For Sale: Human Clothes, Worn
"I've been thinking, AJ..."
"A dangerous pastime."
"I know..."
Rainbow absentmindedly tossed a stress ball into the air and caught it in her hoof, pondering how to explain her awesomely thought-out idea. Applejack adjusted the brim of her hat lower to keep the sinking sun out of her eyes. The apple tree they rested against swayed softly in the wind, sitting on top of a hill overlooking all of the Apple Family's property.
Applejack had made the comment sarcastically, but over the past nine years, even the ones they hadn't been in a relationship for, she had learned something very important about Rainbow Dash's learning methods; They had matured just as much as her sense of humor had since age three. Most ponies assumed her to be stupidly brash and ignorant upon meeting her, but the truth was that she absorbed information almost exactly like a small child, enthusiastically studying that which she alone deemed important, and immediately forgetting the rest of it. As such, most conversations with her on thoughts she had ranged from completely inane to complex and intelligent enough to make Applejack question herself.
"I was talking to Twilight the other day about the Mirror Portal," Rainbow finally began.
"I'm cautiously intrigued," Applejack commented truthfully whilst keeping the exact same disinterested tone.
"She was listing all the weird differences on the other side, and I was kinda tuning her out, because, like, not that hyper-intelligent apes that look like us aren't cool or anything, but she was going really in-depth?" Rainbow shook her head before she could continue rambling, and kept going. "Anyway, she mentioned off-hand that they used paper money in place of bits."
"Okay?"
"I thought that was weird, so I asked why, and she said that gems and gold were a lot rarer over there."
"Okay."
"And I thought, 'huh, strange', and brushed it off, but then I realized; if we sell our coins over there, we can get even more money from it because of how rare gold is!"
"Money we can't use in this dimension," Applejack flatly pointed out.
"Oh. Yeah, I guess you're right."
And the subject was dropped.
---*---
"But what if we buy clothes with it?"
"Goddesses, Dash! Where the hay did you come from?"
Applejack fell to the ground and tried to soothe her heart's jumping jack routine as Dash kept talking, coming down from her hover to perch on a barrel and blindly continuing the conversation from the previous day without missing a beat.
"I realized you were right earlier; in order to get anything out of that human money, we'll need to use the same scheme in reverse, by using cash money to buy something we can sell for even more bits over here. So, I thought long and hard about what's common over there and a Rarity over here, and I realized!" Dash paused for a second, grinning widely, then continued rambling before AJ could make a comment. "Clothes! Everybody wears clothes in the human world for some reason, but they're purely cosmetic here!"
At this point Dash pulled out a small chalk board from a saddlebag on her back, dropping it on the ground and using her wings to try and draw a diagram. "So, we sell our gold over there for a bunch of cash money, use some of that to buy clothes with the help of our human counterparts, give the rest to them for their help, sell the clothes over here (marketing the fact that they're from another dimension, because who wouldn't want to wear their alternate selves fatalistic bling?) and divide the bits evenly to do it all over again! Wash, rinse, and repeat until the human girls have a billion dollars and we have a billion bits! You see?"
The graph was completely incoherent, but the plan was beginning to register, and Applejack was once again remembering why the inner machinations of Rainbow's mind were an enigma as she struggled to recover and snappily point out a flaw.
"But... Celestia said the more ponies who go to different realms, the higher the chance for-"
"Sunset took Starlight over, so the limit's gotta be at least two. And if we coordinate well, no more than two species will be in the wrong dimension at once! Do you see what I'm saying? If we do this for long enough, you can restore the barn, secure your sis's future, get some hip replacement surgery for your grandma; You could be rich!"
"But... what about Twilight?" Applejack stammered, mind suddenly racing with possibilities.
"What Twilight doesn't know won't hurt her. She means well, but so do we, and if she found out she'd have an aneurysm wrapped in a heart attack. Just relax, we can do this on our own!"
This was not how Applejack expected her day to go. She had barely woken up and gone out to buck apples as she did every day of her life, and now she was being offered a chance to change that by gaming two universes simultaneously in a double helix reach around of ape clothing. Worst of all, she genuinely couldn't think of any flaws to this plan. Except maybe-
"How will our money-"
"We won't use every single dollar and bit to buy and sell, obviously, and our human selves can win too if we divide each currency equally!" Rainbow quickly cut in, flaring out her wings excitedly. "I'mma leave that part to the AJ's, though, because you're much better at money management than I am."
"Alright, but how do you know the other Dash-"
"We have the exact same mindsets, AJ! She's bound to go along! Heck, she might even be pitching the same idea to her version of you in reverse right now! How cool would that be?"
"And how exactly do you plan on-"
"Twilight'll be on a mission to Yakyakistan for the next three days or so. That should give us just enough time to get in, make a plan with our other selves, kick off the cycle, and get familiar enough to do it in our sleep!"
"I don't know..." Applejack continued to hesitate, kicking the ground lightly. "I just think this may not be the best of ideas. I mean, we're trotting around behind Twilight's back and using magic she knows more about than us."
"Yes, we're being sort of dishonest here, but think of what we'll gain! This isn't just about me, it's about us! I love you and I want the best for you, and I don't want to see you slaving away at the farm for the rest of your life! It's not like we're going to have kids to carry the toil later in life, and you want Applebloom to get a good education- all of those things require money, which you've been a little short on your entire life, despite Rarity's insistent offers!" Rainbow took her marefriends hooves and gently lifted her chin until they were eye to eye. "Please, Applejack. Let's do this. Tomorrow. for us."
Applejack sighed, and looked at the ground again, unconsciously mimicing Winona's nervous foot tapping.
---*---
Rainbow Dash skillfully slid between crowds of high schoolers without looking up from her phone, accidentally grazing someone and mumbling an apology before continuing on. Unlike most students around her, she wasn't in any particular rush to get home, and figured she could take her time leaving, even if she didn't see the local high school as the best place to casually hang out.
Given her lax demeanor, she would later reflect that she obviously hadn't been paying as much attention to her surroundings as she assumed, as a complete doppelgänger would be enough to even the least acute people pause. Nevertheless, she completely missed the clone until she was being pulled into an empty classroom by it. Only then did she look up to complain and notice her captor's oddly familiar face. It didn't take her long to make the connection.
"Hey, Me!"
"Hey! You're the version of me from the pony planet, right?" She took the earbuds out and pocketed her phone. This was probably more important than Estelle.
"Yep. Glad I don't have to waste time explaining that. I can get right to the point, which is; I need your clothes."
"You're gay. Hella gay. Ask out Applejack, I know you like her." The unsurprised human replied instantly.
"Wha- I'm in a relationship with her."
"Oh, ok, good. I just figured you must be really desperate if you were willing to cross realities and bang yourself." Dash took a moment to revel in that insult, pleased with how she came up with it on the spot.
"What? No, I-" The species-swapped perplexed pony sighed and instinctively raised her hand to her nose, the exotic shape leading her to accidentally stab herself in the eye with her own nail. "You know what? I'm glad you brought her up, let's go find Applejack. We can explain the sitch to both versions of you."
---*---
"So that's the plan. Any questions, girls?"
"Yeah, actually," Applejack piped up, raising a hand from the chair she sat in backwards. "Are we gonna give ourselves nicknames or something, so we know who we're referring to?"
"That'll be easy. We just use the name of our species followed by our names. I'm Pony Dash, You're Human Applejack."
She nodded and rested her hands on the front of the chair again.
The same Biology classroom Human Dash had been abducted to earlier had been chosen as the interdimensional summit between butches, at least two hours after school had ended. Neither human had been very surprised at their counterparts arrival, although the meeting was delayed for quite a while when the Dashes began peppering each other with species-specific questions neither of them were very well educated on, such as how magic worked, and why some humans angrily bled every month for no particular reason as if they were being held hostage until they reproduced.
Nonetheless, after much debate and romantic confusion (Do I like Dash, or the idea of Dash?) Earth's newest tourists had explained their devious plot and how the exchange rates could be used to their advantage.
"So, what, we give you some human clothes, you sell it to a more demanding audience of nudist horses, and we get a piece of the pie from selling actual gold?" Human Dash prompted, intrigued.
"Yep! We'll divide our Bit and Dollar stocks by exactly half; half to keep going, and half for the species that helped on that side! You have literally nothing to-"
"Sold."
The room turned to the Human Applejack, faces displaying an accurate scale from mild surprise to shock on them. She didn't seem too concerned by this, and simply walked up to Pony Dash and firmly shook her hand, prompting her equine counterpart to finally pipe up disbelievingly.
"Hold on now, you're agreeing with this plot instantly?" Pony Applejack demanded, standing up as Pony Dash looked offended.
The human turned to her and performed one of her infamous eyebrow raises. "Why wouldn't I? I don't know what your life is like over on the magic horse planet, but my only guardian is a Cafeteria lady, which ain't exactly royalty. I have to do well in school 24/7 so she ain't forced to give up her life savings to send me and Applebloom to college. It isn't every day a version of your girlfriend from an alternate dimension comes to you with a plan that, if all goes well, could very well set me up in the one percent for life. Yeah, sugarcube, I'm gonna accept."
Pony Applejack shifted her feet and sat down again sheepishly. Her marefriend awkwardly pat her on the back as the human kept talking.
"Alrighty then, I'll round up some friends and see if we can't get together some old clothes. We'll gather at the statue tomorrow at Eight PM. Do y'all have a Horse Rarity on you?"
"Of course." Dash scoffed, trying to imitating her dismissive Ah-ptch-uh.
"Good, that'll make selling clothes easier. Now, I gotta get home. It was a pleasure talking, and I apologize if I lashed out, but this is too good of a proposal for me to pass up. Y'all enjoy yourselves now." Human Dash blew a kiss at her as she left, turning to smile confidently at the mildly embarrassed ponies.
---*---
"Alrighty, girls. We held a meeting with a bunch of our friends, and after explaining the plan, most were willing to give up some clothes." Human Applejack explained, coming up to the statue carrying a laundry basket full of garments, with her human partner following behind. Pony Dash stood up from her spot on the grass and began rifling through them.
"Who'd you get? Exact names would be nice."
"Is that part of the plan?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yep. We need to know who our target audience is. Everyone over here has a counterpart there, and they'll be more drawn to clothes that fit them personally. We can use that information to pinpoint the best boutique to sell them at so we reach the destined customers! I've already explained the plan to Rarity, and she's on board so long as she gets part of the cut and is allowed to specifically advertise the origin of these clothes."
"Speaking of fitting ponies," Pony Applejack piped up, looking over Dash's shoulder into the basket. "I think these may be a mite too big for our target audience."
"Don't worry, I've got a plan. Have you already forgotten about the influence a certain friend of ours has?"
---*---
"Rarity, dear, is that the outfit you came to the ball with? It's twice your size!"
Rarity turned and smiled at Fancy Pants, batting her eyelashes.
"Oh? You haven't heard?"
---*---
---*---
Rarity smiled politely, recognizing an old Canterlot friend of hers and her roommate come up to the counter, holding a bag with the Rarity For You logo on it in her aura.
"Good morning, Lyra. I trust you have found our new line satisfactory?"
"Oh, of course! The moment I laid eyes on this one, I felt drawn to it somehow! Then I saw it had my cutie mark on it, and I figured that was probably why. But, just out of curiosity, could you clarify what the posters outside mean?" She gestured to the extravagantly decorated posters adorning the windows.
"Certainly, Darling. These clothes are imported directly from another dimension populated by humans and advertised specifically to the ponies whose counterparts wear them." Rarity cheerfully smiled.
Lyra seemed to be in shock, staring for several minutes until Bon-Bon sheepishly pulled out several coins and handed them to the store-owner, lugging Lyra's catatonic body off the counter and attempting to drag her off while whispering softly in her ear. Rarity giggled, scooping the bits into a quickly filling bag under the counter.
News of the business venture was spreading quickly, and Rarity was already debating how to spend her share. She could buy a new house, new clothes, new-
No! No, I mustn't be greedy, that's very unladylike of me! She shook her head, trying to snap herself out of the trance she had fallen into the past day or so. And besides, I can already make myself new clothes anytime I want! No, I'll just... put some into Sweetie's college fund- wait, I've already covered that... Argh! Why did I want any more money! I'm already extremely wealthy from this business, and Applejack deserves this much more than I do... yes, I'll tell them to take all the profits of this... I'm still receiving the credibility for these dresses after all...
---*---
"I must say, darling, this is quite the plan you've come up with. I almost couldn't believe my ears when Rainbow Dash explained it to me! I had to pull out my fainting couch, and you know it takes a lot for me to go to that extreme!"
"Uh-huh." Applejack sarcastically agreed, rolling her eyes.
Rarity began picking up two coins at a time, attempting to make the division process faster. They were currently sitting in their respective seats at the Cutie Map, evenly dividing the bag of bits splayed out over it one by one. Applejack had been mildly surprised at the generous gift of Rarity's entire portion, but figured it was to be expected from the element of Generosity. All that was left was to break the uncomfortable news.
"Darling, may I ask if you've considered selling other things on top of clothes?"
"Before I answer that, I figure I should tell you now... This wasn't my idea."
"Oh?" Rarity curiously cocked her head. "Well, Twilight's certainly not involved in this, and while Pinkie is very intelligent in... certain matters, I don't think she has it in her to openly defy her friends like this, so... Oh dear..." She put down the bit she was inspecting and nervously glanced across the table at the lightning cloud-adorned chair. It seemed to eyelessly wink at her.
"Eeyup."
"My. This is concerning. Where is dear Rainbow now?"
"On the other side of the portal with her mirror twin. They're trying to find a good pawn shop to sell these at; she figured they couldn't drop off several pounds of solid gold at the same shop more than once without raising a few eyebrows."
"This entire thing is... very well thought out for somepony like her."
"That's what I'm concerned about. I don't know why, but I have a sinking feeling that this is going to go terribly wrong."
"Darling, she's your marefriend! Maybe you could... have a chat?" Rarity awkwardly shifted in her chair, trying not to seem too nervous."
"About what, exactly? As much as I try, I can't think of anything wrong with this, and if I can, she'd figure out a solution in two minutes. I just have to admit the fact that I can't stop her; She's either going to become rich, or..." Applejack trailed off, suddenly becoming very interested in the bit she was holding. Rarity stayed quiet and continued they sorting with a now ever-present bubbling sense of uneasiness in their stomachs.
---*---
The mastermind in question was currently sitting outside Canterlot Jewelry Pawn, eating soft-serve ice cream with her human counterpart. The exchange process wasn't easy; First they had to sell the idea of identical twins, then they had to convince the owner to see their stock before immediately turning away two teenagers, wait through several gold genuity tests by a disbelieving owner, and finally bribe him into silence with the promise of a share, which only further depleted their resources. Nonetheless, they had pulled it off, and all they had to do was wait for him to finish counting.
"Alright, Alright, human food is really good, actually. I was a bit hesitant about eating meat, but I suppose if it ain't sapient, it's cool. When in Roam."
"I told you! I knew by the end of today, you'd- Wait." Human Dash stopped and looked at her questioningly. "When in what?"
"When in Roam. It's a pony term, see, there was this city-" Pony Dash began to explain, before being cut off.
"I know what you're referring to, but it's called Reme!"
"Who the hay calls it Reme?"
"We do! Named after the founder, Remus! Are you saying Romulus won the fight in your world?"
"Who the hay is Romulus?"
"Girls?"
They turned to the source of the new voice; The mustached owner, holding onto the door frame for support and wiping his brow. For a minute, he just stared at them, looking simultaneously like he was about to cry and scream. Finally, he took a deep breath and beckoned them inside.
---*---
"He didn't have enough to give us the complete worth, so we had to sell half and go to another place, but in short, we ended up with about 1,558,000 human dollars worth after giving half to the humans that helped us for them to divide evenly. Then, we gave the rest to Human Rarity, and she's custom-making a bunch more dresses! Isn't that awesome?"
Applejack didn't answer, electing to swirl her tea with a spoon and look at the table instead, taking notice of the fancy designs embroidered on its pristine alabaster surface.
As soon as Dash came back, Applejack had decided to take Rarity's advice and offered a date for the next day at one of the many fancy Canterlot restaurants they could now afford. When that day came, she had listened halfheartedly to Dash's excited explanations of her haggling on the other side of the mirror portal, quietly wondering how she was going to break the news, and what that news even was. Finally, she gulped, and looked up at her.
"Rainbow, you know I love you, right?"
"Ponies of any gender would find it hard not to." Dash proudly boasted, leaning back in her chair.
"And you know I want the best for you? For us?"
"Yeah?" Her confident demeanor faltered, and she sat up straight, concerned.
"Well, the thing is..." Applejack pulled down the ends of her hat, becoming more distressed as her thoughts ruminated. "I still don't think this is a very good idea, Sugarcube. We're messing with an entirely separate reality to make a quick buck, and I feel this is going to come crashing down sooner rather than later."
"AJ, I've thought this out, every last detail! We can-"
"Rainbow, please! You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for, but you aren't forward thinking! You're brash, and bullheaded; We both are! Sooner or later, you're going to convince me, and then we're both going to screw up. I want to trust you, and believe me, I don't want to hurt you, but you've proven time after time that you don't think these things out as well as you should! Twilight's going to come back soon, and she is definitely going to recognize the clothes everypony's wearing. Or even worse, the pawn shop owners are going to start cluing in to your antics eventually, and then you'll either have foreign governments looking into magic ponies from other dimensions or burly men looking into swindling teenagers. One of us is going to get hurt eventually, and how would you feel if it turned out to be the girls a decade younger than you who assumed a couple of idiots were the smart adults in the room? Please, let's just stop while we're ahead."
Rainbow stuttered disbelievingly, before electing to sigh and not say anything. Applejack reached over and took her hoof, looking her desperately in the eyes until she averted them down. After what seemed like forever, she finally sighed and looked back up, lightly smiling.
"Ok."
"Ok?"
"I trust you, AJ. But please, let's just do this one more time. One more batch of dresses that's already being worked on as we speak, one more selling of gold; we'll find two completely different Pawn Shops this time, and as for the clothes, we're friends with most of the people we sold them to. We can just fess up and give them an abridged version of what happened, then we can come up with a solution." Dash clasped Applejack's hoof in her own and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. "I love you too, and I don't want this to be the end of our relationship. We'll wrap up after this one, I promise. But you're going to be the one to tell Mirror Dash. And you're right; we're going to have some trouble keeping this from Twilight."
"Tell me what?"
Both ponies were stunned out of their embrace by the appearance of a third voice next to them; A very unimpressed Twilight leaning against the wall behind them. She raised an eyebrow as they struggled to recover with no knowledge of how long she'd been standing there.
"Good evening, girls. Enjoying your date?"
"Twilight! Wow, um... how was your trip?"
"It's about to get a whole lot worse."
---*---
"I leave for a week to deal with some diplomatic restlessness from the Yaks, and what's the first thing I see upon coming back? Lyra Heartstrings, wearing human clothes twice times her size, which, while admittedly not very unusual for her, happens to be the exact same clothes her human counterparts are wearing? I then hear from Pinkie that you two are on a date-"
"Wait, but we didn't tell Pinkie?"
"I don't tell her a lot of stuff because I know for a fact she's already aware! She's Pinkie! So I come looking for you, stand behind you two for a good five minutes while you keep babbling about your plan! The ONLY reason I didn't pipe up sooner is because I believe in your healthy relationship and din't want to interfere, and I'm glad you came to a peaceful resolution, but that means I can say without hesitation; What the actual, literal, fuck?"
Applejack kept her head down and took it, but Rainbow was quick to retort; "AJ needs this! This wasn't just some dumb get-rich quick scheme, she practically lives in poverty!"
"One of her friends is rich, and one of them is royalty! She did not need this, she could've asked for help at anytime if she wasn't so bullheaded, and we would've been glad to help! Hay, Rarity's been helping the Apple Family for years because she understands their problems, slipping cash to the only sensible family member, Applejack's Grandma! But you insisted on doing this, Rainbow, and in doing so you publicly revealed the human world's existence, and before too long- Oh, Goddesses, Celestia's going to be asking why we're using the interdimensional gateway to sell clothes! How am I going to explain that two of my knucklehead friends exploited their knowledge of state secrets to make money they had easy access to already, then threw those state secrets to the wind for further economic gain?"
Twilight glared at Rainbow, and she slowly backed up to Applejack again. After staring them down for a few more minutes, she sighed and seemed to calm down.
"I understand where you're coming from, Dash. But I'm sealing this portal. Nopony's coming in or out until I talk to Celestia about this, and Sunset's explaining the situation to the human girls. You can keep the bits, they were legally procured after all, and they'll be able to keep their cash, but everything else is being shut down. I care about you girls, and I don't want to see you get hurt. I'm glad you made the choice to stop before I commanded you to. Now try and enjoy your night."
Twilight left the room and closed the door behind her. Applejack sighed and clutched her hat against her chest as Dash leaned against her, trying to think of what to say.
"I'm sorry, Dash."
"Don't be. I got what we deserved. Faust gave us her hooves and smiled, so I responded by breaking them. It's nopony's fault but mine."
They sat on the crystal floor until the moon had risen out of sight outside their window. Dash got up and offered a hoof to help AJ get up, and they started to leave the castle.
---*---
"So, Darlings, many of you have caught wind of Rarity For You's recent leaps in the fields of dressmaking as we know it, meddling in such affairs as Fatalistic Attraction and the Multiverse theory and Spheres theory and whatnot." Rarity nervously cleared her throat, staring down the eager crowd in front of her. She noticed unpleasantly that quite a few appeared to not be customers at all, but rather reporters, Alabaster colts in shining royal armour, and a bald figure in a business suit standing off to the side. She gulped.
Well then.
"So, it is with a heavy heart that I inform you of the cancellation of this line." The effect was immediate as the crowd began tossing and turning, hundreds of rumors already being spread. "Please, simmer down. We have begun to see that the multiverse is not something to be trifled with for monetary gain, and it would be most beneficial to us all to discontinue the line. We will not be taking any questions as of yet, and the store will not be open today. Thank you for your time." She held her head confidently as several people began shoving their way through the crowds. She reached the door just in time to hear a chorus of "Ms. Rarity!" before closing and locking the doors on several flashing cameras.
After making sure that none of the ponies outside were royal guards, she continued her confident walk into a back room before falling to the ground and trying to still her beating heart.
---*---
"So, it's over then?"
"Yeah. Be glad Twilight didn't see fit to punish you for going along with this." Sunset halfheartedly shot a peace sign before leaving the Biology classroom the pair of human entrepreneurs had once again gathered in. Rainbow sighed, and Applejack continued to impassively stare forward, lying her chin on her palms.
"I'm... sorry, AJ."
"Don't be. We still have enough money to do some damage."
"You can have my share. It's not like I'm not middle class already, and if I become rich I'll just be another victim to the inevitable uprising in a year or so."
"We know we can't have that, sugarcube."
Rainbow got up, stretching her hands above her and dropped to the ground, resting her head in AJ's lap. "So, this has been quite the week. I s'pose we won something, at least." She pulled her MP3 out of her pocket, and began scrolling through options.
Applejack smiled down at her. "Hey Dash?"
"Yeah?"
"You want to go on a date later today? Cheesecake Factory, my treat now that we can afford it."
"Hell yeah."
