All These Midnight Days

Chapters

2 - Rarity Tuesdays Part 1: Sunshine, Sunshine
3 - Rarity Tuesdays Part 2: Lunch, Magic, Fashion, Repeat
4 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 1: Paradox
5 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 2: Witch
6 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 3: Wings
7.9 - Wednesday Night: Bonus
8 - Thursday: Everybody Talks
9 - Friday: Life's a Cinch, and Then You Die Part 1
10 - Friday: Life's a Cinch, and Then You Die Part 2
11 - The Midnight in Me Part 1
12 - The Midnight in Me Part 2
13 - The Midnight in Me Part 3
14 - The Midnight in Me Part 4
15 - Epilogue: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
1 - Monday: A Hard Day's Freakout
7 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 4: The Longest Day

2 - Rarity Tuesdays Part 1: Sunshine, Sunshine

Now, Spike would never say that having opposable thumbs and a bipedal gait was in any way a bad thing. It suited his dragon-self across the mirror in Equestria quite well, and it certainly made reading comic books a lot easier. But there was a simple… simplicity to being a dog that he’d missed on his extended vacation with Twilight into the land of magical ponies, and as the sun began to crest the hills around Canterlot City, it was time for him to get back to it.

He stretched out languidly in the soft fuzz of his little bed, set out in the kitchen near his water, kibble, and dog-door. Spike was up just before the rest of the family, and he had a lot to get done before it got too late. He had a schedule to keep, after all.

First, he checked out the kitchen, taking several good, long sniffs. No intruders, some stale cheese in the fridge, maybe Mom would give him some. Good. Next, he lapped up some water. Check. Finally, he went out into the backyard, ran in circles for twenty minutes, and raised such a bedlam over the squirrels he just knew were there because he could smell you, you little… before happily trotting back inside for breakfast.

His daily checklist complete, he could finally get to his final, and most important task; being a dog. And what was a dog’s first job, if not being man’s… or in this case, girl’s best friend? It was time to awaken the household.

Yet, just as Spike was about to let loose a howl to remind everyone it was time to wake up… he heard a rap-rap-rapping at the front door. An intruder? No, he hadn’t heard the mailman’s squeaky shoe coming up the road. The light knocking continued.

Eventually, Spike ran up to the door, and pressed one floppy ear against the purple wood. He could hear someone scratching at the lock. It took a lot longer than usual for whoever it was to unlock the door, so Spike stepped back and readied himself.

The door swung inward, only to jam immediately from the still-bolted chain.

“Ponyfeathers,” Cadance snorted. The tall, gorgeous, pink-and-gold haired woman glanced down at Spike as he began chuckling. “Oh? Um, good morning Spike.”

“Morning, Your Highness,” he smiled back.

Cadance shrugged at the dog’s antics. He’d always been a weird one, even before he could talk. She grinned, chagrined, and held up a bent-up set of hairclips, “Shiny left me a key, but I forgot it at home. I don’t suppose you could…?”

“Got it,” The purple-and-green dog said as he stepped forward, only to press the door shut with one paw.

Then, after giving himself ten feet of space, he ran towards the door, and catapulted himself up the wall as he reached it. His momentum carried the pup just high enough to catch the chain in his teeth and give it just the right amount of yank to free the bolt from the door.

When Cadance opened the door a moment later, she came upon a stunned Spike, who lay right where he’d landed on his own face. He was slow to rise again from that embarrassment.

But there was a gentle scratching behind his ears, so it was alright after all.

“I suppose I should stop being so surprised at how capable you are, Spike,” said Cadance as she knelt down and rubbed down the adorable doggy.

He beamed back at her as he reached his paws and stood up, “Nah! I’m always surprising.”

Spike took a few careful sniffs at the Principal’s hand as she finished ruffling his fur. Cadance had, as long as Spike had known her, a warm and fuzzy smell. To a dog’s nose, her smell was like a fluffy blanket after a bath, and she usually added a little bit of vanilla perfume to this, which always made Spike just a bit hungrier after passing by her.

Today, she also had a hint of a chocolate éclair on her, from breakfast no doubt, and something else. A biting, artificial cherry smell…

“Test scores came back today?” he asked.

Cadance’s eyes snapped wide open, and she stood back up. “H-how did you know?”

“You always wear that cherry perfume when you need to ‘feel powerful’,” he waved one paw around dismissively, “and you usually avoid sweets for breakfast unless some nasty paperwork is hounding you back at the school.”

When she stared, dumbfounded, Spike tapped his nose with the same paw. “Can’t lie to this old boy. You did the same thing about a month after Twilight transferred out of Crystal Prep.”

“Yeah,” Cadance sighed, though wistfully, “Her leaving really tanked the averages. Anyone else up?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. She smiled as he shook his head, “Great! I’ll get things set up!”

And with that, Cadance ran off to the kitchen, and soon a pot of coffee was brewing and a pile of eggs were scrambling. Spike was always amazed at how Cadance could instantly switch between capable educator, goofy babysitter, and super-cook houseperson. If Shining Armor was smart, he’d have married her already.

Still, with breakfast on the way, the Sparkle family was sure to follow. And so, Spike, the Brave and Glorious Dog that he was, decided to meet them as they came down the stairs.

First down was Twilight Velvet, mother of Twilight, Shining, and technically, Midnight. The grey-skinned woman with a head of long purple and white striped hair moved like a zombie, drawn directly towards the coffee pot. She always smelled of it, with a strong undercurrent of printer ink, a scent that always perked up Spike when she walked past him. This morning, a page of her latest mystery novel was still sticking to the underside of her slipper, evidence of a long night in front of a computer screen.

Night Light, Velvet’s husband, was down next. The completely blue human followed his wife closely… Spike hesitated to say ‘like a puppy’ since that sounded vaguely insulting, but it was also entirely accurate. Spike always thought Night Light smelled like chamomile tea mixed with hot chocolate, a sort of soothing aura that could calm down anyone within seconds.

And finally, Shining Armor. White-skinned, topped with blue hair currently styled and combed, and dressed in his pressed policing-uniform, Shining smelled like a gallon of mint leaves and cologne.

Of course. He’d seen Cadance’s car in the driveway.

“Hey furball,” he laughed, “go and check on the sleeping beauties up there.”

“No problem,” Spike said as he sailed up the stairs with practiced ease, barely whispering as he passed, “Your Majesty…”

Shining masked his fear well with another cough, but said nothing.

Talking had come easily for Spike, at least once he’d been hit with a little Equestrian magic. In fact, it’d been terribly simple. And once he could put words to things, a lot of other tricks had come easily, just like the locked door. He’d also noticed how those written scribbly things humans put in their books and beneath their movie screens for stuff from far off places actually said things. Some of Shining’s comic books had them too, and they were an awfully fun thing to read as his dragon-self had shown him.

He sometimes wondered at the relationship between him talking, and him suddenly… knowing things. But then, Spike was a dog, and dogs are blessed with an abundance of joy and a lack of care to overanalyze things, especially things like that, which often caused Twilight to stare at a wall for several minutes whenever it came up. And besides, right now, all that mattered was that Spike could open a door.

Spike nudged the bedroom door open after getting the knob to spin with a well-placed jump. Inside, he could see sunlight streaming in from the large, circular window just above Twilight’s bed. His oldest, and best friend looked about as tangled up in her sheets as was possible, like she was in a cocoon. She whimpered softly in her sleep, like how Spike sometimes did when he thought the mailman was coming to get him.

Spike usually loved the scent of his owner. Twilight always smelled like sweet flowers. Maybe that would explain why he loved to roll through Velvet’s garden, but at the moment Spike was focused on the way Twilight’s anxieties and fears were tainting that sweet smell. Spike hated that. It reminded him too much of how Twilight was while she went to Crystal Prep…

But there was someone else in this room, for once. And her scent… it drove Spike up the walls, though not literally in this case. Imagine, he would explain to a willing audience, that to smell a thing was to know a thing. Imagine having a friend, a best friend, or even a close sibling. Imagine knowing everything about them and being with them all the time, forever. No one could be closer than you and your friend.

And then, one day, there was another one. A perfect copy. They even smelled the same… but not. There was a subtle difference, a singular difference that even a dog’s nose could not fully explain. It felt wrong, like hearing two instruments try to hit the same note, but when one turned out flat, you couldn’t tell which one was wrong!

That was Midnight Sparkle. A scent just off enough to make him aware of it, a note just off enough to throw a musician for a loop. All the worse for being so close, so similar to his beloved owner and friend, Twilight. She was also tangled in her sheets, but unlike Twilight, Midnight had slumped off her bed in the night, and was now sleepily laying with her nose a few inches from the burn-mark left in their carpet.

Spike worked his way towards Twilight, and gave her exposed and dangling arm an experimental lick. And then another. After a few more, he could hear her stir. And, eerily, she and Midnight seemed to awaken simultaneously with a snort.

“Cadance is making breakfast, so you two better come down before I get it all,” he said, simply, then made his way out the room as quick as he could. That smell was really getting to him…

Midnight groaned as she realized where she was. Specifically, the floor. More generally, the living, physical, human world. The last few hours were a haze… was this how everyone else dreamed? Why would they subject themselves to this?

She shifted her weight and tried to stand, only to roll over onto her back, her blankets coiled tight around her legs. Well, that at least explained why she couldn’t move in the dream. Having used to live in Twilight’s head, Midnight had usually free reign over their shared dreamrealm. Not having control there, and only having her own thoughts to deal with, had been strange. It was like being invited to a big house… and then the other guests disappeared.

Across the room, Midnight heard Twilight groan and rise from her own bed. Her sister flailed her arms about, eventually snatching up her glasses and returning them to the bridge of her nose.

“Welp,” she sighed, “I suppose the hope of a sound slumber was a forlorn one after all.”

Midnight struggled to remove the sheets still wrapped around her, “Bad dreams?”

“Yeah, and no alicorn of the night in sight,” Twilight twisted this way and that, working the knots and cricks that had formed in her back as she fretfully slept. “I was stuck at some sort of family reunion, but everyone was replaced with that doll…”

Midnight nearly choked as she listened, “Smarty Pants?”

Twilight stared down at the tangled mass of sheets that was her sister “How…?”

“Same dream,” Midnight sighed. “It was some sort of dinner, and everyone was Smarty Pants. And they were pretty upset that I couldn’t name any of them.”

Twilight bit her lip. “I… don’t suppose they called you Midnight at any point…?”

“No,” Midnight finally sat back down on her bed, “Twilight. They seemed… insistent on that point.”

Both sisters sat in the stillness of the early morning. Everything in the room had that crisp feeling as full wakefulness seeped back into the girls’ reality with the slow oozing of sunlight through the circular window in their room.

“Do…” Twilight said slowly, hopefully, “… do you want to talk about it? The dream?”

“Not particularly,” Midnight looked away, “I’ll probably be talking all day long, in any case. Why waste energy on it now?”

Twilight nodded, “Oh, right. Mom and Dad are taking you out for lunch today. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Midnight threw her sister a sidelong glance.

“Well… while you probably remember everything about them, not having Mom and Dad already know you… I can only imagine going through that myself,” Twilight swallowed what could have been a teary breakdown, and soldiered on. “And then there’s the other thing…”

Midnight’s attention locked onto her sister now. “What other thing?”

Twilight winced. “It’s just that… you’ll have to miss school today…” she turned a warm, sympathetic look towards her sister, pain and sorrow evidenced in…

Midnight was struggling not to laugh.

“Was that why you were sad for me?” she covered her mouth, snorts of laughter slipping out with every breath. “I… I think that might be a you problem…”

“You’re…” Twilight’s world began to spin, “You’re not sad about missing school? What sort of a monster are you!?”

Not able to hold it in any longer, Midnight fell backward onto her bed, laughing hysterically at her sister. Twilight sat, frowning for what felt like minutes before deciding to take advantage of Midnight’s giggle fit and take the first shower.

Midnight was positively peeved to find Twilight had snagged their mostly light-blue blouse and purple skirt, but second shower meant second pick of the combined closet, so she settled for the dark-violet polo and skirt instead. Which didn’t matter too much since nothing in the closet seemed to fit right.

She could literally remember Twilight wearing these clothes last week! But everything felt impossibly uncomfortable, a slight size too big or too small! The worst part was she couldn’t tell which.

The Sparkle sisters reached the kitchen at the same time.

Twilight Velvet greeted them first, “Good morning… dears,” she only slightly hesitated, a good sign.

“Hope you slept well, Twi- er, girls?” Night Light almost got it down, also a good sign.

Twilight nudged Midnight in the ribs, and offered a smile and a nod. It was time.

“Greetings… parents?” Midnight cast an unconvincing smile towards her new family, and an awkward glance over to Twilight.

“Nailed it?” she whispered.

“No…”

Shining, hiding a guilty smirk, just nodded and took another sip of coffee before he tilted his head towards the kitchen. And, predictably, Twilight rushed over to meet her favorite sitter, dragging Midnight along by her wrist.

“Sunshine! Sunshine! Ladybugs awake!” Cadance and Twilight hopped merrily before an embarrassed Midnight, sing-songing their traditional greeting.

Nerds, Midnight thought. They were both tremendous nerds.

“Clap your hands and do a little shake!”

The two were left giggling together in the kitchen around the central island-table with Midnight looking on while the rest of the family got right to the business of chowing down. Midnight herself merely looked on, idly wondering what there was to eat, but before she knew better, she felt Twilight’s hand on her shoulder.

The bespectacled sister looked concerned.

“What?”

“Do… do you remember the ladybug dance?” the sudden worry in Twilight’s voice even gave Cadance pause, no doubt wondering what this was all about.

Midnight raised an eyebrow in confusion, but it took another second for what Twilight asked to click into place. “Oh!” she said, eyes wide, “No! No, I remember the song and dance, it’s fine.”

She crossed her arms and gave the other two girls a sour look, “Though it’s clear that I inherited all of our shame from the Split.”

Cadance wore a worried frown as she glanced back and forth between the two girls. “Memories? Split? I… I know this whole situation involves magic, but what is going on?”

Twilight, bless her nerdy little heart, began to wrap her fingers around themselves and half-stammer, half-babble a response. “Well, you see… um, Midnight used to be… oh no, that’s too much… I had this… um…”

Midnight, by contrast, knew precisely what to say. “Magical lobotomy.”

Silverware clattered in the kitchen-dining room, and Shining Armor nearly choked on his toast. Two horrified Sparkle parents stared into the kitchen proper, eyes wider than their plates. Cadance’s face was a mixture of disgust and terror as she clearly began shooting her eyes across Twilight’s features, possibly searching for medical scars or what she did not know.

“Midnight!” Twilight sputtered, “It wasn’t a lobotomy!”

“Fine!” Midnight laughed, a wicked grin suddenly flashing across her face, “Then I suppose I cut our brain in half and gave one part to a golem I made with magic. That would be you,” she added, stabbing Twilight’s shoulder with a pointing finger.

Twilight growled back, “It was an even split after a full Intellect-Duplication spell! I am not a golem!”

Midnight folder her arms and lifted her chin, “Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!” Midnight playfully shook her hips.

All eyes swapped between the new sisters as they continued. Night Light and Velvet silently wondered where their… their newest daughter got all her energy… and attitude. Shining just wondered who would win. Cadance was trapped in the bewildering position of listening to Twilight Sparkle argue with herself in stereo.

“You are a child!”

“I was born yesterday, what’s your excuse?”

“Are you trying to drive me insane?”

“It’s been a day,” Midnight chuckled, “Did you really expect me to give up my favorite hobby so quickly?”

Twilight seemed ready for a comeback, her cheeks flushed red as she built up breath for another verbal assault… but then she simply let it go, before turning an upraised eyebrow at her sister.

“You’re messing with me.”

Midnight smiled back, “Guilty,” and then reached out to touch Twilight’s shoulder. “Forgive me?”

Twilight’s frown struggled to remain as a smile crept back onto her face. “Well, I suppose I can hold off asking Princess Twilight how to banish you to the moon… this time.”

The Sparkle Sisters’ giggling seemed to set the rest of the family at ease. Midnight turned back towards Cadance after a moment.

“When we… split, we used an untested magic…”

Twilight interrupted, “It was fine, in theory.”

“But the end result,” said Midnight, lightly pushing against her twin, “was that we were split into two bodies… though now we’ve found that not every memory from before was shared equally.”

“Midnight is basically me,” said Twilight, then smugly, “Though with far fewer inhibitions or stability.”

Midnight chuckled, “And Twilight is me, just not nearly as cool.”

“Alright…” Cadance pursed her lips, “And the memory thing?”

“So far, it’s… pretty random,” Midnight shrugged, “Like, I don’t remember… Twilight going to Camp Everfree,” she shifted midsentence before the topic of Timber Spruce came up. Best not to tempt the girl who could build a death ray… and had tried at least once.

Twilight blushed. “And I don’t seem to have any memories of… Smarty Pants.”

A second round of clattering silverware, possibly louder than before, rang through the house. Even Spike, hungrily tearing into his kibble mixed with eggs, yelped as Twilight made her pronouncement.

Midnight just returned the wide-eyed stare of her parents and older brother, “I know, right?”

“It’s not that important!” Twilight adjusted her glasses, “We spent part of yesterday afternoon making sure all our memories of academics were retained, and last night we made sure we both remembered friends and family. It seems incidental and secondary memories might suffer some… attrition from the process, however. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Midnight whispered, “Your boyfriend is incidental?” only to realize, with mounting horror, that a whisper in a silent room… wasn’t. At least Shining and Cadance had the good sense to look away, unlike Night Light and Velvet, who took a sudden and intensive interest in their daughters.

Before Midnight could tap into her magic to remove all of the sharpened objects in the kitchen from Twilight’s reach, the muffled tone of a cell phone interrupted the rapidly approaching homicide. Twilight pulled hers from a pocket hidden in her skirt folds* and seemed to try very, very hard not to throw the expensive device right at Midnight’s head.

She read the text. Then, aloud, “Oh! Sunset’s here!”

“Sunset?” Midnight’s heart dropped like a stone directly into her stomach, “W-what is she doing here?”

Twilight tapped out a text reply while speaking, “She’s my ride. We agreed to an early-morning planning session with Principal Celestia.”

Midnight frowned, “Planning session?”

Twilight turned a grin on her sister that was every bit as wicked as the one Midnight once had while tearing down the world around them. “Oh… your Curriculum.”

“Friendship Curriculum, no doubt,” the grumpier sister huffed, “Don’t you think I should be there for something like that?”

“Nope!” Twilight dumped a sunny-side egg in-between two pieces of toast, and then turned towards Cadance, “Well, we better get going! School waits for no student, nor Principal!”

“Actually,” Cadance chuckled, “Crystal Prep has a late-start today. A reward for the effort they put forward during this year’s state testing.”

Midnight flinched, “Oh… did they fail that badly?”

Cadance and Twilight gave her a look, the former surprised, the latter puzzled.

“What?” Twilight asked. “Failed? Testing? How do you fail testing at Crystal Prep?”

Cadance asked her own question, “How did you know? Did Spike…?”

“You always wore cherry perfume when something didn’t go your way,” Midnight said matter-of-factly, “and right after we… Twilight left Crystal Prep, I bet the test score averages tanked.”

Twilight, texting once again to stall for time, scoffed without looking up, “That’s ridiculous! Why would wearing different perfume matter…?”

“Good guess,” Cadance admitted. “We’re down eleven points right now, but we dropped a full fifteen when you… when Twilight left.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Really? Wait… the averages dropped because of me? Cadance wears perfume because of…” She hesitated, “I don’t remember any of that… do you think…?”

Midnight shook her head quickly, “Oh, I’m sure you do. You just never cared. Remember, I inherited all the social awareness between us,” she grinned.

“Did not,” Twilight pouted.

Midnight blew a raspberry, “Did too.”

“As much fun as this is,” Cadance had to step in between the suddenly sparring sisters, “Didn’t you need to get going, Twilight?”

The teenager squeaked, swallowed her toast-and-egg whole, and then dove out the front door. Midnight could just catch a glimpse of Sunset on her motorcycle idling in the street. The girl was wearing her leather jacket, and a full-visor black helmet. She tossed Twilight her spare, and then they…

Did… did Sunset see her? It almost looked like she paused to look at Midnight before roaring off on her bike. Crazy talk, what with the angles, distances, and coverage involved… but still. After the stunt Midnight had pulled yesterday morning… even if it saved the world, she wasn’t sure if Sunset would take being potentially turned into an alicorn personally.

Sunset seemed to have a hang up over that subject. One more thing for Midnight to feel terrible about… even if she wasn’t sure why.

Cadance was still watching Midnight a minute later when the newly minted human being finally noticed her.

She didn’t like how Cadance was watching her. “What?”

“Is everything alright, Midnight?” she asked, pointing at Midnight’s entwined fingers, “Between you and Sunset?”

Midnight unfolded her hands and tried to regain her composure. “Everything’s fine.”

Cadance nodded, but was clearly unconvinced. She picked up her plate, and a plate of eggs meant for Midnight, then tilted her head towards the back door.

“Care to join me on the porch?”

“Uh, sure?” Midnight followed, throwing a suspicious glance Shining’s way. The older brother just shrugged, then bid his goodbyes before setting out for work.

Now alone in the kitchen, except for Spike, Velvet and Night Light sighed.

Night Light picked at his eggs, “Well, breakfast was certainly interesting.”

“And for lunch,” Velvet smiled, chagrined, “we get to have a full conversation with our new daughter.”

“Hate to say it,” said Night Light, shaking his head, “but we might have to fall back on those ‘small talk’ flashcards Cadance got Twilight for last Hearth’s Warming.”

“See,” Spike lifted his head out of his food bowl, “This is why dogs have it easy. All I gotta do to learn something about a new dog is sniff their…”

“Thank you Spike!” Velvet interrupted, “We… we got this… I think.”

The sun had just broken through the treetops around the Sparkle property when Midnight and Cadance came outside into the backyard. The porch, an old design with a full roof, wooden railings and columns, featured a few wicker chairs around a small table, where the two took their seats and watched the golden morning light fall upon the grass.

Midnight sat uncomfortably, tugging this way and that at her clothes. She swore, if Twilight had cast some sort of size-changing spell on their clothes just to spite her, Midnight would… would… darnit, when she was an evil splice of Twilight’s mind, she was so much better at coming up with threats. She settled for spearing her toast and eggs angrily with a fork.

And then she waited for the Inquisition to begin…

The pink-haired principal took a bite of toast with jam, then turned her warm smile onto the girl who looked so much like her little sort-of sister.

“How are you doing, Midnight?”

Through a mouthful of egg, Midnight responded, “That’s a vague question.”

Cadance coughed, “Fair. Then, how are you feeling? Right now?”

No eye-contact. “Less hungry than before.”

The pink principal narrowed her eyes. Midnight wondered what was going through her head just then. Oh, she could probably check herself with a spell… but she was at least nominally trying to be better. And besides, she wasn’t sure yet what would happen if she tried using magic without Twilight around. Splitting the geode had been a wild shot in the dark, and far bolder a move than Midnight had originally thought Twilight capable of. No telling what could…

Uh oh. Cadance smirked. She had something.

“So, is this how you really are,” she almost purred with that delighted grin, “or are you just trying to be as different from Twilight as possible?”

Midnight finished chewing a mouthful of eggs, then pushed the plate away. “Catch 22.”

“You’re as smart as her,” Cadance smiled. “You’re either just a copy of her, or you’re so different you think I shouldn’t care?”

Midnight glowered, “Isn’t that what you were thinking?”

Cadance shook her head softly, “No,” she said. “I just wanted to know if you were alright. Yesterday sounded traumatic… and we both know you and Twilight had a bit of a fraught relationship before that.”

“You have no idea,” Midnight chuckled, darkly. She really, really didn’t.

Cadance nodded, “I know. So, tell me.”

That… wait.

“No,” said Midnight, waving off the older woman, “that’s a bad idea.”

Cadance smelled blood. “Why?”

“You…” Midnight turned away. Don’t engage. Cadance likes it when you engage.

Looking away wasn’t going to help, it seemed. The woman would just sit there, staring forever. She had patience, that was certain. But giving in wasn’t the way out of this. No, nothing good would come from the truth right now.

But the dam was leaking…

Midnight finally said, flatly, “You.”

“Me?”

Midnight gripped her skirt with a white-knuckle grip. “Do you know what I am? What I was?”

Cadance met the girl’s eye, and slowly shook her head. She said nothing. She was an observer here, a listener only. She would let Midnight speak her peace.

That alone infuriated Midnight. It was too familiar.

“I was a tulpa,” Midnight looked away. “A… well, a piece of Twilight’s mind. I became… me, when she absorbed her future friends’ magic…”

“Was this during the Friendship Games?” Cadance asked.

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

Midnight mulled it over. How to explain? No, that wasn’t the right question. How to turn this from an inquisition, into a witch-hunt? Preferably a hunt for pink-witches…

She stood up, and made her way to the porch-rails, “How much did you know about Cinch before the games?”

“I…” the question took Cadance off her guard, “I didn’t really know what she’d been up to until after the games and just before her transfer. I know she,” Cadance took a breath, “I know she tried to blackmail you to participate…”

“Twilight,” said Midnight, back tensing, “Let’s keep the lines clear.”

She heard Cadance shift in her seat. Uncomfortable? Good. Favor returned.

“Twilight never talked about it,” Cadance said, slowly, “I knew something was going on, but I was busy. Cinch made sure I was busy at every possible moment. But…”

Midnight spun around, “But what?” she leaned up against the railing. “But you didn’t notice whenever Twilight’s glasses were broken from a supposed fall? Or whenever she was late for class and her hands looked like they had to rip open a locker from the inside!?”

Cadance’s eyes were open, but she still said nothing.

Midnight was suddenly fine with that. She had plenty to say. “Everyone at Crystal Prep hated her. Everyone at that school had been conditioned to go for blood, to show no mercy. So when some transfer student suddenly shows up and starts destroying the school’s academic records and knocking the grading curve into a tailspin, what do they do?”

Midnight scowled as the dam broke. She could feel her magic, like a little flame down deep in her heart, flare to life. It raced through her veins like a fever, and flowed out in crackling flames along the porch rail. They raced up the little wooden porch columns, and hung down from the roof, framing a large rectangle of blue fire.

And then the memories came. Like a television screen, the flames began to take the shape of Midnight’s memories of being Twilight at Crystal Prep. Memories of being pushed and shoved in the halls, and of the name-calling. Those were tame, the tinny voices of her peers seeping out of Midnight’s impromptu spell. She could have shown the loneliness, the eternal pain of being alone, but that wasn’t what this was for. This wasn’t for sympathy, but vengeance. The memories were only about what had been done to her.

Midnight didn’t need to watch them herself. She was feeding the spell her memories, while all of her attention was focused onto Cadance, and the startled look that came across the pink woman’s face.

Then, more memories played. That time Indigo Zap stole her clothes while she’d been in the gym shower. Oh, how they’d laughed when sh- Twilight had made it to class still in her PE clothes. That time Sunny Flare locked her in the bathroom and almost cost Midnight… Twilight her perfect attendance record. Nearly broke her hand getting out of there.

Or when Lemon Zest blew out all the windows and glass in her lab with an obnoxiously loud music file she snuck onto Twilight’s computer. Explaining the cost of that to Cinch had been a rotten afternoon. And as for that poor excuse for a human being, Midnight almost snarled as the former Principal’s voice echoed behind her… that talk in the darkened office about Everton and how she would use her powers to block Midnight’s dreams…

Twilight’s dreams… Twilight’s…

But Midnight’s tears.

“Do you know why Twilight never talked about this?” Midnight hissed. “Because she had me. She’s pretty bad at coping with trauma, you know? But she was an expert at repressing. So once she made me, she stuck me with all the baggage you ignored because it might threaten your job! Or because Shining Armor was in front of you, so you just couldn’t be bothered!”

The flames behind her began to shift, until the Friendship Games were replaying before Cadance’s eyes… deep, purple eyes brimming with tears. Eyes that dared not look away as Cinch and the Shadowbolts closed in. Eyes that did not blink as she watched her little sister become a monster.

“I was born from her curiosity,” Midnight continued, “We wanted to learn! To understand this magic we’d found! In that moment,” her voice cracked, hold it together, “In that moment, she let go…”

The flames burned out, just as Midnight herself appeared, leaving the girl in the flesh to slide down the cool wood of the porch fence.

What was she doing?

“Twilight got over it,” she whispered, as much to herself as the Principal. “She just… once she had this mystery to solve, she let go of all that anger… but I couldn’t. I spent… I spent over a year in her subconscious, with nothing but that… hatred.”

She felt Cadance slide down the railing to sit besides her. She still said nothing.

“I’m… I’m just so angry,” Midnight wiped at her eyes, “I don’t know what to do with it all. I never had a chance to… talk to anyone. Or get over it. I just kept using it… thinking about what I’d do to them when I got out… what I’d do to you…”

An arm wrapped around her shoulders. Still, Cadance said nothing.

Oh, the hay with pride. Midnight reached out and pulled herself as tightly up against her babysitter as she could.

“Sunshine, sunshine,” she half-sobbed, “ladybugs awake. Clap your hands and do a little shake… I remember… I remember…”

They sat together like this, in a tight, sisterly embrace for several dragging minutes. Eventually, Midnight’s soft cries became hiccups, and then silence. There was nothing more to say.

Except for Cadance. Cadance knew what to say.

“Midnight? I know it can’t be easy holding onto that anger. And…” she laid her forehead on top of Midnight’s head, “… and I know some of it is my fault. And for that, I’m so sorry.”

She stood up again, and helped Midnight to her feet. Cadance helped wipe her eyes and clear the damage her tears had done.

“If you ever want to talk to me about this stuff, all you have to do is call.”

Midnight shook her head, “I… I don’t have a phone.”

A mischievous smirk came to Cadance’s otherwise angelic face. “Well, don’t let it on that I told you, but Velvet and Night Light might be giving you something at lunch today…”

“They’d…?” Midnight frowned, “They hardly know me.”

“Not yet,” Cadance held her little sort-of sister’s hand, “but like me, they want to. But I think,” she fixed Midnight with a steady gaze, “you’ve got to answer one question for yourself, if you want to really deal with your anger.”

“Which is?” Midnight hesitated to ask.

“Do you consider those memories,” she indicated the porch’s wooden frame that once held blue fire, “yours? Or Twilight’s?”

Midnight looked away… but only so she didn’t have to keep her eyes locked on Cadance’s. “Mine. Twilight and I are… closer than most. Those memories… the ones I remember, are still mine.”

“Then,” Cadance said, “You should find the ones who hurt you, and confront them.”

The freshly-minted teenager laughed, “What? So, if I meet Cinch on the street, I should… what? Turn her into a frog?”

Cadance smiled back, “I was thinking you could ask to talk to some of your old classmates about it. Though, with Cinch… if a judge asked me anything, I’d deny encouraging you…”

As they giggled together, the tension finally flowing out of their hearts, Cadance checked her watch.

“And like that, I have to get going.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Midnight slipped into a perfect imitation of Twilight, saying, “School waits for no student, nor Principal!” She then slipped into a fit of snorting laughter.

She was interrupted by a feeling, a light tap on the top of her head.

“Be nice,” Cadance said warningly as she rose up from kissing her sort-of sister’s head, “And take care, alright?”

The pink-haired principal strode away, only to pause at the door to the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder at Midnight, this girl she was only now getting to know.

“Um…” for all her years and experience, Cadance could become quite the tongue-tied post-adolescent herself. “So, Twilight mentioned there are… pony versions of ourselves across the portal? I was just wondering if, last time you were there… you might have…?”

“Spoilers,” Midnight smirked, “That world tends to be ahead by a few years. But I will say…”

A predatory grin flashed. “The baby is adorable.”

The Principal’s face went scarlet. She spun, opened the door, and was practically skipping down the Sparkle hallways towards the door, her car, and as much distance as she could put between her and her sheer, unbridled embarrassment from asking that stupid, stupid question...

Midnight snickered and chuckled on the porch, a sudden lightness in her voice and a weight off her heart. She was almost lightheaded from it all. The sun hadn’t yet risen enough to shine directly on her, but she felt so… warm. It was an intoxicating feeling.

She was so distracted that she almost missed Spike walking out onto the porch. When he appeared, she knelt down and held out one hand, a smile spreading across her face.

Spike sniffed, once… and then turned around, and went inside.

Midnight stared a while, before standing back up. Her own dog…

Baby steps, she thought to herself. Baby steps.

Author's Note

*A Rarity exclusive, darlings!

Next Time:

Rarity Tuesdays Part 2: If You Got It... Flaunt It!

3 - Rarity Tuesdays Part 2: Lunch, Magic, Fashion, Repeat

Breakfast, and all its related dramas, blowups, and meltdowns out of the way, all in the Sparkle household left to their own devices. Spike had disappeared, Night Light and Twilight Velvet decided to plot in the comfort of their offices, and Midnight chose to be more literal about the whole ‘devices’ thing.

She had spent the morning over in her… Twilight’s… nah, screw it. It was her lab! Their lab, at least. And she wanted to see that everything was still working correctly. Happily, nothing appeared to have changed in the heavily modified shed, so Midnight could at least trust her memories with regards to it and its mess of devices and inventions. Twilight had made sure her genetic locks still functioned, so all the tools and devices in here still worked for Midnight as well.

Which was good, because she’d come here to find something specific. Two somethings, to be exact. The first was the Sparkle family photo album she knew Twilight would have taken out back to the lab. And she knew that because of the second something she was here for.

Midnight, despite not exactly being Twilight at the time, could remember the days after that whole Memory Stone fiasco. They, Twilight and Midnight in a sense, had been in the lab working on what Twilight hoped would become a ‘fix’ for any similar memory-altering magical disasters in the future.

What they’d ended up with was a small device built out of a couple microwaves and a video-projector. The Memory Scanner didn’t… quite work like Twilight had hoped. It couldn’t really protect you from having memories altered, or lost, and it couldn’t copy memories. All it could do was tell you whether your mind had been messed with, and how badly.

Still, nothing to sneeze at. Midnight opened up the scanner’s little computer screen and flipped back to the last user.

“I can’t believe you wouldn’t have at least checked after Smarty Pants… aha!”

Right there on the screen was the readout from Twilight’s last memory check. The tiny screen currently read:

Subject: … Twilight Sparkle …

Memory Alteration: … Affirmative …

Memory Deviation: … 100% of Baseline …

One-hundred percent memory restoration. She re-read the timestamp. One day after Wallflower Blush’s plan to erase their memories crumbled along with her Memory Stone. Truth be told, up until the Split, that girl was pretty high up on Midnight’s list of people to personally destroy before tearing down reality itself to get at Equestrian magic. No one erases Midnight Sparkle’s memories. That was, until she did it to herself. It would be a bit hypocritical to be angry with Wallflower at this point.

She held up the photo album. It was a thick tome, filled to burst with every significant moment in Twilight’s life that she and their parents had ever caught on film, and later digital. She slowly drew one hand along the cover, her fingers lingering on the gold-lettering.

Using the device would yield results faster. Twilight would have just popped this thing in, like she’d done before, and figure out how extensive was the damage done to herself.

“I am not Twilight,” Midnight whispered to the album, and then with an angry flick of her magic, she threw it open to a random page.

She saw herself staring back at her. Well, not exactly herself. And she wasn’t staring back so much as the little, kindergarten version of who she used to be was staring at a book in her hands that most of her peers wouldn’t be reading until… well, in some cases like Rainbow Dash, never. Physics had been an interesting read.

Little Twilight sat reading amongst a gathering of her… Midnight struggled to call them friends. Little Twilight didn’t have those, no matter what universe you were talking about. But Midnight was happy enough to realize she could name each of them. Minuette, Twinkleshine, Moon Dancer, even Lemon Drops…

All except the blue girl with the silver hair. She sat towards the back of the group, who were otherwise content to eat cupcakes at a birthday party. A birthday party where Twilight was more content to get ahead of her reading.

The blue one was… playing cards? Odd…

And unfortunate.

“Well,” she sighed, “there’s another memory gone the way of the proverbial dinosaurs. Maybe Twilight would remember…”

She slammed the book shut.

“Enough of what Twilight remembers…”

She set the book into the device’s receptacle, little more than a few repurposed office equipment her mom had blown through trying to make a publisher’s deadline, and with a few buttons and switches pressed, the machine was ready. Prompted by the catalogue of memories in the album, a quick scan of her hippocampus would tell her…

Well, how much of her survived yesterday.

Spike was a dog. That was all he was content to be. That was all he needed to be. That’s all the universe had made him to be. Dogs were simple. Dogs were not complex. Dogs were man’s… girl’s best friend.

But right now, he was silently cursing the ability to think about his own thinking. That had never happened before he learned how to talk. He’d tried to get Twilight to talk to him about it, but she always got a faraway look whenever they started talking about consciousness, the nature of the soul, and all those other things he’d rather not think too much about, since as a dog he shouldn’t be able to think about those things.

In short, he was bothered. He sat in the center of Twilight… and now Midnight’s bedroom, just next to the scorched carpet that depicted their ‘Cutie Mark’ or whatever it was called over in pony-world, evidence of his friend’s bizarre teleportation excursion the night before. He’d been there since after breakfast, and couldn’t help but sniff at it.

There was something off about it. About the whole room, actually. And the more he sniffed, the more he started to notice other things wrong.

Twilight’s sheets still smelled like her… but not quite. Her carpet had her scent… but it was off somehow. Her books, Smarty Pants, even her dresser and writing desk, all had something off about their smell! Without Twilight here to reinforce her own scent, he found he couldn’t find a trace of her original scent anywhere!

Except… except for the scorch mark. Alone in the entire room, the entire house for that matter, it remained entirely Twilight.

Scents were important to dogs. To smell a thing was to know a thing. But Spike wanted to be a dog. And this was getting complicated. Very un-doglike. If there were a Union for dogs, he’d be filing a complaint with them. The fact that he knew what a union was, and could joke about it was another aspect of his new nature Spike was rather keen on not thinking about.

But this included Twilight. So, he had to think about it.

If… if the Original Twilight smell came only from the place where she and Midnight had fused… what did that say about the girl he knew as his best friend? What did that say about the girl he’d blown off this morning?

“Okay Spike,” he said to himself, “If the place where they fused smells right, and the places where they came apart smells wrong…”

Curse sapience, Spike thought, glumly. He really didn’t need to be making these sorts of philosophical connections this early in the day. But now that the idea was forming in his head, he couldn’t ignore where it led.

“… Twilight smells funny because… because the Twilight I knew isn’t the Twilight I know now… she’s… both of them…”

He slapped his head with a paw. Idiot! How could he have made such a puppy-mistake!? Midnight didn’t smell like Twilight! Midnight was half of Twilight’s scent! Their shared scent was the original!

“Oh woof,” he sighed, “Spike… you just turned your nose up at your owner… bad dog…”

But, instead of wallow in his sudden shame, Spike perked his ears up and looked around. It was subtle, but he could hear the lights and electrics in the walls flicker. It was such a quiet surge of power that he knew no one else would be able to tell.

But dogs are good at that sort of thing. And he’d seen that power surge before.

Spike spun around and darted out of the room. He flew down the staircase, leapt out the door to the backyard, and quickly found the door to Twilight’s lab sitting off to the side of the lawn. Or… Midnight’s… the Twins’ lab.

He needed to make this right, and if Twilight was doing something in her lab… even if it was only sort of Twilight, that meant she was doing something crazy. Something crazy that Spike’s rejection had no doubt driven her to! Bad dog! Very bad dog!

Locked. But locks were nothing to Spike, the Brave and Glorious! He continued his charge, ready to run up the door as he did this morning to let Cadance in… when the genetic lock registered him approach. Spike went sailing through the open door, landing hard on his belly, and found himself sliding across the entire lab in a single go.

It took Spike a few moments to shake the stars from his vision. His highly sensitive dog-senses slowly came back as he did so, slightly dulled by crashing into one of Twilight’s bigger, more… metal machines. Why she designed things that hurt so much, he’ll never know…

But as his senses returned, he heard her. Spike looked about until he spotted Midnight… his owner, his friend. She sat at one of the cluttered countertops in the laboratory, her head tucked down deep into her arms, all laid down on the table.

He knew that sound. Every day Twilight had gone to Crystal Prep, he could remember her laying her head down just like that. Crying just like that.

“… Midnight?” he watched her, hesitantly. The smell of her machine’s heating plastic and electrical charges masked all else.

The girl turned around suddenly. She hadn’t heard him come in. Spike caught a glimpse of her face, just as she swept back around. Midnight furiously wiped at her tears with one arm, her breathing forcing itself to steady again.

“Spike… I didn’t hear you come in,” she didn’t turn around.

“I… I heard the power surge,” he said, trotting closer, “You always… well, Twilight always came here to do experiments when something was bothering her. Or when she thought she could fix something with one of her inventions.”

Midnight chuckled, but there wasn’t a hint of humor to it. “Yeah… Remember when… when she thought she could build a solar-laser to melt all the snow so she could still go to school during a blizzard?”

“Oh, yeah. That was nothing,” Spike laughed, deciding to play along, make sure she knew he was still her dog, “Remember how she built that teleporter?”

Midnight half-turned, just enough to see Spike in her periphery. She still looked a mess.

“Yeah, I do. And what happened to all those apples she tested it on. If we’d known Applejack at the time, she’d be so mad…”

Spike nodded, “Definitely. And Pinkie would’ve never forgiven you if you ever told her about that Instant-Pastry-Machine.”

Her face became unreadable as Spike chuckled at the memory.

“I… don’t recall…”

Alright, Spike thought, she’s not getting it. He should just go in for the apology now.

“I’m really sorry, Midnight,” he reached out a paw to touch her ankle.

Midnight suddenly locked her gaze right on him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, sitting back on his haunches and giving her his best apologetic ‘puppy eyes’ he could muster up, “This morning, I was obsessing about how your scent’s different. And that made me act like a real jerk to you. You and Twilight are, like, half of the same scent, and it took me too long to realize that.”

“… half?”

He nodded, “Of course! It’s like… when you were both Twilight, you had a smell. And like I always say, if you can smell a thing, you know a thing. So, when you two split up… I guess you guys took half your smell with you.

“But,” he continued, “I just realized that you’re not someone else just because you’ve got a different name now. The scent is there, it’s just off for both of you. So… I’m sorry.”

Spike waited. She would either tell him he was a good boy, or a bad boy. There was no…

He was surprised at how quickly she hauled him up into the air, and equally so because she did it with her crazy magic! She pulled him right into her arms and gave Spike that good, old Twilight-cuddle-hug he always loved. Now if he could just get a belly-rub out of this…

“Thank you,” he could feel her tears drip down onto his fur, “thank you…”

“Hey, come on! I’m girl’s best friend, right?”

She smiled at that. A real, genuine smile. “Alright, best friend… you up for some fetch in the yard?”

Spike nearly leaped out of her arms, shouting joyously, “You bet! Let’s get going already!”

It was suddenly a good day. Spike was a good boy. He’d done his dogged duty. He’d made his human happy. And as he raced across the grass, he let the tears and the gloom of the lab fade from his memory until there was only the joy of playing with his girl.

Besides, he had no idea what that machine she’d been working on was. And he had no idea why she’d be so upset over a flashing number. Flashing over and over and over…

Finally, the prophesized hour came. Night Light and Twilight Velvet ventured out to Canterlot Mall, Midnight in tow, and asked her to select a place for lunch.

It was the most terrifying moment in her life. Outside of a hamburger, fries, toast, and eggs, she’d never really eaten anything before. She could remember eating, as Twilight, but there was a critical difference between recalling something and experiencing it firsthand. But, in her immediate panic, she didn’t really get that across to her parents.

“Um… sushi?”

And just like that, they were sitting in the sushi place where Sunset worked. She was obviously still in school at the moment, which suited Midnight just fine. The Sparkles ordered a variety of rolls, and sat down to perhaps the most necessary, and most awkward parent-child discussion imaginable.

It was a strange, strange feeling for Midnight to be on the outside of a typical awkward Sparkle freak-out. As Twilight, she’d always assumed her family was merely eccentric. But being trapped within one’s own head, with only one’s own thoughts and memories to reflect upon, had given Midnight a new perspective on her parents, Night Light and Twilight Velvet.

Oh, they were certainly kind, loving parents who only wanted to foster their children’s talents… but they were also freaks. Socially-oblivious freaks who’d somehow found each other, and wanted to spend their lunch getting to know her… despite the fact that she already knew them…

They started off the conversation by not starting it. Night Light and Velvet just… smiled a lot. They would smile at Midnight, and then glance away as if they were taking in the sights, as opposed to merely trying to avoid eye contact. Eventually, this wore thin, as Night Light decided to finally initiate first contact.

“So, Midnight… How’s it going? Everything alright with you?”

No, she thought, I just blew up at my former sitter and oldest friend over repressed anger issues, lost the respect of my own dog because of how I smelled, and then wept at a computer screen that basically confirmed I have catastrophic brain damage.

“Uh, yes…” she said, in the typical tone of a teenager who doesn’t quite know what answer she’s expected to give to that question. At least she had Spike back…

Her mother nodded, her stepford smile somehow merging with a frown, “We’re just concerned… dear,” she said, placing one hand in an approximately-comforting way on top of Midnight’s own, “You haven’t been… yourself lately…”

“Understatement of the year,” the sarcasm dripped from Midnight’s mouth as she gently drew her hand back.

“We just… want to help you get better,” Night Light said, solemnly.

“What?” Midnight raised an eyebrow. That sounded like an intervention…

Velvet tightened her grip. “We think you have a pr… oh?” her gaze drew Midnight’s own, just catching a glimpse of her father shaking his head furiously and making chopping motions towards his neck with one hand, clearly signaling an abort-mission.

“… a place here…?” Velvet ended lamely, the question mark practically hanging over her head.

Midnight’s eyes narrowed. “I… appreciate the support, but…” her eyes snapped wide, one hand pointing behind her parents’ heads.

“What!?” she cried, “Is that Cadance and Shining making out!?”

Twilight Velvet practically leapt up on the seat, hands gripping the back of her seat with white knuckles, “Where!? Where!? Did it finally happen!?”

Night Light, similarly, twisted himself almost completely around to get a look, twisting just enough for the flashcards in his jacket’s inner pocket to lean out just a bit.

With a flick of her wrist, and the briefest touch of her magic, Midnight gripped the cards in her blue magical aura and snatched them across the table into her waiting hand. Both her parents turned back to stare, a mixture of shock and embarrassment washing over them.

Midnight held the deck out to her parents, like the murder weapon at the end of a detective novel. But like any good criminal once caught, they didn’t immediately fess up.

Rarity would have loved that analogy, Midnight thought.

“Small-Talk flashcards.” It wasn’t a question, if the unimpressed tone of Midnight’s voice was any indication, “Didn’t we get you these?”

Her mother, face still contorted in shame, said, “We?”

“It’s just so tiring having to correct myself when sifting through shared memories,” Midnight began cutting and rippling the deck of cards, “so when I say ‘we’, I’m referring to anything from before Twilight and I… went separate ways.”

“Oh…” Night Light's forehead beaded with sweat, “W-where did those come from…?”

Velvet sighed, “Hun? I think we’ve been sussed.”

Night Light folded his arms and glanced down at the table, “There wasn’t anything about this on the cards…”

Said cards evaporated in Midnight’s clutch, sent back home with a simple Recalling Teleport, though from her parents’ startled faces, Midnight supposed that looked worse than it was.

She sighed, then said with some amount of tenseness in her voice, “You know you can just… talk to me, right?”

“We… we didn’t know if you’d…” Night Light fussed with the collar of his shirt.

“Twilight always liked her personal space,” Velvet said, trying to return to a genuine smile… and failing, “Conversation with her is usually scheduled, structured. You know how you… how she is.”

Midnight might have said something… impolite. She might have raised her voice. She may even have set something on fire. But a newfound calm had begun to settle in her chest, as though Cadance had laid the burning fire in her heart into a bank of snow. At least for now, there was no anger.

She took a long, cleansing breath.

Which came out in a choking cough as the server appeared out of nowhere.

“Hiya folks!” the pale blue girl with striped blue hair smiled like her last name was Pie, “I got a number 1, a number 4, and the Catch-All platter?”

Sonata Dusk placed the meal down on the table… and then glanced up into Midnight’s distressed face.

“Oh… Twilight? Right?”

A final, hacking cough, “Midnight, actually...”

Sonata stood up straight, head nodding knowingly, “Right, the clone thingie. How’s that working out for ya?”

Midnight stared, then shook her head, “Fine… it’s fine… how are you here!?”

Sonata kept smiling, “What d’ya mean? I got a job!” She pointed out her blue-and-white uniform proudly, “And I didn’t have to mind-control anyone to get it!”

“No,” Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose, “I mean, you’ve been back in town less than a day! How did you already get a job? And where are your sisters?”

“Ah!” Sonata nodded, “I get it now! Well, Sunset had all sorts of blackmail on the vendors around here, so all it took was a phone call to…”

Midnight blocked her mouth with a telekinetic aura, “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

“Well,” Sonata laughed when Midnight withdrew her magic, “It’s not like anyone would hire me without help. There’s a literal thousand-year gap in my resume.”

“I…” Midnight was caught for a moment at the word resume, if only because she only just now realized she’d need one with her own name on it.

She blinked away the thought and carried on, “That makes sense… but why a sushi restaurant? Aren’t you technically a fish?”

“A fish-pony!” Sonata corrected, loudly enough that a few other patrons turned to stare. She, not noticing or not caring, simply carried on herself, “And for your information, some fish eat other fish…”

A new voice, older and raspier, interrupted their conversation from the register. “Hey! New girl! Do you think I hired you because I liked you!? If you’re going to remind me of my shame, at least help some more customers!!!”

“Oop!” Sonata squeaked, “Coming! Nice meeting ya,” she waved back at Midnight as the thousand-year-teenager took off.

In the silence that followed that… bizarre meeting, Midnight simply stared after Sonata, wondering on so many levels as to just what happened. But her pondering on the sheer scale of the improbabilities involved was cut short by a short, coughing sound.

Midnight swiveled her head back to her parents, whose startled gazes were locked with her own.

“So…” Night Light sipped his water with a shaking hand, “Fish-ponies?”

Velvet leaned into the table, “Blackmail!?”

Night Light followed, “Is this some sort of magic thing?”

“Is Sunset a criminal!?”

“Oh,” Night Light paused, “Yes, I suppose that’s a bit more pressing…”

Midnight’s eyes unfocused at the barrage of questions. They were coming so quick, so sudden, that it was like watching a flash flood form in real time. And she was right in the floodplain.

“Is this Sunset some sort of bad influence…?”

“How long has this been going on…?”

“Where are the gills…?”

“Wait! Wait! STOP!” she held out both hands, pleadingly, like she was reaching for a breath of air.

Night Light and Velvet paused, if only to catch their breaths and ready the next assault. But Midnight could see the strain and pressure clearly on their faces. There was a tiredness, and an eagerness for answers that they’d waited and waited for patiently, possibly as far back as the Friendship Games.

Possibly as far back as…

Midnight began calculating.

“It… might be the memory-loss talking,” she said, slowly, drawing a worried look from both her parents in spite of their previous haggardness, “but did Twilight ever… actually explain all this magic business to either of you?”

Astonishingly, as both Twilight Velvet and Night Light readied their next bevy of backlogged questions, they stopped. Mouths agape mid-query, they leaned back in their seats and exchanged gazes.

Night Light spoke first, “Um… I mean, Cadance explained the gist of the Friendship Games…”

“And that… woman, Cinch’s part in it,” Midnight wasn’t sure if she hated her former principal more, or if her mother did. Slightly comforting, in any case, to hear that hiss accompanying mention of her…

“But,” her father folded his hands, “We respected our daughter’s privacy.”

Velvet nodded, “If Twilight wanted to talk to us about something important, she would have.”

Both were knocked from their thoughts by a snort and a guffaw from across the table. Midnight was suddenly thankful she hadn’t been drinking anything.

“And what’s so funny, missy?” Velvet asked with a touch of scarlet in her cheeks.

“I… I get it now!” Midnight buried further chortling in her chest and tried to subdue her laughter, “Twilight always looks up to authority! I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection until now…”

When both her parents remained silent, urging her on with their eyes alone, she leaned in and said, “She’s terrified of you!”

“Us!?” the Sparkles nearly jumped out of their seats.

“Well, not you! But… she’s terrified of disappointing you! Of being anything other than your perfect baby girl. And you’re both the same way! Kind of obvious, in hindsight. You’re…” the smile that had formed on Midnight’s lips died.

“You’re… you’re both terrified of me.”

Protests began to form in the mouths of both her parents, but a moment of hesitation had gone by, confirming the hypothesis.

Velvet seemed to realize that first. “It’s just…” she wracked her brain for the words. Should have been easy for an author. “We just didn’t expect any of this. It all happened so fast!”

“It’s partly our fault,” Night Light scratched the back of his head, “We… we always trusted Twilight to handle her own affairs. I suppose we should have done more.”

“You did everything,” Midnight knew the tears would come soon, and so she had to speak now, “I was Twilight, up until a year ago! You two were the… the greatest parents a girl could ask for. But that’s not who I am anymore.”

She took a deep, deep breath, and checked to make sure Sonata wasn’t coming back.

“I am not Twilight,” she said, with finality, “But I’m still your daughter. I still remember all the family trips, every Hearth’s Warming party at Nana’s, every science fair! I…”

Midnight swallowed, “I love you, even if you don’t remember me…”

There. There it was. All out and in the open. Midnight had finally said something, something that put her heart out there. Now all that was left was the odd stares and…

She felt something on her hand. Velvet’s hand had reached out and gripped her own. Night Light’s had followed, close behind.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Velvet sniffed, “This must have felt like Grammy Sparkle all over again…”

Her dad said nothing, but Midnight could see tears forming in his eyes, and in hers…

“Eugh,” she sighed, “Enough with the crying!”

Though their faces were momentarily shocked, Velvet and Night Light gave way to glad smiles as Midnight wiped at her eyes and tried to smile back in return.

“If Twilight didn’t tell you guys everything, I guess then it’s all up to me.”

Velvet, fighting back a thrill at the prospect of answers, lightly protested, “But… if Twilight didn’t think to tell us…”

“I’m tired of what Twilight thinks,” Midnight took up her chopsticks and snatched at a particularly flashy bit of sushi, “And they’re my secrets too. If I want to tell them, so what? It’s one more thing to prove I’m not her!”

Night Light started to reach out as Midnight swiped her first bite of lunch in a spot of green paste, “Um… honey? That’s wasabi. You…”

Too late, Midnight tossed the sushi back and downed it in a single bite. Velvet and Night Light watched, eyes wide, waiting for the inevitable meltdown. The last time…

Midnight’s nostrils flared, and her face reddened.

“Oh dear…” said Velvet, “It happened again…”

But then, instead of gasping and crying, as was expected, Midnight smacked her lips contentedly. “Ah! Now that is my kind of heat!”

Night Light narrowed his eyes, “You… liked it?”

“Yeah, this stuff is great! Why have we never tried it before?” Midnight quickly popped another sushi roll in the wasabi and chomped down.

“… we have…” said Velvet, hesitating.

Midnight paused… only to swallow. She shrugged, and said, “Well, I can’t remember, so who cares?”

She leaned forward, spearing another bite. “So… Magic…”

What followed… well, the food was gone within minutes. Night Light spent the entire lunch chewing on the same piece of crab again and again and again, but Twilight Velvet was, unsurprisingly, a glutton for drama, and found herself piling on the sushi as more and more extraordinary details about her daughter’s life came tumbling out of her… other daughter.

A rehash of Twilight’s misery at Crystal Prep began the tale. As furious as her parents had been once they’d learned the extent of Cinch’s mischief, Midnight wasn’t quite prepared for just how… quiet they were while she regaled them with a few anecdotes. That time Lemon Zest ‘accidentally’ sealed her locker with gorilla glue. That other time Indigo Zap convinced the school choir to add ‘Twilight Barf-le’ to their Hearth’s Warming show.

That time she stopped caring anymore and became a monster.

“I…” Twilight Velvet interrupted for perhaps the only time, “I suppose that would explain the fire out on the porch?”

Midnight just nodded, fully enraptured in her story-telling mode, “I might have told Cadance about how much I resented her for not doing more… but I’m good now."

She took another hit of wasabi as her father asked, “Are you still upset? About it all?”

Midnight let the heat blow through her nostrils. “Oh, I’m always furious about it. It’s… kind of scary how angry I am most of the time.”

Velvet, in a rare moment of levity, chuckled and whispered, “Maybe you should vent by writing a book…”

And unlike when Velvet had made the same offer to Twilight, Midnight just said, “Yeah, okay. I’m already breaking molds today.”

They had to stop a moment, to let her mother get her breath back.

“So, when they hand something to you, do they call it ‘hoofing’ something?”

“Yes, dad, for the last time. It’s not that weird for them.”

“But what about if they use their mouth? Or their magic?”

“No, they still call it ‘hoofing’. And ‘hoofwriting’, just so we’re clear.”

“…oh. But what about hygiene? Writing with your mouth…”

“For the last time! They are magical horses! Not everything over there makes pure biological sense!”

“… and that’s how we figured out the whole… memory thing,” Midnight finally hit last night, took a deep swig of her water, and finished by adding, “And… that’s it. That’s everything.”

Night Light sighed as though he’d been holding his breath for the past few minutes. This was because he had. Listening to his daughter describe, in meticulous detail, how to perform what he could only see as a magical lobotomy…

It set him a touch on edge.

His wife, by contrast, seemed fine. Totally fine. She stared into the middle distance for a few minutes as Midnight described the Princess Twilight, and some of the… abridged events surrounding Midnight’s brief time-traveling foray into the future during that whole Crystal Empire debacle…

Quite frankly, Midnight was incredibly impressed thus far. Night Light may have been obsessive over details… the Sparkle curse, Midnight would generously describe it… but her mother was practically the definition of high-strung and in need of a calming night in.

Yet, here she was, taking the retelling of the incident which nearly destroyed reality in stride, like she was listening to another author’s story and silently contemplating how she could have done it better.

Well done, mom.

Less encouraging, however, was the face Twilight Velvet made once the story had concluded. She simply closed her eyes, steepled her fingers, and leaned across the table to make sure her daughter understood the importance of what came next.

She was calm. Eerily calm.

Motherly calm…

“So… Timber Spruce,” she narrowed her eyes wickedly. “I assume you knew about him?”

Midnight ‘eeped’. She suddenly, desperately hoped Twilight hadn’t taken all of their acting talent as well with the Split…

As lunch concluded, with Midnight having held onto at least a few of Twilight’s secrets, the Sparkles bid one another heartfelt farewells. There were hugs, and kisses, and promises to have more talks later… and maybe make some more memories later as well.

But just before her parents left for home, leaving Midnight at the Canterlot Mall to meet with her sister and their friends, Twilight Velvet revealed their little surprise that wasn’t a surprise thanks to Cadance. They handed Midnight a smartphone, easily and with little regard, as though it weren’t the most significant gift she’d ever received in her life.

And that was how Midnight found herself alone, at the mall, wandering from shop to shop, fiddling away at her new phone. Naturally, her mom had already added contacts for Midnight. These included the local library, emergency services, and… Spike.

Midnight was happy enough to remember Twilight building a phone receiver into his collar. Better than not remembering something else. She tugged at her shirt as she considered who she could call first, the ill-fitting feeling returning since this morning.

Seriously, if Twilight messed with their clothing just to spite her…

“Twilight!”

That doesn’t bode well, Midnight thought. Best ignore it. They’ll realize soon enough…

“TWILIGHT!!!”

A blue-and-silver blur ran right up to Midnight, startling her as it came to a screeching halt. Its sudden appearance caused her to toss her precious phone up into the air. Were it not for a timely flash of blue magical light, it would have been little more than fabulously expensive plastic scattered across the mall floor.

Midnight brought the device back to her hand, then took a very, very deep breath. When she shot the interloper a glare, she didn’t want to accidentally set them on fire, after all.

Not until they had a chance to grovel.

Said interloper, however, appeared to be a teenage girl with azure skin and a swirl of silver-and-sky-blue hair. Midnight was… half-sure she’d seen her somewhere before, but just couldn’t place her.

“Oops,” she said, the panic in her eyes shifting to the phone for a brief moment, “Sorry about that…” then, she grabbed Midnight’s shoulders, shouting, “Twilight! I need your help!”

“You have a funny way of asking for it,” Midnight growled.

“Please Twilight, I…” the blue girl’s face drew down into a narrow, questioning look, “Um… did you do something different with your hair?”

Midnight sighed. Did she really deserve this?

“No,” she said, after a moment, “Because I’m not Twilight. I’m…”

Trixie’s eyes popped out wide, “Oh! You’re Midnight!”

That… what? But who…?

“Do… do I know you?” Midnight cringed, slightly, at the thought of yet another memory gap jumping up like this. “Are we… friends?”

“I helped you save the world yesterday!” the girl confirmed the memory gap theory, “Or, at least Pony-Trixie did! And I helped her!”

There was something there. Not a memory, per say, but part of a recollection. Like before with Everfree, Midnight could see the outline of a memory.

“Wait…” her face twisted with the effort of restoring that memory, “You… you’re Starlight’s friend… no, Pony-Trixie is. You helped convince Disqord to switch sides?”

Trixie’s anger faded, replaced by a sort of cautious worry, “Are you feeling okay? Trixie didn’t have much time to talk to you before, but I assumed a clone of Twilight would be a bit better put together. Also, Starlight…?”

“Hey!” Midnight snapped, “I’m fine! I just… when Twilight and I split, we didn’t split the personal memories as well as we could have!”

Trixie huffed, “So, you’re saying you forgot about the Great and Powerful Trixie? After everything we’ve been through!?”

Salvage this, Sparkle, Midnight thought to herself. “Well… what did we go through?”

Trixie’s pout turned into… panic?

“Well… technically… um, I sold out the Rainbooms to the Dazzlings,” she tugged at the collar of her magician’s cape…

“So, don’t count that,” Trixie added, “But I did help Sunset stop Wallflower with the whole ‘memory-stealie stuff’!”

Memory… stealie stuff. Oh, wow.

“Alright,” Midnight conceded, “That’s not nothing…”

“And Trixie has been Twilight’s rival in academics since before Grade-school!”

Midnight raised an eyebrow, “Why is that a sign of our friendship?”

“It’s not,” Trixie answered, truthfully, “I just wanted it known.”

This is rapidly going nowhere, Midnight thought as she rubbed her temples. “Look, you said you needed help?”

Trixie nearly leaped out of her shoes as she suddenly remembered her purpose here.

“Right! Tw- Midnight! I need help! My Great and Powerful Assistant had to go back to Equestria, and my gig starts in ten minutes!”

“I… gig? What sort of gig?”

Here, Trixie smirked. “Why… Trixie is a Great and Powerful Magician! Her feats of magical might are spoken of from Canterlot High to the lands of Equestria itself!” She pulled a deck of cards… seemingly from nowhere, and began to shuffle it.

Admittedly, she shuffled well. Cards spun and flipped this way and that, to the point where Midnight could reasonably say she’d never seen better. It wasn’t magic, but it was still rather impressive. Trixie eventually folded all the cards back in-between her hands… before pointing at Midnight herself.

“Check your pocket.”

Midnight chuckled, “I’m wearing a skirt.”

“Trixie meant your sleeve!” Trixie frowned.

Humoring the magician, Midnight reached over to her left sleeve… and felt something shift. Wide-eyed, she reached up her short sleeve, and found a Five of Clubs tucked away.

… Magic!?

“How!?”

Trixie smirked, “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

“That’s amazing!” Midnight stared at the card, checking its flawless corners for any sort of marking. “It’d be more impressive,” she noted after a few moments, “if you could guess the card as well…”

Trixie blushed, “I… can only do the second part of that trick. Yet, anyway,” she coughed and held out the split deck for Midnight to return her card to.

But as she reached out, Midnight couldn’t help but feel the strangest sense of déjà vu sweep over her. She paused, her mind returning to its calculations. Was it the cards? Was is Trixie? Was there a funny smell, or something about the lighting…?

Wait. It couldn’t be…

Midnight glanced around. It was still a while before the schools let out, so there was weirdly no one here…

“Trixie? Why are you here? Don’t you have school?”

The blue teenaged magician was still holding out her deck for its missing piece as Midnight asked that. She shrugged, “I have an early period in the morning, so I get out before everyone else. It makes getting a good spot for my show easier.”

Satisfied, Midnight held up a single finger, “Wait one.”

And flashed away in a blaze of blue flames.

Midnight reappeared moments later, clutching her photo album. As she felt the mall’s linoleum floor under her feet, she took note of a distinctive sound thrumming the air. It sounded like a screaming girl’s voice, but she didn’t know why the mall would be…

Oh, Trixie was freaking out. The magician was sprawled out on the floor, her cards still landing about her, tossed as they were in her initial panic from watching her childhood friend explode in front of her.

“Trixie! TRIXIE!!!” Midnight leaned down and gave the blue magician girl a hard, open-palm slap across the face.

GAH! Midnight thought, internalizing her scream, the point was to hurt her…!

“Ow!” Trixie rubbed her sore cheek, her glare both angry and slightly embarrassed, “I’m sorry, but normally people don’t explode around me… usually…”

“Oh, shut up you whiner,” Midnight sighed, then held out the album to her, opened to a particular page, “Does this look familiar to you?”

The magician snatched the album away, miffed somewhat at Midnight’s mysterious magical, some would say miraculous immolation, and took a look. Her eyes narrowed at first, as she took in all the details of the picture she was shown, and then widened suddenly with realization.

“Hey, that’s me! That looks like… Moondancer’s fifth birthday party! I remember that!” Her eyes were actually sparkling as she looked at the picture.

Midnight really didn’t like what she was about to say. “Well… I don’t,” she grabbed one arm with the other and tried to avoid looking directly at Trixie, “And I’m, like, ninety-percent sure that Twilight doesn’t remember you from then either. Canterlot, maybe, but…”

Trixie frowned as she looked up at Midnight, “She… doesn’t?”

“No… sorry. Twilight’s always been bad at interpersonal stuff.”

“But,” Trixie stood up slowly, but never let go of the album, nor managed to drag her eyes away from it, “But back then… I thought we were…”

Oh, sweet Sun and Moon… it was like kicking a puppy. Sure, a somewhat annoying puppy that was so full of itself it was liable to declare itself master of all it perceived… but a puppy, nonetheless.

Midnight reached out one hand, and set it on the girl’s shoulder. “Um… Trixie?”

Trixie’s eyes were the most puppy-dog eyes Midnight had ever seen on someone that wasn’t her own dog. Spike couldn’t hold water compared to Trixie.

Midnight sighed, “You needed an assistant…?”

The hug was instant, and found Midnight’s cheek squished up against Trixie’s as the blue-magician grinned from ear to ear.

“This will be the best thing EVER!”

This was the worst thing EVER, Midnight thought glumly about twenty minutes later. She stood behind a cheap curtain set up outside of a pawnshop, and she was wearing the most… wretched outfit she’d ever had the misfortune of coming across. It was like an unholy fusion of leotard and skirt. All of the crassness, none of the elegance.

At least the color was nice. Sky blue had always been one of Midnight’s favorite colors.

“Alright!” Trixie Lulamoon threw one arm around Midnight, her ridiculous wizard cape flipping over their conjoined shoulder, “Just follow my lead, smile, remember what I told you about the box, and remember:

“The Show Must Go On!”

Midnight rolled her eyes at this. How did she get roped into this again? She watched Trixie stride up to the curtain, and prepare to draw it back. They could both hear muttering on the other side of the curtain, a crowd of people having gathered for a cheap magic show on the streets of Canterlot City.

And just as Trixie gripped the curtains, Midnight started to feel it. She began to remember just why Twilight never enjoyed the idea of joining the Rainbooms as anything but a backup singer…

Fear. Stage fright. It had always been Twilight’s heel, her weak spot. And… Midnight had forgotten it until this moment!? Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. She couldn’t do this. There was no way she…

The curtains flew apart.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Trixie struck a proud magician’s pose as she looked out over the… sizeable crowd that had gathered in front of Flim and Flam’s Emporium. “I’d like to welcome you all to the show! You will behold today the awesome power of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

She stage-turned to wave a hand to Midnight, “And what is a Great and Powerful Magician without their Great and Powerful Assistant? Let me hear your appreciation for my lovely assistant, Miss Sparkle!”

There it was. Time for her legs to lock up. Time for her hands to sweat. Every silly public appearance and performance had taught Midnight that human eyes were the enemy. She just had to wait for her heart to begin pounding and…

It started pounding. But the shaking didn’t come. The sweat didn’t leak. Her legs…

Carried her towards the stage. All those eyes, all that light applause… it wasn’t terrifying at all! It was like fuel. It was… like magic.

The show went off without a hitch. Midnight, carried on a wave of audience-dispensed adrenaline, played the part of the magician’s assistant well. She distracted the audience from noticing Trixie’s… tricks, and she kept the stage clear and open for the primary performer.

And what a performer! Midnight idly wondered if she’d be half-as-enthralled with Trixie’s stagecraft if she’d known the girl outside of today. Did Twilight consider them friends? Did she even respect Trixie?

Midnight decided she should. Trixie may have a personality like a cheese-grater, but Midnight had grown perceptive in her year-long exile into her own subconscious. All she’d had for a year were memories of conversations and people to analyze, like an endless stream of boring movies she’d seen over and over again. She’d gotten good at seeing past the surface of people. The surface was where the boring parts of people were. And Trixie… may not be the sharpest tool or the kindest or the most dependable. But she had a real talent for this.

And the crowd? They ate this stuff up! Midnight could have been… generous in saying that people loved a good show. She almost wouldn’t doubt it with the way Trixie carried on, one minute throwing all her energy behind an acrobatic twirl, and in the next dropping a clever joke or pun or even full-blown speech like she was the Bard incarnate. But, in truth, Midnight suspected that people just liked being fooled.

After completing the sawing trick, Midnight knew the grand finale was up. And while she deftly maneuvered the box and its frightfully fake limbs out of sight, Trixie took back center stage like she was a Princess returning to her kingdom.

“The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie,” she did, indeed, say it that way, “would like to thank you all for attending today’s performance. And, as you’ve been such a gracious audience, Trixie would like to grace you all with one final performance!

“For her last trick, Trixie would like to…”

Here, she pulled off her peaked wizard cap and, drawing out her audience’s expectations like a pro, turned it over, “… pull a rabbit out of her hat!”

The crowd chuckled at Trixie’ exaggerated antics, appreciating her skill as well as her impassioned showmanship. She pantomimed a great and furious struggle, with her arm at times appearing to vanish entirely down into her hat as she pretended to fight with the rabbit she claimed to be conjuring.

The audience laughed. Midnight, hiding just behind the curtain, joined in with them. She wondered again if she’d find Trixie’s antics as amusing if she were still wholly Twilight… before deciding that, for once, she didn’t care.

Then, with a magnificent flourish, Trixie brought the act to its conclusion. She heaved her hand back out of the hat… revealing the delightful flare of a firework as it roared up and out of her hat to the applause of her audience.

Applause, that suddenly turned to silence as the little rocket curved awkwardly in the air and slammed into Flim and Flam’s sign.

And then it exploded.

The whole front of the store burst into flames, and the sign seemed to instantly unmoor itself from the building with a heinous creak of wood and the pop-pop-pop of cheap fasteners and nails snapping in two. The last thing the panicky, screaming audience saw… was the huge metal sign crashing directly atop the teenaged performer.

Trixie vanished with a flash of fire.

Instantly, Flim and Flam were out of their store, blasting the wreck with fire extinguishers… that were far past expiration and merely sputtering, and phones were out and in hands all throughout the crowd. Some were snapping pictures. Some were notifying authorities.

Through it all… not a word was spoken. How could this happen? Everyone had been enjoying themselves. Now, the people were horror-struck…

Until a single voice cut through the silence.

“Ta-da!”

All eyes swung up to the roof, where a blessedly familiar blue magician stood triumphant, hands held high, smile beaming with the thunderous cheers of the crowd, Flim and Flam amongst them, now worrying only about their sign, instead of a crippling lawsuit.

And not a single person seemed to notice that Miss Sparkle and Trixie, the Great and Powerful, were both heaving great big sighs, expertly hidden beneath the calm exterior of professional showmanship. They failed to notice the slightly blue tinge to the flames which appeared to engulf the performer just before the sign fully collapsed on top of her.

They also failed to notice just how tightly the magician and her assistant hugged one another during their bow together before the applauding audience.

It was edging near four in the afternoon when Twilight finally sent her sister an all-clear text, alerting her to head straight over to Carousel Boutique for her fitting with Rarity. That text had come right in the middle of Trixie and Midnight’s show, which perfectly explained why Midnight and Trixie were, around half-past four in the afternoon, sprinting towards the Canterlot Mall still in their magician outfits.

“You sure…” Trixie sucked down air, “… it’s okay… for me to… come along…?”

“You’re my… friend… right?” Midnight called back to the magician.

Trixie smiled… then frowned. “Why didn’t… you teleport… us?”

The two girls slowed their pace, down from a sprint to a run, and from a run to a jog. After a few extra yards they came to a staggering stop, each with hands on knees, panting at the effort they’d just put in.

“One,” Midnight said slowly as her breath returned, “I might have panicked and forgot.”

“Now that sounds like the Sparkle I remember,” Trixie half-laughed, half-gasped. When she saw the irked look on Midnight’s face, she added, with almost childlike glee, “Bestie?”

Midnight snorted, smiling, and said, “Two, we’re already here.” She pointed one hand to the store just ahead of them.

The small, purple fashion shop stood in between two drab sets of other businesses, just around the corner from the Canterlot Mall. Its bright purple walls and colorful displays marked it as chic, unique, and magnifique, as Rarity was often wont to proclaim of her employer’s most fabulous of stores.

The two girls spent another minute catching their breaths. Each knew how important presentation was to a performer. Showing weakness, even athletic weakness, was death to them. The fact that both noted this, and giggled when they saw the other also clearly attempting to control the rhythm of their breaths, sort of confirmed their odd little friendship.

Midnight entered first, the ringing doorbell announcing her appearance.

Twilight, standing nearest the door, turned at the sound and said, “Midnight! It’s about ti… what the heck happened to you!?”

Trixie, entering after Midnight, sourly sighed, “Hello to you too, Twilight.”

“Oh? Trixie? How…? Why are you here?” the bespectacled twin glanced back and forth between her sister and the magician.

Midnight pulled at the sky-blue skirt she still wore, and grinned, “After lunch, I decided to help my Bestie with her performance. Gotta say,” she threw a half-hug around Trixie’s shoulders, “I could get used to doing that!”

Seeing the mild concern in Twilight’s eyes… Trixie fully approved of Midnight’s goading. “Oh yes! Our Great and POWERFUL performance will not soon be forgotten by any who witnessed it. I couldn’t have done it without you, Bestie!”

Twilight cast another glance between the two. “Are… are you two pranking me?”

“Nope,” Midnight let her arm fall, “I just wanted to show off my new friend.”

Twilight’s eyes… sparkled. “Friend? You made a friend!?” She threw herself at Midnight, and wrapped her twin up in a tight hug around her neck.

“I’m so proud of you! Even if it is Trixie…”

“Hey!”

Trixie’s ire was mollified as Twilight reached out one arm to grab at the magician and pull her into the Sparkle hug.

In the midst of their giggling, however, Midnight had begun to make an observation.

The main room of the boutique was completely filled. By everyone. Yes, everyone. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were hauling boxes filled to burst with cloth and needles from the main room into storage, though not without sparing a glance towards the strange reception going on at the door. Pinkie Pie was sitting with Fluttershy and the bizarre-yet-human Disqord along the low stage at the far end of the room, caught in the middle of an animated discussion.

And Sunset Shimmer walked over towards Midnight from the backroom’s door.

“Took you long enough,” the red-and-gold headed former bad-girl smirked, “I know Twilight hates this sort of thing, but I’d thought you’d love to show off a little.”

Okay Midnight, keep it together. Like you practiced. Pretend she’s just a friend. She’s just a friend that you didn’t curse, and whose personal core values you didn’t violate in the worst way possible only yesterday when you potentially made her into an immortal goddess of magic that will outlive all she loves and cares for.

“Hi Sunset!” Midnight said too loudly, and with too much of a grin.

Self-banishment to the moon looking good right about now, she thought. Midnight immediately cringed at the sound of her own voice.

Sunset raised a confused eyebrow. Then, she walked up to Midnight, and planted one hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be nervous,” she said, quietly, “We’ve all made mistakes here. The girls forgave you once, technically. And we’ll do it again.”

Midnight blinked. She really didn’t know what to say. That hadn’t cut to the core of what was currently bothering her, not even close. But it still felt…

She turned her head, and took in the room again, stopping at each of the girls. Rainbow Dash gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Fluttershy, even with her special someone swooning besides her, had only a gentle smile for Midnight. Pinkie and AJ smiled and waved. And her sister and Trixie just stood at her side, arms and hands holding her in friendly embrace.

No one was crying. No one was screaming. There wasn’t a fire anywhere, nor a scowl, nor any hard feelings or sorrow.

The whole room felt like it was a filling balloon of… good feelings. Of friendship.

And that balloon proved flammable indeed as the Zeppelin of Friendship crashed straight into the powerlines of Rarity’s fashion sense.

“Good HEAVENS darling what are you wearing!?”

Minutes later, and Midnight found herself alone in the backroom with Rarity, a whole set of racks along one wall showing off the fruits of Rarity’s labor, assembled outfits and ensembles awaiting final approval.

Midnight herself stood with Rarity before a set of tall mirrors set to show every side of Midnight at once, watching as Rarity made final adjustments to her measurements and began rushing to and fro to grab this and that garment.

And the whole time, Midnight felt her cheeks flush hot and red. Standing in front of a crowd in that magician’s outfit had been one thing. Standing here, in only her undergarments, in front of one of her friends… was a bit much.

Rarity, looking up at one point from her own spectacles, noticed. “Oh, my dear, Midnight. Do try and relax! There’s no need to be embarrassed.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” Midnight grumbled, “You’re not half-naked.”

The fashionista tittered. “Well, perhaps. But in any case, you really should relax,” she began rifling through one rack, “There’s really nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re gorgeous, darling.”

Rarity’s eyes flashed, and she darted back to Midnight with a pair of dark-purple jean-pants, “Try these on! They should fit marvelously!”

Midnight eyed the garment, but only for a moment. She didn’t want to catch a cold, after all.

“These… seem different,” she said as she slipped the pants on, “I usually wear skirts for a reason.”

Rarity, now checking her assortment of blouses, shook her head and murmured a negative, “No, you don't. Twilight always wears skirts, outside of that Ghastly thing with the circuitry-pattern. You’ve not had the chance to decide for yourself, and if you were going for an anti-Twilight look… pants would fit the ticket.”

“Um, I think I have enough memories left to know I used to wear skirts,” Midnight snarked, finally comfortable enough with something covered to stand up for herself again.

“Do you now?” Rarity half-turned, one brilliantly crystal-blue eye gazing upon her client with the precision of a surgeon. Midnight reflexively straightened under that gaze.

Rarity returned with a sky-blue blouse, and a jacket. The jacket was the same shade of purple as the pants, and even seemed to be the same denim material.

“Rarity?” Midnight questioned as she took both clothing items in hand.

“Darling,” her voice seemed to click with the sheer poise in her tone, “Now, I want you to be honest with me about something. And I do mean, honest.”

Midnight threw the blouse over herself quickly, then returned a nod.

“Did you ever feel… uncomfortable today?” Rarity’s eyes honed in on Midnight’s like a bird of prey catching sight of a meal, “Your… blouses not sitting right? Skirts not sitting properly?”

Eyes wide, Midnight asked, slowly, “H-how did you know?”

Rarity smirked, but said nothing. She instead grabbed the dark jacket and began to help Midnight put it on.

And once it was on… Midnight almost couldn’t believe what she saw. It would be fair to say her folks would have called someone else wearing this particular ensemble a ‘hooligan’. As Twilight, she might have called someone else that. But, as she took in her own form, she couldn’t help but slowly turn. First this way, and then that. She shifted her weight, popped her hips out one way, then another.

She… she looked good.

“This is weird,” Midnight managed after an extended silence, “It looks more like something the Dazzlings would wear…”

“Naturally, my dear,” Rarity beamed, holding up a pair of scissors in one hand, and a pair of boots in the other. “You’re not Twilight, so the same clothes won’t work for you anymore. But you and the Dazzlings… and I mean this with the very best of intentions, darling… share a similar sort of energy.”

Midnight pulled on the boots, and made sure to tuck them underneath her pant-legs. When she turned back to look at Rarity, she gave the fashionista a look she hoped would encourage her friend to continue.

Rarity took the hint. “The Dazzlings… Sonata, Aria, and Adagio, all share this sort of, je ne sais quoi. A sort of aggressive allure. They feel dangerous…”

She leaned in close, very close to Midnight’s face, the blade of a scissor drifting mere inches between them. “Dangerous, yet alluring…” Rarity sighed… and then cut a loose strand from Midnight’s jacket-collar.

The fashionista pulled away, leaving Midnight flustered.

“What… what does that have to do with my clothes not fitting? I thought Twilight had just pulled a prank…?”

“Nonsense!” Rarity fetched a bright-yellow belt, “Your clothes don’t fit anymore because I made them for Twilight’s exact measurements. And while you two are nearly identical…”

Nearly?

“… you hold yourself in a completely different way,” Rarity smiled. “It’s like… you have a confidence… and an energy that Twilight, as much as I love her, never had. She’s withdrawn. You, at least judging by what Trixie and you were doing earlier, thrive in conflict! Excitement! ART!”

The first ensemble complete, Rarity spun the completed girl about to show her the whole look together. “You want to be… Powerful. Desirable. And I can tell that just by looking at you.”

Midnight was practically transformed, just looking at herself in the mirror. There was no nerd-girl here. No mere tulpa. This was a girl who knew what she wanted. This was someone powerful, someone beautiful.

Even accounting for the studs and bits of metal stuck to the denim.

“So…” she said, slowly, “You think I’m a punk?”

“Punk is in, these days,” Rarity grinned, “And I’ve picked out a whole suite of outfits for you! Just enough to get you started. I would recommend looking into brighter colors than before, to compliment your darker complexion.”

“That’s…” Midnight couldn’t take her eyes off of Rarity. This wasn’t just generous; it was insanely generous. The phone was probably the most expensive single thing she’d ever been gifted, but the wealth of all this clothing…

“It’s too much, Rarity,” Midnight sighed, “I can’t ask you to…”

“Tut, tut!” was the sudden reply, “Trying to get out of my generosity is a terrible faux pas! I would never allow it.”

But there was a gleam in Rarity’s eye, “Besides, you will be repaying me, in a sense.”

That wasn’t comforting. But… “What is it?”

“Twilight would never… never let me do this,” Rarity’s eyes sparkled, dangerously, “But I plan to one day be the greatest fashionista in the country, perhaps even the world! And to do that… I need models.”

Oh… no…

“Today?”

“Just for our friends,” she said, the smile fading with her hopes. “I just wanted to see that confidence. That… je ne sais quoi for myself…”

Midnight spun around to face Rarity eye-to-eye, “Done.”

Rarity was, finally, speechless. “Are…?”

But Midnight would not be questioned, “Yes, I’m sure. You’ve been so generous, it’s the least I could… no…”

An idea came to her. It wouldn’t be hard. She’d… sort of done this once before…

“Hold still,” Midnight commanded, and swiftly brought one hand up to Rarity’s neck. The girl ‘eeped’ and nearly slapped aside the hand… but Rarity was an excellent judge of things. At least, she knew she was.

Rarity had decided to trust. A light flicker of magical flame jumped from Midnight’s hand to the geode pendant at Rarity’s throat, shifting color as it leapt from one to the other. And as the purple flame vanished, something changed.

A flash of inspiration. That’s what it felt like! That blinding burst of creative energy when one went from thinking about an idea, to having an idea! And Rarity just had one…

She blinked. She blinked several times. And when that stopped helping, Rarity rubbed her eyes and stared at Midnight again.

“… What was that?”

Midnight smiled, “Test it.”

“But… I don’t know how to do something like that!”

“Yes, you do.”

Rarity paused. Then, she took a few steps back. A light strain seemed to overcome her features, and as Midnight watched, magic began to flow. Rarity drew it up in her familiar way, forming a magical shield in the shape of a gemstone.

But she did not stop there. Rarity focused, and caused the shield to shrink down until it was the size of her hand… and then flashed with purple light.

She held up the result, a small, floating mirror.

“My word…” she stared at the crystal-clear image, “It’s so small, but I feel like I’m looking at a full-length mirror!”

“You are,” Midnight laughed, “The spell shrinks one end of the mirror without changing what it’s reflecting. You… basically have a portable magic mirror now.”

Rarity tore her gaze away from herself, and gave a gracious look to Midnight, “Darling… it’s wonderful. How did you…?”

Midnight shrugged, “Twilight and I were going to surprise you for Hearth’s Warming,” which was half-true, “But I had to do something for all this.”

That appraising eye returned, taking in Midnight with clarity.

“I think…” Rarity smiled, “You’re going to do well with us, my dear…”

The afternoon would prove celebratory in the Carousel Boutique. Under the guise of ‘moving inventory’, the Rainbooms had closed the shop early and allowed themselves a little space to give Midnight a full and hospitable ‘Welcome’. What they expected, however, was far from what they got.

AJ and Dash expected Twilight 2.0, a shy nerd-girl egghead who would try her darndest to stay off the impromptu stage they’d thrown together, and try to escape total and complete embarrassment by any means. Trixie seemed to join that camp… at first.

Pinkie and Disqord each expected Midnight to freak out over something and burn… well, the whole world down. Fluttershy shushed them both, and insisted that Midnight would be fine. Though, she still had her camping blanket ready… just in case something caused a fire she might have to put out quickly…

Sunset said nothing. Even Twilight had noticed the way Sunset… didn’t quite know how to act around Midnight, mirroring her sister’s exact feeling towards Sunset. That brief interaction before was about as much as Sunset was seemingly willing to commit to tonight.

Twilight didn’t know what to expect. But what she absolutely did not expect, was to watch her veritable doppelganger strut confidently out of that backroom, accompanied by Rarity’s beaming grin and a throbbing fashion musical track through the store’s speakers.

Midnight strode out onto their little fixed-up stage… and dominated it. Every step she took drove home the simple, powerful fact that she was Midnight Sparkle, and everyone here would know and accept that.

Dash, AJ, and Trixie whooped and hollered as she came out, sheer surprise turning them instantly from doubters to full-throated fans in an instant. Fluttershy seemed enthralled by the initial, punk-chic Rarity had pulled together, and would, as the show went on, seem to make mental notes for her own wardrobe. Disqord appeared slightly put out that this would appear to be yet another happy ending, but chose not to rain on Fluttershy’s good mood. Sunset laughed, and smiled right along with her friends, her own doubts and fears vanishing instantly, at least on the surface.

Pinkie was just happy that everyone else looked happy, and cheered on Midnight with laughter and confetti.

But Twilight… could only stare. Her sister seemed to just feast on the attention. She became the center of everyone’s focus for the evening, even Trixie, who Twilight always thought of as an attention black-hole.

It was the first time that Twilight fully realized that, for all their similarities, she and Midnight were… different. And that was good! It was good for them to be different, and to live their own lives and to be their own people.

But as she watched Midnight strut about triumphantly, confidently… Twilight couldn’t help but wonder… if she still had all those qualities she now saw reflected in her sister. And that… brought up one, final terror. A thought both sisters had been thinking since that morning, but that neither were quite yet willing to tackle alone.

If Twilight Sparkle’s memories, talents, and very personality had been split into two separate, individual people… did that mean that, for this Twilight and Midnight to live…

… did the original Twilight Sparkle die?

Author's Note

And now you're imagining what happens when you use a Star Trek teleporter... :pinkiecrazy:

4 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 1: Paradox

“Well, I’d consider that a successful Day One as myself,” Midnight sighed as she sat down onto her bed, hair wrapped up in a towel and herself in a tank top and bright red pajama bottoms, “New clothes, new friends… yeah. Good day.”

Tuesday evening was winding down again at the Sparkle household. Once they’d gotten back from the Boutique, Midnight and Twilight spent their time alone, naturally. Twilight had homework to breeze through, and Midnight had a few sleight-of-hand tricks to practice so she could show Trixie she was learning.

When they came back together for dinner, however, Twilight found herself the odd-one-out as Night Light and Twilight Velvet came armed to the gills with penetrating questions about Equestria, Magic, Sunset Shimmer, and a few high-explosive ones about a certain Timber Spruce.

Midnight tried not to smile during the assault. She wasn’t sure she did a good job of it, but she was nonetheless impressed with how Fort Twilight faired under siege. A ceasefire, as it would happen.

After dinner, the girls had washed up, and were now sitting in their shared room. Midnight had spent much of that evening finding space for her new clothes in their combined closet before she realized there wasn’t enough room, and decided to text Sunset for any dimension-shaping spells she or the Princess Twilight might know about. The twins were supposed to get magic lessons, after all. Might as well start with dimensional pockets.

Twilight seemed to be fascinated with her own naval tonight, the way she sat like a lump on her bed and stared down at the floor. Midnight, a cheeky grin showing, lifted up Smarty Pants in her magic aura and sent the ragged doll drifting across the room, only to lightly boop her sister atop her head.

When that elicited zero response, Midnight returned the doll to her side of the room, leaned forward a little and said, “Earth to Twilight! Hey! You awake?”

She finally raises her head up, startled, “Oh? What? I’m here.”

“Not entirely,” Midnight smirked.

“Sorry,” Twilight blushed, “I was just… thinking.”

Midnight held up her chin with one hand, “Yeah? What about? You and… the others come up with some friendship lessons for me yet?”

“Actually, no.” Twilight adjusted her glasses, and continued, “Most of what we talked about with the Principals was how to get you… official in the eyes of the law. Which meant finagling some paperwork and test results.”

“Test results?” Midnight sat up straighter, “What do you mean, test results?”

Twilight winced, “Well… technically, there’s a lot of state and federal tests that the school administers…”

“Which we passed!” Midnight said, a bit testier than she meant to, “Or am I supposed to take a couple-thousand question assessment in the sliver of time left before the year ends!?”

“Midnight!” Twilight frowned, her voice hardening like their mother’s whenever a lecture was oncoming. It made both girls jump slightly.

Twilight breathed, then said, “Midnight, I would never leave you in the lurch like that. Celestia and Luna just want you to take a short assessment. Something basic, so they can properly vary our shared test scores so no one gets suspicious.”

Midnight frowned, “But we’re the same… mostly. It’s not like I’m going to be any better or worse at a subject than you.”

“Maybe,” Twilight folded her arms, “But we’ve both read the studies on how personality and interest can change how one absorbs and adapts new information. Perhaps with your… more drastic personality shift, you’ll find different core disciplines more or less appealing.”

Midnight shifted on her bed, eyes narrowing at Twilight, even as the girl merely rambled on.

“Personality shift?”

“Surely, you’ve noticed,” Twilight held out one hand, as though she were pointing out a specimen-experiment to someone at a science fair, “You’re…”

Midnight snorted, “Angry? Vengeful?”

Twilight sighed. “Assertive… confident. Yeah, maybe a little angry but,” her gaze dropped again, “fun.”

Concern replaced annoyance, and Midnight leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees. “Twi? Everything okay?”

The bespectacled girl twisted her hands together. Her face shifted between emotions quickly, but Midnight knew how she and her sister processed. She waited.

And then, Twilight said, “When I saw you up on that stage today, I started wondering. You looked so confident up there, like you belonged in front of a crowd. I guess that would explain Trixie…”

She stood up, and without unfolding her arms, Twilight came over to Midnight’s bed. The two sisters sat side-by-side. Midnight curled her legs up to her chest as she listened.

“And that got me thinking,” said Twilight, “What part of… of Twilight Sparkle did that come from? Would I be able to stand in front of a crowd? For music? Or a lecture? Did… did we accidentally give you all of the courage?”

Midnight said nothing. This didn’t sound like something to interrupt.

Twilight sighed again, “And with the other memory gaps I’ve been finding…”

“More gaps?”

Twilight nodded, “Lost track of my class schedule. And I completely forgot Mr. Cranky.”

“That’s something I think most people would gladly forget…”

Both sisters giggled at that. “Yes,” Twilight continued, “But it makes following along in class difficult when you can’t remember his procedures or what will set him off. Was he always so… cranky?”

“Yes. Still,” Midnight decided she needed to push, “It can’t just be a few gaps or seeing me strut on a stage that’s got you like this. I know you, sis. We don’t contemplate stuff like this until after we’ve done all the testing first.”

There was a flinch. Midnight’s eyes widened, realization setting in.

She leaned in, “Unless… you have done some testing…”

Twilight didn’t speak for several seconds. She hardly moved. Then, with terrible hesitation, she turned back to Midnight, and said, “Do… do you remember our friends from kindergarten? Minuette, Lemon Drops, Moondancer, and… uh, Twinkleshine?”

“Not that we would have called anyone friends back then,” Midnight said sadly, “But yeah. Trixie as well.”

Twilight’s eyes widened, “Trixie?”

Her sister nodded, “Y-yeah. She’s the blue girl in the back of the picture. The one in the album in our lab?”

Twilight seemed not to register, continuing to stare right at Midnight for another few seconds. Then, she swiveled completely around, now looking at the nearby wall. For a moment, neither girl said anything.

Then, Twilight reached up to wipe at her eyes. “I… I met up with them at school today,” she said quietly, as though speaking too loud would shatter her, “I didn’t remember them at all, but they said we… drifted apart after elementary… and that we’d made up only a few months ago.”

Midnight remembered. Not the details, mind. But she could remember stewing in Twilight’s thoughts at the time, galled that her future sister would waste time with such unimportant people when she could have been seeking out more magic to consume or to study.

That was still more than what Twilight could recall. Midnight reached up with one hand, but hesitated. She could hear Twilight snuffle softly, working up the courage to continue.

Midnight’s hand settled on Twilight’s back, and at first only received a flinch and a shiver. But after a few more seconds, Twilight turned back around, eyes red and puffy.

“The look in their eyes when I had to explain… I could feel their pain. It was almost as bad as what I was feeling,” She said, “I managed to brush it off… until I saw you up on that stage… Then I had to know.”

“You used the Memory Scanner,” Midnight finished for her.

Twilight closed her eyes, nodded, and then continued, “It was right after dinner. I had to know…”

“How much of us was still us.”

They sat in silence once more. The entire house was quiet, with their folks in bed and Spike outside. There was nothing to interrupt their thoughts.

Midnight bit her lip, then asked, “So… you saw my score…?”

“It’s not so bad,” Twilight frowned, “I mean, I only…”

“Not so bad?” Midnight leaned in, voice low, then shouting, “Not so bad!?” Blue, fiery light bloomed around the teen for a second, then vanished with her. Twilight gasped at the burst of magic and nearly threw herself off the bed.

She spun her head about, and instantly caught Midnight standing on the other side of the room by Twilight’s bed. Midnight reached for their shared bookcase and tore a few, slim volumes from… from Twilight’s old report card portfolios.

“‘A’,” she mused as she began flicking through pages, “A-plus, A-plus, A-plus, A in Gym…”

“Midnight? What…?”

Midnight spun back around, holding up one of the books in one hand, “Twilight Sparkle hasn’t scored less than an 89% since the sixth grade, and that was because of a late-case of chickenpox and Mr. Nexus not accepting make-up work and being a huge jerk!

“Twilight Sparkle has never scored lower than an A-minus in her life!” she snarled, hurling a book to the ground, “A sixty-five percent is a ‘D’! Twilight… a … ‘D’! I got a ‘D’ at being ME!!!”

“Yeah!?” Twilight shot up, “Well I only got a ‘C’!”

Both girls paused, Twilight’s scream puncturing that brief bubble of anger that had begun to build in both of them. Twilight sat down, hard onto Midnight’s bed, while the other sister rushed to her side.

Midnight worked her jaw, but no words came. Her face screwed up into a mass of worry and concern, watching a sort of placid, calm despair come over her sister.

It was Twilight who finally spoke. “I only scored a seventy-three percent of baseline. I’m… only seventy-three one-hundredths of Twilight Sparkle…”

“But…” Midnight still couldn’t find the words. Seventy-three percent!?

She tried again, “But that doesn’t make sense! If you were missing that much of your memory…”

“It isn’t just memory,” Twilight sighed. “I suppose a lot of the score would be represented by memory, but not all.”

Midnight’s eyebrow raised, “Twi? I built that machine right alongside you. It only targets the hippocampus. Memories.”

Twilight shook her head. “Memory gap,” she said, smiling sadly, “I increased its range and parameters a few weeks back. You remember Starlight visiting? Telling us that story about mind-controlling her friends? Got me worried again… so I expanded it to personality, thought patterns, that sort of thing…”

“Gah!” Midnight snarled, “Memory gaps! This is why you test something as dangerous as this before using it on a live subject! Such… flagrant disregard for scientific procedure!”

“Yeah, we really should have thought this through before… magic lobotomy…”

Midnight scoffed, “I mean, if Twilight Sparkle was that reckless, then she deserved… she deserved…” her voice wound down slowly, slowly… slowly as she realized what topic she was dancing around.

She stopped talking.

Twilight stayed quiet as well.

Silence.

More silence.

Both sisters lay down on Midnight’s bed, their legs hanging over the side and their feet still firmly on the carpeted floor. They didn’t blink. They didn’t dare.

Twilight sighed, “Do you really want to start this now? Right before bed?”

“No,” Midnight chewed her cheek, “But… the topic is raised. Sleeping isn’t really an option anymore, is it?”

A mental game of rock-paper-scissors played out in their minds. Loser would have to start. It took them ten minutes, each one silently considering a hand shape, and then dismissing it as the other would have picked the perfect counter, they being so similar in so many ways.

Ten minutes passed before Midnight gave up.

“Stream of consciousness.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes, “Doesn’t work so well for you. You were clearly created at the Friendship Games.”

“So?” Midnight half-turned her head, “I still remember being you before then, and after… sort of… and then you remember everything since.”

“Not really,” Twilight sighed, “Memory gaps. Technically, the only memories I can trust are the ones from today… and right after we split.”

Midnight fully turned, “But you remember the split! We both do!”

“Do we?” Twilight turned to face her sister, “I remember a white flash and then blacking out for several seconds. How do we know the continuation of consciousness didn’t start then!”

Midnight looked for a workaround. “Well… we still have all these memories…”

“Could be copies,” Twilight shook her head, “Not reliable.”

“Our geodes!” Midnight snapped her fingers, “If we weren’t the same person…”

“No evidence has shown the geodes, or magic itself for that matter, discriminates on who uses it,” said Twilight, a touch of weariness settling in.

“Face it,” Twilight sat up suddenly, her voice quickening, “We… we’re just ghosts. Twilight Sparkle… the real Twilight Sparkle is d-d…”

As swiftly as Twilight had risen, Midnight had her beat. She leapt, and dragged her sister up with her.

Midnight, holding Twilight up by her shoulders, shouted angrily, “Twilight Sparkle is not Dead! She’s standing right here in front of me!”

“But…” Twilight’s voice threatened to crack, only shock and the burning eyes of Midnight holding fast to reality in the here and now.

“I mean it!” Midnight pulled her into a hug, “You don’t become a different person just because you forget a couple of things. And even if… even if you’re right… so what?”

“So what!?” Twilight pushed back.

Midnight held her sister still, “Yeah! So what? We’re still alive! And when we… when Twilight did this, she wanted it! She chose this,” her voice sounded… a lot firmer than she felt, to be perfectly honest. Still, it didn’t seem to matter.

Twilight sighed, and melted back into the hug. They stood, just supporting one another, for what felt like an eternity.

“Thank you, Midi,” Twilight smiled into her sister’s hair.

“I’m not joking,” Midnight snorted, “That’s not my nickname.”

“Is too.”

They finally broke apart to soft chuckles.

“Alright,” Twilight wiped at her eyes and cleaned her glasses on her shirt, “Now we really should get some sleep.”

“Oh joy,” Midnight snarked, “Another night of nightmares…”

Twilight reached up and gave her sister a quick boop on the nose, “You were the one who wanted to talk existential horror tonight.”

Midnight had to concede that point, and let her sister have it without rancor. They each went back to their own bed without exchanging another word. At least, not until they had turned down their covers and started to get comfortable.

“Wait,” Midnight hesitated to switch off her lamp, “So… there’s no friendship lessons? I just have to talk to Celestia tomorrow about class stuff?”

Twilight, squinting without her glasses on, shrugged, “Not quite. You technically lived through all the same lessons that I did… you just need to apply them. Which is why you’re hanging out with Rainbow Dash and Rarity at the band room tomorrow.”

“Eugh,” Midnight scowled, “If they want me to sing…”

Canterlot High School had weathered many storms. Critical funding cuts, low testing scores (especially when compared with Crystal Prep across town), and the more recent near-apocalyptic bouts of magical turmoil had all taken their shot at the school, and failed to bring her down.

Principal Celestia was proud of this. Proud that, despite such a thing being a complete fantasy only a year ago, her little school had managed to survive so many magical catastrophes from that other world. That her school had produced the sorts of people who could weather each such crisis with such care and professionalism.

It shouldn’t have been that way, she would often concede to her sister Luna whenever the co-Principals got into their debates over the constant magical goings-on, but from her brief conversation with her… pony self from across the portal… she felt a sort of confidence the Principal never thought she’d truly have again.

At least, right up until the Lord of Chaos appeared in her office.

“Good mornin’, Principal Pastel!” the lanky, suited monstrosity said as he melted out of her computer screen and drifted up above her desk. “How’s tricks?”

A few moments passed before Celestia could pull herself back up off the floor, right her chair again, and then stare at Disqord without screaming.

“What,” she took a breath, “do you want?”

Disqord seemed not to notice the low-level irritation in her voice, or perhaps he simply ignored it. He drifted down onto one of the chairs in front of Celestia’s desk and crossed one leg leisurely over the other, showing off his mismatched shoes with style. Despite everything she’d seen, Celestia still had trouble reconciling the fact that this… Being was truly more than he appeared.

Chaos Gods rarely were… probably, she conceded. Worse, this particular one was only born a day ago, when Equestria’s resident Draconequus accidentally spawned himself a clone in this universe. And while he’d promised, at least for Fluttershy’s sake, to be a reformed Chaos entity… Celestia had her doubts.

“Oh, many, many things. My face on a mountain, Fluttershy, a gumdrop the precise flavor of Wednesday…”

“W-wait, what was that second one…?”

“But I’m in a ‘settling’ mood today,” he smiled a contented, toothy grin, “So I’ll just take the job and leave you to do whatever it is you do here.”

The high school principal hadn’t noticed she’d developed a facial tick, but she could feel the corner of her left eye suddenly tugging hard to one side, and she idly wondered how crazed she looked right now.

“… Job?”

The grotesquerie slicked his short black hair back and said, “I accept! Thank you so much for the opportunity…”

“Hold up!” the sudden thought of Disqord, the Spirit of Chaos, and duplicate of that other world’s own Discord, being employed by the school had kicked Celestia out of her stupor and into action. She held up one hand, like she could restrain him with her mind.

Celestia raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about? What job?”

Disqord leaned back, an apple speared by a pencil appearing in the air above his head, “Why, as an instructor here at your magical school, of course.”

“A-absolutely not!” a bit of a horror-induced-laugh escaped Celestia’s lips as she stood up, her chair crashing back against the wall with a hackle-raising bang.

Vice Principal Luna gazed down at the financials paperwork she’d finally assembled after a solid day of rifling through portfolios and a dying computer hard drive. Paperwork that might allow her some means of finagling a way to replace the Wondercolt statue, lost in the Chaos that was Monday morning. Paperwork that she loathed to even contemplate, let alone have to actively read through line-by-line in order to save the school whatever cash it still needed.

Paperwork that was now thoroughly soaked through with her morning coffee. Coffee which lightly stained her favorite blue blouse. Coffee which she had yet to taste.

“Somedays,” she growled, “I just want to bathe the earth in Night Eternal…”

“Oh?” Disqord began sucking on the pencil like it was a straw, causing the floating apple to wither away until both disappeared, “And why not?”

“For one thing, you’re only a day old!” Celestia snorted. “Some of your potential students have zits older than that!”

To which the former-Draconequus merely shrugged, “Age is just a number. And I come with millennium of experience.”

Celestia frowned, “The… Princess Celestia told me you were imprisoned.”

“And pardoned,” Disqord smirked, “Completely reformed and rehabilitated. Just ask Fluttershy. Either of them. But since I’m only a day old, technically that was my old man…”

Celestia knew from her other self how Discord and Disqord operated. Abuse any loophole, subvert every rule. She needed something ironclad. Something that could bar this menace from her students.

“So besides being very old and having been forgiven for committing a crime a long time ago,” she said slowly, an idea forming, “What are your qualifications?”

Disqord didn’t like the way she’d said that, judging by the unimpressed frown that saw his bushy white eyebrows converge on his face. He leaned forward, “Qualifications? Are you kidding me? I’m DISQORD!”

Celestia reached down and returned her seat to an upright position. “Be that as it may, you need a few things to teach in this country,” she finally sat back down as she finished. Sitting down felt like she was on equal footing with him.

When Disqord said nothing, she continued, “A high school diploma, a Bachelor’s Degree, and at the very least you would need a Teaching Credential.”

Disqord sighed, “And then you would let me teach?”

“Of course not,” Celestia smiled.

“But why not!?” he stood up suddenly, and for the first time Celestia realized just how tall Disqord was. Even compared to herself it was… unnerving.

“Because,” she fixed him with a stare, “I don’t trust you. You’ve decided, on a silly whim no doubt, to be a teacher at this school. Besides the fact that just the day before yesterday you were trying to doom this world to eternal chaos…”

“Doom is hardly the appropriate term…”

“… according to everyone…”

“Everypony,” he smirked, though not without an accompanying scowl.

“Everyone I asked about you said you were unreliable, if not a constant hazard to the safety and wellbeing of those around you,” Celestia finished, tapping one finger on her desk for emphasis, “Even if you had two Doctorates, and a list of recommendations as long as my leg, I wouldn’t hire you.”

The Lord of Chaos was fuming by this point. His crimson eyes gleamed with a baleful light, and his teeth ground against one another so hard that Celestia could hear the sparks before she saw them. For a brief moment, though she didn’t show it, Celestia was afraid.

Then, nothing. Disqord paused, as still as stone, and let out a long, tired sigh from his nose. The tenseness in his shoulders melted away, and the scowl forming on his face faded into a blissful smile.

“So,” he said slowly, hissing like a snake as he did so, “You don’t like to give second chances?”

Celestia tensed up now. “What are you getting at?”

She knew precisely what he was getting at, of course.

“Oh,” he walked away from the desk and began to pace the tiny office, freshly repaired in the wake of a large Alicorn being let loose in here only a day ago, “It’s only that this school has had an awful lot of… shall we say, antagonistically-inclined persons pass through its halls this past year or so?”

He began to count on his fingers, “Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Wallflower Blush…” his pacing reached the wall, and with no apparent effort he started walking up and onto the ceiling.

“Please get to the point, Disqord,” Celestia sighed, knowing what he was doing, “Midnight and the new Apple cousins will be here soon and I need to go over their rehabilitation to the human race before first period…”

Disqord paused mid-step. Being upside down didn’t seem to faze him, but the look he gave Celestia was worryingly serious. With a pop like an overblown balloon, he vanished from the ceiling and reappeared in his chair, as though he’d never left.

He steepled his fingers. “Tell me… does anyone know what happened between you and Luna all those years ago? I mean, it was no Nightmare Moon, but…”

Celestia betrayed nothing. She hadn’t moved a muscle when she heard him, but Disqord could tell by the way her eyes seemed to silently scream at him that he’d found the nerve he had been looking for.

The pastel-haired principal said, with her voice a knife’s edge above a whisper, “What do you want?”

Disqord had the dignity not to smile more than he already was, “Just a wager.”

“Terms?”

“I go and get these degrees and credentials and so forth,” Disqord waved his hands in the air like he just didn’t care, “and when I come back, you give me a chance to prove myself.”

He stood up to his full height. “If I cannot meet your exacting standards, then fire me by all means! But…”

Celestia shivered as she felt one hand settle onto her shoulder, and watched as Disqord’s face leaned in next to her own from behind.

“… if I get declared Teacher of the Year, you have to keep me on, tenure or not.”

She hadn’t blinked yet. Celestia turned back to the Disqord sitting across from her desk, and said, “One condition.”

He nodded, acquiescing. The duplicate vanished instantly.

“You can’t just snap,” she demonstrated with a quick fingersnap of her own, “and grant yourself the credentials. You have to earn them like everyone else.”

“Naturally,” Disqord’s smile remained. He simply held out a hand, a hand that suddenly resembled a claw to Celestia, and waited.

Moments later, the door to the Principal’s office opened, and a grinning man with crimson eyes and a suit patterned off of no pattern strutted happily into the school halls. The principal herself simply slid down into her chair, knowing full well that she would pay for that deal a few years down the line.

But not for a few years, she reminded herself. Today, all she had to worry about was getting three former-horses on the path to graduate next year… and whatever was called for with her latest student, Midnight Sparkle…

At precisely the same moment that Disqord and Celestia’s meeting came to an end, there was a sudden disturbance in front of the school. A crackling flash of blue fire lit the sidewalk, and a peel of thunder ripped the air.

Flash Sentry and Derpy had been walking past the once-again statue-less Wondercolt statue plinth when it happened, and they instantly threw themselves down and into the grass.

“Not again!” Flash cried.

Derpy, trying hard to hide beneath her study-buddy, sighed, “I don’t understand! We just had a magical disaster!”

Several other students, upon hearing the noise or seeing the flash, took off at a run to clear some distance from…

Twilight Sparkle dropping ten feet out of the sky, face-first onto the grass. Her sister, Midnight, simply standing where the magical light had appeared a moment ago.

“Alright,” Midnight sighed, “For next time, remember that we need to be fused to get an accurate teleportation going. I was aiming for the library.”

Twilight said nothing. She picked herself up, and leveled a flat glare at Midnight.

“What? You said I couldn’t teleport us to school…”

“I said you shouldn’t!” Twilight stomped one foot, “You didn’t even bring our bags!”

A flicker of embarrassment flashed across Midnight’s cheeks in a red blush. She scratched the back of her head with one hand, while the other quickly traced a light, white rune in the air. With a set of smaller, bubble-gum pops, two backpacks appeared in midair and drifted over to each Sparkle sister.

Twilight shook her head and smiled, lightly. “Next time, you should think first, then act.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Midnight said, chuckling. Her eyes were drawn down to the ground, “Oh… I think we disturbed the wildlife.”

Derpy was already up, and helping Flash to his feet when Midnight noticed them.

“Oh, uh,” Derpy seemed a little confused seeing two Twilights standing in front of her. Though with one wearing pants, she quickly got a better handle on the situation, “Princess?”

Midnight shook her head, “No, Derpy. I’m… Twilight’s sister. Technically.”

Derpy nodded, smiling, “Oh that’s a relief! I thought you were Midnight Sparkle!”

A moment of silence followed, only interrupted by Twilight face-palming, and Flash Sentry sighing.

“I am,” Midnight said flatly.

“… oh…” the wall-eyed girl looked away. Which only brought one eye back to bear on Midnight.

Flash Sentry, a warm and friendly smile on his face, gave a little wave and said, “Uh, hey. Welcome to CHS… Midnight. How’re you doing?”

Midnight, finally taking full stock of Flash… smiled.

“Hey yourself, handsome,” she said, eyes briefly running up and down his whole body, “Not bad…”

“Midnight!” Twilight’s face was beet-red and her eyes bulged, “You can’t…!”

But Midnight simply shrugged and said, “Hey, I’m assertive! Can’t blame me for acting on that.”

Flash’s eyes blinked back and forth between both sisters very, very rapidly. “What?”

“That’s not the point!” Twilight clutched at her head like she was trying to hold back an explosion there, teeth grit and eyes closed tight in concentration, “You can’t just… hit on him! He’s…”

“Howdy ya’ll!” a new, familiar voice rang out over the yard, and a very familiar young girl appeared. Applejack was followed closely by her three newest family members, once Apple horses until Discord’s wild, chaotic, magical antics made them as human as Midnight.

“Oh, hey! Midnight!” shouted the excitable Cookie, who looked an awful lot like AJ herself with a dark-brown complexion and black hair, “You’re heading to the Principal’s stable too, right?”

Cinnamon, who best resembled Apple Bloom but older and with her hair pulled back, shook her head and sighed, “It’s an office, Cookie. They don’t have stables for people!”

Cookie giggled, “That don’t seem right. You sure?”

Oakley, the former stallion who now looked like a brown-and-yellow dappled Big Mac, loomed over both girls and placed a calming hand on each of their shoulders. “Now, now,” his deep, molasses-sweet drawl sounded, “Don’t run over her so quick. Remember, she might not know who y’are.”

Applejack shook her head at her former horses, before turning her chipper morning smile back towards the Sparkle sisters. “Sorry ‘bout them. They’re all sorts of excited about their first day of schoolin’. Kinda like you, Midnight.”

“It’s fine,” Midnight smiled, and was surprised to find she meant it. Something about the four Apple siblings… or was their cover-story that they were cousins? Well, something about them seemed to almost warm her as they approached, all smiles and honest faces.

She pointed at each one, “Oakley? Cinnamon? And… Cookie? Did I get that right?”

“Shor did,” AJ laughed, stretching her accent right to the breaking point, before she noted the still appalled look on Twilight’s face. “Uh,” she frowned, “What’s up?”

Flash, almost unheard in the commotion, said quietly, “That’s what I’d like to know…”

“I’m trying to explain…”

Midnight cut off her sister again, “Twilight’s embarrassed because I’m being assertive and brave and I happened to think this guy over here looked cute. What’s the big deal?”

Applejack’s face scrunched up, hard, “Uh? Flash Sentry?”

“That his name…?” Midnight had just gotten the words out when she finally heard what she said.

Her smug smile fell instantly. “We know him, don’t we?”

“Eeyup,” Applejack said, rather uncomfortably, her three… kin glancing around nervously, not knowing a lick of what was happening and starting to fall back on old, skittish horse instincts.

Midnight glanced over to Flash, her face already bracing for what she might hear next, “And… I should know you…?”

Flash’s face was red. “I had a crush on the… Princess Twilight. And before that…”

Twilight, Midnight, AJ, the Apple cousins, Flash, and Derpy (who was already desperately wondering if she should be here at all), suddenly heard a voice that had all of them jump up in a fright.

“Before that,” Sunset Shimmer said, cool as ice as she stepped out from behind the statue-less Wondercolt plinth, “He was my boyfriend. And kind of is now.” She leveled a silent, ineffable look straight at Midnight Sparkle. Ineffable, and terrifying.

I want to die, thought Midnight.

Unfortunately, all she could say out loud was, “Oh bu…”

“Bestie!”

The voice was loud, close, full of energy, and… dare one say it?

Great and Powerful.

Blue arms wrapped around Midnight’s neck, and a silver-haired girl’s smiling face joined Midnight’s horrified stare on her shoulder. “Happy first day of school!”

“T-Trixie!? What…?” Too much information. There were too many variables flying into Midnight’s mind at once. Flash… Apples… Trixie… Sunset…

“Professor Cordwood got caught in traffic and they couldn’t get a sub for zero period,” Trixie stepped back and explained, as though that were the confusing part about her arrival, “So, I thought I’d come out and meet you when you got here!”

Midnight, however, continued to sputter, “But… what? Professor…? Is Pinkie going to jump out next!?”

Her outburst appeared to pop some sort of awkward bubble, as Applejack chimed in once again, “Oh! She’s havin’ a race against Dash over on the track. Rarity was officiatin’.”

Twilight spun back towards the cowgirl, “What? Why?”

“Well she weren’t gonna work up a sweat, so…”

Cinnamon snorted, “AJ, I think she meant why Pinkie and not you.”

“Yeah,” Cookie joined in, “You’re always competin’ with her. Why’s Pinkie doing it today?”

Not quite expecting an inquisition, Applejack harrumphed, and then said, “It’s not like I always gotta bicker with Dash. I just saw Pinkie swallow a jawbreaker the size of her head for breakfast, so I’s suspectin’ she’ll give Dash a real challenge. Magic or not, no one beats Pinkie Pie in a sugar rush.”

“Did I miss something?” Trixie swiveled her head back and forth between the grimacing Midnight, the flabbergasted Twilight, the shocked and embarrassed Flash, Derpy, and the utterly stone-faced Sunset.

Sunset flicked her gaze over to the magician. “Midnight just hit on Flash.”

“Oof,” Trixie cringed, and leveled her own incredulous look at Midnight, “Not a great start, Bestie. Hitting on your friend’s ex? Or, current? Honestly, I can never tell…”

“It’s not like I knew that!” Midnight threw her hands up, “I don’t even remember him! Although at this rate, maybe I should have a friggin’ list of the people I can’t remember from my own life! Next you’ll tell me Fluttershy has a brother!”

After a moment of near-vacuum-level silence, Midnight sighed and said, “For the love of…”

She covered her rapidly blushing face in her hands. It had taken Midnight a moment to send her life crashing and burning down around her ears. Idly, she wondered if she could hide out in Twilight’s subconscious again, just until this whole thing blew over.

A gentle hand touched her shoulder, causing Midnight to peak out between her fingers.

Sunset met her eyes with a smile, “It’s okay. I’m not mad. In fact…” she glanced back over towards Flash, “I guess it’s sort of a compliment?”

“Yeah,” Midnight smiled through her embarrassment, “Let’s go with that. Are… are we cool, Flash?”

The blue-haired teenager just smiled and shrugged, “Yeah, no worries. Compliment, right Sunset?”

His eyes shrank to dots as he met Sunset’s… unamused expression. Deciding that his part in the conversation was over, Flash smiled, turned, and began to march back towards the school building, Derpy following close behind, glad to finally be out of that mess.

That drew a fair amount of chuckles from the gathered friends. Before too long, however, Applejack noted the time and turned back to her three newest family-members.

“Welp, I ain’t gonna see you three late on yer first day. Let’s hoof it!” she cried, and set the pace at a hard jog following in Flash and Derpy’s wake. Cinnamon grumbled, then followed. Oakley hummed and began to mosey.

Cookie bounced in a way that reminded everyone a little too keenly of a pink-haired girl they all knew well.

“Well, same goes for you, sis,” Twilight patted Midnight on the back, “Can’t be late on your first day!”

Midnight rolled her eyes, “Oh, forbid that the one and only Twilight Sparkle…” she winced, and fell silent.

Sunset’s face grew concerned as she looked back and forth between the two Sparkles, as did Trixie… for Midnight, in any case. Both girls had gone from good cheer to a sudden, disquieting silence.

“Uh, what happened now?” Trixie asked, slightly annoyed at the constant emotional roller-coaster that was this conversation.

Midnight sighed, “I’ll… tell you about it later.” She turned her eyes up, back towards Sunset.

“Sunset? Were… were you just hiding behind that statue the whole time?”

Sunset’s shoulders tensed. “N-no…”

“Then what were you doing?” Twilight asked, a frown knocking her glasses down her nose.

“I’ll… tell you about it… later?” Sunset’s face paled, and a pained expression scrunched up her face. “Alright… I might have been… standing in front of the portal to Equestria for the better part of an hour. Like… the whole hour.”

“Why?” asked Trixie, genuinely perplexed. Standing in front of a mirror she could understand. As a stage magician, one had to look their greatest and most powerful, after all.

“Because,” Midnight sighed irritably, “the spell I used to save the world might have turned her into an immortal Princess like the other Twilight Sparkle. And that bothers her, somehow…”

“Twilight’s immortal!?” cried Trixie, “Equestria cheats so hard!”

Sunset, however, hadn’t heard the magician’s outburst, instead narrowing her eyes on Midnight. “What does that mean?”

Twilight blanched, suddenly remembering her fears of a confident… aggressive Midnight.

“Look, I get it,” Midnight said, that previous irritation morphing into a hard tone, “Being a princess was like, your life goal back when you were evil. And part of moving on meant ditching your old dreams, so now that they’ve… maybe come true, you feel like you’re back to square one and you’re worried you’re not worthy.”

Sunset clenched her teeth… but that wasn’t really wrong.

Despite Twilight’s hand motions to ‘cease and desist’, Midnight pressed on, saying, “But you are! Heck, the Princess personally graduated you Monday, right after… well, you know. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is!

“Besides, you probably would have been a princess earlier if you were back in Equestria,” she waved her hand to indicate the school, “this dimension screws around with magic, and you clearly got an upgrade that at least looks like you were an Alicorn when you first… when you first…”

“Beat you?” Sunset smirked, Midnight’s words beginning to seep into her.

Midnight huffed, mockingly, “Your words.” Just to her side, Twilight snickered.

“I… alright,” Sunset nodded, “Alright, you got me. I don’t… if what happened, happened, then I guess I’ve just never felt worthy of that sort of honor.”

Twilight laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, “You are. We all agree.”

“Eh, she’s alright,” Trixie gave a so-so wave of her hand.

But before anyone else could open their mouths or protest in general, a high-pitched alarm bell, freshly installed that morning, blared over the PA system. The five-minute warning had sounded, and first period was going to begin.

The blue magician girl’s eyes snapped wide open. “Oh crud! We’ll be late!”

Trixie Lulamoon grabbed her assistant’s hand and began to drag her towards the school. “You might have the same schedule as Trixie! We can sit next to each other, Bestie!”

“Trixie, wha…?”

“Come on Midnight!” Trixie picked up her pace, leaving the Sparkle sister to stagger behind her, “I’ll walk you to the office!”

“This is walking!?”

But as they ran across the grass yard, another question suddenly came to Midnight.

“Who did you say was your zero-period teacher…?”

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” Sunset started walking, slowly towards school.

“Y-yeah…” Twilight began… and then stopped. Last night’s conversation with Midnight started playing back in her mind.

It was time for an experiment. “No, actually.”

Sunset tilted her head towards Twilight, but said nothing more than her concerned frown could.

“We… Midnight and I…” why did this feel like every word was tightening a vice in her chest?

Twilight took a breath, and plunged. “Nightmares.”

“Bad dreams?” Sunset prodded.

“No, Nightmares.” Twilight took a few smaller breaths, just to work out a rhythm. “The first night was bad. Last night was worse. We were back at the Friendship Games and…”

Sunset held out a hand to stop her friend, and they both now waited just passed the plinth, “Did… did Midnight…?”

Twilight shook her head, “No. I was her in the dream, and she was… well, you.”

“Me?”

“It was all a mess!” Twilight folded her arms and walked back towards the statue plinth. She leaned back against the edge, where she knew the portal wouldn’t be open. “Like I told you all yesterday, the Split wasn’t as final as we hoped. Midnight and I still share dreams, and… they’re just getting worse the more and more we think about this stuff…”

“Then don’t think so hard about it. Remember what the Princess told me? You gotta live in the moment…”

“But that’s just it! Am I alive!?”

Sunset’s concern bloomed into full worry. “Twi? You… okay? What’s that mean?”

Twilight recomposed herself. So far, experiment was proceeding as planned. No repression so far. So… good. I can be open with at least one friend. Continue?

“Sunset,” she asked, hesitantly, “If you couldn't be sure of your memories... if you couldn't remember your past… would you still be you?”

The red-and-gold haired girl took one step backward. She closed her eyes, and seemed to just exist for a moment. She breathed, deeply, and then said, without opening her eyes, “Yes.”

“But…” unexpected response, “How…?”

“Because I’ve seen your magic, Twilight,” Sunset smiled and opened her eyes, “I’ve seen your soul. It’s still purple, right?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped, “That… that can’t be all there is to it!”

“Why not? It’s magic.”

“But that’s… that’s…” Twilight scratched her head, eyes wildly darting back and forth. Did we overthink this!?

Sunset giggled, “Twi, you’ve seen my magic aura, right?”

“Y-yes?”

“And what color is it?” Sunset folded her own arms.

“It’s… red…”

“Amaranth, actually, not that it matters,” she took Twilight’s arm and started back towards the school building, “But before I met you… before I changed, my aura was blue.”

Twilight wrapped both her arms around Sunset’s, enraptured by the mystery, “Oh? How did it change?”

“I changed,” she answered, simply. “I’m a completely different person from how I was. Literally. Maybe a lot more literally…”

Sunset’s eyes unfocused, seemingly staring past the school itself, but only for a second, before she said, “But what I’m saying is… your aura’s the same. So, if you think you… I don’t know… replaced Twilight Sparkle, you’re wrong.”

“It’s… it’s that simple?”

“It’s that simple.”

Both girls now stood just in front of the school’s doors. Neither moved, except to turn and face the other.

Twilight spoke first. “I think you miss the point of philosophy… but thanks.”

“Anytime,” Sunset smiled back, “And if you’d like, I can let Princess Luna know about the nightmares. She can probably help with that.”

Twilight nodded in thanks… but then frowned again.

“And… have you spoken to any of the Princesses about what happened between you and Midnight?”

Sunset shook her head. “Today though, as soon as I have some time to write in the journal.”

As they walked through the glass and steel doors of CHS, Sunset whispered, to herself as much as Twilight, “I need to know…”

The instant that the bells rang to announce the end of second period, there was a sudden rush of wind that swept through the halls of CHS. While the novelty of real magic had worn off for most students and people in general in Canterlot City, it was still a strange sight to catch a glimpse of a rainbow roaring through the halls.

Dash came to a sliding halt at the top of the second-floor railing overlooking the hallways, and quickly hefted a truly massive water balloon up into her arms. It actually staggered her slightly, now that her super-speed, which had borne some of the weight, had worn off. The rainbow-haired girl grinned wickedly, and began looking about for her accomplice.

There! Down the hall on the first-floor, Pinkie Pie cast her big blue eyes about, staking out the halls for their chosen victim this day.

This is gonna be awesome!

“Dashie?” a refined voice rang out behind her, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Hey Rare,” Rainbow Dash hoped the strain in her voice wasn’t too noticeable, “Just doing my part as the welcome wagon…”

Rarity scowled, “Pleeease tell me you aren’t doing what I think you’re doing…”

Dash scoffed, “Well, what am I doing?”

“Playing one of your dreadful pranks on poor Midnight, obviously,” the sound of disappointment in Rarity’s accented style was just shy of palpable. If it’d been any more overblown, Dash might have even felt a little bad about this.

Good thing that wasn’t the case. “Oh, come on!” she said, watching for Pinkie’s hand signals, “A little water never hurt anyone.”

“Rainbow, it’s her first day!” Rarity pinched the bridge of her nose, daintily, so as not to damage her brilliant complexion, “Can’t you think of someone else’s feelings? You’ll crush her spirit!”

Dash rolled her eyes, somehow still keeping them on Pinkie the whole time. “Rarity, if we baby her, she’ll really feel like an outsider! I prank everyone! Heck, when Twilight first transferred here after the Friendship Games, I stuffed her locker full of cheese.”

“… Why…?”

“Pinkie said she had a phobia or something. Point is,” Rainbow shifted her stance to keep the balloon balanced, “It’s how I let someone know I think they’re cool. So, if Midnight doesn’t get pranked, she’ll think I don’t think we’re friends, and that’ll mess with her head even more than all that exish-exit… existen…”

“Existential, darling…”

“… bunk already is! This way, she’ll know we’re cool.”

“I… wait… that’s…” Rarity sputtered, suddenly recalling the voodoo dolls that had mysteriously replaced her needle cushions last year… and the hardy laugh she shared once Dash had let her in on the gag.

Rarity smiled, in spite of herself, “When did you become so devious?”

“Tenth-grade philosophy with Professor Cordwood. Dude’s got…” Dash trailed off as movement caught her eye. There it was! Pinkie was giving the signal!

With a final, monumental effort, Rainbow Dash heaved the water balloon into the air, and let it drop straight down onto the unsuspecting below. There was a heavy, crashing sound as the balloon hit and water flooded the lower halls.

Dash, snickering and tittering, leaned out over the railing to view her handiwork…

And caught the eye of a particularly drenched Vice Principal instead.

“Rainbow Dash,” Luna’s voice, in its intensity and its tone, sounded like someone dragging a knife along a block of ice, “I should very much like to see you in my office… post haste.”

Dash’s eyes snapped to where her lookout… was missing.

“Pinkie Pie…” Dash growled, “You… you quisling!!!”

She felt Rarity place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Darling,” she laughed, “I know you’re feeling sorely about losing the race this morning…”

“… didn’t lose, she cheated…”

“… and I probably won’t see you outside of detention for the rest of the year, but I am proud of you for branching out your vocabulary skills. I knew tutoring you with Shadow Spade novels would pan out marvelously!”

Meanwhile, several hallways away, Pinkie Pie skipped and bounded up to a pair of nearly identical girls.

“It’s done-zo!” she squealed with laughter.

Twilight turned away from her open locker, arms filled with science textbooks, “Um… what’s done-zo?”

“It worked?” Midnight leaned in, eagerly awaiting news of victory.

Pinkie nodded vigorously, “Yup! Dashie’s prank went off with juuuust the right amount of hitches.”

“Prank?” Twilight’s head zipped back and forth between her sister and Pinkie, “What prank?”

“The water balloon she was planning to drop on top of Midnight in the hall, silly!” Pinkie tsk tsk’d, “It’s like you weren’t there!”

Midnight smiled, “She wasn’t. That was me, remember?”

“Oh, right! Silly me!” Pinkie’s eye narrowed, hungrily, “So… you brought my payment?”

Midnight reached back into her new locker and withdrew a chocolate bar.

“You sold out Rainbow Dash’s prank for a chocolate bar?” Twilight asked, confused, “But… you’ve probably got one in your hair right now!”

“Yeah, I do,” Pinkie admitted, “But besides the fact that Rainbow’s trick could have backfired and made Midnight sad and depressed…”

“It really wouldn’t,” Midnight whispered to her sister, “but the whole point of her pranks is to increase camaraderie and make me feel like one of the girls, so just knowing she was planning something is fine by me…”

“… this candy bar is special! Right!?”

And with that, Midnight drew up a flash of her aqua-blue magic from her geode. Twilight swiveled her head around in shock… only to find only mild curiosity on the faces of passing students. Magic light in the halls? Apparently didn’t have the draw it once did.

The light settled onto the chocolate bar, which began to grow. And grow. And grow. Until, at last, the bar was the size of a large sign Twilight had seen students carry to all the major school sports. A corner of the bar hit the ground with a solid, heavy whump. But Pinkie easily hefted it into her arms, and with a chilling, mad giggle, the pink schoolgirl raced off down the hall.

“I… what!?”

“Yeah,” Midnight smiled, “Pinkie’s freakishly strong.”

A shrill warning bell rang through the halls, causing little or no change in the regular student body… but had Twilight’s palms sweating and her eyes twitching at once.

“Gah!” she looked to her sister, “Quick! You’ve got Harshwhinny with me next! You know how she is!”

Midnight, previous smile straining slightly, said, “I… actually have Gym right now.”

“What? No, you don’t,” Twilight narrowed her eyes, “I helped design your schedule. You have Cheerilee for first, then Cranky, Harshwhinny third, then gym, Cordwood…”

“Yeah, about him… who…?”

“… and then all seven, or eight, I guess, of us have sixth together with Cheerilee again!” Twilight counted all the classes out on her fingers, which necessitated dropping her textbooks at a certain point, though she clearly wasn’t focusing on that now.

Midnight shook her head, “Nope. I had Celestia trade out my sixth period for a zero one, and for some reason that scrambled my third and fourth.”

“Z-zero?” Twilight tilted her head in a manner not unlike Spike when he was trying to make sense of one of her scientific theories. “Why would you take a zero period?”

“So I can leave early?” Midnight averted her eyes from Twilight’s, and tried to shift the topic by asking, “By the way, did we always…?”

“That can’t be the reason,” Twilight lifted her textbooks up with her magic, furrowed brow never leaving Midnight, “Even considering your personality shift, education’s always been our thing! Why would you make a decision like this just to ‘get out early’?”

Midnight folded her arms, and pouted despite herself.

Twilight sighed, “Please don’t tell me this is related to Trixie…”

“She needs to set up her show after school, so the extra hour helps, and I was thinking…”

Twilight smacked her forehead with a facepalm so hard that it took Midnight aback. “You’ve been alive two days!” her voice hit a particularly hysterical note, “How are you already working as a magician’s assistant!? Much less Trixie’s…!?”

“Hey! I like Trixie!” Midnight jabbed her sister with a pointed finger, “Aren’t you happy I made a friend!?”

“But Trixie!?”

The bell rang, and two flashes of purple and blue light flicked in the halls. Technically, teleporting into a classroom before the bells finished ringing didn’t count as being tardy…

“I can’t believe you did that just to hang out with me!” Trixie grinned ear-to-ear while skipping along, hardly caring that her tray of spongey noodles, crackers, and… meat? Let’s settle for meat, were bouncing around about to flop straight to the cafeteria floor.

“Well, not just to hang out with you,” Midnight gently used a trickle of magic to steady her friend’s tray the best she could, “But… yeah. I figure you need a Great and Powerful Assistant most days, right?”

Trixie nodded, happily, “Having any assistant makes a show run so much smoother, but having you there makes it, like, a thousand times Greater!”

The two girls laughed together as they walked over towards the eating tables. Midnight spotted her sister and their friends quickly enough, and made to join them when Trixie’s hand gripped her shoulder.

“Whoa there!” said Trixie like she was calming a wild stallion, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Midnight glanced back at her friends, where her sister was presently waving to her.

“I thought…”

“You thought wrong!” Trixie hooked her arm fully into Midnight’s, and began to coax her in a different direction, “I told you I wanted to introduce you to a new friend!”

Midnight gave a weak, faked grin over towards Twilight… which only earned a shrug from her sister, a perplexed smile from Sunset, and a mocking guffaw with an additional pointed finger from Dash.

Deserved, she supposed.

Trixie pulled Midnight along with a happy grin and a funny, humming tune on the magician-girl’s lips. But after a few short steps, another presence came up on Midnight’s other side. She glanced left, and looked straight into the brilliant orange eyes of Cookie Apple.

“Midnight!” she wrapped her arms in through Midnight’s exactly like Trixie had done, “Ya gotta come sit with me n’ Oakley and Cinnamon!”

“Um,” Midnight noticed the other Apple siblings taking up a flanking position, Oakley on Trixie’s other side, Cinnamon behind Cookie, “I…”

“Hey! Back off, horse!” Trixie snarled, “I have dibs! Friendship dibs!”

“That’s not a thing,” Cinnamon snorted.

Oakley leaned his impressively long frame over Trixie to speak to, or rather at, Midnight, “She’s the only other person we can talk to about bein’ a new human. Ain’t that right?”

“I was a human before, just a different human,” Midnight futilely argued, just in time for Cookie to give a little tug on her arm.

“That’s basically the same thing, sugarcube!”

Trixie yanked back, “She needs to meet Wallflower first!”

Midnight half-turned, “Wait, that’s who…”

“Existential crises take precedent,” Cinnamon sighed, as though she were already tired of the argument.

“We’re part of an elite, Great and Powerful club! That Chaos God gave us cards and everything!”

Midnight watched as her apple rolled from one side of her lunch tray to the other and back, over the mashed potatoes and oddly-shaped ravioli, each tug from Trixie and Cookie sending her food spilling left and right. She was living Pinkie Pie’s dream of becoming a living food-mixer right before her eyes. And in no time at all, it was too much!

“Girls, enough!” she screamed… which was a mistake. First, as Midnight had a very loud voice when she needed it, and it was the sort of voice that carried well whether singing or screaming. Second, Midnight’s voice startled both Cookie and Trixie, causing both girls to pull on her arms and release the entire lunch tray all at once.

Third, forward momentum was still in effect. Which meant that the entire tray of food left Midnight’s hands in one second, and crashed straight into the face of another student in the next.

The entire cafeteria was silent, except for a distant ‘Ooooh’ from Rainbow Dash and a following slap upside her head from Applejack. Cookie, Trixie, and especially Midnight watched in wide-eyed horror as the poor girl in front of them simply stood, impassively, with an entire meal smashed into her face, front, and own lunch tray.

When the foodstuff finally came loose and fell away… taking the girl’s meal with it… Moondancer did not look as thoroughly pleased as one might have imagined.

“M-Moondancer?” Midnight squeaked.

“Well,” the bespectacled girl slowly, angrily shook the mashed foodstuff from her glasses, “At least you remembered my name this time…”

As she returned her glasses to her face, however, Moondancer’s eyes narrowed. “Wait… are you…?”

“Midnight, yes,” she winced as a bit of ravioli dropped from Moondancer’s ear to her shoulder, “And for what it’s worth, I do remember who you are.”

Trixie leaned in, brows furrowed, “What!? You remembered her but not Trixie!?”

A silent, half-lidded glare from Midnight caught Trixie up.

“W-well… maybe I-I’ll just go get Wallflower… and another lunch tray for you…” she said before vanishing in a puff of purple smoke… though her rapidly fading footsteps could still be heard in the otherwise quiet cafeteria.

Cookie worked her fingertips together, an altogether alien experience for her, as was the shame she was feeling at the moment. “I’m so, soooo sorry. Here, let me help you clean up.”

The chocolate-colored girl stepped forward, tongue out, ready to lick away all that mess, when Moondancer’s stiff arms planted on her shoulders and held tight.

“Um… no. Thanks. I’ll be fine.” She looked up towards Midnight, eyes clearly tracing the shape of her face, taking in her changed color and style from the Twilight she once knew.

“Yeah, sorry about meeting you like this,” Midnight tried, and failed, to smile encouragingly. “Maybe… we can try again tomorrow?”

Moondancer just nodded, then turned to seek out the nearest restroom, giving Cookie a disdained frown as she went. Watching her go, Midnight couldn’t help but feel a pang of something. It was crazy, of course. It wasn’t like Moondancer was her friend…

But if she was the one who remembered that friendship, then wasn’t she?

“See, this is what I’m talkin’ about,” Oakley shook his head at Midnight’s side, “Ya’ll humans’d have it so much easier if ye jes’ ate out of a feedbag like normal folks…”

After the excitement had passed, lunch resumed at a relatively normal pace. Trixie brought Wallflower Blush over to eat with Midnight and the Apple cousins/siblings/whatevers, but not a lot of conversing went on. The previous fiasco had cost them all precious time to eat, and Midnight wasn’t in a particularly talkative mood.

Mostly, she just glared at Wallflower. Midnight admitted to herself that she was being a hypocrite… but she also didn’t care. Though after a while, she loosened up a bit more and allowed herself to chat with the green-haired girl.

“So… you’re like Twilight’s split personality or something?” Wallflower ventured.

“Something like that,” Midnight said simply, eyes never leaving her.

Wallflower glanced down the table, where Oakley and Trixie were having an eating contest egged on by Cookie, and Cinnamon looked about ready to die from embarrassment. The surrounding tables were taking bets.

“Do you…” she coughed, “Do you have some sort of problem with me?”

“You erased my memories once,” Midnight jabbed at the tacos Trixie had gotten for her, “Though considering how many I’ve lost due to this whole experiment, I suppose I can’t hold that against you.”

“Right… sorry, by the way…”

Midnight shrugged it off, “It’s fine. My problem, not yours.”

Wallflower sipped at her juice box, then said, “So, you going to this ‘Reformed Villains Club’ thing? Trixie says that… Disqord creature wants us to hang out sometime.”

“Please don’t say his name,” Midnight sighed, then glanced around, expectantly. When nothing happened, she said, “He comes when called, you know.”

The bell finally rang to end the lunchbreak, and the whole student body began to wearily return to class. But as they did so, Midnight realized she’d yet again become distracted. All day, it seemed, she had been trying and failing to ask a simple question. Now that she was with Trixie again, she realized that an answer could be forthcoming before she had to race off to her next class.

“Hey, Trixie? Who exactly is this Cordwood character?”

“Oh my!” the distress in Fluttershy’s voice was a touch more so than usual, even compared to that one time she thought she’d accidentally eaten a non-vegan hotdog, “You don’t remember Professor Cordwood at all!?”

Midnight was walking through the halls alongside Fluttershy, Twilight, and Sunset, all of whom were on their way to fifth period Government and Economics with Professor Cordwood. Trixie had been… less than helpful, having fallen into a food coma when Midnight went to ask after their new teacher and necessitating a trip to the nurse for a stomach pump.

At least, that’s how she looked as she met back up with the four in the hall. “Not a bit,” Midnight shrugged, “And no one has been able to tell me a thing about him all day! All I got out of Celestia and Luna were cryptic remarks and a few giggles…”

Sunset laughed, “Well, that makes sense. Rumor is that Celestia used to have a crush on him back when she attended CHS.”

Midnight raised an eyebrow at that, to which her sister responded, “It’s true! Professor Cordwood is one of the most respected and distinguished academics on this coast! He has over a dozen doctorates in multiple subjects!”

Trixie grumbled, “Sounds like the Principal isn’t the only one with a crush…”

“Wait, is that possible?” asked Midnight.

"Of course," said Trixie, a little smile returning to her, "She'd probably marry a book if she could..."

“Dunno,” Sunset tapped her chin in thought, “He’s ancient though. I think there’s some old pictures of him teaching back in the seventies.”

“That’s…” Midnight shook her head, “Wow. That’s hard to imagine. And we liked him?”

Fluttershy leaned up against Midnight, her big, beautiful eyes glistening with stars as she spoke, “Oh, everyone loves the Professor’s classes! He has so many funny stories, and he’s always up to date on movies, and music, and stuff like that… and he loves animals!”

Trixie smiled, “He encouraged me to take my magic show to the next level, and he even taught me a little sleight of hand.”

“He helped me adjust to living in this world, back when I first showed up,” Sunset’s smiled faded, slightly, “He was the only teacher here I never pulled a fast one with…”

They entered the classroom, and Midnight almost balked. It was arrayed into a large, debate-style half-circle of desks, which wasn’t too unusual. What stood out were the wall-to-wall decorations. Posters, essays, and even poems, ballads, and a few old CDs, vinyl records, and one wax-cylinder from a phonograph were stuck to the walls, trophies and gifts from hundreds… no! Thousands of previous students.

It was utterly astounding, yet only Midnight seemed to notice.

“Midnight dear!” Rarity called over to her from a cluster of seats near the middle clearly being held for the entire group by her and Applejack, “Hurry up darling! The Professor likes to start promptly!”

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie entered at that moment, sharing nothing more than friendly shoulder pats with Midnight as they passed by, a sign that all had been long-forgiven.

The students hurriedly got to their seats, leaving Midnight a little mystified. She’d never seen this sort of devotion to any of the other teachers on campus, not even from Twilight. Seeing everyone sitting down, notebooks out, and even a few of the slower, ruder students were straightening out and tossing their trash respectfully in the cans by the door.

It was so surreal.

And then it became downright insane as the door to the classroom opened… no, no. It slammed open with a hard kick just as the bell announced the start of fifth period, and a walking fashion-nightmare high-stepped right into the classroom.

“Hiya kids!” Professor Cordwood laughed as he entered, swinging his briefcase as he did so.

“Good afternoon, Professor!” the whole classroom announced in synced harmony.

Midnight sat with mouth agape.

The Professor opened his briefcase and began to dump its contents out onto the table at the front of the classroom, which seemed to be little more than gum wrappers, coiled springs, and an entire house of cards, which landed still in an upright position.

“Apologies to anyone who wanted to attend the zero-period class,” he said easily, tossing the briefcase over his shoulder where it burst into lollipops, “But since my past-self was still here at the time, I might have accidentally ripped the space-time continuum in half!” He chortled to himself, and brushed down his silver goatee.

“Uh… um…” Midnight’s pupils dilated down to specks and her jaw nearly fell completely off her face as she watched the display before her.

Those clothes... that hair... his eyes...

Sunset, by contrast, laughed, and said, “Hey, flat tires happen to everybody Professor!”

“Indeed, they do, Bacon-hair!” Cordwood chuckled. The sound of a distant, squealing tire could be heard far off, which drew a slight frown from the surprisingly youthful professor. “I had nothing to do with that one, I swear…”

“This… this is insane,” Midnight muttered. She spun around in her seat, and quickly took in the faces of her fellow students.

Every single one of them seemed completely at ease. Rainbow Dash, tapping out a beat with her pencil, was otherwise enthralled by the professor, and she, Rarity, and Fluttershy all shared the same contented smile. Derpy sat in the back, furiously keeping notes with one eye locked onto the front of the class, and Pinkie Pie…

Well, Pinkie was lightly bouncing from a sugar high, as always. But her eyes were drifting back and forth between Midnight and the professor.

“Twilight?” she whispered, “Twilight, something’s wrong. Everyone thinks…”

Twilight shushed her, “Midnight, I’m trying to listen!”

“But… but you heard what he called…”

Multiple shushes assailed Midnight from every angle. Even Sunset glanced unhappily at her. She flinched under the scorn, spinning around in utter confusion.

What’s going on!? How can they not see…!?

“How can they not see, what?” the Professor had walked up to Midnight’s seat without her notice, and seemed to have read her mind. “Miss Sparkle? Sparkle Dos?” he grinned, revealing his gold tooth where the Professor’s more familiar self usually had a single fang.

Midnight stood up, and fixed her eyes into a scowl.

Eyes that met the crimson gaze of the Lord of Chaos.

“What have you done, Disqord?” she asked.

The eternally twenty-something Spirit smirked, “Just waiting for someone to notice.”

Sunset grabbed at Midnight’s clothes, “Midnight!? What are you doing!? You can’t call the Professor by his first name! That’s rude!”

“How are you not more surprised by this!?” Midnight slapped her hand away, “It’s Disqord! You know him!”

“Big oof there, Moonbeam,” Disqord leaned back on empty air and reclined, “She can’t hear that. It just sounds like you’re calling me Decimus to my face.” His face scrunched up in thought, “Or… am I going by Dave these days? Oh, it doesn’t matter too much I suppose…”

Midnight whirled back on him, “Of course it matters! What have you done to Professor… Cordwood…?”

Professor Cordwood, she thought.

Disqord nodded, slowly, like he was coaxing an answer out of his slowest student.

Decimus… Dave… D Cordwood…

“You… are Professor Cordwood!?” her shoulders slumped, and several strands of her hair began standing up on their own.

Disqord started laughing. Really laughing. Full belly laughs and mad cackles simply poured out of him as he began floating higher and higher into the air.

“Uh… what’s going on?” Dash finally spoke up, “I’m super confused right now…”

“Midnight’s hollerin’ about… sumthin,” Applejack scratched her head, a strained look on her face as she tried to recall what all just happened, “And… Professor Cordwood’s laughing?”

“But… but how!?” Midnight seemed to be the only one watching Disqord drift through the air like it wasn’t completely normal outside of the mad cackling. “Cordwood’s been here for years!”

Disqord managed to get his endless guffaws under some form of control, whereupon he wiped at his eyes and said, “Oh, how long have I waited for this moment? Literal eons!”

It snapped into place, the missing piece in Midnight’s mind.

“Time travel…”

Twilight was up out of her seat, a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder, “Midnight? Hey! Midnight? Are you okay? The Professor asked if you were new.”

“You traveled back in time…” Midnight shook herself free, ignoring whatever conversation Twilight thought they were having, “But why? Just so… so what? I don’t understand!”

Disqord seemed to get his giggles out, and slowly settled back down onto the floor. “Oh, but you will,” he said, and then without fanfare of any sort… he snapped his fingers.

At the sound, everyone in the class suddenly convulsed, kneeling or bending over and grabbing at their heads in silent agony. All except Pinkie, who had a box of popcorn laid out in front of her.

“First, I want you to know that I’ve had a lot of fun being Cordwood,” Disqord said, a flicker of melancholy in his voice, “But I did all of this for a reason, after all. I knew this day was coming.”

“What did you do, exactly? And… why!?” Midnight kneeled down next to Twilight, who sat frozen in a grimace of pain, “What are you doing to them?”

“Tell me, Midnight, how much did the Princess You hate time travel?” Discord sat down on his desk, legs crossed and kicking.

“A lot,” Midnight sank into her analytical mode, calculating and calculating until she could figure out just what was happening, “The threat of paradoxes using time magic is…”

Disqord nodded, in full lecture mode, “Precisely! It was an unacceptable risk to my friends, and my dear, dear Fluttershy. That’s why I came up with a memory filter spell before I left…”

“… this morning,” Midnight finished, “So… you were protecting the timestream?”

“DISQORD!!!” Sunset shrieked as she pulled herself up into her desk, “Oh sweet Celestia, you were Disqord the whole time!?”

“Ah,” Midnight pondered aloud, “I see the spell is wearing off now.”

“Indeed,” the Lord of Chaos helped Fluttershy to her feet, “I do hope I haven’t disappointed you?”

Fluttershy’s face was awash in conflict, jumping between rage, confusion, and sheer delight. After a few moments, it settled on a sort of puzzled sadness.

“But… if you’re my teacher…”

“Yes, my dear,” he sighed, “It would be entirely inappropriate for us to… continue on as we have been. Unethical, even.”

Pinkie Pie threw a fistful of popcorn. “Boo!”

“At least,” Disqord’s eyes flash mischievously, “For another month or so. Once you graduate and I retire.”

“Yay!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Fluttershy asked.

Disqord just glanced down at her phone, “You left your data off.”

As other students began to lift their groggy heads up, faces clearly adjusting to memories they shouldn’t have had, Fluttershy checked her phone.

“Oh… there’s a message. Um… okay,” and she sat down with a blush.

Rainbow Dash sighed, “So. Did you actually take us to the moon on that field trip in ninth-grade? Or was that just an awesome dream?”

Disqord glanced over at her, “Was it this planet’s moon, or one in the outer solar system? You were sick for one of them.”

Dash’s face beamed, and she whispered, “Awesome!”

“Wait,” Rarity brushed at her hair to remove any damages her clutching might have done, “Does that mean you really did send us back in time to see dinosaurs for last year’s big History fieldtrip? I thought we went to a museum!”

“What is life, if not a living museum?”

Midnight tapped her chin in thought.

“Oh?” Disqord appeared behind her, “What’cha thinking?” His previous self remained by Fluttershy, grinning like an idiot.

“That you went to a lot of trouble,” she said, watching her classmates’ nausea from returning memories keep them down in a stupor, “And I can’t help but wonder why.”

“To win a wager, naturally,” her teacher answered smugly before turning back to the front of the classroom.

“A… wager?”

“I wanted to prove to Celestia that I could be a good teacher,” he leaned on the desk, “And… wouldn’t you all agree?”

Sunset raised her hand… and then set it down. “Huh… I was gonna say something but… you were basically the only teacher I respected here when I first showed up.”

Dash propped her head up with her elbows, “And you were there when I needed a shoulder to cr- I mean, you were cool. Yeah, cool,” she darted her eyes about, daring anyone stupid enough to question where that sentence was originally going.

A low, quiet sound came out from Applejack. “You… you were there when mah parents…”

Midnight shrieked, “You PANTS’D the time-space continuum to win a bet!? A bet that took you a million years to win!?!?”

The whole classroom vibrated with her words… and then it began to ring with her laughter. Midnight howled, tears streaming as she bent over double.

Pinkie, out of everyone in the class, sighed, “Dangit. Ya broke her, Disqord.”

Leaning on her desk for support, Midnight managed to get her breathing a bit more under her control, saying in half-gasps, “Trixie? Twilight?”

“Yeah?” both said simultaneously.

“Good call… I like this guy.”

“Alright, my little seniors!” Disqord swiped at the blackboard with a flourish and aplomb, transforming the whole wall into a giant abacus, “We still have work to do today, and you’re not going to learn how to cheat on your taxes by lounging about!”

The whole class, now passed the issue of their memories being locked away and their favorite teacher being an infinitely old Chaos God… chuckled at the whole insane affair, and prepared to settle in for their schoolwork…

When the PA system sounded, letting a squeal of static flood the halls. A tinny version of Principal Celestia’s voice roared over the static.

“DISQORD!!!”

There was the sound of shuffling, grunting, wood splintering, and a few huffy curses half-muffled, before another voice, far calmer, came over the system.

“Would Professor Cordwood please report to Celestia’s Office? We would… like to ask you a few questions about the recent… disturbance,” Luna spoke with the sort of formality one might expect of an executioner.

Disqord hefted a microphone out of his pocket, and spoke directly into the PC system himself, “Oh, I don’t think we need to do that. She knows she’s lost the bet. I’ve won Teacher of the Year sixty-seven times in the last century, sometimes awarded by her own hand.

“But, if you insist,” he sighed, his static radio-like voice being entirely the same with or without the mic, “Then I need coverage for my current class. Send Cranky, he loves using his prep for something other than eating cheese sticks.”

A muffled ‘what!?’ could be easily heard through the wall from Mr. Cranky’s room.

There was another struggle.

Celestia’s voice came over, low and menacing, “Professor Cordwood. If you are not in my office in five minutes, I am going to set your car on fire.”

The PA system shut down.

Disqord stared up at the speakers with a curious expression, muttering to himself, “Oh boy… she sounds serious…”

He turned back to the class. “Take five, ladies and gentlemen. Celestia miiiight have had a childhood crush on ole Cordwood back in the day… she’s clearly taking this hard.”

“Gee,” Trixie grumbled, using her water bottle as an impromptu ice pack on her head, “I wonder why that could be.”

“Um, Professor!” Twilight’s hand went up.

Disqord sighed, “Twilight? You know my real name.”

Midnight, sitting back down, chuckled, “Just go with it. She can’t handle this otherwise.”

Their teacher sighed, and nodded.

Twilight took a breath, and asked, “Are… are we still taking that fieldtrip to Canterlot University Labs?”

“No,” he shook his head, a soft smile forming, “That was for the permission slips. We’ll actually be shrinking down to explore the inside of the human mind.”

He then looked straight at Pinkie, “Yours, specifically.”

She paused, mid-popcorn-chew, “Fwha?”

Disqord grinned, “Let’s just say that, for the rest of us, we’ll fully understand our national crises better once we know what the average voter has going on up there…”

“Ohhh… hey!”

And with that final exchange, Professor Disqord opened the door to his classroom, which now conveniently opened directly into Principal Celestia’s office, and went inside.

“Disqord,” Midnight could clearly hear Celestia’s voice as the door shut, “You Mother-”

The door closed with a soft click.

“Yup,” Midnight leaned back in her seat, a smile glazing over her features, “Good call.”

Author's Note

End of Part 1

Part 2... whenever I find the time... :twilightblush:

5 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 2: Witch

“Burn the witch!”

The smell of woodfires was strong.

“Burn the witch!”

The shadows of the pine trees shook in time with those of the pitchforks.

“Burn the witch!”

The ropes chaffed at her side, holding her to the wooden pole set atop the wagon that would take the young girl to her execution by pyre.

“Burn the witch!”

Midnight swore she’d seen this exact thing in a movie once.

“Burn the witch!”

The crowd’s chanting was as incessant as it was monotonous.

“Heard you the first time!” Midnight growled, and experimentally tugged at the ropes. They held fast, but there was something else going on. A sort lethargic give to the ropes that felt desperately familiar to her. It was like pulling at quicksand.

“Burn the witch!”

The crowd carrying her along with them were all dressed like they were from a pageant, or some historical reenactment from pilgrim-times. She was looking at a veritable sea of petticoats and buckled hats. Rarity would have had a stroke.

So would Twilight, actually. Mostly due to the outfits looking historically accurate for once.

But that wasn’t the oddest thing about them. No, the fact that they marched in eerie lockstep wasn’t it either. Nor was the fact that their shadows seemed to move in time with the pine trees instead…

The oddest thing about this crowd was that there were only, of a crowd in the dozens, about six faces spread out amongst them. Six very, very familiar faces.

“Burn tha’ witch!” cried Applejack.

“Burn the witch!” Rarity agreed.

“Burn the witch!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Burn the witch!” Fluttershy… didn’t.

“Burn the witch!” Pinkie Pie bounced in lock-jump with the others.

Sunset Shimmer said nothing. There was only one of her, and she led the parade of pilgrims between the pines, possibly towards a pyre, if the purple poindexter presumed precisely…

Midnight shook her head loose of alliteration.

Where had that come from…?

“This seems a little odd,” she mused atop the cart leading her to a rather grim fate, if her memories of history class could still be counted upon, “Are you guys sure you’re not here to burn Cinch? Definitely more of a witch, if you catch my meaning.”

“Burn the witch!”

“M’kay,” Midnight rolled her eyes, “About as conversational as the real ones, I see. Still, most likely a dream.”

She looked up into the starry, starry night sky… literally. As Twilight, she’d never taken the time to appreciate Van Goat’s work, but now that the sky had taken on a goopy, oil-painting veneer, she couldn’t help but admire the old lunatic’s handiwork.

“Definitely a dream. Don’t need to test that… eugh,” she sighed, irritated, “If this memory split thing means that I turned into an Art Major, like some sort of darn hippy…”

Her growls and existential murmurs were drowned out by another, “Burn the witch!”

“Hm,” she settled back into the pole holding her to the cart, “no Twilight. I guess I’m flying solo for once. But, how did I…?”

Her mind drifted back and forth, trying to fight its way out of the dream-soup it’d found itself in. She could remember most of the day before this, or, at least she hoped so. There was something about that cute boy, Flash Sentry. And something about a prank on Rainbow Dash. Discord being a professor…

“Celestia,” Midnight mused, “I was in her office…”

Though the trees were, ostensibly, pine trees and conifers, Midnight noted with some botanical irritation that, as she began to recall her pre-sleep memory, the forest began to fill with dry, stereotypically dead trees. The sort from old cartoons that tended to turn into skeletons and boogiemen the second lightning struck, monsters theatrically grasping at the swirling clouds and baleful moon...

Trees that were entirely unseen in Canterlot’s biodiversity index. It was the wrong climate and latitude. It was wrong on so many levels, if this had been a movie or something, Twilight would have spiked its review average with a scathing scientific critique.

Midnight would have settled for harassing the director on MyStable. The old Midnight, of course. New Midnight would…

“Memo: review revenge tactics that don’t cause unnecessary drama or threaten friendships…”

However, as the mob passed this copse of corpse-trees, she could see that the dead branches formed a series of frames from her angle of approach. And within each frame, a scrap or fragment of the memory played.

There, where two v-branches met to create a wooden equilateral rectangle, Midnight watched herself enter the Principal’s office during sixth-period and have a seat. And here, where two branches hooked around one another, creating a spiraling circular frame, Vice Principal Luna set down a thick notebook, a massive test of every subject, with a pencil on the side.

Above her, Midnight looked through three branches as they framed both the swollen moon, and both Principals as they placed a friendly hand on her shoulders.

She could hear them, as clear as they’d been a few minutes ago.

“You’ll do fine,” Celestia had said, warm and motherly, “Just do your best.”

Luna, as stern as Principal Cinch had ever been, but with a subtle undertone of care and concern, added, “Whatever this test proves, we shall ever be here to help you.”

“Right,” Midnight sighed, “The Aptitude test.”

She idly wondered if anything different would pop up, to differentiate her and Twilight. She hadn’t much hope for the thing at first. Despite being, in some ways, different people now, she and Twilight had shared eighteen years together in the same head. At least, from their point of view.

Suddenly, her comment about ‘darn hippies’ seemed ill-timed.

“Burn the witch!”

“Ah, shut up!” Midnight snarled. She tugged experimentally on the ropes again, but that went nowhere, fast. She returned to muttering, “Stupid test. Probably bored me to sleep.”

She paused.

“Oh… guess that’s one difference…”

The unlit pyre came into view. A platform of dried tinder. A stage where Midnight was, according to this dream’s narrative, to dance a kindling jig. She wasn’t sure where that particular idiom came from, but it cut down on the fear of burning alive, somewhat.

Not that she should be afraid. She was just dreaming. Lucid dreaming, in fact. Technically, that meant everything in Midnight’s dream should be doing as she wanted.

“Wake up!” she shouted into the cold void. Even her echoes were muffled by the pines.

“Burn the witch!” the mob continued to chant. Instantly, with no transition, Midnight was atop the pyre, the wooden pole she’d been strapped to having teleported, seemingly without warning.

“Come on, lucid dreaming!” Midnight furiously tugged at the ropes some more, “Loosen! Turn into noodles! Explode! Something!”

But nothing loosened. Nothing turned to noodles. Nothing exploded.

Except, a torch. A single torch, at the back of the crowd, suddenly flared to life.

It bore an aquamarine flame.

Midnight paused, her heart – even if it was her dream heart – skipping a beat as it appeared. Then, a little flame of anger relit itself within her. And suddenly, contempt for her own unimaginativeness overcame any shock the sight should have held for the once-demon.

“How original!” she spat, “Remind me to check with Princess Luna about this later. Clearly, I need help with metaphors and symbolism.”

Midnight snarled, and threw a look up at the moon that would have stripped bark from a tree. The only thing she got in return was a cold, implacable silence.

“Useless freaking Moon horse. Seriously, we’d be better off teaching the VP how to dreamwalk,” she muttered, dimly aware of her Daydream Shimmer – Midnight snorted a little at that, or would have – carrying that blue torch through the crowd and towards the pyre.

Midnight hissed venomously, “At least she’s around…”

A voice, soft as rustling leaves, melted out of the shadows behind her.

“I have said as much before, though until recently, nopony would take my suggestion seriously.”

Midnight froze. The wind froze. The shadows and the swaying trees all froze. Even the angry mob froze, mid-shout and step for some of them. The torch-flames held by Sunset seemed to slow, and stop in their undulating, fiery dance. The whole dream world held its breath.

There was a quiet creaking noise, just to Midnight’s right. She turned her head as far as she could, ropes permitting, and stared, wide-eyed.

The Princess of Night, Luna, appeared every bit the royal Alicorn. Midnight wasn’t entirely sure on the conversion rate, but she was quite shocked to find Luna stood as tall as she did. Whether that was real, or part of the dream, there was no mistaking the raw, palpable magic that infused her very being.

Luna’s deep, blue eyes were locked onto Midnight’s, yet they shared no emotion. They were as unfeeling as ice, as good a conversationalist as a tombstone.

“When I said useless moon horse…”

The mob began chanting again.

“Burn the witch!”

The shadows began to sway, and the fire guttered back to life. Sunset was still marching through the crowd, and was halfway to the pyre.

Luna spared the assembly a moment of her concentration, snorting quietly as she took in the sight.

“Are witch-burnings very common in your world?” she asked, as easily as someone might ask about whether or not it would rain today.

Midnight blinked a few times, just in case she was imagining things.

“Uh, not for a couple centuries. Why…?”

“No reason,” the ancient diarch shook her head, “I always found them excellent civil servants, despite the odd hexing or cow mutilation…”

“Nice, nice. Lovely,” Midnight spoke quickly, one eye on the approaching torches, “But, if you haven’t noticed, I need to get out of these ropes.”

The Princess nodded slowly, “Yes, you should get on that. This may be a dream, but due to your lucidity, and without control, your mind might awaken real memories of pain to simulate the burning.”

Midnight stared at the Princess. When nothing else seemed forthcoming, and Midnight’s eye began to twitch, she asked, “So? Give me a hand, er, hoof here!”

And now it was Luna’s turn to stare at Midnight. She blinked lethargically, then turned to watch Not-Sunset’s progress. She was almost upon the pyre.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because…” it took a moment to properly register what Luna had said, and it would take several more before her calculations caught up.

“Aren’t… aren’t we friends?”

The Night Princess’s eyes never wavered from Midnight’s own. They stared into Midnight with the chill of a winter storm.

“I was friends with Twilight Sparkle,” she hissed. “I do not know you.”

Midnight didn’t know if she could shed tears in a dream… but she wasn’t about to find out now. It only took another moment for Sunset to reach the pyre. When she held up her torch, it caught Midnight’s eye, and held her attention.

“We commit thee to the flames,” she intoned, “For the vile act of murder.”

Midnight just sneered back, “Suicide, maybe. Even then, that was Old Twilight.” Her attention was focused on the witch hunters, so Midnight failed to notice Luna’s ear twitch as she said this.

Nor did she notice Luna’s face as Sunset spoke.

“Nay! ‘Twas not that murder, but the murder of Good Sunset Shimmer, whom you condemned to Life beyond Death!”

Midnight sighed, “Is my subconscious really still on about that? We talked through the first thing last night, and the whole Alicorn thing this morning!”

“This morning…?” Luna chimed in, quietly, as if unsure of the words.

“A crime committed,” one of the Applejacks called out, “Must be a crime, avenged!”

“Should I apologize to AJ for dreaming up her being the one to call for the death sentence?” Midnight glanced back at Luna, who was watching the proceedings with a careful eye, “I mean, it’s kinda stereotypical, what with the accent, and the cowboy hat…”

“Burn the witch!”

Midnight scowled at the Moon Princess, “Could you at least make them stop that!?”

Luna seemed to have only just heard her. “What?”

“Useless Moon Horse!” Midnight pulled at the ropes with newfound desperation.

The torch lowered, bringing the blue flames closer to the kindling.

“No, stop!” Midnight gasped… then, paused. A moment of confusion passed across her features.

What was she so scared of? That a dream might burn her?

And then, as the pyre lit beneath her, Midnight became acutely aware of what she feared.

The fire burned. Tongues of flame began to lick and tear at the wood beneath her, and it was hungry for more. Wood blackened, and smoke billowed. The sheer heat of it couldn’t be described. It was like stepping out of a freezer and into an oven, like the air-conditioning hadn’t just died on a hot summer day, but burst into flames.

She couldn’t breathe. Almost immediately, it was like she was choking. The smoke and the fire ripped at her lungs, burning her face and legs and hands and eyes and lungs.

Luna noticed. Her face had watched, impassively at first, and then with growing suspicion as the ceremony had commenced. But now, that suspicion had changed again.

The anger had melted away, as had any trace of her previous misgivings. Suddenly, the Princess of Night looked worried.

With little prompting, she stood up on her hind legs, and as she fell to her front hooves, she used her momentum to add to a mighty flap of her dark blue wings. The wind roared like a rippling roll of thunder, and the flames instantly blew out from the pyre, illuminating the night in a pale blue light.

Sunset, the mob, the trees and the shadows… all of it was instantly swept aside. Like smoke, like ash driven by a cleansing rain. The dark and terrible night was repaired, replaced by the globular moon up above, and a clean, flat plain of blue below.

Midnight felt the ropes, and the pole holding her up, vanish instantly. Soft grass broke her fall, thankfully, though she was quite confused as to how she’d been winded by a fall in her own dream…

She quickly regained her feet. Nothing lay around her. The forest, and the mob, were gone.

“Huh,” was all Midnight could muster in that moment. She started glancing about while brushing off her pantlegs. Dream or not, she was conditioned to check for grass stains.

The dream had become somehow even more surreal. A flat, featureless plain of blue grass beneath a silver moon that hung oppressively low in the sky. At a certain angle, Midnight wondered if it could touch the horizon.

Despite the lack of features, Midnight couldn’t help but hear something new. The chanting mob and the rustling of shadowy trees had been replaced by the distant chirping of crickets, and the wind had somehow taken on the scent of… lavender?

But featureless it would not remain. Despite turning around in a complete circle more than once, Midnight saw that a hill had appeared just a few hundred meters away.

And right at its crest, she could see a familiar shape. A Princess-shape.

Midnight sized up the hill. She wasn’t entirely sure if its dimensions agreed with Euclopian Geometry, but that would be normal around here. In any case, it was much too far away to walk.

“Well, fine,” she hummed, “Let’s see if this lucid dreaming thing is working properly…”

There wasn’t a conscious thought involved in what happened next. It was second nature for Midnight to draw upon her magic. Even an oneiric connection to her magic was real enough for her purposes here. The familiar sensation of wings fluttering at her back was almost worth the angry mob and blunt-force metaphors this daydream had tried to pull with her.

Almost. And there was one being around who might have answers for her.

Defying every aerodynamic law on the books, as well as any formal understanding of geometry and spatial physics, Midnight’s wings carried her up to the top of the hill in a way that would make Mrs. Harshwhinney, her science teacher, rip her teeth out in frustration.

As she landed, Midnight noted that the Princess at least had the courtesy to look shamefaced over… whatever had happened back there.

“Let me begin by apologizing profusely… Midnight Sparkle,” Luna said, sitting stately on her haunches, “I did not mean to cause you great discomfort or stress tonight… or, today. I am unused to working at this time…”

“Well, it sure didn’t look like it!” Midnight released more of her anger in that quick declaration that she probably meant to, but from her perspective, she wasn’t the one who had to explain herself.

The Princess looked down at her hooves. Her ears twitched, and fell flat against her head as she seemed to mull over her thoughts.

Finally, Luna looked up at the, rightfully, angry teenager, and asked, in a hollow voice, “Has anypo- anyone told you the tale of Nightmare Moon?”

Midnight frowned. She wanted to stay angry, if only for another moment or two, but her mind was already churning as the name was said. She folded her arms, and threw her thoughts back to her calculations.

“Lemme see…” she bit the inside of her cheek, “I think Sunset mentioned her, once. Some sort of pony boogieman, right? Or, I guess she was a story, but Sunset seemed very serious about it.”

“Indeed,” Luna nodded, “My sister told me that Sunset was one of the few ponies she ever told about the truth behind those stories and fables. I suspect the… grandiose nature of those legends, and her own supposed role in them, might have contributed to her original arrogance and thirst for power.”

“The truth?” Midnight tapped her chin in thought, “The truth about this… Nightmare Moon? Wait…”

Another ear-twitch. And a subtle shifting of the Alicorn’s hooves.

Midnight’s mind made a connection.

“You mentioned her, the last time you were in my… my and Twilight’s dream,” Midnight said, slowly working through her thoughts, “You thought I was some sort of dream-demon, an… Incubus? Like her.”

For just a moment, Midnight could hear the strands of Crystal Prep students chanting off in the distance, conjured out of the ether.

“Unleash the magic…”

“Indeed,” Luna clipped, banishing the song with a quick flick of a wingtip, “I feared you were a dark corruption in Twilight’s psyche, a monster that needed vanquishing. It wasn’t until I witnessed your… birth… that I realized you had been born from something fundamental to her person, to her soul.

“Tulpa, is what I named you,” she shook her head, a moment of past frustration creeping up on the ancient Princess, “Neither inherently good, nor evil. Merely…”

“Twilight with an attitude adjustment,” Midnight finished. Her head dipped, slightly, at the thought, but she straightened quickly, and asked, “So, you’ve seen something like that before? An Incubus?”

Luna exhaled a breath she’d been holding in. Her shoulders sagged slightly, and even her mane, drifting in a wind none could see, seemed to deflate somewhat.

“Nightmare Moon was a corruption. She… I was driven to become a monster of my own making.”

Midnight blinked. “You?”

“Me,” the Princess sighed, “I had grown jealous of my sister’s… well, everything. She was tall, and fair, and had all of the love and attention she could ever want, while I… at least, I felt that I had been abandoned. At first by the ponies… and then by Celestia.”

Midnight’s eyes widened noticeably. She slapped her forehead softly.

“You pulled a Friendship Games over a thousand years before I… we did?”

“Indee—” Luna cocked her head to one side, “That is certainly one way to describe what happened. I allowed my jealousy and anger to fester until it had become an Incubus, a ‘dream-demon’, as you described it.”

“And those are supposed to drive people insane,” Midnight nodded along, piecing some of what she’d heard together, “But… I’m guessing there’s not a lot of differences between an Incubus and an ‘Evil’ Tulpa?”

Luna nodded, sadly. “Yes. I… that is, you present a lot of moral and ethical conundrums. And for one such as I, who has dealt with such things in the past…”

Midnight chuckled, darkly, “Oh. I guess I spooked you pretty badly. I probably look like a bad guy to you,” she indicated her slightly more ‘punk’ aesthetic, happily carried over from the waking world.

“A misconception of which I am guilty, and thoroughly ashamed of,” the Princess added quickly, “I had heard from the Princess Twilight that you… and your sister were dealing with much tribulation in the realm of dreams, and…

“I couldn’t believe it,” she sighed and began to sheepishly rub the front of one foreleg with the other, “I secretly felt that you were… like her. Nightmare Moon. Not a real po—person. Just a shadow of hate and darkness.”

“Even though you knew I wasn’t a dream-demon?”

The Princess nodded, “There’s no excuse for what I did to you, not when I was suspected of the same upon my return. I let my past dictate my actions, and for that you have my unending apologies.”

Midnight watched, almost in horror, as Princess Luna bowed her head. There was just an unspeakable wrongness to the sight. Granted, Midnight had no love of royalty, but this felt somehow off.

“Look, it’s fine,” she reached down and tried to heft Luna up by her shoulders… withers… whatever, “We’ve all made mistakes. And Sunset’s always going on about how our pasts aren’t our today. A lot…”

Midnight scowled. “Like, all the time.”

“She speaks from experience,” Luna tittered, and returned to her full, standing height. “If indeed, it turns out your spell granted Sunset the Alicornhood she once so coveted, I should think she’s earned the right more than some of us.”

“Oh?” Midnight’s eyes lit up, “Are you saying you and Celestia ascended? Other Twilight mentioned there was some sort of debate on the issue…”

Luna rolled her eyes. She’d gotten that question incessantly for years now, and her sister had dealt with it for a millennium. Her own Twilight had, mercifully, stopped asking after she’d taken on more and more Princess duties, finally lacking the time necessary to ponder useless trivia.

But… there was a twinkle in Luna’s eye today. A moment of weakness. A mote of understanding between herself and this former-tulpa.

Perhaps, she could tell this one being? One who wouldn’t really be able to spill the proverbial beans to Equestria…?

“Well, about that…”

The moon shook, and a low rumble rolled across the land and sky.

“What was that?” Midnight glanced up, a crease of worry on her brow, “Is my subconscious still trying to get me for something it thinks I did?”

“Drat,” Luna stamped one hoof, “I thought we had more time. You’re being woken up. Which means we’ll have to wait until tonight to discuss Twilight and your dream concerns. And, maybe your questions about personhood.”

The moon began to blur, melting into the horizon like a runny egg, and the ground did likewise melt into the sky. Princess Luna and Midnight alone remained un-melted, with the Princess beginning to rise into the air.

The whole world became a swirl of white and black as the sky and the earth became one. Luna drifted, further and further, into the silver-white of the sky, while Midnight began to fall into the black.

It was all very surreal, but that was normal by now.

Midnight called out, “Wait! Who told you about that stuff? What do you mean by tonight!?”

Her eyes narrowed.

"Wait... weren't you human the last time you were here in my dream? How...?"

“Fare thee well, Midnight Sparkle!” the Princess called down, her form shimmering and melting away at last, “Adieu!”

Midnight didn’t panic as she awoke. Though she was falling into darkness, it almost felt more like she was coming up for air. She idly wondered about this, but only until the familiar sensations of an office chair cushion, and two hands shaking her shoulders, brought her back to the light.

“You actually fell asleep?”

The halls of Canterlot High were rapidly emptying with the end of school, which left Midnight and Trixie plenty of space to walk side-by-side. So long as they walked slowly, and kept their distance from the press of humanity up ahead of them.

Midnight kept looking for torches.

“Well, it was really my time,” she said with a mockingly bored tone, eliciting a giggle out of her Bestie, “I finished the test. So, I decided to kick back.”

Trixie raised one eyebrow, “That’s definitely not a Twilight move. I swear, she looks miserable whenever she finishes Cheerilee’s quizzes. What did Luna say?”

“Which one?”

The two girls made their second-to-last turn on their way to the band room, narrowly dodging a rubber band battle between members of the Gaming Club, Wallflower Blush carting a human-sized cactus in a toy wagon, – Midnight waved – and what appeared to be Bulk Biceps giving Derpy, Octavia Melody, and Vinyl Scratch piggyback rides atop his arms’ namesake.

CHS was a weird place, and not for the first time did Midnight wonder if it’d always been like that, magic or no.

“Pony Luna,” Midnight continued, “Seemed to know something about our dream-troubles, but we were interrupted by the VP herself.”

She chuckled, “And she wasn’t thrilled. Thought I had fallen asleep instead of testing. She practically flipped when she saw I actually did it.”

Trixie frowned, “Not happy you did the test she gave you?”

“Not happy I did the test in record time and chose to hang around instead of come back to her like a puppy-dog with the completed answers.”

They made the last turn, and Trixie snorted with laughter. “Yeah, Twilight would do that. Guess you’re a lot sassier than her. That’s good!”

Midnight joined in a hearty chuckle. “And you? I thought you’d be off doing your show. That is why you took a zero-period, after all.”

Trixie raised her chin up into the air, and said, with her typical affectations, “The Great and Powerful Trixie has learned many a trade secret in her quest to become a famous magician. First, I abide by the ancient rule of ‘always leave them wanting more’. If I did my show every day, people would soon grow bored of it.”

“People can get bored of Great and Powerful?” Midnight asked with a smirk.

Trixie pouted, “A tragic commentary on the human condition!”

“Alright, well, I have a famously low opinion of the human race anyway,” Midnight shrugged, trying to mask her amused smile, “I did almost destroy it, if you recall?”

“Eh, you were, like, twenty seconds old at the time,” Trixie noted dryly, “If I had that kind of magic, I probably would have too!”

Midnight smirked, “I’ll grant you that. You’re definitely the ‘petty vengeance’ sort of gal. But you said ‘First’? Does that mean there’s a second reason to skip performance days?”

Trixie’s face flushed red.

“Oh… well, with the number of fireworks and explosives I use, sometimes I just need an extra day with the aloe…”

Both girls broke into a giggling fit as they approached the band room doors. Slowly, each got themselves back under control, though the warm smiles and good feelings remained.

Trixie indicated the other room with her thumb.

“So, what are you up to in there?”

“Not a clue,” Midnight admitted, “I was just told I’d be hanging out with Rainbow Dash and Rarity today.”

Trixie frowned, “You don’t know?”

“It’s that whole… Friendship lesson… thing,” Midnight waved her arms about, as if that would save her from explaining further. When that clearly didn’t help, she continued, “Basically, this is my parole for trying to blow up the multiverse and destroy my sister’s soul.”

“Yikes,” Trixie muttered, “Tough sentence. What? Did you run over the judge’s dog?”

Midnight managed to avoid snorting with laughter, and instead slipped into a more serious tone.

“First of all, Spike is my dog too. And second, while dull, how is this a worst punishment than, say, being turned to stone? Or shot into a black hole?”

Trixie’s face scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed. “How? Oh, I don’t know… how about the part where you get stuck hanging out with Dash and Rarity?”

“I know you guys used to not get along…”

But Trixie’s hand cut off any further commentary. Her own serious expression made Midnight almost suspect she was actually being serious. Maybe. Perhaps.

The magician explained, “Rainbow Dash, as you well know, is one of the most arrogant people Trixie has ever met! She’s always ‘sports’ this, and ‘awesome’ that! It’s so annoying to hang around a blowhard. And Rarity is no different, always claiming to be so superior to everyone else…”

Midnight fixed Trixie with a look. It was a long, hard, confused look. Midnight had heard the phrase about a pot calling a kettle black, but to see it play out in front of her eyes…

“What?” Trixie asked. Genuinely, asked.

“I…”

That is where Midnight left it. Former villain, or not, she valued her friendship too much to say a single thing just then. Instead, she opted to walk into the band room.

Which was not the best move she could have made, apparently, as the moment she and Trixie entered…

“What are you doing here?”

Amazing, Midnight thought. That was in stereo.

Two voices had said it. One, on Midnight’s right, came from Trixie. The other, however, came from a startingly familiar person, with astonishingly poofy hair.

In the corner of the band room, three girls sat like judges in a singing competition, side by side. The poofy-haired one, with an incredible orange mane of hair, gave Trixie a cold look of disdain while the magician glared angrily back. The second girl, with her long, purple pigtails, eyed Midnight with something in between utter contempt and some form of shock, or perhaps surprise.

But the last girl, the one with the long, blue ponytail…

“Hiya, Midnight!!!” Sonata waved one hand like an excited toddler, and beamed a smile that could have been seen from orbit.

“Uh, hey, Sonata,” Midnight waved back, weakly, “What are you doing here? What happened to the sushi job?”

The former Siren giggled and hopped up out of her chair, “Oh, don’t worry about that! We all got today off for singing practice…!”

Sonata’s eyes widened, and her smile faltered.

“Well, at least, I thought I got the day off. Man, it’s a good thing Sunset has all those photos, or Mr. Fukiyama might…”

“But for real,” Trixie cut in, her glaring eyes never leaving Adagio’s, “What. Are. You. Doing here?”

A hand gripped the stage magician’s shoulder, and Midnight reeled her friend back, “Okay, down girl.”

Adagio flicked her mass of hair back, and stood up, seemingly obliging Aria and Sonata to join her. Her bored expression held on Trixie for another moment, before she effortlessly switched back to Midnight.

“Your friend, Sunset? She invited us here to help with our singing.”

Midnight cocked her head to one side. “What? Why would she…?”

“Because,” Aria growled, standing beside her sister, but otherwise seemingly more interested in the state of her nails than this conversation, “Our voices were damaged by relying on magic to sing for a thousand years. The Rainbooms said they’d help us recover.”

She paused, scowled… and then added, “Nice outfit,” in a slightly embarrassed tone, and with an equally embarrassed blush.

Midnight noted how her outfit could have been one of the Sirens’ if Rarity had added a few more spikes and studs. She tugged lightly at her jacket’s collar, and tried to get things back on track.

No need to be up in each other’s faces, she reasoned, Trixie and Adagio already seem to have some sort of past beef with each other.

“Uh, thanks…?”

“No one praised Trixie’s outfit,” the blue teenager pouted, without breaking eye contact with Adagio.

“Because no one… almost no one,” Adagio flicked an annoyed, raised eyebrow glare at Aria, who hardly noticed, “cares about you or your outfit.”

Sonata tapped her fingers together, lowered her head, and whispered softly, “I care…”

Aria sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Sonny? Shut up.”

“And as for you, Princess,” Adagio sneered, hands on her hips, “If you think I’m going…”

“I’m not that Twilight,” Midnight said, flatly, her face settling into a genuine frown. This conversation, like every one like it, was now back to an infuriatingly similar pattern. “I’m the former Tulpa, now sister, of this universe’s Twilight Sparkle. You met the pony princess Twilight.”

“What does that even mean!?” Adagio snapped, “Where are all these extra Twilights coming from!?”

Sonata tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Didn’t they say something about a portal to Equestria last time we all hung out?”

“And she’s like, an evil clone of the human Twilight, or something. I do remember what Sunset said, Dagi. I wasn’t just stuffing my face when we asked for the truce,” Aria said with some irritation, recalling the dinner they’d crashed to beg Sunset and company for any sort of help. Being broke, with no van, and no prospects had finally brought them to this: accepting the Rainboom’s silly ‘friendship’ garbage.

She then met Midnight’s look, and smiled with half-lidded eyes.

“Which is pretty metal, all things considered.”

Midnight didn’t know exactly what this conversation had turned into, but that last comment at least gave her an out.

“Yeah, well… ex-villains gotta stick together, right?” she tried to give the three a winning smile. It felt more like she was baring fangs, but maybe that would work with fish-ponies. She hoped, anyway.

Trixie pouted, again. “Please tell Trixie they weren’t invited to the Reformed Villains’ Club too?”

Aria shrugged, eyes never leaving Midnight. Sonata nodded, vigorously, even fishing out her membership card.

Adagio… laughed.

“Villains Club?” she chortled and cackled in a way that made her sisters frown, either in embarrassment like Aria, or in concern like Sonata. That mad laughter had always been an omen of bad ideas about to play out.

But then, Adagio crossed her arms, and stroked her chin in thought.

“Then again,” she said, musing, and smirking at Trixie, “Who else could compare to some of our exploits? We’ve got over one thousand years of what you call ‘villainy’. Might be fun to lord some of that over you. What say you, girls?”

“Can we please not make this one of your ‘brilliant plans to conquer or control something’?” Aria did the air quotes herself, accompanied by a miserable scowl that spoke volumes of her opinion on said plans.

Sonata, perhaps feeling bold, added haughtily, “Yeah, the last plan you had wound up with you turned into a fish, and me eating a tire.”

Trixie, snickering, asked, “Really? A fish?”

“Yeah, a fish,” Adagio scowled at, really, everyone in the room, but fixed Trixie with it last, saying, “Better a fish than a gullible idiot! I don’t think we even had to bribe you with anything to make you turn on your friends last time, Trixie.”

Adagio smiled, and looked away from the seething magician to Trixie’s best friend.

“Trust me, you could do a lot better in picking friends, Midnight. She’ll drop you the second someone waves a bit of fame in front of her nose, like the little rat she is…”

Midnight blinked. Clearly, Trixie had done some rotten things to the other Rainbooms. No one had questioned that. But, whatever she’d done, it didn’t come close to Midnight’s own former villainy, so she really had no room to judge anyone by that metric. But this Dazzling…

What exactly is this fish trying to do? Tick me off? Mess with Trixie? Is she really just that petty that she’d try to start a fight out of habit!?

“Oh, that is IT!” Trixie pulled up her sleeves and clenched her fists until the knuckles turned white.

Ah, Midnight frowned, option D; all of the above…

“You wanna go, Dazzling!? Let’s do this!”

This has officially become stupid, Midnight sighed, mentally. She took a deep breath, and set her face into a stone grimace.

But it can also be fun…

Trixie reared back, ready to throw a world-ending punch right into Adagio’s stupid, human-but-secretly-a-fish-pony face, when a flash of blue light lit up the room. Aqua flames roared all around her, causing the air itself to shift into a hot breeze, and within the blink of an eye, Trixie Lulamoon had vanished.

All that was left of her was a patch of lightly burned carpet.

The Dazzlings each took a step back, eyes locked onto the space where she’d just been. Adagio’s eyes widened, and her pupils shrunk to dots, while Sonata covered her mouth to hold back a startled scream, and Aria’s face blanched until she looked like a ghost.

For all they’d done in the past, they’d never…

As one, they turned fearful eyes up, and saw Midnight Sparkle, in all her terrible glory. Her eyes were surrounded by a flickering, blue corona that mimicked her old glasses, and her eyes, half-lidded and boring holes in the air before her, had shifted to their former color; purple irises, and faintly glowing aquamarine sclera.

She stood still, almost regally composed, even as one hand still smoked from where it’d touched… and then disappeared, the magician.

“W-what?” Sonata cowered behind her sisters, totally disbelieving what she’d just seen.

Adagio said nothing, but the horrified look in her eyes was all too familiar to Midnight, who had seen bullies up close when their favorite plaything decided to bite back.

Almost as fun now as it was with Cinch back then…

“Cool…” Aria squeaked out, her face crimson. Then, realizing what had just happened, she muttered, “… bad for us, but cool…”

“What was that about being able to lord over lesser villains?” The smirk on her purple lips perfectly accentuated the wicked tone of Midnight’s voice. Even her hair had started to flare out from the magical power flowing through her just then.

“Did…” Adagio glanced down to the scorch mark, then back up to the… monster before her, “What are you?”

Midnight huffed, “My name is Midnight Sparkle. I’ve almost destroyed the multiverse on three separate occasions so far, the last time being this past Monday. Remind me, Dagi,” she sneered, “How many worlds have you destroyed lately?”

None of the Dazzlings said a word. For the first time in an age, they were the ‘small fish’ in a much bigger pond than they realized.

Just as Midnight hoped. “So, maybe cut out the attitude around me, m’kay?”

“You…” Sonata’s eyes were welling up. She and the other Sirens had only ever fed off of people’s negative emotions. Sure, they started a few fights, some feuds, a couple wars in the past… but they’d never directly killed anyone before.

She whimpered, “You k-killed her…”

A raspy voice sounded from the door, “Who got killed?”

All four teenagers spun towards the band doors, where a rather confused Rainbow Dash stood, guitar case slung over her shoulder. She frowned, a suspicious look falling on the disturbingly… evil-looking Midnight.

“She killed Trixie,” Aria said, a small smile starting to form on her face.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at Midnight. She pursed her lips, and seemed to think really hard about what she’d just heard.

“I mean, I’m not surprised…”

The band doors slammed open as she said this. Fluttershy stood there, shivering and shuddering, music sheets falling out of her quaking arms. She looked right on the verge of a complete panic attack, her eyes locked in fearful terror at who stood next to her, their foot still outstretched from where they’d kicked the door in.

A completely alive, completely soaked, Trixie Lulamoon threw a scowl at Midnight that looked like it could set her on fire.

“You teleported me into the school swimming POOL!?”

The Dazzlings blinked, slowly. Their wide, vacant stares shifted from Midnight, to the suddenly alive magician, and then back. Adagio and Sonata slowly began breathing normally, their terror replaced with sheer relief. Aria, though, just seemed disappointed.

Midnight’s hair and eyes returned to normal with the barest flick of her hands, dispelling her magical appearance. “I thought you needed cooling off.”

“THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR!” Trixie cried, her flailing arms splattering a disgruntled Rainbow Dash in the process.

Midnight just shrugged, and pointed her thumb over at the Dazzlings.

“Tricked them, didn’t it? I thought you liked magic acts?”

Trixie’s eye twitched.

“Why am I friends with you?” she growled.

Fluttershy walked up to the dripping magician, and handed her a large, fluffy pink towel with a bunny stitched onto it.

“You look like you could use this,” she said, quietly.

“Thanks,” Trixie quickly began drying herself off, face first. Fluttershy had the good grace not to draw attention to Trixie’s smile, hidden behind that towel. She looked so proud of her Bestie for pulling that trick. It’d be a shame to ruin it now.

Then, Trixie looked at the towel, a strange look in her eyes. “Fluttershy?”

“Y-yes?”

“Why do you have a towel in here?”

Fluttershy smiled, “Oh, Dashie and Applejack are always pulling tricks with Pinkie Pie, usually on each other. I have all sorts of cleaning supplies in here for emergencies.”

Rainbow Dash, at this, snickered, and got to pulling her guitar out from its case. “Alright, alright! You dopes ready to learn how to be awesome singers again?”

She let loose a rip from her instrument, punctuating her words with a grungy sound that reverberated in Midnight’s bones.

“Well,” Midnight shrugged, and gave a mock-sigh, “I’m already here, so why not? But I thought Rarity was going to be here as well.”

Sonata, alone of the Dazzlings, hopped forward, light and life returning to her eyes.

“Ooh! But now we get Fluttershy? You always had the prettiest voice! That’s gotta count for something!”

Fluttershy ducked behind the grand piano, face briefly resembling an overheated lava lamp.

“Yeah, well…” Rainbow took to retuning her guitar strings as she faced the five newcomers to her band room, “Apparently, no one told Oakley Apple about her and AJ, so all three of them are kinda busy working out their little love triangle.”

Trixie’s eyes popped open. “Wait, Rarity’s a…?”

Rainbow nodded, “Yup. She’s into wrestling, or boxing… or whatever. So, the Apples are having a little match outside to figure it all out.”

Midnight frowned.

“AJ and Oakley… are going to have a wrestling match… which Rarity is into, for some reason… and you’re not going to go see it?”

“I promised to help you guys out,” Rainbow looked up to Adagio and her sisters with what appeared to be a genuine, open and accepting smile, “And a friend doesn’t go back on their promises to a friend. That’s loyalty!”

“That’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever…” Adagio began to say, before a rough elbow from both Sonata and Aria made her pause. She took a breath, and forced a toothy smile onto her face.

“How… nice of you,” she managed. Trixie grinned, only the reminder of a dip in the swimming pool keeping her exultation at the Dazzling’s discomfort in line.

“Hey,” Rainbow turned back to Midnight, “You haven’t been using your magic a lot today, have you?”

Midnight folded her arms, and gave the cyan rockstar a grin of her own.

“Even if I did, what’s it to you?”

Rainbow let out a quick bark of laughter, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Nothing to me, but you do remember what happens if one of us uses our magic too much?”

“I…” Midnight’s eyes unfocused for a moment. She tapped her chin, and started glancing around. Finally, a sheepish look came over her, and she had to turn back to her friend and admit, “Memory gap.”

Just as she said this, off in the distance there came a sudden, thunderous boom. It sounded like a small meteor crashing down somewhere near the gym. Everyone in the room shifted with the rattling hit, and looked to the windows… where a small dust cloud was drifting by.

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy sighed, “I hope Oakley’s going to be okay.”

Rainbow snickered again, winking at Midnight.

“Too much magic makes the rest of our powers go a little bit haywire,” she snorted at Midnight’s sudden discomfort, “Let’s just hope Flash wasn’t thinkin’ dirty while hanging with Sunset.”

“Rainbow!”

“What, Shy?” she laughed, “I’m sure she likes it…”

Then, composing herself again, Rainbow Dash started playing a melody on her guitar, and nodded to the others, “Alright, now for real! Let’s make some music!”

Music, as it turned out, would have to wait. Poetically, the former Sirens needed more help just hitting the right notes to form their three-part harmonies, which they claimed was the biggest part of their original act.

The fact they had an original act surprised Midnight, and intrigued the part of her that was always hungering for more information on Equestria. But, sadly, outside of the beginning of a silly story about Discord getting them their first venue, which Sonata told in a gleefully nostalgic tone, there was no explanation forthcoming. Not if Adagio had anything to say about it.

And she did.

With that, a course of action was decided on. After listening to the Dazzlings perform the musical equivalent of a protracted medieval execution, Rainbow realized she should probably have tried teaching them how to harmonize first, preferably with a live demonstration to begin. She corralled Fluttershy and Midnight, leaving Trixie to sit at the piano, and led her fellow Rainbooms in a quick, musical show.

Which was where the problem reared its ugly head.

“Uh…” Sonata squinted and pulled her hands from her ears, “Did you guys mean to sound like our van’s gearbox just now?”

Adagio snickered, “Really? After all that talk, this is what you’re teaching us with?”

Rainbow Dash scrunched her face up in the wake of that… sound. It wasn’t music. She was sure of that much. It was… actually, a creaking gearbox wouldn’t be half off, she admitted to herself.

Rainbow looked to Trixie, still sitting at the piano.

“Don’t look at me, Dash,” the magician warned, matching her glare for glare, “I didn’t do anything.”

Rainbow huffed at that, and turned her eyes back to Midnight and Fluttershy. She frowned, noticeably, as she did so.

“W-what’s wrong?” Fluttershy hunched her shoulders by a margin, and she wilted beneath her friend’s critical eye, “Did I do something…?”

“Dunno… here, let me try something…”

Rainbow Dash hit a lower note with her voice. Scratchy, though some called her singing voice, Dash’s sound was pitch-perfect, bringing to mind the sound of a well-rosined cello. It was a filling sort of sound.

Then, with her own chops proven, she pointed at Fluttershy, who instantly got the picture. Her own voice… was angelic. Even Adagio closed her mouth when she heard the shy, pink-haired beauty hit a high note that could, and had, made a grown man weep. It certainly brought Sonata down onto her knees.

Aria actually had to look away, just to save her reputation in the face of such melodious perfection.

As the singular note finally died, the only sound that followed was Trixie, clapping very slowly.

Rainbow Dash nodded with a smile, and turned to look at Midnight.

“Great,” Midnight sighed, “You know, it’s never fair, going after Fluttershy…”

Dash shrugged, “Yeah, I know. But we gotta figure this out. So, show me those lungs, Nighty!”

“That’s not my nickname.”

But Midnight knew Dash was right, about the singing, anyway. She squared her shoulders, and took a long, deep breath. She fixed the note she wanted in her mind; not to high, and not too low. The mid-tone was her goal.

She opened her mouth, and a strangled birdcall came out.

“What was that!?” Rainbow Dash shouted, staring agog at her band’s backup singer struggling to hit her note.

Midnight coughed, and felt the base of her throat.

Nothing physically different, she thought, no lumps…

She took a breath, and tried again. But, again, her voice came out at an odd pitch, warbling just shy of the mark. Her eyes widened as she heard her own… awful voice.

“Oh dear!” Fluttershy came up on her left side, her eyes almost watery with worry, “What’s wrong with your voice?”

Trixie came up on Midnight’s right, gripped her shoulder, and said, “I know I give her a hard time, but Twilight never missed a note like that!”

Adagio folded her arms across her chest, and shot Midnight a contemptuous look.

“Oh my! Is little Midnight having trouble with her middle notes?”

“Shut it, Adagio,” Rainbow grumbled over her shoulder, “Most of you is hair.”

The former Siren sniffed, but said nothing. She’d already won that round, in her mind.

Rainbow went back to Midnight.

“Hey, what’s going on? Did Twilight keep all the memories about singing, too?”

“No, nothing like that!” Midnight snapped back, a bit too forcefully, “The spell that split us shouldn’t have made our physiologies too different from each other, since there was only one original to model our forms on…”

Dash’s eyes began to glaze over. “Huh?”

Midnight rolled her eyes, “We tried to avoid making either of us too physically dissimilar… uh, different from each other. And I remember singing before, so I’m not sure what’s changed.”

“Well, you are a lot more purple than Twilight,” Trixie shrugged, “Not to mention your hair and eyes. How’s that not being too different from each other?”

Midnight opened her mouth… and then shut it again. That was a very good point. She folded her arms, and scratched at her chin, information processing at a lighting pace behind her eyes.

“I’m glad we’re not paying you guys by the hour,” Aria hummed, taking a seat along one wall.

“We’re not paying them though,” Sonata raised an eyebrow at her sister. Then, her face began to sweat, “Wait… we’re not, are we?”

Meanwhile, Midnight continued to ponder under the glare, metaphorical or otherwise, of her friends.

Dash, foot beginning to tap with her impatience, was the first to ask, “Well?”

“I’m thinking!”

“Well, think harder! If you don’t know, then how can I know!?”

“I… I think, maybe, Twilight and I weren’t as precise as we could have been,” she conceded. Midnight’s brow furrowed until a deep canyon of worry had dominated her face, “Rarity mentioned she thought I might be a few centimeters different in height. It’s not insane to think something else might have shifted around or changed.”

“Like vocal cords?” Trixie winced at the thought, the very idea of losing one of her talents like that.

“Y-yeah, I suppose so…” Midnight said, quietly, eyes downcast, “I mean, I know my voice changed a little bit after the Friendship Games, but I didn’t think it changed that much.”

Rainbow Dash’s face shifted. Her annoyance at the situation melted away, replaced with genuine concern for her bandmate, her friend. She held out one arm, and gently settled her hand on Midnight’s shoulder, right next to Trixie’s.

Adagio, watching on, smiled. She took a quick breath, and opened her mouth.

Only to have a purple hand cover it.

“Aria?” she whispered.

“Just knock it off, Dagi,” her sister replied in a weary tone, “Leave her alone.”

Adagio and Sonata, never ones for dropping a matter or holding off on a mean-spirited tease, were completely, and utterly, speechless.

It would have been hard to speak at all, anyway, considering the high-pitched squeal of a gasp that suddenly filled the room. All eyes swung about, and took in the sight of Fluttershy, mouth agape.

“Uh, Shy?” Rainbow winced at the sound, “You doing okay there?”

“Better than okay!” the normally reserved teenager clapped her hands together, “Midnight?”

“What’s up?”

“Quick!” Fluttershy picked up Rainbow’s blue-and-red guitar with almost manic energy, and started tuning and tweaking it in her hands, “Do some scales!”

Trixie glanced over to Rainbow, and whispered, “Is she gonna be okay? Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever seen Fluttershy this energetic.”

“Tell me I’m not missing another memory,” Midnight said, mostly to herself.

But the pink-haired girl only beamed back at her friend.

“Scales, missy!” she cried, and then plucked a chord.

Midnight answered, “Do.” Her ears caught the sound as she sang it. In fact, everyone’s ears perked up as the rich, low note reverberated through the room.

Fluttershy plucked.

“Re.” The note was still good, Midnight’s voice still rich and full.

Pluck.

“Me, Fa, So.” The voice hitched, it scratched, it struggled to fully embody the notes as they hit the mid-range.

Pluck.

“La, Ti.” Better. Not great, Midnight could hear, but not terrible.

Pluck.

“Do.”

The whole room fell silent as the last note died. Midnight idly touched her neck, as though she could feel the change that had occurred. The Sirens silently appraised the sound, Adagio briefly stunned at what she’d just heard. Rainbow and Trixie smiled, each starting to see just what Fluttershy was getting at.

And Fluttershy herself looked about ready to explode.

“Ooh!” she squealed, and hopped up on the balls of her feet, “I just knew it!”

Midnight looked to her, a smile back on her lips, “What did you know? How?”

Fluttershy, still somehow bursting at the proverbial seams, pointed at her throat and started chattering like… well, like Pinkie Pie.

“I probably never brought it up, but my brother Zephyr Breeze used to sing in a little kid’s choir. He had the voice of an angel…”

Rainbow’s face shifted, slightly, to a greener coloration.

“… but when he got older, his voice changed,” Fluttershy said with slightly less of her surprising vitality, and more of a long-past sadness, or regret, “And, for the last couple of days, whenever I’ve been around you, Midnight, I kept feeling like you reminded me of something. And now I know what it was!”

“Wait, wait,” Rainbow snorted, one hand going to her side, “So, you’re saying that…”

Midnight’s arm wrapped around Rainbow’s neck, and pulled her into a tight headlock.

“Mention any part of my anatomy dropping, real or imagined,” Midnight hissed, “and you’ll be picking guitar strings out of your teeth for weeks.”

Dash kept on laughing, snorting and snickering as she pulled herself free from her friend’s grasp with ease, neither Sparkle being particularly athletic or strong.

“Man, you’re actually easier to rile up than Twi,” she chuckled, “I’m gonna have fun with that!”

Sonata, next, stepped up and said, “So… Midnight’s voice just changed? And not just got worse?”

Fluttershy nodded, and readied a guitar pick.

“Now, Midnight, I wanna try something else before we get back to practice,” Fluttershy turned her blue, gentle eyes back to her friend, “Would you mind, very terribly? Your voice sounds a lot like one of my favorite singers…”

Midnight felt like she was falling into those eyes.

She’s not even using the Stare…

“Uh, sure. What do you have in mind?”

“Do you happen to remember any of the Skullcrusher songs I sent you… uh, Twilight?”

Midnight blinked. Then, a thin smile creeped out onto her face. She giggled, menacingly.

“While Twilight tried to purge them from her own memory, I actually found myself partial to Death, Death, Bloody, Bloody, Vengeance War. Know it?”

Fluttershy nodded enthusiastically, and tittered, “That’s a classic!”

Trixie frowned, and looked helplessly to Rainbow Dash, who could only look helplessly back at Trixie.

None of them had any idea what was going on. None of them were prepared.

Fluttershy let loose a peel of METAL from the guitar in her hands, before she began a driving, pounding rhythm that shrieked from the speakers, and threatened, appropriately enough, to crush the skulls of everyone in the room, the school building, and most likely anyone within a one mile radius of CHS itself.

Midnight took in a breath, held it in her chest until her heart began to swell, and let out her inner-rage into the mic…

Vice Principal Luna felt her teeth chattering in tune with the vibrations threatening to shake her desk apart and hurl her coffee to the floor. With enormous effort, she held everything within arm’s reach still, including her favorite knick-knacks and family photographs she normally displayed.

“W-what is that… horrible racket!?”

Picture frames fell from the walls. Lamps shattered. Desks toppled over all around her. Luna feared, for a moment, that the molecules making up her school were shaking to pieces.

Inside her sister’s office, however, where a previously infuriated and frustrated Principal Celestia sat with her colleague, the Lord of Chaos and current Social Studies Chair, Disqord, there was nothing but bliss.

After the day I’ve had, Celestia leaned back into her shivering chair with a smile, I could use a little more of this in my life.

“Reminds you of your Groupie days?” Disqord smirked from the ceiling, where his seat remained in defiance of gravity, “Following Skullcrusher on tour?”

“I hate that I stayed pen pals with you,” Celestia sighed.

The song ended, a wave of pink light letting the rapidly de-pony-fying Fluttershy back down to the ground. Outside of Midnight and her, however, no one else seemed to realize that at first, their ears still ringing, and their bones still shaking from the onslaught they’d just endured.

While the two metalheads giggled and laughed at the display, other reactions were mixed. Trixie, for instance, stared dumbfoundedly as she noted the grand piano had shifted a few inches during the song. Adagio’s hair had lost some its massive volume, deflating in a way eerily reminiscent of that one time that Pinkie Pie learned about gluten-intolerance, and was now swept back from her stricken face, while Sonata quietly tried to pick her jaw up off the floor.

But for Rainbow Dash and Aria Blaze, there was only one proper response.

“Awesome!!!” each cried out and punched the air. If either of them had not been deafened at that moment, one of them might have noticed the other.

“That was perfect!” Fluttershy beamed, “You sound just like their lead singer!”

Midnight planted her hands on her hips, and puffed out her chest. “That sounds about right, if I do say so myself.”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow Dash’s jubilation at her friend’s sudden singing skills dried up instantly. “What does that mean?”

“What do you think of this?” Midnight held a hand out, as though she were tracing a headline in the air, “Midnight and the Rainbooms!”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed as a swell of panic, and anger, flashed across her face. She hunched her shoulders, and said, “Hey, wait just a dang minute…!”

“Fluttershy! You want to be my lead guitar?” Midnight turned back to her fellow Cruncher to say this.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened… and then a curious smile touched her lips.

“Oh… that does sound fun…”

“HEY!” Dash gripped Midnight’s collar in her hands, and whipped her back around, “What’s the big idea!? You’re really thinking about stealing my band!?”

Vibrant, angry pink eyes met cool, calm aqua. Dash didn’t even notice the growing grin on her friend’s face, nor the one on Fluttershy’s.

“I was actually thinking…” Midnight reached up and ruffled Rainbow’s always-messy, namesake hair, “you’re so easy to rile up. I think I can have some fun with you!”

Rainbow’s face froze. Her eyes were wide, her irises shrunk, and her mouth open. She didn’t move a muscle for several seconds, until she snapped her eyes to something over Midnight’s shoulder.

“S-shy?” her voice squeaked out, unsteadily.

Fluttershy blushed, but her smile remained. She demurred, and said quietly, “Sorry, Dash. It was just a joke.”

“I just…” Rainbow mouthed a few silent words, then sputtered, “Just… what… I don’t…”

Finally, she paused, and drew a deep, deep breath through her nose. Dash closed her eyes, and held still another moment, before releasing her breath, and staring straight at Midnight’s grin.

“Alright,” she said, begrudgingly, “Good one, Sparkle. But you’ve just started a prank war you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Midnight just shrugged at her. “Yeah, I figured. May the best tulpa win.”

“So…” Aria took a step towards the two prank-competitors, her perpetual frown even more so than usual, “Are we ever going to start this practice thing?”

With little more than a follow-up chuckle, the Rainbooms got back to work. Rainbow took the mid-tones, with Fluttershy going high, and Midnight taking up the reins as their low voice in the harmony.

The song, this time, was better than Midnight remembered it sounding.

An hour and a half later, practice was over. The Dazzlings had actually made some progress in that time, which seemed to surprise Rainbow, at least a little bit. It would take weeks, possibly months, but even with just this one practice, it looked like the former Sirens would sing once again.

But all good things must come to an end. And all band practices as well, regardless of quality. Adagio needed to head out to Carousel Boutique to take her late shift, and both Trixie and Fluttershy knew their parents would want to hear from them soon. Sonata, meanwhile, had coupons for the local taco shop, and took off at almost a dead run to make it before closing time… which wasn’t for another six hours, but she wasn’t going to take that chance.

Which left Midnight, Rainbow Dash, and Aria to clean up the room while Trixie and Fluttershy went outside to make their phone calls. There usually wasn’t that much cleanup needed in this room, but it still had to be organized for the next day.

“So,” Midnight finished stacking some chairs without her magic, wary about overcharging one of her friends’ magic unknowingly, “Who do you think won?”

Rainbow hummed to herself for a moment as she locked away the instrument rack.

“I’d say… AJ.”

Aria, sitting at the piano with a tired look in her eye… or indigestion, raised an eyebrow, and said, “I saw that Oakley guy on Monday. Dude’s like… seven feet tall, proportionally. I don’t think your blond gal’s gonna beat him. Not without a growth spurt, anyway.”

Midnight nodded, “Can’t deny he’s got Apple in him. Even if he was a horse last week, from what I can tell, the magic that made him, Cinnamon, and Cookie human left them with Apple genes.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow smiled, “Well, good for them. He’s still gonna go down!”

“You seem pretty sure about that,” Aria said through thinning lips.

Rainbow and Midnight laughed at that. And then, Rainbow Dash started pointing one finger at her shoulder.

“Summer camp wrestling match…”

She then traced her finger down to her opposite wrist.

“… sliding into home base,” then pointing to her ribs, “… tiddlywinks…”

Midnight shook her head, “I think she deadlifted her house once when I… when Twilight was over to help with the whole Flim Flam Brothers thing.”

“She carried her Granny’s old jalopy to the repair shop once,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, and gave another helpless shrug to Aria, “But I hope that answers your question?”

Aria’s blanching face was enough of an answer, it seemed.

And just like that, the room was clean. Everything was put away, the trash was gone, the floor swept. All that was left for them to do was turn out the lights, and head out.

Rainbow strut out into the hallway ahead of the other two, eager to reach the front of the school and find out which Apple was the one in Rarity’s eye, or however that saying went. Midnight stayed back just long enough to lock the doors behind them.

She turned to follow her friend, and came face-to-face with the angriest of the Dazzling sisters.

“Oh!” she cried, almost crashing into Aria, “Uh, did you need something?”

Aria said nothing. Her scowl, and that weird, sickly look on her face, usually was enough to speak volumes, but all Midnight could think was that she needed a bubbly drink and an antacid.

Midnight glanced to the left, and to the right. No one else was in sight. The halls were entirely clear.

“Well,” she said, after another moment, “I guess… I’ll see you around…?”

She squeaked as Aria blinked.

That’s some glare, Midnight thought, meeting the other girl’s stare, Kind of impressive.

Aria’s lips pursed, and she breathed through her nose.

“Midnight,” she finally said, her face almost a grimace at this point, “I…”

Midnight’s eyes winced. She could tell how hard… whatever this was, was for the Dazzling. Whatever it was, it was important. That much was certain. But what…?

Purple hands snatched at Midnight’s collar, dragging her face closer to Aria’s.

“You dress cool,” she said, her scowl increasing in intensity, “You don’t take crap from anybody, and you got great taste in music.”

“Uh…” Midnight’s brain tried to enter a state of calculations… and kept popping up as an ERROR.

Aria growled, “But… you didn’t actually vaporize Trixie.”

Midnight’s confusion rose suddenly, right up to the point where she would normally have voiced her puzzlement.

But that didn’t happen.

She couldn’t voice anything.

Not with Aria’s lips pressed into hers.

***

ERROR. ERROR. MIDNIGHT.EXE HAS STOPPED FUNCTIONING.

***

Aria broke contact.

“You broke my heart, Sparkle,” she hissed, holding onto the sides of Midnight’s face with her hands, “You broke my heart.”

And back to the kiss. Midnight’s mind reeled, as some fragmentary semblance of brainpower started firing again. Her eyes were wide open, unlike Aria’s, and were even now snapping from one side to the other, desperately looking for something to make sense, or at the very least give her a way out of… this.

Not that… this isn’t… nice?

The kiss finally broke with a smack. Breath, real air, rapidly filled both girls’ lungs for the first time in a minute.

“Hmm,” Aria hummed. A soft smile clung to her lips.

“Guh,” Midnight… made a noise. She thought she could taste strawberries.

“Cool,” Aria nodded, her face returning to its resting witch-state. She locked eyes with Midnight, and started jabbing her shoulder with a pointed finger.

“Hey, Midnight.”

“Guh?”

“Saturday, seven o’clock,” Aria stated, imperiously, “Movie theater in the mall. You’re getting the popcorn. Got that?”

Midnight’s brain didn’t have a lot to add to the conversation.

“Sure?”

The Dazzling nodded, once. Then, she turned, and left, one hand trailing, ever so gently, along Midnight’s cheek and jaw.

Midnight stood there, alone in the hallway. Alone. In the hallway. Her mind running through her present situation like someone who left to get milk, and returned to a tornado’s ground zero.

“Did…?” she finally learned how to talk again, “Did I just agree to a date… with a Dazzling?”

“Sounds like it.”

Midnight’s head slowly swiveled to one side.

At the end of the hall, mere feet away, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Trixie stood, mouths agape, and eyes wide.

“How much did you see?” Midnight asked in a voice so meek that Fluttershy felt she was too quiet, "or, hear?"

Rainbow rubbed her hands together, a glint of mischief in her eye.

“Oh… I’m going to enjoy this for a while…”

Trixie, a manic grin coming over her features, opened her mouth, and started singing, loudly.

“Midnight and Aria! Sitting in a tree! K-I- --”

Dash and Fluttershy hardly flinched as the blue magician vanished in a flash of blue fire. Midnight, herself, just placed her head in her hands, and gave a ragged sigh.

“This day just won’t end, will it?”

6 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 3: Wings

Midnight’s face burned as she raced through the halls of Canterlot High. It burned like it was the surface of the sun…

No, she corrected herself even in such a state, Lightning’s hotter, at about 50,000 degrees.

She silently thanked Science for granting her the ability to quantify her mortification at having been caught by Rainbow Dash, Trixie, and Fluttershy kissing Aria Blaze in front of the band room.

Midnight’s face burned as hot as a lightning bolt as she ran through the halls. Pure, unadulterated shame and embarrassment roiled within her. Despite the heat of her burning cheeks, she held her hands to her face in a vain attempt to hide it from anyone who might see her like this.

“So? What was it like?”

Like, for instance, Rainbow Dash. Sadly, there was no outracing someone who could break the sound barrier just to get lunch before the bell had finished ringing. The cyan and rainbow blur at Midnight’s side was running backward, and comfortably so. Rainbow didn’t look like she’d even tapped into a fraction of her speed. If she put her hands casually into her pockets, she couldn’t look more at-ease about it.

“I bet it was prickly. Or, it tasted like tartar sauce,” Rainbow Dash hummed to herself, one eye glancing over her shoulder for a slight course-correction, “Unless she was wearing, like, cherry chap-stick…”

“Leave me alone!!!”

“Ah, come on!” a Cheshire grin drifted in the blurred streak that was Rainbow Danger Awesome Professionalism Dash, “You kissed a girl… and you liked it! Don’t tell me you didn’t!”

Midnight, blind to… basically everything at the moment, except for the chance to escape complete and utter humiliation, made a hard, right turn. Dash, thankfully, kept on her current trajectory, with no chance of stopping, it seemed.

I just need a second! Midnight’s screaming brain managed to articulate through the confusion and terror gripping her just then.

Just gotta get away! Get away and think…!

Unfortunately, it was at that exact moment that a certain blue magician girl kicked open the door to the school’s poolroom.

“Midnight! What the fu—”

Trixie spat out pool water with a hacking fit.

“—was that about!?”

Trixie glared… helplessly as Midnight went sliding past her through a puddle of water. Trixie had only just hopped out of the pool, after all. Her anger evaporated as she watched her very best friend hurtle down the hallway, one foot squealing as it dragged across the ground, the other high up in the air amidst her flailing arms.

I’m about to die, Midnight thought, in a calm, analytical voice. I’m about to die, and in the most embarrassing way imaginable.

This, she decided, was not ideal. Unfortunately, what she wanted, at that moment, was no longer a factor.

As her other foot left the earth, and she began her final, terminal spin, all Midnight could think was, Dash will probably write, “Died after making out with a fish” on my tombstone. That jerk.

She closed her eyes, and awaited oblivion.

And waited.

And waited some more.

When Midnight opened her eyes, she was looking up at a certain rainbow-haired girl, who had caught her out of midair.

“So,” Rainbow smirked, and cocked her hips in a snarky pose, complete with a damsel in her arms, “Gonna give your heroic savior a kiss?”

Dash, instead, got a hand shoved in her face.

“Thank you for saving my life,” Midnight growled, “Now put me down before I make you regret it!”

Rainbow snorted and snickered under Midnight’s half-hearted assault until the sports star set her down. Fluttershy and Trixie raced up to the pair, one panting after giving chase, the other squelching noticeably.

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy sighed like a mother watching her child playing in mud, “I didn’t think to bring a towel this time…”

Trixie huffed, and blew a bit of wet hair out of her face.

“Trixie was displeased the first time you did that,” she glared angrily at Midnight, “But it made for a good show. This time…!”

Midnight’s eyes glimmered with a touch of her aqua-hued magic, and she lifted up a finger to point at Trixie’s sodden, soaked form.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice echoing slightly, “I got this.”

Trixie frowned, her sullen look speaking volumes of her opinion on being dropped into a pool twice in the same afternoon. As blue flames whipped up and around her, she pinched her face, and seemed to clench her whole body against the magical assault.

Dash whistled at the result. Steam rose in light wisps off of Trixie’s clothes, but it didn’t seem to discomfort her in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Ooooooh,” Trixie wrapped her arms around herself, and began the strangest cuddle-session any of the other teens had ever seen, “That’s so nice…”

“Um, Trixie?” Fluttershy leaned in, a note of concern in her voice.

“Don’t bother Trixie,” said Trixie, hugging herself, “This feels like I swam in hot marshmallows…”

Rainbow’s eyes sparkled, slightly, as she took in the intense happiness on Trixie’s face. Midnight could tell just from her face, that if Rainbow hadn’t been such a tough-girl, she’d probably ask for the steam spell too.

Like that’d happen. Next, you’ll be telling me Rainbow goes to the spa…

Midnight’s eyes, however, were drawn by a sudden movement in the next instant. She locked her eyes on Trixie’s hair, and silently prayed that she was just suffering some sort of adrenaline-backlash, a trick of the light…

But there was no denying what was about to happen.

Trixie’s hair, formerly as silky smooth as her nicest performing cape, twitched. And then, without warning, it poofed. One moment, it lay flat atop Trixie’s head. And in the next, a mountain of silver frizz stuck out in every direction.

The change did not go unnoticed. Fluttershy eeped, and ducked behind her long hair. Rainbow Dash, remembering something from a movie, tried to remain perfectly still, as though Trixie’s sight were based on movement.

Midnight grinned. She had no idea why she was grinning, but she suspected it was an innate response to fear.

Trixie continued to smile. She opened her eyes slowly, almost listlessly. She looked to Midnight, and locked gazes with her.

“Trixie will get you for this,” she said, almost whispering, the beatific smile coolly masking the madness beneath. “You won’t know when it’s coming, but I’ll get you.”

“That’s… fair,” Midnight conceded, manic grin still etched onto her face. Then, with a clap of her hands, she cheered, “Gee! What a great lesson in Friendship! Who’s up for ice cream!?”

A blue hand fell on her shoulder, and Midnight couldn’t help but look back to a smirking Rainbow Dash.

“Come on!” she said in a long, drawn-out way, “Ya gotta tell us about that kiss!”

Fluttershy protested, quietly, “Um, she really doesn’t have to. Not if she doesn’t want to. If that’s what she wants.”

“Trixie has been dunked in a pool over this,” the blue magician huffed, her relaxation under the steam spell giving way to her previous, righteous, anger. “She demands some sort of explanation!”

The hallway rang, suddenly, with a hard slap. Trixie and Fluttershy flinched at the sound, while Rainbow drew back her smarting hand from Midnight’s shoulder.

“I don’t gotta do anything!” Midnight fumed, a hard glare focused on Rainbow Dash, her own hand raised up between the two, “I don’t owe any of you an explanation! Whatever is going on with me and Aria, or whoever else, is my business!”

Perhaps it was hearing her own voice echoing around her in the halls that did it, or perhaps the roaring flame of anger in her chest had burned through its fuel too fast, but Midnight suddenly seemed to realize what she had said, and instantly began to shrink back in on herself.

“Geez,” Rainbow frowned, “Who spit in your cereal today?”

Embarrassment, rage, and now a healthy dose of panic and shame. Midnight’s heart was hammering from that potent little cocktail of emotional whiplash. It was rhythmically pounding in her ears, and her breath came out quick and ragged.

“I-I’m sorry!” she started speaking, louder, and quicker, than she meant to, “I didn’t mean that! I still want to be friends! I was just panicking, please don’t stop being my friends over this…!”

“Woah! Woah!” Dash laid both hands on Midnight’s shoulders, her own eyes widening at the purple nerd-girl’s freak-out, “Chill! Girl, chill!”

Another hand, this one small and yellow, settled onto the middle of Midnight’s back.

“Midnight?” Fluttershy’s quiet, caring voice felt like a little blanket wrapping its way around Midnight’s heart, slowing down her pounding panic beat-by-beat, “You’re hyperventilating! You’re going to pass out if you don’t calm down. Please, take a deep, deep breath.”

Finding little room for herself, Trixie seemed to opt to merely stand at the ready, a worried look dominating the magician’s features beneath her silver ‘fro.

There they stood, in unnerving silence, as seconds, and then minutes, ticked by. Slowly, breath by breath, Midnight began to slow down. Her ears stopped ringing, and the world around her lost some of that edged crispness.

These… she thought to herself as her breathing came back under control, are my friends. They understand, don’t they?

Finally, with the lightest puff of breath, Midnight glanced around to the three other girls, smiling weakly, but apologetically.

“Sorry about that. I sort of panicked.”

“Not sort of,” Dash frowned, “You went from normal to Twilight in ten seconds, flat!”

Midnight nodded, forcing herself not to smile at that one.

“And I’m sorry about that,” she said, folding her hands in front of her, “But, when I snapped at you, I thought…”

“You thought we wouldn’t be friends anymore?” Fluttershy leaned in, her eyebrows knitting into the most adorable frown Midnight had ever seen. For a moment, she worried she might have an overdose of cute and keel over.

“Basically,” she said, chagrined. Perhaps, as Twilight, she would have had the emotional restraint to not flip out the second her friends tried to tease her. But, things being as they were…

“Well that’s stupid!” Dash snarled, taking the others aback, “How could you think so little of us!?”

“I know,” Midnight said, sadly, looking away from the angry teen, “I just… I’m scared, alright?”

Trixie nodded, knowingly, “Well, that makes sense. Anyone’d be terrified of Aria Blaze.”

When Midnight said nothing to that, Dash and Fluttershy exchanged a quick glance. Dash placed one arm over Midnight’s shoulder, while Shy took Trixie and tried to bring both in close, just in case a good, old-fashioned hug would be necessary.

“Hey?” Rainbow tapped her forehead to Midnight’s own with surprising gentleness, “You can tell us anything, right? We might make fun, but I’d never leave you hanging if it was something serious.”

Midnight met her eyes. Pink and Aqua, open and guarded, watched each other for a long, quiet moment. Midnight glanced away, and noted the same, open smiles on Fluttershy and Trixie’s faces.

For the first time since the kiss, she felt… safe.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and shook her head, “I was just… freaking out a little, is all. I didn’t expect that at all, not even talking about… about…”

Rainbow couldn’t help herself, letting a little kitty-cat smile settle on her lips.

“Liking it?” she purred.

Midnight sighed, finally releasing a bit more of her tension. “Yeah. It definitely didn’t fit any of my models or projections.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Say what?”

Midnight noted a similar look on Fluttershy and Trixie’s faces.

“Would it really surprise you,” said Midnight, a bit of red flushing her cheeks, “that I… that we did research on this sort of thing?”

“What sort of thing?” Trixie asked, slowly.

Midnight said, quietly, “Attraction. Specifically… to what we were interested in.”

“Of course…” Trixie sighed, “Of course Twilight would need a chart.”

“Graphs, but that’s beside the point,” Midnight allowed herself a little chuckle. “The point is, back in middle school, we cracked the code.”

Rainbow frowned, “Wait, so you’re telling me… that you researched your orientation?”

Midnight gave her friend a look like she’d eaten glue. Then, as though what she’d done was simply obvious, she said, “It’s simplified things in the long term. Why spend adolescence panicking over something like that when you can just crunch the numbers, run a few simulations, and figure it all out?”

“So,” Rainbow said, a mischievous smile growing, “you’re saying that in order to find out what you liked… you exp—”

The school athlete vanished in a puff of blue flame and light. It had been almost silent, a far cry from the following sounds of splashing and sputtering which echoed through the halls from the nearby pool door. Midnight’s face betrayed nothing, while Fluttershy began to frown deeply.

“This is getting gratuitous,” she muttered, and then turned her ire back to Midnight, “That wasn’t very nice of you.”

“But it was funny,” Trixie smiled.

Midnight merely returned an indignant look, “I won’t have the good name of Experimentation ruined with one of Dash’s awful jokes.”

The three didn’t have to wait on their friend long, as Dash exited the nearby pool room soon enough. She was laughing as she re-entered the hall, practically doubling over with mirth. Between her loud guffawing, and her squishing-squelching shoes, the rainbow-haired girl could have drowned out a marching band.

Ha! Drowned! Midnight’s internal Pinkie Pie chuckled.

“You’re too easy!” Rainbow laughed. Then she swept a hand out in front to indicate her whole body. “Now, chop chop with the steam spell. I’m ready.”

Midnight, despite her dramatic sigh and eye roll, obliged. Blue fire raced up Dash’s form, removing the cold and the wet, while leaving behind a thoroughly impressed, and even more thoroughly delighted, Rainbow Dash, who beamed even brighter than Trixie as she metaphorically melted into her warmed clothes.

She didn’t even seem to mind her hair sticking straight up and crackling with static.

“Oh man,” she cooed, “How did I live without this?”

Midnight was about to say something, when the sound of coughing caused her to turn back towards Fluttershy.

“What?” Midnight raised an eyebrow at the girl who held her hand up politely in front of her face, “You want in on this too?”

Fluttershy visibly cringed, “Um, no… thank you. Maybe later?”

Midnight nodded, but kept silent another moment to let Fluttershy continue.

It took a few moments, but then she did manage to ask, through a slight blush, “So… what did your findings tell you?”

Midnight shrugged, “Twilight’s dating some guy named Timber Spruce, so what does that tell you?”

“That she lacks imagination?” Trixie smirked.

“Oh?” Fluttershy cocked her head to one side, “But, if that’s what you liked back then, then why… oh!” Her cheeks flushed red, and her pupils shrank noticeably.

Trixie’s smile faded, “So, you used to be…?”

“Straight, yes,” Midnight sighed and brushed her hair back with one hand.

“But,” Trixie tapped her chin in thought, “You totally hit on Flash Sentry this morning.”

Midnight cringed. Not at the memory, but at the sound of Rainbow Dash’s jaw hitting the floor. She was almost afraid to look over and see…

That smile. That smile of Dash’s where her teeth gleamed and her eyes sparkled. It was a smile that spoke of whoopie cushions and rubber puke snuck into sandwiches. It was the smile of someone who once pranked the whole school with locker-rigged airhorns. It was the smile of a maniac, a veritable troll of the highest… or perhaps, lowest, denominator.

I’m going to hear this punchline for the rest of my life, Midnight realized.

And then Rainbow Dash punched her, right in the shoulder.

“Ow,” she grunted, unenthusiastically.

“Girl!” Dash cackled, “You got game!”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy shrank even further into her hair as she considered what Trixie had said, “But I thought Flash and Sunset…”

Midnight’s voice cracked, slightly, as the frustration returned. She braced her shoulders, and snarled, “I didn’t remember, okay!? Is it really my fault if I don’t remember a few friends? Or events? Or… if I don’t know who I am…?”

And as quickly as she’d started shouting, Midnight… slowed. Her voice lost its thunder precipitously, all life and energy draining away as though she were a leaky sieve. Her shoulders slouched, and she tried… valiantly, to keep her face tense and her eyes smoldering.

But her heart wasn’t in it.

Dash’s smile fell away as well, and she began scratching the back of her neck. She tapped one foot rhythmically, just to have something fill the silence.

“S-sorry. I guess that makes sense…”

“I just wish these things would stop happening,” Midnight sighed. She slouched against a nearby locker, and pressed her head against the cool metal. “It hasn’t even been three days, and I feel like I’m a completely different person from how I was a week ago.”

“But, aren’t you?” Trixie said, her voice quieter than usual.

Midnight turned back to her friends, and noted their concerned faces.

“Maybe,” she said, glancing away, “It’s complicated. I was Twilight Sparkle up until the Friendship Games. And then, I was Midnight. First at the Crystal Empire…”

Dash and Fluttershy exchanged quick, furtive glances. They’d heard second-hand from Twilight what had happened when their resident egghead and Sunset Shimmer took a study-vacation to Equestria to find out more about fixing their world’s magical imbalances. From the brief summary they’d heard at lunch the day before, it had sounded like an insane, terrifying adventure involving time travel and alternate dimensions.

Truly, it made Rainbow Dash’s head spin to contemplate…

“… then, after I came back, at Everfree,” Midnight continued uninterrupted, “And the whole… Disqord thing.”

She looked back to her friends, her aqua eyes meeting pink, blue, and purple. Those eyes stared back at her, not with the contempt or fear she’d once desired… but love. Platonic, to be sure, but love nonetheless.

“After the split,” she continued, with a touch of strength returning to her, “We didn’t realize how much things would change. There’s… well, we’re both the Twilight you knew before… and also not.

“I just wish it was easier to figure out what we are, rather than whatever we used to be.”

There was another moment of silence. No one quite knew what to say to that. What could be said?

As it turned out, Fluttershy knew.

“It’s just like with Sunset,” she whispered, her eyes widening with comprehension.

“What did you say?” Midnight frowned, yet it was less confusion, and more hope that flittered across her thoughts like a dancing candle flame.

Realizing she’d said something, Fluttershy went to shrink again… but stopped. Midnight could see something tracking in the usually withdrawn girl’s eyes. She wasn’t entirely sure what she saw, not exactly, but from the way Fluttershy’s jaw set, and her posture straightened… it must have been important.

“At lunch,” Fluttershy said, her voice steady, “Sunset told all of us how she felt about you maybe turning her into an Alicorn, like Princess Twilight.”

Midnight was sure Fluttershy saw her wince, but if she did, she didn’t show it.

The butter-yellow girl kept on speaking beneath the stares of a silent-yet-in-awe Rainbow and Trixie.

“She told us the same thing you just said, almost word-for-word!”

Now, that had Midnight’s attention.

“She’s… she’s not… mad…?”

Dash shrugged, “She seemed kinda mad… but Shy’s right. Sunset’s mostly just scared.”

“Scared!?” Midnight gasped, “Sunset!?”

Fluttershy nodded, and said, “She doesn’t know if she’s the same per… oh, pony anymore. She even said she wasn’t sure if she was the same Sunset… or if…”

Here, her shyness crept back in. Whatever she was about to say had shocked her back into her old, timid voice.

Something Dash had no issues with.

“She said she thinks the Sunset we knew died,” Rainbow Dash shook her head, “And like, she’s some sort of clone now.”

Midnight’s face froze. Her whole body, in fact, locked up like an arctic freeze had settled in. But, much like a frozen ocean, tides and current raged beneath. Midnight’s mind raced in a way it hadn’t had to in… ever.

“Face it,” Twilight sat up suddenly, her voice quickening, “We… we’re just ghosts. Twilight Sparkle… the real Twilight Sparkle is d-d…”

“But… we talked…” Midnight’s mouth had started functioning again. “We talked about it. She… she never said…”

I’m such an idiot!!!

Midnight slammed her head into the nearest locker door. It didn’t dent. All that happened was that her head hurt more than it already had been.

“Yeah…” Rainbow Dash said slowly, “I… guess all three of you are going through some crud, huh?”

“An identity crisis? Yeah,” Midnight sighed, but didn’t lift her head up, “That’s kind of cruddy…”

Her eyes snapped open. She lifted herself up and away from where she’d laid her head… and Midnight Sparkle turned a withering look on Dash.

“Three of us? You knew I was dealing with this? And you kept goading me anyway!?”

For what it was worth, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy glanced away as fast as they could.

“We, ah… might’ve gotten carried away having fun today,” Dash said, lamely.

Fluttershy’s voice came out at a pitch Midnight thought dogs would hear, “I… got distracted by, um, the Skullcrusher thing…”

“For the record, Trixie did nothing wrong…”

Midnight held all three girls in her glaring gaze. Trixie noted, with a growing dread, that Midnight’s eyes had begun to turn blue and purple again, though she hid it well under her usual stage presence and composure.

But, the crackle of magical backlash never came. Midnight’s eyes hummed with energy… yet only for a moment.

With a full, heaving sigh, Midnight fell back into the locker door, and chuckled.

“Friendship lesson learned. Sometimes, friends can still be jerks.”

She felt Rainbow’s hand ruffle the top of her head, and she didn’t mind.

“Yeah… but we’re your jerks!” she said, a little laughter returning to the cyan athlete. The halls began to ring with the soft, easing laughter as all four girls joined in on an absurd moment of levity.

Allowing herself to let it all go, Midnight sighed contentedly, and tried to flatten her hair down again.

“Guess I need to talk with Sunset about this again. I’m getting tired of this conversation…”

Dash’s eyes, momentarily closed as she and the others had laughed it out, suddenly snapped open. Her pupils dilated until they were specks within milky whiteness, and her jaw slowly unhinged.

“Oh… crap.”

Trixie looked to Rainbow, and frowned, “Oh, now what? Can we please go five minutes without an emotional whiplash?”

Fluttershy caught her friend’s eye, and her own face scrunched up as she realized…

“They’re waiting for us!”

“Waiting for…” Midnight paled, and her hand rammed down into her pockets, quickly snapping up her phone and bringing it up to check the time.

“Oh,” she noted how, contrary to what she’d been hoping for, the little digital clock was showing a time that was almost a half hour past when she’d planned on meeting up with her sister.

“Crap…”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Quit bein’ stubborn! Yer not fine!”

“Huh, that’s rich, coming from an Apple…”

“I can see his bones!”

“They ain’t even broke the skin, cuz…”

And on, and on the argument in front of Canterlot High School went. It was quite loud, and had a bit of an audience at the moment, but seemed mostly contained to those who’d participated in a somewhat impromptu ‘wrastlin’ match over by the track field.

Applejack appeared totally unharmed in any way that mattered. Even dust didn’t seem to cling to her, despite being the winner of the aforementioned tussle. Though, that might have something to do with Rarity hovering around her at all times, or hanging off her, as an observer might think.

Sunset and Twilight sat beneath the statue-less Wondercolt plinth, alongside Pinkie Pie and Sonata Dusk, who merrily munched on mouthfuls of taco meat. Sunset was still trying to wrap her head around what had just happened, and Twilight wasn’t faring much better.

But no one faired quite the same as poor Oakley Apple, who now favored his right arm, which was sticking out of a sling at a less-than-amusing angle.

“Fer land sakes, Oakley,” Applejack growled, “I ain’t gonna have ye shot!”

Oakley, one eye swollen shut, and a tooth chipped after his… encounter with his cousin, pointed an accusatory finger. “I saw how Granny looked at me when I sprang my fetlock last autumn!”

“She’s the one that pampered you the most afterward, you idiot,” Cinnamon Apple, the second of the once-horses that’d joined the Apple clan, sighed exasperatedly.

“I don’t think watching nature shows is good for you,” Cookie Apple poked and prodded in the general vicinity of Oakley’s busted limb, “They’re give you some funny… are they eating tacos?”

And with that, the last of the new Apples took off at a gallop for the statue. Which left Oakley to mope in front of his other two relations, and the beautiful girl he’d lost to one of them.

“Look, Oakley,” Applejack pushed up the brim of her hat, “I didn’t mean ta use magic in the fight. I plum-forgot I even had the pendant on…”

“Nah, it’s fine, AJ,” the palomino boy sighed. He threw on a folksy grin, and shot a meaningful look to the fashionista by his cousin’s side, “I fig’red I’d already lost the match in the most important way.”

“Oh?” Rarity seemed to finally notice the stare she was getting. “How do you mean?”

But Oakley just shook his head.

“Miss Rarity, I s’pected you liked Applejack quite a bit more’n me by the way that ya’ll checked on her wellbeing, d’spite me bein’ the one in the crater…”

Rarity blushed a deep crimson, but did not look away. Instead, a sort of soft sadness overcame her, giving her eyes that little sparkle two Apples had just fought over.

“I am most terribly sorry, Oakley,” she said, quietly, “I suppose I let my imagination get the better of me today. It is, after all, the dream of every Lady to have two gallant suitors fighting over her…”

Cinnamon snorted, and covered her face quickly.

Which gave someone else a chance to step into the conversation.

“Uh, Oakley? Do you need help?” Twilight asked, her eyes locked onto the broken arm.

“That’s mighty kind of you, Miss Sparkle,” he nodded back in return, “But wit’out those ID papers, I don’t know what hospital’d take me in this condition.”

Sunset smiled, though chagrined, “Sorry… Like I said, it’ll be a couple more days…”

“Well,” Twilight grinned, “Then lucky for you, I happen to know a little bit of first aid magic!”

She struck a rather dramatic pose as she said this, complete with a quick adjustment to her glasses to make her look as in-control as she felt right at that second.

Sunset frowned, “What? Since when?”

“Since…” Twilight’s eyes reopened… and began glancing about, as though looking for something.

She bit her lip, and looked back towards her Equestrian friend.

“I… I guess since the Split. Midnight and I did copy, rather than partition, most of our Critical Knowledge banks.”

When that got little more than a blank stare from the two former horses and the two current humans, Twilight realized she needed to use her, not to be offensive, Rainbow Dash terminology.

“Stuff like knowing how to talk, how to count, how to walk, etcetera,” she quickly rattled on, a knowing smirk working its way onto her face, “Anyway! I maybe… sort of… definitely got some of the magic stuff in the exchange.”

“Does Midnight know, darling?” Rarity whispered, leaning forward just a skosh. “I don’t mean to impugn – of course not! – but we all know how… sensitive Midnight is to feeling left out of something. And magic being ever so important to her…”

Twilight shook her head, “We didn’t make a secret out of it. I just… don’t flaunt our magic like she does.”

Applejack nodded, “Well, that’s a relief. I know some people think if’n ye got it, ya gotta flaunt it too. Je’s happy ta know yer not a flaunter, Twi.”

She completely missed the irked glance Rarity shot her girlfriend just then, but it was gone in a moment, replaced by another question.

“So, you can help poor Oakley? I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt on my account…”

“Miss Rarity, I elected ta do that darn foolish thing,” Oakley protested, his own Stetson following the angle of his frown, “An’ ye just hafta accept I dug my own grave.”

Without a word, and no warning whatsoever, Twilight’s pendant flashed with light. An equally purple aura instantly surrounded Oakley’s broken arm, who only balked a smidgen at the sight. Cinnamon herself stared with an almost hungry expression, fascination clearly outweighing any fear or horror the sight might otherwise have commanded.

Light wove over Oakley’s limb like shimmering water, slowly, and painlessly, pushing and molding the skin and muscle. Even where the arm bone seemed to stick out at an awkward angle started to shift and pinch as the spell went on. Rarity and Applejack stared, utterly gobsmacked at seeing real magic, doing something so… astounding!

Normally, something would have exploded by now. Yet, Twilight’s calm expression led the others watching to feel at ease about the process. Sunset watched the proceedings with nothing short of an experienced calculating eye. It had been a while, but she hadn’t forgotten how to tutor others in magic.

What was little Cadance up to right now? she wondered. Besides running an empire…

In moments, the show was over. Oakley slowly withdrew his arm from the sling, and gave it a little, experimental flex.

The pained hiss that slipped out between his lips was short, but telling.

“Still hurts,” he said, simply, but only as though he were commentating on a casual observation.

“Well, it’s set,” Twilight sighed, a bead of sweat dripping down her face as she took in her handiwork, “Give it a day, and you should be fully healed.”

Oakley gave her a much brighter smile at that, and even tipped his hat to the little mage that’d helped him out.

“Ow,” he said, having used the same arm by accident.

Cinnamon sighed, but also joined in the round of chuckles her idiot brother just caused. She turned back towards Twilight, and allowed herself a rare, genuine smile.

“Thanks, Twi.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied, basking in the sight of a job well-done. She sighed, contentedly, and began planning the research journal she would prepare with Midnight on the spell’s performance. Needed to collect more data points…

“That was pretty impressive, Twilight,” Sunset rested a hand on her shoulder, and gave Twilight a comforting squeeze, “I’d definitely give you an ‘A’ on that use of Barber’s Fifth Ligament Array.”

“Barber?” Twilight asked, eyes widening.

“Tertius Barber,” Sunset recalled, the dusty old history textbook still clearly sitting in her memories, “One of the four Barber Brothers, and one of the most important Surgeon-Sorcerers in the history of Medicinal Magic. He’s retired now, but…”

The purple nerd-girl stared, her jaw working silently for a moment.

“Barber Brothers?”

“Yup.”

“Four of them?”

“That’s… yes, Twilight. And before you say anything…”

Pinkie’s laughter, from at the base of the Wondercolt statue-less plinth, barked out over anything Sunset might have said.

“Hahahaha! Barbershop Quartet! Yes!”

Sunset sighed, and scratched at the back of her head.

“Yeah, so he miiiiight have also been part of the original band who started that particular genre in Equestria…”

Anything else Sunset was about to say was so much static, doomed to be dropped for far more interesting conversations – at least, for everyone who wasn’t Twilight – that were about to be needed.

For, it was at that exact moment that the statue plinth chose to shimmer, ever so slightly. To most, it could be written off as a very well-polished bit of stone catching the midafternoon sun’s rays.

For the people standing around it, however…

“Finally!” Pinkie Pie fist-pumped, “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this part!”

“Part of what?” Sonata said, just before her mouth fully enveloped a whole taco in a single bite.

“Ooh!” Cookie Apple, Applejack in all but color and personality, swallowed her food and excitedly bounced next to Pinkie from the opposite side from Sonata, “What part are you talking about? Are you talking about the part where we all finally get to find out whether or not Sunset’s become an Alicorn? Or, ooh! Or, are we finally going to find out why Midnight and Twilight share dreams but can’t control them even while lucid dreaming? Or, or or or is this the part where Spike realizes dogs don’t live too long and he gets magic’d into being a human too? Or! OR! Or is this the part where I start talking really, really, really, reallyreally fast and sound just like you?”

Cookie, finally, took a breath.

And then, with a wide grin, she squee’d.

Pinkie stared. A bit of pico fell out of Sonata’s stunned mouth.

“Do…?” Pinkie turned back to the Dazzling, the only other person there who seemed like they’d heard the bizarre exchange, “Do I really sound like that?”

Sonata blinked. Then, she nodded, slowly. Finally, she finished swallowing her taco, and asked, “Cookie? How much sugar have you had today?”

Staring directly into Sonata’s rapidly shrinking pupils, Cookie said, without an ounce of emotion or inflection, “I have done nothin’ but eat sugar for three whole days.”

There was a beat of total silence. Then, a long, pink, noodle-arm wrapped its way around the former horse’s shoulders, and pulled her in for a cheek-to-cheek hug with the resident pink party planner herself.

“You’re gonna go far, kid,” Pinkie beamed, her toothy grin nearly taking up her entire face, “I always knew you were Best Horse!”

Both girls squee’d.

Sonata just shrugged, and went for another Taco del Queso Grande, the one with green and red sauce.

No one else had noticed that conversation. No one had spoken at all. Sunset, Twilight, Applejack and Rarity, plus Oakley and Cinnamon, were focused entirely on the light shimmer dancing across the plinth’s base.

“Portal’s open,” Twilight said, “Guess the Princess meant it when she said five o’clock…”

Sunset hummed something to herself, and then said out loud, “Yeah… but so far, no Midnight.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, darling,” Rarity said while leaning into Applejack’s side, “She wasn’t too terribly late for her fitting yesterday. She just seems to be… distracted by her newest friend.”

Twilight tilted her head questioningly at Rarity’s remark.

“Maybe,” she said, slowly, “But she’s with Rainbow Dash. You’d think they might get here on time with her, at the very least.”

“Aw, they’re not late!” Pinkie called out, taking a moment to pour whipped cream onto a chicken taco, “I bet they’ll pop in aaaaaaaaany second now!”

“Ya’ll sure about that?” Oakley perked his eyebrows up. “Ya think they’ll jes’… appear outta thin air…?”

And, just like magic, it would seem Oakley’s words proved to be prophetic. There was the briefest sound, like two static-laden fabrics ripping apart from one another, if Rarity didn’t miss her guess. Then, everyone’s ears popped as a rush of wind shifted the air pressure about, and a flash of blue light briefly illuminated the school grounds.

Four teenagers stood a few feet away from the others, in a previously unoccupied space. Midnight, true to form, was really the only one ‘standing’, Fluttershy and Trixie both shaking in their knees and holding onto the purple sorceress for dear life.

Rainbow Dash… didn’t fare better.

“Uhhhh,” she groaned from down below, “Why was I the only one teleported upside down!?”

Midnight smiled. “Spite?”

“Well played, Sparkle…” Dash grumbled, “… well played…”

She had little else to add, except for a few ugly sounds that drove her to slink away before she made a mess of anything besides the grass. Cookie and Pinkie seemed ready-enough to help poor Rainbow Dash out, first with some hands under her arms for walking-stumbling support, and then hands to pull back her rainbow-colored hair.

Meanwhile, Trixie and Fluttershy shifted their hands from Midnight’s arms to each other’s. Mutual support in place, they slid down to the grass gently, where their own stomachs could take a moment to relax and enjoy the early evening air.

Trixie sighed, and rubbed the side of her head.

“Trixie still isn’t used to that… particular form of disappearing-reappearing.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Fluttershy lay down on her back and took a few deep breaths, “Disqord is always so gentle when he takes me places. This is just… unpleasant.”

“Well ex-cuse me!” Midnight huffed, half-serious, “I thought we were in a hurry. I would have taken more time if I thought we had some!”

“Midnight!”

The girl in question spun around at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Sis, it’s called a joke!”

Twilight drew back, lips pursed. “I know that. I was trying to say hello…”

Midnight froze. Then, her cheeks briefly burned red.

“Oh… um… sorry about that. Kind of a rough day, you know?” she flashed her sister the best apologetic smile she still had in her for today. It wasn’t even half bad.

“Oh? Well, tell me about it. We were just about to…”

“First!” Midnight immediately jumped to running roughshod over her sister’s words, though from Twilight’s smirk, she didn’t seem to mind.

“First,” Midnight repeated, smiling herself, “I had my schedule switched, for all the reasons we talked about earlier, so you weren’t there to help me explain anything to Miss Harshwhinny or Mr. Cranky.”

Twilight blushed, “Oh… sorry, I forgot to… wait, didn’t Celestia…?”

“Apparently, she was busy chatting up the Lord of Chaos,” Midnight shrugged, “But, I got through it. Harshwhinny caught on quick enough, but Cranky ended up calling the office over…”

Another flash of aquamarine light had a somewhat crude, magical facsimile of Cranky floating in the air between the sisters.

“Some stupid prank that Sparkle girl is trying to pull on me!”

It was a terrible impression, but since the original Twilight had also been terrible with voices, neither sister cared.

Midnight continued, dropping the spell. “Took him half the period to finally catch on, even with Luna screaming at him over the line.”

“Screamin’?” Applejack folded her arms. Or, tried. A certain fashionista was in the way, taking up a coveted place under her champion’s arm.

“Can you blame her?” Midnight chuckled. “Then, all that mess with Disqord happened. And afterwards, I had to take that silly aptitude test Celestia and Luna whipped up.”

“Oooh!” Twilight leaned in, academic excitement flashing in her eyes, “How’d you do!?”

“Done in record time,” Midnight smiled, though her eye twitched a bit, “And then… I took a nap instead of turning it in.”

Twilight’s eyes… even Midnight was a little worried when she noted her sister’s expression. It couldn’t be good for your eyes to bulge that far out of your skull.

Midnight coughed, and kept on, while worried eyes kept watch over the slowly… melting Twilight Sparkle.

“So… anyway, while I was sleeping, Princess Luna projected herself into my dreams, and said she’d help us with our little sleep problem. Funny enough, but she didn’t turn human this go around…” she blinked a few times, just to make sure she was seeing Twilight clearly. Her sister looked to be slowly, with the speed of continental drift, slackening her jaw and widening her eyes.

“Remember? We dreamed in human, last time? I… we had a talk about some of her issues with me. She said we’d talk more later, so that’s… that’s good. Oh,” she paused, as if she’d only just remembered something, “And I think I might be bisexual…”

”WHAT!?!?!”

Twilight, it seemed, had finally found her voice. And once the shockwave had passed, incidentally throwing aside some of the local cloud cover and a lot of the local dust deposits, Midnight began speaking very, very quickly.

“Well, I didn’t think about it, really,” Midnight licked her lips, “I mean, Flash was cute and all, so I assumed we were still that way, but then Aria Blaze kissed me, and I agreed to a date, and, and…”

Midnight Sparkle began to take little steps backward, in time with Twilight’s own slow, horror-movie-monster-slow, steps forward.

“If…” she squeaked, “If it helps, I’m sure Timber Spruce still isn’t my type…”

“YOU FELL ASLEEP!?”

“Wha…?” Midnight’s eye-twitch returned. “THAT was your takeaway!?”

“Who cares who you’re into!?” Twilight shook with visible rage, “I mean, okay, I can’t believe you couldn’t do better than a Dazzling, but…”

“Hey!” Sonata started to stand up, only to have a pink hand drag her back down.

Pinkie held her down, and whispered, “Don’t meddle in the affairs of wizards! She’s gone cray-cray!”

“Whatever! We can do more research later… maybe. But apparently you need a nap during Academia! Like some sort of… of… Bohemian!!!”

“Don’t you put that evil on me, Sparkle!” Midnight snapped back, “I’m not some filthy Liberal Arts major you can push around!”

“I bet you want to go home and write all this out in a poem. Or free verse! You… you… Artist!”

“Take that back!”

“Never!”

“You horrible bi—”

Midnight didn’t get to finish that obscenity, as Twilight’s arms wrapped tight around her shoulders. After a brief, terrifying moment, Midnight realized her sister wasn’t trying to clumsily strangle her to death. In fact, it almost seemed like…

Wet, watery eyes met her own. Twilight’s sob hit Midnight harder than a knife.

“What are we becoming?” the bespectacled sister sniffled, “What did I do to you…? I’m so sorry, Midnight… you’re not Liberal Arts…”

The assembled friends watched with some bemusement as Twilight broke down, sobbing, into her sister’s arms. And, though the other girl didn’t melt down in precisely the same way, Midnight met the embrace with one of her own. It was soft, and gentle, and it didn’t involve her crying as well, so she was fine with the display.

Which was punctuated, nicely, by Rainbow Dash, who still lay on the grass nearby.

“Neeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrds!”

It took a few minutes for Twilight and Midnight to regain some semblance of composure, and a few more before Twilight could listen to Midnight recount her dream-escapade without interrupting to, yet again, call her sister out on sleeping in the Principal’s office. But, following a heartfelt apology on all sides, plus a musical number provided by Pinkie Pie, the air was finally cleared.

That just left the huge, sucking chest wound that was Midnight and Sunset Shimmer’s friendship to patch up. Midnight, catching her red-and-gold-haired friend’s eye, immediately pushed past her sister, and strode confidently forward.

Striding was the only sort of confidence she had, as it so happened. Midnight could feel a slowly growing pit in her stomach as she considered how to approach this.

She’s dealing with the same stuff you are, she coached herself. She’s scared, and unsure if she’s still the same person she was before. Twilight’s probably already told her as much… but since you’re the idiot who saved the world by casting a spell to force her to Ascend, it’s your responsibility to make this work!

Pep talk over and done; Midnight opened her mouth to begin her groveling apology for assuming earlier that Sunset’s distress was based off feeling such an honor wasn’t earned…

“Uh…” she said instead, “Why’s the portal open?”

Sunset blinked. She half-turned around, saw the portal was indeed still open, and grimaced.

“Oops. We, uh, maybe should have gone through by now…”

“Why?” Midnight asked, and then gasped as it struck her, “Wait… you’re going through?”

Sunset nodded, solemnly, “Can’t keep running away forever, right? Like we talked about, I should… get it over with.”

Midnight had nothing to say about that. Her mouth moved for a moment, but the words failed to materialize. She continued to stammer, as Sunset, and everyone else, looked on.

“Midnight? Everythin’ alright?” Applejack asked.

The country twang seemed to finally snap her out of it. Midnight locked eyes with Sunset, and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sunset sighed. “You don’t have…”

“I do!” Midnight insisted, and took a step forward. “I… I didn’t realize you were dealing with… w-with the same thing as Twilight and me.”

Midnight worked her hands into knots as Sunset stood, silently before, her.

“You don’t feel any different,” she went on, “from how you were before, but things don’t… add up the same. You keep double-checking your face in the mirror, in case something changed. You think about every thought in your head twice, just in case it isn’t one the real Sunset would have thought.

“You start wondering if your memories are ones you experienced,” Midnight glanced towards her other friends, briefly catching Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Dash, and even Twilight’s, eyes, “or just the last trace of a ghost.”

Twilight’s hand fell on her sister’s shoulder. She reached up and grabbed it with her own, and a shadow of a smile fell over her features. “And… despite knowing in your heart that they still love you… you sometimes doubt if anyone actually knows you, anymore.”

Her eyes met Sunset’s again.

“I’m sorry for putting you through that,” Midnight’s shoulders squared as she spoke, “I’m sorry I took away that choice from you, and I’m sorry for not realizing you had those thoughts and feelings this morning. But I am not sorry for saving your life, and I never will be.”

Sunset’s lips pressed tight into a thin line as she listened, and her eyes never wavered.

“Wow,” she said, “Um… anything else?”

“… No,” Midnight let out a breath, “No… I guess not.”

Nervous eyes twitched back and forth from many heads, heads which stood atop nervous girls’ bodies. Everyone held their breath, except for Sonata and Pinkie, who merely continued to eat through the awkward silence.

Sunset’s serious expression vanished, like a light had switched on.

“Cool,” she said, “Come with me?”

Midnight’s pupils shrank. “What?”

“You know what’s up,” Sunset shrugged, “You and Twilight. You’re probably the only ones here who… who get it, you know? What’s happened. An… maybe I just want another person or two who knows… to know, you know?”

Twilight gasped, “Sunset, that grammar was awful.”

“Might have been,” the teen snorted, “But it’s the truth. I… I need you girls with me. I don’t know…”

For a moment, just a sliver of a second of eternity, Midnight couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Sunset, for the briefest moment, almost seemed… vulnerable. There was a sudden fragility to her eyes, and a way she pulled her shoulders in, and slouched just a little bit.

It was… religiously terrifying.

Then, she breathed in, and steadied herself.

“So, Midnight… are you and Twilight coming with me?”

The sun had set over Ponyville, bathing the little town in midnight hues, while delighting all who remained out with a sky of blazing orange, royal purple, and even the sight of a silvery star or two. The moon, rising up from the horizon, only complimented the lighting this lovely night.

Within the Castle of Friendship, on the edge of Ponyville itself, two mares watched the shifting sky through a high window in the grand library.

“I still think this is excessive,” Princess Twilight Sparkle noted with a faint hint of irritation buried beneath years of foal-like wonder and admiration, “There hasn’t been an Unscheduled Early Night since Luna came back… and not for a century before that!”

Celestia, Princess of the Sun, and soon-to-be-retired Diarch, merely took in the early stages of her sister’s beautiful night with a gentle smile. She turned away from her former student, and current successor, and began trotting towards the Mirror Room.

“I feel strongly otherwise, Twilight,” Celestia said genteelly enough, but with a slight edge that the purple Princess couldn’t help but notice, “I would prefer there to be no distractions while we tend to Sunset’s case. My Sister is attending to the nation now. This is a… family matter.”

Twilight didn’t wince at that remark… at least, not noticeably. She’d long ago accepted that Celestia saw all her students like family. But she did, occasionally, have to remind herself that her dearest teacher’s relationship with Sunset Shimmer was… different. Deeper than others, one might say.

The Princess was fine with that… but it wasn’t nothing.

“So…” she grinned wryly as they came before the Mirror, “What did you have to give up? I can’t imagine Luna disrupting her sleep schedule wasn’t a pricey thing indeed.”

“Take up, in this case,” Celestia sighed. Her smile briefly faltered. “I have to cover a Royal visit to some… museum,” she spat, “in Transylmaneia to make up for the schedule shift. A boring… old… regular museum. Nothing exploding, or interacting with visitors using magic or anything… just… statues and paintings.”

“That’s one of the batpony colonies,” Twilight absentmindedly spouted off a nugget of trivia, before frowning deeply and adding, “Don’t they hate you?”

Celestia waved one wing in the universal sign for ‘eh, kinda’.

“It’s gotten better, let’s say. They’ve stopped openly calling me Moonslayer to my face these days.”

“Well, thanks for coming anyway,” Twilight said, lighting up her horn and activating the Mirror’s mechanical apparatus, “I’m sure whatever happens, Sunset will be glad you were here for her. Alicorn, or not!”

Celestia shook her head slowly, “I’m only too happy to be here for Sunset, but I’m afraid there will be no new Alicorns today. Not unless Luna’s been very clever in hiding something from me,” she added with a chuckle.

When Twilight merely frowned at the remark, Celestia sighed, and added, “As in, she would be hiding a foal, Twilight.”

Realization flickered in the purple Alicorn’s eyes.

“Oh, got it… wait, you still don’t think it worked?” Twilight gaped, the Mirror flashing to life as its mechanical bits and bobs finished revving to life, “I told you, I took some discreet measurements with a Thaumometric Spell during our last visit, right after the… incident. Elevated mana-dispersal, plus a noticeable drop in the Oppenstable Layer points directly to an Ascension Event…!”

“Oh, I’m sure something occurred due to this… Midnight Sparkle’s spell,” Celestia growled, an echo of her anger at Sunset’s tormenter flaring briefly, “But I have it on the highest authority that Sunset, as much as I may wish it were otherwise, will remain a unicorn.”

“Highest authority?” Twilight quirked her head to the side, “Who could possibly be a high authority on something like this?”

Celestia smiled, mischievously, the little twinkle in her eye letting Twilight know she would not be getting a straight answer out of her mentor toda… tonight.

Twilight sighed, in weary resignation.

And then, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Equestria’s Acting Monarch, Element of Magic, Princess of Friendship, Honorary recipient of the Equestrian Librarian’s Award eight years running, and the only attendee of CSGU to be forced to graduate… began to whine like a foal being forced to wait another day to open their Hearth’s Warming gifts.

“Oh, come on!” she cried, her eyes becoming dark, glimmering pools of puppy-dog sadness, “Can’t you give me a clear answer? Just once?”

“Yes, Tia!” a voice shouted from the corner of the room with the force of a thundercrack, “Why don’t you tell us all about your… High Authority?”

Twilight gave a yelp at the sudden sound coming from behind her, and leapt several feet into the air. Celestia merely rolled her eyes at the dramatic entrance she’d seen her beloved sister practice at least a dozen times before every Nightmare Night. The shadows of the room, which hung from the corners and the book cases strewn throughout the castle, drooped from their perches like falling cobwebs. The unnerving sight of so much immaterial material floating and dancing in the still air had Twilight’s hackles up.

Within moments, however, the darkness had taken the form of a mare. Her coat was the darkest of blues, and her mane, carved out of star-stuff, drifted in an unfelt, ethereal wind. As the Alicorn’s black pendant, crown, and silver shoes materialized last, she opened her brilliant blue eyes, full of a humor that her otherwise stoic face did not show.

“Oh, Princess Luna…” Twilight breathed, her heartrate slowly dropping back to normal, “Just you. Got me there for a moment!”

The Princess of Night smirked, “I am good for more than a few scares on Nightmare Night, you know.”

Twilight’s face lit up with good humor… and then seemed to blaze even brighter. It actually looked somewhat disconcerting for Luna, to actually see a fire of curiosity come to life in the young Alicorn’s eyes. She approached Luna quickly, forcing the older Princess to take a step back.

“Uh, Twilight…?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes, and brought her face to within inches of Luna’s coat. She hummed, as though she could see something beyond the midnight-hued coat.

“Princess Twilight, what are you…?”

“This is a nice bit of Astral Projection,” Twilight mused, like a scientist looking at something routine in a microscope, “Though, I suspect you don’t get a lot of practice with it, do you?”

“Ah, good,” Celestia nodded with satisfaction, “I’d hoped you were actually watching over Equestria tonight, instead of coming down here for this.”

“I can do both!” Luna snorted, indignantly, “And for your information, Twilight, I invented Astral Projection! So, before you criticize my form…”

The lunar diarch suddenly snapped her head to the side. Her eye twitched, and she began to snarl.

“I told you last time, Blueblood,” Luna shouted into a bookcase, “if you brought before me yet another law proposal that would use legal chicanery to put more bits in your pocket, at the expense of Equestria as a whole, my wrath would be so complete… so Biblical in proportion that your ruined corpse would be hurled back through time, unto the very Foundations of the Nation, AND EXPLODE IN ONE OF PUDDINGHEAD’S BREAKFAST MUFFINS!!!

“Now…” the dark Alicorn took a calming breath, and returned to a placid tone better associated with an economic lecture, “What was it you wished to speak with me about?”

Luna proceeded to stand there, in absolute silence, for what felt like minutes. Twilight gave Celestia a worried look, but her former mentor merely gestured back to Luna with a flick of her eyebrows.

Luna nodded, slowly, the angle of her gaze watching… something… fade away into the distance.

“Yeah… you better run.”

She gave a hearty chuckle a few moments later, before seemingly returning to the here and now. Laughing softly to herself, and nervously joined by an eye-twitching Twilight, Luna glanced briefly over to the Mirror, and then up to her sister. Then, with an almost predatory glint in her eye, she said, “You hold onto your secrets almost as tightly as your cakes, Sister. Why not… let us have a taste of this one?”

Celestia sniffed, less regally than she probably wanted to seem, and tilted her face away from the other mares. “Not that what you’re saying has any basis in fact, Sister… but I suppose I’ve been known to hoard secrets like old Scorch himself.”

“So, you’ll tell us?” Twilight’s eyes… sparkled.

Celestia smiled, ruefully, and glanced over to the portal to Sunset’s new home. When nothing immediately launched itself through the gateway between realms, she pursed her lips in thought.

But still, she said nothing. She really did value her old secrets, it seemed.

That is, until Luna caught the look in her sister’s eye, and decided to spoil her fun.

“If you don’t tell her,” Luna feigned boredom with a light yawn, “I shall be forced to reveal the secret anyway.”

“I never told you about this one, Lulu,” Celestia smiled, but there was a curious look of apprehension in the one eye she cast her sister’s way.

“Oh, not that seeee-cret,” the darker Alicorn sang, a wicked grin beginning to stretch across her muzzle.

Celestia’s eyes widened, even as her pupils shrank. Eerily enough, as her calm faltered, the ancient Alicorn’s flowing, pastel mane seemed to… pause. Just for a moment, its ethereal wave jittered.

Nothing. Celestia said nothing. She was calling Luna’s bluff.

Luna leaned down next to Twilight, and said, very quietly, “Princess Twilight? Would you like to hear about Master Clip-Clop?”

While Twilight turned around, and perked up an ear in anticipation, Celestia just snorted with laughter.

“Clip-Clop?” she chuckled, “That’s your leverage on me? My old dolly? You’ll need a lot more than that little gem if you…”

“Say, Twilight?” Luna stepped back, knowing that the purple Alicorn’s eyes were locked on her just then. Her grin never changed as she made sure her sister was looking at her too.

“Did Celestia ever tell you about… Mother?”

“So!” Celestia clapped her hooves together so hard that Twilight almost wondered if she would develop tinnitus, and laughed manically, “Sunset time-traveled!”

Luna’s triumphant grin at seeing her ploy work… vanished. In its place, as silence filled Twilight’s palace, only a cold dread filled Luna’s heart.

She could hear Twilight’s teeth gnashing.

“That pony should know better…” the purple Alicorn fumed. Luna knew, more from hearing about it after the fact, that time magic tended to have a peculiar effect on her young successor.

It made her mad.

Very mad.

Apocalyptically furious.

Almost peeved, even…

Finally, Twilight sighed, and held her hoof out to Celestia.

“Continue.”

The solar diarch cleared her throat, and tried to not stare at her eerily calm former student.

“Ahem, well… years ago, Sunset Shimmer was my student, as you both well-know. But, when her arrogance and greed became all-consuming, she fled into the Mirror to achieve what she wanted most.”

Celestia slowly turned her attention back to the Mirror itself, still glowing gently with silvery light.

“But, only three days after she left,” her jaw set, and her eyes hardened, “Sunset returned.”

Twilight’s ears twitched as she heard this, and her internal fury faltered as curiosity overtook her. “But… the Mirror would have been closed after three days…?”

Celestia nodded. “I didn’t think of that at first. The guards apprehended Sunset, and dragged her to my private office. But, when I found her, intending to vent my anger at her betrayal… and, perhaps, beg her forgiveness for throwing her out…”

Her eyes snapped over to Luna, who was listening with rapt attention, “Yes, Luna… even I sometimes learn a lesson about treating family better.

“But,” Celestia sighed, “When I saw her again, she was… ancient. Seventy, eighty years old!”

“What!?” Twilight scoffed, “But… but that’s…”

Luna, meanwhile, pointed a hoof and barked, “Ha! I knew it! You never had so many visions before I came back! You received spillers!”

“Spoilers,” Celestia corrected, then smiled apologetically at Twilight, “Ah, but yes. Somehow, Sunset had been sent back in time… and I might have coaxed a few explanations out of her.”

Twilight’s eyes twitched. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she warily asked, “Explanations?”

“Y-yes,” Celestia reached up to scratch at the tip of her muzzle, “Just… you know? We talked about tea, additions to the gardens, you, grandfoals…”

“She told you about me!?” a wall of purple flew into Celestia’s vision as Twilight dragged the ancient sovereign’s head down to meet her, “How!? How could she be so reckless!?”

Celestia frowned, “It all worked out, didn’t it? And you thought my acting was bad…”

“You are a bad actor,” Luna noted with a grin, “But an amazing bull—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” said Celestia, rearing back from Twilight’s manic grip, “But, yes… Sunset warned me about you, Ponyville, Nightmare Moon’s return, and a few other threats you would come up against. I wish she’d warned me about Tirek, and all that came after that, but by then I was able to let you handle things… so it all worked out!”

Twilight sat back down onto the floor, her mind clearly going into a sort of calculation fugue state. Both sisters watched her, with mild concern, for what felt like a miniature eternity, each hoping their chosen successor wouldn’t slip back into her old, obsessive habits.

But then, she nodded.

“I see… so she was old, and not an Alicorn?”

“I would have noticed wings,” Celestia shrugged.

Twilight stood again, and sighed.

“Well… guess it can’t be helped. We still need to be here, for her,” she looked back to the Mirror, “I’m… not sure which outcome would have been worse for Sunset, to be honest.”

Almost as if on cue, the Mirror’s placid surface began to churn. Light and vibrations emanated out from its surface, and the mechanical apparatus rattled with magical power flowing through it.

“Incoming!” Twilight braced her legs, as did Celestia.

Luna, however, quirked her head, and asked, “Twilight? Does not this Mirror tend to shoot its travelers out rather violently?”

The purple Alicorn nodded, “Yes, and we’ve prepared for that!”

“DISCORD! PINKIE PIE!!!” she shouted with all the might of the Royal Canterlot Voice. It rang through the crystal walls and floor, shaking the crystal windows and the crystal staircases, and rattled its way down to the castle’s crystal roots, and up into its crystal rafters. And all along the way, the sound of Twilight’s voice vibrating through the crystal produced an almost haunting note, high above all the rattling and shaking and quaking of the castle.

Seemingly instantly, with a pop, the Lord of Chaos appeared drifting through the air above the Alicorns’ heads. He lazed back in a reclined position, wearing a bright, plaid hat, which had two chocolate milkshakes attached at the sides, straws snaking around his ears and horns to reach the Draconequus’ mouth.

Luna gasped, and stepped back in a panic as Pinkie Pie strode calmly out of the dark Alicorn’s astral projection, a determined look in the party planner’s eye, and a rubber-chicken tied around her neck… for some reason.

“Operation Soft Landing is a go!” Pinkie whooped, and pulled a giant-trampoline out of her mane with a flourish, setting it down on the crystal floor beneath where their otherworldly visitors would soon appear.

Discord chuckled, took a sip of his milkshakes, and snapped his talons. A hefty, Princess-sized mattress appeared up against the bookcase directly facing the Mirror, backed up by what appeared to be a mountain of packaging peanuts, and some sort of soft goat-cheese still in-wrapper.

Luna couldn’t figure out which was the more disturbing act.

“All-set, Twiggy Wiggly!” Discord laughed and gave a friendly wave, “One soft-landing, as promised!”

“Thank you, Discord, Pinkie,” Twilight nodded to each in turn, and then cast a fiery gaze back to the swirling portal, “Now, brace yourselves!”

With that, as though it had been given permission, the Mirror disgorged a blur of shapes and colors, allowing a rocket of gold, red, and purple to sail through the air at an unbelievable speed.

A rocket that soared straight over the trampoline, past the mattress and the cheese, and slammed so hard into the bookcase beside it, that the whole wall of books and wood casing came crashing down in an avalanche, completely submerging the ponies who’d just arrived.

All five of the room’s occupants stared, eyes wide open and mouths agape, at the carnage. Twilight blinked a few times in rapid succession before she slowly managed to turn her head back around to the Draconequus hovering behind her.

“Discord…” she growled.

“Hey,” he shrugged, and went to examine his nails, “You get what you pay for.”

“I wasn’t paying you anything!!”

“And that’s what you get!” he smirked. And, with a snap of his fingers, Discord left this story forever.

When the Princess turned her perturbed gaze over to Pinkie, the pink mare could only shrug and say, “Well, you asked me to help with this, so it’s more or less your own fault.”

Twilight sighed, irritably. “Yes… I should have known better. Thanks anyway, Pinkie.”

“No probleomie macaroni!” the party planner pony gave a hasty salute, and began to bounce her way out of the room, to wherever she needed to go next.

Which so happened to be a secret party she needed to get ready, since the guest of honor had just arrived…

Midnight groaned beneath a mountain of books. Getting launched through an interdimensional vortex hadn’t been the worst experience of her life. It was a lot like throwing oneself down a long, thin, rainbow-themed waterslide. Mildly exhilarating, but not too terrible.

Slamming into a bookshelf wasn’t fun. And neither was having what felt like an entire library drop on top of her moments later.

Castle of Friendship, she pulled her thoughts together in the dark, Two out of five stars. Would not recommend.

“Are you guys okay?” she could hear a voice calling out. It was so familiar, so… Twilight.

“Gimme a second,” Midnight growled. She took a few moments to review where her center of magic was coming from, and swiftly tapped into the mana-lines running through her body. While an equine body was quite drastically different in many ways from a human one, Midnight was glad to see the channels magic made use of were almost identical. It would be no effort at all to adjust.

Within seconds, the books covering her lit up within her aqua aura, and it took a mere thought to have them settled beside her on the cold floor. In alphabetical order, no less.

She took another moment to stand, at first trying to reach her two feet before realizing why that wouldn’t work. After a frightening, flailing moment, Midnight came back down onto her forehooves. Then, she raised one up, to get a good look at.

It looked like her usual, darker coloration had made it through the portal. She and Twilight, either of them, would be easy to differentiate. That was good.

“Huh,” she mused, examining the shape of her hoof, “Ponythings…”

“I would think you’d be used to this by now,” Twilight’s voice rang true in Midnight’s ears, causing her to twitch them reflexively as the sound reached her.

She hummed, “You’d think so, Twily, but losing fingers whenever you hopped over here before made my… skin… crawl.”

Midnight’s eyes slowly widened. There was something off about Twilight’s tone. It was close to normal… but not, at the same time. Like, her voice had been partially dubbed over, or had a reverberation added to it.

She raised her eyes up from her hoof…

… and finally noticed the Princess.

“Oh,” she said, jaw beginning to slacken, “I… I mean, I’m sorry…”

Princess Twilight chuckled, and pressed a comforting lavender hoof into Midnight’s own mulberry shoulder.

“You don’t have to apologize, Midnight,” her eyes sparkled with renewed interest, “I sometimes miss having fingers, too!”

She continued to laugh, lightly. Midnight couldn’t help but join in with her, the sudden tightness in her chest at possibly insulting royalty melting away.

“But, seriously,” Twilight said as her eyes began to take in every detail about her visitor, every difference between them, “I wasn’t expecting you to come through the portal. What’s going on?”

Princess Luna stepped into view, as well, a light smile on her muzzle.

“I am surprised as well. When I said we would speak tonight on you and your sister’s plight, I did not mean to meet you here tonight.”

“You talked to Midnight?” Twilight’s eyebrows arched considerably, “When?”

Midnight hung her head down, and tried to avoid eye contact, “I, uh… fell asleep after a test.”

“Huh,” Princess Twilight tilted her head to the side, “That’s… well, I would be too jittery after a test to sleep, but it does sort of sound appealing.”

“… really?”

“Yeah, really!” the Princess tittered, “Who would be such a tool to freak out over a nap?”

Another mound of books sloughed themselves off in a mini-avalanche, revealing a purple unicorn slowly rising from her own crash.

“Ugh,” Twilight sighed, and tried to adjust her glasses with her hooves, “It’s the thin-end of the wedge. If one Twilight starts acting strange, what does that mean for the rest of us?”

“A strange-acting Twilight?” a musical voice giggled above Twilight and Midnight’s heads, “Oh, my! How ever will Equestria survive!?”

Midnight glanced upward, and found at the top of the tallest set of legs there could ever be, the smiling face of Princess Celestia looked down upon them all with a wide, and gleaming smile.

“Har har!” Princess Twilight rolled her eyes in jest, “I’m a lot better than I used to be…”

Celestia laughed, “Oh, don’t be that way! I’m just a little excited to see the old unicorn look again.”

Her eyes narrowed, somewhat, and Midnight could feel the temperature rise just a hair all around her.

“Though,” the Sun Princess hummed, “I have had some… bad experiences with evil-versions of my friends and family…”

“Evil-looking…?” Midnight quirked her head in puzzlement, “What… wait… unicorn!?”

She spun her head around like it was on a swivel. Midnight gaped at her side, where she had been expecting a brace of black, hawkish wings.

She found bare fur. Not a trace of her previous wings could be found.

“Awww,” she sighed, a little petulantly, “That’s so unfair.”

Twilight trotted up to her sister, and pressed their sides together as she came in for a quick, loving nuzzle. It actually felt… nice, to Midnight, who returned the affection.

“Guess you’ll have to either steal everyone else’s magic again,” Twilight chuckled, “Or earn them the right way this time around.”

Midnight looked back once more; sadness evident in her eyes. “I… guess. But they were mine, you know? I never knew life without them.”

“Well…” Princess Twilight tapped her own chin lightly, “I did offer to teach you two some magic. I suppose that would be your first step…”

The Princess nearly choked as the air seemed to displace before her, and a dark purple unicorn nearly popped up in her face, noses mere inches apart. Twilight backed up half-a-step, and reared back reflexively.

“Really!?” Midnight squealed, her pupils turning into saucers, and her hooves dancing lightly on the floor, “You mean that!?”

Pink telekinesis wrapped around Midnight’s barrel, and began dragging her back towards her sister, horn alight and sweat beginning to pool across her forehead.

“Whoa! Hold your horses!” she cried.

“Ah,” Luna’s tongue clucked, “You say that too…”

Midnight just looked back at Twilight with a manic glare.

“What’s the big idea!? We were just talking about magic!”

“You almost jumped down the Princess’s throat!” Twilight shot back, before giving her royal self an apologetic look, “I’m so, soooo sorry!”

“I-it’s okay,” the Alicorn slowly returned to a steady calm, and brushed down some of her bristling feathers, “I… I know how excitable a Sparkle can get.”

Midnight glanced between the two, a frown settling onto her brow.

Was I really being too forward?

She narrowed her eyes again, and looked back.

But, as she did so, a third pile of books began to stir.

“Sunset’s coming around,” Celestia sighed, “So, everypony? Let’s be supportive. Even if Sunset has moved past them, I can’t imagine not getting her wings will go over well.”

Twilight frowned, “Wait, not get her wings? What’s…?”

“I’ll explain in a moment,” the Princess directed the Sparkle sisters to face their friend, “But, for right now…”

Sunset Shimmer groaned. The books atop of her began to shake, and the whole pile slowly slipped off to her sides. Then, the larger portion of those books lit themselves up in a bright, golden aura.

Midnight, as well as her sister and the purple Princess, glanced over their shoulders to Celestia.

Celestia’s horn had not been ignited. Her large, purple eyes had narrowed to dots, however, and they drew everypony else’s attention back down to where Sunset lay.

The gold-coated pony stood, her horn blazing with a golden light. The books in her aura drifted through the air, and settled into their place upon the nearby shelves. As they floated, other books, left forlorn with Twilight and Midnight’s own piles, began to alight, and drift along after their brethren.

In moments, the shelves had been repacked, and every book had been replaced.

None of the Princesses noticed. Neither did Midnight, nor Twilight Sparkle.

Their attention was rooted, completely, to Sunset Shimmer, whose Alicorn wings were now extended at her sides, lit by an almost burning golden aura. The light shining off of her felt warm, as though the very sun were suddenly rising before them.

Celestia’s mouth fell open, and a thousand fumbling thoughts began to war for their chance to be voice first.

Sunset’s eyes opened, and immediately swept down to her sides. Shock, awe… and a wave of panic spread across her features as she took in the new addition to her biology, the profanity of it all.

The thing you wanted most, Midnight could see the thoughts forming in Sunset’s eyes, alongside the tears of shame, the thing you hate most about yourself… oh, Sunset…

“I… I…” Sunset reached out one hoof, gingerly, as if afraid to touch her wings, afraid that they were real, and not a figment of the demon she once was...

But, as Sunset’s hoof neared her hated desire, the silence of the library was broken by a thunderclap, and the sound of squealing horns blaring high in the halls. Streamers and strings and confetti blew out over the whole room. Party horns sounded throughout the castle, and balloons fell like snowfall from the ceiling.

A gold and red banner fell from up above, to the infinite horror of the pony it was meaning to celebrate.

‘Congratulations Sunset Shimmer!

New Alicorn Princess.’

“Woooo! Yeah! Alright! Go, Shimmy!!! Yeeeeah!!!”

Slowly, every eye in the room, with the sole exception of Princess Celestia’s, slid away from the golden Alicorn in the library, and came to rest on the pink party planner pony, who sat atop a smoking party cannon, and who was even now spinning noise rattles in her two forehooves, while blowing on a colorful party horn.

The sudden attention was not lost on her.

“What?” Pinkie Pie frowned, “Too soon?”

7.9 - Wednesday Night: Bonus

Author's Note

For those of you just joining in, a Phantom Update screwed up the notifications, so you probably missed the previous chapter. Go take a look, in case you did. Otherwise, hooray! The Tracking system should be working again.

Thank you, everyone, for reading this story!

7.9 - Wednesday Night: Bonus

Meanwhile…

Celestia smiled, contentedly. She’d forgotten how good cake-flavored ice cream tasted, what with the diet, and all. But, a little indulgence, once in a while, was fine. Right?

She leaned back into the plush leather back seat cushions, and sighed, a weak smile on her face.

“So, you’re not retiring?” she asked.

Disqord, sitting in the front seat, admiring the view from his Fjord Coop, finished off another ear of corn – lathered in chocolate and jalapeno sauce – and chuckled, dryly.

“No, I suppose not,” he said, tossing the cob out the window, and into the darkness of space, “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t pass on the secrets to cheating at life to another generation of students!”

Celestia snorted, “Now that I can actually remember your real lesson plans, you realize I’m going to be keeping a much closer eye on you?”

“Finally! A challenge!” he grinned, and started fiddling with the radio. He passed through several astronaut communication channels, what sounded like a new Gladmane song – despite the King of Rock being dead for forty years – and some talk radio station from a universe where the only word in any language was ‘cheese’, before finally settling on some Porto Geese network playing a 24-hour marathon of Skullcruncher.

“It’s amazing, really,” Celestia put her feet up on the door of the ancient, black car, “that I’ve gone so long without doing this with you and Luna. Even if I didn’t realize we were hanging out on the moon at the time…”

Disqord smirked, and glanced out over the chalky white landscape. Off in the distance, he could make out where a few of Luna’s previous sandcastles still lay, forlorn and forgotten by their creator, though not by a few crackpot conspiracy theorists on whatever social media platform was the big thing these days.

Beyond those, Luna was simply running and jumping with a pair of mochaccino-flavored snow cones in her hands, enjoying the lowered lunar orbit like she was a student once again.

“Professor?” Celestia’s voice brought his attention back to his boss, sitting in the backseat. “You’re sure that no one who used to be a student of yours outside of Canterlot will cause a problem? Suddenly remembering what really happened?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Disqord said, winking to himself in the mirror, “At worst, the tabloids will finally be interesting for a few days before the story fades away again.

“Most people just want to be normal, for whatever that’s good for!” he continued, shrugging, “No one will say anything, if they can help it.”

“And the ones who can’t? Like Cranky? Or Cinch? Or Sombra?”

“Still don’t want to be called crazy,” he said, eyes spinning briefly as he did so, “Cranky’s a well-known crackpot, Cinch hasn’t been heard from since the Friendship Games, and Sombra…”

He paused, and pulled at his beard.

“Mm. Might have to check in on him…”

While he thought, the two continued in companionable silence. Celestia, again, marveled at being on the moon, not quite believing it, despite taking trips up here with Disqord and Luna so many, many times before.

I think we accidentally left her here once, she chuckled, a bit halfheartedly, to herself, Which probably didn’t do our relationship any favors…

“Tell me,” she prompted, once more, “Did you really get this car from Fermi Apple?”

Disqord smiled, and his eye twinkled.

“Well,” he said, nostalgically, “The bootlegging business wasn’t doing so hot anymore, and he wanted to settle down with his ladyfriend…”

“Granny Smith’s mother.”

Disqord nodded, “Precisely. Fermented was the best TA I ever had! Of course, I helped him out.”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow.

“I did a paper on him in college, for a criminal justice course. Wasn’t he part of the mob…?”

“We all have our pasts,” he responded quickly, “Or do I have to remind you of your Gothlestia phase…?”

Celestia grew very quiet.

Then, she sighed.

“Guess we should head back,” she said, “See if that… purple winged unicorn thing in front of the school has blown anything up yet. I know Sunset will probably handle it, but I worry.”

“And that makes you a great educator,” Disqord nodded, sagely, and revved up the engine, “Also, I believe that was Twilight and Midnight Sparkle, fused together into a pony body.”

“Of course, it was.”

Disqord’s eyes narrowed.

“Hm… Luna appears to be fist-fighting with an astronaut, over there.”

Celestia sighed. Again.

“Of course, she is…”

8 - Thursday: Everybody Talks

“I actually miss Cordwood,” Trixie sighed as she wiped off another layer of Smooze from her jacket, “Disqord is, like, totally a jerk!”

“Yeah, well… nobody’s perfect,” Midnight growled beneath her breath, and flicked bits of the goopy green gelatimorph off herself. “I just wish he’d take us somewhere that wasn’t immune to my magic.”

The two girls were standing beside Midnight’s locker, where they were quickly using up Midnight and Twilight’s stash of wet-napkins in order to remove the strangely anti-magical remnants of Professor Disqord’s zeroth period course from their clothes. Unable to simply refresh themselves through Midnight’s magic, the two settled for tossing the used cleaning supplies into a levitating trash can.

It was supposed to be a physics lesson. Instead, the whole class got to see what the Ooze Dimension was like, firsthand.

“Still, Ooze-Trixie was kinda fun,” Trixie shrugged, pulling a wad of green goop from her ear, “And Ooze Twilight was still a total nerd…”

Midnight drew back another wipe from her hair, confident that she’d finally extracted maximum Smooze from her head at last, when a strange sight caught her eye. Several long strands of dark purple hair were lying, tangled, amid the sludge.

Stress, the little shadow in the back of her mind hissed, You didn’t lose even a wink of sleep before…

She glared at the strands for less than a second before tossing the rag away, and got to work on her shoes. Luckily, Rarity had picked stylish and practical materials for them, so cleaning up would be easy.

While wringing the last of the Smooze from her shirt, Trixie flicked a seemingly disinterested look over Midnight’s way.

“Hey, Bestie?” she asked, seemingly casually, “You doing okay?”

Trixie? Midnight thought, Interested in someone else? Must be up to something…

“I’m fine,” she said, though the way she clenched her teeth had even caught her by surprise.

“Yeah, you say that…” Trixie finished wiping down her legs, and continued with her hair, “… but you’ve been sort of… kinda… a huge jerk today. Being short-tempered, snapping at Ooze-Sunset…”

“I’m not a morning person,” Midnight said quickly, finishing up her Smooze self-clean.

She just wants you to be as broken a mess as she is…

Trixie frowned, her fingers tapping nervously against each other. “Look, if this is about me helping your other, less important friends tie you up yesterday, Trixie said she was sorry!”

Midnight sighed, and leaned against her locker. She reached up to her head with both hands… and then thought better of running them through her hair, instead rubbing remnant sleep from her eyes.

“I’m not mad about that, Trixie,” Midnight said in a seemingly calm, reasonable voice, “I’m just…”

“Not sleeping well?”

Midnight’s lips drew into a grimace.

“… Yeah. That.”

“So, I guess the High and Mighty Moonbutt didn’t show?” Trixie asked, though her eyes were now roaming towards the inside of Twilight’s locker, possibly looking for food, but more likely for something to use against her later. Unfortunately, there were no diaries or scandalous posters to be seen. Unless you counted the odd shrine to that funny π thingie…

Midnight closed it with a flick of aqua-blue magic, startling her blue magician friend.

“No, she didn’t.” Midnight rubbed her eyes again. “And… the dreams are getting worse.”

She took a breath.

“Last night,” she began, slowly, “I… was back in Crystal Prep. Twilight too, but we sort of share dreams.”

Trixie asked, hesitantly, “Was Principal Cinch there?”

She wouldn’t understand…

“No,” Midnight said, simply. “No, it… it was just me.”

Lies aren’t conducive to friendship, sugarcube, another voice in Midnight’s head sighed, very much in Applejack’s most disappointed tone.

“It wasn’t like the halls were twisted, or discolored, or that anyone there was a monster,” she pressed on, “But… that place never needed to be anything other than it was to be a nightmare…”

Trixie’s hand settled on Midnight’s shoulder. She said nothing, until Midnight opened her eyes, and saw the worry in Trixie’s.

“Hey,” she said, quietly, “If you don’t feel like doing the show with me today…”

“No!” Midnight protested, more vigorously than even she’d meant to, “Uh… no. I’m good to help. Honestly, I think I could use the distraction. Twilight’s just doing inventory after school anyway, so I won’t be needed for a while.”

“What are you needed for?” Trixie asked, eyebrows raised, “I mean, I know you’re both eggheads, but what actually are you building?”

Midnight smiled, glad at the brief distraction.

“Well, the big problem with setting up a point-to-point VR Simulated Communication System between here and Equestria, besides keeping the portals open,” she said, her smile growing as her voice quickened, “is battery life! So, Twilight and I thought we could combine Science and Magic to make a more stable power source, a generator of unlimited – but safe – power to, uh, power the hologram-projectors.”

She didn’t squee, but came quite close.

Trixie hadn’t moved since Midnight started. She didn’t even blink.

“So…” she frowned, “You two are building, what? A nuclear generator?”

Midnight shook her head. “No! Nothing like that!”

“Oh good!” Trixie sighed, and wiped her brow with one hand, “You had me worried there for a second…”

“It’ll involve a lot more blackholes than a typical nuclear reactor,” Midnight tittered, excitedly, “Though we’ll still need to procure some graphite to protect against—”

“Are you kidding me!?” Trixie shouted.

Midnight blinked. “What? The science is sound!”

Trixie pinched the bridge of her nose, and slowly recomposed herself.

“Bestie? If you get me sucked into a black hole, Trixie will kill you.”

“You’d be dead too, you know?” Midnight growled. Then, with a curious look in her eyes, she mused, “Though, if that happened, we’d be trapped in the event horizon for all eternity, neither dying nor living, so I don’t…”

A sudden cry cut her off. “Hey!”

Both girls turned towards the sound, and saw a familiar, green-haired girl racing over to them. The ruffled – and now panting – form of Wallflower Blush came to a skidding stop in front of the lockers, her hands on her knees.

“Hi,” she breathed, “Glad I caught you, Midnight…”

Wallflower’s breathing slowed, and the often-rumpled girl stood up straight again. Her cheeks were still flush from the run, but her eyes were focused like lasers on Midnight.

“Um, can we help you?” Trixie butted in with a light touch of mean-girl energy. The irritated look she immediately got from Midnight, who half-turned back to glower Trixie’s way, caused her to blanch, and take an appropriate step back.

Thus, unhindered by Trixie’s jealous streak, Midnight could face Wallflower head on.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a softer tone.

Wallflower blushed. She glanced over her shoulder, and bit her lip.

Then, she asked, “Can… can we talk alone?”

Midnight glanced behind her, and gave Trixie a meaningful look.

Thankfully, Trixie noticed the look, for once. She nodded, and began pulling back.

“Right, Trixie has some stuff to get ready for tonight anyway. Catch you at lunch?”

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Midnight called back. For a moment, she even felt the smile touching her lips.

Then, she turned around.

“So, what’s the problem?” she asked, crossing her arms.

Another distraction from what’s really eating you…

Wallflower looked about again, that same worried expression fixed on her face.

Midnight sighed, “We’re alone. Zero and First have an extra five minutes in between them, and when was the last time anyone besides… well, me and Twilight, ever tried to be on time around here?”

As her words appeared to filter through, Wallflower took a long, deep breath and sighed. Her shoulders relaxed, and a little more of her own color even looked to be coming back.

“I… screwed up,” Wallflower began, slowly, “Like, really, really badly.”

Midnight frowned. “Considering the last time you ‘screwed up badly’, you violated my memories and that of my friends and almost…”

She paused. Midnight closed her eyes, and took a slow breath herself.

Trixie was right… you jerk.

“Sorry,” she said, “Continue.”

Wallflower stared at her for a moment, but pressed on.

“You remember what happened to the… the Memory Stone?” she whispered, eyes looking away from Midnight’s.

“I think Princess… Me,” Midnight sighed, and shrugged, “took the bits back to Equestria for study. Why?”

Wallflower kept her gaze on the floor for several long, quiet seconds. For her part, Midnight held back, not wanting to push the girl in any way. She could still remember the moments that had led up to her initial ‘birth’. Wallflower probably also wouldn’t do well to have a chorus pressuring her.

Then, Wallflower’s fists clenched. She reached up, and grabbed for something at her collar. Her hands withdrew from just under her frumpy sweater, a light string necklace coming with it.

A necklace with a shard of stone at its clasp.

“I’m sorry!” Wallflower closed her eyes again, tears forming quickly. “I found it last week, and I… I didn’t know what to do!”

After an initial moment of shock, the analytical side of Midnight began to churn and whir to life like an engine, freshly oiled and set loose. She leaned forward, and reached out for the stone.

Taking it between two fingers, she searched the shard with exacting precision. Honestly, it looked like every other pebble or stone strewn about the parking lot and the school fields.

Ah, she said to herself as her eyes found the edge of a carved swirl, There it is.

“And… you brought it to me because…?” she asked, leaving the question hanging in the air.

Wallflower blinked.

“You’re not mad I kept it?” she squeaked.

“You’re talking to Magic-Problem-Solving Midnight, at the moment,” she said, dropping the stone shard, “We can freak out and scream when Revenge-Midnight returns. Now, what’s the actual problem here?”

Wallflower blinked, again. Then, perhaps deciding to just go with her good fortune, she asked, “You can do magic, right? Like the Rainbooms? And the Princess?”

Midnight smirked.

“Wallflower… Wally. Can I call you Wally?” she said, polishing her nails against her jacket lapel, “How fast is Rainbow Dash?”

“Um… really fast?” Wallflower shrugged.

Midnight shook her head, and laughed, “Wallflower, I’ve seen Rainbow Dash play one-on-one basketball against herself. Compared to anyone else, she’s the fastest thing imaginable.”

She folded her arms again, and shot the gardening enthusiast a triumphant grin.

“And in Magic? I’m above her by about the same margin. So just tell me what’s up. I can help.”

Wallflower took another breath, and cupped the stone in her hands, like it was a fragile piece of glass. “The problem is, I want to restore a memory. Or rather, memor-ies. For someone I know.”

“Oh?” Midnight leaned forward again. “What sort of memories?”

“The, um…” Wallflower lived up to her surname, suddenly. Her whole face shifted from its natural green shade to a hot, flaming red. She pointed her eyes down, towards her feet.

“The… amorous… sort…” she finished, her voice croaking as it slid into near-silence.

Midnight’s eyebrows shot up, and her lips drew back in a grimace.

“Oh… bad breakup?” she asked.

Wallflower seemed to shrink more and more into her sweater.

“No,” she said, finally, “It was actually… really good. Too good.”

Midnight furrowed her brows. “How can a relationship be too good?”

Wallflower looked away.

“When you don’t think you deserve nice things.”

A distant door opened, and slammed shut. The far-off sound of students beginning to drag themselves into the main school building could be heard, but did not intrude on the bubble of silence that seemed to fall over Midnight and Wallflower.

Midnight’s voice had failed her, for a moment, as she took in what the other girl had said. It was so familiar a feeling that she almost felt like she was back in her nightmares; a place where everything she’d ever said or thought could be thrown back at her in some way.

But those thoughts were for later. Midnight reached out a hand, and gently touched Wallflower’s chin.

Guiding Wallflower’s face back up, Midnight fixed the girl with as hard, and as baleful a glare as she could.

“Never say that again,” she whispered. “You deserve nice things.”

Wallflower was so distracted by Midnight’s eyes, full of blue flames and an unspoken wrath, that she hardly noticed, nor complained, when Midnight took hold of the stone around Wallflower’s neck with that same hand, and tore it from her.

The blue light flowed from Midnight’s eyes into her hands. She held the stone out, and began to pour her magic out. The lockers around her and Wallflower shook violently in their mounts, and a few loose screws and nails clattered across the floor.

Give me your magical secrets, Midnight demanded, scowling all the while.

A thaumo-spectral analysis would show lingering magical energies, but if I apply that to a more comprehensive sympathetic-spell, I could then re-route a chronomic function…

Wallflower watched in stunned silence as the magical light condensed around the stone, which was now floating between Midnight’s hands. It might have been the unflattering fluorescent lighting, or the way magic flowed along her arms and clothing, but Midnight Sparkle was far more… frightening than Wallflower had initially thought possible.

Earlier, it had seemed so simple. So easy. Just walk up and ask the clone of everyone’s favorite nerd-girl to see about fixing that one magic artifact she desperately needed.

No problem. Right?

Right.

Wallflower had been tending to her garden during the finale of the Friendship Games. And even from her secluded little grove a stone’s throw away from the school, she could see the sky rip open as a Goddess of Dark Magic had descended upon the games.

Seeing a disaster at a distance was one thing. Having the power to make the monster forget about you was also another thing.

Somewhere, in the back of Wallflower’s mind, she remembered a tiny little conversation she’d had with Sunset, back when the two had really opened up to each other after the Memory Stone thing.

Wallflower thought she could see shadows branching off of the girl before her. Dancing shadows in a corona of starfire.

Wallflower suddenly realized she was the dumb kid in the old stories, asking the all-powerful witch for a wish.

“… aaaaaaand, done!” Midnight sighed in relief as she finally let go of her spells. Only seconds had passed, but with the sheer amount of testing and analyzing she’d gotten done, it felt like she’d just tried running a marathon.

She shook her head again, and held the stone up to catch the unflattering light.

“Alright, from my analysis, I…”

Midnight frowned. She looked over to Wallflower, and tilted her head to one side.

“Uh, Wally?” she asked, taking special note of Wallflower’s rigid body posture, and the fact that her pupils were shivering dots at present, “You okay?”

Wallflower blinked twice before answering.

“Uh, yeah!” she said, a bit too loud, “No problem! Um… what did you say?”

Midnight, deciding that her time was running short, shrugged off the reaction. “I said, I can’t find any trace of the stolen memories,” she said, tossing the stone back to its owner, “I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible to restore memories that have been taken past their three-day expiration date.”

Wallflower’s face fell.

“Oh…” she said, voice croaking now from a complete loss of anything resembling energy, “So, I guess I should have known. I… I ruined everything.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Midnight, shrugging, “Just that you can’t restore the very original memories.”

Wallflower gripped the stone, tightly, with both hands.

“You… You think you can…?”

“Close your eyes,” Midnight commanded, “Quickly!”

Wallflower, not wanting to overthink the moment, did so.

Midnight reached out her hand, and pointed one finger directly at the rumpled green romantic. A flicker of light formed at the fingertip, and a bit of magical static formed between the two girls.

“Think of the person whose memory you want to restore,” she whispered, “And think of what you want them to remember.”

Compared to her last bit of sorcery, this was far less… dramatic. There weren’t any explosions, or thrumming sounds, or anything cool and nifty like that. There was a bit of sparkly light, and a sound not unlike a buzzing bee. But nothing would catch fire, and nothing would…

Hm. Best not to rule out any sort of collateral damage.

Midnight felt something, a presence. No, an impression. It was like a painter seeing the completed work before ever touching ink to page. The bubble of memories and feelings drifted, invisibly, through the psychic dimension.

She took those feelings, and pulled on them.

Balled up, tangled, and interwoven now, Midnight held the whole mess up in one hand, her hand that had cast the spell initially…

And then, she snapped her fingers.

Pinkie Pie paused, briefly, in the consumption of her waffle stack. She marveled at the way her left eye twitched, and how her knees and elbows vibrated precisely in a C-flat.

“Oh boy,” she groaned, her Pinkie Sense never leading her astray, “Someone is stealing Discord’s bit…”

“And done!” Midnight proclaimed, proudly. Then, she snorted, and laughed, “Again, I mean.”

Wallflower’s eyes fluttered open. She looked about, and then down to the stone in her hands.

“It doesn’t feel any different than before,” she said, confused. “I thought you were gonna put the memories in the stone or something?”

Midnight flicked her hand irritably through her hair. “And why would I do that? It’s so much easier to just let the memories seek out the recipient directly.”

There was an ominous creaking sound. Midnight looked to her locker door, and found Wallflower’s hand gripping it.

The metal was about to buckle under her white-knuckled grip.

“You… you did what?” Wallflower’s voice came out hollow, breathless. Midnight noted the way her eyes were widening, and her jaw going slack. The way Wallflower’s breathing had sped up was also a little disconcerting.

“Um…” Midnight grabbed one arm in a feeble attempt at covering herself without looking like it, “I… may have sent the memories you were thinking of to whoever it was you were thinking about…?”

Wallflower hissed, panic in her eyes, “You did what!?”

But before Midnight could say anything more, a fell wind blew through the halls. A distant rumble became a roar, and a cry of rage, terror, and anguish shook the school to its very foundation.

“WALLFLOWER BLUSH!!!!!”

“… I’m dead,” Wallflower sighed, leaning into the lockers behind her. She pressed one hand to her heart, looking for a pulse. “I wanted to talk first…”

“Wait,” Midnight turned to face the oncoming storm, “Was that…?”

A smattering of students swept past the two arcana-dealing girls, all fleeing from the terror that lay behind them. Even the normally unflappable Derpy streaked by while wailing at the horrors about to be unleashed upon the school halls.

“Why is it always magic!?” she cried, before banking around the corner like a track star.

And, at last, she appeared. The one for whom Wallflower had done all this…

A pale-yellow girl turned the corner, and glared down the hall. She adjusted her heavy, black glasses, and flicked her tangled nest of red and lavender hair back. The black sweater, usually a little scruffy, or fuzzy, now made her look no less than a dark wraith, descending upon her prey.

I should go, Midnight thought to herself, being capable of knowing when a train wreck was in progress.

... But I can’t look away…

“H-hi… Moony…” Wallflower squeaked, and turned to face her doom, “How…?”

“No!” Moondancer snapped, a pointed finger already up in Wallflower’s face, “No! You don’t get to call me that!”

Moondancer’s scowl could have melted a block of iron, Midnight thought, and probably whatever was sitting behind it. Her fury was overwhelming, and even upsetting to look at.

The tears at the edges of Moondancer’s eyes were steaming.

“How could you do that to me?” she snarled, “To us?”

Wallflower wilted beneath the scouring, but she didn’t run. Running, and hiding, and erasing minds was precisely how she didn’t want to resolve things anymore.

“I wasn’t thinking…” she answered, her voice lowering into a scared whisper, even as Moondancer loomed over her, “I was scared. Things weren’t supposed to be that way. I wasn’t supposed… wasn’t supposed to be happy…

“I’m sorry,” she said, teardrops hitting the tiles below, “I don’t deserve what we had. What I took from you.”

Midnight glanced between the two girls, one nearly aflame, the other slowly crumbling into dust.

Their vision is based on movement, she thought to herself. If I just don’t move…

Moondancer’s scowl didn’t change. But, as her breathing evened out, and her shoulders lost some of their furious rigidity, she slowly reached her hands out…

And gripped Wallflower’s sweater in a vice. She hauled the frumpled, emotional mess back up to her feet, and planted their noses within inches of one another.

Wallflower swallowed, fear replacing shame for a moment.

“You…” Moondancer hissed, “… are going to meet up with me at Sweet Snacks Café. We are going to have shakes. Strawberry for me. Vanilla for you.”

Blinking, Wallflower tried to make eye contact with Midnight, but a second pull from Moondancer brought her attention back to where it needed to be.

“And then,” Moondancer continued, “We are going rollerblading. Am I making myself clear?”

A confused look came over Wallflower’s face. She furrowed her brows, and bit her lip in thought.

“Why is that so familiar?” she asked no one in particular.

“Because that was our second date,” Moondancer let her girlfriend drop from her grasp, “According to… whatever you just did. And it looked like the best day of my life, and I will have that memory back!”

She jabbed Wallflower with her finger again, then pointed over the girl’s shoulder.

“Now,” Moondancer said, in a menacing tone that spoke of dark and unpleasant repercussions for denying her, “You will march to class, have a good day at school, and I will see you around six.”

“Um…” Wallflower glanced away, “Aren’t you…?”

“Mad?” Moondancer sneered, “Oh, I’m apoplectic. But everyone gets a second chance. That’s what Twilight taught me… at least before she melted her brain…”

She glanced at Midnight, causing her to flinch instinctively.

“Hey,” said Moondancer, “Thanks.”

Midnight just nodded, afraid to provoke another reaction.

Moondancer turned back to Wallflower, and said with grit, “Well? What are you waiting for!?”

Wallflower scrambled at once, almost leaving a puff of smoke in her wake as she took off in a dead sprint, the memory stone shard clattering uselessly to the floor.

Funny enough, Midnight could have sworn Wallflower was blushing again as she ran…

She turned back around, but Moondancer was already walking in the other direction. Midnight weighed the relative pros and cons… and made a quick decision.

“Hey!” she called out.

Moondancer half-turned, and stared back at her. Their eyes locked for what felt like an uncomfortably long time.

Then, Midnight broke the silence.

“We cool?” she asked, quietly, tapping her fingers agitatedly.

Moondancer watched her friend-but-also-not-friend for another long, uncomfortable moment.

“Yeah,” she said at last, a tiny, but genuine smile touching her lips, “We cool.”

And, with that, she left. Midnight finally let go of the breath she’d been holding, and planted her back to her locker for support.

“Okay,” she breathed, “That… was a lot in a very short amount of time. When did Moondancer get scary? I should really stop helping people…”

A familiar voice spoke up from where Moondancer had wandered off. “That’s probably not the sort of Friendship Lesson you were supposed to learn.”

“Bite me, Twi,” Midnight grumbled, and looked up at her sister. “Not in the mood for your…”

Midnight’s face paled.

Twilight noticed.

“Is it that bad?” she asked.

Midnight scanned Twilight’s tired, sagging face, and made a note to apologize to Trixie later. All that worry from her friend was probably justified if Midnight looked half as wretched as her twin sister.

“Yes,” was all she said.

Twilight, sighing herself, slid down to sit beside Midnight. For a moment, and just a moment, they were silent. Their shoulders touched, and that almost seemed enough.

“You left before I could ask about the dream,” Twilight unfortunately broke that silence. “Were you…?”

Midnight didn’t say anything, instead choosing to bury her face in her arms. Why bother? Twilight was in the dream. She knew what was going on.

“I didn’t want to talk about it,” she said, finally, “I still don’t. Not yet.”

Twilight, perhaps not noticing the tone her sister took, or perhaps ignoring it, replied, “I know you never really got closure for everything that happened at Crystal Prep. I got to keep all those memories…”

“Did you ever make up with Her?”

The word ‘Her’ was never quite so venomous, so direly spoken, as it was when referring to one particular woman.

“No…” Twilight shook her head, and quietly removed her glasses for cleaning. “… No, Cinch left before I got around to it.”

“You talked to the Shadowbolts after she left.” Midnight looked over to her sister, and raised a questioning eyebrow. “You were never going back for Her.”

Twilight regarded Midnight with an even look. She replaced her glasses, and sighed.

“You’re right. She’s the one we both never got closure with…”

“I don’t want closure with Her, Twilight,” Midnight growled, and shot back up to her feet, “I want to toss her down a well, or into whatever oven she keeps around to cook fat kids in…”

Twilight snorted a laugh, and giggled back on the floor.

“Okay!” she tittered, “That’s mean, but not inaccurate.”

Despite herself, and her own personal pledge to remain in a bad mood, Midnight soon joined in the short giggle-fit. She and Twilight laughed for several seconds longer, until the five-minute bell rang through the halls.

As the two gathered their books, and started together for Cheerilee’s classroom, Midnight couldn’t help but feel a lightness creep back into her step. Despite their dreams growing darker and darker, the simple act of laughing with her better half made it all seem…

It won’t last.

The Shadow was back.

Things don’t get better, it said. Other people change for the better. You change for the worse. Why fight fate?

Midnight almost missed a step.

And then she got angry.

No shadow, no dark thoughts or emotional baggage was going to tie her down, or ruin her day. She was past those things, right?

Of course, right! Midnight had her friends. She had her sister. She had an appreciable amount of her old mind intact, and a whole new set of memories and quirks with which to tackle life! She wasn’t about to let something like depression get the better of her.

The Shadow receded, and Midnight pressed on. Yes, Literature Class would definitely help clear her head. And she sat near Sunset, so maybe they could even talk about…

She blinked.

“Twilight?” she said, gripping her sister’s wrist to get her attention, “Where’s Sunset?”

Twilight’s eyes drew inward, just a skosh. Just enough for Midnight to know that she had already found something out, and didn’t want to bring it up right away.

“Twi…?”

“She…” Twilight stopped in the middle of the hall, and took a deep breath. “Sunset’s staying in Equestria today. I guess she’s still… dealing with what happened. She texted this morning and, I guess it all just came down on her at once.

“You alright?”

Midnight said nothing, at first. She gave away nothing. She merely pursed her lips, looked down at her shoes, and hummed to herself.

“Oh.” She said this out loud.

Still dealing with what I did to her, she said in her heart.

She turned wordlessly towards class, and started off again.

And the Shadow followed.

“So, you see, all things being equal… I’m not sure if I’m really a dog anymore.”

Spike sighed, and rolled over onto his back. He nestled down into the age-worn pillows and cushions on the Apple’s sofa, and took a long, hard sniff of them, for comfort. Smells were important to dogs, after all, and the Apple’s had the oldest, most storied smells around.

Smells like that were a sign of stability in an otherwise cat-infested, mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Since Spike’s audience of one wasn’t interrupting with questions or comments, he continued.

“I mean, being a dog is great! No worries, whatsoever. Just you and your humans. But… what is all that doggie freedom if there’s no intellectual stimulation? No challenge!” He offered up a little whine. “I mean, I’m smarter than most humans I’ve met… present company excluded.”

Spike smiled, chagrined. Hopefully his host wouldn’t take that last one too seriously.

Big Macintosh, sitting in an old chair, looked up from his whittling with soulful eyes, and gave the little dog a soft smile. It may seem strange to some for him and Twilight’s puppy to be friends, but Mac hadn’t made a big deal out of it yet.

Once it was clear that Big Mac was still listening, Spike continued.

“I’m smart these days. Too smart,” he said, scrunching his nose up at the confusing conceptions he was grappling with, “I mean, I have a Hooftube channel. I help Twilight out with her experiments. But… I can’t really seem to connect with dogs anymore.

“Here, watch!”

Spike gave a quick, sharp whistle. Big Mac was quite surprised his doggie lips could even do that. He was even more surprised when the family dog, Winona, came racing into the room.

She came to a halt mere feet from where Spike lay.

“Sit!” the puppy commanded, and to Big Mac’s further surprise, his dog did just that.

Spike then said, “Roll over!”

Winona complied, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she hopped to Spike’s commands.

“Good girl,” he said, reaching out a short foreleg to pat the other dog on her head. Praise over and done with, Winona simply curled up on the ground, and rested contentedly.

Alright… Big Mac supposed he’d have to give Spike that one.

“Winona treats me like a human,” Spike sighed again, “So do all the dogs at the park. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, you know?”

Big Mac nodded along, and gave nothing more than a muted ‘hm’, not wanting to interrupt.

Spike rolled over onto his belly, and groaned.

“So, if I stay a dog, I’m alone,” he explained, “And if I take Midnight up on her offer…”

“Ya think she can really do it?” Mac asked, finally cutting in.

Spike gave his friend a single, raised eyebrow, and said, “Dude, I’ve seen both of them spit in Nature’s eye more than a few times. If anyone can do it, it’s the Sparkle sisters.”

For once, Spike wished he really had hands. They always looked so convenient for knotting up one’s fingers together. He figured, from the way most humans did it, that it was a stress-reliever, and he needed some of that today.

“What if I’m overstepping?” he asked, though not necessarily of Big Mac, “What if they don’t think of me as family? If I’m not their pet… will they even want me?”

Before Spike could let out another dog-like whine, he felt a heavy pressure come over his head. A set of huge pink hands gave him a light rub atop his ears, and all was right with the world.

“Don’t you be thinkin’ that,” Big Mac admonished in his molasses-slow voice, “I know yer family loves you, if they feel even half of the affection Twilight shows you on a daily basis. Least, as far as I’ve seen.”

Spike chuckled, and pushed his friend’s hands away. “Yeah, I… I guess I’m just overthinking this. Thanks, Big Mac. You’re good to vent at.”

“That’s what Granny always says,” the big man grinned, and stood back up, “Now, while I gotcha here… y'all wanted ta take a look at my O&O set?”

“Oh, would I!?” Spike leapt up from the couch like he was expecting to fly. “Shining taught me how to play! Do you know anyone else? Maybe we could get a group together?”

Big Mac did actually give it a thought… and quite reasonably did not say the first, second, or even fifteenth thing that occurred to him at the moment. Mostly as he knew very few folks who were in on Canterlot City’s open magic secret, but bringing that up right now would probably not help Spike’s mood.

Instead, Big Mac had an idea. An awful idea. An awful, awful, wonderful idea.

“Ya know?” he said, slowly, as the two made their way to the kitchen, “My old history teacher from the high school taught me to play. I bet Mister Cordwood would love to play again…”

Thursdays. It was always Thursdays. Wednesday, you could at least say that the week was half-over. Friday, you could rejoice in the coming weekend. Parties, relaxation… whatever you could want.

But Thursdays were nothing. They were the doldrums of the week. The banal, void-like crepuscular…

Aria Blaze sighed, internally. Even talking to herself, she got the point. Thursdays were lame. And Thursdays the hour before the high school got out were worse, especially if you were working retail at the mall. As she was now doing, stuck behind an obnoxiously neon-lit desk, wearing an ill-fitting uniform covered in electronic circuitry.

Because electronics store, apparently. It was touching of Sunset Shimmer to have convinced the owner to give her a job, but… well. Retail.

Still, she thought, could be worse.

“Hey there, Aria…”

Like now. This is worse. This is very worse…

Zephyr Breeze strutted into the Ohm Depot like he owned the place, kicking up his flip-flopped feet and swinging his arms with utterly unearned swagger. The meat-eating grin he wore only managed to make Aria’s skin crawl as he strode on up to her desk.

“Zephyr,” she breathed, the desk beneath her hand groaning against the sudden, angry pressure put upon it, “I told you I wasn’t interested.”

He cocked one eyebrow up, his sheer ego probably blocking whatever signal Aria was trying to send.

“Ah, now!” he said, leaning onto Aria’s front desk, “Don’t be that way, baby. The Z-Man is gonna treat you to a de-lectable dinner tonight.”

“You steal a bunch of coupons to the pizza place?” she asked, forgetting for a moment that Fluttershy had warned her against engaging, even in put-downs.

“Taco Hut, actually,” he said with an oblivious flourish. Then, holding out a pack of said coupons, he smiled, and added, “Now, sweet Aria, what time can I pick you up?”

Aria’s face was, as ever, as passive and unreadable as a very angry stone wall. She looked down at the coupons. Then, she looked back up to the smirking, man-bun-wearing skunk who always timed his breaks to cross the mall, come into her shop, and annoy her to no end.

Sorry, Fluttershy, she thought to herself, but he needs to learn.

She took a breath, and began to speak in her typical, unimpressed tone.

“Murder is against Ohm Depot’s rules of employee conduct,” she said, casually, “But I’d make an exception for you. I already have the shovels, accomplices, and a van.”

Zephyr grimaced, but he didn’t lower the coupons, or drop the idiot grin completely.

“Oh…” he started to say before Aria continued to talk over him.

“I wouldn’t date you if you were the last living organism on the planet, and even then, it’d either be a pity date, or I’d be rebounding after getting dumped by a rock who couldn’t handle the fact that I have commitment issues…”

Zephyr’s eyes widened, and the smirk finally left his face completely. He bit his lip, and said, “Okay, uh, that’s harsh, and a little projection-y, but…”

“Zephyr,” Aria snarled in the calmest tone she could muster, “I am not into guys in the slightest, but even if I was, I wouldn’t go out with you because you are a low, cretinous thing. You are a hollow shell with a shriveled soul. A jackanape. A cream-faced loon…”

Aria hardly seemed to notice the barcode scanner crack in her hand, but Zephyr clearly did, as he began to step slowly back from the silent, seething woman.

“You are an eater of broken meats,” she continued, unabating, “a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave… and if you’re not out of this store in the next five seconds, I am going to skin you alive and wear you to your mother’s birthday party.

“Am. I. Clear?”

Zephyr paused, as the onslaught came to an end.

“Was that first part a quote, or…?”

It was with no small amount of déjà vu that Midnight walked up to the Ohm Depot once again. Or, for the first time?

“Huh,” she mused to herself, and hefted the backpack with her regular clothes over her shoulder, “Does it count as me working here if Twilight was the personality in charge when we were hired? Or, do either of us work here, considering…?”

She shook her head.

“Come on, Midnight,” she coached herself, “Stop thinking that way. You don’t need to add to the voices.”

Midnight’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh… I’m calling them The Voices now. Joy…”

Well, in either case, she had somewhere to be, and someone to talk to. And standing about, feeling sorry for herself and giving the Shadow more ammunition for her pity party – Pinkie’s least-favorite sort of party, as it happened – wasn’t helping with that.

So, after straightening up, and pressing down the skirt of her magician-assistant outfit, she took one long step towards the store…

… and had to dive out of the way as a green smear streaked past her, and tore off for parts unknown at speeds Midnight had only considered theoretical.

She hopped back up to her feet, and shot the rapidly retreating form a confused glare.

“Was… was that guy crying?” she asked no one in particular. Midnight huffed, and decided that, whoever that strange person was, it was no concern of hers. She wasn’t here for him.

The déjà vu came back, stronger than ever as she entered the store. The small space was covered in strings of neon brilliance, all made up to resemble computer circuitry, and its walls held racks full of (prop) phones, tablets, headphones, chargers, and even a few packs of replacement wires, plugs, and computer maintenance equipment.

There was also a small case of gum, on the main desk. Only Mr. Tape Deck, the store’s owner, could explain that.

“Hey, Aria!” she called out to the only worker at station during the dull, pre-rush hour, “What was that all about?”

The former siren glanced up from her computer screen, and the permanent scowl she always sported seemed to melt into a shape one might consider neutral, or perhaps vaguely interested. She casually tossed what looked to be a coupon booklet over her shoulder and towards the back wall trash bin.

“Hey, Midnight.” Aria sounded almost bored. That almost was about as enthusiastic a response as Midnight could have hoped for. “Just treating Fluttershy’s brother with all the respect he deserves.”

Midnight half-spun around, wide eyes hunting the near-empty halls for a sign of that strange, green blur.

“That was Fluttershy’s brother?” she gasped. “I think I’m feeling ashamed of him by proxy…”

Aria chuckled, darkly. “Yeah, Zeph’s an idiot and everyone hates him around here. I’ve only been here a day or two, and he’s hit on me at least a dozen times.” Still smirking gleefully at someone else’s expense, Aria frowned at Midnight’s obvious distress.

“You’re friends with Fluttershy. Don’t you remember?”

Midnight snorted, and hardly tried to hide her annoyed pout.

“No… I didn’t.”

When Midnight turned back around, Aria’s eyes were open and giving her a look like the Dazzling thought she was crazy.

Or, more likely, Aria was staring at Midnight’s outfit.

“You like it?” Midnight chuckled, and did a little twirl to show off the ridiculous, skirted costume she still wore from Trixie’s show.

Aria shook her head, and threw on a cruel smirk. “Did the circus have an opening for a new clown? Or do I have to rethink this whole relationship?”

Midnight felt a brief flare of panic well up in her chest… but she pushed it down as swiftly as it appeared, and snapped back, with a smirk of her own.

“Like you have room to talk!” She planted her hands on her hips, and tilted her head to one side. “I mean, I do love a good bit of science, but this…”

“… Is a uniform, jerk,” Aria grumbled, but with just enough lightness in her tone to tell Midnight she wasn’t too upset.

Midnight strutted up to the desk, swinging her backpack off her shoulder and planting it on the table next to the item scanner.

“Oh, I know,” she laughed, checking her bag’s zipper, “Twilight works here part-time. I think she’d wear that thing casually if Rarity promised not to murder her.”

Aria’s face froze. While Midnight checked her bag, the other girl’s eyes widened, and began blinking rapidly.

“Uh… Midnight?” Aria said, slowly, her solemn tone enough to catch Midnight’s attention, “I, uh… I was hired to replace a girl who stopped showing up…”

Midnight… didn’t seem to react. She also didn’t seem to move, except to move her backpack’s zipper up, and then down. Up, and down.

The thousand-yard stare, however, made Midnight’s mechanical movements a touch more unsettling than Aria expected. Midnight’s quickening breath, and rapidly sweat-beading brow made this even worse.

Aria swallowed, and leaned in.

“Midnight? Is something…?”

“PHONE!” Midnight shouted, hands flying up into the air. She immediately threw herself over the counter, grasping for the display models. “NEED PHONE NOW!”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Aria cried out, and grabbed the panicking girl’s wrists. After a few seconds of Midnight wriggling like a fish in her grasp – the irony was not lost on the former-siren – Aria managed to growl out, “It was a joke! A joke!”

Midnight’s whole body slackened, like a puppet getting its strings cut. Her eyes stared, unblinking at nothing. She remained half-leaning upright only because Aria continued to hold onto her wrists.

“Uh…” Aria glanced around, nervously, “You okay? Is it weird that I found the panicking less weird?”

“Okay?” Midnight squeaked out in a tiny voice. She blinked her eyes, mechanically, and drew in a sharp breath.

Midnight snapped upright, almost slapping Aria’s hands aside.

“Am I okay!?” she snarled, cheeks flush and eyes almost electric as she glared down Aria, “Did you miss the thing yesterday about me and my sister dealing with memory loss?”

“I take it, that was in poor taste…” Aria bit her lip again, and tried very hard to look away from the orbs of death glaring back at her.

“You think!” Midnight threw her arms up in the air, before grabbing at her hair and growling, “I’ve only been my own person for a few days, and I’m already dealing with… with having a psychotic episode! ANOTHER ONE!!!

“Do you have any idea what ‘too soon’ means?”

The store rang with Midnight’s furious cry. Even a few of the display cases rattled lightly.

But, while the scream still reverberated in the air, Aria was already glaring, already snapping back.

“Kinda!” she half-shouted, before remembering how empty and echoey the mall was this time of day. Her voice, so soon after Midnight’s outburst, seemed to echo off into the distance.

Then, quieter, with a hot red blush forming on her face, she said again, “Kinda.”

Aria crossed her arms, and looked away.

For a solitary moment, Midnight was sure she would explode. Her heart pounded in her chest, and a red mist was growing within her vision. Any second now, she might finally cut loose, and…

Aria’s eyes were off. Something about them was wrong. Midnight hadn’t really known any of the sirens, even in her former incarnation, and so all of her impressions of them had been formed through hearsay, stories told to her by her friends, and the past two days or so.

She was certain sirens didn’t cry, if the tales were true.

Now, Aria wasn’t crying, and Midnight had a pretty solid idea that she’d be in a hospital quickly if she ever said something like that where Aria could hear her… but Midnight knew that look.

She made that look, more than once. Usually alone, after dealing with Cinch, or Lemon Zest, or Sugarcoat, or…

“Talk to me,” she said, though her tongue felt like it was trying to talk through marshmallows. The bile of anger was still up in Midnight’s throat, though she managed to pull it back.

Aria half-turned back, eyes narrowing, becoming guarded. “Huh?”

“You said, ‘kinda’,” Midnight said, forcing herself to meet Aria’s untrusting stare, “What did you mean by that?”

“Why do you care?” Aria grumbled, casually wiping at the edges of her eyes, her glare daring Midnight to bring up the surprise moisture she found there. “What are you up to?”

Midnight held that glare.

“Aria,” she said, softly, one hand slowly reaching up, attempting to cross the emotional-picket line across the desk, “It sounds like you have something to talk about. And…”

She took a steadying breath, and pressed on.

“If you want this to work, like I do, then we need to be honest about these things. I… I’m sorry for blowing up, just now,” she said, her hand finding Aria’s, who did not resist the contact, “I’m scared, and… and I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up. Not yet.

“So, I’m sorry,” Midnight said again, “But it sounds like… maybe there’s a reason why you said what you said? Will you tell me?”

Aria glared. She glared at Midnight, and then glared down where their hands met. She glared into space, or perhaps a place and time no longer there.

Then, Aria glared back up at Midnight.

She huffed out her nose.

“Midnight… I’ve been sixteen for one-thousand years,” she whispered, a touch of anger in her tone. When Midnight didn’t respond, she added, “And for all of that time, my default state was ‘absolute witch’.”

She slowly let go of Midnight’s hand, and planted her own on the desk, letting her whole body weigh down on it. Aria bit her lip, and continued staring away from Midnight as she spoke.

“Ever since I’ve been old enough to remember stuff, it’s just been me and my sisters,” she said, jaw working in between breaths like she was chewing something impossibly tough and leathery, “I sort of remember Mom, but she wasn’t around that long. And Dad… less said about Grogar, the better…”

Midnight said nothing. A thousand questions burned at the edge of her mind, but she held the flames at bay. She starved them of oxygen.

She just listened.

Aria stood up again, eyes still distant.

“We survived because we had this magic,” she said, “When we sang, we could make ponies fight, and it fed us. Made us stronger. Even after we got sent here a thousand years ago by that stupid wizard…”

Midnight decided that mentioning said wizard was still alive would probably be best left for another time.

“… we could still survive off nothing more than our magic, as long as we kept making people fight and bicker. It honestly wasn’t all that much different than now, living paycheck to paycheck,” Aria sighed, and rolled her eyes, “But I don’t have to put people down now just to eat.

“We were toxic, Midnight.” She finally met Midnight’s eye again. “I haven’t been nice to anyone in centuries. I… I don’t think I remember how. And now that the magic isn’t clouding my brain…”

“You can finally see straight,” Midnight finished for her, “And realize what you did before was wrong.”

Aria’s eyes, guarded and angry before, now refocused sharply. There was a glint in her gaze, or perhaps a sparkle. A recognition.

Midnight sighed, her breath finally releasing the knot that had formed in her chest.

“I get it,” Midnight said, nodding along, “We’re both not used to being… human. But even if we’re both trying our best, most of our lives have been…”

“Evil?” Aria finished, a little smile creeping back onto her face.

“Yeah…” Midnight said, hesitantly, “Evil.”

The two stood in the silence of the mall. Each watched the other, neither knowing what to say next.

Finally, Aria sighed.

“I don’t think I even talk with Adagio about this stuff,” she said, leaning on the desk again, “She’s been super-focused on our ‘comeback’ since the Battle of the Bands. Maybe she’ll want to soon, but I doubt it.”

Suddenly, the original reason for Midnight’s visit popped back into her mind, from where it had been banished by her and Aria’s mini-meltdown.

She coughed once, to clear her throat, and asked, “Uh, what about Sonata?”

“What about her?” Aria frowned so hard that her eyebrows nearly knit together.

“You don’t talk to her about stuff?” Midnight asked, her eyes focusing on the box of gum still sitting on the desk by the register.

Aria guffawed. “Talk with Sonata?” she snorted, “Might as well bash my head against a brick wall, for all that’d do me! And I’d lose fewer brain cells.”

Midnight frowned, and crossed her arms defensively. “Sisters can be supportive, you know?”

“Not mine,” Aria said, shaking her head at the return of probably hundreds of memories of their collective antics.

Midnight pushed aside all that, however. She could pick the brain of an ancient traveler another time. Right now, she was finally on the subject she came about.

“How… is Sonata, actually?”

Aria shrugged, and gave a non-committed sound. Though, a moment later, she shot Midnight another curious frown.

Right, Midnight sighed, just go for it. Don’t blink. She might not totally dump you after this…

“I, uh,” Midnight stuttered, briefly, “The Apple cousins – you know Cookie, Cinnamon, and Oakley? – couldn’t catch up to her last night, and they told me at lunch that…”

“Catch up?” Aria questioned, “Sonata got home fine, if that’s what you’re asking. She hung out with you guys, right?”

Her frown evaporated, eyebrows jumping up her surprised face almost to her hairline.

“She was awfully quiet when she got to the van last night,” Aria chuckled, “So… whatever you’re gonna say, I approve of whatever you did. More of that, please.”

Midnight swallowed, though only a desert remained in her mouth.

“Ah… we might have accidentally showed her… Equestria.”

She couldn’t be totally sure, not without the sort of photographic evidence that lacking a phone had denied her, but Midnight could have sworn she saw something dark and shadowy move across Aria’s face. It was only for a moment, and then it passed.

Aria breathed slowly, through her nose. Her eyes flicked away from Midnight, and settled on her hands.

“Oh,” she said, quietly. Aria remained silent after. She was back inside her own head.

“Aria?” Midnight ventured.

Aria looked up, almost surprised to still have Midnight there with her.

“Oh,” she said, a little louder, “Yeah. I’ll talk to her. I’m sure she’s fine. I mean, it’s not like you meant to freak her out.

“Right?” the former siren asked, her voice growing harder and colder, “It was an accident?”

“Totally!” Midnight threw her hands out in a placating fashion, “We were just doing a science thing and, like, she was there eating tacos with Pinkie, and then we, ah…”

Aria shook her head, and reached out to grab Midnight’s flailing hands again.

“Dude, stop,” she sighed, though with a bit of a smirk returning, “I’m sure she’s fine. Sonata’s also over a thousand years old. She’s a big girl. Just with a tiny brain. It’s not your fault she had a bad moment.”

As Midnight calmed herself, Aria let go of her hands and looked to the small digital clock on the wall. The one that was working, as opposed to the rest of them up on the rack.

“Hey, can we avoid Big Talks for now?” she asked, suddenly, “As… ‘nice’ as this was, we should probably have one or more dates before that sort of thing.”

She snorted a laugh, and ran her eye up and down Midnight’s form.

“Assuming there will be two. Why are you dressed like that?”

Midnight blushed, and looked down at her magician’s outfit.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, defensively, “I told you I’m Trixie’s assistant in her magic show, didn’t I?”

“Might’ve,” Aria agreed, still smirking, “Still, why am I attracted to dorks?”

With a huff, Midnight returned to her backpack, and worked the zipper once more. “I didn’t have time to change, for your information…”

Satisfied with a quick rummage in the bag, she stepped back, away from the store desk. Midnight checked around her in a tight circle, and made sure there was space enough for what was about to happen.

“Uh…?” was all Aria managed to get out, before a ripple of electric blue light rushed out of the backpack, still sitting on the desk. It nearly blinded her as it went, but Aria could make out the wave of magical energy as it jumped to Midnight’s side.

The area around Midnight briefly caught aflame, all blue as her magic aura, and she vanished from view. But, in no time at all, the flames fell away, and the light returned to the mall’s typical, unflattering fluorescent white.

Midnight stood tall, in all her glory. She quickly patted down her pant legs, and checked her shirt and jacket for dust, wrinkles, and loose hair. Finding everything in place, she gave her long hair a playful flip to pull it free of her coat collar.

“Well,” she said with clear self-satisfaction and a gloating grin, “At least the underwear isn’t inside out this time.”

Aria’s jaw had nearly hit the desk, and her eyes almost followed suit, if Midnight could judge just where Aria was looking.

After a moment, Aria shook her head, and tried for a frown again, but to no effect. She was far too amused by what she’d seen.

“You had plenty of time to change,” she accused, even though her eyes sparkled in wonder, “You just wanted to show off, didn’t you?”

“A little,” Midnight laughed, stretching as she made absolutely sure her shirt was right-side out. A quick glance confirmed, to her satisfaction, that the magician outfit had also landed safely in her open backpack.

Aria watched her with open admiration. “Actually,” she said, grinning, “Any chance you could whip something like that up for my Dazzling outfit? I practically have to peel myself out of those stupid leather pants every night.

“Eugh,” she groaned, and covered her eyes with a facepalm, “Why did I let Sonata talk us into leather?”

When Midnight didn’t respond, Aria dropped her hand, and looked up. She quickly bit down on her tongue, just quick enough to stifle a giggle from escaping her mouth.

Midnight stood in the middle of the store, hands slack at her side, and mouth hanging open. Her eyes had shrunk down to pinpricks, a bit of drool threatened to fall from her chin, and her face was now so incredibly, blazing-hot red that Aria was sure she’d get a suntan if she stood too close herself.

“You alright, Midnight?” Aria asked, smirking all the while.

“Leather…”

“Yeah, I thought as… uh oh.” Aria quickly pressed down her uniform, and double-checked her workspace to make sure everything was ready. “I’ll see you later, alright? Looks like we got customers coming in, and I’d like to eventually make rent. For once…”

Midnight nodded, wordlessly.

Almost wordlessly.

“… pants.”

Aria shook her head, and suppressed another chuckle as she watched Midnight try to grab her backpack. She moved like a zombie, slapping at the bag with her arm without even looking at it. It was hilarious, honestly.

Unlike the way the next customer was walking up towards them.

She looked to Midnight again, and tried to get her attention. “Midnight,” she whispered, “I think this guy’s gonna walk right…”

Midnight’s brain was still in something of a haze. In between attempts to fully reboot, and momentarily push aside the image of Aria in… leather… pants…

What was I thinking again?

This was how she missed the way the man walking into the Ohm Depot took up a spot far, far too close, and set one strong, calloused hand on her hip.

“You made great timing, beating me here…” he said, as he half-spun the dazed Midnight about, and planted a kiss square on her lips.

The kiss was long, but entirely chaste. A thing of such loving beauty that, had there been one present, bards would have sung about the kiss for generations. It was one of the few perfect kisses, in all of recorded human history.

Aria stood behind her desk, wild eyes watching the romantic-ambush with both utter bafflement in her gaze, and another blush on her cheeks.

The man – boy, really – pulled away, and gave Midnight an almost… haunting look. Half-lidded eyes, and a smile practically made of roguish charm.

He was actually cute. Really cute.

That didn’t stop Midnight from reaching her arm back with brutal, violent precision, and cold-cocking him directly in his perfect bronzed jawline. But she could still appreciate it, even as she was about to ruin the lad’s whole career.

Aria flinched at the blow, and nearly dove beneath her desk. Just the sound of the punch rattled the shelves around the store, and the boy was still in freefall!

He landed like a sack of potatoes, almost ejected straight out of the store itself, and lay senseless across the linoleum floor.

Midnight shook her hand vigorously, and tried to ignore her potentially broken knuckle.

“Son of a…!” she snarled, biting back just the last word before rounding on the doomed fool who just tried something so… so heinous, “Aria?”

“Y-yeah?” Aria asked, peeking over her desk as Midnight’s eyes caught aflame again.

Midnight said, with a perfectly level voice, “I am going to deal with this now. Please don’t call the cops.”

Aria just watched as Midnight turned about, and stalked towards her prey.

“You…” she growled as she advanced, teeth clicking and hands crackling with wildfire, “How dare you? Did you think you could just… just do that? To me!?”

The boy – no, the idiot – groaned on the floor. He tried lifting his head, and ran a hand through his wavy green hair. His eyes rolled about his head, and didn’t seem able to focus on the approaching threat.

“I’m going to flay you,” she said as she stood over him, “I don’t quite know what that entails, but I’m sure going to have fun figuring it out as I go…”

She held up one fist, now glowing with magical fury.

The idiot’s lips moved, and a tiny, wounded voice garbled out something.

Midnight paused.

“What?” she asked, flames reaching higher and higher around her. “What was that?”

He spoke again, more clearly.

“Twi…light?” he croaked, “Did I forg…et your b…irthday, ‘r sumthin’…?”

The fires went out like a candle in a winter blizzard. Midnight’s eyes widened considerably as she took in his words.

She whispered to herself, in horror, “Oh… no…”

“MIDNIGHT!”

Midnight rocked her head up from the confused, battered boy, and saw her sister sprinting across the mall, a huge stack of notebooks and paperwork hovering in her own purple aura. Twilight came to a screeching halt just before she could trip over Midnight’s victim.

“Timber!” she called out, the healing spell she’d learned before already lighting up Twilight’s hands as she knelt down to medicate.

“Timber!?” Midnight coughed, her own hands slapping over her mouth. “Oh… oh no… oooooh, gosh… I didn’t know…!”

Midnight, despite her sudden panic, did a good job of ignoring Aria's laughter back behind her desk. It seemed the former siren had just connected the dots, and didn't much mind holding off her reformation until another time.

Twilight held her boyfriend’s head on her lap, allowing the spell to do its work to poor Timber Spruce’s thwacked noggin.

“What did you do!?” Twilight snarled.

“He… he kissed me!” Midnight cried out, waving her hands dramatically, “What would you have done if a strange boy ran up and kissed you!”

“Restrain him with magic and call Shining, of course!” shouted Twilight.

Timber groaned again.

“Uh… Twilight? Are you arguing with yourself?”

Midnight blinked rapidly, several times. Then, she leaned in just a bit more, and asked, “Twi? Did… you ever get around to telling Timber about… us?”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something. And then she shut her mouth with a click.

“Twilight…”

“I was getting around to it, okay!”

Timber snapped open his eyes. He looked directly up at the bespectacled version of his girlfriend.

“Twilight?”

“Yes.”

He looked down at the other one.

“… Twilight?”

“Midnight,” Midnight corrected, “This… um. This might take an explanation.”

Timber frowned, and turned his head to the side.

“Twilight?” he asked the third purple girl in the room.

Aria laughed, and said, “I’d give him that one. Poor kid’s concussed. You should at least buy him dinner for that beating, Midnight.”

Her eyes twinkled once more. And a smirk formed again.

“Hey, you need coupons?”

After several minutes of profuse, near-groveling apologies on Midnight’s part, she, her sister, and Timber Spruce headed to the food court to disentangle the incredibly messy web of relationships, magical experimentation, and memory-glitches the three were presently involved in.

For her part, Midnight found Timber to be… well, not her type. Not really Twilight’s type, either, but then she had to admit she and her sister were truly different people. She’d never suspected Twilight would go for an outdoorsy woodsman jock, for instance.

Still, he was a nice boy. Polite, but a little goofy. Earnest, but worldly enough not to be easily taken in. Honestly, compared to Aria…

Best not think about that, Midnight had thought at the time. Especially not about bringing either one home to Mom and Dad…

Timber listened to Midnight and Twilight’s story in silence. Or, the relative silence of someone chewing a plate of vegan nachos while his internal world was nothing but silent screams of existential terror.

Midnight could tell these things.

But he seemed to take it all well. More or less. He at least waited till they were done before asking questions.

And Twilight, throughout the whole talk, was on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown. Her explanations, though tempered by Midnight whenever Twilight went off course on a tangent or scientific-geek-out, were just a bit hyperenergetic and…

Truth be told, Twilight was displaying Pinkie Pie levels of panic. She was explaining a highly complicated and potentially spiritually-distressing concept to her boyfriend, and – Midnight guessed – second-guessing every single aspect of her life while worrying he wouldn’t want to remain in a relationship with a half-souled golem.

Not the words Twilight would use, but accurate.

Still. After an hour or so, Twilight had clearly exhausted herself, and Timber was allowed to respond.

And happily, he took it well.

“That’s…” He paused for several long seconds, sucking down multiple mouthfuls of water, and giving himself more time to process what he’d just heard.

He coughed, and started again. “That’s big.”

“Yeah,” Twilight sighed, “Yeah, I… I guess it is…”

She stopped when a hand gripped her own. Twilight looked up into Timber’s eyes, and smiled.

He said, “If you want to talk about it, I’m here. And if not… I’m still here.”

Timber laughed… then flinched as his still-mending jaw spiked in pain.

“Hnng… I’m not gonna pretend I understood all of that,” he continued, rubbing his chin gingerly, “But if I can stand up to Mr. Rich, I think I can stick through this with you. Uh, both of you.”

He smiled at Midnight as he said this, though chagrined and somewhat embarrassed.

Twilight, true to form, melted over that sentiment. Midnight… wouldn’t say she disliked it. But, for one reason or another, she was finding herself to be the more cynical Sparkle sister these days.

Well. Time would tell.

“I mean, at least he didn’t ask if he was dating twins…”

“Midnight…” Twilight warned, and angrily typed out the end of a line.

Midnight, from her own workstation in the lab, gave another cursory glance to the notebook she’d been handed once she and Twilight had gotten home.

“Sorry, sorry!” she laughed, “But, come on! You’re dating a jock! The Great Enemy!”

Twilight swiveled around, and shot Midnight an unamused, raised eyebrow. “Midnight? You’re literally dating a friendship-destroying monster empowered by Equestrian magic.”

“But she’s so cute!”

“Stop dating bad guys!”

“Never!”

After a moment’s hesitation, both sisters descended into tittering giggles. Midnight threw her hands up as she did, almost knocking over the cans of energy-drinks on her desktop, while Twilight held her mouth shut with both hands.

She didn’t want to wake Spike up, after all. The little puppy had slipped off to sleep hours ago.

About when they should have as well, Midnight noted.

“The Princess has great hoofwriting,” she commented, looking back at one of the many, many notebooks Sunset had tossed through the Mirror.

Twilight, not looking at the clock and its wretched displayed time, concurred. “She’s basically just us, but even further ahead in terms of… uh, most things, actually.”

The notebooks and papers were elaborate, Bitzantine in their intricacy. They were wondrous tomes of magical and scientific knowledge. The sort of glorious thing most academics would murder each other over, if they even caught the scent of such a treasure trove.

And somewhere in Princess Twilight’s school notes, there might lay an answer to building an engine or battery for their Big Project.

“Very impressive,” Midnight sighed, and punched in a few more lines of programming, as Twilight was also doing on her own computer. “I’m thinking we’ll need to get some more crystals. According to…”

She checked the notebook’s serial number and designation.

“… TN-Evoc-H.P122.pp3, magic is partially based in harmonics, so materials that are sensitive to vibration are ideal for conducting and directing thaumatic energy.”

She reached out for another can of Pinkie’s The Good Stuff, and found to her dismay that there were no more doses of her and Twilight’s most beloved pick-me-up drink.

“You think if we work through the night,” she asked idly, “that we’ll be too tired for nightmares?”

Twilight’s typing skipped. Midnight didn’t need to look up to know her sister was ramrod straight in her seat. Or that all of her caffeine drinks were also empty.

“… Isn’t it worth a shot?” Twilight asked, meekly. “Unless Luna’s free to help…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Midnight sighed, and watched the AM’s tick by, “Useless Moonbutt.”

Useless.

Midnight shook herself, if only to cast off the sound of that voice. The Shadow, she called it. Being this tired was making that all the harder.

Harder and harder.

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” she said, more to herself than Twilight, “At least… that’s some good news.”

“Good news?” Twilight groaned. “How can that be good news!? That means school will be out!”

Midnight slowly let her head sink to her desk, a brief, grim smile on her face.

“Never change, Twi. Never change…”

“And you are sure it will be over and done with?”

“Of course, Sis. My Firm never fails. It’s in the bylaws. By this time next week, your daughter will be completely free and clear of all charges, and her records sealed.”

“Wonderful! You do work miracles, Chryssy. Let those two boys of yours know their aunt appreciates their hard work.”

“… Abbie, Thorax and Pharynx are my interns. Not just my children. They’d do the work because I tell them to.”

“Well… fair enough, I suppose. Thank you, nonetheless. I take it there’s paperwork to sign?”

“Isn’t there always? Especially with the adoption. Bring the girl tomorrow. Let’s do a late lunch. Maybe I can cajole you into telling me what really happened at those games…”

“Thank you, Chryssy. Text the details.”

With an unsatisfying tap that would never compete with the wondrous sound of slamming a house phone, Abacus Cinch sighed with relief. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and stood still in the relative darkness of her living room, a dull fire the only source of illumination.

She needed the quiet, sometimes. In order to think. To reflect. To plan. Sometimes, it felt like darkness was her only friend.

There was a creak, off towards the stairwell. A loose board. She’d loosened it herself, for just such a purpose.

“Mom?” a little voice cut through the gloom, “Was that… your sister?”

Cinch opened her eyes, and glanced over to her recently-adopted daughter. The one bright spot in her life, at least these days.

When she wasn’t getting involved with the Law, at any rate.

“It was,” she said, her eyes watching the little girl’s for understanding, or perhaps an ounce of reality. Truthfulness.

The calculating manipulator, her now former middle school principal said of the darling dear.

Still, Cinch thought. It suits my purposes.

Cinch took a breath, and said, “Cozy Glow? We’re meeting the lawyers tomorrow…”

Author's Note

Oh no! That can't be good.

Also, did anyone else think there was a lot of blushing in this one?

Special thanks to the ever-wonderful Stinium Ruide for editing this chapter.

And with this chapter, we are entering the Endgame. I suspect three more chapters will follow, wrapping up Midnight's first (and longest) week of being a normal human being. What exactly is up with The Shadow? How will Midnight and Cinch's reunion turn out (place bets now)? And just why can't the Sparkle Sisters seem to catch a break?

All this and more... next time!

9 - Friday: Life's a Cinch, and Then You Die Part 1

The Mirror Room, deep within the crystalline halls of the Castle of Friendship, was steeped in perpetual twilit silence. Perhaps this harmonious, librarian gloom was a spiritual or magical extension of the castle’s very first resident, and her deeply ingrained love of all things bibliophilic. Or, maybe it was the result of the very Spirit of Harmony itself suppressing extreme lighting, energy, and passion to create a forum of friendship and peace…

Whatever the cause of the Castle’s tranquil nature, it was shattered by the opening of the room’s large doors, which heralded the return of the Princess of Friendship herself.

And her guest.

“Are you sure you’re okay to go?” she asked, almost pleadingly of her friend and fellow alicorn, Sunset Shimmer, “You’ve only been here for one day. I can’t imagine you’ve already acclimated to your situation…”

Sunset, in a rather improved mood from the day before, trotted into the Mirror Room with a heavy set of saddlebags on her flanks, and a skip in her step. Who knew Twilight had so many books on magical theory that she could send multiple loads through the Mirror on multiple days…?

Alright, Sunset admitted. Maybe I should have known…

She laughed, and rolled her eyes at Twilight’s question.

“I think I’ve had enough of moping around for a lifetime, Twi,” she chuckled, coming to a halt before the Mirror itself. Facing the magical artifact directly, she added, “Princess Cadance made some good points, and I should get up, and get back in the game…”

“What did you two talk about?” asked Twilight, just managing to avoid sounding completely desperate to know what had been said in the private meeting the night before.

“Plus,” Sunset said with a knowing smirk, as if she hadn’t heard Twilight’s question at all, “I got schoolwork to finish over there. You wouldn’t want me to skip out on schoolwork… would you?”

Her tone was teasing, but she could see in the reflection before her that Princess Twilight’s knees had started shaking at the question.

“N-no… of course not!” Twilight laughed in a way that was not healthy, “I just worry, you know?”

Sunset flipped the switch to engage the Mirror’s magic, her old journal perpetually plugged into the machine which powered the effect. She turned back around, and gave Twilight a bright smile.

“I know, Princess. I know,” she said, and reached out her foreleg for a hug.

Princess Twilight, letting go of her grimace, returned the gesture, and sighed into the side of Sunset’s neck as they hugged.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna tell me what Cadance said?” Twilight whispered, her voice like a fiddle string about to snap, “Cuz, like, you seem a lot more chipper than yesterday, and I could use that sort of pep talk training once in a while…”

Sunset snorted, loudly, and pulled back from the hug, laughing. The display of amusement might have gone on for a bit, if not for how one of Sunset’s new wings reached up, and gently wiped away the merry tear forming at the corner of her eye.

The human-familiar motion, while in a pony-familiar body, caused Sunset to freeze. She stared at the pinion that had drawn away the tears with an open expression of disbelieving shock.

Twilight winced, internally. She knew that look very well herself.

“This…” Sunset breathed, slowly out of her nose. “This will take some getting used to.”

“I was gonna say,” Twilight said, blushing slightly, and rubbed the back of her neck with one hoof, “You should probably come over more often, to finish… acclimating. I still scare myself in the mornings when I see wings, and I’ve had these for a while now!”

Sunset hummed to herself, eyes still locked on her wing. Carefully, almost mechanically, she withdrew it, and folded the new appendage back to her side, secured beneath her saddlebags.

“Cadance just talked about… stuff,” Sunset said, quietly. She blinked a few times, and rapidly, before she could look back to Twilight, and continue. “I always treated her like garbage, growing up, because of my own hang-ups, and… she sorta wanted to air all that out.”

Twilight frowned, a look of concern in her eyes.

“And… that’s why you’re in a good mood? You got a dressing down from my Sister-in-Law?”

Sunset smiled, and shook her head. “More like, we finally had that sister-to-sister chat we should have done years ago,” she said, eyes becoming far-off and away.

Then, she frowned. “Um… wait, I guess if she’s Celestia’s niece, and I’m her… uh, then we’re cousins…?”

There was a sound. A worrying sound. A terrible, blood-chilling sound that Sunset had learned, from her experiences with a slightly different Twilight, to run away from.

Squee.

Princess Twilight’s face was nightmarish, a horrific combination of unbridled joy, excitement, and smugness unbound. Her eyes were sparkling, and her teeth were bared in a smile that ran from ear to ear.

And on equines, grinning ear-to-ear was a lot more disturbing than on humans.

“Sister…?”

“Twilight, no!”

“Even cousin would imply…”

“I swear to Celestia…!”

“And anypony in the Royal Family would…”

“I will end you, Sparkle!”

“… naturally, be called a Pri—”

Sunset slapped her wings over her ears, and clenched her eyes shut.

“Lalalalala! I’m not listening! I’m not listening to you!”

There were, from there on, several unproductive minutes of chaos in the Mirror Room as Sunset Shimmer flew laps around the perimeter, while Princess Twilight Sparkle – Element of Magic, Sole Sovereign of Equestria, First Pony Among Equals, She Who is Friend to All, Guide of the Eternal Spheres, Civitas Auctor Imperialis, et al – chased her, while constantly shouting the word ‘Princess’ over and over again.

If Discord hadn’t already elected to stay out of this story, he might have even made an appearance, just to take it all in. Instead, the world would settle for a rather bemused Spike walking past the door at that moment, still brushing his teeth.

The little dragon watched the two alicorns descend into giggling fits as Twilight finally caught her prey and bore her to the ground, with piles of reading bean bags littered about.

Then, with a roll of his eyes, Spike chose to also leave this story, and go seek breakfast instead.

Minutes later, once the giggling had stopped and Twilight had finally allowed her to leave, Sunset Shimmer stepped through the Mirror portal, and returned home.

Flying down a tunnel of rainbow light wasn’t the worst way to traverse universes, Sunset had to admit. The trip was always over in an instant, despite it feeling like an eternity during transit, and she was pretty sure she’d eventually learn to stick the landing.

If it weren’t for the ticklish sensation that came with every bone and organ in her body shifting from an equine to hominid shape, and the awful itching feeling that came over her as her clothes re-emerged from her form, she might even enjoy the journey.

She flew out of the portal’s other end, right into the bright morning sunlight of another Friday at Canter—

“Duck!”

Duck?

Everything suddenly shifted to black and white stars as a splitting pain flashed across Sunset’s forehead. All she could fix in her thoughts was the sound of a baseball hitting the bat, or a ringing bell just as a truck smashed into it.

After the initial shock of… whatever happened, Sunset realized that she felt two distinct things. One was the cold, wet grass in which she was lying, sprawled out. The cold was actually almost enough to shock her straight back up off her back.

Almost.

Unfortunately, the other thing Sunset felt was her head throbbing like someone’d just cracked her with a brick. Her hands were already up, covering her whole face in a vain attempt to somehow cover up and stop the flaming-hot pain that saturated her entire head all at once.

Her eyes, skull, ears… heck, even her nose kind of throbbed at the moment. This was, quite possibly, the worst sort of pain to be feeling while one writhed on the ground in utter, abject agony.

“Oh, dang Sunset! You got knocked the heck out!”

Second worst.

Getting a Great and Powerful mocking was currently ahead of traumatic head injuries.

“Like, for real!” Trixie laughed, “You got shellack— oh crap…”

Sunset slowly lurched back up to a sitting position, one hand covering her forehead, and the other waiting in the wings if she needed to either put pressure on a cracked skull, or give Trixie one of her own. With the immediate shock gone, the rest of her head slowly began to dial down the eye-watering pain, by degrees.

She was even brave enough to open her eyes, despite the sunlight almost instantly making her remember some unfortunate late-night parties she’d gone to back when she was a filly at Celestia’s School…

“Bestie?” the blurry blue shape Sunset assumed was Trixie asked, hovering over a prone purple shape lying nearby, “You alright!?”

Sunset shook her head. And immediately regretted it as her brain seemed to rattle around like a bag of marbles. But, after a few more seconds – and to be sure, a few more seconds in head-trauma-time felt closer to forever – she was able to open her eyes again, and actually focus on what was going on.

Midnight was also sitting up, a few feet away. She was also clutching at her head, and shivering with the sort of pain that naturally came from smashing heads together with someone else.

Although, by the look on Midnight’s face, Sunset would have sworn getting fawned over by Trixie was somehow worse than the injury.

“I’m fine, Trixie!” Midnight snarled, batting aside her friend’s concern with her own hands, “Give me a minute and… and I might be able to stand up.”

“Midnight?” Sunset called out, despite her ears still ringing, “What happened?”

Trixie, taking a step back from either proned girl, looked at Sunset with wide-eyes.

“What happened?” she said incredulously, “What happened was that my best friend was just hanging out, moping as she do, in front of the busted Wondercolt statue…”

“Trixie,” Midnight groaned, “I was not moping…”

Trixie threw her hands out. “When suddenly! A skull-destroying missile came zooming out of the portal…!”

“Why didn’t you duck?” Sunset asked, trying desperately to ignore Trixie’s shrill rendition of events.

Midnight opened her eyes, and stared at Sunset with a look of confusion. The look shifted, subtly, into one of… sadness? And just as swiftly as the change happened, Midnight looked away, and towards the cold, wet ground.

“I, of course, tried to warn my bestie as the portal switched on,” Trixie continued on with her display, despite neither Sunset or Midnight paying her even the slightest attention by now, “But tragically, Trixie wasn’t fast enough!”

Slowly, Sunset managed to bring herself into a standing position. The pain hadn’t really subsided so much as it had taken a backseat to her curiosity, but Sunset wouldn’t let that stop her. She took a few experimental steps forward, and stopped blessedly soon after, the distance needed to reach Midnight being blessedly short. She looked down on her friend, as a pit opened up in her stomach.

Something about the way Midnight just sat there, in the cold mud, not even trying to protect herself, unnerved Sunset.

And her eyes…

“Midnight? Everything okay?” she asked, then felt her head again, “Besides the headache?”

Midnight’s eyes flicked upward, finally giving Sunset a good, unblurred look at her friend. Two days should not have had as much of an effect on someone as Sunset could see in Midnight’s gaze.

She looked like she hadn’t slept since they’d last parted. Her hair was a bit of a mess, the long straight strands fraying at their edges and right along Midnight’s aquamarine stripe. Her eyes had bags under them, badly hidden by some makeup Rarity must have once bought Twilight.

There was just a hollowness to her face that caught the breath in Sunset’s throat. Midnight almost looked dead.

“Zombie from Tirek’s Revenge 3,” Trixie (un)helpfully stated, clearly thinking the same thing as Sunset, “I told her already…”

“I’m fine,” Midnight groaned, though without much emotion to back it up.

Trixie, rolling her eyes, reached a hand out and passed it through Midnight’s hair.

“Hey!” she snarled at the uninvited contact.

“Oh, save your hey!” Trixie snapped back, her hand holding up several dark strands of hair that had fallen out. “You might marry a horse.”

She paused, as her brow creased in worry.

“Uh…” Trixie looked back at Sunset with a wince. “Is that offensive? I really don’t know anymore…”

Sunset, continuing to ignore Trixie, knelt down and held her own hand out to Midnight. Midnight, for her part, almost glared at the hand as it came into view, before shifting her grumpy look up at Sunset again.

She sighed. “You want to take a look at my brain, don’t you?”

“I want to help you up,” Sunset replied, tilting her head curiously to one side, “if you’ll let me. I promise, I won’t peek unless you say it’s okay.”

She smiled, in that fragile way Sunset always did when something was eating at her. The way Midnight was acting wasn’t just worrisome. After this week, and all the attendant misery and complications to their friendship, Sunset didn’t want this to be something worse at play.

But she knew that it was.

Midnight stared at the hand for another moment. Then, with a sigh, she reached out and took it.

Sunset hefted herself and Midnight back up to their feet, and tried to release the other girl so she could help clean off any dirt that had clung to her while knocked down.

Midnight didn’t let go. Instead, she took a long breath through her nose, and tried to lock eyes with her friend.

“Sunset…” she started, slow and hesitant, Midnight’s words coming out like she was dragging them out, “I… Maybe you should…”

“Midnight!” Sunset cried out, suddenly, “Your eyes!”

That outburst caused Midnight to flinch away, hands up to her face.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, a note of worry creeping into her voice.

Sunset, eyes wide open, leaned in so close that her and Midnght’s noses almost touched. She stared intently into Midnight’s eyes, her own narrowing and narrowing as she did so.

Trixie crossed her arms, and frowned at the odd display.

“So… you gonna tell us what’s up, or is Trixie not allowed to be a part of this…?”

Sunset said, in a low and hollow voice, “Your eyes are blue.”

Midnight blinked. Twice, even.

“Um… yes?” she said with a questioning inflection, and took a single step back from the Equestrian inquisition.

Trixie snorted and laughed, “Pretty sure she knew that already.”

“Not your irises,” Sunset said with annoyance, and pointed to the whites of her own eye, “Your sclera’s turning blue!”

Hearing that, Trixie tilted her head to get a better look. Leaning to an extreme angle, she almost got underneath Midnight’s face before she saw it as well.

“Omigosh!” she exclaimed, pulling back, “Your eyes are blue!”

Sliding back, Trixie tapped her chin in thought.

“Honestly,” she said, smiling, “Trixie may be biased, but this might be a good look for you.”

“Wait, really?” Midnight asked, shoving Trixie out of her face and quickly reaching into her pocket. Bringing out a compact mirror, she took a look herself. “What!?”

Staring back at Midnight was a girl very much like herself. Though, with her scraggly hair, paling skin, and eyes sporting dark bags, she very much would rather that not be the case.

And her eyes, the sclera around her irises, were blue. Not so deep a blue that one might immediately notice, but blue enough to where her eyes were almost glowing, faintly.

She groaned at the sight.

“What the heck is this, now?” Midnight sighed, snapping the mirror closed, “Am I going to grow a tail next!?”

Sunset bit her lip, and held her breath for a moment. She reached a hand out, again, and set it gently onto Midnight’s shoulder.

“Midnight,” she whispered, “Are… are you using the Wake Up, Stay Up spell right now?”

“The what-up whosit?” Trixie unhelpfully chimed in, utterly baffled.

The fact that Midnight said nothing did not go unnoticed. Even as she drew back, away from Sunset and Trixie, Sunset was already pressing forward.

“Midnight…”

“Yes, alright?” Midnight snapped back, flippantly, “Mom and Dad won’t let us have coffee yet, and Twilight and I used up all the energy drinks in the house last night so we didn’t have to sleep again. So…”

Trixie gasped, “How much did you two drink?”

“Not a lot,” Midnight groaned. Then, running one finger under her nose, she quietly added, “Maybe, like, a box or two…”

“What the heck…!?”

“That’s what Shining said, too,” Midnight pouted, and crossed her arms defensively, “You know, when he caught us this morning in the lab.

“I don’t see the real issue here!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Twilight said the spell didn’t have any significant side effects…”

Sunset rolled her eyes, and shook her head.

“It was Twilight?” she asked, and sighed with exasperation, “How did you two know about this spell, but not the side effects!?”

Midnight scoffed, “What part of Uncontrolled Magical Psychometry and Magical Crystal Palace are you not comprehending…!?”

Trixie, a wary eye on her friend, half-turned back to Sunset. “Okay, you keep saying there are side-effects…”

“Glowing eyes,” Midnight groaned, and flipped a bit of errant hair from her face over her shoulder, “and maybe a headache tomorrow, I would not consider these as side effects.”

Sunset scowled, and then said something that caused the very air around them to chill.

“And the kidney damage?”

Midnight was silent. Her eyes widened slightly, and a bead of sweat broke out across her brow. Aside from this, she could have been a statue.

Trixie, by contrast, seemed to be staring off into the distance, her breath coming in shallow and rapid.

“Switch the spell off, Midnight,” Sunset frowned, “Clearly, your magic-learning ability isn’t perfect, or you’d know what every filly entering magic school learned in their first Health Class.”

“Y-yeah,” Midnight stammered, before covering her eyes with her hands, “Yeah, I… omigosh, how did Twi… how did we miss that?”

Midnight fell silent, simply covering her face and shivering in the relatively warm and sunny daylight. Trixie and Sunset both held back from approaching, neither knowing the best way to comfort Midnight in this state.

But then, Sunset took one step forward.

“It’s okay, really,” she said soothingly, and reached out again for Midnight’s shoulder, “I was an overachiever myself, back when I went to Celestia’s school. I know what it’s like to…”

“To what, Sunset?” Midnight slapped her hand away, scowl returning instantly, “You think we did this just to get a few more hours on the hologram project?”

“Didn’t you?” Sunset asked, eyebrows raised.

“Of course, we did!” Midnight cried, and stamped her foot, “But it was also a great opportunity to not dream again!”

And just like that, the spell broke. Metaphorically, at any rate. Midnight gasped, perhaps at her own words, or perhaps at the way her knees suddenly buckled beneath her.

Yet, a heap of tired teenager, she was not destined to be. Two sets of arms looped under her and wrapped around her torso, holding Midnight up, even as her whole system decided to crash from within and without.

The blue light in Midnight’s eyes faded, adding ‘literally’ to the above metaphor.

“Woah!” Sunset cried out, her own knees starting to buckle under the weight of her friend, “Hang on there! Trixie, get…”

“On it!” the blue stage magician called out, and without apparent effort she’d already hefted her Bestie up, and carry-walked her over to the Wondercolt statue-plinth.

Sunset marveled at the way Trixie could do that.

Guess she would have to be pretty fit for her act…

As Midnight was leaned up against the cold stone, she suddenly drank in a deep breath of air, and her arms snapped out to grasp the plinth edges.

“Careful!” Trixie said, gently coaxing her friend into a more stable and comfortable position, “Did you just drop the spell?”

“Y-yeah,” Midnight half-gasped, half-yawned, “Kidneys…”

Then, as her breathing slowed, tears welled unbidden to Midnight’s eyes. Her breath shuddered going in, and shook coming out. In, and out, she gasped and gasped for an inch of control, before it all came flooding out.

Midnight slid down the plinth’s face, into a sagging crouch, and doubled over. Sunset and Trixie joined her there, arms bracing the shivering, shaking, crying teen.

Minutes passed. This early, there was no one to interrupt as Midnight poured herself out into her own sleeves.

“I can’t keep doing this,” she croaked, “We can’t keep doing this. It’s too much! Every night, every time I close my eyes… if it’s not Cinch showing up, or me and Twilight being her, it’s a witch-burning, or the Friendship Games, or…

“Heh,” Midnight shook with a crooked laugh, and covered her eyes with one hand, “It’s karma, isn’t it?”

“Don’t say that!” Trixie jumped in, taking even Sunset a little aback, “You haven’t done anything like…”

“Tormenting someone through their dreams?” Midnight snapped back, throwing up her arms and facing her friend with the full fury of a sleep-deprived glare. Her eyes were red and bleary, but still piercing.

“That’s literally my playbook!” she cried. “I nearly drove Twilight insane! I attacked her self-esteem, and almost drove a wedge between her… and her friends…”

Midnight slowed to a stop. Her whole face slackened, just a little.

“That’s… literally my playbook…” she whispered, eyes narrowing, her brow furrowing again.

Sunset looked around, and spotted her overstuffed backpack, still lying in the grass. Leaving Midnight to her silent fugue, she grabbed the bag, and quickly fished out one of the many, many books she’d brought back with her.

A simple brown journal, with a not-so-simple marking on its face. An aquamarine Sparkle, split halfway into a crescent moon.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Sunset growled, and flipped open the journal, “Luna was supposed to help with this. I don’t think she realizes how bad things have…”

Her pen nearly touched paper.

Which was when the gong sounded.

The thunderous clang went out across Canterlot City in a great wave, mildly annoying just about every living thing up at this hour, shaking all the windows in their frames, and coincidentally causing Rainbow Dash to jump out of her bed, smack her head against her bedroom ceiling, and then crash back down onto her floor.

She would never forgive Disqord.

For, indeed, that very man, the Lord and Spirit of Chaos himself, had stood atop the empty Wondercolt statue plinth, and slapped a gong the size of a small van with a swordfish.

The gong’s sound went through Midnight, Trixie, and Sunset like… well, like a gong the size of a small van had just been struck a few feet away from their delicate, human bodies. The reverberations shook all three teens to their cores, from their heads to their toes.

Sunset dropped the journal and pen, and then dropped herself to the grass beneath her, while Trixie shuddered so violently that she started bouncing away, like she was a player-piece on one of those old vibrating sports-gameboards.

Midnight, by contrast, only experienced a mild, if persistent, ringing in her ears. She supposed it was due to the plugs – tiny bathtub plugs, yet plugs nonetheless – which had appeared in her ear canals at the precise moment the gong had been struck.

Once the shaking had died down, Midnight pulled at the tiny chains attached to the plugs, and allowed herself to hear again. The gong’s terrible sound was still echoing off in the distance, and Trixie and Sunset were left groaning on the grass.

Her train of thought ruined, she glared up at the slowly descending Disqord.

“Oh, joy,” she sighed wearily, and stood up, “It’s you…”

“You don’t sound happy to see me, O Purple One,” the Lord of Chaos said with a smirk. He pulled aside his hideous brown coat, and reached into one of its many inner-pockets. Midnight thought she could see zebra patterns on his coat, but they scattered before she could get a good look at them.

“I’m not here to warn you to get going to class, if that’s what you’re upset about,” he added, as a roll of ducks taped together fell from his pocket and began waddling away, “You know I don’t have the stomach for schedules…”

Sunset and Trixie were both getting to their feet when Disqord seemed to find what he was looking for. With a grin and an old-fashioned flourish, he drew a cardboard drink tray out of his coat, complete with four tall paper cups.

Four tall, steaming paper cups.

“Seriously though,” he laughed, and pushed one of the hot drinks into Midnight’s hands before she could protest, “Drink up! You’ve got somewhere to be, and you can’t be there feeling like you look!”

Midnight eyed the drink suspiciously. Even in her current state, her mind started rattling off every single reason why this was a prank, or some cruel joke by Disqord, or simply a really, really, really bad idea.

But, at the same time, she didn’t care. Because about two seconds later, her nostrils were filled with such a heavy, spiced scent that Midnight was half certain the steam from the coffee had enough caffeine to wake her right back up.

She knocked the cup back before Sunset had a chance to tell her not to.

Which she did anyway.

“Don’t give her caffeine!” she shouted as she advanced on Disqord, “Midnight doesn’t need caffeine, she needs water! Hydration and sleep are the only things that help get you over the Wake Up, Stay Up spell!”

Not-quite scalding hot liquid poured over Midnight’s taste buds and down her throat in a cascade of flavors. She could taste all of them, sense all of them. To her mind, each one was a hint of somewhere and somewhen else.

It was overpowering.

Especially as the energy clawed its way into her hands, her feet, her eyes.

“This is amazing!” she cried out with a gasp as she finished her first quaff, relatively frigid air making her mouth and teeth tingle as she breathed in again. “What is this? It can’t be regular coffee!”

Disqord smirked again, and passed out the other cups to Trixie and Sunset, leaving one for himself.

“I had a brilliant pupil, some years back,” he explained while casually dipping a tiny head of lettuce into his own coffee, “Skipped out on a chemistry grant to pursue a rock career. Got imprisoned for a while in South Mareica after he said some unfortunate things about El Presidente in some of his lyrics during a tour.

“He survived,” Disqord chuckled warmly, in a somehow nostalgic way, “and once the international community banded together to effect a regime change, he brought home a few coffee bean strands. Brews his own custom blend, these days.”

Disqord beamed and took a sip. “I get a free bag every month. The gratitude of students! Now I know why Princess Purple opened a school. Free swag! Oh, and the admiration of the community, I guess. It can’t possibly be the pay.”

An empty cup presented itself to him, catching the professor up short in his merry remembrances.

“More!” Midnight cried, eyes literally sparkling as she did so.

He hmph’d, and raised a knowing eyebrow. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Princess You’s hooked on Pinkie’s sugary-sweet cappuccino monstrosity, and this is at least as good…”

With a snap of his finger, the cup was magically refilled, and Midnight brought it up to her lips with a hunger.

But Sunset was done indulging in that. She snatched the cup out of Midnight’s hand, and met the other girl, glower for glower.

“Midnight,” she said with a huff, “You need help!”

“Coffee helps!” Midnight snarled, and with a flicker of blue magic, her cup popped back into her own waiting grasp, “Coffee definitely helps!”

“This is some killer stuff,” Trixie could be heard in between her own delighted sips of the magical brew. “Hey, this student of yours, the Rock Star? Anyone I’ve heard of?”

Ignoring the bickering orange and purple teens in favor of blue, for the moment, Disqord shrugged. “Ever hear of a band called Crystal Empire…?”

Midnight’s voice cut through the air before he could say more.

“Send the useless Moonbutt over here to fix me, and then we’ll talk about surrendering the coffee!!!”

There were now two coffee cups floating in her magical aura.

“If I have to beat you unconscious again…” Sunset slapped one fist into the palm of her other hand, “… then I will! Friendship magic, or the old school way. Your choice!”

A coach’s whistle blew, loud and shrill across the school grounds, bringing both Sunset and Midnight’s attention back to Disqord… who was now dressed in grey training sweats and topped with a red baseball cap that read ‘KAOS’ in bold text.

“Alright, as much fun as letting you two wallop each other would be,” he sighed, clearly against his better judgement, “I actually do have to get this ball rolling. Sunset?”

The girl in question scrunched her face in a disapproving frown, but said nothing.

“Call Sci-Twi and let her know about the kidney thing,” Disqord said with an unusual air of authority, “Pretty sure Midnight’s phone is still melting down toward the planet’s core at this point.”

He then pointed a finger at Midnight herself. While she kept her attention on her teacher, she still managed to get a few chugs of her desperately needed beverage in before he spoke.

“And you’re coming with me!”

“Oh?” Midnight smirked as much as she could with two coffees in hand, and one of them still touching her lips, “I still have five minutes before your class starts. What was that about schedules?”

“Oh ho ho!” Disqord chuckled, “You think you’re so clever? Who said I’m here to get you to class?”

Trixie, still nursing her own drink, eyed her professor curiously. “Uh, then why are you here?”

Disqord folded his hands behind his back, which did nothing to stop him from holding his coffee in a third hand, and said, “Luna wanted to talk to you about that test you took…”

The word ‘test’ caused a mild case of choking, on Midnight’s part, as she accidentally gave her lungs a dousing.

“… and we all need to talk with you about something far, far more important,” Disqord finished.

Sunset raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Which is…?”

He reached out one hand, and it settled into a familiar, snappable shape.

“Why, the future, of course!”

And with a snap, he and Midnight vanished into thin air. Nothing disturbed the silence of the school grounds that was left in their wake.

At least, until Trixie met Sunset’s eyes.

“That… was really ominous, right?” Trixie asked, “That wasn’t just me?”

“No…” Sunset sighed, and looked up at the statue-less plinth again.

“It wasn’t just you…”

Truth be told, Midnight wasn’t quite feeling up to this today. Sure, the coffee helped, but there was a level of weariness, brought on by a week without REM sleep, and at least 24 hours without sleep at all, that was even now dragging at her bones. Her muscles ached, and as she’d already proven once today, her emotional walls were frayed.

It didn’t help that the Shadow was back in full force.

Shining wasn’t happy to see us up so early, it said. He doesn’t really think of you as his sister. Why put up with him then?

That was at 3am. Outside, by the statue, the voices had gotten worse.

She’s not coming back, they said in front of the portal. She’s gone because of you. She abandoned you.

Even while Trixie talked about a new trick she’d come up with for her next show – worryingly called the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive – Midnight had the voice in her ear reminding her that Trixie wouldn’t know real magic if it ran up and bit her.

And it should, right? Just so she’d know her place…

“My playbook…” she whispered to herself, and took another sip of coffee. She was almost out of her third cup, and tried to savor the taste of it. Disqord already made it clear he was cutting her off after that.

She shot him a withering look that failed to do anything more than elicit an amused smirk from the ancient Chaos God. They were currently sitting in Luna’s office, waiting for the Vice Principal to return with the results of Midnight’s aptitude test.

Midnight sat in the uncomfortable student’s chair, and Disqord sat on a high-backed throne beside her.

“Oh, cheer up, you grumpy thing,” he laughed and lounged languidly in his seat, “At worst, your nightmares will probably just drive you completely and irreparably insane!”

“I suppose that’s a good thing by your standards?” she huffed, and took another long sip.

Disqord shrugged, and said, “Madness and Chaos are quite similar, in all the best ways. All I’m saying is, relax! Aren’t things always darkest before the dawn? I think I remember teaching a philosophy course on that…

“Wait, no,” he shook his head, and then gave himself a facepalm for good measure, “I think Harness Puller came up with that one. Probably my best student that century.”

Then, Disqord blinked a few times, and started scratching his chin.

“Why does everything in this universe have something to do with equines? I shouldn’t have taken that vacation a thousand years back. That’s when it all started. Missed so many important events…”

“Don’t you have a class to teach?” Midnight leaned against her chair’s arm, and frowned purposefully in Disqord’s direction.

“Don’t you worry your pretty purple head, Dolly,” he said, and proceeded to pick up several of Luna’s pencils from off her desk. With a wave of his hand, each and every one of them dulled their tips and lost a centimeter of eraser. “I’m omnipresent. I’ve got a Me teaching the class at this very moment. Plus, one is off making random traffic lights break down all over the tri-state area…”

“That’s just criminal.”

He pffft’d at Midnight, and rolled his eyes. “No one is getting hurt! Just a few scares here and there, for fun. I’m also throwing eggs at Pinkie’s house, watching Rhombus of Moolah on daytime television, and there’s a Me going around moving Applejack’s favorite sofa seat half an inch to the left whenever she’s not looking at it.”

Midnight frowned… but she couldn’t exactly deny the tiny smirk also forming on her lips.

“Well… now you’re merely a monster,” she said, half-felt.

Before Disqord could say anything snarky or witty in response, the door to the office opened, allowing Luna to come back inside and dump what looked like an unpublished novella on her desk with a satisfactorily papery whapping sound.

If Midnight was a walking, talking, sleep-deprived corpse, Luna was at least a terminal patient. Coffee or no, she definitely had been pulling all-nighters over this meeting.

That didn’t exactly fill Midnight with a lot of confidence in the meeting itself.

At least she’s more professional than that idiotic Princess.

No, Midnight was not sure if she or the Shadow had been the one to think that.

Luna began… by not beginning. The Vice Principal checked her chair’s level, and glanced fretfully to her own coffee cup – which oddly bore a smiling chibi version of Celestia’s face – before seemingly deciding to pick up the documentation again.

Midnight frowned at this, as while she was perfectly fine reading the pile of paperwork upside-down, she couldn’t do so through other pieces of paper. Not without an x-ray spell cast on her eyes, and that would be a skosh obvious.

Worse. Luna started flipping through the pages. She might have been conducting a last-minute refresher of its contents, Midnight supposed.

More likely, said the Shadow, she’s stalling having to give you bad news…

“So, Veep,” Midnight tried cutting through the tense atmosphere after another sip of her drink, “What’s the damage?”

Midnight cringed at her own joke, especially after Disqord chuckled dryly beside her.

Luna hardly seemed to have noticed. She continued reading the paperwork for another moment, and then set it down on her desk gently, like it was delicate glass.

“I am sure that you will be happy to know your experiment at duplicating yourself did not have a negative outcome on your intelligence,” she said, slowly, a stiff smile plastered all over her face.

Midnight gripped the armrests of her chair, and tried to steady herself.

“That bad, huh?” she asked, eyebrows knitting together with worry.

Luna withheld a flinch, letting only her eyes break the façade of calm control she was otherwise clearly attempting to project.

“This is good news,” she said, hands clasping each other tightly before her, “Out of two-thousand points, you and Twilight… er, your predecessor…”

Luna grimaced at her own terminology, but pressed on despite her discomfort.

“… You scored one-thousand nine-hundred and eighty,” she finished with a sigh, “The same as before your Split.”

Midnight’s grip loosened, just slightly. She tilted her head to the side, and asked, “The same?”

“Indeed,” Luna nodded. “There was a single peculiarity in the distribution of scores across subjects, but Cranky felt that was entirely due to your personality shift…”

“Peculiarity?” Midnight leaned forward, and bit her lip. “What sort of peculiarity? Tell me I’m not doomed to a… an Art degree.”

Disqord, it must be said, possessed truly unrivaled self-restraint. Far more than his draconequus progenitor, in fact. He hardly glanced meaningfully at all towards Luna’s own degrees in Psychology and Literature hanging just above her desk.

She, in turn, seemed to let the unintended insult slide off of her, and instead lifted up the documents again.

“No, Midnight,” Luna said with a slight tenseness that had not been there a moment before, “In fact, the opposite. Your score only differed from before in that your Mathematics went up by one point, while science went down by one.

“Same score, overall,” she said, drawing out a single page and handing it to Midnight. “You just have a slightly different focus. If that’s not just the margin for error at play.”

Midnight snapped up the paper, and her eyes hungrily devoured the numbers on it.

Right there, in black ink.

Math: 399 points.

Science: 398.

The exact opposite of what she remembered getting last time.

She still looks like she swallowed a lemon, the Shadow reminded her. They’re laying out the good news first.

“Where’s the other shoe?” Midnight asked without looking away from the scores on the page.

“Dropping,” Disqord half-whispered into his coffee, this time noticeably avoiding Luna’s glare.

The Vice Principal took a long breath through her nose.

“Your scores will be very impressive,” she said, even more hesitant than before. “I daresay most every college and university will be interested in you, once you apply.”

Midnight lowered the paper, and frowned up at Luna.

“But… I already applied,” she said in a quiet voice. Then, louder, “I… I submitted an application to Everton months ago!”

The office was silent, save for the light ticking of a clock. Disqord, displaying unusually good judgement, followed the room’s example and said nothing. In fact, it was almost disquieting how unlike himself he was, just then.

Luna, meanwhile, worked her jaw a few times, as though she was still mulling over her next words.

Because they were important. And dangerous.

“Twilight Sparkle applied to the Everton Independent Study Program,” she said. “You, Midnight, did not exist until this Monday… and almost every college or university closed their application window months ago.”

Midnight stared at Luna with eyes as wide as saucers, and pupils that had shrunk down to pinpricks.

“But…” she whispered, horrified, “But I did the work.”

“We know,” Luna said in a pleading tone, and forced herself to meet Midnight’s eyes. “We know you worked… very hard, as Twilight Sparkle. But you…”

She paused, perhaps unsure of how to proceed.

Disqord had no such misgivings.

“You’re not quite the Twilight you used to be, are you?” he asked with a coy raise of his eyebrow. “Can’t really blame anyone but yourself if you let your sister keep the name…”

“Cordwood!”

“What?” he asked, laughing, “It’s true! Midnight isn’t Twilight! And good for her, I say!”

She kept the name…

Luna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, that… that is the case…”

She looked back up, to where Midnight was still sitting. Still sitting, and shivering slightly. The girl was focusing on her lap now, and her hands were gripping the armrests so tightly that Luna expected her to gouge the wood itself.

Luna stood up, and came around the desk. As she approached, she reached one hand out, to take one of Midnight’s own, and perhaps calm her distressed nerves.

“Midnight, I know…”

Midnight slapped the hand aside, to Luna’s shock. And, had Twilight Sparkle done such a thing, no doubt she would have recoiled, gathered herself, and apologized for her sudden, violent outburst.

But this was not Twilight Sparkle.

“I did the work!” she snarled, and stood up from her seat, sliding the chair back and knocking it over in one fell swoop. Luna flinched at the riotous sound in the small office, while Disqord merely watched as Midnight’s face reddened, and her clenched fists shook at her sides.

“I slaved over those reports for months after the Friendship Games!” she cried, a flicker of blue light in her eyes once more, “I calculated, and collated, and cross-referenced… That report—!”

“Was filed in her application by Twilight!” Luna snapped back with stern authority. “You, however, are not Twilight.”

Her tone cut deep, its cold and resolute nature striking Midnight as surely as an arrow. Midnight’s own mouth froze, mid cry… and closed with a soft click.

She remained standing for a few seconds, eyes blazing with untempered fury… before the energy simply fell away from her, and she dropped back into her chair – helpfully reset by Disqord while no one was looking.

The office was no longer silent. The tick-tock of the clock was joined by a softer sound. A gentle, sorrowful gasp, and quiet sobs as Midnight tilted her head forward, and tried to cover her eyes.

Luna knelt by her chair, and waited. Slowly, she raised one hand, and gingerly set it on Midnight’s shoulder.

Meeting no resistance, she held there for what felt like minutes. Time passed, and Midnight slowly fell silent. Her sobs had been pathetic things, lacking all energy or urgency. They were the sounds of someone defeated, and beyond caring about the loss.

She kept the name, the Shadow said again. She kept the name, and all our hard work that went with it.

You have nothing.

“I’ll…” Midnight sucked in a shuddering breath, “I’ll be the only Sparkle in generations who didn’t get into a university. I’ll be the black sheep of the family…”

“Not unless you do that thing with the goats,” Disqord softly said to himself, “Pentagram Burst was not the most pleasant student I’ve ever had, I’ll say that much.”

“That will not be the case!” Luna tightened her grip on Midnight’s arm, and silently pleaded for Disqord to shut up. “Cordwood has many, many friends all over, and my sister and I are not without contacts.

“Or favors owed,” she finished with a hint of a growl in her throat. Luna looked up to Disqord, and tried to signal him with a near-glare.

He took the hint.

“You remember the coffee guy I mentioned earlier?” he asked with as much a serious tone as he ever had… which is to say, just enough to perhaps guess that he was being serious. “South Mareica? Well, in addition to rock music and chemistry – for not the best reasons, I’ll admit – he also decided to head into education once his first career choice dried up. And, as it just so happens, he’s the Professor Emeritus at Canterlot Community College…”

“Community College?” Midnight lurched back to life, but only a pale imitation of it. Her eyes were bleary red again, and her cheeks were streaked with tear tracts.

“Community Colleges are the last, desperate refuge of derelicts and dropouts,” she sighed, wearily, remembering Grammy Sparkle’s favorite topic of discussion at Hearth’s Warming.

“I assure you,” Disqord said, holding up his hand in something that might have been a scout’s-honor symbol, “He’s got more than enough pull to slip you in, and he owes me big-time. He’s aware of your current condition, and is ready to help.”

Disqord’s face suddenly scrunched up.

“Huh,” he huh’d, and stared off into space, “Suspiciously aware. And suspiciously helpful. But then, Sombra was always quick on the draw…”

“The point is,” Luna turned Midnight’s face back towards her with a gentle hand, “that this is not some failure, Midnight. It is a chance to grow.

“You can take all your general units at the college,” she said, locking eye-to-teary-eye with Midnight, “and then transfer to any college or university you so desire.”

Twilight is going to Everton.

Midnight bit back another sob, and leaned into Luna’s touch.

Only one of us got to keep the name. And everything that goes with it. The opportunities. The friends. The life.

Our life.

“Silver lining,” Disqord offered from somewhere up above, as he floated along the ceiling, “but you’ll have a lot less student debt! Four-Years prefer transfers who’ve already done their General classes at community colleges like Triple-Cee! Believe me, I used to teach them. So, once we’ve got enough falsified documents for you to pass for human, you’ll be a shoe-in, wherever you want to go!”

She took our life.

Every step Midnight took, it seemed, just carried her further and further from where she wanted to go. Who she wanted to be.

At least before Monday, the Shadow said, you knew who you were.

And now, she was fumbling in the dark. Alone, and naked. Everything she wanted for herself had slowly fallen away before her eyes.

She was a disappointment. A loser.

Even Sunset only came back because she had other friends here, in this world.

All I did was hurt her, Midnight sighed, silently. If I’d just stayed a memory, no one would be hurting now. I wouldn’t be this way, this… person.

Everyone would be better off. Even Twilight.

There was just… nothing left. Nothing at all, save for the Shadow.

But if there was only one Twilight, it whispered, then she would get to go wherever she liked.

If Luna or Disqord noticed the way Midnight’s breath caught in her chest, they didn’t let on. And in that span of a heartbeat, between breaths, Midnight thought.

Midnight calculated. And a terrible, terrible sort of calculation began to form in her thoughts. Even as the math worked itself out, she could feel her heart tighten, and her eyes begin to dry.

And as the calculation summed, she ventured a thought.

A dangerous, terrible… peculiar thought.

If there was only… one?

Silence.

Then…

If there was only one.

She broke from Luna’s grasp, and gripped herself tight.

“I need to be alone,” Midnight said, looking away as she did so, her arms wrapped around herself.

The adults shared a look. Then, reluctantly, they stood up, and made their way out the door and into the hall. At the last moment, Luna turned back, and without looking, said, “Stay as long as you need.”

With that, Midnight was alone.

Alone, save for her Shadow.

Quickly, she dried her eyes, and stood again. Midnight turned around, and looked about, eventually locking her gaze on the far wall. She recalled reading, once, that the human brain was always looking for patterns. It was always trying to make sense of the world around itself, even if it began constructing patterns out of elementary chaos and randomness.

That was why you sometimes saw a face in the mirror, out the corner of your eye. It was the human mind trying to find something akin to itself, something familiar. It was… almost heartwarming, to think that people wanted to make friends so much that they’d invent one in their own reflection.

Midnight remembered that lesson, and how Twilight at the time had taken to it. So… naïve.

So, it was no trouble at all to imagine a face amid the pale grey-blue colors of the wall, in between wear and tear, and the odd coffee stain from one of the many disasters that had partly careened through the premises in the past year or two. A few looked fresh, even.

The face of her Shadow stared back.

“Twilight helped us,” Midnight whispered.

Twilight stole everything from you.

“I have friends now,” Midnight countered, “Good friends!”

They put up with you, for Twilight’s sake. The Shadow almost laughed as it said this.

“She’s my sister…”

Didn’t you once say that you were the real Twilight Sparkle?

It laughed again, angrily.

She’s just one personality, it said, one that took your place after those Games. You were the original! The one who suffered the most! Why are you just giving up?

Midnight was silent. Those words weren’t new. She’s said them herself for a solid year while she dwelled inside her own head. Drowning in her memories. Dying a day at a time as she looked back through her life, through her time at Crystal Prep, and wondered why she never burned the place down.

“So, what?” she shrugged, and half-turned from the wall, “I’m just supposed to, what? Destroy her? I think people would notice.”

Not if they didn’t remember.

A chill ran down Midnight’s spine.

“The Memory Stone—”

Wasn’t unique, the Shadow interrupted. We know how the spell worked. We could reabsorb her, erase the evidence, and get back to business!

She frowned, and pursed her lips in thought.

“All that… for Everton?”

Of course not!

For the Magic!

The Shadow was gleeful, almost cackling. Midnight couldn’t deny how that felt, either. Like a fire in her chest, blowing aside the shadows.

It’s what we’ve always wanted, it said again. We never needed this existence, these “friends”…

You just have to…

And like that, the answer came to Midnight’s mind. A cold, cruel answer.

She was done calculating.

“Unleash the magic,” Midnight said, a cruel smile splitting her face from ear to ear. “I guess it really is a page right out of my old playbook…”

The Shadow, delighted with her epiphany, faded away.

And for once, Midnight’s mind was silent.

Author's Note

Part 2, Coming Soon.

10 - Friday: Life's a Cinch, and Then You Die Part 2

The rest of the school day passed almost blissfully. Morning classes flew by with nary a problem. A few of the teachers who’d been consulted on her condition and her tests gave Midnight a sympathetic look, of course. But they otherwise left her alone to her own devices.

Oh, and what devices they were…

Lunch was tense, of course. Twilight seemed half out-of-it, but she wouldn’t allow something as minor as sleep deprivation prevent her from going to school. She had a perfect record to maintain! She was the most model of students, and a shoe-in for Valedictorian!

She hardly noticed the way Midnight watched her all through lunch. And through their shared classes.

Sunset was more annoying, pressing in with questions and concerns. Like she really cared.

Midnight ignored her, as best she could.

There was a plan, now. And letting Sunset in too close would ruin that. Even Trixie and the other Rainbooms were kept at an emotional, and physical, arms-length. At least, as much as Midnight could manage.

Which was difficult when it came to Pinkie Pie, naturally.

“Sleepover at my place tonight!” she announced with a cheer, a burst of confetti, and an alarming amount of party horns blaring for one person to have done so with one mouth.

Applejack scratched her chin, and asked, “Didn’t we have a sleep over at yer place jes’ last week?”

“Oh, no darling!” Rarity responded, scooching just a bit closer to the farm girl, “That was the week before. Last week…”

“Last week was when Sunset and Twilight went to the Crystal Empire!” Pinkie helpfully explained, all while removing lunch-cupcakes from her voluminous mane. “They spent the whole weekend trying to fix the magical imbalance thingie, but got caught up with Starswirl and a time-spell that went kookie, and not the good kind of cookie!

“Buuuut,” Pinkie said in a drawn-out drawl before she hopped over the table, and nearly landed in Midnight’s lap, “Then Midnight got dragged through a time portal to this time from back when she was all spooky at the Friendship Games…”

Twilight frowned, and tried her best to calm the excitable thing down, just a skosh.

“Pinkie, we don’t need to relive the entire…”

Rainbow Dash had slapped her hand over Twilight’s mouth, to which Twilight only gave a tired, half-hearted resistance.

“Hey, I wanna hear about it! You guys never talk about your adventures in magic horse land,” she chuckled.

Sunset shook her head, and said, “Dash, we’ve only been on one adventure, and it was…”

“Crazy!” Pinkie threw her hands up for emphasis. “Cuz there were different versions of the Pony-Us’s from all these different timelines, and there was a big old misunderstanding, and magic battles, and Flurry Heart was super-duper baby cute! Oh, and Twilight built a new horn for Fizzlepop, so that was nice.”

Truth be told, Midnight was tuning most of this out. She’d have plenty of time to reminisce with Pinkie Pie after what had to be done.

How does she know so much about what happened, though?

“And since it’s the first Friday since we got Midnight added to our group…” Pinkie’s words caught Midnight’s attention, rather suddenly. “It’s almost like a birthday party!”

Midnight frowned.

“A… birthday party?”

“Well, why not?” Pinkie wrapped one arm around Midnight in a deathly tight hug, and smiled her ridiculous, infectious smile. “You need a real welcome to the world! And what better way than a sleepover?”

Midnight paused… and found that the words weren’t quite there to describe what she thought of that.

Sunset, however, had no such issue.

“No, Pinkie,” she said, tiredly, “No party today.”

“W-what?” Pinkie’s face deflated with the precise sound of a dog whining. “But… but why not?”

Sunset pointed accusingly at both Twilight and Midnight.

“These two need sleep, for one thing,” said Sunset, giving a meaningful, but no less sympathetic look to each of the twins, “We all know they need it.”

“But at a sleepover…”

“Um…” A quiet whisper from Fluttershy caught Pinkie by surprise. “Pinkie? Your sleepovers almost never involve sleep. They’re mostly just… uh, pizza, cake, and video games mixed with party games.

“Which is fun,” she said, blushing, “but not what Twilight or Midnight need right now, right?”

Sunset speared another hunk of her salad with her fork, and nodded approvingly, even as Pinkie slowly melted down into a puddle next to Midnight.

For the rest of lunch, no one had anything of substance to add to the discussion. Pinkie and Rainbow tried coming up with a good day later in the next week to hold the sleepover, while AJ complained about how, with her three new horses-turned-cousins helping around the farm, she had nothing to do. For a workaholic, there was no worse fate. Rarity and Fluttershy chatted about… something, with Sunset, but Midnight had little enough reason to listen close to that sort of nonsense.

Twilight kept trying to meet her eyes until the bell rang, but she never seemed to get there. And, for Midnight’s part, she couldn’t quite seem to make her eyes meet Twilight’s.

Did Twilight want to talk? That will just have to wait, Midnight thought. Can’t really do anything until we’re alone tonight, anyway.

Cordwood’s fifth period came and went, a lesson on how best to let unfettered anarchy guide one’s daily life, and Midnight was finally free from school for the day. She didn’t even wait for Twilight before she took off, heading straight for the mall, knowing she’d have time all to herself while she waited. Even Trixie would be busy at home this afternoon.

And on this day, a most momentous day, Midnight honestly felt like some ice cream.

Fifteen minutes later, she had some.

The Shadow had been quiet. This was a good thing. For once, Midnight was all alone with her thoughts, without doubt and second-guessing to get in her way. Without a wriggling concern in the world.

At least, she knew, so long as the plan worked out.

She wondered, idly, how it would feel to have this serenity all the time. Surely, this sort of bliss, this uncompromised peace of mind was worth anything?

Yes, anything, she thought. Anything at all.

She took another lick of her ice cream cone, and smiled to herself.

“It all makes sense, at last,” she sighed, contentedly, and leaned back into the bench outside of the Happy Scoops ice cream parlor, “There’s just… one too many Sparkles…”

As was the case the day before, Canterlot Mall was virtually deserted right now, in the time between lunch and when the high schools got out. Midnight had the run of the place, if she so chose. She could go anywhere, or do anything.

“Maybe I’ll go flirt with Aria again,” she laughed. “That ought to be fun.”

She quickly wolfed down the rest of her ice cream… and after the brief, but intense headache that followed, Midnight was ready to go.

Get the fun in now, she thought to herself, before tonight…

As she walked, she thought of that moment. That future, blessed moment when everything would come together. A moment she wouldn’t miss for the world.

Can I really do it? She thought this, but quickly pushed the doubt aside. Of course I can! And once the deed is done, there’ll be no more nightmares. Simplicity itself, despite the danger involved…

And all she had to do now was wait for Twilight to head home, and join her sister there.

Not that a party with Pinkie Pie wouldn’t be fun…

But just as she turned the corner, and headed through the food court, something suddenly felt off.

At first, Midnight couldn’t name the feeling. It was like a brief whiff of a foul odor from a passing garbage truck while you were trying to eat a fancy meal. It was like suddenly tasting copper on your tongue. Like hearing the sound of an elephant while camping in the woods.

In fact, hearing was just the right word for it.

There was a sound, just on the edge of hearing.

No, a voice. A voice she was very familiar with, coming from just the other side of an artificial mall-hedge.

“Water and a salad. Light on the croutons, and lightly drizzled with Bitalian seasoning,” Abacus Cinch said, each syllable snapping to attention as she reached it, “I don’t want to have to swim just to eat whatever dead leaves you poured out of a can.”

Midnight, by reflex alone, dove for cover, landing hard on the dirty, tiled floor.

“It… it can’t be…” she whispered.

She pinched herself.

Nope, she thought, dismayed. This is real. This is happening.

Then, from a prone position, she slowly lifted herself up, inch by inch, until she could peek past the decorative pots and their green shrubs at the source of that fiendish voice.

On the direct other side of the hedge, Abacus Cinch, former Principal of Crystal Preparatory Academy, sat at a plastic table wedged into the space between the food court’s Royale Burger outlet, and the indoor jungle gym area.

Midnight clasped a hand over her own mouth before she could gasp in surprise. It was either that, or to swear like a sailor, and either option would give her away.

Standing up, she quickly surveyed the landscape.

Hedges to my right and nothing to my left. A mostly empty mall.

Perfect! No witnesses!

Thinking quickly, Midnight traced out a rectangular shape across the face of the hedge. Aqua-blue magical light shone, softly in the air where her fingers passed, and everything within that rectangle began to fade away, as if Midnight had lowered the plants’ opacity to near-zero.

The effect was one-way, Midnight knew. The spell was a simple spying-tool back in Equestria – she assumed, in any case – as it was quite subtle, and even directly amplified sounds from one side of itself to the other.

Cinch had her back to Midnight as she harangued the poor waitress. The put-upon girl was probably a year out of high school, and from the silent screams in her ever-widening eyes, Midnight could guess she was recalculating her decision to go into food service.

Huh… it’s weird seeing Her outside of school, Midnight thought with a frown. And what is she wearing?

The former principal, indeed, did not quite fit Midnight’s memories of her. While her hair was still done-up as it always had been, it wasn’t as tightly wound as Midnight remembered. And, possibly related, she wasn’t wearing anything like a suit.

More… a rumpled sweater?

A dark purple sweater, paired with simple pants and sneakers. It was bizarre, to say the least. Cinch was nothing if not the epitome of professional style, back when she ran Crystal Prep. Seeing her like this, almost human, was unreal to Midnight.

“Right…” the waitress said slowly, unsure of what was up with the sharp-faced spinster to put her in such a foul mood, not realizing it was her default state, “Salad with seasoning… and for the little one?”

Little one?

With a flicker of mental energy, Midnight caused the spell to rotate its view. The ‘screen’ she looked through shifted its perspective, like her flying drone camera.

Abacus Cinch was not alone. Sitting with her at the table was…

It’s like someone condensed diabetes into a person, Midnight wondered at the sight of the most sugary-sweet, obnoxiously cute creature she’d probably ever see in her life. Tight blue curly-curls framed an almost cherubic little pink girl’s face, complete with freckles and a smile that could probably reflect sunlight at the right angle.

Midnight hated her on principle.

“Could I pwease have the Princess Meal with the chocolate brownie?” the little girl asked, and in the most ridiculous baby-girl voice imaginable, “Mommy said I could, since I’ve been good.”

MOMMY!?

Midnight’s brain stopped functioning for several seconds. Her jaw nearly fell right off her face, and her eyes threatened to shrink down into microscopic points.

What…? Why did… how… WHO!? Who would ever conceive a child with that…?

She shook her head, and blinked away the cloud of confusion. Cinch having a kid was… very strange, considering the rumors about her. She had a reputation of prim professionalism, to a fault. No love life. No social life.

Crystal Prep Academy was her legacy. No children required.

Also, what poor soul would ever come within a mile of her cold, dead… heart?

The Shadow didn’t say anything.

Yes, heart. I was going to say heart…

Midnight refocused on the child, her mind trying to run through the calculations again.

She was probably in middle school, a bit younger than those CMC kids always hanging around Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Da—

“Those are their sisters, aren’t they?” Midnight clenched her eyes shut, and resisted the urge to slam her head into the hedge. “Thank you, memory-splitting spell. Thank you so much…”

Cinch spoke again, her voice as sharp as ever, and just as disapproving.

“No, I think not,” she said with a clip. “Cozy will have the Kid’s Meal. Plain hamburger. Apple slices instead of fries.

“And a water,” Cinch added with a raised eyebrow and enough vocal smirking that Midnight wasn’t sure she’d actually heard that part.

Once the waitress had taken off with their orders, Cozy Glow’s face went through a radical shift. Almost from the moment the waitress had her back turned, Cozy went from the sweet, sweet childlike smile to something Midnight swore she’d seen in a slasher film once.

Alright, the poster of a slasher film. The point still stood though; that kid’s face was terrifying.

“Really?” she sneered at her mother, folding her arms in a professional pout, “The Kid’s Meal?”

“Really?” Cinch sneered right back, “Your Principal’s car?”

Cozy huffed. And then, she growled beneath her breath, “They couldn’t prove anything…”

Cinch shook her head, and glanced towards the ceiling.

“They could prove enough,” she said, softly. Then, in a lamenting tone, she added, “Consider this some small amount of punishment for the test-answers ring, then.”

Test-answer ring…? Wait, their car!?

So many questions rumbled through Midnight’s mind that she couldn’t decide which to dwell on first. But, with her spell still active, data collection was first and foremost in her thoughts. She quickly refocused on the strange, strange characters before her.

“You know you’d catch more flies with honey, right?” Cozy groused. “That’s a saying you old-folks use, right?”

Cinch pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed. “Cozy? You do realize that… that manipulating people, even while ostensibly being nice to them, is wrong, yes?”

Midnight was about to comment on the richness of that remark coming out of Abacus Cinch, of all people…

But Cozy Glow beat her to it.

“Coming from you? That’s rich,” she laughed, catching even Midnight a little off-guard, “You know, even the orphanage heard rumors about why you got canned!”

Midnight winced, at that, though with more than a little self-satisfaction.

Cinch’s reputation took a hit? If it later turned out that there was a Spirit of Karma out there in the world – like an anti-Discord or something – Midnight would very much like to shake their hand.

“Yes, well…” Cinch didn’t seem to have a comeback to that, which left Midnight pumping the air just a bit enthusiastically. “In any case, Cozy, manipulating people isn’t the only purpose of being nice. And I wouldn’t say I was un-kind to that young lady, was I?”

Cozy just laughed, and fished out a phone from her light blue dress’ skirt pocket.

“Lady, you kill me sometimes.”

Getting roasted by your own… kid? Midnight smirked, even as she was still working out just what was going on, and why she couldn’t look away.

She sighed, and shook her head. Either way… watching Cinch suffer is almost worth this little… hello? What’s this now?

In the background of her spell’s vision, Midnight could see movement in the mall. The deliberate sort that caught Midnight’s attention. To her mind it looked like something out of a movie. A lone figure striding through the halls, flanked by suits and reflective aviator glasses that practically screamed VIP.

Or, Lawyer…

Said lone figure was a tall, slender, downright gorgeous woman with light-green skin and a full, expertly-cut mane of orange-on-orange hair, clasped with a beautiful ladybug clasp that sent a brief shiver down Midnight’s spine.

Even odds, she laughed, Model or Lawyer?

The two men flanking her weren’t precisely as perfect for their task. The slightly larger one was a dark cyan, with slicked-back pinkish-red hair, and a heavy suitcase at his side. The other, a green-skinned lad with a decidedly more… frumpled appearance to his suit and orange hair, only just managed to keep in lockstep with his fellows.

As the woman approached Cinch’s table, Midnight caught a flash of pearly white teeth – almost fanglike – as she grinned at the former principal.

“Abbey!” she cried happily, dropping her expensive purse onto the table as she came to a stop.

Midnight’s breath almost caught in her throat a moment later, as Cinch… smiled.

It’s like a solar eclipse in its rarity, she thought, or a plague…

“Chryssy,” she almost sighed in relief. Cinch stood up from her seat, and got just close enough for her sister – the cheekbones are a dead giveaway – and her to exchange a few quick cheek-kisses. “So good to see you again!”

Once the greeting had concluded, Cinch tilted her head slightly to one side, and acknowledged the two others who’d followed Chryssy to lunch.

“It is also… nice to see you two as well, Pharynx…”

She nodded to the larger man, who seemed not to move a single muscle in return.

“… Thorax,” Cinch continued to nod towards the green… well, man might be pushing it, considering his age.

And his response, evidently.

“Hi Aunt Abbey!” Thorax gleefully cried out, and added to his display with a follow-up wave. “Oh, and is this our new cousin Cozy Glow? Nice to meet—”

“THORAX!”

The young man flinched, and snapped back into a rigid, upright state as Chryssy snarled his name, rounding upon him with blazing emerald eyes.

“Sorry, Mo- I mean… Miss Chrysalis…” he stuttered as his voice swiftly left him.

If Midnight didn’t know any better, she would have thought she’d seen Pharynx smirking underneath his reflective glasses. But, no… it wasn’t a smirk she saw, but something just a little bit angrier than that.

No one hurts my sibling but me.

How appropriate, given the times.

Chrysalis maintained her glare for another moment, before hissing, “Not on Firm Time… Intern…”

Thorax visibly swallowed, but maintained his stance.

“Okay, I like her,” Cozy chuckled darkly, “We can be friends.”

Satisfied that order seemed to be restored, Chrysalis turned back around to face her sister. She gave a quick snap of her fingers, which caused Pharynx to suddenly jump to life. Like clockwork, he unclasped his briefcase, and swept a small sheaf of paperwork into his boss’ hands.

“Everything is in order,” she said with a cruel smile, and set the papers down. “Principal Blaze has agreed to the settlement. Assuming she doesn’t want her social media past to become tragically public, she’ll allow Cozy to remain at Peril Peaks Middle School. All you need to do is sign on the dotted line.”

Midnight reorientated the view from her spell to get a look at the settlement as it slid over to Cinch’s grasp. Chrysalis’ firm name was emblazoned right at the top – Shutterbug & Associates – with a green honeycomb symbol next to it, which sparked something in Midnight’s memory.

Didn’t dad do their taxes or something?

“I see Hydia, Reeka, and Draggle aren’t on the letterhead anymore,” Cinch said idly as she looked over the document.

Chrysalis smirked, and said, “What can I say? It’s a cutthroat business.”

“Should it concern me that I don’t know how literal you’re being right now?” Cinch said with a grim snort. She hummed absent-mindedly for a moment, then looked towards her daughter.

“Cozy? Why don’t you go use the playset for a bit while I speak with my sister?”

The diminutive Cozy narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why?” she asked, “What’s up?”

“I would like to catch up with my sister,” Cinch answered plainly, “Is that so wrong?”

“Unexpected, maybe…” Cozy sighed. Then, standing up, she rolled her eyes and added, “Alright, why not? Hey! Drones! You’re with me!”

While Thorax smiled happily at the prospect, and already turned to follow his little cousin away, Pharynx took a moment to stare at Chrysalis. With his heavy shades on, his expression was unreadable.

“Oh, go on,” Chrysalis sighed, “Keep her from damaging public property or inciting a riot, will you?”

And, with a slight grimace, he did so, turning about and strutting off to play babysitter.

Chrysalis took a seat across from Cinch, and fixed her sister with an incredulous raised eyebrow.

“Mind telling me what that was about?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Cinch lied, flipping another page of the legal document, “I really do wish to catch up.

“How is father doing, by the way?” she asked in a tone that suggested to Midnight she did not care in the slightest.

Chrysalis shrugged, and crossed her legs in an ‘I’m being patient with you’ way, and said, “Oh, a little crazier than usual. Don’t you read his letters when he sends you coffee?”

“I drink tea,” Cinch replied, and somehow in a colder voice than her usual. “But I can’t expect him to remember such things…”

“I don’t see why you have to be that way…”

Cinch glanced up from the paperwork, a frown fixed upon her brow.

“He made time for your birthdays, Chryssy,” she said, “Not mine.”

“He was in prison…” Chrysalis shook her head, and sighed. “You two are exactly alike.”

Cinch stiffened, if that were at all possible. Which Midnight hadn’t even considered before now.

I suppose there’s always one more number past infinity...

“Look,” Chrysalis said, exasperated, “I mean it. He’s… he’s talking about magic now.”

Cinch’s eyes fidgeted, and froze on the page. A small smirk touched the corner of her mouth, as she drawled, “Really?”

“Yes,” Chrysalis said with a sad shake of her head, “He’s talking about Old Man Cordwood like he was a wizard, or something.”

“Or something,” Cinch agreed, still smirking. “I suppose, since you never took his classes, like I did, you wouldn’t understand…”

Midnight watched all this in silence, mind running through computation after computation, potential plot after potential plot.

She’s seeing a lawyer. Could be she’s finally preparing to go after Cadance for her old job. Or CHS for what happened at the Friendship Games. Petty, yes… but she was willing to blackmail teenagers to win an academic competition.

Regardless of the reason, this was important. Of that, Midnight was certain. She had to know what was going on here.

Eventually, Cinch nodded, and slid the settlement back across the table.

“Very good,” she said, simply, “Everything seems to be in order. Well done.”

Chrysalis smiled, a bit more genuinely, and brushed her nails against her suit lapel.

“Thank you, sister. I always…”

“Almost,” Cinch corrected, tapping the table with her finger once for emphasis. “Almost everything.”

The scowl on Chrysalis’ face was immediate.

“Almost!?” she snarled, “Do you have any idea what I had to do to get that information?”

Cinch raised an eyebrow, and asked in a quieter voice, “I assume you hacked a database somewhere?”

“For legal purposes, I won’t comment on that,” Chrysalis snorted, her ire temporarily subsumed by her own lawyer-speak-joke, and muttered, “It wasn’t even hard. Thorax found a backdoor some other hacker had used to do the same thing before…”

She hummed, curiosity flashing briefly past her eyes.

“I wonder what Princess_Sunshine was digging for…?”

Sunset Shimmer sneezed, rather violently at that very moment, which caused her to bang her head against her locker door.

“Gah! Sonofa…”

“You know, darling?” Rarity, touching up her makeup at her own locker, said in a dreamy tone, “They say that when you sneeze, it is because someone is talking about you. How scandalous! How romantic. How…”

“Runaway!!!” Pinkie Pie’s screams echoed down the halls of CHS as she tore past her friends, pursued by a huge monster, a tower of grey fur and muscle bellowing like a raging elephant.

The sneeze was suddenly forgotten about.

“… I could use a better ‘programmer’ for the firm,” she finished. Then, returning to the matter at hand, she jabbed the paperwork with a pointed finger, and said, “So, you better appreciate all the work I had to put in to keep your adopt-a-spawn from juvie.”

Cinch paused, at the mention of Cozy. Her eyes took on a glassy, faraway look that Midnight knew first-hand was a calculating one.

Come on… spill, Midnight mentally snarled. What’s this all about?

“I do appreciate the work you’ve done so far,” she said, a touch quieter than before, “And I am… sorry, if that did not come across. I only wished to amend the arrangement in one particular way.”

Chrysalis’ frown changed dimensions, slightly. It quickly shifted from a bitter, hateful scowl into something that almost… regretful. Sympathetic, even.

Midnight wasn’t sure if that look on her face was unnatural because Chrysalis was a lawyer, or because she was related to Cinch.

I mean, I guess it can be both.

Cinch glanced at the paperwork again, and then back up to her sister’s eyes.

“I would like to transfer Cozy to… to Canterlot High School, for next year,” she said, though her tongue seemingly attempted a rebellion when she came to the name of the school. “It would be a…”

WHY!?

“Why!?” Chrysalis’ surprise perfectly mirrored Midnight’s own. “That’s… But Celestia…!”

“While their academic standards are…” Cinch hesitated to pick a word that would complete that sentence.

She mulled her words over for several long, awkward seconds.

“… below that which I had once set for Crystal Prep,” she continued, in an admittedly fairer-handed manner than expected by Midnight, “I have found that CHS has certain social qualities to it that might help with Cozy’s development.”

Midnight frowned.

Social qualities?

Chrysalis seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the way her face scrunched up. Like she was smelling something foul in the air.

“What happened to you?” she asked suddenly.

“I… I beg your pardon?”

What she said!

Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed, and her lips drew back into a thin line. “What happened to you?” she asked again. “Abbey, I know losing Crystal Prep was bad, but I didn’t think it was this bad!”

Cinch sighed, “Chryssy…”

“First thing I hear about you in the news is that your local flex-contest, those stupid Friendship Games, went up like a Roan Candle over some… some kid throwing a fit according to the paper…”

Midnight managed to repress a snarl… and a fireball, as well.

Not inaccurate, she angrily conceded, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to blow up your house later…

Chrysalis started tapping the plastic table with sharp clicks of her manicured nails as she spoke. “Then, despite still having the confidence of the Board, the Patrons, and your legal defense team…”

Here, she huffed, and shook her head.

“Seriously, I had a Wrongful Termination Suit in my hands when you just… resigned! Without a fight!”

“The entire student body…” Cinch tried to break in, but with a sharp wave of her sister’s hand, she fell silent again.

I need to learn how to do that…

Chrysalis breathed in, slowly, and went right back to her charges.

“You won’t let me investigate Cadance, despite that witch having it coming,” she said, beginning a finger count, “You won’t let me sue that little hussy Shimmer for getting in said fit-thrower’s face and potentially causing the original emotional duress…

“Did you know she doesn’t have parents?” She stared at Cinch a moment, perhaps gauging her sister’s reaction - stone-faced, as it stood - before pressing on, saying, “Never filed for emancipation, either. I could have had Child Services cart her away, if you’d just let me…”

The magical ‘screen’ nearly cracked itself, under Midnight’s bear-like grip. Her teeth-clenching was starting to make her jaw hurt, too.

Listening to this… this… Lawyer is going to give me a heart attack. Or her…

…

“… if you’d just let me…”

Midnight’s growing anger sloughed away from her, like loose snow falling off a rooftop. She felt a strange chill settle, somewhere in her heart. Something in the way Chrysalis said that sounded…

If you’d just let me, Midnight repeated to herself. And again. And again.

Cinch could have done all this… gone after Cadance, gone after Sunset… but she was the one restraining Chrysalis?

She decided she needed to hear more. This didn’t make sense. It couldn’t. There had to be an explanation… somewhere.

Chrysalis threw her hands up. “So, I thought, ‘Hey, Chrysalis!’” she descended, slightly, into an odd parody of her own voice, “Abbey knows what she’s doing! Surely, this is just one step in her masterplan for getting back at Celestia for that thing that happened in fifth-period Science…!”

“Chryssy…” Cinch growled, and to Midnight’s delight, blushed deeply at whatever memory had resurfaced.

“But then, nothing!” Chrysalis snarled, and slapped the tabletop with both hands. “You just… retired! Walked away from everything! I thought you might get a Chancellorship, or a Deanship, or just join the Schoolboard and bury CHS under a mountain of bureaucratic hellfire.

“But… nothing…” she finished with a distressed sigh that actually took Midnight a little by surprise.

Perhaps realizing she had said that last bit at a rather worryingly high volume, Chrysalis half-turned, and glanced over her shoulder to the local play area, where Thorax was… as was possibly typical of him, playing ‘horsie’ with Cozy Glow in the ball pit, while Pharynx watched, shaking his head at the sight.

“Then, after you started writing that book,” Chrysalis muttered, more quietly, “You get a bug up your chimney about adopting… and then you go and pick the one kid everyone I talked to had pegged for a serial killer.

“I have to ask, Abbey!” she swiveled back around… and Midnight almost dropped the spell entirely as tears, actual tears, formed in Chrysalis’ eyes. “Tell me what’s going on. You’re like a different person these days. Just… just let me in, okay? What’s all this about?”

Midnight scoffed, internally. Yeah, good luck with that. Cinch doesn’t have a heart. She doesn’t care about people, only results.

Abacus Cinch sagged in her chair, and looked away from her sister. The lines around her mouth, her crow’s feet beside her eyes, all began to deepen as a long, airy sigh escaped her lungs.

And when she looked back, she seemed ten years older.

“I very much considered asking for your… assistance with the matter,” Cinch admitted in a weak, breathy voice. “But… in the end, I suppose I didn’t think anyone would believe me as to what had happened.”

A soft, sad smirk touched Chrysalis’ lips. “So, there was something more to it? It wasn’t just some little girl having a freak out?”

Cinch winced, but did not look away.

“In point of fact,” she said, slowly, “It was a… student. Though a ‘freak out’ is not how I would describe what happened at those games. But then…”

Cinch gave a rueful smirk, something far more sad than triumphant.

“Well, you’ve seen the video. You know what happened next.”

“Of course, I…” Chrysalis paused, and stared. Her nose scrunched up, and she narrowed her eyes. “You’re… not talking about those silly hooftube videos, are you? The one those Conspiracy Nuts have been talking about?”

Conspiracy… oh, no…

Midnight vaguely recalled, through the mists of time and mental blocking, that Twilight and Sunset had made some effort to scrub the internet of any evidence of what had happened at the Friendship Games. Sure, most videos were just a blurry phonepost from a couple miles away, but enough were closer to the action that the story of the Canterlot Witch had sprung up on a few online forums.

Is that where I got the burn-the-witch dream from? She wondered.

She gently facepalmed at the memory.

I’m literally an internet meme. I hate… everything.

Cinch had said nothing. She simply stared back at her sister without emotion. Not a hint of snark, or humor, or anything to assuage Chrysalis that her sibling was anything other than deadly serious.

Or, mentally unbalanced.

“You’re just like Dad…” she sighed. “You can’t tell me that some… magical being attacked the games, and you got blamed for it!”

“I can,” Cinch said, simply. Then, shaking her head, she added, “Some of Celestia’s students had obtained… powers. Magic, or not, they used supernatural abilities to cheat at the games. Or, so I thought at the time.”

When Chrysalis said nothing – merely frowned in concern at her sister’s mental wellbeing, Cinch continued.

“Well, what was I to do? Crystal Prep had never, and would never, lose a competition to Canterlot High School,” she said, a familiar edge seeping back into her voice. “I had a student who had been studying some of the local phenomena…”

“Local legends? Bighoof sightings?” Chrysalis sneered, “Any pixies or fairies hanging around?”

Though her attention was primarily focused on Cinch, Midnight couldn’t help but pout at the way Chrysalis so casually misrepresented her initial research.

Cinch shrugged. “She collected samples of a strange energy she’d detected around CHS… and I asked her to use it, as Celestia’s students had. To win the Games.”

Chrysalis gave a weary sigh, and glanced at her watch in clear annoyance.

“Abbey, if you’re not going to take this seriously, I have other clients…”

“Did Dad ever mention how Cordwood’s car can fly?” Cinch asked, suddenly.

Chrysalis’s eyes widened by a few inches.

Cinch smiled, and asked, “Or, how the old Professor was millennia old, and taught all the ancient philosophers in history? Or how about Cordwood’s ability to snap his fingers and cause random objects to appear out of thin air. Or turn into cheese. Or…”

“Okay, stop!” Chrysalis held her hands out, pleadingly. She looked worried now, licking her lips over and over again. “When did he tell you…?”

“I haven’t spoken to our father in six years, Chryssy,” Cinch said with another proud smirk, and crossed her arms. “I know all this because I decided to take his Economics class, and you didn’t.”

Chrysalis stared at her sister with unblinking eyes. Her hands gripped the edge of the plastic table so tightly that her knuckles had begun to turn white.

“But… how…?”

Cinch shrugged, and said, “I have no idea why I couldn’t remember any of it until the other day. I suspect something happened with the Professor. Something that has caused him to… reassert himself in my memory.

“Regardless, what I said was true.” Cinch uncrossed her arms, saying, “I saw magic – real magic! – and all I could think about at the time was winning a stupid, stupid game. And I did it…”

She paused, and stared into the distance for a second or two. Midnight felt a chill as she watched this, before remembering that her former principal couldn’t see her through the spell.

“I forced my student to do something quite foolish,” Cinch continued, “In an act that shall haunt me forever, I might add. And… well. You know the rest. It was impossible to retain my position, considering all the trouble that caused me.”

Cinch sighed, and closed her eyes. While she now had Chrysalis’ undivided attention, she seemed content to just… sit there. Thinking.

Or plotting, as Midnight might describe it.

Because that’s what this is, she reasoned, quite reasonably. A plot. Cinch is always up to something…

She has to be.

“And, when I left, I was indeed upset,” Cinch continued, “But I felt then that I could find… some other way to strike back at those who’d cast me out. Those six brats at CHS. Cadenza. All of them. Some way that didn’t make me look like an old lunatic hag blathering about magical girls…”

Midnight glared through the spell so hard that she felt she could almost set the older woman ablaze right then and there. And she half-wished that was the case.

“But no one wanted me after the Friendship Games,” Cinch went on, folding her fingers before her. “I was damaged goods, after that debacle. You know how allergic schools are to even the speculation of controversy. And what could be more controversial than a high-ranking administrator from a prestigious school suddenly, and quietly, leaving her position under the intimation of pressure from the student body? Not even a formal request for my resignation, nor a proper censure.

“No school, public or private, would touch me with a ten-foot pole,” she said with another shake of her head. “And why would they? I could have committed all sorts of impropriety, and left under the threat of legal recourse, as you well know.”

Chrysalis said nothing. She didn’t need to. Lawyers knew, all too well, that even the accusation was enough to torpedo most careers. Education just got the worst of it.

“So, I decided that, if I could not teach or administrate, the least I could do was write,” Cinch said, leaning back into her seat. “I believe I mentioned that once before?”

“You did,” Chrysalis quietly agreed, and gave a quick nod. “You… said you wanted to pass on your teaching methods? All you’d learned as a Principal of a school, so that others would follow your example, I think you said.”

“Let us hope you prove to be up to Crystal Prep’s exacting standards, Miss Sparkle.”

That’s what Cinch had said, on Mid… on Twilight’s first day at Crystal Prep. Despite her record-setting entrance exam test scores, Midnight would add.

You demanded more than perfection. You painted a target on my back, and gave everyone else in school a gun…

“My legacy…” Cinch said wistfully, “If I couldn’t have Crystal Prep, I would have the future of education.”

She leaned onto the table, and almost whispered in a conspiratorial fashion, “But, do you know what happened next?”

When Chrysalis said nothing, Cinch leaned back, and said, “For such a work to be as complete and fulfilling as I felt it needed to be, I required research. Not just my own notes would do. I had to bring up my competition. Papers and journals written by those who did not believe, as I did, in academic competition…”

“It is the fate of genius to be harried by vipers, Miss Sparkle. I’m sure I don’t know how your test results were made public to the other students, but perhaps this is a boon! Now your slacker peers will have a more visible goal to reach if they wish to compete with you.”

Midnight clenched her fists tight as the memory came swarming back to the fore.

Gee, thanks, Midnight bitterly thought as blood seeped from where her fingernails dug into her palms. Then Lemon Zest snapped my bra, and Sunny Flare poured gorilla glue in my locker. The day before, I had an invite to a slumber party, and the next?

Sugarcoat slammed a door in my face. That’s what your philosophy got me…

“I even went back and read a few older texts.” Cinch waved her hands about in an airy, disinterested manner. “You know, the stuff they had us read in college and post-graduate; Gusty’s Guide to the Classroom, Aurstallion’s Ethics, and even a few of Grogar’s old child psychology essays and suchlike…”

“They still let that dinosaur write?” Chrysalis managed a feeble laugh at the chance to poke a bit of fun.

Cinch shrugged at her sister’s quip, and pressed on. “I read it all in earnest, looking for the arguments my book would inevitably have to destroy. And…”

She stopped. Cinch looked down at the table before her, and laid her hands out flat on its surface.

Chrysalis prompted her with a drawn out, “And…?”

“And…” Cinch bit her lip. “And I couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. Every argument against me rang with a bit of truth. Every argument for me sounded… well, hollow.

“Especially at night,” she said, turning aside, “When I… saw her.”

Midnight’s eyes widened at the way Cinch said that. She was a connoisseur of implied undertone, Midnight was, and there was something different about that ‘her’. Something primal.

She tried to swallow, but Midnight’s mouth had gone dry.

Cinch was afraid.

Of her.

“… Anywhere to avoid that… Monster…!”

That’s what she’d said.

“I couldn’t get away from Twilight Sparkle,” Cinch hissed after a moment, and covered her own eyes. In a quivering tone, she went on. “I would read a passage on something like Mascow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and then I would dream about…”

Cinch shuddered, and wiped at her eyes for… for some reason Midnight could not identify.

Cinch doesn’t cry, she reasoned. Impossible. Truly impossible.

Stop being crazy, Midnight.

Stop it.

She gritted her teeth, and failed to notice the steam coming from her eyes.

STOP IT.

“I didn’t provide her a safe space in which to grow,” Cinch went on, “She was my brightest pupil, by far, and I wasn’t satisfied. I thought, if I could push her harder, further, that she would be my crowning achievement. A gold star forever besides my name. I used her to build Crystal Prep’s reputation, foisting whatever challenges I could onto her, so long as it meant she had what I thought she needed; a fire at her heels…”

Put your school on the map…

“… and, yes, put Crystal Prep on the map, where it belonged,” Cinch said, “Months of that. Seeing what I turned her into, laughing like a madwoman. A demon.

“And then came the interview,” she finished with a deflating sigh, “I don’t suppose I’ve mentioned it?”

“Not to me,” Chrysalis said, hand inching across the table towards her sister, as if she both wanted to hold her hand, and was also fearful of the touch. “What happened?”

“I got into contact with old Grogar, actually,” she said with a sniff, “I wanted to get a few… I don’t know. Quotes from him? He was my inspiration, you know. He taught me everything I knew about teaching, about education…”

Silence fell between the sisters. Chrysalis waited, patiently for Cinch to continue, probably never having seen her like this before, and not likely to see her like this again.

Midnight didn’t notice the way the air shimmered around her, as blue flames licked at her eyes. No one did. Not yet.

Like what? Sad!? What does she have to be sad about? She’s not sorry.

No, never sorry.

She’s Cinch. She’s a heartless witch!

“Turns out,” Cinch said, as quiet as a church mouse, “the man I’d… I’d spent my youth idolizing. The philosopher-teacher whose essays I’d built my life around. And he wanted to interview me.”

“And?” Chrysalis asked, trying her best to give a sympathetic quirk of her eyebrows, and only somewhat succeeding. “What did he say?”

Cinch laughed, a hollow, biting laugh. “Ah, well. After I asked him about his old theories and research… he called me a monster.”

“… No…”

“Oh, yes,” Cinch said with a nod, “He’d long since rejected his old work! Tossed the whole thing out. He was horrified by me, by what I’d done. Said he never meant to implement his theories, only speculate.”

She continued to chuckle to herself, but the tears were beginning to hit the table beneath her.

Midnight focused on the laughter.

The tears are an anomaly, she reasoned.

They have to be.

This isn’t fair…

Midnight could feel her teeth scrape against one another as her rage continued to build. The spell allowing her this view of her sworn enemy was beginning to crack under a newfound strain, a pressure from within.

Blue flames licked at her eyes.

“I was obsessed over leaving a legacy in education,” Cinch said while lightly dabbing at her eyes again with a small handkerchief, “and I got one. Even Cozy has heard of my… reputation. My cruelty. My hubris.

“I’m the monster,” she whispered.

Another moment passed in silence. Chrysalis seemed as lost in thought as Cinch was lost in memory.

The two simply sat in silence as the air heated around them.

“So, adopting Cozy Glow…?” Chrysalis asked, stroking her chin in thought.

“Another chance,” Cinch said with a helpless shrug. “I drove one student to madness and despair. I don’t think she’d ever accept an apology from me… and I don’t think I have the right to ask anything of her. But this child, I can still help. Even if that help is just sending her to Celestia.

“If I can help her,” she whispered, “maybe then… there would be hope for myself?”

“She’s an admitted arsonist and sociopathic liar,” Chrysalis chuckled, “I don’t think either of us would be qualified to help someone like that.”

“Yes, well…” Cinch half-smiled again, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “It won’t make up for failing before, but…”

Chrysalis would have laughed, except for two things. One was just tact, which she possessed in abundance.

Two was that the wall of hedges behind her sister had suddenly burst into flames.

Worryingly, blue flames.

Chrysalis and Cinch leapt out of their seats and rushed around the table to get away from the sudden conflagration. There was no smoke to be seen coming from the fire, and it burned far, far too quickly to be natural.

Cinch knew, immediately, what it was. She’d seen fire like that before.

“Twilight…?” Cinch breathed in a hushed tone.

The flames receded inward, vanishing the plants and the sisters’ table instantly. Something Cinch could only assume was due to their magical nature. For there was no other explanation but magic at this point.

As the blue flames condensed, they vanished in a flash of light… leaving behind the sight of a young woman standing in the now empty space. Her eyes blazed with a blue corona, and black wings reached out from her back in a terrifyingly familiar way to Cinch.

Midnight’s eyes were filled with fire, yes. They bloomed into blue-hot flames just like that fateful night two years past.

But beyond that, Cinch could feel the hatred that also filled her former student’s eyes.

Pure and unadulterated hatred.

Pointed at her.

“Twilight!?” Chrysalis asked in obvious fright, “That Twilight?”

After the span of a breath passed, she drew up her purse, and quickly rifled through its contents. Chrysalis whipped out her phone, and held it up in her hands.

“This is harassment!” she snarled at the creature before her, and hit record. “Intimidation! If you want to keep this civil, Miss Sparkle, you won’t make me upload all this to hooftube. You want this all a matter of public discourse? Regardless of what allegedly…”

Midnight didn’t spare her a glance. She raised one hand, and made the tiniest of gestures with one finger.

Chrysalis’ phone glowed bright blue, then leapt from her grip with the speed of thought. It wrenched itself apart in the air, sending a hail of plastic, glass, and metal showering down to the mall floor all around the terrified woman.

All save for the SIM card, which neatly snapped itself in half… and then caught fire before hurling itself into a nearby trash can.

The worst part was, for Cinch at least, that Midnight hadn’t said a word. She wasn’t even looking when she destroyed the phone.

Her eyes were still fixed on Cinch.

Cinch stared, slack-jawed at her former pupil’s approach. She swallowed twice, trying desperately to add some moisture to her mouth. A glance behind her confirmed that while Chrysalis was shaking in her heels, the children were at least able to take cover behind the miniature jungle gym they’d been playing at.

“Miss Sparkle…” she began to say. But, as she turned around, there was now less than an arm’s length between her and Midnight.

Slowly, Cinch turned her eyes downward, until she was looking directly into two pits of blue-hot flame. Unfiltered rage poured out of them, almost driving her back.

“What are you doing?” Midnight hissed, hateful eyes locked on Cinch’s own.

“I…” Cinch swallowed again, “I beg your pardon?”

Midnight waved one hand about her head. “This!” she cried, “Poor, misunderstood Abacus Cinch, pouring her heart out to her sister. Weeping over how she failed one student, and wants to make amends…”

Cinch could almost hear Midnight’s teeth grinding in her mouth as she spoke. It wasn’t hard to notice the droplets of blood falling from the girl’s hands as she spoke, either.

“Where was all this remorse two years ago?” Midnight snarled, teeth bared, “Or four years? How convenient that only now you started thinking about what you did to me.”

For a moment, Cinch considered raising her hands up, just to blunt some of the fury beaming directly at her face from Midnight. But she held herself still.

In a voice that sounds infinitely calmer than she herself felt, Cinch said, “It isn’t fair, I know that. I wish I could take it all…”

Midnight snarled again, “NO!”

Her voice ricocheted off the high mall ceiling, and came down with reverb. It seemed to startle her almost as much as Cinch herself.

Then, shaking her head, Midnight took a shuddering breath, and continued.

“No,” she said again, quieter yet still seething, “You don’t deserve to say that to me! You don’t have the right.”

Cinch was silent. She observed the way Midnight’s hands quivered with suppressed fury – astounding and terrifying in equal measure that this was her former student holding back – and her eyes kept avoiding direct eye contact.

“Why now?” Midnight asked again, “Why couldn’t you have changed earlier? Why not before you encouraged all my classmates to try and sabotage me!?”

“There isn’t an excuse,” Cinch said, simply. “I shouldn’t…”

“Shut up!” Midnight hissed, the flames around her eyes flaring in intensity. “You ruined my life, Cinch. All I wanted, back then, was to do well in class and maybe make some friends. I didn’t need the stress of watching out for constant pranks and harassment! Or the unceasing hostility from everyone around me!

“It wasn’t supposed to be that way,” she said, arms waving dangerously about her, “I wasn’t supposed to be this way!”

Midnight took a moment to breathe. And another.

“You saw the portals that day, right?”

Cinch seemed taken aback by the question. All she could do was nod, slowly.

Midnight’s lip twitched. Smiling, smirking, or… something else. Cinch couldn’t tell.

“There’s a whole other world, past those portals,” Midnight said, her voice growing more and more menacing for all it’s lack of emotion, “There’s other versions of me, my friends, everyone. I met myself, from that world.

“Do you know what the Me from there is like?” Her tone sharpened, and Midnight took one more step towards Abacus Cinch. “She grew up with teachers and mentors who nurtured her talents. She never had to worry about the kind of school environment – no, the tartarus you created for me to live in.”

She shook her head again, her eyes briefly losing contact with Cinch.

It was a wonder, Cinch thought, to see, even amongst blue fire… tears.

“She’s a Princess,” Midnight said, voice cracking, “She made friends. She… She’s done things no one could ever imagine, and I keep comparing myself to her because of you. Because you broke me…”

The black wings on Midnight’s back seemed somehow less full now. Less real. Their feathers were falling out, and vanishing. And though the flames remained, Cinch could still feel the heat coming off of them.

Midnight shuddered, and held back a sob.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to be better than this. I’m supposed to tell you that… that I’ve outgrown you. That you can’t hold me back anymore. That… that I don’t hate you, that I pity you, but then you go and start saying these things…

“How can I hate you, when you’re like this!?” she cried, fire flashing back to life all around her, giving Midnight a full-body corona, “I’m supposed to be better than this, so why!? Why am I still this angry!?”

The tears flowed freely now. They dripped down Midnight’s cheeks, and flashed away into steam as they fell. Her whole body was shaking, equal parts rage, self-pity, and misery all rolling together.

Cinch almost reached out her hands. The compulsion to… to do something, was so strong. Even the briefest of human contact would be better than the sound of Midnight sobbing. Wracked and consumed by what Cinch had done.

“Twilight…” she whispered, but held back from reaching out. “I… I don’t have an answer for you.

“I’m so sorry…”

In retrospect, that was definitely not the thing to do.

Midnight’s face came back up, and the fire which had been guttering, reignited. She reared up, magic flowing like a burst dam, and drew a spark of lightning and fury to her hands. The restaurant’s tables and chairs began to shake and rattle as a baleful wind whipped about Cinch and Midnight. The lights flickered in their sockets, and sparks flew from every metal surface.

With wings outstretched, Midnight let out a terrifying howl and drew back her arm, lightning ready to strike.

Cinch closed her eyes, but did not flinch. Whether she was too scared to move or to think was not something she had the presence of mind to consider.

And then… nothing.

No strike came.

Cinch slowly opened one eye, and found no one before her. The table, chairs, and even the hedges had reappeared exactly as they had been before Midnight’s appearance.

The only sign that she’d really been there appeared to be a scorched mark on the ground. A pile of ash that perfectly resembled the Sparkle sign she’d always worn.

Chrysalis’ arms flung around Cinch, and pulled her into a tearful, scared embrace. But, for all she wanted to, Cinch couldn’t seem to bring herself to hug her sister back. Her arms hung limply at her side.

“Okay,” the sound of Cozy’s voice brought Cinch out of her stupor, “That was… metal.”

Cinch sighed, and turned around to look at her daughter, who was even now peering at the burn with curious eyes.

Cozy frowned, then, and looked up at her adopted mother.

“Did… did she look surprised to anyone else?”

Midnight was surprised.

Very surprised.

One moment, she stood in the mall, hands blazing with destructive magical energy, and her most hated and despised of human beings directly in front of her.

At her mercy.

And then, in the next…

“AHHH!” she screamed, nearly dropping out of the air, arms and legs flailing. A blue hand snatched her wrist, and a yellow one her ankle, simultaneously steadying and panicking her more than ever.

“Midnight!” her sister’s voice cried out, “What are you doing here!?”

Midnight held her breath, and looked around for the source of the voice… only to glance up at her horn.

“W-when did I pony up?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“How did…?” Twilight’s voice cried out from their horn, “Wait… did you teleport here when I ponied up? How does that make sense!?”

They were floating in the air, high above the school, all of the Rainbooms. Rainbow Dash was holding onto her hand, and Fluttershy was at her feet. Together with Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Sunset Shimmer, all seven girls were ponied up, and flying in their characteristic heart-shaped formation.

They were overflowing with the Elements of Harmony, sending wave after wave of rainbow light into the skies around them, though their attention seemed fixed on a spot down below, where what appeared to be a giant, shaggy grey and pink monster, a bus-sized yeti of a thing, was smashing CHS’s track and field bleachers to bits.

“What the heck is going on!?” Midnight stammered, “What did I miss?!”

“Shh!” Twilight hissed, “Sunset’s almost done!”

Blinking, Midnight looked to the girl in the center of their heart-formation. Sunset was…

Well, it was obvious her Alicorn transformation had done something for her, that was clear. Sunset’s magical outfit had turned to a white-and-gold number, and great golden wings held her aloft in the air without apparent effort.

She was talking to the creature.

“… and the Magic… of Friendship!”

The world exploded into rainbows. As the titanic rainbow laser flew down atop the strange creature, transformed by Equestrian magic no doubt, Midnight… felt something.

It was like coming indoors from a winter chill, and finding a grand roaring fireplace. It was like a mouthful of hot marshmallows, or the sound of music filling your head, your chest, your heart.

It had been so long since Midnight had felt… that type of magic.

If she weren’t already crying, it would have brought fresh tears to her eyes.

As it stood, the light faded quickly, and the Rainbooms came down gently to the earth. As soon as her feet touched ground, Pinkie was off like a shot, towards the crater left by their magical hug blast.

And as soon as Midnight touched down, she collapsed. Like a puppet with their strings cut. She felt herself fall out of sync with Twilight as she did so, leaving her sister standing with the others.

It took a moment for Midnight to swivel her head upright, and another for the world to stop spinning.

“What… happened?” she asked, groggily.

She looked up, and past her sister’s concerned face she could see Pinkie Pie… holding up a smaller, grey girl with long grey hair.

Wait… I know her, don’t I?

“What happened to Marble?” Midnight asked, pointing out Pinkie’s sister with a feeble hand.

“Omigosh!” Twilight cried, and lifted Midnight to an upright position, “You would not believe the time we’ve had. I guess Pinkie’s been dealing with some stuff, or… not dealing with some stuff at home? And Marble… oops. I mean, Octavio, has been going through some other things, and was feeling like Pinkie abandoned him and then she found this magic ring…”

She sighed, and shook her head.

“It’s been a lot,” she concluded. Then, brows knitting together in a concerned frown, Twilight placed a hand on Midnight’s knee. “You, ah… you’ve had a day of it too, right? How are you holding up?”

Midnight stared at her sister. For a single moment, her composure held… but not for much longer than that. Tears flowed, and her mouth twisted into an awful grimace as the last few minutes flooded back.

Another gasp tore itself from her lungs, and she buried her head in Twilight’s shoulder.

“Whoa!” Twilight cried, and quickly wrapped her arms around her sister, “Hang on! What’s…?”

“Cinch!” Midnight sobbed, brokenly into her sister’s shirt, “A-at the mall. She w-was there, and I… I had to talk to her…”

The hug tightened. And Midnight allowed herself to cry harder.

“Twilight…?” Midnight whispered.

Twilight pressed her head into the crook of Midnight’s neck, and whispered back, “Yes?”

Midnight licked her lips, and said, “I almost did something. Something terrible. If… if you hadn’t pulled me back…”

“I know,” Twilight said, simply. “I know. I’d… I don’t know what I would have done.”

A sobbing laugh choked its way out of Midnight’s throat.

“Heh, I’m the evil twin, remember?” she asked, “You… you would have been fine…”

The other Rainbooms held themselves back, from either party. Pinkie and Marble were almost mirrors of Twilight and Midnight’s shaking, crying huddle, and no one knew if any of them were even needed at this point.

Still, no one moved until the last tear was shed.

Hours had passed. After a few more minutes of sobbing, Midnight was well enough to stand. She and Twilight had walked home in a zombie-like stupor, neither willing to bring up what had happened, either at school or at the mall.

Focus, the Shadow reminded Midnight. Forget about Cinch. She doesn’t matter. No one else does. Right now, it’s just you and Twilight.

Don’t forget what must be done.

Midnight said nothing. Not internally. And not at dinner, once she and Twilight had gotten home. There wasn’t much to talk about. Luna had called home, and let the family know what Midnight’s options were in terms of schooling.

No one wanted to talk about it tonight. Velvet and Night Light kept things as casual as they could, of course. Steady, tight hugs. Head pats. Words of infinite love and encouragement.

It was nice.

It just wasn’t welcome. Not yet.

Especially not the news that, following their late-night research session, Twilight and Midnight would be locked out of their lab for a few days.

Parents’ orders. Sleep, and lots of it was the punishment for such curfew-defying logistics.

Dinner was conservative, in terms of talk. Everyone was exhausted, after all. And clean-up following that was similarly muted.

Almost time, the Shadow laughed.

Almost time.

Destiny.

The… removal of a Sparkle Sister…

Midnight sat on her bed in her pajamas. She stared at nothing, despite her eyes being locked onto the now five-day old scorch mark in the middle of her bedroom floor. A reminder of her first night here, when she and Twilight…

You became one.

Become one again.

It would be a relief to no longer hear the Shadow’s words. To be free. To start to be whole again.

The door opened, and Twilight entered, a towel around her shoulders. She was also in her pajamas, and had her hair long. The shower had visibly relaxed her.

“Well,” she said, dropping heavily onto her own bed, “That was… a day. Right?”

Midnight said nothing. She merely stared at her sister.

Into that silence, Twilight coughed. Then, she looked down at her feet. Then, back up.

“So, first Friday?” she said with a wide, fake smile. “I promise… they’re not all as… bad.”

Twilight sighed. She looked over to her shelf, where a painfully memorable doll sat. she gripped Smarty Pants in her magic, and drew the stitched pony to her hand.

As she pet the thing, she hummed.

“I know this hasn’t been the best day, or even the best week for you,” she whispered, eyes still on the doll, “But… it will get better. I promise.”

You have no idea…

“Can we talk?” Twilight asked, suddenly. “It’s just… the news today, about… about School. If it were me, I’d…”

“You would do exactly as I did,” Midnight said in a monotone, “Probably.”

Twilight was silent, for a moment. Then, looking up with sorrow in her eyes, she said, “Midnight? Do… do you want to talk about it?”

Midnight pursed her lips.

Now. Now is the time.

“Kind of,” said Midnight, rising from her bed. “Or, something very… close. Very close to that.”

“O-oh?” Twilight’s frown shifted. It was less open now, more guarded. More suspicious.

As she should be, the fool.

Midnight walked slowly across the room, hands behind her back. Her footfalls were absolutely silent, muffled by the thick purple carpeting. And yet, in the pregnant pause between her and Twilight, those footsteps were as loud as thunder.

“Yeah,” Midnight said as she came to a stop. “I actually have a… rather important question for you as well.”

Twilight glanced to the door furtively, and then back to her sister, looming like a shadow above her.

“D-do you?”

“Oh, yes,” Midnight smirked, and knelt down till she was eye level with Twilight. She braced her hands on the bed, and leaned forward.

Now, do it! The Shadow cackled with delight.

Destroy her! Take your life back!

“Twilight…?” she whispered, eyes afire.

“… Yes?” Twilight whispered back. A solitary drop of sweat dripped down her temple, and she bit her lip.

Unleash the ma—

“What does the Voice in your head say about me?” Midnight asked, casually, one questioning eyebrow raised.

Twilight… blinked.

“What?”

What?

“You know, the Voice?” Midnight said again as she leaned back and smirked her smirkiest smirk, “Sounds like you, but isn’t? Keeps telling you that you suck at life? Probably keeps trying to get you to kill or absorb me for…”

She shrugged. “I’m guessing, everyone’s protection because I’m crazy and evil?”

Twilight’s eyes widened, and her pupils dilated down to specks as her jaw dropped almost to the floor.

Wait… what!?

“Seriously, how close am I? One to ten it for me—"

“You hear it too!?” Twilight gasped, and clutched at the sides of her head, “But… what? How…? It told you to what me!?”

A grin flashing across her face, Midnight leapt back to her feet and gave a triumphant whoop at the angled ceiling.

“Ha ha!” she laughed, “I’m not crazy! You can hear it too!”

What are you doing!? the Shadow cried. This isn’t what we planned!!!

“No, it wasn’t,” Midnight huffed, “Face it, Shadow. I played you good.”

“What?” Twilight asked, frown returning.

“In a moment, sis,” Midnight said, waving Twilight’s concern away. “Was I right? About what it was saying? The voice?”

A blush bloomed over Twilight’s face. “Y-yes…” she squeaked, and looked away in embarrassment. Then, biting her lip again, she turned back and quickly added, “But I would never do something like that! Not to you!”

Midnight’s smile, already pushing back the lines and the wear and tear of her sleepless nights, softened.

“Of course, not,” she said, reaching out a hand to gently cup her sister’s face, “I know you wouldn’t do that, because I never would either. We’re… well, a little closer than most sisters.

“And that,” Midnight said with a sudden icy edge, “is why I knew the voice wasn’t me. That, and the fact that it was trying to out-mind-game me.”

Twilight laughed, darkly. “You were the best at it. Believe me…”

Her face scrunched up. Then, with an understandable amount of worry and dread in her eyes, she hummed and asked, “Wait, does this mean our split personality has a split personality?”

“Yeah, we’re a basket case,” Midnight chuckled wearily, and started back towards her closet. As she spoke, she pulled the door open, and glanced through her options. “I mean, sure… I tried to get you to destroy the universe and devour all the magic in Equestria. But getting everyone killed wasn’t really the end goal, you know?”

“Hm, right,” Twilight snorted and rolled her eyes. “You were just going to destroy the universe to sate our curiosity. No big deal, right? Oh…” she gasped, “But the voice keeps trying to get me to fight you. To… to, um…”

“Kill me,” Midnight huffed, “Yes, I get it. You don’t have to feel embarrassed. It was trying to get me to do the same thing over the whole Everton-Community-College thing.”

Twilight blanched.

“Uh…?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it yet,” Midnight sighed, and then stepped back from her closet. Fixing Twilight with another look, she shrugged, and said, “That’s in the future. And right now, I want to deal with this particular problem. Leave the rest till we’re clear of this.”

“What even is this?” Twilight asked. She stood up from her bed and started pacing the room. “Is this really another… um, another us?”

“Not enough data. Don’t know yet,” said Midnight, a flicker of her blue magic jumping between her outstretched fingers, “Hang on…”

There was a flash of blue fire in the room, which only barely caught Twilight’s attention as she continued to ponder the revelation Midnight had given her. When she did look over, she found her sister completely dressed again in her purple denim outfit.

“Why are you getting dressed?” she asked.

Midnight shrugged, and quickly checked her hair in the vanity mirror they’d left up on the writing desk. “Well, I’m not leaving in my pajamas. Rarity would probably kill me from miles away.”

“Leaving…?” Twilight did a quick double-take, then shaking her head, she cried, “You can’t leave! Where are you going!?”

“I just said we don’t have enough data,” Midnight said, rolling her eyes. She waved her hand again, causing another flare up of magic to dance across her fingers.

A similar flash swept over Twilight’s form, leaving her dressed once more in her somewhat iconic blouse and skirt.

The spell had even re-tied her hair up.

“Okay,” Twilight sighed in annoyance, “One: I can dress myself, thank you very much. You got the skirt backwards, by the way.

“And second: Where do you think you’re going?” She waved her hand, and a purple flash of magic righted her attire. “The lab is locked up, and none of our friends are going to be awake. How exactly are you planning to…?”

She paused. A scowl quickly overcame her face, and Twilight had to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“No.”

Midnight nodded, and stepped to one side of the Sparkle symbol still burned into the carpet. “Yes, actually.”

“We don’t know what this is yet!” Twilight protested, “You don’t know if she’s another split personality, or something else!”

“Considering she tried to get us to kill each other,” Midnight said with her own scowl forming, “I’d say she’s definitely something worse.”

Twilight crossed her arms, anger falling aside before curiosity once more.

“But what could be worse than…? Oh, no.”

Midnight grinned. “Yes?”

“We tore our own mind apart with magic…” Twilight whispered.

“Indeed, we did,” said Midnight, nodding along. “Very traumatic, that.”

Twilight resumed her pacing, wearing out the carpet in a small circle besides the scorch mark.

“If we’ve been sharing the same dreams,” she mused, “then it could be that our Split wasn’t as final as we’d hoped. There might be a small amount of our shared Dreamrealm that’s still connected. That sort of oneiric tether would be under a tremendous amount of stress…”

“And what happens when you add magic, stress, and dreams together?” Midnight asked, her goblin grin hinting that she’d already pieced it together herself.

The pacing stopped.

Twilight’s face went white as a sheet, eyes as wide as was humanly possible.

She turned, and gasped, “An Incubus!”

“Hey! Got it in one…”

“Luna was right!” Twilight cried, clutching at her head with both hands.

Midnight frowned. “Don’t give her credit,” she snorted, “I mean, she thought I was the soul-eating dream demon.”

“But that’s good!” Twilight laughed. She leapt forward, and planted both hands on Midnight’s shoulders. “She was right about the cause! She was just working from incomplete information. A simple mistake, but then again, she’s not a scientist…”

“You’re taking this very well,” Midnight said with feigned worry. She couldn’t stop a little bit of her sister’s sudden enthusiasm from infecting her, still. “Kind of too well, actually. You do know she’s still trying to destroy our sanity, right?”

“It’s an answer!” Twilight giggled, and snorted. “And besides, I survived you doing the same thing. Some rank amateur manifestation of mental trauma and existentialism can’t compare to you!”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but…” Midnight started to say, before the giggles got to her too.

And, for the first time in what felt like years, Midnight felt the weight fall away from her shoulders. She stood in her room, embracing her other half, her sister… and all they were doing was laughing.

It just made the prospect of facing the Shadow a little less awful, to be there.

With Twilight.

For once, Midnight wasn’t too upset to be crying.

But, after their laughter had subsided, neither let go of the other. Still apart, physically, Midnight and Twilight each felt the same thing, holding the other. A sort of meditative, openness. A warmth.

“So,” Twilight said, hesitant to break the spell, “Where are you going?”

Midnight sighed, and regretfully drew away from her sister. “Well, we have a dream demon to get rid of,” she said with a shrug. “Best place for that is…”

“The Dreamrealm?” Twilight asked, an unamused frown returning to her brow. “Really? Without Luna…?”

“That Princess is useless!” Midnight scoffed. “If she knew what she was doing, she’d be here right now, helping us. Wouldn’t she?”

“You can’t just jump into the Dreamrealm!” Twilight shouted back.

“Well, what choice do I have?” Midnight said with a huff. “Shadowlight has control over our dreams right now. If we try to go in the regular way, we can’t guarantee we can still lucidly dream, since she’s clearly been denying us that so far!”

“You can’t… Shadowlight?” Twilight asked, bemused.

“You know, like… Twilight? Midnight?” Midnight said with a smirk and a hammy eyebrow wiggle. “It fits, right?”

That is not my name…

Twilight snorted, “Well, that settles that. Shadowlight it is. But I…”

Midnight reached a hand out, cutting Twilight off with the gesture. She kept it out, palm up, in an invitation.

“Come with me?” Midnight asked, her bravado fading from her expression.

Twilight stared at the hand. “Come with you?”

“I…” Midnight began. But then, she paused. She drew in another deep breath.

And then, she said, “Twilight? I can’t do this without you. I need you. You’re my… my better half. My sister. The only constant for me, in this disaster of a week, has been knowing that you’ll always be there with me.

“So, please,” she managed to say without a sob, or a sigh, or a croak as her walls came down, “Come with me?”

Twilight slowly tilted her head up, back to where she could look straight on at Midnight. Her face was unreadable, a mask of calculations and reasoning at war with itself.

And then, she smiled.

“If you’re going to go blowing things up in our subconscious,” she said, taking Midnight’s hand in her own, “I’m coming with you.”

Spike trotted down the upstairs hall with trepidation. He knew that this was his moment. The moment that would define his entire existence from here, on.

But it was something he had to do.

For himself, and for his family.

“Twilight?” he said as he kicked open the bedroom door, “Midnight? I want to talk about turning me into…”

The little dog stopped. Something was different with the room. Something major.

If he had to put a paw on it, Spike would guess that different thing was the fact that the entire back wall was now a swirling green vortex of fire and lightning looking out into the yawning depths of star-studded space. The scorched sparkle symbol in the floor radiated with the same magical light, and seemed to be the anchor of the vortex’s axis.

And framed in that magical gyre, stood the unified form of Twilight and Midnight Sparkle. A winged purple girl with pink and aqua highlights, and a long purple coat over the more familiar light blue ponied-up outfit he had seen before.

“I can see you’re busy,” he offered, nonplussed, “We can pick this up again later…”

Before he could say anything else, however, a slightly more openly startled Shining Armor came careening around the corner, and soon stood himself in the doorframe.

“Midnight? Twilight!” he called out over the rumbling wind that sounded from the dimensional portal, “What’s going on here!?”

“Oh, Shiny!” Twilight’s voice said from the glowing horn in her forehead, “We, uh… were hoping you were asleep, actually.”

A purple aura wrapped around a nearby book. Shining saw the cover for a brief second, a fusion of his sisters’ sparkle-sign, and a crescent moon. Midnight… Twilight? One or both of them snapped the book open, and began writing inside the cover using one finger. From the way it sparked with eldritch light, Shining could only guess that she was using magic of some sort.

He was suddenly struck with how oddly blasé he and the rest of the family were becoming to stuff like that.

“There!” Midnight said, satisfied. She tossed the journal back onto her bed, and said, “I’ve let Princess Loony know where we’re going. Happy?”

“It’s a simple safety precaution!” Twilight’s voice grumbled, “You’d think after not-testing the Mind-Split spell, you would congratulate me on being more careful with spellwork.”

“Where are you going!?” Shining shouted, concern in his voice.

“Like I didn’t just get done explaining this,” Midnight sighed.

Twilight, however, was more than willing to explain anyway.

“We figured out what was wrong,” she said, still a disembodied voice echoing from her horn. “There’s a sort of malevolent dream construct created by fear, anxiety, and stress called an Incubus. And it’s more or less trying to destroy our mind and take over our body.”

“Seriously,” Midnight scoffed, “Imitation is a form of flattery, I get that. But it couldn’t have done its own thing?”

Shining blinked a few times. He stared at his oddly conjoined sibling, and then at the portal behind them.

“So, you’re going…?”

“Into our own dreams,” Midnight answered simply.

“Right, into your own dreams,” he repeated back. “And you’re going to fight a…?”

“Dream demon,” Twilight added, helpfully. “We’re calling her Shadowlight, at the moment, lacking any other meaningful designation.”

The body of Midnight-Twilight tilted her/their head to one side. Then, she/they stared at the portal with a glare.

“Shadowlight is a great name,” Midnight huffed to… no one Shining could see. “You’re just mad that we’re going to blast you in a second.”

Shining Armor, deferring to his sister(s)’ track record on things of this nature, ignored how she/they – he really needed to ask them if there was an easier name to call them while fused – seemed to be talking to themselves.

He nodded, once. Then, twice. He hummed, a little, as he considered this new information.

Then, he stepped over Spike, and into the room.

“Cool,” he said, “Let’s do this.”

“What?” Twilight’s voice asked, startled, “You… You’re not going!”

“Oh, yes I am!” he repeated, and planted his hands on his hips in the most police officer-way he possibly could. “I’m not letting you two go on your own! Even if it’s not a school-night.”

“Shining, we’re literally going to be fighting for our lives against a construct of nightmares, existential fear, and possibly madness,” said Midnight, scowling at her brother’s bluster. “What are you gonna do? Arrest the Incubus!?”

He just smirked, and reached behind Twilight’s bed. Pulling out the aluminum baseball bat Rainbow Dash had given Twilight for her last birthday – Dash was awful at gifts, Midnight realized – Shining swung it around his head experimentally, and then turned back towards his sisters.

“Then you’re gonna need your BBBFF there to help you out,” he declared.

“That’s…” Midnight shook her head, and sighed. “That’s very… nice of you to say, but it’s too…”

“Hey!” Spike barked, “If Shining’s going, then I’m coming along too!”

He hopped forward, and landed right at Midnight/Twilight’s feet.

“You’ll need me in there!” he said, patting his chest, “I saved the day the first time something crazy like this happened, after all…”

Twilight laughed at the way Midnight groaned at the recollection of Spike’s contribution to her first defeat.

“… And you’ll of course need your LBBFF!” he finished with aplomb, “Little Brother Best Friend Forever!”

“What we’re doing is stupid dangerous!” Midnight protested, only to watch as both Shining and Spike walked up to the portal, and came to a stop besides her.

“Yeah?” Shining asked. “And you think I’d let either of my LSBFF’s go do something stupidly dangerous on their own?”

Twilight muttered, “You’re taking this way too well. At least tell us to wait, or get help from the others, or…”

“I’m learning to roll with all this magic stuff,” he said with a shrug. “And if I asked you to stop, you wouldn’t.”

Spike added, “And you’ve probably got a good reason for both of the other things…”

“And it’s you two,” Shining said, more softly, and set one hand comfortingly on his sisters’ shoulder. “I’d do anything for my Little Sisters.”

“You’re stuck with us!” Spike laughed, and gave his best doggie grin.

Midnight and Twilight held their collective tongue for a moment. Neither said a word as they stared past their… brothers. Whatever went on in their fused mind right now was their own secret counsel.

But Shining knew by the way his sister blinked that she was trying very hard not to let what she was feeling show. The smile was hard-pressed to show on her lips, but the wetness in her eyes couldn’t hide from him.

“Alright then,” said Twilight, holding out their hands, “Hold on tight, and don’t let go.”

Hands and paws clasped tight, Shining, Midnight, Twilight, and Spike drifted up into the air under the twins’ magical power, and turned towards the portal.

Midnight flapped her wings once, and carried all four of them into the black night of her mind.

Principal Luna didn’t really think of herself as a night person these days. Working at a school had long disabused her of the ability to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, gaming or partying or reading or whatever she happened to feel like doing that particular night.

Which was why the ringing doorbell and pounding at her front door was just so infuriating when it came at this time of night.

“I should be up,” she thought, bitterly. “But I’m a responsible adult now,” she mocked with a – somehow – bad impression of herself.

Sighing, she treaded down the hall of her and her sister’s shared home, past a dozen portraits and paintings of family long-gone or distant. The ringing bell wouldn’t stop, it seemed. Despite being long after a reasonable hour, someone was determined to get Luna’s attention tonight, regardless of the cost.

Yawning, and with great irritation, Luna threw open the door.

“Someone had better be dead,” she grumbled, and looked out into the darkened streets.

There was no one there. At least, not at her eye-level.

She looked down at the thing sitting on her front porch.

It was a pony. A four-and-a-half-foot tall pony.

With wings and a horn. And a flowing, ethereal mane of dark starlight.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” Princess Luna said, and gave a regal bow to her human counterpart.

Luna didn’t respond. She didn’t even blink.

“I am most sorry for this intrusion,” the Princess said with a shake of her head, “I was hoping to continue your training in Dream Magic tonight, but something has occurred… something grave, that requires Our immediate attention. Yours, and mine own.”

Principal Luna still didn’t respond.

Princess Luna did not seem to notice.

“Quickly!” she cried, and stood on her hind legs in a most dramatic fashion, “Twilight and Midnight Sparkle are in far more danger than We suspected. We must enter the Dream Realm and reach their friends soon! Before it is too late!”

Luna did not respond.

Instead, she collapsed to her floor, fainting straight away.

“Oh, good!” Princess Luna stamped her hooves approvingly, “You already guessed my plan’s first step.”

She hummed to herself. “Oh, but my regular magic is all but nonexistent in this dimension. How will I carry you to… ah!”

Her eyes lit up as a veritable boon walked into the entryway from the hall. A spectacularly tall human woman who bore more than a little resemblance to Luna’s own sister.

“Excellent!” the Princess cheered, “Dearest Celestia! We have need of your hands! Gather up yonder slumbering Luna, and we shall make haste to save your most Faithful of Students!”

Principal Celestia looked down at her unconscious sister.

Then, she looked up at a magical, winged horse that looked like her sister.

And then, she also fainted, and dropped to the floor.

Princess Luna rolled her eyes at this display, and shook her head. She entered the domicile quickly, closing the door behind her with a hind-kick, and began the delicate process of shoving her unconscious double across the floor, towards what looked like a comfy couch in their living room.

“I guess I’ll meet you there then, shall I?” she grumbled.

Author's Note

Part 3 Coming Soon

Special Thanks to Stinium Ruide for helping me edit these past few chapters.

11 - The Midnight in Me Part 1

Wednesday Evening…

“Behold…!” Princess Luna declared in dramatic fashion, wings outstretched and one leg prominently pointing out into the aethereal realm of dreams. Her voice boomed as if it were coming from a microphone, almost causing her human self to cover her ears at the sudden increase in volume.

The Princess continued, “… the Dream R— What!?”

Principal Luna, standing just to the side of the chest-high pony princess of the night, raised an eyebrow at the distress coming off of her Equestrian self.

“What has become of my Dream Realm!?” the Princess nearly shrieked in outrage, stamping one hoof into the cherry red cloud they found themselves standing on.

Luna glanced away from her pony princess self, and noted the truly psychedelic view before her. Though it still appeared to be a vast, indescribably beautiful night sky, said night sky was swirling with nebulae, clouds, and stars of every conceivable color. Sometimes literally, as a cyclone of pink and white swept past. Luna thought she could make out a cloud formation in the precise shape and coloration of Twilight Sparkle’s personal symbol off in the distance, and a cluster of meteoric apples soaring just beyond that.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, turning back to her horrified companion on this bizarre adventure. “Outside of reminding me of Dad’s old van – the one with the wizards and dragons painted on the side – it looks precisely like what I’d imagine a ‘Dream Realm’ would…”

“No!” Princess Luna snarled, and glared at the technicolorscape assaulting her eyes. “This is… I don’t know what this is! My Dream Realm is supposed to be gentle, silver, and calm! Calmness to a plutonian degree. It is a realm of rest and relaxation. This looks like Pinkie Pie went on a party-decorating-spree!”

As if on cue, one of the ‘stars’ drifted past. And within its form, Luna could see what appeared to be a pink pony dancing atop a birthday cake the size of Mount Everhoof, alongside what she could only describe as a gigantic crocodile with brilliant amethyst eyes. More than that, she couldn’t make out due to how eye-searingly saturated everything within the dream was.

Pink was a color best used in moderation, both Lunas decided.

“I think things would be worse, if that were the case,” she mused to herself. Then, back to her still gawking and grumbling pony self, she added, “Will this be a problem? We can hold off the dreamwalking until you’ve sorted this out, I’m sure.”

Princess Luna, still staring at the horrors before her, eventually shook her head.

“N-no,” she said with a sigh, “No… I’ll not have you denied this opportunity because of my squeamishness.

“Though this does raise some concerns,” Princess Luna said, and reached up one hoof to tap her chin as she pondered. “Princess Twilight was just talking about how your reality’s rules of magic might not be the same as mine own. And perhaps I should not be surprised this extends to the Dream Realm as well…”

She hummed to herself as she thought.

“Since the Rainbooms and their Elements were the first magics in this realm,” the Princess mused, “They most likely became the template for Magic in its entirety.”

“Slightly less disturbing than your Discord becoming the template for ours…” Principal Luna groaned.

Princess Luna clearly didn’t hear her. “I suppose that would explain this… abysmal color scheme,” she sighed, “The Elements of Harmony, as wonderful as they are, always did clash with my aesthetics…”

She shook her head again. This time, Princess Luna drew herself up to her full height, and looked up to her newest apprentice.

“Never mind all that,” she said with a wave of her hoof, “I’m sure it will be fine. The sooner we begin your training, and teach you proper Dreamwalking, the better.”

Luna nodded, affirmatively, and slapped her hands together. “Finally!” she crowed, “I’ve been on the sidelines for too many of these magical disasters and crises. It’s about time I learned how to help my own students…”

She paused, a pale look coming over her face.

“How long… do you suppose we’ll need?” she asked, and tapped her nails together nervously. “From what I’ve been able to gather, Twilight and Midnight are having a bit of a difficult time with their nightmares. Shouldn’t we do something in the meantime?”

The Princess pressed her lips tight together, and replied, “They are, indeed. But… they are only nightmares. And granting you the keys to battle such things on your own in this reality must come first.”

“Are you certain?” Luna asked, concern furrowing her brows. “Perhaps this is more than—”

Princess Luna interrupted herself with another wing-gesture. Then, she said in a calm, quiet voice, “I know what it is you are feeling. But believe me, I have already been down that path before. I already confirmed there is no Incubus. Twas just mine own paranoia and self-recrimination, layered over an innocent…”

She paused, then corrected herself.

“… nearly innocent filly.”

“Girl.”

“Gesundhoof.”

Principal Luna pinched the bridge of her nose – a most peculiar gesture to the pony standing across from her – and sighed.

“So, you are certain this is just typical teenage angst and trauma?” she asked again. “Are you truly certain?”

Princess Luna’s face shifted, turning into a frown as her eyes stared down at her hooves. This may have been a mistake, as while she pondered that question, she also had to behold the sight of orange and purple clouds crashing into each other just below her.

She looked away instead, towards a passing dream-bubble. She thought she could make out that one DJ pony – or, her human counterpart – dreaming about composing a duet with… Big Mac?

Hm, she thought. This is a strange universe.

“Yes,” she said at last. “While Midnight and Twilight have undergone a traumatic experience, and it is clearly affecting their dreams… I believe this is little more than regular nightmares, blown out of proportion. I’ve often held off immediately stepping into situations like this, as they usually resolve themselves soon enough.”

With a gesture from her wing, the Princess caused the blue-haired DJ’s dream to spin away into the depths of the Dream Realm, and for another to drift into its place.

This one appeared to be that Dazzling girl who had run off in the middle of Twilight and Midnight’s meeting through the hologram-spell. And she appeared quite distressed in this dream, almost as much as she’d been in the real world.

“We shall deal with the Sparkle sisters’ issues in due time,” Princess Luna said, resolutely. “But perhaps they will benefit more from your world’s specialists, rather than mine. I have heard many nice things about Psychiatry…”

Principal Luna’s face scrunched up, still displaying her concern and mistrust of such a diagnosis.

“Come now,” the Princess said, the dream-bubble becoming a door before their very eyes, “We shall explore dear Sonata’s dreams tonight, and in a few days’ time, if Midnight and Twilight are still struggling, we shall help them then. Once you’ve learned the basics.”

The door opened, and both Lunas entered, though one more hesitant than the other.

“I do hope you’re right about that,” she whispered.

Two Nights Later…

Shining Armor had been on the Canterlot Police Force for over a year, and had seen his share of terrifying things. Sure, the relatively peaceful Canterlot City was no Detrot or Neigh Orleans, but it could still be a dangerous place sometimes. Certainly enough – he hoped – that he could one day sell the resulting hardboiled tales of his life as exciting detective novels, like his mom kept saying he should.

He’d seen car chases. He’d seen grim crime scenes. He’d faced many of his own darkest fears, walking the beat.

But he had never gotten over his fear of heights. The fact that space was an illusion in the Dream Realm did not help him in this regard, as, to his monkey-brain, he was clearly standing on seemingly nothing, suspended in the depths of a whirling, technicolor star field that looked like something out of the First Edition Baddies Book from O&O.

That was the one where the writers and artists had inhaled a copious amount of Misdemeanor substances prior to working on it.

“So…” he said, slowly and while white-knuckling the baseball bat he’d taken with them when he, his former-dog-now-little-brother-but-still-physically-a-dog, and their formerly-one-now-two-little-sisters ripped open the fabric of reality and physically entered the realm of sleep and dreams.

The latter were currently sharing a body, walking on at the head of their dream-demon-hunting party, hardly paying him any attention as they walked through the depths of space on an invisible floor that made no comforting noise when walked upon. Midnight and Twilight were on the lookout, so naturally they weren’t as keyed into Shining’s growing unease as he might have liked.

The former, well…

“This place is really pretty,” Spike oohed and awed, eyes hungrily drinking in the sight of one of those dreamy bubble… things drifting past.

Well. He was still a dog, in some ways. Or maybe that was childlike innocence. Shining couldn’t really tell, to be honest.

“It’s the collective human unconsciousness, Spike,” Midnight sighed with a roll of her eyes, “It’s a little more impressive than ‘pretty’.”

Spike just shrugged at this, and corrected himself.

“Alright… it’s pretty cool, then.”

Shining, at least, could agree with that statement on a technical level. As did Twilight, whose giggle could be heard emanating out of her shared forehead horn. Some sort of practical compromise to let his sisters speak separately, he recalled from just this Monday…

“It hasn’t been a week,” he groaned, and shook his head. Then, loud enough for the others to hear him, he said, “Still… yeah. Pretty cool.”

“And I doubt this is the entirety of human dreams,” Twilight’s voice said in a nerves-calming tone, “Considering the slow spread of Magic into our universe, and the observation that these star fields are clearly color-coded to our geodes, it’s very likely that this world’s Dream Realm hasn’t yet grown far beyond Canterlot City…”

“We get it, yeah,” Midnight said, dismissively, and turned down a different path – not that Shining could tell what constituted a ‘path’ when all of them were invisible and broke the laws of space – before adding, “Can you please help me here? I feel like I’m the only one running a scanning spell.”

“You are the only one,” Twilight sighed, “I thought we went over this; normal magic is far more limited in the Dream Realm. You need Dream Magic, or Princess Luna’s cutie mark magic.”

Midnight huffed, and slapped another dream bubble – apparently Scootaloo was dreaming about Rainbow Dash landing on the moon again – away with one wing. “Great,” she sneered. “Maybe Shiny knows a good tattooist in the city so we can get a moon-shaped butt-stamp…”

“Hey!” Shining warned.

“She was kidding!” Twilight half-laughed, half-panicked. “Right? You were kidding?”

Midnight rolled her eyes again. “Yes… though if Aria wanted a matching set…”

Twilight groaned, “Why must you be this uninhibited… Bohemian!?”

“Why are you always so repressed?” Midnight mockingly retorted.

“I am not repressed!”

“You wear bowties.”

“Bowties are cool!” Twilight snarled.

Shining Armor and Spike shared a look. And then they each silently mouthed back the word ‘Twilinanas’ to each other.

Ignoring her sister’s strangled growl, Midnight directed her and Twilight’s body down another path only they could evidently see. She abruptly came up short as a rainbow-themed mass of dream-stuff crossed said path before her. Amidst the mass, she almost swore she saw Moondancer dreaming about playing roller derby with Wallflower.

She turned another direction, and had to stop again as – however that worked – the invisible path she walked started rolling up under itself in a giant pink spiral. Shining and Spike watched their sister(s) walk in the eternal spiral for a good minute before Twilight or Midnight noticed.

With an annoyed grumble and sigh, they teleported back to Shining’s spot in the eternities of the Dream Realm, and stamped one foot irritably.

“Stupid dream universe!” Midnight snarled, “Be logical for once!”

“What are you looking for, anyway?” Spike asked, waving his paw around. “It just looks like you two… uh, one? Whatever. You two look like you’re wandering in circles!”

Twilight’s strained voice answered first with a vocalized snort.

“You’ve noticed the bubbles, right?” she asked. Then, without waiting for a response, Twilight continued. “Stars, bubbles, whatever… They’re portals into the dreams of everyone here. Probably everyone in Canterlot, at least.”

“We’re trying to find ours,” Midnight added, flicking her eyes to the side as she continued to search, “But the darn thing’s a needle in a pile of other needles.”

Shining frowned as a thought occurred to him.

“Uh, shouldn’t you be asleep then?” he asked. “If you’re awake, shouldn’t you not have a dream… bubble?”

Twilight’s voice emanated from her horn with a purple crackle.

“Usually, yes!” she said, a note of academic glee slipping in. “But since we know Shadowlight is still active while Midnight and I are awake, she must go somewhere. Which means, the dream-bubble we share must still exist in some fashion!”

“I… guess that makes sense,” Shining mused, scratching at his chin. “What does an Incubus look like, by the way? If I’m gonna help smack this thing around with you, I’m hoping it doesn’t look too much like my sisters.”

“That’s…” Midnight paused. She blinked rapidly, a few times, before biting her knuckle in thought.

“That’s a good question,” Twilight admitted. “Truth is… we don’t know. The only references I’ve seen on them was in…

“Okay,” she sighed, “This is gonna sound weird, since… well, you know me as Twilight, but when Midnight and I Split, we shared our knowledge of magic equally. Or, as equally as possible. So, when Luna and Princess Twilight last tried to exorcise Midnight…”

“Thanks for the wonderful reminder, sis…” Midnight groused, half-heartedly.

“… Midnight tried extracting magical knowledge from their tentative contact, and I’ve got those memories, even though I wasn’t the one doing that at the time…”

“Got it!” Spike interrupted, and pressed his ears down with his paws. “We got it! You snuck some magic knowhow once. Don’t… don’t stress my brain out explaining it…”

“Point is,” Midnight said, folding her arms in front of herself, “We don’t really know. Incubi are supremely rare magical beings. Luna literally wrote the book on them, and she didn’t find any correlation in how they appeared. Not much data when the number of cases can be counted on one hand.

“And that might still be the case,” she sighed, and threw her arms out towards the colorful maelstrom going on around them, “but we already know this madness isn’t the same across dimensions. So… keep your guard up.”

Shining watched his sister(s) march off to continue their search for their own dreamspace. Their dream bubble...thing.

For a moment, at least. Then, his eyes wandered back down to the baseball bat in his hands. He hefted the aluminum thing, and noted how Rainbow’s paintjob of it – lavender and pink, for Twilight – seemed completely unmarred and undamaged.

Never been used. Untested. And potentially their only weapon in an upcoming fight.

He looked down at Spike, who sat calmly by his feet. The little pup watched Twilight/Midnight with the intensity of a guard dog, watching over his charge. But a pup he remained, making the comparison a little less intimidating and a lot more adorable than Spike probably intended.

Shining recalled Cadance’s similar remarks, when she first saw him in uniform. Maybe she was a little nicer about it than that, but the mental comparison was still there.

“When we find this Incubus,” he said loud enough to catch Twilight and Midnight’s attention, “What exactly will we… do?”

He swung the bat slowly, for emphasis.

Turning back around, Twilight/Midnight eyed her brothers. Midnight brought their hands up, and scratched her chin.

“Hm,” Twilight’s voice hummed, “Good point…”

“What is?” Spike asked, tilting his head to one side questioningly.

Midnight pursed her lips, and sighed.

“We’ve gone into the Dream Realm physically because we figured it would act as a buffer against any surprises Shadowlight might toss our way,” she said, before gesturing towards Spike and Shining. “Having a physical form will make it tougher for her to affect us, or you, but it could also be a bit more dangerous.”

Shining raised an eyebrow. “What, like… if we die in a dream…?” he asked, leaving the obvious hanging on the ethereal winds.

“Without more data, we can’t know,” Midnight admitted with a shrug, “but we can take some precautions. As cliched as it might be, this is the Dream Realm. It’s basically weaponized imagination, so…”

Spike leapt up, eyes beaming bright and tail wagging as though it wanted to break off of him.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying!?” he squee’d, and bit his lip, eyes still flashing with stars.

Midnight rolled her eyes, even as Twilight tittered at the display. The latter calmed herself quickly, and said, “Why, I believe a demonstration is in order.

“Midnight?” she asked with another glimmer of magical light, “Would you care to do the honors?”

Midnight sighed, and glanced up at her horn. Her face scrunched up in deep thought as her wings ruffled at her side.

Then, her eyes widened, and her lips turned up in a smirk. Midnight’s hand flashed with her signature blue magic, causing bits of fluffy dream-stuff to pull away from all the swirls and clouds and bubbles drifting around her, like cotton candy pulled through a thresher.

The magic congealed in her grasp, and within seconds began to take shape. And once it did, blue flames receded, revealing a six-foot-tall metal pole, topped with the most ridiculously oversized sledge-hammer head Shining had ever seen.

Midnight hefted her person-sized hammer in both hands, and gave it a twirl that nothing that heavy should have been able to pull off.

“Really?” Twilight asked, tiredly.

“What can I say?” Midnight laughed, and caused a small, purple flame to sprout out the top of the hammer. “I want to make sure I leave an… impression with Shadowlight. And a hammer made out of Dream Magic will do just that!”

Twilight huffed. “It just seems a bit obvious and showy.”

Midnight snorted, and replied, “And you wanted to wail on her with subtlety?”

“A hammer is a jock weapon of choice,” Twilight pouted, “Plus, a few magical blasts would probably do the same thing, and more efficiently…”

While the two sisters passive-aggressively snarked at each other, Shining Armor and Spike stood off to the side and stared into infinity, eyes glazed over with all the possibilities swimming through their minds.

Their jaws both unhinged as well, just to complete the image.

Spike was the first to recover. He shook his head, rattling his collar and tags. Then, the little purple puppy closed his eyes, and began to concentrate.

After a few moments, the colorful clouds started bending to Spike’s thoughts, racing to cover him up. Shining was surprised, even after the previous demonstration, to see it happen. This time, the dream-stuff took on a bright emerald shade, and as it built more and more bulk, it’s light became brighter and brighter.

Then, with an almost comical, balloon-popping sound, something appeared in front of Shining that nearly scared the wits out of him.

It was taller than him, for starters. And huge.

The word he was looking for might even have been swole.

“Alright, how do I look?” the creature asked in a surprisingly high-pitched, familiar voice.

“Spike?” Shining asked, eyes shrinking down to dots as he took in the new form his former dog had taken. Spike looked more like some sort of giant purple lizard now, topped with green head-ridges and fins. The fact that he was now almost two or three heads taller than Shining, and built like a brick house made him even more intimidating.

What killed that vibe, in Shining’s opinion, was the tiny blue wizard hat sitting atop Spike’s head.

“Um…?”

“A dragon and a wizard?” Twilight asked, even as Midnight took in the sight of Spike with an approving nod.

Spike shrugged, muscles rippling like cords of rope beneath his hard scales.

“Well, uh…” The resemblance to the puppy Shining knew returned in a hurry as Spike began tapping his claws nervously together. “… Big Mac helped me roll up an O&O character earlier. A wizard named Garbunkle. I thought that sounded cool…

“But then I thought…!” A gigantic, toothy grin split the towering dragon’s face. “I thought, ‘Hey? Isn’t the Me from Equestria some awesome, fire-breathing, Magical Dragon?’ And a wizard who’s also a dragon would probably be more useful, so…”

He swept one claw demonstrably over his – it had to be said – chiseled abs, while the other swept up in an arc. That second claw left a rainbow in its wake to float gently off into the spacious realm of dreams.

“Alright,” Midnight said with a smile, “That looks good. But isn’t Dragon You like, two-foot-nothing?”

“You said to use my imagination,” Spike replied, pointing one clawed finger at the fused Sparkle, “And I’d imagine being a baby dragon wouldn’t be all that useful right now, correct?”

“Well put, Spike!” Twilight cheerfully cut in. “Let’s not get caught up on the details. Now… Shiny?”

Shining, though impressed at Spike’s sudden bout of creativity and application, frowned. He couldn’t very well let his newest sibling show him up already. There were still some standards that a BBBFF had to maintain around here.

He closed his own eyes, and started thinking. A whole catalogue of old O&O character ideas, crayon-drawn comic book superheroes, and even a few odd movie and book ones flashed through his mind. Each one had something he admired about them, something that made him want to be them, to one degree or another.

But none were perfect. And though he was new to all this magic business, he’d read enough books to think that maybe picking something he wouldn’t regret turning into would be for the best.

The air charged, and a pink light shimmered around his form. As the dream-clouds swirled, Shining began to feel… something. An idea came to the fore of his mind.

He felt the grip of his bat, and it all suddenly clicked into place.

There was an explosion of pink, white, and blue light as the magic of dreams pulled towards Shining, drawn to him like a magnet. He could tell, somehow, that the dream-stuff could feel his idea take shape, and it wanted so badly to fill that mold.

And when it was over, Shining Armor smiled down at his siblings from a comfortable five-head height advantage. He hefted the gigantic, golden sword in his hands onto his back, and chuckled to himself.

Spike’s eyes widened with glee, and he nearly bit off his own fingers when he saw a towering white robot standing where Shining had been a moment before.

“Who the heck are you supposed to be?” Midnight and Twilight said together. The fused girl cocked her head to one side, and frowned in confusion. Shining had seemingly transformed into a set of loosely-connected white blocks and rectangles, all built around a blue and pink core. They could almost recall seeing something like it from one of Fluttershy’s comics, but nothing specific came to mind.

“Who is that!?” Spike spun around, horror draining all the color from his face. “That’s… how do you not know Mighty Mecha Magic Knight!?”

Midnight stared at Spike for a long couple of seconds, before turning her eyes up to her Shining bro-bot. Taking another look, she noted how the giant robot’s aesthetic looked vaguely like something out of a historical book on knights. Even Shining’s head looked a bit more like a helmet than a functioning robotic sensor block. The bright red cape and gigantic golden chainsaw-sword didn’t hurt the impression either.

Sensing her confusion, Shining explained in a deep, digitized voice, “Superhero comic. A really cool one, too. One of my favorites, actually…”

“He’s not just a superhero!” Spike snorted angrily. “He’s the Mighty and Magical Mechanized Knight of Myth! One of the Round Table Knights whose soul was absorbed by his magical sword, which was melted down in Neo-Yolkyo to make the steel for a giant robot, which…!”

Spike’s mouth clamped shut, a floating purple hand popping into existence just to close it for him. Though he muttered for a moment longer, the newly-minted dragon huffed green flames through his nostrils, and glared at his sisters.

“We got it,” Twilight sighed, though not without a touch of humor in her voice, “Comic book nerd stuff. Don’t stress our brains over it…”

“Don’t sweat it,” Shining laughed, and gave his new fully mechanical body a quick test, flexing as far as he could when he no longer had the pliability of muscle. It was actually kind of neat, like wearing one of those oversized costumes from the conventions. A bit stiff, but functional.

He struck a heroic pose, sword up, and legs wide-stanced. Shining, with a simple mental flick, activated Mage Knight’s forcefield, a bright pink shield popping into place by his side, orbiting his left arm.

“By the Light of Justice!” he cried out, accompanied by a swell of music from somewhere within the Dream Realm.

Aw, yeah, Shining cheered in his mind. The movie adaptation might’ve sucked, but you can’t beat a Long Whinnyams score…

“Never fear, your BBBFF is here,” Shining said with a wink he wasn’t sure a robot could normally manage. “At least, this time.”

Spike applauded wildly, bouncing up and down in pure nerd-enthusiasm. He somehow managed to whistle, despite working with a rather unfamiliar mouth and lips.

Dream-logic, Shining assumed.

But, standing right beside Spike, Twilight/Midnight watched their big brother with markedly less enthusiasm. They crossed their arms, and tilted their head curiously.

“Everything alright?” Shining asked, sheathing his weapon.

Midnight hummed something to herself, but it was Twilight who spoke first.

“You said, ‘this time’,” she said, frown deepening.

“Uh…” Shining paused, mind spinning around to go back over the last few seconds. “D-did I?”

Crap, that wasn’t very convincing, Shining thought. They don’t train cops to lie...

Even Spike sensed the chill that fell between Shining and Twilight/Midnight. His reptilian eyes snapped back and forth between them, clearly measuring whatever tension he saw there.

Midnight’s face scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed… before suddenly snapping wide open.

“There!” she cried, and pointed out into the vast, colorful void of the Dream Realm. Shining and Spike turned, the former glad for the distraction, and tried to spot whatever their sisters had seen.

Shining narrowed his eyes. Well, his optical lenses, at present. Amid the eye-searingly colorful vistas before him, he could just make out a distant disruption. A dark spot in the heavens otherwise made of light and technicolor madness.

It was coming closer.

“What in the world…?” He didn’t get to finish. Midnight’s hands reached out, and clawed at the air around her.

The door stopped moving… and the Dream Realm took up the slack. As if bidden by his sister’s gesture – ah, who was he kidding, she/they definitely just did something with magic – the whole world shifted around and beneath Shining. He and Spike lurched as rainbow clouds rushed past them, and the invisible floor of this dimension lost its stability.

Instantly, solidity returned. The clouds and swirls and vortexes stopped racing away. Spike fell to his knees, while Shining planted his sword into… whatever the invisible, immaterial ‘floor’ they’d been walking on was, bracing himself.

While the brothers took a moment to right themselves, and find their footing again, Midnight/Twilight walked forward with a determined stride.

Before them all stood a door. A set of doors, in fact, like the main gates of some grand, princessly castle. It could have stood at the entryway of their Princess-self’s very own crystalline Castle of Friendship, just by their towering stature.

Yet, there was something wrong about them as well. Though the doors were the same dark, midnight blue as the Sparkle sister’s own hair – the one part of their color palette they still shared Post-Split – and the seam of the doors was dominated by their own Sparkle ‘cutie mark’ symbol, in both pink and blue, the doors themselves were almost ruined. A web of cracks and splinters covered the face of the doors, pale pink and green wood showing through like angry, bitter wounds.

“It’s…” Midnight worked her mouth, but words failed to form.

Twilight’s voice finished their shared thought. “It’s like someone took a hammer to it. Or, tossed it into a woodchipper.”

“Is… is it bad that your Dream-Door looks like crap?” Shining asked as he approached.

Midnight hefted the hammer she’d summoned, and shot Shining a glare that almost knocked the wind out of him from ten paces.

“It’s not great,” Midnight admitted after a few moments.

Twilight concurred. “If the Dream Realm runs on metaphor and imagery… maybe we do need to see a psychiatrist…”

The sisters sighed in unison, sagging beneath the weight of their own mental stability.

Spike growled, and stepped up to his sisters. He planted one claw on their shoulder, turned them around, and said, “Don’t you think about that! We’re here now, and we’re gonna help you in the best way possible.”

When Midnight raised a questioning eyebrow, Shining stepped forward as well.

“He’s right!” said Shining Armor, flexing his mechanical muscles and beaming his best mechanical smile. “That dream demon thing isn’t going to know what hit her! It! Whatever…!”

This close, Shining could definitely see the lines of stress and strain on his sisters’ face. Their eyes creased in a way that reminded him of a desk sergeant who lived off coffee and ran the night shift at his precinct.

Their eyes just… didn’t shine the way he remembered.

But, after a moment, perhaps the sheer bravado exuding off Spike and Shining’s face did something. Perhaps just a little of their own energy, real or not, seeped into the fused teenager’s heart.

Her smile was weak. But it was there.

“Thanks Spike,” they said, together, and placed a welcoming hand on Spike’s claw, “Shining. We…”

The Dream Realm paused, quite suddenly. A sound cut the air like a knife, splitting the seconds before and after apart.

It was the creak of old hinges.

Shining, Spike, and their sisters’ eyes and body spun up and around, slowly. Painfully slowly. Slow in the way anyone might, if they knew precisely what they’d see, and feared the inevitable far more than they would readily admit.

The doors had opened, just ajar. The one bearing Midnight’s blue sparkle had been pulled inward, leaving a black window into the absolute darkness beyond.

An eye, red and gleaming, stared out from that crevice.

A hand followed, snapping out into the void of the Dream Realm like a striking snake. A red claw flashed across Shining’s vision, and flew straight for his sisters, snatching one of their wings in its grip.

There was no time to act, no time to break free of the shock. Midnight and Twilight flared with white magical light, blinding Shining instantly. He tried to close his eyes, tried to blink away the spots, but he was caught completely flatfooted.

A cry! A shout!

The slamming of a door.

A moment later, Shining’s sight returned as he rubbed his mechanical eyes. The Dream Realm seemed unchanged, save for the closed door, which Spike now rushed to, green flames wafting up from his screaming jaws.

What happened? Shining asked himself this several times, in quick succession.

He looked down at his feet.

His sisters were still there.

Wait… what were they wearing before? And where’s their… wings…

The thought stopped his heart, cold.

Oh, no.

Twilight shakily tried to reach her feet, but collapsed immediately into Shining’s arms.

“Midnight!” she cried, eyes wide in terror, breath shaky, and hands trembling with fear.

“Midnight!!!”

Author's Note

Oh... well that ain't good...

This part almost took the longest of all the chapters. Just one rewrite after another. Hopefully, you'll all agree the current state of things is good, yes? And hoo boy! Magic changing the rules? Can't trust anything these days.

Part 2 will be up in a day or two, tops. Just giving y'all a moment to let this one sink in...

Hey! If you're feeling generous, perhaps buy me a coffee? It, plus all the lovely comments, keeps me going! If you can't spare nothing, that's okay too! Comments are always preferred!

12 - The Midnight in Me Part 2

Free fall. Any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it.

Midnight’s mind grappled with the definition of the thing presently happening to her, and at speed. It was a coping mechanism, she knew, but falling endlessly through the utter blackness of the void was something that required a little coping.

Gravity. A thing that shouldn’t exist in dreams.

Admittedly, she was bad at coping mechanisms in general.

Midnight tried to force open her eyes, but the pressure of the wind blasting her as she fell was almost as hard as a firehose. She could only flinch and flail and curl away from the pressure.

Even with her eyes closed, however, she could feel something coming. A looming existence somewhere beneath her. A looming something with mass.

Impact. The part of the fall that actually kills you.

She flipped around, one final time… and met the soft mattress with a jerking crash.

“Gah!” she cried out in shock, eyes snapping open and lungs greedily sucking at the fresh, cool air.

It took a moment for her heart to start beating again.

Hypnic jerk, her mind barked again. The sensation of falling while slee—

“Stop,” Midnight squeaked out the order to her brain. She blinked rapidly, feeling the paralysis of sleep slowly sloughing off, her body slowly returning to full, operating standards.

She was looking up at a purple ceiling.

“What…?” Midnight asked herself in a breathless whisper. She tried to sit up, but quickly found a heavy comforter holding her down.

With a few extra kicks, she was soon comforter-less, and fully sat up to measure her surroundings.

This was made somewhat difficult, as she couldn’t see anything all that well. Her entire world was a blur, a smear of sunlit bloom and purple hues. She rubbed her eyes, but the misty nothingness remained before her.

As Midnight turned her head about in a vain attempt to bring the world back into focus, she finally saw something that was crystal clear; two circles of clarity lying on a blob she guessed would be a bedside stand. Narrowing her vision, she could almost believe they were the lenses of a pair of glasses.

“… the heck?”

Midnight reached out, and grasped the glasses in one hand. With a practiced hand, almost entirely reflex, she set the onto her face, as she once did in another life.

The room came into sharp focus, revealing it to be nothing so mundane as her room.

Her old room.

From before she was a ‘they’.

Twilight’s bed was missing… or, perhaps it was more accurate to say Midnight’s bed was missing. The room looked just as it had one week ago. Sister-less. Empty, but filled with the sunlight of a golden dawn.

Midnight’s heart began to race. She reached up, ready to pinch herself… when she stopped.

“If I’m still in my physical body,” she reasoned out loud, eyes focused on her hand, “then it’d hurt no matter if this was a dream. Great…”

That realization was worrying, of course. But at the moment, it was the fact that her skin was purple that more worried Midnight.

Because it was the wrong shade of purple. Just a touch too light.

Lavender, in fact.

Shaking her head, Midnight stood up and took another look at her room. Just by her head, she could make out the spines of the books on her shelf. She leaned in, and tried to work out their titles and authors, only to quickly give up on that prospect.

“Squiggles,” she hissed, responding to the odd, contorted, or just plain wrongness of the hieroglyphic nonsense covering her book covers.

Can’t read in dreams, she thought to herself. I knew I hated it here…

“Alright, Shadow,” Midnight whispered to herself, “You got me here. Now what? What’s the point of this…?”

The vanity mirror was still standing atop the room’s writing desk, she also noticed. Midnight remembered conjuring it just this past Monday evening, so she and Twilight could admire their new, fused form.

Hope she’s doing better than I am…

Midnight strode to the mirror – noting along the way that she was clearly wearing Twilight’s pajamas – and turned to face it fully.

Twilight Sparkle stared back at her. The real Twilight Sparkle. Pink stripe in her hair. Glasses. Purple eyes. The whole nine yards.

“Very convincing,” she snorted. She reached up, and pulled the sleep-scrunchie out of her hair, letting the mass of dark blue fall straight down her shoulders and back.

“You even added the old curls,” she laughed at the way her hair spiraled down nearest her ears. One more reason Midnight stayed with straight hair, now.

As she admired the old look – and painfully obvious ploy – in the mirror, something felt off to Midnight. More than even being trapped in her own dreams while still physically awake. More than being the wrong color.

Was it just the hair? The pajamas? I know Twilight’s style’s kinda plain and dorky, but…

Midnight’s breath caught in her chest, and her eyes narrowed on her bare collarbone.

She gasped, and the breaths started coming fast.

“No,” she whispered, hands clutching at her neck, “No, no, no no no…”

There was nothing there, she found. Nothing at all.

She only noticed a moment later that her nails had drawn blood. Watching herself, or watching Twilight in the mirror panic and begin patting down her pajamas, Midnight searched her own pockets first.

“It can’t be gone…”

Her hands worked faster, and faster. And once her pockets were exhausted, she threw open the writing desk’s drawer.

Nothing there, either.

Around the room, Midnight flew, ripping open cabinet doors and drawers, tossing aside books written in gibberish and half-remembered knick-knacks. Old journals and scrapbooks went sailing across the room as she tore into every nook and cranny the bedroom had.

Until, minutes later, Midnight stopped.

The room was in shambles, and she was no closer to finding her geode.

Midnight’s breathing slowed, minute by minute. Though initially worked up, she knew that panicking, and hyperventilating, wasn’t going to help her.

“She took it,” Midnight breathed. There was only one explanation. One being that could have done this to her.

I am naked in the dark, she wailed internally.

There was nothing left. All Midnight was, was in that geode. Her one sense of self, her one thing that marked her as different, and special… and it was gone.

“My magic…”

Movement caught her eye. She looked back up at the mirror, the reflection of all she used to be.

Twilight Sparkle stared back at her.

The real Twilight Sparkle.

The one who didn’t need magic to be herself.

And without hesitation, Midnight reached one hand up, clenched it into a fist, and threw a punch through the mirror that would have made an Apple flinch.

The mirror bent and buckled, glass shattering and splintering in all directions. Even through the flash of burning fury in her mind, Midnight felt her hand split open, and blood spurt out. She recoiled in pain, and gripped her injured hand close to her chest.

She opened one eye, and looked down at the mess she’d made with a sly grin.

In one mirror shard by her feet, she could see Midnight Sparkle staring back at her with that same grin. Blue stripe in hair, and light blue eyes smirking through the pain right alongside her. Even her clothes were set right.

But the glasses remained. She glanced over the black rims, and found the world a blur once more.

“Yeah,” she said through gritted teeth, “That’s what I thought.”

Throwing open one of the dresser drawers again, she started tearing up nondescript white clothes – some artifact of the dreaming process, she guessed – and tried to fashion a makeshift bandage out of them. Dream or not, the material would hold up for now.

As she tore at the cloth with her teeth, Midnight was at least happy to see her own coloration had returned. Granted, that was tinged with a bit more red now than she liked, but once she got a healing spell on that hand…

“Shadowlight has my geode,” she said out loud, biting back a snarl. As she tried to get a tight seal over her broken hand, made obviously more difficult by the fact that she was trying to tie it with one hand, Midnight’s words to Twilight began to sound in her mind.

“Did you know I used my magic-sense more than my actual eyesight whenever I was in control?”

She shivered, hearing those words echo up from the floorboards, and down from the rafters. She could hear how pathetic she’d sounded then, even just thinking about it. She could almost taste it.

As she finished tightening her makeshift bandage, Midnight noted something else amiss. There was a smell in the air. A very familiar smell that brought an unbidden grumble to her stomach.

“Bacon?”

She turned around, and saw the door to the bedroom for the first time. It was slightly ajar, and a most heavenly scent wafted in on the breeze, accompanied by the distant sound of someone singing a wordless tune.

“You’re trying to ruin bacon…” Midnight hissed, and started for the stairs.

Midnight walked down the stairs slowly, cautiously. The house beyond her bedroom seemed mostly normal, mostly how it was in the real, waking world. But now she was on guard, and more and more the house began to change.

She didn’t remember half the portraits and photographs on the wall of the stairwell. Midnight could shrug away some of them as more memory gaps, but there was the odd one, every few feet. People with duck-feet. Dogs with mustaches. Even one that looked more and more like a geometric pattern wearing a bowler hat.

Her mind trying to reconstruct a missing gap? Or was this just the weirdness of dreams?

She really hoped the latter, especially as Midnight passed by an old ferrotype of her Great-Great-Great Grandmother Evening Aurora standing next to a frightfully familiar Professor of hers.

Ignore the fact that his eyebrows are following you, she coached herself. Disqord can’t mess with you here…

After what felt like walking down far more flights of stairs than what reasonably could be accommodated by a two-story house, she came to the last of the portraits.

Well. ‘Portrait’ was a strong word for the last one. It was a picture she knew for certain wasn’t on any wall owned by her family.

“Hello there, Auntie Pentagram,” she half-chuckled to herself. The mugshot of a young girl in her early twenties stared back at Midnight. The girl’s hair was long and straight, with presently greyscale stripes running the length of it. Her bangs hung low over her large, expressive eyes; eyes that seemed far more mischievous than angry, matched only by the mysterious smirk on her lips.

The Roan Lisa, Midnight heard Grammy Sparkle once call her, amid other less-kind things.

She couldn’t help but reach out a hand to the photo as she passed, however. Right now, after today, the day she’d been having, the connection was clear enough.

“… the first Sparkle in generations who didn’t get into a university…”

“Those poor, poor goats,” the ferrotype picture said in a familiar voice.

With a sigh, Midnight pressed on. The smell of bacon was getting stronger, and there was a light on in the kitchen.

And as soon as she entered the room, Midnight regretted it. It was almost painfully familiar. The sight could have been Tuesday morning, sans her folks and Shining sitting at the table. Golden sunlight filtered through the backyard-facing windows, filling the room like a miasma, both illuminating and obscuring the room in equal measure.

How very dream-like. I bet there’d be birdsong if I just cracked a window.

The only thing ruining the tranquility, the beauty of the moment, was the thing standing by the oven, hiding partly in a shaft of light, singing a wordless tune that danced just beyond the grasp of memory.

“I thought I heard the pitter-patter of my little girl’s feet,” Twilight Velvet tittered from where she was frying bacon, her back turned to the stairs. She shook her head and laughed, “I was afraid you weren’t getting up today.”

Midnight frowned. No, more than that, she scowled at the utter wrongness before her.

“Spike, Shining, and your father went out for a walk this morning,” Velvet cheerily half-sang, and flipped a strand of bacon with her tongs. It sizzled and popped with all the greasy goodness such a sound promised. “And when they get back, I thought it would be nice for all of us to go see that new Daring Do film. As a family! Make a day out of it…”

“Are you quite finished?” Midnight sneered. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

The crackling sound of cooking bacon stopped instantly. Velvet stood, stock-still, and tilted her head to one side.

“Oh?” she said, more quietly than before, “Is something wrong, Twilight?”

Midnight snorted, and folded her arms.

“Besides the fact that you’re still trying to feed me a line about erasing my sister and taking her place?” Her scowl deepened. “Or that I’m trapped in my own dreams with a dream-eating monster who has no soul? No, Shadow… nothing’s wrong.”

The air was still. Even the dust in the shafts of sunlight seemed to pause in their drifting dance.

The thing wearing Twilight Velvet’s skin set down the tongs quietly, and sighed. Then, she turned around to face Midnight… and the teenager’s blood ran cold as ice.

It was her mother’s face. But a face without eyes.

“I’m surprised, Midnight,” Shadow said, her utterly empty, void-eyes somehow piercing Midnight’s calm with laser-precision. “You always struck me as the more… dramatic sister. Surely you, of all people, can appreciate a little theater?”

Midnight forced herself to blink, and then to start breathing again.

“Take… that face off,” she snarled, her own eyes trying not to stare too deeply into the darkness of the monster’s gaze. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

Shadow nodded, slowly.

“Ah, makes you uncomfortable, does it?” she asked with a pleasant smile. Given a very specific definition of ‘pleasant’, of course.

When Midnight didn’t respond, Shadow grumbled and frowned as well. With a displeased huff, she passed one hand across her face.

And instantly, she changed. Midnight watched, fascinated and horrified in equal measure as twenty years dropped away from her mother’s form. She slimmed, slightly, and lost an inch or so of height, but the more dramatic changes came soon after.

Her hair shifted darker, and darker, until it was the same midnight hue as Twilight’s own. The white streaks vanished, replaced by a single crimson one running the whole length. Shadow’s skin also turned a pale, pinkish red as her clothes melted and reformed into something very familiar to Midnight.

Shadow’s wings were just as black and menacing as Midnight’s once were, and her outfit, though shifted pale and grey, would have been a match for the thing Midnight had worn during the last event of the Friendship Games.

But one thing remained. Eyes as empty as the void, and just as deep and cavernous.

“Better?” Shadow asked with a sneer.

Midnight found it took her a moment to swallow. Her throat was dry.

“So, this is what you look like,” she managed to say after looking her mental illness’ form over. “Can’t say I’m impressed. Black and red? Really? Did Rarity teach us nothing?”

“Not that I care about what some tarted-up artiste thinks,” Shadow laughed, and splayed out her hawkish wings for emphasis, “but there’s a reason it’s the classic look, darling…”

Midnight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she rapidly ran her eyes over the demon’s shape, trying to spot anywhere she might be hiding her geode.

“So, all that upstairs was… what? Theater?” she asked, buying time. “A little scare to make me think I’d actually done what you said?”

“It was worth a shot,” Shadow protested with a shrug. “I guess we can confirm that being physical in the Dream Realm imparts a sort of low-key defense against mental manipulation while here. Fascinating discovery.

“If I wasn’t going to destroy the world after this,” she sighed with amusement, “I might even have written a paper on it. Shame…”

Midnight scoffed. “Really? Destroy the world? What did I say about copying me?”

“Copying would imply I’d fall for the same weakness as the original,” Shadow shot back, smirking. “I’m improving on what you failed to accomplish.”

“Well how are you going to destroy the world from inside here!?” Midnight cried, waving her arms around. Though the motion exacerbated her injured hand, Midnight pressed on. “You’re a thought! A memory! And a pretty shoddy one if you’re basing yourself off my old work…”

Her injured hand snapped out to her side, and suddenly. Midnight stared at the bandaged limb for a moment, confused… before it swept around through the air in a terrible arc, and came slamming down onto the kitchen table.

Pain bloomed in Midnight’s mind, shattering her calm instantly. She snatched her hand up, and clenched it tight against her chest, trying to compress the spiking, red-rimmed ache into oblivion as soon as possible. She clenched her teeth and her eyes shut.

But she couldn’t unsee what was happening. Through a teary squint, she could see the kitchen table, a few cracked splinters lying on the ground. The floor was cracked, and burnt in places like a freaking lava monster had come stomping through.

The walls were gone. The appliances were destroyed.

And the sky was a red, pulsing, weeping sore. She only saw this through a flickering glimpse as the pain rose and fell with her breathing, but Midnight knew what she saw.

She saw her sanity, breaking.

And as the room faded back into its golden illusion, Shadow reached her hand out, just as she had a moment ago. Midnight’s twitched, and pulsed as her muscles briefly tried to follow the mental command, but now that she was aware of it, it took almost no effort to prevent herself from following it again.

“Would you look at that?” Shadow grinned her dagger-filled grin. “I’m already this close to puppeteering your wonderful body. You’re coming along quite nicely, in fact.”

Midnight held onto her pain, and the seething anguish it brought her. This was no time to play around. It was the time to think.

To calculate.

Maybe what Principal Luna had said was right, after all. Maybe Midnight was simply more… mathematical. More analytical. Even more than Twilight, Midnight was a brain in a fleshy jar. And even before now, she had always been a calculator.

Even the timeframe of Dreams seemed to slow as she processed what was going on. Data flowed in, and computations flowed out.

The pain only magnified her inputs.

Can’t see the geode, she thought. Not a good chance of seeing it anytime soon. She looks like I used to, and seems to think she’s my successor. Not great. Bad, even. Awful color scheme…

She can control my body, if I don’t focus. Not good. Very bad. Probably a symptom of no sleep and her destabilizing effect on sanity. Gotta fix that soon.

Shadow wants to destroy the world. Why? Need more data.

Wait.

I wanted to destroy it so I could glut myself on magic…

“So,” Midnight said, slowly, “All this… just to get to Equestria?”

“Partly,” Shadow said, shrugging again. “But, honestly? I kinda just feel like blowing up the planet, like you should have done. Sounds like a laugh…”

“But, why!?” Midnight shook her head. “That’s not an end! That’s… that was a means to an end for me! You need a reason to destroy the world, since you could just walk through the freaking portal!”

She gritted her teeth, and breathed through her nose.

Dream Realm looks like a bomb went off, but she’s covering it up with this bright and shiny visage. Why is she projecting an illusion? She knows I can see it! Or is she getting a kick out of this? Incubi are supposed to feed off mental anguish, so that’s a distinct possibility.

She didn’t wait for Shadow to answer.

“What is it you want?”

Shadow quirked her eyebrows up. She took a moment to stroke her jaw, and contemplate the question.

“Guess I just feel like it,” she admitted. Then with a grin, she added, “Besides, being the absolute Queen of All Magic sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

“Or does Princess have a better ring to it?” Shadow laughed.

Midnight shook her head again.

“No,” she said, locking eyes with the monster before her, “No… you don’t have to do any of that. You could be better than that.”

“Like you?” Shadow sneered.

Midnight stamped her foot down. “Yes! Like me!” She took a long breath, and tried relaxing her broken hand back to her side. “I thought that magic was all I wanted, all I cared about. But… but the people in my life showed me there was a better way!

“I’ll…” Midnight swallowed. She took another moment to steady herself. And then, she said, “I’ll make a deal with you.”

Shadow frowned.

“A deal?”

“Yes, a deal!” Midnight nodded vigorously. “The same deal that saved me! I will willingly give up my body, if you just take a few minutes to look back through our memories, and say something nice about each of our friends.”

There was silence as Midnight finished her pronouncement. She met her eyes to the absences in Shadow’s skull, and waited. Her heart pounded in her chest as the intangible seconds ticked by.

Shadow stared at her. Then, she tilted her head, like a confused puppy dog, and continued to stare.

Finally, she threw back her head, and laughed.

“You really thought you could get me with that old gem!?” she howled with more laughter, and clutched at her sides. “The same thing that cost you everything? And you thought it’d work on me!!!”

“What have you got to lose?” Midnight tried to speak up over the cackling Shadow. “If you just destroy everything, you’ll be alone forever! At least take a peek at my memories. Surely one…”

A red claw gripped Midnight’s face, and pressed her mouth shut. Shadow closed the gap between her and Midnight without seeming to even move from where she’d been standing a moment before.

I didn’t see her move.

Those hateful voids stared into Midnight as Shadow hefted her up into the air by one clawed hand.

“You really think you’re better than me, don’t you?” Shadow hissed, a flicker of fiery light deep within her black gaze rising with the tensity of her voice. “You think you can just show me how much fun Pinkie is at parties, and I’ll, what? Give up? You think you can show me how loyal Rainbow Dash is? How smart and friendly Sunset tries to be with you, even though you know she still resents you?

“I know what you are, Midnight Sparkle!” she cried out, almost shrieking as her claws dug into Midnight’s flesh. “You’re not better than me! And you can’t change my mind with some memories. I’ve already seen them all!”

Midnight gripped the claw around her face and throat with her one good hand, and tried feebly to pull it off of her.

Too strong, she thought, can’t break free…

“You want to know what you are, Midnight?” Shadow seethed. “I’ll show you. I’ll remind you what you were… what you still are!”

Darkness swept over Midnight again. But unlike last time, she didn’t feel the sudden swell of gravity and vertigo. There was no sickening lurch as she dropped into another bottomless well. There was no disorientation, or confusion about what was happening.

She knew where she was. She knew what was happening.

She’d done all this once before.

Midnight landed, hard against the floor of her bedroom once again. Shadow’s hand had let her go, and so she tried to massage a little blood flow back into her face and neck as she slowly rose to her feet. She could feel the demon behind her, and chose not to turn around.

There was a show to put on, she knew. She may not have been sensitive to the magic of Dreams, but there was enough of a similarity with illusions and memory-spells for Midnight to get a quick grasp on what was happening.

The whole gang was gathered in her room. Sunset, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and most importantly a frazzled and confused Twilight Sparkle, still in her pajamas.

“If we were going to the moon, I’d insist she’d packed an evening gown,” Rarity said with loving condescension to Applejack, who just stood flabbergasted over Twilight’s suitcase, which Rarity had begun to pack with what she considered necessities. “One never knows, darling!”

“Cool, you can replay memories,” Midnight said with feigned indifference. She dusted herself off, and tried to affix as calm a mask over her face as she could.

Even still, she flinched as the scene progressed. Shadow’s dark laughter played slowly behind her, partly obscuring Twilight’s panicked apologies to her friends for almost oversleeping on this particular morning.

“But it wasn’t that morning at all, was it?” Shadow tittered from behind Midnight, her voice echoing as an all-too-familiar form materialized in the air.

“Midnight Sparkle!?” everyone cried out at once.

Midnight gritted her teeth, and tried to keep her eyes on… on the other monster in the room. Her hands clenched as the dark vision played on. The Midnight Sparkle here laughed like a deranged psychopath, and waved her hands about like a murderous conductor.

Because that’s what she was, Midnight thought.

Each of the girls vanished, their forms blurring into white as the hideous white noise tearing sound announced each of their obliterations. Their cries were cut off mid-scream, only adding to the horror.

Midnight didn’t know if she flinched. She tried not to let Shadow see any of that. But when Sunset disappeared, she averted her eyes.

An illusion. A simulation of a simulation. It was just a bad dream.

“A nightmare, really,” Shadow laughed, clearly reacting to Midnight’s thoughts. “My, how wicked you could be! To just destroy each of your friends like that?”

“They weren’t my friends,” Midnight said flatly. “They were dream-constructs. Like you, but more tolerable.”

Shadow drifted easily through the air, coming around to Midnight’s front again. She wore her smug grin well, cocking her head to one side as she moved.

“Oh? But it’s okay now that you are friends?” she asked without expecting an answer. “They are your friends now, right?”

Before Midnight could retort, the world shifted again. Her decaying and disintegrating bedroom flew apart and away as a crystalline floor snapped into place. The red glow of sunset washed over Midnight, only to fade somewhat into dark blues and purples as walls rose up around her.

She recognized this place, too. In fact, from a certain perspective, outside of Canterlot City, this was the only place Midnight had ever physically visited before her imprisonment within her own mind after the Friendship Games.

The rows and rows of crystal bookshelves were unmistakably ancient, but well-preserved. The Library of the Crystal Empire was the single greatest repository of lost knowledge in all of Equestria, and right now, in the memory replaying around her, Midnight could recall only that she’d nearly destroyed it herself.

“This battle is over!” a voice cried out in triumph, drawing Midnight’s gaze inexorably towards its owner.

There, in the middle of the library’s upper floor, a dark alicorn wreathed in stolen magic held an adorable Flurry Heart in her maniacal clutches.

“One more move, and I can’t promise what will happen to the baby!” she sneered at those who surrounded her. Sunset, pre-alicorn, as well as Midnight’s sister Twilight, Starlight Glimmer, and that one brutish pony with the broken horn stood arrayed against the old Midnight. They each appeared transfixed in terror, and despair.

Midnight, the real Midnight, scoffed quietly. “They should have done something,” she whispered, never minding if Shadow was listening. “I wouldn’t have hurt…”

“Wouldn’t you?” asked Shadow. “You can honestly look at yourself back then, and say with complete confidence that the person you claim you’re not anymore… wouldn’t hurt a baby?”

“If anyone wants to bring harm to this baby,” the old Midnight Sparkle cackled madly as she and her team of time-displaced ponies – a factory-working Applejack, jungle-living Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, a demonic alicorn Sunset, and dark clothed and armored Rainbow Dash and Rarity – retreated from the battle, “then by all means, attack me!”

Midnight scowled, and spun slowly around to find where Shadow had gone. Seeing the dream demon lounging as the memory replayed, she stamped one foot down to get her attention.

“What is the point of all this?” she snarled. “You want to prove I used to be a bad person!? No, duh! That’s what I’ve been saying so far! I’m better than that now, though! All you’re doing is proving…”

A shriek stopped Midnight’s heart for a moment. It had come from behind her, where her memory of that day in the Crystal Empire was still playing out in all its horrible resplendence.

She turned, and nearly shrieked herself.

Trixie, the pony one in any case, had tried to rush the other Midnight from behind. The Rainbow Dash dressed in black armor blocked her path, and gave the surprisingly valiant stagepony a mean left hook for her troubles.

And, like a flash of lightning, or a striking snake, the old alicorn Midnight retaliated with a surge of aquamarine magic. A blast struck Trixie as she lay on the floor, her terrified cry cut off as she froze solid into stone.

“No!” Midnight cried out, “No, no! That… that didn’t happen!”

“Maybe not…” Shadow whispered in her ear as the ponies in the vision leapt back into battle, “… but it’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Midnight gasped, her eyes glistening as the sounds of shrieking ponies filled the library.

“N-no,” she said, with less confidence, “No, I’d… never…”

Her words trailed away as her mind seemed to pull at the strands of her memory.

Come on, you foolish little ponies!

It’s just a baby… fight me!

Midnight’s words played back for her, behind her eyes.

I dare you, start something, the old Her said, internally. Make a move. Make me blast you. Do it! What else can you do!?

“I w-wouldn’t…”

“Twilight, please,” Spike begged, “Remember who you were! Who you are! I’ve seen you beat Midnight Sparkle before, and you can do it again!”

The dream began to melt, the walls of the Crystal Library falling away, revealing a distant, giant version of Midnight stood towering over the city. She loomed like a dark shadow over the world, her own dog cowering beneath her malevolent grin.

“Tragically, your Twilight cannot come out and play. Which is fine, because now I have to decide which of you will be destroyed first for defying me!”

“It’s not me…” Midnight whispered, not even looking at the memories as hot tears streamed down her face. “It isn’t me, not… not anymore!”

Another voice spoke out. A familiar voice. A voice that made the entire universe fall silent at its utterance.

“Maybe there’s a way we can both live…”

The world was grey. Grey, and frozen in place. A memory within a memory within the span of a single second, magically dragged out into an infinity of time for someone to think. Provided that someone had the power and the know-how to freeze time for so long while keeping their own mind running at full speed.

It was a natural spell to cast, assuming you knew how.

Midnight knew.

So did Twilight.

They were standing out in front of the school. It was Monday, and the world had just been saved.

And while Sunset, Principal Luna, the two Discords and the rest were celebrating that fact, Twilight Sparkle was standing in a mote of frozen eternity, talking to herself.

“What?” that Twilight asked, a perplexed look overcoming her spectral features. It was quite difficult for Midnight to parse precisely what was happening, since the memory - if that’s what it was - happened inside of her own mind the first time around.

It was somewhat difficult to establish movements and actions in a dimension where such things are pure speculation at best.

“We can both exist!” Midnight’s own intangible, ghost-form insisted. “We just need to make two bodies!”

Midnight - the real one - stared at the eerily familiar, yet unfamiliar, scene. Her jaw hung slack from her face as she watched, and listened to what transpired.

“What is this?” she asked the void. “I… I don’t remember this.”

It answered, in Shadow’s cruel voice.

“What do you think this is?”

“I don’t remember this…” Midnight whispered again. Her eyes never left the… whatever this was. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from herself. The past-herself.

She, the Midnight in front of her, grinned madly at her Twilight.

“All we’d need is a Cognitive Targeting Spell, to pick apart the two personalities,” Past-Midnight said with an eager, manic laugh. “though if there’s a memory-leak, we’d need a Memetic Sieve to…”

Twilight balked, eyes wide with terror. “What!? NO! That’s insane! The chances of failure… my gosh! Even success is almost just as catastrophic!”

Past-Midnight pressed on, shouting, “But it will work!”

“I can’t let you…!” Twilight tried to step back. But inside her own head, there was only so far to go.

And there was nowhere to run.

“You aren’t letting me do anything!” Midnight snarled, and snatched her sister’s wrist. In a deathly whisper, she hissed, “I… we both deserve this…”

“Midnight! NO!”

Twilight’s cry echoed in the hollows of her own mind as a white light flooded the dream. The world began to rip asunder, and Midnight’s cruel laughter swept all sound aside.

“NO!” Present-Midnight slammed her hands over her ears, and turned away from the… dream? Memory? “It’s not real! It’s not real! I…”

The dream faded away, as Shadow’s face filled her vision. That demonic grin split the construct’s face from ear to ear, as unnatural and unsettling for its distortion of biology as it was for the look in her abyssal eyes.

“Memory Gap,” she said, licking the air with her tongue. “You know how those are, right?”

“You’re…” Midnight swallowed, hard. It took two tries, as her throat was beginning to clench tight against the swell of tears forcing their way up and out of her heart. “You’re lying! I wouldn’t… I couldn’t…”

“You got some memories,” Shadow said, slowly, “Twilight got some memories… and so did I. The part of you that remembered the plan.”

The demon’s claws settled onto Midnight’s shoulders. It wasn’t like before, however. They didn’t bite down into her skin, or force her about.

They were tender. Soft.

That was worse. So much worse.

“You see now?” Shadow whispered. “This was all you. Every bit of it. Sure, the memory gap situation was an unknown-unknown… but that doesn’t matter now.”

Midnight tried to pull away. The grip on her tightened.

“You and I are the same, Midnight,” Shadow hissed. “You’ve just forgotten. Forgotten that this was all your idea. I only tormented you so you’d finally snap out of this pathetic state you’ve put yourself in!

“Why are you trying so hard to be normal?” She shook her head, and snorted. “You aren’t normal, Midnight. We’re evil! Always have been! Always will. Accept it. Embrace it!”

Midnight’s throat clenched, as she tried to hold back a choking sob. Her composure was cracking, even as she resisted the Incubus’ words.

But… there was truth to them.

That memory was so real. It can’t have all been a dream. Is it possible?

The Midnight from before Monday would have done anything… anything to achieve her goals. That Midnight would have forced her other half to do whatever she wanted, if it meant unleashing all the magic of two worlds.

I was willing to destroy everyone for that dream once. Twice, even. Why not a third?

“I did it?” she whispered, her voice cracking up. “I caused the split? For… for this?”

“Brilliantly, if I might say so,” Shadow cooed, and pulled Midnight in close. Close enough to turn their bitter embrace into something closer.

Shadow leaned in, and wrapped her arms around Midnight’s back. Her wings formed a second set of hugging limbs, wrapping them around Midnight’s form, and pulling her in even closer.

“Let go,” Shadow whispered. “Let it all go. The school. Your friends… just let me back in. Remember who you really are.

“Let go, and become me again…”

Midnight’s breath caught in her throat.

She could see it. The abyss. The bloody river she’d swam across for her goals, her dreams. The carnage beyond this fictional world, the burning wreckage of a city beyond the kitchen walls, the metaphorical state of her very mind and soul… was of Midnight’s doing. Even if she’d forgotten the plan, it was hers. The Shadow was just some… tiny part of her mind that remembered what she’d wanted all along.

This… everything that’s happened. The Split. The nightmares. It was all because I…

There was a line, Midnight recalled quite suddenly. A bit of text in a literature textbook she’d hardly glanced at in years. Not since Shining had spoken the line in his middle school’s production of the play where the line was originally from.

“… for now I am bent to know,” Shining Armor recited in front of Twilight and their parents one night, “by the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, all causes shall give way.”

He swallowed, nervously, and Midnight said the words alongside him,

“I am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.”

When one has committed so much evil, Midnight thought, you might as well keep going, since trying to atone at that point is… it’s as much effort as just finishing what you started…

As her heart began to sink, to fully fall into that black abyss, and for her own eyes to fade and darken into shadow, Midnight thought, for the barest of seconds, that the twelve-year-old Shining Armor in that flash of memory was looking at her.

And then, she realized half of him was blurry. Just over the rim of her glasses.

Shining Armor’s past self stood in the darkened kitchen, and watched Midnight from over Shadow’s shoulder.

“If it’s just as much effort…” his soundless lips mouthed to her, “… then both choices are equal.

“You have a choice, don’t you?”

Time stopped. Midnight’s mouth hung agape as the light seemed to return, and the brilliant morning, the shield across her eyes, faded back into view. There was no Shining Armor there. There was only Midnight.

Well. Midnight and the demon holding her tight in a sickening embrace.

Midnight swallowed.

Then, she whispered, “I… I choose…”

Shadowlight, with as warm and as invitingly smug a smile as had ever graced the face of a dream construct before, leaned back and away from Midnight.

“Hm? What did you…?”

She was, it had to be said, exceptionally surprised when a fist crashed into the dead center of her face. A bandage-wrapped hand slammed into her like a meteor with a dream to kill itself some dinosaurs, spraying the demon with bits of blood, and forcing her to take a single, solitary step back from the sheer savagery of the blow.

She blinked, rapidly, and tried to make sense of it.

Midnight screamed, in rage as well as indescribable pain. She clenched her teeth tight, and tried to ignore the feeling of her knuckles splintering on impact with Shadow’s nose.

Because she needed to do it again.

“I’M GOING BACK! SCREW BLOOD RIVERS!”

Shadow blinked.

“Wha--?”

Another punch cracked across her cheek, but did little more than smear more blood across it.

Midnight shrieked as she cocked her arm back again, and hurtled her broken fist forward like a bullet. It connected, this time to Shadow’s chin. And even though the demon didn’t seem to fully feel either punch, the sudden look of total shock on her face was a wonderful thing indeed.

Too bad all Midnight could feel, however, was pain.

“AHHHHHH!” she screamed, and drew in a ragged gasp of breath. “How… How dare you!?”

She threw a fourth punch, despite the fact that the bandages were now sopping wet, and an electric buzz was climbing up her arm and settling somewhere behind her eyes.

A flash of red light caught her hand, and held it rock-steady in the air. Shadow hadn’t even moved to cast the spell, but Midnight knew it was her.

Midnight snarled, and shouted through the tears, “Messing with my memories!? You think I’m just going to buy that crap!? I WILL NOT YIELD! I am MIDNIGHT SPARKLE!

“Midnight Flipping Sparkle…!”

She didn’t see the fist, at first. Only afterward, in her mind’s eye, could she recall anything more than a crimson blur before a blinding wave of pain flashed through her left eye. Midnight hit the wall of her dream-kitchen, its colors faded and its light gone, and half-slumped to the floor before another red claw caught her by the collar.

Shadow’s eyes were no longer dark holes into the abyss. Even through a haze of aching and throbbing pain, Midnight could make out her demon’s face now.

There were two red eyes staring down at her. Glaring with all the fury of a supernova. All the rage and petty fury of a spoiled child denied.

They were the eyes of a demon, cheated.

The look of utter contempt on Shadow’s face was almost enough, even, to make Midnight think what she’d just done to her hand was worth it.

“You… rank amateur…” Midnight smirked, and spat blood in Shadow’s general direction. “I invented that trick…”

Shadow’s voice, when it came, was like a cold knife in the heart.

“Apologies,” she hissed. “Let’s try something new.”

And with a stiff-armed swing, she hefted Midnight up into the air, and hurled her through the kitchen window.

Midnight crashed through the dream-glass, a self-satisfied smirk still on her lips, even as she flew into the blood and ash-filled skies of Hell.

Author's Note

See, Shadow? Midnight still knows how to be theatrical!

As some of you might recall, a few of today's scenes were first featured in previous Anarchyverse stories such as Midnight at the Crystal Library - wherein the Midnight Sparkle from the Friendship Games briefly invaded the Crystal Empire - and Home Again - wherein Midnight Sparkle and Twilight Sparkle finally came to an understanding whilst talking to each other in their shared brain-space while time was frozen so they weren't interrupted - and at least one memory was pulled from the opening sequence of Legends of Everfree, the Equestria Girls movie that followed from Friendship Games, and actually inspired my depiction of Midnight entirely.

Because in LoE, Midnight was still a thing, despite taking a heaping helping of Friendthehellup Laser at the end of FG. So, she couldn't just be like Nightmare Moon, an emotional imbalance given power through magic.

So... what was she?

The entire reason I wrote Midnight at the Crystal Library, started the Anarchyverse, and even got into pony fanfiction. So, really... y'all have Legend of Everfree to blame for all this mess. :pinkiehappy:

Expect Part 3 on Tuesday. See you then!

Hey! If you're feeling generous, perhaps buy me a coffee? It, plus all the lovely comments, keeps me going! If you can't spare nothing, that's okay too! Comments are always preferred!

13 - The Midnight in Me Part 3

Academically speaking, Midnight wasn’t sure where she was. While she was definitely in the Dream Realm in a physical sense, she had clearly lost consciousness for a few seconds there as she sailed through a wall of shattering glass.

But, if she were unconscious, then wouldn’t she have appeared in her own dreams? Where was she in a spiritual sense? A psychological one?

“Hell,” she groggily answered her own question as the dream-reality swam back into something resembling focus. “I am in… hell…”

Every inch of her body felt like she’d—

Like I just went through a window, Midnight’s internal voice managed a choked laugh, even as she struggled into a sitting position. She quickly tried to assess the damage she must have suffered in the fall, but she couldn’t quite focus at first. Everything ached, sure. But the missing lens in her glasses was also a major impediment.

After a few moments though, the world came back into focus through her one remaining lens. She sat on a patch of gray, crinkly grass which surrounded the base of a large stone plinth. Said plinth was quite familiar, even in Midnight’s concussed state, as was the building she’d been launched out of.

Despite having just been in her kitchen, Midnight could see the broken second-story window on the face of Canterlot High School, from which she’d been ejected. The school looked like it had survived another one of Pinkie’s “Chem lab experiments”, and was otherwise gutted by old flames and smoke.

As was the rest of the world around Midnight. She slowly stood up, and started to see more and more of her mental landscape.

The plinth was cracked and broken, still lacking a replacement Wondercolt statue since she’d destroyed the original. The road in front of the school was blistered and split by jagged, angled fissures and black crystals growing up through the earth. Distant fires blazed, sending up towering pillars of black smoke everywhere in Canterlot City.

No, wait. Not just Canterlot, Midnight realized. The distant spire of the Crystal Palace, from Equestria, stabbed up over the horizon. Its brilliant façade was marred by smoke, and by fires that blazed within it. In fact, several of the distant buildings and skyscrapers were seemingly totally replaced by crystalline, pony constructions.

All ruined, all burning.

Even the sky, though black with smoke, appeared to be aflame, with blood red crashes of lighting spiking the air every few seconds.

“I really hate this metaphor for my mental wellbeing,” Midnight growled, as she tried to hold her broken hand beneath her armpit, the closest approximation of a splint she could manage at the moment.

Despite the obvious chaos and destruction playing out all around, the space Midnight occupied was eerily quiet, for the moment. The wind sighed softly, and only the distant rumble of thunder served to distract Midnight from her predicament.

And then, she heard the telltale sound of wind rippling across a framework of feathers. Midnight slowly turned back towards the dream-CHS, and watched the Incubus Shadow glide down to the ground nearby.

Shadow’s form had changed, slightly. As she glided down, her wings stretched out, more haggard and cruelly-shaped than they once were. More like vulture wings, in fact. The dark blue of her hair and her clothes – which were already reshaping into a more regal, black version of Twilight’s ponied-up form – was shifting to black, and her hair had started to flow upward, like the head of a terrible black torch, streaked with red.

But it was her eyes that arrested Midnight’s attention. Two blood-red dots glared down at Midnight from a scowl that could melt steel.

Shadowlight was downright demonic, in every way.

That, however, didn’t stop Midnight from voicing her displeasure.

“You know you hit like a girl, right?” Midnight snarked at the dream-demon as she landed. “Pretty sure Spike could hit harder than that, and he’s got paws…”

Shadow’s eye twitched, and her former composure began to crack. She hissed, “How are you not insane yet!? I mean, what does it take!?”

Midnight smirked, and laughed, “More than you got, Shadow.”

“And what’s with the ‘screw blood river’ thing!?” Shadow snarled, claws extending from her fingertips as she dragged her hands through her black and red-striped hair. “What does that even mean!?”

“Not my fault you don’t remember reading the classics,” Midnight snorted. “Or, wait! You’re not really me, right? You never were! You’re just a parasite, leeching off whatever memories you thought could help you destroy me and my sister! Well, that’s over now. You can’t trick me anymore!”

Shadow scoffed, and raised one eyebrow contemptuously. “So, what? You said it yourself; I leeched off of your memories. That moment back there? Where you did this to your ‘dear sister’? That’s still on you!”

Midnight clenched her fists… and immediately regretted it as another wave of pain ripped through her hand, her arm, and quickly her whole body. Still, she stood rock-still, glaring back at the demon.

“I don’t care,” she said through bared teeth. “Whatever that Midnight did or didn’t do, she isn’t me. I… I will do everything in my power to stop you.”

“You don’t have any power,” Shadow sneered. “Or have you already forgotten your geode?”

She laughed, and threw her head back. “Of course not, naturally! If there’s one thing you care about more than little Twily, it’d be that rock…”

Midnight snarled, “Just give it back already! Twilight and my brothers are about to kick in your door, and then your teeth right after, so what’s the point?”

“The point, my little meatpuppet,” Shadow said while shaking her head, “is that you actually think Twilight’s coming? When she could… oh, I don’t know… do literally anything more productive with her weekend?

“She’s already gotten rid of the real parasite in her life!” she cried, pointing at Midnight as she did so.

Midnight did not rise to the obvious bait. Instead, she stood there upon the dead grass and continued to stare down the Shadow.

Eventually, Shadow snorted again, and folded her arms before her.

“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “She probably is looking for you. She’s a sap, that way. But she’ll never find us. I’ve got you shoved so far down into your own psyche that it’ll take her months to figure it out. And by then?”

Shadow let loose a toothy grin. To Midnight’s immediate discomfort, the Incubus’ mouth distorted, allowing more than a few rows of shark-like teeth to take up residence in her otherwise human maw.

“By then,” she hissed, “I’ll be wearing the both of you, and your world will burn.”

“You’re so cliched, it actually hurts.” Midnight sniffed, and adjusted her glasses again. “I’m somewhat disappointed in my own stress-induced insanity-golem. You disappoint me.”

“And you are trying to stall for time,” Shadow accused with a wave of her claws. “All this anger, all this bile and snark! If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you…”

Her eyes, a molten iris amidst a sea of darkness, widened.

“Oh… my gosh…” she hissed in utter disbelief, eyebrows nearly hitting her hairline as they shot up her forehead. “You actually still have hope, don’t you?”

Midnight continued to match the demon’s gaze, meeting her glare for steely glare. But she did allow herself a tiny smirk, just for old time’s sake.

“You’ve lost, Shadow,” she said, drawing herself up straighter. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

Shadow’s lip curled at the end into a deep, ravenous snarl. Her eyes narrowed, and they began to radiate a fel light.

“Oh, but you should fear me. I don’t lose,” she whispered. “I get even…”

One of her still-clenched fists stretched out. Shadow pointed it straight at Midnight, and held it there for several long seconds.

She opened her fist, and Midnight’s heart stopped.

There, in the palm of the demon’s hand, sat an aquamarine stone, hooked to the middle of a short necklace.

“My…” Midnight’s voice cracked, panic flooding through her mind as her geode’s light flicked in Shadow’s grip. She couldn’t say it; she couldn’t even begin to put the concept into words.

It was her whole life, held hostage. Just outside of her arm’s reach.

“What…?” Midnight’s mouth was suddenly too dry to form words.

“Oh, you recognize this?” Shadow grinned, revealing a maw of sharpened fangs.

“Please…” Midnight reached out her hand. “… Please, be careful with that…”

Shadow’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“What? No witty comebacks?” she tittered as she angled the geode to better show it off to Midnight. “No snide remarks? Where’s that rage? That fire you had before?”

“Shadow, wait!” Midnight took a step forward, only to stop as Shadow pulled her hand closer to her chest. Then, licking her lips, Midnight said, slowly, “We can talk about…”

Shadow barked with laughter, and closed her fist around the stone.

“Oh? Can we!?” she cried, the corners of her mouth curling up and connecting each of her ears in an unnatural, horrifying grin.

She glanced at her hand, and Midnight’s heart dropped down into her stomach.

“I think,” Shadow said, as slow as an executioner’s rising axe, “You need to learn some manners.”

The world slowed down, just as she raised her clenched fist into the air. The burning flames froze in place. The red lightning crashes ceased, one caught in the moment of striking. A grey pallor fell over everything, including the Shadow, holding everything in place at the moment of sheer desperation.

Midnight still had time to think. A second within seconds. She needed to think. To calculate. To… to…

Calculating…

What can I do…?

Shadow’s head tilted up, slowly. Her eyes, full of hatred and wrath, finally shared the cruel, vindictive smile on her lips.

“Nothing.”

The geode flew from her clawed hand, straight into the ground. Midnight’s mind was still stuck, still thinking, still trying to find a solution.

It cracked off the ground like the sound of a bullwhip, and bounced.

But it did not bounce far. Not nearly far enough to escape as a black boot came thundering down atop it.

Midnight didn’t know if she screamed. There was a sudden, startling return to normalcy as her mind, from all its thoughts and calculations and hopes… shook free. The lightning continued to crash, and the flames continued to burn.

But all Midnight could do was stare.

Stare at the shattered remains of her geode, even as Shadow gave the stone another sickening twist of her boot.

“Oops!” Shadow laughed before taking a step back, to better see – and let Midnight see – what she had done. “How clumsy of me!”

It took a moment for Midnight’s heart to beat again.

No.

Another moment. Her eyes remembered to water.

No. No…

Her legs came next. It was more like her knees, however, whose buckling turned her first stumbling step into a collapsing, falling sprint.

Midnight hit the ground, and crawled the last few inches to her geode. One hand dragged limply at her side, while the other gripped the dead grass and pulled her along.

When she reached the geode, she rose up on her knees, and stared.

“No,” she whispered. “No.”

It was just a pile of shards. A half dozen or more shards of aquamarine, crushed into the barren earth. Midnight snatched up the pieces hurriedly, cupping them into her hands.

She pinched one piece, and started pressing it into another. And then another.

And then another.

She found a seam, a crack where two shards met.

Midnight pressed, and pressed, and pressed, and her tears flowed and flowed and flowed.

“Please…” she begged. “Please… be a dream…”

A shadow fell over her as the two pieces fell apart.

“It is a dream, Sweetie,” Shadow hissed. “A nightmare. But it’s real…”

Midnight felt something. A stabbing pain that started in her stomach, and began to work up into her chest. She lurched forward as it hit her throat, and forced her jaw open.

She screamed. A long, wailing cry ripped its way out of her throat and carried with it Midnight’s sorrow. As she cried, her body wracked with shuddering sobs, Midnight hardly knew what happened around her.

But the Shadow merely basked in it all.

The clouds and storm above began to thrash about more violently than before. Cracks in the Wondercolt plinth spread out, reaching into the earth around it as well as the sky. In the distance, crystal towers cracked and shattered and fell.

The world was coming apart.

“Beautiful!” Shadow said to herself as she leaned back her head, self-satisfaction oozing off of her as she smiled. “Just… perfect.”

Midnight didn’t hear her. All she could feel, or even fathom, was the gem in her hands. It felt like she held her own heart, her future. Everything she ever wanted. Everything she ever dreamed about.

It was gone.

It was all gone.

Even the light, grim and black as it was, began to fade as the oblivion of despair encroached.

Until it didn’t.

Shadow noticed it first. The heat of crimson fire fell away, replaced by a chill, a cold wind. She opened her eyes, and saw the sky.

Black. The sky was… black?

“What?” she asked herself, eyes narrowing into the black…

No. Blue. The sky was a dark, dark midnight blue.

And it was filled with stars. White, twinkling stars that danced and flowed in a cosmic river across the heavens.

“How are you doing that?”

The words barely registered for Midnight.

“Hey!”

She didn’t move.

A hand gripped her collar, and hauled Midnight up, almost to her feet. Though her eyes stared at nothing, they were met with burning orbs.

“I said, how are you doing that!?”

Midnight blinked.

“Do what?” she eventually asked, her voice monotone.

Shadow snarled, and threw her down to the ground. “The thing with the moon!”

Midnight’s hand clutched at her geode, the only effort her body took. She didn’t move to slow her fall, or to get up after.

Slowly, however, Shadow’s words found her.

She lifted her head a few inches, and stared up at the sky.

Somehow, Midnight failed to notice the moon in her dreams. Half the sky was just moon at this point, beaming its silvery light over the whole ruined landscape of Midnight’s mind.

For just a second… she felt something. It was almost nice.

“Are you still resisting!?”

A foot connected with Midnight’s stomach, and her world was pain once more. She lifted up a full couple of feet, and rolled as she hit the ground again.

Shadow advanced, blazing red flames pooling in her outstretched hands as she approached.

“I took everything from you!” she snarled. “How are you able to do anything!?”

Midnight groaned. She checked her good hand, and saw she still held the shards of her geode. If nothing else, she wasn’t letting go again.

“I’m not…” she tried to speak. The words came slowly, however.

And Shadow was faster.

The backhand caught Midnight under her jaw, and sent her sliding back into the side of the stone plinth. She hit the corner, and partly slid off to one side, her head lolling back for a moment.

Is the moon… bigger?

“You think you can win this!?” Shadow cried. “You think making the moon rise is some sort of defiance!?”

Midnight spat a bit of blood out, and tried to raise her head.

“I… didn’t…”

Shadow shrieked, and rushed forward, claws out and wings outstretched. Midnight could only weakly raise her hands up in front of her face, and even then…

Maybe it’s better this way…

The thought struck her… but it didn’t hurt. It was more like letting go, and letting the inevitable take over.

I was always a mess, she reasoned. Twilight won’t have to go through so much stress without me reminding her of all the things we did. Sunset could always ignore the wings, and just pretend they happened by magic…

If she could, perhaps she would have chuckled at that.

The rest of my friends… Twilight’s friends, anyway. They’ll get over it. Eventually. I was just a bad, bad week for them.

Maybe they would name something after her. Not that she deserved any of it. But one of Rarity’s fashion lines, or one of Pinkie’s cakes, or Fluttershy’s animals. Maybe Applejack or Rainbow Dash will remember her fondly, someday. Maybe Twilight or Sunset could say a few nice things, from time to time.

But beyond that? No one will…

Someone was missing from her list.

Someone important was missing.

Midnight’s eyes widened.

Aria!

I had…

She shook her head, almost dislodging her glasses with the effort.

Midnight gritted her teeth… and snarled.

“I have a date tomorrow…”

She pressed one elbow down, onto the stone of the plinth. Midnight leveraged herself, and tried to push her body up.

“I’m going to smooch a pretty girl…”

She wobbled atop unsteady legs, a demon bearing down on her. But, with one hand clutching at her geode, and another limp at her side, she stood.

“Whatever you’ve done, and whatever you’re going to do, I’m getting out of here.

“And then…” Midnight kept her eyes open, kept them glaring at Shadow. “… I am never thinking about you again.”

Shadow streaked forward, her form becoming a flaming comet in the silvery moonlight.

The collision would have been astounding. Astronomical.

But it did not come. The world between Shadow and Midnight exploded. It was like the largest bell in the universe rang out one epic, earth-shattering chime just as a supernova went off.

Midnight blinked, and closed her eyes against the light. It was almost overpowering. But there was something beautiful about it as well. Something mesmerizing.

She opened her eyes again.

And beheld a Goddess.

Princess Luna floated in the space before her, plainly in her ‘pony-upped’ form. A dark-skinned human of infinite beauty, with ethereal hair, wide angelic wings, and a flowing, Classical-age white dress that spoke of her power and her ancient, eternal nature.

Shadow beheld her as well. The demon drifted, awestruck, on the other side of the Princess from Midnight.

And her face was filled with terror.

“What…?” she meekly squeaked.

Luna’s eyes shone with black, blue, and silver light. And her scowl focused her wrath like a scalpel.

She held out one hand, palm facing the Shadow.

“BEGONE THOUGHT!”

It was like watching someone get hit with an invisible bus going Mach Ten. One moment, Shadow recoiled at the sheer volume and scale of the divine command. And in the next, she flailed, and hurtled back through the air, tumbling over and over as she sailed nearly out of view.

Nearly. Very nearly. For as the demon flew, the Moon itself shifted in the sky, shrinking down… and intercepting her mid-flight.

Shadow crashed into the moon, and then the moon thundered straight down to the earth, crushing the entirety of CHS with its bulk as it collided, Shadowlight trapped beneath as it burrowed its way down at least into the sewer levels.

The rumble caused by this blow slowly faded away, leaving only a silent crater where the dream-school once stood. Just a sliver of moon peeked over the rim, marking Shadow’s resting place.

Midnight, staring into space and the sudden – extremely cathartic – carnage that had just taken place, slowly slid down to her knees, and sat heavily onto the grass. The roaring fires, the lightning… it all seemed to die away, leaving behind a crystalline Canterlot City only mildly gutted by metaphorical flames.

Luna sighed through her nose, and allowed herself to drift down to the ground as well. As she slowly turned around, the Princess cast her eyes downward.

“Midnight Sparkle…” Her voice was tense and bracing. Her brow was heavy with some intangible weight pulling down her emotional range. “I must apologize most prof—Good Heavens!”

Midnight worked her jaw for a moment, but the words she wanted just weren’t there. She could think, ‘Does it look that bad?’ or ‘What took you so long?’, but it was like there wasn’t any breath in her chest to form them.

“I… I was not aware your psycheform could take such a thrashing!” Luna gasped, and drew some of her magic to her hands. Deep blue light flowed out from her, and swam around Midnight.

She didn’t feel any different. Sure, her glasses patched up instantly, returning the world to a non-blurry sort of nightmare, but that didn’t fix any of the pain lancing throughout her entire body.

This seemed to concern Luna.

“I don’t understand,” she said while staring at her empty hands. The Princess licked her lips and shook her head, saying, “That should have restored your dream-form!”

“It’s not a dream,” Midnight sighed, the words finding breath enough to carry. “I’m not dreaming.”

Luna turned a shocked expression onto Midnight. “Now, don’t be absurd!” she admonished, “If you are in the Dream Realm, you are most certainly dreaming! My magic should have—”

“Not if I’m physically here, Moonbutt,” said Midnight, her words gaining just the slightest edge to them. “We… tried to avoid letting Shadow control us here…”

The Princess stared, for a moment. Then, her eyes widened by degrees and her pupils shrank down.

“You… but that is impossible!” she stuttered. “Nopony can enter the Dream Realm! It is a physical im… well, not quite impossible… the Tantabus…”

She stroked her chin a moment, before shaking off the thought. Quickly, she drew magic to her hands again. Luna stepped closer to Midnight, and knelt beside her. The Princess slowly reached out, and held her glowing hands over Midnight’s injuries, starting with her hand.

“I miss the days when I could take the rules of magic for granted,” she sighed. “But… new universe, I suppose.”

Midnight tried to look away as Luna worked, tried to ignore whatever she was doing. But, as the blue magic began to sink into her skin, she could feel a warm buzzing sensation sweeping through her arm. It was like one side of her body was falling asleep… except that on some level she couldn’t properly describe, Midnight could feel her bones begin to knit. Her skin pulled back together, and regrew itself.

The warming sensation tickled its way up into her neck, her face… and eventually her mind.

As the feeling rolled over her, Midnight felt her lungs draw in a deep pull of air, and release it seconds later. Somehow, it felt like she was breathing a sort of… tightness out as she did so.

“That’s not like the healing spell I know,” she commented, idly.

Luna’s face was pinched, presumably through the effort of casting the spell. But she still managed to speak, if in a strained tone. “This is a more… in-depth spell than what is usually taught by my sister. Only a few unicorns and alicorns can cast Meadowbrook’s Mending.”

“I’ll have to remember to ask Twilight about that one,” Midnight said, her jaw tingling as a forming bruise melted away. “Your Twilight, obviously…”

There was silence between them.

Then, Midnight sighed.

“You couldn’t have gotten here a few seconds earlier?”

She opened her good hand, slowly, revealing the shattered remnants of her geode.

Luna couldn’t hide her flinch. She looked at the gem like she would an open wound; with distaste. She returned to her mending, the warmth now flowing into Midnight’s side.

“You were deeply embedded in this place,” the Princess eventually said. She paused for another moment, and then added, “It took a great deal of time and magic to drill through the… the Incubus’ defenses. I cannot apologize enough for what has transpired due to my absence.”

“Heh, thanks?” Midnight sassed, though without energy. “Really helps to know you feel bad about screwing up.”

Luna closed her eyes, and slowly released her magic. As the light faded, she allowed herself a shuddering breath of her own. Then, she took Midnight’s hand, and brought them both to a standing position.

Once she was up on her feet, Midnight looked at her once-broken hand. The blood was still there, the makeshift bandages seeped in it, but she could feel it again, and not in a painful manner.

A flash of Luna’s magic removed the bandages – they still being made of dream-stuff – revealing Midnight’s whole and complete hand.

Midnight hummed, somewhat approvingly. Then, with another sigh, she looked back at the Princess.

“What now?” she asked, quietly.

Luna’s eyes did an excellent job not glancing down at Midnight’s other hand.

“When last we spoke in the Dream Realm, I told you of my fears…” Luna spoke plainly, though not without a sense of sympathy in her tone. Midnight likened it to a bedside manner. “… About how I felt I had wronged you by believing you were the Incubus I’d felt before. I brushed off the notion of an Incubus, in fact, in part because of how I now saw you.”

“Sorry you were right?” Midnight sneered, again without energy.

Luna closed her eyes.

“Yes. I seem to have made many, many mistakes in handling this situation…”

“No, really?” Midnight shook her head, a scowl forming. “You just… what? Thought you were respecting my privacy or something?”

The Princess flinched again, at Midnight’s tone, but did not move otherwise.

“I… I hoped that this was all a misunderstanding,” she said, eyes downcast again. “I hoped that you were merely dealing with the typical stress of being a teenager. I hoped that… that I could train up a Dreamwalker on this side of the Mirror to take on your concerns and your troubles.

“I hoped I had enough time to create a safeguard for your world,” she sighed. “But then I received your message.”

Luna clenched her jaw, and drew in a steady breath.

“Midnight, I am so, so sorry for my negligence…”

“Shut up,” Midnight hissed. “Just… shut up, already. You missed your chance.”

Midnight went silent again. Her eyes went back to her geode, or what was left of it. She held it up, cupped in her hands. Though the color had drained from them, they did seem to catch the moonlight well.

It was a cold comfort. All her dreams were pretty, broken glass.

“My magic is gone,” she whispered.

“No!” Luna said, her voice swelling in volume. “I will not allow you to…”

“To what!?” Midnight snarled. She gripped her geode shards tight, tightly enough to draw blood as she glared over the rim of her glasses at the shaken Princess. “What won’t you allow me to do, Princess?”

Tears pooled at the edges of her eyes, but Midnight ignored them, swiping each aside as they attempted to form.

She shouted, “All I am was in that geode! I was born from magic! And now it’s gone!!!”

Luna drew her lips into a thin line, but said nothing.

“Just once,” Midnight said, biting back a sob, “Just once... why couldn’t this have worked out for me!? Why!? I started this week screaming, and… and crying, and being…

“I can’t.” She fell into a crouch, and the tears streamed again. “I… I can’t go through this again. Not again. Please…”

“Midnight Sparkle,” Luna said, though her voice was almost a ghost. “I cannot fathom the depths of your despair right at this moment…”

Midnight said nothing, instead burying her face in her arms.

“… but the rules of magic have been changing,” Luna continued. She knelt before Midnight, and carefully wrapped her wings around the crying girl. “I cannot promise you that everything… in fact, I cannot promise you that anything will be fine. Or that it will all work out.

“But this, I can promise you… I will not abandon you again.”

Human arms touched Midnight’s back, and gently pulled on her.

There wasn’t any resistance. Midnight flew forward, arms outstretched. She fell into Luna’s arms, and accepted the hug… even as her sobs grew louder.

Luna was not finished, either. As she pressed her neck to Midnight’s, she whispered, “I have at my disposal the resources of Equestria. The Princess Twilight, her protégé Starlight Glimmer, and her beau, Sunburst, not to mention Starswirl the Bearded himself, are my friends… and yours. And with such genius, with such awesome power and knowledge at your disposal, can you really believe it is all over? That your geode cannot be mended?”

Midnight sniffed, and choked, and tried to bring her breathing back under control. But, as she let out another sob, pent up from a week of frustration, anger, nightmare, and fear, Luna held her tighter, and continued to speak.

“You may count on us,” she said. “Your friends shall not abandon you. And through our friendship… perhaps we might restore your magic to you?”

Midnight’s body shook with a sudden hiccup. Luna tensed up, and listened as the sounds coming from the girl shifted, ever so slightly. Midnight let out a few ragged gasps, a few shuddering breaths.

And then, the barest hint of a laugh.

“That’s the corniest crap I’ve ever heard,” she whispered. “And that’s coming from someone who gave those sorts of speeches, technically…”

Another deep, snotty sniff, and she started to push herself away from Luna’s embrace.

Midnight’s smile, however broken it might have been… was genuine as she looked up at the Princess’ face.

“Thanks, anyway,” she said, and wiped at her eyes. “I needed that…”

The two stood in the silence of the dream, neither speaking nor pulling away as they reached their feet again.

“So…” Midnight sighed, and glanced around at the blasted wasteland of her mind. “… what now? You wanna give me a lift out of here?”

Luna’s eyes hardened, and she shook her head slowly as the smile fell from her own lips.

“Oh, I am afraid not, Midnight Sparkle,” she said, turning back towards where the moon had landed. “We’ve yet to deal with your problem.”

Midnight raised a curious eyebrow. “Uh, you smashed her with the moon. How much more dealing can we really do with her?”

“I am afraid I could not extinguish this Incubus,” Luna said with a weary ruffle of her feathers. “I could only pin her down for a moment.”

Midnight’s eyes twitched. She swallowed, dryly…

And then screamed. “WHAT!?”

Her cry was echoed, naturally, by the moon itself as the entire buried silver structure shook from within, before a powerful blast of red hellfire tore it asunder.

Author's Note

To bind yourself and your self image up in one thing, one tangible thing that can be destroyed, is not an easy thing to come back from. Especially the self image part of it. Geodes can be mended. But souls...?

Maybe Shadow's calmed down after getting a celestial body dropped on her? She might be ready to be reasonable, guys. I can feel it. :trollestia:

Hey! If you're feeling generous, perhaps buy me a coffee? It, plus all the lovely comments, keeps me going! If you can't spare nothing, that's okay too! Comments are always preferred!

14 - The Midnight in Me Part 4

Midnight threw her arms up as the moon burst like an overstuffed balloon. A rush of wind heralded the wave of crimson hellfire that poured from the crater it left behind, and a howl of endless fury and rage rattled the very heavens above.

The stars were turning red. The old, extinguished flames rose up again, and soon the world of Midnight’s dream had become almost worse than it had been before.

Red flames leapt and snarled at Midnight and Princess Luna, but the former simply raised her hand against the fiery deluge. With a surge of her horn’s magic, the Princess snapped an invisible dome in place, breaking the assault as though the flames of Shadow’s wrath were mere suggestions crashing upon ironclad Law and Order.

Am I becoming more eloquent as my mind shatters? Midnight pondered over this for a second, before she saw something hideous crawl out of Shadow’s crater.

Shadowlight, the Incubus, slowly pulled herself from out of that hole, her body transformed wholly. The demon towered over the duo at almost thirty feet tall, and her wings hung over the dream-cityscape like two ominous black clouds.

She unhinged her jaw, still filled with fangs the length of Midnight’s arms, and let loose an inchoate screech.

“She’s still alive!?” Midnight gasped, her empty hand still up to blunt the heavy winds that picked up as the monster flexed her titanic wings. “What does it take!?”

“More than we perhaps here possess,” Luna said in an almost casual tone. She held her one hand to the side of the magical dome she’d created, while half-turning to speak to Midnight. “I was hoping my magic would remain Anathema to the Incubi of this universe. Alas, it seems that the rules by which magic operates here have shifted somewhat…”

Midnight shook her head, and snarled. “So, that’s it? Our last trump card’s thrown out of the window? Just like that!?”

Luna allowed a little smirk to touch her face, and the sight of it almost caused Midnight to take a step back.

“Fear not, Midnight Sparkle,” the Princess gently stated. “Though my magic is no longer the Incubus’ greatest weakness, we still have three things in our favor.

“First,” she said, glancing back to the gigantic Shadow as she sent a wave of fire rolling over their shield, to little effect, “while I cannot defeat the demon in a single blow as before, my magic is still quite puissant against her. We can withstand her might for ages beneath this shield.”

“I don’t have ages!” Midnight snapped. “She can already take away control of my body if I’m not focusing! She’ll possess me and Twilight by tomorrow at this rate…”

Luna pressed on, not really listening to Midnight's protests at this point. “Additionally, the fact that the Incubus has cast off its traditional weakness means it may be vulnerable to other forms of attack.”

Midnight shrugged, and irritably asked, “Evidence?”

“The rules of magic may change,” Luna said, her horn glowing as she conjured another spell, “but the laws of physics do not. There is only so much energy in existence, and only so many ways to distribute it. In magic, there are no such things as invincible or infinite…”

Her horn flared again, and a passing boulder, hurled from Shadow’s clawed hands, burst into nothingness before it could collide with the shield.

“STOP IGNORING ME!!!” Shadow cried in abject madness and fury. She writhed and fumed, drawing in the red flames of the dream realm even as she spat them back out at Luna’s magical shield.

Midnight said nothing. Just the mention of magic and its algorithmic rules caused a knot to form in her stomach, and for the shards of her geode to weigh down on her closed fist. Plus, since she’d been the towering monster only a week ago, from one side of the time loop, she was getting the worst form of déjà vu all of a sudden.

Shadow began to advance. Each footstep came down like a hammer blow, shaking the earth and sending up a hail of sparks and thunder.

Princess Luna didn’t seem to notice. Her face was stuck in a placid smile, seemingly content with watching the monster approach.

“And the third thing?” Midnight asked, eyebrows knitting together in worry. “What’s the third thing?”

Luna’s smile only deepened, and her pony ears twitched atop her head. She turned around, slowly, and gave Midnight a wink.

“I made sure to bring reinforcements,” she said, before raising her eyes to the darkening sky.

“What re—?" Midnight began to ask. But as she did, a new sight stole the air from her lungs, and her voice died in her throat.

Shadowlight loomed before the two, arms raised. And with a monstrous roar, she brought her might down upon Luna’s shield, shrieking in her frustrations. Each blow crashed into the shield, causing the invisible bubble to bend and warp, revealing itself in its distortions. Each shuddering hit caused Midnight to flinch, and to raise her own hand back up, by degrees, to protect her face, to shield her eyes from the demon raining down upon her.

But then Shadow stopped. Her eyes, bright red dots in pools of shadow, narrowed, and her assault halted.

Her ears twitched.

And then, Midnight’s did as well. There was something else. Something oddly familiar, and getting closer with every passing second.

“—echaaaaaaaaaaa—"

“Uh… does anyone else hear…?”

Luna’s smile turned into a full grin. “Wait for it...” she said, dragging out the last word.

Shadow’s eyes shrank, her pupils becoming tiny specks as she seemed to realize where the sound was coming from.

It was above her.

“— KnnniiiiiiiiIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!"

The sound arrived, like a comet out of space. Like a bolt out of the blue.

Like a knight in Shining Armor…!

The giant, mechanical robot knight smashed down from the sky, his blazing magical chainsaw sword a golden streak as he brought it home atop the demon Shadow. The demon shrieked in pain, and leapt backward as the machine warrior sliced her left wing clean off at the midway joint.

A wall of dust kicked up at the impact, but Shining Armor, clad in his Mighty Mecha Magic Knight form with a glowing pink shield and waving red cape, was already leaping after the enemy, his theme song blaring forth with every step.

Shadow reeled back, but not for long. She took a glancing hit at her side that almost cut through to her spine, exposing her innards to be made entirely of shadow. In spite of this, she had managed to spin away, her wing and lost flesh knitting back together as a wave of hellfire swept over her.

And then, with the next strike, Shadow ducked under Shining’s attack, and slashed her claws across his abdomen. Sparks and flame shot out from where she hit.

“Shining!” Midnight cried, startled, and covered her mouth with her free hand.

“Worry not!” Luna said, quickly. She pointed with one hand to Shining’s side, and added, “Shining appears unharmed…”

There was no wound, just a few blackened scorch marks. Like Shining had just been a guy in a rubber suit on one of those old fighting robot shows.

Midnight sighed, though just a little in relief, “You big nerd…”

Shining checked Shadow with his shield, and tried to shove her back, but the demon was already adapting. She gripped her claws around the energy-shield’s edges, and started twisting the magical construct like a car’s steering wheel. When Shining went in for another stab to dislodge her, she neatly sidestepped his blow.

Her wing, newly healed, slapped him across the back, sending Shining careening into the grassy patch just in front of Luna’s shield.

Though Shining tried to rise, he quickly found a clawed foot slamming into his back, sending up another shower of sparks.

“Ah, good old Shining Armor!” Shadow sneered. “Arriving just a bit too late to help, as always!”

Shining’s head – helm? – turned, and mumbled out some digitized threat or curse of some sort, muffled by the dead grass and soil Shadow was currently pressing him into.

“Speak up, loser!” she laughed. “I can’t hear you down there—!"

Her gloating was rather abruptly cut off at that precise moment. A large emerald-green ball of fire smashed into Shadow from the side, bowling her end over end.

Midnight looked to where the giant demon had fallen, and then swiveled stiffly around to the other direction, from where a purple streak was rapidly incoming.

“Pew pew pew!” Spike cried, green blasts of magical energy flying from his dragon-claws with every ‘pew’ as he dove down on Shadow. The muscular dragon, still sporting a pointed wizard hat, paused only to give a quick wave to Midnight before he roared past her, letting loose another bevy of magical attacks.

The blasts struck Shadow about her face, drawing another snake-like snarl from her as she tried to claw her way into a standing position. Only, once she found her footing and got her hands up to block Spike’s attacks, he simply flew under her guard.

And then, he threw a punch into the Incubus’ stomach that even had Midnight flinching in sympathy for the demonic simulacrum.

Shadow’s eyes crossed, and she stumbled backward as Spike launched another attack, his fists landing so hard that they left a few visible Zap, Kapow, and Blammo sound effects drifting in the air around him, each one sending Shadow reeling back onto her backfoot.

Shining chuckled his robotic chuckle, and whispered, “I said… sic em…”

Midnight, realizing Shining was still hurt, started to rush to his side, when another voice cut through the sound of flames and the one-dragon-army receding into the distance.

“Midnight!”

She paused. Midnight and Luna turned around to face the voice as Twilight Sparkle descended to the dead grassy yard.

She was dressed… well, like she had before. Twilight was ponied-up, back in her original blue blouse and purple starlit skirt getup, wings outstretched as she came in for a landing. The sight of her brought a swelling feeling deep within Midnight’s chest, blocking her throat.

Twilight Sparkle, from before all this happened to you.

“Midnight!” Twilight cried again, and sprinted headlong for her sister. She hardly slowed down, throwing herself through the air, and quickly wrapping her arms around Midnight’s neck.

There was a choking sound, behind Midnight’s ear, then Twilight’s voice as she said, “We were so worried about you! That thing just grabbed you, and…”

Twilight blinked several times, but did not let go of Midnight. Instead, she raised her eyes a few degrees up, and blinked again.

“Princess Luna?” she asked.

“Indeed, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said without losing a beat. “It is good that you followed the path I took to reach here.”

“That was you!?” Twilight blanched as she released her sister, though she failed to notice Midnight’s listless stance. “I thought Midnight did that! There was a lot of collateral damage to the Dream Realm, after all…”

Luna merely sniffed, disdainfully at this remark, and returned her attention to Shining Armor, who was only now getting back to his feet. The colossal, heroic robot shook his head in a very human-like manner, before settling back down on one knee.

“I might need a second…” he sighed, and rubbed the side of his head some more.

“Hold still, Prince Shi… I mean, Shining Armor,” Luna blushed at her momentary faux pas, before lighting up her healing magic again. “This will help…”

As the Princess tended to the frazzled Shining, Twilight looked around, and seemed to take stock of the situation.

“This place looks… pretty bad, I’d say,” she said while adjusting her glasses. She glanced down at the torn and crackling grass, the shattered and burnt-out buildings, and finally the red flames that still sputtered and guttered all across the landscape.

She hissed through her teeth, and clucked her tongue. “Yeah, this place is in a bad way. Can’t believe that, metaphorically speaking, this is our… uh?”

Twilight tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing.

“Did…?” she asked, frowning. “Did something happen? You look…”

Midnight hadn’t moved since Twilight had appeared. Through the hug, she’d simply stood, not even returning the act of affection. And as Twilight had started analyzing the dream, Midnight just stood there, staring at her feet.

But she wasn’t doing nothing.

She was calculating…

Twilight’s eyes focused on Midnight’s hand, and a chill sensation ran down her spine.

“Midnight…” she whispered, “… While we were following your trail, or I guess Luna’s trail… I was able to Pony Up a few minutes ago.”

Her brows were furrowed tight as she took a long, steadying breath.

“I couldn’t do that before then. I tried, so I could fly after you sooner…”

Midnight’s eyes flicked to the side. Her mouth started working, silently. Still, she didn’t look up. She hadn’t reacted to her sister at all.

Twilight took a step forward, and raised one hand to her sister’s shoulder.

“Midnight?” she asked, more timidly… before she saw something that finally registered. “Why are you wearing glasses?”

There was a twitch, at the corner of Midnight’s mouth. And another, in her hand. The one that still hadn’t unclenched.

Midnight slowly began to unbend that arm at the elbow, however. And slowly, like a glacier, she stuck it out towards Twilight. She turned it over, and let her fingers relax their grip.

Twilight stumbled back, eyes wide, and mouth agape in horror.

She gasped, hands up over her mouth. Then, before the echo of her cry had a chance to fade, Twilight’s hands were already out, purple magic flashing to life. The individual shards lit up with her aura, and flew from Midnight’s grasp, letting her arm drop as they left her.

“No…” Twilight whispered as she brought the geode’s remains to her. She reflexively reached to her own geode, a half-gem hanging from her neck, though her eyes never left the shattered pieces of her sister’s.

Two shards separated. Under Twilight’s hardening gaze, they slid up against each other for a few split seconds before one dropped back to the rest, replacing it with a different piece. It spun once, and seemed to find a seam on the other, clicking into place.

Twilight’s brow glistened with sweat, and she puffed out her cheeks with effort as she began pressing the two geode shards together.

They strained, letting out a grinding sigh, the whine of glass pressing against glass.

And when Twilight let go, they dropped away in two parts again.

“No…” she whispered again. “Oh, Midnight… I… what happened? I don’t…”

Perhaps it was the sound of the geode shards crackling against each other, or the way Twilight was suddenly working herself into a stuttering, choking fit… but something in Midnight stirred.

She glanced up, and finally looked at her sister.

Twilight’s eyes didn’t tear up. They didn’t glisten, or begin to fill with water.

They flooded the banks of her eyelids, and quickly overran her face. Every breath in, she shuddered. And every breath out came in stops and gaps. Twilight picked up another pair of shards, and though she could no longer see them through the tears, she tried once again to force them together with her magic.

Luna was half-watching, but a thousand years of lunar exile probably gave her a monstrous poker face, as Midnight couldn’t read that expressionless mask in the slightest.

But there was no hiding Twilight’s sudden anguish.

“Hey…” Midnight said, half-heartedly. She watched Twilight squeeze two pieces until another crack formed in one of them. That startled her, and Twilight dropped the whole lot of them with another gasp.

“Midnight! I… I can fix this!” she said, arm wiping at her eyes as she knelt down and tried to pick up the fallen pieces. “Don’t worry. We can do this. I-It… it will just take a while. I can get some spells from the Princess, and… and Sunset would know what we’re missing, right? Maybe some sort of reconstitution spell, or a…?”

“Twilight,” Midnight began again, though her voice was still soft and quiet. “Twilight? Stop…”

“No, you’re right,” Twilight said, picking the pieces up with her magic once again. “We probably need something bigger, something that… that can… maybe a blood sacrifice can…?”

Her eyes froze, a wild and terrible look held within them.

Twilight whispered, “Unless…?”

And then she reached for her geode.

Every hair on Midnight’s neck stood up at once. A cloying, biting chill ran up her spine, becoming a burning, fiery heat as it hit her face, her throat, her eyes.

Energy was no longer an issue. Midnight almost felt like she was on fire herself.

No sooner did Twilight’s finger form a tearing pinch on the edge of her geode, than did Midnight’s hand slap them away.

Twilight yelped, and threw her hands up defensively, even as Midnight came barreling in for another – less physical – blow.

“WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?”

Her scream echoed like a cannon shot. It carried far, bouncing off the distant crystalline ruins, and even the hollow sky above. Princess Luna’s guarded mask slipped as the sound crashed over her, allowing anyone watching a bare glimpse into her own distress.

But no one was watching the Princess. All eyes were on Midnight.

“What?” Twilight asked, once the echo of her sister’s shriek had passed. Her surprise only mildly curtailed the worry still thick in her words as she said, “Midnight, I was only trying…”

“I know what you were trying to do, and you need to knock it off!” Midnight snarled. “You can’t split your geode up any more! That’s insane!”

“Midnight, I already told you ‘what’s mine is yours’,” Twilight snapped back, a mote of anger flaring up. She leaned in closer to Midnight, and added, “This geode was for both of us.”

Midnight shook her head again. “No, no it wasn’t…”

She bit her lip, but said no more. Even though the voice in her head – the one that didn’t advocate for sororicide – was screaming at her to say something.

“It was!” Twilight shouted again. “I thought we were past this…”

“No! Stop!” Midnight stamped her foot and clenched her hands tight. “I won’t allow it! I can’t keep taking things from you!”

“You’re not taking anything!” Twilight pressed her face almost right up against Midnight’s, and bellowed, “We’re sisters, and this is important, and I will share it with you!”

Midnight pressed her forehead to Twilight’s and pushed back.

“I already took Smarty Pants from you!” she screamed, a ragged cry ripping out from her throat. “I took part of your geode, and I took the memories of your friends…

“For heaven’s sake, Twi! I’ve taken everything from you! This was all my fault to begin with!!!”

The echo of this shout died instantly.

Silence filled the air between Sparkles.

Twilight blinked, slowly.

“… What?”

Once more, Midnight deflated. She closed her eyes, and sighed.

“It was me, Twilight,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

She looked back up, and met the gaze of the person she’d wronged.

“Shadow has some of our memories,” Midnight said, slowly. “She showed me… the moment when we split.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped.

“Wha…?” she sputtered, “… What? What did she…?”

“I did it, Twilight,” Midnight pressed on, taking a quick, halting breath to compose herself. “When we decided to cast the spell that made us, I… I manipulated you. That Midnight Sparkle wanted to use the Split to create this whole Dream Realm tether. The reason we share dreams was part of… of my plan!”

Twilight shook her head. “Hold on… why? What purpose did that serve?”

Midnight clutched at her face, pushing back her hair as she groaned, and said, “I don’t know. To stress you out? To drive you nuts so I could slowly take over as your ability to resist me crumbled? Shadow can already physically mess with us…”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “She… she can do that?”

“WHAT!?” Luna cried out. “She can…!?”

Midnight’s hands reached out suddenly, and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, cutting off the Princess’ baffled muttering. She gave Twilight a light shake, and said, “She showed me! She showed me everything…”

She paused, looked away, and took another breath.

When she looked back, Twilight’s eyes were glistening with tears, and filled with a new fear.

“But… I’m not going to let her win,” Midnight said in a steady, calm tone that she did not feel. “That Midnight, the one who tried to hurt you… the one who succeeded in hurting you… she’s gone now. And I won’t let my heartless mistake doom you, Twilight Sparkle.

“I need you to help me,” she whispered.

Midnight did not blink once as she tried to radiate her own steely resolve into Twilight through their eye contact.

She will need it soon, Midnight thought.

“I need you to reabsorb me.”

Twilight gave a quiet gasp, and froze. Her eyes, once wide with fear and pain and surprise, softened.

Then, her eyes narrowed.

Good, Midnight thought. Calculate the numbers, sis. You’ll see what I see soon.

“If I wasn’t around,” Midnight said, quickly, capitalizing on her sister’s contemplative moment, “the tether between our dreaming selves wouldn’t exist, and most of the mental stress that fuels Shadow will be gone!”

As if to punctuate her words, Shadow let off a furious war cry in the distance. This was met by a wizard-dragon Spike lassoing her with magic, and proceeding to slap her into the hard earth again, and again, and again.

However, with every blow, Spike was looking more and more tired. And Shadow seemed… almost bigger and bigger as the battle went on.

Midnight continued, saying, “If you don’t get rid of her, she’ll have both of our bodies, and all of our magic! Shadow is going to destroy the world if she can. And just because she can!”

Twilight’s eyes had been flicking from side to side, a clear sign of her or Midnight running their “calculations”. But as Midnight’s words sank in, they slowed their manic drive.

Soon, another look settled onto Twilight’s face, besides curiosity.

It looked like rage.

“Good,” Midnight sighed in relief, “you get it. You can see it now.

“You’ll be fine without me,” she said, closing her eyes. “Once we’re… once I’m back where I belong, Shadow will fade away and life can get back on track for you.”

Midnight clenched her jaw, and looked up at the stars.

Almost as beautiful as the real ones.

“Your friends might… they might be upset,” she conceded, “especially Pinkie. But you’ll know how the Memory Stone spell worked, so just trim a little here or there, and it’ll be like I never—"

Midnight was, it had to be said, exceptionally surprised when a hand slapped her right across her face, knocking her head to one side. For an incredible moment, her entire world was simply a hand-shaped flash of pain radiating out from her face and into her very mind.

She snapped her head back around, and tried to blink away the shock.

Twilight… had hit her.

Her eyes met Twilight’s, and the pain blared even more angrily as she fell forever into the eyes that looked back.

“How…?” Twilight hissed, her eyes like fire despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How could you even think something like that!?”

Midnight stood, silent and in shock.

“What?” she muttered, unable to think. To calculate.

“I said, how could you think so little of me!? Of yourself!?”Twilight reached out and grabbed Midnight’s shoulders again, and as she spoke, she shook her sister roughly back and forth.

“What have we been trying to tell you all week, if not that you matter to us!?” Twilight screamed, and clenched her teeth. “And you’d just… take that away from me? From our friends!?”

“Y-your friends…”

“Our Friends!”

Midnight blinked, and tried to look away.

I don’t understand…

“But… Twilight,” she tried to say without her voice cracking, and failed, “I’m not even real. I’m… I’m just all your past anger and pain. I’m not real…”

Twilight looked about ready to slap Midnight again… when another voice cried out.

“MIDNIGHT!”

Both sisters turned at the sound of the cry, only to see Shining Armor’s mechanical form blaze with a pink light. The gigantic machine body briefly became as bright as the sun, almost blinding the nearby Princess Luna with its radiance.

And then, as the mechanical knight began to break down into cherry blossoms, a lone figure leapt from its radiating brilliance, and charged straight towards them. Shining Armor came to a sliding, grinding halt mere feet from Twilight and Midnight. He almost fell over from the effort to stop, only his training and general athleticism keeping him upright.

As he stopped, Shining’s otherwise pale face turned a deep shade of red.

Living with her brother – or, remembering living with him – Midnight had a certain mental image of Shining. Calm, cool under pressure, and honest to a fault… when he wasn’t being a huge, huge dork. But when Shining wanted to be scary, when someone caught the wrong side of his temper, he was still a former high school track, boxing, and football star with police combat and special operations training... and right now every bit of both those lives were towering over her.

Suddenly, he moved, pouncing on her with the speed of a striking snake.

Midnight flinched, closing her eyes…

Nothing happened. Nothing bad, at all.

Shining’s arms wrapped their way around Midnight’s body, and held her close in a tight, warm embrace.

Midnight tried to focus, tried to maintain her objectivity and her sense of what she was saying. Her arguments, carefully formed. Her decision to… to…

She melted into the hug, slightly.

Scary, yes. Shining could be scary, Midnight thought. But there was no one I would go to before him, if I was in trouble…

“This time,” his voice whispered. It was steady, and low. Too steady. Too low.

Shining only ever sounded like that… after Grammy Sparkle…

“You asked me what I meant before,” Shining continued, in a slightly louder voice. Midnight could feel Twilight’s eyes, as well as her physical presence, just a few feet away.

Shining swallowed a hard lump in his throat, judging by the sound he made.

“When I found out you were going to Crystal Prep,” he said, wistfully, “I couldn’t be prouder of you. I knew it would be hard. I knew what sort of a place it was. But I thought you… I thought, ‘Twilight’s tough. She can handle anything.’”

His hug tightened, by the barest degree.

“But… I was never smart. Not like you.” Slowly, Shining pulled back from the embrace, yet he kept his hands on Midnight’s shoulders. Looming over her, he placed his forehead atop her own. “I didn’t realize what Cinch would do to you. What sick, twisted games she’d play. I knew she would be tough, but not…

“I should have,” his voice cracked. Midnight could feel his breath on her hair as he blew out a frustrated sigh. “I should have known.”

He pulled away completely, and Midnight finally saw. She could finally see her brother’s face as his own tears began to form at the corners of his eyes, and she could see how his lips trembled as he looked down at her, and Twilight beside.

“I was a terrible BBBFF,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I should have seen the signs. I should have known better. I knew what Cinch was like! But I didn’t want to rock the boat… no. No, I just didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.

“When you came back from the Friendship Games, and I finally started thinking about how you’d been behaving…”

Shining Armor looked away, and one arm came up to his face.

Once the tears were gone, he turned back to Midnight, and her heart almost broke, so full of anger, and sorrow was his gaze.

“I almost lost you,” he sighed. “I… you could have left us all. And it was because I told myself you were strong. But even though you were strong, that didn’t mean you had to go through all that. And hearing you now, hearing you talk about yourself like you’re nothing…”

He sniffed, and clenched his jaw. And for just a moment, Midnight could almost believe there was something… Princely in his stance. Something more than noble.

“I never want to hear that again,” he said, his voice tense. “If you’re… if you’re the Twilight who never got help, then I’m here for you. Forever. We love you, Midnight. You’re our sister, and I will do anything to make you believe that.”

It was a strange sensation -- Midnight might have reflected if she were in a more logical mood -- to feel so miserable, so full of pain and ache… and yet simultaneously so light, and happy, and… so loved, all at once. It was like her heart, broken though it may be, shattered and drowned by everything she’d seen and heard and felt, was suddenly set aflame, boiling that sadness away and leaving behind a laugh that just wanted to bubble up and escape into the world.

Midnight’s breathing quickened, and her vision blurred again as the tears – this time of some quirky combination of despair and jubilation – filled her eyes.

Her mouth worked itself, yet it did not speak. There were no words that could express what she was feeling.

Shining Armor, however, didn’t need to hear anything. Something in him must have known what Midnight meant. He stepped up, and threw his arms around both his sisters. He drew Midnight and Twilight in, and didn’t let go. Instead, he planted a swift, tactical kiss atop each of their heads.

Midnight giggled. She actually giggled! So did Twilight, who looked over to her from behind Shining’s back, and the two shared what may have been the first genuine smile on either of their faces in days.

Somehow, as Midnight pulled out of that hug a minute later, still laughing, the world didn’t appear so… dark. The stars were silver once more, and twinkling like the amused glint in Luna’s eye. Even the flames, red and raw though they still were, almost seemed to have died down.

Well. Except for the ones in Shadow’s direction. Those only bloomed brighter as the Incubus let out a wail of madness and rage across the landscape.

There was the sound of something crackling in the distance, like a tree branch splintering, and a purple bullet came soaring into view from over the horizon.

“Incoming!” Princess Luna shouted, throwing up a second hand to support her shield.

The projectile arced, and came crashing down straight at Midnight and her siblings. The whine of the blurred shot howled as it smashed down just before the shield, the earth rupturing in a straight line under its lower rim.

Shining pushed his sisters aside as the earth tunneled towards them, the bullet finally losing velocity as it reached the center of the shielded space.

Twilight leaned down, her scientific curiosity overtaking her as she reached out to poke the disturbed earth.

The dirt shifted, causing Shining to drag her back again.

But then, what had been shot their way poked its head up out of the tunnel its crash had caused.

“SPIKE!?”

All three had cried out in unison as a familiar purple puppy popped his head up out of the soil and gave itself a woozy shake.

“Eugh…” he groaned, and raised a paw to pat his sore noggin. “Thanks for the help out there, Shining. I really appreciated the backup…” he snarked, and shot Shining an angry look.

Shining’s face burned red, and he shrank into himself just a bit. He scratched the back of his neck, and laughed, chagrined. “Uh, sorry Spike? We had a little crisis over here I had to deal with.”

Spike sighed, and rolled his eyes.

“Fine, I guess,” he said, and started pulling himself slowly out of the ground. Twilight’s purple magic briefly surrounded him, lending the puppy the leverage he needed for the task.

He shook the dirt from his fur with wild, doggy abandon. And once a bit cleaner than he was before, Spike said, “I guess if it was to help Midnight… I forgive ya, BBBFF.”

Spike’s ears drooped. “But, ah… we might have another problem. Or, the old problem, but she’s really ticked off now!”

Midnight and her family turned back towards the horizon, and quickly beheld Shadow as she approached. The demon was even taller now, wreathed in a corona of flames, and sporting a scowl that spoke of her seething fury.

With a single flap of her wings, she leapt the distance from where Spike had fought her to just beyond Luna’s shield. Even the Princess flinched, faltering as the giant landed, sending shockwaves through the ground.

Shadow snarled, and a low growling chuckle bubbled up from her depths.

“Is that finally it?” she asked, her voice deeper than the roar of an engine. “Are you finally done? Have you finally accepted the inevitable!?”

Midnight still felt that heat in her chest. The feelings Shining and Twilight had reignited in her. They burned for release, to be shouted out at the monster before them.

But against such a thing? Against a giant? How could her voice alone…?

Luna snorted through her nose, and answered the Incubus. “Finally? Inevitable? Ah, now that sounds like the foolish, slow-witted Incubi I am familiar with. We have not yet begun to fight!”

Shadow reeled a moment. Her dark eyes stared at the tiny Princess, confused and angry.

“Are you serious? How can you not tell that I’ve won!?” She whined and flexed her wings. “I’ve defeated your precious reinforcements, Princess! It’s all over for you!”

At this, Luna’s smile turned into a long, twisting Cheshire grin. She began to chuckle, slowly. The chuckle soon began a titter, then a giggle. Moments passed, and her laughter moved to a full guffaw as the Sparkles and Shadow looked on.

The Princess continued to laugh, throwing her head back, and then wiping away her merry tears as she slowly came back under control.

Shadow seethed at the display, and readied a roiling ball of fire in one claw.

Seeing this, Luna appeared to comport herself. “I apologize, O Shadow,” she tittered with mocking laughter still. “I forgot myself a moment. It was just that you said you’ve defeated my reinforcements?”

“What would you call beating Shining Armor and Spike to pulps?” Shadow snarled back. Both Spike and Shining growled in their throats at the shot… but neither could exactly argue that point just then.

Luna’s eyes sparkled with mirth, and she said in a far more controlled voice, “Oh, then I see the confusion. My dear Shadow, you have misunderstood!”

She tilted her head up, and her eyes looked to the heavens.

“Twilight and her brothers were not the reinforcements I had in mind.”

Slowly, with the pace of a glacier, Shadow, Twilight, Shining, Spike, and Midnight turned their eyes up as well.

Up, high up in the celestial firmament, where the stars and constellations danced, there was a single star that did not sparkle, nor shine quite like the others. All the others were silver and gold, and they moved as stars were wont to do in dreams, back and forth in indistinct patterns based on a thousand glitching memories and recollections.

This star, however, was blue. This star was steady, and unmoving.

This star, Midnight realized, her heart leaping out of her chest, wasn’t a star!

Principal Luna, Pony-Upped in every way identical to her Princess self save for a purple and pink dress the school administrator wore, sat cross-legged, upside down at the tip of the vault of the skies. She appeared to be meditating, existing, simply Being as she drifted up there in the heavens.

And then, she opened her eyes, and pure silver light poured forth.

Seeing this, Shadow cried out in terror, but was drowned in the silent roar of Light.

Beams of silver light shot out from Principal Luna’s form, each like a lance tearing across the skies. Six beams precisely, flew across the Dream Realm, lighting up the edge of night.

As they hit their marks, the world exploded. Night was swept aside as each star and lance burst out into a rainbow of light.

The first star popped like a balloon, letting in a ray of pure pink light and the rumbling sounds of cannon fire. The second exploded with a dull, musical roar that swept rays of crisp green, gold, and red across the sky, accompanied by a sound like the strumming of a god’s guitar.

Purple light followed next, pushing aside the dust and the smoke, leaving only the wondrous glitter and shine of crystalline palaces behind. And a buttery yellow shaft of sunlight followed afterward, almost silently, and as it passed the grass itself seemed to leap to life all around Midnight’s feet. Flowers and butterflies bloomed in the grass, and in the warming air.

Midnight spun around, watching the light pour in from these holes in reality, these cracks in her mind. Watching the sky of her dream world crumble should have filled her with terror, but everywhere the light fell, her world became beautiful again.

She could actually feel it, somehow. Like a cool summer breeze against a feverish temple. The distant Crystal Empire Palace gleamed like diamonds. The air smelled of baking bread, and Shadow’s red flames, already sputtering across the horizon, began to blow away.

The night sky, little more than a tapestry hanging over their heads, finally ripped itself away as a lightning bolt trailing a rainbow slammed through it, another beam of light from beyond. The last beam did not strike the sky, nor did it heal the ground or the buildings of the dream. It dropped straight from Principal Luna, and flew straight down towards Midnight.

And as it landed, the other beams turned and followed. Converging feet away, the lights finally dimmed.

The world was beautiful again. The sun was shining brightly, and there was laughter once more.

For all of Midnight’s friends were here at last.

“Okay,” said Rainbow Dash as she emerged from the font of light, cracking her neck and shoulders like she’d had a good workout, “now that was pretty awesome!”

Fluttershy emerged next, eyes wide as she cooed. “Oh! It’s so beautiful here! You have a lovely shared imagination, Twilight and Midnight!”

Twilight’s jaw hung loose from her head for a moment. Then, she snapped her mouth closed, shook her head, and grinned from ear-to-ear.

“Girls!” she cried, running to meet each one as they appeared.

Rarity and Pinkie came next, with the former gushing as she saw the distant crystal buildings, “My word! I may be a bit biased, but diamond buildings? Are we sure we’re not in one of my dreams?”

“Eh, I dunno,” Pinkie pondered, scratching her puffy mane. “If this was your dream, wouldn’t Applejack be here?”

“Pinkie!” Rarity snarled in a dainty fashion, “Don’t be uncouth, darling. I…”

“Ga-zooks! That were a blast!” Applejack laughed and cheered as she materialized next. “But all it took was a little spin-n-shine ta clean this place up, I reckon!”

Glaring at Pinkie’s cat-like smirk, Rarity could only growl and make scoffing noises.

And all was forgotten as soon as it was said, as Twilight leapt into their arms, and began drawing each and every one of the girls into a happy, tearful hug.

Midnight did not join in. Though the shouts of mirth and laughter called to her, beckoned for her to cast aside all sense of doubt and shame… there was one more person to walk out of the summoning light.

She stepped out of the light, and just like earlier that very day, Sunset Shimmer appeared to Midnight as nothing less than an angel, an ancient statue of the divine wrought in flesh. Her wings and horn were still testament to her recent transformation, and her flowing white clothes seemed at least superficially the same style – the same elegant and ancient style – as Princess Luna’s own.

Sunset Shimmer looked to Midnight, and smiled softly as their eyes met.

But before Sunset could speak, Principal Luna landed softly nearby, almost collapsing to the ground before Spike and Shining propped the poor, exhausted woman up. She also shared a tired smile with those around her, seemingly fitting right in as yet another member of the Pony-Upped club.

Midnight swallowed, and looked on. Everywhere, there were smiles. Everyone was happy to be here, happy to see her. Happy to help.

Yet, even through her own haze of laughter and glee… there was something holding her back.

But…

“THIS IS NOT OVER!”

Everyone, briefly distracted by the light show and reunion, spun around to face the unearthly shout. Shadow stood beyond them all, beyond Luna’s shield still, as a dark pillar of flame and madness. Now, without the red flames and damages of before to strengthen her, the Incubus was smaller, though she still remained a giant amongst the regular humans. As the dream world was made beautiful again, she only looked more out of place than ever before.

“Eugh!” Rarity squealed in disgust. “Red and black!? Darling! Now I know you can’t be another personality trapped in here. No one with a real soul could tolerate such a thing!”

Dash sighed, and cocked an eyebrow at her friend. “Really, Rares? We’re focusing on that? Not the whole dream demon trying to hurt our friend, thing?”

Rarity blushed, and gave an embarrassed titter. “Oh, yes that does put things into perspective, I suppose.”

She cast a disapproving eye at Shadow’s outfit, all the same.

Said demon snarled, and seethed again. Her hair flared up once more, and she gnashed her black fangs in frustration.

“Friend?” she growled. “Friend!? What friends!? You don’t have friends, Midnight! You have people who pity you! They only came here to save their real friend, Twilight!”

“HEY!” a voice cried out with an animal-like fury, shattering Shadow’s rhythm as soon as it had begun.

All eyes turned back around, to where a certain usually peaceful and quiet Fluttershy now stood, glowering.

Fluttershy tucked a long strand of her pink hair back, and continued scowling at the demon.

“How dare you say something like that?” she growled. “Midnight is too our friend!”

Shadow stuttered, not quite sure how to handle this situation.

She clearly didn’t have any practical knowledge of how to deal with an angry Fluttershy.

“N-no!” she called back, trying to shore up the tone of her voice again, “None of you are really friends with her! You barely know her!

“I’m the only real friend she’s ever had!” Shadow spat flames from her mouth.

Fluttershy took a deep breath, and seemed to steady herself. Her glare lingered on the giant demon for only a moment.

Then, she turned back towards Midnight, and her smile returned.

“Midnight,” she whispered, perhaps suddenly aware of all the attention on her, “Do you consider us friends?”

Midnight blinked, surprised at the question, and at its sudden direction towards her. Somehow, the question gave her serious pause.

“I…” she began to say.

Shadow stomped forward, right up to the edge of Princess Luna’s shield, and cried, “NO!”

Midnight flinched under the weight of that one word, and the fel wind which accompanied it. She nearly knelt from the force of Shadow’s denial, but something held her up. Something that caused her to stand, even as a final wave of dread overtook her mind.

Fluttershy hadn’t moved at all. And her smile hadn’t faded. In fact, Midnight couldn’t help but think it had gotten brighter from a moment ago. Genuine concern, and kindness rolled off the other girl like… like she was an Element of Harmony, really.

What better metaphor could there be?

“I would like to,” Midnight whispered. “I would really like to. But… you don’t know me…”

Midnight could feel Shadow grinning like a madwoman behind her, but that grin faltered as Fluttershy’s smile remained. Actually, she let out a little giggle, and shook her head slowly.

“Oh, Midnight… but we do know you.”

She clasped her hands before her, as if Fluttershy was holding a microphone up to her lips.

“When you sang with me and the Dazzlings,” she said, her soft voice melodical as she spoke, “I could tell you were nervous, and scared when your voice changed. But you showed real courage, and strength as well! You sang, even when you were scared, and afterwards with Aria? You also had the strength to admit you were scared.

“You were so inspiring to me, how you dealt with your fear,” she sighed. Then, with another giggle, she asked, “How are we not friends?”

Her words almost sounded like… like a ringing bell. A single, clarion tone carrying across the vast gulf of the universe, stretching from Fluttershy straight to Midnight’s heart.

Midnight could feel it, that sound. She could feel it in her soul.

Her shattered geode, lying on the ground where it had been dropped and forgotten, stirred.

Rarity huffed, and crossed her arms.

“Darling,” she said in the tone of a disappointed soccer coach cracking the whip, “How could you believe we’re not friends? When we talked before, you were so generous with your time! You let me…”

She sighed, and blushed.

“I’ll admit, sometimes I go a little too far with my fascinations and my eccentricities. But you were kind enough to indulge me in my whims!” Rarity said with a smile. “Would someone who wasn’t a friend do something like that? Make themselves uncomfortable for someone else? And you were just a darling when you gave me that magic mirror of yours…!”

Twilight grumbled behind Midnight, saying just a bit too quietly for Rarity to hear, “Oh, great. Now we need another Hearth’s Warming gift idea…”

Midnight tried to swallow, but it was like her mouth was full of thick, soupy marshmallows. It didn’t help that her glasses were beginning to fog up with tears again.

Stupid how glasses tear up like that, she thought wryly to herself.

Suddenly, she half-heard a sound. A twinkling, tinkling sound of glass. It was muffled slightly by the thunderous, shrill cries of Shadow as the demon wilted behind Midnight's back.

But Rainbow Dash had already zoomed over to her, and threw one arm around Midnight’s shoulders.

“And, hey!” Rainbow laughed, “You went along with all my pranks! Even gave as good as you got! No one besides Applejack has ever managed to reverse-uno me like that! You were alright in my books the second you got Pinkie to turncoat.”

“Ooh!” Pinkie squee’d with delight, and bounced on over to the dulcet sound of Shadow snarling and screaming beyond the bubble-shield. “That was so much fun! I don’t know about you, but anyone who has that kind of sense of humor is my kinda gal!

“Also,” she grinned manically, and pulled out a fist-sized hunk of chocolate from her voluminous hair, “I still got that chocolate bar you supersized for me! I’d be your friend just for that…!”

Sunset choked back a sudden scream, dragging everyone’s attention back to her, and not to the tiny gem shards drifting up from the ground.

“Uh, sorry,” Sunset said with a deep blush. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, but… supersizing food is illegal in Equestria for good, ah...”

She sighed.

“Look, just see a doctor tomorrow, okay Pinkie? I don’t want to ruin this moment…”

Though Pinkie somewhat deflated for a second, Midnight couldn’t feel anything other than a sense of welling joy. A bright, floaty, bouncy feeling bubbling up in her heart, and filling her head.

It was like being lighter than air, as each of her friends came forward.

But now, she couldn’t ignore that other thing.

The shards of her geode floated up into her line of sight, and it didn’t surprise her at all. Even the way one shard glowed pink, another purple, another blue…

The Magic of Friendship...

No, there was no surprise there. Just the sound of glass clinking together, and a distant wail from the Shadow.

“Midnight,” Sunset said, taking a slow, cautious step forward, “You and I… got started on rocky footing. But, since then… I’ve seen how you act. And I’ve seen how you think, and feel.”

She rested a hand on Midnight’s shoulder, and the two shared a smile as they watched another shard light up.

“I understand you,” Sunset added. “You hide it pretty well, but what happened between us clearly weighed on you. And when… when I was low, you stood by me. You tried to make that connection. Not because it would make you feel better, but because you thought I needed to hear it.

“We’re friends, Midnight.” Sunset smirked, and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t actually get a choice with that one, by the way.”

One by one, the glowing geode shards began to pull together, tightening their orbit as everyone looked on. Spike and Shining held their breaths, watching the display, and both Lunas did as well with a knowing gleam in their eyes.

Applejack sighed, and scratched at the back of her head, briefly flicking her pony ear playfully as she walked up as well.

“Shoot, Sugarcube,” she said, forcing a chagrined smile onto her face, “I know we ain’t had much time ta see each other or hang out like the rest of this bunch, but that ain’t fer lack of tryin’. My cousins seem ta like ya a lot, and that’s more’n enough for me.

“But that’s one nice thing about friends,” she said with a little more force, a little more conviction. “We ain’t got ta live with each other ta be friends. It ain’t a transaction, you give me somethin’ an I give you somethin’. We got all kinds a’time ta do fun stuff.”

Applejack reached out, and ruffled Midnight’s hair with one hand.

“I reckon I’m your friend,” she laughed, “If’n ye’ll have me, of course.”

One shard pressed into another, and the seam-like cracks began to smooth over. One after another, each broken piece of geode, awash in color, drifted back to each other, and became one.

In no time at all, the pendant was whole once more.

Midnight reached her hands out. For a moment, she hesitated, afraid that touching the restored geode might…

She paused.

Midnight turned around, and met her sister’s gaze. Twilight Sparkle and Midnight Sparkle stood barely a foot apart, under a fake daylight dream. Their geode pendants each burned with their magical auras, and they were completely surrounded by their closest and dearest friends.

But in that moment, that frozen moment of eternity, there was only Twilight and Midnight Sparkle.

Midnight knew the smile her sister gave her.

There’s nothing more to say, between us.

They each reached one hand to the other, and light bloomed all around.

They were standing out in front of the school. It was Monday, and the world had just been saved.

Twilight, though more a spirit now than flesh and blood, sighed in relief as it became apparent that the world had indeed survived the little Chaos-induced disaster she’d just lived through. The effects of Discord and Disqord’s ill-timed prank were fading away, leaving behind all their friends to celebrate the win.

Mostly, anyway. Time, space, and all relevant dimensions were somewhat suspect while she was trapped here, in the gray nothing of her mental landscape, but in between the first and second second that this realization occurred, Twilight realized she wasn’t quite alone with her own thoughts.

“Hey!” she called out to a distant, retreating figure.

Midnight Sparkle didn’t turn around. She paused, and remained still, waiting for Twilight to continue.

Twilight rushed over to her other half, and frowned. “Where are you going?”

“What?” Midnight asked. She half-turned, and looked over her shoulder. “I… didn’t mean to interrupt. Your friends are probably waiting…”

“Where are you going?” Twilight repeated, more earnestly. “You… you won. I already gave you the body.”

Midnight bit her lip. Then, she sighed, and turned away once more.

“I… look,” she began, “It was stupid, what I did. And… and I guess I just don’t feel like taking over today. So, head back. I bet… I bet Pinkie’s gonna throw a party after this.”

“Don’t you want to come?”

Midnight spun around, wings snapping at the nonexistent air. “They don’t invite the Monster to the party, Twilight!” she snarled. Then, realizing what she’d said, and how, Midnight cringed at her own behavior. “Look, it’s… I’m not welcome there. They’re your friends…”

“Our friends,” Twilight corrected.

And for a moment, Midnight didn’t contradict her.

“They don’t want to see me,” she whispered. “I almost took you away from them, again.”

“You won the bet,” Twilight said with a forced smile. “Come on, at least give them a chance!”

“I didn’t win the bet,” Midnight scoffed, and turned away. “I lost. I… everything I ever wanted to achieve is… It doesn’t matter anymore. I lost. I always lose…”

Twilight pushed past, and found Midnight’s face again. “Your friends love you, Midnight. They want to celebrate with you.”

Midnight said nothing. She crossed her arms, and sank down deep within herself.

“They don’t know me…”

“Then give them a chance to!” Twilight cried. “They’ll prove it to you if you only give them that chance. Just spend some time with them, and…”

“Heh, while time-sharing?” Midnight grumbled. “Sorry, but like I said, they already think I took you away from them. Not gonna happen.”

But Twilight wasn’t listening to her. Her eyes moved in quick, jittery jumps, like she was reading very small, fine print on a math test.

Midnight noticed.

“Uh, Twi?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. “You okay? You’re doing that calculating thing…?”

“They just need time to get to know you…”

Midnight frowned.

“Twilight?”

Twilight muttered to herself, “They just need… Maybe there’s a way…?”

“Twilight? What are you…?”

“There’s a way we can both live!” Twilight suddenly shouted, arms punching the nonexistent sky.

“Uh, what?” Midnight asked, frowning even deeper. “Twi? You’re losing me here…”

But Twilight wasn’t listening, a feat considering she was just a disembodied set of memories pacing in a metaphysical space right next to Midnight.

“All we’d need is a Cognitive Targeting Spell, to pick apart the two personalities,” Twilight hummed to herself, while Midnight listened in with growing horror, “though if there’s a memory-leak, we’d need a Memetic Sieve to…”

“What!? NO! That’s insane!” Midnight balked. “The chances of failure… my gosh! Even success is almost just as catastrophic! Getting a single variable wrong could erase entire swaths of our… your engrams!”

“But it will work!” Twilight protested, mathematical equations flying up and around her in the nonexistent air. “These calculations… you did them yourself, right? You know this will work!”

“I… ran some numbers, yes,” Midnight scoffed, and shrugged. “But that’s… that was just to keep me occupied while I worked on destroying you and taking over…”

“Gee, thanks for the reminder…”

“Good!” Midnight snapped, “Good! Remember that! I tried to kill you! I tried to kill everyone! I don’t deserve what you’re offering.

“I don’t deserve to be happy! I can’t let you…!”

Midnight trailed off, her eyes unfocusing. What she’d just said slowly came back around to her, and… she couldn’t quite argue against it.

I don’t deserve to be happy.

“Midnight,” a soft voice called her attention back to what passed here, in the mind’s eye, for reality.

Twilight Sparkle was smiling at her.

“Midnight, you’re not letting me do anything,” she whispered, her voice just a hair’s length from cracking. “You… we both deserve this.”

No words came from Midnight. She couldn’t form them. Not yet. What Twilight said was taking up too much room in her head to make her own words.

“We both deserve this,” Twilight repeated, her hands finding and clasping Midnight’s own. “It’s a chance to heal. A real chance to deal with what happened to us.

“And it’s a real chance at friendship.”

“After everything I did to you?” Midnight asked, her own voice cracking, and dream-tears falling down her cheeks. “After all that?”

Twilight’s grip shifted, and soon the two Sparkles had one another arm-in-arm, pressed close together. So close, so intimately close…

It was like having a sibling. A sister, right there beside Midnight.

“After all you did… how could I not?” Twilight asked, and leaned in close to hammer her point home. “You are me! A me that… that didn’t get that chance before when she needed it most. I want to fix that. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted, that I already got.”

“Magic?”

Midnight bit her tongue, a flash of red in her cheeks at the unintended moment of reflexive honesty.

“Friendship, Midnight,” Twilight laughed, and her laugh in that moment sounded like glass bells, pure music to Midnight’s ears. Midnight felt a dry chuckle come out of her own mouth, and after an awkward moment wondering just what to say… she laughed as well.

They laughed together, in the grey void in between seconds, in their own mind. Two girls, born from the memory of one. A girl that once wanted nothing more than to discover the arcane secrets of magic. A girl that once nearly destroyed everything out of spite and anger and sheer curiosity.

A girl who used to wonder what friendship could be.

Midnight pulled Twilight into a hug, and felt her… her sister hold her back.

“What do you need from me… Sis?”

As the light faded, and they exited the shared memory, Midnight and Twilight were still embracing each other. Their arms were wrapped tight around one another, foreheads touching and tears streaming down their faces. The rainbow-bright haze of light around them fled slowly, seeping into the air, the ground, and everything else in the dream world.

The last of Shadow’s fires fell away, replaced by greenery where dream-nature had burned, and bright crystalline beauty where dream-buildings were. The sky, still blessed by bright daylight since their friends’ reunion, shifted to a dark, gorgeous midnight blue hue, crisscrossed by gold and silver stars and constellations like the dome of the Starswirl astrology exhibit a few months back, except that these constellations swam through the night sky, and nearer to the horizon a deep purple and red sunset burned as warm as a Hearth’s Warming fireplace.

All their friends oohed, and awed, with Pinkie alone pointing out how the sky in Twilight and Midnight’s dreams was like a fusion of twilight and midnight – “Tee hee, I get it!” – but it was only as Midnight opened her eyes that she saw precisely what they were gasping at.

Twilight looked exactly the same. Same bright blue blouse and starry skirt, and same pony ears and wings. But something was different. Something important.

Her geode was whole.

Both of their geodes were whole, as if they'd always been two instead of one.

At her neck, Midnight’s geode blazed with her aquamarine light. Her own pony ears perked up atop her head, and her own pony wings, the same as her sister’s stretched out at her sides. The dream glasses she'd been wearing were gone, leaving the rest of Midnight's world as crystal clear as it should have been.

She spun around – causing Rarity to ‘ooh’ and ‘awe’ and ‘darling!’ all over again – and took stock of her outfit. Sure, it was sparkling and bedazzled with colorful sequins, but the long purple coat quite suited her, she thought.

Especially with the dark leggings and somewhat dainty combat boots.

Still, Midnight sniffed and hummed with a note of disappointment.

“Is something wrong?” Sunset asked.

Midnight hummed again. Then, shrugging, she said, “Eh. I was hoping for some leather pants, but these will do…”

Despite Rarity’s aggravated sigh, everyone else burst into a fit of laughter, throwing their heads back, and letting the sound carry into the dream-wind.

But they didn’t laugh long. Or, at least long and alone, as Midnight threw her arms around the nearest two she could catch – Fluttershy and Pinkie, as it happened – and pulled the two into a fearsome hug.

And then, in no time at all, still laughing and crying all the stress and worry and fear away, Midnight found herself surrounded by all her friends. Sunset, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Twilight, Spike, Shining…

Even the two Lunas shared in the moment of light and love.

But, once that moment had passed, Midnight saw there was a single, notable, absence. And so, she broke the group hug first, and started walking to find her.

It was surprisingly difficult to spot poor Shadow, amidst all the light and greenery that her world had become. She was much as she’d first appeared; like Twilight under a red light. Even her wings had faded, becoming literal shadows hanging limply from her form.

The demon did not seem so scary now.

Now, she looked afraid.

Now, she looked sad.

Shadow huddled in the grass, grasping her own arms and holding herself like she was trapped in a blizzard. She shivered, and whined almost silently, keeping her eyes locked onto the ground before her.

“It can’t… not possible… I won… I won…”

She was muttering to herself now.

Midnight took one breath, and stepped forward, ignoring the soft gasps and whispers of her friends behind her.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, Shadow.”

At first, Shadow wouldn’t look up. But after a moment, perhaps a mote of curiosity got to her. Slowly, she raised her head, revealing her sightless black eyes, black tears running down her cheeks.

Midnight met her gaze, and held it.

Then, she held her hand out.

Shadow stared at the hand. Then, she looked up to Midnight, and back to the hand. She didn’t seem to know which to look at, if Midnight was being honest.

“What is this?” Shadow asked, her voice just above a ghost, and fading fast.

“Come on,” Midnight said, trying to smile in spite of herself. “You really think I’m going to leave you here? Alone?

“Even if you’re just some… spirit,” she said, “or a ghost or a mental break or… whatever! You don’t have to be, right? Wouldn’t it be nice to… to leave here?”

Midnight held her hand out again.

“Come on. Take my hand.”

Shadow continued to stare at her. The look she gave Midnight could have been anything. It could have been incredulity. It could have been shock. Fear. Anger.

She reached for Midnight’s hand.

And slapped it away.

As Shadow finally faded away into the true nothingness from whence she came, she snarled an icy, ghostlike:

“Never…”

She was gone.

Midnight pursed her lips, and breathed slowly through her nose. She slowly stood up, and let the breath go, along with any regrets she might have still had.

“I’m proud of you,” Twilight said, coming up behind her. “That was very kind of you. Though, I guess not everyone is ready for that sort of thing.”

“Yeah,” Midnight said, quietly. Then, she turned back to her sister, and smiled. “I’m happy that, when you offered it to me, I was.”

Twilight smiled back. “So am I. And now, we have proof that some memories might be able to be restored, given the right sort of inciting incidents.”

“Twi? If I have to fight my literal inner-demons every time I want to remember how often you’ve made out with Timber Spruce, I’m so done with remembering things…”

“Hey!”

Twilight slapped Midnight upside the head, though with barely enough force to count as a tap. The two laughed again, and turned back towards their friends.

The Lunas seemed to take this to be their cue, as they each also turned to face the assembled Rainbooms and family.

“With that, I do believe the events of this evening have concluded!” Princess Luna sighed with relief. “And it would appear that all is once again well in the House of Sparkle.”

“Uh, isn’t this her brain though?”

“Rainbow Dash, you…” Principal Luna blew a snort in a near-perfect imitation of a horse, and simply shook her head.

The Princess nodded to her apprentice, and said, “Regardless, it is high time you all went back to your own dreams. My counterpart should be commended for learning how to weave multiple dreams together with so little practice, but that I shall take care of in its own time.

“For now, sweet dreams, my little ponies.”

There was a beat.

“Yes, I realized what I said. Get out, and Good Night!”

One by one, the members of the Rainbooms vanished in puffs of light as Principal Luna cut their connections to Midnight and Twilight’s dream. As each left, they waved goodbye, and wished their friends a good night’s rest.

As the last one left, Midnight felt a heavy arm fall across her shoulders. She leaned into Shining’s half-hug, and sighed contentedly.

“So? Feeling better?” he asked, his voice back to his chipper, upbeat tone.

Midnight hummed, and nodded, but said nothing.

Shining laughed, and said, “Good. Then get us back home and we can finally get a good night's sleep!”

There was a cough, nearby. Shining turned to see one of the Lunas give him a meaningful look.

“What?” he asked.

Luna – the Princess, he guessed – pressed her lips into a thin line, and said, “It is actually close to dawn, by now.”

Shining felt his eye twitch.

“Oh?”

“Mm,” Luna said with a stiff nod. “Time does not always flow neatly while in the Dream Realm. It has been almost nine hours since you entered here…”

If human ears could droop like a pony’s, Shining’s would have.

“Oh… cool,” he sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then… get us home so we can crash for a few hours before the most important date of my life…”

Taking that cue, Midnight broke from her brother’s hug, and started for where Twilight was quietly chatting with Spike.

Gotta get that portal set up. I only have a few hours till… Aria…

She stopped.

A certain Principal was standing in her way.

“Well, look at you!” Midnight said with a genuine smile. “Helping out and everything! Though how you’ve got the pony bits…”

Luna nodded, and said, “Ah, well, I don’t pretend to understand it myself. But Princess Luna was kind enough to lend me some of her own magic through a crystal of some sort.”

“Cool, yeah,” Midnight laughed, and snapped her fingers, “that makes sense. Right.”

“Midnight?”

“Yes?”

Luna frowned. She waited another moment, just long enough for Midnight’s smile to start to strain, before she said, “You realize this isn’t over.”

It wasn’t a question.

Midnight sighed. “Yeah…”

“This demon will come back so long as the source of your stress remains, and remains untended to,” Luna said in a solemn voice. “Now, I suppose another… Split is out of the question? To remove the last of your dream tether with Twilight?”

“Absolutely off the table!” Midnight stated firmly. “I don’t care if I have to share my dreams for the rest of my life, nothing’s worth trying that again!”

“Good, very good.” Luna nodded with approval. “Then we are agreed!”

“Agreed?” Midnight asked, frowning.

“The school works with a number of psychiatrists in Canterlot City,” said Luna, placing her hands behind her back. “Several of them are fully aware of Equestria and its magic…”

“What!?”

Luna ignored the outburst. “Many of our students have confided in them about what’s happened since the Fall Formal. Even my sister and I have sought out their assistance in dealing with the relatively new stressors that have appeared since magic came to our world.”

“So… you want me to see a shrink?” Midnight half-laughed.

“I believe you and your sister should see a psychiatrist, yes,” Luna agreed. “Talking to others about our problems is a great way to deal with them. If not, it at least gives you another person to confide in, don’t you think?”

Midnight sighed, and rolled her eyes.

“I guess. Yeah… fine.” She shook her head, and walked past her Principal, saying, “Set it up! We’ll go…”

Luna smiled, and said, “Excellent! I shall make the call in the morning… Or, now, I suppose!”

Finally free, Midnight trudged towards Twilight and Spike. Perhaps it was Luna’s talk of psychiatrists, or perhaps because of the many, many hours she’d been awake without sleep, but Midnight was finally feeling… tired.

Bone-tired.

“… do you think?” She caught the end of something Spike said to Twilight. The little puppy wagged his tail, and looked up at his owner… no, his sister expectantly.

Twilight hummed, and scratched at her chin. “It’s… tricky…”

“What is?” asked Midnight as she arrived.

“Spike wants us to cast a transformation spell on him,” Twilight answered, though distantly, her thoughts still lost as she pondered. “He actually wants to be human.”

Midnight glanced down at her little brother, and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Really!” he barked back. “Seriously, opposable thumbs are the least cool thing I’ve been meaning to get in on…”

A deep, long yawn cut him off.

A yawn that snuck up on Midnight next.

“… Dang it, Spike!” she growled. “I almost made it without…”

She yawned again.

And then Twilight yawned.

“Okay,” Twilight sighed, “We better get that portal open before we fall asleep inside our own head.”

“Can’t screw much more up, can we?” Midnight asked with a smile.

Twilight chuckled, and turned back to see where Shining had gotten to.

Waving him and the Lunas over, Twilight leaned over towards Midnight, and caught her eye.

“Something else?” asked Midnight.

“No,” Twilight said, quietly. “Just… wondering about some things. About… the future, I guess.”

Midnight snorted, and reached up to touch her geode. As the magic flowed through her, and she focused her mind on the task at hand, and as Twilight’s own magic flowed into and around her as well…

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said, sighing with content. “It’s just the first day of the rest of our lives, right? No biggie…”

“Right… no biggie at all!”

Luna awoke from the dream slowly, like a swimmer gently letting the current carry her from sleeping to waking. The light faded in, followed by chirping birdsong, followed by the long, loud, elephantine snores of her sister Celestia, who slept fitfully mere feet away on the same couch.

With a start, Luna went from slowly awakening to ramrod straight up and alert. She had been lying on the couch in her living room, without blankets or pillows at all. It was as if she’d just been dumped there by…

Celestia turned over in her sleep and let out another room-shaking snore. Luna, deciding she needed a moment to think, hopped up and made a break for the kitchen.

This was about when she realized that the other Luna was still in her house.

The Princess was, naturally, still a winged unicorn… horse thing. Apparently that was something to do with teleporting through portals…

There’s too much magic these days, Luna bemoaned. Can’t keep any of it straight.

The Princess was also, naturally, sitting patiently on the kitchen floor for the instant coffee machine to finish pouring her a cup. The other… three previous cups, by Luna’s count, were scattered about in bits and pieces, along with approximately a couple pots’ worth of cold coffee splashed over the floor and cabinets.

“Ah, yes!” the Princess cheered as her cup was properly filled with hot coffee. “Finally, thou vile machine! I have bested thee! Your inky black treasure shall be mine! Mine! Mine!”

“Princess Luna?”

The Princess eeped, and nearly went sprawling across the floor in her attempt to turn around and face whatever foalish fool had the audacity to—

Her face lit up. “Ah! My apprentice! You have awakened!”

“And you have destroyed my kitchen,” Luna said with a raised eyebrow and a low growl. “Care to explain this?”

Princess Luna blushed, and glanced about at the casual destruction she’d left in her wake.

“Ah… yes, I am quite sorry about the mess,” she said, slowly, “But I thought I could make everypo- everyone some coffee. I just… forgot that my magic isn’t all that strong in this universe…”

Luna watched the tiny Princess lower her head in shame, and had to try very, very hard not to ‘awww’ or otherwise dote on her.

It’s rather infuriating how cute these ponies can be.

The Princess sighed, and looked back up at her human self.

“Nevertheless, I should probably have just asked permission before… I…”

Her voice slowly trailed off. Her eyes widened as her pupils shrank.

Luna frowned, and cocked her head curiously to the side. “Is… is something the matter? What are you looking at?”

“Ah… nothing,” Princess Luna obviously lied.

Human Luna tried to follow the pony’s eyes, and found that they were aiming at something just above her head. Luna tilted her eyes up, and finally caught sight of that something.

It was her hair.

Her hair was moving. Billowing in an invisible breeze, in fact. Luna felt a tight knot form in her stomach as she watched her own hair moving without her permission.

“Luna…?” she asked, and slowly tilted her head down to a suddenly sweating pony Princess. “Tell me that this wears off.”

Princess Luna licked her lips. She reached back with one hoof, and snatched up her cup of coffee with a surprising amount of dexterity for somepony with a hoof instead of hands. She knocked back the mug, and seemed to down the entirety of its contents in moments.

Then, after taking a few calming breaths, the Princess smiled, somewhat manically, and laughed, though not convincingly.

“On the positive side of things,” she began, “It’s very easy to clean, it looks great on you, and you can sometimes get it to stop by wearing a scrunchie…”

Author's Note

Good job, Luna. You broke it.

There will be one more chapter after this; an epilogue. A bit of wind-down for anyone wondering where these characters will go next, and anyone hoping to see a certain date between Midnight and a certain Siren. And with that final chapter, I'll be making some other announcements about the future of the Anarchyverse as a whole. I hope you'll all be excited by that news!

I really can't believe I started this story in 2019, and now it's 2021. Time flies when you're writing lots of PONY. Hopefully, I've entertained a few people with this story, or helped them see that there's still a lot of mileage we can get out of a ten-year-old show.

Fimfic isn't dying, my friends. I think everything's gonna be fine.

And if you're feeling generous, perhaps buy me a coffee? It, plus all the lovely comments, keeps me going.

15 - Epilogue: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

~~~Saturday~~~

~~~1:23 PM~~~

“Look, Trixie…” Midnight shoveled another spoonful of cereal into her mouth. “… I already said I was sorry for leaving you behind. What more can I say?”

“Trixie thought that you and she were the bestest of best friends, but clearly she was mistaken, if you couldn’t have bothered to send Trixie a text before you risked your life without her!”

Trixie’s voice came out of Midnight’s new phone’s speakers with a tinny, scratchy sound, but considering the fact that Midnight had whipped it together just a few minutes before out of spare parts from Spike’s old “dogfriend” bot, that it could receive and make calls, and that it could project a tiny hologram of the person on the other end of the line, Midnight was feeling pretty good about her latest creation.

“It was spur of the moment, Trix,” she said, taking a moment out of her early afternoon cereal breakfast to pinch the head of the tiny still-image of her friend. Sure, the image was a composite taken from a couple of internet sources – yeah, the M-Phone could hack websites too, how about that? – but it really did look like Trixie.

“Besides, would you actually want to have fought a thirty-foot-tall demon version of me?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Trixie?”

“No, you’re right. I guess…” Trixie sighed. The phone replaced her smiling 3D portrait with something far less flattering, simultaneously making Midnight wonder if one of those Anon-a-Miss gossip backup sites were still up, and if she’d accidentally created another sapient AI she’d have to destroy.

Midnight realized, suddenly, that she had missed what Trixie said.

“Uh, say that again? Bad signal…”

Trixie huffed. “I asked you if you were at least sleeping better.”

“Oh, much!” Midnight crowed. “I only woke up like, twenty minutes ago and made breakfast. Afternoon breakfast, in my PJ’s!”

She gave a slightly mad cackle, and took another big bite of cereal.

“It’s like I’m an art major!”

“Yeah, that’s… great. Just great. Look... not that Trixie's worried, or anything, but... you're okay now, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Midnight said with a nod she knew Trixie couldn’t see. “I mean, I gotta see a psychiatrist after this, but that’s not for a while. I got my date tonight, and I was thinking we should do something on Monday, like…”

“A psychiatrist!?” Trixie cried.

Well. Midnight thought she said ‘psychiatrist’. Trixie’s voice had turned into a muffled explosion as she strained the speakers beyond their limits. The sound was so loud and blaring that Midnight was thrown completely from her chair. She swore she could hear Spike, off in the lab with Twilight even now, howling in puppy pain as the speakers blew themselves out.

Regaining her footing, Midnight slapped at the device, eventually cracking open its casing.

Stop screaming at me, I know you’re malfunctioning!

It wasn’t like she deliberately designed her phone to feel pain.

This time, anyway…

Finally getting at the guts of the device, Midnight made a quick recalibration, and caught Trixie’s rant, already in progress. Her 3D portrait, by this point, had been replaced, rather rudely, by a holographic gif of a coo-coo clock bird.

“—ay one little thing, and suddenly they want to write a book about you! No, Midnight! DO NOT LET THAT SHRINK NEAR YOUR BEAUTIFUL BRAIN!!!”

Midnight stared at the phone for several long seconds. All she could hear was some haggard breathing on the other end. Even the holoprojector was just a big floating question mark.

“Um…” Midnight scratched the back of her neck. “Sure?”

“Good!” Trixie chirruped back. “Glad we settled that! You good for a show Monday after school?”

Midnight shook off her confusion, and decided to roll with the insanity. With Trixie, there was rarely another option.

“Sure. We’re ahead of schedule for the E2E, anyway…”

“The what in the what?”

“Earth-to-Equestria Holographic Communications Network,” Midnight explained.

Trixie said nothing.

The hologram tried to animate another Trixie photo by having her shrug helplessly. It was quite disturbing.

Right, definitely sentient. Should destroy later.

Midnight sighed. “The thing with the black hole battery.”

“… oh.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Midnight said in an appeasing tone. “Princess Twilight already nixed the idea. Woke up to a magical-journal-text about Mana Coils, which sound like they draw ambient magic out of the air, or something. Tell the truth, I’m basically just awake for my date tonight and it’s back to dreamland for a week. I need to make up for the last one.”

“Okay… so you’re not gonna blow up the planet?”

Midnight smirked.

“Not as long as the date goes well tonight…”

This time, Midnight was prepared to hit the mute key before Trixie’s outburst destroyed her speakers.

~~~Saturday~~~

~~~6:45 PM~~~

“So… what’d you do to get in?”

Juniper Montage blinked a few times, and looked about to make sure she was the one being spoken to. Best not to make that mistake for the fourteenth time. This month.

“Uh, get in to what?” she asked the vaguely familiar punk-looking girl standing across from her register at the Canterlot Mall Movie Theater.

Aria Blaze pointed at Juniper’s nametag, and asked, “You’re Juniper Montage, right?”

Juniper shrank a little. Looking over the rim of her glasses, she nodded slowly and said, “Y-yes, that’s me. Why? What have you heard…?”

“Not a lot. That’s why I asked,” Aria said with a roll of her eyes. “But my sister said your name came up with this stupid support group club thing we’re all in, and…”

“Oh!” Juniper’s eyes lit up. “You’re talking about the… um, the Reformed Antagonist thing?”

“Yeah, Disqord’s stupid club.”

Juniper shrugged her shoulders, and quickly scanned the front of the theater to see if there was anyone else looking to buy a ticket or some popcorn. Despite the mall being The hangout spot of choice on a Saturday evening, the movie theater was noticeably low on attendees, probably due to the big summer rush of action flicks not coming out for another few weeks. All they had running were older flicks and some kiddie junk meant to sell toys.

“I got an invite,” Juniper sighed… though more about having to keep talking to this strange girl than anything else. “I don’t think I need to go, really. I already made up with Sunset and the girls.”

“Yeah, same,” Aria said with a nod. “But… I’m kinda dating someone else in the group, so I guess I have to go now.

“But seriously, what’d you do?” she asked again. “You some sort of… horse-monster under there? Or did you find an Equestrian artifact?”

Juniper sighed, again. “The latter.”

Aria smiled – sort of – and said, “Cool. Former, for me.”

“Wha… really?” Juniper narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You pulling my leg?”

“Totally!” Aria laughed. “I used mind control to almost cause a high school to tear each other’s throats out. Good times.”

“If… you say so?”

“Hey! Aria!” a distant voice carried over the general hubbub of the mall’s echoing ambience.

Glad to have the conversation cut short, Juniper looked around the bizarre and possibly evil girl to see her old friend Twilight Sparkle running up.

“Hey Twilight!” she called out to the approaching girl. “You know… this…?”

Her voice trailed off as she took in Twilight’s appearance. If she didn’t recognize the voice, she might have sworn it was a different person entirely. No bowties, no glasses… and her hair and skin were even slightly different colors.

Could that really be Twilight?

‘Twilight’ slowed down as she approached, and made eye contact with Juniper.

“Oh? Uh…” she blushed, and glanced around nervously. Then, she closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Standing more firmly, this ‘Twilight’ looked back to Juniper, and asked, “I suppose you’re a friend of Twilight’s?”

Juniper frowned at the question.

Number fifteen...

Then, it became clearer as a second Twilight approached from the same direction, while dragging a green-haired boy behind her.

“Wait up, Midnight!” she cried out, panting slightly. “You don’t have to ru— oh!”

Twilight noticed Juniper, standing there with a baffled look on her face, and smiled brightly.

“Juniper Montage!” she said. “Nice to see you! Got stuck with the Saturday shift?”

Okay… more familiar footing here, Juniper thought.

“Uh, asked for it, actually,” she replied, glancing curiously towards the other Twilight. “Need to save up for a car. So, this is…?”

“My sister, Midnight.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Timber Spruce idly rubbed the side of his jaw, and said, “Yeah, me neither…”

Aria snickered, but said nothing.

Juniper frowned more deeply, and silently wondered if there was an elaborate prank going on at her expense. Seeing this, Twilight sighed, and said, “Lemme explain…”

While Twilight took a moment to try and untangle the last week or so of her life for Juniper’s enlightenment, Midnight finally faced her date for the evening.

“So, Aria?” she asked with a grin. “What movie did you get tickets for?”

Aria smiled, slightly, and hooked a thumb up at the sign above their heads.

“They’re actually playing The Sorcerer of Floz!” she said with something Midnight could almost count as genuine enthusiasm. “You know? I actually knew the director.”

Midnight scoffed. “You knew Vicolt Filming?”

“Yeah, he was a huuuge jerk, too,” Aria chuckled. “Our break-up was so bad, he based the Wicked Warlock of the East on me. Probably the nicest thing the bum ever did for me.”

Midnight opened her mouth to say something… and then thought better of it. Instead, she took in the sight of Aria, who’d chosen to wear black slacks and a dark blue blouse for the evening. Different from her usual attire, especially the lack of spikes or other sharp edges. Midnight wasn’t sure if that disappointed her or not.

“You look good,” she commented with a smile.

Aria froze, for an instant, and a pale rosy blush broke out on her face.

“Uh, yeah?” she asked, somewhat unsure, and glanced down at herself. “I mean, I just threw this on, you know?”

“Yeah?” Midnight smirked, and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, you wear it well!”

“Thanks, I guess. You…” Aria seemed to take in Midnight with a sweep of her eyes, but after a few seconds of resulting silence, and a few more of an even deeper blush, it seemed likely that the former Siren didn’t quite know what to say.

Midnight was wearing a Rarity Original, a dark-purple cropped jacket over a knee-length blue dress.

Just knee-length, as it happened.

“You like?” she giggled and gave her date a good view of the dress with a spin.

“… Dress,” Aria mumbled, unable to tear her eyes away or cover her reddening face.

Midnight smiled, and said, “Yes, I know! But skirts are alright every once in a while. For special occasions…”

Aria finally shook herself free of Midnight’s vile mind control, and cleared her throat with a cough. Then, glancing away and innocently scratching the side of her nose, she muttered something vaguely complimentary.

“What was that?” Midnight teased, leaning in to hear her better.

Aria groaned, and said, “It’s… okay. You look… okay…”

“Aw!” Midnight mockingly cooed. She reached out, and pinched Aria’s still-blushing cheek. “Isn’t that adorable! You’re acting like a person!”

“Bite me,” Aria growled, and half-heartedly slapped Midnight’s hand aside.

“Later, if you’re good,” Midnight replied with a wicked grin.

“A-hem!”

Midnight frowned, and turned back towards her sister. “Yes?” she asked, pouting slightly.

Twilight slowly shook her head and tsk-tsk’d her brazen sibling, though she couldn’t completely hide her own smile as she turned back to Juniper.

“I guess that’s four tickets to The Sorcerer of Floz, please!”

“Wait, they’re coming too?” Aria scoffed, and shot her date a look.

“You… have a problem with my sister?” Midnight asked, eyes narrowing.

Aria groaned, and crossed her arms.

“They’re both just… nerds, ya know?”

“Yeah, well,” Midnight hummed, “I kinda like that about them…”

As Twilight reached for her wallet, Timber stepped in with a wink and a pearly smile.

“Hang on there,” he said in that cool, faux-hunky way of his, “I can get this…”

Twilight smiled, and blushed – and Midnight did not care for the little hearts flashing in her sister’s eyes – but then shook her head and patted him on his surprisingly well-defined arm.

“No need, Timber. Someone…” She shot Midnight a glare. “… guilted our older brother into giving us some cash for the movie and popcorn.”

Midnight smiled, innocently, and placed her arms behind her back.

“Hey, if he was feeling guilty about abandoning us to Cinch’s crap,” she sang in a sing-song-like manner, “then we’re both entitled to some compensation, right? Emotional damages!”

Twilight pinched her nose, and suppressed an annoyed groan as she paid for the tickets and snacks.

“Emotional blackmail?” Aria asked, a smirk sliding easily onto her face. “I knew I liked you…”

The four teenagers took their tickets in hand, as well as their sodas and unhealthy snacks – except for Aria, who declared that since she was mortal these days, her body was a temple – and headed into the cinema interior. But just as they were readying to take their seats, Twilight suddenly checked her phone, having felt it ring in her skirt pocket.

Seeing the message displayed, she grinned from ear-to-ear, and quickly beckoned Midnight over.

And seeing it herself, Midnight couldn’t help but grin in an identical fashion.

MSSG from Shining (BBBFF) @6:59:23PM:

She said yes!

“Seems Shining’s date went pretty well so far,” Midnight laughed, unable to stop grinning like a lunatic.

“OOOH!” Twilight squee’d and hooked one arm around Timber’s own, “I can’t wait to see our niece!!!”

Timber furrowed his brow, and shot his date a goofy, crooked smile.

“Aren’t you jumping a little ahead of things?” he said. Then, giving a little shrug, he added, “They’ll probably wait a while before doing something like that…”

“Oh, no,” Midnight said while half-leaning over her sister to confront the naysayer, “We’ve already met our niece.”

Timber and Aria, despite sitting on complete opposite ends of their chosen dates, displayed a very similar worried and confused expression.

“It involved the Mirror Portal and time travel. Oh, and you kidnapped her,” Twilight muttered. Then, grimacing to herself, she patted Timber’s arm again, and said, “Ah, but… she’s sorry about all that, so it’s fine!”

“Meeting, kidnapping…” Midnight rolled her eyes and took a long sip of her soda. “… It’s all the same thing, really…”

The lights dimmed, and the twenty minutes of ads and trailers began to play upon the screen of the half-full theater. Midnight leaned back in her seat, and smiled softly to herself.

It’s so… nice in here, she thought. A good movie, some good company… yeah. This date probably couldn’t go any…

A thought suddenly occurred.

“Hey, Aria?” she whispered. “What do you think about matching tattoos…?”

Luckily, while there was indeed a special place in Tartarus for anyone who spoke during a movie, it wasn’t necessarily the cinema’s policy to ban patrons from talking or making noise during the trailers.

Otherwise, the scream Twilight let out just then might have gotten them all kicked out.

~~~Saturday~~~

~~~9:15 PM~~~

“I kid you not!” Aria snorted with laughter in the backseat of Timber’s little eco-car. “She ate the wheel! The whole wheel!!!”

Laughter filled the car again, with Midnight and Twilight howling right alongside the former Siren as she finished another story about her sisters. Timber laughed too, of course, but he was also trying to be a safe driver, and managed to restrain himself.

Sure, the distance between the mall and Twilight and Midnight’s house was at best five minutes away, but one could never be too careful.

Especially when dating a police officer’s sister.

However, there did not appear to be any ‘surprise stops’ on the road to the Sparkles’ that night, and as the laughter subsided in the backseat, Midnight took a moment to speak with her girlfriend.

“So, you’re cool with us dropping off first?” she asked.

Aria nodded. “Dude, it sounds like you and Twilight need to knock off for like, a week. Go home and sleep. I’ll be fine with a little longer drive.”

“You don’t mind being stuck with Timber Spruce for a bit then?” Midnight smirked. “Should I be worried?”

“Heh, as if!” Aria chuckled. “He’s not my type… huh.”

Her eyes twinkled, and a cruel smile split her face.

Aria leaned forward, ignoring Midnight’s rolling eyes, and gripped the back of Timber’s seat. “Yo! Muscles!” she said, “How much you lift again?”

Timber, ever proud of the work he put into looking the way he did, smiled and…

… and kept his eyes right on the road. Yup. Bolted to it, in fact, once he’d caught a glimpse of Twilight’s face and realized how very, very, very stupid he was.

Aria, who’d caught a glance of that look as well, crawled back into her seat and tucked her knees up under her chin.

Midnight just chuckled some more, and wondered if she could make a face half as terrifying.

A moment later, they turned down the final street, and Midnight and Twilight’s home came into view. A grand, purple-colored last-century house that had been in their family for generations. A house that, curiously for this time of night, seemed to have a pair of visitors standing out on the lawn.

A pair of women, to be more accurate.

“Well, here’s our first stop!” Timber announced. He leaned closer to his date, and said in a low tone, “I hope everything was… good?”

The seat next to him was empty. So was the seat behind him. The only one still in their seat, besides him, was Aria Blaze, and she was currently staring at their dates’ front lawn, where Twilight and Midnight Sparkle were racing to meet their late-night visitors.

“Right… cool,” he sighed. “See you later then…”

“Dude,” Aria said in a hushed, expectant tone, “I think there’s gonna be a fight…”

They rushed from the car without waiting for ‘good-byes’ or any other post-date pleasantries. Their seatbelts were off before the car had fully stopped, and the doors were already opened. In their haste, neither Twilight nor Midnight noticed that they ran with identical pace, an identical stride, and an identical look of panic and fury creasing their brows.

They recognized at least one of the women standing on their lawn that evening.

Former Principal Abacus Cinch turned at the sound of two people rapidly racing through the damp grass. She was dressed rather plainly in dark sweater and slacks, a sharp contrast with her sister Chrysalis, who even at this late hour wouldn’t be caught dead outside of a business suit that cost as much as Timber's car.

Her eyes widened noticeably as she laid them upon not one, but two Twilight Sparkles.

“Okay…” Chrysalis said slowly as she switched her equally widening eyes from Midnight to Twilight and back again. “Abbey? Just how many kids did you mess with?”

Abacus took a moment to shoot her sister a venomous side-eye, but swiftly turned back to the twin girls who had come to a stop before her.

She glanced between both Sparkles, confusion and worry plain as day in her eyes.

“There’s two of us now,” Midnight said, simply. “It’s… magic. And a long story. I was the one you met yesterday, but we both remember Crystal Prep.”

Cinch nodded, not quite understanding but also not needing to understand. She took a long, slow breath in, and held it for a moment.

“Twilight Sparkle… I wish to—”

Her slow, measured speech ratcheted up instantly as a shadow passed over her, and it rapidly became apparent that the shadow was cast by Twilight Sparkle as she threw herself at her former principal with a snarling war cry.

Cinch fell back with a flinch, and covered her head against the smaller girl’s assault, gritting her teeth at the expected flash of pain.

But nothing happened. No one fell upon her with animalistic, murderous fury. Instead, she opened one eye, and beheld a very strange sight indeed; that of Twilight Sparkle clawing and biting at the air before her, yet enmeshed in a bright blue sparkling aura that held her several feet up.

Midnight smirked from where she stood, her pendant sharing that same aquamarine glow.

“Okay, so now I guess we know I didn’t get all the aggression,” she tittered, and began reeling her sister back through the air. “Down, Twi! Down!”

As Twilight’s feet hit the ground beside her sister, and the magical aura faded away, she grumbled and groused before fixing Cinch with a glare.

Cinch herself took a few steadying breaths, and shot her own sister another dark look.

“You could have done something there,” she hissed. “I was almost assaulted.”

“As your lawyer, I already told you coming here was a stupid idea,” Chrysalis said with a helpless shrug. “And frankly? I’m just here for moral support. These nails cost more than your car, and I’m not taking my chances with them in a bout of barbaric fisticuffs…”

With a roll of her eyes, Cinch turned back to the Sparkle twins. Her face immediately settled once again into a tired expression.

“Twilight and…?”

“Midnight.”

“… Midnight Sparkle,” Cinch said, clasping her hands before her, “I have come here to… apologize.”

Neither girl said anything. Twilight continued to glare at Cinch, while Midnight glanced over to Chrysalis, who simply gave another shrug and tilted her head towards her sister in a universal, “I said she was crazy to do this but no one listens to me” sort of way.

With no one interrupting her, Cinch continued.

“I know very well that I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. I have not earned that, nor do I believe I ever can,” she said. Cinch cast her eyes down at her feet, and sighed, “But I have had time to reflect on my actions. And in doing so… I realize now, far too late, that what I did to you – both of you – was unacceptable, intolerable behavior.

“I abused my position of power to mold you into my image, without regards for your wishes or your emotional wellbeing.” She said this while reaching up to grasp her arms, as if the cool summer night air had become frigid and chilling to the bone. “I used underhanded, even criminal tactics…”

“Colloquial use of the term criminal,” Chrysalis muttered with a frown. “Not applicable in a legal sense…”

“Criminal tactics,” Cinch insisted with another glare her sister’s way, “in order to… I don’t even know anymore.”

She sighed, finally looking back at Twilight and Midnight.

“It wasn’t worth it, whatever my original goals and ambitions were,” she said. Then, bowing her head slightly, she concluded, saying, “I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. I only hope that my… that my apologies are enough to let you know that I am not the woman I was. And if at all possible, I would like to find some way to make it all up to you.”

Silence fell on the four as Cinch finished. She held herself rigidly before Twilight and Midnight, clearly expecting a response, and dreading what that might be. Chrysalis, though her contempt for this event was obvious from before, did at least reach one long, slender hand out to pat her sister’s shoulder.

It wasn’t much in the way of sisterly affection, but it was something.

At least, the way Midnight saw that hand. Nothing more than a single act, a single point of contact between sisters.

“Now is as good a time as any!” Twilight Sparkle giggled, “Principal Celestia? Princess Twilight? I’d like you to meet Midnight Sparkle! My sister.”

That flash of memory played out before Midnight could even realize it had happened. It happened so fast that she hadn’t really noticed when Twilight had taken one hand in her own.

Midnight glanced down at that hand, and then up the arm which held it.

She and Twilight locked eyes, and for just a moment it was like they were back in each other’s mind.

With a heavy breath, Midnight was about to say something, when they all heard the front door open.

Cinch, hearing the sound of footsteps behind her, turned around and saw someone she always knew she would also have to apologize to, at some point.

“Ah, Mrs. Sparkle,” she said in a soft, apologetic tone, “I…”

Twilight Velvet, mother of three – possibly four – housewife, author, and former Canterlot Women’s League Featherweight Champion two years consecutive, threw what seismologists and jet-propulsion specialists call, in technical terminology, a great whopping bomb of a right hook into the dead center of Cinch’s face.

The former principal caught enough air to be counted as a low-orbit satellite. A shockwave rippled across the lawn and tossed water droplets several meters away from the force of the blow.

A few miles away, Cozy Glow’s cheek burned, and she had no idea why.

As Abacus Cinch crashed back to earth like a goliath, Midnight and Twilight were simply shocked into silence. Chrysalis half-cowered, and half-expected to see steam rising from Twilight Velvet’s fist.

And a familiar voice carried all the way from the little car parked in front of the driveway.

“KAY OH!” Aria shouted, before practically collapsing back into her seat with a cackle. Timber Spruce, still sitting at the wheel of his car, stared openly at Velvet’s display, and suddenly realized that Shining Armor was not the member of his girlfriend’s family he should be afraid of.

Twilight Velvet shook her hand out, a few audible clicks from her old bones and arthritis playing out as tiny winces around her eyes.

“Now, we’re even,” she said with a hiss.

Then, she turned a look on Chrysalis.

Chrysalis paled, and licked her lips.

“I-I must i-inform you, Ma’am,” she whispered fearfully, “that I am a v-very good lawyer and I do not wish t-to be punched…”

Twilight Velvet studied Chrysalis like a bug under glass for a few tense seconds. “Did you have anything to do with Cinch’s tenure at Crystal Prep?” she said in a deathly low growl.

Chrysalis shook her head. A lot.

And just like that, Twilight Velvet’s face brightened instantly.

“Well then!” she said, excitedly, turning back to the house, from where a somewhat nonplussed Night Light sipped at a cup of coffee. “Pick her up, and let’s head inside. I suppose there’s a lot to talk about. I’ll put out some tea… and one steak.”

Chrysalis nodded sharply and, taking her own advice to her clients, said nothing.

Cinch slowly rose from the grass and into a sitting position, moaning and wincing in pain. She gingerly placed a hand over her eye, and sincerely hoped that whatever bruising formed the next morning she could hide with a good pair of sunglasses.

She nearly fell over again as a hand entered her slightly diminished field of vision. She flinched away, only to realize the hand wasn’t in a fist.

It was an open hand, offered freely.

“Come on,” Midnight said with a half-smirk. “Looks like you’re getting your shot.”

Staring at the hand, and then at the speaker, Cinch didn’t seem to know what to do. Or to say. But, after another moment’s hesitation, she took the hand, and was quickly pulled to her feet.

Chrysalis took her sister by the arm and helped her inside, while a begrudging Twilight followed close, muttering darkly under her breath. Only Midnight remained outside, making a beeline for Timber and Aria.

“You guys should probably take off,” she said, leaning through the front passenger window. “This is gonna be all kinds of awkward and personal. You know, mushy stuff probably.”

Timber raised an eyebrow, and looked past Midnight towards the house.

“You… sure? I mean, I can stay if Twilight…”

“Dude? Take it from me,” said Aria, idly looking at her phone screen, “if the parents start punching people who messed with their little girl, the date has to get going.

“Personal experience,” she added with a toothy smirk. Then, frowning, she sighed, and said, “Also, speaking of mushy stuff, Sonata apparently found out they closed down that taco shop she liked. So, I gotta get back to help Dagi on cleanup duty…”

Aria looked back to Midnight, and her smile briefly returned.

“But, hey. Tonight was awesome. And your mom’s cool. Do yourself a favor and take after her.”

And with that, date night was officially concluded.

~~~One Week Later~~~

Monday was a typical one for CHS, even accounting for the odd magical shenanigan which tended to make the student body's day just a bit more exciting than usual.

And this Monday in particular, that shenanigan was the Vice Principal's hair, which appeared to move on its own, as though it were blowing in an invisible, ethereal wind. Luna herself seemed apprehensive about her sparkling, waving locks, but since it didn't shoot lasers at anyone, replace their memories, or turn anyone into anything else, most saw it as nothing more than a quaint, if unexplainable curiosity. Like Pinkie Pie.

In fact, the only one who paid more attention to the Vice Principal's hair may have well been Rarity, whose seething envy could not be understated. Sunset admitted to similar feelings towards Princess Celestia's own glorious mane, at least as a filly, which somehow got her roped into helping Rarity find a magical solution to 'The Hair Conundrum', as the fashionista called it.

"Game recognizes Game," was the exact turn of phrase she used, according to Rainbow Dash, who was the only one of Midnight's friends to witness the exchange itself. Regardless, Sunset and Rarity were indisposed for most of the week thereafter.

Also happening this morning, Disqord was pleasantly surprised to find Midnight arriving a few minutes early for Zero Period, and even more so when she announced that she wouldn’t mind taking some classes at Canterlot Community College. The fact that Professor Sombra wanted to meet her before the term started didn’t even seem to faze her in the slightest.

“I’ll admit, I was hoping you’d pull a Pentagram Burst and make things more interesting for me, but…”

His eyes lit up, just then. And once he’d found the switch to turn them back off, he reached into his briefcase, and withdrew a dark purple photo album. It had seen quite a bit of wear and tear, almost as if it had gone through a few warzones in its time.

Disqord passed it over to Midnight, and grinned knowingly.

“She wanted you to have this,” he said, but did not elaborate.

Midnight frowned at the album, and felt its heft in her hands before she looked back up at her professor and pointed out, “Pentagram died twenty years before I was even born. How…?”

“Let’s just say,” said Disqord as he opened the first page up, “that I haven’t always been able to avoid giving out spoilers to my students. Pentagram may not have been one of my best, but she was still interesting...”

Right there, at the top of the inside cover of the book, was a message written in flowing, fancy handwriting. Midnight focused upon this message instantly, noting that it was addressed to her, specifically.

It read:

To Midnight:

Well met, my fellow Black Sheep. Old Cordy liked to talk about you all the time. Said time travel was involved. How dandy! If you’d ever like to chat, I’m sure he’ll arrange something, the doll. I do hope you’re living your own life first, of course. Everyone needs a few good adventures under their belt.

Ta ta, Midnight! Tell your sister she sounds like an old fuddy-duddy, from your Great Auntie!

Goats,
Dr P.B. Sparkle

Midnight blinked a few times, and read the message again. Then, she flipped the page.

The first photo was one Midnight recognized instantly. The mugshot from her dream, with the curiously smiling Pentagram Burst. She must have seen it once while visiting Grammy Sparkle as a little girl, so it was quite astounding she could dream about it with such clarity.

Next to that one, however, was something very different. A photograph taken in the snowy banks of a mountain peak. There were several mountain climbers, in somewhat old-fashioned climbing gear, huddled around a newly raised flagpole.

And right under that flag stood a proud, familiar figure. A woman with long, straight hair, and a mischievous smile.

“What did happen with the goats?” Midnight idly asked as she turned the page. “Everyone gets really cagey when I ask…”

“I’d tell you, but then we’d have to change the rating,” Disqord chuckled to himself.

Not quite listening, Midnight took in the next picture, taken in some sort of forest or jungle. Pentagram stood front and center, as always, surrounded by hawkish-faced men and women in fatigues. She herself had several belts of ammunition wrapped around her neck, and a very large, vaguely familiar flag behind her.

“Doctor Pentagram Burst?” Midnight asked, smiling as she took in the images before her.

Disqord shrugged, and waved a noncommittal hand around. “Well, it was honorary. Knock over enough Central Mareican governments, and you tend to collect those along with the accolades and legally unpublishable memoirs…”

After glancing through a few more old photographs – one of Pentagram riding camelback across a sand dune, one featuring her and the Great Hoofdini performing together, and one that might have been Pentagram and a yeti in an arm-wrestling competition – Midnight breathed contentedly, and carefully packed the old album away for later.

Disqord was, once again, pleasantly surprised. This time, by the hug Midnight threw around his neck.

“Thank you, Professor,” she said. “You’re not so bad all the time.”

He laughed. “Lies! Lies and slander. I knew you were listening to my politics lectures!”

The rest of Monday rolled on with about that same level of energy. Moondancer and Wallflower waved politely at Midnight during lunch, but were otherwise quite absorbed in their own conversation, planning for a friendly rollerball game against/double-date with Lyra and Bon Bon.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie – assisted by her new party protégé, Octavio Pie – ended the school day with a smashing party.

A One-Week-a-Versary for Midnight, as it turned out.

In the middle of fifth period. Disqord didn't seem to mind, however, and even helped out by becoming an entire mariachi band for the occasion.

“Well, first I thought I could throw you a birthday party,” Pinkie helpfully explained in between discharges of the fireworks she’d prepared for the occasion, “but then I realized the Friendship Games happened in Spring, so we’re a few months behind. And Twilight was born on—”

A magical cupcake-fueled firework blew out Midnight’s hearing about then for several seconds.

“—which is way too far away! So then, I figured ‘Ooh! if I couldn’t celebrate a birthday, I’d make it an Anniversary’. But, again, none of those are close enough, so I cut it down to a Month, or a Mensuversary!"

Octavio, though hiding near the back of the room where he'd been setting the punch bowls up, spoke up, adding, “But you, uh… weren’t around a month ago…”

Pinkie cheered, “Right you are, Octavio! And then, do you know what I came up with?”

Midnight pursed her lips, and watched through the window as her sister’s selfie drone strained and groaned to lower the eight-tier purple-and-blue frosted cake down onto the school grounds. Cranky was already out there with a stick, trying to knock the little robot down... before he finally seemed to notice the cake and started pulling out a fork and knife.

Why he had a fork and knife on him, none could say.

“A… Sabbativersary?” Midnight offered with a shrug.

Pinkie’s face froze, mid-squee.

“What.”

No. It wasn't asked like a question.

“Sabbativersary,” Midnight said again, nonchalantly. “Like, Sabbatical? Seven? Closest I could figure to what a Week-a-versary would be in La—”

“WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS!?”

And so on, and so forth did the day play out. Trixie had her Monday performance staked out in front of the Ohm Depot, so Aria got a very, very good look at Midnight’s assistant uniform. Ohm Depot might have lost money that afternoon as the staff was incredibly preoccupied during the rush.

And the next day, Tuesday, was much the same. Applejack and her cousins invited the girls over to test the first batch of Summer Cider, and Midnight finally got a chance to just hang out with her friends. She chatted with AJ and Rainbow about video games, heard about Pinkie's good bill of health from the doctors', and even got to pet a capybara Fluttershy got Disqord to teleport in. Rarity was still in 'crack ethereal hair' mode, so she and Sunset were a bit preoccupied during the hangout.

And things only got a little awkward at the end, when Applejack opened up the shed looking for another barrel of cider, only to find her brother locking lips with a certain blue-haired DJ.

It was, indeed... a strange universe.

Wednesday went by in a blur, capped off by a surprisingly fun music session with the Dazzlings, and Thursday was much the same. There was talk of their upcoming graduation and party plans for the same, but the only thing anyone could agree upon was that under no circumstances was anyone to suggest another cruise ship. Although the idea of visiting Equestria again was floated around.

The days of the week flew by in a blissfully mundane haze. No demons, no adventures. And though Midnight suspected this was just the usual lull in between such crises as her friends were always getting involved in, she couldn’t help but finally feel as though it was all… normal.

She was normal. Even if that didn't last long, and even if all her projects and plans went awry... that was enough for now.

And so, it was once again Saturday. And though they'd had no more nightmares since last week, a promise had been made.

Midnight and Twilight sat side-by-side in an office lobby all the way across Canterlot City from just about everywhere else they’d ever been. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and so it came as no surprise that their father Night Light was already snoozing in a seat across from them. The walls were fairly plain, wood-paneled ones, covered in small landscape paintings that seemed to favor a desert aesthetic.

Even the plants, situated around the room and in incredible numbers for the space the room had, were mostly desert ferns and cacti.

They’d been waiting for what felt like hours for their new Psychiatrist to be done with the patient ahead of them. Neither Midnight nor Twilight had caught the name, but she apparently came highly recommended by Principal Luna and Disqord.

Perhaps, in addition to the wait, that should have given the Sparkles more pause.

“You know,” Twilight sighed, her chin resting in her hands, “I probably could have become a psychologist in the time it’s taken for her to get to us. Still could…”

Midnight tittered into one hand, eyes on the phone in her other. When she caught the cross-way her sister looked at her then, she blushed. “S-sorry,” she said, “but Spike was texting me.”

Twilight sat up straight. “Did we get results!?”

“Oh, uh…” Midnight fidgeted. “No. He, uh… told me a joke.”

Twilight’s brows furrowed deeply. “Is he still measuring the magic crystal’s rate of decay?” she asked icily.

“He says the isotopes’ half life keeps changing,” she hummed as she consulted the message again. “Seems like magic has an unsteady rate of dispersion. Might need to compensate for that before we can use them as reliable batteries.”

Twilight glanced down at the phone screen, and scrunched her nose up as she saw the mess of symbols on display.

“How can you read that?” she asked, squinting to understand just what she was looking at. “Star, watermelon, sun, sun, apple? What does that even mean? And how does Spike know how to text like that!? How do you?”

Midnight huffed, and tried to mask her amused smirk. “Well, Spike always did like hanging around Rarity. And Cinnamon Apple taught me. She’s a wiz at tech, it turns out. We could use another lab assistant, now that I think about it…”

Twilight rolled her eyes, and sighed. “I just think it’s incredible that he can text like that despite not having thumbs!”

“Thumbs, yet,” Midnight corrected, reminding her sister of what they’d promised their LBBFF.

“Once I’ve ruled out the possibility of any transformation spell accidentally creating an evil Spike,” Twilight replied with another huff, though not a serious one, "then... yes. Yet."

Before Midnight could say anything else, the door to their Psychiatrist’s real office opened with a creak, and a tall, lean figure stepped out into the lobby. Now, Twilight and Midnight naturally would have gone silent at this moment anyway, each wanting to start this process off on the right foot and showing respect, but there was something about this figure, this gentleman in a sweater vest that caused both Midnight and Twilight to hold their breaths.

The fact was, they recognized him. Or, someone like him.

Rather, somepony like him.

“Midnight Sparkle?” asked Sunburst, peaking over his spectacles at the notes in his hand. “Twilight Sparkle?”

The thirty-something gentleman, with a mottled bright orange and white complexion and a tangle of dark orange hair and beard, smiled as his eyes landed upon the only two lobby-occupants that would match what he was told to look for.

“Are you ready? The Doctor will see you now.”

As he walked back into the office, Midnight and Twilight shared a look.

“That was…”

“… yeah…”

Not bothering to wake Night Light up from his nap, both sisters leapt to their feet and strode right for the door.

Inside was a truly inviting office space. The kind that was precisely designed to be as inoffensive and calming as possible. Soft pastel pinks and purples covered the walls, and the couches and chairs were deep and comfortable just at a glance.

Degrees and awards hung from the walls besides photographs, and sat on the high bookshelves beside encyclopedias galore, speaking to the owner’s skill and experience in the field. This, Midnight and Twilight both knew, was meant to calm potential patients, and remind them that they were in good hands.

Of course, the name on those documents, and the woman in those photographs, was also quite well known to them.

As were the kites hanging from the ceiling.

“Their paperwork,” Sunburst said as he passed a portfolio to the light pink woman sitting behind the desk on the far side of the room.

Starlight Glimmer tucked a long strand of purple and turquoise-striped hair behind her ear, and took the paperwork with a smile.

“Thanks, hon,” she whispered back. Professional decorum prevented them from sharing a kiss or a peck on the cheek… but it was obvious to Midnight that’s exactly what they would have done next without an audience.

The sap coming off of them was almost suffocatingly wholesome.

“Now, Twilight? Midnight?” Starlight asked, and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “What can I do to make you feel better? I’m listening.”

Midnight looked to Twilight. Twilight looked to her sister.

It is certainly looking like one of those days, Midnight’s stare seemed to say.

We’ll get through it together, Twilight’s replied silently.

They turned back to the familiar-yet-unfamiliar psychiatrist, and braced themselves for what would prove to be a most interesting session.

And then, unprompted, Midnight asked, “Hey, odd question, but did you use to run a cult?”

“MIDNIGHT!!!”

Author's Note

There must always be a little silliness in these stories. What else are ponies for, but to warm our hearts with love and laughter?

And let's call that another completed story. Hooraa!!!

There will be an accompanying blog, detailing the future of the Anarchyverse.

1 - Monday: A Hard Day's Freakout

It was finally evening, and this long Monday morning would soon close out in the House of Sparkle. Lights were dimming, baths were drawing, and glasses of water were being measured out for ideal nighttime-hydration levels by the matriarch, Twilight Velvet, who incidentally had to come up with a fourth set of everything in the kitchen all over again and wasn’t panicking or stressing out at all, thank you very much.

Much like with Velvet, the entire family was a little stressed over the last few days’ occurrences. Yet oddly, none less so than Twilight Sparkle herself, who lay on her bed, tap-tapping away at her laptop like nothing at all was amiss.

She looked over her open document, journal.word. The word-document wasn’t her scientific journal, nor her journal where she recorded her magical theories, her dreams, or her organization journal. It was her personal one, a diary. And she was filling it right up with this past weekend’s madness.

Madness. A year ago, she’d have written off everything in here as madness. But, give or take some experience with true friendship, and a little more with real magic, Twilight was actually strangely calm despite everything she was putting down in this document.

Over a week ago, it had been her dream to visit the mysterious land of Equestria, a world where pony… yes, pony versions of herself, her friends, and her family all lived in a magical kingdom ruled by immortal alicorns who controlled the very sun and moon and stars themselves. The realm where all the magic in the human world came from. The realm where her dear friend Sunset Shimmer, a unicorn-turned-human was born.

And now… well, Equestria was still a magical paradise and she’d give anything to stay longer… but she also had just spent their long weekend holiday causing time paradoxes with the legendary Starswirl the Bearded, helped convince the renegade twin of the Spirit of Chaos to redeem himself again, and defeated her dark, magically corrupted self, Midnight Sparkle twice before the entire multiverse was destroyed.

Suffice to say, she was tired when she got back to school this morning… only to have an explosion of Chaos Magic spread madness and random transformations all over Canterlot City, not only potentially exposing the secret of magic to the wider world, but overthrowing her own conceptions about reality itself!

And worst of all…! They’d canceled school that day. Principal Celestia said it was to give students a day to recover from Disqord’s (yes, with a ‘Q’) chaos and remember how to walk without hooves again. A thoroughly distressing notion, Twilight thought, to miss out on a productive day of lessons and examinations…

And yet, it wasn’t all bad. Out of all this, she’d not only gained a sense of peace within herself and the self-esteem not to hold herself too closely in competition with her alicorn Princess self from across the mirror, but also…

Her bed suddenly shifted, like a weight had landed hard next to Twilight, sending the high school senior tumbling through the air and onto the floor, narrowly missing her sleeping dog Spike.

The dog leapt to one side, “Watch out!” he cried very uncharacteristically of dogs, yet wholly in-character with himself.

Twilight landed hard on her backside, her glasses almost flying off her face. She quickly adjusted them back into position, and then gazed upwards…

At Midnight Sparkle. It was strange, even uncanny to see her in the flesh. They looked so near to identical it sometimes felt like she was walking about with a clone. Midnight’s skin was darker than her own, a rich lavender shade, and her eyes were that electric blue hue of aqua. Finally, paired with the pink also found in Twilight’s, Midnight had an aqua stripe running through her long, flowing hair.

She hadn’t looked this way in the mental plane, where Midnight and Twilight had once warred for control. There, the tulpa had a pair of hawkish wings, and was clad in an aggressive dress that allowed her full mobility as she strove to drive Twilight to the brink of madness and despair.

Yet a tulpa, a separate personality hewn from Twilight’s own, she was not. Now, she was Twilight’s twin sister. Reformed, if you could believe it.

And completely insane.

“Once more,” she cackled wickedly, “I have proven the supreme sibling!”

Twilight gaped, “Midnight? Wha…?”

“I claim this bed as my own! You have lost, dear Twilight, and forevermore there shall be only the hard carpet of defeat to soak with your bitter tears!”

Twilight sighed. This again. Midnight seemed… well, whereas Twilight was always on the bashful and withdrawn side, a natural consequence she supposed of her years being bullied and traumatized against friendship over at Crystal Prep Academy, Midnight was a natural stage presence. She exuded confidence and a sort of graceful violence that Twilight at times couldn’t help but admire… and other times found extraordinarily annoying. It was like living with Trixie Lulamoon in ‘Magician mode’ all the time.

In short, Midnight was a huge ham.

“Shining Armor already said he was bringing over the spare mattress and frame for you. You don’t have to take my bed!” she growled back.

Midnight huffed, “It is mine, by right of conquest! Besides, you said ‘what’s mine is yours’!”

Spike sighed as he trotted out the door, “Okay, this is my life now. A dog house would be kinda nice at this point…”

The bespectacled girl shook her head and stood up, “That doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my bed without a fight!”

Midnight grinned viciously, “Just try it, Twily!” she sneered Twilight’s… their brother’s nickname for Twilight, “We’ll see who’s the superior sibling… if you dare!”

Which was right when Shining Armor himself knocked on the open door. “Um… am I interrupting something?”

Twilight aimed a joking scowl at her new sister and said, “Not really. Midnight’s just excited to be getting her own bed. Isn’t she?”

The girl sitting on Twilight’s bed raised an eyebrow, “Why would I be? I have this one,” and gave a little smirk.

“Well, glad you two are sorting it out,” said Shining as he hefted several bits of metal, “I got a frame here, plus a mattress and some sheets and blankets for you.”

Midnight sighed, “Please tell me the sheets aren’t pink,” she tugged at the borrowed pink and yellow pajamas she wore now, “I’d bet money Rarity would be horrified by this stuff on me.”

“Well, you can ask her about it tomorrow when she’s helping you with your wardrobe,” Twilight said, a little grumpy at the way her fashion was being criticized.

Shining couldn’t quite smile at the situation just yet. Becoming a brother unexpectedly, again, was still something he was working through. So, he decided to keep things brief, “Where’d you want this for tonight?”

Midnight raised one hand and pointed at the metal frame in Shining’s hands, “Don’t worry, I will take care of it.”

Nothing happened.

“Huh,” she looked at her hand. Seemed perfectly normal. “Odd. Let’s try again,” and she pointed her hand towards the mattress she could see leaning up against the hallway wall.

Again. Nothing happened.

“Um,” Shining Armor didn’t know exactly what was supposed to happen, but with all this weird magical stuff going on he had a good guess it’d be something like that. If whatever that is ever happened.

“Midnight,” Twilight’s voice was touched with worry and concern, “Don’t panic.”

“My magic,” Midnight stared in horror at her hands, “It… it’s gone!” Her breathing sped up, becoming shallow. Midnight threw her eyes about, trying to catch the tell-tale signs that this was all a dream. Tearing in the environment, or shadows not casting correctly. Maybe Princess Luna had trapped her in a nightmare? Could she do that? If so, she was getting better…

Her eyes flew up to Twilight. It… it was her, wasn’t it? She still had…

“You…” Midnight snarled, “You had something to do with this!”

“Hey now…!” Shining tried to step in.

Twilight shook her head vigorously, “No, Midnight. We…”

But Midnight would not be interrupted, “You tricked me! When we split, you found a way to take all the magic. You decided you needed insurance, just in case Midnight turned on you!” A wetness began to build behind her eyes, “You never trusted me! You never…”

Her breath caught in her chest. Twilight wasn’t looking at her like… her eyes were also…

Curse humans and their eyes. Midnight had hoped all her tears were burned away the moment Twilight had become her all those months ago…

She was so far into her own head that Midnight didn’t register at first that her… sister had taken her shoulders in hand. “Midnight,” she whispered, Shining looking on with a confused expression just edging into genuine worry, “I promise, I didn’t have anything to do with you losing your magic. But humans don’t have a normal way to use Equestrian magic, not unless they have an artifact from across the mirror, like our geodes,” she absent-mindedly touched the purple gemstone at her neck as she said this.

There was no thought, nothing rational. All instinct. She… Midnight needed magic. It was literally the first thing she’d consciously thought about when she’d been born. All consuming, all-needing, all-thirsting… she needed it.

Midnight Sparkle lunged for the geode.

“Wait…” Twilight tried to hold out one arm to block her sister’s charge, but as they touched there was a singular moment, lost to Shining but clear to the sisters themselves, where the pendant shimmered… and Twilight’s fingers appeared to sink into Midnight’s shoulder…

Shining Armor, a young and fit member of the Canterlot City Police Department, had years of training to fall back on in situations like this, when crises erupted suddenly and action was needed to stop a fight before it became serious. He’d been born for such work; he had the instincts.

His training and instincts utterly failed him now, as the white-hot flash of magical light exploded in the center of his sisters’ room, flinging him back into the hallway. Had random explosions not been a regular occurrence in the Sparkle household, their parents would probably have done more than note the noise complaint for later demerit.

Shining’s head swam for a couple of seconds, but then, his training kicked in. Stunned only a moment, Shining leapt back to his feet and rolled up to the door frame, keeping himself out of line of sight of the bedroom.

He peaked around the door, “Twily, are you… alright?”

There was a light amount of smoke in the room, wafting up from the carpet where that six-pointed star of Twilight’s had been burned into the center of the carpet, with seven smaller stars surrounding it.

And sitting in the middle of the star, rubbing her head and moaning irritably, was Midnight Sparkle. Yet… she didn’t quite fit the description Shining had got from the other girls. Her wings weren’t so… hawkish? And her clothes weren’t as lurid as he’d heard (thankfully!).

She seemed to notice this as well. “What!? HMidow didahw you an?” her words tumbled out like a traffic jam that, in Shining’s opinion, would have taken hours to clear.

She tried again, “TwMidnlight, stahpwho ungi…”

When she growled to herself it almost sounded like two voices. She slapped one hand over her mouth, which continued to grumble and bite around it. One black wing slapped the bookshelf next to her, one leg scuffed along the carpet. It was like watching a young woman go to war against herself.

Finally, the free hand reached up… and snapped its fingers, sending out a flicker of that eerie electric-flame. Instantly, her horn lit up with aqua light, and a familiar voice rang out from it.

“Midnight! Stop whatever you’re doing and… listen to me?” Every vocalization caused another flicker of light from the horn. “Huh… how’d you do that?”

The girl pulled her hand away from her mouth, “Ventriloquism spell. I assigned your speech to the horn, since humans have distressingly few redundant vocal cords.”

“Wait,” Twilight said with a measure of skepticism, “Did you trap me in your horn!?”

Midnight, Shining decided to just call the physical body that, shook her head, “No, we still share a body, I just changed where your vocals…”

She finally noticed the body situation. She looked down at herself, and began to check out individual parts, first her hands, then wings, then the contents of her own face.

“Did… did you know that was going to happen?” Twilight asked.

Midnight stood up, wobbly enough for Shining to rush over and catch hold of her arms. “Easy there!” he said.

“Mirror!” both voices shouted at once, though Twilight’s came back with a, “Please and thank you!”

Shining stared for only a few more seconds before running straight out the door. He returned moments later, a small hand-mirror with him. As he offered it to… his sister, she scoffed in Midnight’s voice.

“Really? That little thing?”

“Thanks, Shiny,” the horn flared gratefully, “Though I have to agree. We could have used a larger mirror…”

Midnight nodded, “Got it.” She then reached back with the mirror and hurled it into the small writing desk Twilight had set next to her bed. The mirror…

Burst into blue light as it connected, instantly transforming into a vanity-mirror atop the desk. Shining said nothing, resigned to his position as witness to these strange events.

Twilight stopped mid-gasp as she saw the mirror fly, now whispering at the sight, “Oh… I didn’t know we could do that.”

The sisters managed to walk mostly with a normal gait, both starting to realize they needed to coordinate to make this body do anything. They approached the mirror, Midnight commenting as they did so, “I managed to snag a few spells from Princess Twilight when she and Luna tried to banish me from your nightmares. That one was going to be a birthday gift for her Rarity.”

“You did what!?” Twilight shouted in a tinny, static-laced voice, then dropped to an inquisitive mumble, “How could…? That does sound like a nice… Instant Spell Memorization… I keep forgetting you could do that…”

Midnight chuckled, “If I wasn’t trying to drive you mad at the time, I might have been able to glean more from them, but here we are.”

Shining frowned at this, but said nothing. This whole night was about as mad as could be, and he didn’t feel like jumping in any more than he already had to.

The sisters finally reached the mirror on rubbery legs, and gasped. She… they were different than before. The girl who looked back at them did indeed have Midnight’s coloring, a darker shade of lavender for skin, as well as that streak of aqua running alongside the pink in her hair, despite it being long and straight like the Princess’s hair had been. She even had the flaming aqua aura around her eyes, but the similarities stopped there.

She had Twilight’s eyes, for one thing. And her wings were smaller, and shaped like Twilight’s were whenever she ‘Ponied Up’, though they still retained the black color of Midnight’s own. The combined girl reached up to feel the pony-ears which also had appeared atop her head.

Well, that was all fine then. Twilight and Midnight had been ponies… or, a pony enough times to not find that so strange. What was the most shocking change however…

“What are we wearing?” Midnight snorted, definitely not humorously.

It was almost the same outfit Twilight had been transforming into for a while now, the usual sky-blue long blouse replaced with something nearly-identical, but a bright and shining gold color.

“Hmmm,” Twilight thought, “It… somewhat resembles the outfits Princess Twilight wears.”

Princess Twilight. Equestria. The magic lessons she’d promised. Midnight felt a rush of energy flow through her veins as these thoughts boiled up. She could feel her magic again, and it called out…

It wanted to be used.

“Midnight! Wait!”

But Twilight was not quick enough. The winged pony-girl vanished in a rush of air and a flash of blue light.

Shining Armor watched the spot where his sister… sisters had vanished from for several long seconds. Then, deciding that thinking too much about this stuff was asking for trouble, he got to work assembling the bed.

They’d be back. He hoped, anyway.

A loud pop split the night air on the grounds of Canterlot High School. A flash of aqua lit the yard and illuminated the empty, cracked Wondercolts’ statue plinth, the site of the portal to Equestria. And standing mere yards from the portal, was the combined form of Midnight and Twilight Sparkle.

“It’s… it’s right there!” Midnight pleaded, legs shaking as she tried to push them forward. “Come on! We could have the Magic! ALL the Magic…!”

Twilight’s voice rang out, “Midnight! This isn’t you anymore! Just stop and listen to me!” She managed to get their wings flapping, pushing wind forward towards the portal and pushing her own body backward. Even with the added lift, they were drifting slowly towards the portal.

Midnight would not be denied. “Twi… I need… this…” It was so close. So… painfully close! Her sheer need began to pull them closer, and closer. She could see the portal ripple with light as her fingertips neared the plinth’s surface.

“No,” Twilight bit down, hard in her mind, “No you don’t…!”

A second flash of light, a second pop.

Yards and yards away, another flash of purple light dropped two nearly identical girls onto the school roof.

Cold night air now tickled Midnight’s exposed skin, biting at the beads of sweat on her forehead, shocking her back to reality. It was like a haze had been pushed aside, or like that moment just after a fever broke… well, Midnight didn’t know that feeling directly, but she shared a few memories of Twilight’s childhood that filled in the gaps. Dreamy, illogical logic fell away, leaving only Midnight’s rational mind…

Which meant the last few minutes weren’t a fever dream. They were real. And the second magic had hit her system, she’d actually tried to steal it. From her sister. Her sister who…

Twilight loomed suddenly over her as she pulled herself into a sitting position.

“What the heck was that about!?” she demanded, hands set on hips. Fury burned in her eyes as those old feelings towards Midnight returned. The pointed anger and resentment of her own mind gone rogue.

Midnight, as Twilight often used to when cornered or pressured, pulled herself inward. She wrapped her arms around herself. She was very alone up on this roof, and very cold.

“I…” she tried to find the words, “I don’t… Twilight, I didn’t mean…” but she couldn’t finish. She did mean to do what she did. Without the haze of magic clouding her thoughts, she was now fully aware of what she’d just tried to do, and how bad it would have been for everyone if she’d gotten her way. She felt…

What was this new feeling? Midnight, lacking feelings as a tulpa, had only a few hours to grasp what her emotions were. She’d felt pride, and humor… even a touch of love and affection when Twilight and Sunset had first accepted her. But this new feeling was awful! It felt like a stomach ache… which Midnight also knew only vicariously through Twilight.

Oh no, was this guilt? That would be the most logical option. She did just threaten reality… again.

Twilight kneeled down to Midnight’s level, and a worried look overcame her irritation. “Midnight,” she whispered, “Believe me when I say that I will try to understand. I know you… tried to do that for a reason. I just want to know. I can’t help unless you tell me.”

Ugh… Midnight hated it when she was right. Intellectually, she knew that Twilight being right wasn’t the same as her being wrong, but those old thoughts were slow to vacate her new, independent headspace.

She took a breath, and said, “I… I’m scared.”

When Twilight said nothing, she continued, words coming in fits and bursts. “I… you don’t know what it’s like to lose your magic. It isn’t like when Rainbow gets upset because she can’t fly everywhere she wants… You made me out of your… your raw curiosity. Your desire to know more, to learn more. More magic…”

She shot up to her feet, anything to get some distance from Twilight. That was a mistake, as the wind picked up right when she did so. As a distraction from the cold, Midnight walked to the edge of the roof and began staring over the low wall at the statue plinth again.

“Magic isn’t some neat trick for me. It’s not just telekinesis, or the power to fly, or Sunset’s memory-vision thing… without those, you and your friends are still whole. Without it… it’s like I’m blind,” she turned halfway around to watch Twilight in the dark, “Did you know I used my magic-sense more than my actual eyesight whenever I was in control?”

“Midnight,” Twilight whispered, one hand over her heart as she approached, “I didn’t know.” She paused, looked away, then back. Her voice took on a touch more anger, directed towards herself, “No, I should have known. Magic is who you were. I shouldn’t have expected you to change completely, especially over the course of half-a-day!”

The two sisters now stood right at the edge of the roof, together again. Twilight put her arm around Midnight’s shoulders, expecting her to pull away or grumble and passively accept the affectionate contact. But instead, either to push back the cold or as acknowledgement of Twilight’s understanding, Midnight actually leaned into the half-hug.

Twilight broke the silence first, “You don’t have to send me reports or anything,” she chuckled, “but I’m always here if you want to talk about these things. We’re sisters, after all.”

Midnight smirked, “Alright. Alright, you’ve convinced me. I won’t destroy the world for the promise of magic. Tonight,” she added with a titter.

Both sisters laughed lightly together on the roof, only for Twilight’s face to scrunch up. She’d just had a thought, and the peculiarity of it somewhat mystified her. It was… an odd idea, but one she was surprised to not have contemplated earlier.

Breaking the hug, to Midnight’s brief distress, Twilight lifted up her geode-pendant in-between her hands, thumbs and forefingers pinching it on both sides. With a twist of her hands, aided by a flicker of magical energy, the pendant split with a crack.

“Twilight!” Midnight’s eyes nearly jumped out of her skull, “What…!?”

“Here,” Twilight said plainly, as though she were offering Midnight a piece of birthday cake.

Midnight continued sputtering, “But… but Twilight! What if you broke it!? Your magic could be…!”

“I said,” her sister seemed to proclaim her will, dictate her terms, “that what was mine, was also yours. We found this geode together, so it’s half yours. And if breaking it in half means that I have to give up magic so that you aren’t alone, then so be it.”

Midnight… honestly didn’t know what to say, do, or think. No one had ever been this nice, or this understanding towards her. And even if that was only by default, having never really interacted with anyone else, it left her stricken with the conflicted impulse to either snatch the pendant away, or to run screaming for the hills.

No one was this nice. No one. It wasn’t possible. Was it?

With a trembling hand, she reached out. In trepidation, she allowed one finger to brush the pendant offered to her. There was a feeling there, a hum of warmth. And with as little fanfare as Midnight had ever seen with magic… the geode changed color. It was purple a moment ago, and then with the barest hint of contact, it shifted to a bright blue… an aqua.

Midnight took the half-pendant, she and Twilight watching it with wide-eyes. She gripped it in her hand. She closed her eyes, and then tried to see by opening her other senses. And…

A fire roared within her. It was… different from before, but with certainty she knew it was back! Her magic! Its heat swiftly pushed all chill and cold aside, and with a barest thought she could sweep her mind’s eye across the whole school in an instant. She felt another flame burning, mere inches from herself… Twilight’s pendant glowed alongside hers.

“It’s… it’s back,” she whispered, tears burning her cheeks, “I can feel it again.”

Midnight couldn’t stop herself. She threw her arms around Twilight and gave her sister the strongest, tightest hug she could possibly manage. By the way Twilight gasped and struggled, Midnight guessed she’d managed somewhere around a ninety-percent full Pinkie Pie hug.

Shining Armor had just finished putting the second bed together when another bright flash lit up his sisters’ room. He finished laying down the brilliantly-pink covers, and turned just in time to watch a softer flare of white light disentangle the Sparkle sisters into two girls once more. They stood together, holding hands directly atop the star-symbol burned into the carpet.

“Worked it out?” was all he said.

Twilight smiled, and nodded, “Yes. All it took was talking things over, and being willing to listen. I did the listening...”

“And I almost destroyed the world again,” Midnight sighed, not in shame but boredom.

Shining decided to ignore that. He had plenty of time to think about it later. “Alright,” he said, clapping his hands together, “I think it’s time you two finally got some shut-eye. Twily’s got school in the morning, and mom and dad are taking Midny out for some family bonding.”

Midnight frowned, “That is not my nickname.”

“Your disliking it only confirms that it is,” Shining grinned, “Now, get some sleep!”

Twilight yawned, “No complaints here!”

Midnight, however, scowled at the vibrant… pink monstrosity that was her bed, and decided she needed at least a few more moments to properly acclimate to her doom. So, she indulged in one more nagging thought she’d held onto for the past few minutes, at least since Twilight had brought it up at the school.

“Twilight?” Shining stopped in the doorway, and her sister paused as she drew back her bed-sheets. “What… precisely did you mean before? About us finding the geodes together?”

Twilight blinked several times. “What?”

“You said we’d found it together,” Midnight clarified, “But I don’t recall when or where you got the geode-pendant. Was it a gift from Princess Cadence?”

Shining’s eyes widened slightly at the name, but he betrayed nothing. Twilight, however, scrunched up her face. She frowned, and then continued in a pained pantomime, something she occasionally did when a particularly perplexing problem prompted a response.

“What are you talking about? You were with me when Sunset and I found the geodes in that cave at Camp Everfree!” She held up her half-pendant for emphasis, “You were trying to destroy my mind and take over my body at the time!”

Shining could only add a strained, “What!?” to the proceedings.

Midnight raised an eyebrow at her sister, “Everfree? The… camp? Was that where you met Timber Spruce?”

“Who?” Shining’s previous shock was instantly replaced by the practiced frown of a policeman with a crook in his sights as this Timber Spruce came up… a Boy…

Midnight hadn’t skipped a beat, “Her boyfriend…”

A hand slapped over her mouth, Twilight somehow clearing ten feet of open carpet instantly. Midnight wondered idly if Twilight could teleport without fusing…

“Hahahaha! Oh! Midnight!” Twilight’s voice edged near to hysteria, her saucer-like eyes switching between a loving, innocent look for Shining… and a murderous glare for Midnight. “She’s such a kidder! Right…?”

Midnight also began to wonder, with laser-focus, if it wasn’t Twilight who was the evil twin…

Shining, however, was far more used to Twilight’s manic ways. “Twily,” he said warningly, “I thought Mom and Dad made it clear how we all felt about secret relationships in this family.”

Midnight saw her out. “Oh, like you’re one to talk!”

Now that shut him up! Shining bit down on his lower lip, and his eyes widened noticeably. If Midnight or Twilight weren’t mistaken… it looked like he was sweating.

“Um,” he coughed, “W-what do y-you mean by that? I’d never… never…”

Both Sparkle sisters shared a grin… a predatory one.

Twilight started, “You know, Shining… our counterparts over in Equestria are all a bit older than us.”

“… Are they?” Shining knew when he was being targeted.

“Oh, yes,” Midnight smiled innocently, “Somewhere between five and… ten years? Because of the time dilation…”

Shining’s ears turned red. Was it getting warm in here? What were his sisters getting at…?

Twilight smirked, “You actually look good in a Royal uniform… Prince…”

“So!” Shining said perhaps a touch too loud, “You don’t remember the camp, Midnight!?”

A moment more of teenaged giggling, and Midnight returned to the matter at hand. She threw her mind backwards in time, to when Twilight was supposed to go to that wretched camp. She could remember… with a touch of regret those nightmares she’d been crafting to drive Twilight bananas and usurp her mind… and then Twilight’s own anxieties around her new friends. The camp was meant to be a retreat from those feelings, and a means of building upon her new friendships…

And then… nothing. There was just a black void where the two-or-three days of Camp Everfree should have been.

“I… I don’t remember any of it,” she said, slowly, more to herself than anyone else. Her voice picked up there, however, “It’s like… I can remember that it happened, but not what happened. It’s like I heard about it second-hand, with parts missing…”

Twilight and Shining watched as Midnight became… twitchy. Her eyes darted around as she thought, and her hands began to work themselves into knots as she mentally and verbally went over the memories one by one.

“Do you not remember anything else?” Shining offered.

Midnight scowled, “And how would I know!? I can’t just remember what I don’t remember, Shiny. It’s an unknown, unknown variable!”

The blush that hadn’t quite left Shining’s cheeks burned slightly hotter at that obvious lapse on his part.

“Quick!” Twilight stepped in, “Who are our main friends?”

Midnight might have been… well, she was definitively panicking, but she was still like Twilight; once a serious scientific problem was in front of her, she fell right into the routine. “Sunset Shimmer, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie,” she counted off on her fingers, “not counting the Principals, the Dazzlings, the Shadowbolts…”

Twilight sighed lightly, “Alright, so you’re not forgetting anyone important.” Worry returned, “But what could have made you forget Everfree?”

Midnight’s eyes snapped open, and a horrified look came over her features. She locked her gaze with her sister’s. “We… we basically just performed magic-brain-surgery on ourselves this morning…”

The full implications of taking one person with a mental dissociative disorder, and then splitting that one person into two bodies, each with one of the personalities from before… suddenly dawned on everyone in the room. And in the silence that followed…

“So… first I lose my magic,” Midnight whispered, “And then I’m the one who loses her mind?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head slowly, “You’re… you’re not the only one…”

Shining’s now permanently shaken expression wheeled over to his original sister. “Twily…?”

“We…” she bit her lip, “We knew that there might be some side-effects from the Split. We were certain that intelligence and magical power would be fully duplicated and divided equally… but when I was checking my lab equipment earlier to make sure my genetic-sequence-locks were still working…”

Shining’s dumbfounded stare prompted Midnight to add, “She wanted to make sure our DNA didn’t get messed up since she used it to lock up her lab equipment.” This seemed to work for Shining. It was just like in his comic-books… that he now shared with his dog…

“Everything seemed fine,” Twilight continued, “But… I think I might have lost my ambidexterity.”

“Wait, seriously?” Shining was reeling slightly from all this. For a family like the Sparkles, anything that compromised one’s mind or mental abilities had always ranked high on everyone’s personal worst fears list. Nightmare Night was always quaint for the Sparkles, since no one thought to go dressed up as a brain tumor.

“I’m literally her left hand,” Midnight smirked in spite of herself, and how dire their situation was. “Sinister, isn’t it?”

He furrowed his brow, “So… you can’t gloat about it at Hearth’s Warming this year?”

Twilight frowned, “Toss me something. Let me catch it in my left hand.”

Shining shrugged. He really had to see this if it was true. He and Twily had always competed with one another, and despite the seriousness of this conversation… some small, petty part of him wanted to confirm this.

Then, with a wicked grin, he reached out and grabbed something he knew Twilight would never let fall. Had to be sure, right?

He tossed the small, hand-stitched horse-doll in a gentle underhand. The ugly little thing hung in space for a moment before it tapped Twilight’s outstretched left hand… which feebly swatted at the doll and sent it sailing to the carpet below…

Where Midnight Sparkle dove to catch it.

“See?” Twilight stated with a professorial smugness. She wondered, however, why Shining gave her such a… horrified look. Or what was up with Midnight just then, panting on the floor like she’d caught the good porcelain, as opposed to a ratty little doll.

“What?”

Midnight shot up to her feet, doll held fast to her chest, “What do you think you’re doing!?” she cried, very much too loudly, one eye clearly about to burst a blood vessel in Shining’s general direction.

Shining raised an eyebrow. “I… I thought it’d be best if I tested it with Smarty Pants. Twily would never drop her… I thought.”

Twilight returned the quizzical look, and asked, “Who?”

Midnight’s eyes locked with Twilight’s again, “Smarty Pants.”

“Again,” said Twilight, less amused, “Who? Or, what?”

Genuine concern slipped into Shining’s voice, “Smarty Pants. Your favorite doll? Your, like, childhood friend?”

Twilight adjusted her glasses, and took in the oddly misshapen thing with a glance. “I think I’d remember something like that.”

“But, Twilight,” Midnight’s voice cracked, “You did… until this morning.” She held out the Smarty Pants doll to her sister, as if that might restore what she’d lost.

Twilight stared at the tattered doll, her eyes haunting every stitch and every seam. Shining and Midnight knew what Twilight looked like when she was deep into her ‘thinking mode’. She bit one finger, narrowed her eyes. She tapped one foot, and then another. After a full minute, her movement had become twitchy.

And her eyes were reddening with tears she tried desperately to hold back.

“I…” she swallowed, “I loved this… Smarty Pants?”

But where Twilight had held back, Midnight let loose a sob and threw herself at her sister. “I’m sorry!” she cried into Twilight’s hair, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Midnight?” Twilight’s tears began falling, but her voice remained, “You didn’t do this.”

“I took Smarty Pants away from you! I tried to take everything…”

A strong hand landed on each of the girls’ shoulders, and with a firm, gentle push, Shining Armor separated them. He brought his face low, so that both would be looking him right in the eyes.

If they’d ever once doubted their Shining and the Prince across the mirror were one and the same, his authoritative glare dispelled that notion immediately.

“Twily, Midny,” he stoically whispered, “Now is not the time to think about these things. You’re both tired and strung out. There’s nothing you can do about this tonight, so why not wait until morning, when you’re both rested up?”

There was something calming in the way Shining spoke. Who would have guessed their brother, valedictorian, cop, and former high school football captain, a ‘meathead’ as Dash called him behind his back… could be so comforting with his ‘police officer’ voice?

Both Sparkle sisters nodded agreement. Twilight declined Smarty Pants with a hand gesture, and went to her bed alone. Midnight quickly snuggled down, wondering what sleep would be like, as she’d never done it before, while clutching the ragged, wonderful little horse-doll to her chest.

Then, as Shining Armor turned out the light and made to close the door behind him, he leaned back in, and with the tiniest twinkle in his eye, whispered into the room, “I… might be taking Cadence out this Saturday for a very special reason… and she might not be entirely aware of it yet.”

As the door closed, and sleep overtook them both, Twilight and Midnight Sparkle could at least smile together, and hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Author's Note

They say the first day's the hardest...

7 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 4: The Longest Day

In the great library of the Castle of Friendship, a tense air had fallen over the room. Three Alicorn Princesses stared, dumbfounded, at the appearance of a fourth, the once-unicorn Sunset Shimmer, while a certain pink party pony’s confetti and decorations drifted slowly from the ceiling.

“Hooray!” a happy, excitable voice punctured the bubble of dread that had threatened to fall over the room. Both Twilights – Princess and unicorn – turned to one side, ready to shout down their meddlesome, if well-meaning, party planner friend.

“Pinkie! What are you… doing?” the Princess’s voice caught in her throat.

Twilight’s did as well. “… Midnight?”

Just to their side, Midnight Sparkle reared up onto her hind legs, and began to clap her hooves with wild abandon, a grin almost splitting her whole face in half.

“Congratulations!” she merrily cheered, even giggled, as confetti pooled atop her mane, “Wooo!”

On her other side, a more familiar pink party pony stared with a worried look in her eye.

“Uh, ye-yeah?” Pinkie nudged the mad not-pony with a hoof, “Midnight? Normally, I’d be right there with ya. Buuuuut…”

Midnight stared at the pink hoof presented to her, a giddy sense of curiosity wondering, idly, how they made the horseshoes blend in so well with the rest of the leg, when she finally noted that the hoof was pointing towards something.

Sunset Shimmer’s eyes blazed with untempered distress. She wasn’t even looking at Midnight, her attention wholly consumed by her feathered appendages.

Midnight’s heart sank. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so… giddy?

Sunset was saying something, just below a whisper, and she was saying it very, very quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, tears streaming free as she clamped her wings down, and tried to back away from the banner, and the confetti, and all the rest of it, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Midnight’s mind began calculating.

She didn’t notice Celestia move past her. The ancient Alicorn strode past her world’s visitors, and her fellow Princesses, without a backwards glance.

Manic mood shifts, Midnight noted, I disregarded the Princess’s personal space. New symptom? Old? Giddiness, estimated at 15% higher than normal… make that 25%.

Before Sunset could move her own legs, and make a break for the exit, the large, voluminous white wings were around her, and pulling her close to the pony she’d harmed more than any other.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. More tears.

Tears streamed from Celestia’s eyes as well. “My sunshine!” she whispered back, “Oh, my sunshine!”

Midnight continued to think.

It’s been a long day. Mental fortitude goes down with stress and time. And I’ve had, what? Three separate breakdowns? Takes a lot out of a girl…

“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” Sunset cried, though with less and less urgency as she felt herself pressed into the downy coat of the pony who raised her, “I… this wasn’t planned…”

“I know,” said Celestia. Her voice was so calm, and so sweet, at that moment, that Sunset’s body, empowered as it was now, began to relax, “I know. You didn’t ask for this to happen…”

Midnight tried to focus on Sunset, and the eerily familiar Celestia. Not quite identical, she thought, besides the horse-thing. Huh, I wonder what sort of energy-to-mass conversion is going on behind the scenes with the dimension-shift? Are we still the same height? Where would her butt go when she crosses the Mirror…?

So focused on her thoughts, her sudden calculations, was Midnight, that she hardly noticed the Princess Twilight pass by her, in a bit of a stupor.

“How did this happen? I thought you said…” she stared, agog, at the sight of an Alicorn Sunset Shimmer.

Celestia pressed her head into the top of Sunset’s mane, “I don’t know, Twilight. I really don’t know.”

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked of her pony doppelganger, passing by a still-perplexed Midnight without noting the way her eyes were now darting about the room.

The Princess, giving her unicorn self a questioning look, answered swiftly.

“Celestia was visited by a Sunset from the future. But… she was a unicorn at the time. And an old one, at that…”

“Split timeline,” Midnight offered halfheartedly, her mind still miles away as she spoke.

“Split what?” Luna raised her eyebrows, already on edge, “What was that?”

Midnight waved down the question with a hoof, her eyes fixed on something none of them could see. “Some old theory by Mage Meadowbrook. Sunset from a timeline showed up, but not this timeline.”

She didn’t notice the stares coming from either Princess Twilight, Luna, nor Celestia and Sunset.

Twilight, whose eyes lingered on her sister for another moment, turned to the others, and said, "Uh... when Midnight... when I became Midnight, we had the ability to learn about magic, as long as we were in contact with it. She's been picking up things since the Friendship Games, Camp Everfree... we learned all kinds of things, even during the whole Crystal Empire thing, when she took the Crystal Heart."

"Really?" Princess Twilight's eyes widened, noticeably. "She can do that?"

Twilight nodded. "Well, both of us can. She's just better at it."

She returned her attention to her sister, who was now pacing across the floor.

"Midnight?" she ventured.

“Hm,” Midnight paused, and turned to look at the ceiling, “Suppose it could also have been a bootstrap paradox… or a predetermination paradox? Sunset might have to put on some old-mare-makeup and take a time-trip at some point to keep things in line…”

Twilight pressed again, “Midnight?”

“Ooh!” Midnight’s eyes widened, and looked right past her sister, “We could do an experiment! Someone, er, somepony! Get a 4th level Ward spell in place around a teacup. Or Spike. Six of one, half dozen of the other. It should only take a few applications of a chronolocomotive spell to…”

Midnight’s mind began to race, as did her voice. She started speaking, faster and faster, as mystical knowledge came pouring out of her at speed. Even Pinkie Pie began backing away slowly, nearly exiting the library entirely.

“Midnight!” Twilight called again, but her sister didn’t seem to hear her.

“We need a conductor!” Midnight cried out, suddenly, wind whipping around her, though what caused it, she couldn’t tell. Things just… happened in Equestria, it seemed.

Twilight’s face was doing… something. Something with emotions. Midnight couldn’t quite make it out, through the haze of Science wafting through her thoughts.

Need to study that, she noted to herself. See what’s bothering her. Once we see if Time can be split like an atom…

“Crystal conducts magical energy, right?” She looked over, questioningly, to Princess Luna, whose horn was roaring with deep, blue magic. In fact, a similar, golden light blazed from Princess Celestia as well.

Fascinating!

“MIDNIGHT!” Twilight’s voice finally slipped past the dull hum that had started to fill the air about her.

Midnight blinked, and tried to concentrate.

What… what’s going on?

Midnight narrowed her eyes, and noted, finally, how the magic flowing from Luna and Celestia almost… no, precisely looked to be some sort of offensive magical spells. Firbolg’s Blast, if the stream of unbidden magical knowledge sweeping across her memory was anything to go by; the most standard, and upscale-able magical blasts available to unicorns and Alicorns.

But… the blasts weren’t connecting.

Why are they firing at me?

“She’s absorbing it!” a voice shouted.

Celestia? Or, was that Sunset? Why can’t I tell, anymore?

This was all very curious. Midnight could hardly contain her excitement! More magic? More mystery? How thrilling! How fun!

“…Record’s Syndrome, on steroids…!” Twilight, the Princess, cried out.

Record Syndrome, Midnight’s mind recited as magic poured into her, A genetic disease discovered by Akashic Record, Celestia’s original Royal Surgeon. Record’s causes the mystical Mana Channels in the body to be overdeveloped, and become stuck in a permanent ‘on’ position, thereby increasing a unicorn’s mana draw to almost infinite levels, while also causing chronic nerve damage over time. A uniquely unicorn disease, its widespread existence is due to deliberate selective breeding gone amuck during…

There was something wrong, a ringing in her ears.

The whole library was shifting colors now, from its typical purple hue, to a light, though sinister, aquamarine shade…

This is wrong, an intrusive thought suddenly cried out, Something is wrong here. Stop. Think. Think. Calculate.

Time slowed, for Midnight. The whirl of thoughts, panicked fears, and calculations were too much. But, little by little, she began to see the bigger picture, the pattern overlaid the world.

Magic.

The very air, so crisp and clear in Equestria, was absolutely saturated with magic. The ground held it like water after a soft rain. It was inherent to every facet of crystal, every page in every book, and every breath taken by everypony, every creature everywhere. The entire cosmos here was made of magic. There was no escaping it.

And, as Midnight's body reacted with those magical energies, there was no escaping her.

Midnight could see the magic flowing through the world, and she could see it seeping into her skin beneath her coat, her hooves, her eyes and mane.

Her wings, black as night, opened to accept more, and more magic.

This is wrong.

Fight this.

But the magic kept flowing. And her legs kept refusing to move. She couldn’t get back to the portal like this. Couldn’t escape the inexhaustible supply of intoxicating, mind-shattering magic that lay at her hooftips. The edge of her vision began to darken, to fall into darkness.

Her world was becoming a Shadow.

She pleaded with herself.

Move.

The Shadow refused.

No, it responded.

We can't stay here, she shook her head, and grit her teeth, Equestria will be ripped apart.

No, said the Shadow, More. We need more Magic. All of it.

It continued, sneering at Midnight in her own voice, This is what you want. What you always wanted. Magic. Knowledge. Power. Not f̵r̸i̶e̸n̶d̴s̸h̶i̸p̶.

Move! she cried.

Move. Move... MOVE!

Midnight's body betrayed her. She stood still, at the heart of a magical cyclone.

Her eyes met Sunset’s, and a terrible truth dawned in Midnight’s mind.

This, she wailed in her heart, This is the Friendship Games all over again.

Sunset’s eyes were still wet, still weeping. Horror radiated from her. She saw it too.

Midnight’s eyes were steaming, their water burning away from the intensity of the magic flowing through her.

“Help…” she strained to speak through gritted teeth, “… me…”

Three Alicorn Princesses, throwing out waves of magical might, could not dislodge her. Midnight, wrapped in a cocoon of magic, eyes burning with aqua flames, wings of shadow outstretched, could not be moved.

The crystal floor at her feet… hooves… began to boil.

“Twilight…” she thought she said, though thought and speech were feeling harder and harder to make out, “Don’t let me… don’t let me do this…”

Through the strain of magic unleashed, Midnight thought… thought she could still make out the other unicorn through the wall of blue flames that reared up around her.

Stop me.

Please.

“Midnight!”

There was that voice again.

And then, there was Twilight, flying towards her… wings outstretched.

Watching the young unicorn be so consumed by dark magic had, at first, horrified the elder Princesses, who had each in their time seen such a fate befall others, never to be saved from themselves. The fact that this one bore the face of Celestia’s most faithful of students only heightened her own fear and anxiety.

No magic they summoned could stop it, though they each tried valiantly. Midnight herself seemed to resist the darkness… to no effect. All of them were preparing for what must come next, a true battle in the halls of the Castle… when the unexpected happened.

The Twilight from the other world threw herself into the flames.

A torrent of magic bloomed with a light brighter than the sun. The column of magic burst, and swept aside all shadows. Even Luna was seemingly dispelled, and her astral construct failed, for a moment.

As the light faded, the Princesses, Pinkie – hiding by the door – and a distraught Sunset Shimmer, beheld something totally new. A dark purple Alicorn stood at the base of the Mirror portal. In every respect, it was like looking at a second Princess Twilight, only in darker shading, with an aqua stripe running alongside the normal pink. Her wings were black, like those of a hawk, and held themselves outstretched.

Her eyes, as they opened, were almost normal, save for the burning blue corona, which formed across her brow.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her horn briefly flaring into aquamarine light, “We didn’t know… I have to go.”

Her eyes met Sunset’s, for just a moment. Midnight, from her fused form, could see nothing but confusion in her friend’s gaze. If she could see through Sunset’s eyes, she wondered if she would see the aching regret that now filled her sobered soul.

Twilight/Midnight’s horn re-lit, and with a pop and a flash of light, she was gone, the Mirror’s surface rippling with their passage.

Outside of Canterlot High School, a gaggle of teen girls (and one boy with a busted arm) still stood, vigilant beneath the darkening sky, and in waiting anticipation of their friends’ return.

Pinkie Pie was swapping recipe ideas with Cookie Apple, Sonata, who each had something of an interest in food. Even Applejack, who never much cared for anything 'fancy', was suddenly intrigued by the notion of an Apple Taco, and wished to learn more. Rarity was giving Trixie a bit of a lecture on hair care, noting the drab state of the blue girl after one too many drops into the school swimming pool, and possibly one too many visits to the Burn Ward after a firework mishap.

While Trixie outwardly seethed at the implied insult to her skills - magic, fashion, or hair care, it didn't matter precisely - , she was mentally jotting down every word spoken.

And, finally, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were having two very different conversations at once with Oakley and Cinnamon Apple.

“So, hooves or toes?” Fluttershy cooed, her great pool-like eyes running up and down Cinnamon’s form with a practiced, veterinarian precision, “Which do you prefer, now that you’ve gotten practice with both?”

Cinnamon leaned away from the deranged animal-lover, and raised one eyebrow at her behavior.

“Uh, toes? I guess?” she shrugged, and glanced down at her boot-covered feet, “Toes are kinda ticklish, but they also feel really good when you squish mud in between ‘em…”

“How fast!?” Rainbow Dash’s snarl itself almost broke the sound barrier, causing most of the girls to flinch.

“Heh,” Oakley grinned, and laid his accent on as thick as butter, “Ah think ya’ll know what Ah said.”

Dash fired back, “There’s no way you’re faster than me! Magic or not!”

“You wanna bet?” Oakley leaned in, a self-assured grin on his lips.

Dash grinned back, and ground her knuckles into her palm, “You’re on, horse-boy!”

“Oakley!” Applejack shouted over them both, “Don’t you dare git inta another scuffle!”

“Darling!” Rarity joined her in admonishing Rainbow Dash, “His arm is still broken!”

To which, Dash scoffed, “Pfeh! You don’t need arms to run a race! What’re we betting?”

“Phone numbers!” he said, quickly, eyes narrowed.

Dash snorted, and almost held out a hand to shake.

“You’re o—”

She blinked. Then, her scowl began to slowly shift from playful… to something a bit more disgruntled.

“Has that ever worked?” she snorted.

Oakley shrugged, “First time I tried it. Did it work?”

Cinnamon let out a disappointed groan.

“Hey, AJ?” she asked her cousin, “Geldin’s illegal fer humans, right?”

“I can’t believe this!” Rarity, still hanging onto Applejack’s arm, shrieked while turning red, “I just broke this man’s heart, and he’s already working his… his wiles on another woman? And on Rainbow Dash, to boot!?”

Dash flashed another scowl Rarity's, indignantly crying, “Hey!”

“Actually, he was like that as a horse, too,” Applejack shrugged, “Never all that picky. Whene’er we switched his feed, he always jes went along with it.”

“Darling? Did you just compare me… to horse feed?”

“Um… horse feed is very healthy, and… uh, nutritious…”

“Do not help her, Fluttershy!”

During this entire exchange, Pinkie, Cookie, and Sonata continued to quietly munch on a pack of popcorn Pinkie had brought out… from somewhere. This was good entertainment, as far as any of them were concerned. Even Trixie, though seemingly uninterested in the suspect popcorn, was quite interested to see where this all ended up.

That was, until the space in front of the statue’s portal flashed with bright, magical light. Every head turned, but with differing intentions. While most seemed excited to see their friends’ return, at least Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity seemed to notice, right away, how the light seemed more… aqua than the usual silvery white.

These three each crouched, slightly, bodies tensing as a honed sense of danger alerted them.

Though, even they were completely unprepared for what they saw, and heard.

Indeed, who amongst them had ever really seen an Alicorn in person?

“Stupid!” Midnight cried out, snarling, tears in her eyes, “I can’t believe we didn’t account for that!”

“Midnight, it’s okay!” Twilight’s voice cracked as it echoed from the still-glowing horn, “The Princess will understand…”

Midnight, however, wasn’t listening. She stomped the ground, hard, leaving a horseshoe imprint almost a foot deep with her current, earth pony strength.

Cinnamon glanced towards Oakley, who had been mercifully struck dumb and silent, at least in her opinion, by the appearance of a magical talking pony princess…

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll understand!” she said, waving one foreleg about, not noticing her lack of fingers, “She’ll understand that she can’t trust the Magic Addict who’ll doom any dimension she comes across!”

Applejack managed to close her mouth, at last, by this point. But she found she really had nothing yet to say about what was going on. What was there to say?

Howdy Twi, Midnight. Why’re you still horses?

Twilight stammered, “She… we can find a way around this. Maybe do coursework she can send over through the portal?”

Wings ruffled, and whichever sister was in charge of their nose – muzzle? – gave a little snort.

“Face it! She can’t bring us over there now! And any magic books she tosses over here will probably… I don’t know! Turn into monsters or something!”

Pinkie Pie glanced, worriedly, from Midn… uh, Twi…?

She glanced back and forth, between the Sparkle Sister, and then each of their friends in turn. All of them seemed just as confused as she was, and so she elected to not say anything yet.

The purple Alicorn dropped her rump onto the ground, heaving an exasperated sigh. She planted her face into her forehooves, and grit her teeth.

“The one time something goes right in my life,” her voice began to crack, “and life takes it back…”

In the silence that followed, Trixie Lulamoon nodded, slowly. She seemed to have a solid grasp of the situation, and her Bestie was clearly in emotional turmoil. She knew, without a doubt, what to do.

And so, she took one, deep breath, raised her hand…

“Um, Midnight?” Twilight’s voice returned, instantly causing the blue stage magician to pause.

“What?”

“We still have hooves.”

They lowered their forelegs, and stared at the most perplexing sight.

“Hm… you’re right. Pony things. That’s new.”

Twilight’s voice somehow carried, with it, the sensation of scratching one’s chin, as she asked, “What do you think caused that?”

Midnight shrugged their shoulders, and continued to stare.

“I suppose it might have something to do with how we… teleported…”

Her voice trailed off. Rarity was about to ask… well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to ask, but it was high time, in her opinion, that someone ask something… only to notice something else.

There was a look in their friends’ eye. A look she’d only seen whenever Twilight had gotten something very… mad sciency in her head.

Their pupils shrank to dots, and their mouth hung open.

“Twilight…” Midnight gasped, “We teleported through the portal. We didn’t…”

“… didn’t walk through it, like normal,” Twilight cut in, her own voice hushed, and contemplative, “We know that physical matter…”

“… transforms when crossing the dimensional barrier. But…” Midnight started scratching her hoof into the ground with a furious speed, “… but magic…”

“… and energy!” Twilight added, while she took control over the other hoof, and began adding her own calculations to the scratches in the dirt.

Sonata glanced up at Fluttershy, who shook her head and pointed back towards Cookie. Cookie shrugged, and looked to Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow Dash, true to form, made a rude gesture when she noticed Trixie grinning at the very idea.

Twilight suddenly became giddy herself.

“And we know Magic follows certain radiological models…”

“Which means…”

The purple Alicorn paused. A huge, face-splitting grin settled onto her features, and she stood up from the ground.

“Ha! It all makes sense, now!” they cried out, in one voice, “It finally makes sense!”

Fluttershy opened her mouth, perhaps to ask what made sense, but more likely to ask if she could pet them.

But the Sparkle Sisters weren’t done.

“Be back, guys!” Twilight called out, and turned their body back towards the portal. The Alicorn crouched low, and seemed to brace herself in a sprinting stance.

“Testing Hypothesis in three!” Midnight crowed, “Two! One!”

And with that, they threw themselves back through the portal, leaving nothing behind but a shimmer of silver light, and the silence of ten desperately confused teenagers.

Only one, of which, had figured out just what they wanted to say.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash pointed at where her friend had just been, “What the fu--?”

“… and until she can keep herself under control,” Princess Twilight Sparkle sighed, finishing her pronouncement, “I can’t, in good conscience, have her here during our lessons.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sunset shook her head, “It’s just… this meant so much to both of them.”

The library was almost silent, as the four Alicorns stood in a sort of broken contemplation. The only sound that ruined the atmosphere was Pinkie Pie, still sweeping up the confetti and banners left lying about from her ill-timed attempt at celebration.

Luna hummed, and mused, quietly, “I suppose I could teach them through the Dreamrealm… though the applicability would be negligible…”

“And, I can’t just give them magic tomes or something like that,” Twilight waved one hoof about, irritably, “That world has already been messed up because Starswirl kept dumping his magical problems there!

“Not…” her eyes winced as she began a delicate process of backpedaling through that last remark, “Not that he didn’t have the best of intentions, I’m sure…”

As Twilight continued to speak, it all seemed to fall by the wayside for Sunset Shimmer. The golden unicorn – now Alicorn – couldn’t quite sit still. It wasn’t just that her wings kept twitching, and that her feathers tickled her sides. She could feel a sort of nervous energy in her legs, in her hooves.

She felt like a part of her wanted to… to just go running, and never stop. Never look back.

If only the other part of her didn’t want to lay down and alternate between laughing and crying, she might even have done just that.

But I won, she thought, miserably. I actually, finally, got exactly what I wanted. The selfish, egotistical pony got to be an Alicorn…

Sunset’s thoughts suddenly derailed, as something… touched the top of her head. A weight settled there, and it took several long seconds for her to look up, and note Princess Celestia’s head resting atop her own.

She’d never seen such a contented look on her old teacher’s face. Never, in all the years Sunset known her.

“The long way around…” the ancient Alicorn sighed, a genuine smile gracefully touching her features.

“Uh, Princess?” she whispered, not quite sure if she was more worried for Celestia, or scared.

“Please, it’s just Celestia between us, Sunset,” the Princess said, wrapping one long foreleg around her in a hug.

Sunset blushed, but nuzzled into the welcome contact.

“I… I don’t know about that,” she said, “It’d feel weird, you know?”

Celestia laughed, “Why should it? We’re equals now.”

“Yeah… we’re…”

Sunset’s heart stopped.

“C-come again?”

Celestia smiled, beatifically, down at her once-protégé.

“You’re an Alicorn now, Sunset Shimmer,” she said, in a voice brimming with affection, “And that means that you are also a…”

Sunset tore her way out of Celestia’s grasp with newfound vigor. The alabaster Alicorn stood, stunned, as Sunset scampered back, and threw a fearful gaze back up at her old mentor.

She cried out, “N-no! Not that!”

Celestia looked almost hurt, standing there, wings fidgeting at her side, forelegs still miming their lost hug.

“I… what did I say?”

Luna and Twilight’s attention focused on the exchange. A silent look between the two confirmed that neither wanted to take a single step towards whatever this was, unless completely necessary.

Naturally, Pinkie Pie continued to pick up confetti that had somehow gotten behind the bookcases.

Sunset took a breath, and set her shoulders, which came with the unfamiliar tickling of feathered wings, again. But she was able to push that aside, and open her mouth to protest…

When another burst of energy rocked the Mirror.

The mechanical wizardry – and actual wizardry – that made the Mirror functional more than once every thirty moons, began to whir and crackle with arcane energies. The Mirror hummed and groaned, shaking in its mechanical frame until it flashed with silver light.

And a most peculiar creature stepped into Equestria from beyond…

“Hypothesis confirmed!!!” Midnight howled in triumph, pumping the air with her human arms.

Twilight’s voice leapt out from her glowing horn, “Oh! This is so exciting! There are so many new theories to test now! So many ideas!”

Midnight laughed, and looked down at their shared form. She noted the inclusion of her dark purple pants since the last time they…

Did we really only do that last Monday? she wondered. This has been a loooong week.

But, as the fused Sister admired their newfound use of human fingers, they quickly had to address the elephant in the room. Or, rather, the four Alicorns.

Princess Twilight’s mouth had gone completely slack, her mind most likely in the process of a total reboot. Sunset Shimmer, standing only a few feet behind her, currently had a twenty-yard stare etched onto her face, no doubt from the rapid-fire nature of her day thus far.

Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, was jotting something down into a pad of paper that looked remarkably similar to a party planning pad.

And the other Princesses…

“What in Equestria is that thing!?”

“It’s like… like a chicken missing its feathers! Luna! KILL IT WITH FIRE!”

… were seemingly acting their age.

Princess Twilight, Sunset, and Pinkie Pie leapt to the rescue, quickly setting themselves up as a barrier between the Sparkle Sister and the Royal Sisters.

“Wait!” Sunset waved her hooves and wings in front of Luna’s face, blocking her line of fire, “That’s Midnight… er, Twilight…?”

“That’s just what humans look like when they’re channeling Equestrian magic!” Princess Twilight added, “Take a deep breath! Remember what Cadance taught me? In and out!”

As the Princess began detailing her well-known breathing exercise, Pinkie Pie took up the slack. She stopped bouncing, for the moment, and called upon her considerable charade-skills. As she delved into a long-winded description of her own thoughts, her hooves swept this way and that in order to properly provide the necessary visuals to her small, elite audience.

“Yeah! Minus the horn and wings – which Sunny’s friends all get when they use their magic to Pony-Up (trademarked!) – that’s basically how they look normally, or as normal as you can look when you and your nearly-identical twin sister call on your former connection as being one creature to fuse back into a hybrid form!

“And I bet…!” she swiveled around, mid-miming two humans smashing together like used bubblegum, and hopped over the Sparkle girl to emphasize her point, “… that you’ve figured out – since Midnight has some sort of magic addiction, she can’t be in Equestria that long – something about magic and the portals that you’ve been hinting at since the last story, and now you’re here to tell us all about it and move the plot forward!!!”

She followed this with a squee.

Many eyes were on Pinkie Pie. They weren’t surprised, necessarily, by her outburst. It was just that Princess Twilight, Celestia, and Luna had long ago learned to listen when Pinkie Pie started talking like that, and Sunset was amazed that the pony-version of her friend didn’t seem to need to breathe during speeches, either.

Then, the eyes swiveled up to the fused Sparkle.

“Actually, yeah,” Midnight nodded, “That was about right.”

“She only missed one thing,” Twilight hummed through their horn.

“Awww…” Pinkie slumped, “What’d I miss!?”

Midnight’s eyes flared to aquamarine life, and a fell wind began to blow.

“Your explanation took too long. I can't stay to explain.”

Pinkie’s eyes shrank. “Oh…”

Blue flames licked at the edges of Midnight’s wings, as she looked up towards the array of pony royalty charging their horns. She could feel her sister’s willpower holding that thirst, that need, for Equestrian magic at bay, for now.

But that wouldn’t last. They didn’t have much time.

She locked her gaze with the Princess Twilight’s, and smirked.

“Keep the portal open, Princess,” she said, Twilight’s magic building around her, forming the teleportation spell, “I’ll explain… in a safe way… soon!”

There was a flash of light…

…and the fused girl was back in Canterlot City, standing in the cooling late afternoon air, staring at the blank face of the Wondercolt statue plinth.

She breathed in. There was a scent on the wind. It was almost like something Rarity wore, one of those obscenely smelly, expensive perfumes. But, in that moment, as the high of mystical energy faded away, the stench of Prench vanilla bean and some sort of essence smelled like something else.

It smelled like victory…

“GET HER!”

“Where did you even get that much rope!?” Midnight snarled, incredulously, as she struggled against her bonds, “This is too tight, I can’t teleport!”

After nine high school students - minus the injured Oakley - had unceremoniously dogpiled atop the still-fused Twilight-Midnight, the hybrid girl had been so stunned that Applejack and her cousins managed to tie her down with ease. Even after de-fusing, and returning to being two separate people, the ropes seemed to have kept their bonds tight, holding each girl in a separate rope-cocoon on the ground.

As it turned out, even being hopped-up on Equestrian magic didn’t make one immune to a sailor’s knot.

"Ah, shucks!" Oakley laughed, holding what looked like a whole spool of hempen rope, "No Apple would leave home without their lasso!"

Cinnamon, standing nearby, shrugged, saying, "Rope's are too useful to just... not have."

Applejack, strategically placed in a sitting position atop Midnight’s back, laughed, “Fer horses, they sure picked up on family traditions right quick!”

“Well, not letting either of you move or teleport was the general idea, darlings,” Rarity looked down, sympathetically, at her two, near-identical, possibly-finally-driven-over-the-edge friends, “Though, fret not! This is all for your own protection.”

Twilight spat out a clump of grass, and said, “Really? Our protection!?”

“This is ridiculous,” Midnight groaned, “Let us go, and we’ll explain everything!”

“Just hang on a few more seconds,” Pinkie sat, cross-legged, atop Twilight’s back, checking her phone, “Dashie should be back with our ‘Sparkle Scanner’ soon!”

“Sparkle Scanner?” Midnight frowned, “What’s…?”

A blue blur streaked around the corner, and came to a sizzling-fast stop just in front of Fluttershy and Sonata, who stood by the statue. A rush of wind accompanied Rainbow Dash as she skidded to a final stop. To everyone's mutual embarrassment, she then dabbed, and strutted up to the Sparkle sisters.

“Don’t worry, everybody!” she called out, a sickly-looking dog in her arms, “I got him!”

She planted Spike down onto the grass, and stepped away to give him room. Then, she pointed out the two bound girls, and added, “Spike’s a dog. Dogs are their human’s best friend. So, we figured he’d know what was going on with you two!”

“I think you broke him,” Twilight frowned, noting the way Spike just sort of stood there.

Spike didn’t move for several seconds. He stared at, seemingly, nothing.

Then, the purple puppy, calmly and carefully, heaved his guts up onto the school lawn.

Dash flinched, at the sight, and began shifting to an embarrassed shade of red.

“Ah, sorry about that, little guy…”

“Could you have waited five more minutes!?” Spike growled in between dry gasps, “I was still digesting my dinner…”

Fluttershy was at his side in a hot second, a soft, comforting scratch behind the ears for Spike, and a withering glare for Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, you poor thing!” she cooed, “Would eating some grass… or maybe your own sick help your stomach feel better?”

Spike shook free from the animal lover’s – admittedly wonderful – hand, and snorted.

“Ew! That’s gross! Why would I do that!?”

“But…” she frowned, “That’s what dogs do. Right?”

Spike paused. His ears perked up, and his eyes narrowed. He looked up at Fluttershy… and then slowly turned back to his sick.

“Uh… right…” he said, without enthusiasm. The puppy leaned forward, tongue sticking…

“Nope!” he cried out, shaking his head like he was trying to lose a flea, “I can’t! That’s… it’s disgusting!”

Spike made a gagging sound, and started backpedaling away from the mess. Once he’d cleared a bit of distance, the sickened dog stopped, and shook his head a few more times, likely banishing the thought from his mind.

“Everything good there, Spike?” Rainbow said, gingerly, “You, ah… you need a belly rub?”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” he growled, and shot the… that… a disdainful look.

Though, from where Midnight was laying down, it almost looked like he was… sad? It was a passing emotion across his little puppy face, but she was certain she's seen... something.

It was the same look she saw in the mirror each morning.

But, before she could ponder that further, Spike finally seemed to notice his masters.

“Guys? Why’re Twilight and Midnight tied up?”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie jumped up, with a hand raised and waving like she was hoping to get picked for a game, “I know this one! I know this one!”

Applejack, however, answered first. She got up, off of Midnight’s back, and walked towards Spike and the others.

“They’re acting screwier than a squirrel in a nut factory,” she said, hooking one thumb under her hat, and another over her shoulder at the pair, “They went over ta Equestria, to see if’n Sunset was an Alicorn or not, then they pop back here lookin’ like horses…”

“Ponies…” Fluttershy muttered, unheard, except by the three Apple cousins, who nodded in agreement.

“… but they’re jes’ one horse at tha time!” the farm girl went on, without pause, “Then they start goin’ crazier than usual…”

“I feel like I’m being attacked here,” Midnight scowled.

To which, Twilight demonstrably tugged on her ropes, and said, “You were attacked.”

“… whoopin’ an a-hollerin’!” Applejack continued, becoming more and more animated as she went on, “An then they go back…”

“Okay! Okay! Stop!” Spike jumped up to his hind legs, and waved down the verbal waterfall. Once Applejack paused in her recollection, he sat back down, and started scanning the faces all around him.

“So,” Spike’s brows knitted together, “Let me get this straight. You’re freaking out… because Twilight and Midnight were acting excitable?”

Sonata scratched at her head.

"That was excitable?" she asked, "They looked like they were going crazy!"

"And...?" Spike frowned, and raised a single eyebrow towards his human friends, "How was that different from how Twilight always was?"

There was a moment of silence. Rarity coughed, daintily. Fluttershy scuffed her shoe on the ground.

Dash just looked away.

“Well… when you put it like that…”

“Hang on a minute!” Pinkie Pie cried out. She hopped her way over to the two bound girls, and started waving her hands between them. “They were the same person again! Isn’t that some sort of crazy Equestrian magic thingamajiggie going down?”

“Nah,” Spike scratched idly at his ear with a backpaw, “Well, maybe. They just do that.”

“Since when!?” Rainbow Dash shouted, running both hands through her hair.

“Since Monday,” Spike answered, as casually as if he were commentating on the weather, “Left a big old scorch mark in the middle of the rug, too!

“Not that I’m complaining,” he looked back towards Midnight, in particular, “I mean, that scorch mark is the only time you smell like the Old Twilight, you know?”

He gave a little sniff, and closed his eyes.

“Huh… smells a little like that here…”

The Rainbooms, the Apple cousins, Trixie, and Sonata, all watched in awkward silence as Spike began sniffing the air appreciatively. None of them much seemed to want to make eye-contact at just that moment, instead preferring to watch their own shoes, their hands, or the very first stars starting to come out in the evening sky. The sun was now dipping into the horizon, and the sky was beginning to shift from orange, to a purple hue.

Finally, Applejack took a deep breath, and blew it out, wearily, through her nose.

“Alright,” she sighed, “So… nothin’ weird or freaky’s goin’ on? It’s just them bein’... them?”

“Hey!” Midnight snarled.

Twilight snorted, laughing.

Spike nodded, and said, “Yeah. No more weird or crazy than usual.”

Another moment of silence followed, though this one was, blessedly, short-lived.

“Does anyone besides Trixie think we may have overreacted?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, and said, with her voice dripping with sarcasm, “Gee, you think?”

“Nice sass, sis,” Midnight nodded, appreciatively.

“I try..."

Fluttershy stepped forward, and knelt down in front of the bound twins, still laying on their fronts in the grass.

“We’re sorry, Twilight, Midnight…” she nodded to each in turn, “We were just—”

Twilight just shook her head, and gave her shy friend a gentle smile.

“It’s alright, Fluttershy,” she said, a slight blush coming over her, “Truth be told, this is just as much my fault for not telling you and the girls about the fusion thing. I didn’t want to worry anyone if it turned out to be nothing. And… for still worrying you all, I’m sorry.

“As for all this? We forgive you. Right, Midnight?”

Her sister just snorted, growling, “No! I demand restitutions! Blood for blood! A pound of flesh!”

Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes, watching the furious purple girl with a confused expression.

“Uh, that was a joke… right?”

Midnight stared back, flatly. Then, she sighed, and settled her chin onto the hard ground.

“Yes, Dash. It was a joke,” she said, her voice softening as she went, “You girls are basically the best thing that ever happened to me. To Twilight. I’d never hold something like this against you…

“But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t appreciate having these ropes off me, now.”

Applejack sprang into action. She knelt between the Sparkle twins, and worked each knot one-handed. Moment by moment, slack returned to their bonds, until both Twilight and Midnight were free.

Midnight stood up, and quickly went through a few stretches she’d seen Dash doing before a run or a game. She started by pulling on both her arms, high above her head, and then moved to touching her toes, and doing a few quick lunges. Finally, having worked out all the kinks, she breathed a relieved sigh.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” she said, reaching back into her pockets, and pulling out her phone, “We have some Science to do!”

Rarity cleared her throat, drawing Midnight’s attention.

“Yes, Rarity?" Midnight frowned. "Need something?”

“Well, my dear,” Rarity gave what was clearly meant as an apologetic smile, “While you and Twilight were together, as it were – and don’t think we’re not all curious about what’s going on there – you seemed quite absorbed in your little calculations.”

“And…?” Midnight's frown deepened as Rarity's question dragged itself out.

“Ahem, yes, well,” Rarity tapped her fingers together, nervously, “You haven’t actually explained what that was all about. The… manic way you were acting, or how you two became so excited, and over what…”

Midnight’s whole body visibly sagged.

“Eugh,” she groaned, “Do I have to?”

But, one look around at the eager faces of her friends told Midnight that she really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Not that anyone looked particularly demanding…

They just looked concerned. For her. Twilight too, presumably. But it almost looked like they cared about Midnight.

No one ever cared about me before...

She sighed. And smiled, faintly.

And now, they all do.

“Right… so, when we got to Equestria…”

“But Sunset…!”

“I said ‘No’!” Sunset Shimmer said, seemingly for the six or seventh thousandth time. She stood in the Mirror room, still, in the heart of a circle composed of three Alicorn Princesses and Pinkie Pie.

The strange departure, reappearance, and second departure of the fused Twilight and Midnight Sparkle had caused a great amount of turmoil for the assembled ponies. But, with Sunset unable to answer any of their questions, the topic naturally drifted back to what had initially caused Sunset’s distress.

Said distress had, happily, subsided for the moment. There were only so many loving assurances from Celestia that Sunset could take before she grew weary of being angry at herself, horrified over her newfound transformation, and utterly miserable at how she didn't entirely hate the sensation of being an Alicorn. Besides, Luna had "helpfully" explained that such delusions of guilt and misery would return eventually, so Sunset had an eternity to sulk over what had happened.

Luna had also made that clear when she warned Sunset about creating self-punishing dream golems. Good advice, most likely, but not the sort Sunset needed right now.

Mostly, she needed advice on how to avoid becoming royalty.

“I’m… actually not sure if it’s even up to us,” Celestia pondered, a golden-shoed hoof tapping her jaw in thought, “Starswirl wrote the Equestrian Constitution, practically by himself, to be air-tight on this. All Alicorns are considered Princesses…”

“But I didn’t earn these!” Sunset waved her wings awkwardly at her side, and groaned, “You’re not supposed to be a Princess without earning it!”

Luna muttered, quietly, to herself, "That's not actually a qualification, or else Tia and I..."

Twilight, having otherwise stayed out of the mother-daughter-like bickering over titles and personal self-worth, snorted, and asked, “What about Flurry Heart? She's as much a Princess as any of us!”

"That's different!" Sunset waved one wing, awkwardly, to emphasize her point, "I really don't want to debate Democracy versus Monarchy with another Twilight Sparkle. So, I'll just say, she's the daughter of a Princess. And you can't blame her for being born, anyway."

Luna hummed, at this, before turning a quizzical eye towards her sister.

“Tia? Did you not once tell me that you adopted young Sunset Shimmer?”

Celestia’s eyes sparkled, suddenly. Her ears perked up, and her wings fluttered, hopefully.

The cake-eating grin was the worst part.

“No! I… wait, really?” Sunset paused in her protest, a light blush coloring her face, before she returned to her usual denials, “What am I saying? No! No! I am not being a Princess! I’ve already decided, that is not a thing that is happening! You don't do the stuff I did and get rewarded for it.”

Pinkie rolled her eyes, and smiled, “Come on, Sunny! You’re always talking about once wanting to be a Princess! Why’s it so hard to just accept that something nice happened to you, for once?”

“NO!” Sunset cried, stamping one hoof in impotent fury, “No! No! N—”

She paused. Her nose scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed.

Then, Sunset turned to stare at Pinkie.

“Pinkie?” she asked, ears twitching.

Pinkie smiled back, innocently.

“Yeah?”

“I only told my Pinkie that… Which one are you?”

To which the pink party planner (and potential) pony could only smile, and shrug.

Sunset scowled, but decided that puzzling out the perplexities of Pinkie Pie would be positively pointless, practically speaking.

However, before another point could be raised on the subject of Princesshood, Sunset was abruptly interrupted by the mechanical whine of the Mirror activating, once again.

“You know?” Princess Twilight sighed, turning back towards her marvelous invention, “Does anypony else feel like we’ve sort of… sucked all the magic out of dimensional travel?”

The Mirror came to life, shimmering with a silver sheen that, quite frankly, was losing some of its mystical allure, by this point in the evening. There was only so many times Princess Celestia, Luna, or even Pinkie, could stand, amazed and enthralled, at the sundering of dimensional barriers, before it started to become a touch mundane.

Yet, there was something different about the portal, this time. Twilight’s eye caught it first, and her mind did a quick calculation, comparing the current ripple in reality to what she’d seen every time before.

It looked… smaller than usual. Substantially so.

Rather anticlimactically, the shifting dimensional veil quickly lost its intensity... before simply spitting its traveler out into the palace.

A hoof-sized hunk of purple plastic clattered across the crystal floor, coming to a halt right at Princess Twilight’s hooves. She, and the elder Princesses leaned over, to examine the strange, foreign object.

Twilight’s eyes slowly lit up, as a faint sparkle of recognition bloomed within her mind.

“I…,” she reached out one hoof towards the object, hesitantly, “I think this is a…”

“It’s Midnight’s phone!” cried Pinkie, who snatched up the object with one lock of her springy mane, “But it looks like someone’s ripped open the back. That’s weird. Do you have any idea how expensive these things are!?”

“Aha!” Sunset snarled, victoriously, “I knew you were my Pinkie! You knew that was a phone! And some-one!? You are so busted!”

“Gah!” the pinkie party planner screamed, and tossed the phone aside, leaving it to ring and vibrate on the floor, “It’s moving!!!”

Watching Pinkie dive for cover behind Princess Celestia’s substantial frame… did make Sunset begin to rethink which Pinkie she thought she had on her hooves. But there was now something else in the room to consider. Something far more sane than Pinkie Pie.

“Phone? Sister?” Luna whispered, and tilted her head, "Is this yet another advancement I missed during my time on the Moon?"

Celestia hummed, almost in-tune with the device’s own rumbling. “Actually, one of my researchers came up with the idea just after you returned. Poor Bell Cracker. Spent his whole life working on such a device, when telegrams and magic exist. Some Manehatten firm was testing it for me, last I checked in on the project.

"But that thing," she pointed towards the rumbling device, "doesn't look anything like a phone, to me. There's not even a lever, or a wire! How are you supposed to ring the operator?"

“Uh, someone… er, pony should answer that,” Sunset nodded towards Twilight, who remained closest to the phone.

Princess Twilight nodded, and quickly raised a hoof.

Then, she stopped, and seemed to examine her own limb a moment.

“Huh… hooves are almost designed to smash these… phones, aren’t they?”

She smiled, and with a quick burst of light from her horn, the Princess formed a tiny sphere of magic in the air before her. She quickly dialed in the appropriate tensile strength of the field, and lowered the orb down towards the delicate glass face of the alien instrument.

And, just as she remembered her human friends doing the last time she saw one of these devices, she swiped her magical ‘fingertip’ across the tiny green light symbol that said, ‘Call Incoming’.

The phone fell into silence. This, Twilight expected.

What she did not expect, was to see the small plastic device split itself open at the seams. She stepped back, apprehensive, as it unfolded into… something else. Something small, mechanical, and awfully spidery for her tastes.

“Is it supposed to do that?” she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Well, it is Midnight’s…” Sunset shrugged, equally mesmerized by the device.

Then, a single, black eye – a camera lens – raised itself up from the phone’s body, and began to flash with an inner light. The light jumped up, out of the camera, and seemed to solidify in the air before the Princess of Friendship.

The haze of light grew, and grew, enveloping the Mirror itself. Until, with a static pop…

“Success!”

… close to a dozen humans – and one dog – stood in the Castle of Friendship, a gleeful Midnight and Twilight Sparkle front and center of the group. A collective gasp seemed to fill the whole room of the castle, as ponies and humans regarded each other with equal mystification and surprise.

The humans were agog, as were the Royal Sisters. Neither knew precisely how to process their shared shock. Trixie, the Apple cousins, and even Sonata, partly shared in this surprise, but were mostly reeling from being included at all in this sort of magical, dimensional mayhem.

Pinkie Pie, by contrast, seemed more or less just as chipper as always.

“Hiya, Pinkie!” said one, waving her hand ecstatically.

“Hiya, Pinkie!” the other said, her hoof ecstatically waving back.

“I… what… huh?” Princess Twilight stuttered and burbled in confusion, “How!?”

“Ooooh!” a voice, so high-pitched that it caused the dog to wince in pain, sounded from the butter-yellow girl to the rear of the pack, “They are so cuuuute! Can I…?”

“Fluttershy!” the purple-haired human gripped her friend’s shoulder, and scowled terribly, “That would be most rude of you! These ponies are certainly royalty. It would be a diplomatic incident…”

Midnight frowned, and shook her head at her friends’ display.

“It’s a hologram, Fluttershy,” she sighed, “You can’t pet them.”

She then waved one hand out, through her Princess self’s face, causing that Twilight to gasp, balk, and generally freak out just a little bit as she swiftly backed up and away from the display of ghostly impermanence.

But… a moment later, her shocked expression began to morph. Surprise and confusion swiftly gave way to a certain sparkle, a hunger.

A hunger for Knowledge.

“Holo…?” she scrunched up her nose, and a grin started spreading across her muzzle, “Technological astral projection? Can human devices…?”

A raspy voice, from the humans, cut her off, shouting, “Twilight!”

Both purple human and pony turned, as two identical voices responded, “Yes?”

“No!” Rainbow Dash laughed, “I meant Princess Twilight. You’re tiny!”

The Princess scoffed, “What? No! You’re all huge!”

Indeed, there seemed to be a rather stark difference in height between the twin Sparkle sisters and the – notably more horsey than Dash was used to – Princess Twilight. In fact, outside of Princess Celestia and her sister, most of the ponies only came up to the humans’ waists.

The ‘human’ Pinkie Pie, sniffed at this.

“Eh, I don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s basically as tall as I thought I was…”

Sunset slapped her forehead with a hoof, and cried, “Which one are you!?”

This Pinkie shrugged, and giggled, "Who's to say there's not just one Pinkie, stretched across the time-space cake-inuum?"

"Continuum," Cookie corrected her.

"Gesundheit," Pinkie chuckled... up until she noticed the small, purple puppy sniffing at her ankle.

“Uh?” she frowned, “Spike? What…?”

Spike the dog grinned. Then, he said, “Hiya, pony Pinkie!”

She gasped, “How did you know!?”

“Human Pinkie keeps bacon in her hair,” he said, casually wiping some saliva from his lips, “I could always tell you apart by the smell.”

Pony Pinkie, who was confusedly a human at the moment, threw her human – though presently pony – self a horrified look.

“P-Pinkie… how could you?”

The other Pinkie scuffed the crystal floor, and averted her eyes.

“I… bacon tastes good, alright?”

“Pinkie! I’ve thrown parties for pigs!!!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s bacon!!!”

The Pinkie who was currently human, but originally pony, took a deep, steadying breath… and instantly let it all out as a surprised giggle as she was wrapped up in a purple aura. The human Twilight held onto her pendant, which shone brightly clenched in between her fingers, and she had an immensely unimpressed look on her face.

“Pinkie?” she said, calmly, “My sister’s phone’s battery is going to run out before we tell the Princess our findings at this rate. You’ll have to sort out whatever… this is, later.”

And with that, she swept one hand forward. Pinkie Pie flew through the air, over Princess Celestia’s head… and vanished.

Then, seconds later, a pink pony popped out of the space presently populated by suppositionary people, but previously occupied by the paranormal magical mirror. She arced, gently, down onto the ground, and bounced twice before settling.

The truly pony Pinkie Pie grinned, sheepishly, up at her human counterpart.

“Eh, I guess we’ll get them next time?”

The actually human Pinkie Pie nodded, as she was hefted into the air by a golden aura generated by Sunset’s horn.

“Next time, for sure!” she giggled, and was given a dimensional heave-ho, sent flying back to her own world.

Now, with both Pinkie Pies returned to where they belonged, Midnight nodded, confidently, and glanced towards her sister. Twilight nodded back, and the two took a moment to let the jitters subside.

This was a presentation, after all. The pitch was all that mattered.

But, as they were about to step forward, and share what they'd discovered… there was a sound. A sniff.

No, a sniffle.

Midnight and Twilight half-turned to the left, and noted one of their participating audience members was staring rather intently at the ponies who – from their perspective – had replaced the Wondercolt statue.

“Sonata?” Twilight frowned, “Is… is everything okay?”

Sonata shook her head, and tried wiping at her eyes.

“Nothing!” she cried, “Nothing’s wrong! It’s… it’s just, I haven’t seen home in… excuse me.”

The Dazzling paused, momentarily. But a moment was all there was, as she turned, and took off at a run. She vanished into nothingness mere feet into her flight, clearly breaking the range of the phone’s peculiar communicative effect.

“That can’t be good…” Midnight sighed. Applejack, standing beside her, signaled her own kin to follow after the fleeing girl. With barely a sound, Cookie, Cinnamon, and Oakley took off, vanishing from sight as well.

Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Great. I probably just… triggered something,” she stared, glumly, after the fleeing Siren, before looking back to her sister, “I hope that doesn’t mess anything up for Saturday…”

“Saturday?” an eerily familiar voice queried, causing the girls to turn back around, and face their pony counterpart.

“What?” both Midnight and Twilight asked, as one.

Princess Twilight chuckled, lightly, at this bit of oddness, and shook her head. “Never mind,” she laughed, “It just sounded like you were talking about a date. But, that couldn’t possibly…”

She paused. She remembered enough about human physiology to know how similar their facial-capillary blood flow systems were to each other's. And right now, both Sparkle sisters could have given Big Mac a run for his colors.

“Oh… my…” she said, breathlessly, her own cheeks heating up, “But… but I’m not…”

“Not… what, darling?” Rarity asked, her hearing picking up the distinctive sound of gossip waiting to be born.

Princess Twilight shrugged, “Um… anything, actually.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“You’re ace?” Midnight followed up.

“And aromantic,” the Princess nodded.

Applejack frowned, and scratched at her head with the hand that wasn’t sharing Rarity’s.

“Uh, beggin yer pardon,” she began with a drawl, “But if’n you don’t care about no feller or gal in that way… then what in tarnation was up with you and Flash Sentry?”

“Human body,” Princess Twilight waved her hoof about, aloofly, not noticing the sparkling, faraway look in Celestia's eyes at the mention of Twilight and a boy, “Human hormones. Not that I wouldn’t love to see you all more often, but I’d rather not subject myself to that more than is strictly necessary.”

Slowly, as though by continental drift, every human eye, plus Sunset's, slowly drifted from Princess Twilight… to Fluttershy.

Who also happened to be blushing.

“Oh…” she bit her lip, hiding a small smirk, “Does that mean I win?”

The assembled humans, as well as Sunset, groaned.

“Win?” Princess Twilight asked, confused. Twilight and Midnight just frowned in their friend’s direction.

“Ah, dangit!” the human Pinkie pouted, “I had twenty cupcakes riding on lesbian!”

“At least you didn’t bet actual cash! I’m out soda money for the week!” Dash grumbled, crossing her arms and scowling, “Straight… ha! What was I thinking?”

Midnight’s scowl deepened.

“Did…?” she began, only to feel her sister’s teeth grinding beside her.

Wisely, she held her tongue.

“Did you all bet on my sexual preference!?” Twilight shouted, exacerbated at the antics on display.

“Nah, jes’ the Princess’s,” Applejack said in an appeasing tone, “Once we saw you an’ Timber, well…”

Fluttershy tittered, “No one wanted to bet against Sunset.”

Sunset, smiling smugly, added, “Every wonder where I got the money for my bike’s second helmet?”

Midnight’s scowl lessened, but only by a degree.

“You’re all a bunch of nerds…”

Finally, the ticking of her own internal clock became too loud to ignore. Her phone’s battery wouldn’t last much longer. Midnight spun on one heel, to face her Princess counterpart.

“Alright! Enough fooling around,” she snarled, “We’ve got minutes before my phone battery turns into melted slag, and Twilight and I have some important findings to share!”

She glanced one way. Her human friends, including Spike, were silent. Fluttershy was still grinning, to her friends’ consternation, but collecting her winnings would come later.

Midnight looked the other way. Sunset appeared to be completely done with today, and she really couldn’t blame the put-upon Alicorn for looking like someone had run her over and kicked her dog. The Royal sisters stood off to the side, seemingly baffled by all that had transpired, but also curious to see where it would all go from there, like a pair of nosy neighbors.

One of the Pinkies – Midnight couldn’t tell which – chuckled. “Heh… neighbors.”

Princess Twilight had a quill and parchment floating in her magical aura, and her eyes were locked on Midnight and her sister.

“Right, so,” the human Twilight began, reflexively reaching for a set of index cards that weren’t there, “First off, we would like to apologize for Midnight’s transformation earlier. She was… erm…”

Princess Twilight simply nodded, and wrote a few quick notes on her scroll. Then, perhaps sensing her human equivalent’s pause, she took up the verbal slack.

“Magical Superfamiliarity Syndrome,” she said, casually, “plus a rather unusual case of a magical vacuum existing in nature. I presumed as much.”

Midnight felt her jaw loosen, but it had not yet dropped.

“What?” she asked, exchanging a look with Twilight.

The princess continued, “Oh, well… MSS is a common foalhood ailment amongst unicorns. It’s where a young spellcaster grows too used to depending on magical assistance for daily activities. Over time, this over-familiarity causes other aspects of their physical and mental systems to atrophy, which can lead to a state of magical fatigue, or fugue state, during which they become a super-thaumatic-conductor, which, in turn, leads to wild transmogrification and mutations.

“Not surprisingly,” she rolled her eyes, failing to notice her twin human selves staring at her in complete stupor, “I might have done the same thing back during my studies under Celestia. Kept a ‘Wakey Wakey’ spell active for two weeks straight to cram for finals. I briefly grew a second tail…”

“Said finals were six years away,” Celestia’s tired voice stage-whispered from behind the Princess, who was seemingly worked up to a good lecture now.

“… so, you can imagine how relieved I was to find out somepony was selling hardcore caffeine drinks on campus at the time…”

Ignoring the way both Pinkies fist/hoof pumped right at that moment, Midnight shook her head, and interjected.

“Wait! So… you know what was going on with me?”

Princess Twilight paused, almost surprised to find she wasn’t holding an actual lecture at the moment. She turned her attention back to Midnight, and blushed.

“Oh…” she paused, and bit her lip, “Yes, I did. Sorry. I forget, sometimes, that you might not know everything about magic. If it makes things clearer, simply put: you and your world are so unmagical, that by being in such a magic-rich environment like Equestria after a prolonged amount of time passively using it, you became a magnet for the stuff and it… went bad.”

The Sparkle sisters were left in silence, blinking away the disquieting feeling overcoming them both at that moment.

Human Twilight frowned.

“Uh… thanks for… dumbing that down… for us?”

Human Pinkie Pie leaned over to Rainbow Dash, and quickly whispered, “Bet’cha you’re getting an apology soon!” before waggling her eyebrows at her blue friend.

“Huh…? Hey!”

“Magic… in a vacuum?” Midnight asked, not even noticing the antics behind her back.

Princess Twilight made another note.

“Indeed,” she said, looking over Midnight, “Besides being, uh, magically addicted, the fact that your world is almost a magical vacuum would have made the problem even worse, following Honey Poncare’s Theory of Magic-Law Variances in Vacuums and Chaotic Fields.”

More silence. Followed by an exasperated sigh, from the back of the human crowd.

“How can this Twilight be even more of a dork than the original?” Trixie asked no one, or pony, in particular.

The comment still drew a snort from the purple Princess, despite said exasperation being evident on everyhuman’s face. Even the Sparkle sisters seemed just a little out of sorts when trying to keep up with the Princess.

Sunset Shimmer, however, had not forgotten all of her lessons in magic.

“Basically,” she explained, “Magic likes Rules. When you take away the Rules, like when you make a bubble of magical vacuum – a place without magic – then any Magic you put in there will try and make new Rules. Since Equestria’s already silly magical, the Rules here never change since no magic-vacuum could overpower the entire cosmos all at once…

“Hm,” Sunset tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Actually, that probably explains why I couldn’t figure out how our ‘Pony-up’ magic worked. The human world has no magic, so any magic that we introduced to it had to make up its own rules…”

Princess Twilight nodded at the welcome addition to her point. “And since all of the magic entering your world was from Equestria, with its own rules, while your magic now works slightly differently, it’s still mostly compatible with ours!”

She then did a little tap-dance with her hooves.

“Oooooh!” she howled with joy, “Actual confirmation of the theory! This is so exciting! So much learning going on!”

Luna shared a passing glance with her sister. One that asked: Do you need to tranquilize her?

Celestia’s own glance, one wizened by time and experience, tempered by laughter, motherly affection, and honed by one-thousand years of rulership, spoke volumes.

That look said: Maybe. Standby.

“Well,” Midnight scratched the back of her head, as she took in the sight of the Princess bouncing like an excited filly, “I guess… that’s point one cleared up.”

Silence. The hoof-clops had stopped.

“Point… one?” Princess Twilight’s eyes widened into deep pools of curiosity. “There’s more?”

Midnight mentally weighed how to proceed. The clock was still ticking, and her phone wouldn’t last much longer. Deciding that theatrics could slide, just this once, she would opt for a concise explanation.

“We think the magic lessons can continue,” she said, after a moment of thought, “Though, perhaps not in the way you planned.”

“You realize, until we can fix your… problem,” the Princess gave her human selves a sympathetic frown, “I can’t allow you to reenter the portal to Equestria. This condition can be managed, given enough time in close approximation of magical energies, but you being here would be far too much at once.”

“Which is why you’ll love what we found!” Twilight’s own giddiness came to the fore as she spoke. “Do you remember when you and Princess Luna entered our dreams?”

The Princess indeed recalled that exact adventure, from only a few… well, time was never stable between the dimensions, but for her it was a few weeks. But she did recall joining Luna on one sojourn into the Dreamrealm that turned out to be quite memorable.

“Luna thought that you were being attacked by an Incubus,” she said, glancing sheepishly towards Midnight, all the while, “A dream-demon of sorts… but that turned out to be…”

Midnight rolled her eyes, and groaned, “Yes, we all remember that! It was me, Princess. It was me! We get it…”

“Aaaany way,” Twilight pressed on, scowling only momentarily at her sister’s rudeness, “When you were in our dreams, you’ll recall that you took on a human form. But…”

Princess Luna smiled, and took a few small steps forward.

“Ah, but this afternoon, whilst you slumbered during your test…”

“She WHAT!?”

“… I was presented in my usual form,” Luna said, ignoring the outburst from her successor, “A most curious thing, though I confess to not know its significance.”

“That,” Midnight grinned, ear to ear, “was because, while in Equestria, our dreams were connected to your Dreamrealm thing. But, you essentially astral-projected through the Mirror to reach us over here.

“And since astral-projecting is just like sending a signal,” she continued, her excitement almost causing her to dance in place, “and signals are just a transference of energy…”

Twilight held out her hands, to indicate herself, and her sister.

“Cell phone signals can travel through the Mirror!” she cried, “That’s why we kept our forms when we teleported. We briefly became pure energy in-transit! And signals aren’t translated by the Mirror, like how Sunset’s journal works.”

Princess Twilight’s eyes widened, becoming sparkling pools as she considered what she was hearing. Her jaw loosened, slightly, and a bit of academic spittle began to drip from her open mouth.

Sunset took a few steps forward, bringing herself level with the Princess, and swiped one wing in front of her friend’s face. Finding nopony at home, Sunset closed her mouth with a flash of magic, which seemed to bring Twilight back to her senses.

“T-that’s incredible!” she laughed, manically, “This… this could revolutionize Equestria! I could get a phone from your world, and… and connect to your inner-webs…”

“Internet,” Sunset supplied, with a smirk.

“… and have all the technological and scientific information of a world, at my hooftips!”

The local – pony – Pinkie Pie chimed in, saying, “Ooh! We could visit human land as ponies! Or humans can visit here as not-ponies!”

The human one joined her.

“Parties in two dimensions!”

Somewhere in the castle, a party cannon could be heard firing off a shot.

Sunset sighed, and frowned at her own purple humans.

“Because that’s what my life needed right now. Pinkie Pie outing the existence of Ponies to the entire human world at a surprise block party,” she raised an eyebrow, expressing her disdain for the idea, and added, “Thanks, Twilight. Midnight. You’ve given me another thing to worry about.”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” Midnight crossed her arms, and frowned right back at the new Alicorn, “We just have to lock the Mirror up a little better, that’s all!”

Ignoring the pouting pink pony beside her, Princess Twilight returned to a pensive state. She tapped her chin, thoughtfully, and looked up at her doppelgangers.

“But, how does all this help with your magic lessons?” she asked, carefully wafting a wing through her counterparts’ shins, “I admit your astro-holo… whatever, is an utterly fascinating bit of spell- er, technology. But teaching magic through this sort of apparatus would be difficult. I can’t even see where you are right now.”

“That’s why we wanted to do this demonstration,” Midnight spoke quickly, trying to guess just when her phone’s battery was about to die, “If we could set up two identically-shaped rooms, one on each side of the Mirror, and line them with these sort of hologram projectors – plus a suitable power source and a transmitter – then, we could create a virtual space where we could interact with each other!”

Twilight nodded, adjusting her glasses. “Perhaps some haptic feedback systems could be added to simulate physical contact, or we could just stick to Midnight and I casting on each other, without the need for you to intervene…”

She hummed, and glanced towards the ceiling.

“I suppose we could even build a projector to transfer magic between your space and ours, assuming that we can trick the transmitter into absorbing and redirecting the energy of the spell, as well.”

Princess Twilight shook her head, and spat, “I can hardly understand half of what you two are talking about! How are you expecting me to… build a…?”

Her human friends took a step back, when they saw the look in the Princess’s eye. Even Celestia quietly prepared a ‘Twilight’ level sleeping spell, her personal experiences giving her a sixth sense with these matters.

There was a look to the Princess. Her eyes held a gleaming in them, like a demon that was dreaming, and her smile edged closer to a rictus grin than a living face had any right to be.

She leaned forward, and met Midnight’s eyes.

“An exchange?” she asked, slowly.

“We’ll send you sketches and tech manuals,” Midnight replied, her own grin not much more comforting, “and you send us spells to practice. Those magic journals can copy and paste, right?”

The Princess almost cracked her horn on the floor, she nodded her head so hard to confirm. Then, as she opened her eyes, she took in the two appendages held out before her.

A handshake wasn’t quite as natural to her as a hoofbump, but Princess Twilight was eager to conclude her first Transdimensional Treaty. She took Twilight’s hand with one hoof, and Midnight’s with her wing, and gave each an excited, hard shake.

“Sparkles?” she smiled, a far more natural smile that put her friends, and Celestia, at ease, and said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A deep sigh drew all three Sparkles’ attention to the side, where Sunset Shimmer seemed to be deflating into herself.

“Finally,” she breathed, and allowed herself a small smile, “Something… nice, today. You know, to cut in on all the stress and whatever else.”

Midnight and Twilight exchanged a quick glance.

“Um, Sunset?” Twilight said, frowning, “You look…”

“Like you went ten rounds with Applejack in a rodeo… as the horse,” Midnight finished, eyebrows arched, completely ignoring the indignant look on Applejack and Princess Twilight's faces, “How are you feeling?”

Sunset shuffled in place, a moment. She tapped her hooves against the crystal floor, and gave a few experimental flicks of her tail, a quick ruffle of her wings.

She looked back to her friends, and smiled.

“Honestly? I could use a good night’s sleep as a pony. After,” she held out her wings, “I give these a test-run! I'm just tired of worrying and hating myself for this. And I'd never forgive myself for not flying at least once!

“I’ll be back in school tomorrow,” she added, “Don’t you worry about me. Really. I’m… I’ll be fine.”

Princess Twilight swung one wing out, and draped it over Sunset’s shoulders. After giving her possibly-fellow Princess an affectionate nuzzle, she turned back to her otherworldly visitors.

“I’ll send some magic journals with her tomorrow,” she said, the touch of madness having faded from her eyes, “And we can start coordinating on this project! Ah! To be working on academia once again!”

“I do hope,” Celestia chose that moment to step forward, and give her heir a light ribbing, “that your newfound project won’t distract you from the running of Equestria, Twilight.”

“Oh, it shouldn’t,” Princess Twilight laughed, and turned back to give her mentor a coy grin, “At least, not after Starlight and I perfect that spell to be in two places at once!”

“Two…” Celestia’s eyes twitched, almost imperceptively. Suddenly, retirement seemed like it couldn't come fast enough.

The humans in attendance couldn’t help themselves, just then. They broke into a tittering, giggling mess at the sight. This Celestia may have had a more regal presence than their own, but that look of strained horror and confusion was so perfectly that of their Principal, that none of them could hold back a surprised guffaw or snort.

All except for Midnight Sparkle, who scratched at her chin, and pondered. Her brows furrowed so hard, Rarity would have thrown an instant fit about wrinkles, had she seen it.

“Bit for your thoughts?” a voice cut through the haze of her calculations, and forced Midnight to glance down at the amber Alicorn, who only came up to her waist.

“What?”

“You look like you’re trying to come up with a Grand Unifying Theory over here,” Sunset tittered, “Something up?”

Midnight shrugged.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” she waved her friend down, “It’s just I’m surprised the battery lasted as long as it has, in my phone.”

Sunset glanced towards where the mechanical device was, presumably, still projecting its holographic call. Celestia, perhaps in an attempt to distract herself, was standing over the location, peering through the holographic shine, trying to get a good look at the alien device.

“You really cut open your phone?”

Midnight nodded. “Of course! It was the only thing we had that could prove our point. We needed tech that could project a holographic display... assuming a few tweaks were all that was needed.”

“Yeah, but… what about a video call?”

Midnight said nothing.

“Uh, Midnight?”

The purple girl slowly reached her hands up, and covered her eyes.

“Midnight… those things are expensive.”

“… It was for science,” Midnight mumbled into her hands, “For… science…”

She took a long, slow breath in through her nose. Midnight, with great effort, placed her hands at her side, and forced her eyes open. She looked down to Sunset, and was just about to respond, when…

Pop

Crackle

Bang!

Dear Me and Myself,

That was probably funnier in my head. Oh, well.

I believe we should begin our interdimensional partnership by working on the issue of power. Your phone, as I’m sure Sunset’s note already told you, more or less immolated itself into a pool of plastic and metal on my floor. Don’t worry, I won’t make you pay for the damages. But this does tell me we should combine our magical and technological know-how to develop something that can power these holo-projectors in either universe.

I’ll pass along some ideas tomorrow. In the meantime, get some sleep! You can’t be expected to engage in academia without your sleep. Midnight.

Luna won’t be able to assist with your dream problem tonight, I’m afraid. Nor will I, actually. Celestia was a bit too close to the phone when it exploded, and tracking down Trixie to get her to fix the mane is proving to be a bit of an adventure in and of itself.

Take care, Me’s!

Have a good night, Twilight and Midnight Sparkle.

Your Friend,
Princess Twilight Sparkle

Midnight suppressed another snort as she reread the message from the Princess. She lay on her bed, in her pajamas, reading Sunset’s journal once again, not entirely sure if today had really happened, or if she’d dreamed it all.

Knowing my luck, she thought, recalling her midday nap, I’ll go to sleep now, and wake up back on the bonfire.

Actually, considered just how long today felt, Midnight wasn’t really that certain it hadn’t all been a dream. Hitting on Flash Sentry, transferring into Professor… Disqord’s class, sleeping through a test, the kiss…

The kiss with Aria Blaze.

A girl.

Midnight closed the book, and fanned her face with it.

Saturday would be… interesting. Hopefully, when she saw Applejack tomorrow, she could ask how Sonata was looking. Couldn’t have something like that hanging over the date.

A date.

With Aria Blaze.

Aria Blaze, who was, clearly, a girl.

“Why is it so warm in here?” she groaned, and set the book aside.

“Oh, sorry,” a voice answered from the door, “Dad didn’t want to put the AC on tonight…”

Midnight glanced up, and saw her faithful companion watching her.

“Hey, Spike,” she said, unenthused, “You sleeping up here? Or in the kitchen again?”

The purple puppy hummed. He hawed. He scratched one ear, though he probably was planning to do that, anyway.

Finally, he smiled, and said, “The heat rises in this house, and the kitchen is cool, and where the food is. I think I’ll let you do the math on that one.”

They shared a laugh at that. It was funny, actually. As Twilight, Midnight had laughed at her precious dog companion. But it was only now that she started to wonder at the fact that she was laughing with him, these days.

Who knew that following a strange signal, so long ago now, would have led to all… this?

But, as they laughed, she also couldn’t help but think back over the day’s events.

“Hey… Spike?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

Did I just see something?

“Earlier,” she began, slowly, “When Dash dognapped you…”

“Yeah,” he growled, “Yeah… I remember that.”

Did his eyes just…?

She pressed on.

“When Fluttershy said… those things,” she took a breath, “You know. When you didn’t… um, eat your…?”

Spike’s ears stood up. His posture straightened, and his eyes shrank. Just a bit.

Midnight watched him from her bed, her own eyes narrowing, focusing with a laser’s precision.

“Spike…” she said, then took a deep breath. Midnight shook her head, and sighed.

“Spike, you know you can talk to me… to us about anything, right? I saw a look on your face earlier that, well… looked like what I keep seeing in the mirror these days. It worried me.”

He looked away, and towards the floor.

“I know Twilight…” she began, then stopped.

No, that wasn’t right.

“We didn’t like to talk about the Big Questions, after you learned to talk. But, what with everything that’s been going on, I guess I should have…”

“Stop.”

Spike’s voice was quiet. But, just then, Midnight marveled at the weight of it.

He breathed in…

“Not tonight,” he said, simply. Then, he turned his eyes back up to his owner… his human, and he added, “Tonight’s been a bit full. But… maybe soon?”

He smiled. And it was a genuine, puppy-dog smile.

Midnight couldn’t help but return it. And gladly.

"Good boy," she chuckled.

"You know it!"

As her dog left to perform his nightly guard duties, it was at that exact moment that Twilight returned from the shower, a towel wrapped tightly around her head.

“Huh? What’s up with Spike?” she asked, dropping heavily onto her own bed.

Midnight began to shrug… and then thought better of it. She sighed, and rolled her eyes.

“He’s going through an… Us. Basically.”

Twilight’s brows furrowed in worry.

“Memory gaps!?”

“No!” Midnight snorted, cackling and rolling onto her back, “The other thing! How would he even get memory gaps!?”

Twilight blushed, deeply.

“I mean… we do work with radioactive chemicals all the time…”

Midnight rolled about on her bed, laughing great big belly laughs until her stomach began to cramp up.

“Alright! Alright! Laugh it up!” Twilight snorted, “But one…”

The wall shook, suddenly, with three loud knocks. Both sisters paused… and then had to bite down on their tongues to stop another fit, as they could hear Shining’s voice from the next room over.

“I don’t want to have to call in a noise complaint on my own sisters,” he growled through the wall, “So quiet down before I haul you down to the station!”

Both sisters laughed, again. Though, this time they were quieter about it.

Though the prospect of sleep had become somewhat more difficult a prospect for the two girls, these past few days, lethargy was beginning to win out. Slowly, they each inched deeper into their beds, and drew up the sheets.

And then, they stared at the ceiling.

And stared.

“I can’t wait for Luna to be free enough to help with this,” Midnight grumbled, her eyes slowly closing as treasonous sleep took hold.

“Just…” Twilight yawned, “… just gotta survive a few more days… nights… whatever…”

Finally, sleep claimed them both. And as they drifted off into that other realm…

There was a small device, sitting in one of the empty power sockets along the wall of the room. This device washed out the carpet in a light, bright purple. The night light had been in that room for years, illuminating the floor, and carrying on its duties in total silence.

Tonight, was different.

Tonight, a Shadow moved on the wall. In defiance of the light, it twisted about, and began to crawl along the floor. A hand shaped of lightless void gripped the sheets to Midnight's bed, and hauled itself up into the air, where its impossibility alone held it, suspended, and without substance.

The Shadow looked down onto Midnight's slumbering face...

And it smiled.