Crisis on Infinite Twilights
Kawaii Neko-Chan Towairaito
In the days that followed Alicorn Catgirl Twilight-chan’s ascension as the Young Shiny Guardian of Neo Canterlot, she found herself struggling with two main challenges. The first came from her never-ending battle with the faceless army of Changeling assassins that plagued the futuristic city’s neon-washed streets. But still more vexing was the sheer impossibility of maintaining any kind of modesty as she cartwheeled, flipped, and twirled through battle in a miniskirt.
Twilight-chan hated the skirt, and the Great Teacher Principal Cinch-sama’s insistence that she wear it. She’d tried to argue that it distracted her, which made her lose her edge in combat; but the Great Teacher was adamant that they would both lose face if Twilight-chan broke from magical schoolgirl tradition.
But nothing—not her training, not her magic, nothing—could’ve prepared her for the challenges that came on the day a building-sized pink-and-black energy disc began ripping through downtown, uprooting shining towers like weeds and tossing hovercars like silicon dust.
Twilight-chan soared high above the singularity on her great feathered wings, and watched as several police helidrones tried to work their ways closer to it, seeking better sensor data. Many were caught up in the gale-force winds, though she spotted one or two still dodging about in the rubble.
She felt soft but pointy claws shift their grip on her back, then lit her horn and picked up the source of the movement in her magic. She turned, and smiled, and stroked a patch of the diminutive violet komodo dragon’s scales with her paw. “Tell me, Tiny Purple Kaiju: what do your keen eyes make of this disturbance?”
The saurian wiggled in her grip, then flexed its jaws and emitted a keening roar.
“Lavender horses?”
It half-roared, half-whined again.
“...and people, and…”
It roared louder still and flailed all four of its stubby legs. Twilight-chan glanced behind her, gasped, then threw herself into a sharp dive, narrowly avoiding a huge length of light-rail track that came hurtling by.
“This is no time to catch a train, nyan,” Twilight-chan shouted over the roaring wind. “Tiny Purple Kaiju, there is too much interference… I can't raise the Great Teacher on my comm. But if those responsible for this are sitting in the middle of its kokoro, then it is up to us to stop them. To battle!”
Both of them shouted a cheerful, wordless battle cry as Twilight-chan dove straight toward the heart of the maelstrom. As she wove her way through the swirling debris cloud, she saw with her own oversized eyes what Tiny Purple Kaiju had reported: an image of innumerable creatures that were somehow in the middle of the singularity. Many looked like horses, and others looked humanoid; some ran about pell-mell, while others stood staring all around themselves in apparent shock.
It took her a moment to realize that all of them had the same hair color as she did.
Tiny Purple Kaiju roared. Twilight-chan tried to duck around an airborne eddy of bricks torn from a storefront, but she felt one clip her wing. She hissed in pain, and pulled the wing closer on instinct… which threw her into an involuntary and uncoordinated spin. Twilight-chan shot the wing back out as quickly as she could, but not soon enough to stop her hurtling at full speed through the singularity’s inner corona of dirt and junk, and then—
“OOF!”
Twilight-chan nearly blacked-out from the pain of the collision. Disorientation soon set in, and she lay motionless for a few moments, overcome with sensation in her right arm and shoulder. She found just enough presence of mind to be grateful that only a few parts of her seemed to have come out worse for wear from her crash-landing.
She scrabbled onto her paws and pushed up hard, trying to get back upright, even as her vision swam. All around her was a haze of purple and a cacophony of voices with a similar pitch as her own.
Then something touched her shoulder. On instinct, Twilight-chan whirled about, lit her horn, and conjured forth her magical laser-katanas as she dropped into an unsteady combat stance.
“Whoa!” the closest figure shouted over the din. Twilight-chan focused her vision, and realized that the speaker was one of the purple horses she’d seen earlier. He had a horn like a lot of the other horses running about, though his mouth seemed more squarish than most others, and his voice was deeper. He recoiled from her, eyes wide in clear alarm over her weapons and sudden movements.
“Konnichiwa, small horse,” she said. “Tell me: what is this place?!”
“We don’t know,” said a higher-pitched horse who pushed in next to the first one. She had a more rounded muzzle, was wearing a tattered black catsuit, and had a bandage covering one eye. “I mean, we know it’s some kind of lab—”
Twilight-chan broke eye contact for a moment, glancing around the charred remains of a massive, white-tiled laboratory that must have been filled with experiments and equipment before being stuffed to capacity with purple horses and other, stranger creatures.
“—but we can’t get inside the epicenter of what’s going on. And most of these ponies are too busy trying to analyze the situation to actually help!”
“Action is my middle name, nyan.” And it was, as per the traditional name-change stipulations insisted on by the Great Teacher. “But now you have me at a disadvantage… what are your names?”
“We’re all named Twilight Sparkle,” said the one in the catsuit.
The one with the squarish jaw scoffed at her. “All but Action Cat-san here, and me.”
The other one rolled her eye. “Of course, Dusk Shine; but then you’re male, and the pattern of your name still—”
Twilight-chan pointed both of her katanas at the female. “What is your name?”
She sighed. “Great. Not much of an intellectual, I guess. Call me… Tuesday? Purely for disambiguation.”
“Very well, Tuesday… Dusk Shine…” Twilight-chan lowered her katanas. “Neo-Canterlot is in danger! If these otherworldly horses cannot help us stop the singularity, then we must do it ourselves. Will you fight by my side?”
Tuesday managed an anatomically-improbable hoof-raise, pointing deeper into the laboratory. “Look, we all want this shut down just as much as you do. But like I said, the epicenter seems impenetrable. Me and Dusk have been checking new arrivals to see if anypony else can help, and we've found one other Twilight who’s managed to keep her horseapples together. You should talk to her! But the truth is, even she… and me and Dusk… are pretty close cracking under pressure.”
“All us Twilights have that tendency,” Dusk added.
“Then we must away to battle, quickly, nyan!”
Twilight-chan didn’t wait to see if they followed; instead she took off charging through the throng of chattering creatures. Most of the horses drew back as she passed them, clearly studying her figure with a mix of surprise and curiosity. However, she found she was competing for their attention with a number of less-familiar-looking creatures as well. One seemed to be a giant floating eyeball with pulsating veins and a purple iris; another was more like a mass of purple tentacles; and still others resembled hulks, or oozes, or even—in one case—a small but swirling cloud of purple insects.
From their body language, though, none registered as much of a threat. They generally seemed to be as bewildered by their situation as the more numerous horse-Twilights.
Eventually Twilight-chan reached one of the laboratory’s walls. Large metal doors were labeled with blaring fire escape signs, but they appeared to have been barricaded both with debris and a series of glowing magical wards.
Also in their vicinity was a very large sphere. It was black like onyx, and it stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Tiny patterns of lightning danced across its surface at odd intervals, and they arced toward Twilight-chan’s paws as she reached down to touch the sphere.
“I wouldn’t do that!” shouted another Twilight. This one was a slightly brighter purple, humanoid, and seemed to be wearing only glasses and some kind of scanty metal bikini. Twilight-chan failed utterly to resist gawking at the unusual attire and the expanses of flesh it revealed.
The newcomer blushed. “It’s been a long day, all right?!” She reached back behind her and pulled forward a chalkboard on wheels. “So I take it that Tuesday and Dusk must've sent you?”
“I met them, yes, nyan.”
“Okay, great. So before we get going… for disambiguation, call me Sci-Twi. Everybody else seems to. Now, I’ve sketched out the epicenter here along with all the physical and magical properties that I’ve been able to discern about it, though I fear I've still got more questions than answers. Why don’t you give me a quick rundown of your magical or scientific areas of expertise, and I can help point you to one part of the problem or another?”
Twilight-chan crossed her arms and nodded. “I am skilled in the arts of Kung Pao and F’kyeu, and I have taken one semester each of the ancient One Punch and One Inch Punch techniques.” She blushed. “I didn't realize they were different classes until I'd already signed up, nyan.”
“You…” Sci-Twi paused, blinked, and looked Twilight-chan up and down. “So… you’re just a weird anthro-cat jock version of us in a skimpy skirt?! Ugh, they were supposed to find me a Twilight with some actual useful skills!”
A dark look crossed Twilight-chan’s features. She opened her paws out wide and conjured her swords again. “You dishonor me more than the Great Teacher Cinch-sama’s disregard for function over form!”
“Whoa there!” Tuesday came up running and leapt between Twilight-chan and Sci-Twi. “Look, we’re all in this together, right? Each of our worlds has been endangered by the singularity, and it’s only going to get worse if we can’t get this thing open and figure out what’s powering all of this. Sci-Twi, any progress on that?”
“N… no,” she stammered, still fixated on Twilight-chan’s glowing katanas. “I still can’t figure out what kind of magic is sealing it shut. It’s powerful, but primal… like whoever made it wasn’t going by the book.”
Dusk Shine trotted up next to them and looked askance at Twilight-chan’s swords. “Y’know, this thing’s resisted all the different sorts of counterspells that the three of us learned in our home dimensions… but we haven’t tried anything like those.”
Tuesday and Sci-Twi both adopted near-identical looks involving curled lips and raised eyebrows, which struck Twilight-chan as impressive given that one was a horse and the other a human.
“They are unstoppable when powered up to full,” Twilight-chan said.
The others seemed to nod or shrug at this.
“Tiny Purple Kaiju, Friendship Heart Transformation, yatta!” And with that, Twilight-chan crossed her paws in front of herself and flared her power. He leapt off her shoulder and breathed a green flame down onto her boots, which started glowing with small but visible heart-shaped patterns. As the magic surge grew stronger, she ascended and spun in midair, changing her pose to accentuate the flows of power gliding over her costume. And it began to change under that power, taking on more pink and purple hearts than she could possibly count.
She landed in a crouch with a giant glowing heart suspended in the air before her. Her swords flared pink with laser-light.
“Triumphant Friendship Promenade, nyan!”
Twilight-chan leapt again, spinning faster than before, and working her blades in a whirling, crisscrossing pattern of blows across the onyx sphere’s surface. Then she kicked away from it in midair, grunting at the arc of energy that licked across her boots as she did so. Then she landed in another crouch, facing away from it.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the sphere slid apart in two diagonal halves along a clean line that had been sliced through it, and something in it screamed.
Twilight-chan whirled around, and spotted a much smaller horse huddling inside the sphere. Her eyes and horn glowed with brilliant, blazing energy that made Twilight-chan shield her eyes. The other Twilights spotted it too—
Then the small horse fired off a massive blast of power that caught Tuesday right in the face, sending her tumbling into the gathered crowd of other Twilights.
“Whoa there, little filly!” shouted Dusk over the small one’s screaming. Another blast came flying at him, but he saved himself by quickly putting up a bubble of glowing force. He still ended up being blown back several feet and landing on his rump, though.
“We aren’t going to hurt you,” added Sci-Twi, who ducked her head and raised her hands above her head, regardless of the strain this posture put on her inflexible bikini.
Twilight-chan felt her heart beat faster as she realized that Sci-Twi didn’t have a horn, and likely couldn’t defend herself. So she lit her own horn and erected preemptive bubbles of force around both herself and Sci-Twi. This drew the filly’s attention, though, and she raised a shaky hoof that crackled with barely-contained energy.
“Y… you can’t… can’t m… make me go b… back,” she said, her voice all high and cute and booming with unnatural power.
“No one will make you go anywhere, imouto-chan,” said Twilight-chan. “But you must stop this destruction. People… and talking horse-things… are being hurt.”
“I c… can’t,” she stammered. “I f… failed m… my exam… now my life… my life…” The freshly named Imouto-chan broke down crying. Of course, given the sheer volume of magical power she was channeling, this manifested itself as showers of sparks and small thunderclouds bursting to life all around her.
“But you have to stop,” said Sci-Twi. “What did you think you’d accomplish by collapsing the separation between dimensions?”
Twilight-chan sucked a huge breath before shushing her scantily-clad doppelganger. “That isn’t the point! This child is hurting. What is an exam, when held against the growth and wellbeing of a tiny kawaii horsie-thing?”
Imouto-chan held up what looked like a large, broken egg. “I just… was supposed to… to hatch this. But then I had this… this magic surge, and…” She broke down crying again, accompanied by a spontaneous jet of eldritch flames.
“We have all made mistakes, child,” Twilight-chan said, shielding her eyes from the blazing deluge. In doing so, she found herself looking down at her miniskirt. “Some of us… have gone far down a path that we wouldn’t have, had we seen where it led from the beginning. Nyan.”
“Tell me about it,” Sci-Twi said, huffing and rolling her eyes as she tried to adjust one of her bikini’s shoulder straps. “All of us Twilights have the potential to overdo it when we get stressed about having to perform, or be evaluated. But whatever happened… whatever you do with yourself now… it doesn’t have to be the end of your world. It shouldn’t have to be the end of all our worlds!”
Imouto-chan shook her head. “I have t… to go back with… something. F… from the egg. A magic creature.”
Twilight-chan and Sci-Twi met eyes. Then Twilight-chan dispelled her magic swords and picked up Tiny Purple Kaiju off her shoulder. The saurian roared gently at her, and bumped at her paws with its muzzle.
“Will you be as great a tomodachi to this young filly as you’ve been to me, Tiny Purple Kaiju?”
It gave three short roars, followed by a long one.
Twilight-chan nodded, hugging him close again. “Very well, then; I promise that I will.” She met the filly’s eyes. “Kawaii imouto-chan, I have here a new friend for you. They say he is a magic dragon. He will bring you the power of heart, and teach you much about the Nine-Thousand-And-One Ways.”
She set him on the ground. He clambered forward over various pieces of rubble on the ground, until finally he reached the edge of the onyx sphere.
“Ohhh, you’re adorable,” Imouto-chan said as he approached. She touched his scaly head, and he moved closer, even climbing up onto her back. “Oh, hee hee, that tickles!”
With a loud groan and several smoky coughs, Tuesday dragged herself back up to join the group. “Well that went better than I expected. So does anypony know how to turn this thing off?”
“Oh, sorry!” Power surged as Imouto-chan closed her eyes and brought her hooves together. The world went white…
…and Twilight-chan awoke in a crater at the heart of Neo Canterlot. An odd sort of calm fell over her as she realized the only sounds she heard were the blaring of emergency vehicles and the clamor of people still trying to evacuate downtown, rather than the unrelenting roar of the singularity. On instinct, she touched a paw to her shoulder, where Tiny Purple Kaiju would sit… and felt a single tear spring to her eye as she realized she might never see him again.
“You have saved the day with honor, old friend,” she said aloud.
A cough came from next to her. Twilight-chan watched with wide eyes as Sci-Twi picked herself up from the midst of some concrete and other rubble. She tried not to stare at the rivulets of dust and dirt left on Sci-Twi’s skin from where she’d been sweating.
“Where are we?” Sci-Twi asked, looking around with alarm. She gasped as her gaze fell on Twilight-chan. “Oh no…”
Before Twilight-chan could reply, though, her in-ear comm started buzzing. The voice within seemed out of tune, as though the unit had been damaged, or there was still too much residual interference. After a moment, though, she gathered that it was likely the Great Teacher Cinch-sama haranguing her with questions.
But Twilight-chan didn’t listen. Instead, she pawed the comm and cleared her throat. “Yes, this is Twilight-chan. Mission accomplished, but… there have been complications. We have things to discuss.”
“I must've been sent to your universe to balance the number of life-forces that came from here,” Sci-Twi said slowly. “Though that might mean some other Twilight would’ve been sent to my universe in my place…”
Twilight-chan smiled, recalling the promise that Tiny Purple Kaiju had elicited from her. She took one last look at the miniskirt she hated so dearly.
“Balance is important in all things, tomodachi, as the Great Teacher wisely says. We will work to send you home, and fix the balance. But there is one way in which the Great Teacher’s wisdom fails, that the two of us will tolerate no longer.”
She threw a paw around Sci-Twi’s shoulders. The bespectacled girl squeaked as she tried to hold the bikini together. “W… what’s that?”
“You have experience with clothes shopping?”
Sci-Twi blinked. “I… yes. I swear, this… all I’m wearing now is just… a big misunderstanding.”
Twilight-chan laughed. “Excellent! Come tomodachi; there will be sweatpants! Comfy ones. And practical shirts, too! Our honor depends on it! Nyan!”
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