully aligned with respect to the orientation of space-time. Just…” She mimicked the action. “…push it through.”

“Hence no magical trace.”

“Hence no magical trace.” She rocked her head side to side. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea. And you were wise not to ask if I wrote that message.” She smiled again. “I remember thinking it.”

Yeah. She did consider asking that, because she was still wondering if she should keep the encrypted message and have it re-printed out for future use. That was a decision she’d have to make on her own. Maybe the superposition included time loops where she did, and others where she did not. It didn’t really make a difference; the end result would be the same.

The smile melted from Future Meg’s face. “No, it doesn’t get any easier.”

Again, as if she knew what she was thinking—which she does, if she’s what she claims to be. “Aren’t you worried about paradoxes? About not saying what I’ll remember hearing?”

Future Meg laughed a bitter laugh. “You know better than that. I couldn’t create a paradox if I tried—we have tried in our mutual past. You’re just testing if I’m the real deal.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No, and I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do or say that will prove anything. Discord will confirm my identity, but don’t tell him I said that. You know how he is about future knowledge concerning himself.”

And he knew that her future counterpart could and would maintain the bubble. Duh, because she was already doing it when we arrived.

“So what’s the point of this?” Meg yelled, throwing her hooves out. “Are you just carrying out the actions you remember witnessing when you were me? Because immutable past yada yada yada?”

Future Meg went deadly serious. “No. Time loops become probable when its wave function constructively interferes with itself, increasing its amplitude. If I hadn’t gone back in time to break Tirek out of Tartarus, Twilight would never have had the means to make me—us—a pony. We encountered Lyra with a changeling in the Everfree, and that solved a problem of ours.”

“It did?” snarked Present Meg. “Having a life was a problem? It sure didn’t convince anyone I wasn’t a pegasus.”

“Look, it’s…” Future Meg threw up her hands in frustration. “There’s stuff going on you’re not aware of yet. Yes, I know your life sucks right now, but…”

“But what? Where does it end?”

Meg could swear her future self wanted to hug her. “For me, soon. I’m on my way back to the time when we got kidnapped. You don’t have to worry about that until you’re me.” She bore a grim smile. “Fortunately, I’m up to that task now. I have nothing to fear from those kidnappers. Once that’s done, it’s over.” She rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure, anyway.”

This woman was supposed to be her future self? She was so composed, seemingly on top of things. Confident. “How do I get my act together like that?” she asked in disbelief.

“It… didn’t happen overnight. Let’s leave it at that.”

“And what about Steve?”

For the briefest split-second… “That would be too much information about the future,” Future Meg replied, poker face restored.

That could have been interpreted in so many ways, but like it or not—and she did not—she had to agree: it would be too much information. “Could you, maybe, volunteer some useful information?”

A human hand waved at the void around them. “Well, here’s a helpful tip: long-distance time traveling is a lot easier here.”

But what about having to pass through the Equestria Girls’ realm? That didn’t seem all that helpful, quite honestly. The spell Twilight and her husband had come up with seemed more than adequate. “Any other helpful tips?” Meg asked, not terribly hopeful.

“Actually, yes,” she replied, smiling. “That’s how this particular time loop increases its probability of happening.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“First, you can tell Twilight that it’s okay for the Element Bearers to go human. Nothing bad will happen to their Elements.”

Meg tilted her head. “And how do you know that, when Twilight does not?”

“Because we used a quantum supercomputer to figure it out.”

A quantum supercomputer. It would actually be invented. “Then why did my ploy to have Twilight use such a device in the future to crack the encryption…” Her voice trailed off.

“Fail?” A smirk. “Did it?”

She grimaced. In hindsight, the reason it didn’t work was obvious. “It didn’t work because it wasn’t needed. The encryption key was part of the superposition; it didn’t matter what it actually was.”

“That’s not entirely true. We tried who knows how many millions of different keys. If one of those keys was the key in some superposition, the encryption would’ve been cracked right then, way too early. Or I’m guessing it would have been way too early, because that’s not what happened; its amplitude was evidently too low.

“But you’re still missing the point. There is a quantum supercomputer involved. It’s the time loop itself. It’s computing the amplitude of the superposition, determining what has the highest probability of becoming reality when the wave function collapses. The trick is to massage that wave function so as to compute the desired answer.”

“Just like an actual quantum computer… just with more qubits.”

“An entire multiverse full of qubits, potentially, and because there’s nothing outside that multiverse, by definition, decoherence never happens. Reality itself is the computer.”

“And if the ‘program’ fails to compute an answer, the time travel spell fails.” The possibilities seemed endless. “But how does one ‘manage’ the wave function?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Flip a quantum coin with the intention of doing one thing if it’s heads and another if it’s tails. For each question I remember myself asking, for example, I decided I would answer only if it was heads. It always came up heads when I remembered the question being answered, and always tails when it was not. But of course that would have to be the case; each possible outcome of the superposition is internally consistent, otherwise it’s a paradox with zero amplitude and thus forbidden.”

The pegasus shook her head. “Quantum mechanics doesn’t work that way. Wave functions concern themselves with subatomic particles, not macroscopic concepts like what was said vs what was remembered. Maybe you remembered incorrectly; that could account for it too.”

The human smirked. “Schrödinger’s cat, in a superposition of being alive and dead, was also composed of subatomic particles, don’t forget.” She got serious. “The devil’s in the details, true, but not as much as you’d might think. The key is to be rigorous. When you decide to flip a quantum coin, follow through. Don’t second guess the heads or tails. I’m not saying it’ll never mess up, or that it can’t be messed with, but in practice it isn’t that big of a problem.”

Meg still had her doubts, doubts that could only be dispelled with an experiment. Twilight would be more than happy to help with that, she was certain. “And what about Twilight turning herself human? How did you use this to determine it was safe for her Element?”

“We simply needed to arrange things so that if it messed up the Elements, it would cause a paradox.”

“And how would one so arrange things?”

“Sorry, but that one came up tails, so I can’t answer it. You and Twilight will figure it out.”

“But it will somehow involve another time loop.”

“Naturally.”

Present Meg sighed. It was so much to take in. “Anything else?”

“There are three more items. First, consider what would be the impact on humanity if Equestria never existed. Second, magic can alter the laws of physics. In our universe that ability is quite limited. Obviously, that ability is far greater in the Equestrian realm. Here, where magic is undifferentiated from the other fundamental forces, that ability is at its greatest.” She pointed a finger at the pony. “You need to keep that in mind.”

What good that would do when she couldn’t even exist here except as a guest of a draconequus…

Her eyes fell upon the human in front of her.

That will one day change.

“How long before I can master this place, like you do?”

“That came up tails, I’m afraid.”

Of course. “And the third item?”

“Take advantage of Discord’s randomness. His choices often form a superposition.”

That… oddly made sense. “Like the time of this meeting?”

“Perhaps. It’s always difficult to say with him.”

“Seems to me he simply waited until everything went to hell in a handbasket.”

The human shrugged. “I would think that’s because that is when the wave function’s amplitude would be the highest, or high enough.”

The pegasus studied her for a moment. “You do remember what I’m going through right now, right? This isn’t some academic exercise for me.”

Future Meg exhaled. “Yes, but… I guess you could say it’s ancient history for me. I have the advantage of knowing how it turns out.”

“Which you cannot tell me.”

“Nope.”

“Can you at least tell me about Tirek? Do I break him out of Tartarus several years ago?”

“Flip a quantum coin,” she replied with deadly seriousness. “It’ll come up heads.”

“So… yes?”

“I’ve said all I’m going to say. It’s time to leave.”

The human approached the pegasus and rotated her, bringing the portal into view.

“You can do even that?!”

“Kinda necessary to function out here.”

They both faced the portal, which grew against the infinite void as they moved towards it.

“What about our possessions? Do we go back in time to recover them? Do we need to? I know the car is missing.”

Future Meg maintained a disturbingly effective poker face. “Flip a quantum coin.”

“That wasn’t funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

The portal was before them. It… looked different, dim, flat.

“Discord closed it,” her future self explained, unconcerned. “Just a second.” She touched it with a finger, and it brightened, became pearlescent again. “You can go through now; I’ll close it afterwards.”

The pegasus stared at her, mouth agape.

“Yes, I can do that too. It’s actually much easier from this side.”

Did Discord know about this? He had never bothered to close it, to her knowledge, before taking them deeper into hyperspace—but neither had there been need to close it. Yet this time he closed it? With her still out there? Did he know her future self could open it, forced her to show that she could?

Future Meg patiently waited.

This was her last chance for information; she took it. “What does our cutie mark really mean?”

A wan smile. “Tails.”

So she had to figure it out for herself.

“But it has nothing to do with hula hoops,” the human added.

She couldn’t help but suspect that if it had come up heads, she would’ve been told, “I haven’t figured it out yet either.”

Clearly she had learned all she was going to learn from her future self. Without another word—how does one say goodbye to one’s self?—she went through the portal.

Twilight was waiting for her. “How did it go?”

“About as well as expected, I guess.” Meg looked around. “You’ve seen Discord?”

“He’s not…” Twilight pointed a hand at the hyperspace portal.

“Quite honestly,” she dramatically replied, “I have no idea where he is right now.” She hesitantly tapped the hyperspace portal. It was closed.

“Then how…”

Meg gave a recap of the meeting.

Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. “That’s all assuming, of course, that really was your future self. That a magic-less human can even exist there, much less do what she did, ought to be impossible. Fortunately, there are several falsifiable hypothesis we can test; that’s what matters most, regardless of whether she was who she claimed to be.”

“Any idea how to arrange for a paradox if turning human does bad things to your Element?”

“Not off the top of my head,” Twilight said. “I’ll have to think about it. That’s one of the hypotheses, of course, and an important one at that.”

And before any of them could be tested, she needed to create a flippable quantum coin. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sure Discord will turn up sooner or later.”

“He’d better,” Twilight said, clenching her fists. “I still want answers about that portal Andy used.”

“First, my brother. Back to Ponyville?”

Twilight started for the other side of the statue. “No, I’ve brought the dispenser with me. Celestia agreed to provide them accommodations in her palace, because humans are allowed in Canterlot.” She went through.

“This should be interesting,” Meg said to no one, and went through herself.

She followed Twilight to a guest suite. The plaid pill dispenser was there. Seconds later, they were in her brother’s house. A few suitcases and boxes laid about the living room. “I guess we have our answer,” Meg said.

Matt walked in carrying another box and set it down next to the others. “So where would we be staying, Sweet Apple Acres or your castle?”

Meg smirked. “Try Celestia’s castle, in Canterlot.”

“No restrictions against humans there,” Twilight added.

“But what about the Crusaders?” Susie asked, who was coming down the stairs.

“I’m sure visits can be arranged,” Twilight assured her. “But don’t forget there’s a lot to see in Canterlot. I grew up there, you know. I’ll take you to Donut Joe’s place!”

“We’ll take a rain check on that,” Linda hurriedly said. “Let’s just get going. I can’t even watch the news anymore.”

Matt got down on his knees in front of Meg. “If you haven’t heard, the FBI has reopened the investigation into the break-in at your workplace. Don’t know if it affects you, but keep it in mind.”

After Eric Tanner’s sudden appearance in the news, Meg couldn’t say she was terribly surprised. “I will,” she said. Hopefully, it was just a formality; it didn’t really change anything, after all.

Twilight had moved all the luggage and boxes closer together. “Ready to go?”

Matt held an arm around his wife and daughter. He nodded.

Magic engulfed them and the return spell was invoked.

“Wow!” Susie ran about the room.

“‘Wow’ indeed,” Linda said, her eyes sweeping the suite. “This is fit for royalty.”

“Royal guests are what you are,” Twilight declared. She telekinetically opened the front door. A mare walked in. “This is Hearth Care. She’ll look after your needs.”

“Meanwhile,” Meg said, preempting the mare, “there’s something Twilight and I need to take care of. I’ll see you later.”

Twilight looked at her questioningly as Meg headed for the door. Not getting an immediate answer, she followed Meg into the hallway. “Take care of what?” she finally asked once they were out of earshot.

“Test those hypothesis. I’m going to flip a quantum coin right now as to whether my future self should answer the questions I asked. No reason I can’t do that right now. And to do that, I need a computer with internet access. Yours depends on my home wi-fi, which is out of action, maybe stolen, and your computer is back in Ponyville anyway, so that leaves the computers in the cave. Those are tied into the Department of Energy’s internal network, so they should still work.”

“Let’s do it.”

It took a minute for them to reach a balcony, then it was into the sky. They gained altitude and passed over to the back side of the mountain. Spotting the abandoned mine, they spiraled down, Meg leading the way, until she flew past the defunct ore processing facilities and landed at the tunnel’s entrance. Twilight touched down next to her. Once they were inside, out of the sight of any unlikely pegasus flying by, Meg used her pendant to resume her human form, ready to use a keyboard.

“It’s a bit easier to teleport a smaller pony, you know.”

Meg shrugged. “Sorry?”

Twilight didn’t say anything to that, choosing to focus on the teleportation spell.

The spell was cast, and they were inside the cave that hosted the joint human-pony magic research efforts.

Three other humans were already present, in suits and ties, wandering about the place—with guns drawn. None of whom Meg recognized. “What the…”

“What are you doing here?” Twilight demanded.

“How did they get here?” Meg urgently, but quietly, added. Obviously they hadn’t been brought here by Twilight. Sunset and Moondancer weren’t around, and she couldn’t image either of them bringing this lot over.

All three turned to face them, taken by surprise at their sudden appearance. “You are Meg Coleman?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” she hesitantly said. “And who are you?” Only the presence of an alicorn next to her enabled her to deal with the guns pointed in her direction.

“FBI. You are under arrest.” He pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Will you surrender peacefully?”

“Arrest? For what?”

“Conspiracy to kidnap individuals with ties to Senator Routledge for the purposes of influencing his agenda.”

“What?!”

Twilight marched forwards, her horn glowing. “Meg is going nowhere. How did you get here?”

The agent briefly looked at the other agents; their unease was obvious. “Please do not interfere, princess. You do not, yet, have diplomatic immunity.”

Twilight made a point of looking at their guns, all pointed at her. “Excuse me? Why not arrest me then? I’m the one who ‘kidnapped’ them.”

“There is no warrant for your arrest.”

Meg let out a low pitched laugh. “Isn’t it obvious, Twilight? Routledge and his goons know what a shitstorm that’d create, so they’re content with just taking me out—you know, for the purposes of influencing you.” She looked the agent in the eye. “No. I’m not surrendering. And if you’re smart, you won’t try to take me by force.”

Two agents moved towards her. Twilight teleported between them and Meg. “Just where do you think you are?”

“I don’t think they have a clue,” Meg said. She couldn’t make sense of it. It was if they had come here without realizing they had arrived in Equestria. How was that possible? On top of that, they didn’t seem surprised to find her here. Did they come here looking for her? But why would they expect to find her here if they didn’t know where ‘here’ was?

Meg addressed the agents: “Do you?”

“Please stand aside,” an agent instructed the alicorn, almost pleading.

The barrels of all three guns bent into right angles. “You are in Equestria. You have no authority here. You have no permission to be here. You will explain now how you got here.”

All three stared in bafflement at their now-useless weapons. “I think we better show her,” one said.

“If it wasn’t her, then who?” another asked.

The third was silent.

“It’s down that tunnel,” the first one said, pointing at where the restrooms were.

Twilight trotted in that direction. Meg quickly followed.

There, a dozen feet past the restrooms, on the tunnel wall. Twilight stopped in front of it.

“Discord,” she spat out.

Meg caught up to her and stared at it herself. It was a portal. On the other side was her workplace. It must have been up against a wall in the other universe. “This would sure make things more convenient,” she said dully. She turned to look at the agents walking their way. “Too bad I can’t go through it.”

“You didn’t create this?” an agent asked Twilight.

Meg rolled her eyes. “You had the guts to walk through a clearly magical portal without a clue where it went?”

“We… ran some sanity checks first. But there was no reason you’d create a portal to somewhere dangerous.”

“I wouldn’t, no. Discord on the other hoof…” She slowly shook her head. “Whatever. You want to search this facility? Knock yourselves out. It’s a joint operation between Equestria and the Department of Energy. Just don’t go past any closed doors. Most tunnels are not sized for humans, and you’ll easily get lost. Furthermore, there’s a bunch of nuclear waste stored here. Perfectly harmless, so long as you leave it alone.” She gave them a hard look. “Try not to damage anything or activate any spells. I’ll be informing President Serrell about this, naturally.”

Without warning, the alicorn teleported herself and Meg back to the main chamber. “Let’s get some ‘super duper random numbers’ and get out of here,” Twilight said. A privacy spell was cast, enclosing them in a translucent lavender sphere.

Disoriented, Meg got her bearings. Being teleported without warning was never fun, but it beat getting past those agents in the tunnel. “Couldn’t agree more,” she replied. Meg headed to a computer and sat down. She brought up the website with the quantum mechanically generated random numbers.

“Okay. For each question, I’ll run the stream briefly. If the first hex digit is odd, that counts as ‘heads’ or yes; and if it’s even, that’s ‘tails’ or no. First question: Do I answer when asked if it was technology maintaining the bubble?”

She clicked to start, then clicked to stop. The first hex digit was six. “No. Which is what happened.” She didn’t know how she felt about that. It was fifty-fifty anyway; too soon to tell.

“Next question: Why are you not a pegasus?” Click, then click. The letter ‘a’: the hex digit for ten. “No answer. Correct again.” That made it seventy-five/twenty-five.

“Okay, how about: Did you place that message in the green room?” Five. “An answer, correct. Next, how did you place that message?” The letter ‘f’: fifteen. “Also answered, correct.”

Reality was sinking in. “What about: What does my cutie mark mean?” The letter ‘c’, twelve. “Do I make a joke about it not being about hula hoops?” Three.

The odds of them all being correct by chance was shrinking fast.

One of the agents returned. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Twilight lowered the privacy shield. “None of your business. And don’t forget you’re in Equestria.” She re-established the shield. “We’re going to have to further isolate this facility,” she said, mostly to herself.

Or get Discord to close that portal. But did they really want that? It was too useful. How would Serrell react to the presence of this portal? She cringed. How would the media react, if they found out?

The agent didn’t go away. He could see the monitor through the bubble, for all the good it did him. It only showed a bunch of random hex digits, after all. After a failed attempt to enter the bubble, he merely watched. Meg continued to flip the quantum coin, each time preceded by a question she had asked, and each time it correctly matched whether it had been answered.

The odds had become minuscule that it was only coincidence.

Regardless of whether that had actually been her future self, or whether it had been some other being who had been coached on which questions to answer and how, there was no question that a time loop was in operation, running a program on the multiversal quantum supercomputer.

It was time to look forwards, not backwards. This was a different game, with different rules. They had to master the management of the wave function, to write that program—once they figured out what needed computing, obviously. That would seem to be up her alley, right? Maybe that’s what her cutie mark meant? It looked like a Venn diagram, after all.

A question came to her. She had been told to flip a coin to answer it. Better to get it out of the way. With dry mouth, she asked, “Do we go back in time to collect my belongings, including my car, before they could all be stolen or destroyed by that mob?”

She clicked to start the generator. She couldn’t look at where that first digit would appear. It scrolled off the top before she stopped the generator.

“It’s imperative you do what it says,” Twilight said, her voice strained. “No second guessing, or it doesn’t form a superposition.”

Did she see it before it scrolled off? Did she know what she had to do—or not do? Would she have said that if it was an odd digit?

Heart racing, she forced herself to scroll that first digit into view. It was a four.

Her head slumped into her hands. “Figures.”

Epilogue

The Everfree Forest passed by below. As forbidding as it looked, this high up Meg knew it was safe enough—and quite frankly, she was almost preferred the easily understood dangers down below to the asylum for the insane her home world had become. Almost.

Serrell had revealed all, triggering conniptions all around but few changed minds. Everyone stubbornly dug in, refusing to budge. Not even Andrew’s optimism could keep the convention from being shutdown, threatened lawsuits over broken contracts be damned. When the death threats had started to arrive, most of the senior staff who hadn’t already quit in frustration and disgust finally took that as a hint to do so.

Meg and Steve had briefly returned to their apartment to see what could be salvaged. There wasn’t much. Just about everything was either gone or trashed. Fortunately, Meg had taken to keeping backups of everything digital in Twilight’s castle; it had amused her at the time that her digital possessions could survive the literal destruction of the Earth.

Equestria was now their home, the asylum paperwork rubber-stamped by the princesses. What outrage that had stirred back in the U.S. was drowned out by everything else. At least word of that new portal had yet to leak to the public. Nonetheless, it was only a matter of time; Royal Guards had been posted in the cave. So far, all they had kept out were federal agents still hoping to take Meg into custody.

She took a quick look behind her. Nopony was following. Not that she was being watched or anything, but one could never discount the possibility of being spotted flying in a direction no sane pegasus ought to be flying. A certain rainbow-maned pegasus was too effective at traversing large areas. This was something she needed to do by herself, if only because it’d look even crazier than flying into the Everfree.

There it was, up ahead. The abandoned castle. And there, by its side—yes, she could just make it out. A gorge. She flew towards it. This was the most dangerous part of the journey: descending. Nothing would bother her at her destination.

Into the gorge she flew, and she spotted the cave. A welcoming soft glow emanated from it. Going inside, she glided, then landed in front of the Tree of Harmony.

She practically snarled at it.

“What do you want from me?”

The Tree was silent.

Of course it was silent. Even in that dream, when it was inexplicably in Tartarus, it never spoke.

She couldn’t be satisfied with that. When she was turned into a pony that first time, when she had been made magical, she had sensed something in that timeless instant, something harmonious. The tree in front of her was supposedly the very essence of it.

“Answer me!”

She shook her head. What am I doing? She half-expected the Crusaders to descend from the upper branches. Fortunately she was not subjected to that; evidence of some lingering sanity, she supposed.

She walked right up to the tree. As before, a faint shadow made itself felt of the harmony she had experienced while being zapped by the rainbows.

Well, it wasn’t as if there were any witnesses present.

“Answer me!”

Silence. She looked around. No dream Celestia to pronounce her doom. No flesh-and-blood Celestia, either, to express concern.

“It’s a tree of few words, you know.”

Meg exhaled as her head slumped. Slowly, she turned around towards the condescending voice. “Why are you here, Discord?”

He touched his paw to his chest. “Can I not have concern for a friend?”

“Do you still insist you weren’t playing the part of Future Meg?”

That had been Twilight’s conclusion. It fit the facts, after all. Even if Future Twilight learned to handle hyperspace, she couldn’t shape-shift to assume Meg’s human form. The same applied to any other alicorn, including any that had yet to ascend. Maybe Chrysalis could handle hyperspace, but… no. That she’d participate in something like this was so preposterous it wasn’t worth considering. So that left Discord, and if that had been Future Discord, well, that explained the behavior of Present Discord.

The draconequus did something completely unexpected. “That was really you. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He even carried out the motions.

“Why now? You wouldn’t Pinkie Promise before.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You really expect a sensible answer from the Spirit of Chaos?”

“No,” she said, sighing, “I guess not.” Did it even make a difference? Could he truly be bound by a Pinkie Promise? “Are you finally willing to explain what you sensed about my future self that drove you away?”

He said, not unkindly, “You’ll find out in the due course of time.”

“Of course I will.” She looked back at the tree, recalling the first time she saw it. She hadn’t in many months looked at that selfie of herself and Twilight posing by the tree. Maybe… with Discord? No, he’d have to handle the phone, and that probably wasn’t a good idea.

Without turning around, she asked, “So why did you create those portals, all those thousands of years ago?” He hadn’t answered that question when Twilight had asked it, but there was no harm in her asking it again. Discord was not known for his consistency; he might answer this time.

“Why not? Things had gotten rather boring.”

It wasn’t much more of an answer than the one Twilight had finally gotten, but it was something. And it reminded her of something her future self had told her. “What if those portals had never existed? How would my world be different today?”

“I think that should be obvious.”

It should, shouldn’t it? Cause and effect, after all. “Well, for starters, the Greeks would have left us no myths about unicorns, manticores, hydras, etc. That would have affected Western culture down to the present day, but I don’t see…”

She face-hoofed.

“There would be no My Little Pony, because it was inspired by those myths. I wouldn’t be a brony. I wouldn’t have a Pinkie Pie doll; there’d be no Pinkie Pie dolls. Would Twilight and Rainbow Dash have even come to my world?”

“You’re thinking too small,” Discord said. “Many were affected by those portals. Many more were never born, while others were born in their place.”

Comprehension dawned on Meg. “The gene pool shifted as people emigrated through the portal. Even for those who stayed behind, if their children’s conception was shifted by even a day, maybe hours, they’d have different genes, grow up to be different people. And the differences would grow exponentially with every generation. After thousands of years…”

“After thousands of years, your world—or at least a sizable chunk of it—would be populated by a completely different set of people, living in societies that had evolved in different directions.” He clapped his paw and claw in glee. “The butterfly effect with a vengeance!”

Meg collapsed to her haunches. “I would never have existed, would I?”

“No. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Yeah, right. As if he’d known those portals would have brought this world into existence, much less had known what would have existed in its place if he hadn’t created those portals. Which brought to mind other words from her future self: if Equestria never existed. How would the lack of portals have affected Equestrian history?

All the inexplicable similarities came to mind: language, dodos, Las Pegasus casinos, even electrical outlets. There could be no doubt: if there had been no portals, then Twilight and Rainbow Dash would not have come to her world, much less cross paths with a non-brony Meg—because those two would never have existed either.

But wasn’t this line of thought pointless? The portals did happen, the Greeks did leave behind those myths, My Little Pony did get inspired by them, and she had been born and had become a brony, and Twilight had also…

Unless.

No. The wave function collapsed, yielding this reality. Even if the many-worlds interpretation was correct, those other realities were irrelevant as far as this reality was concerned.

Nonetheless, any and all time loops that made this outcome probable had to be completed—would be completed, must be completed.

She looked up at the mute Tree of Harmony. With her luck, she probably created that tree in the distant past. “Discord, just how far back do these time loops go?”

There was no answer. She looked behind her.

“Of course you’re gone.”

She turned back to the tree. “Don’t suppose you’d like to answer that question?”

The tree continued its subtle, shifting patterns of soft illumination.

Meg shook her head. “I suppose not.”

There was no point in staying; she’d gotten what she needed, if not what she had wanted. Taking wing, she left the cave and rapidly soared to the safety of the sky.

As she flew over the forest, that question would not leave her alone. If Equestria never existed. Why would her alleged future self have raised that question if the answer was academic? Yes, she raised it because the quantum coin had come up heads, but that only meant that the time loop was more probable for the question having been asked.

Probably.

Sometimes random chance is just random chance.

Regardless, it still seemed like a big red flag; it implied it went way back in time.

Right?

Ponyville approached. She veered north, heading towards Canterlot, to check in with her brother’s family. Steve was also there, at Celestia’s School, helping Arcane Scroll make sense of the accumulating data on that star.

She spotted a cloud up ahead. Aware of the growing exhaustion in her wings, she headed towards it. That rapid ascent from the cave took more out of her than she had thought.

More words from her future self intruded: You need to keep that in mind. She already knew magic could override the laws of physics; what did that admonition mean? What laws would they need to magically rewrite in the hyperspatial void, and for what purpose?

She touched down on the cloud. As she rested her weary wings, tail twitching in thought, her eyes gazed upon the palace in the distance while other fragments of that conversation floated to the surface of her mind, raising question after question.

By the time she resumed flight, the absence of answers led to one conclusion, that it was imperative that they figure it out.

Author's Note

The sequel is now up!

TImperatives

MLP: FiM

The conclusion to the trilogy.

Human

Twilight

OC

Sharp Quill · 42k words  ·  36  3 · 249 views

8. Irreconcilable Differences

Twilight arrived at the Bethesda lab and looked around. Three humans were gathered around a large cage on a table—the one that held the cockatrice, if she remembered correctly. One was a staff researcher, who was studying the creature; another was Agent Fowler; and the third was… Agent Reubens? She hadn’t seen him since he helped remove the mirror from the Crystal Empire.

“What do you think of it,” she said, mostly to announce her arrival, and walked towards them.

They turned around. “I’m just glad I’m seeing it here, where it’s harmless,” Fowler said.

Their movement had given Twilight a direct line of sight to the caged creature. She looked it directly in the eyes. The cockatrice returned the stare, sticking its beak through the bars of its cage. Being an alicorn gave her the ability to fight off ossification, though not without effort. There was no need for that here.

Twilight stopped well before reaching them. “Which is why I shouldn’t come any closer. While it can’t turn you to stone with magic in this realm, it can still paralyze you.”

“Only temporarily, though,” the researcher added, as she stroked its beak. It seemed to enjoy it. “There are no lasting effects. When feeding it, we put a magic generator nearby. It doesn’t seem to mind just paralyzing its prey; it adapted quite quickly.”

“Okay…” Fowler said as she began walking towards Twilight. “I won’t ask what you feed it.” She paused long enough to address her partner. “We should get going.”

“Yes, we should.” Agent Reubens followed her. “It’s been a long time, Your Highness.”

“Indeed it has,” Twilight replied. “A last minute change of plans? I wasn’t told to expect you.”

“You could say that.” They both came to a stop in front of her before he continued. “The President is taking this very seriously. We’ll continue this conversation once we’re in Equestria.”

Twilight could take the hint. There would be no eavesdropping in her castle, not from spies hired as lab staff and not from hidden listening devices. “Then let’s be on our way,” she said, grabbing them with her magic.

One return spell later and they were back at the castle, inside the room that held the van and boxes of stolen materials. “I assume you’ll want the vehicle,” Twilight said. “As for the rest…” Her eyes scanned the boxes. “I could return it all to their rightful places, unless you have other plans.”

Agent Reubens looked over the boxes for himself. “It’s probably best if you held onto it for now, if you wouldn’t mind. The attempted theft is outside our jurisdiction; the FBI will handle that, once we know who can be trusted. The attempted kidnapping of a foreign leader, on the other hand, that we can investigate.”

Agent Fowler had put some kind of gloves on her hands and was now opening the front door to the vehicle. She started taking pictures of the interior with her phone. “Obviously, you removed the boxes, but did you disturb anything up front?” she asked Twilight.

“No, I figured you wouldn’t like that.”

She opened a compartment in front of the passenger’s seat. “You’re catching on. At least we don’t have to worry about your fingerprints messing up theirs.” She took a picture of the compartment’s contents. “Technically, you shouldn’t have removed the boxes from the van, or taken custody of the vehicle for that matter, but what’s done is done.” She shrugged. “But if you hadn’t, it all might’ve been gone by the time the FBI arrived. Theft is the least of their crimes, anyway.”

“Or high on our list of concerns,” Reubens added. “But how Mr. Tanner had gotten hired is high on that list.”

“Were you able to discover anything from the—license plate, was it?—that I sent you the picture of?”

Fowler was busy examining the contents of that compartment, so Reubens answered. “The van was rented by Jackson, the apparent ringleader. He paid for it with his own credit card. The car still parked behind the building belonged to Tanner, their plant in the organization. It confirms their presence at the scene.”

Meg stood in the doorway. “What about the stuff from my office? Any leads on that?”

All eyes were on her. “We were told you were in Las Pegasus?” Fowler asked.

“We returned early,” Meg replied. “None of us were in the mood considering… what happened.”

“I suppose I can understand that.” Fowler approached the pegasus. “No, we don’t have any leads. You had a chance to confront them, right?”

“Yup. One moment I was at the Planet Do casino shopping mall, and the next I was in Celestia’s throne room, human once more.” Meg forced a wry grin. “Stuff like that happens here, especially when Discord’s around to lend a paw or talon.”

Twilight was about to speak, but Meg cut her off. “You’ve already apologized enough, Twilight. A little advance warning would’ve been nice, but my presence was justified.”

Reubens took out a notepad and pen. “Since you’re here, would you mind giving a statement?”

“Might as well,” she said. “I’ve never seen any of them before, except Tanner of course. They somehow got my key card. I had left it at home. I did hop over there last night, and it was missing. Nothing else was disturbed, nor was there any sign of forced entry. It was as if whoever took it had a key to the apartment and knew exactly where my key card was to be found.

“They claim they got it from me when they broke into my office at work and kidnapped me. That’s why Celestia had requested my presence, to expose their lies. I wasn’t in the office that day; I was in Las Pegasus. But they wouldn’t budge. They insisted I had to be a changeling or one of Discord’s puppets or something, because I was their prisoner or whatever.”

Reubens finished writing his notes before addressing Twilight next. “And you know for certain that this is the real Meg. Not a changeling or… something.”

“Absolutely,” Twilight declared. “When they departed for their vacation, I picked them up from their home and personally saw them off at the Ponyville train station. Meg would not have had the means to return to your realm even if she’d wanted to. As for being a changeling in disguise, Celestia’s throne room is warded against that.”

“And being one of Discord’s puppets?”

“Well, I suppose that’s not impossible,” she had to admit, “but he wouldn’t risk angering Celestia and me with a stunt like that, and he knows we’d find out sooner or later.”

“I would have to be that puppet,” Meg said, “since I know what happened in that throne room.”

Twilight cast a detection spell on Meg. “And she is not a puppet.”

Pen furiously worked its way across paper. Once he had finished writing, he looked up and exhaled. “I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.” He looked down, once more, at Meg. “What about the ‘Meg’ they supposedly kidnapped? Any chance that could be a changeling?”

Twilight answered for her. “I consider that highly unlikely, but without access to this hypothetical changeling I can’t rule it out. The possibility was mentioned to them, but they rejected it, along with an offer to determine their captive’s true nature.”

“Big surprise.” He sighed. “Hypothetical changelings in our midst. Wonderful.” He wrote it all down.

“You should note that their transformation magic cannot work in your realm, so it’s not clear how much of a threat they can be, even if they are present there.” She tilted her head in thought. “Actually, I have no idea how the lack of magic—never mind the conservation laws—would affect changelings.” She looked up at him. “The best part is, neither do they.”

Reubens wrote that down. “I’ll take whatever good news I can get.” He looked back at Meg. “What about the computer they took from your office. Anything sensitive on it?”

“Plenty, but it won’t do them any good. I use full disk encryption. And a proper password.”

“That’s nice to hear, for a change.” Addressing Twilight, he said, “I saw your email concerning the events of the attempted kidnapping. Anything to add?”

Twilight shook her head.

Reubens returned notepad and pen to his coat pocket. “And you still have Jackson’s gun that you crushed and took?”

“Yes. I can go fetch it now.”

Reubens waved his hand. “It can wait until we return home. But before we see the prisoners, we need to talk about the Tartarus option.”

“Tartarus option?” Meg asked, not quite believing what she heard.

“We can talk about that on the way to Canterlot,” he said.

Twilight had mentioned threatening the prisoners with that in her report, but only as a means of scaring them into cooperating. Naturally, she had included information on Tartarus. Was that what had sparked interest in this option? “We can do that,” she said. She had planned on doing so anyway.

“So how will we get to the prisoners?” Fowler asked.

“A royal chariot is waiting for us on the balcony,” Twilight replied.

“Uh… balcony?”

Meg smirked, briefly extending her wings. “Pulled by pegasi of the Royal Guard.”

“Definitely not in Kansas.”

Twilight teleported to just outside the interrogation room. Through the large, one-way window, Agents Fowler and Reubens were questioning Tanner across a table. Two Royal Guards snapped to attention upon noticing her arrival, but said nothing—not because it would disturb the questioning, for the window was one-way for both sound and light, but so the princess could listen without distraction. She stepped up to the transparent crystal.

“—sister totally buys in to that crap. Look, I never understood it, but it seemed harmless enough, even when she volunteered at that bronycon.” Eric glared at the agents. “Then they showed up. It all became obvious.”

“What became obvious?” Agent Fowler asked.

“Are you blind?!” he shouted. “That cartoon! It was all part of their plan to lull us into a false sense of security.”

“What evidence do you have for that?”

He gaped at them, unable to immediately answer. “What other possible explanation is there? Ponies have been secretly among us for decades. They somehow created all the versions of that damned cartoon—all those dolls and toys—preparing for this day!”

“So they could just trot in and take over without a fight,” Reubens suggested.

“Exactly. The future of the human race is at stake! You should be helping us. Doing whatever it takes to defeat them.” He glared at the agents. “You should be investigating Hasbro’s role in all this.” He waved his hands about the room. “Not… this!”

That investigation had already taken place, Twilight knew. There was not the slightest evidence that any aspect of that cartoon, in all of its so-called “generations,” had originated anywhere but in the minds of the humans who had worked on it.

She could almost sympathize with him, the need to make sense out of an impossible situation.

Reubens continued the interrogation. “It’s a little hard to help if we don’t know who you mean by ‘us.’”

Eric shook his head. “Oh, no. You’re not getting me that way. How stupid do you think I am?” He leveled his gaze at him. “You’re on their side, doing their dirty work for them. Just like that traitor, Meg. Did you know she’s been ponified, turned into a pegasus?”

“We’re trying to negotiate for your release,” Fowler said. “You were not involved with the kidnapping attempt. You do not have to be sent to Tartarus for what Jackson did.”

Twilight found that a bit worrisome. How did he know that about Meg? That was on a need-to-know basis at her workplace, at Meg’s insistence. Those with a need made for a short list, and Eric wasn’t on it.

“It’s an empty threat. There is no Tartarus.”

“Why would they believe that?” Twilight muttered to herself.

“It was in the cartoon, was it not?” Reubens said.

Tanner threw up his hands. “So what? They decided to throw in some Greek mythology to make it more believable, or create a phony connection to us, or whatever. Didn’t Twilight herself say the show wasn’t totally accurate?”

Touché. Not that she had ever said Tartarus was one of those inaccuracies. But neither had she said it wasn’t. The subject had never come up. To be fair, though, their depiction of Tartarus was way off.

Reubens laid his palms flat on the table and leaned forward. “For what it’s worth, Twilight had led me to believe Tartarus is quite real. Are you willing to take that chance?”

Tanner sat in silence.

“You’re both changelings, aren’t you?” he finally said.

As much as she wanted to stay and continue observing, Twilight had a meeting to attend. She teleported away.

Meg settled onto a cushion opposite Princess Celestia, who was occupied with making tea. To her surprise, Luna was present as well, sitting next to her sister. It was well past her bedtime and she showed it; that she was here anyway was a sign of this meeting’s significance. Twilight would be joining them soon.

“I understand you’ve become tired of hearing it,” Celestia began, “but I do regret it had been necessary to interrupt your vacation.”

Meg offered a wan smile in reply. It was best just to let her get it out of her system.

“You’ll be reimbursed for your vacation expenses, of course. It’s the least I can do.”

They already had more bits than they knew what to do with in Equestria, but it wouldn’t do to refuse. “Thanks.”

Twilight appeared in a flash of teleportation. “Not very promising so far,” she said as took a seat at the mahogany table. “It’s being recorded. We’ll be able to listen to it later.”

“That should prove interesting.” Celestia poured tea for everypony. “Now that we’re all present…” she said. “Let’s start with you, dear sister, before you fall asleep.”

Luna did not return the jab, proof of just how tired she was. “I tried entering their dreams last night, but as I suspected I could not. Humans are not magical creatures.”

Meg’s eyes went wide. Sure, she had been visited by Luna in a dream, but as a means of interrogation? Just as well it’d failed. Neither she nor her husband had ever slept in Equestria as humans; it was an experiment they had considered trying, but had yet to get around to doing.

“Turning them into ponies would address that,” Luna added.

Meg’s eyes went wider. “No. I’m sorry, but that’s a bad idea.”

Celestia put down her teacup. “We’re listening.”

“It’s not that it wouldn’t work—obviously it would—it’s the consequences. If word got out back on my world that you turned a human into a pony against their will, never mind for the purpose of invading his dreams for information…” She caught her breath, momentarily having run out of words to say. “The reason people like those in your dungeons exist is because they fear that sort of stuff will happen. The worst thing you can do is confirm those fears.”

“They attacked a princess,” Luna reminded her.

“Not in Equestria, they didn’t. Twilight was in a foreign land, and the laws of that land apply.”

“They will hold a trial, correct? Do they not need evidence to convict them?”

“Of course they need evidence, but that… isn’t the sort of evidence that’d be admissible in court. I guess. I’m not a lawyer.” Meg slumped. “And then there’s the court of public opinion.”

“Is there to be no justice?” Luna demanded.

“I’m not saying that!” Meg said.

“Luna, please. I’d be more than happy to forget the whole thing if they would just cooperate.”

“There is a bigger picture here,” Celestia said.

Luna assented with silence.

“I’d have to appear at this trial as a witness?” Twilight asked.

“You don’t have to, but the odds of a conviction go way down if you don’t. You’re the only witness to your attempted kidnapping, after all.”

Twilight looked thoughtful for a moment. “There is the gun I took from Jackson, don’t forget, the one I crushed.”

“Right, that’s physical evidence. They can trace ownership of it. Hopefully. They could still get prints off it.”

“And only Twilight could have crushed it?” Celestia suggested.

“It’d be hard for the defense to come up with an alternative explanation.” Meg stared into her cup, as if trying to divine answers from the tea leaves. “Still would be nice if we could get them to talk, somehow. They’re not important, their organization is.” She looked up. “But I get the impression they’re not worried about a conviction.”

“That’s what the Tartarus option is for,” Twilight said quietly.

“I can’t believe Serrell’s onboard with that,” Meg said, equally quietly. “He’s taking a big risk. If word got out…”

“Then,” Celestia said, “we would get our word out: Tartarus is not the dungeon of torment and suffering that your mythology paints.”

That had been discussed on the chariot flight to Canterlot. Serrell and the agents had already known that, though it had been news to Meg. Tartarus wasn’t really any worse than the dungeons carved into the mountain below them. She had visited those dungeons once. They were more stone than metal, not surprising given their location, but still more modern than medieval.

“So what’s the point of Tartarus?”

“Tartarus is ideal for holding powerful beings,” Celestia said. “Beings who could not be imprisoned for long unless their magic was suppressed. That suppression, along with other measures, renders escape nearly impossible.”

“Nearly impossible,” Twilight repeated.

“Indeed, as we were recently reminded,” Celestia said as she nodded towards Twilight. “But for humans, these measures are academic. I can assure you they will not be worse off for the experience.”

Luna smirked. “Assuming Tirek doesn’t drive them crazy with his ramblings.”

Celestia smiled in kind. “That is a risk we’ll have to accept.”

“You actually got cells next to his,” Meg said.

“That’s what I said to them, so how could I not? It only took some shuffling around of the other prisoners.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “The hardest part was dealing with the bureaucracy.”

“Bureaucracy and Tartarus,” Meg said. “Two words I’d never thought to hear in the same sentence.”

Meg mulled it over, imagining the worse-case scenario press coverage. On the one hand, there was the Greek mythology; it was rather unavoidable. That’s what made it seem like indescribable torture. But on the other, if they were returned intact, subjected to nothing worse than Tirek’s ramblings—assuming that was even a thing—heck, their story might not even be believed. But if it was…?

“I sure hope Serrell knows what he’s doing,” Meg finally said. “Even so, don’t be surprised if human reporters and their camera crews request a tour of Tartarus.” She could already see the navel-gazing: How did mythological Tartarus differ from the real Tartarus? How did the Greeks know about it? The inevitable blockbuster movies about escaping from Tartarus.

“We shall be prepared for that possibility,” Celestia said.

Luna yawned. “Are we about done here? I really need to get some shuteye.”

Sunshine flooded the valley below as Celestia’s Sun cleared the mountains. Through the windows could be seen pegasi towing rainclouds south.

“There’s something I want to discuss,” Twilight said, and she took a centering breath. “Only as a last resort, I want to emphasize.”

Luna quirked an eyebrow. “This should be interesting.”

Twilight flashed a nervous smile in response. “There’s a lot going on we don’t understand. Not just how those prisoners insist they’ve captured Meg, but also that mysterious message Meg was given, not to mention how her doll got bound to the magic leak. Maybe they’re all connected, maybe not, but there’s one sure way to get answers.”

She looked down into her tea, not making eye contact.

“And that would be?” Celestia gently prodded.

Twilight did not look up. “I’m suggesting we use Star Swirl’s time travel spell.”

Meg couldn’t believe her ears. Was this the same Twilight who had forbidden any contact with the show’s writers, in order to avoid a possible time loop? “Just to be clear, this is the same spell you used to go back one week to warn yourself, and wound up causing the very problems you were trying to avoid?”

“You got it,” she said. “Hence the ‘last resort’ part.”

“I thought that spell could only be used once.”

Twilight finally looked up and met her eyes. “Who’s the magic expert, me or M. A. Larson? A spell that can be used literally once doesn’t even make sense!”

“Okay, point made,” Meg conceded. “What about the ‘going back one week for only a few moments’ part? Did he get that wrong also?”

“That’s… more complicated to answer. I have a better understanding of the underlying physics now, thanks to your husband, and my magic has become much stronger, of course.”

“So, what’s your plan?” Meg asked. “Go back to yesterday and watch the ones who got away with my stuff? See where they went?”

“Actually, no. Regardless of whether the prisoners talk, I don’t think that situation calls for such drastic measures. Your office computer is easily replaceable, and the one they took is useless to them. Furthermore, your government is on the case and we have five of them in captivity.”

There weren’t many other possibilities. “Then the plan is to go back a week or so and see who put that message in the green room.”

Twilight grimaced. “I don’t think that’s possible. You and Agent Fowler were in that room. We can’t change what either of you observed; the past cannot be altered. Unfortunately, that room had a magical field, which shuts off our bubbles. Maybe I can keep us invisible anyway, but there’s a more fundamental problem: whoever did this was invisible themselves. Piercing this invisibility without drawing our past selves’ attention is… problematic. I’m not even a hundred feet away on stage; I’d sense the magic. We can try, but I believe the time travel spell will fail. Something about quantum mechanical destructive interference.”

“What if the letter was magically delivered, by teleportation perhaps?” Luna asked.

“There was no magical trace on the letter,” Celestia said. “It had to have been delivered in person.”

“And neither of us had the slightest hint someone else was in the room with us,” Meg said. That left only one possibility.

Twilight drank some tea. “So that leaves the doll. Going back more than two years is not something I can do by myself. I’ll need Discord’s assistance. He’ll have to come along anyway. The plan is to go through the mirror and then into hyperspace, just before my battle with Sunset Shimmer, and watch as the magic leak forms. We’ll observe who guides it to that doll and performs the binding.”

“And whoever bound the leak to my doll is probably the one who left me that message.” So long as they didn’t interfere with the binding of the leak to the doll, it seemed they were free to do whatever they wanted. Maybe capture, or at least question, whoever was behind this. Maybe find out, why me?

“I’m coming along,” Meg declared.

Twilight studied her face. “I thought you might want to. But like I said: last resort.”

Luna stood up. “And with that, I really do need to go to bed.”

“Good night, dear sister,” Celestia said with a warm smile. “I’ll let you know of any developments, naturally.”

Luna smiled in return and departed, closing the door behind her.

“I should be heading back to the dungeons to check on their progress,” Twilight said.

“By all means,” Celestia replied.

Twilight stood up and teleported away. Not for the first time, Meg wondered how great it’d be to be able to do that herself. Even amongst unicorns, it was a rare ability; for a pegasus, it was impossible. Twilight thought Steve could learn how to do it because of his cutie mark and special talent. So far, he hadn’t; the required magical theory and practice was still beyond him.

“There is no need for you to take on the risk of what Twilight’s proposing,” Celestia said, interrupting her thoughts. “Whatever there is to discover, I am confident she shall discover it.”

Just how risky was it? She’d been to hyperspace once before. It hadn’t been that bad. True, she had been under Discord’s protection, but he’d be present this time as well. Nonetheless, Celestia had a point: what could she do that those two could not?

“It’s not just about that,” Meg said. “That… event utterly changed my life. I wouldn’t be in your presence—here, now, as a pony myself—if not for that.”

“What would you accomplish by witnessing it for yourself?”

“The past cannot be altered, I know that. I’m not secretly planning on trying, I assure you.”

Celestia’s face was unreadable, graced by that indecipherable smile of hers. Perhaps the question she had answered wasn’t the actual question asked. Yet the princess did not rephrase it, choosing instead to raise her teacup to her lips.

“Besides,” Meg said, “if it was somehow my destiny to be a part of all this—” she looked at her cutie mark “—then that is the event that made it so.”

The teacup returned to the table. “It is your choice to make; I shall not interfere.”

The last of the enchanted gemstones were set on the floor, completing a large circle. Twilight infused them with her magic, bypassing their safeguards and activating them. Within the circle opened a wide portal.

Fowler and Reubens edged up to the perimeter and looked down into a large cavern, bathed in a reddish-orange light of indeterminate source. Two armored minotaur guards stepped into view and looked up.

Twilight lowered her head to the portal. “Is everything ready?” she asked, almost shouting.

“Yes, Your Highness,” one of them replied. “Five cells near Tirek have been readied.”

“Good. It won’t be much longer.”

She closed the portal. It was a bit of a strain keeping it open.

“That was really Tartarus?” Fowler asked. “What if I tripped and fell in?”

It was a silly question, but one Twilight welcomed. “The portal is one-way, for obvious reasons. You’d have to wait a while until I could retrieve you through the main Gates of Tartarus.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. If that should happen, you’d be treated as a guest, not an inmate.”

“Or a patient. It’s a long way down.”

Twilight looked to Reubens. “Sure you want to do this?”

He looked at the floor where the portal had been and would be again. “The President has decided this is a national security issue. We need to know who’s behind this. If this will persuade them to talk, great. If not…”

Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. “I’ll wait for your signal.” Twilight turned to a guard. “Fetch the prisoners.”

A few minutes later, the five prisoners entered the room, single file, accompanied by three guards. The guards took up position at the door.

Twilight addressed the prisoners. “In the interests of good relations with your nation, I have agreed to release you to the custody of these agents, if you answer their questions in good faith. This is your last chance.” She pointed at the circle of gemstones. “That’s a portal to Tartarus.”

Jackson didn’t even hesitate. “It’d be a more convincing bluff if it was open.”

“We’re trying to take you back with us,” Fowler said. “Do you want to be thrown into Tartarus?”

“Even if Tartarus was real, they wouldn’t dare. It’d just make us martyrs for our cause, waking the public up to their menace.”

If invasion was her plan, Twilight had to admit, that would make her reconsider. What would these agents make of it?

But if they doubted the reality of Tartarus, that was something she could correct. “Look to the circle,” she commanded, and powered up the portal.

Once more, a wide hole in the floor opened up into a large cavern. Jackson warily advanced to the portal. Stopping well short of the edge, he looked down.

Two minotaur guards look up. “Your Highness?”

“Stand by,” Twilight replied.

Jackson edged back. They all edged back. “Just because you say that’s a portal to Tartarus doesn’t make it so,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Really?” Twilight couldn’t believe their obstinance. “What do you want for proof?”

“Cerberus?” Eric suggested.

“Sorry, but he’s rather busy guarding the main entrance. You wouldn’t want to see him anyway. He doesn’t take kindly to inmates going anywhere near there.”

“How convenient,” Jackson said, folding his arms across his chest. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all a bluff.”

“Do you really want to bet on that?” Reubens said. “If you won’t throw us a bone, we can’t help you.”

He turned to him. “You mean help you condemn the human race—assuming you’re even human yourself.” He turned back to Twilight. “I’m calling your bluff. I’m tired of this game.”

“Anyone?” Reubens asked.

The silence grew.

Discord was right after all. The plan had failed. All that remained was for the signal to be given.

Reubens threw up his arms. “It’s out of my hands now.”

Signal received.

“Suit yourself,” Twilight said in resignation, not sure if she was saying that to the agents or the prisoners. She levitated the five, who struggled and shouted to no avail, and floated them over the portal. The minotaur guards stepped back in response. She lowered them through the portal. As they passed through it, the effort to keep them levitated soared, but she compensated, having expected that.

They were set down gently onto a cavern floor of Tartarus.

The portal closed.

28. Treacherous Sweets

It was a gorgeous day. There were barely any clouds in the sky, and the weather ponies would keep it that way until late that night. It was warm, but not too warm. A gently breeze wafted appetizing scents from outdoor markets. Sounds of ponies going about their business abounded. It was the perfect antidote to hyperspace—or Tartarus.

Meg strolled down the street, trying not to feel silly—hard to do when a miniature draconequus was riding on top of her head. Fortunately, nopony was paying that any attention. Instead, all eyes were on Smooze, oozing—or whatever he did to move about—alongside her. It was a sign of how far the residents of Ponyville had come since the Zecora incident that they didn’t run away in terror.

A tinny voice assaulted her ears. “And technically I did attend the last session.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Meg muttered.

Discord, naturally, had no trouble hearing her from where he sat inches above her muzzle. “Oh, I wished I could be seen and heard, just to spite you, but observing was all I could do.”

Not that it mattered to Meg. She got it. That was the only way he could have been there without causing a paradox. Still, for the sake of science… “And what, exactly, stopped you from being seen or heard?”

His weight suddenly shifted. Maybe he slumped? She didn’t have eyes on the top of her head.

“I’d rather not talk about it. Let’s just say there were… unexpected circumstances.”

Meg couldn’t help smirking. “I thought you lived for chaos.”

She got an unintelligible grumble in reply. It still didn’t matter. It only confirmed that not even Discord could alter the immutable flow of time. It only made her feel a little better about the whole doll thing, but a little was still better than nothing.

They continued their leisurely pace in silence. At least I’m doing something productive. She could thank Discord for that, oddly enough. It would’ve been so easy to check out for a few days, while she could come to terms with what had happened. But he had insisted on this trial run of the voice synthesizer—and he wasn’t the only one who wanted it working sooner rather than later.

The Smooze stopped. It took a second for Meg to realize why: he was facing Bon Bon’s candy shop. “You want to go inside?” she asked. That suited her just fine. Perhaps she’d bump into Lyra. They were still waiting for her promised explanation of that changeling.

Her bluetooth earpiece came to life. “I. Want. Eat. That.”

“Looks like he wants to try Bon Bon’s candies,” she passed on to Discord. “We can do that.” She had an allocation of bits for situations just like this.

The door was open. Meg walked in first, the better to assure anypony already inside that there wasn’t anything to worry about. Besides Bon Bon, the only pony there was Cheerilee. “Hi, everypony,” Meg said. “Don’t worry about Smooze.” The aforementioned blob entered the store. “I’m paying.”

Cheerilee focused on Meg’s mane. “Should you be worried that Discord is on your head?”

Meg’s eyes looked up, trying to see him. Discord reached down to wave his paw in front of an eye. “I’m aware he’s there,” she said, “and, no, there’s no cause for concern.”

Discord vanished then reappeared by Meg’s side, back to his normal size. “Oh, please. Just because I'm being friendly doesn't mean I shouldn't cause concern. You make me sound like I've been fixed.” He'd gotten a Cone of Shame from somewhere, and was scratching at it with his rear rear leg—the one with a draconic claw.

“Okaaay.” Cheerilee turned her attention to Smooze, examining him from top to bottom. “So this is the Smooze that I’ve been hearing about.”

Smooze stood in front of some shelves, eyeing the well-stocked selection of various sweets. Bon Bon came out from behind the counter, no doubt to keep a close eye on him. It was easy to fear that he’d help himself—that was one reason Discord was there, to keep a check on him—but it was an unfounded fear. Smooze’s self-control was better than that.

Meg directed a hoof at the purple blob. “Yep, that’s him.”

“Do you think he could come to my class and tell my students about himself?”

A large pair of eyes floated around his body to look at the teacher, then floated some more to look at Meg. A single word came out of the earpiece: “Maybe?”

Bon Bon’s ears twitched, being close enough to have picked up that word. “Is he talking to you somehow?”

“Sort of. It’s a work in progress. We’re coming up with a translator using a combination of magic and human technology.” Her laptop was in her saddlebags. “I think he’s willing, but the translator needs more work first.”

Smooze returned his attention to the candy-laden shelves, slowly oozing along in front of them.

Cheerilee’s gaze locked onto Meg, not letting her off that easily. “Perhaps instead you could give a presentation on human technology? I’m sure my students will find that fascinating.”

Where to even start? “Uh… maybe?” In hindsight, it’s surprising she hadn’t asked sooner. “I’d have to check with Twilight first,” she said, to encourage a change of subject—mostly.

Discord stared at the teacher in indignation. “I had a paw in this too, you know.”

The earth pony looked up in surprise. “You did?”

“I did,” he said. “I came up with the enchantment that permits Smoozie’s aura to be observed by pony-enchanted crystals.” It was something he still tweaked now and then.

“And,” Meg continued, “Twilight came up with the original enchantments that turn those observations into something that can be processed by human technology.” That was a gross simplification, of course. “Moondancer has mostly taken over that part of the work. And I…”—aware she was about to confirm that—”handle that last part.”

“I… see.” Cheerilee turned thoughtful. “I suppose any large project is never the work of a single pony.” She brightened. “That’s an important lesson in and of itself. Maybe it could be a group presentation!”

She took a step toward the shop’s entrance. “Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you once you’ve had a chance to speak with Twilight.” Cheerilee left the store, leaving Smooze as the only customer.

The Smooze had moved to a display in the middle of the shop. “See anything you like?” Bon Bon asked, still keeping a wary eye on the purple blob.

His eyes drifted around to face the pony. “So. Many. Choices.” As Bon Bon was standing not far from Meg, she had little difficulty hearing the words from the earpiece.

Before Bon Bon could reply to that, Discord appeared next to her and double-tapped her on the head with a talon.

“Ow. What’s that for?”

He walked away from her annoyed stare. “Just checking. You’re not a changeling.”

That could have been handled with more tact. “I’m sorry about that,” Meg said with a placating smile. “Though actually… Lyra wouldn’t happen to be around, would she?”

Bon Bon stiffly walked back to the counter. “This is about that changeling she meets up with now and then, isn’t it? Let me guess: it took my form in your presence.”

Meg wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself in the middle of—and how did Discord know about that anyway?

Oh. Right. He was eavesdropping. Literally.

“Uh… this really isn’t any of my business…”

Bon Bon sighed from behind the counter. “It’s not what you’re thinking—probably. No, don’t tell me. Now that the local princess is involved, I’m staying out of it.”

And it wouldn’t become any of Meg’s business either, unless Twilight made it so, which she hadn’t, and she couldn’t imagine she would. “Uh, works for me.”

The Smooze had worked his way to the other side of the shop. A mare and her filly entered the store, spotted Smooze and Discord, and immediately backed out and left—to Bon Bon’s growing frustration.

They needed to be on their way. “You don’t happen to have a sampler box, do you?” she asked Bon Bon.

“Over there,” she tersely replied, pointing a hoof.

Problem solved. “I’ll take three of them.” One for Smooze, one for herself and Steve, and one for her brother and his family. She hoped it’d be easy to tell which ones had flowers or hay or other ingredients unsuitable for human consumption. “No, make that four.” Might as well get one for the office. “No—five.” One for the next convention staff meeting too.

Discord clapped his paw and claw. “You’re getting one for little old me?!”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Fine. Six.”

On a table, against the circular wall of the observatory, was one of the atomic clocks on loan from MIT. Steve gave it a quick look. “Still ticking,” he said. There really wasn’t anything that could go wrong. Power was reliable, and access was restricted. Naturally the device had been inspected by Arcane Scroll and several of the senior faculty when it had arrived from Ponyville, but there really wasn’t much to see. None had asked to see it again.

The dome above shifted, opening up a slit that revealed the night sky. The Princess of the Night joined Steve in front of the clock. “It’s been a few days. Should not this clock have sped ahead of its counterpart down in Ponyville?”

“Yes, but there’s no way to know by how much until we bring the two clocks back together again. The difference is really really small, far smaller than the time it’d take even light to travel from there to here. The longer we keep them apart, the more accurate the results. And again, thanks for letting it stay here at the highest point in Canterlot.”

“It was an easy enough request to grant.” Luna walked over to the telescope that filled the building. “Before we start, perhaps you would like to see the stars through this?”

“Sure.” He didn’t expect to see anything amazing. Stars remained points of light, no matter how big the telescope. You only saw just more of them, and he already knew there was nothing out there in this realm but stars.

The telescope and the dome rotated in Luna’s magic, until an unusually bright star came into view. The telescope then tilted up to look at it. Looking through the eyepiece, she made some final adjustments.

She stepped back.

Steve approached the telescope. Looking through the eyepiece, he saw the star that Luna had been pulling closer. Already the brightest star in the sky, through the telescope it became far brighter still. But of course it was still a featureless point of light. How large were these stars? Would one ever resolve to a disk, as one would expect of a planet? It wasn’t any farther away than a planet.

But what would the typical pony in the street think about it? “That star isn’t going to cause panic or anything, will it?”

“I have already issued a statement that there is no cause for concern, that this is of my choosing.”

He stepped back and considered the telescope as a whole. There was nothing out there but the sun, the moon, and the stars. No planets, no nebula, no galaxies, no asteroids, no comets, nothing else. There really wasn’t much to look at. Presumably he was seeing more stars, but without knowing the magnification it was hard to tell how many more. The sun was out of the question, so that left the moon—but the light from that was also magical in origin.

He went back and examined the eyepiece. That telescope would be in a museum if it were on Earth. It was a refractor, long and thin, designed to be looked through by a pony. Back home, professional astronomers had long ago stopped doing that, relying on instruments that were far more sensitive and capable of analyzing light than the human eye. “Are there any attachments for analyzing the light itself?”

Luna’s head tilted. “Whatever for?”

It was going to be one of those conversations. “There is much that can be learned, for example what the star is made of, or what process is producing that light. We can even tell how fast it’s moving towards us or away from us.”

“Truly?” She turned away in thought. “Twilight would know better than I, but there are none to my knowledge.”

Steve looked through the telescope again. “We can probably borrow a spectroscope, or something—just have to figure out how to attach it. Don’t really know how informative it’d be. It’s likely a magical object, after all, like the sun and moon. Maybe it doesn’t have spectral lines.”

“Spectral lines?”

Of course she didn’t know. “Substances absorb or emit certain colors of light. That’s how we can tell the composition of an astronomical object by its light.”

Luna looked through the slit in the dome, up into the sky. She contemplated the stars for a few moments. “Has Meg been sleeping peacefully? I cannot patrol dreams in your realm, even if she were a pony there.”

The change in subject caught Steve of guard. “No repeat of that Tartarus nightmare, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t remember what I dreamt that night, but I’m guessing it couldn’t have been too bad if you didn’t have to intervene.”

Luna nodded, her gaze still upon the stars. “That is so.” She gave him a curious look. “Is that not a good thing?”

“Well, sure. I mean, it shouldn’t be hitting me so hard—I guess?—since I’m not the one being dragged into all these time loops…” Time loops. Loops. As in circles. Meg’s cutie mark? Could it have another interpretation?

Luna was really scrutinizing him now.

Steve shook his head. That wasn’t a productive line of thought right then. He quickly came up with something. “I was just thinking of that ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Tartarus Escape Artists’ bit. That would’ve been something to see.” He grimaced; why did he pick that? “Please don’t ever mention that to them. Those fillies don’t need any help coming up with ideas.”

Luna gave him a disapproving frown. “I do not share what I witness in dreams,” she said. “Besides, I know all too well the… enthusiasm with which they pursue ideas for potential cutie marks.”

She walked off the imperceptibly rotating platform on which the telescope was mounted. “Let us resume your training. It shouldn’t be much longer before that star is close enough for your magic to provide answers of its own.”

Steve followed her. They went through a side exit onto a balcony that encircled the observatory and walked around it until the approaching star was in front of them. He sat down on his haunches and began casting the spell. It had become second nature by now, hardly requiring any attention to maintain.

It would still be a while before the spell locked onto the star and returned whatever data it was capable of discerning—not much, as it was still too far away. Whatever that “star” was, it couldn’t be a ball of hydrogen massive enough to produce energy from fusion. The light it emitted could not be powered by nuclear or chemical energy. Magic was the most likely explanation. Even the sun, he knew, was a relatively small object powered by magic.

But why any stars at all? The sun had an obvious purpose. The moon… well not so much. It didn’t cause tides, for example, as it was far too small for that. The stars though… other than to make the night sky somewhat resemble that of his own world, what purpose could they possibly serve? And if purely cosmetic, then why not planets, comets, and nebulae—or at least objects that looked like them?

Steve gazed at that star. It shouldn’t be many more days before he could get some answers.

It was a gorgeous California day. There were barely any clouds in the sky, and only Mother Nature knew how long it would stay that way. Who cared if it was too hot when one was driving a car with air conditioning. A gentle breeze emanated from vents in the dashboard. Sounds of music filled the car. The morning commute still sucked.

Meg pulled into the parking lot at work and went past a news van parked at the edge of the lot. It was impressive that they were already here. Driving all the way from the CBS News Bureau in San Francisco? Must’ve taken forever. The Secretary of Energy arrived last night and was staying at a nearby hotel; he was no doubt already inside.

After parking her car, she grabbed Bon Bon’s sampler box and got out. Once inside the building, as she waited for the elevator, she wondered which correspondent they had sent. It probably depended on whether they intended to do a puff piece or rake them over the coals. It was hard to say which it would be; it could go either way. She was so glad she would not be saying anything on camera, if she was unlucky enough to be caught on camera at all.

The door opened. Meg entered and pressed the button for the top floor. The ride up was uneventful. The door opened once more, and she exited. Nothing going on in the hallway. She walked up to the reinforced door to the offices. A key card swipe, a solid thunk, and she opened the door.

All quiet.

Where could they all be?

It wasn’t really any of her concern. She headed off to her office. Going around the first turn she almost collided with her manager.

Jake put a finger to his lips. “Shh. They’re about to film in front of your office door.”

Wait. What?

Sensing her confusion, he said, “Just follow me, and be quiet. Don’t worry, it’s not about you; you won’t be on camera or anything.”

As they got closer, voices could be heard. Meg recognized Whitcomb, the Energy Secretary. He was explaining how magic was being used to prevent a repeat of the ransacking incident. A spell had been applied to her office that was powered by the magic generator within. She couldn’t imagine how the spell could be shown on camera.

“Would it be possible to see a demonstration?”

That voice… it was familiar, but something wasn’t right.

“That’s what this axe is for,” replied Whitcomb.

I guess that’s one way of showing it on camera. Theoretically, it wouldn’t even leave a scratch. And if it did… not her problem.

“So, just swing as hard as I can.”

“That spell is not being powered by double-A batteries, don’t forget.”

Meg could practically hear the smile. A few seconds later, she was finally in position to see it. Using both hands, Anderson Cooper swung the fire axe into her door with everything he had. It barely made a thud. He set down the axe and inspected the impact site, rubbing his hand over it as a cameraman moved in. The soundman quickly moved the microphone into position. He rendered his verdict: “Not a scratch or dent.”

“Just a taste of what Equestrian magic can do for us.”

Meg whispered into Jake’s ear. “Doesn’t he work for CNN?”

“On assignment for 60 Minutes,” he whispered back.

That’s a thing? Wait. CBS is making this a 60 Minutes story? What were the odds of it being a puff piece now? No wonder Whitcomb was participating in this.

“What about fire, or explosives?” the correspondent asked.

“It should defend against those as well—at least any explosive that doesn’t take down the entire building. Magic generators may be nuclear powered, but even that has limits.”

“Okay, I think we’re done,” Cooper said, motioning the two cameramen to stop recording. He took a quick look at his watch. “Sunset Shimmer should be here by now?”

“I imagine so,” the Energy Secretary replied. “Or quite soon. I’ll take you to the testing vault now.”

Whitcomb led the way. Cooper followed, and with him his cameramen and soundman. As Whitcomb went past her, he gave Meg a wink.

Once they were out of sight, Meg asked Jake, “The vault? Sunset?”

“You weren’t on the loop on that from the Equestrian side?”

Meg shook her head. “Apparently not.” She started walking. “Let’s see how close we can get.” The whole thing obviously had been arranged between Twilight and Serrell. Not that they needed her permission, but some sort of heads-up would’ve been nice.

Upon reaching the final stretch of corridor leading to the vault, they stopped, well back. The vault’s door was propped open—a huge no-no, but rules like that evidently didn’t apply to VIPs. The alarm installed after the “incident” must’ve been disabled somehow. The five of them were inside, looking around at the mixture of equine and human equipment, but no Sunset.

“We should wait outside until Sunset arrives,” Whitcomb said, “I don’t think it’s a problem, but there’s no point taking the risk of her trying to materialize in the same space as one of us.”

None of the others found reason to object. They quickly re-entered the corridor.

Whitcomb spotted Meg. “Could you let Sunset know we’re waiting for her?”

The others were looking at her too. No camera was pointing at her, but she just knew they were thinking it.

What else could she do? She got the phone out of her purse and—trying not to drop the box of sweets—initiated the call. Cooper was obviously counting the seconds until he could ask the obvious question.

The call was answered. “Hello? Meg?”

“Yeah, just letting you know they’re waiting for you here. At the vault?”

“Already? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Meg returned the phone to her purse. “She’ll be here in a minute.”

“That’s a regular phone, right?” Cooper asked. “And my understanding is that Sunset is currently in Equestria?”

She nervously kept one eye on the cameras; for now, they remained pointed in no particular direction. With the other eye she glanced at Whitcomb. He gave no sign to withhold the answer. “A few ponies have been given phones. Even when in Equestria, they are on our cellular networks. It, uh, involves magic.”

“So anyone who went to Equestria would have a signal?”

“No, only enchanted phones work.” She sure as hell wasn’t going to say how they got enchanted. “There aren’t any cell towers there, not yet.”

“But once enchanted, everything works: voice, data, SMS, the whole deal?”

“That’s right.”

“So, to be clear, certain ponies have unrestricted access to our internet—and that would include Sunset Shimmer.”

Whitcomb interceded. “Why should we impose restrictions on them that we do not impose on any other nation on this planet?”

“Hey guys. Didn’t expect you to be here so soon.”

Everyone turned around. Sunset Shimmer stood in the doorway to the vault.

Cooper slapped his forehead. “We should’ve caught your arrival on camera.”

Sunset looked unsure. “Do you want me to go back and come again?” She spotted the box Meg was holding. “Isn’t that a sampler box from Bon Bon? I got one of those myself last week.”

Meg hesitantly lifted the box as everyone looked at it. “Yes?”

A camera was on and pointed right at her.

“How did you acquire that?” Cooper asked. “Did you buy that yourself from Bon Bon?”

“What?” She desperately searched for something to say, convinced that the camera had already convicted her. “Don’t be silly. Humans aren’t allowed in Ponyville.”

“That’s true,” Sunset quickly added. “No human has yet to set foot in Ponyville.”

“Then how did you acquire it?”

“Uh… I’m not… really at liberty to say.”

Whitcomb interceded again. “I’m sure it must’ve been a gift from one of the pony scientists we work with.”

Cooper was about to say something, lifting a finger, then changed his mind. “I’d like to take a look at that when we come back, if you don’t mind.”

Come back from where? Meg shrugged. “Okay?”

Satisfied with that answer, he turned toward Sunset. “When can we visit the other lab?”

“Right now, if you want. Twilight’s already there.”

“How will we get there?”

Sunset smiled. “Just stand close together and I’ll do the rest. We’ll be there in a few seconds.”

Cooper signaled to the cameramen. “Have the cameras running. Let’s see what we get.”

They both nodded and aimed their cameras at Sunset.

“Just a warning: you may find it disorienting. It helps to close your eyes.” Sunset’s horn lit, grabbing the humans with her magic. “We’ll be teleporting to Equestria in three… two… one…”

All six of them vanished.

Meg looked down at the treacherous sampler box. “I bought this for the office,” she told Jake, “but it looks like I might have to buy another one.”